Invest beyond yourself.
Too often we get invested in our identities, building ourselves up into something great.
But we are limited. Trying for greatness within ourselves is a finite endeavor, constrained by the physical and temporal boundaries that constrain us.
If you work in such a way that uncertainty and fear transforms into vision and courage, if you serve other people before yourself, investing in others, the work lives on long after you have gone.
This is the way great work gets done. Forget whose work it is.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Becoming a Hero
Not everyone is a hero. There are people who are great that aren't heroic. There are people who are good that aren't heroic. Heroism requires a certain adminxture of of attributes. They are certainty, moral direction, power, and they occur when the world has a problem.
If you are not decisive, you are not a hero. Plenty of people want good things to happen. That makes you nice. Heroism, on the other hand, requires you to act. Wanting or wishing that everything works out in the end just keeps a person from being a bastard. Heros will things into being, and the critical component is their deeds.
Heroes are more than just determined. They are also morally sensitive. Just being determined makes you more likely to succeed. Being determined without sensitivity makes you likely to be an ass, and an evil and destructive ass at that. Heroism is by its very essence an evocation of moral rightness, and must therefore be as sensitive to its moral orientation as it is determined to seek its ends.
Heroes also have power. Be it traditional influence over events or non-traditional potency in inspiration and emotional leadership, heroes stand apart from others because they effect change. Without power, a good person is a well meaning bystander. This is not to say that moral goodness requires power, but it is to say that if a person is to change the world, they must actually have the means to change it.
And finally, heroes only occur when they are needed. When there is a fracture in the world, an exigence, a calling. Heroes are those people who answer the needs of the time and the place in which they find themselves.
It is the relativly simply aim of this book to convince you that you are on the verge of heroism. If you get your heart in the right place you will have certainty. If you get your head out of your ass you can have moral direction. You already have power, though it is likely you have learned to ignore this fact. And finally, there are certainly things that need to be done here and now, problems that are asking to be solved that have yet to be faced down.
In short, this book will make you a hero.
If you are not decisive, you are not a hero. Plenty of people want good things to happen. That makes you nice. Heroism, on the other hand, requires you to act. Wanting or wishing that everything works out in the end just keeps a person from being a bastard. Heros will things into being, and the critical component is their deeds.
Heroes are more than just determined. They are also morally sensitive. Just being determined makes you more likely to succeed. Being determined without sensitivity makes you likely to be an ass, and an evil and destructive ass at that. Heroism is by its very essence an evocation of moral rightness, and must therefore be as sensitive to its moral orientation as it is determined to seek its ends.
Heroes also have power. Be it traditional influence over events or non-traditional potency in inspiration and emotional leadership, heroes stand apart from others because they effect change. Without power, a good person is a well meaning bystander. This is not to say that moral goodness requires power, but it is to say that if a person is to change the world, they must actually have the means to change it.
And finally, heroes only occur when they are needed. When there is a fracture in the world, an exigence, a calling. Heroes are those people who answer the needs of the time and the place in which they find themselves.
It is the relativly simply aim of this book to convince you that you are on the verge of heroism. If you get your heart in the right place you will have certainty. If you get your head out of your ass you can have moral direction. You already have power, though it is likely you have learned to ignore this fact. And finally, there are certainly things that need to be done here and now, problems that are asking to be solved that have yet to be faced down.
In short, this book will make you a hero.
Potosi, Bolivia
There are no ancient ruins in Potosi, Bolivia. No exotic wildlife. There are no museums worth seeing. No thriving nightlife. Oddly a bit out of the way, stuck in the Bolivian mountains somewhere between La Pax and Uyuni, Kristen and I are there for the same reason the Spaniards were there 500 years ago. There for the same reason its residence have been there since. We are there for the mines.
Hundreds of years ago it made a handful of Spanish miners very rich. Its mining was powered by a workforce created by combining conquered indigenous peoples and imported enslaved ones. Back when the silver veins were rich and the manpower was all but free, the mines turned simple men into sudden kings. For a time, a life of extravagance and purchased political power sprung up around this town. Hundreds of years later, many things have changed... but unfortunately, not enough has changed.
Today the men of Potosi still haul tons of rock out of the side of the mountain. Over 2000 miners work 160 mines that scatter the mountain side. Unlike the oppression of the past, the mines are now a cooperative, a loose collection of mine owners who each hammer away at their own claim, staying out of each others way but collectively paying for the oxygen that gets piped in and likely lobbying together on important issues. Unfortunately, though, this community has no oversight of how the mining progresses, and while our miner guide seemed confident that the experience of the elder miners was better than any engineer or scientist, cave ins still kill more than any other miners a year. Cave ins, I can't help but think, that might be prevented by oversight.
Modern technology has changed the way the rock is processed. Ages ago the silver dried up, and the chaff they haul out is no more than flecked with minerals. Its about 8% tin, 3% silver and 2% lead. 13% valuable to be refined, separated, and exported. 87% to be dumped (after its chemical processing) into the river that no local dare swim in. What was once thrown aside as rubble is now valuable enough to be worth blasting loose and carrying out of the mine, thanks to modern science. And by valuable enough, I mean barely valuable enough.
The value is such that while it will pay a man's wage, it won't buy new tools. So while the technologies of the modern day are used in the refining of the miners labor, it hasn't touched their actual labor. Their method has not changed since the time of Nobel. Take a long piece of steel, and hammer it about three feet into the rock. Stick some dynamite in the hole. Run. After the boom, throw the chunks into a mining cart, and drag it out of the mine. Apart from piped in O2 and battery powered headlamps I can't see a way that this process has changed in 150 years. The fatality rate hasn't changed much either.
About 1% of all miners in Potosi die every year from accidents. Cave ins and and other malfunctions. And if you don't die violently, you die insidiously. No miner lives past 55. None. The respiratory diseases make old age an impossibility. Our guide could think of no expert miner he had ever heard of who reached 60. None. Not only did these men risk very short lives, they accepted mortalities that were shortened as a matter of fact. A life of 6 day a week, 12 hours a day, that was guaranteed to end before 60 from lung problems, if not earlier by some other cause.
At some point, you ask why. Why do they do it? There seem to be two prevailing reasons. One, is its in the culture. Our guide recounts the story of his own youth, he wanted to stay in school, and maybe go to college. But when he was 13, his dad told him he was a sissy if he didn't join his brothers in the mines, took him out of school, and put him to work. Manhood, it seems, is defined by mining. It certainly means muscles, hard work, bravery, and sacrifice for your family. By many standards of manhood, those attributes are mainstays.
The other motivator is the money. In Bolivian terms, miners make a lot of money. A worker in an internet cafe, or another tourist venue, might make 300 Bolivianos a month. A miner, on the other hand, of course, according to the productivity of the mine, might make as much as 1200 a month. This quadrupled salary is enough to keep many in the mines far longer than they had intended.
It should be noted, that 1200 Bolivianos is less than 200 dollars in the US. A job that is far more dangerous than most every job in the States that pays less than the worst job one could get. All and all, their high paying sacrifice pennies out to being just over $0.50 an hour.
One has to admire their determination. Even in the face of certain death, they manage to retain a sense of optimism. They do not live in fear of cave in's or noxious gases, rather they say, "If today is the day I will die, then I will make it a good day." In some ways, the certainty of it makes it all easier to bear. Our guides father was age 53, and still alive. As he talked about it, it was a simple statement of fact for him to say that his dad could die today, or maybe in a year.
But even as I admire their courage, I have to ask if their conviction is misguided. Certainly, they had limited choices. Growing up in a world where this was the norm, they were all but destined to live this life. But I rail at such determinism. Are we, the wealthy beneficiaries of their cheap labor and carelessly discarded lives, so too destined to be blind to their plight? Deined to ignore their suffering? Fated to become what our world told us was normal?
Our normal life is far easier, if no easier to deal with. Normal for most Americans is to work to much, but spend even more, flitting from distraction to distraction, far removed from the lives of who have less and obsessed with the lives who have more. Free in a vast number of ways, but oddly just as paralyzed, our convictions dulled by the inevitable meaninglessness that accompanies a life overly focused on getting what you want.
I say to hell with such destinies. Accepting what cannot be changed is an important part of dealing with reality, but I rail against any who sees respiratory death at age 55 as an unavoidable reality. Neither are we destined to be spoiled overgrown children, blind to our overabundance. These are unfortunate, and very avoidable realities that should be striven against with an immenant tenacity, the same tenacity that drives the miners to feed their families, and the same immenance we expect our desires to be met.
Hundreds of years ago it made a handful of Spanish miners very rich. Its mining was powered by a workforce created by combining conquered indigenous peoples and imported enslaved ones. Back when the silver veins were rich and the manpower was all but free, the mines turned simple men into sudden kings. For a time, a life of extravagance and purchased political power sprung up around this town. Hundreds of years later, many things have changed... but unfortunately, not enough has changed.
Today the men of Potosi still haul tons of rock out of the side of the mountain. Over 2000 miners work 160 mines that scatter the mountain side. Unlike the oppression of the past, the mines are now a cooperative, a loose collection of mine owners who each hammer away at their own claim, staying out of each others way but collectively paying for the oxygen that gets piped in and likely lobbying together on important issues. Unfortunately, though, this community has no oversight of how the mining progresses, and while our miner guide seemed confident that the experience of the elder miners was better than any engineer or scientist, cave ins still kill more than any other miners a year. Cave ins, I can't help but think, that might be prevented by oversight.
Modern technology has changed the way the rock is processed. Ages ago the silver dried up, and the chaff they haul out is no more than flecked with minerals. Its about 8% tin, 3% silver and 2% lead. 13% valuable to be refined, separated, and exported. 87% to be dumped (after its chemical processing) into the river that no local dare swim in. What was once thrown aside as rubble is now valuable enough to be worth blasting loose and carrying out of the mine, thanks to modern science. And by valuable enough, I mean barely valuable enough.
The value is such that while it will pay a man's wage, it won't buy new tools. So while the technologies of the modern day are used in the refining of the miners labor, it hasn't touched their actual labor. Their method has not changed since the time of Nobel. Take a long piece of steel, and hammer it about three feet into the rock. Stick some dynamite in the hole. Run. After the boom, throw the chunks into a mining cart, and drag it out of the mine. Apart from piped in O2 and battery powered headlamps I can't see a way that this process has changed in 150 years. The fatality rate hasn't changed much either.
About 1% of all miners in Potosi die every year from accidents. Cave ins and and other malfunctions. And if you don't die violently, you die insidiously. No miner lives past 55. None. The respiratory diseases make old age an impossibility. Our guide could think of no expert miner he had ever heard of who reached 60. None. Not only did these men risk very short lives, they accepted mortalities that were shortened as a matter of fact. A life of 6 day a week, 12 hours a day, that was guaranteed to end before 60 from lung problems, if not earlier by some other cause.
At some point, you ask why. Why do they do it? There seem to be two prevailing reasons. One, is its in the culture. Our guide recounts the story of his own youth, he wanted to stay in school, and maybe go to college. But when he was 13, his dad told him he was a sissy if he didn't join his brothers in the mines, took him out of school, and put him to work. Manhood, it seems, is defined by mining. It certainly means muscles, hard work, bravery, and sacrifice for your family. By many standards of manhood, those attributes are mainstays.
The other motivator is the money. In Bolivian terms, miners make a lot of money. A worker in an internet cafe, or another tourist venue, might make 300 Bolivianos a month. A miner, on the other hand, of course, according to the productivity of the mine, might make as much as 1200 a month. This quadrupled salary is enough to keep many in the mines far longer than they had intended.
It should be noted, that 1200 Bolivianos is less than 200 dollars in the US. A job that is far more dangerous than most every job in the States that pays less than the worst job one could get. All and all, their high paying sacrifice pennies out to being just over $0.50 an hour.
One has to admire their determination. Even in the face of certain death, they manage to retain a sense of optimism. They do not live in fear of cave in's or noxious gases, rather they say, "If today is the day I will die, then I will make it a good day." In some ways, the certainty of it makes it all easier to bear. Our guides father was age 53, and still alive. As he talked about it, it was a simple statement of fact for him to say that his dad could die today, or maybe in a year.
But even as I admire their courage, I have to ask if their conviction is misguided. Certainly, they had limited choices. Growing up in a world where this was the norm, they were all but destined to live this life. But I rail at such determinism. Are we, the wealthy beneficiaries of their cheap labor and carelessly discarded lives, so too destined to be blind to their plight? Deined to ignore their suffering? Fated to become what our world told us was normal?
Our normal life is far easier, if no easier to deal with. Normal for most Americans is to work to much, but spend even more, flitting from distraction to distraction, far removed from the lives of who have less and obsessed with the lives who have more. Free in a vast number of ways, but oddly just as paralyzed, our convictions dulled by the inevitable meaninglessness that accompanies a life overly focused on getting what you want.
I say to hell with such destinies. Accepting what cannot be changed is an important part of dealing with reality, but I rail against any who sees respiratory death at age 55 as an unavoidable reality. Neither are we destined to be spoiled overgrown children, blind to our overabundance. These are unfortunate, and very avoidable realities that should be striven against with an immenant tenacity, the same tenacity that drives the miners to feed their families, and the same immenance we expect our desires to be met.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Why you build a wall?
"Why you build a wall? It's not functional... Why you build a wall?"
Roland speaks as though he's seen a ghost. Its probably been, what, twenty years since the five year old Roland left eastern Berlin with his ailing father and terrified mother. He claims not to remember much, but goes on to say that he remembers because his parents have always talked about it. So perhaps its the ghosts of his parents past sees as he recounts.
Honestly, I don't even know how this conversation started. Roland and his girlfreind Daniela, who have been traveling South and Central America after getting laid off five months ago, showed up to the hostel to buy some ingredients to "make party." Our sincere but mostly superficial conversation had moved from music to travel to employment. Others had joined and left. But now, after last call for the hostel bar and as the other guests are off brainstorming the next place to party, with little warning our conversation turns to escaping communist regimes.
His dad had worked in the mines, and had "worked so hard his heart broke." His country didn't have th e technology to see his heart, and so they didn't know what was wrong. Apparently there was an appeal
process people with illnesses could make to leave the country, and while some people waited twenty years to be given permission Roland's family was lucky.
"After six months, they tell us, "Just go.""
In western Germany they had the medical technology to diagnose the broken muscle in the back of Roland's dad's heart, and treat him best they could. As history would have it, the wall came down four months after Roland's family left.
Roland is leaned against the bamboo laundry drying rack in the middle of the hostel courtyard. He had been clumsily plucking chords on the guitar, but now the intrament hangs loosely in his hands, as even his gruff German rock fails to express his frustrations. His eyes have a distracted glaze, yet are strangely intense, and he scratches a goatish beard. His timeline puts him at twenty five. The creases that strain at his eyes make you guess thirty.
"Communism promises equality. The same for everyone. But it's not... functional." He finishes the phase in Spanish with an tired and ironic smile. He tilts the guitar at Kristen.
"Some of us have beautiful voices and can play the guitar. Some of us work with wood. We can't be equal. We all need different things. We have to go our own way. Communism... its not functional. Even though we got away, it broke my dad's heart. Now he have to take twenty pills a day. Twenty. And they help, but they make him gain weight. More and more weight. There are lots of ways to say it, but I just ask this: Why you build a wall?"
His voice has lost none of the confusion, but now if full of frustration, too, with tones of bitterness and anger. "Why you build a wall in the middle of the land? To keep people from leaving. To keep them from going there own way. We can't make its so everyone is equal, but we can make no borders, take down the walls, and let people go their own way."
Its late, and while there are plenty of reasons to be tired, but Roland looks particularly exhausted. In a look that I still cannot find adequate words to express, he asks his ringing question thats says more than most answers.
"Why you build a wall?"
Roland speaks as though he's seen a ghost. Its probably been, what, twenty years since the five year old Roland left eastern Berlin with his ailing father and terrified mother. He claims not to remember much, but goes on to say that he remembers because his parents have always talked about it. So perhaps its the ghosts of his parents past sees as he recounts.
Honestly, I don't even know how this conversation started. Roland and his girlfreind Daniela, who have been traveling South and Central America after getting laid off five months ago, showed up to the hostel to buy some ingredients to "make party." Our sincere but mostly superficial conversation had moved from music to travel to employment. Others had joined and left. But now, after last call for the hostel bar and as the other guests are off brainstorming the next place to party, with little warning our conversation turns to escaping communist regimes.
His dad had worked in the mines, and had "worked so hard his heart broke." His country didn't have th e technology to see his heart, and so they didn't know what was wrong. Apparently there was an appeal
process people with illnesses could make to leave the country, and while some people waited twenty years to be given permission Roland's family was lucky.
"After six months, they tell us, "Just go.""
In western Germany they had the medical technology to diagnose the broken muscle in the back of Roland's dad's heart, and treat him best they could. As history would have it, the wall came down four months after Roland's family left.
Roland is leaned against the bamboo laundry drying rack in the middle of the hostel courtyard. He had been clumsily plucking chords on the guitar, but now the intrament hangs loosely in his hands, as even his gruff German rock fails to express his frustrations. His eyes have a distracted glaze, yet are strangely intense, and he scratches a goatish beard. His timeline puts him at twenty five. The creases that strain at his eyes make you guess thirty.
"Communism promises equality. The same for everyone. But it's not... functional." He finishes the phase in Spanish with an tired and ironic smile. He tilts the guitar at Kristen.
"Some of us have beautiful voices and can play the guitar. Some of us work with wood. We can't be equal. We all need different things. We have to go our own way. Communism... its not functional. Even though we got away, it broke my dad's heart. Now he have to take twenty pills a day. Twenty. And they help, but they make him gain weight. More and more weight. There are lots of ways to say it, but I just ask this: Why you build a wall?"
His voice has lost none of the confusion, but now if full of frustration, too, with tones of bitterness and anger. "Why you build a wall in the middle of the land? To keep people from leaving. To keep them from going there own way. We can't make its so everyone is equal, but we can make no borders, take down the walls, and let people go their own way."
Its late, and while there are plenty of reasons to be tired, but Roland looks particularly exhausted. In a look that I still cannot find adequate words to express, he asks his ringing question thats says more than most answers.
"Why you build a wall?"
Friday, May 15, 2009
Not self help
This is not a self help book.
I'll admit there are some similarities. You might find a flow chart here or a seven step process there. You will probably read some poetry too mediocre to get published as poetry, and instead included here because it makes my point.
But this book differs from self help books in very important ways. First, it was not written by an educated man who is telling you that all he had to do to succeed was to have a good attitude. Thanks for that tip. I had no idea that all well off people needed to do to have success was to get their heads out of their asses. Maybe if the book included a copy of their diploma it would actually make me more effective.
There is no attractive picture on the flap of this book. While I suspect my fiancee actually finds me attractive, my looks have not been known to stop traffic or cure cancer patients. I do not have a finely chiseled chin, my smile does not gleam, and my hair does not do that wavy professional thing. Rather my teeth are a bit worse for wear after a childhood of stunts and my hair looks like an electrical burn victim.
Finally, and most importantly, this book is not trying to convince you that while you may have a problem you have the capacity solve your problem if only you listened to me.
It is for this reason that this is not a self help book.
Rather, this is an other help book.
Even as I write, I am trying to convince you that other people have a problem, lots of problems, actually, and that you are the one capable of solving them. This is not an equation for how to make your life better, but the lives of the people around you better.
The pages leading up to this one are stories of my life, an ongoing account of how I got to these ideas and how they changed me. But to be perfectly honest, I am basically done talking about me. From this point on, there will be a new subject.
You.
It is your life, your choices, and your actions that are now the defining drive behind this writing. See, the idea is pretty basic. I can't save the world alone. I could try my ass off, but even with the most brilliant of plans I am doomed to failure. But that is where you come in. Where WE come in. Solving world problems seems a bit out of reach for a single person. Even a few people. But what if the world tried to solve the world's problems? Seems like there would be just enough help to get it done.
My reason for writing this book: to get you to help me save the world. To that end, we need to change up the style of writing. Before, I was telling stories, stories you constructed imaginatively in order to visualize what had happened. But now your imagination needs to serve a different purpose. You need to imaginatively construct visions of what can happen.
This process involves telling you about problems in the world. It goes on to reflect on how to evaluate and solve them. And I'll be perfectly honest, I rely on some of the very same techniques used by the endless wading pool that is self help literature. Flow charts. Step by step processes. Crappy poetry. I'll never suggest that this book is better written.
But I do contend that this book has a better aim. I am not here to increase your satisfaction by making you be a better you. No, my goal, and I can only hope our goal, is to make a better world.
What could be more satisfying than that?
I'll admit there are some similarities. You might find a flow chart here or a seven step process there. You will probably read some poetry too mediocre to get published as poetry, and instead included here because it makes my point.
But this book differs from self help books in very important ways. First, it was not written by an educated man who is telling you that all he had to do to succeed was to have a good attitude. Thanks for that tip. I had no idea that all well off people needed to do to have success was to get their heads out of their asses. Maybe if the book included a copy of their diploma it would actually make me more effective.
There is no attractive picture on the flap of this book. While I suspect my fiancee actually finds me attractive, my looks have not been known to stop traffic or cure cancer patients. I do not have a finely chiseled chin, my smile does not gleam, and my hair does not do that wavy professional thing. Rather my teeth are a bit worse for wear after a childhood of stunts and my hair looks like an electrical burn victim.
Finally, and most importantly, this book is not trying to convince you that while you may have a problem you have the capacity solve your problem if only you listened to me.
It is for this reason that this is not a self help book.
Rather, this is an other help book.
Even as I write, I am trying to convince you that other people have a problem, lots of problems, actually, and that you are the one capable of solving them. This is not an equation for how to make your life better, but the lives of the people around you better.
The pages leading up to this one are stories of my life, an ongoing account of how I got to these ideas and how they changed me. But to be perfectly honest, I am basically done talking about me. From this point on, there will be a new subject.
You.
It is your life, your choices, and your actions that are now the defining drive behind this writing. See, the idea is pretty basic. I can't save the world alone. I could try my ass off, but even with the most brilliant of plans I am doomed to failure. But that is where you come in. Where WE come in. Solving world problems seems a bit out of reach for a single person. Even a few people. But what if the world tried to solve the world's problems? Seems like there would be just enough help to get it done.
My reason for writing this book: to get you to help me save the world. To that end, we need to change up the style of writing. Before, I was telling stories, stories you constructed imaginatively in order to visualize what had happened. But now your imagination needs to serve a different purpose. You need to imaginatively construct visions of what can happen.
This process involves telling you about problems in the world. It goes on to reflect on how to evaluate and solve them. And I'll be perfectly honest, I rely on some of the very same techniques used by the endless wading pool that is self help literature. Flow charts. Step by step processes. Crappy poetry. I'll never suggest that this book is better written.
But I do contend that this book has a better aim. I am not here to increase your satisfaction by making you be a better you. No, my goal, and I can only hope our goal, is to make a better world.
What could be more satisfying than that?
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Darkness and Fear
Last night I learned the power of darkness and fear. My walk out to the canyon had been nothing out of the ordinary, save for the dying batteries in my headlamp. I suppose after months of use, the three triple A's had finally met their end. Time to pay my electric bill. :)
While it had been a bit surreal setting up camp with so little light, I managed, and once in bed I promptly fell asleep.
In the middle of the night I was awoken by a creature walking across my chest. I startle, it scurries off me, and I fumble for my headlamp. Its pale light does little to illuminate the tent, and I am mostly still asleep, with only fear quickening my otherwise groggy awareness. At the very end of the tent I see the shadowy yet familiar silhouette of a field mouse.
For some reason, it's innocuous form fails to calm me. Having been startled out of my sleep has me in a weird mental place, and the poor lighting makes my tiny tent seem even smaller. The game begins, as I try to get the mouse out of the tent, and he runs like hell because he thinks I am trying to kill him. But I am at a disadvantage. I can't see what his happening, and I'm only half awake and slow. The mouse, on the other hand, is all over. He darts under blankets and around pillows. He even climbs the insect netting up the side of the tent, and at one point scampered up my sweatshirted arm and across my back. His frenzied evasion (and crawling on me) does not improved my addled state.
I am now desperate. My light is dimming by the second as the batteries struggle their last moments of light. The mouse has evaded me. I can't see him. I don't think he has gone, so I move the blankest slowly in the ever fading glow of the headlamp. I move cautiously if clumsily around the tent, trying to find the intruder.
After looking everywhere else, I pull back the camping mattress that in effect covers the entire floor of my one person tent. There, beneath my pad, in a curled and shivering fetal position, lies the dying mouse. In the mayhem, he had apparently sought cover under my mattress, only to be crushed by me in my frantic attempt to oust him from my home. One of his front paws is clasped tightly. The other paw shudders outstretched, almost as if to reach for something in his last moments.
I am flooded with despair. Not knowing what else to do, I pick up his broken body and put it outside the tent in the bush. Sleep came quickly, but not before a shadow passed over my spirit.
I awoke in the morning haunted by the nights experience. The death of my little friend had sunken in during my sleep, and as I hiked out of the canyon a sense of futility started to settle. I had moved into the wild to simplify my life. Intending to consume fewer resources, intending to take less for granted, and intending to ease my strain on the environment. But despite my best intentions, last night I had smashed an innocent creature under my weight.
In the darkness of the fading light and the haze of my goggy fear, I had caused a meaningless death. As the day warms I take off my jacket, and I relive in my mind the scramble with the field mouse.
Darkness and fear.
And suddenly, and in shocking completeness, it comes to me. Of course coexistence starts with desire. A desire to do good. An intention. But even my good intentions can fail to do good if I act in darkness and out of fear. If I want to do great good, or even, the greatest good, I must do more than want good things to happen. I must also seek to illuminate the issue. To see what is happening, so that I know what actually is and where the problems really lie. I must create light.
Similarly, when trying to do this greatest good I must act with faith, and not out of fear. While I had not desired to be violent, I harmed another because I was fearful. Because I did not have peace.
Desire, then is the beginning. The want to do good. But I also need knowledge, the ability to see what is so as to do great good. And finally, I need strength of character. I am perhaps unfinished and unready to perform what will be needed from me. For that I must strengthen my resolve. Wanting good, knowing how to do it, and having composure in the face of hardship. With those three things, I could see neigh impossible goods come to pass, solutions to complex problems and bring resolution in frantic times.
With these, I could do the greatest good.
While it had been a bit surreal setting up camp with so little light, I managed, and once in bed I promptly fell asleep.
In the middle of the night I was awoken by a creature walking across my chest. I startle, it scurries off me, and I fumble for my headlamp. Its pale light does little to illuminate the tent, and I am mostly still asleep, with only fear quickening my otherwise groggy awareness. At the very end of the tent I see the shadowy yet familiar silhouette of a field mouse.
For some reason, it's innocuous form fails to calm me. Having been startled out of my sleep has me in a weird mental place, and the poor lighting makes my tiny tent seem even smaller. The game begins, as I try to get the mouse out of the tent, and he runs like hell because he thinks I am trying to kill him. But I am at a disadvantage. I can't see what his happening, and I'm only half awake and slow. The mouse, on the other hand, is all over. He darts under blankets and around pillows. He even climbs the insect netting up the side of the tent, and at one point scampered up my sweatshirted arm and across my back. His frenzied evasion (and crawling on me) does not improved my addled state.
I am now desperate. My light is dimming by the second as the batteries struggle their last moments of light. The mouse has evaded me. I can't see him. I don't think he has gone, so I move the blankest slowly in the ever fading glow of the headlamp. I move cautiously if clumsily around the tent, trying to find the intruder.
After looking everywhere else, I pull back the camping mattress that in effect covers the entire floor of my one person tent. There, beneath my pad, in a curled and shivering fetal position, lies the dying mouse. In the mayhem, he had apparently sought cover under my mattress, only to be crushed by me in my frantic attempt to oust him from my home. One of his front paws is clasped tightly. The other paw shudders outstretched, almost as if to reach for something in his last moments.
I am flooded with despair. Not knowing what else to do, I pick up his broken body and put it outside the tent in the bush. Sleep came quickly, but not before a shadow passed over my spirit.
I awoke in the morning haunted by the nights experience. The death of my little friend had sunken in during my sleep, and as I hiked out of the canyon a sense of futility started to settle. I had moved into the wild to simplify my life. Intending to consume fewer resources, intending to take less for granted, and intending to ease my strain on the environment. But despite my best intentions, last night I had smashed an innocent creature under my weight.
In the darkness of the fading light and the haze of my goggy fear, I had caused a meaningless death. As the day warms I take off my jacket, and I relive in my mind the scramble with the field mouse.
Darkness and fear.
And suddenly, and in shocking completeness, it comes to me. Of course coexistence starts with desire. A desire to do good. An intention. But even my good intentions can fail to do good if I act in darkness and out of fear. If I want to do great good, or even, the greatest good, I must do more than want good things to happen. I must also seek to illuminate the issue. To see what is happening, so that I know what actually is and where the problems really lie. I must create light.
Similarly, when trying to do this greatest good I must act with faith, and not out of fear. While I had not desired to be violent, I harmed another because I was fearful. Because I did not have peace.
Desire, then is the beginning. The want to do good. But I also need knowledge, the ability to see what is so as to do great good. And finally, I need strength of character. I am perhaps unfinished and unready to perform what will be needed from me. For that I must strengthen my resolve. Wanting good, knowing how to do it, and having composure in the face of hardship. With those three things, I could see neigh impossible goods come to pass, solutions to complex problems and bring resolution in frantic times.
With these, I could do the greatest good.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monsters
When you are in the outdoors during the day is sounds so magical. The buzz of insects and the rustle of critters makes the whole area come alive.
Nighttime is a different story. While I imagine the actually noises aren't terribly different at night, the way they sound is quite a bit more terrifying.
On one of my first nights out, I discovered, auditorially, the resident monster. Now, its hard to judge the size of something moving through dried leaves. Every creature makes a loud rustle. Each night, I would set up my tent in relative silence, but as soon as I was safely in my tent, the monster would come out.
It would rustle from its home to investigate this tent intruder, crunching leaves as it passed. It took particular interest in my stash box, moving around it and... making a sound I can only describe as snorting, around its base.
Was it some sort of pig? A boar? Perhaps it was a possum or a skunk. Whatever it was, I was somewhat terrified to startle it (particularly if it was a boar or skunk), but I was also curious about what it really was. While there are countless sounds in the night, this one was the most constant, the most curious, and the closest to home.
So I started leaving the bottom of my tent door unzipped, so that when I heard the beast I could fling back the rain fly and shine my headlamp in the direction of the noise. But try as I might, it eluded my surprise peekings. It must be really fast or really stealthy.
This wonder went on for two months, when one night, in what ended up being simultaneously far more terrifying and far less terrifying than I would have imagined. I had been having some trouble falling asleep, and I was laying, staring in the very dull light up at the roof of my tent, when quite suddenly something leapt into my tent.
I jolted into a sitting position, and quickly grasped for my headlamp (though somewhat afraid because whatever it was had gone toward that side of the tent. I manage to find the lamp after a few tenative grabs, and as I click it on I revealed my intruder.
A field mouse.
Of course this creature is stairing at me with horror. He has just jumped into what he considered a shealter, only to find it inhabited by a creature hundreds of times his size. I, not interested in shairng my home with a mouse, tried to shoo him out with my shoe. This does not go well, as he is fast and the lip of the tent is about as tall as him. So he runs from me in every direction, even a few times getting behind me (which freaks me out in my one person tent). I consider just grabbing him and throwing him out, but I don't really want to get bitten and diseased by some mouse. So I continue with the shoe.
Unfortunatly, one of my gentle shoe guidings ends up being more like a kick, and this sends the mouse into a panic. He dives at me, or rather, toward me, and starts burrowing between my sleeping mat and the tent floor, scrambling desperatly for whatever cover he can manage. It is at that moment when I hear it.
The sound. That... snort like sound. It is his little paws as they scrape along plastic. In a rush, I realize that he, the little feild mouse, is my monster. The noise that eluded my identification, rusting the tarp and at the base of the plastic box, not the snuffling of some giant beast, but the scamperings and attempted climbings of a tiny one.
I am now his monster. As he is hidden and finally still, I slowly reach to the tent door, open it completely, and pull in the rain fly so that a clear exit is now in sight. I then pull back the mattress and with my teeth against my lip I make a soft "ffft" sound. The mouse runs toward the exit, stoping at the lip of the tent door.
"Fffft," I say again, and he leaps out of the tent into the night.
I'm struck by the fact that it was the door I left open so I could find out what the creature's idenity was the door it leapt in through.
I'm struck by the fact that forcing the mouse out was far less effective than showing him the way out.
Most of all, I'm struck by the fact that it was my ignorance of reality that caused me to fear that monster mouse.
Nighttime is a different story. While I imagine the actually noises aren't terribly different at night, the way they sound is quite a bit more terrifying.
On one of my first nights out, I discovered, auditorially, the resident monster. Now, its hard to judge the size of something moving through dried leaves. Every creature makes a loud rustle. Each night, I would set up my tent in relative silence, but as soon as I was safely in my tent, the monster would come out.
It would rustle from its home to investigate this tent intruder, crunching leaves as it passed. It took particular interest in my stash box, moving around it and... making a sound I can only describe as snorting, around its base.
Was it some sort of pig? A boar? Perhaps it was a possum or a skunk. Whatever it was, I was somewhat terrified to startle it (particularly if it was a boar or skunk), but I was also curious about what it really was. While there are countless sounds in the night, this one was the most constant, the most curious, and the closest to home.
So I started leaving the bottom of my tent door unzipped, so that when I heard the beast I could fling back the rain fly and shine my headlamp in the direction of the noise. But try as I might, it eluded my surprise peekings. It must be really fast or really stealthy.
This wonder went on for two months, when one night, in what ended up being simultaneously far more terrifying and far less terrifying than I would have imagined. I had been having some trouble falling asleep, and I was laying, staring in the very dull light up at the roof of my tent, when quite suddenly something leapt into my tent.
I jolted into a sitting position, and quickly grasped for my headlamp (though somewhat afraid because whatever it was had gone toward that side of the tent. I manage to find the lamp after a few tenative grabs, and as I click it on I revealed my intruder.
A field mouse.
Of course this creature is stairing at me with horror. He has just jumped into what he considered a shealter, only to find it inhabited by a creature hundreds of times his size. I, not interested in shairng my home with a mouse, tried to shoo him out with my shoe. This does not go well, as he is fast and the lip of the tent is about as tall as him. So he runs from me in every direction, even a few times getting behind me (which freaks me out in my one person tent). I consider just grabbing him and throwing him out, but I don't really want to get bitten and diseased by some mouse. So I continue with the shoe.
Unfortunatly, one of my gentle shoe guidings ends up being more like a kick, and this sends the mouse into a panic. He dives at me, or rather, toward me, and starts burrowing between my sleeping mat and the tent floor, scrambling desperatly for whatever cover he can manage. It is at that moment when I hear it.
The sound. That... snort like sound. It is his little paws as they scrape along plastic. In a rush, I realize that he, the little feild mouse, is my monster. The noise that eluded my identification, rusting the tarp and at the base of the plastic box, not the snuffling of some giant beast, but the scamperings and attempted climbings of a tiny one.
I am now his monster. As he is hidden and finally still, I slowly reach to the tent door, open it completely, and pull in the rain fly so that a clear exit is now in sight. I then pull back the mattress and with my teeth against my lip I make a soft "ffft" sound. The mouse runs toward the exit, stoping at the lip of the tent door.
"Fffft," I say again, and he leaps out of the tent into the night.
I'm struck by the fact that it was the door I left open so I could find out what the creature's idenity was the door it leapt in through.
I'm struck by the fact that forcing the mouse out was far less effective than showing him the way out.
Most of all, I'm struck by the fact that it was my ignorance of reality that caused me to fear that monster mouse.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Means and Ends
In discussions of moral philosophy, the notion of means manage to work their way into many discussions.
A hot debate, for instance, is whether or not the ends justify the means. (They don't, by the way.) Another example is that it is wrong to consider another person as a mere means to your own ends, and rather should be treated as an end unto themselves.
I'm going to raise the bar. While pursuing the greatest good, there is no action that is merely a means to another end.
This may at first sound quite queer. Of course there are means. A means is no more than a method, a path way, a step (or many steps) between intention and completion. Without means at all... why then, how could be act strategically at all?
It is not my intention to be rid of step by step processes or rational action. Far from it. One of the ways all good will come to pass is by very strategic action on our part and it will be part of a very long process. Rather, I encourage you to not see any of your actions as simply a means. Each action, in that it is an expression of a moment of now (which is the present culmination of being) is in itself an end. At every moment, even if that action is also in service of another end, is an end unto itself.
I encourage you to see your actions in this way by adopting behavioral ends, which is to say, to see your behavior as something that is a thing of value, and that a particular action is worth striving for.
Lets take a practical scenario. Sure, you drive your car to work... so that you can get to work. But the driving of your car should also be an expression of what you want the world to be. This means that you use your car to communicate respect to the people around you, that you would drive a car (and in such a way) to reduce your environmental impact, and that should driving the car become something other than what you wanted your behavioral end to be... you would stop and seek another means that would better manifest your goodness.
No action is below having significance, and no moment here on earth need be wasted solely for the sake of another.
A hot debate, for instance, is whether or not the ends justify the means. (They don't, by the way.) Another example is that it is wrong to consider another person as a mere means to your own ends, and rather should be treated as an end unto themselves.
I'm going to raise the bar. While pursuing the greatest good, there is no action that is merely a means to another end.
This may at first sound quite queer. Of course there are means. A means is no more than a method, a path way, a step (or many steps) between intention and completion. Without means at all... why then, how could be act strategically at all?
It is not my intention to be rid of step by step processes or rational action. Far from it. One of the ways all good will come to pass is by very strategic action on our part and it will be part of a very long process. Rather, I encourage you to not see any of your actions as simply a means. Each action, in that it is an expression of a moment of now (which is the present culmination of being) is in itself an end. At every moment, even if that action is also in service of another end, is an end unto itself.
I encourage you to see your actions in this way by adopting behavioral ends, which is to say, to see your behavior as something that is a thing of value, and that a particular action is worth striving for.
Lets take a practical scenario. Sure, you drive your car to work... so that you can get to work. But the driving of your car should also be an expression of what you want the world to be. This means that you use your car to communicate respect to the people around you, that you would drive a car (and in such a way) to reduce your environmental impact, and that should driving the car become something other than what you wanted your behavioral end to be... you would stop and seek another means that would better manifest your goodness.
No action is below having significance, and no moment here on earth need be wasted solely for the sake of another.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Waking Up
Gotta tell you, it's a lot harder to get up with little sleep when I'm out in the wild. I'm not sure why.
Wait, I fucking know why. Its because there's some much damn work involved. Sure, getting up takes some work even when you have a house, but the tasks that await you tend to be refreshing (like showering and eating).
But out there, getting up entails packing dismantling my tent, packing my stuff away, and hiking out of the canyon. Doing all that seems really appealing on four hours of sleep.
Wait, I fucking know why. Its because there's some much damn work involved. Sure, getting up takes some work even when you have a house, but the tasks that await you tend to be refreshing (like showering and eating).
But out there, getting up entails packing dismantling my tent, packing my stuff away, and hiking out of the canyon. Doing all that seems really appealing on four hours of sleep.
Introduction
I am homeless.
Hopefully I won’t be by the time you are reading this. If by chance this work goes to press (a process not known for its alacrity), something will have gone terribly amiss if I am still out a place.
Its not that I’m poor. In fact, I have two very nice jobs (one of them even gives me health insurance). Rather, I chose to be homeless… to live for a time below my means. I had a perfectly fine apartment, and while it was by far the most I had ever spent on housing, between my two nice jobs I made all the money work. In this, I was not driven by my bank account.
No, my decision to eschew the trappings of civilization was motivated by a different sort of accounting. Part of my aim by writing for you now is to make sense of how that intentional vagrancy came to pass. I imagine that trying to explain it to you will help me understand better as well.
The second purpose of this writing is as an articulation of my thinking while I am homeless. While all experience educates, I can confidently say that becoming homeless has been one my life’s most vivid teachers. These nights in the darkness of the wild have illuminated life as I knew it.
I suppose that’s the other important bit. My homeless condition is lived out in a somewhat unconventional setting. Do not picture my possessions stored in a hijacked grocery cart, or my bed in a cranny beneath an overpass. Imagine instead my car packed with essentials, and my nightly refuge as a tent tucked away in the wilderness.
I consider my naturalistic homelessness only somewhat unconventional because there is actually some precedence for such a lifestyle. While it isn’t the vision of modern vagrancy (many homeless are also in poverty, and they rely on the chaff and charity of the more fortunate to survive), humanity has a long history of nature-seeking asceticism.
Thoreau had a little cabin near Walden Pond.
Siddhartha had a bowl for rice and a Boddhi tree.
I have a one-man tent I pitch nightly in a little canyon on the northern tip of the Los Angeles basin, and for my part I am both participant in and observe the goings on of that sprawling mass of humanity. Each night after I hike down into the canyon proper, past the ranger station and picnic benches, and I enter the wild by crossing the stream that runs out of the mountains by hopping from rock to rock.
And each night, when I have safely crossed to the other side, I turn back and regard the world I have left. I’m close enough that I can still see the persistent glow of the city, but far enough that above it all I can still see the movement of the stars.
Hopefully I won’t be by the time you are reading this. If by chance this work goes to press (a process not known for its alacrity), something will have gone terribly amiss if I am still out a place.
Its not that I’m poor. In fact, I have two very nice jobs (one of them even gives me health insurance). Rather, I chose to be homeless… to live for a time below my means. I had a perfectly fine apartment, and while it was by far the most I had ever spent on housing, between my two nice jobs I made all the money work. In this, I was not driven by my bank account.
No, my decision to eschew the trappings of civilization was motivated by a different sort of accounting. Part of my aim by writing for you now is to make sense of how that intentional vagrancy came to pass. I imagine that trying to explain it to you will help me understand better as well.
The second purpose of this writing is as an articulation of my thinking while I am homeless. While all experience educates, I can confidently say that becoming homeless has been one my life’s most vivid teachers. These nights in the darkness of the wild have illuminated life as I knew it.
I suppose that’s the other important bit. My homeless condition is lived out in a somewhat unconventional setting. Do not picture my possessions stored in a hijacked grocery cart, or my bed in a cranny beneath an overpass. Imagine instead my car packed with essentials, and my nightly refuge as a tent tucked away in the wilderness.
I consider my naturalistic homelessness only somewhat unconventional because there is actually some precedence for such a lifestyle. While it isn’t the vision of modern vagrancy (many homeless are also in poverty, and they rely on the chaff and charity of the more fortunate to survive), humanity has a long history of nature-seeking asceticism.
Thoreau had a little cabin near Walden Pond.
Siddhartha had a bowl for rice and a Boddhi tree.
I have a one-man tent I pitch nightly in a little canyon on the northern tip of the Los Angeles basin, and for my part I am both participant in and observe the goings on of that sprawling mass of humanity. Each night after I hike down into the canyon proper, past the ranger station and picnic benches, and I enter the wild by crossing the stream that runs out of the mountains by hopping from rock to rock.
And each night, when I have safely crossed to the other side, I turn back and regard the world I have left. I’m close enough that I can still see the persistent glow of the city, but far enough that above it all I can still see the movement of the stars.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
When I Say Save the World...
Ok, so I tend to talk boldly about changing and saving the world. Its worth addressing what I mean. What do I want us to do? So, I offer here an account of what I actually think would constitute an improvement in the world, framed as things a person can do.
Make a list of the facets of what a person is. People are physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social creatures. Each of these layers comes with a kind of being and condition, but they are also dimensions in which we can move. Said differently, as people, we strive for physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and social well being. We also have the power to create physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social change.
For now, lets use this taxonomy of persons to organize our list.
Physical Good
We can act physically. Make change in the world of things. I don't fret a lot preserving the shape of rocks (although I like climbing and looking at them). But the physical being of people and animals and plants I think we should care about.
Nonviolence
Not harming or destroying things that have goods unto there own is a great start. Don't kill people. Don't kill animals. Only destroy plants when it can't be avoided. Catch bugs and release them outside. Only fight people who think it will be fun to fight back. Let martial arts be art.
Foster Wellbeing
Go to unreasonable lengths to make sure creatures live in reasonable conditions. Food, shelter, warmth, and freedom is a great place to start. Maybe there's a chance of ingratitude in utopic conditions... but lets worry about that when we are in any danger of being there. Put your resources in service of other people.
Emotional Good
We are emotional agents, and we can influence the world of feelings. Once again I fuzzily draw the line at plants, who seem to have biological responses to changing conditions, but to date have never been shown to have the capacity to feel. Human and non-human animals so seem to have an emotional good.
Love
Whatever we do, we are called to do it with love. Our interactions should be driven
Make a list of the facets of what a person is. People are physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social creatures. Each of these layers comes with a kind of being and condition, but they are also dimensions in which we can move. Said differently, as people, we strive for physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and social well being. We also have the power to create physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social change.
For now, lets use this taxonomy of persons to organize our list.
Physical Good
We can act physically. Make change in the world of things. I don't fret a lot preserving the shape of rocks (although I like climbing and looking at them). But the physical being of people and animals and plants I think we should care about.
Nonviolence
Not harming or destroying things that have goods unto there own is a great start. Don't kill people. Don't kill animals. Only destroy plants when it can't be avoided. Catch bugs and release them outside. Only fight people who think it will be fun to fight back. Let martial arts be art.
Foster Wellbeing
Go to unreasonable lengths to make sure creatures live in reasonable conditions. Food, shelter, warmth, and freedom is a great place to start. Maybe there's a chance of ingratitude in utopic conditions... but lets worry about that when we are in any danger of being there. Put your resources in service of other people.
Emotional Good
We are emotional agents, and we can influence the world of feelings. Once again I fuzzily draw the line at plants, who seem to have biological responses to changing conditions, but to date have never been shown to have the capacity to feel. Human and non-human animals so seem to have an emotional good.
Love
Whatever we do, we are called to do it with love. Our interactions should be driven
Finding Money
When we find money on the ground we think, "Cool." Of course we know that the money isn't ours, but we pick it up anyway. Even thought we might not verbalize it, the thinking goes a little like this, "While I know it isn't mine, I'll take it. The world brought to me, and through those happenstances it has come to me. I will take it, and treat it like the rest of my money."
I'm not gonna attack this thinking. Rather, I'd like broaden that mindset.
We are not so ready to assume ownership when the world brings us problems. Somehow those all still belong to the original owner and we resist rather actively anyone trying to burden us with them.
I suggest you start treating problems just like $20 bills. Don't hesitate to pick them up and treat them as your own.
I'm not gonna attack this thinking. Rather, I'd like broaden that mindset.
We are not so ready to assume ownership when the world brings us problems. Somehow those all still belong to the original owner and we resist rather actively anyone trying to burden us with them.
I suggest you start treating problems just like $20 bills. Don't hesitate to pick them up and treat them as your own.
Now
What are you waiting for? When are you going to start serving humanity? Striving for a better world?
Perhaps you will give when you have everything. Win the lottery. Then you'll become a philanthropist. Right?
Maybe to get a little older. Once you are done with school, or get your promotion...
Waiting for the right time? To get superpowers? For more time? When someone comes to help you?
Fuck all that. You will start saving the world exactly you decide you are tired of seeing it suffer. In the meantime you will bitch and laugh, trying every way you know how to release that tension that is drawn across the chasm between the world as it is and the world as it should be. But the only way to settle that anxious nausea is to actually fix the problem. You may find a fixation... and perhaps you can play, drink, dream, fuck or work your edge off. But somehow that emptiness continues nag and gnaw at that world of sensory satisfaction you build up around you.
Peace, instead, comes from the satisfaction of expending yourself. Not what comes into your being, but what floods out of it. Stop waiting. Stop tricking yourself. Quit bitching. Quit laughing.
You will act the moment you can no longer distract yourself. Now is an excellent time to attend to the shit in the world, as opposed to the bullshit in our minds.
Perhaps you will give when you have everything. Win the lottery. Then you'll become a philanthropist. Right?
Maybe to get a little older. Once you are done with school, or get your promotion...
Waiting for the right time? To get superpowers? For more time? When someone comes to help you?
Fuck all that. You will start saving the world exactly you decide you are tired of seeing it suffer. In the meantime you will bitch and laugh, trying every way you know how to release that tension that is drawn across the chasm between the world as it is and the world as it should be. But the only way to settle that anxious nausea is to actually fix the problem. You may find a fixation... and perhaps you can play, drink, dream, fuck or work your edge off. But somehow that emptiness continues nag and gnaw at that world of sensory satisfaction you build up around you.
Peace, instead, comes from the satisfaction of expending yourself. Not what comes into your being, but what floods out of it. Stop waiting. Stop tricking yourself. Quit bitching. Quit laughing.
You will act the moment you can no longer distract yourself. Now is an excellent time to attend to the shit in the world, as opposed to the bullshit in our minds.
Rejecting Violent Answers
One of the greatest lies we ever accept is a call to be violent.
But as violence approaches, our very reasonable reaction is fear. Tragically, we take this aversion as a lack of courage.
Nothing could be further from the truth. When violence looms, it is not an irrational fear that grips us, but rather the true realization that something of great value, namely our lives and the lives of the others involved in the conflict, are about to be jeopardized by something of little value (the content of the conflict).
You aren't a coward if you shiver in the face of violence. You see the truth. Only those who have come to accept that their lives are not more valuable than violence see nothing to loose.
So cut away. Leave behind the notion that you were designed to do violence, and embrace the purpose that you feel deep within you. We have the responsibility to actively, ardently, and courageously transform the world in a positive way.
You wanna be a badass? Permanently reject violent answers to any solution, and challenge yourself to live embracing that invaluable purpose you felt threatened by violence in the first place. I think you will be surprised by how little fear you experience when striving for your actual ideals.
But as violence approaches, our very reasonable reaction is fear. Tragically, we take this aversion as a lack of courage.
Nothing could be further from the truth. When violence looms, it is not an irrational fear that grips us, but rather the true realization that something of great value, namely our lives and the lives of the others involved in the conflict, are about to be jeopardized by something of little value (the content of the conflict).
You aren't a coward if you shiver in the face of violence. You see the truth. Only those who have come to accept that their lives are not more valuable than violence see nothing to loose.
So cut away. Leave behind the notion that you were designed to do violence, and embrace the purpose that you feel deep within you. We have the responsibility to actively, ardently, and courageously transform the world in a positive way.
You wanna be a badass? Permanently reject violent answers to any solution, and challenge yourself to live embracing that invaluable purpose you felt threatened by violence in the first place. I think you will be surprised by how little fear you experience when striving for your actual ideals.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Interview 1
I met a homeless man outside of Jamba Juice. I had swung by before class as my morning had excluded breakfast (and I'm trying to eat healthier). Yesterday I gave my last two dollars to a man who was clearly homeless but not begging, so when this man asked if I had any change, I honestly told him no.
But I had some in the car. So I grabbed some money from my parking money pouch (I keep a stash of bills and change in my armrest thinger), and I walked back to him. He was grateful and that would normally be where it ended. But Kristen's words about learning homeless stories surged through my mind, giving me courage.
"I don't have any thing more, but I could buy you some lunch," I say, trying to start this conversation with something other than, "So, you're homeless..." Also, if he says yes, it'll give me some time while we get food.
"No that's ok, I'll eat later."
Damn, I think. Better just do it.
"So, are you homeless?"
"Yeah," he replies, quickly adding, "but only for now. I just moved back, I mean, I'm from California originally, but I'm back."
"Oh, cool. Where did you move from?" I don't really know what so say or ask... I'm just trying to keep the conversation alive.
"Phoenix, was out there for a few years."
Not really knowing what to do with that, feeling like I'm prying with that line of questioning. So I ask something I ask people all the time.
"What do you do?"
"Well, I'm trying to start a business."
Wow, I think. Not what I expected, I suppose. I'm interested. "What kind of business?"
Ok, so he answered this question. But I couldn't tell you what he said. His response was soft, and his words were increasingly muttered as he actually turned his head away from me as he spoke. The explanation of his plan ended with an addendum, "I also do work in factory production." I heard that last little bit.
The conversation had a sort of done feeling about it, so I told him good luck, he thanked me again, and I walked off. One of the things that stood out to me was his business plan. I hadn't really expected a man asking for change to have an enterpernerial spirit. The other thing that I noticed was his stressing that his homeless state was temporary. I sure know where he is coming from with that. I regularly stress the fact that my situation is going to end in a few months, both to myself and others. Apparently I am not alone in this desire to keep the word homeless a description of my situation, and not of me as a person.
But I had some in the car. So I grabbed some money from my parking money pouch (I keep a stash of bills and change in my armrest thinger), and I walked back to him. He was grateful and that would normally be where it ended. But Kristen's words about learning homeless stories surged through my mind, giving me courage.
"I don't have any thing more, but I could buy you some lunch," I say, trying to start this conversation with something other than, "So, you're homeless..." Also, if he says yes, it'll give me some time while we get food.
"No that's ok, I'll eat later."
Damn, I think. Better just do it.
"So, are you homeless?"
"Yeah," he replies, quickly adding, "but only for now. I just moved back, I mean, I'm from California originally, but I'm back."
"Oh, cool. Where did you move from?" I don't really know what so say or ask... I'm just trying to keep the conversation alive.
"Phoenix, was out there for a few years."
Not really knowing what to do with that, feeling like I'm prying with that line of questioning. So I ask something I ask people all the time.
"What do you do?"
"Well, I'm trying to start a business."
Wow, I think. Not what I expected, I suppose. I'm interested. "What kind of business?"
Ok, so he answered this question. But I couldn't tell you what he said. His response was soft, and his words were increasingly muttered as he actually turned his head away from me as he spoke. The explanation of his plan ended with an addendum, "I also do work in factory production." I heard that last little bit.
The conversation had a sort of done feeling about it, so I told him good luck, he thanked me again, and I walked off. One of the things that stood out to me was his business plan. I hadn't really expected a man asking for change to have an enterpernerial spirit. The other thing that I noticed was his stressing that his homeless state was temporary. I sure know where he is coming from with that. I regularly stress the fact that my situation is going to end in a few months, both to myself and others. Apparently I am not alone in this desire to keep the word homeless a description of my situation, and not of me as a person.
Shower
I've never been so happy to shower in public.
When I think back to past experiences that involve group bathing, they are usually sorta awkward. I'm not super nervous about being naked in front of people, but there's just a somewhat uncomfortable air in public showers.
But not last night. After a brief workout I'm sweaty and gross and I this shower is mine. I'm not bumming from a friend. I'm not hiding behind a bush in the wild. The shower I'm about to take is mine. Rented, just like every other member of the gym, but an equal part mine.
Even better than a sense of ownership? Hot water. I turn that handle and in an instant I have hot water. I stand there for just a moment as calm washes over me. For the first time in a long time I am truly blissful.
When I think back to past experiences that involve group bathing, they are usually sorta awkward. I'm not super nervous about being naked in front of people, but there's just a somewhat uncomfortable air in public showers.
But not last night. After a brief workout I'm sweaty and gross and I this shower is mine. I'm not bumming from a friend. I'm not hiding behind a bush in the wild. The shower I'm about to take is mine. Rented, just like every other member of the gym, but an equal part mine.
Even better than a sense of ownership? Hot water. I turn that handle and in an instant I have hot water. I stand there for just a moment as calm washes over me. For the first time in a long time I am truly blissful.
Monday, March 2, 2009
$1275/month
My apartment is in shambles.
Twice worn clothing is scattered about the floor, not thrown aimlessly into a pile... rather, even more aimlessly dropped where it was taken off. Every pair of shoes I have worn over the last few weeks is similarly discarded right where they came off my feet. I'm hunched over my laptop at my dining room table. To my left are two plates, each with small crusted drippings of the Buffalo sauce that fell off my vegetarian spicy chicken patty. The first plate is from yesterday's dinner. The second plate is from lunch today. On my right are three more plates, all bearing similar little orange dots.
I stare at the screen of my tiny laptop (she took the computer) I purchased to fill the electronic void. I have my own computer... I've had one for years a tech hording friend of mine gave me. It was years old back when it was new to me. I plugged it in a few days ago, and while I am not usually an impatient person, I could not stand its... deliberateness (read - slowness).
Now, my apartment isn't always like this. When it wants to, it cleans up quite nice. It wants to when I want it to, and I want it to whenever anyone comes over. Which is infrequent, and since I am terribly easy to impress, its orderly state slides into chaos as each day since company passes. Its just that in the midst of the rest of the things I have to do... house cleaning just isn't important. Except when people come over. I have no problem transforming this somewhat giant apartment for the benefit of others. For a guy living alone, I'm actually pretty good at it.
My skill in cleaning falls out of the same series of events that made me the sole resident of this two bedroom apartment in Pasadena. I used to have a roommate, and not only a roommate, but a very specialized kind called a fiance. Angie and I moved to Pasadena in pursuit of her educational goals one year ago. We had dreamed of getting accepted into schools in the same place, but her desire for a climate calmer than Illinois left my choices of school very limited and ill fitting for what I wanted to study (and was subsequently not accepted). She on the other hand managed to land a spot in medical school. So I quit my job, my school, and helped her set out for California.
I grew up a lot making that choice. I've always thought of myself as a smart and noble person, but in that transition I was forced to choose between the two. Go off and be smart for myself? No, I'll live up to my word and help another.
This story isn't really about breaking up, so I'll gloss over that part. Ask me sometime in person if you want relationship advice (I'll gladly give it). Rather, this story is about what happened after that break up. What I did with the apartment. What I did with my life.
If you've ever been dumped... it sucks.
See, we all have ideas about what has happened and what is going to happen to us. Stories, if you will. When you date someone that person becomes a major player, second only to you (and perhaps even your own primacy fades if you throw your life to the wind for their sake). When you start thinking about being with them forever, well, that story extends out into every aspect of your life. While you might not know the particulars, you know the characters of the script, and you know who is going to play them.
But when you get dumped, that all comes crashing down. Quite suddenly what was a plan, the rest of your life, becomes an actorless fiction. Even the past, which used to be a shared memory and the foundation of your life together, becomes a strangely illegitimate and burdensome history. In my case there was marriage, medical school, maybe my school in the future, children... all instantly evaporated. These plans had become more real to me than my own personal dreams (which were to be some sort of academic prodigy). I had put off my schooling to make the timing of the move right, not applied to the schools I wanted, given up my teaching job and ministry job with little promise of a Californian replacement, and took up selling bagels for nearly minimum wage just to pay the rent (don't feel to bad, I ended up getting both a great teaching job and an awesome ministry job). Prodigies aren't supposed to sell bagels after they get Master's degrees, but our collective dreams had trumped my own.
Anyway, those collective dreams vanished when Angie left. All I have are awkward histories and irrelevant futures. And an apartment that costs $1275/month.
I started rewriting those stories a few months ago. It was a bit difficult at first, I'll admit, but I once I really got thinking about what my new future could hold, I got pretty excited. Angie wan't much for traveling... I could now see the world. Nor was she much for serving others... I could now save the world. I had a lot of help from friends and family. I had also stated dating a really great girl who shared my passion for adventure and giving. There was only really one final step.
What to do with this stupid apartment.
Twice worn clothing is scattered about the floor, not thrown aimlessly into a pile... rather, even more aimlessly dropped where it was taken off. Every pair of shoes I have worn over the last few weeks is similarly discarded right where they came off my feet. I'm hunched over my laptop at my dining room table. To my left are two plates, each with small crusted drippings of the Buffalo sauce that fell off my vegetarian spicy chicken patty. The first plate is from yesterday's dinner. The second plate is from lunch today. On my right are three more plates, all bearing similar little orange dots.
I stare at the screen of my tiny laptop (she took the computer) I purchased to fill the electronic void. I have my own computer... I've had one for years a tech hording friend of mine gave me. It was years old back when it was new to me. I plugged it in a few days ago, and while I am not usually an impatient person, I could not stand its... deliberateness (read - slowness).
Now, my apartment isn't always like this. When it wants to, it cleans up quite nice. It wants to when I want it to, and I want it to whenever anyone comes over. Which is infrequent, and since I am terribly easy to impress, its orderly state slides into chaos as each day since company passes. Its just that in the midst of the rest of the things I have to do... house cleaning just isn't important. Except when people come over. I have no problem transforming this somewhat giant apartment for the benefit of others. For a guy living alone, I'm actually pretty good at it.
My skill in cleaning falls out of the same series of events that made me the sole resident of this two bedroom apartment in Pasadena. I used to have a roommate, and not only a roommate, but a very specialized kind called a fiance. Angie and I moved to Pasadena in pursuit of her educational goals one year ago. We had dreamed of getting accepted into schools in the same place, but her desire for a climate calmer than Illinois left my choices of school very limited and ill fitting for what I wanted to study (and was subsequently not accepted). She on the other hand managed to land a spot in medical school. So I quit my job, my school, and helped her set out for California.
I grew up a lot making that choice. I've always thought of myself as a smart and noble person, but in that transition I was forced to choose between the two. Go off and be smart for myself? No, I'll live up to my word and help another.
This story isn't really about breaking up, so I'll gloss over that part. Ask me sometime in person if you want relationship advice (I'll gladly give it). Rather, this story is about what happened after that break up. What I did with the apartment. What I did with my life.
If you've ever been dumped... it sucks.
See, we all have ideas about what has happened and what is going to happen to us. Stories, if you will. When you date someone that person becomes a major player, second only to you (and perhaps even your own primacy fades if you throw your life to the wind for their sake). When you start thinking about being with them forever, well, that story extends out into every aspect of your life. While you might not know the particulars, you know the characters of the script, and you know who is going to play them.
But when you get dumped, that all comes crashing down. Quite suddenly what was a plan, the rest of your life, becomes an actorless fiction. Even the past, which used to be a shared memory and the foundation of your life together, becomes a strangely illegitimate and burdensome history. In my case there was marriage, medical school, maybe my school in the future, children... all instantly evaporated. These plans had become more real to me than my own personal dreams (which were to be some sort of academic prodigy). I had put off my schooling to make the timing of the move right, not applied to the schools I wanted, given up my teaching job and ministry job with little promise of a Californian replacement, and took up selling bagels for nearly minimum wage just to pay the rent (don't feel to bad, I ended up getting both a great teaching job and an awesome ministry job). Prodigies aren't supposed to sell bagels after they get Master's degrees, but our collective dreams had trumped my own.
Anyway, those collective dreams vanished when Angie left. All I have are awkward histories and irrelevant futures. And an apartment that costs $1275/month.
I started rewriting those stories a few months ago. It was a bit difficult at first, I'll admit, but I once I really got thinking about what my new future could hold, I got pretty excited. Angie wan't much for traveling... I could now see the world. Nor was she much for serving others... I could now save the world. I had a lot of help from friends and family. I had also stated dating a really great girl who shared my passion for adventure and giving. There was only really one final step.
What to do with this stupid apartment.
Homeless Skin
One of the things I have always noticed most homeless people have in common is their skin. Perhaps "in common" is the wrong expression. Sometimes its flaky and ashen. Sometimes its sun baked and leathery. Sometimes it has rashes. Sometimes its has open wounds.
Perhaps I should say it inversely. People with homes all have the same skin. Forget color. You show me two people with a home and I'll show you two people with very similar skin. Sure, maybe one works outside and has hardened hands and a deep tan while the other's skin is soft and white. But there are no persistent rashes. No reoccurring ailments.
What's the cause? Well, its a combination of things. Think about it. Outside often. In the sun often. On the ground often. Increased exposure to contaminants (or in my case, possibly allergenic plants) Fewer changes of clothing. Fewer launderings. Fewer showers.
More shit on you; fewer was to get it off.
Said another way, a home is basically walls. I can usually find something to get under. Under a freeway overpass. Under an awning. But I have no place to get in. Even when I manage a place with walls (like my car or tent) it is small and very hard to keep clean. Think about how often you are protected by the walls of your house. Now, take all those times away. What protects you now?
Your skin. Your skin is the last wall. The final rampart that draws the definitive line between you and the world. And should you ever become homeless, your skin will be the organ that bears the brunt of what the world has in store for you.
I have homeless skin.
I don't know if I'm surprised. I sort of expected it (as I've always known it was one of the common struggles), but I also thought my particular brand of vagrancy would be exempt. I have rashes.
One is a reaction from a plant. Its not real bad, but it starts around my waist and extends down my left leg. Must have brushed some Poison Something, then inadvertently itched it down my leg. Not unexpected. I'm out in the bush, and some of the bush is itchy.
The other rash is a bit more unique. See, part of my version of homelessness involves me keeping my job. I have to look nice, and I have to smell nice for the normal world. I had originally planned on getting a gym membership as a way of gaining regular access to showering facilities. But I never did, instead defaulting to bathing in the wilderness.
Here's how I do it. I pack out a 64 oz. bottle and soap and shampoo. In the morning, after breaking camp, I would wash myself. Naked. In the wild.
It works... well enough, I suppose. I don't get that awesome clean feeling one gets after a hot shower or a long bath, but I feel passable. Also, I would find the opportunity to shower in one of the houses at which I would crash. But one day, I started itching. Not just any itching.
Genital itching.
Now, I've used to give the sex and relationship talk for a teen development organization. I remember health class. I've even spent some sobering hours searching sexually transmitted diseases on the internet. But I'm perplexed. Lets just say my current sexual behavior shouldn't be infectious.
Unlike most vagrants, I have health insurance. Not from teaching, but through the Church. I suppose Christianity has always concerned itself with healing. I just so happened that I found myself in a dermatologist's office a few days after the itching started (had made an appointment for something else about a week earlier).
Between my reflections and the doctor's knowledge, we put it together. Wouldn't you know that soap is an allergen. That's right. We are all allergic to soap. Now, not very allergic, which is why we can stand to put it all over our bodies. But if you leave soap on your body (that is perhaps, if you are bathing out of a 64 oz. bottle and don't get it all rinsed off...) you can have an allergic reaction.
So here I am. Despite my efforts for cleanliness (in fact, because of them), I have rashes over various parts of my lower body. I'm pretty good at not scratching my itches. I've always been the person who can keep meditating when the fly has landed on my face. Also I've had some nearly whole body Poison Oak disasters that really put this kind of suffering in perspective. The worst, though, is at night. I guess I don't have the same focus and self control when I'm sleepy (go figure), and there are times that I wake up and I'm frantically scratching scratching scratching. And once I've started, its very hard to stop.
Fortunately, the doctor gave me a little sample of hydrocorisone and I've been working to get the rashes under control.
I also finally got that gym membership, and am looking forward to full showers daily. Even as I write this the American economy is worse than its been in almost a century. But I submit to you this question for meditation and subsequent gratitude.
Do you have the ability to shower daily? Better yet, do have unfettered access to hot water and total privacy? How about an endless selection of scented concoctions with which to clean yourself, with every nuanced step from flowery or bold available for just a few dollars?
Yes? I do not contend that you don't have struggles, but if your answer to these questions is yes, I pray you count yourself among the lucky.
Perhaps I should say it inversely. People with homes all have the same skin. Forget color. You show me two people with a home and I'll show you two people with very similar skin. Sure, maybe one works outside and has hardened hands and a deep tan while the other's skin is soft and white. But there are no persistent rashes. No reoccurring ailments.
What's the cause? Well, its a combination of things. Think about it. Outside often. In the sun often. On the ground often. Increased exposure to contaminants (or in my case, possibly allergenic plants) Fewer changes of clothing. Fewer launderings. Fewer showers.
More shit on you; fewer was to get it off.
Said another way, a home is basically walls. I can usually find something to get under. Under a freeway overpass. Under an awning. But I have no place to get in. Even when I manage a place with walls (like my car or tent) it is small and very hard to keep clean. Think about how often you are protected by the walls of your house. Now, take all those times away. What protects you now?
Your skin. Your skin is the last wall. The final rampart that draws the definitive line between you and the world. And should you ever become homeless, your skin will be the organ that bears the brunt of what the world has in store for you.
I have homeless skin.
I don't know if I'm surprised. I sort of expected it (as I've always known it was one of the common struggles), but I also thought my particular brand of vagrancy would be exempt. I have rashes.
One is a reaction from a plant. Its not real bad, but it starts around my waist and extends down my left leg. Must have brushed some Poison Something, then inadvertently itched it down my leg. Not unexpected. I'm out in the bush, and some of the bush is itchy.
The other rash is a bit more unique. See, part of my version of homelessness involves me keeping my job. I have to look nice, and I have to smell nice for the normal world. I had originally planned on getting a gym membership as a way of gaining regular access to showering facilities. But I never did, instead defaulting to bathing in the wilderness.
Here's how I do it. I pack out a 64 oz. bottle and soap and shampoo. In the morning, after breaking camp, I would wash myself. Naked. In the wild.
It works... well enough, I suppose. I don't get that awesome clean feeling one gets after a hot shower or a long bath, but I feel passable. Also, I would find the opportunity to shower in one of the houses at which I would crash. But one day, I started itching. Not just any itching.
Genital itching.
Now, I've used to give the sex and relationship talk for a teen development organization. I remember health class. I've even spent some sobering hours searching sexually transmitted diseases on the internet. But I'm perplexed. Lets just say my current sexual behavior shouldn't be infectious.
Unlike most vagrants, I have health insurance. Not from teaching, but through the Church. I suppose Christianity has always concerned itself with healing. I just so happened that I found myself in a dermatologist's office a few days after the itching started (had made an appointment for something else about a week earlier).
Between my reflections and the doctor's knowledge, we put it together. Wouldn't you know that soap is an allergen. That's right. We are all allergic to soap. Now, not very allergic, which is why we can stand to put it all over our bodies. But if you leave soap on your body (that is perhaps, if you are bathing out of a 64 oz. bottle and don't get it all rinsed off...) you can have an allergic reaction.
So here I am. Despite my efforts for cleanliness (in fact, because of them), I have rashes over various parts of my lower body. I'm pretty good at not scratching my itches. I've always been the person who can keep meditating when the fly has landed on my face. Also I've had some nearly whole body Poison Oak disasters that really put this kind of suffering in perspective. The worst, though, is at night. I guess I don't have the same focus and self control when I'm sleepy (go figure), and there are times that I wake up and I'm frantically scratching scratching scratching. And once I've started, its very hard to stop.
Fortunately, the doctor gave me a little sample of hydrocorisone and I've been working to get the rashes under control.
I also finally got that gym membership, and am looking forward to full showers daily. Even as I write this the American economy is worse than its been in almost a century. But I submit to you this question for meditation and subsequent gratitude.
Do you have the ability to shower daily? Better yet, do have unfettered access to hot water and total privacy? How about an endless selection of scented concoctions with which to clean yourself, with every nuanced step from flowery or bold available for just a few dollars?
Yes? I do not contend that you don't have struggles, but if your answer to these questions is yes, I pray you count yourself among the lucky.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Sick
I've never wanted a home more than right now. Being sick, it seems, is the clincher. See, not having a home gives me this sort of displaced feel, which is sometimes pretty cool. There are times I feel like I'm really on a mission. An unending quest to save the world. But that's when I'm feeling spunky.
On Monday I strained my lower back. On Tuesday I got sick. The back pain makes the prospect of sleeping on the ground very uninviting. The sickness makes me want a home. Now, I am fortunate enough to have people around who care enough to put me up for the night, or make me tea, or some other form of comfort. While this is nice, and I appreciate the sentiment, it has yet to make me feel at home.
We are more than half way through February, which means the cold will be passing soon and the rains will be gone. I am looking forward to not being ill. I have yet to regret my choice of lifestyle... but I'll say, on days like today it looks pretty bleak.
On Monday I strained my lower back. On Tuesday I got sick. The back pain makes the prospect of sleeping on the ground very uninviting. The sickness makes me want a home. Now, I am fortunate enough to have people around who care enough to put me up for the night, or make me tea, or some other form of comfort. While this is nice, and I appreciate the sentiment, it has yet to make me feel at home.
We are more than half way through February, which means the cold will be passing soon and the rains will be gone. I am looking forward to not being ill. I have yet to regret my choice of lifestyle... but I'll say, on days like today it looks pretty bleak.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Rain
Last night was cold.
A few days ago I hatched the idea of creating a wilderness cache. In this box would be all I would need to stay the night in the wild. Hidden away behind tree and bush, I would be able to just hike out to the box with the appearance of going for a hike, and stay for the night. This is an important little bit of deception, as camping in this particular wilderness is not looked highly upon by the law.
Here's the deal. The gates up to the legal camping spots in these mountains close at 8:00 pm. I am so rarely done working/talking to loved ones by 8:00 that I just never make it up there. Honestly the hours between 8:00 and 11:00 are my most productive. Anyhow, there is no camping in Eaton. Now, that's only kind of a problem. If I hike out into the bush a few hundred meters, no one would ever catch on. The problem lies in the fact that I have to walk passed the ranger station every time I hike out there with all my stuff in tow. This makes my wilderness cache appealing, as it makes me look like every other early morning walker.
Last night I created my cache. I got a plastic tub and a tarp from Target, and filled the tub with the tarp, two blankets, a pillow, and my cozy socks. I also decided to bring my tent, as it sorta looked like rain. Good thing, too.
Rain it did. The ground was all soft and moist from the earlier rains, and the creek coming out of the canyon was running for the first time since the end of last summer. Usually I love that little river, but carrying a giant tub in with only the moon to light my path made the rocky crossing a bit more stressful. I found easily the spot I had scouted out a few days ago, and I set up camp.
Everything was damp by the time I settled down for the night, but is was more... annoying than uncomfortable. The actual suffering came later, around 3:00 am when the rain kicked in. See, tents keep the rain off you, but for some damn reason, if you touch the side of the tent, the water can come in. My little porta-tent is basically a mummy bag with a spacious bit for your head, which means that your lower section is basically touching the sides. If you aren't directly, your pad and blankets are. The only way to avoid this is to stake out the sides of the tent. I hadn't.
So starting at 3:00 in the morning the half hour wake ups began. I would wake up, vaguely aware of my soggy condition, roll over, and try to sleep. This worked well enough, but as I got wetter, the attempted rest offered diminishing returns.
The lesson here is not terribly surprising. Getting wet is not fun in the cold. Now, it probably didn't even dip much below 50 degrees, but the wet can really make that miserable. Not much chance of hypothermia and that temp... but upon my sluggish unrested rise today, I really missed home.
A few days ago I hatched the idea of creating a wilderness cache. In this box would be all I would need to stay the night in the wild. Hidden away behind tree and bush, I would be able to just hike out to the box with the appearance of going for a hike, and stay for the night. This is an important little bit of deception, as camping in this particular wilderness is not looked highly upon by the law.
Here's the deal. The gates up to the legal camping spots in these mountains close at 8:00 pm. I am so rarely done working/talking to loved ones by 8:00 that I just never make it up there. Honestly the hours between 8:00 and 11:00 are my most productive. Anyhow, there is no camping in Eaton. Now, that's only kind of a problem. If I hike out into the bush a few hundred meters, no one would ever catch on. The problem lies in the fact that I have to walk passed the ranger station every time I hike out there with all my stuff in tow. This makes my wilderness cache appealing, as it makes me look like every other early morning walker.
Last night I created my cache. I got a plastic tub and a tarp from Target, and filled the tub with the tarp, two blankets, a pillow, and my cozy socks. I also decided to bring my tent, as it sorta looked like rain. Good thing, too.
Rain it did. The ground was all soft and moist from the earlier rains, and the creek coming out of the canyon was running for the first time since the end of last summer. Usually I love that little river, but carrying a giant tub in with only the moon to light my path made the rocky crossing a bit more stressful. I found easily the spot I had scouted out a few days ago, and I set up camp.
Everything was damp by the time I settled down for the night, but is was more... annoying than uncomfortable. The actual suffering came later, around 3:00 am when the rain kicked in. See, tents keep the rain off you, but for some damn reason, if you touch the side of the tent, the water can come in. My little porta-tent is basically a mummy bag with a spacious bit for your head, which means that your lower section is basically touching the sides. If you aren't directly, your pad and blankets are. The only way to avoid this is to stake out the sides of the tent. I hadn't.
So starting at 3:00 in the morning the half hour wake ups began. I would wake up, vaguely aware of my soggy condition, roll over, and try to sleep. This worked well enough, but as I got wetter, the attempted rest offered diminishing returns.
The lesson here is not terribly surprising. Getting wet is not fun in the cold. Now, it probably didn't even dip much below 50 degrees, but the wet can really make that miserable. Not much chance of hypothermia and that temp... but upon my sluggish unrested rise today, I really missed home.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Negotiating Homelessness
How to loose your house but not your job.
Using
Social
Performative
Symbolic
Behavioral
and
Ideological
... mechanisms to alay fears and establish normalcy despite not having a home
Using
Social
Performative
Symbolic
Behavioral
and
Ideological
... mechanisms to alay fears and establish normalcy despite not having a home
What Homes Communicate
Having a home communicates:
Self Determination - What I do is up to me.
Reliability - Because my things are safely kept and I am regularly there.
Productivity - I contribute enough to society that I can afford a home.
Social Status - The quality of my home is indicitive of my influence and wealth.
Decency - I keep my home clean, and it keeps me clean.
Self Determination - What I do is up to me.
Reliability - Because my things are safely kept and I am regularly there.
Productivity - I contribute enough to society that I can afford a home.
Social Status - The quality of my home is indicitive of my influence and wealth.
Decency - I keep my home clean, and it keeps me clean.
Practical Restrictions of Homelessness
There are more than a few things that a home does for a person. These functions include security (protection against the elements, animals, and fellow humans), appearance (grooming, clean and varied clothing), comfort (temperature, covering, nice places to sit and sleep), food (refrigeration, preperation, and consumption), communication (mailing address, phone, and computer), and storage (of all our extra stuff).
Housing and Environmental Advocacy
Alright, lets take a quick poll. How many here consider themselves devoted on some level to improving the status of the environment?
Let hit a few of the traditions. How many of you have taken some meaningful and intentional step to recycling? How about reducing carbon emissions? What about through diet, like eating local or reducing meat consumption?
Right. How many of you have ever considered homelessness? Didn't think so. But why not? Housing, built up land, constitutes a major aspect of our footprint on this earth. Combine loss of green space, tampering with run off, the resources used in construction, and the energy used to heat and cool the residence. A significant part of our environmental impact is bound up in our housing, and yet, this is not the hot issue that recycling, fossil fuels, and diet continue to be.
The blind spot in our advocacy is likely a product of our American cultural perspectives about property and homeownership. Central to the American dream is the idea of personal home ownership. Our own home, our own land. This desire sprung forth from, at least in earlier years of our country, the vast avaliability of such land. But it is more than just lots of land. We also value personal freedom, an independance form the rule of others, and being the master of ones own domain is an excellent outward sign as well as practical step in establishing ones liberty.
Not only are there cultural inclinations, there are some serious practical concerns that restrict environmentalists from walking away from their houses.
Let hit a few of the traditions. How many of you have taken some meaningful and intentional step to recycling? How about reducing carbon emissions? What about through diet, like eating local or reducing meat consumption?
Right. How many of you have ever considered homelessness? Didn't think so. But why not? Housing, built up land, constitutes a major aspect of our footprint on this earth. Combine loss of green space, tampering with run off, the resources used in construction, and the energy used to heat and cool the residence. A significant part of our environmental impact is bound up in our housing, and yet, this is not the hot issue that recycling, fossil fuels, and diet continue to be.
The blind spot in our advocacy is likely a product of our American cultural perspectives about property and homeownership. Central to the American dream is the idea of personal home ownership. Our own home, our own land. This desire sprung forth from, at least in earlier years of our country, the vast avaliability of such land. But it is more than just lots of land. We also value personal freedom, an independance form the rule of others, and being the master of ones own domain is an excellent outward sign as well as practical step in establishing ones liberty.
Not only are there cultural inclinations, there are some serious practical concerns that restrict environmentalists from walking away from their houses.
The Sierra Madre Villa Metro Station
The Gold Line Metro rail runs in the middle of the 210 freeway in Pasadena, down through South Pasadena and on into Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Leaving Union Station, the Gold Line's last stop is the Sierra Madre Villa Station, which connects to the fourth floor of the giant parking structure built to house the automobiles of the commuters. On weekdays the four stories are packed with cars, ranging from beat up trucks to luxury sedans.
At night a few cars can be found on any of the floors, left by people who work 3rd's or who have metroed to the airport and are abroad.
But the fifth story is empty. Not really sure why. Perhaps people just park as soon as they see a space, hurrying to the elevator to the forth floor, never even noticing that the bridge spanning the 210 doens't actually connect to the top.
It was on this story, all the way at the top and tucked away in the second parking space from teh wall, I began to make my home. See, the parking is free, which makes it better than Eaton Canyon. It also lets me sleep in my car, which I have discovered is remarkably comfy. And despite the fact that it is smack in the midst of the city, there is more peace there than you might think. High enough that the sounds are muted by the wind and the city lights are far below and the stronger stars can still shine through.
I slept there origionally because of the rain, but honestly, I liked it so much that I began sleeping there whenever it made sense. If I was using the Metro the following day, I'd sleep there. If it was really cold, I'd sleep there. Apart from an enthusiasticly parked young couple, no one was ever up there.
I stayed up too late last night, and I subsequently got up too late this morning. Though the night had been pretty cold, the heat of the morning sun had been collecting in my car, and I opened one of the doors to let in the morning cool. Laying there, I ran an assessment of my body, noticing that I felt really, really good. My back was not out of whack, I was well rested, and my spirits were good. A few early morning phone calls with Kristen had left me in a good place.
As I lounged in my car assisted, parking structure home, I heard a car idling nearby. Thinking perhaps that they needed to park next to or near me, I closed the door conscienciously. As I lay there, thinking about getting up for real, upside down out my passenger side window I see the uniformed form of a police officer open door. Two fellow officers are fanned out around my car.
I roll so I am looking at him upright, and in a surprisingly cheery tone for how startled I am I say, "Good Morning!"
The cop shakes his head. I'm not sure whether he meant to say with his shake, "No, this is not going to be a genial conversation," or, "No, this is not going to be a good morning." Really both interpretations amount to the same thing.
"Leave," he says flatly.
"Um, ok."
I'm honestly expecting more. Perhaps for them to ask to see my licence, perhaps some questioning, perhaps a description of the law I'm breaking... something. But he adds no more. So I hop out the car and go around to the other side. The other two officers are just stairing, too. As I'm putting on my shoes, they start asking questions.
"How long you been homeless?"
"I'm not homeless. I live in Orange but work in Pasadena. Sometimes I use the Metro," I say, but I'm thinking, "Damn it, I wanted some kind of story about using the Metro but taking a nap in my car... ah well."
The cop looks in my back seat. "How come your car looks like a house?"
"Because I keep some of the stuff in it, because sometimes I stay here." I say, truthfully.
"Where do you work?"
"At Cal State LA, and at a church here in Pasadena," I say much in the same way I tell all people about my employment. Now they are really just looking at me. Maybe its the fact that I'm well dressed, well spoken, and well behaved. Maybe its the really great mood I'm in. Maybe its because I'm telling them that I'm a college teacher. Whatever the reason, they don't know really what to say to me, and they are all just standing there.
I've got my shoes on, located my wallet, and I'm ready to go.
"So..." I ask, "Is that all?"
The third officer nods, "Yeah, get out of here, and you can't be sleeping here."
As I drive out, floor by floor, I realize that I won't be staying here again. Its a sinking feeling. This place that I felt so safe. That was free. That was warm, tucked away, and under the stars. Taken from me.
Now, I get it. The precise reason I feel safe is because cops like them kick out vagrants like me. That's why there isn't a shanty town on the fifth floor of the parking structure. But I can't shake the feeling of displacement. Perhaps I haven't been homeless for long enough for the vagrant mindset to really have kicked in, but I had started feeling at home in that second parking space by the wall. So much so that I had a driving desire to part there, in that one spot, every time. And now that sense of comfort had been scattered. My tenitive hope that this might just work, gone, just like that.
Even if I wanted to go back there, and sleep in the second parking space, it won't feel like a home. I will feel like an intruder returning to the scene of a crime, not a man coming home after a day of work. Instantly my heart goes out to the homeless. Not only is it a cold, dirty, and often unhealthy way of life, I have begun to see that if you don't have a home, you don't have a place at all. And if you forget for a while, and start to put your faith in a surrogate home, a uniformed man will come and remind you that in this world... you don't have a place.
At night a few cars can be found on any of the floors, left by people who work 3rd's or who have metroed to the airport and are abroad.
But the fifth story is empty. Not really sure why. Perhaps people just park as soon as they see a space, hurrying to the elevator to the forth floor, never even noticing that the bridge spanning the 210 doens't actually connect to the top.
It was on this story, all the way at the top and tucked away in the second parking space from teh wall, I began to make my home. See, the parking is free, which makes it better than Eaton Canyon. It also lets me sleep in my car, which I have discovered is remarkably comfy. And despite the fact that it is smack in the midst of the city, there is more peace there than you might think. High enough that the sounds are muted by the wind and the city lights are far below and the stronger stars can still shine through.
I slept there origionally because of the rain, but honestly, I liked it so much that I began sleeping there whenever it made sense. If I was using the Metro the following day, I'd sleep there. If it was really cold, I'd sleep there. Apart from an enthusiasticly parked young couple, no one was ever up there.
I stayed up too late last night, and I subsequently got up too late this morning. Though the night had been pretty cold, the heat of the morning sun had been collecting in my car, and I opened one of the doors to let in the morning cool. Laying there, I ran an assessment of my body, noticing that I felt really, really good. My back was not out of whack, I was well rested, and my spirits were good. A few early morning phone calls with Kristen had left me in a good place.
As I lounged in my car assisted, parking structure home, I heard a car idling nearby. Thinking perhaps that they needed to park next to or near me, I closed the door conscienciously. As I lay there, thinking about getting up for real, upside down out my passenger side window I see the uniformed form of a police officer open door. Two fellow officers are fanned out around my car.
I roll so I am looking at him upright, and in a surprisingly cheery tone for how startled I am I say, "Good Morning!"
The cop shakes his head. I'm not sure whether he meant to say with his shake, "No, this is not going to be a genial conversation," or, "No, this is not going to be a good morning." Really both interpretations amount to the same thing.
"Leave," he says flatly.
"Um, ok."
I'm honestly expecting more. Perhaps for them to ask to see my licence, perhaps some questioning, perhaps a description of the law I'm breaking... something. But he adds no more. So I hop out the car and go around to the other side. The other two officers are just stairing, too. As I'm putting on my shoes, they start asking questions.
"How long you been homeless?"
"I'm not homeless. I live in Orange but work in Pasadena. Sometimes I use the Metro," I say, but I'm thinking, "Damn it, I wanted some kind of story about using the Metro but taking a nap in my car... ah well."
The cop looks in my back seat. "How come your car looks like a house?"
"Because I keep some of the stuff in it, because sometimes I stay here." I say, truthfully.
"Where do you work?"
"At Cal State LA, and at a church here in Pasadena," I say much in the same way I tell all people about my employment. Now they are really just looking at me. Maybe its the fact that I'm well dressed, well spoken, and well behaved. Maybe its the really great mood I'm in. Maybe its because I'm telling them that I'm a college teacher. Whatever the reason, they don't know really what to say to me, and they are all just standing there.
I've got my shoes on, located my wallet, and I'm ready to go.
"So..." I ask, "Is that all?"
The third officer nods, "Yeah, get out of here, and you can't be sleeping here."
As I drive out, floor by floor, I realize that I won't be staying here again. Its a sinking feeling. This place that I felt so safe. That was free. That was warm, tucked away, and under the stars. Taken from me.
Now, I get it. The precise reason I feel safe is because cops like them kick out vagrants like me. That's why there isn't a shanty town on the fifth floor of the parking structure. But I can't shake the feeling of displacement. Perhaps I haven't been homeless for long enough for the vagrant mindset to really have kicked in, but I had started feeling at home in that second parking space by the wall. So much so that I had a driving desire to part there, in that one spot, every time. And now that sense of comfort had been scattered. My tenitive hope that this might just work, gone, just like that.
Even if I wanted to go back there, and sleep in the second parking space, it won't feel like a home. I will feel like an intruder returning to the scene of a crime, not a man coming home after a day of work. Instantly my heart goes out to the homeless. Not only is it a cold, dirty, and often unhealthy way of life, I have begun to see that if you don't have a home, you don't have a place at all. And if you forget for a while, and start to put your faith in a surrogate home, a uniformed man will come and remind you that in this world... you don't have a place.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Grace, Causation, and Miracles
When I was in high school I didn't believe in miracles.
I wasn't an agnostic. Even then I had this kind of unstoppable awareness of a Great Divine... and I think people would have described me as religious.
But I was also very logical. Goaded by a sense of order perhaps, I sought the causal explanations for any and all events. So while I loved God and God's stories... I was fascinated with physics. Had someone walked into the foyer of my fancy and held a gun to my head, I probably would have chosen God over physics... but that choice would have been a hollow one, a bit like choosing to be with the safe girl you've been dating for years because you should, while the other one runs off to South America to feed the homeless.
As a teen God and God's ways never fascinated me. Miracles... yeah. Prayer... right. I enjoyed prayer. I had left behind the days when church was my weekly hour devoted to getting all the dirt out from under my nails. I would pray, and it would calm me. I sorta thought about it like meditating. Good for me. Cleared my head.
But physics! Ah, there was something. It lay at the base of all science, and if you played your disciplines in the right order, it was the foundation of all of learning. "Aren't all the realizations of the humanities just a sloppy approach to sociology?" the conversation starts. "And sociology, that's just an unfocused way of doing psychology." Whoever this is has now alienated 70% of all academics, and they haven't even really gotten started. "And psychology, psychology is just a behavioral approach to a few organs, all sufficiently studied by biology. Biology is nothing more than the chemistry of living things." Once basically everyone in the room has been insulted, the clincher, "And chemistry is just simplified physics."
Or, put more succinctly by Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand scientist who discovered that atoms have a small charged nucleus:
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
Of all understanding, physics seemed king. It has at its core a bit of very reasonable reasoning. Things reliably cause other things to happen. (Or maybe "Things cause other things to happen reliably." Wherever the reliably goes, you get the point. Things making things happen, so long as the same situation comes up again, it will all happen the same.)
This assumption of reliability its what makes experiments so damn cool. Instead of waiting for events to randomly occur in such a way as to enlighten you about the world, you can start throwing spheres out of windows over and over and watch. To describe this reliable activity the physicists chose the language of mathematics, as math is the second most reliable language on the planet. (The first is French, but the lawyers managed to get their hands on that one.)
Armed with observation, experimental design, and mathematics, you the physicist are free to discover anything about the universe. Or rather, to do a lot of observations so some arrogant ass can come along fifteen years later, use your data, and become way more famous than you ever will be. But who cares? All in the name of science! (You always liked that kid anyway.)
Right. I loved physics. And I was good at it, too! Abstract math always came more easily than arithmetic, and I thrived on those word puzzles mixed with a kind of CSI flare that always dominates physics tests. (If a car explodes and raises to a temperature of 220 degrees Celsius while launching off of a 60 degree ramp over a 30 degree lake going 120 m/s, what is the temperature of the water at the base of the ramp 10 minutes after the car sinks into the water? Assume no air friction and a spherical car. Way more fun than multiplication tables.)
I gleefully sought to answer all the world's mysteries. I didn't believe in ghosts, curses, superstitions, aliens, spirits, faeries, psychics... the closest I got was fearing that I was some kind of demon who could psychically, albeit unconsciously, hurt people when I was upset. I think some guy tripped on a hurdle when he was beating me and some clothing fell in my closet one night when I as crying. Anyway, apart from the angsty teen inner drama, I pretty much saw the world as solidly welded together, with not much room for weirdness. Occum would have been proud.
But college brought me into a new world. Lots of things happened in college. My liberal leanings solidified into clearly expressible beliefs, like loving gay people and hating war. I started ironing out that whole demon complex. But probably most importantly, I started hanging out with people who not only believed God existed, but really actually believed. There's an important difference. Everybody believes that Chiropractic care exists... but talk to those people who believe in it. They want its healing power and they get it every day if they can figure out how. I now had friends who sought the presence of their God every day, and there was no tragedy to severe nor worry to small that they hesitated in bringing it before their loving creator.
Some of these people were hippy Pagans, syncing their magic to the phases of Mother Moon and identifying within themselves and others the primordial animism that animated all things.
Some of these people were devoted Christians, praying with such surrender that the dogmas of their church were dwarfed in the face of their relationship with their savior.
And some of these people were philosophers, acutely aware of how their ideas shaped their experience, guiding their thoughts so as to better orient them to the Divine.
Somewhere in the midst of these influences, the physical world started to seem less reliable. I took physics my first year of college, and while it was the only A I got either semester, it didn't feed me in the way other pursuits did. Philosophy, communication, and religion became my intellectual mainstay. I learned about every faith I could read about, or even more importantly, worship with. The world I had always sought to understand mathematically was suddenly coming into clearer focus asking questions about my perception and the acts of God, spirits, and the fae.
So long as we are quoting famous physicists, lets do one more. Good Ol' Einstein, who hopefully needs no introduction, puts it like this: "There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle."
I had definitely started to see the hand of God in all places. Swirling spiritual causes now dominated my thinking. All things made through this loving creation. The full realization of this presence of God came quite by accident when a handful of very enthusiastic non-Catholic Christians came to the Catholic bible study. They were totally welcome of course... but very quickly it became clear that they had not come to learn anything... but rather to correct our erroneous understanding of just about everything. I ended up getting into a lively debate concerning the creation of the earth with a pair of guys.
Pair of guys, "The earth was created by God in seven days, so sayeth the bible."
Tim, "No, the earth was created by God through a process uncovered by science." (Still love my physics, God just happens to be really good at it too!)
Pair of guys, "Weren't you listening... THE BIBLE! Its says otherwise."
Tim, "Bah, metaphors. I'll go by the evidence built into the geological data."
At this point, I think the conversation has come to an end road. For them, the authority is the bible, for me, it's paying attention to the world. But they go for gold.
Pair of guys, "Ok, so it looks like the earth is 4.5 billion years old. What if God created the earth in seven days, but gave it the appearance of age? All the rocks and stuff instantly in perfect place to make it look like it had actually happened"
Tim is flabbergasted by this logic. "Why would God do a silly thing like that?"
Guy 1, "We cannot know the mind of God."
Guy 2, "To test our faith in the Bible."
Tim has had it. They have presented what we call in the thinking game an unfalsifiable argument, as any evidence to the contrary is explained by the theory. Such ideologies aren't doomed to be wrong... but they are not though kindly of among philosophers as you can do so little with them.
So Tim fires back, "Ok, ok, what if God created the earth 15 seconds ago with all our memories instantly in perfect place so that it seemed like we had been having this conversation and actually believed what we were saying?"
Pair of guys, "Why would God do a silly thing like that?
Tim, "To test my patience."
Rest assured that my retelling of that conversation casts me as wittier than I really was. All my retorts were probably what I wished I had said after they left, and they likely left thinking they had saved my soul. And perhaps they had.
Oddly enough, it was that conversation that destabilized my notion of God as a distant creator, one who was really good at pool, big banging that perfect shot into the racked set, knowing perfectly how every ball would spin and bounce and eventually end up in the pockets. They had suggested that perhaps the beginning of time was not the last creative act of my Blessed One. I had somewhat insincerely suggested that it had been less than a minute ago. But as I ruminated on that retort more authentically, it seemed only natural to ask that if God could have created everything in its completeness 15 seconds ago, then why not now.
Why not now? Could it be that my brilliant creator was authoring everything, suddenly, perfectly, and completely in every now? Wow. Way easier to feel the loving touch of the Divine.
And so it was that my fascination with understanding the world from a causal framework came to an official end. If all things flood out of God in every moment, then a causal explanation is nothing more than a running commentary on the brush stroke of God as God lets it be revealed to us. Things accelerate as they fall not because of some rule God invented at the beginning of time, but rather because God gracefully creates the object moment after moment so that is each existence shares a fluid relationship to its past existences. Causation is then a story, a way of understanding events, and not an active agent in the unfolding of future events. God is the ongoing crafter, and an artist at that.
And so it was that I came to understand everything as a miracle. Everything as an act of God.
But that was college, and while I wouldn't have suspected it then, I have learned things since. Now, its always easier to tell the story of how you came to know the things you did when they are in the past. Explaining the root of your current beliefs is a bit trickier. I'll do my best.
I have more respect for honor than I ever have. I have come to understand people as both bound by circumstance and free in spirit. I have swallowed the bitter pill that God knows far more than me, and that I have to ask for help. My world explodes with gratitude, and I know I must serve.
I realize this is a kind of paltry description when compared to the narratives that mark the other two phases. But its the best I can do. I don't really know why I believe what I believe now. But I do know what I believe.
The Einstein was wrong. At least about miracles. Now, his formulation was simple and brilliant. There is a virtue that is used to evaluate theories, a sort of "less is more" sensibility. Parsimony, they call it. Basically, the fewer assumptions a theory has to posit... the more parsimonious it is... and therefore more valuable. Spoken so well by the Franciscan Occam, if two theories have the same explanatory power, then the simpler of the two is better. According to this aesthetics of thinking, Einstein's assertion about miracles is safe. Either nothing is a miracle or everything is. Sorta like saying it either all ones or all zeros. Both ways you only have to deal with one number. Both ways Occam is satisfied with the nice close shave you gave yourself with his razor.
And here is where I become a fanatic. Sorry Einstein. Sorry Occam. Perhaps my vision of the world will just have to make a few extra assumptions and posit a few extra entities. Or perhaps our two visions do not have the same explanatory power. However its is judged, here it is.
I believe that God creates the world in every moment. That much has not changed. I also believe that God tends to create the world with a certain finesse that makes a causal story to be worth pursuing and worth telling other people. But I believe that there are extraordinary miracles, miracles of a different order than the usual glorious ever blossoming of the All.
I believe that one of Gods coolest miracles is the will. My will. Yours, too. And, as God authors the world, God creates my body and my moods with much of the directions I desire with my will. Deftly my life issues forth from his will, but in a way that follows my design. In this way I am perfectly possessed. Possessed by God, much in the same way a ghost possesses someone in a movie, but unlike that clumsy specter who violates the subject of their habitation, Gods presence impinges in no way upon my psyche. The creator of all, a dexterous bull in the china shop of my mind.
God not only miraculously creates the world, but miraculously sanctifies it as well. Through me, without a single affront to my choosings, God works divinely. Touching, healing, blessing, enlightening, liberating...
I used to look for the physical cause for all things.
I used to look for the spiritual cause for all things.
But now I know that God's love of my will is so great that she will not violate it in pursuit of her perfect design.
And with that in mind, I know that it is not my task to uncover all the laws of the universe. Nor is it my task to understand all the spiritual mysteries. While neither of these pursuits are bad, they serve good only when in service to our greatest call.
To surrender to the will of God. When God comes to work thought us, we should get the fuck out of the way. In the quiet surrender to our God we become greater than any act of self could ever accomplish.
I wasn't an agnostic. Even then I had this kind of unstoppable awareness of a Great Divine... and I think people would have described me as religious.
But I was also very logical. Goaded by a sense of order perhaps, I sought the causal explanations for any and all events. So while I loved God and God's stories... I was fascinated with physics. Had someone walked into the foyer of my fancy and held a gun to my head, I probably would have chosen God over physics... but that choice would have been a hollow one, a bit like choosing to be with the safe girl you've been dating for years because you should, while the other one runs off to South America to feed the homeless.
As a teen God and God's ways never fascinated me. Miracles... yeah. Prayer... right. I enjoyed prayer. I had left behind the days when church was my weekly hour devoted to getting all the dirt out from under my nails. I would pray, and it would calm me. I sorta thought about it like meditating. Good for me. Cleared my head.
But physics! Ah, there was something. It lay at the base of all science, and if you played your disciplines in the right order, it was the foundation of all of learning. "Aren't all the realizations of the humanities just a sloppy approach to sociology?" the conversation starts. "And sociology, that's just an unfocused way of doing psychology." Whoever this is has now alienated 70% of all academics, and they haven't even really gotten started. "And psychology, psychology is just a behavioral approach to a few organs, all sufficiently studied by biology. Biology is nothing more than the chemistry of living things." Once basically everyone in the room has been insulted, the clincher, "And chemistry is just simplified physics."
Or, put more succinctly by Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand scientist who discovered that atoms have a small charged nucleus:
"All science is either physics or stamp collecting."
Of all understanding, physics seemed king. It has at its core a bit of very reasonable reasoning. Things reliably cause other things to happen. (Or maybe "Things cause other things to happen reliably." Wherever the reliably goes, you get the point. Things making things happen, so long as the same situation comes up again, it will all happen the same.)
This assumption of reliability its what makes experiments so damn cool. Instead of waiting for events to randomly occur in such a way as to enlighten you about the world, you can start throwing spheres out of windows over and over and watch. To describe this reliable activity the physicists chose the language of mathematics, as math is the second most reliable language on the planet. (The first is French, but the lawyers managed to get their hands on that one.)
Armed with observation, experimental design, and mathematics, you the physicist are free to discover anything about the universe. Or rather, to do a lot of observations so some arrogant ass can come along fifteen years later, use your data, and become way more famous than you ever will be. But who cares? All in the name of science! (You always liked that kid anyway.)
Right. I loved physics. And I was good at it, too! Abstract math always came more easily than arithmetic, and I thrived on those word puzzles mixed with a kind of CSI flare that always dominates physics tests. (If a car explodes and raises to a temperature of 220 degrees Celsius while launching off of a 60 degree ramp over a 30 degree lake going 120 m/s, what is the temperature of the water at the base of the ramp 10 minutes after the car sinks into the water? Assume no air friction and a spherical car. Way more fun than multiplication tables.)
I gleefully sought to answer all the world's mysteries. I didn't believe in ghosts, curses, superstitions, aliens, spirits, faeries, psychics... the closest I got was fearing that I was some kind of demon who could psychically, albeit unconsciously, hurt people when I was upset. I think some guy tripped on a hurdle when he was beating me and some clothing fell in my closet one night when I as crying. Anyway, apart from the angsty teen inner drama, I pretty much saw the world as solidly welded together, with not much room for weirdness. Occum would have been proud.
But college brought me into a new world. Lots of things happened in college. My liberal leanings solidified into clearly expressible beliefs, like loving gay people and hating war. I started ironing out that whole demon complex. But probably most importantly, I started hanging out with people who not only believed God existed, but really actually believed. There's an important difference. Everybody believes that Chiropractic care exists... but talk to those people who believe in it. They want its healing power and they get it every day if they can figure out how. I now had friends who sought the presence of their God every day, and there was no tragedy to severe nor worry to small that they hesitated in bringing it before their loving creator.
Some of these people were hippy Pagans, syncing their magic to the phases of Mother Moon and identifying within themselves and others the primordial animism that animated all things.
Some of these people were devoted Christians, praying with such surrender that the dogmas of their church were dwarfed in the face of their relationship with their savior.
And some of these people were philosophers, acutely aware of how their ideas shaped their experience, guiding their thoughts so as to better orient them to the Divine.
Somewhere in the midst of these influences, the physical world started to seem less reliable. I took physics my first year of college, and while it was the only A I got either semester, it didn't feed me in the way other pursuits did. Philosophy, communication, and religion became my intellectual mainstay. I learned about every faith I could read about, or even more importantly, worship with. The world I had always sought to understand mathematically was suddenly coming into clearer focus asking questions about my perception and the acts of God, spirits, and the fae.
So long as we are quoting famous physicists, lets do one more. Good Ol' Einstein, who hopefully needs no introduction, puts it like this: "There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle."
I had definitely started to see the hand of God in all places. Swirling spiritual causes now dominated my thinking. All things made through this loving creation. The full realization of this presence of God came quite by accident when a handful of very enthusiastic non-Catholic Christians came to the Catholic bible study. They were totally welcome of course... but very quickly it became clear that they had not come to learn anything... but rather to correct our erroneous understanding of just about everything. I ended up getting into a lively debate concerning the creation of the earth with a pair of guys.
Pair of guys, "The earth was created by God in seven days, so sayeth the bible."
Tim, "No, the earth was created by God through a process uncovered by science." (Still love my physics, God just happens to be really good at it too!)
Pair of guys, "Weren't you listening... THE BIBLE! Its says otherwise."
Tim, "Bah, metaphors. I'll go by the evidence built into the geological data."
At this point, I think the conversation has come to an end road. For them, the authority is the bible, for me, it's paying attention to the world. But they go for gold.
Pair of guys, "Ok, so it looks like the earth is 4.5 billion years old. What if God created the earth in seven days, but gave it the appearance of age? All the rocks and stuff instantly in perfect place to make it look like it had actually happened"
Tim is flabbergasted by this logic. "Why would God do a silly thing like that?"
Guy 1, "We cannot know the mind of God."
Guy 2, "To test our faith in the Bible."
Tim has had it. They have presented what we call in the thinking game an unfalsifiable argument, as any evidence to the contrary is explained by the theory. Such ideologies aren't doomed to be wrong... but they are not though kindly of among philosophers as you can do so little with them.
So Tim fires back, "Ok, ok, what if God created the earth 15 seconds ago with all our memories instantly in perfect place so that it seemed like we had been having this conversation and actually believed what we were saying?"
Pair of guys, "Why would God do a silly thing like that?
Tim, "To test my patience."
Rest assured that my retelling of that conversation casts me as wittier than I really was. All my retorts were probably what I wished I had said after they left, and they likely left thinking they had saved my soul. And perhaps they had.
Oddly enough, it was that conversation that destabilized my notion of God as a distant creator, one who was really good at pool, big banging that perfect shot into the racked set, knowing perfectly how every ball would spin and bounce and eventually end up in the pockets. They had suggested that perhaps the beginning of time was not the last creative act of my Blessed One. I had somewhat insincerely suggested that it had been less than a minute ago. But as I ruminated on that retort more authentically, it seemed only natural to ask that if God could have created everything in its completeness 15 seconds ago, then why not now.
Why not now? Could it be that my brilliant creator was authoring everything, suddenly, perfectly, and completely in every now? Wow. Way easier to feel the loving touch of the Divine.
And so it was that my fascination with understanding the world from a causal framework came to an official end. If all things flood out of God in every moment, then a causal explanation is nothing more than a running commentary on the brush stroke of God as God lets it be revealed to us. Things accelerate as they fall not because of some rule God invented at the beginning of time, but rather because God gracefully creates the object moment after moment so that is each existence shares a fluid relationship to its past existences. Causation is then a story, a way of understanding events, and not an active agent in the unfolding of future events. God is the ongoing crafter, and an artist at that.
And so it was that I came to understand everything as a miracle. Everything as an act of God.
But that was college, and while I wouldn't have suspected it then, I have learned things since. Now, its always easier to tell the story of how you came to know the things you did when they are in the past. Explaining the root of your current beliefs is a bit trickier. I'll do my best.
I have more respect for honor than I ever have. I have come to understand people as both bound by circumstance and free in spirit. I have swallowed the bitter pill that God knows far more than me, and that I have to ask for help. My world explodes with gratitude, and I know I must serve.
I realize this is a kind of paltry description when compared to the narratives that mark the other two phases. But its the best I can do. I don't really know why I believe what I believe now. But I do know what I believe.
The Einstein was wrong. At least about miracles. Now, his formulation was simple and brilliant. There is a virtue that is used to evaluate theories, a sort of "less is more" sensibility. Parsimony, they call it. Basically, the fewer assumptions a theory has to posit... the more parsimonious it is... and therefore more valuable. Spoken so well by the Franciscan Occam, if two theories have the same explanatory power, then the simpler of the two is better. According to this aesthetics of thinking, Einstein's assertion about miracles is safe. Either nothing is a miracle or everything is. Sorta like saying it either all ones or all zeros. Both ways you only have to deal with one number. Both ways Occam is satisfied with the nice close shave you gave yourself with his razor.
And here is where I become a fanatic. Sorry Einstein. Sorry Occam. Perhaps my vision of the world will just have to make a few extra assumptions and posit a few extra entities. Or perhaps our two visions do not have the same explanatory power. However its is judged, here it is.
I believe that God creates the world in every moment. That much has not changed. I also believe that God tends to create the world with a certain finesse that makes a causal story to be worth pursuing and worth telling other people. But I believe that there are extraordinary miracles, miracles of a different order than the usual glorious ever blossoming of the All.
I believe that one of Gods coolest miracles is the will. My will. Yours, too. And, as God authors the world, God creates my body and my moods with much of the directions I desire with my will. Deftly my life issues forth from his will, but in a way that follows my design. In this way I am perfectly possessed. Possessed by God, much in the same way a ghost possesses someone in a movie, but unlike that clumsy specter who violates the subject of their habitation, Gods presence impinges in no way upon my psyche. The creator of all, a dexterous bull in the china shop of my mind.
God not only miraculously creates the world, but miraculously sanctifies it as well. Through me, without a single affront to my choosings, God works divinely. Touching, healing, blessing, enlightening, liberating...
I used to look for the physical cause for all things.
I used to look for the spiritual cause for all things.
But now I know that God's love of my will is so great that she will not violate it in pursuit of her perfect design.
And with that in mind, I know that it is not my task to uncover all the laws of the universe. Nor is it my task to understand all the spiritual mysteries. While neither of these pursuits are bad, they serve good only when in service to our greatest call.
To surrender to the will of God. When God comes to work thought us, we should get the fuck out of the way. In the quiet surrender to our God we become greater than any act of self could ever accomplish.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Creative Solutions to Moral Dilemmas
You hold the lever that decides the path of the train, but more importantly, whether the 20 people or the 1 infant will die.
Which will it be?
Should we protect the voiceless, unborn child? Or the reproductive rights of the oppressed?
Which will it be?
Should I spend that money on a low emissions car, or give the money to feed the homeless?
Which will it be?
Moral decision making is often hard. There are times where things we value come into distinct opposition with each other. Now, this isn't always the case. Often, in fact, quite often, the moral choice is clear and good, and that immoral one not worth even wasting time thinking about. Most of us do not struggle with the possibility of assaulting every passerby to acquire their wallet. But as funds thin down, we lose our homes, and our children start to starve... the contents of a strangers wallet start to promise an end to our very real suffering.
And so it has been, that throughout the history of moral contemplation, deciding between two misfortunes has been the prevailing concern. And why not? The hard questions are always more interesting than the easy ones, after all, and it it precisely in the difficult situations where true character shows itself.
So choose. The majority or the innocent. Life or choice. The ozone or the starving.
Its a hard thing to do.
Pursuing the greatest good actually makes it even harder. The founding principle behind the notion of the greatest good is a picture of the world where all goods come to be. While in its total manifestation such a miracle is only going to become a reality in the event of supernatural aid (and that is what will ultimately happen), this model is still of value to those of us who work with human hands.
We are challenged to see the good on both sides of moral dilemmas, and seek to obtain both goods.
Let us consider abortion. Current politics would have you choose. Choose between the plight of the totally defenseless child or the liberty and thriving of the mother. Conflicts flare up around issues such as when the child becomes a person or who should be notified in the case of the operation. The issue starts getting remarkably muddy very quickly.
But on another level, it is all very simple. On the one hand we have the life of the child, and on the other we have the liberty of the mother.
Take a look at a few documents concerning our nations founding ideas... and we've got problems. The state of society, current medical technology, and personal action all swirl together in a way that puts these two valuable things at odds.
But, for those of us committed to the greatest good we must not hasten to one or the other. Rather, we must keep thinking. Can we imagine a world where mothers had no desire to kill the child in their womb? Or perhaps a way to make a woman un-pregnant while preserving the life of the fetus?
What if the values of society were different? What if, though the inspiring and compassionate revelation of reality all people saw the new life as holy and sacrosanct? Not likely to be killed then. Of course, by all people that would have to include employers, teachers, social services, peers, parents, friends, and children... no matter the circumstances of the pregnancy or the conception. In this way most unborn children would live because most women would choose life, uncoerced and unintimidated by a world ready to help her bear their infant into the world.
Or,
What of advanced medical technology that could safely extract the fetus as it matured in the womb? Harmlessly and anonymously the woman becomes un-pregnant, and at the same time the child grows in its surrogate mother (be it another woman or a medical facility). Could not then these two values be reaffirmed?
It is only in our weakness, ignorance, and awkwardness that we are forced into moral dilemmas. In a perfect world, the world to which we feebly aspire, all things move into ripe wellness with grace and vitality. We are called then to refuse to choose between goods, and strive to find creative answers to the problems that plagued our predecessors.
For there is something wrong with a world where people kill their own babies and the starving must steal to eat. When we see such things... its time to change the world.
Which will it be?
Should we protect the voiceless, unborn child? Or the reproductive rights of the oppressed?
Which will it be?
Should I spend that money on a low emissions car, or give the money to feed the homeless?
Which will it be?
Moral decision making is often hard. There are times where things we value come into distinct opposition with each other. Now, this isn't always the case. Often, in fact, quite often, the moral choice is clear and good, and that immoral one not worth even wasting time thinking about. Most of us do not struggle with the possibility of assaulting every passerby to acquire their wallet. But as funds thin down, we lose our homes, and our children start to starve... the contents of a strangers wallet start to promise an end to our very real suffering.
And so it has been, that throughout the history of moral contemplation, deciding between two misfortunes has been the prevailing concern. And why not? The hard questions are always more interesting than the easy ones, after all, and it it precisely in the difficult situations where true character shows itself.
So choose. The majority or the innocent. Life or choice. The ozone or the starving.
Its a hard thing to do.
Pursuing the greatest good actually makes it even harder. The founding principle behind the notion of the greatest good is a picture of the world where all goods come to be. While in its total manifestation such a miracle is only going to become a reality in the event of supernatural aid (and that is what will ultimately happen), this model is still of value to those of us who work with human hands.
We are challenged to see the good on both sides of moral dilemmas, and seek to obtain both goods.
Let us consider abortion. Current politics would have you choose. Choose between the plight of the totally defenseless child or the liberty and thriving of the mother. Conflicts flare up around issues such as when the child becomes a person or who should be notified in the case of the operation. The issue starts getting remarkably muddy very quickly.
But on another level, it is all very simple. On the one hand we have the life of the child, and on the other we have the liberty of the mother.
Take a look at a few documents concerning our nations founding ideas... and we've got problems. The state of society, current medical technology, and personal action all swirl together in a way that puts these two valuable things at odds.
But, for those of us committed to the greatest good we must not hasten to one or the other. Rather, we must keep thinking. Can we imagine a world where mothers had no desire to kill the child in their womb? Or perhaps a way to make a woman un-pregnant while preserving the life of the fetus?
What if the values of society were different? What if, though the inspiring and compassionate revelation of reality all people saw the new life as holy and sacrosanct? Not likely to be killed then. Of course, by all people that would have to include employers, teachers, social services, peers, parents, friends, and children... no matter the circumstances of the pregnancy or the conception. In this way most unborn children would live because most women would choose life, uncoerced and unintimidated by a world ready to help her bear their infant into the world.
Or,
What of advanced medical technology that could safely extract the fetus as it matured in the womb? Harmlessly and anonymously the woman becomes un-pregnant, and at the same time the child grows in its surrogate mother (be it another woman or a medical facility). Could not then these two values be reaffirmed?
It is only in our weakness, ignorance, and awkwardness that we are forced into moral dilemmas. In a perfect world, the world to which we feebly aspire, all things move into ripe wellness with grace and vitality. We are called then to refuse to choose between goods, and strive to find creative answers to the problems that plagued our predecessors.
For there is something wrong with a world where people kill their own babies and the starving must steal to eat. When we see such things... its time to change the world.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Car
I have discovered the secret of sleeping in my car.
When I first really started considering this alternative lifestyle, I slept in my car... just to see how it would work. Wow it sucked! I tried sleeping in the passenger side, front seat fully reclined. But I couldn't really manage to do something comfortable with my legs (a bit like trying to sleep in an airplane, with more reclining). I slept so poorly that night I slinked back to my bed and had a two hour nap to try to actually be rested. A bit crestfallen, I resolved to find other sleeping arrangements.
The 70% likelihood of rain gave me some second thoughts about camping. I love the mud, don't get me wrong, but the notion of packing up that soggy, grimy tent and putting it in my car was just enough dissuasion that I decided to give the car sleep another try.
I drive up to the parking complex for the Metro, all the way to the top, and off in a tucked away little corner. Inspired by a few brainstorms from Kristen, I hatched the following sleeping arrangement. With both the front seats pushed forward, I constructed a sleeping place diagonally crossed the car. With a blanket shoved there and a sleeping bad here, the sleeping landscape was a bit like a reclining chair. You know, the ones with the flip up leg supports?
Slept like a baby! A well fed and unrealistically rested baby.
Now, it happened to not rain that night, though, two nights later, as I looked at the dark clouds pouring toward the mountain, I decided to try it again.
Same situation. Total comfort; unmolested. As it was still raining upon my waking, I took a shower in the light drizzle. I crouched in front of my car, and just let the rain slowly soak my hair and body. God provides. My peaceful cleansing was interrupted by a security guard cruising by on his little battery powered car. I give him a joyful wave. He waves back, totally flabbergasted. and just keeps driving.
I reflect as I am pulling my clothing over my damp body as I drive away. The vagrant life trades worries and joys with the home life. When have I had the blissful opportunity to bathe in God's bountiful waters? Not often.
But then, when have I had to escape my morning shower early for fear of security guards calling cops? Not often, either.
When I first really started considering this alternative lifestyle, I slept in my car... just to see how it would work. Wow it sucked! I tried sleeping in the passenger side, front seat fully reclined. But I couldn't really manage to do something comfortable with my legs (a bit like trying to sleep in an airplane, with more reclining). I slept so poorly that night I slinked back to my bed and had a two hour nap to try to actually be rested. A bit crestfallen, I resolved to find other sleeping arrangements.
The 70% likelihood of rain gave me some second thoughts about camping. I love the mud, don't get me wrong, but the notion of packing up that soggy, grimy tent and putting it in my car was just enough dissuasion that I decided to give the car sleep another try.
I drive up to the parking complex for the Metro, all the way to the top, and off in a tucked away little corner. Inspired by a few brainstorms from Kristen, I hatched the following sleeping arrangement. With both the front seats pushed forward, I constructed a sleeping place diagonally crossed the car. With a blanket shoved there and a sleeping bad here, the sleeping landscape was a bit like a reclining chair. You know, the ones with the flip up leg supports?
Slept like a baby! A well fed and unrealistically rested baby.
Now, it happened to not rain that night, though, two nights later, as I looked at the dark clouds pouring toward the mountain, I decided to try it again.
Same situation. Total comfort; unmolested. As it was still raining upon my waking, I took a shower in the light drizzle. I crouched in front of my car, and just let the rain slowly soak my hair and body. God provides. My peaceful cleansing was interrupted by a security guard cruising by on his little battery powered car. I give him a joyful wave. He waves back, totally flabbergasted. and just keeps driving.
I reflect as I am pulling my clothing over my damp body as I drive away. The vagrant life trades worries and joys with the home life. When have I had the blissful opportunity to bathe in God's bountiful waters? Not often.
But then, when have I had to escape my morning shower early for fear of security guards calling cops? Not often, either.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Down to a Backpack
On Monday night, at 10:30, I started my car to make the drive into the mountains.
Or rather, I barely started my car.
The battery light had been on earlier that day, and I had watched with some worry as the voltage fluxed from 10-12. Voltage now read just above 8. Not the way I want to drive into the mountains. So I call Jonah. Matt. Priyanka. Jen. Jen picks up.
I crash at Jen's house. Morning rolls around, I manage to get one more start outta my car, and I limp it down to the Steve's lil' Engine. Walk to my bike, bike to my work. At this point I am estranged from my vehicle, which now stores my basic living supplies. All I have is my backpack, its academic contents, my cell phone charger, and a small travel bag with a few hygiene products.
Or at least, that's what it would seem. I also have my wallet, and while I am not wealthy, I have the ability to wield more money than 60% of the world uses in a year. I have my cell phone, capable of communicating at a moments notice to nearly anyone anywhere. Textually, vocally, and even pictorially.
I also have a great pair of shoes. Good for running. Black so they look kinda classy. Compared to the footwear throughout history, they are a walking miracle. They are nearly as flexible as a silken slipper, and nearly as durable as hardened leather. Great traction on the bottom. They let air flow through the top. They even lace to different tightnesses depending on my mood and given activity.
My jeans are a similar wonder. Not so thick that I'm hot, not so thin that I'm cold. Rugged and protective; soft and comfy. Reinforced seams. This zipper thing is awesome too. It allows them to fit me perfectly, and still come off easily when I want them to. My pockets are both spacious and classy.
When it comes down to it, even though at that moment I had maybe... 1% of all the things I usually have at my disposal, far less than 1% if measuring it by space, I had more luxury than many people today, and certainly most throughout history.
Side note.
You know when you get your car worked on... how resentful you feel when looking at the hours of labor you are paying for? Well, when I was looking over it this time, I added it up in my head, and suddenly realized that the man MUST have under calculated. I had talked to him half a dozen times over the last few days... I bet he worked 3x more than he was billing me.
Perhaps it was the wash of relief of getting my vagrant home back. Perhaps it was because of my intense gratitude for things like my shoes that gave me an intense appreciation for an awesome machine like my car. Or perhaps it was the subtle knowledge that I didn't have to pay any rent or utilities at the end of the month.
Whatever it was, I look him side long as he is explaining the bill and ask, "You sure you are being honest with these hours?"
He's flustered, starts to say something, and I realize I need to clarify.
"It seems to me," I put in, "that you guys worked a lot more than this."
He gets a grin and replies, "If we actually put down what we work on these things... I don't think most people would be very happy."
"Well, I'm not most people. You sure you don't want to give your self a more fair shake? I'd gladly pay it. You deserve it."
He shakes his head vehemently, "No, no, we learn a lot while working on problems like yours. Its our pleasure."
"Ok, well, I'm glad. I'm just saying. I really appreciate it. I know you worked hard," I say. I feel that little ring of truth.
"That's what I do, work hard." He says sincerely.
"Me too." I earnestly reply, recalling church work, school work, class planning, syllabuses, school applications...
"Well, labors of love I suppose," Steve says, and gives me a half-side hug, half clap on the shoulder.
I thank him as I shake his hand.
My car starts like a dream. All the little lights and dials are in the right place. I smoothly accelerate on my way. There are a few things that have happened in the last two minutes that have never happened in my life.
1.) I have never looked at a bill for HUNDREDS of dollars and felt like it wasn't enough.
2.) I have never appreciated the raw yet graceful automobile as I do while driving away from the shop. (Walking and biking, my friend, will give you a very realistic vision of how much work your car really does.)
3.) I have never been hugged by my mechanic. Figure that one out.
Or rather, I barely started my car.
The battery light had been on earlier that day, and I had watched with some worry as the voltage fluxed from 10-12. Voltage now read just above 8. Not the way I want to drive into the mountains. So I call Jonah. Matt. Priyanka. Jen. Jen picks up.
I crash at Jen's house. Morning rolls around, I manage to get one more start outta my car, and I limp it down to the Steve's lil' Engine. Walk to my bike, bike to my work. At this point I am estranged from my vehicle, which now stores my basic living supplies. All I have is my backpack, its academic contents, my cell phone charger, and a small travel bag with a few hygiene products.
Or at least, that's what it would seem. I also have my wallet, and while I am not wealthy, I have the ability to wield more money than 60% of the world uses in a year. I have my cell phone, capable of communicating at a moments notice to nearly anyone anywhere. Textually, vocally, and even pictorially.
I also have a great pair of shoes. Good for running. Black so they look kinda classy. Compared to the footwear throughout history, they are a walking miracle. They are nearly as flexible as a silken slipper, and nearly as durable as hardened leather. Great traction on the bottom. They let air flow through the top. They even lace to different tightnesses depending on my mood and given activity.
My jeans are a similar wonder. Not so thick that I'm hot, not so thin that I'm cold. Rugged and protective; soft and comfy. Reinforced seams. This zipper thing is awesome too. It allows them to fit me perfectly, and still come off easily when I want them to. My pockets are both spacious and classy.
When it comes down to it, even though at that moment I had maybe... 1% of all the things I usually have at my disposal, far less than 1% if measuring it by space, I had more luxury than many people today, and certainly most throughout history.
Side note.
You know when you get your car worked on... how resentful you feel when looking at the hours of labor you are paying for? Well, when I was looking over it this time, I added it up in my head, and suddenly realized that the man MUST have under calculated. I had talked to him half a dozen times over the last few days... I bet he worked 3x more than he was billing me.
Perhaps it was the wash of relief of getting my vagrant home back. Perhaps it was because of my intense gratitude for things like my shoes that gave me an intense appreciation for an awesome machine like my car. Or perhaps it was the subtle knowledge that I didn't have to pay any rent or utilities at the end of the month.
Whatever it was, I look him side long as he is explaining the bill and ask, "You sure you are being honest with these hours?"
He's flustered, starts to say something, and I realize I need to clarify.
"It seems to me," I put in, "that you guys worked a lot more than this."
He gets a grin and replies, "If we actually put down what we work on these things... I don't think most people would be very happy."
"Well, I'm not most people. You sure you don't want to give your self a more fair shake? I'd gladly pay it. You deserve it."
He shakes his head vehemently, "No, no, we learn a lot while working on problems like yours. Its our pleasure."
"Ok, well, I'm glad. I'm just saying. I really appreciate it. I know you worked hard," I say. I feel that little ring of truth.
"That's what I do, work hard." He says sincerely.
"Me too." I earnestly reply, recalling church work, school work, class planning, syllabuses, school applications...
"Well, labors of love I suppose," Steve says, and gives me a half-side hug, half clap on the shoulder.
I thank him as I shake his hand.
My car starts like a dream. All the little lights and dials are in the right place. I smoothly accelerate on my way. There are a few things that have happened in the last two minutes that have never happened in my life.
1.) I have never looked at a bill for HUNDREDS of dollars and felt like it wasn't enough.
2.) I have never appreciated the raw yet graceful automobile as I do while driving away from the shop. (Walking and biking, my friend, will give you a very realistic vision of how much work your car really does.)
3.) I have never been hugged by my mechanic. Figure that one out.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Brilliant Good
Perhaps is was 80's fantasy flicks... a horned and painted Tim Curry with his honeyed words and that seductive, dancing black dress.
Or maybe it was Al Pacino. I swear that man has an uncanny ability to get me to root for the bad guy...
It's possible it wasn't the awesome bad guys, but the sucky good guys. One too many over dramatic, under developed, uninteresting heroes of little substance and even less plausibility.
Maybe it isn't even the movies. Could be a settling postmodernism. What about increased information transparency and the corruption it reveals? Maybe its the crumbling idealism of the boomers, or the musical taste of the Xers.
Whatever the cause, its pretty easy to see that cynicism is clever and cool and that evil is smart and sexy. On the other side of the spectrum, those who are loyal are dopey, those who are giving are weak, and those who are optimistic are dumb.
I happen to disagree.
Before I go on, let me qualify my disagreement. I don't think that the world is falling apart, or that this is the despair of the modern age, or any of that other, "These are the people ruining everything," mumbo jumbo. Quite the contrary. I think the world is pretty amazing, that we have incredible challenges but even more amazing resources with which to overcome them.
I just think that the cynics and romaticizers of evil are wrong.
Being jaded is boring, and evil is dumb.
Here is the song and dance. True good is the most brilliant act that can be accomplished, as it requires the well being of all things to be brought into alignment. Hope is dynamic because it catalyzes constructive action.
Or maybe it was Al Pacino. I swear that man has an uncanny ability to get me to root for the bad guy...
It's possible it wasn't the awesome bad guys, but the sucky good guys. One too many over dramatic, under developed, uninteresting heroes of little substance and even less plausibility.
Maybe it isn't even the movies. Could be a settling postmodernism. What about increased information transparency and the corruption it reveals? Maybe its the crumbling idealism of the boomers, or the musical taste of the Xers.
Whatever the cause, its pretty easy to see that cynicism is clever and cool and that evil is smart and sexy. On the other side of the spectrum, those who are loyal are dopey, those who are giving are weak, and those who are optimistic are dumb.
I happen to disagree.
Before I go on, let me qualify my disagreement. I don't think that the world is falling apart, or that this is the despair of the modern age, or any of that other, "These are the people ruining everything," mumbo jumbo. Quite the contrary. I think the world is pretty amazing, that we have incredible challenges but even more amazing resources with which to overcome them.
I just think that the cynics and romaticizers of evil are wrong.
Being jaded is boring, and evil is dumb.
Here is the song and dance. True good is the most brilliant act that can be accomplished, as it requires the well being of all things to be brought into alignment. Hope is dynamic because it catalyzes constructive action.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Relaxation
After meeting with the lay director of the Cursillo community of Orange County today (more, I imagine, concerning Cursillo soon to follow), I decided to drop by mom's house, as I was nearly there already. There was some possiblity we would get together and game... but it didn't end up panning out.
Instead, I ended up having a wonderfully relaxing evening, from unscored Scrabble with mom to Burn After Reading.
Not really sure why it was so relaxing. Perhaps it was simply the first day I had off in some time... no work, no familial obligations, no moving. I have to say, though, I felt really right. I may have been carrying that home of mine in more ways than one.
I had an interesting ecstatic experiance in the grocery store. Usually I have people related spontaneous ecstacies, but this one was food related. Weird. While walking along the spice and sauce isle, I had a wild rush of tastes, accompanied with the profound gratitude for all the diversity in all created. Lasted for about fifteen seconds.
Instead, I ended up having a wonderfully relaxing evening, from unscored Scrabble with mom to Burn After Reading.
Not really sure why it was so relaxing. Perhaps it was simply the first day I had off in some time... no work, no familial obligations, no moving. I have to say, though, I felt really right. I may have been carrying that home of mine in more ways than one.
I had an interesting ecstatic experiance in the grocery store. Usually I have people related spontaneous ecstacies, but this one was food related. Weird. While walking along the spice and sauce isle, I had a wild rush of tastes, accompanied with the profound gratitude for all the diversity in all created. Lasted for about fifteen seconds.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Vagrancy
While in conversation with a dear friend last night, I characterized my situation as vagrancy. I explained that homeless was not quite right, as I had many homes, or one big home, depending on how you want to look at it.
What is different about my situation is the fact that I'm roaming. Unlike the single house I used to live in, there are now multiple places where I lay my head. Last night; mom's house. I was already her way visiting a friend, so I just bopped down and took the couch. She offered to gussy up the cubby for me. With a wry smile, I told her I didn't need a bedroom.
Showered at mom's this morning. I really need to get that 24 Hour Fitness membership. I also couldn't find my travel box last night. Kind of a minor disaster there. I'll have to check in the light of day, and if it isn't in the car, promptly relocate it and put it there.
As of yet, no mind blowing revelations. :)
What is different about my situation is the fact that I'm roaming. Unlike the single house I used to live in, there are now multiple places where I lay my head. Last night; mom's house. I was already her way visiting a friend, so I just bopped down and took the couch. She offered to gussy up the cubby for me. With a wry smile, I told her I didn't need a bedroom.
Showered at mom's this morning. I really need to get that 24 Hour Fitness membership. I also couldn't find my travel box last night. Kind of a minor disaster there. I'll have to check in the light of day, and if it isn't in the car, promptly relocate it and put it there.
As of yet, no mind blowing revelations. :)
Thursday, January 8, 2009
First Night Out
Luxury!
I have a one person, one pole, greenish brown tent that sets up in about 1.5 minutes,
a one inch thick, blow up mattress that basically totally covers the floor of the tent,
a blue, down sleeping bag (rated at 30 degrees),
my queen sized comforter and my two pillows stuffed into one case from my bed...
... and it all more or less fits in my backpack.
Status check after the first night: not cold, not wet, not dangerous, not loud. The morning dew may prove annoying and mildewy if I continue to pack up right away as I did this morning. I did have a little scare when I was unpacking my car last night. Already kinda on edge from the idea of getting arrested or something silly like that, when the bush that I was parked next to started rustling, well, I freaked out more. For about one second I considered getting back in my car, but then the phrase, "Move confidently in the direction of your dreams," ran through my head. So I unloaded my stuff confidently, but accidentally knocked a portable blower for my big air mattress out of the trunk, it lands on the ground, and promptly turns on. "Ok," I think to myself, "move confidently if clumsily in the direction of your dreams."
Still a bit tense, the walk into the wilderness section of Eaton Canyon took much longer than I remember my well lighted, light hearted, heart pumping hikes. But the moon is a bit more than half past full, and I can see without my headlamp. Cross the empty river, and I'm into the wild. Camp is into the trees a bit, though, upon my waking, it was in sight of the trail. Set up goes well, I'm in bed by 10:40, and I'm off to sleep.
I wake up a few times every night, last night was no different. Its... a little less comfy on the ground than my bed, though the sleeping bag + blanket = toasty warm. Camp broke easily, my only concern being the moisture that may be problematic since I just packed it away.
Here I am at work. While it still feels a bit like a camping trip, I can now say my life of vagrancy has really begun.
I have a one person, one pole, greenish brown tent that sets up in about 1.5 minutes,
a one inch thick, blow up mattress that basically totally covers the floor of the tent,
a blue, down sleeping bag (rated at 30 degrees),
my queen sized comforter and my two pillows stuffed into one case from my bed...
... and it all more or less fits in my backpack.
Status check after the first night: not cold, not wet, not dangerous, not loud. The morning dew may prove annoying and mildewy if I continue to pack up right away as I did this morning. I did have a little scare when I was unpacking my car last night. Already kinda on edge from the idea of getting arrested or something silly like that, when the bush that I was parked next to started rustling, well, I freaked out more. For about one second I considered getting back in my car, but then the phrase, "Move confidently in the direction of your dreams," ran through my head. So I unloaded my stuff confidently, but accidentally knocked a portable blower for my big air mattress out of the trunk, it lands on the ground, and promptly turns on. "Ok," I think to myself, "move confidently if clumsily in the direction of your dreams."
Still a bit tense, the walk into the wilderness section of Eaton Canyon took much longer than I remember my well lighted, light hearted, heart pumping hikes. But the moon is a bit more than half past full, and I can see without my headlamp. Cross the empty river, and I'm into the wild. Camp is into the trees a bit, though, upon my waking, it was in sight of the trail. Set up goes well, I'm in bed by 10:40, and I'm off to sleep.
I wake up a few times every night, last night was no different. Its... a little less comfy on the ground than my bed, though the sleeping bag + blanket = toasty warm. Camp broke easily, my only concern being the moisture that may be problematic since I just packed it away.
Here I am at work. While it still feels a bit like a camping trip, I can now say my life of vagrancy has really begun.
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