Annoy An Intellectual: Think For Yourself

     On the drive to Phoenix the other day, the radio off, the hum of the tires hushing my mental static, the AC smooth and energizing, my mind started to wander and wonder. It occurred to me that there are a number of bumper stickers I'd like to see:

• Annoy a conservative: Support free enterprise
• Annoy a liberal: Support tolerance and diversity
• Support Clinton and Trump: Buy them prison cells
• Annoy an environmentalist: Use the Earth's resources wisely
• Support women: Fight feminism
• Be a man: Admit your vulnerabilities
• Support American business: Stop corporate welfare
• Fight ignorance: Stop knowing everything
• Fight crime: help criminals
• Fight ISIS: Stop killing Muslims
• Stop fighting for world peace
• Annoy a Muslim: Follow the Koran
• Annoy a Christian: Follow Jesus

     Hopefully, the pattern here is becoming clear: You can accomplish the stated goals of most groups by doing the opposite of what they are doing.

     After I got over my self-satisfaction, realizing that I can be just as hypocritical as the next person, I resolved to add a couple of questions to the list of affirmations I recite to myself every morning: "What methods are you using to meet your needs? How are they working?"

     Now just after sunrise each day, as I sip my warm and creamy, soothing yet stimulating coffee, I invariably see something I did the day before that worked against me. For example, this morning I thought of how the two dollars I wasted on a lottery ticket will not help with the budget I worry so much about.

     I'm not always strong enough to change the behavior that day. But I've increased my awareness. I've informed the little angel whispering into one of my ears of the problem.

     An annoyed conscience is a powerful force for positive change.

     If we truly believe in making the world a better place, if we truly want to live the most fulfilling lives we can, it's incumbent upon all of us to politely make our own and other people's consciences aware of all our ideological contradictions and counterproductive actions.

     Change usually won't happen right away, even among the most courageous and honest of us. But a little ruthlessly candid self-examination goes a long way in the long run.

     We all have room to grow. If we didn't, where could we go from here?    

The Secret to Life

I have discovered the secret to my life.

It's a simple four-step process:

1. Accept all the people and situations I cannot control
2. Accept that one thing I cannot control is that I might die at any moment
3. Ask myself, "If I were on my deathbed, what would I wish I'd have done more of?"
4. Start doing more of it

Some things I would NOT regret on my deathbed:

• I would not wish I'd have worked more hours
• I would not wish I'd have worried more
• I would not wish I'd have hung onto resentments longer and more strongly
• I would not wish I'd have taught more idiots lessons and proved I was right more often
• I would not wish I'd have acted more in line with society's expectations of me
• I would not wish I'd have accumulated more mementos, cars, gadgets, houses, and money
• I would not wish I'd have impressed more people whose opinion I don't value

Some things I WOULD regret on my deathbed:

• I would wish I'd have connected on a deeper level and more often with the Divine in the world
• I would wish I'd have connected on a deeper level and more often with my loved ones
• I would wish I'd have been kinder and more understanding to all people
• I would wish I'd have acted more on principles, and less on expediency
• I would wish I'd have believed in myself more
• I would wish I'd have lightened up more often and enjoyed the ride
• I would wish I'd have drawn clearer boundaries between my concerns and other people's concerns
• I would wish I had not hurt anyone unnecessarily
• I would wish I had lived a more meaningful and happy life
• I would wish I had gone for it and chased my dreams every day

The fact is, the last list above is not what I would regret, it's what I do regret.
What would you not give a damn about on your deathbed?
What would you wish you'd have done more of?
What do you regret?
Turn around your regrets, and you'll know your secret to life.

The Last 52 Years. This Moment.

All the matters I worry so about are just technique and derivative. The real issue to concern myself with is whether I can die right now without regrets, feeling my life has been enough.

The question is not how long I have gone on. The question is not whether I have sucked all the juice I could out of life. The question is: In the time remaining after seeing the importance of the question, has the life I lived measured up to a good life by my own standards?

What I did before this realization is irrelevant water under the bridge. What matters is: If I die ten seconds from now, will I be able to be at peace with the way I spent those last seconds? That's the only question truly worth worrying about. But if I spend the next ten seconds worrying, all will be lost.

To remain at peace with oneself is the only thing that matters. Everything else - whether one is living in the street, whether people like you, whether you have discovered the "meaning of life," even whether God loves you - are questions for superficial people. What matters most to the person of substance and wisdom is not, "Do I have a job," or "Where is my next meal coming from," or "Why is life kicking me in the head." What matters most to the Sage is, "Am I doing right by my own deepest values in this moment - or will I die three seconds from now having let myself down.  Will I spend my last moments having betrayed all that was dearest to me?"  Did I learn my lesson?

To the extent that I don't know what I want my life to mean in this moment, I am an ignoramus.

That is all there is to wisdom. The rest is mere technique.

Every crisis in life therefore demands an immediate come-to-Jesus moment. Can I truly make the best of this situation, be at peace with how it affects me and how I affect it - or do I take action to change things RIGHT NOW so I am not betraying myself? (The best such action perhaps being to wait).

That is all there is to practical action decisions. All else is derivative.

Yet we live and learn. And we compromise when necessary. We will all fail ourselves again and again. Live not in regret, for that is another failure. Live only in ruthless determination to be the person you want to be from now on. Any moment could be your last.

No one accepts fully that any moment could be her last. Hence, no one truly lives without regrets. Only those facing death squarely in the eyes every moment - with all the terror this implies - ever live a moment genuinely free from terror. In the rest of us, terror lives just under the surface. Morbid panic raises its destructive head whenever we become uncertain, confused, put upon, or face other trials.

Who can live at peace with terrifying truth every moment of their lives? Only those who know what they value and who don't betray those values. Alas, if one's highest value is life itself, one betrays that value the moment one dies. Then all is lost. That's why only the life well lived, the moment of complete integrity to oneself, remains an accomplishment throughout one's existence. Any old bacteria can cling tenaciously to life.

Animals with nervous systems have options. Animals with free will have responsibilities. The Sage chooses to fulfill her obligations to her own highest values. Only then can she say at the end of her life "I have been honest with myself all the way down. I may have made mistakes, I may have chosen unwisely or even immorally at times, but once I realized how trivial suffering is in comparison to being at peace in one's soul, I acted accordingly."

As Pablo Picasso said, "Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone."

Words to live and die by.

The Self as Happy Disciplinarian

          No matter how social we are, it seems a good bet that 70% or more of the talking we do is to ourselves. The talk may be silent.  It may not come in complete sentences or even in words at all.  It is self-talk nonetheless.
          This talk is important because it is often self-fulfilling.  It's even possible that all of our thoughts are self-fulfilling in a certain sense.  If you believe you can't do something, you usually can't.  Even if it turns out you can, your negative self-appraisal, your questioning of your abilities, has left traces in the neural networks of your brain.
          That is:  What we say to ourselves teaches our brains.  Self-talk teaches us how to think of ourselves and the world.  So we need to pay close attention to GIGSI: garbage in, garbage stays in.
          If the idea of self-talk implies self-teaching, what concept accounts for learning?
          Interestingly, a word meaning 'learning' is the origin of the two words 'disciple' and 'discipline.' Thus, we could say that a disciple is one who learns while a discipline is a learning.
          But what of our more common understanding of discipline?  We normally say things such as, "Teachers need to discipline students."  Or we say that self-discipline means self-control.
          Here now we get to the crux of the matter: self-discipline is self-control, yes.  But discipline is also how a person learns.
          How does this learning work in practice?  If you're like me, the idea of discipline brings to mind images of drill sergeants yelling at recruits.  Teachers putting dunce caps on misbehaving pupils.  People who have screwed up asking themselves, "Are you ever going to learn, you moron? Straighten up and fly right!"
          These approaches to discipline assume that we are stubborn mules.  We need to be whipped into shape.  If we could have done it right on our own, we would have done it right.  We are misfits.
          Is that true?  More importantly, are berating ourselves for mistakes and driving ourselves with a whip the most effective ways to teach ourselves self-control?  Or are there better ways?  Could it be that self-criticism does not help us control ourselves, but only makes us more likely to act like the stubborn mules we keep assuming we are?
          Consider the effects of saying the following to yourself:  "I act in noble ways, because I'm noble, and I'm going to prove that again and again.  I can do this.  I deserve the rewards of a job well done.  Do the right thing, because that's the kind of person you are."
          If self-talk is self-fulfilling, then telling ourselves we expect ourselves to do noble things because that's the kind of people we are should turn us into heroes.
          A discipline that encourages rather than tears down teaches us to strive to be better.  We might have to shade into a bit of negativity when we make mistakes because we do want to acknowledge that we erred.  However, even this finger-on-a-hot-stove learning can be framed more productively. Instead of, "Get it together - quit screwing up," we could say, "You're better than that."
          Which is more effective discipline ... which is more effective teaching ... which view of ourselves do we want to create in our brains?  What do we want to learn? Who do we want to be?
       

2016 New Year's Musings

          People with any appreciable amount of experience understand the truth of the saying, "Youth is wasted on the young."

          Here are a few extensions of the principle:

1. People with a good sense of value understand that wealth is wasted on the rich.
2. People who appreciate beauty understand that artistic talent is wasted on artists.
3. People who have known misfortune understand that luck is wasted on the lucky.
4. People who know the proper uses of force understand that strength is wasted on the strong.
5. People who see all that needs to be done in the world understand that time and effort is wasted on the efficient.  Others who understand the waste of efficient people are those who appreciate a job well done, and those who can sense the personal meaningfulness of mindful work.
6. The wise understand that brains are wasted on the intelligent, truth and knowledge are wasted on the educated, while libraries, pens, paper and word processors are wasted on the literate.
7. People with compassion understand that charitableness and tolerance are wasted on the touchy-feely.
8. Good people understand that morality is wasted on the righteous.

          I could go on.  I imagine the reader could add to the list.  But the point is:
          What are you doing with your gifts?  Using them isn't enough.

Religion: The Next Step in Evolution

     Humans and many other organisms have evolved pleasure-pain mechanisms. To the extent that any evolved capacity can have a "purpose," the purpose of pleasure is to guide us towards those actions that preserve our health.  The evolutionary "purpose" of pain is to warn us away from harmful actions.  Pleasure and pain are our headlights illuminating a sometimes brutally dark and dangerous world.

     Humans, however, can hold values higher than pleasure.  We can place civility, honesty, bravery, loyalty, love, compassion, and many other values above pleasure.  We can do this because we have evolved free will; we have evolved the ability to guide ourselves, even when swimming against the stream of electrons flowing through our biological pain-pleasure wiring.

     But we still rely on headlights.  These "higher" values don't come into our brains out of thin air.  Aside from a few twists we as individuals add to them, aside from an innovation here and there, and aside from how we apply them to our unique individual lives, the basics of our values have been conditioned into us by our cultures.

     Evolutionists have long noted that culture itself is an outgrowth of evolution.  Cultures evolve out of our drive to avoid pain and pursue pleasure.  By which I mean: Cultures are ever-evolving repertoires of tools for survival and prosperity.  Less useful tools are usually dispensed with during the course of cultural evolution, the same way species lose features that ill-suit them to their environments.  Sometimes, as we all know, cultures create and preserve harmful practices.  In the same way, the pleasure-pain mechanism is not infallible.

     So our cultures have evolved these "higher" values.  And these higher values, on balance, serve us well. Religions play a role in creating and maintaining values that "transcend" pleasure and pain. But in fact the healthy religious values don't transcend the pleasure and pain mechanism at all.  Healthy religious values extend the range of the pleasure-pain headlights further into the darkness.

     Take the Christian virtue of love.  Jesus is said by the Bible to have replaced the punitive commandments of the Old Testament with a value system based on only three new commandments:  1) Love God with all your heart; 2) Love your neighbor ... as you 3) Love yourself.

     We can question whether Christianity originated the concept of a higher, spiritual love.  We can also question whether Judaism, out of which Christianity sprang, originated a higher love value either.

     But it's pretty hard to argue with the fact that sacrifice plays a central role in the Christian conception of spiritual love, and in the love-conceptions of many other world religions.  The bulk of the New Testament deals either directly or indirectly with the significance of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Jesus held that this sacrifice was done out of love for us sinners, and it is clear from the New Testament that Jesus taught the importance of sacrificial service.  Leaders in the Christian system are ideally not those who promote themselves, but rather those who serve.

     I think it's fair to say that Christianity's central tenets, so far as they apply to secular life, can be summed up by saying that Christian love is achieved by sacrificial service.  During one of the most important Christian rituals, communion, Christians are told to take the bread and wine in remembrance of Christ's sacrifice for us.  At the same time, the bread and wine are viewed as "the body and blood" of Jesus Christ.  Bread and wine are spiritual food to Christians, who are also viewed as members of Christ's body.  Christians therefore fill themselves with self-sacrificial love, with the essence of Christ, when taking communion.

     It might be argued that Christianity didn't invent this conception of love either.  Sacrificial offerings for the sake of connecting to Divine Love date back to well before Christianity.  That doesn't matter for my purposes.  All that matters is that in most cultures, the greatest advocates for sacrificial love have usually belonged to one religious tradition or another.  This applies to love of Higher Powers, interpersonal love, and love of one's own Divine humanity.

     My punchline is this:  Sacrificial love does not imply painful love.  Pain can sometimes be involved.  Adding sacrifice, and the possibility of pain, to the equation is one respect in which religious love modifies the pleasure-pain mechanism as a guide to action.  But for the most part sacrificial love and pleasure are complementary. They fit each other the way batteries fit a powerful flashlight.

     That is, for the most part love - even when it involves sacrifice - brings some kind of happiness, satisfaction, comfort, or other enjoyable feeling.

     Defining love is a notoriously intractable problem.  Nonetheless the positive effects of what most people can agree on as actualized love can be seen all around us:  rewarding interpersonal relationships, beloved children nurtured by caring teachers and parents, charitable organizations, beautiful works of literature and art and monuments inspired by love ... It's not hard to make a long list of the ways love helps humans to survive and prosper.

     Thus love is a cultural value that furthers the interests of humanity.  Throughout history, religion has been more responsible than any other cultural institution for propagating this prosperity value. Love evolved from the pleasure-pain mechanism.  Love is a guide to action.  Religion added to the guidance of love the further guidance that self-sacrifice is the power source for the bright guiding light of happiness love gives us.

     Thus religious self-sacrificial love is not properly understood as the denial of earthly pleasures. Asceticism is largely a perversion of religious love.  Rather religious self-sacrificial love - and romantic self-sacrificial love, and paternal love, and just plain love - are steps on our long evolution from beasts of fate, scratching mere subsistence out of the mud, to happy, self-directing spiritual beings.