On Bigotry

A quick thought on bigotry:

     One of the things I love about the progress of our civilization is the inevitable (albeit painfully slow) eradication of bigotry. At one point, of course, and to some extent still, a black person was viewed as somehow inferior to his or her counterparts. Now, a person that holds that view is considered a bigot. So it will be for the gay community, and I believe that atheists are next in line (by that I mean that once the gay community has gained the same level of acceptance that blacks have now, bigots will need something else to turn their hatred to, and atheism is the obvious target).
     My point is this: when I speak to someone who is full of hate for a particular group of people, my instinct is to debate them, to use reason to point out the fallacy of their belief. Obviously, this is not a good strategy- hatred cannot be reasoned with. When this happens, I find myself taking a step back and finding solace in one simple, irresistible fact: namely, that they and their kind will be written in history as bigots. It’s that simple. If you hated blacks once, or Jews, you’re now a bigot. If you hate gays now, or atheists, rest assured, you will be remembered as an ignorant bigot. Survival of the fittest, then, perhaps applies to our sense of compassion and reason as well as our physical attributes.

Happiness, as it applies to meatballs

     I happen to be amongst those silly people who believe that happiness in and of itself is an admirable goal to strive for. Consequently, I understand how slippery a thing it really is. Happiness requires work, paradoxical as it may seem. It also takes a certain amount of self-awareness. How many go about their daily routines, resigned to the fact that they are living the life they always will? That happiness is a tree-hugger dream, and that honorable men and women work for a living and shut up about it? Let me tell you about the workload, the self-awareness it takes to cultivate happiness.

     Last night, I ate a meatball sub for dinner. It was as delicious a meal as any man has ever consumed. I’d waited, and waited (somewhat impatiently) for my dinner. Suddenly, it was in my lap, steaming and beckoning.
I ate my sandwich, oblivious to anything around me, except perhaps the book I was reading. Two things happened:

        1:  I realized that, as I was fairly engrossed in my book, I forgot that I was eating as I was eating. I put the book down, and      focused on my miraculous meatballs.

        2:  Even after this revelation, I assumed that I was squeezing all the joy one can possibly squeeze out of a sandwich. I was wrong. I realized that as I was chewing each bite, I was hungrily looking at the next meatball (the one not in my mouth). I was lusting after a meatball, wishing with everything that I was that that meatball was in my mouth- right now. But wait… holy shit. I do have a meatball in my mouth. In fact, it’s the exact same meatball as the one I’m lusting after.

     After this little epiphany, I enjoyed what became a fantastic meal. I’m sure that, had I scarfed it down while reading, or had I continued wanting the next meatball, and the next, and the next, without realising what was in my mouth, I’d have missed the experience entirely. I slowed. I breathed. I tasted. And it was good.

     Where else does this behavior manifest itself?

     The answer may be astounding, if you’re truthful with yourself. Maybe when I go to the gym, I’m thinking of the coffee shop and book ritual that follow. Maybe when I’m reading that book, and drinking that coffee, I’m thinking of my workday. Maybe when I’m in the midst of my workday, I’m thinking of a conversation with my daughter. Maybe when I’m having a conversation with my daughter, I’m thinking of the gym the next day. Kinda vicious, isn’t it?
 
     It’s taken time, and practice, and effort to reach a level of self-awareness that allows me to see these faults. That doesn’t mean it’s difficult; it’s not. It simply takes a conscious, unwavering effort. When I put the acquired knowledge to practice, though, the results can be astounding, and can lead to… wait for it… happiness. Happiness is here; it is now. It is only here, and only now. It is only in this meatball, not the next.

Information Overload

I started today with a simple, albeit lofty goal: cure information overload.  The problem is this: I read too many articles, and the more I read, it seems, the less information I retain. Here is my solution (perhaps "experiment" is more appropriate).

First, let me explain my "readflow"- that is, the way that I consume online articles. The process is as streamlined as possible. Most all of the information I consume is fed to Google Reader, so I don't have to constantly scour the web for items of interest. When I come across an article I'd like to read, I tag it "instapaper", and via this recipe from ifttt, that article is automatically fed to my Instapaper account, which is set up to deliver a compilation of all of my unread articles to my Kindle every Friday morning. It sounds like a lot of work, but once it's set up, the result is remarkably friction-free, and therein lies the bulk of the problem.

It's a remarkable time we live in, having access to so much invaluable information. Want to read the latest article from a professor of philosophy at Berkley? How about catching up on neuroscientists' latest claim of eradicating the concept of free will? Perhaps you want to catch up on NFL news, or find out whether the latest HBO series is worth watching? It's all at your fingertips. Be careful, though- if you're not selective enough, you'll soon be reading so many articles your brain may feel flooded. This is my problem.

Here, I hope, is the solution: I will begin to rate each article I read on a simple scale of one to five, based on how important it is to me that I retain the information contained in each article. If given a one, it's not important enough to spend any more time on. If given a five, I thoroughly enjoyed the text, and would like to retain as much as possible. Here's what I'll do based on my ratings:

• For a rating of (1), no further action is needed. The text does not intrigue me.
• For a rating of (2), I'll simply say, out loud, a very brief summary of the article, focusing on the bullet points.
• For a rating of (3), I will give a slightly in-depth summary (again, this is out loud, to myself). 
• For a rating of (4), I will "bookmark" this article in my mind, and make it a point to bring it up in conversation (actual, face-to-face conversation) the next time I'm with someone to whom the topic may be interesting. 
• For a rating of (5), I will star the article in Instapaper, which, via Instapaper's settings, sends the article to my Evernote account). From Evernote, I can write a summary of the article, at the end of the article itself. This way, all of the most important articles (and only the most important articles) are all in Evernote, with a personal summary at the end of each.

Each tactic is designed to increase memory retention based on the importance of the article. Obviously, I'm much more likely to retain information from a text in which I wrote a summary than one in which I simply verbalized the bullet points and moved on.

I'll use this tactic for a month or so, and give an update on how well it works.

The Perfect Day

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A few days ago, I said goodbye to my daughter. She’s moving across the country, and while I intend to follow her, I’ll be a few weeks behind. On her last day in Florida, we decided the appropriate goodbye to the Sunshine State would be spent at the beach, watching the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.

Afternoon gave way to evening, and my daughter’s playdate was not over- and I was beginning to get annoyed. It was getting late. The universe knew that this was my special day with my daughter, and yet it did not care. It mocked my plans, and I was left to grumble to myself until they finally left.

We hurried to the car, sped down the road, and hoped and prayed to make it to the beach before the sunset. The feeling of annoyance still permeated every bone in my body- until my daughter pointed out the clouds. What a magnificent sight to behold, if you’ve never witnessed the awesome power of Florida clouds. We started taking snapshots as we sped down the road. The annoyance started to fade. I no longer cared about making it “on time.”

We stopped at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate. Though she’d had it before, this is the first time it came in a cup that looked just like the ones Daddy brings home from work. She felt like such a big girl, and made me take pictures of Starbucks to commemorate her first “coffee” at Starbucks. When we finally made it to the beach, it was not only pitch dark, but the clouds now covered every inch of the sky, blanketing the beach in a darkness usually reserved for haunted houses. As it turns out, we had to put the camera away. I then realized we were the only souls on the beach- it became our playground, and so it began. The play.

We removed our shoes and ran to the water. Soon, she began chasing me, as I screamed in feigned horror at the six-year-old who was trying to get me. We fell to our knees on the sand of Clearwater beach, exhausted and laughing. We made sand angels. A few minutes later, we were up again, she chasing me and throwing sand at my back. We had a sandball fight. We made a sandcastle. We walked through the water, hand in hand. Then she said it.

“Daddy, this is the best night of my life.”

She would utter those words several times more throughout the next hour or so, and each time, my heart melted. I took a break, under the pretense of being exhausted, when in reality I simply wanted to watch my flesh and blood frolick in the sand. She ran with reckless abandon, laughed like no one was watching, and flung herself into the sand, laughing even more hysterically each time. This was my daughter, and tonight, this was our beach, this was our night, this was our world. And it was perfect.

On Thinking Like a Child

The other day, my daughter’s kindergarten class needed an assistant. Her mother had volunteered to help the class prepare a garden bed outside of their classroom- it was full of weeds and unprepeared soil, and needed to be tended to. When she woke feeling ill that day, I was volunteered in her place. This annoyed me. I had SO much work to do- how dare I be interrupted! So it was with reluctance that I strolled into the classroom that day.
Immediately, I was met with my daughter’s typical adorating smile when I walked in. Soon we were toiling in the garden with a few other members of the class. The kids began to turn the weed pulling into a treasure hunt. We had to eliminate the weeds in order to find the real treasures. Before long, they were pulling up a shell or two here and there, and we began to mount a pile of booty. The feeling of annoyance began to fade, and I joined in the excitement of the hunt. Eventually, I lost myself in the wonderment of the moment, and the kids’ mood enveloped me. The work didn’t matter; the petty world surrounding us didn’t matter- we created our own finite yet fantastic reality that afternoon. I left the class refreshed, renewed, and smiling. It was a great gift that they gave to me.
Since, I’ve tried to remember that lesson throughout each day. My troubles are a speck in the cosmos, and infinitely trivial. So where’s the harm in letting the toils of the day slide from your mind, and creating a small, amazing reality in which you embrace yourself, your surroundings, and the world at large?

Presuppositions

Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” seems the most basic and clear of all statements- not reducible any further than it already is. But even this statement relies on three basic presuppositions (namely, the law of the excluded middle, the law of identity, and the law of non-contradiction).

If one of the greatest thinkers of all-time could produce such a clear statement, not realising that the argument he put forth rested on other assumptions, what excuse could we have for the decisions we make, the statements we utter, the ideas that we cling to going unscrutinised? If even Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” can be put into question, then so it is for everything we know, or think we know. Assume nothing. Question everything. Anything less is an insult to our intelligence.

On Being Helpless

I don’t think there is such a thing as being helpless. There is always an action that can be initiated. If you can do something to change the circumstances of the thing that’s causing you to feel helpless, then do that thing. If there’s no “action” you can perform, then that’s simply an indication that the change to be implemented must be internal- it must be a change that occurs inside you. Helplessness is an illusion.

On Learning

Many times I’ve found myself thinking of the fact that there’s simply too much knowledge to be gained, and not enough time. How wonderful it would be to have an instant knowledge of a subject! Remember the robot in “Short Circuit” who could read a thousand-page book in a few seconds? Or the sci-fi notion that so often pops up of uploading certain information to our brains? I would instantly have a complete mastery of history, psychology, philosophy, and so many more subjects.

But what a great tragedy this would be, to deprive myself of the actual process of learning. What a magnificent thing it is to absorb a fact that was previously unknown. There’s a sort of euphoria that goes on in the mind when this happens- something akin to, I would think, eating a truly delectable meal, or sharing a delicious conversation with a beloved friend. Learning should, in fact, rank in the upper echelons of sensory pleasure. Food, sex, the rush of conquering a fear- learning, surely, deserves a place alongside these.

Brain v Heart: My Thoughts

My life philosophy cannot be summed up briefly, or succinctly. I think often, of the nature of reality, and of myself. So often, many of the conclusions I’ve come to seem to be so disconnected from each other that it becomes overwhelming. Sometimes, though, a thought enters one’s mind that ties things together, and that is a beautiful moment indeed.

I’ve struggled with a concept for some time now: my love of logic, of reason, and my romantic nature. I believe, firmly, that the evolution of our species hinges primarily on one thing: our understanding. Our infinite curiosity is our most valuable asset. Without it, we would not know what we know, and it is in what we know that I find wonder and beauty.

The problem is this: logic is cold, it is hard, it lacks compassion. It is a matter for the brain. Romanticism, on the other hand, is just as necessary. We (and more specifically, I) need circumstances to transcend that cold logic. We need to feel, purely. Think of your favorite movie, favorite book, favorite memory, favorite painting. There is little in Romeo & Juliet, in Van Gogh, in a child’s laughter, in the scent of a rose, or in an unselfish deed to appeal to our brains. Those moments that tug at our heart strings are meant to be the things that sustain our emotional health, and indeed our faith in humanity. Surely logic cannot be reconciled with this fact? Surely these two concepts are mutually exclusive?

Ahh, not so. It is in understanding things that I’ve found wonderment. It is in our capacity to reason that I’ve found beauty. I’ll give two examples: one of epic proportions, one on an individual scale.

I recently read a paper calling for the complete overhaul of our legal system. The underlying sentiment is this: our understanding of blameworthiness is a faulty one. The paper cites as an example the case of a father and husband, a seemingly average successful middle-class man, who one day began writing of a strange obsession that had overtaken him, namely, the thought of inflicting pain upon, even ending the lives of his family. The man eventually killed his entire family- wife, children, and in-laws. It was later discovered that the man had a brain tumour, and it was verified that said tumour was the cause of these unnatural inclinations. Blameworthiness, then, takes on a whole new shade of grey. Even child molesters, it is now thought, may be said to have a physical defect of which they can be cured. The conclusion was that we must, before every trial, look for physical brain defects to determine blameworthiness. This seems to me a huge leap in the furtherance of humanity. After all, the conclusion implies that we’ve been executing people for their physical defects. The beauty of empathy and compassion, here, is the direct result of the work of innumerable professionals, whose body of knowledge cultivated in a deeper understanding of the human condition.

On a more individual level, take this example: imagine the prototypical self-destructive personality (I’m sure you know one of them personally). Imagine the actions, destructive of course, that have led to the anxiety, depression, or helplessness that inevitably overcome this person. Imagine that you know enough of the human mind to find the cause of their behavior. Now, suppose you used that knowledge to appeal to their sense of courage, of personal responsibility, and of faith in themselves. Without reaching inside themselves, with your help, to invoke these qualities, they would be condemned to live the life in the same condition in which you found them: despair. Yet, through your knowledge, the culmination in you of the understanding of the human mind, this person now understands the steps that must be taken to lead a fulfilling life. It could hardly be said that your knowledge of said person, or of the human condition itself, could not have been arrived at without the assistance of the research of countless others: of cold, hard facts about the brain. (An argument could be made against this: that a body of knowledge could be accrued through simple experience. I am referring to a knowledge including recent breakthroughs in the field, such as the fact that humans, when presented with facts contrary to their beliefs, only further embed their false beliefs, rather than reconstructing their beliefs around the given facts). Again, an example of reason being used to further a world of which our hearts would emphatically approve.

This is where I want our world to be. This is why I feel so strongly about the pursuit of knowledge, of the progression of we mortals. The heart and mind do not need to be mutually exclusive elements. They can- and must- meet in a spectacular explosion, inevitably producing what can only be described as the music of the universe.

On Thinking

I’ve been accused, on a somewhat regular basis, of thinking too much- the implication being that I’m a bit too serious. Since I so love my irony, I’ve been thinking about thinking.

“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking,” Voltaire once said. The fact that this quote comes to mind more readily than others speaks to crux of the problem of thinking too much: it’s a difference in perspective on life itself, the lens through which I view the world. If the goal of thinking is to resolve a problem, and I think quite often, then I must view the world as a series of problems to be solved. If I look back on my short adult life, I realise that this is increasingly true. Each day, I see more and more of the world which needs to change. We’ve come a long way as a society, but the problems of humanity that have so outraged are not that far behind us. Given the age of mankind, political alliance through marriage, for example, are not exactly ancient history. It wasn’t too long ago that Galileo was burned for his ideas. Or, take much more recent history: segregation, for example, creationism, or the current gay rights movement. With so many wrongs that need righted, how can one not set aside time to ponder?

Not that I will solve these problems- I simply understand the importance of questioning the norm. After all, the above-mentioned atrocities were once considered the norm, at least within each offender’s respective society. The point is it took a new perspective, a new kind of courage, in each instance, to change the way the world viewed each problem. How, then, did this change in perspective come about? Inevitably, it starts with the individual. The printing press, the discovery that the earth was round, the economic policies that led to the Recession- all of these things began to change the world’s perspective by changing a single person (or group of persons)’s perspective. There are so many things that need changed today- the industrial age is at an end, and the workforce needs to change with it. Democracy and capitalism themselves have reached the tipping point, and we must now question the very fundamentals of the system in which we live. There’s no end to the challenges we face as a whole. As Einstein put it, “The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Yet, there must be something more personal involved. I don’t intend to change the world, so why do I think about these things? Socrates famously said that a live unexamined is not worth living. If my life is to be worth living, I must examine it- I must think. With more and more emerging research, mankind is starting to realise that our minds, our senses, our perceptions do little more than trick us all day long. We have now questioned the very purpose for which reason itself exists, or how much blameworthiness in a criminal can be attributed to free will, and how much to factors beyond the criminal’s control (physical, environmental, etc). If am to be the man that I hope to be, isn’t it imperative that I reflect on the way these emerging thoughts affect me as a man?

In the end, though, I have to agree that my detractors are right: I probably think too much. Combined with an understanding of myself in the here and now, developed largely through meditation practice, I also leave time for simply being here, now. Perhaps the problem is that I simply am not here and now often enough. Perhaps a little more balance is in order- and I thank those that have pointed out that I think too much for offering a little perspective on that balance. Perhaps, like alcohol, thinking serves us best in moderation.

On Hurt

There is a woman I follow on Tumblr- a woman who has repeatedly made me laugh, made me thankful for the gift of humanity, made me thankful to be alive. Recently she posted this:
“What’s worse?

a.) finding out you’re an aunt via mass email?

OR

b.) finding out you’re an aunt via mass Facebook post?

The correct answer is:

c.) finding out for one nephew via mass email, and then 2 years later finding out about the next nephew via Facebook

This is the definition of gut-wrenching. My heart literally hurts.

This is way too personal for me to be posting here, but I’m home alone and sobbing like a fucking baby.

There was this line in an email that my sister-in-law (who has always tried to bridge the giant gap after my family disowned me) sent me years ago, where she said, “Your brother was right. I should have listened to him when he said you weren’t worth it”.

And that’s exactly how I feel right now.

Worthless.

Forgettable.

Disposable.

And because of what?

Because I fell in love with a woman.

Because I left my husband.

Because I told the truth about who I am.

Because I couldn’t lie anymore.

It shouldn’t have to be this hard. There shouldn’t be so much pain over something as honest as the love that Natalie and I have for each other…yet here I am, once again crying over my keyboard and wishing I could learn how to stop this from hurting so much.”

I’ve often been asked how I came to feel the way I do about religion in general, and Christianity specifically. The above post is a prime example of why I adamantly feel that ours would be a better world if we, to use John Lennon’s words, imagined all the people livin’ life in peace. Yes, I’m a bit of a dreamer.

Most of my circle of family and friends are Christian. They’re good people- amazing people, even. Yet many of them, despite their basically good nature, embrace a belief system that inflicts this needless pain on other good people. Most of them believe that this woman is less worthy than they of the basic human right to happiness. They would hold firm to the belief that this woman deserves pain. I beg to differ, very, very strongly.

Pain is a necessary part, even an invaluable part of the human existence, but it need not be inflicted needlessly by cultivated hate. Examine your norms. Examine your principles. If the hate you feel in your heart coincides with your beliefs, it’s time to reexamine your beliefs.

If you’d like to hear more from this woman, and get a taste of her extraordinary zest for life (and love for her partner), you can find her here.