I have always traveled with food and money. I carry money just in case I need quick fix for emergencies my debit card can't buy me. I carry food so hunger isn't one of those emergencies.
I'm on my way to the airport, walking from my drop off point from the train to the pick up point for the bus. I'm a brisk walker, so I'm weaving through the sparse crowd of people in Union Station. Picking my way toward the ticket counter, I see a homeless woman. She is older than most people I see living homelessly. The skin on her arms and ankles is ashy and flaking off. (Don't know what it is, but seeing homeless people's skin always gets me. Earlier the same day I had given some money to a man who was begging, and he had open sores all over his body.)
Now, she's not begging, so I walk right by. I'm cruising up the walkway when I stop dead in my tracks, halted by this simple thought, "I just walked by Jesus."
As a Christian, this is what I consider one of our most central teachings. Jesus is in everyone. Which makes everyone Jesus... at least when it comes to moral consideration. Christ had a lot of "turn the system on its head" teachings, and care for the poor and lowly. What soever you do to the least of my people...
...that you do unto me.
So I'm standing there, half turned to go back. My realization has kept me from walking by, but there are a few things keeping me from talking to her. On one level, I'm embarrassed. Don't know why. Perhaps nothing more than stranger anxiety. On another level, I'm hurried. Wanna catch my bus. Thirdly, I'm not sure what to say or how to act.
And then part of my brain sets of the I alert. I've just had three consecutive thoughts about me and what I want. Just act.
So I walk up to her, ad I ask, "Do you need anything?" She wasn't asking for anything in particular, so just started there.
She just stares at me. Almost confused.
"Do you need anything?" I say again, "like... money... or food?"
Again, she's still staring. After a moment, she gives me a meek, doe eyed nod, never breaking eye contact.
I pull $5 out of my wallet (I carry my cash in fives as of late... its a denomination I feel I can actually give out and still mean something. What's a one buy these days?). I grab a few fruit and protein bars out of my bag. I hand them over.
I'm about to go, but she catches my eye again. In a quiet, sweet, and unassuming voice she burns seven words into life forever.
"No one has ever asked me that."
I'm floored. I don't know what to say. I say something. I don't even remember what it was. We are just there, in the midst of a moment. I'm realizing in a visceral way that there are people like her in this world so marginalized by her situation that she becomes invisible. She is realizing that there are people like me in this world who can see the invisible.
As I walk away, all my skin is tingling. In that moment I feel simultaneously tiny and huge. Tiny compared to the God I have just given food to. Tiny compared to her humanity. But my strides feel like seven leagues apiece. I can make a huge difference. I just have showed her the immense power of love... and this is just the beginning.
Whatever you do, don't admire me. Don't waste your time. Instead, just start asking people what they need. And mean it. It is not by needing that causes suffering. Needs cause pain. But to be in pain and to be alone, ostracized by your ailment... that is what steals your humanity. That is what threatens your worth and diminishes your purpose.
So ask people. Strive to see the hurts that your world would hide, and look for the people your world would ignore. A moment of truth, it seems to me, makes a world of difference.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Guilt Farmer
Nobody eats my guilt, my self loathing doesn't purify stagnant drinking water, and no one is given liberty when I wallow in my failures.
Morality is not accomplished by self abrasion. Rather, good work is done or failed to be done by the struggles of human efforts. Sure, my inner world has a ramifications on my behavior, and generally directs my life. But issues of self approval are tools for doing good, not barometers of goodness.
Morality is not accomplished by self abrasion. Rather, good work is done or failed to be done by the struggles of human efforts. Sure, my inner world has a ramifications on my behavior, and generally directs my life. But issues of self approval are tools for doing good, not barometers of goodness.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Fieldguides
When I imagine the format of short entries, side notes, and sketches... there are actually two varieties I think of.
The one is a clearly organized presentation of a set (like bugs, ferns, artifacts). This style is focused on classification and categorization... more like a pictorial encyclopedia. The other is a form is more like a journal plus sketchbook. Organized chronologically, this is an ongoing literary and artistic account of a set of events.
When I initially thought of the field guide, I was entertaining the first style. But the second is also possible. Now, this would involve writing them into a vague story... not that the story would be explicitly told... but that it would seem like there was one going on behind the scenes.
Now, I could make one up. Basically a fictional subplot. But... I could also tell the real one. It could involve the transformation going on in the youth group, my struggles with vegetarianism, trying to simplify my life. It could even end with my reflections about traveling in South America, the poverty there, and our power to fix it.
This could also include pictures, either straight in the document, or taken then rendered into sketches.
Hmmm.
The one is a clearly organized presentation of a set (like bugs, ferns, artifacts). This style is focused on classification and categorization... more like a pictorial encyclopedia. The other is a form is more like a journal plus sketchbook. Organized chronologically, this is an ongoing literary and artistic account of a set of events.
When I initially thought of the field guide, I was entertaining the first style. But the second is also possible. Now, this would involve writing them into a vague story... not that the story would be explicitly told... but that it would seem like there was one going on behind the scenes.
Now, I could make one up. Basically a fictional subplot. But... I could also tell the real one. It could involve the transformation going on in the youth group, my struggles with vegetarianism, trying to simplify my life. It could even end with my reflections about traveling in South America, the poverty there, and our power to fix it.
This could also include pictures, either straight in the document, or taken then rendered into sketches.
Hmmm.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Struggles for Modern Man (and Woman)
Sit through an intro literature class. There are five classic struggles that man (and women, though they were created back before women were quite worth mentioning) could face in the scope of a story. These struggles are no way limited to the narrative. They also sum up pretty well the challenges of real life.
As humankind has developed through history, so to has its ability to cope with these challenges. Indeed, today we are much safer from many of the things that worried our ancestors.
Let's take them one at a time...
Man vs. Nature
Poisonous plants, hostile elements, hungry beasts.
Through systematic classifications, better building practices, meteorology, weapons of self defense and disaster planning we have vastly improved our ability to cope with the natural world. Do you often doubt if you will "make it through winter?" Nope. While the occasional extreme climate event may displace millions, the causalities are usually kept to a minimum in countries with efficient and reactive rescue infrastructures.
Man vs. Man
Theft, murder, deceit.
While our fellow humans still can pose a threat to us, we have locks on our doors, personal firearms, security systems, fraud protection, banks, and safety service personnel. Apart from getting stuck in long lines behind masses of your fellow humans, we tend not to be put at odds with each other as often as in the past. Murder, after all, has been on a steady decline on the western world for 700 years.
Man vs. Society
Oppressive social norms and practices.
This one still gets us from time to time, but things are getting a bit better. The internet offers community for the outcasts, social mobility allows people to relocate and start anew, courts exist to try to bring justice to all. While we are certainly still subject to the world in which we live, there seems to be a growing sense of multiplicity, at least allowing people to have more choice about what world that is.
Man vs. the Supernatural
God, destiny, demons, the Fae.
If these entities are real... they have gotten trickier over the years. We rarely face the supernatural in an overt showing of power, and there are many who outright deny their existence and refuse to deal with them as such. I certainly don't discount their existence, and while I wouldn't say that humanity on the whole has improved in its coping with these struggles, it is true that many religions have "softened" their hard lines in favor of a more open ideology.
and finally...
Man vs. Himself
Restraint, fear, doubt
I don't believe that in the thousands of years of human existence we have improved in regard to this challenge. In fact, in the modern world, this is the prevailing worry. Is Mother Nature going to squash humanity under her thumb? Not likely. But could humanity, in its unrestrained self indulgence, destroy the world and itself in the process? Its seems a growing possibility.
In the midst of developing technology, developing social structures, developing interpersonal models, developing health care, developing building techniques, developing science, developing economics, developing spiritual communities, developing governments, and developing infrastructures... humans aren't really developing.
Imagine the possibilities of better tools, better communities, better relationships, better medicine, better housing, better learning, better business, better prayer, better laws, and better transportation. Wouldn't it seem that with all that better, the world would be so much better?
But is it? Some days I think so. But other days I look around, and I see people up to the same old tricks. New systems become sites for new domination. New resources create new poverties. New rules create new bad rulers. Without self restraint, without the ability to challenge the self, no advancement in the struggle against nature, others, society or the supernatural will ever lead to better lives. The man with no self mastery will squander most of the resources afforded by the other advancements... and the ones that he cannot somehow toss aside, he will learn to ignore out of indolent ingratitude. Soon, the near utopia around him comes to reflect the inner wasteland he never addressed.
We need to quit driving and eating the world into glacieral melting. Quit spending into oppressive deficit. Quit channeling our stress and negativity onto all around.
We are among the most powerful people to have ever walked the earth. We have risen to nearly every challenge. Now its its time to meet the one power who's power grows as fast as us. Our own. Humans are no longer infants wailing for their next meal. We have advanced and developed power in this world.
It is time we wielded that power with a more mature outlook.
Sometimes it seems, that the more powerful someone becomes, the more self righteous they become. The great can do no wrong. But in reality, this is precisely the opposite of true. As we become great, our actual ability to do wrong increases with our power.
If we ever want to see the greatest good come to pass, we must commit ourselves to besting ourselves. We must be devoted to live out our better natures, seek our better destinies, and become our better selves.
True. We have yet to explore space at warp speed. Yet it is our inner struggle, Man vs. Himself, not space, that in our future days will prove to be the final frontier.
As humankind has developed through history, so to has its ability to cope with these challenges. Indeed, today we are much safer from many of the things that worried our ancestors.
Let's take them one at a time...
Man vs. Nature
Poisonous plants, hostile elements, hungry beasts.
Through systematic classifications, better building practices, meteorology, weapons of self defense and disaster planning we have vastly improved our ability to cope with the natural world. Do you often doubt if you will "make it through winter?" Nope. While the occasional extreme climate event may displace millions, the causalities are usually kept to a minimum in countries with efficient and reactive rescue infrastructures.
Man vs. Man
Theft, murder, deceit.
While our fellow humans still can pose a threat to us, we have locks on our doors, personal firearms, security systems, fraud protection, banks, and safety service personnel. Apart from getting stuck in long lines behind masses of your fellow humans, we tend not to be put at odds with each other as often as in the past. Murder, after all, has been on a steady decline on the western world for 700 years.
Man vs. Society
Oppressive social norms and practices.
This one still gets us from time to time, but things are getting a bit better. The internet offers community for the outcasts, social mobility allows people to relocate and start anew, courts exist to try to bring justice to all. While we are certainly still subject to the world in which we live, there seems to be a growing sense of multiplicity, at least allowing people to have more choice about what world that is.
Man vs. the Supernatural
God, destiny, demons, the Fae.
If these entities are real... they have gotten trickier over the years. We rarely face the supernatural in an overt showing of power, and there are many who outright deny their existence and refuse to deal with them as such. I certainly don't discount their existence, and while I wouldn't say that humanity on the whole has improved in its coping with these struggles, it is true that many religions have "softened" their hard lines in favor of a more open ideology.
and finally...
Man vs. Himself
Restraint, fear, doubt
I don't believe that in the thousands of years of human existence we have improved in regard to this challenge. In fact, in the modern world, this is the prevailing worry. Is Mother Nature going to squash humanity under her thumb? Not likely. But could humanity, in its unrestrained self indulgence, destroy the world and itself in the process? Its seems a growing possibility.
In the midst of developing technology, developing social structures, developing interpersonal models, developing health care, developing building techniques, developing science, developing economics, developing spiritual communities, developing governments, and developing infrastructures... humans aren't really developing.
Imagine the possibilities of better tools, better communities, better relationships, better medicine, better housing, better learning, better business, better prayer, better laws, and better transportation. Wouldn't it seem that with all that better, the world would be so much better?
But is it? Some days I think so. But other days I look around, and I see people up to the same old tricks. New systems become sites for new domination. New resources create new poverties. New rules create new bad rulers. Without self restraint, without the ability to challenge the self, no advancement in the struggle against nature, others, society or the supernatural will ever lead to better lives. The man with no self mastery will squander most of the resources afforded by the other advancements... and the ones that he cannot somehow toss aside, he will learn to ignore out of indolent ingratitude. Soon, the near utopia around him comes to reflect the inner wasteland he never addressed.
We need to quit driving and eating the world into glacieral melting. Quit spending into oppressive deficit. Quit channeling our stress and negativity onto all around.
We are among the most powerful people to have ever walked the earth. We have risen to nearly every challenge. Now its its time to meet the one power who's power grows as fast as us. Our own. Humans are no longer infants wailing for their next meal. We have advanced and developed power in this world.
It is time we wielded that power with a more mature outlook.
Sometimes it seems, that the more powerful someone becomes, the more self righteous they become. The great can do no wrong. But in reality, this is precisely the opposite of true. As we become great, our actual ability to do wrong increases with our power.
If we ever want to see the greatest good come to pass, we must commit ourselves to besting ourselves. We must be devoted to live out our better natures, seek our better destinies, and become our better selves.
True. We have yet to explore space at warp speed. Yet it is our inner struggle, Man vs. Himself, not space, that in our future days will prove to be the final frontier.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Random Crap Answers to Questions People Aren't Asking Me
Is this a self help book?
Well, kind of. Its trying to be just as cheesily inspirational as a self help book... its just an other help book.
Is it like Chicken Soup for the Soul?
More like Ducttape and Crowbar for the Soul.
Well, kind of. Its trying to be just as cheesily inspirational as a self help book... its just an other help book.
Is it like Chicken Soup for the Soul?
More like Ducttape and Crowbar for the Soul.
Friday, November 14, 2008
How to Change the World
Whenever I talk about changing the world, I get mixed reactions. Some people are stirred by the idea. Many, however, scoff... and on some days, its hard for me not to agree.
When I flick on the tv, the world that comes streaming through seems pretty immune to improvement. Politics with no accountability. Unchecked warfare. Injustice abounds. Nothing new under the sun, they say, and those days where I hopelessly try to stare down the despair flashing out of that box, I tend to agree.
As I try to peddle my optimistic outlook a hundred stations beam though my body at 200 MHz, offering a picture of the world that is invulnerable to any meaningful change. Is I a fool? Can we really change the world?
The answer to that question depends entirely on which world we are living in.
The world of the tv is a mediated and immediate representation of events on a national and global scale. Huge geographical scope. Tiny temporal scope. Tv answers the question, "What is happening now everywhere?"
So think about it. Can you, on your own, change everywhere now? Of course not! If you live in the world portrayed by your television, proactive movement to improve the quality of the world doesn't even makes sense. Tv channels only go one way. There's no way to interact. No sites for change. And the sheer geographical size of the televisioned world makes it unassailable in the rush of information.
But what if you lived in a neighborhood? What if you paid attention to that which was going on in the next couple of months? Think you could change that world, given that amount of time?
Mass media seductively offers us the ability to interface with the world at large in nearly real time. But what we cannot do is effect that world. Now, I'm not knocking mass media. The free flow if information is a corner stone to the democratic process and improving the accountability of the powerful. But if you live only there, if that is all that you consider important and real, you have decided to live in a place that is too fast moving in respect to its vastness for you to make any meaningful impact.
No wonder people are pessimistic concerning their ability to make change.
Wanna change the world? Set your sights first on that which is around you. Develop a sense of the local. Learn the things that the people around you need. Find out what resources are nearby. Improve the world you pass when you walk, bike, bus or drive yourself to work. Improve your block. Your office building. Your coworkers. Friends. Family.
Change yourself for the better.
Now, I'm not a reductionist. When I said we could change the world, I didn't mean only the local one. Changing that vast world represented by the media is possible. It just takes more time. The timeline of the tube is an unstopping stream of events. No way for ordinary people to influence the whole world that fast. But if you have clarity of vision, sustainable motivation, and a galvanized group... why, you can't help but to make a difference.
So develop a sense of the local. Ask questions about what those nearby you need. Work on your own problems. And when you watch the news... keep your eyes open for ways you can make a difference. When you see it, bitch and brainstorm, find a few others who see it your way, get together, and makes something happen.
That's how you change the world.
When I flick on the tv, the world that comes streaming through seems pretty immune to improvement. Politics with no accountability. Unchecked warfare. Injustice abounds. Nothing new under the sun, they say, and those days where I hopelessly try to stare down the despair flashing out of that box, I tend to agree.
As I try to peddle my optimistic outlook a hundred stations beam though my body at 200 MHz, offering a picture of the world that is invulnerable to any meaningful change. Is I a fool? Can we really change the world?
The answer to that question depends entirely on which world we are living in.
The world of the tv is a mediated and immediate representation of events on a national and global scale. Huge geographical scope. Tiny temporal scope. Tv answers the question, "What is happening now everywhere?"
So think about it. Can you, on your own, change everywhere now? Of course not! If you live in the world portrayed by your television, proactive movement to improve the quality of the world doesn't even makes sense. Tv channels only go one way. There's no way to interact. No sites for change. And the sheer geographical size of the televisioned world makes it unassailable in the rush of information.
But what if you lived in a neighborhood? What if you paid attention to that which was going on in the next couple of months? Think you could change that world, given that amount of time?
Mass media seductively offers us the ability to interface with the world at large in nearly real time. But what we cannot do is effect that world. Now, I'm not knocking mass media. The free flow if information is a corner stone to the democratic process and improving the accountability of the powerful. But if you live only there, if that is all that you consider important and real, you have decided to live in a place that is too fast moving in respect to its vastness for you to make any meaningful impact.
No wonder people are pessimistic concerning their ability to make change.
Wanna change the world? Set your sights first on that which is around you. Develop a sense of the local. Learn the things that the people around you need. Find out what resources are nearby. Improve the world you pass when you walk, bike, bus or drive yourself to work. Improve your block. Your office building. Your coworkers. Friends. Family.
Change yourself for the better.
Now, I'm not a reductionist. When I said we could change the world, I didn't mean only the local one. Changing that vast world represented by the media is possible. It just takes more time. The timeline of the tube is an unstopping stream of events. No way for ordinary people to influence the whole world that fast. But if you have clarity of vision, sustainable motivation, and a galvanized group... why, you can't help but to make a difference.
So develop a sense of the local. Ask questions about what those nearby you need. Work on your own problems. And when you watch the news... keep your eyes open for ways you can make a difference. When you see it, bitch and brainstorm, find a few others who see it your way, get together, and makes something happen.
That's how you change the world.
Day 103
Ok.
November 14th.
Been thinking on a handful of ideas. I am at 33,000 words, and I have begun to really like one of the possible angles for this work.
A field guide for good works.
Field guide works for a few reasons:
Its allows for personal reflections about events (which I think necessary for this particular subject).
It has a focus on practicality (which pervades this project).
It creates a more one on one relationship with the reader.
It could have really cool drawings and overall production edginess.
It encourages the notion of personal responsibility for social change (like, alright, you've picked up the book... read it while you are out doing some good).
Those are my reasons for liking the field book idea.
My vision at this point is a kind of combination of entries, ranging from personal reflections (like field book observations), works within moral philosophical thinking (like the scientific content of field books), tips and pointers on practical moral issues, and prayers or self/group development activities and social change resources.
Whadda you think?
November 14th.
Been thinking on a handful of ideas. I am at 33,000 words, and I have begun to really like one of the possible angles for this work.
A field guide for good works.
Field guide works for a few reasons:
Its allows for personal reflections about events (which I think necessary for this particular subject).
It has a focus on practicality (which pervades this project).
It creates a more one on one relationship with the reader.
It could have really cool drawings and overall production edginess.
It encourages the notion of personal responsibility for social change (like, alright, you've picked up the book... read it while you are out doing some good).
Those are my reasons for liking the field book idea.
My vision at this point is a kind of combination of entries, ranging from personal reflections (like field book observations), works within moral philosophical thinking (like the scientific content of field books), tips and pointers on practical moral issues, and prayers or self/group development activities and social change resources.
Whadda you think?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
True Genius
One of my life's great concerns has been the pursuit of true genius. Much of this quest comes out of my identity... I think of myself as exceptionally intelligent, and I really enjoy any activity that promises to challenge or expand my brain power.
There is also a strange cast of brilliance that has played major roles in my life. From my mother's simultaneously absent and present consciousness to my brothers' differing intellectual sensibilities (the younger; a common sense, human truth, the older; a radical, transhuman truth). The elusive yet key wisdom of teaching, namely, that there are different kinds of intellect, is more like a day to day aspect of my life.
Happy or sad, good or bad, intellect has been a foundation of my identity from the beginning. In my younger years I felt isolated by my mindfulness. My peers seemed interested in that which was trivial, and though I had passing fancies about being a part of their world, I was grateful for being smarter than all that. (This whole thing makes me smile nowadays. Think it was my intellect, or my arrogant and shitty attitude that isolated me? You be the judge.)
By my sophomore year in high school, I fancied myself a misanthrope. I think this is the teenaged ego defense to years of being the weird one. Anyhow, I really had a pretty elaborate disdain for people, including myself. I only did good things that way people would think me a good person, and this was a deception that had worked perfectly... everybody thought I was nice... even though inside me lurked a barely checked demon (no joke, this is how I thought of myself). And other people, other people were pale reflections of their selves, projecting false identities and failing to see the true value of other people (as evidenced by my inability to get a date).
All the while I quested for genius. Though I'm not the most fastidious student ever, I learned ravenously, soaking in every subject I could. Most people had a class or two that they hated and were bad at. I may have hated a few, but I was relentless in really getting my head around every idea I came to. At one point early in my search for genius I would have defined it as the ability to learn anything.
But I quickly moved on from there. Unsatisfied with being fed truths from the bounty of past thinkers, I moved into the persuasion that true genius was not to learn knowledge, but discover it. No longer was I content to simply soak in facts and figures. Rather, I would invent schemas and theories and test them against the facts and figures. Creativity became my intellectual centerpiece.
Somewhere in my loathing of my tortured immorality (which was, in reality a twisted form of ego trip), I toyed with the notion that the evil thinker was less restrained than the good thinker. Take a moment on it. The good person can't really consider all the possibilities that an evil person can. They have a moral restriction on their creativity. True genius, it seemed, rested in amoral thinking.
Early in my college career I managed to get over my immoral overdrama. I had been "pretending" to be a good person for long enough that I figured it had finally stuck, and I no longer fantasized that my evil brain was more powerful than a good one. Now my mind was onto a new form of genius. Philosophical fearlessness. No belief was safe. No societal norm uncritiqued. I got inside my head with a crowbar, prying off all the preconceived notions I had ever had and stripping them back.
While I wasn't nearly as bitter as when in high school, I had moved on to a new form of judgement. People who accepted things without question. I was now far smarter than those people who obediently believed that which they were told. True genius was intellectual Independence, and most of the people who I passed in the halls were vessels of unconsidered ideologies and uninvestigated ideas.
That notion of intellect failed when I started actually listening to the way those people thought. Funny thing. Despite never using a mote of philosophical language or academic framing, people I had once considered as inwardly blind were strikingly reflective. It turns out "regular" people think brilliant things all the time. Talking about it at length may not be their favored pastime... and they may not struggle with these issues on a daily business... but they do struggle with them... and if you stop trying to say it your way and listen, they will talk about them.
It was about that time that my head broke open. What had been an entirely solitary process for twenty some years suddenly had many new contributors. I started really listening to lots of people. Everyone, if I paid attention to how they thought, had something to teach me. There were also divine agents at work in my conciseness. God showed me things, angles spoke to me, and the elements of the world revealed lessons about the universe.
Honestly, since that moral/intellectual/spiritual daybreak, I've worried a lot less about the search for true genius. Don't get me wrong, being a smarty pants is still an important part of my identity, and I still struggle with issues of egotism. But as I sit here tap tap tapping away at my computer, I can confidently tell you that true genius isn't a particular way of thinking. More, lots of different kinds of genius that serve in different ways. True genius, for lack of a better phrase, is a particular "why" of thinking. Here's what I mean.
True genius is love.
Think on it. Love pays attention. Love is relentless in solving problems. Real love is fearless in the face of the truth and refuses to live in illusion.
I had once idealized the evil thinker for their unfettered creativity. Now I realize that it is the good thinker that is the true genius, because their intellectual task is harder. Moral thinking demands more creativity because it requires multiplicity, an attention to many different goods. Immoral thinking isn't better... it's lazier. Someone who only thinks of them selves is free to consider all kinds of violations of others. But this isn't unique to the selfish mind. Some of the most intellectually twisted people I know are the most moral. Good people can also imagine bad things.
But where the moral thinker shows their colors is not in fixating on the many immoral paths they can take, but the many moral ones. The paths of righteousness are no less complex. In fact, right actions are far more intricate, as they weave between the simultaneous goods of all involved. You want a chance to prove your brilliance? Start acting as though every speck of the universe is holy and worthy of respect and well being, then start living you life.
Interestingly, the word genius has only meant a person of brilliance since 1649. For hundreds of years before that, the word was used to describe the guardian spirits that protected people and places.
What?
Tutelary spirits. Guardian deities. Tasked to watch over people from the moment of birth and protecting the well being of places and things. These spirits were blessings, bestowing upon their charges boons and guiding their lives. Its not hard to see how the word genius came to mean "strong leaning" (from the spirits' guidings) and "natural talent" (from the spirits' blessings).
So, if you want to be a genius in the richest sense for the word, you must be more than just a smarty pants. You have to put your intellect into the service of others. You have to define your life not by the possibilities of your brain, but the necessities of those it protects.
If you want to be a true genius, you have to do more than think well. You have to think well about the well being of others. You have to love.
True genius?
Love.
There is also a strange cast of brilliance that has played major roles in my life. From my mother's simultaneously absent and present consciousness to my brothers' differing intellectual sensibilities (the younger; a common sense, human truth, the older; a radical, transhuman truth). The elusive yet key wisdom of teaching, namely, that there are different kinds of intellect, is more like a day to day aspect of my life.
Happy or sad, good or bad, intellect has been a foundation of my identity from the beginning. In my younger years I felt isolated by my mindfulness. My peers seemed interested in that which was trivial, and though I had passing fancies about being a part of their world, I was grateful for being smarter than all that. (This whole thing makes me smile nowadays. Think it was my intellect, or my arrogant and shitty attitude that isolated me? You be the judge.)
By my sophomore year in high school, I fancied myself a misanthrope. I think this is the teenaged ego defense to years of being the weird one. Anyhow, I really had a pretty elaborate disdain for people, including myself. I only did good things that way people would think me a good person, and this was a deception that had worked perfectly... everybody thought I was nice... even though inside me lurked a barely checked demon (no joke, this is how I thought of myself). And other people, other people were pale reflections of their selves, projecting false identities and failing to see the true value of other people (as evidenced by my inability to get a date).
All the while I quested for genius. Though I'm not the most fastidious student ever, I learned ravenously, soaking in every subject I could. Most people had a class or two that they hated and were bad at. I may have hated a few, but I was relentless in really getting my head around every idea I came to. At one point early in my search for genius I would have defined it as the ability to learn anything.
But I quickly moved on from there. Unsatisfied with being fed truths from the bounty of past thinkers, I moved into the persuasion that true genius was not to learn knowledge, but discover it. No longer was I content to simply soak in facts and figures. Rather, I would invent schemas and theories and test them against the facts and figures. Creativity became my intellectual centerpiece.
Somewhere in my loathing of my tortured immorality (which was, in reality a twisted form of ego trip), I toyed with the notion that the evil thinker was less restrained than the good thinker. Take a moment on it. The good person can't really consider all the possibilities that an evil person can. They have a moral restriction on their creativity. True genius, it seemed, rested in amoral thinking.
Early in my college career I managed to get over my immoral overdrama. I had been "pretending" to be a good person for long enough that I figured it had finally stuck, and I no longer fantasized that my evil brain was more powerful than a good one. Now my mind was onto a new form of genius. Philosophical fearlessness. No belief was safe. No societal norm uncritiqued. I got inside my head with a crowbar, prying off all the preconceived notions I had ever had and stripping them back.
While I wasn't nearly as bitter as when in high school, I had moved on to a new form of judgement. People who accepted things without question. I was now far smarter than those people who obediently believed that which they were told. True genius was intellectual Independence, and most of the people who I passed in the halls were vessels of unconsidered ideologies and uninvestigated ideas.
That notion of intellect failed when I started actually listening to the way those people thought. Funny thing. Despite never using a mote of philosophical language or academic framing, people I had once considered as inwardly blind were strikingly reflective. It turns out "regular" people think brilliant things all the time. Talking about it at length may not be their favored pastime... and they may not struggle with these issues on a daily business... but they do struggle with them... and if you stop trying to say it your way and listen, they will talk about them.
It was about that time that my head broke open. What had been an entirely solitary process for twenty some years suddenly had many new contributors. I started really listening to lots of people. Everyone, if I paid attention to how they thought, had something to teach me. There were also divine agents at work in my conciseness. God showed me things, angles spoke to me, and the elements of the world revealed lessons about the universe.
Honestly, since that moral/intellectual/spiritual daybreak, I've worried a lot less about the search for true genius. Don't get me wrong, being a smarty pants is still an important part of my identity, and I still struggle with issues of egotism. But as I sit here tap tap tapping away at my computer, I can confidently tell you that true genius isn't a particular way of thinking. More, lots of different kinds of genius that serve in different ways. True genius, for lack of a better phrase, is a particular "why" of thinking. Here's what I mean.
True genius is love.
Think on it. Love pays attention. Love is relentless in solving problems. Real love is fearless in the face of the truth and refuses to live in illusion.
I had once idealized the evil thinker for their unfettered creativity. Now I realize that it is the good thinker that is the true genius, because their intellectual task is harder. Moral thinking demands more creativity because it requires multiplicity, an attention to many different goods. Immoral thinking isn't better... it's lazier. Someone who only thinks of them selves is free to consider all kinds of violations of others. But this isn't unique to the selfish mind. Some of the most intellectually twisted people I know are the most moral. Good people can also imagine bad things.
But where the moral thinker shows their colors is not in fixating on the many immoral paths they can take, but the many moral ones. The paths of righteousness are no less complex. In fact, right actions are far more intricate, as they weave between the simultaneous goods of all involved. You want a chance to prove your brilliance? Start acting as though every speck of the universe is holy and worthy of respect and well being, then start living you life.
Interestingly, the word genius has only meant a person of brilliance since 1649. For hundreds of years before that, the word was used to describe the guardian spirits that protected people and places.
What?
Tutelary spirits. Guardian deities. Tasked to watch over people from the moment of birth and protecting the well being of places and things. These spirits were blessings, bestowing upon their charges boons and guiding their lives. Its not hard to see how the word genius came to mean "strong leaning" (from the spirits' guidings) and "natural talent" (from the spirits' blessings).
So, if you want to be a genius in the richest sense for the word, you must be more than just a smarty pants. You have to put your intellect into the service of others. You have to define your life not by the possibilities of your brain, but the necessities of those it protects.
If you want to be a true genius, you have to do more than think well. You have to think well about the well being of others. You have to love.
True genius?
Love.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What Is and What Should Be
What is. The state of things. Reality. Now.
What should be. Our moral goal. The ideal state of things. Our hopeful future.
Knowing what is can be quite handy. Its what makes us realistic. Its what allows us to effectively respond to the world. We should all try to know what is. Exhaustive research, thorough investigation, and devoted inquiry all help transform our minds in a way that brings us more inline with the world as it is.
But in our pursuit of knowing what is, we must not loose sight of what should be.
Knowing what should be involves aligning ourselves to a different kind of reality. The world as it should be may not exist in the now, and it may have never existed, but is an expression of values that are eternally true. Trying to discover the world as it should be involves earnest discernment, hopeful imaginings, and far-reaching empathy. We seek to transform our desires to be inline with the world as it should be.
Some people think that realism and idealism (meant here in the common sense context, not the philosophical context) are at odds.
Those who favor the world as it is claim that the idealists are foolish. "Why pine about what isn't true?" they ask. The realists believe we should learn to deal with the harsh realities and learn to enjoy the sweet realities of our world.
Idealists are quite the opposite. They favor living in a world that reflects their ideals, rejecting that which does not fit into their mindset. Lovers of the world as it should be filter their actions through the ideals they profess.
Both of these mindsets are wrong. He who only sees what is has been bullied by the reality of now, and looses his ability to imagine that which could be. But woe to she who only sees the world as it should be. Her denial of what is dooms her actions to ineffectiveness.
Striving to do the greatest good involves loving both what is and what should be. We must see the world as it is if we wish to transform it into what should be, that way we know what we are working with (and how it works). Likewise, we must see the world as it should be, that way our actions have a tranformative end.
Take a medical example. Without an understanding of what is, the most compassionate person in the world is powerless to intervene. Similarly, without understanding what should be the most well studied person in the world will fail to act. Medicine is the synthesis of biological science and healing. That which is and what should be.
What about teaching. Without seeing who the students are, the teacher fails to address them effectively. But without understanding who the students should be, the teacher fails to develop any standards. Teaching is the synthesis of understanding students and challenging them. That which is and what should be.
The examples go on.
What does this mean to us? If we find ourselves only seeing the world as it is, we must shake off the persuasiveness of the now. Not let reality statically dictate its importance. Strive to open ourselves to things that are not yet real. And if we find ourselves only seeing the world as it should be, we must shatter our little world. Not let our yearnings blind us to what is, which would only doom us to impotently and clumsily flail about in our pursuit of good.
What should be. Our moral goal. The ideal state of things. Our hopeful future.
Knowing what is can be quite handy. Its what makes us realistic. Its what allows us to effectively respond to the world. We should all try to know what is. Exhaustive research, thorough investigation, and devoted inquiry all help transform our minds in a way that brings us more inline with the world as it is.
But in our pursuit of knowing what is, we must not loose sight of what should be.
Knowing what should be involves aligning ourselves to a different kind of reality. The world as it should be may not exist in the now, and it may have never existed, but is an expression of values that are eternally true. Trying to discover the world as it should be involves earnest discernment, hopeful imaginings, and far-reaching empathy. We seek to transform our desires to be inline with the world as it should be.
Some people think that realism and idealism (meant here in the common sense context, not the philosophical context) are at odds.
Those who favor the world as it is claim that the idealists are foolish. "Why pine about what isn't true?" they ask. The realists believe we should learn to deal with the harsh realities and learn to enjoy the sweet realities of our world.
Idealists are quite the opposite. They favor living in a world that reflects their ideals, rejecting that which does not fit into their mindset. Lovers of the world as it should be filter their actions through the ideals they profess.
Both of these mindsets are wrong. He who only sees what is has been bullied by the reality of now, and looses his ability to imagine that which could be. But woe to she who only sees the world as it should be. Her denial of what is dooms her actions to ineffectiveness.
Striving to do the greatest good involves loving both what is and what should be. We must see the world as it is if we wish to transform it into what should be, that way we know what we are working with (and how it works). Likewise, we must see the world as it should be, that way our actions have a tranformative end.
Take a medical example. Without an understanding of what is, the most compassionate person in the world is powerless to intervene. Similarly, without understanding what should be the most well studied person in the world will fail to act. Medicine is the synthesis of biological science and healing. That which is and what should be.
What about teaching. Without seeing who the students are, the teacher fails to address them effectively. But without understanding who the students should be, the teacher fails to develop any standards. Teaching is the synthesis of understanding students and challenging them. That which is and what should be.
The examples go on.
What does this mean to us? If we find ourselves only seeing the world as it is, we must shake off the persuasiveness of the now. Not let reality statically dictate its importance. Strive to open ourselves to things that are not yet real. And if we find ourselves only seeing the world as it should be, we must shatter our little world. Not let our yearnings blind us to what is, which would only doom us to impotently and clumsily flail about in our pursuit of good.
Hiding from Yourself Amid the Crowd
It's called the Bystander Effect...
... and sometimes it makes me sad to be a human.
Basically, the Bystander Effect is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of people witness a crime. See, when a single person sees something bad happen to someone else, they tend to act. But put that person in a small group, and not only are they less likely to act, the likelihood that any person is smaller than the single witness scenario. The trend continues as the group of people grows.
At first, this seems weird. Why is a huge group of people unlikely to yield a single helper? Even a group of people who, had they been the solitary witness, each would have been willing to help.
It's all about deferral of responsibility. See, the lone witness knows that if they don't help, no one will. But in a group you know that there is someone better suited, more knowledgeable, or more apt to be the hero. In the end, everyone stands there, the responsibility smoothly distributed amongst all who stand by, just enough to make each one to feel uncomfortable, but not enough to make them help.
In all honesty, this nuance of human psychology makes me angry. I want to believe the group would come in and kick ass as a group. 10,000 strong, solving the problem. I want to be a member of race that is unfalteringly responsive to the needs of the world. But I'm not.
The thing that gets me is that the Bystander Effect is a product of social science. It isn't some idea about people, its the product of empirical study. This is how people behave. It would seem that I am doomed to be the coward in the crowd, hiding from my own conscience amid the masses.
So it would seem.
Unless you know a little about social science. Whenever scientists study the world there is all kinds of crazy crap that happens. Some of it fits into the system they are trying to test... some doesn't. If all research had to deal with all the occurrences, research would very rarely get done. So they only keep the data that allows forward movement. Basically, you are allowed to throw out the radicals, those unpredictably far from the mean.
Translation. A study can throw out weird subjects in order to make a cohesive picture. Mark it off to oddity, unforeseen variables, and extraordinary circumstances.
This is a ray of hope. Scientific conclusions need not be fates concerning your behaviors. That statistical radicals. That can be you.
See, my father is immune to the Bystander Effect. Perhaps its because he is a fire fighter, and he is used to being the one in the crowd actually responsible for helping. Perhaps its because of his strong sense of service that prompts him to act. Maybe its a foolishness or a fearlessness that keeps him from worrying about it long enough to not want to act.
Whatever it is, when something is going wrong, he is on the scene. No hesitation. No deferral of responsibility. Just action. Does this make the Bystander Effect wrong? Not exactly. It just makes my father part of the 5% that the researchers had to throw out in order to make sense of it all.
Strive to be that 5%. Idealize those people who are unwilling to let injustice and danger come to pass without acting. Act.
Ironically, me learning about the Bystander Effect has made it less true, at least in my life. Nowadays, when I am in a situation where many people aren't responding, and I start thinking, "Isn't someone going to do something?" I suddenly think, "Oh, crap, the Bystander Effect!" and I jump into action. I also try to consciously hone my identity so I don't even have the first thought. I try to develop my compassion for others and the courage within me so that when something bad happens, by first response is help. Hopefully one day I will only entertain thoughts like, "What is the way to do the greatest good?"
Besides, the Bystander Effect speaks nothing of human nature. It only describes human actions. This means that it could simply be a nuance of our culture, and that if enough people strove to live beneath the alpha level, eventually the Bystander Effect would no longer true.
What a great goal, huh? To be part of a people who at the first sign of trouble, solved it as one. Part of a race that refused to let the reigns of responsibility slip from their fingers, acting as though it was our sacred calling to right every wrong, no matter what caused it.
If I want to be a member of that group, I had better start with me. Waiting for other people to defy the Bystander Effect would be missing the point.
... and sometimes it makes me sad to be a human.
Basically, the Bystander Effect is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of people witness a crime. See, when a single person sees something bad happen to someone else, they tend to act. But put that person in a small group, and not only are they less likely to act, the likelihood that any person is smaller than the single witness scenario. The trend continues as the group of people grows.
At first, this seems weird. Why is a huge group of people unlikely to yield a single helper? Even a group of people who, had they been the solitary witness, each would have been willing to help.
It's all about deferral of responsibility. See, the lone witness knows that if they don't help, no one will. But in a group you know that there is someone better suited, more knowledgeable, or more apt to be the hero. In the end, everyone stands there, the responsibility smoothly distributed amongst all who stand by, just enough to make each one to feel uncomfortable, but not enough to make them help.
In all honesty, this nuance of human psychology makes me angry. I want to believe the group would come in and kick ass as a group. 10,000 strong, solving the problem. I want to be a member of race that is unfalteringly responsive to the needs of the world. But I'm not.
The thing that gets me is that the Bystander Effect is a product of social science. It isn't some idea about people, its the product of empirical study. This is how people behave. It would seem that I am doomed to be the coward in the crowd, hiding from my own conscience amid the masses.
So it would seem.
Unless you know a little about social science. Whenever scientists study the world there is all kinds of crazy crap that happens. Some of it fits into the system they are trying to test... some doesn't. If all research had to deal with all the occurrences, research would very rarely get done. So they only keep the data that allows forward movement. Basically, you are allowed to throw out the radicals, those unpredictably far from the mean.
Translation. A study can throw out weird subjects in order to make a cohesive picture. Mark it off to oddity, unforeseen variables, and extraordinary circumstances.
This is a ray of hope. Scientific conclusions need not be fates concerning your behaviors. That statistical radicals. That can be you.
See, my father is immune to the Bystander Effect. Perhaps its because he is a fire fighter, and he is used to being the one in the crowd actually responsible for helping. Perhaps its because of his strong sense of service that prompts him to act. Maybe its a foolishness or a fearlessness that keeps him from worrying about it long enough to not want to act.
Whatever it is, when something is going wrong, he is on the scene. No hesitation. No deferral of responsibility. Just action. Does this make the Bystander Effect wrong? Not exactly. It just makes my father part of the 5% that the researchers had to throw out in order to make sense of it all.
Strive to be that 5%. Idealize those people who are unwilling to let injustice and danger come to pass without acting. Act.
Ironically, me learning about the Bystander Effect has made it less true, at least in my life. Nowadays, when I am in a situation where many people aren't responding, and I start thinking, "Isn't someone going to do something?" I suddenly think, "Oh, crap, the Bystander Effect!" and I jump into action. I also try to consciously hone my identity so I don't even have the first thought. I try to develop my compassion for others and the courage within me so that when something bad happens, by first response is help. Hopefully one day I will only entertain thoughts like, "What is the way to do the greatest good?"
Besides, the Bystander Effect speaks nothing of human nature. It only describes human actions. This means that it could simply be a nuance of our culture, and that if enough people strove to live beneath the alpha level, eventually the Bystander Effect would no longer true.
What a great goal, huh? To be part of a people who at the first sign of trouble, solved it as one. Part of a race that refused to let the reigns of responsibility slip from their fingers, acting as though it was our sacred calling to right every wrong, no matter what caused it.
If I want to be a member of that group, I had better start with me. Waiting for other people to defy the Bystander Effect would be missing the point.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Orders
When questioned about the heinous actions performed at the concentration camps, the German soldiers responsible deferred the culpability, claiming that they were simply following orders.
Its not an uncommon event in wartime. A soldier is given some kind of order that is morally questionable or down right wrong. We have some sympathy, of course. Soldiers are trained to take orders, after all. With a little imagining, we can feel the difficulty that must go on in that moment. Dissent, fail to obey, and do good... or concede, successfully obey, and do evil.
Imagine the mental process of the moral soldiers who execute such orders. Desiring to do good, they must highlight in their minds the origin of said order. They were being good soldiers... following orders. The one giving the orders... that is the one who is ultimately responsible for the travesty.
I think people are often willing to give these unfortunate men and women something of a break. Perhaps we really hope they would disobey the order, but we can understand the difficulty involved in it. Hitler, after all, was giving the orders.
For many years, that was the end of that issue for me. The head of the snake is the source of the monstrousness. That was until I heard this story.
Apparently, when Hitler would take a train across the country side he would at times pass these death camps. Knowing that they were coming, he would order the train attendants to close the blinds.
Wait. I thought he was a monster. Wouldn't he want to see the destruction he was wrecking? Wasn't he an unholy terror, lusting to warp the world into bloodshed? An insane dictator reaping death. Why would such a twisted man want to blind himself to the horrors he is orders created?
Now, it is not my aim to defend the actions of Hitler. Nor do I want to claim he was well intentioned. But I think this closing the curtains anecdote offers important insight to how humans are capable of committing great evil.
By turning a blind eye, leaders can distance themselves from the reality of their directives. They keep in mind the end, and put each of their strategic steps in service of that end. By staying focused on that distant goal they unfocus on what actually must be done to accomplish it. This is a basic abstraction that protects them from facing their actions. They are, after all, just giving orders. Its the soldiers who are the murderers.
But wait. Aren't the soldiers just following orders? Can this really be happening? Yes, actually, and it does. The commander says to him or herself, "My idea, but not my hands," while the commanded says to him or herself, "My hands, but not my idea." Each doing their best to silently defer the responsibility to the other. Maybe they can sleep at night, maybe they can't. But in the end, the evil gets done.
What to learn from this? Systems of human organization can facilitate great evil if the members of the organization do not each take moral responsibility for all the organizations activities. Also, we are called to publicly dissent when we see our organization go astray. By giving voice to these issues you guarantee that they do not silently pass, and that those involved see the impact of their actions.
Its not an uncommon event in wartime. A soldier is given some kind of order that is morally questionable or down right wrong. We have some sympathy, of course. Soldiers are trained to take orders, after all. With a little imagining, we can feel the difficulty that must go on in that moment. Dissent, fail to obey, and do good... or concede, successfully obey, and do evil.
Imagine the mental process of the moral soldiers who execute such orders. Desiring to do good, they must highlight in their minds the origin of said order. They were being good soldiers... following orders. The one giving the orders... that is the one who is ultimately responsible for the travesty.
I think people are often willing to give these unfortunate men and women something of a break. Perhaps we really hope they would disobey the order, but we can understand the difficulty involved in it. Hitler, after all, was giving the orders.
For many years, that was the end of that issue for me. The head of the snake is the source of the monstrousness. That was until I heard this story.
Apparently, when Hitler would take a train across the country side he would at times pass these death camps. Knowing that they were coming, he would order the train attendants to close the blinds.
Wait. I thought he was a monster. Wouldn't he want to see the destruction he was wrecking? Wasn't he an unholy terror, lusting to warp the world into bloodshed? An insane dictator reaping death. Why would such a twisted man want to blind himself to the horrors he is orders created?
Now, it is not my aim to defend the actions of Hitler. Nor do I want to claim he was well intentioned. But I think this closing the curtains anecdote offers important insight to how humans are capable of committing great evil.
By turning a blind eye, leaders can distance themselves from the reality of their directives. They keep in mind the end, and put each of their strategic steps in service of that end. By staying focused on that distant goal they unfocus on what actually must be done to accomplish it. This is a basic abstraction that protects them from facing their actions. They are, after all, just giving orders. Its the soldiers who are the murderers.
But wait. Aren't the soldiers just following orders? Can this really be happening? Yes, actually, and it does. The commander says to him or herself, "My idea, but not my hands," while the commanded says to him or herself, "My hands, but not my idea." Each doing their best to silently defer the responsibility to the other. Maybe they can sleep at night, maybe they can't. But in the end, the evil gets done.
What to learn from this? Systems of human organization can facilitate great evil if the members of the organization do not each take moral responsibility for all the organizations activities. Also, we are called to publicly dissent when we see our organization go astray. By giving voice to these issues you guarantee that they do not silently pass, and that those involved see the impact of their actions.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Moral Scope
Most discussions of morality question how much good or bad is being done. While this is certainly an important aspect of the conversation, it is really only part. In my estimation, this question is a question of degree. To what degree are you doing good?
There is also a question of scope. What is the scope of your good? What is the range of your moral actions?
See, an ethical act need only performed on that which is worth ethical consideration. Few would be offended by the breaking of a dead tree branch, for dead plant matter is outside the scope of moral consideration.
But when someone breaks your child's arm, there is trouble. One's children are within the scope of almost everyone's moral consideration. Common moral scopes are self, family, town, nation, particular race, human race, mammal, chordates, all living things.
When pursuing the greatest possible good is is imperative that we not only do good, but that we do it for the good of the most possible things. Actively strive to widen the range of your compassion. Tear down the walls that limit your ethical consideration, and let your love matter for all.
There is also a question of scope. What is the scope of your good? What is the range of your moral actions?
See, an ethical act need only performed on that which is worth ethical consideration. Few would be offended by the breaking of a dead tree branch, for dead plant matter is outside the scope of moral consideration.
But when someone breaks your child's arm, there is trouble. One's children are within the scope of almost everyone's moral consideration. Common moral scopes are self, family, town, nation, particular race, human race, mammal, chordates, all living things.
When pursuing the greatest possible good is is imperative that we not only do good, but that we do it for the good of the most possible things. Actively strive to widen the range of your compassion. Tear down the walls that limit your ethical consideration, and let your love matter for all.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Giving Good a Try
Can't tell you how many times people have tried to get me to indulge a vice by telling me, "Dude, you don't know what you are missing."
Chances are, they are right. There are some experiences that don't make any sense to an outsider. They may seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to the people in the know, it's really the only way to live.
Funny thing is, virtues are much the same way. You really can't explain how good they feel to someone who has never tried. From the outside they seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to people in the know, its really the only way to live.
There are even virtues and vices that aren't even fulfilling in the beginning. Beer, I hear, is an acquired taste. So is vegetarianism. In fact, ironically, on multiple occasions I've had the eventual good taste of booze professed to me by the same person who rejected the initial taste of soy milk or veggie burgers. I find it interesting the disparate causes that convict different people to acquire a taste.
One of the reasons virtuous behavior has unforeseen benefits is because we tend to protect our egos from the bad that we do. Often we won't let ourselves admit our wrong doing until after we have stopped.
So the next time you are being called to a virtuous action, instead of asking is it really morally necessary, just give it a try. You might just find that your new virtue frees your mind to find justifications that you would have never believed had they been offered as motivation before you gave it a try.
So give it a try. Trust me, you don't know what you are missing.
Chances are, they are right. There are some experiences that don't make any sense to an outsider. They may seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to the people in the know, it's really the only way to live.
Funny thing is, virtues are much the same way. You really can't explain how good they feel to someone who has never tried. From the outside they seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to people in the know, its really the only way to live.
There are even virtues and vices that aren't even fulfilling in the beginning. Beer, I hear, is an acquired taste. So is vegetarianism. In fact, ironically, on multiple occasions I've had the eventual good taste of booze professed to me by the same person who rejected the initial taste of soy milk or veggie burgers. I find it interesting the disparate causes that convict different people to acquire a taste.
One of the reasons virtuous behavior has unforeseen benefits is because we tend to protect our egos from the bad that we do. Often we won't let ourselves admit our wrong doing until after we have stopped.
So the next time you are being called to a virtuous action, instead of asking is it really morally necessary, just give it a try. You might just find that your new virtue frees your mind to find justifications that you would have never believed had they been offered as motivation before you gave it a try.
So give it a try. Trust me, you don't know what you are missing.
Sacred Senses
While abiding by unchecked desires will lead us astray, it should be made perfectly clear that we are designed to have pleasure. While it is not precisely a birthright (as it is inevitable that we should experience pain), pleasure is one of our callings, as well as it is our destiny.
Of course we are created to humbly serve others. But what an odd world it would be if we were all called to foster the pleasure of others and never ourselves. How inefficient! How paradoxical, too!
No, one of our tasks is to pursue our pleasure, so long as that pursuit does not place our well being above the good of another.
Consider the fruits of pleasure. The sweet sensation of the wise develops gratitude. When our senses are coaxed by beauty we see the work of our creator. Joy and laughter mend some wounds that consolation only tends.
We are made to be happy! In fact, it is when we are intentionally joyful and sensually engaged that we come to know the ecstasy that pervades all things. Our senses are divine, and they help us soak in the divinity in the world.
We must only be suspicious of our pleasure when it harms ourselves or others. Even then, it is not the pleasure that is bad, but the harm. Our greatest calling is to serve, and we will find much satisfaction in the pursuit of that end. We must also not harm ourselves in pursuit of our pleasure, for our senses are part of our bodily and spiritual selves, and any physical or spiritual harm wounds the senses we were trying to indulge.
Do not loose sight of the sacredness of our senses. Experience is a treasure unto itself, as well as in invaluable tool in doing good in the world. Treat yourself well, and fill your world with good feeling.
Of course we are created to humbly serve others. But what an odd world it would be if we were all called to foster the pleasure of others and never ourselves. How inefficient! How paradoxical, too!
No, one of our tasks is to pursue our pleasure, so long as that pursuit does not place our well being above the good of another.
Consider the fruits of pleasure. The sweet sensation of the wise develops gratitude. When our senses are coaxed by beauty we see the work of our creator. Joy and laughter mend some wounds that consolation only tends.
We are made to be happy! In fact, it is when we are intentionally joyful and sensually engaged that we come to know the ecstasy that pervades all things. Our senses are divine, and they help us soak in the divinity in the world.
We must only be suspicious of our pleasure when it harms ourselves or others. Even then, it is not the pleasure that is bad, but the harm. Our greatest calling is to serve, and we will find much satisfaction in the pursuit of that end. We must also not harm ourselves in pursuit of our pleasure, for our senses are part of our bodily and spiritual selves, and any physical or spiritual harm wounds the senses we were trying to indulge.
Do not loose sight of the sacredness of our senses. Experience is a treasure unto itself, as well as in invaluable tool in doing good in the world. Treat yourself well, and fill your world with good feeling.
Free Slaves
When I was young, I railed at the notion of serving God before myself. I thought, "Why did God make me free, just to give that freedom away and serve him?"
I didn't want God telling me what to do, what to think, or what to say. I wanted to be free to do what I want.
In my elder years, I have learned there is no such thing as "free to do what I want." Oh, sure, I can do what I want. Its the freedom bit that isn't so much a reality. Living through my desires is not an expression of freedom. It is simply being a slave to my desires.
It makes sense when I think about it. In the beginning acting on my desires is fulfilling, but as I continue to only serve myself I develop addictive attachments and must repay resources tapped in my excess. Choosing to express my freedom through submitting to my desires feels like liberation at first, but is ultimately slavery.
Submitting to the divine law of the universe is hard. Asked to do what I don't want. Not getting to have what I want. Moving in directions to which I see no point. But as I continue to labor in service of God and others, I begin to see the value in what I do. I start having an appreciation for the plan I am now part of. In the end, I want, I desire the good of those I was asked to serve. Choosing to express my freedom though submitting to my God feels like slavery at first, but is ultimately liberation.
My desires change! Treating my momentary fixation as sacrosanct is the road to suffering. My desires aren't eternal and holy, God is. When I live within the light of the creator, though the power of grace I find what I want transforming. In the end, I do exactly what God wants, and exactly what I want.
That's freedom.
I didn't want God telling me what to do, what to think, or what to say. I wanted to be free to do what I want.
In my elder years, I have learned there is no such thing as "free to do what I want." Oh, sure, I can do what I want. Its the freedom bit that isn't so much a reality. Living through my desires is not an expression of freedom. It is simply being a slave to my desires.
It makes sense when I think about it. In the beginning acting on my desires is fulfilling, but as I continue to only serve myself I develop addictive attachments and must repay resources tapped in my excess. Choosing to express my freedom through submitting to my desires feels like liberation at first, but is ultimately slavery.
Submitting to the divine law of the universe is hard. Asked to do what I don't want. Not getting to have what I want. Moving in directions to which I see no point. But as I continue to labor in service of God and others, I begin to see the value in what I do. I start having an appreciation for the plan I am now part of. In the end, I want, I desire the good of those I was asked to serve. Choosing to express my freedom though submitting to my God feels like slavery at first, but is ultimately liberation.
My desires change! Treating my momentary fixation as sacrosanct is the road to suffering. My desires aren't eternal and holy, God is. When I live within the light of the creator, though the power of grace I find what I want transforming. In the end, I do exactly what God wants, and exactly what I want.
That's freedom.
How can we be so sure...
One of the classic questions in philosophy concerns certainty. How is it that we know what we know? Can we prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that which we believe? What of our knowledge is beyond skepticism?
In essence, how can we be so sure...
The usual epistemic (fancy adjective meaning knowledge related) strategy is to seek logical support. Now, depending on the particular philosopher, the logic is founded in different spheres. Some desire systematic sensory evidence (we call those ones empiricists). Others want to use the depths of the human mind and spirit to summon basic principles (rationalists). Generally speaking, even though these philosophers may really disagree on the kind of justification needs, they all agree that such justification is needed.
I support belief justification... but I also know another way to increase confidence in a belief, although professing it may in fact make me a poor philosopher.
Courage.
Want certainty? Get some. Sometimes we do not solidly hold our beliefs because they are misshapen or unjustified. Sometimes we waver because we are weak. It takes courage to defend an idea that comes under assault, and it takes courage to act on an idea when the stakes are high.
Be wary. Courage without any skeptical mechanism is unguided fanaticism. This can cause problems of a different ilk. Its important to have some skepticism if you want to prevent yourself from doing bad.
But you need courage to do good.
In essence, how can we be so sure...
The usual epistemic (fancy adjective meaning knowledge related) strategy is to seek logical support. Now, depending on the particular philosopher, the logic is founded in different spheres. Some desire systematic sensory evidence (we call those ones empiricists). Others want to use the depths of the human mind and spirit to summon basic principles (rationalists). Generally speaking, even though these philosophers may really disagree on the kind of justification needs, they all agree that such justification is needed.
I support belief justification... but I also know another way to increase confidence in a belief, although professing it may in fact make me a poor philosopher.
Courage.
Want certainty? Get some. Sometimes we do not solidly hold our beliefs because they are misshapen or unjustified. Sometimes we waver because we are weak. It takes courage to defend an idea that comes under assault, and it takes courage to act on an idea when the stakes are high.
Be wary. Courage without any skeptical mechanism is unguided fanaticism. This can cause problems of a different ilk. Its important to have some skepticism if you want to prevent yourself from doing bad.
But you need courage to do good.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Adulthood
When I was a youth, I often wondered when I would become an adult. While certainly I had met some adults not worth admiring, I imagined my transformation to adulthood as being characterized by the acquisition of some special quality, some intuitive knack, some problem solving ability that would set me apart.
As I aged, I noticed a distinct lack of transformative moments. My extended education did put me half way into my twenties before I was done, which may have strung out any single moment of adultification into harder to distinguish phases. Whatever the cause, there seemed to be no defining moment, and more disappointingly, no special mechanism for coping with the world.
How, then, would I cope with the world in an adult way? What then was the source of that indefinable... maturity that adults seemed to conduct themselves with? It didn't seem to be a particular piece of knowledge.
And then, one day, it hit me. I had been making decisions about the future, and I remember thinking, "Well, I really wish someone else would solve this problem... but that's not going to happen... and I'm not just going let it pass to others... so, ok, its on me." In that moment, I became an adult.
Adulthood carries with it a certitude and fortitude, not generated from any special ability, but rather the resolution that when there is a problem, to choose otherwise is simply not an option. It grants no special ability to cope with responsibility, but simply the willingness to earnestly accept responsibility.
Now, this role as the bottom line is facilitated by an emotional fortitude that boarders on emotional dishonesty. I have found that adults have the amazing ability to lie to themselves and others about the truth of their being. It seems that the healthy adult must recognize the moments others are relying on them and there is no choice but to deal, but also recognize those moments where they can decompress in a safe way and refresh their souls.
Looking back, I see why the attribute of adulthood eluded my investigation. In different situations, and with different people, it is different traits that accomplish acts of adult steadiness. Additionally, any one of these traits could be just as easily be possessed by a child. But the commitment of maturity facilitates the transition from trait to trait, even as particular adult has no idea how they are going to solve the problem at hand. They simply know that to not solve the problem is not an option.
As I aged, I noticed a distinct lack of transformative moments. My extended education did put me half way into my twenties before I was done, which may have strung out any single moment of adultification into harder to distinguish phases. Whatever the cause, there seemed to be no defining moment, and more disappointingly, no special mechanism for coping with the world.
How, then, would I cope with the world in an adult way? What then was the source of that indefinable... maturity that adults seemed to conduct themselves with? It didn't seem to be a particular piece of knowledge.
And then, one day, it hit me. I had been making decisions about the future, and I remember thinking, "Well, I really wish someone else would solve this problem... but that's not going to happen... and I'm not just going let it pass to others... so, ok, its on me." In that moment, I became an adult.
Adulthood carries with it a certitude and fortitude, not generated from any special ability, but rather the resolution that when there is a problem, to choose otherwise is simply not an option. It grants no special ability to cope with responsibility, but simply the willingness to earnestly accept responsibility.
Now, this role as the bottom line is facilitated by an emotional fortitude that boarders on emotional dishonesty. I have found that adults have the amazing ability to lie to themselves and others about the truth of their being. It seems that the healthy adult must recognize the moments others are relying on them and there is no choice but to deal, but also recognize those moments where they can decompress in a safe way and refresh their souls.
Looking back, I see why the attribute of adulthood eluded my investigation. In different situations, and with different people, it is different traits that accomplish acts of adult steadiness. Additionally, any one of these traits could be just as easily be possessed by a child. But the commitment of maturity facilitates the transition from trait to trait, even as particular adult has no idea how they are going to solve the problem at hand. They simply know that to not solve the problem is not an option.
Q and A
Some fundamentalist believers discourage questioning the ways of God. They reason that God's ways are above our ways, and that it is not our place to question, but rather accept and obey.
I take a different stance. I encourage questioning. Generate questions. Foster doubt. Destabilize assumptions. There are a few benefits to questioning.
One, it cuts back on dangerous religious practices. By building in a little skepticism there is a let off valve for the pressure that can otherwise become explosive. Questions have a way of softening the hard edge of faith, and when that hard edge is about to be used in violence a little softening is in order.
Secondly, questioning can deepen faith. A person who has delved into the difficult aspects of their beliefs is more likely to have a sense of ownership about their ideology than someone who has not. Questioning is also something of a self-inoculation to attacks on the faith.
Overall, I more than support questioning God. I endorse it.
But here's the thing...
Questioning God is only half the equation. We are also called to answer God.
You know the types. In fact, you may be one. People who have a truck load of inquiries, ranging from earnest to cynical to snide. They ask, ask, ask, playing the Devil's advocate concerning all faith claims, committed to ever looking, ever challenging.
Consider this: will someone committed to ever looking ever find? Will someone ever challenging ever accept? No. If you are determined to ever seek, even when you find that for which you yearn, you will leave it to continue seeking. If you are determined to challenge, even if you meet your match, you will refuse to accept and continue beyond.
Rather, if you look, look for the sake of finding what is right. If you challenge, challenge for the sake of accepting what is true. Otherwise your quest is doomed to frivolity and empty failure.
Once again, I have no issue with questioning. But when I cast my eyes upward and ask, "My father, why did you bring them suffering?" I had better be ready for when God answers, "My son, so that you could bring them satisfaction."
It is human nature to question the universe. But it is also human nature to serve the universe. If you have the urge to grill your creator, by all means. That is however, only step one. Actually listening for the answer is step two. Step three, transform your life in response to what was revealed to you.
It takes pride to question God. It takes humility to accept the answer. This is one of the fundamental pillars of relating to the divine, and we are called to strive in both endeavors. If you find yourself doing one or the other, it may be time for some for some real Q and A.
I take a different stance. I encourage questioning. Generate questions. Foster doubt. Destabilize assumptions. There are a few benefits to questioning.
One, it cuts back on dangerous religious practices. By building in a little skepticism there is a let off valve for the pressure that can otherwise become explosive. Questions have a way of softening the hard edge of faith, and when that hard edge is about to be used in violence a little softening is in order.
Secondly, questioning can deepen faith. A person who has delved into the difficult aspects of their beliefs is more likely to have a sense of ownership about their ideology than someone who has not. Questioning is also something of a self-inoculation to attacks on the faith.
Overall, I more than support questioning God. I endorse it.
But here's the thing...
Questioning God is only half the equation. We are also called to answer God.
You know the types. In fact, you may be one. People who have a truck load of inquiries, ranging from earnest to cynical to snide. They ask, ask, ask, playing the Devil's advocate concerning all faith claims, committed to ever looking, ever challenging.
Consider this: will someone committed to ever looking ever find? Will someone ever challenging ever accept? No. If you are determined to ever seek, even when you find that for which you yearn, you will leave it to continue seeking. If you are determined to challenge, even if you meet your match, you will refuse to accept and continue beyond.
Rather, if you look, look for the sake of finding what is right. If you challenge, challenge for the sake of accepting what is true. Otherwise your quest is doomed to frivolity and empty failure.
Once again, I have no issue with questioning. But when I cast my eyes upward and ask, "My father, why did you bring them suffering?" I had better be ready for when God answers, "My son, so that you could bring them satisfaction."
It is human nature to question the universe. But it is also human nature to serve the universe. If you have the urge to grill your creator, by all means. That is however, only step one. Actually listening for the answer is step two. Step three, transform your life in response to what was revealed to you.
It takes pride to question God. It takes humility to accept the answer. This is one of the fundamental pillars of relating to the divine, and we are called to strive in both endeavors. If you find yourself doing one or the other, it may be time for some for some real Q and A.
Getting Right Right
One of the pervasive problems with trying to do the right thing in the world is that sometimes you get what is right wrong. Motivated out of a particular conviction, acting in accord with a particular idea, its how we galvanize our moral actions.
But sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes what we think is right is actually not, as we behave to shortsightedly, or pay too much attention to the big picture. In each of us now are warped beliefs about what is good, habits that prevent us from truly reflecting on the nature of the universe, and poorly fostered desires drawing us toward ill.
The fucker of it all is that it is really hard to figure out which ideas, habits, and desires lead us to good, and which lead us to the bad. Its hard to see past shortsightedness, as it were.
But all is not lost. The structure of our creeds and the movement of our intuitions may not always be true, be they can be improved.
A few starting points:
Pray. Pray in a way that makes your ideology vulnerable to love of the universe.
Learn. Learn in a way that makes your assumptions vulnerable to the truth of the universe.
Commune. Commune with those like you, and those apart from you.
Think. Think both tentatively and courageously.
Ask. Ask people you admire, and those you do not. Treat everyone as a teacher.
Feel. Feel around inside your soul for how you really feel.
Pray again.
Learn again.
Commune again.
Think again.
Ask again.
Feel again.
Pray one last time.
If you honestly, and I do mean honestly, move through these different modes of being in a way open to transformation, very often the warped aspects of our belief structures straighten, and our slumbering intuitions awaken. Now, you won't always get it right, but you will be moving in the right direction. Done regularly, you will grapple with ideas as they come into question, and over time you will find yourself slowly moving into a less warped sense of being.
You won't succeed the moment you start...
You won't always get right right...
But praying, learning communing, thinking, asking, and feeling are all done now.
Now.
Now is a fine time to start.
But sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes what we think is right is actually not, as we behave to shortsightedly, or pay too much attention to the big picture. In each of us now are warped beliefs about what is good, habits that prevent us from truly reflecting on the nature of the universe, and poorly fostered desires drawing us toward ill.
The fucker of it all is that it is really hard to figure out which ideas, habits, and desires lead us to good, and which lead us to the bad. Its hard to see past shortsightedness, as it were.
But all is not lost. The structure of our creeds and the movement of our intuitions may not always be true, be they can be improved.
A few starting points:
Pray. Pray in a way that makes your ideology vulnerable to love of the universe.
Learn. Learn in a way that makes your assumptions vulnerable to the truth of the universe.
Commune. Commune with those like you, and those apart from you.
Think. Think both tentatively and courageously.
Ask. Ask people you admire, and those you do not. Treat everyone as a teacher.
Feel. Feel around inside your soul for how you really feel.
Pray again.
Learn again.
Commune again.
Think again.
Ask again.
Feel again.
Pray one last time.
If you honestly, and I do mean honestly, move through these different modes of being in a way open to transformation, very often the warped aspects of our belief structures straighten, and our slumbering intuitions awaken. Now, you won't always get it right, but you will be moving in the right direction. Done regularly, you will grapple with ideas as they come into question, and over time you will find yourself slowly moving into a less warped sense of being.
You won't succeed the moment you start...
You won't always get right right...
But praying, learning communing, thinking, asking, and feeling are all done now.
Now.
Now is a fine time to start.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Unburdened
I am not burdened by morality.
I do not see ethical behavior as an onus.
Rather, my calling is a way of life. It is much about the way I see the world as the way I behave in the world. Certainly there are struggles, as there are in any travel. The moral life calls for us to move toward good, and while that road is long, there are few burdens.
The choice to be good is in many ways actually the casting away of burdens. When I do good I cast away the complexities needed to justify my behavior. I simplify my desires, wanting only what is good. The way is hard because it is long and grueling, and at times the provisions are few. But I accept the length of the journey knowing that much of what I once carried is no longer necessary, and that the rest is carried for me.
I do not see ethical behavior as an onus.
Rather, my calling is a way of life. It is much about the way I see the world as the way I behave in the world. Certainly there are struggles, as there are in any travel. The moral life calls for us to move toward good, and while that road is long, there are few burdens.
The choice to be good is in many ways actually the casting away of burdens. When I do good I cast away the complexities needed to justify my behavior. I simplify my desires, wanting only what is good. The way is hard because it is long and grueling, and at times the provisions are few. But I accept the length of the journey knowing that much of what I once carried is no longer necessary, and that the rest is carried for me.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Revelation
I used to think I had a uniquely clear vision of the spiritual truth of things. I was enamored by my cuteness of my ideas. I also regularly judged people for what I considered the gravest of sins. Shallowness.
I have come to realize I was wrong on all counts.
Many people see spiritual truths, and they aren't all smart. In fact, intellect is only a virtue when it is put in service of God's plan. When it is used to fend off the efficacy of a calling, intellect fails in a mighty way.
Also, my ideas, while cute and often entertaining, are often wrong. Just because they are quaint doesn't make them right.
Finally, shallowness is not the gravest of sins. While I'm not sure what is, I'm certain that intellectual elitism is just as bad (probably worse).
It turns out that the truth is not always complex. Sometimes, though the grace of God we come to know. In fact, just like every other function of our minds, bodies, and souls, knowledge only appears to emanate from our works. In reality knowing is a continued revelation from our divine creator.
I don't need to be brilliant to know the truth. Just humble enough to listen.
I have come to realize I was wrong on all counts.
Many people see spiritual truths, and they aren't all smart. In fact, intellect is only a virtue when it is put in service of God's plan. When it is used to fend off the efficacy of a calling, intellect fails in a mighty way.
Also, my ideas, while cute and often entertaining, are often wrong. Just because they are quaint doesn't make them right.
Finally, shallowness is not the gravest of sins. While I'm not sure what is, I'm certain that intellectual elitism is just as bad (probably worse).
It turns out that the truth is not always complex. Sometimes, though the grace of God we come to know. In fact, just like every other function of our minds, bodies, and souls, knowledge only appears to emanate from our works. In reality knowing is a continued revelation from our divine creator.
I don't need to be brilliant to know the truth. Just humble enough to listen.
Six Months of Simple Living
I am simplifying my life.
Each day, in little and big ways, I am going to offer up the things I don't need to those who need it more.
Get rid of the clutter.
Spend less money.
Save more.
Give more.
God, grant me the strength and the humility I need to answer this call.
Each day, in little and big ways, I am going to offer up the things I don't need to those who need it more.
Get rid of the clutter.
Spend less money.
Save more.
Give more.
God, grant me the strength and the humility I need to answer this call.
Uncomfortable Clarity
Sometimes I wish I didn't know what what was right.
I wish I could live in that cluttered ambiguity of interpretation and self deception.
Even now, I wish there were less overt plans for me in the grand design.
All that being said, a call is a call. You can pretend like its a mood for a time. You can confuse it by interpreting its symbolism for even longer. But eventually, the raw repetitiveness and the return to the basic truth brings it into unquestionable, uncomfortable clarity.
What's left to do? Quit wishing and start praying.
Pray I have the strength to persevere.
Pray for truth always, even when I don't want it.
Pray that whatever the plan, I have the grace to obey even when I don't see the point.
I wish I could live in that cluttered ambiguity of interpretation and self deception.
Even now, I wish there were less overt plans for me in the grand design.
All that being said, a call is a call. You can pretend like its a mood for a time. You can confuse it by interpreting its symbolism for even longer. But eventually, the raw repetitiveness and the return to the basic truth brings it into unquestionable, uncomfortable clarity.
What's left to do? Quit wishing and start praying.
Pray I have the strength to persevere.
Pray for truth always, even when I don't want it.
Pray that whatever the plan, I have the grace to obey even when I don't see the point.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Project Possibilities
Ok, so we are past 25,000. In conversation with a few people (notably K and Mom), we have a few ideas for possible directions for the project. While I plan to continue writing much in the way I am now, it is worth considering a particular literary tack. The idea itself is starting to get pretty solid. What it lacks is any context, rhetorical grace, or rapport gaining mechanisms.
So... a few ideas.
A cross between a modern Poor Richards Almanac and an pacifist version of the Anarchists Cookbook. Entries are a mixture of moral reflections, tips for doing good, and mechanisms of social change.
A series of letters. Playing off of the Screwtape Letters and even a bit of St. Paul. Create a fictive situation and letter writer. Could be fantastical (angelic coorespondence, perhaps), psudo historical, or modern. Thoughts?
Working the reflections into an interveiw series, where I tell the stories of people I think embody the ideals I think so cool.
Weave the ideas into a universally written fiction, much like The Alchemist. Perhaps some kind of story about a heroes transformation from a self focuesed morality toward a world focused morality.
More to come. At this moment, I like the letter thing. Gives me the personal and authoritative I'm looking for.
So... a few ideas.
A cross between a modern Poor Richards Almanac and an pacifist version of the Anarchists Cookbook. Entries are a mixture of moral reflections, tips for doing good, and mechanisms of social change.
A series of letters. Playing off of the Screwtape Letters and even a bit of St. Paul. Create a fictive situation and letter writer. Could be fantastical (angelic coorespondence, perhaps), psudo historical, or modern. Thoughts?
Working the reflections into an interveiw series, where I tell the stories of people I think embody the ideals I think so cool.
Weave the ideas into a universally written fiction, much like The Alchemist. Perhaps some kind of story about a heroes transformation from a self focuesed morality toward a world focused morality.
More to come. At this moment, I like the letter thing. Gives me the personal and authoritative I'm looking for.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Footprints
You will change the world. This cannot be helped. As you move your actions alter the course of events, events that would have transpired differently in your absence. You will leave footprints.
Your influence is a given. The question, then, becomes what kind of footprints you will leave behind.
Footprints, in many ways, are bad. Treading roughly on the surface of our planet has implications in this modern world that never concerned our forefathers. Excessive burning of fossil fuels, irresponsible dumping, careless contamination, and decadent consumption commingle into a kind of footprint violently stomped onto the face of our world.
Similarly, our impact in the human world can be less than admirable. Our attitude and conscientiousness impinges on the people in our lives, be they loved ones or strangers. The metaphor carries pretty well. Are you responsible for your emotional dumping? Do you mindless of your affective contaminants? Fill your soul with vitriol, and you will find your infulence on others tend toward the caustic.
What to do? Reduce your negative impact! Use fewer resources. Rely on more renewable energies. Simplify your needs. Reuse things. Recycle what you must be rid of. Be nice to people. Blow off your stem in constructive ways. Avoid coercion. Foster love.
In fact, if you get good enough, you will start noticing that you still leave footprints, but that your influence has been for the better. Instead of leaving trash, you inspire others to pick up trash. Rather than burdening your fellow humans, you enable them to become great.
Pay attention to your consumption. Tread lightly with soft shoes and dainty steps. But when its comes to doing good... skip rambunctiously and dance with abandon in the clompiset boots you can tie to your feet.
Your influence is a given. The question, then, becomes what kind of footprints you will leave behind.
Footprints, in many ways, are bad. Treading roughly on the surface of our planet has implications in this modern world that never concerned our forefathers. Excessive burning of fossil fuels, irresponsible dumping, careless contamination, and decadent consumption commingle into a kind of footprint violently stomped onto the face of our world.
Similarly, our impact in the human world can be less than admirable. Our attitude and conscientiousness impinges on the people in our lives, be they loved ones or strangers. The metaphor carries pretty well. Are you responsible for your emotional dumping? Do you mindless of your affective contaminants? Fill your soul with vitriol, and you will find your infulence on others tend toward the caustic.
What to do? Reduce your negative impact! Use fewer resources. Rely on more renewable energies. Simplify your needs. Reuse things. Recycle what you must be rid of. Be nice to people. Blow off your stem in constructive ways. Avoid coercion. Foster love.
In fact, if you get good enough, you will start noticing that you still leave footprints, but that your influence has been for the better. Instead of leaving trash, you inspire others to pick up trash. Rather than burdening your fellow humans, you enable them to become great.
Pay attention to your consumption. Tread lightly with soft shoes and dainty steps. But when its comes to doing good... skip rambunctiously and dance with abandon in the clompiset boots you can tie to your feet.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Rationalism and Empiricism
Rationalism is the philosophical notion that claims the most reliable path to knowledge is through reflection. Humans, the rationalist says, have a special faculty that allows them to access the truth of things through contemplation.
Empiricism, on the other hand, claims that knowledge is best attained through use of the senses. Most empiricists see evaluation of the world through systematic observation the road to meaningful and reliable beliefs.
These two ideologies have dominated many discussions concerning knowledge. Rationalists tend to have a metaphysical leaning, while empiricists lean toward the scientific. The discipline of philosophy has rigorously teased out the many and sundry nuances of these positions and the many that surround this discourse. If your interested, I suggest you wade in and get your feet wet.
But for the sake of this conversation, I would like to disentangle these two beautiful methods from the fights they so often face. Seeking the greatest good requires the engagement of both truth finding mechanisms. It goes something like this....
Experience via your senses the world around you.
Reflect on what occurred. Organize your thoughts.
Go out again. See what is the same and what has changed.
Reflect again. Start to develop a sense of what is real. Weigh this against your deeply held intuitions.
Evaluate your sensations based on this inner conclusion. Do they live up to it, or go beyond?
Reconsider, reevaluate.
Knowing what is real, start looking for what is out of place.
Check these against your conscience.
Investigate the mechanisms that cause these events.
Imagine a solution.
Identify the resources that can serve your cause.
Resolve yourself to act.
Attend to the world as you act, and react as it presents new challenges.
---
Both the rationalist and empiricist approach is needed to accomplish moral action. They simply serve different roles, answering their own questions. Different kinds of truth need different kinds of proof. An empiricist who rejects rationalism can collect data, but never evaluate it, as the intellectual tools of science are ultimately rational constructions and processes. Similarly, a rationalist who rejects empiricism can imagine, but can never really comment on the world they lost contact with in their contemplation.
As a moral agent, you must attend to both your senses and your intuition. Your senses are a great indicator of what is real. Your intuition is a great indicator of what is good. Working in tandem, these two intellectual virtues complement each other beautifully.
Empiricism, on the other hand, claims that knowledge is best attained through use of the senses. Most empiricists see evaluation of the world through systematic observation the road to meaningful and reliable beliefs.
These two ideologies have dominated many discussions concerning knowledge. Rationalists tend to have a metaphysical leaning, while empiricists lean toward the scientific. The discipline of philosophy has rigorously teased out the many and sundry nuances of these positions and the many that surround this discourse. If your interested, I suggest you wade in and get your feet wet.
But for the sake of this conversation, I would like to disentangle these two beautiful methods from the fights they so often face. Seeking the greatest good requires the engagement of both truth finding mechanisms. It goes something like this....
Experience via your senses the world around you.
Reflect on what occurred. Organize your thoughts.
Go out again. See what is the same and what has changed.
Reflect again. Start to develop a sense of what is real. Weigh this against your deeply held intuitions.
Evaluate your sensations based on this inner conclusion. Do they live up to it, or go beyond?
Reconsider, reevaluate.
Knowing what is real, start looking for what is out of place.
Check these against your conscience.
Investigate the mechanisms that cause these events.
Imagine a solution.
Identify the resources that can serve your cause.
Resolve yourself to act.
Attend to the world as you act, and react as it presents new challenges.
---
Both the rationalist and empiricist approach is needed to accomplish moral action. They simply serve different roles, answering their own questions. Different kinds of truth need different kinds of proof. An empiricist who rejects rationalism can collect data, but never evaluate it, as the intellectual tools of science are ultimately rational constructions and processes. Similarly, a rationalist who rejects empiricism can imagine, but can never really comment on the world they lost contact with in their contemplation.
As a moral agent, you must attend to both your senses and your intuition. Your senses are a great indicator of what is real. Your intuition is a great indicator of what is good. Working in tandem, these two intellectual virtues complement each other beautifully.
The Seat of Sin
Why do people do wrong?
The simple answer is because they are bad. For one reason or another, they choose immoral activity. Where then does the responsibility lay? On them.
But look a little closer. An astute observer starts seeing environmental trends. It seems social forces have a powerful impact on the way people live. It seems responsibility is a trickier subject in light of sociological factors.
Now, some people choose a strong side on this issue, defending either the idea of personal responsibility or social factors. Truth is, in almost all situations both are playing a role. Sure, there are some cases so heinous and without provocation that it is clearly the sin of the person, and some environments so caustic that it is clearly the sin of the situation. But most situations rest in the realm of both.
This duality of the seat of sin teaches us important things. On the one hand, don't be quick to judge, for you know not the pressures on the person who has fallen. But on the other, do not eliminate the role of the individual in the outcome of their actions. There has always been a struggle between that which comes down upon us and that which flows up out of us.
This dual truth also bifurcates our constructive actions. We must strive to eliminate the systematic, environmental, economic, social, political, cultural and community mechanisms that strain the harmony of goods. But we must also inspire individual people to take responsibility for their actions, bring them into a clarity of being that can get beyond the immoral implications of their surroundings.
The simple answer is because they are bad. For one reason or another, they choose immoral activity. Where then does the responsibility lay? On them.
But look a little closer. An astute observer starts seeing environmental trends. It seems social forces have a powerful impact on the way people live. It seems responsibility is a trickier subject in light of sociological factors.
Now, some people choose a strong side on this issue, defending either the idea of personal responsibility or social factors. Truth is, in almost all situations both are playing a role. Sure, there are some cases so heinous and without provocation that it is clearly the sin of the person, and some environments so caustic that it is clearly the sin of the situation. But most situations rest in the realm of both.
This duality of the seat of sin teaches us important things. On the one hand, don't be quick to judge, for you know not the pressures on the person who has fallen. But on the other, do not eliminate the role of the individual in the outcome of their actions. There has always been a struggle between that which comes down upon us and that which flows up out of us.
This dual truth also bifurcates our constructive actions. We must strive to eliminate the systematic, environmental, economic, social, political, cultural and community mechanisms that strain the harmony of goods. But we must also inspire individual people to take responsibility for their actions, bring them into a clarity of being that can get beyond the immoral implications of their surroundings.
The Unstoppable Truth
The great teacher Socrates believed that if someone knew right from wrong, there would be no way they would choose the wrong path. Ignorance was the cause of immoral action. His argument goes something like this: 1.) each person is one thing, 2.) to know goodness is to be aligned one way, 3.) to do bad is to be aligned another way, 4.) one thing cannot be aligned two ways, therefore people cannot know good and do bad.
This position has been blasted as being horribly shortsighted concerning human nature. Humans are often of two minds, feeling one way for some reasons and feeling another way for others. It seems that his view rejects temptations, moral confusion, and uncertainty. Most people reject the first premise.
While I would agree to the complexities of people, I think Socrates may still have been on to something. He believed that knowing the truth would prevent immoral behavior. Is it possible that this statement was true for him? Lets look a little closer.
Socrates was a highly contemplative man, who was known for entering fugue states where he reflected deeply. This was not a man with a casual approach toward knowledge. Also, he claimed to have a voice that would speak to him with clarity. He believed this voice to be external to himself, and of supernatural origin. As a thinker, he had a very rigorous standard for knowledge, claiming that true knowledge had to be right and non accidental, with the idea in intimate relation with the truth in the world.
One possibility is that Socrates is a more powerful thinker than we who reject his notion. Is it not possible that through rigorous contemplation he effectively welded his motivations, aesthetics, and moralities into a immovable piece. It may be true of such a thinker that they can be of only one mind.
I also think that his daemon, the voice that spoke to him, may have played a valuable role. Such powerful divine experiences have a way of unifying the spirit of the one who witnesses them. Perhaps he was permeated by an unquestionable truth leading to an undeniable set of actions. A truth more powerful than our petty human temptations and confusions.
Under this construction there is a higher form of knowing, a more intimate orientation toward the truth. Those defending the Socratic "knowledge leads to goodness" argument would retort to the "splintered nature of the person" counterpoint and say, "The one who is splintered clearly doesn't truly know." This is a more robust knowing than is often discussed in purely academic traditions. It is not, however, a stranger to the student of theology.
This morality motivating knowledge is basically a kind of theological awareness, a fusion of head and heart knowledge that changes the way the thinker experiences the world. Some truths, when fully grasped, are nothing short of transformative. These unstoppable truths are huge ideas, moving glacierally through consciousness, shaping swaths of behavior and ideologies in their wake.
And yes, they are likely to be supernatural mental experiences. Moments where the dross of your own wondering is impossibly purified into a artifact of otherly wisdom. Moments where the branches of your ancient and deeply rooted assumptions snap under the cluttered mass of ivy ideologies, and a beam of true light cuts through your green and stifled dimness and touches the floor of your mind.
Even if this has never happened to you all at once, it most likely has happened by slow growings. Look into the eyes of your most beloved, the one you know the best and strive to know even better, and tell me that true knowing doesn't motivate moral action.
As Socrates would have it, it is when we loose sight of the truth that we do ill. If this is indeed the case, strive to know the world, its people, and all things as well as you can. See them as thought they were illuminated by the light of their own good, and be open to the transformation that is likely to follow exposing yourself to the truth.
This position has been blasted as being horribly shortsighted concerning human nature. Humans are often of two minds, feeling one way for some reasons and feeling another way for others. It seems that his view rejects temptations, moral confusion, and uncertainty. Most people reject the first premise.
While I would agree to the complexities of people, I think Socrates may still have been on to something. He believed that knowing the truth would prevent immoral behavior. Is it possible that this statement was true for him? Lets look a little closer.
Socrates was a highly contemplative man, who was known for entering fugue states where he reflected deeply. This was not a man with a casual approach toward knowledge. Also, he claimed to have a voice that would speak to him with clarity. He believed this voice to be external to himself, and of supernatural origin. As a thinker, he had a very rigorous standard for knowledge, claiming that true knowledge had to be right and non accidental, with the idea in intimate relation with the truth in the world.
One possibility is that Socrates is a more powerful thinker than we who reject his notion. Is it not possible that through rigorous contemplation he effectively welded his motivations, aesthetics, and moralities into a immovable piece. It may be true of such a thinker that they can be of only one mind.
I also think that his daemon, the voice that spoke to him, may have played a valuable role. Such powerful divine experiences have a way of unifying the spirit of the one who witnesses them. Perhaps he was permeated by an unquestionable truth leading to an undeniable set of actions. A truth more powerful than our petty human temptations and confusions.
Under this construction there is a higher form of knowing, a more intimate orientation toward the truth. Those defending the Socratic "knowledge leads to goodness" argument would retort to the "splintered nature of the person" counterpoint and say, "The one who is splintered clearly doesn't truly know." This is a more robust knowing than is often discussed in purely academic traditions. It is not, however, a stranger to the student of theology.
This morality motivating knowledge is basically a kind of theological awareness, a fusion of head and heart knowledge that changes the way the thinker experiences the world. Some truths, when fully grasped, are nothing short of transformative. These unstoppable truths are huge ideas, moving glacierally through consciousness, shaping swaths of behavior and ideologies in their wake.
And yes, they are likely to be supernatural mental experiences. Moments where the dross of your own wondering is impossibly purified into a artifact of otherly wisdom. Moments where the branches of your ancient and deeply rooted assumptions snap under the cluttered mass of ivy ideologies, and a beam of true light cuts through your green and stifled dimness and touches the floor of your mind.
Even if this has never happened to you all at once, it most likely has happened by slow growings. Look into the eyes of your most beloved, the one you know the best and strive to know even better, and tell me that true knowing doesn't motivate moral action.
As Socrates would have it, it is when we loose sight of the truth that we do ill. If this is indeed the case, strive to know the world, its people, and all things as well as you can. See them as thought they were illuminated by the light of their own good, and be open to the transformation that is likely to follow exposing yourself to the truth.
Day 78
Alrighty.
Been at this for about two and a half months. Pulled down a lot of work in August, averaging one a day, fewer in September, up a bit now in October. In 78 days there have been 57 posts, ranging from a paragraph to a few pages in length.
Just backed up the writing on a word document... and was a bit surprised to find that it totals 60 pages, nearly 25,000 words. The formatting is a bit strange, single spaced but with bits of the blog stuck between entries. In addition, the writing style is more paragraph broken than a usual text. It ends up being about 80 pages in a more traditional format. If I wrote at this pace till next August, that would be 100,000 words... 320 pages.
Yikes.
We may be getting somewhere.
Been at this for about two and a half months. Pulled down a lot of work in August, averaging one a day, fewer in September, up a bit now in October. In 78 days there have been 57 posts, ranging from a paragraph to a few pages in length.
Just backed up the writing on a word document... and was a bit surprised to find that it totals 60 pages, nearly 25,000 words. The formatting is a bit strange, single spaced but with bits of the blog stuck between entries. In addition, the writing style is more paragraph broken than a usual text. It ends up being about 80 pages in a more traditional format. If I wrote at this pace till next August, that would be 100,000 words... 320 pages.
Yikes.
We may be getting somewhere.
Sacrifice
There are things in the world that are more important than me. There are things more important than you.
Get this.
Get this into your head.
Without this one, the rest of this crap won't make any sense. Your thoughts, while cute and perhaps profound, are whips in the face of the suffering of the starving. Your amusement, while charming and at times worthy, is a shallow pursuit when compared to your sacred birthrights. Your comfort, while warm and ultimately beautiful, pales when compared to the good that you are capable of unleashing in the world.
It all boils down to sacrifice. The world is not perfect yet. Perfectly journeying toward perfection, maybe, but not yet. When all is set right, all goods will be in perfect alignment, and the attainment of all will be but one step away. But not yet.
Face it. You are not the most important thing in world, you aren't even the most important thing in your life. Look around. Your friends, family, children, the children of others... We can amplify voices long unheard, fight for rights long unhad, build things of lasting truth and beauty.
Fuck, lets not sugar coat it with poetry either. There are things worth dying for... causes that will ask from you the ultimate price. Will you pretend you are the centerpiece of your life, and hesitate to lay yourself down for a friend? Will your lover and children go unprotected from the slings of the world?
Diminish. Don't think less of yourself. Think more of that which surrounds you. You don't need to hate yourself to serve. Don't give yourself heaps of gold stars, either, but don't waste your breath with self pity. Rather, fill your lungs with songs of the beauty of the people and moments that make your life worth living. You are a tiny moment in time. That only makes you insignificant if you cling to yourself. A speck of matter and movement, trying to hand itself satisfaction, pathetically struggling for the prestige of not being tossed about by the mighty torrent of all creation.
Give it up. Give up your quest to making yourself worthy. Cling instead to the things of worth around you. Hand them satisfaction. Struggle to keep their wellbeing afloat that endless flood.
May the blood in my veins water your fields and my tears season your food. And when my body has failed, till it into the soil so life may spring from me in the end.
Serve, even unto your death. It's not something we talk about much these days. Sacrifice, it seems, is a fruit just a bit too bitter. Be reminded. It is a fruit. There are beautiful glories in moments of brokenness. The realization that your works have contributed for the good. The peace of knowing that nothing else could have been done.
But best of all... best of all has got to be the love. I've never felt more love than in those moments of sacrifice. You see in perfect clarity the beauty of the thing you exalted with your service, and an unbreakable spiritual bond wells up between you. Sure it takes compassion and love to give, but it is only in giving that our eyes see mercifully by the light of love.
What now? Start looking for the world about you that dwarfs your significance, and start identifying in yourself the inseparable and necessary tools hidden within you by a brilliant creator. Let them out! Foster your spirit and give. Live out the sweaty, teary, and bloody life that lies ahead of those who sacrifice and serve.
It will be hardest thing you ever do. And yet, once you get started, you might just find that seeking your easy life while pretending of your great importance was much more taxing by far.
Get this.
Get this into your head.
Without this one, the rest of this crap won't make any sense. Your thoughts, while cute and perhaps profound, are whips in the face of the suffering of the starving. Your amusement, while charming and at times worthy, is a shallow pursuit when compared to your sacred birthrights. Your comfort, while warm and ultimately beautiful, pales when compared to the good that you are capable of unleashing in the world.
It all boils down to sacrifice. The world is not perfect yet. Perfectly journeying toward perfection, maybe, but not yet. When all is set right, all goods will be in perfect alignment, and the attainment of all will be but one step away. But not yet.
Face it. You are not the most important thing in world, you aren't even the most important thing in your life. Look around. Your friends, family, children, the children of others... We can amplify voices long unheard, fight for rights long unhad, build things of lasting truth and beauty.
Fuck, lets not sugar coat it with poetry either. There are things worth dying for... causes that will ask from you the ultimate price. Will you pretend you are the centerpiece of your life, and hesitate to lay yourself down for a friend? Will your lover and children go unprotected from the slings of the world?
Diminish. Don't think less of yourself. Think more of that which surrounds you. You don't need to hate yourself to serve. Don't give yourself heaps of gold stars, either, but don't waste your breath with self pity. Rather, fill your lungs with songs of the beauty of the people and moments that make your life worth living. You are a tiny moment in time. That only makes you insignificant if you cling to yourself. A speck of matter and movement, trying to hand itself satisfaction, pathetically struggling for the prestige of not being tossed about by the mighty torrent of all creation.
Give it up. Give up your quest to making yourself worthy. Cling instead to the things of worth around you. Hand them satisfaction. Struggle to keep their wellbeing afloat that endless flood.
May the blood in my veins water your fields and my tears season your food. And when my body has failed, till it into the soil so life may spring from me in the end.
Serve, even unto your death. It's not something we talk about much these days. Sacrifice, it seems, is a fruit just a bit too bitter. Be reminded. It is a fruit. There are beautiful glories in moments of brokenness. The realization that your works have contributed for the good. The peace of knowing that nothing else could have been done.
But best of all... best of all has got to be the love. I've never felt more love than in those moments of sacrifice. You see in perfect clarity the beauty of the thing you exalted with your service, and an unbreakable spiritual bond wells up between you. Sure it takes compassion and love to give, but it is only in giving that our eyes see mercifully by the light of love.
What now? Start looking for the world about you that dwarfs your significance, and start identifying in yourself the inseparable and necessary tools hidden within you by a brilliant creator. Let them out! Foster your spirit and give. Live out the sweaty, teary, and bloody life that lies ahead of those who sacrifice and serve.
It will be hardest thing you ever do. And yet, once you get started, you might just find that seeking your easy life while pretending of your great importance was much more taxing by far.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Heavenly Now
I try not to worry much about heaven.
Its not that I don't think it exists. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. It's more that it doesn't really matter one way or the other.
See, if it doesn't, I have nothing to worry about. All the good I've ever done I was immediately rewarded in gratitude and often with showings of universal coincidences. So, if there is no eternal reward, I won't be bummed or feel cheated. I already got more than I could have ever asked for the good that I did hoping for nothing in return.
And if it does... well, there is still not much call in fretting about it. Engaging in altruism for the sake of perfect reward never set well with me.
Here's the thing. The nature of the afterlife is unknown to me. What I do know, on the other hand, is the infinity that lurks within every moment of now. Hiding beneath every instant, sometimes deeply, sometimes just below the surface, is the eternity of being, the endless ecstatic truth that roars in every direction unceasingly. This infinity may not be endless historically speaking, but it does go on forever in space, and feels, at least to me, to be a perfectly representative pause of creation, making it at least timeless in its uniqueness.
I have lived only a handful of such moments, but I've lived by far enough of them to count myself among the very lucky and make me feel like I have lived forever. At least, lived in a moment that went on forever. It's not exactly an afterlife, no. Its something else. Its a nowlife. Instead of looking forward, its more a matter of inward and outward.
Don't get me wrong. I'll serve the coming kingdom as best I can. I just choose to do it now.
Its not that I don't think it exists. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. It's more that it doesn't really matter one way or the other.
See, if it doesn't, I have nothing to worry about. All the good I've ever done I was immediately rewarded in gratitude and often with showings of universal coincidences. So, if there is no eternal reward, I won't be bummed or feel cheated. I already got more than I could have ever asked for the good that I did hoping for nothing in return.
And if it does... well, there is still not much call in fretting about it. Engaging in altruism for the sake of perfect reward never set well with me.
Here's the thing. The nature of the afterlife is unknown to me. What I do know, on the other hand, is the infinity that lurks within every moment of now. Hiding beneath every instant, sometimes deeply, sometimes just below the surface, is the eternity of being, the endless ecstatic truth that roars in every direction unceasingly. This infinity may not be endless historically speaking, but it does go on forever in space, and feels, at least to me, to be a perfectly representative pause of creation, making it at least timeless in its uniqueness.
I have lived only a handful of such moments, but I've lived by far enough of them to count myself among the very lucky and make me feel like I have lived forever. At least, lived in a moment that went on forever. It's not exactly an afterlife, no. Its something else. Its a nowlife. Instead of looking forward, its more a matter of inward and outward.
Don't get me wrong. I'll serve the coming kingdom as best I can. I just choose to do it now.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Pragmatism and Hidden Value
Philosophically speaking, don't trust someone claiming to be a pragmatist. They aren't one.
Almost every student of philosophy is lured by the appeal of a pragmatic ideology. Throw away having to defend one idea or another, and instead rely on what works. Just believe what lets you do what works.
But here's the catch. What works is relative. What is effective and efficient is culturally and situationally bound. Check out any culture, and you find underlying values that help shape the manifestation of and assign meaning to the behaviors of the culture's people. So what works, while it sounds prima facia to be a simple application of common sense, is actually an expression of deeply seated normative assumptions.
Said another way, pragmatists still have value directing their ideology. They just hid it behind their culture.
Almost every student of philosophy is lured by the appeal of a pragmatic ideology. Throw away having to defend one idea or another, and instead rely on what works. Just believe what lets you do what works.
But here's the catch. What works is relative. What is effective and efficient is culturally and situationally bound. Check out any culture, and you find underlying values that help shape the manifestation of and assign meaning to the behaviors of the culture's people. So what works, while it sounds prima facia to be a simple application of common sense, is actually an expression of deeply seated normative assumptions.
Said another way, pragmatists still have value directing their ideology. They just hid it behind their culture.
Proof?
Many skeptics want proof in the existence of God. What is the fuss, they ask, if no certainty can be had? They ever seek the that undeniable confidence in divine reality.
But do they really want it? Really? Proof? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Honestly, proof scares me a little. I would have to change my whole life in a permanent and drastic fashion.
Sometimes I wonder if the endless search for proof isn't actually the reverse, a confident assertion of uncertainty. Deities with uncertain existences can be kept at arms length.
But do they really want it? Really? Proof? Beyond a shadow of a doubt?
Honestly, proof scares me a little. I would have to change my whole life in a permanent and drastic fashion.
Sometimes I wonder if the endless search for proof isn't actually the reverse, a confident assertion of uncertainty. Deities with uncertain existences can be kept at arms length.
The Value of Virtue
When I sacrifice, I do for another at cost to myself.
But trust me, I get plenty in return.
When I sacrifice, I am acutely aware of the things I have left to be grateful for.
The pain is ordered by purpose, which fills me with satisfaction, not suffering.
The intentionality sharpens my awareness to the situation at hand.
The act reifies my priorities, making my love for the thing easier to experience.
Virtue, it seems, is its own reward.
But trust me, I get plenty in return.
When I sacrifice, I am acutely aware of the things I have left to be grateful for.
The pain is ordered by purpose, which fills me with satisfaction, not suffering.
The intentionality sharpens my awareness to the situation at hand.
The act reifies my priorities, making my love for the thing easier to experience.
Virtue, it seems, is its own reward.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Whatever works for you...
It is a very fashionable thing to view religion as beyond any evaluation, with the causal phrase, "Whatever works for you..."
Now, I would like to make it clear that I am a staunch advocate of openness, and that those people who outwardly judge or even subtly judge should move on to more productive and loving activities. But there are two great dangers to dismissing another religion so casually.
The first is that you may legitimize evil behavior! Just because an attitude of violence moves out of religious grounds does not make it justified. Of course, the morality question gets very difficult when dealing across faiths. But even still, an emotional barometer usually gives a basic sense of a warped value system.
But perhaps more dangerous than the admission of evil is the apathy toward good. "Whatever works for you..." can be rephrased, "Go see God wherever you can." Here's the thing. If they really do see God there, and God really happens to be there, then why can't you?
It is the great pleasure of my life to seek God always. Why would I systematically write off many divine experiences by blithely attributing them to someone else's world? Shouldn't I strive to see God there as well?
Look for the presence of God in all things whole, and see the moving power of God's plan in all things broken.
Now, I would like to make it clear that I am a staunch advocate of openness, and that those people who outwardly judge or even subtly judge should move on to more productive and loving activities. But there are two great dangers to dismissing another religion so casually.
The first is that you may legitimize evil behavior! Just because an attitude of violence moves out of religious grounds does not make it justified. Of course, the morality question gets very difficult when dealing across faiths. But even still, an emotional barometer usually gives a basic sense of a warped value system.
But perhaps more dangerous than the admission of evil is the apathy toward good. "Whatever works for you..." can be rephrased, "Go see God wherever you can." Here's the thing. If they really do see God there, and God really happens to be there, then why can't you?
It is the great pleasure of my life to seek God always. Why would I systematically write off many divine experiences by blithely attributing them to someone else's world? Shouldn't I strive to see God there as well?
Look for the presence of God in all things whole, and see the moving power of God's plan in all things broken.
Do unto others...
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Works, but it fails when you realize that different people need different things. You might want people to be blunt with you, but that may be the worst way of relating to certain kinds of folks.
So, perhaps a reversal.
Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.
Better. Admits to the failing of a self focused metric. Only problem here is that some people foster quite a bit of ill will toward themselves, so they aren't always the most reliable stewards of their wellbeing.
It seems a corollary is in order for those who diminish their own significance.
Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.
Pretty good, as many who harm themselves desire good treatment from others. It of course, only works if you want people to treat you well. Those who seek abuse would be led astray.
Ahhh! Its kinda like moral chaos around here. My suggestion?
Do. Do as though there was no difference in value between yourself, others, and divine work that created it all.
Works, but it fails when you realize that different people need different things. You might want people to be blunt with you, but that may be the worst way of relating to certain kinds of folks.
So, perhaps a reversal.
Do unto others as they would have done unto themselves.
Better. Admits to the failing of a self focused metric. Only problem here is that some people foster quite a bit of ill will toward themselves, so they aren't always the most reliable stewards of their wellbeing.
It seems a corollary is in order for those who diminish their own significance.
Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.
Pretty good, as many who harm themselves desire good treatment from others. It of course, only works if you want people to treat you well. Those who seek abuse would be led astray.
Ahhh! Its kinda like moral chaos around here. My suggestion?
Do. Do as though there was no difference in value between yourself, others, and divine work that created it all.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Who paid for my shirt?
Well, I did, I suppose. That's what makes it mine.
Maybe it was a present. That's right. Got this shirt at Christmas. So, yeah, the person who gave it to me paid for it.
How much did it cost? Five bucks.
Now, as a person who makes clothing from time to time, you could never pay me five bucks to make a shirt. Heck, that's basically what the materials cost plus twenty three cents. Go try it yourself. You'll get poked, frustrated, and screw up enough times to make it way more than five dollars worth of effort (way more than twenty three cents worth, especially!). Even if you learn a few tricks to streamline the process, you usually end up under some kind of time crunch that guarantees the stress level of the project.
So, how did I get it for five bucks, anyway?
Easy. Someone got paid twenty three cents to make it. Chances are the company that pays its workers in such a way isn't going to splurge on AC or heath care. If it's cheaper than you would have been willing to do it for... it was either 1.) made by a machine, 2.) made by a person who loves what they do, or 3.) made by someone who is forced into a lawful slavery by situations being exploited by companies striving to lower production spending by externalizing costs.
So, who really paid for my shirt? It may have cost me $5, but it, along with its brethren, cost someone their health, rights, and human dignity.
I'm hesitant to even call it mine.
Maybe it was a present. That's right. Got this shirt at Christmas. So, yeah, the person who gave it to me paid for it.
How much did it cost? Five bucks.
Now, as a person who makes clothing from time to time, you could never pay me five bucks to make a shirt. Heck, that's basically what the materials cost plus twenty three cents. Go try it yourself. You'll get poked, frustrated, and screw up enough times to make it way more than five dollars worth of effort (way more than twenty three cents worth, especially!). Even if you learn a few tricks to streamline the process, you usually end up under some kind of time crunch that guarantees the stress level of the project.
So, how did I get it for five bucks, anyway?
Easy. Someone got paid twenty three cents to make it. Chances are the company that pays its workers in such a way isn't going to splurge on AC or heath care. If it's cheaper than you would have been willing to do it for... it was either 1.) made by a machine, 2.) made by a person who loves what they do, or 3.) made by someone who is forced into a lawful slavery by situations being exploited by companies striving to lower production spending by externalizing costs.
So, who really paid for my shirt? It may have cost me $5, but it, along with its brethren, cost someone their health, rights, and human dignity.
I'm hesitant to even call it mine.
10% God's
Christ told a lot of stories. He wove a lot of metaphors. Seeds on the soil. Prodigal sons. Vinyards, lambs, fish, lamps, treasures, camels. Jesus was always good for a story.
But when he said give away all you have and follow me, was that a metaphor? Was it his way of saying you should give up everything in your heart, and only love him? Was it a story about the man who gave up everything and followed him... teaching some other lesson?
I suspect not. He said it to a real person. A rich guy, who happened to be holy and good, who only had one last lesson to learn. Give it up. Follow.
Give it all up? I struggle with 10%! I don't know where the concept of 10% came from... but I've never managed to give away 10% of all I have. Sure, 10% of my time. That's kind of a tall order... 2.4 hours a day in service of others... but do-able. But I've never managed to make that shift to money and things.
And even if I succeed, what then? Can I then rest, knowing I've gone above and beyond? Paid my moral debt? Shouldn't what I give be based on, I don't know, what the world needs? Not some 10% rule? Hell, is 10% enough?
How much of what is mine mine? 90%? How much do I belong to God and the people around me? 10%? Perhaps I should give 90%, and keep 10% for myself. That sounds a lot more reflective of the reality of the situation. My success is about .5% my effort, with the other 99.5% being shared between the support of the people in my life, the systems in place within society, and the gifts given to me by the universe. Don't know if I can swing living on .5%. Not a bad goal, though.
Maybe I'll start with living on 10%.
But when he said give away all you have and follow me, was that a metaphor? Was it his way of saying you should give up everything in your heart, and only love him? Was it a story about the man who gave up everything and followed him... teaching some other lesson?
I suspect not. He said it to a real person. A rich guy, who happened to be holy and good, who only had one last lesson to learn. Give it up. Follow.
Give it all up? I struggle with 10%! I don't know where the concept of 10% came from... but I've never managed to give away 10% of all I have. Sure, 10% of my time. That's kind of a tall order... 2.4 hours a day in service of others... but do-able. But I've never managed to make that shift to money and things.
And even if I succeed, what then? Can I then rest, knowing I've gone above and beyond? Paid my moral debt? Shouldn't what I give be based on, I don't know, what the world needs? Not some 10% rule? Hell, is 10% enough?
How much of what is mine mine? 90%? How much do I belong to God and the people around me? 10%? Perhaps I should give 90%, and keep 10% for myself. That sounds a lot more reflective of the reality of the situation. My success is about .5% my effort, with the other 99.5% being shared between the support of the people in my life, the systems in place within society, and the gifts given to me by the universe. Don't know if I can swing living on .5%. Not a bad goal, though.
Maybe I'll start with living on 10%.
Delusions of Insignificance
Sometimes when I think about all the good I can do, I feel like I'm having delusions of grander. Me, save the world? Me, give up my things and serve the poor? Me?
When I talk to other people about such things, I get varied responses. Some think its neat that I believe in a better world. Some think I'm a loony. I've had people say, "I don't think that's what healthy people would do."
Now, there is a very fair point here. If I am striving to be the greatest, or do the greatest, beyond that of my fellow humans... well, then I do have a problem. If I want to save the world alone, or even as a member of a small group, then I do have a problem. Doing great things... to become great... that's arrogance.
But what if I want to become just enough to do all the greatness I can? What if I do everything I can to save the world, and work with everyone else in the world to get there? Is it arrogance to believe that I have a tiny part to play, and that I devote everything that I am to playing it as well as I can?
That we each have an irreplaceable role in the flourishing of the world is only a delusion if it isn't true. In fact, if it's true that we all have a role to play in the betterment of all, then there is another delusion going on here.
The delusion of insignificance. I believe that the truth if it its this: each of us is here to perform a lifetime of tiny miracles, all culminating as the greatest possible act of the greatest possible good. I believe that those who see themselves as powerless, pointless, or made to serve themselves are the ones with the delusion. Sometimes it flows from selfishness, laziness, cynicism and greed. Other times this delusion created for us by those who fill us with doubt, insecurity, and fear. Don't look down on those who live in the phantasm of purposelessness. It may not be any failing of their own that they see the world in such a way. (Now, it may be their failing also. Pay close attention.) But whatever the cause, rather than judge, do your best to foster the reality of the situation.
We are here to do great good.
When I talk to other people about such things, I get varied responses. Some think its neat that I believe in a better world. Some think I'm a loony. I've had people say, "I don't think that's what healthy people would do."
Now, there is a very fair point here. If I am striving to be the greatest, or do the greatest, beyond that of my fellow humans... well, then I do have a problem. If I want to save the world alone, or even as a member of a small group, then I do have a problem. Doing great things... to become great... that's arrogance.
But what if I want to become just enough to do all the greatness I can? What if I do everything I can to save the world, and work with everyone else in the world to get there? Is it arrogance to believe that I have a tiny part to play, and that I devote everything that I am to playing it as well as I can?
That we each have an irreplaceable role in the flourishing of the world is only a delusion if it isn't true. In fact, if it's true that we all have a role to play in the betterment of all, then there is another delusion going on here.
The delusion of insignificance. I believe that the truth if it its this: each of us is here to perform a lifetime of tiny miracles, all culminating as the greatest possible act of the greatest possible good. I believe that those who see themselves as powerless, pointless, or made to serve themselves are the ones with the delusion. Sometimes it flows from selfishness, laziness, cynicism and greed. Other times this delusion created for us by those who fill us with doubt, insecurity, and fear. Don't look down on those who live in the phantasm of purposelessness. It may not be any failing of their own that they see the world in such a way. (Now, it may be their failing also. Pay close attention.) But whatever the cause, rather than judge, do your best to foster the reality of the situation.
We are here to do great good.
Systems and Abstraction
Systems are useful. They organize and streamline human efforts. With good systems, impossibly large tasks can be accomplished.
Moral pursuits are no exception. Organizing the world in a more moral way is a noble and powerful pursuit. We want our acts of service to be effective, so efficiency is no enemy to goodness.
But beware. Systems also abstract the elements of the system from one another. They isolate on side from the other, using channels and intermediaries to achieve connection. While this can have a streamlining effect, it can also distance people from each other in dangerous ways.
Give money to organizations that serve the poor. But also, go down and ask a poor person what they need, and then make it or buy it for them.
Vote for bills that support education. But also, tutor some kids in subjects they don't understand.
Never loose sight of the fact that we are called to see the world with compassion, not strategy. Don't loose sight of the power of merciful actions. We are called to have the hands of the divine. It is great to support good.
You should also go into the actual world and do some, too.
Moral pursuits are no exception. Organizing the world in a more moral way is a noble and powerful pursuit. We want our acts of service to be effective, so efficiency is no enemy to goodness.
But beware. Systems also abstract the elements of the system from one another. They isolate on side from the other, using channels and intermediaries to achieve connection. While this can have a streamlining effect, it can also distance people from each other in dangerous ways.
Give money to organizations that serve the poor. But also, go down and ask a poor person what they need, and then make it or buy it for them.
Vote for bills that support education. But also, tutor some kids in subjects they don't understand.
Never loose sight of the fact that we are called to see the world with compassion, not strategy. Don't loose sight of the power of merciful actions. We are called to have the hands of the divine. It is great to support good.
You should also go into the actual world and do some, too.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Deserving Love
Does anyone deserve unconditional love?
By most standards, a decent person deserves to be treated decently. Through right action, we reason, the decent person earns the right, attains the merit, of being treated decently in return. This is basic reciprocity, a major and virtuous building block of civilization. (Sad to say, not all of societal cornerstones are so virtuous. Most societies I know of also have a foundation in oppression and exploitation of marginalized groups. Anyway.)
Reciprocity. We behave in a particular way in good faith that we will be treated reciprocally. When answering the worth question, the "Do they deserve it?" question, the answer it very simply, "Did they do it first?" Worthy of respect? If you are respectful. Worthy of a fair shot? If you are fair, also. Should I be violent to you? Only if you are violent to me. By our actions we earn and loose civil consideration.
But what about love? More to the point, what about unconditional, overwhelming, unstoppable love, the kind that moves beyond life and death, time and space, self and other? Following the rule of reciprocity, the answer is simple. If someone is capable of loving unconditionally, they should be loved unconditionally. Wait. What?
If I love someone unconditionally only as long as he or she loves me unconditionally... what happens if he or she stops? I... stop? That sounds like my love is quite conditional, as if it hinges on the ability of the other to love me too.
It would seem that unconditional love breaks the rule of reciprocity. Its unconditional, meaning that there is no condition that would prevent it, no strings attached, no backdoor clauses. In essence, its not the sort of thing that can be earned, because it cannot be lost.
Put another way, we don't deserve to be loved unconditionally because it is a perfect gift to an imperfect person. That is of course, the reason the unconditional part got added. Its precisely because people mess up from time to time that the an unconditional love is so meaningful.
So, that's settled. No, we don't deserve it, and neither do the people in our lives deserve it from us.
But does that mean we shouldn't do it? Should we strive to love without ceasing our undeserving neighbor? Should we accept their unstoppable love as it cares for our undeserving selves?
We are moving a bit out of step with many interpersonal ethical standards, which tend to determine the treatment of others by assigning merit. The contemplation of the greatest good, on the other hand, asks, "What is the right state of the universe?" This question is a bit different than deserving.
Is it my right state to be loved? I should say so! Don't know about you (though I have a few guesses), but my life goes quite a bit better when I am loved. Particularly the hard times. Hard times with love are actually strangely satisfying. And consider the inverse. Good times with no love? Hardly good times at all!
Is it my right state to love? Absolutely! Work done in love is suffused with a powerful spirit, an undefinable quality, a fifth element. My joy is deepened by love, and my pain is purposed by love. Through love I learn to celebrate the windfalls of others. Through love I learn to scorn their woes. My vision of creation, and my subsequent actions therein... all more real through love.
So do others deserve my love? No. But should I strive to love them no matter what? Yes! Same question, just backwards: Do I deserve the love of others? No. Should I let them love me? Yes!
We were born to be love and be loved. It was so decreed in the moment the universe was conceived. It is our destiny, our most sacred priesthood.
By most standards, a decent person deserves to be treated decently. Through right action, we reason, the decent person earns the right, attains the merit, of being treated decently in return. This is basic reciprocity, a major and virtuous building block of civilization. (Sad to say, not all of societal cornerstones are so virtuous. Most societies I know of also have a foundation in oppression and exploitation of marginalized groups. Anyway.)
Reciprocity. We behave in a particular way in good faith that we will be treated reciprocally. When answering the worth question, the "Do they deserve it?" question, the answer it very simply, "Did they do it first?" Worthy of respect? If you are respectful. Worthy of a fair shot? If you are fair, also. Should I be violent to you? Only if you are violent to me. By our actions we earn and loose civil consideration.
But what about love? More to the point, what about unconditional, overwhelming, unstoppable love, the kind that moves beyond life and death, time and space, self and other? Following the rule of reciprocity, the answer is simple. If someone is capable of loving unconditionally, they should be loved unconditionally. Wait. What?
If I love someone unconditionally only as long as he or she loves me unconditionally... what happens if he or she stops? I... stop? That sounds like my love is quite conditional, as if it hinges on the ability of the other to love me too.
It would seem that unconditional love breaks the rule of reciprocity. Its unconditional, meaning that there is no condition that would prevent it, no strings attached, no backdoor clauses. In essence, its not the sort of thing that can be earned, because it cannot be lost.
Put another way, we don't deserve to be loved unconditionally because it is a perfect gift to an imperfect person. That is of course, the reason the unconditional part got added. Its precisely because people mess up from time to time that the an unconditional love is so meaningful.
So, that's settled. No, we don't deserve it, and neither do the people in our lives deserve it from us.
But does that mean we shouldn't do it? Should we strive to love without ceasing our undeserving neighbor? Should we accept their unstoppable love as it cares for our undeserving selves?
We are moving a bit out of step with many interpersonal ethical standards, which tend to determine the treatment of others by assigning merit. The contemplation of the greatest good, on the other hand, asks, "What is the right state of the universe?" This question is a bit different than deserving.
Is it my right state to be loved? I should say so! Don't know about you (though I have a few guesses), but my life goes quite a bit better when I am loved. Particularly the hard times. Hard times with love are actually strangely satisfying. And consider the inverse. Good times with no love? Hardly good times at all!
Is it my right state to love? Absolutely! Work done in love is suffused with a powerful spirit, an undefinable quality, a fifth element. My joy is deepened by love, and my pain is purposed by love. Through love I learn to celebrate the windfalls of others. Through love I learn to scorn their woes. My vision of creation, and my subsequent actions therein... all more real through love.
So do others deserve my love? No. But should I strive to love them no matter what? Yes! Same question, just backwards: Do I deserve the love of others? No. Should I let them love me? Yes!
We were born to be love and be loved. It was so decreed in the moment the universe was conceived. It is our destiny, our most sacred priesthood.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Power of Paradox
Paradox.
The tension created by two things that cannot both possibly be true. Perhaps one truth negates the other. Perhaps they present an impossible timeline. Perhaps they are trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Whatever the reason, paradoxes arise when two truths are at odds.
When it comes to physical reality, paradoxes are worth paying attention to. If something is inconsistent or impossible, then it should be investigated and you should attend to it accordingly.
But in the realm of the human heart, paradox is not only not bad, but a fundamental part of the way we work. People desire, simultaneously, different, and at times, opposing things. This is totally rational and to be expected. See, people are not mere comparison calculators, measuring the worth of one activity versus another. If we were, there would always be a clear, even if sometimes close, decision. Rather, people are imaginative visionaries of possibility, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually aligning with different paths, dreaming of how things could be. This is not a mathematical process. It is dreaming, and bringing into being.
Not only do we at times want opposing things, people are capable of being opposing things. One person, at one given moment, concerning one given thing, can be both cowardly and courageous, flustered and composed, engaged and distant.
Now, this impossibly broad range of desire and being can be both good and bad. For worse, it allows us to want the right, and still want the wrong. It means our actions can have deeply rooted inconsistencies that facilitate immoral action and still feel authentic. For these reasons, our paradoxical nature is to be treated with care.
For better, though, it lets us become impossibly perfect for doing good in the world. We can want our good and the good of others. Respect the individual and the group. Be practical and idealistic. We can be skeptical and confident. Brave and fearful. Elderly and youthful. Thoughtful and emotional. Salty and sweet.
No matter what, we are paradoxes. They cannot be eliminated, but that does not mean that all paradox should be embraced. Ultimately, it comes down to what you want your paradoxes to accomplish. What is it about you that makes people turn their head?
Is it how you can walk out of church and cuss people out in the parking lot? Or is it how you can be so proud of your life, but not look down on the lives of others?
Do you want people to wonder how it is you can be so selfish, and still be so unhappy? What about forcing them to think on how it is you manage to meet all your needs only worrying about the needs of others?
So break free of any expectation that you may tacitly live by, preventing you from becoming the greatest possible you doing the greatest possible good. You can be a solid softy. A peaceful badass. Innocent and sexy. Many in the course of human history have let his or her inconsistency bring harm to the world. Its time we let our paradoxes do some good.
The tension created by two things that cannot both possibly be true. Perhaps one truth negates the other. Perhaps they present an impossible timeline. Perhaps they are trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Whatever the reason, paradoxes arise when two truths are at odds.
When it comes to physical reality, paradoxes are worth paying attention to. If something is inconsistent or impossible, then it should be investigated and you should attend to it accordingly.
But in the realm of the human heart, paradox is not only not bad, but a fundamental part of the way we work. People desire, simultaneously, different, and at times, opposing things. This is totally rational and to be expected. See, people are not mere comparison calculators, measuring the worth of one activity versus another. If we were, there would always be a clear, even if sometimes close, decision. Rather, people are imaginative visionaries of possibility, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually aligning with different paths, dreaming of how things could be. This is not a mathematical process. It is dreaming, and bringing into being.
Not only do we at times want opposing things, people are capable of being opposing things. One person, at one given moment, concerning one given thing, can be both cowardly and courageous, flustered and composed, engaged and distant.
Now, this impossibly broad range of desire and being can be both good and bad. For worse, it allows us to want the right, and still want the wrong. It means our actions can have deeply rooted inconsistencies that facilitate immoral action and still feel authentic. For these reasons, our paradoxical nature is to be treated with care.
For better, though, it lets us become impossibly perfect for doing good in the world. We can want our good and the good of others. Respect the individual and the group. Be practical and idealistic. We can be skeptical and confident. Brave and fearful. Elderly and youthful. Thoughtful and emotional. Salty and sweet.
No matter what, we are paradoxes. They cannot be eliminated, but that does not mean that all paradox should be embraced. Ultimately, it comes down to what you want your paradoxes to accomplish. What is it about you that makes people turn their head?
Is it how you can walk out of church and cuss people out in the parking lot? Or is it how you can be so proud of your life, but not look down on the lives of others?
Do you want people to wonder how it is you can be so selfish, and still be so unhappy? What about forcing them to think on how it is you manage to meet all your needs only worrying about the needs of others?
So break free of any expectation that you may tacitly live by, preventing you from becoming the greatest possible you doing the greatest possible good. You can be a solid softy. A peaceful badass. Innocent and sexy. Many in the course of human history have let his or her inconsistency bring harm to the world. Its time we let our paradoxes do some good.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The Journeying Universe
Suffering. We've all thought about it. Whether its the ardent atheist or the doubting devotee, the existence of suffering seems to confound our notion of God.
If God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, we reason... Wouldn't God want a universe with no suffering, know how to make it, and have the power to pull it off?
But here's the thing. Suffering doesn't disprove the movement of goodness in our world. In fact, that we get so indignant that suffering exists is actually a strange kind of proof in God's plan. We sense a wrongness about suffering precisely because the universe tends toward goodness.
The universe exists as a continual outpouring of love. True, sometimes things seem broken, but the true measure of the plan is in its culmination. Suffering is bound in time, and contextualized in the history of the world.
So, the next time the existence of suffering starts gnawing at you, remember: It's all good in the end. If it ain't all good, it ain't the end.
Or, said another way: Creation itself is forged by the unstoppable journey toward completeness.
Whichever way you say it, both represent the simultaneous sentiments of "This too shall pass," and "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
If God is all good, all knowing, and all powerful, we reason... Wouldn't God want a universe with no suffering, know how to make it, and have the power to pull it off?
But here's the thing. Suffering doesn't disprove the movement of goodness in our world. In fact, that we get so indignant that suffering exists is actually a strange kind of proof in God's plan. We sense a wrongness about suffering precisely because the universe tends toward goodness.
The universe exists as a continual outpouring of love. True, sometimes things seem broken, but the true measure of the plan is in its culmination. Suffering is bound in time, and contextualized in the history of the world.
So, the next time the existence of suffering starts gnawing at you, remember: It's all good in the end. If it ain't all good, it ain't the end.
Or, said another way: Creation itself is forged by the unstoppable journey toward completeness.
Whichever way you say it, both represent the simultaneous sentiments of "This too shall pass," and "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Grace and Ontological Immediacy
The universe is being created now. Every single moment, every instant of time is a vast birthing of all things. The universe was not conceptualized, built, and set into motion eons ago. Rather, it appears to have a causal consistency because at each moment it is gracefully and brilliantly born into being, seamlessly harmonious with the moments before it.
I am made now. Recreated with all my memories, scars, and traits. In this moment I am free, for in the intimate presence of my creator I am given a single moment of honest being. By stringing these moments together, God creates a place for my deliberation, beliefs, convictions, and emotions.
I am made now. Recreated with all my memories, scars, and traits. In this moment I am free, for in the intimate presence of my creator I am given a single moment of honest being. By stringing these moments together, God creates a place for my deliberation, beliefs, convictions, and emotions.
Freedom
Doing good does not restrict my freedom.
It is not an imposition on my actions. Even if morality dictates one course of action amid many, it did not coerce me into choosing.
Acting morally is an act of the will. It is precisely my will that makes choices.
Being free is not chanting, "I have choices, I have choices, I have choices," but rather using choice to pick a path worth following.
Have you chosen a goal worth pursuing? Worth pursuing with conviction?
It is not an imposition on my actions. Even if morality dictates one course of action amid many, it did not coerce me into choosing.
Acting morally is an act of the will. It is precisely my will that makes choices.
Being free is not chanting, "I have choices, I have choices, I have choices," but rather using choice to pick a path worth following.
Have you chosen a goal worth pursuing? Worth pursuing with conviction?
Would you have beaten your slaves to death?
Would you have raped your wife?
Would you have killed a man for insulting your family?
The first reaction is to say no, of course not. These things are heinous, not thought of as very acceptable nowadays. Think about it a little more. Embedded in the culture of another time and place, would you have done it? What if the prevailing values of the day thought nothing of it? How about then?
Astute thinkers often respond, sometimes a bit depressed, that yes, yes they would have. This is a very important lesson to learn. Your world has tremendous power to influence your value system.
But is is the last lesson to learn on the matter? How, exactly, did those social changes come about? While it is true that most people of the day regarded a slave's life as property, or a woman's sexuality her husband's domain, or a familial insult grounds for killing, there were people who did not. Some of them disagreed secretly and personally refrained. Others openly, challenging the cultural norm with rhetoric and public defiance.
Challenge the cultural assumptions of your time.
Refuse to hide behind the value systems drawn about you by your environment. Sure, be respectful of your culture, and good to its people. But if a situation breaches a deep moral intuition, look into it. Ask courageous questions about how your people view particular persons, places, or things. Attend to moral categories, little inconstancies in the classifications of beings, and the words used to describe marginalized groups.
The only realistic to the above hypothetical questions hinges on how you behave now. Do you go above and beyond the demands of your society to do good? Do you take stances to defend that which is weak or voiceless? Can you see through cultural values that violate deeper truths?
My advice? Rise above. Be fearless and meticulous concerning your actions. That way, the next time someone asks you if you would have owned slaves, you can confidently and accurately say no.
Would you have killed a man for insulting your family?
The first reaction is to say no, of course not. These things are heinous, not thought of as very acceptable nowadays. Think about it a little more. Embedded in the culture of another time and place, would you have done it? What if the prevailing values of the day thought nothing of it? How about then?
Astute thinkers often respond, sometimes a bit depressed, that yes, yes they would have. This is a very important lesson to learn. Your world has tremendous power to influence your value system.
But is is the last lesson to learn on the matter? How, exactly, did those social changes come about? While it is true that most people of the day regarded a slave's life as property, or a woman's sexuality her husband's domain, or a familial insult grounds for killing, there were people who did not. Some of them disagreed secretly and personally refrained. Others openly, challenging the cultural norm with rhetoric and public defiance.
Challenge the cultural assumptions of your time.
Refuse to hide behind the value systems drawn about you by your environment. Sure, be respectful of your culture, and good to its people. But if a situation breaches a deep moral intuition, look into it. Ask courageous questions about how your people view particular persons, places, or things. Attend to moral categories, little inconstancies in the classifications of beings, and the words used to describe marginalized groups.
The only realistic to the above hypothetical questions hinges on how you behave now. Do you go above and beyond the demands of your society to do good? Do you take stances to defend that which is weak or voiceless? Can you see through cultural values that violate deeper truths?
My advice? Rise above. Be fearless and meticulous concerning your actions. That way, the next time someone asks you if you would have owned slaves, you can confidently and accurately say no.
Flip the Script
Most discussions of morality involve the fight between right and wrong, casting humans as fundamentally selfish (or evil, or bestial) creatures that must restrain themselves from doing wrong in order to do right. The moral actor has traits like a conscience to discern, restraint to control urges, and will to persevere.
What I am interested in is the underlying world that supports this mindset. It assumes that selfish acts have a sort of gravity, and that one who is moral must struggle in order to keep their path clear of doing bad. While I believe that some moral issues are indeed difficult, and some people live lives of constant moral tension, this paradigm is by no means ubiquitous.
I have a few issues. First, not all good choices are hard to make. Sometimes doing good is rather easy. In fact, it is the thing a moral actor wants the most! Consider helping your family, or your lover. Those impulses often far outweigh any selfish desire we may foster.
Secondly, this struggling mindset focuses the drama of right and wrong within the actor, which I think is a dangerous perspective. An action is right if it puts the situation in its best arrangement, good exists apart from the actor... at least in my little picture of the world. Seating good and bad within the person, though, makes morality about them. Suddenly people start striving to be good people, which, I'm sorry, while its seems nice, is actually a distraction. People should strive to do good, and if they think of good as in the world, it gets a bit easier to do.
Finally, casting ethical actions as struggles makes the intensity of an action related to the amount of struggle. The harder it was to make a decision, it would seem, the more moral the person who can still do right. While I have nothing but respect for those who make courageous decisions in difficult times, I think that person is both courageous and did good... not that they did more good. Again, the amount of good done is measured by the amount of good done in the world... it being hard to do doesn't actually increase the rightness of it being done. Besides, I suspect that sometimes people lock themselves in drawn out moral quandaries because it makes them better people. If it was really hard to do, that means they are good people. Just not the way I see it.
Now, behaving ethically does have an impact on the person. True, sometimes it is a tense and stressful act. But often it is a joyful one. Let me give you a few examples from my life. I think it is good to treat other people with goodwill. If you have ever met me, I was probably happy to see you and talk to you, and most likely, I treated you with respect. I think I am morally obligated to be generally good to people.
Is it a struggle?
Every once in a while... I'll admit it. People who are particularly rude, mean, or frustrating. And yes, there are some people who are just so annoying that its difficult to have a real conversation with them.
But for the very most part, more than 98% of the time, I'd wager, I really enjoy treating people well. Each new situation isn't another challenge; each new person isn't another burden. As I like doing it, every instance becomes an opportunity, a chance to do good.
Another example. I choose not to eat meat, or rather, I try to avoid any action that contributes to the death of an animal. I reason that so long as I can live without it, any animal death on my behalf is unnecessary. I believe that animals have at least enough intrinsic value that I should avoid unnecessary killing. More on this later.
Is is hard?
Yeah, sometimes. Every once in a while I find myself in a restaurant, very hungry, and I'm staring at a menu with little or no vegetarian options. I have to choose between not eating, eating something truly unappetizing, or eating meat. Tough, no lying.
But most of the time, I am not caught in this crossfire. For one, I avoid those restaurants, so that I don't have to have all that stress. But really, I usually eat at home, and I so long as my grocery trip is veg, my options at home are veg. Not only is it not hard, most of the time it's fun. I love when I find a absolutely delicious vegetarian food. Makes me really happy. Also, I feel a special kinship to animals. Might sound weird, but when I meet an animal, I meet them as something of an equal, and I am proud that I will never meet them as meat. It really isn't that strange, actually. If you helped save the people of a town from floods by sandbagging, wouldn't you feel a swell of pride meeting one of those people.
Doing good doesn't have to be torture. Rather, doing good is an opportunity to demonstrate your respect for the value of something or someone. Externally, it is an act of sanctification, where you bestow an expression of worth onto a person, place, or thing. Pretty cool. Internally, it is an act of compassionate transformation, where you hone your sensitivity and reinforce the habit of right action.
I catch the bugs in my apartment and let them go outside. Now, am I committed to the wellbeing of all insects and arachnids... not exactly. But while it is a bit harder to catch a fly then to up an off him, I am not put out by the extra effort. Rather, its feels really good, probably unreasonably good, to let that small creature into the world unharmed.
What I am interested in is the underlying world that supports this mindset. It assumes that selfish acts have a sort of gravity, and that one who is moral must struggle in order to keep their path clear of doing bad. While I believe that some moral issues are indeed difficult, and some people live lives of constant moral tension, this paradigm is by no means ubiquitous.
I have a few issues. First, not all good choices are hard to make. Sometimes doing good is rather easy. In fact, it is the thing a moral actor wants the most! Consider helping your family, or your lover. Those impulses often far outweigh any selfish desire we may foster.
Secondly, this struggling mindset focuses the drama of right and wrong within the actor, which I think is a dangerous perspective. An action is right if it puts the situation in its best arrangement, good exists apart from the actor... at least in my little picture of the world. Seating good and bad within the person, though, makes morality about them. Suddenly people start striving to be good people, which, I'm sorry, while its seems nice, is actually a distraction. People should strive to do good, and if they think of good as in the world, it gets a bit easier to do.
Finally, casting ethical actions as struggles makes the intensity of an action related to the amount of struggle. The harder it was to make a decision, it would seem, the more moral the person who can still do right. While I have nothing but respect for those who make courageous decisions in difficult times, I think that person is both courageous and did good... not that they did more good. Again, the amount of good done is measured by the amount of good done in the world... it being hard to do doesn't actually increase the rightness of it being done. Besides, I suspect that sometimes people lock themselves in drawn out moral quandaries because it makes them better people. If it was really hard to do, that means they are good people. Just not the way I see it.
Now, behaving ethically does have an impact on the person. True, sometimes it is a tense and stressful act. But often it is a joyful one. Let me give you a few examples from my life. I think it is good to treat other people with goodwill. If you have ever met me, I was probably happy to see you and talk to you, and most likely, I treated you with respect. I think I am morally obligated to be generally good to people.
Is it a struggle?
Every once in a while... I'll admit it. People who are particularly rude, mean, or frustrating. And yes, there are some people who are just so annoying that its difficult to have a real conversation with them.
But for the very most part, more than 98% of the time, I'd wager, I really enjoy treating people well. Each new situation isn't another challenge; each new person isn't another burden. As I like doing it, every instance becomes an opportunity, a chance to do good.
Another example. I choose not to eat meat, or rather, I try to avoid any action that contributes to the death of an animal. I reason that so long as I can live without it, any animal death on my behalf is unnecessary. I believe that animals have at least enough intrinsic value that I should avoid unnecessary killing. More on this later.
Is is hard?
Yeah, sometimes. Every once in a while I find myself in a restaurant, very hungry, and I'm staring at a menu with little or no vegetarian options. I have to choose between not eating, eating something truly unappetizing, or eating meat. Tough, no lying.
But most of the time, I am not caught in this crossfire. For one, I avoid those restaurants, so that I don't have to have all that stress. But really, I usually eat at home, and I so long as my grocery trip is veg, my options at home are veg. Not only is it not hard, most of the time it's fun. I love when I find a absolutely delicious vegetarian food. Makes me really happy. Also, I feel a special kinship to animals. Might sound weird, but when I meet an animal, I meet them as something of an equal, and I am proud that I will never meet them as meat. It really isn't that strange, actually. If you helped save the people of a town from floods by sandbagging, wouldn't you feel a swell of pride meeting one of those people.
Doing good doesn't have to be torture. Rather, doing good is an opportunity to demonstrate your respect for the value of something or someone. Externally, it is an act of sanctification, where you bestow an expression of worth onto a person, place, or thing. Pretty cool. Internally, it is an act of compassionate transformation, where you hone your sensitivity and reinforce the habit of right action.
I catch the bugs in my apartment and let them go outside. Now, am I committed to the wellbeing of all insects and arachnids... not exactly. But while it is a bit harder to catch a fly then to up an off him, I am not put out by the extra effort. Rather, its feels really good, probably unreasonably good, to let that small creature into the world unharmed.
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