Lumpy Thoughts Make Lumpy Decisions

A common issue I see in today's Facebook battles is an inability to distinguish differences and account for more than one point of view. For instance, there are protests throughout the country. Some people shout that they are peaceful protesters being shot up with rubber bullets, gassed, and kidnapped by unmarked federal forces. Other people scoff at the ridiculousness of this since clearly they are rioting, looting, setting fire to police cars, and so on. Thus, they deserve what they get. The problem, of course, is that both of these are entirely true for some and entirely false for others. This is not an all or nothing thing. It is a lot like the elephant where each blind person feels different parts, but instead of each blind person being wrong and it all makes an elephant, they're all claiming they're seeing an elephant when indeed they're actually seeing spears, fans, snakes, walls, trees, and rope and mistaking them for tusks, ears, trunk, torso, legs, and tail of the same elephant.

Freedoms are indeed being repressed. Peaceful protesters should not be silenced. But when this sentiment is spoken, those who see the violence (seeing spears, thinking tusks, and calling it an elephant) and think that this accounts for all protesters believe this is complete malarkey. There is no freedom to light things on fire. That is not free speech. And they're right. The problem is, they're talking about two completely different groups of people. Of course, few try and few succeed at making this distinction. Our way is correct and there is no cause for thinking otherwise. Enough people believe just like me and therefore there is no reason to assume these other people could possibly have anything valid to say.

And I totally get it. We have limited time. I can't look into every single conspiracy theory. And just as easily as it is for me to say we should trust our CDC, others find it just as easy to say we should simply trust our president. I'm not going to sit and listen to people claiming there's a worldwide conspiracy within the CDC and others aren't going to listen to my rhetoric on how Trump's every move is an angle to gain power and sew corruption. If enough people back you, it's easy to put others aside. And if we decide to listen to such people of opposing viewpoints, there are literally hundreds of thousands of points of view and conspiracy theories to take interest in. Did we really land on the moon? Was 9/11 an inside job? Are the Clintons running a mob? Did aliens really abduct people and perform probes? And when we look into it, we again have to decide who to trust for the data to make such decisions. It's all just too much. At what point is it checking out to ignore and at what point is it being duped by conspiracy to give in and consider?

In short, we all have to make snap judgments and decide who we're going to trust. Some will get it right for some things and some will get it wrong for other things. Still others will have to decide when the right time is to listen to contrary words and make a new decision. It's tough. We all have our own bubbles of insight, people are speaking from many different points of view, we filter it through our own views with false group assumptions, and it's nearly impossible to even first comprehend what another person is saying let alone give any credence to their thoughts. When someone already believes that the protests are all violent, they aren't for a second, going to consider that rights are being taken away by the government's response to it. Uh doy. Of course not. To even claim their rights are taken away is a quick trip to shut up town because you're dumb and not worth listening to. Similarly, if someone tells you that all lives matter, we must immediately believe they're contradicting Black Lives Matter and any justification of themselves is now unworthy of thought and consideration. Both sides make their snap judgments, close their ears, and go away cursing the other.

It shouldn't be like this. And really, there should be an easy way to decide what's worth the time. let's simply put a number to it. If over one quarter of the population believes something, it's probably worth researching carefully. You can draw the line somewhere else, but if it's not a fringe belief, there just might be some legit reasoning behind it. Let's do a little more listening and a lot less assuming and a lot less grouping things that should not be grouped. The finer we make our groups, the more accurate we can be with our snap judgments. There is no "the protesters." There are "violent protesters" and there are "peaceful protesters." There are "protesters in Oregon" and there are "protesters in Washington." We need to stop lumping lest we make lumpy decisions. Let's make precise decisions instead. Stop lumping!

Memoirs and Last Testament

I can only imagine I will soon begin to die a slow and painful death and so I decided to write my memoirs before it was too late.

Life was always hard for me. I think many people saw my successes and probably thought I had it all together--completely oblivious to the pain and torment of my own mind. Other people, of course, thought I was a terrible jerk for one reason or another. I never could understand why since I tried so hard to be kind and understanding and I'd sooner blamed myself for all that went wrong rather than any other human. In fact, the one thing I wish to leave as a legacy is my persistent pursuit of promoting kindness and understanding in a world hell-bent on divisiveness, loathing, and selfishness. I wrote the book Christians Are Revolting as a means to express how Christians are no longer living out this very creed from Jesus and I used my own life and failures to explain it. I do wonder how much of it was my own false perspective from my own negativity, but Facebook at least makes me believe the situation is rather dire.

Despite my persistence in promoting kindness, I can't say I was always that great at it myself. My own demons haunt me, of course, like they do anyone else. I didn't always act out my greatest desires, but for such faults I am at least ashamed. I never did feel good enough for some reason. I enjoyed many successes but always felt the outcast. Perhaps it was merely impostor syndrome, but I also believe it was a simple manner of fitting in. Without being much like the rest of humanity, my successes didn't matter as I could never feel accomplished if I always felt shunned. And in some regard, success leads to all the more shunning. And so, I kept looking higher as if success was never achieved and I forever dreamt of more to come and the day that people would finally find my words and ideas to have value.

A penny for my thoughts, oh no I'll sell them for a dollar

They're worth so much more after I'm a goner

And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'

Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'

 

                                                           ~If I Die Young - The Band Perry

I hope this is true of me as well. Perhaps a legacy can live on once I am gone even if I never get to see it while I yet live. Alas, perhaps that is mere ego and thinking myself more highly than I ought. And if I failed to be what my main goal was, what good was I overall?

I wish I could have been better for those directly around me. I focused so much on the larger and grander scheme of things when my own children, wife, friends, and family could perhaps have done with a little more interaction. I wouldn't say I neglected anyone, but I never felt I went enough out of my way to make someone's day which is perhaps the better part of kindness. I focused perhaps too heavily on passive kindness and trying to prevent jerk behavior rather than promoting actual kind behavior. I focused on kindly trying to express ideas or comprehending another's ideas rather than kindly trying to make someone's day. I never did truly learn to love, I suppose, and I'm sure I've missed the many times it was shown to me due to my lust for changing the world for the better. I could have made the lives around me better instead, but I focused too much on the world.

I would like to apologize to my children if I seemed too distant, unreachable, and emotionally disconnected besides anger. I never got a handle on those softer emotions and quite nearly replaced everything with logic instead. Much like Spock, I found solace in logic and gave in to anger on occasion as part of my humanness. But most humans need more than that and I utterly failed to provide it. I've always cared, however, even if I lacked the skills to show it. I hope all the greatest success for you all and I hope I helped prepare you for the world more so than I gave you mental disorders to overcome. With any luck, you'll turn out a little bit better than me and your children in turn a little better than you. Let us keep a chain of progression.

To my wife as well, I wish I could have been more. We have been through a lot together and I can't help but believe most of our struggles were my own. Despite this, I found you to be an overall excellent partner. I found no one else on Earth who could understand me the way you have and who could put up with my crazy overly-dramatic dispositions. All this said, I just showed her my memoir here and she just rolled her eyes at me and said the poison ivy isn't going to kill me. Well, we'll just see about THAT!

Relativity in Relation to Life Satisfaction

Relativity is an interesting concept to ponder. Nearly every person's predicament on the planet today is far better than the predicaments of those 5000 years ago and yet we continue to see the woes of others when compared with ourselves. What exactly is the goal? When will we find that things are good enough? Nearly every human has it better than the animals of the wild, so from a moral standpoint, what is our ground for complaint? I have running water. Some people do not. I have access to computers while many others do not. Is this unfair? Does it matter? Is it something to rectify? Or is it something to accept? While I may have running water and computers, I still lack a second home, a private jet, and many things that yet others have. It has always been this way where some lack what others have. At what point is it a cause to take up arms and fight for?

I live in a rather unique country. I personally feel as if there is support to help anyone get on their feet and to be as successful as their mind can take them. Of course, how a mind matures is highly dependent on genes and culture. So is it truly fair to let the mind be the fulcrum by which we reach our heights? A great deal of success is also likely just luck which is quite similar to the conditions in which we are born: race, gender, country. Given the constraints of wherever it is and however it is we are born, we can be more successful than those around us if our ambition and minds so allow it. I may never be able to top Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jeff Bezos, but I might very well do better than my neighbors and family. For someone born in the slums of India, it is even less likely that they'll compete with the 1% of America, but they might still compete with those nearest them. With enough ingenuity, perhaps they can have a shelter that blocks more rain, withstands more wind, and so on. Things that I take for granted might be the very things that sets one of them apart that brings them joy and satisfaction that even I may not have yet experienced.

Even though I may never be a billionaire, the privileges, comforts, and healthcare that I do possess is already a thousand times more than kings of the past. Anyone with running water is already surpassing our ancient ancestors. So by what means should we judge conditions? What should we fight for when it comes to fairness? I'm not sure this question has a great answer. It seems a lot like we ought to mind our own business and simply work with what we've got to get ahead. Despite growing up in the same area as others, I might be blessed with a mind that enables me to be more successful. Of course, I did not choose my own mind any more than anyone else. Then again, if we chose our minds, by what means could we even make such a choice unless our minds were first available? This relativity brings me right back to the same idea: things simply will be what they are. 

And this is a frightening thought. If this is true, it almost seems like things aren't worth fighting for. It seems like we ought to be every man for himself. And this would make for a terrible outcome. People absolutely must care and have the thoughts of others in their minds lest the world devolve into chaos which is good for no one. It does make me think, however, that perhaps we should focus more locally. Instead of the grand scheme of things, unless it is our responsibility to run a state or country, perhaps we should simply be the best we can be in our own neighborhoods under whatever conditions the world throws at us. Gain local support and renown. Attend to the injustices we see around us rather than even attempting to contemplate the entire world. 

But what of areas that are run-down and are in need of external support? Or should we care? Surely some location is the worst on the planet, but every other one is doing better than another. And most, still, are doing better than those in the past. It is truly relative. Perhaps we ought to let them simply sort it out themselves if it is not our local neighborhood? And if we truly care, maybe it's best to simply make it our neighborhood? After all, who better than those from within to correct it? It's far too complicated to know the next step of a population that is so many steps below you. It is far easier to see the next step when you're beside it. Maybe we ought to simply join the causes directly or else be quiet about them?

It all seems rather calloused to simply let others work it out themselves, yet at the same time the relativity of the situations allows for peace and joy that we might not think possible even in dire conditions. Sure, a group may lack Facebook and YouTube, but they might very well enjoy their non-tech lives. This relativity of experience and the culture one derives around it is exactly why some people choose to remain Amish. Had they not been raised Amish, it is quite likely they never would have chosen it. This relativity is a very powerful thing. I simply cannot resolve it in my mind. There are too many twists, turns, and caveats to really determine what the "best" course of action is. In the end, I am one of billions with impractical insight from having lived in my own bubble. What I deem important and right could very well differ from the very ones I may look down upon in sorrow. The Amish lifestyle is no way to live life, but only because I did not grow up within it. Still, it's hard to imagine that they were not simply brainwashed and that this, too, is something to correct. Culture and relativity might very well outweigh my many own perspectives of what is right. If people are happy where they are, who am I to complain? And if they are not, who are others to care? For anyone who might care, I find it intolerable that I do not have riches pouring out my ears, so if anyone would like to correct that, I'd be much obliged. Thanks in advance!

Zero Tolerance for Tolerance

The lessons we learn in our younger years are perhaps the hardest lessons to master. Perhaps it is good, then, that we learn them early to provide as much time as possible to work on them. Every sitcom and lecture provided to me as a child told of the woes of racism, sexism, and intolerance. Star Trek, among other space-faring serials, would quite often lead to a conflict requiring tolerance of different alien species. So much was it drilled in my head as a child that I had mistakenly believed that humans understood the message. If they didn't, why would all these shows be continually emphasizing it? I came to realize, however, that not only are humans bad at it (hence the continual attempts to teach it), it is often masked and hidden in plain sight.

I'd like to think that the majority of first-world humans knows that we do not discriminate based upon race or gender. One's skin color or gender is not something to determine whether or not a person is good or bad. That, however, is about as far as humans have comprehended it. If we were space-faring, we would be making enemies at every turn for this very reason. We struggle so evidently at the ability to recognize differences in thought as being similarly acceptable to differences in physical appearance. Instead, the only acceptable differences in humanity's eyes are skin color, male/female, and neutral tastes for food, fashion, and entertainment. We are so terrible at comprehending what tolerance truly means that we take race and gender tolerance to their extremes while foregoing all other forms of tolerance. Such extremes themselves beget intolerance in a guise of morality.

When we lack the ability to contrive of tolerance as an acceptance of differing ideas, opinions, and cultures based upon the genes and upbringing afforded to each of us, tolerance becomes a moral imperative of rigidity and rules. To be tolerant of gender becomes a requirement that women must be afforded all the same responsibilities and found in equal numbers to man. To think otherwise is now deemed intolerant when in fact tolerance would very much lead us to conclude that we ought to accept that there might be natural differences or, at the very least, that it is okay for someone to presume so even if it is not the case. Tolerance is the ability to accept a person for where they are as derived from whence they came without ousting them as evil. To do otherwise is no different than charging a person as evil for the skin in which they were raised. We simply don't choose it. Tolerance is the ability to agree to disagree or to even embrace differences without resorting to hatred.

Race and gender were the first categories that we humans have learned to tolerate. Some have since moved on to tolerating multiple views on religion, but unfortunately that is still a rather solid source of us versus them hatred and fear. Perhaps the final category, however, is that of a person's systems of morals, ethics, and virtue. This category is, by far, the hardest to overcome and is quite often tied to religion making it easily comparable in difficulty. In Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, he goes into great detail regarding the political left's and the political right's overarching methods of determining moral behavior. Such fundamental differences cause a great deal of hatred and, being moral in nature, are fairly immutable ideas. If it is immoral to me to wipe my feet on a flag, I can't hardly find it acceptable for another to do the same. That is what morals are, after all: the foundation of right and wrong. 

One cannot be fine with condoning what is wrong, and therefore one must be fine with being intolerant for another person's perspective if it differs. And this is exactly the very nature of tolerance that we, as a human species, must learn to accept. Different people find different things wrong and that is okay. The other direction is much more difficult however: different people find different things perfectly acceptable. Imagine we find an alien species whose children have sex with their grandparents. Are we going to be able to accept that species or are we going to attempt to show them the error of their ways? Perhaps for them sex does not have such a taboo whereas eating and defecating do and they'd find us similarly repulsive for dining rooms and public restrooms. There are so many ways in which right and wrong can differ between people and we need to find the proper line for tolerance.

Barring alien species, the intolerance I see today along a political line is absolutely appalling. It is so rancid with hatred that one cannot even request that we attempt to get along without being labeled as a Nazi. We have so utterly lost our way that we find such intolerance to be the only tolerable way. If you have not already come to my exact understanding and position when it comes to racism and sexism, then you are clearly an evil bigot bent on the destruction of the world. There is no room for you to speak, you are evil, and we might as well burn you at the stake like a witch. Everything you say is evil, you are simply trying to justify your behavior, and your dog-whistle word-choices are secret signs and ways of banding like-minded ill-intended bigots to your side. You must be stopped at all cost and there is no reason to give you a platform to voice your opinion ever again. Freedom of speech is not meant for you because you are clearly an evil, hating, misogynistic, racist pig.

Far be it from me to only provide one side of the argument however. You may say such things about me, but you're just being hateful yourself and pandering to criminals. You want to push down people who work hard for what they have just to give handouts to those who don't deserve it. You would steal from a CEO just to give his money to corrupt and lazy beggars who refuse to lift a finger in a country where all your dreams can come true with effort. You want to kill innocent babies just because you're too sleezy to keep your junk in your pants! You want to take away our rights, silence us, and bring us to our knees in submission until everyone is like everyone else. You are weak-willed, snobby, whiners, and complainers about every single tiny little offense! Your very breath is evil bent on destroying our country and bringing us to our knees like sheep to the slaughter! You must be stopped at all cost lest we die at your mercy!

This is our political climate. Tolerance of either side is clearly tolerance for evil and thus tolerance becomes a love of intolerance and intolerance becomes the only defense of true tolerance. It is disgusting. It is vile. We must rise above it, but we have quite the "chicken and the egg" problem. The only way to fix this is through a cultural shift and education of the masses. But how can we get that without already culturally shifting to encourage such tolerance and educate people regarding it? There are very few of us out there who see the need for such tolerance to begin with. I assume we need to continue to speak out and show the way, but this is an extremely self-detrimental action of loneliness and despair. The world hates a peacemaker and such efforts are met with hostility. It makes enemies of both and friends of few. Alas, it appears outside my nature to anything but that. And so, I write. And so I speak out. And so I try much to my own consternation.

But where do we draw the line, anyway? We can't let people molest children and simply claim they have a different idea of right and wrong! We can't simply let people go on treating black individuals as lesser than human and denying them rights, and we can't simply let people go on treating women as objects for their personal enjoyment. We must take a stand! Perhaps the trick is in preventing the behavior while allowing the belief. Despite disagreeing with such stances, we should at the very least be capable of comprehending that their minds were uniquely created to come to such differing perspectives. We cannot hate them for it since we do not get to choose the very nature by which our genes compose us and our culture grows us. We need not hate such people. We simply need to band together, as a collective, to decide what we will deem to be right and wrong for ourselves. That's what democracy is all about. And we need to learn to accept the overall choices and be fine with the differences of understanding even if we do not always agree or get our way. This is true tolerance. It is far more than skin color and gender. To focus too strongly on those is to do away with tolerance altogether. In the end, if a significant portion of a population believes something, there is a good chance there is a means by which it can be deemed acceptable even if untrue. We are not the epitome of righteousness and it is time to stop acting like we are.

The Fault with Reason in an Unreasonable World

The Chicken Who Couldn't Cross the Road

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

This quote rings persistently in my ears. A plethora of nuance reverberates throughout my soul by which I become unreasonably reasonable and thus useless as an agent for change. Never so simple are things which would cause a reasonable man to pick a side being left, right, black, or white. It would stand to reason that reason would be the best approach to any situation, and yet this seems not to be the case. In a world lacking reason for which attempted reason is reason enough to be outcast, it would seem that sensibilities ought to be ditched altogether. Reason, then, does little good but conflate the sorrow of the one yielding it for seeing what is there yet being powerless within reason to change it. Perhaps, then, it is reasonable at times to be unreasonable for the sake of reason, but it would seem hardly possible for a reasonable man to abandon what seems to be right. Can the ends truly justify the means to abandon reason as a reasonable resort?

Nuance is the enemy of those who perceive things to be simple. Folks of a particular pigment of skin are either held back by those of differing pigments or they are casting their own shadow and are the source of their own suffering. There is no room for something in between or both to be right in their own way. Each side has their logic built from sources of which are both right and wrong, but they are forever unwilling to see the truth of the other and the faults of their own. Speaking such things is quite nearly a crime for which some have lost their jobs. Through intolerance for hate, they themselves become hateful and rage at would-be persons of discourse. In matters of morality, dissent is evil due to the blinding light that clarity brings and words become but ruckus and deafening moans of demons. Tolerance begets intolerance to intolerance which, when precise, would be noble, but the err of humanity is to foible in our ways of judgement. Thus intolerance even for intolerance becomes equivalent to evil begetting evil. Humanity may never wield intolerance appropriately and would do better to err on the side of tolerating intolerance when manifest in words alone. But intolerance and indifference to another's pain is the way of the majority--especially when defending the pain of another.

The troubles of minorities are clearly seen through increased crime, arrests, poverty, and success, but what makes this so is the ire of all. Human behavior is known far too well for its inability to adequately judge. It is known for drawing false conclusions, making rash insinuations, and being altogether incompetent at judging the motives, understandings, beliefs, and perceptions of others. Humans project their own feelings and worries upon others assuming they might be of a same mind as themselves. This is rarely the case, however, and many people of all colors, shapes, sizes, and genders find themselves worrying over things that others never knew, saw, or intended. We might all have thousands of stories where we misunderstood someone's intentions and motives or were the recipients of such ill-perceived ideas. Even contemplating our means of bipedal motion inhibits our very ability to perform the task with ever-growing suspicion that someone else might notice the failure.

If anxiety gives rise to false assumptions of the motives of others and causes our own stumbling, it seems clear that this would be compounded greatly in a perceived scenario of life and death. If we believed we had to walk a certain way lest others judge us and kill us, we might find more often than not that we are ever-suspicious of those who see us as we traverse the earth. And being so suspicious, we may very well bring about our own destruction assuming the fact were true. Even if it were complete fabrication, we might still cause problems for ourselves through the building of anxiety that manifests itself in other pitfalls of behavior.

I have now said all one needs to hear from one side of the fence. Minds are made and judgement has been rendered through the perceived intentions of my writing. I am clearly of an intolerant mind and worthy of silence and death. I am but a depraved Nazi worthy of death for having the audacity to make such claims as I never even made. Such is reason in an unreasonable world. Having offended only half the unreasonable world, however, I am forced to continue. The reasonable man cannot stop until all are offended at his words and wish him dead.

Despite the story of self-inflicted over-anxious harm, this does not yield an immediate solution nor does it account for the full story. False assumptions may be made of one's supposed racially biased demeanor, and yet it ignores entirely that many people today are indeed still prejudiced. That itself also ignores that prejudice comes from perception of stereotypes and stereotypes come from experience or depiction derived from experience or stories and myths passed down. The oppression of the past becomes the cause of behaviors that become the experience for stereotype which become the cause for suspicion which become the cause for anxiety, the cause for reversed suspicion, the cause for anger and frustration, the cause for violence, the cause for being mistreated, the cause for more suspicion and anger. The cycle never ends and while one side claims racism the other side claims stats and both are entirely true. What, then, is the solution?

I have personally tried reasoning. If people could understand the nuance and the cyclical nature of the beast, if they could see their own involvement in the anxiety of the oppressed despite attempting to be an ally, if they could see the increased hatred they are engendering, if others could see the actual suffering that is withstood and find some compassion, if they could comprehend that their bubbles could never adequately reflect the bubbles of others, if all could learn not to project and to assume the best rather than jumping to inhospitable fountains of hatred spewing from their mouths, just maybe a solution could be found. Just maybe injustice could be rectified from all sides. Alas, there is no room for understanding. Lines have been drawn and pitchforks sharpened. The torches are lit and witches will be found. I could claim it is unnecessary, but in a world where human nature is to deny reason, then what other choice is there but to be unreasonable?

And so, I sit and watch. The battle commences and I couldn't hardly pick one side or another. The mass hysteria will lead to catastrophic pain, suffering, and even fatalities on either and both sides, but change will occur. Change that could have occurred through conversation and reasoning if it were within the competencies of the human race to conceive. Not being a skill to be possessed, however, I can do little but hide my face as the blood sheds and the cries ring out. It could commence until such time as reason becomes a more readily available skill or until one side crushes enough of the spirits of the other to dominate. And in so crushing, the history books will be written with the praises of the glorious battle against the oppressors. Those whose every fiber was racism or else whose every fiber was big brother. Our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, may forever go down in history as evil thwarted and in so doing restoring the rights of the innocent when indeed all were villains bent on hate and destruction. 

After such a war, whichever villainous side is claimed defeated will stew and grow and build until such time as the unreasonable war reignites itself unless humanity learns to value, promote, and teach reasonability from a young age. Such ability is the only potential for saving lives via courteous discourse. Until that skill is acquired, flaming tongues and witch hunts will be the norm for the progress of nations. I hope beyond hope that soon enough reason, logic, empathy, and introspection of the human condition will be taught as fundamental principles in our educational institutions. That we will fade out the inability to discourse through knee-jerk reactions of ineptitude and grow our future generations to value insight, knowledge, and kindly discourse as a means to solve disputes. This is our best hope at prolonging the human race. I just hope we find it in time.