Content from a letter to Sarah #2

Written in late June 2009 as part of a letter to Sarah

To continue where I left off with Mammoth cave... there is a cathedral sized room in there that is just indescribable in beauty. It is an aptly named cave. I have gone on a bunch of tours there, one for 5 hours. There is still a good percentage of it that is unmapped. For part of one of the tours, they turn off all the lights. It is the darkest black I have ever experienced.

Looking back on this letter, it took a turn toward describing my mental life, so I thought I would throw out that category for this letter... except the previous paragraph.

My school experience was certainly interesting. I was kind of nerd. Academic team, Gifted and Talented program, you get the picture. I got contacts in 6th grade, and wore them everyday for nearly 8 years before they started to bug my eyes too much and I gave them up. I remember being really self-conscious of my glasses for a long time. Freshman year of college I started feeling much more comfortable with myself, more confident and more willing to let people judge me for who I am.

Tracking my mental development is, for some reason, really interesting to me. In 7th and 8th grade I began to question myself about who I was, who I wanted to be and what trajectory I wanted my life to take. This thought process culminated in 10th grade when I started really feeling lost and was kind of depressed for 6 months. Thinking about one's purpose in life will do that to you. But after being lost in that desert of melancholy for so long, I somehow stumbled upon an epiphany that has been the foundation of my world since then. At the time I couldn't really articulate it, but I had decided that the answer to the question "what is the meaning of life" is "people." (yeah, I am also a stubborn contemplater of unanswerable questions... I am still contemplating the meaning of life a decade later)

It was during this contemplation of myself that I began my core spiritual practices... these are all inherently interconnected but i have kind of broken them down in my own head to include: deep self-reflection, self-improvement processes, emotional and behavioral shaping practices, redefinition of my identity, my experiments with the truth (Gandhi is a big influence on me), my endeavors to understand and empathize with people, and my adherence to a philosophy of generosity. There might be more of them, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I began my experiments with truth during 7th grade. My first and longest running experiment is with the idea of ends and means and their connection. I have always heard that "the end does not justify the means." Most people take this to mean that even if you get the end you want, if the means was bad, you should feel guilty. I do not think that is what the phrase means. I think it means that if you are seeking just ends, you can never fully reach them if you use unjust means. It is just simply impossible. Now, if you have an unholy end, or a narrow end you *can* achieve it with unjust means. And by "narrow end" I mean you want one thing, only that thing and don't care about the effect on other things. The CIA term "blowback" is an example of this... when they achieve a narrow end but the surrounding environment becomes worse. I have done countless experiments on this hypothesis, through observing my behavior analyzing the results, changing my behavior, seeing what happens, etc. I have been doing this since 1997-ish, although not consciously at first.

The first part of this experiment that I can isolate in my memory is my dealings with bullies. Now, I got picked on alot as a kid. But I had great parents, and they told me to try to understand the bully. So I did. I began consciously struggling to empathize with my attackers. And boy did this pay off. I started naturally acting nice to them, even when they were horrible to me. This just confused them, most of the time. But after awhile I wore them down with my kindness. I remember the turning point with a kid named Anthony Berta. He had a canker sore in his mouth and was complaining about it. I sympathized with him, told him I got those sometimes and they hurt like hell. I offered advice, telling him he should try applying hydrogen peroxide to it. He tried it and about two days later he thanked me. I remember feeling so good from that. And as I observed his behavior from then on he was generally nicer to me. He still made jokes at my expense on occasion, but nothing compared to what had gone on before. This is one reason I have such faith in non-violence. I have seen it work from a very early age.

Another bully named Brad something used to bug me in middle school. He was a big guy, rather aggressive and insecure about himself so he felt the need to act out. I don't remember any specific turning point with him, but I slowly won him over. I won him over so much that sophomore year when he was sitting at our table, being a jerk, and everyone asked him to either stop of leave, he was really surprised when I joined in the request. Reflecting on that whole situation, I think he saw me as his only friend at the table and felt very betrayed when I united with the others to try to get him to stop being a jerk. I felt bad about it for awhile afterward. Apparently kindness is a double-edged sword. I wonder what happened to him, I wish I remembered his last name so I could friend him on facebook.

So, building on this very practical and beneficial application of my experiments, I started toying around with a good percentage of my life. I started applying more and more control over my behavior, learning to let go of anger and to communicate my feelings effectively to de-escalate and conflict-resolve. And as I did this, the predictions emanating from my hypothesis about ends and means were all coming true. If I wanted a better life, treating people well seemed to be the most effective strategy. When I slipped up and conducted myself bady, I could sense tremors in my world in that direction as well. I built up my mind as much as I could into an analysis machine to tease out little cause and effects and after years of doing this I see patterns in the chaos, and they all fit my initial hypothesis. Of course, it could be analytical bias, but either way, it makes me happier than I would be otherwise (this could also be a placebo effect... but who cares).

And so, I came to the conclusion that the ends do not justify the means because you can never get the a truly good end using evil means. I am still conducting this experiment on and off these days, re-testing my conclusion.

My second longest experiment, which I have been conducting in conjunction with the first, was testing the golden rule. As you can see, it fits in very nicely with the first experiment. If I am trying to treat others as I would have them treat me, then I am almost always using good means. It is amazing the good feelings and good fortune that come your way when you try your hardest to follow this rule... but it is damn hard. I started this one in 10th grade, I believe... or maybe I just consciously recognized it in 10th grade. I start alot of things within myself without realizing it, sometimes it goes on for more than a year or two before I recognize it. At this point I was way WAY into Gandhi's philosophy, and it buttressed my analysis from a personal level to a societal level and a method of struggle.

While those are my two major experiments, I have a bunch of smaller ones... probably more than I can remember. I have experimented with leadership styles, conflict resolution, democratic processes, communication processes (both appealing to large audiences and interpersonal), etc. Usually with these experiments, I was the only variable I could change. So, I got really good at controlling my behavior and emotions so I could see what would happen when I acted a certain way. This coupled nicely with my intention to improve myself.

Changing myself has been another one of my major life projects. I don't remember exactly when I started, but I have always had a goal, at first nebulous but now quite clear. This general goal in changing myself is to make the lives of the people around me better. When I was young I remember being selfish, somewhat uptight and arrogant. Well, one day I decided I didn't like those traits in other people, and that I should try to change myself to get rid of those undesirable traits. I think it has been like 10 or more years since I really started working on myself, and I am proud to say I have made alot of progress. I still have problems with arrogance, but I do a good job of hiding it behind a veil of modesty. (For these letters, I feel like I have lifted my veil of modesty somewhat, and it is actually making me anxious to have done so... please don't judge me too harshly as arrogant or self-absorbed). I am also so much calmer than I once was, it is a huge relief.

It is very hard to describe this process for change, it is not explained in English in my head... it is a series of emotions, urges and bulbous shapes (representing concepts and cause and effect relationships) interacting with other bulbous shapes in a kind of weird fluidic space in my mind's eye. But when I find that I am acting in a way that I don't like, I will start a long thinking process, analyzing it and trying to set up triggers in my own mind to prevent me from acting that way again. One of my favorite attempts to change my behavior and thought patterns (because in involves my endeavors to fight sexism in my own mind) is to successfully be aware of the gender dynamics at gatherings, to comment on them to the group, and to break them through my actions. So, that house dinner where Lapedis and Caely came over (you were in Marin with a friend), I commented how, after the meal, Liz and Caely started making cookies and all the men were sitting in the living room talking. I offered to help make cookies, but I was un-needed. It bothers me when people aren't aware of how easily people fall into gender roles, which often means women end up doing alot more work. I will talk more about my feminist tendencies later.

This process also comes with reinforcing good traits, like generosity. I like to think I have achieved a pretty good level with that, I am always on the lookout for ways to be generous to other people... there is a chapter in the book The Prophet that has had an IMMENSE impact on my direction in life, especially when it concerns giving... have you ever read "The Prophet"? Here is a taste:

Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."

And he answered: You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?

Here is a link to it: http://leb.net/~mira/works/prophet/prophet5.html
I will probably talk about generosity more later... One of my conclusions about life is its inherent dynamism. Things and people change. I change, and accepting my own dynamic self has allowed me to give it some direction. I think far too many people see themselves as static, and don't realize that they can and should deal with unpleasant feelings that arise so that they do not burden one's life. I know all my emotions come up for a reason, and until I know that reason and have dealt with the root of the emotion, it will not dissipate. And it is within my power to do that. I feel very empowered when it comes to defining myself and pushing myself to be my highest vision for myself. I wish I could give that confidence and technique to other people. I credit a great deal of my happiness to the fact that I am able to deal with unwanted emotions and behavior in a productive and healthy way. Looking back at KY, I realize how much of a difference it would make in people's lives to be able to do this. I wish I could make a constructive campaign around it, like Gandhi did.

Defining myself has been an important journey that, like everything else I have described in this letter seems to, underpins a large swath of my beliefs. When I was in 10th grade, I came to the realization that I did not like identifying myself as an individual. It did not hold any appeal to me. If I defined myself that way, then I should want to acquire at other's expense, and that did not make me feel good. That identity meant selfishness as a way of life, and I was already seeing its negative effects in my own life and the lives of those around me. So I endeavored to shed my individual identity in favor of a more collectivist model. The best way of describing this is to look at your hand. Now, I can think of myself as a finger, or I can think of myself as part of the hand. I prefer to think of myself as part of the hand. My well-being is inherently tied to my community, and everyone in the community is tied to each other. Seeing ourselves as isolated individuals is just out of touch with reality. Defining myself in this way has made it not only easy to give, but made it the only logical thing to do.

There are alot of interesting manifestations of this identity. For example, when I am somewhere with unemployed friends... I feel like if they pay that I am somehow getting more hurt than if I pay. (I, here, refers to my identity as a part of a group) They have a finite pool of money that is not being recharged, so if they spend money it is more detrimental than if I or someone who has income pays. It is hard to explain, and I don't think I am doing the best job. but suffice to say this identity has really motivated me to protect/help my community, even if i have to sacrifice a disproportionately high number of things myself. I think many American's don't understand this mentality even when some of them subscribe to it in their own communities... and our world would be a much better place if they did understand it.

I have actually found that playing with my identity is one of the more powerful things I can do to change myself. I am generally kind of shy, but I have made great strides in changing that through trying to define myself as a more outgoing person. This is especially effective when I am in roles where I think other people expect me to be outgoing... like as a camp counselor or a host of a party. There is so much potential for how I could change myself, I have pushed my identity toward more generosity, more kindness, more willingness to forgive, less anger and more calm. And overall, it has made me a thousand times more happier. It is an incredible tool for self-improvement. I think most people, especially kids, simply take up the identity that other people ascribe to them. I wonder what would happen if I could teach this to repeat prisoners and motivate them to see themselves differently. Religion often has this effect, from what I have seen with prisons.

Part of all this interconnected mess is self-reflection. I think about myself alot, maybe too much. I observe my emotions, my behavior, my thoughts, and my motivations. When I first started doing this, I looked at everything and spent years thinking about it. But now, I think I have examined most of myself that I want to reinforce, so I mostly stick to things that bug me, and new things that arise. I mull them over, then over again. As you can see by this series of letters, I can write way too much about myself when I have an interested audience. This process has become second nature to me now, as with most of my spiritual practices. I do it without even trying, and often have to quiet it down to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. It is this process that gives me the strong sense of who I am, which has not really been shaken since maybe senior year in high school.
Anyway, that's enough for this letter... to be continued.

Some content from a letter to Sarah #1

Here is some content that I wrote to Sarah around June in 2009.

I have always liked the idea of letters. They are like time travel, you get to send a message to someone in the future. And then that person gets to send it to you in the future. They also let you go into much more depth than phone, texts, or even email. Somehow email seems like it should be shorter in my mind, even though it is basically an electronic letter.
So, since we aren't able to get to know each other better face to face, letters will have to do. OK... so i'll start out by starting a mini-bio and see where that takes me.

I suppose I have led an unusual and interesting life so far. I grew up in rural Kentucky, in a town of 1500, surrounded by nature. I am the son of back-to-the-lander hippies, although they never got into farming. My Dad says he was never any good at it, but I remember planting and harvesting some really killer peas in our garden. They were so tasty. Growing up I helped my parents build our house (as much as a 3 to 12 year old can). I watched so intently and actually picked up alot of carpentry from it... but I think working with my hands runs in my blood. All my male blood relatives in my parents generation and both my grandfathers are/were carpenters. Some of my male non-blood relatives in my parents generation are/were carpenters as well. I really love building things, like that bed frame I cobbled together from dumpstered wood. I have wanted to learn to make nice-looking furniture for awhile, not just practical dumpster-scrounged constructs.

We lived on a 70 acre plot of land, mostly forest. Our house is on a ten acre field in the middle of the property. We get our water from a natural spring that has never gone dry in living memory, despite the droughts the area has gone through. I love that water, it is soooo delicious. As a kid I would go off into the forest with friends and sometimes alone and explore. Most often along the banks of nearby creeks. Our land bordered a smallish river where we would go swimming. It is amazing to live next to a river and to see it change over the years. The swimming holes shifted dramatically, as did this island where we used to hang out. Getting down to the river was a trip though. Probably a quarter of a mile walk, with stinging nettle at the end of the walk to punctuate it. I remember that pain pretty clearly, probably because I received a dose of it on a regular basis for a large swath of my childhood. It was with that experience that I conducted some of my first experiments with consciously suppressing pain. When I was like 12 or 13 I can clearly remember myself leading a group of friends down to the river and single-handedly clearing a path through the nettle with a stick so my friends could make it through unscathed. At that point i had managed to ignore the pain enough to complete the task. The worst part though, was if you were wearing flip-flops and there were nettle leaves on the ground... they would sting your toes. Anyway, that experience with ignoring and suppressing pain, i think, was the precursor to alot of my experiments with changing my emotions and behavior.

I went to school in a town an hour away, because my parents thought that their public school system was much better than the one in my home town (it was). My parents taught me true generosity through their selfless pursuit of putting me and my brother first, I hope to return the favor to my own kids one day. I think this early example of selflessness made it very easy for me decide to do my best to live a generous life.

I saw many things in Kentucky that have greatly affected my outlook and direction in life, such as the high rate of poverty there (23% of the population is below the poverty line in my home county in 2006). I am strangely proud of the fact that my parents weren't well off while raising me... for my first 7 years of life we had an outhouse. I remember the day my Dad installed our first toilet. My childhood imbued me with a passion to tackle social ills. I think especially the juxtaposition of the incredible hardships people had with the generally caring attitudes they had towards each other has convinced me from an early age that 1. people are inherently good and 2. that it doesn't matter what shit people have to go through, as long as they are with other people, they can get through it.

I saw racism and experienced its impact on other people. I know that growing up in a racist culture has imbued me with alot of racism, and it bugs the hell out of me. I make it a point to fight the passive racism in my own mind whenever I notice it, and to actively work to notice it. If I have what I consider a racist thought, I feel pretty bad and commit myself to not letting it influence my behavior and trying to ensure I stop having those thoughts. My own process for self-reflection and self-improvement has actually changed me a great deal... I will go into that later though, probably in a following letter. One of the scariest things I remember was that in my high school my senior year, every freshman male black student had atleast one failing grade. The school was about 40% African American. While it was not segregated per se, it was de facto segregation. The different races (mostly white, black, latino) didn't mix much. The cafeteria really showed this, with each group colonizing its own section every day.

I remember hearing lots of racist jokes, many of them told seriously. I also remember hearing of a big KKK rally, and a counter-protest called Unity Day during my sophomore High School year. I don't remember why I couldn't make it, but I really wish I had been able to. Most of my teachers were gung-ho about the Unity Day counter protest, which I remember thinking that was amazing. I also heard that it got a much larger turnout than expected and was significantly bigger than the KKK rally.

One of my favorite memories from childhood is star-gazing. We star-gazed alot. I have seen meteors that lit up the entire sky. In 2001 during a particularly spectacular Leonid shower in November, a group of friends and I stayed out all night watching. There were over 100 per hour that night, it was by far the most spectacular meteor shower I have seen. I remember watching comet Hale-Bopp hover in the sky for days, and be almost visible during early morning and late evening. And our sky was absolutely spectacular. On a clear night with a new moon, I could see millions of stars. The Milky Way was very clear and if you closed your eyes for a few minutes and then looked, oh, it would take your breath away. I have always had a love of space (yeah, i am a geek like that), which i atleast partly credit to the awe-inspiring sky I stared at as I grew up.

I was consistently in awe of nature during my childhood. We had a few giant trees on our land, which I found fascinating. They had survived the logging that happened in the early 70s (before my parents bought the land) because they marked the edge of the property. My Dad loves trees and taught me tons of random facts about them, how to recognize some of the species, and how to take care of the forest (which mostly involved leaving it alone). Did you know that if there is a vine growing on a tree (a tree you don't want a vine growing on), that the best way to kill it is not to chop it off, or pull it off but to just remove all the vine's bark in a circle around the base of the vine. This will slowly kill both the roots and the vine's trunk... this method works with most plants. The wildlife around my house was great. There were deer everywhere, lots of rabbits and infinite numbers of insects. I have almost stepped on copperheads (the only deadly snake in KY) 3 times, they are probably the animal I dislike the most. I am also not a big fan of skunks, having been within 2 feet of one, before both of us noticed each other (it was dark and i was walking without a flashlight). We both ran like a bat out of hell. Mammoth cave is also just utterly fantastic... To Be Continued next letter...

Love 4: The Shining Revolution

Seeing myself as part of a larger whole makes generosity more than just a pleasant interaction, it makes it... I don't know, just make sense. It seems like the natural way to act. What is the point of life, if not to give. And so, my life is dedicated to the benefit of all others, who, in reality, are all part of me. I want us to be happy and liberated of the tyranny we impose upon ourselves. To live in a mutually-supportive society that does not follow the fools gold of false logics. To embrace love and spread security. To face evil and punch it square in the jaw with the fist of love. What I really want a revolution that shines.
Now that would be truly irresistible, as the author of a book I just read put it (The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne). That is where embracing love has lead me, and will led the world, to a different social system that does not claim its foundation to be greed and selfishness. A shining revolution will cast the light of love and joy on the dark places in the world. To set a floodlight on the twin oppressions of capitalism, poverty of possessions among the poor and poverty of the spirit among the rich. Oh, how they will quiver and scurry at the rays of light we cast upon them.
But enough with metaphors, a shining revolution will be one of generosity of love. It will be of people living acting differently in their daily lives and embracing love. At the center of it will be education, teaching about love, compromise, conflict resolution, and the nature of humanity. Put simply, living for each other in a direct way instead of the indirect way we live for each other now. Fighting with love and compassion. Having the courage to forgive our "enemies" and try to understand each other. All this is very general because it is up to everyone to decide how it will manifest itself, I am merely citing themes that I have seen in my most splendid visions of it.

A shining revolution would be positively contagious. Joy and love are among the most pathogenic emotions, even consuming the most immune of hearts. No one could evade this plague if enough people become infected. I have noticed this first hand, in the effects of my interactions with other people. When I am happy, which is most of the time, I am a veritable Typhoid Mary. When I am generous, people start acting more generous. I don't see how people can not see how powerful this is. A revolution that embraced this way of being would have more power than any government could handle. If we want our revolution to really change the wheel and win us a different way of life, than it has to be a revolution of love, one that shines and draws people like ants to food. Because it WILL be food, food for the souls of the starving and destitute populace who are hungering for the meaning and fulfillment that material consumption and meaningless work can never bring.

Love 2: Conquering Death

Building on the last post, I think that our culture's pernicious fear of death comes from our lack of embracing love. For, if we truly love, then we do not see ourselves as a sea of individuals but as a single ocean. A hand with fingers as opposed to separate fingers. As one cell among trillions in a multi-cellular. If I claimed that each of my cells was independent from the other cells, people would call me crazy. But, they are as independent of each other as humans are from each other and the rest of our environment. The fact that we do not see that is but a cultural blindfold.

Love is our cellular bond. It is what drives people to see themselves not as one individual that has a finite existence, but as part of a community that has existed for millions of years, and will be around when everyone we know is long gone. If we see ourselves this way, we do not fear our own death. Our identity is vested in something immortal instead of in our flesh and blood.

Accounts I have heard from soldiers, rescue personel, police and fire fighters makes me think that their subcultures are closer to achieving this than most of Western culture. Their job is to protect and help others (debatable how well the violent ones achieve that, but that discussion is for another day; the point is they see this as their job). They have embraced a love of their community and are willing to sacrafice their lives for others.

Now, this is not to say that people should not fear immediate dangers to their well-being. What I am talking about is the philisophical fear of death that makes people wish for immortality. It is this fear that caused people to develop the idea of an after-life; as an attempt to quell the thought of non-existance.

I remember when I was in middle school, I was deeply troubled by the thought of death, and I never found the idea of an after-life all that credible. Years of contemplation followed and slowly transformed into my attempts to explain the universe. I did really like the idea that heaven existed and it would be this paradise with all my loved ones, like one giant endless party. It would be pretty nice, but it felt wrong. It felt like false hope. This triggered a thought in my head that is very hard to put into words. I started to question the very idea that I was a singular unit. The idea of a soul, of an individual, of a person, is singularity. I was told by my culture that we are a single static being with neat boundaries and a single soul. My whole world came crashing down, slowly at first, while I still didn't realize that I was breaking down the foundational belief our cultural point of view is built upon. That is bound to have a tumultuous effect on one's mind. So sophmore year of high school was kind of rough.

Reality pushed me to see myself as something dynamic. The following is a summation of several years of contemplation from my adolecense: "I was certainly bigger than I used to be, and generally calmer. I have changed over time... I am not static. My cells turn-over at a fairly fast rate, I intake and expell lots of material. I am greatly affected by everything happening around me, absorbing ideas and behavioral patterns from other people. Maybe the boundaries of my individuality are not so clear cut as they are made out to be. I am as dependent on them for food, shelter, protection and love as the cells of my body are to each other. All this conflicts with the idea of a person having one soul. Why should each cell not have a soul, and I am just a conglomeration of the souls of my cells?" And that last question did it. BAM! My concept of individuality was in ruins and I was left a directionless 14-15 year old. But the seeds of my new framework were there. The best way I can put what I have settled on is: that I am but one small section of strata of a continum from the small to the large in the oneness of everything and everyone. And, without love to glue it all together, none of us would exist. Embracing love has allowed me the contentment of knowing that death is just a reordering of my strata, not the end all be all; I will still be around, because there is no destroying the unity that I find myself to be a part of.

This old saying is true in so many ways:
"Love is truly the only way to conquer death"

Love

Love is so magical. It manages to intertwine such pure joy with such a deep melancholy quite seamlessly and all the while it emanates a strong sense of sacredness. The versatility of love is astounding, it can generate any mix of emotions. The deepest hatred arises from the death of a loved one. The harshest anger can come from the same, as well as a rejection from a loved one. The most concentrated happiness from those rare perfect days spent with loved ones. The keenest sense of helplessness and apathy when we feel unable to help those we love. The deepest depression when we fail to feel loved. And the most overpowering fear when the possibility of losing a loved one arises.

Many people may consider love to simply be an emotion among many, but I think it is more than that. I think it is the root of everything, a force of nature that is all-powerful. It reminds me of gravity, something you can fight against for a time, but it will always win in the end. The prime effect of it is to bring things closer together, as if they longed for a sweet embrace.

Just as the foundation of physics is gravity, I think that human society is based on love. We humans are glued together with a collective longing to be together, to do good to each other and to be taken care of. We are united in our search for happiness and we seem to only find it with each other. I can think of no better word to describe that than love. The root of what makes us human is love, and those without it begin to become inhuman (I would note that in Harry Potter, Voldemort did not know love. Of course, I would venture to guess that this is because no one risked truly loving him).

I read someone say that love is like slavery. When in love you do whatever you can for your loved one. But it is a joyful slavery, one that is completely voluntary. If fear, greed, and selfishness prevent one from completely embracing love (something I have been deeply affected by, as well as seen and experienced), then we may start to long to be free of it. And that is as deep a loss as anything I have experienced, from both sides of the equation.

For most of my 4 year relationship with Ingrid, I was able to fully embrace love. I would not trade that experience for anything. My whole life bent around her, probably a third of my thinking time was devoted to her, and I would spend hours fantasizing ways to simplely make her smile. I molded my behavior to bring myself emotionally close to her as well as to bring her joy. I studied her ways because I wanted to fully understand her. I ran a 4 year experiment on our relationship revolving around practicing "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which was probably the most informative experience of my life and a major reason I was able to dive into the relationship so whole-heartedly.

Fully embracing love was overpowering in the most wonderful way imaginable. I can see how embracing love caused an emotional spring in my heart that has never left me. Atleast once a month I am moved to tears. I let myself be moved, scared and riled up by movies. And I no longer hold the reighs on my emotions so tightly for fear of a lack of control. It has been both liberating and deeply meaningful. I find a mysterious pleasure in the melancholy feelings of loss I have been experiencing these past 6 months (since we broke up). It might be because I feel so in touch with humanity and what it means to be human when I feel that way. It could also be because I know that I can replicate it with my next companion.

Of course, toward the end of my relationship I realized that Ingrid was unwilling or as of yet unable to fully embrace love the way I had. So I tried to get distance from love. I am generally able to exert control over my emotions, thoughts and feeling; with stubborn, lengthy effort I can usually manage to change them. But try as I might, my feelings of love would always rear their heads in my mind. I know objectively that this is a good thing; if there is one thing I am unable to change about myself, I guess it is good that it is the perserverence of my feelings of love. And while it might seen easier to try to suppress or excavate them, I have not found that to be the case.

I targeted a great deal of anger and angst toward Ingrid in an attempt to disentigrate my emotional bond to her. It kind of worked for awhile, but I almost feel like I was trying to cut a jet of water with a sword. Of course I can cut through it in a moment, but the force of the water will always keep the jet whole. I know I am unable to turn the jet off, nor do I want to turn my love off... it seems that the only choice I have left is to try to redirect it instead of cut it. It has been an interesting experiment on love, one I hope not to repeat, because it has not been particularly fruitful. It caused me more pain than anything and did not have the effects I wanted it to.

I hope everyone manages to fully embrace love in their lives and relationships, it is the best possible outcome even if you eventually get burned. Not embracing it is a painful, guilt-ridden path to lonliness, something I hope Ingrid realizes one day (and everyone else for that matter). Without love, we are not complete, our human-ness makes us yearn for it. For it is the root of our lives, the foundation of human society, and the glue that keeps us together.

Walk the Earth as Humans

Building upon the thinking in my previous post, motivation to profit has started to seem like the crutch on which capitalism leans. In "The Age of Revolution" Hobsbawm talks about how employers during the early stages of the transition to capitalism would complain about the "laziness" of their employees. These people would work enough to make ends meet, and then stop. They were not used to the consistent work of industry, where one needs to be on time and to stay the whole time. Workers were more used to the farm and rural mentality of working whenever, and making your own hours. The combination of lack of motivation to work extra and to stay working annoyed the employers... because it cut their efficiency and profits. And this didn't happen just in urban centers of proto-capitalist economies, it happened in colonies and the outskirts of "civilization" too. It is a stereotype in my mind that British colonial officials would always complain about the laziness of the indigenous people. Anthropology pointed out to me that our civilization stereotypes indigenous societies as lazy and unproductive too.

Once the capitalist motivation of profit took hold in people with authority and power, they sought to use other people as tools to profit, and when these people stubbornly resisted by not conforming to capitalist ideals of a worker. But, as people had become tools to profit in the eyes of business owners and employers, they justified terrible repressions. Material starvation was one tecnique that was used to get more work out of their workers. They cut wages, to force them to work longer, and used the law. When the workers fought back by forming unions, these were attacked by the methods of coercion at the disposal of the powerful. This began the protracted war over labor rights which continues to this day. Another method to motivate people was to place immense obligations on their shoulders, such as military service and debt.

But the most effective method they used was cultural re-education. The early capitalists wanted everyone to think like they did, that profit is what they should seek and self-interest is the primary motivator. After three centuries of capitalistic re-education of society and culture shifting, we can see the success of this approach. Our entire civilization is now based on money as a motivator. It is true, there has been significant resistence to this belief, which is why it is not too surprising how many people still live in poverty. Fear of making ends meet, of feeding your family and keeping a roof over their heads is an immensely powerful motivator, and it ensures that people continue to buy into the capitalism by selling their labor and conforming to the rules.

Martin Luther King said something like "Humanity has learned to swim in the sea like a fish and fly in the sky like a bird, but we still can't walk the earth like a man." I think to put it more correctly, we forgot how to walk like a person. This analogy is very astute and gets to the heart of the problem. Humans were not meant to live this way, it is physcially and mentally destructive. Placing profit over people corrupts people's souls, and is mentally oppressive to those who think that way. Walking the earth, as MLK implies, would require us to treat people as an end in themselves instead of a tool. Something that I think most lefties dont realize is that capitalism is an oppression on the affleuent and power as well as on the down-trodden and working class. Where the majority of people suffer from material poverty, the rich suffer from a spiritual poverty that I find to be much more oppressive. And by spiritual I don't mean faith in God, or religion, I mean how much fulfillment one gets out of life; how people treat each other and the ramifications that has on their minds; lack of a deeper meaning than materialism; and suffering from a severe disconnection with other people.

Spiritual poverty is generated because people are not meant to live this way. Humans are social creatures and we have certain dispositions toward each other that capitalism disrupts. Generosity, connection, reciprocacy, and the social glue that holds a society together are all hard-wired into our brains, and when capitalism disrupts them it lays a yoke upon the mind of a person. This burden is so heavy it causes us to flee to transient pleasures to dull the pain and try to escape.

In Kentucky, people took care of each other. It is true that poverty took its toll with alcoholism, drugs, alienation and mental illness. But poverty also brings people together, it connects them and can build strong social ties. Lack of material comfort does not seem too harsh if one's family and friends are there, protecting each other. The affluent world I gained a view of at Brown was much worse, in my opinion. In the words of the Union song "Bread and Roses" by Bobbie McGee, "Hearts starve as well as bodies." And I see starvation of the heart to be a common affliction among the rich.

The capitalist motivation meme seems to have taken on a life of its own. It spurrs us into spending our collective time and energy on things that are not important, into things and not into people. Last time I was flying I had a window seat, and as I looked down, I noticed that I could always see something made by people. We have built so much, and yet we don't realize that it is more important to put effort into people. This does give me hope though. If we could push ourselves to do all this, build this entire world in a couple centuries, then we could push ourselves to do anything. Human culture is surprisingly flexible and powerful, we have drifted so far from our nature, and its impact is also quite impressive.

Capitalism (the Game!)

The more I think about capitalism, the more it seems to fit into the "game" category. Except it is perhaps the most complex game out there, and your survival depends on playing it. I think the most game-esque part of capitalism is the stock market, where you watch a bunch of numbers go up and down and you try to make more money based on when you buy and sell. Almost all of the people playing have more than enough money to live comfortably, but they are still focused on raising their own personal score. It is a symptom of a culture that is obsessed with over-accumulation.


Consumerism. That was the answer capitalism developed to answer the problem of the "stationary state." This idea was introduced to me by a book by Eric Hobsbawm titled "The Age of Revolution." As profit is the main motivator in the game of capitalism, if people are not motivated to profit, they will quite soon reach a point where they are quite satisfied with their position in life, and no longer seek to profit.  This is a stationary state, where people no longer seek to profit because they have enough.  I have fallen into such a state, I really have no motivation to make money and my living conditions are pretty good. I am not being a very good consumer, and I could see that the capitalism system would be in deep trouble if most people acted the way I am.  To avoid this pitfall, that would have reduced profits, consumerism evolved.

It actually reminds me of many video games. In Dungeons and Dragons based games like Diablo II and Nethack you walk around killing evil things, getting gold and new equipment. That is all the game is, getting new stuff by killing things... it is almost like gambling, because every time you kill something you have a chance to get something really good. It can be pretty addicting. I wonder how many of you thought I could compare capitalism to Diablo II. In games like Age of Empires II and Starcraft your objective is to conquer your competitor, but to do that, you have to develop an economy where you accumulate resources and assets. If you manage your assests affectively, you win. If not, then you lose. In Thief, you have to steal a certain amount of money. They are all focused on counters... little numbers that tell you how well you are doing. Sounds like the stock market to me.

I was looking at my bank statement the other day and asking myself how much happier I would be if my account was larger. Would I be happier if it were twice as much? How about 100 times as much? What would be the point of having that? What would I do with it? Why are so many people happier when the number on their bank statements are higher? I am still not sure why, which is a failing on my part, failing to understand other people. The only possible explanation I have been able to come up with is that they are approaching it the way I approach games, in that it is fun to test one's skills and see how good one can get. Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but basing a way of life on what amounts to a game is a horrible, HORRIBLE idea. Games were meant as training for real life, not to become real life! It seems that this is another example of goal displacement.

The truth is, the only reason I would be happier if the number on my bank account was bigger would be because it meant I got to give my money away to my friends and family. To help them in whatever way I could figure out.  And once I did that, the number would fall sharply.  I see no other reason why I would want alot of money. Some would respond to that by saying, "oh, but then you wouldn't have to work." But I like work! I would get depressed if I did not have something to do, something to really sink my teeth into. I have done experiments on myself, "Sloth" makes me unhappy. I am quite certain I would just end up giving my money away if I had any extra beyond what I would want to have on hand during an emergency. I don't want to have any more, I do not want that burden. As Kahlil Gibran said in "The Prophet": "The fear of thirst when your well is full is the thirst that is unquenchable."

No, the meaning of my life is not profit, something I am greatly thankful to my parents for imbuing in me. The meaning of life (well, atleast mine) is other people. And I see no other motivator that could bring me as much fulfillment and happiness as that one.

Thoughts on Happiness and The Meaning of Life.

In trying to make up for June when I didn't write any blog posts, I am writing a few in rapid succession to get some ideas out of my head before they slip away.

Our happiness rests in the hands of the community we build around ourselves. We are happy when we feel loved, secure and fulfilled; when we can share our joys and sorrows with others. Money cannot provide any of that, nor can possessions. Yes, they might give the illusion of it sometimes, but those feelings are always fleeting. They come with the initial rush of emotion but soon fall away. Material pleasures are poor substitutes for the joys of community. When material pleasures become someone's main source of fulfillment, their lives have indeed become empty. They jump from pleasure to pleasure trying to stifle the emptiness they feel inside with the sudden rush of pleasure from some new possession. But when this rush fades, they are left with more emptiness, causing them to fly to something new to avoid their own caustic loneliness. Our economic system takes extreme advantage of this impulse, both facilitating the disruption of community to cause emptiness and giving people the impression that they can find fulfillment in their possessions and the accumulation of more of them.

Indeed, other people are the meaning of life. There can be no other, human nature bars it. Those who fail to realize this and prioritize something else over people always pay an emotional price, and often a material price as well. We all rely on other people, whether directly or indirectly, to give our lives meaning.

Ironically, capitalism is founded on this principle, although it is in a rather perverse way. If other people demand something, than you have a reason to make a living supplying it. The CEO who is afflicted with an ambition to accomplish still depends on his employees to fulfill that accomplishment. Investors who are so concerned about increasing the "value" of their stocks depend on other people to believe it is worth something. Plus, the prestige of accomplishments depends entirely on other people thinking what one has done is impressive.

The rat race, possessions, and other such transient pleasures are of no comparison to the truly deep and lasting happiness generated from close personal relationships. Whether they be romantic or friendly, these relationships are what sustain us. They stave off the specter of unhappiness and loneliness, providing a veritable vaccination for depression. This effect is easily observable in people. People around those who they are in love with are always happier. They tend to be sillier and more pleasant to be around as well, less apt to become frustrated or angry. It is an inspiring thing to see.

And so, I have come to the conclusion that other people are the meaning of life. When one realizes the inherent truth of this, it becomes a simple matter to escape the temptation of excessive material consumption. Indeed, material possessions produce more joy when given away than they ever could when kept. The generous life is the happy life. I hope our society learns this crucial lesson soon.