Over the next few years something very bad, or a collection of bad things are going to happen. There are going to be terrorist attacks on US government structures or organizations or representatives and people are going to die. These attacks will be carried out by ideologues within the US population who believe that their country has been betrayed and overtaken from within by an evil force known as liberals. In the opinion of the ideologues liberals wish to expand government to control all facets of everyone's life, to make them comply with all liberal beliefs.
There have been attacks like these throughout the last few decades as this blog post describes. What is different now is that these previously radical views are being held by a substantial portion of the population. Before living in Texas I have lived in Michigan and Oregon, in college towns and the left wing oasis of Portland. I believed I had a pragmatically cynical view of the US population as being largely ignorant, reactionary, but decent in nature. I thought Americans were not hard-hearted or hateful, but rather uninformed and conservative, understandably wanting to keep things as they had been in what had been the richest and most free country on earth.
Before Obama was elected I had subscribed to the position that the US electorate was too racist to elect a black man, particularly one with such a dangerous sounding name. I thought that while the vast majority of Americans would publicly condemn racism, most had unconscious suspicions and biases that could not be overcome. I was delighted then when Obama was elected with a very solid majority, and his approval ratings suggested that the majority of Americans really are ready for a post-racial world.
The error of my ways was overestimating the numbers of racist people in the USA but dramatically underestimating the virulence of the hatred of those who are still racist. I elieve the primary cause of this hatred is fear. This fear is based upon the changing landscape of the country, that is that the dominant position that Christian, white, men had held in the USA is disappearing. These people say that their America is being taken away from them, and they are right. No longer can a conservative Christian man be confident in the knowledge that not only do most people in their community agree unquestioningly with their position, but everyone with power does. But their America is being taken away by democracy, demographics, and the march of the ideas of concern for one's fellow man.
The tragedy of this situation is that there are those who are exploiting this group for their own gain. Perhaps exploiting is the wrong word, since it may be that the media figures who are spreading lies about liberals, framing debates in terms of Armageddon instead of political differences, and making millions off hyperbole really do believe what they are saying. But it's a tragedy that a frightened group of people are being made more frightened by these forces. It's going to end up with people dying and the long term discrediting of the various forces exploiting these frightened people.
In Texas I meet these people every day. They distrust all forms of government. They sincerely believe that not a single person in government is there for the benefit of the regular person. They do not give consent to the government by which they are ruled. They will not listen to any other view, and many of them are fatalistic about the inevitability of the collapse of the USA as a functioning entity. I wish I could show them what life here will be in twenty years, take away their fears, open their minds. But they fight this with everything they have.
Bad things are going to happen, but the march towards a better world continues.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Ratty Rambling Man
I have been sick, but not as sick as my wife who has had a fever and been mostly confined to extremely comfortable beds for a couple of days. I feel like today I am recovering and that was nice while sitting by the bayou with my dog.
I've talked before of the oddness of when I notice where I am and how I got to be there, and that oddness wandered through my spacious mind while sitting on a tree log amongst vibrant spring greenery, with my wolf, by a bayou under a near tropical sun listening to reggae.
I took the feeling of oddness and used it to examine myself, and today the examination consisted of the material possessions that I had. I reviewed them one by one and I shall do so again for you here, with the chance that it may reveal something about me.
On my feet were a pair of Teva sandals purchased within the last year from REI in Houston. A replacement for the last pair of sandals that were casually destroyed by the wolf this year. They consist of a rubber sole strapped securely to my feet with simple velcro straps. These are the newest and most expensive items of clothing I am wearing.
I am wearing a faded, off-white pair of carpenters pants purchased at Target three years ago for $15. They have a pleasantly thick, rugged material. They are deliberately purchased too long so that I roll up the bottoms. I do this because I like the way that they hang with this concentration of eight at the bottom.
My underwear is just a year old, also purchased at Target in a pack of three boxers for twelve dollars. Comfortable, thick, machine-woven cotton.
I have a black T-shirt which was a going away gift from The World Famous Kenton Club, the local bar I would frequent in Portland. The slogan on it is "Booze, Music, Regrets" and I have drunk a lot of booze in there, heard large amounts of wonderful music there, and player some myself. If I have a regret about the place it is that I can't go there this evening, I wonder if it is still bluegrass on Mondays.
The final piece of clothing is a Gap sweatshirt, modeled on the old wild west underwear, given to me by an old girlfriend just over a decade ago. The cuffs are frayed, there's a small hole or two, and something is encrusted over the selling of my belly. It is a navy blue. I think it was purchased to make me look more cool and smart than as my wont at the time. The process of time has turned this item into a statement of my particular style.
In my pockets are a set of keys, with two house keys for two different houses, two car keys for two different cars, a bicycle lock and a drum key for tuning drums, unused in years. There's an ostrich leather wallet purchased in Mexico. Two plastic shopping bags for disposing of dog poo and a barely used leash for the wolf.
Clipped to the belt loops of the carpenter pants is a tiny MP3 player with several hundred songs on it, mostly reggae, irish folk and rock. The headphones have a dodgy cord which has to be wound around the MP3 player in a particular manner in order to make both earpieces work. The headphones were scavenged from my wife after previous cheap headphones had perished, and this cobbled together job has lasted me for three months so far as I keep forgetting to replace something that hasn't yet quite failed. I think this MP3 player might be the most wonderful thing I have ever possessed. It contains the best musicians of the last forty years in marvelous quality and yet is almost weightless, almost physically unnoticeable, as if this music simply pours into my head whenever and wherever I am.
I've talked before of the oddness of when I notice where I am and how I got to be there, and that oddness wandered through my spacious mind while sitting on a tree log amongst vibrant spring greenery, with my wolf, by a bayou under a near tropical sun listening to reggae.
I took the feeling of oddness and used it to examine myself, and today the examination consisted of the material possessions that I had. I reviewed them one by one and I shall do so again for you here, with the chance that it may reveal something about me.
On my feet were a pair of Teva sandals purchased within the last year from REI in Houston. A replacement for the last pair of sandals that were casually destroyed by the wolf this year. They consist of a rubber sole strapped securely to my feet with simple velcro straps. These are the newest and most expensive items of clothing I am wearing.
I am wearing a faded, off-white pair of carpenters pants purchased at Target three years ago for $15. They have a pleasantly thick, rugged material. They are deliberately purchased too long so that I roll up the bottoms. I do this because I like the way that they hang with this concentration of eight at the bottom.
My underwear is just a year old, also purchased at Target in a pack of three boxers for twelve dollars. Comfortable, thick, machine-woven cotton.
I have a black T-shirt which was a going away gift from The World Famous Kenton Club, the local bar I would frequent in Portland. The slogan on it is "Booze, Music, Regrets" and I have drunk a lot of booze in there, heard large amounts of wonderful music there, and player some myself. If I have a regret about the place it is that I can't go there this evening, I wonder if it is still bluegrass on Mondays.
The final piece of clothing is a Gap sweatshirt, modeled on the old wild west underwear, given to me by an old girlfriend just over a decade ago. The cuffs are frayed, there's a small hole or two, and something is encrusted over the selling of my belly. It is a navy blue. I think it was purchased to make me look more cool and smart than as my wont at the time. The process of time has turned this item into a statement of my particular style.
In my pockets are a set of keys, with two house keys for two different houses, two car keys for two different cars, a bicycle lock and a drum key for tuning drums, unused in years. There's an ostrich leather wallet purchased in Mexico. Two plastic shopping bags for disposing of dog poo and a barely used leash for the wolf.
Clipped to the belt loops of the carpenter pants is a tiny MP3 player with several hundred songs on it, mostly reggae, irish folk and rock. The headphones have a dodgy cord which has to be wound around the MP3 player in a particular manner in order to make both earpieces work. The headphones were scavenged from my wife after previous cheap headphones had perished, and this cobbled together job has lasted me for three months so far as I keep forgetting to replace something that hasn't yet quite failed. I think this MP3 player might be the most wonderful thing I have ever possessed. It contains the best musicians of the last forty years in marvelous quality and yet is almost weightless, almost physically unnoticeable, as if this music simply pours into my head whenever and wherever I am.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Ideology and pragmatism.
Ideas are fundamental to the production of a functioning society. Even a society, or the concept of functioning are ideas. Who would want to live in a society without justice or freedom? Without ideas of how we should live there is is simply anarchy, a dog eat dog world. I have an ideology for how the world should be which is based upon equal rights for everyone regardless of here they live in the world. My ideology consists of people being free to do basically what they want in a system that has a safety net so that everyone gets food, shelter, education and healthcare regardless of who they are and where they came from.
One of the important ideas for me came in a discussion while walking on a mountain with a friend of mine. It as one of two fantastic concepts we developed that day, both of us are agreed upon that, but unfortunately this is the only one we can remember. It is the importance of being able to have two different opinions about the same thing. This seems like an oxymoron, but let me try to explain.
I think that it is absolutely a moral imperative that all people in the USA should have healthcare. In the richest country in the world no-one should die because they can't go to a doctor to get something checked out. I also am a firm believer in a democracy, that while it is messy and inefficient a democracy stands for one of my ideals that people should decide for themselves how they wish things to be. In the USA right now the majority of people do not want what I want in terms of healthcare. I have two beliefs about the same subject that are incompatible, but I still think it is important for me to have these two beliefs.
The essence of this issue is the problem of ideology and the real world. Throughout history (but most especially in the 20th century) there have been attempts to institute ideology as political fact. These have had, at best, mixed results. While the spread of human rights and democracy has been ideologically based, the results of communism, fascism, pacifism, and the primacy of various religious ideologies in the real world have usually been appalling. The idea that everyone should share everything equally, that there should be no violence, and that everyone should believe in the same values as determined by the One True God is a lovely idea that fails spectacularly when it comes across acquisitive people ho are willing to fight for their beliefs which are different than yours. Since the world is largely made up of such people ideologies generally fail.
As I have said, the 20th century as a time of ideology, a time largely of experimentation and conflict between various ideologies. Looking at the world around us I would say that through the process of social evolution there is pretty close to a worldwide consensus of what works, and that is a representational, democratic government with a limited regulation of a free market economic system. There are pockets of resistance to this concept, and then there are ideologues within the concept.
The resistance to the concept comes from antiquated belief systems, essentially that there is a single right way to live and that everyone should conform to that method of living. I would say that the two places that are the core of this resistance are the fundamentalists within the muslim and christian faiths. With the jihadists of Asia there is the belief that the hole world should live under their version of Sharia Law, and that those who disagree should be eliminated. In the fundamentalist Christian south of the USA are those who believe that God has outlined how everyone should live and that these should be the laws of the land regardless of the opinion of most of the people in that land. The fact that these two groups have been responsible for the majority of the war in the world for the last decade should not be a surprise.
But the resistance in this manner is shrinking inexorably. Ideologies flourish briefly but history shows us that they all succumb in the end to the facts of the world. Fundamentalist belief is shrinking at an extremely rapid rate throughout the world because when faced with reality it is obvious that this belief is flawed. Societies with the lowest proportion of fundamentalists are the most peaceful, wealthiest, most flourishing societies of all time. Fundamentalism survives because those within those cultures produce children at a much higher rate than other cultures, and still as a proportion of people their numbers are shrinking. This is because a lot more fundamentalists leave the culture than people are converted to fundamentalism.
The USA still is a very idealistic country. There are a large group of fundamentalist Christians here, perhaps a fifth of the country. There is also a very large group of people who still hold to an ideology of the 20th century, the dogma that was laid down during the cold war. This group holds to the position that anything related to socialism is evil, that the free market is best. This is probably half the country despite being rather a silly position in a country with social security, a post office, government health care for veterans and seniors, care for poor children, government run education and so on. Finally there is about a fifth of the country that are progressives, left wing people who want rights for gay people, no wars ever, more even distribution of wealth and a vast safety net for the disadvantaged.
I'm a believer in the principles and ideology of the progressive movement and I firmly believe that this movement is where the USA is going (and where much of Europe has gone). But I am also a pragmatist in that I know that most of the people in the USA to not yet agree to these principles. I am comforted by the knowledge that the direction of public opinion is moving towards my ideals, away from the bigoted, racist, sexist, aggressive, xenophobic past. I think that a black man named Barak Obama named an hispanic woman to the Supreme Court, and that there is a serious debate about same sex marriage is ample evidence of that.
To return to my original point of having two different opinions on the same subject I believe that Barak Obama has a number of concepts that make up an ideology. I think Barak Obama thinks that all people in the world should be free, able to vote, practice their religion, marry anyone they want, and that everyone should have education, shelter and health care regardless of who they are and where they live. I also think that Barak Obama is a pragmatist and knows that you can't magic these results out of thin air against the majority opinion in the USA. Progressives right now are furious with the wishy-washy, centrist, compromising nature of Obama's presidency. Many threaten to remove their support unless he delivers what they want. I say that ideology has always been the driving force for good, but good has only ever happened through pragmatic action. Progressives should hold on to their beliefs, their dreams, their ideology, but they should also understand that change is gradual, incremental and comes about through convincing others rather than imposing an ideology on the unwilling.
One of the important ideas for me came in a discussion while walking on a mountain with a friend of mine. It as one of two fantastic concepts we developed that day, both of us are agreed upon that, but unfortunately this is the only one we can remember. It is the importance of being able to have two different opinions about the same thing. This seems like an oxymoron, but let me try to explain.
I think that it is absolutely a moral imperative that all people in the USA should have healthcare. In the richest country in the world no-one should die because they can't go to a doctor to get something checked out. I also am a firm believer in a democracy, that while it is messy and inefficient a democracy stands for one of my ideals that people should decide for themselves how they wish things to be. In the USA right now the majority of people do not want what I want in terms of healthcare. I have two beliefs about the same subject that are incompatible, but I still think it is important for me to have these two beliefs.
The essence of this issue is the problem of ideology and the real world. Throughout history (but most especially in the 20th century) there have been attempts to institute ideology as political fact. These have had, at best, mixed results. While the spread of human rights and democracy has been ideologically based, the results of communism, fascism, pacifism, and the primacy of various religious ideologies in the real world have usually been appalling. The idea that everyone should share everything equally, that there should be no violence, and that everyone should believe in the same values as determined by the One True God is a lovely idea that fails spectacularly when it comes across acquisitive people ho are willing to fight for their beliefs which are different than yours. Since the world is largely made up of such people ideologies generally fail.
As I have said, the 20th century as a time of ideology, a time largely of experimentation and conflict between various ideologies. Looking at the world around us I would say that through the process of social evolution there is pretty close to a worldwide consensus of what works, and that is a representational, democratic government with a limited regulation of a free market economic system. There are pockets of resistance to this concept, and then there are ideologues within the concept.
The resistance to the concept comes from antiquated belief systems, essentially that there is a single right way to live and that everyone should conform to that method of living. I would say that the two places that are the core of this resistance are the fundamentalists within the muslim and christian faiths. With the jihadists of Asia there is the belief that the hole world should live under their version of Sharia Law, and that those who disagree should be eliminated. In the fundamentalist Christian south of the USA are those who believe that God has outlined how everyone should live and that these should be the laws of the land regardless of the opinion of most of the people in that land. The fact that these two groups have been responsible for the majority of the war in the world for the last decade should not be a surprise.
But the resistance in this manner is shrinking inexorably. Ideologies flourish briefly but history shows us that they all succumb in the end to the facts of the world. Fundamentalist belief is shrinking at an extremely rapid rate throughout the world because when faced with reality it is obvious that this belief is flawed. Societies with the lowest proportion of fundamentalists are the most peaceful, wealthiest, most flourishing societies of all time. Fundamentalism survives because those within those cultures produce children at a much higher rate than other cultures, and still as a proportion of people their numbers are shrinking. This is because a lot more fundamentalists leave the culture than people are converted to fundamentalism.
The USA still is a very idealistic country. There are a large group of fundamentalist Christians here, perhaps a fifth of the country. There is also a very large group of people who still hold to an ideology of the 20th century, the dogma that was laid down during the cold war. This group holds to the position that anything related to socialism is evil, that the free market is best. This is probably half the country despite being rather a silly position in a country with social security, a post office, government health care for veterans and seniors, care for poor children, government run education and so on. Finally there is about a fifth of the country that are progressives, left wing people who want rights for gay people, no wars ever, more even distribution of wealth and a vast safety net for the disadvantaged.
I'm a believer in the principles and ideology of the progressive movement and I firmly believe that this movement is where the USA is going (and where much of Europe has gone). But I am also a pragmatist in that I know that most of the people in the USA to not yet agree to these principles. I am comforted by the knowledge that the direction of public opinion is moving towards my ideals, away from the bigoted, racist, sexist, aggressive, xenophobic past. I think that a black man named Barak Obama named an hispanic woman to the Supreme Court, and that there is a serious debate about same sex marriage is ample evidence of that.
To return to my original point of having two different opinions on the same subject I believe that Barak Obama has a number of concepts that make up an ideology. I think Barak Obama thinks that all people in the world should be free, able to vote, practice their religion, marry anyone they want, and that everyone should have education, shelter and health care regardless of who they are and where they live. I also think that Barak Obama is a pragmatist and knows that you can't magic these results out of thin air against the majority opinion in the USA. Progressives right now are furious with the wishy-washy, centrist, compromising nature of Obama's presidency. Many threaten to remove their support unless he delivers what they want. I say that ideology has always been the driving force for good, but good has only ever happened through pragmatic action. Progressives should hold on to their beliefs, their dreams, their ideology, but they should also understand that change is gradual, incremental and comes about through convincing others rather than imposing an ideology on the unwilling.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Habits
If who you are is what you do then what makes up most of us are our habits. I define a habit as something you do without really thinking about it. I think most of us get up in the morning and go through a routine without deciding what to do at each step. We wander from step to step as we did the day before, without consciously deciding what we should do. Most of our lives are taken up with these habits, most of our lives happen without us thinking.
Having most of our lives happen without us thinking sounds alarming, but it needn't be. Thinking takes lots of effort, but mostly it takes attention. Most of the things that we do can be efficiently done without thinking. We don't need to consciously decide about how to get ready for work, or how to do the laundry as we have already developed efficient methods for doing these things. Many tasks are done more efficiently by our unconscious minds, such as driving. It is a good thing that we can develop strategies for dealing with things that happen every day without having to go through the "design" of those strategies each time.
The problem lies when we wish to change our lives. Habits are extremely difficult to break, and since they make up so much of our lives it becomes extremely difficult to change who yo are by changing what you do. I am often told that I could do all sorts of things, that I have huge potential, and that I should make use of this. I have pictures of myself as having written a novel, of being an accomplished musician, or perhaps becoming an artist in some other manner. I have the intellectual capability to do these things, the subjects interest me,and I either have the skills or could learn them if there was enough application on my part. In other words, in order to become a writer, artist or musician I have to habitually write, create, or practice playing music. This means that as part of my regular routine I have to take the steps to do these things without thinking.
How do you change your habits? This may seem facile, but what you do is repeatedly do the thing you wish to be a habit, and consciously try to stop the doing the habits you wish to end. For me that would mean routinely putting aside time every day to practice music or write and then filling that time with those activities rather than the competing habits (which would be going to the same internet forums to discuss in excruciating detail unimportant things). From my self-help research I have found out that the most effective method of creating this routine is to keep the idea of the habit in your head rather than concocting a grand plan with a schedule and outcomes (think of the success of those who join a gym on New Years Day and say they will go every day after work compared to those who try to consistently think about how to be healthier.)
I have been thinking of being a writer or a musician for several years now. When I think of the future and how I would like it to be there is always a vision of me playing good music in a pub, or of me producing an income from my imagination. I think of these things basically every day. Yet I find myself at this time writing less than I have done in years and practicing the mandolin less than I have done in years. I have not managed to make these two activities into habits despite repeated attempts, despite a pretty consistent conscious will towards these activities.
On the other hand I find myself time after time after time listening to he problems of other people, immersing myself in their difficulties, and helping them to find solutions. This is despite a conscious will on my part to stop doing this as it has damaged me in the past. It is as if I simply cannot help myself when faced with someone who wants to tell me a problem, and somehow people can tell this in me.
The most ancient and prevalent piece of ancient Greek wisdom was "Know thyself." This is as good today as it ever was back then, and the opportunities to do so are so much greater since we know so much more about people than we used to. Why is is that I must listen and help those who want to tell me about their problems, but cannot sit down every day and write for half an hour and practice the mandolin for half an hour? I must examine myself to find the answer. What I find is that I am not a toiler, not someone who puts out consistent amounts of effort. On some days I am extremely productive, getting vast amounts of things done. On other days I barely get out of bed and dress myself (and this isn't always negative, I often absolutely love those days). What produces effort in me is the confluence of energy and interest.
I still want to be able to play good music, but I think upon reflection that it will not be achieved through a rigorous routine, through habit. It will be achieved through goals and interests, through a desire to play a particular song, with or for someone. I think my recent reduction in practicing the mandolin is a result of discovering that none of the people I know or care about (with the exception of my old bandmates) have any interest in my ability to play at all. They like the idea that I can play music, but what the music is or how well I play is of no interest at all. To know myself is to know that I don't love practicing the mandolin, I don't have an innate love of playing music. What I have is a love of playing for, or with people.
With writing I have a love of ideas, expressing those ideas, and discussing those ideas. What I do not have is an innate love of the craft of writing. It is does not move me to craft a piece of writing over the course of weeks and months. The response to my writing is more important than the writing. What interests me personally is thinking about things, the writing seems to be a chore.
How to proceed? Well, I shall keep the thoughts and dreams in my head, and when the mood strikes me I shall move towards the goal. After all, I still have more than half my life ahead of me.
Having most of our lives happen without us thinking sounds alarming, but it needn't be. Thinking takes lots of effort, but mostly it takes attention. Most of the things that we do can be efficiently done without thinking. We don't need to consciously decide about how to get ready for work, or how to do the laundry as we have already developed efficient methods for doing these things. Many tasks are done more efficiently by our unconscious minds, such as driving. It is a good thing that we can develop strategies for dealing with things that happen every day without having to go through the "design" of those strategies each time.
The problem lies when we wish to change our lives. Habits are extremely difficult to break, and since they make up so much of our lives it becomes extremely difficult to change who yo are by changing what you do. I am often told that I could do all sorts of things, that I have huge potential, and that I should make use of this. I have pictures of myself as having written a novel, of being an accomplished musician, or perhaps becoming an artist in some other manner. I have the intellectual capability to do these things, the subjects interest me,and I either have the skills or could learn them if there was enough application on my part. In other words, in order to become a writer, artist or musician I have to habitually write, create, or practice playing music. This means that as part of my regular routine I have to take the steps to do these things without thinking.
How do you change your habits? This may seem facile, but what you do is repeatedly do the thing you wish to be a habit, and consciously try to stop the doing the habits you wish to end. For me that would mean routinely putting aside time every day to practice music or write and then filling that time with those activities rather than the competing habits (which would be going to the same internet forums to discuss in excruciating detail unimportant things). From my self-help research I have found out that the most effective method of creating this routine is to keep the idea of the habit in your head rather than concocting a grand plan with a schedule and outcomes (think of the success of those who join a gym on New Years Day and say they will go every day after work compared to those who try to consistently think about how to be healthier.)
I have been thinking of being a writer or a musician for several years now. When I think of the future and how I would like it to be there is always a vision of me playing good music in a pub, or of me producing an income from my imagination. I think of these things basically every day. Yet I find myself at this time writing less than I have done in years and practicing the mandolin less than I have done in years. I have not managed to make these two activities into habits despite repeated attempts, despite a pretty consistent conscious will towards these activities.
On the other hand I find myself time after time after time listening to he problems of other people, immersing myself in their difficulties, and helping them to find solutions. This is despite a conscious will on my part to stop doing this as it has damaged me in the past. It is as if I simply cannot help myself when faced with someone who wants to tell me a problem, and somehow people can tell this in me.
The most ancient and prevalent piece of ancient Greek wisdom was "Know thyself." This is as good today as it ever was back then, and the opportunities to do so are so much greater since we know so much more about people than we used to. Why is is that I must listen and help those who want to tell me about their problems, but cannot sit down every day and write for half an hour and practice the mandolin for half an hour? I must examine myself to find the answer. What I find is that I am not a toiler, not someone who puts out consistent amounts of effort. On some days I am extremely productive, getting vast amounts of things done. On other days I barely get out of bed and dress myself (and this isn't always negative, I often absolutely love those days). What produces effort in me is the confluence of energy and interest.
I still want to be able to play good music, but I think upon reflection that it will not be achieved through a rigorous routine, through habit. It will be achieved through goals and interests, through a desire to play a particular song, with or for someone. I think my recent reduction in practicing the mandolin is a result of discovering that none of the people I know or care about (with the exception of my old bandmates) have any interest in my ability to play at all. They like the idea that I can play music, but what the music is or how well I play is of no interest at all. To know myself is to know that I don't love practicing the mandolin, I don't have an innate love of playing music. What I have is a love of playing for, or with people.
With writing I have a love of ideas, expressing those ideas, and discussing those ideas. What I do not have is an innate love of the craft of writing. It is does not move me to craft a piece of writing over the course of weeks and months. The response to my writing is more important than the writing. What interests me personally is thinking about things, the writing seems to be a chore.
How to proceed? Well, I shall keep the thoughts and dreams in my head, and when the mood strikes me I shall move towards the goal. After all, I still have more than half my life ahead of me.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Success and Ambition
Success is an interesting thing to think about. Seven Habits of Highly Successful People is a self-help book that starts with an assumption of what constitutes a successful person, and then tries to find out what those people are up to. Emotional Intelligence is a grab bag of traits that largely constitute self-control over one's emotions, and is supposed to be linked to being successful. The things is that I have a problem with the concept of what is thought of as success. A sannyasa is someone who renounces relationships, a career, material worth, and so on, someone who rejects the common definition of success, but who is anyone to say that this dedication for spiritual understanding is a failure? There is a problem with the idea of Emotional Intelligence as well. While I have little doubt that having a high level of Emotional Intelligence produces a high percentage of people with graduate degrees, marriages, high income and so on, I bet it produces a very low level of music makers, dreamers of the dreams.
Perhaps my reservations about success and emotional intelligence derives from my relative low level of conventional success, and my emotional score being twenty or more points lower than my conventional intelligence. People tend enormously to think what they do is the best way of doing things, and I think there's something to that. Emotionally I am very much like my father, and he is a very successful person with the highest level of academic success, a marriage lasting beyond thirty-five years, financial well-off. But he has not been a happy person through most of his life, and his example has been the most important factor in my decisions on my own happiness and ambition.
In my search for what makes people happy that has continued apace over the last few months there are a number of things that I have learned. The first is that people report themselves to be happy, but are largely unaware of what they are talking about. Happiness is essentially thought of as being OK with your life, but in most cases it has nothing to do with transcendant experiences of beauty, with experiences beyond the mundane.
The second is that as a result I have determined myself to be on average substantially happier according to my definition than most people. With myself experiencing what most consider happiness seems inadequate to me, even though I think my experience of those factors to be similar to most people. What I mean is the equivalent of having been raised on fishsticks, still tasting fishsticks in the same way, but having had fresh salmon I know that there are better experiences, I want those better experiences, and the existence of salmon leads me to believe there may be better things to look at than a sitcom.
The third is the emphasis on meaning. That happiness derives not from pleasure but from feeling that your life serves some sort of purpose. While I fundamentally disagree with the premise (the happiest times of my life were purposeless, purposeless is the aim of much of the wisdom of the East) I do think that meaning does contribute to happiness. I think meaning contributes to happiness in that it helps to mitigate the costs of doing things that you dislike, because you are doing some good. It's rather like a spoonful of sugar with your medicine. There is also the momentary high of having done something you think is worthwhile.
From the concept of meaning helping one's happiness I have thought about what would be meaningful in my life beyond the pleasure it gives me. While I struggle to find such a thing, and as a result I have a very low level of conventional ambition, in times of contemplation on the subject I have come up with the following ambition. For me success would be to become the equivalent of the metaphorical sage on the mountaintop, dispensing wisdom to those who wish to seek it out. When I meditate I think of the phrase "Radiating bliss." Success for me, the fulfillment of my primary ambition, would be for me to be someone who by their nature helps those around them lead better lives.
Now the twist. This has been a meandering path to a piece of self-congratulation. Over the previous weekend, while talking to someone going through a hard period in their life, someone I have not known for long, I was told that I was like "The wise, old Indian on the hill." Twice in the last week I have had people who I barely know open their heart up to me and thank for me for my help. I have been a success, and have had an ambition fulfilled. It feels good. But the nature of success and ambition is that the positive feelings quickly fade. What is important is not what you do, but who you are.
Perhaps my reservations about success and emotional intelligence derives from my relative low level of conventional success, and my emotional score being twenty or more points lower than my conventional intelligence. People tend enormously to think what they do is the best way of doing things, and I think there's something to that. Emotionally I am very much like my father, and he is a very successful person with the highest level of academic success, a marriage lasting beyond thirty-five years, financial well-off. But he has not been a happy person through most of his life, and his example has been the most important factor in my decisions on my own happiness and ambition.
In my search for what makes people happy that has continued apace over the last few months there are a number of things that I have learned. The first is that people report themselves to be happy, but are largely unaware of what they are talking about. Happiness is essentially thought of as being OK with your life, but in most cases it has nothing to do with transcendant experiences of beauty, with experiences beyond the mundane.
The second is that as a result I have determined myself to be on average substantially happier according to my definition than most people. With myself experiencing what most consider happiness seems inadequate to me, even though I think my experience of those factors to be similar to most people. What I mean is the equivalent of having been raised on fishsticks, still tasting fishsticks in the same way, but having had fresh salmon I know that there are better experiences, I want those better experiences, and the existence of salmon leads me to believe there may be better things to look at than a sitcom.
The third is the emphasis on meaning. That happiness derives not from pleasure but from feeling that your life serves some sort of purpose. While I fundamentally disagree with the premise (the happiest times of my life were purposeless, purposeless is the aim of much of the wisdom of the East) I do think that meaning does contribute to happiness. I think meaning contributes to happiness in that it helps to mitigate the costs of doing things that you dislike, because you are doing some good. It's rather like a spoonful of sugar with your medicine. There is also the momentary high of having done something you think is worthwhile.
From the concept of meaning helping one's happiness I have thought about what would be meaningful in my life beyond the pleasure it gives me. While I struggle to find such a thing, and as a result I have a very low level of conventional ambition, in times of contemplation on the subject I have come up with the following ambition. For me success would be to become the equivalent of the metaphorical sage on the mountaintop, dispensing wisdom to those who wish to seek it out. When I meditate I think of the phrase "Radiating bliss." Success for me, the fulfillment of my primary ambition, would be for me to be someone who by their nature helps those around them lead better lives.
Now the twist. This has been a meandering path to a piece of self-congratulation. Over the previous weekend, while talking to someone going through a hard period in their life, someone I have not known for long, I was told that I was like "The wise, old Indian on the hill." Twice in the last week I have had people who I barely know open their heart up to me and thank for me for my help. I have been a success, and have had an ambition fulfilled. It feels good. But the nature of success and ambition is that the positive feelings quickly fade. What is important is not what you do, but who you are.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Blindspots.
When I tell people that I am depressed (which I am not at the moment) a very large proportion of the time I am given advice to "Look on the bright side", or told given encouragement about my situation. This is because for most people how they feel in terms of happiness or misery is largely based on their circumstances, the external environment. For myself, my emotional state is more largely based on my internal environment, on chemicals within my brain. As a result the advice given is entirely useless, although well meaning. It is a blind spot for many of those whose happiness doesn't change for similar reasons, because they don't have such experiences they don't imagine others to have such experiences.
A blind spot for me is others anxiety. Now, I have experienced anxiety, even phobias. When I was a teenager I was a painfully shy, the sound of the telephone ringing would get my heart racing. I have had similar feelings with dentists, and I get the usual pitter-patter of the heart with tests or interviews, or performances. However, these are all environmentally based. They are all based on experiences that were extremely unpleasant, and I have been able to "Buck up" face these fears, and overcome them. As such, my immediate tendency when faced with the anxiety of others is to think that these other people should directly face their fears and get on with it. My natural reaction is to understand that anxiety is difficult but to also know that overcoming fears is a hugely rewarding experience.
My natural reaction is often unfair to those who suffer from anxiety as a basis of the brain chemistry, or brain structure, anxiety because of who they are. One time in my life, after I had tried an anti-depressant I experienced panic attacks as a result. It was terrifying, and completely unconnected to the rather mundane situation in which I found myself. Bucking up and facing my fears was completely useless, my brain was chemically in a fight or flight state and no thought would move it.
This experience has made me aware of a blind spot with regard to others, and that having a blind spot can cause pain and discomfort to others. I hope I have done a better job with regard to those with anxiety, although I am fairly certain I still have not done a good job. I am a very confident person, and people's first reaction is to assume other people are like themselves.
The really alarming thing about this is that by their very nature we are usually unaware of blind spots in our attitudes towards others. Incompetent people don't know they are incompetent, and those who's empathy is lacking in an area are usually unaware that this is so because people generally wish to be empathic towards their neighbors. Most of us think that some people are weak, or stupid, or cruel, or wicked, or ignorant. How many of these attitudes towards others derive from our own inadequate ability to empathize as much as any characteristic of the other people? How will we ever know hat we have a blind spot unless we take the time and effort to look for them?
A blind spot for me is others anxiety. Now, I have experienced anxiety, even phobias. When I was a teenager I was a painfully shy, the sound of the telephone ringing would get my heart racing. I have had similar feelings with dentists, and I get the usual pitter-patter of the heart with tests or interviews, or performances. However, these are all environmentally based. They are all based on experiences that were extremely unpleasant, and I have been able to "Buck up" face these fears, and overcome them. As such, my immediate tendency when faced with the anxiety of others is to think that these other people should directly face their fears and get on with it. My natural reaction is to understand that anxiety is difficult but to also know that overcoming fears is a hugely rewarding experience.
My natural reaction is often unfair to those who suffer from anxiety as a basis of the brain chemistry, or brain structure, anxiety because of who they are. One time in my life, after I had tried an anti-depressant I experienced panic attacks as a result. It was terrifying, and completely unconnected to the rather mundane situation in which I found myself. Bucking up and facing my fears was completely useless, my brain was chemically in a fight or flight state and no thought would move it.
This experience has made me aware of a blind spot with regard to others, and that having a blind spot can cause pain and discomfort to others. I hope I have done a better job with regard to those with anxiety, although I am fairly certain I still have not done a good job. I am a very confident person, and people's first reaction is to assume other people are like themselves.
The really alarming thing about this is that by their very nature we are usually unaware of blind spots in our attitudes towards others. Incompetent people don't know they are incompetent, and those who's empathy is lacking in an area are usually unaware that this is so because people generally wish to be empathic towards their neighbors. Most of us think that some people are weak, or stupid, or cruel, or wicked, or ignorant. How many of these attitudes towards others derive from our own inadequate ability to empathize as much as any characteristic of the other people? How will we ever know hat we have a blind spot unless we take the time and effort to look for them?
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Responsibility of Happiness.
Happiness is good.
Take a moment with that, swill it around in your brain and get the full flavor of it.
That's a number of things in one statement, not all of which I will probably get to. Happiness is good, it feels good, is it the essence of feeling good? I don't think so, but what it is happens to be the awareness of feeling good. That's really something wonderful.
Feeling good and happy is great, it is absolutely and completely enough. Just that is enough. What I want is simply more of that, and so when someone feels it, I approve. I also don't think that there are many cases where people feel good and happy at the expense of someone else's misery. It happens sometimes, and then decisions become complicated. More often people think they will be happier if they do stuff that results in others' misery, and are wrong. As a rule of thumb, try to be happy and don't worry about it.
But what I want to talk about today, as a matter of responsibility, is the matter of your own happiness. Your own happiness is probably of some importance for yourself, although you probably don't actually spend enough time and energy on it. Generally people have ambition, or success, or achievement, or fear, or responsibility as equally important goals. What you may not know is how important your happiness is to the happiness of other people. Happiness is something that is transmitted from one person to another. Your happiness directly effects the happiness of other people. If you are committed to your own happiness, and so are your friends, then a feedback loop of happiness is created.
From the all-knowing Wikipedia:
Take a moment with that, swill it around in your brain and get the full flavor of it.
That's a number of things in one statement, not all of which I will probably get to. Happiness is good, it feels good, is it the essence of feeling good? I don't think so, but what it is happens to be the awareness of feeling good. That's really something wonderful.
Feeling good and happy is great, it is absolutely and completely enough. Just that is enough. What I want is simply more of that, and so when someone feels it, I approve. I also don't think that there are many cases where people feel good and happy at the expense of someone else's misery. It happens sometimes, and then decisions become complicated. More often people think they will be happier if they do stuff that results in others' misery, and are wrong. As a rule of thumb, try to be happy and don't worry about it.
But what I want to talk about today, as a matter of responsibility, is the matter of your own happiness. Your own happiness is probably of some importance for yourself, although you probably don't actually spend enough time and energy on it. Generally people have ambition, or success, or achievement, or fear, or responsibility as equally important goals. What you may not know is how important your happiness is to the happiness of other people. Happiness is something that is transmitted from one person to another. Your happiness directly effects the happiness of other people. If you are committed to your own happiness, and so are your friends, then a feedback loop of happiness is created.
From the all-knowing Wikipedia:
Human relationships are consistently found to be the most important correlation with human happiness.
A widely-publicized study from 2008 in the British Medical Journal reported that happiness in social networks may spread from person to person.[17] Researchers followed nearly 5000 individuals for 20 years in the long-standing Framingham Heart Study and found clusters of happiness and unhappiness that spread up to 3 degrees of separation on average. Happiness tended to spread through close relationships like friends, siblings, spouses, and next-door neighbors, and the researchers reported that happiness spread more consistently than unhappiness through the network. Moreover, the structure of the social network appeared to have an impact on happiness, as people who were very central (with many friends and friends of friends) were significantly more likely to be happy than those on the periphery of the network. Overall, the results suggest that happiness might spread through a population like a virus.[18][19]
This means that if you care about those around you, and I think you do, you have a duty and responsibility to try to get yourself happy. If you don't, you are causing misery and happiness to those around you, so cut that out right away.
I would like to thank the Jim and Leslie-Ann for their recent visit, as they took this duty seriously with fine results.
This post was produced while I feel a deep sense of love and humor for my position in the world, surrounded by beauty, and fabulously optimistic about the future. Because of my basic make-up, my bio-chemistry, I have times of dark horror, and times of splendid Wonder. I tend to talk about the dark times more than the Wonder, but that isn't because the times of Wonder aren't as significant, but rather that I'm too busy experiencing them. I truly wish you could feel this, perhaps you do, and that is wonderful. At least one of the Emilys understands.
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