Not Yet Enough

Disaster strikes, and we stand paralyzed.

Or perhaps we try to help, but our labor is for naught.

No one would fault us. No one would say that we were evil or wrong. Instead, they'd console us, saying we did everything we could. We tried.

But at what point are our competencies under our control? Sure, the first time a problem happened, no one would expect someone to be ready. But what about the second? Third? Worse yet, what about those problems we know exist? Are we to blame if we stand in perpetual impotence?

When did we decide to believe that our power to do the right thing was static? When did we conclude that we were as fit as we could be to serve the world?

I'd say, instead, that we are not yet enough. Not yet the people we need to be to solve our problems. It's not that I'm a pessimist. Notice the "yet."

Take a look at the problems in the world around you. Consider your gifts and resources. Then systematically hone your abilities.

Danger Control

When people are exposed to fear appeals, there are two common responses, fear control and danger control.

Fear control is a maladaptive mechanism that involves reducing the fear the person is experiencing. This is done through a series of mental back-flips as the the thinker tries to feel better.

Danger control, on the other hand, invovles doing something about the problem.

Believing the world is a messed up place, for instance, is a form of fear control. If things are supposed to be fucked up, then there is less to be afraid of. Seeing a problem as someone else's problem is also fear control.

Perhaps the problem is we let ourselves think too much. When fear and uncertainty fire our nerves, how often do we seek calm? Should we instead seek action? Isn't that why there is adrenaline pumping through our veins?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ask

I have always traveled with food and money. I carry money just in case I need quick fix for emergencies my debit card can't buy me. I carry food so hunger isn't one of those emergencies.

I'm on my way to the airport, walking from my drop off point from the train to the pick up point for the bus. I'm a brisk walker, so I'm weaving through the sparse crowd of people in Union Station. Picking my way toward the ticket counter, I see a homeless woman. She is older than most people I see living homelessly. The skin on her arms and ankles is ashy and flaking off. (Don't know what it is, but seeing homeless people's skin always gets me. Earlier the same day I had given some money to a man who was begging, and he had open sores all over his body.)

Now, she's not begging, so I walk right by. I'm cruising up the walkway when I stop dead in my tracks, halted by this simple thought, "I just walked by Jesus."

As a Christian, this is what I consider one of our most central teachings. Jesus is in everyone. Which makes everyone Jesus... at least when it comes to moral consideration. Christ had a lot of "turn the system on its head" teachings, and care for the poor and lowly. What soever you do to the least of my people...

...that you do unto me.

So I'm standing there, half turned to go back. My realization has kept me from walking by, but there are a few things keeping me from talking to her. On one level, I'm embarrassed. Don't know why. Perhaps nothing more than stranger anxiety. On another level, I'm hurried. Wanna catch my bus. Thirdly, I'm not sure what to say or how to act.

And then part of my brain sets of the I alert. I've just had three consecutive thoughts about me and what I want. Just act.

So I walk up to her, ad I ask, "Do you need anything?" She wasn't asking for anything in particular, so just started there.

She just stares at me. Almost confused.

"Do you need anything?" I say again, "like... money... or food?"

Again, she's still staring. After a moment, she gives me a meek, doe eyed nod, never breaking eye contact.

I pull $5 out of my wallet (I carry my cash in fives as of late... its a denomination I feel I can actually give out and still mean something. What's a one buy these days?). I grab a few fruit and protein bars out of my bag. I hand them over.

I'm about to go, but she catches my eye again. In a quiet, sweet, and unassuming voice she burns seven words into life forever.

"No one has ever asked me that."

I'm floored. I don't know what to say. I say something. I don't even remember what it was. We are just there, in the midst of a moment. I'm realizing in a visceral way that there are people like her in this world so marginalized by her situation that she becomes invisible. She is realizing that there are people like me in this world who can see the invisible.

As I walk away, all my skin is tingling. In that moment I feel simultaneously tiny and huge. Tiny compared to the God I have just given food to. Tiny compared to her humanity. But my strides feel like seven leagues apiece. I can make a huge difference. I just have showed her the immense power of love... and this is just the beginning.

Whatever you do, don't admire me. Don't waste your time. Instead, just start asking people what they need. And mean it. It is not by needing that causes suffering. Needs cause pain. But to be in pain and to be alone, ostracized by your ailment... that is what steals your humanity. That is what threatens your worth and diminishes your purpose.

So ask people. Strive to see the hurts that your world would hide, and look for the people your world would ignore. A moment of truth, it seems to me, makes a world of difference.

Struggles for Modern Man (and Woman)

Sit through an intro literature class. There are five classic struggles that man (and women, though they were created back before women were quite worth mentioning) could face in the scope of a story. These struggles are no way limited to the narrative. They also sum up pretty well the challenges of real life.

As humankind has developed through history, so to has its ability to cope with these challenges. Indeed, today we are much safer from many of the things that worried our ancestors.

Let's take them one at a time...

Man vs. Nature
Poisonous plants, hostile elements, hungry beasts.

Through systematic classifications, better building practices, meteorology, weapons of self defense and disaster planning we have vastly improved our ability to cope with the natural world. Do you often doubt if you will "make it through winter?" Nope. While the occasional extreme climate event may displace millions, the causalities are usually kept to a minimum in countries with efficient and reactive rescue infrastructures.

Man vs. Man
Theft, murder, deceit.

While our fellow humans still can pose a threat to us, we have locks on our doors, personal firearms, security systems, fraud protection, banks, and safety service personnel. Apart from getting stuck in long lines behind masses of your fellow humans, we tend not to be put at odds with each other as often as in the past. Murder, after all, has been on a steady decline on the western world for 700 years.

Man vs. Society
Oppressive social norms and practices.

This one still gets us from time to time, but things are getting a bit better. The internet offers community for the outcasts, social mobility allows people to relocate and start anew, courts exist to try to bring justice to all. While we are certainly still subject to the world in which we live, there seems to be a growing sense of multiplicity, at least allowing people to have more choice about what world that is.

Man vs. the Supernatural
God, destiny, demons, the Fae.

If these entities are real... they have gotten trickier over the years. We rarely face the supernatural in an overt showing of power, and there are many who outright deny their existence and refuse to deal with them as such. I certainly don't discount their existence, and while I wouldn't say that humanity on the whole has improved in its coping with these struggles, it is true that many religions have "softened" their hard lines in favor of a more open ideology.

and finally...

Man vs. Himself
Restraint, fear, doubt

I don't believe that in the thousands of years of human existence we have improved in regard to this challenge. In fact, in the modern world, this is the prevailing worry. Is Mother Nature going to squash humanity under her thumb? Not likely. But could humanity, in its unrestrained self indulgence, destroy the world and itself in the process? Its seems a growing possibility.

In the midst of developing technology, developing social structures, developing interpersonal models, developing health care, developing building techniques, developing science, developing economics, developing spiritual communities, developing governments, and developing infrastructures... humans aren't really developing.

Imagine the possibilities of better tools, better communities, better relationships, better medicine, better housing, better learning, better business, better prayer, better laws, and better transportation. Wouldn't it seem that with all that better, the world would be so much better?

But is it? Some days I think so. But other days I look around, and I see people up to the same old tricks. New systems become sites for new domination. New resources create new poverties. New rules create new bad rulers. Without self restraint, without the ability to challenge the self, no advancement in the struggle against nature, others, society or the supernatural will ever lead to better lives. The man with no self mastery will squander most of the resources afforded by the other advancements... and the ones that he cannot somehow toss aside, he will learn to ignore out of indolent ingratitude. Soon, the near utopia around him comes to reflect the inner wasteland he never addressed.

We need to quit driving and eating the world into glacieral melting. Quit spending into oppressive deficit. Quit channeling our stress and negativity onto all around.

We are among the most powerful people to have ever walked the earth. We have risen to nearly every challenge. Now its its time to meet the one power who's power grows as fast as us. Our own. Humans are no longer infants wailing for their next meal. We have advanced and developed power in this world.

It is time we wielded that power with a more mature outlook.

Sometimes it seems, that the more powerful someone becomes, the more self righteous they become. The great can do no wrong. But in reality, this is precisely the opposite of true. As we become great, our actual ability to do wrong increases with our power.

If we ever want to see the greatest good come to pass, we must commit ourselves to besting ourselves. We must be devoted to live out our better natures, seek our better destinies, and become our better selves.

True. We have yet to explore space at warp speed. Yet it is our inner struggle, Man vs. Himself, not space, that in our future days will prove to be the final frontier.

Hiding from Yourself Amid the Crowd

It's called the Bystander Effect...

... and sometimes it makes me sad to be a human.

Basically, the Bystander Effect is the phenomenon that occurs when a group of people witness a crime. See, when a single person sees something bad happen to someone else, they tend to act. But put that person in a small group, and not only are they less likely to act, the likelihood that any person is smaller than the single witness scenario. The trend continues as the group of people grows.

At first, this seems weird. Why is a huge group of people unlikely to yield a single helper? Even a group of people who, had they been the solitary witness, each would have been willing to help.

It's all about deferral of responsibility. See, the lone witness knows that if they don't help, no one will. But in a group you know that there is someone better suited, more knowledgeable, or more apt to be the hero. In the end, everyone stands there, the responsibility smoothly distributed amongst all who stand by, just enough to make each one to feel uncomfortable, but not enough to make them help.

In all honesty, this nuance of human psychology makes me angry. I want to believe the group would come in and kick ass as a group. 10,000 strong, solving the problem. I want to be a member of race that is unfalteringly responsive to the needs of the world. But I'm not.

The thing that gets me is that the Bystander Effect is a product of social science. It isn't some idea about people, its the product of empirical study. This is how people behave. It would seem that I am doomed to be the coward in the crowd, hiding from my own conscience amid the masses.

So it would seem.

Unless you know a little about social science. Whenever scientists study the world there is all kinds of crazy crap that happens. Some of it fits into the system they are trying to test... some doesn't. If all research had to deal with all the occurrences, research would very rarely get done. So they only keep the data that allows forward movement. Basically, you are allowed to throw out the radicals, those unpredictably far from the mean.

Translation. A study can throw out weird subjects in order to make a cohesive picture. Mark it off to oddity, unforeseen variables, and extraordinary circumstances.

This is a ray of hope. Scientific conclusions need not be fates concerning your behaviors. That statistical radicals. That can be you.

See, my father is immune to the Bystander Effect. Perhaps its because he is a fire fighter, and he is used to being the one in the crowd actually responsible for helping. Perhaps its because of his strong sense of service that prompts him to act. Maybe its a foolishness or a fearlessness that keeps him from worrying about it long enough to not want to act.

Whatever it is, when something is going wrong, he is on the scene. No hesitation. No deferral of responsibility. Just action. Does this make the Bystander Effect wrong? Not exactly. It just makes my father part of the 5% that the researchers had to throw out in order to make sense of it all.

Strive to be that 5%. Idealize those people who are unwilling to let injustice and danger come to pass without acting. Act.

Ironically, me learning about the Bystander Effect has made it less true, at least in my life. Nowadays, when I am in a situation where many people aren't responding, and I start thinking, "Isn't someone going to do something?" I suddenly think, "Oh, crap, the Bystander Effect!" and I jump into action. I also try to consciously hone my identity so I don't even have the first thought. I try to develop my compassion for others and the courage within me so that when something bad happens, by first response is help. Hopefully one day I will only entertain thoughts like, "What is the way to do the greatest good?"

Besides, the Bystander Effect speaks nothing of human nature. It only describes human actions. This means that it could simply be a nuance of our culture, and that if enough people strove to live beneath the alpha level, eventually the Bystander Effect would no longer true.

What a great goal, huh? To be part of a people who at the first sign of trouble, solved it as one. Part of a race that refused to let the reigns of responsibility slip from their fingers, acting as though it was our sacred calling to right every wrong, no matter what caused it.

If I want to be a member of that group, I had better start with me. Waiting for other people to defy the Bystander Effect would be missing the point.

Moral Scope

Most discussions of morality question how much good or bad is being done. While this is certainly an important aspect of the conversation, it is really only part. In my estimation, this question is a question of degree. To what degree are you doing good?

There is also a question of scope. What is the scope of your good? What is the range of your moral actions?

See, an ethical act need only performed on that which is worth ethical consideration. Few would be offended by the breaking of a dead tree branch, for dead plant matter is outside the scope of moral consideration.

But when someone breaks your child's arm, there is trouble. One's children are within the scope of almost everyone's moral consideration. Common moral scopes are self, family, town, nation, particular race, human race, mammal, chordates, all living things.


When pursuing the greatest possible good is is imperative that we not only do good, but that we do it for the good of the most possible things. Actively strive to widen the range of your compassion. Tear down the walls that limit your ethical consideration, and let your love matter for all.

Giving Good a Try

Can't tell you how many times people have tried to get me to indulge a vice by telling me, "Dude, you don't know what you are missing."

Chances are, they are right. There are some experiences that don't make any sense to an outsider. They may seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to the people in the know, it's really the only way to live.

Funny thing is, virtues are much the same way. You really can't explain how good they feel to someone who has never tried. From the outside they seem odd, or downright dangerous, but to people in the know, its really the only way to live.

There are even virtues and vices that aren't even fulfilling in the beginning. Beer, I hear, is an acquired taste. So is vegetarianism. In fact, ironically, on multiple occasions I've had the eventual good taste of booze professed to me by the same person who rejected the initial taste of soy milk or veggie burgers. I find it interesting the disparate causes that convict different people to acquire a taste.

One of the reasons virtuous behavior has unforeseen benefits is because we tend to protect our egos from the bad that we do. Often we won't let ourselves admit our wrong doing until after we have stopped.

So the next time you are being called to a virtuous action, instead of asking is it really morally necessary, just give it a try. You might just find that your new virtue frees your mind to find justifications that you would have never believed had they been offered as motivation before you gave it a try.

So give it a try. Trust me, you don't know what you are missing.

Free Slaves

When I was young, I railed at the notion of serving God before myself. I thought, "Why did God make me free, just to give that freedom away and serve him?"

I didn't want God telling me what to do, what to think, or what to say. I wanted to be free to do what I want.

In my elder years, I have learned there is no such thing as "free to do what I want." Oh, sure, I can do what I want. Its the freedom bit that isn't so much a reality. Living through my desires is not an expression of freedom. It is simply being a slave to my desires.

It makes sense when I think about it. In the beginning acting on my desires is fulfilling, but as I continue to only serve myself I develop addictive attachments and must repay resources tapped in my excess. Choosing to express my freedom through submitting to my desires feels like liberation at first, but is ultimately slavery.

Submitting to the divine law of the universe is hard. Asked to do what I don't want. Not getting to have what I want. Moving in directions to which I see no point. But as I continue to labor in service of God and others, I begin to see the value in what I do. I start having an appreciation for the plan I am now part of. In the end, I want, I desire the good of those I was asked to serve. Choosing to express my freedom though submitting to my God feels like slavery at first, but is ultimately liberation.

My desires change! Treating my momentary fixation as sacrosanct is the road to suffering. My desires aren't eternal and holy, God is. When I live within the light of the creator, though the power of grace I find what I want transforming. In the end, I do exactly what God wants, and exactly what I want.

That's freedom.

Q and A

Some fundamentalist believers discourage questioning the ways of God. They reason that God's ways are above our ways, and that it is not our place to question, but rather accept and obey.

I take a different stance. I encourage questioning. Generate questions. Foster doubt. Destabilize assumptions. There are a few benefits to questioning.

One, it cuts back on dangerous religious practices. By building in a little skepticism there is a let off valve for the pressure that can otherwise become explosive. Questions have a way of softening the hard edge of faith, and when that hard edge is about to be used in violence a little softening is in order.

Secondly, questioning can deepen faith. A person who has delved into the difficult aspects of their beliefs is more likely to have a sense of ownership about their ideology than someone who has not. Questioning is also something of a self-inoculation to attacks on the faith.

Overall, I more than support questioning God. I endorse it.

But here's the thing...

Questioning God is only half the equation. We are also called to answer God.

You know the types. In fact, you may be one. People who have a truck load of inquiries, ranging from earnest to cynical to snide. They ask, ask, ask, playing the Devil's advocate concerning all faith claims, committed to ever looking, ever challenging.

Consider this: will someone committed to ever looking ever find? Will someone ever challenging ever accept? No. If you are determined to ever seek, even when you find that for which you yearn, you will leave it to continue seeking. If you are determined to challenge, even if you meet your match, you will refuse to accept and continue beyond.

Rather, if you look, look for the sake of finding what is right. If you challenge, challenge for the sake of accepting what is true. Otherwise your quest is doomed to frivolity and empty failure.

Once again, I have no issue with questioning. But when I cast my eyes upward and ask, "My father, why did you bring them suffering?" I had better be ready for when God answers, "My son, so that you could bring them satisfaction."

It is human nature to question the universe. But it is also human nature to serve the universe. If you have the urge to grill your creator, by all means. That is however, only step one. Actually listening for the answer is step two. Step three, transform your life in response to what was revealed to you.

It takes pride to question God. It takes humility to accept the answer. This is one of the fundamental pillars of relating to the divine, and we are called to strive in both endeavors. If you find yourself doing one or the other, it may be time for some for some real Q and A.

Footprints

You will change the world. This cannot be helped. As you move your actions alter the course of events, events that would have transpired differently in your absence. You will leave footprints.

Your influence is a given. The question, then, becomes what kind of footprints you will leave behind.

Footprints, in many ways, are bad. Treading roughly on the surface of our planet has implications in this modern world that never concerned our forefathers. Excessive burning of fossil fuels, irresponsible dumping, careless contamination, and decadent consumption commingle into a kind of footprint violently stomped onto the face of our world.

Similarly, our impact in the human world can be less than admirable. Our attitude and conscientiousness impinges on the people in our lives, be they loved ones or strangers. The metaphor carries pretty well. Are you responsible for your emotional dumping? Do you mindless of your affective contaminants? Fill your soul with vitriol, and you will find your infulence on others tend toward the caustic.

What to do? Reduce your negative impact! Use fewer resources. Rely on more renewable energies. Simplify your needs. Reuse things. Recycle what you must be rid of. Be nice to people. Blow off your stem in constructive ways. Avoid coercion. Foster love.

In fact, if you get good enough, you will start noticing that you still leave footprints, but that your influence has been for the better. Instead of leaving trash, you inspire others to pick up trash. Rather than burdening your fellow humans, you enable them to become great.

Pay attention to your consumption. Tread lightly with soft shoes and dainty steps. But when its comes to doing good... skip rambunctiously and dance with abandon in the clompiset boots you can tie to your feet.

Sacrifice

There are things in the world that are more important than me. There are things more important than you.

Get this.

Get this into your head.

Without this one, the rest of this crap won't make any sense. Your thoughts, while cute and perhaps profound, are whips in the face of the suffering of the starving. Your amusement, while charming and at times worthy, is a shallow pursuit when compared to your sacred birthrights. Your comfort, while warm and ultimately beautiful, pales when compared to the good that you are capable of unleashing in the world.

It all boils down to sacrifice. The world is not perfect yet. Perfectly journeying toward perfection, maybe, but not yet. When all is set right, all goods will be in perfect alignment, and the attainment of all will be but one step away. But not yet.

Face it. You are not the most important thing in world, you aren't even the most important thing in your life. Look around. Your friends, family, children, the children of others... We can amplify voices long unheard, fight for rights long unhad, build things of lasting truth and beauty.

Fuck, lets not sugar coat it with poetry either. There are things worth dying for... causes that will ask from you the ultimate price. Will you pretend you are the centerpiece of your life, and hesitate to lay yourself down for a friend? Will your lover and children go unprotected from the slings of the world?

Diminish. Don't think less of yourself. Think more of that which surrounds you. You don't need to hate yourself to serve. Don't give yourself heaps of gold stars, either, but don't waste your breath with self pity. Rather, fill your lungs with songs of the beauty of the people and moments that make your life worth living. You are a tiny moment in time. That only makes you insignificant if you cling to yourself. A speck of matter and movement, trying to hand itself satisfaction, pathetically struggling for the prestige of not being tossed about by the mighty torrent of all creation.

Give it up. Give up your quest to making yourself worthy. Cling instead to the things of worth around you. Hand them satisfaction. Struggle to keep their wellbeing afloat that endless flood.

May the blood in my veins water your fields and my tears season your food. And when my body has failed, till it into the soil so life may spring from me in the end.

Serve, even unto your death. It's not something we talk about much these days. Sacrifice, it seems, is a fruit just a bit too bitter. Be reminded. It is a fruit. There are beautiful glories in moments of brokenness. The realization that your works have contributed for the good. The peace of knowing that nothing else could have been done.

But best of all... best of all has got to be the love. I've never felt more love than in those moments of sacrifice. You see in perfect clarity the beauty of the thing you exalted with your service, and an unbreakable spiritual bond wells up between you. Sure it takes compassion and love to give, but it is only in giving that our eyes see mercifully by the light of love.

What now? Start looking for the world about you that dwarfs your significance, and start identifying in yourself the inseparable and necessary tools hidden within you by a brilliant creator. Let them out! Foster your spirit and give. Live out the sweaty, teary, and bloody life that lies ahead of those who sacrifice and serve.

It will be hardest thing you ever do. And yet, once you get started, you might just find that seeking your easy life while pretending of your great importance was much more taxing by far.

Who paid for my shirt?

Well, I did, I suppose. That's what makes it mine.

Maybe it was a present. That's right. Got this shirt at Christmas. So, yeah, the person who gave it to me paid for it.

How much did it cost? Five bucks.


Now, as a person who makes clothing from time to time, you could never pay me five bucks to make a shirt. Heck, that's basically what the materials cost plus twenty three cents. Go try it yourself. You'll get poked, frustrated, and screw up enough times to make it way more than five dollars worth of effort (way more than twenty three cents worth, especially!). Even if you learn a few tricks to streamline the process, you usually end up under some kind of time crunch that guarantees the stress level of the project.

So, how did I get it for five bucks, anyway?

Easy. Someone got paid twenty three cents to make it. Chances are the company that pays its workers in such a way isn't going to splurge on AC or heath care. If it's cheaper than you would have been willing to do it for... it was either 1.) made by a machine, 2.) made by a person who loves what they do, or 3.) made by someone who is forced into a lawful slavery by situations being exploited by companies striving to lower production spending by externalizing costs.

So, who really paid for my shirt? It may have cost me $5, but it, along with its brethren, cost someone their health, rights, and human dignity.

I'm hesitant to even call it mine.

Systems and Abstraction

Systems are useful. They organize and streamline human efforts. With good systems, impossibly large tasks can be accomplished.

Moral pursuits are no exception. Organizing the world in a more moral way is a noble and powerful pursuit. We want our acts of service to be effective, so efficiency is no enemy to goodness.

But beware. Systems also abstract the elements of the system from one another. They isolate on side from the other, using channels and intermediaries to achieve connection. While this can have a streamlining effect, it can also distance people from each other in dangerous ways.

Give money to organizations that serve the poor. But also, go down and ask a poor person what they need, and then make it or buy it for them.

Vote for bills that support education. But also, tutor some kids in subjects they don't understand.

Never loose sight of the fact that we are called to see the world with compassion, not strategy. Don't loose sight of the power of merciful actions. We are called to have the hands of the divine. It is great to support good.

You should also go into the actual world and do some, too.

The Power of Paradox

Paradox.

The tension created by two things that cannot both possibly be true. Perhaps one truth negates the other. Perhaps they present an impossible timeline. Perhaps they are trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Whatever the reason, paradoxes arise when two truths are at odds.

When it comes to physical reality, paradoxes are worth paying attention to. If something is inconsistent or impossible, then it should be investigated and you should attend to it accordingly.

But in the realm of the human heart, paradox is not only not bad, but a fundamental part of the way we work. People desire, simultaneously, different, and at times, opposing things. This is totally rational and to be expected. See, people are not mere comparison calculators, measuring the worth of one activity versus another. If we were, there would always be a clear, even if sometimes close, decision. Rather, people are imaginative visionaries of possibility, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually aligning with different paths, dreaming of how things could be. This is not a mathematical process. It is dreaming, and bringing into being.

Not only do we at times want opposing things, people are capable of being opposing things. One person, at one given moment, concerning one given thing, can be both cowardly and courageous, flustered and composed, engaged and distant.

Now, this impossibly broad range of desire and being can be both good and bad. For worse, it allows us to want the right, and still want the wrong. It means our actions can have deeply rooted inconsistencies that facilitate immoral action and still feel authentic. For these reasons, our paradoxical nature is to be treated with care.

For better, though, it lets us become impossibly perfect for doing good in the world. We can want our good and the good of others. Respect the individual and the group. Be practical and idealistic. We can be skeptical and confident. Brave and fearful. Elderly and youthful. Thoughtful and emotional. Salty and sweet.

No matter what, we are paradoxes. They cannot be eliminated, but that does not mean that all paradox should be embraced. Ultimately, it comes down to what you want your paradoxes to accomplish. What is it about you that makes people turn their head?

Is it how you can walk out of church and cuss people out in the parking lot? Or is it how you can be so proud of your life, but not look down on the lives of others?

Do you want people to wonder how it is you can be so selfish, and still be so unhappy? What about forcing them to think on how it is you manage to meet all your needs only worrying about the needs of others?

So break free of any expectation that you may tacitly live by, preventing you from becoming the greatest possible you doing the greatest possible good. You can be a solid softy. A peaceful badass. Innocent and sexy. Many in the course of human history have let his or her inconsistency bring harm to the world. Its time we let our paradoxes do some good.

Would you have beaten your slaves to death?

Would you have raped your wife?

Would you have killed a man for insulting your family?

The first reaction is to say no, of course not. These things are heinous, not thought of as very acceptable nowadays. Think about it a little more. Embedded in the culture of another time and place, would you have done it? What if the prevailing values of the day thought nothing of it? How about then?

Astute thinkers often respond, sometimes a bit depressed, that yes, yes they would have. This is a very important lesson to learn. Your world has tremendous power to influence your value system.

But is is the last lesson to learn on the matter? How, exactly, did those social changes come about? While it is true that most people of the day regarded a slave's life as property, or a woman's sexuality her husband's domain, or a familial insult grounds for killing, there were people who did not. Some of them disagreed secretly and personally refrained. Others openly, challenging the cultural norm with rhetoric and public defiance.

Challenge the cultural assumptions of your time.

Refuse to hide behind the value systems drawn about you by your environment. Sure, be respectful of your culture, and good to its people. But if a situation breaches a deep moral intuition, look into it. Ask courageous questions about how your people view particular persons, places, or things. Attend to moral categories, little inconstancies in the classifications of beings, and the words used to describe marginalized groups.

The only realistic to the above hypothetical questions hinges on how you behave now. Do you go above and beyond the demands of your society to do good? Do you take stances to defend that which is weak or voiceless? Can you see through cultural values that violate deeper truths?

My advice? Rise above. Be fearless and meticulous concerning your actions. That way, the next time someone asks you if you would have owned slaves, you can confidently and accurately say no.