How to Change the World

Whenever I talk about changing the world, I get mixed reactions. Some people are stirred by the idea. Many, however, scoff... and on some days, its hard for me not to agree.

When I flick on the tv, the world that comes streaming through seems pretty immune to improvement. Politics with no accountability. Unchecked warfare. Injustice abounds. Nothing new under the sun, they say, and those days where I hopelessly try to stare down the despair flashing out of that box, I tend to agree.

As I try to peddle my optimistic outlook a hundred stations beam though my body at 200 MHz, offering a picture of the world that is invulnerable to any meaningful change. Is I a fool? Can we really change the world?

The answer to that question depends entirely on which world we are living in.

The world of the tv is a mediated and immediate representation of events on a national and global scale. Huge geographical scope. Tiny temporal scope. Tv answers the question, "What is happening now everywhere?"

So think about it. Can you, on your own, change everywhere now? Of course not! If you live in the world portrayed by your television, proactive movement to improve the quality of the world doesn't even makes sense. Tv channels only go one way. There's no way to interact. No sites for change. And the sheer geographical size of the televisioned world makes it unassailable in the rush of information.

But what if you lived in a neighborhood? What if you paid attention to that which was going on in the next couple of months? Think you could change that world, given that amount of time?

Mass media seductively offers us the ability to interface with the world at large in nearly real time. But what we cannot do is effect that world. Now, I'm not knocking mass media. The free flow if information is a corner stone to the democratic process and improving the accountability of the powerful. But if you live only there, if that is all that you consider important and real, you have decided to live in a place that is too fast moving in respect to its vastness for you to make any meaningful impact.

No wonder people are pessimistic concerning their ability to make change.

Wanna change the world? Set your sights first on that which is around you. Develop a sense of the local. Learn the things that the people around you need. Find out what resources are nearby. Improve the world you pass when you walk, bike, bus or drive yourself to work. Improve your block. Your office building. Your coworkers. Friends. Family.

Change yourself for the better.

Now, I'm not a reductionist. When I said we could change the world, I didn't mean only the local one. Changing that vast world represented by the media is possible. It just takes more time. The timeline of the tube is an unstopping stream of events. No way for ordinary people to influence the whole world that fast. But if you have clarity of vision, sustainable motivation, and a galvanized group... why, you can't help but to make a difference.

So develop a sense of the local. Ask questions about what those nearby you need. Work on your own problems. And when you watch the news... keep your eyes open for ways you can make a difference. When you see it, bitch and brainstorm, find a few others who see it your way, get together, and makes something happen.

That's how you change the world.

True Genius

One of my life's great concerns has been the pursuit of true genius. Much of this quest comes out of my identity... I think of myself as exceptionally intelligent, and I really enjoy any activity that promises to challenge or expand my brain power.

There is also a strange cast of brilliance that has played major roles in my life. From my mother's simultaneously absent and present consciousness to my brothers' differing intellectual sensibilities (the younger; a common sense, human truth, the older; a radical, transhuman truth). The elusive yet key wisdom of teaching, namely, that there are different kinds of intellect, is more like a day to day aspect of my life.

Happy or sad, good or bad, intellect has been a foundation of my identity from the beginning. In my younger years I felt isolated by my mindfulness. My peers seemed interested in that which was trivial, and though I had passing fancies about being a part of their world, I was grateful for being smarter than all that. (This whole thing makes me smile nowadays. Think it was my intellect, or my arrogant and shitty attitude that isolated me? You be the judge.)

By my sophomore year in high school, I fancied myself a misanthrope. I think this is the teenaged ego defense to years of being the weird one. Anyhow, I really had a pretty elaborate disdain for people, including myself. I only did good things that way people would think me a good person, and this was a deception that had worked perfectly... everybody thought I was nice... even though inside me lurked a barely checked demon (no joke, this is how I thought of myself). And other people, other people were pale reflections of their selves, projecting false identities and failing to see the true value of other people (as evidenced by my inability to get a date).

All the while I quested for genius. Though I'm not the most fastidious student ever, I learned ravenously, soaking in every subject I could. Most people had a class or two that they hated and were bad at. I may have hated a few, but I was relentless in really getting my head around every idea I came to. At one point early in my search for genius I would have defined it as the ability to learn anything.

But I quickly moved on from there. Unsatisfied with being fed truths from the bounty of past thinkers, I moved into the persuasion that true genius was not to learn knowledge, but discover it. No longer was I content to simply soak in facts and figures. Rather, I would invent schemas and theories and test them against the facts and figures. Creativity became my intellectual centerpiece.

Somewhere in my loathing of my tortured immorality (which was, in reality a twisted form of ego trip), I toyed with the notion that the evil thinker was less restrained than the good thinker. Take a moment on it. The good person can't really consider all the possibilities that an evil person can. They have a moral restriction on their creativity. True genius, it seemed, rested in amoral thinking.

Early in my college career I managed to get over my immoral overdrama. I had been "pretending" to be a good person for long enough that I figured it had finally stuck, and I no longer fantasized that my evil brain was more powerful than a good one. Now my mind was onto a new form of genius. Philosophical fearlessness. No belief was safe. No societal norm uncritiqued. I got inside my head with a crowbar, prying off all the preconceived notions I had ever had and stripping them back.

While I wasn't nearly as bitter as when in high school, I had moved on to a new form of judgement. People who accepted things without question. I was now far smarter than those people who obediently believed that which they were told. True genius was intellectual Independence, and most of the people who I passed in the halls were vessels of unconsidered ideologies and uninvestigated ideas.

That notion of intellect failed when I started actually listening to the way those people thought. Funny thing. Despite never using a mote of philosophical language or academic framing, people I had once considered as inwardly blind were strikingly reflective. It turns out "regular" people think brilliant things all the time. Talking about it at length may not be their favored pastime... and they may not struggle with these issues on a daily business... but they do struggle with them... and if you stop trying to say it your way and listen, they will talk about them.

It was about that time that my head broke open. What had been an entirely solitary process for twenty some years suddenly had many new contributors. I started really listening to lots of people. Everyone, if I paid attention to how they thought, had something to teach me. There were also divine agents at work in my conciseness. God showed me things, angles spoke to me, and the elements of the world revealed lessons about the universe.

Honestly, since that moral/intellectual/spiritual daybreak, I've worried a lot less about the search for true genius. Don't get me wrong, being a smarty pants is still an important part of my identity, and I still struggle with issues of egotism. But as I sit here tap tap tapping away at my computer, I can confidently tell you that true genius isn't a particular way of thinking. More, lots of different kinds of genius that serve in different ways. True genius, for lack of a better phrase, is a particular "why" of thinking. Here's what I mean.

True genius is love.

Think on it. Love pays attention. Love is relentless in solving problems. Real love is fearless in the face of the truth and refuses to live in illusion.

I had once idealized the evil thinker for their unfettered creativity. Now I realize that it is the good thinker that is the true genius, because their intellectual task is harder. Moral thinking demands more creativity because it requires multiplicity, an attention to many different goods. Immoral thinking isn't better... it's lazier. Someone who only thinks of them selves is free to consider all kinds of violations of others. But this isn't unique to the selfish mind. Some of the most intellectually twisted people I know are the most moral. Good people can also imagine bad things.

But where the moral thinker shows their colors is not in fixating on the many immoral paths they can take, but the many moral ones. The paths of righteousness are no less complex. In fact, right actions are far more intricate, as they weave between the simultaneous goods of all involved. You want a chance to prove your brilliance? Start acting as though every speck of the universe is holy and worthy of respect and well being, then start living you life.

Interestingly, the word genius has only meant a person of brilliance since 1649. For hundreds of years before that, the word was used to describe the guardian spirits that protected people and places.

What?

Tutelary spirits. Guardian deities. Tasked to watch over people from the moment of birth and protecting the well being of places and things. These spirits were blessings, bestowing upon their charges boons and guiding their lives. Its not hard to see how the word genius came to mean "strong leaning" (from the spirits' guidings) and "natural talent" (from the spirits' blessings).

So, if you want to be a genius in the richest sense for the word, you must be more than just a smarty pants. You have to put your intellect into the service of others. You have to define your life not by the possibilities of your brain, but the necessities of those it protects.

If you want to be a true genius, you have to do more than think well. You have to think well about the well being of others. You have to love.

True genius?

Love.

What Is and What Should Be

What is. The state of things. Reality. Now.

What should be. Our moral goal. The ideal state of things. Our hopeful future.

Knowing what is can be quite handy. Its what makes us realistic. Its what allows us to effectively respond to the world. We should all try to know what is. Exhaustive research, thorough investigation, and devoted inquiry all help transform our minds in a way that brings us more inline with the world as it is.

But in our pursuit of knowing what is, we must not loose sight of what should be.

Knowing what should be involves aligning ourselves to a different kind of reality. The world as it should be may not exist in the now, and it may have never existed, but is an expression of values that are eternally true. Trying to discover the world as it should be involves earnest discernment, hopeful imaginings, and far-reaching empathy. We seek to transform our desires to be inline with the world as it should be.

Some people think that realism and idealism (meant here in the common sense context, not the philosophical context) are at odds.

Those who favor the world as it is claim that the idealists are foolish. "Why pine about what isn't true?" they ask. The realists believe we should learn to deal with the harsh realities and learn to enjoy the sweet realities of our world.

Idealists are quite the opposite. They favor living in a world that reflects their ideals, rejecting that which does not fit into their mindset. Lovers of the world as it should be filter their actions through the ideals they profess.

Both of these mindsets are wrong. He who only sees what is has been bullied by the reality of now, and looses his ability to imagine that which could be. But woe to she who only sees the world as it should be. Her denial of what is dooms her actions to ineffectiveness.

Striving to do the greatest good involves loving both what is and what should be. We must see the world as it is if we wish to transform it into what should be, that way we know what we are working with (and how it works). Likewise, we must see the world as it should be, that way our actions have a tranformative end.

Take a medical example. Without an understanding of what is, the most compassionate person in the world is powerless to intervene. Similarly, without understanding what should be the most well studied person in the world will fail to act. Medicine is the synthesis of biological science and healing. That which is and what should be.

What about teaching. Without seeing who the students are, the teacher fails to address them effectively. But without understanding who the students should be, the teacher fails to develop any standards. Teaching is the synthesis of understanding students and challenging them. That which is and what should be.

The examples go on.

What does this mean to us? If we find ourselves only seeing the world as it is, we must shake off the persuasiveness of the now. Not let reality statically dictate its importance. Strive to open ourselves to things that are not yet real. And if we find ourselves only seeing the world as it should be, we must shatter our little world. Not let our yearnings blind us to what is, which would only doom us to impotently and clumsily flail about in our pursuit of good.

Getting Right Right

One of the pervasive problems with trying to do the right thing in the world is that sometimes you get what is right wrong. Motivated out of a particular conviction, acting in accord with a particular idea, its how we galvanize our moral actions.

But sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes what we think is right is actually not, as we behave to shortsightedly, or pay too much attention to the big picture. In each of us now are warped beliefs about what is good, habits that prevent us from truly reflecting on the nature of the universe, and poorly fostered desires drawing us toward ill.

The fucker of it all is that it is really hard to figure out which ideas, habits, and desires lead us to good, and which lead us to the bad. Its hard to see past shortsightedness, as it were.

But all is not lost. The structure of our creeds and the movement of our intuitions may not always be true, be they can be improved.

A few starting points:

Pray. Pray in a way that makes your ideology vulnerable to love of the universe.

Learn. Learn in a way that makes your assumptions vulnerable to the truth of the universe.

Commune. Commune with those like you, and those apart from you.

Think. Think both tentatively and courageously.

Ask. Ask people you admire, and those you do not. Treat everyone as a teacher.

Feel. Feel around inside your soul for how you really feel.

Pray again.

Learn again.

Commune again.

Think again.

Ask again.

Feel again.

Pray one last time.

If you honestly, and I do mean honestly, move through these different modes of being in a way open to transformation, very often the warped aspects of our belief structures straighten, and our slumbering intuitions awaken. Now, you won't always get it right, but you will be moving in the right direction. Done regularly, you will grapple with ideas as they come into question, and over time you will find yourself slowly moving into a less warped sense of being.

You won't succeed the moment you start...

You won't always get right right...

But praying, learning communing, thinking, asking, and feeling are all done now.

Now.

Now is a fine time to start.

Rationalism and Empiricism

Rationalism is the philosophical notion that claims the most reliable path to knowledge is through reflection. Humans, the rationalist says, have a special faculty that allows them to access the truth of things through contemplation.

Empiricism, on the other hand, claims that knowledge is best attained through use of the senses. Most empiricists see evaluation of the world through systematic observation the road to meaningful and reliable beliefs.

These two ideologies have dominated many discussions concerning knowledge. Rationalists tend to have a metaphysical leaning, while empiricists lean toward the scientific. The discipline of philosophy has rigorously teased out the many and sundry nuances of these positions and the many that surround this discourse. If your interested, I suggest you wade in and get your feet wet.

But for the sake of this conversation, I would like to disentangle these two beautiful methods from the fights they so often face. Seeking the greatest good requires the engagement of both truth finding mechanisms. It goes something like this....

Experience via your senses the world around you.

Reflect on what occurred. Organize your thoughts.

Go out again. See what is the same and what has changed.

Reflect again. Start to develop a sense of what is real. Weigh this against your deeply held intuitions.

Evaluate your sensations based on this inner conclusion. Do they live up to it, or go beyond?

Reconsider, reevaluate.

Knowing what is real, start looking for what is out of place.

Check these against your conscience.

Investigate the mechanisms that cause these events.

Imagine a solution.

Identify the resources that can serve your cause.

Resolve yourself to act.

Attend to the world as you act, and react as it presents new challenges.

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Both the rationalist and empiricist approach is needed to accomplish moral action. They simply serve different roles, answering their own questions. Different kinds of truth need different kinds of proof. An empiricist who rejects rationalism can collect data, but never evaluate it, as the intellectual tools of science are ultimately rational constructions and processes. Similarly, a rationalist who rejects empiricism can imagine, but can never really comment on the world they lost contact with in their contemplation.

As a moral agent, you must attend to both your senses and your intuition. Your senses are a great indicator of what is real. Your intuition is a great indicator of what is good. Working in tandem, these two intellectual virtues complement each other beautifully.

The 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.

Precarious Personhood

Whether or not something is seen as a person is of the utmost importance in moral thinking.  While there are certainly extreme exceptions to the rule, most people in most situations will avoid doing ill to what they consider a person.  In fact, the more exposed to the personhood of the subject (ie - the more we know them), the more the moral actor seeks the subject's good.  

This being the case, it's important for this project to understand what makes a person, or rather, what makes a person seem like a person.  This seeming is for the time what we are after, since we are trying to understand the process by which a moral actor affords consideration to what they perceive as persons.

In order to be considered a person, the thing in question must have a good of its own.  A value to its thriving, apart from its instrumental value for others.  This built-in value is the foundation of moral consideration, for without it, the thing only is given respect earned by the task it can be put in service of, and it can easily be sacrificed for the good of a person.

Consider the chunk of marble.  While it may have value to an artist wanting to chisel it into a sculpture, or the quarry man who wants compensation for his hard work, the marble has no value of its own.  It may be assigned an economic value, but will never get considered beyond its usefulness to persons.

Compare that to your best friend.  While your best friend may too be part of an economy, selling time and effort for money or favors, your friend has a built-in value, a good of his or her own, that is to be respected over and above any functionalization.  This is precisely why we are outraged by slavery, and really any system that mimics slavery.

Many moral thinkers stop with inherent good as the genesis of moral consideration.  I contend there is another attribute that must coexist with inherent good in order for a thing to be a person (and afforded a persons rights).  A thing must also have consideration for the good of persons in order to be a full person.

Consider the pit viper.  The viper clearly has a good of its own.  It wants to live, eat, and bear its young.  But in the pursuit of its good, the viper has no respect for the goods of others.  It violently strikes out at the world to achieve its ends.  We have a word for creatures of this ilk.  They aren't persons.  They are beasts.

Beasts don't follow their dreams, they don't reason, they don't learn.  Rather, they have instincts that drive their actions.  This lack of inner substance, lack of consideration for others, cheapens their ends.  While often left to their hunting, when their actions jeopardize the goods of persons... well, such a violence is unconscionable.

Consideration for the good of others is necessary for personhood.  It should be noted that consideration is necessary for personhood, but not sufficient.  If a thing is simply good for others but has no good of its own... well, it can simply be put in service of that which its improves with no moral issue.  These things are seen as nurturers... nothing more.  Plants are often placed in this category.  They are living, and bear sustenance for others, but have no inherent value.

That which has a good but no consideration is a violent beast.  That which has consideration but no good is a providing nurturer.  Between these two stands the person, with its own good but capable of considering the good of others.

Now, why is this important?  Many people have had their good stripped away by being jostled into the category of beast or nurturer.  Human murderers, enemy soldiers, adversaries of any stripe, possibly dangerous strangers... once a person threatens our good, we can push them into the category of beast.  Once the shift is made, we no longer have to consider their good.  On the other end of the spectrum are voiceless laborers, mothers, subordinates, possibly useful strangers... people who's purpose seems to be to better our lives.  By making them nurturers, they become subjugated to our own good and therefore ultimately lacking inherent worth.

Knowing this, be careful you do not create beasts and nurturers from persons.  A person threatening your good should of course be stopped, but in a way that is respectful to their own good.  Similarly, someone able to help you should of course be allowed, but only in a way that its respectful of their good.

We should also to be more than beast or nurturer.  We dehumanize ourselves when we violate the sacred other by reducing them to mere function in our lives.  We also dehumanize ourselves when we violate the sacred self by reducing ourselves to mere function in their lives.

If you have any doubt that this happens, consider hundreds of years of slavery.  Consider spousal abuse and rape.  Consider ordinary men killing the faceless, monstrous enemy.  

The beast is just waiting put down; the plant is just waiting to be picked.

The Time is Now

We certainly live in interesting times. The landscape of international economics and politics shifts, information technology grows by leaps and bounds, peoples from all tribes mingle.

It's not uncommon for me to hear members of earlier generations discuss how the world is spiraling downward in the midst of all this change. Failing family structure, moral degradation, and ungratefulness abound. While I do have concerns, I cannot subscribe to this pessimistic view in light of what I consider great strides in the improvements in humanity.

The long shadow cast by racial prejudice shortens daily in the light of openness. Women who once had to endure spousal abuse for their entire lives now have the mobility to put an end to their suffering. Advances in technology and awareness give the voiceless environment a chance to survive the onslaught of human gluttony. And information, information flows faster to the places it needs to be, improving education, entertainment, networking, and business.

Today, each of our power to influence the world is far greater than that of any other people in any other age. Misused, that makes us the most destructive people to ever walk the earth. With unchecked desires and a blind eye to our incidental ravaging we needlessly, heedlessly bring ruin to places we will never hear off and to people we will never meet.

No wonder our elders are worried.

But what if we could use the outpouring of information to educate ourselves concerning our actions, and flex our power for the good? Certainly we aren't destined to be gluttonous despots. If we have the potential to misuse our far reaching power... we also have the potential to use our far reaching power. With a healthy ration of intentionality, why, we could really chance the world for the better.

Step one is of course to restrain our appetites. I once was stunned when I was told by a life long personal finance advisor that almost every client he had ever had, when asked how much money they needed to improve their lives, had answered with a sum of money that was about 20% more than they made. Be they princes or paupers, everybody wanted just a little more. Most lacked the audacity to want, or at least admit wanting, a much more extravagant life. But similarly, and very important to our cause, they also lacked the ability to be content with what they have. While I am not encouraging financial complacency, I find it chiling that a person could achieve that goal, only to readjust their expectations so that their windfall was subsumed by a new notion of what should be. A new notion of what they deserved, and a new set of unneeded desires replaces their old goals. When exactly, would it end?

With this as a lesson in gratitude, we are burdened with the responsibility to curb our desires. Learn to tell ourselves no, be satisfied with what we have, and start striving for goals that promise real and lasting satisfaction for all.

We have vast resources in our reach. We can learn of the consequences of our actions. All we are waiting for is that right time, that moment to spring into action and galvanize the events that will set our plan of a better world into being.

I've got news.

The time is now.

The Power of "I'm fine"

One of the most common events in human interaction is the "How are you?" - "I'm fine." pair. Exchanged between family members, friends, coworkers, strangers at the gas pump. Despite being about one of the fundamentally most important aspects of humanity... the status of our very existence, this question response pair can mean almost nothing more than, "You speak English and are close and lucid enough to respond?" - " Yes."

Not that there's anything wrong with what it has come to mean. There are many interpersonal events that are formalized to the point where their meaning changes.

In this particular instance, there may be a golden spiritual opportunity. Here's how. When someone asks, "How are you?" take the chance to say something that is actually true. Don't let the moment of true human sharing to pass with the wave of a formalized expression. If you're fine, say fine. But if you are great, tell them you are great.

After you get used to actually telling the truth, move on to being a little more expressive than third grade vocab. Go for words like frustrated, superb, apathetic, lethargic, and morose. Take a momentary pause, then use the exactly right word. Develop your ability to vividly assess and describe your personal state.

Now you are ready for the third step. Start exaggerating a bit. If someone asks you when you are superb, go for spectacular. Unmotivated? Laxidasical. Sorrowful? Woebegone. Just amp up the emotional charge behind each of your emotional adjectives.

Got that one? Next is the true art. Start saying not what you are, but half way between where you are and where you want to be. But don't lie. That's right. If you are having a fine day, but want to be doing great, go for good, and at least for the duration of your response, be good. Take the moment and the adrenaline boost from boldly proclaiming your new state to take you to that next emotional plateau. Remember, don't lie. This isn't a fake it till you make it philosophy. Mean it.

Having mastered the linguistic emotional rally, you are finally ready for the last trick. When someone asks you how you are, respond in a way that gives you the greatest possible emotional range. Try interesting, unbelievable, and vivid. Words that don't pin you down to a good or bad, happy or sad. As you shape them in your mouth, let them be a little personal reminder that the sum of your human experience can never be adequately accounted for by a single word, and that in any given moment you are more than the scope of all language could ever see.

In my experience this process is intensely powerful. While it was certainly only one of the enlightening influences on me (supported by friends, health, spiritual mentors, and the grace of God being the key others) it was a major contributer to what unchained my emotional life from the constrains of an ordinary range. As my words became more and more vivid, my inner life brightened. I found that when I spoke of where I wanted to be, my mood would boost in that moment to match my words, and that through the day I would gain amazing emotional inertia. My language and my attitude would leapfrog to impossible heights.

When I finally unleashed my status with the vague language I was very used to my words creating emotional space. The phrase "Unbelievable" became a mantra for evoking a truly unbelievable state of being.

Perhaps this all sounds a bit too weird, or that it would never actually work. Different tricks do, after all, work differently for different people. But what, if I may ask, is the danger of trying? All that is at risk is your placid devotion to answering the question "How are you?" with an unsubstantial response.

Moral Drift

Our ability to do good is firmly rooted in our notion of what is real. The world is the stage of moral action, and those who live in it are the beneficiaries.

Our perception of what is real is build around a whole series of beliefs, attitudes, habits, and collected experiences. The countless times we fell as children, all the ways one object bounced off another, and the myriad emotional reactions we've had (plus... everything else) all coalesce together as a view of the world.

Of course, this thing can change. New ideas and experiences make changes to one part of the web, and may have an impact in other places. One of the dangers concerning moral drift is the subtle process of slow exposure to a particular behavior that erodes our sensibilities about the issue.

Avoidance of this slow process can be avoided by habitually checking in with a set of core beliefs. By revisiting the center of your values you can prevent the drift.

Caution. The process of going astray from the good is, psychologically speaking, identical to the process by which someone realizes that some false good they used to strive for is actually empty. We should not hold to false goods. So, if you feel yourself drifting, you need to consider very hard the moral reality at hand, asking real and difficult questions about that is good. You may find that something that once was held as a moral truth is actually an illusion. You may also find that a desire generated by a poor aesthetic orientation to the world is drawing you toward a dangerous road. Be honest. Then either make the change, or prevent the drift.

There is another form of moral drift that is not so subtle. Sometimes you are placed in worlds vastly from our own. Warfare, travel, new cultures, new jobs, education, children, loss of children... they all have the powerful ability to alter your humanity. It's important to know that you should not resist all chance that these things offer. In fact, you should do our best to be vulnerable to the experiential wisdom that such vastness offers.

But on a moral front, there are dangers. Since the pillars of human perception are built on habit, a sudden and complete alteration of our sensations threatens your sense of what is morally real. Suddenly all of the things you knew were wrong become shaken. You take a group of good boys from Wisconsin, put them in the jungle, deprive them of sleep, starve them, shoot at them, make them kill, and in six months they are wearing necklaces of the ears of slain women and children.

Knowing the power of moral drift, of course I my heart goes out to those boys from Wisconsin. I don't automatically assume that they were all monsters lurking beneath a facade. In most cases, you put those boys back in their homes, and they not only stop wearing fetishes of death, but they become endlessly sorry for what they did.

So while I have no hate for the wrong that is done in these radical situations, I ask, "What can be done to prevent it?" Just because I can understand it, doesn't mean I have to submit to its power.

One way to prevent moral drift in situations vastly different from your life is to swear oaths. Sometimes your honor, and your commitment to your word is the only thing that gets you through. By letting those words echo in your minds can be a very direct reminder of something you once thought was key to your moral well being.

Another trick that can work is by finding a small way of giving ourselves sensory comfort. A small talisman that you wear. An object you turn over in the palm of our hand. A phrase you whisper to yourself. These experiences, while small and seemingly insignificant, can offer a little piece of home and give you rest.

The Moral Intellect

Use your brain.

Morally difficult situations are precisely that... difficult. Very often there is some tension of values, a moment where your priorities are at odds. Most people don't steal food when they have enough money to buy it. With money, they can fulfill their desire to eat and their conviction to not stealing (or desire to no get caught). Take away the money, and the situation becomes conflicted. Now the desire to eat is pitted against the aversion to stealing.

Fortunately, not all moral problems need be solved by violating a priority. Sometimes they can be solved creatively. Just because there doesn't seem to be an answer, doesn't mean there isn't one. Perhaps you haven't thought of it yet.

One of the troubles with being creative in times of moral crisis is that frustration, anger, confusion, and despair tend to hamper the reflection process.

Also, having conflicting feelings about an issue can cause your thinking to oscillate in an unproductive way, lurching back and forth between extremes. A little mental maelstrom can be good for teasing out the limits of the issue, but if it continues it promises dangerous consequences. Not only can it make it difficult to think in any productive way, it threatens to destabilize you sense of what is real.

Now, it hardly helps someone who is freaking out to tell them to calm down. Instead of trying to attack your emotions, just work with them, but make them do actual work.

Here's the plan. Grab a pen. Find something to write on. Write down this question: "What is real?" Draw a line under it, and proceed with the answer.

Describe, bullet by bullet, the reality of the situation. Keep in mind that how you feel and what you want is part of what is real. Describe all the states, no matter what kind of real it is. Start with the thing that is most present in your mind, and then start trying to describe other elements of the situation

Your second question is: "What is good?" Knowing this, your mind will start to jump over to this question while still answering the first. This is ok, and you can take a few interludes, but keep writing on the first. Remember, how can you possibly know how to get things where they should be if you don't know where they are? So finish up with question one.

Question two then. Your answers to this don't need to be one for one reactions to each reality. If you've bulleted right, then they collectively describe the situation. So just read them over and consider what the right choice is. Write it down. Start general and move toward the specific. Don't really fret about the order, but as you finish try to end with some things you can do now.

Do them.

The Moral Imagination, plus Spew

Never underestimate the role of your imagination in your every experience. Your imagination is more than just the author of fancies. It is the faculty that connects events in your experience. Consider the draft theory of colds. It was an imaginative process that linked the event of the draft and the infirmed catching the cold. That one's easy.

But consider now the germ theory of colds. While it is true (according to our best medical science) that those germs cause colds, is that in any way your experience of the event? Not in the least. Just like the draft leads to colds notion, the germs leads to colds notion is an imaginative event, connecting two events (like the sharing of a drink with a person with a cold and catching the cold).

When considering what is real, keep in mind that any causal picture of the world relies on authoring imaginative connections between events otherwise simply correlated in time and space. Just because they are accurate does not mean they are any less a function of the mind. The goal, then, becomes striving to create useful and realistic imaginations. People who wouldn't share a strangers drink for fear of germs but would have sex with them without a condom don't really have their heads in the right place.

The imagination also highlights and obfuscates aspects of reality. By letting you mind play to one aspect of an experience or another shapes your attitude toward that event. No one cheats while imagining their partner heartbroken, sobbing in the corner. Rather, they imagine the awesome sex they aren't having. Do they ever imagine awkward or bad sex? Nope.

Even subconsciously humans use their imaginations to guide their actions. Be conscious about it. If you find your mind painting one part of reality in great detail, and leaving another unrendered, beware. You are about to fall prey to a self deception.

You can even use your imagination strategically to motivate moral action. When tempted by something, systematically envision the negative or undesirable aspects of that path. When trying to achieve a difficult end, be vivid about your conception of the good end.

Imagine true things. People with vivid imaginations are more likely to respond to distant moral issues. Nearly everyone helps the family member suffering in front of them. But as more distant comes between the actor and the suffering, be that distance be physical or emotional, people stop helping. Foster an intense imaginative world, and use it to create the realities that are not immediately imposing themselves on your world. In this way, you can broaden the scope of your compassion.

Pay attention to the words you use to create categories, for they direct the tenor of your thinking. Few would say, "Cook that flesh medium rare," when ordering a steak, or, "Ouch, there's a piece of meat hanging from my scrape!" when recently suffering from a wound. By creating separate categories through language we create the ability to judge those categories differently even when perhaps they should be treated the same.

Seek to increase the range of your compassion. Consider more than yourself. Consider more than your family. Consider more than your friends and neighbors. Consider more than your country. Consider more than your race. Consider more than your species. Consider everything. Look hard at absolutely everything and ask honestly what its good is. You will soon find that it is very difficult to achieve all goods, but you may start seeing ways where you can dramatically increase the good of something else without too much cost to other important things.

Admit that you can be wrong. Many people defend the unfounded morality of their actions because they don't want to be wrong. While it may be hard to admit that you have been doing ill for your entire life, bullheadedly defending your error and continuing to do ill for the remainder of your life is much worse.

Trust in the learning curb. It is difficult to acquire new moral lifestyles. Acquiring any lifestyle involves learning. Trust me, it gets easier. As you start to get used to it, you pick up tricks, you share other ideas, you get into the groove. While it may be impossible to instantaneously alter every behavior you have to become a beacon of moral perfection, you can start with one or two things. As they become automatic parts of your life, pick one or two more. A lot of us have a while in this life.

You can become a saint. Saints are people. People who didn't let the difficulties of their time pass unaddressed. Do not underestimate your moral potential, or the impact you have on other people.

Respect the role of you mood in determining the manifestation of your altruism. You are more likely to give to others in a moment of gratitude concerning the abundance in you life than you are in a fit of curmudgenliness. Knowing this, be mindful of you mood, and foster activities and relationships that put you in your best moods.

Unlock your gifts. Each of us has bestowed upon us talents and abilities. Develop yours. Focus it through training. Supplement it with skills. Apply it with passion. You will soon find that you have amazing potential. Great works of goodness are still works of greatness. Train.

Put yourself in an ideal environment. Our personalities and spirits need particular influences. Figure out what you need, then seek the people, places, and activities that feed you.

Develop your personal convictions. Even if all your intentional actions aren't toward a moral end, defending a belief or becoming a particular thing against in the face of struggle develops your fortitude.

Personally, I abstain completely from recreational drugs and alcohol. It isn't because I think that using them is bad, or that the people who do them are evil. There are certainly bad uses, but many people I know participate in reasonable usage. Rather, abstainance is a source of personal power, a tribute to self control, and a challenge to be intentional with my attitude. I thrive as a better me, even as others thrive better with drinking and drug use. It has also been like a moral training program, helping prepare me do better choose in the future. Having that control of my lifestyle has helped me change other aspects of my life.

A bad act is one that upsets the right state of the universe. An evil act is a bad act done with maliciousness. While most would agree that an evil act is worse, as it does signify a disordered understanding of the world and a disordered appreciation of the world, bad things are still bad, and should be avoided. Just because you are destroying the environment without maliciousness does not make everything ok. The distinction between bad and evil is about the actor, and not the severity of the act.

Do not take pride in your moral success. Just because you behave in a more moral way than another does not make you better. Remember, doing good is about the world being better, not about you being better. Besides, as any runner will tell you, the desire to look behind you and see the people you are beating only slows you down. It arises out of the desire to stop working so hard if you are substantially ahead. Keep you eye on the goal, and don't focus on where you are concerning the rest of the runners. If you do anything, help them finish the race.

When trying to motivate moral action in others, proceed with care.

People do not react well to bullying. They tend to fight back, and you can often inoculate them to further persuasion. Even if your browbeating is successful, they are probably not oriented aesthetically in the right kind of way.

We can change other people. In fact, we can't help changing other people. Just by being part of their life changes them. What we cannot do is conform them to our particular desires.

If you want someone to behave differently, consider the economy of his or her human energy. No one can invent energy to worry about a problem or act in order to solve it. Any change necessitates an alteration of priorities, and likely a cessation of another activity or worry. If you can make it easier to change, or if you can give them support while the change is made, you will see your proddings more likely to succeed.

Chances are, you probably underestimate your potential. In fact, your estimation of your potential can be your single greatest obstacle. The most powerful times in my life were catalyzed by rejecting my limitations.

Take very seriously the power of a spiritual life in acting rightly. Being spiritual involves creating a relationship with the universe. Spirituality also often exposes otherwise unobserved blessings. Taken within the context of the power of gratitude, imagine what feeling universally grateful might to to someones ability to serve strangers.

Take very seriously the power of a prayer life in acting rightly. Being prayerful involves humility. It also evokes divine power. Consider the transformative power of becoming vulnerable in the face of divinity. Small wonder those with intense prayer lives serve in intense ways.

Signs have power. They communicate the details of a calling and motivate devotion to a cause. Be careful, however. A sign is only a sign if it comes to you. If you spend all your time looking for a sign its going to be an imaginative act whereby you attach significance to an otherwise uneventful event. While this isn't bad in itself, many bad actions have been "justified" by these false signs. Do not arbitrarily invent divine agreement with your desires.

You are not in control. Neither am I. At best, we are gardeners, tending to the world with careful hands, trying to create a healthy environment for that which is to grow. There is another force that causes the actual thriving of the plants, and that is beyond our control. Don't be discouraged by this. Rather, take great comfort in the fact that you aren't responsible for the functioning of all creation, and focus on doing the good you can actually do.

Seek enlightenment. Ecstatic experiences are the pinnacle of beauty, and are often the moments of most perfect clarity. Great truths far and wide have been revealed in moments of fruitful seeking. Enlightenment is also a powerful motivator, serving as a bottomless well of patience and compassion.

Appreciate the beauty of sublime moments. They will end. Ultimately, you are not in control of you enlightenment either. It will come and go by the devices of something greater than you. Best you can do is cultivate in yourself a way of being that makes you vulnerable to the subtle movements of the universe.