Greg Proffit Writing

Tag: life

  • 99 Life Tips – A List

    I keep a running list of life tips. Here are 99 Life Tips.

    Some of these need amplification, clarification, or general unpacking and I will turn them into their own posts and link them. As with all such advisory tips, no matter from what quarter, your mileage may vary. Without further ado:

    1. Show up. This is 90% of a job, a relationship, parenting, you name it. Be present.
    2. Do not ignore your discontent. Identify and embrace it.
    3. Own it when you’re wrong. Accepting fault that is yours is the hallmark of character, maturity, and humanity.
    4. Learn to apologize well – that includes not just what you did, but also how what you did made the other person feel. 
    5. Practice your strengths.
    6. Know your imperfections – You won’t get over them or get past them, you’ll drag them with you through life. You must learn where they live and what brings them out of the dark corners ready to embarrass the hell out of you if you let them escape.
    7. If you’re a guy, hold doors open for women. For that matter, if you arrive at door first, hold doors open for anyone. This way, if you meet the rare woman offended by your offering, you can explain, ”Hey, I hold doors open for anyone when I get to the door first.”
    8. If you’re a guy, open car doors for your date, girlfriend, wife, lover. It’s a small way to say, ”I’m aware of how lucky I am to have you in my life at this moment in time, and this is a simple way I can show it.”
    9. Be kind to waiters, waitresses, and service personnel. By kind, I mean, tip well. They are human beings doing a tough job. If you’re comfortable with it, ask for a first name, I do.
    10. Do not waste emotional energy over anything you cannot control. This does not apply to sadness or grief over tragedy or loss.
    11. Do not be afraid of feeling bad. There are things to feel bad about, and the contrast is a wonderful reminder of why gratitude is so important.
    12. Gratitude works its magic in the moment you become aware of something for which to be thankful. The more aware you become, the more the magic of gratitude will follow you throughout your day. It doesn’t work the same when practiced as a generalized, “I’m thankful for my life.” No, gratitude works best and strongest within the context of contemporaneous specificity.
    13. In keeping with the above, lift your eyes throughout the day to change your focal point, especially when outdoors. Americans, especially, are ”head hangers” habitually looking a yard or two in front of our feet. We even do this indoors, looking at the flooring. Look up. You’ll thank me.
    14. Drink coffee fresh. Preferably within 20 minutes after brewing. A brewmaster once told me that after 20 minutes, coffee’s chemistry changes, turning it into something else. As an addendum to this tip: don’t serve old coffee to a guest in your home. Make a fresh pot, or offer them something else.
    15. Buy yourself a good burr coffee grinder when you can afford one. This is the one I’ve used for 20+ years. Use whole beans. You’re welcome.
    16. Realize what it is you’re trying to buy when you spend money. The higher the expenditure the more this is necessary.
    17. Read for the sheer joy of it. If you cannot read due to time constraints, look for time leaks to plug so you can make time to read. If you still cannot get the time to sit with a book or good magazine, listen to audiobooks at every available moment: when walking, when commuting or on a drive of any distance.
    18. ”Try to learn something new every day,” is often included on lists like this. Instead, try not to. By trying not to, you’ll become aware of how much you learn everyday without even trying, you just have to be awake enough to catch it.
    19. Anger will not achieve the result you want. If you’re angry, keep your mouth shut.
    20. When asked for advice, rather than giving the inquirer a solution to their problem, give him a new way to think about his problem.
    21. Accept life as it shows you it is, not as you wish it was, or as you want it to be. The same goes for people.
    22. Problems, mistakes, and shortcomings are your friends. How else will you know what to work on so you can grow into a better, more complete version of you?
    23. Music bypasses your thoughts to affect your emotions directly. It is unique among art forms for this quality as far as I’ve discovered. Take care then, what you are inviting to stir your emotions.
    24. Reading about something is not the same as doing something. Reading a story about Paris is not the same as actually visiting Paris. This applies to every aspect of reading. As valuable as it is, it is no substitute for actual experience.
    25. Never pay for top shelf liquor in a mixed drink. You’re only going to taste the mix anyway. Use house (well) liquor for any mixed drink.
    26. Tequila can be sipped, savored, and enjoyed like a fine scotch or bourbon if you get an anéjo. Save the blancos and reposados for mixing.
    27. If you know you’re going to enjoy a night of drinking, have a cup of milk an hour or two before you start.
    28. Become an early riser… it’s the only possible chance you have to start the day being proactive and not reactive. If you start the day reactive (alarm>shower>commute>schedule>work>boss>Inbox), none of the day will feel like it was yours.
    29. No amount of navel-gazing, self-reflection, or self-help is Spiritual. That is CBT.
    30. Given the above premise, it follows that: Spirituality begins and ends by looking and remaining focused outside yourself.
    31. Beware of the confidence that you know what is good for you.
    32. The Bible is a menu describing a life that is available. Memorizing a menu won’t feed you.
    33. The Bible, while true, if rightly understood in terms of scope and purpose, is not a science book, nor is it the sole repository of truth.
    34. The love of God is like light from the Sun. If you turn your back on the Sun, the light will hit you in the back.
    35. There is a Grand Canyon between you on your best day and Jesus on his worst. Being ”Christlike” is a fallacy. Genuine Christianity has never been about imitation or method acting.
    36. No one would want what he truly deserves in life.
    37. If practicable, learn to play a musical instrument, and stick with it. It makes demands on a different part of your brain, and the rewards for even simple repetitive actions like practicing scales are zen-like.
    38. The best time to pursue your artistic or creative dream is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
    39. Surround yourself with people with whom you can be authentic and still be accepted and loved.
    40. You most certainly can choose your family. See above.
    41. Limit your exposure to people who wouldn’t like your authentic self.
    42. Learn to differentiate quickly between acute and chronic problems, and the strategies for dealing with both. 
    43. Learn to listen,…no, really listen. You want to be able to summarize not just a list of facts the speaker is relaying, but how the person feels about those facts.
    44. Allow everyone in your life to feel how they feel, they’re going to anyway. If you tell them they shouldn’t feel a certain way, you’re alienating yourself by your own emotional ignorance.
    45. In the face of negative emotions, go as granular as you can to analyze and identify exactly what it is you’re feeling. Generalities like, ”I’m just sad,” won’t work.
    46. When another person comes to you with negative emotions, acknowledge how they feel. Tell them you understand why they feel that way given the way they see it. Then, help them with the above.
    47. All emotions are valid. All responses are not. Borrowed from John Gottman.
    48. Emotions cannot be directly controlled by the will. Try to be scared now. You have to first think of something scary, right? All emotions are this way. They are the fruit of your thoughts.
    49. To change how you feel, you must either change how, or what, you’re thinking.
    50. Get outdoors and move every day that weather permits. It’s likely you won’t always be able to. Don’t take this for granted.
    51. Treat people as if their interests are exactly as important as yours. They are. (But they are not more important.)
    52. Invest in yourself without apology by reading, exploring, learning, exercising.
    53. It is a trap to care too much what other people think about you. There are only 2 or 3 people who matter, and one of them is you.
    54. The good opinion of some people is not worth having.
    55. Conflicts are unavoidable. Sometimes the most moral stance possible is to engage.
    56. If a Hitler-like figure shows up in your life, or in the world, do not be Switzerland.
    57. Do not wash your hair more than 3 times per week. Aim for twice at most.
    58. Do not treat the word or concept of Family as a sacred, magical word that justifies either inflicting, or suffering, emotional, mental, or physical abuse. A family, or family member like that is not worth being joined to.
    59. Do not tolerate behavior in yourself that you would not support and respect in a friend.
    60. You cannot solve any problem without having a clear picture of the solution in mind. Ask, ”what would it look like fixed?” borrowed from David Allen.
    61. Know this about people: Everyone chooses what they prefer at all times from the menu of choices available to them.
    62. Know this as well: Everyone’s ways are right in their own eyes, including yours.
    63. Learn to preface statements with, ”I could be wrong,” as needed. Recognize how true this is.
    64. The wise know that they do not know, are not afraid to admit that they do not know, are wiser for this, and remain undeterred in the effort to know.
    65. You cannot trust your eyes for all that is real.
    66. Logic is a useful scaffolding to climb the tower of truth, but it is not the tower, and will not necessarily result in what is true.
    67. Do not take yourself too seriously. You aren’t the same you as you were at five, or perhaps at twenty-five. You are fluid and dynamic. The you of today may be gone tomorrow, just as a stormy, wind-tossed ocean may tomorrow be as smooth as glass.
    68. All salesmen are selling. They are a part of the experience you are buying. If you don’t like the salesman, don’t buy the experience he is part of.
    69. A college education is a useful context for exposure to knowledge you may not be familiar with. As such, you may discover your cup of tea.
    70. A college degree is unnecessary if; you have an innate, voracious appetite and capacity for knowledge, you also have the personality and skill to sell yourself to a prospective employer. Otherwise, a degree is proof that they can teach you and can stick to something long enough to be considered a credible candidate for employment.
    71. Attempt to gain mastery at something, whether it be a topic or a skill.
    72. Remember that anxiety is making payments of worry in the present for a future outcome that hasn’t occurred yet. There will be plenty of time to feel bad about that outcome when it arrives. 90% of the time, it won’t.
    73. Happiness = Reality – Expectations.
    74. Think less about how you feel and more about what you should do.
    75. Living well involves extracting every positive thing of value from inevitable failures.
    76. Use your intelligence to pursue Truth. Do not use your intelligence to produce misinformation.
    77. When you discover Truth, accept it, adopt it, and act on it. This is the essence of wisdom.
    78. Wisdom is also the application of the best means for the most valuable ends. See above.
    79. Sequential thinking is a life-skill that must be practiced and mastered over a lifetime.
    80. When contemplating a home, ask yourself, ”What kind of life do I see myself doing here?” Does the space match the anticipated activity?
    81. Focus your attention and energy on making a life worth living, more than on making a living and hoping one day to match it to a worthwhile life. That day may never come.
    82. Never ignore your conscience. It is the only internal compass you have to accuse or excuse your behavior. Ignore it at your peril.
    83. Expectations are resentment waiting to happen. Under promise and over deliver. Rinse and repeat.
    84. Don’t adopt every stray (thought, belief, person, animal, opportunity) that shows up in your life. Choose well.
    85. Know why you like what you like. Learn to identify the feeling of liking something before you have the words to tell yourself you like it. That resonance, that connection, that is your home.
    86. Hate is way too powerful an emotion to give to the people deserving of it. It attaches you to them the way love does. This is not a good thing.
    87. There is nothing more magnificent in creation than a tree in a forest. I learned this way too late.
    88. Develop trusted capture methods for things you need to remember. I use Siri, Reminders, Evernote, and OmniFocus (for projects)
    89. Use a password manager for your online passwords. I use 1Password.
    90. A good relationship is a good fit. The broken pieces and whole pieces interlock.
    91. You are commanded to love your neighbor, not to trust him.
    92. Respect a person (or not) based on a.) who they demonstrate they are. Respect authorities based on b.) what they can do to you. It is not required to respect the person in the uniform or office, refer to “a.” for that.
    93. If you want to dance, you have to pay the piper.
    94. As much as lies within you, be motivated by hope rather than by fear. 
    95. Learn when to explore and when to exploit. Know how to do both.
    96. Do the hardest thing first. Move the heaviest thing first is like it. Always be working towards easier.
    97. Do not borrow problems not yours to solve. Life will give you enough to do.
    98. Parent so your kids seek your advice. If your kids ask your opinion, you have been a good parent.
    99. You can learn everything you need to know in life from listening to the Grateful Dead…but you must also dance.

  • Friendship: How Big A Boat Are We Talking About?

    On this behemoth there are stations, and teams, and suchlike. Sure there are buddies, but not everyone is close with everyone else.

    My oldest son believes that I need more friends. Part of his concern is that he came across an article suggesting that people who have close friendships live longer. The article references some studies that produced statistics for the average number of friends and acquaintances a person has. I am well below average. This informs my son’s concern. It is sweet to me that he is concerned and that he wants me to live as long as possible. He certainly means well.

    However it is common to mistake correlation for causality. It is equally incorrect to mistake quantity for quality. The studies on friendship that suggest the average person has 12 friends and 50-75 others at the acquaintance level may in fact be statistically true. But there is no qualitative analysis provided for what are called ”friendships”. And therein lies the rub, as they say.

    We must first define friend. And in the defining we have to think about the threshold for friendship. There has to be some base level of interaction that distinguishes friends from acquaintances, business partners, store clerks, waitresses, and lovers. Right?

    And the hundreds of people that are my friends on say, Facebook, aren’t. I clicked a blue button. Their profile ended up in a list associated with my facebook account. That’s it. Really. That’s it. That doesn’t establish a friend or friendship.

    I heard someone a long time ago talk about the word friendship with an emphasis on the ship part. He drew out the comparison of an aircraft carrier to a canoe. The aircraft carrier he said, is more like a floating city. There may be hundreds of personnel on board, maybe more. I didn’t feel it important to look up a precise count. I trust you to trust me that an aircraft carrier, while definitely a ship, is too big to call everyone aboard it, your friend.

    Or take a cruise ship; you’ll climb on one of those without knowing hardly anyone. You don’t need to know them. You’re just using it as a means of entertainment and transportation. It’s a mini-Las Vegas experience. The people are scenery, or servants. Cruise ships are the Facebook of sea-going vessels.

    This is the essence of quality over quantity

    A canoe, on the other hand is a very intimate thing indeed. It is highly responsive, for better or worse to the slightest movement or shift in balance of anyone aboard. Ideally, two people in a canoe will work together. They will coordinate action. If the bow paddler is pulling on the right, starboard side of the craft, the stern paddler will ordinarily paddle on the left, or port side. This is unless they want to go in a circle. Paddling on the same side is the surest way to accomplish that. 

    Likewise, there is a technique for quickly turning a canoe in which the bow paddler may back-paddle (paddle in reverse) on one side of the boat, while the stern paddler paddles in a normal forward direction on the other side. This will spin a canoe if coordinated properly. And in some circumstances this can be useful. 

    Also, in a canoe, the weaker partner sets the pace. There is little benefit for one paddler to be pulling at 10 strokes a minute ( a leisurely pace), while the other is pulling at 20. The boat moves best if both people act as one. 

    This same rule applies to skulling teams. The coxswain calls the beat and the rowers all synchronize their movements.

    You wouldn’t climb into a canoe with just anyone. And if you did, it likely wouldn’t be a pleasant experience, or the kind you’d ever want to repeat. You get in a canoe with someone you know, someone you trust. A friend, in other words.

    To me, these are delightful metaphors of genuine, qualitative friend”ship”. Yeah, it’s a hella small ship, but the level of interaction is uniquely, satisfyingly meaningful. That kind of friendship is rare, but worth it. It is quality over quantity. On the  battleship, or aircraft carrier of normal life, we are more like ”ships in the night” than canoe-mates. I prefer a canoe, friend.

  • Life Is A Guessing Game Writ Large: So Make Your Own Guesses In The Trial-And-Error Infinity Loop

    Your Guess Is As Good As Mine – And It’s Yours To Make

    So much of life is trial-and-error, no? We all make guesses every day. Our lives are shaped by the never-ending series of guesses, evaluation of results, and new guesses. From the time a child is old enough to explore the world, she engages and interacts and measures the feedback. Of course, she doesn’t know she’s doing that. In her mind, she’s just putting her hand in the VCR slot. (I know, I just dated myself). But indulging the autonomous, natural curiosity of childhood gives a different kind of satisfaction, with a different kind of internal feedback, than fulfilling external expectations imposed by others. 

    The point is, we all make guesses about the world. We start with the idea that the world is our playpen. There is nothing in it to harm us. But a child left with a key will invariably find an electric outlet with a key-sized slot. Hmmm…this looks like it will fit. The child inserts the key and the next thing she knows she’s across the kitchen floor on her back, her mom frantically yelling and gesturing.

    Perhaps that is an extreme example, but it serves as a template.

    Life involves exploration and experimentation; and all good experiments start with a hypothesis, which is just a fancy way to say, ”a guess”. So guesses are made about things like how fast we can pedal our bike down the gravel driveway. Or, what will happen if I send that girl a ”do you like me, (yes or no?) note in class? And if you’re a bold guesser, you’ll want to see what will happen if you lean in close enough; will she give you a goodnight kiss? The guesses that turn out with good results both increase confidence and reinforce willingness to keep guessing. Bad results diminish confidence, reduce curiosity, and can lead to the basic anxiety that most people feel when facing the unknown. 

    For confident guessers, the unknown is exciting, even thrilling. Those once-bitten are not only twice shy, they lose confidence in their ability to guess well. These become much more willing to be told what to do, what they should want, and how they should live. To avoid a bad outcome from what they feel is a bad guess, they’re willing to let others do their guessing. They become ”second-guessers” of their own decisions. As you can see, a second guesser is actually someone afraid to be a ”first guesser”.

    The thing is, even for the less confident, the guessing isn’t over. As far as I can tell, it never stops. There is a daily feedback loop of trial-and-error data to process. Sometimes the results are immediate, sometimes delayed. The ones who do what they are told are still guessing that the someone else can choose better for their lives than they can. They are guessing that they will make a mess of things if they reclaim the basic autonomy to make guesses for themselves. So, they usually defer. 

    There’s no good manual or definitive guide for these things. There are no guarantees. All guesses are not good ones. But this is the life we’re stuck with. And that means everyone gets to do their own trial-and-error explorations to determine which actions and decisions produce results they like best. Our lives are shaped by this never-ending series of guesses, evaluation of results, and new guesses.

    It would seem that on paper, there are as many different ways to live as there are people. How then do we end up in a world in which we’re competing with one another trying to attain the same things? How do we become so easily manipulated to look and act so much alike? Is it because people too often become afraid of their guessing ability when things don’t turn out the way they expect? Something inside breaks.

    When people talk about a broken spirit, maybe this is what they mean. A person with a broken spirit is just someone not confident enough to make a guess that might result in failure. So they’re easy prey for someone else to use them in making their own guesses. And isn’t that the worst kind of failure there is, especially since guessing about the best way to live for oneself is the nature of what it means to learn how to live well?

    Make your best guesses today about what is best for you. That’s all any of us is doing anyway.

  • An Easter Story

    “Why do you seek the Living among the dead?“

    This question is at the heart of the Easter story. Setting aside for now all the technical and theological aspects inherent in the Passion story, the essence boils down to finding and assimilating and celebrating life. Easter focuses the attention on expectation, disappointment, hope, and the kind of certainty that is present in true faith. 

    At the end of this Year Of Death, where now will we find life? Has death overcome it? The disciples came to look for Life in a cemetery, and specifically, in a tomb. They were scolded. They had received enough instruction that they might have known better. But the reality of what they had seen, overcame the reality of what they could not yet see. Being certain of what their eyes and experience told them, they acted as they did. They came to do homage to a dead body.

    It is thankful that their faith wasn’t the cause of God’s acting. Else, Jesus would still be buried behind that stone. Because they had none. No, they had been invited to believe in the Faith that God has in Himself to achieve what He achieves, with or without our believing. Their failure to give credit to what they had been told, more than to what they had seen, did not constrain God in the slightest. 

    But, it did cause them to look in the wrong place. And once there, this reliance upon their own ability to see caused them not to recognize Life in the form of a gardener. I guess if we must see something in order to believe it, then even when it is presented to the eyes, we won’t recognize it for what it is. Where have you been looking for life? What do you have to see to know if you’ve found it? 

    A gardener knows the secret to Life is patience. He is not a day-trader. He knows that there is much more going on beneath the surface than what can be seen above it. He knows better than to trust his eyes for determining truth.

  • Prelude to a Review of The Overstory…(is that a thing???)

    Ancient Groves Nature Trail though old growth forest in the Sol Duc section of Olympic National Park in Washington, United States – This is what Foresters refer to as “The Understory”

    I love to read. It is the single greatest skill a human can acquire in my opinion. The books I’ve read have transformed my life, and continue to do so. There is something magic about the transposition of knowledge, sensation, emotion, and longing that happens when a skillful author communicates via a form of ancient, abstract telepathy to the reader.

    Some books are better than others. Some tackle subject matter more weighty than others. Some achieve both. The one I’m reading now is on that list.

    I’m only one-third of the way through it and it’s already blown my mind. It actually blew my mind in the first couple of pages by a cosmic connection I’d felt relating to something I’d jotted in my notes as I stared out my picture window at the pairs of willow oaks budding up the perpendicular street centered in my view.

    I wrote this snippet: 

    ”Has anyone ever successfully captured the perfect architecture inherent in the design of a tree?”

    I was thinking of the perfect marvel of engineered branching and load bearing and surface area distribution and how no human architect has ever attempted building anything like a tree.

    Imagine my profound surprise and delight to begin listening to the audible version of The Overstory, by Richard Powers. winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, an incredible story about trees, and how they have impacted and enriched and enthralled and empowered the characters lives. Some of them also received tree messages, so…kinda makes ya think.

     Some of these magnificent spires have been here since the birth of Jesus. Imagine. A thing so ubiquitous as to have become almost invisible. And yet, a thing that we share 25% of our own DNA with, and owe 100% of our lives to. And things without which, there is no anything. No, really.

    I’m becoming more and more convinced that humans, though apparently created last, and ostensibly for the purpose of taking care of our orb-shaped space ride on the outer edge of the Milky Way, may in fact have devolved into one of the least intelligent life forms still alive and kicking on our cosmic home.

    Trees appear to be smarter. They certainly live longer, cooperate better, are more social, and are more committed to sharing their resources to insure their thriving survival together. Maybe we have a still have a slim chance to change that and we can learn enough to move out of the stupidity basement.

    I’ll write more about this amazing book, I’m sure, but I want to heartily recommend it. You will thank me, and trees, if you do choose to read it.

  • Karma

    picture of toppling dominoes in a circle shows that karma is sowing and reaping. What goes around, comes around.
    What goes around, comes around…

    “Karma.”

    “Sowing and Reaping.”

    Call it what you will, there is a universal acknowledgment that not only our actions, but our intentions will have repercussions that in the unfolding and endless cycle (circle) of life will find their way back to us.

    A quick look at the etymology of Karma shows that it derives from a Sanskrit word meaning simply, ”action”. There is no ethical implication attached until much later.

    When it comes, it connotes the familiar western idea, found in the laws of Isaac Newton, father of Physics, that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The idea of causality mingled with that of reciprocity.

    This is the basic idea hidden in the simple word Karma, but the meaning transcends the merely physical world of Newton’s laws, and suggests that it is an all-encompassing truth, affecting not just bodies at rest, or in motion, but everything, in all worlds, everywhere, in all time (whatever that is).

    The biblical metaphors of sowing and reaping are not talking about agriculture, but about one’s life. The Christian disciple is warned about the inescapability and inevitability of this principle when he is instructed, ”Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap.”

    A couple of Grateful Dead lyrics posit the same idea. This from the song, Deal

    Since it costs a lot to win

    And even more to lose

    You and me better spend some time

    Wonderin’ what to choose.

    Goes to show you don’t ever know.

    Watch each card you play and, play it slow.

    Grateful Dead: Deal

    or this from Franklin’s Tower

    “Some come to laugh their past away

    Some come to make it just one more day

    Whichever way your pleasure tends

    If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind.”

    Grateful Dead: Franklin’s Tower

    Truth is not limited to be found only in the Bhagavad Gita, or in the Bible, or any other sacred text, or even in Grateful Dead lyrics.

    Truth is found when the seedling erupts from the soil, then it doesn’t matter if you thought you were planting corn. If you planted tomatoes, tomatoes grow for harvest. The truth of what was planted becomes evident.

    In life, it doesn’t matter what you tell yourself to justify the seeds you sow and the actions you take, the harvest, when it comes, will show plainly what you actually planted.

  • The Availability Heuristic

     I recently bumped into a fascinating term with which I was quite familiar by practice, but not by name. It is called the Availability Heuristic. The link will go to a wiki page with a more precise definition and some examples of how the phenomenon applies in various categories of life. 

    In short, the availability heuristic is a mental phenomenon in which a person relies upon the recall of  information that can be brought easily to mind to form the basis for opinions and decisions. (The word heuristic is a fancy term for ”problem-solving” or ”decision-making”.)

    If something can be easily recalled, it is available to the mind to serve for ”facts”, and there is a tendency (bias) to give it more weight and credence. 

    If you spend a week watching Shark Week on television and then are invited to swim in the ocean, your exposure to all of the gruesome shark attacks during the past week will be readily available when you decide whether or not to venture into the water. 

    Nah, there’s nothing to see here.

    The availability heuristic predicts that you will feel a higher probability of a shark encounter than had you not watched all those shows. The actual statistical probability of being attacked does not change a fraction based upon your television habits or your ability to recall the frightening scenes. Meanwhile, you remain blissfully ignorant of the much higher statistical probability of being involved in a serious car accident on the way to the beach.

    Immersion in any pool of information makes it seem more true and more predominant than it may actually be. 

    This bias is exactly what gives rise to social media ”Echo Chambers” regarding political, social, and cultural views. 

    Exposure shapes opinion. Opinion shapes worldview. Be careful out there.

  • Authenticity

    Authenticity.

    There is a fine word. And with much urging telling us to find and be true to our authentic selves, I thought I’d take a crack at it. To get there, let’s think on a few things.

    How many people have inputs into your outputs?

    Asked another way, how many people do you feel beholden to act, or speak, or dress, or function in a certain way for?

    Put in the negative, how many elicit constraints upon you, causing you to refrain from acting, speaking, dressing, or functioning in ways you may privately prefer?

    Or this, to whom do you feel obligated to make these accommodations?

    And to whom is this obligation legitimately owed?

    When people live and work in close proximity to one another, they modify themselves accordingly.

    A couple remains a couple so long as they conform themselves the one to the other.

    ’Tis true, the best relationships require the least remodeling to achieve conformity, but all require some. And in the best relationships, the conforming of partner to partner is what gives each the greatest pleasure and fulfillment.

    Families sharing the same dwelling and utilizing the same resources find an equilibrium conferring membership privileges to those who are least able to provide for the resources needed for the family’s well being. Parents and siblings reconfigure their lives outwardly and inwardly to conform to the needs of a new baby. They continue to do so as the child advances in years, feeling themselves obligated to conform the patterns of their own existences to provide the necessities of smaller, shorter, younger persons, unable yet to secure the necessaries of life for themselves. Good parents do this for some eighteen years, not of compulsion, but voluntarily. 

    And is it not true that at all stages of a baby’s life, save in the first mewling months, that child is shaped, and taught, and fashioned to learn to temper the authenticity of its innocent selfishness to the needs and desires of others? Meaning; as soon as is practicable in most households, training begins to teach and shape the baby for accommodation to the needs of the people on whom it depends for survival. Bed time and nap times are employed. An interval of feeding is established. A rhythm develops. A pattern emerges. Some kind of symbiosis evolves that allows the caretaking parents and older siblings to meet the baby’s needs and appetites without killing themselves in the effort. 

    It is only during infancy, and quite early infancy at that, that the person is authentic in his unconcern for conforming to the needs of those around him. (The possible exception of this is the extreme advance of old-age.) Unaware of, and unconcerned for, others except as means to his own satisfaction, the infant is a living consumer of the attentions, energies, and efforts of those positioned to give him what he wants and needs. This is tolerably cute at one month, but is a veritable nightmare by age two.

    So, when we speak of adults rediscovering their authentic selves, and assign any connotation of selfish indulgence as that, and only that, which is truly genuine, we are speaking of that phase of our lives which existed for perhaps three to six months at most, then vanished, as it should have.

    Why then, the desire for authenticity? Especially that described as adhering to one’s true self? 

    No human, save Adam, was created as a reclusive hermit to live out his days consulting only his own whims and wishes. 

    If cooperation and adaptability are the hallmarks of enlightened humanity, it is no surprise that Eve was formed out of Adam’s rib. She has no being apart from Adam. And it had already been determined by God Himself, and not Adam, that it was not good for man to be alone. Therefore, he lay down and slept, voluntarily giving, quite literally, of his own substance, to provide the materiel necessary for a life other than his own, he having no being worth having apart from her.

    And thus, from the earliest story of our race, we can learn that it is others, and our relationships and adaptability to them that gives rise to our lives. And is therefore that which gives both meaning and richness to our lives. If this is not authenticity, what is?

    No one is required to yield to the childish, selfish demands of those who have aged out of infancy and who therefore ought to know better. The law of love is naught but an appeal and reminder to humans to love others As we love ourselves. 

    The interests of every other person are as important and valuable to them as yours are to you. They are not greater in value and have no greater claim. One may voluntarily choose to love another More than oneself, or act in another’s interests, more than one’s own, but if that person is of similar age and situation in life, it is not obligatory, and it is no part of human authenticity requiring that degree of conformity and accommodation. 

    But let’s consider that it is the very nature of authentic, genuine human-ness to adapt our lives to those around us. Had not our mothers literally accommodated us in their own bodies, we’d have no selves at all, authentic, or otherwise, right? It is accepting, yielding, and adapting to the life of another that makes life possible at all.

    This is a dance in which we sometimes lead and sometimes follow. We sometimes give and sometimes receive, This is human authenticity. He who practices these adaptations best is most authentic and most human.

  • Culture Wars?

    In light of the politically driven Culture Wars in the US, I googled ”how many cultures are in America?”

    I found an interesting article in business insider, claiming 11 different US ”nations” with territorial borders and unique cultural and political affinities. 

    On a site called Inter Exchange that promotes cultural interchange for expats and students, I found the following article listing 10 Things to Know About US Culture. 

    There are a number of other returns to my query that run along the same lines. They universally declare that cultural diversity and plurality is a characteristic of life in the United States. 

    That doesn’t begin to touch the innumerable sub-cultures that exist in America. 

    These are legitimate cultures in the sense of shared values, experiences, practices, beliefs, and norms. Some of them even have their own shared languages, art, rituals, and ceremonies.

    These are facts.

    No intelligent person would dispute them.

    I cannot remember the last time someone forced me against my will to adopt their cultural norms, or join their culture.

    I have been unsuccessful forcing people to join my preferred sub-culture: DeadHead.

    And even less successful forcing them into my preferred sub-sub-culture: Christian DeadHead.

    Have you been the victim of Cultural Coercion? 

    If so, how did it happen? Can you share how you were made to become part of a group, speak a language, appreciate the art, or literature, or music, or eat the food and drink the kool-aid of that group who made you join against your will?

    If no Culture has thus far successfully forced your membership, are you participating in a war against some other Culture trying to force them to join yours?

    I think the Culture Wars are just as stupid and just as failed as the Drug Wars.

    I’m a conscientious objector, myself.

  • Form Follows Function

    Form follows Function in Nature…almost as if it were designed that way, right?

    ”Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling.

    It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”

    The above quote is from Louis Sullivan, an American architect of the late 19th-century, best known for his protegé, Frank Lloyd Wright, and for developing the shape of the tall steel skyscraper in 19th-century Chicago.

    His quote above, taken from an article about the artistic design of tall office buildings, has been condensed to one perhaps more familiar to most readers which is:

    Form follows function

    How something looks, its form, should reflect what it does, its function. 

    I really like the 21st-century rise of ”Lifestyle Design”. Tim Ferris, author of books including The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and Tribe of Mentors, would be one of the leading proponents of this school.

    I find that most of the people I’ve met don’t think much about designing their lives. Their lives are designed to serve a function created by someone else.

    Perhaps this is inherent in what Thoreau meant when he said,

    The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation…

    Does the form of your life follow a function you chose? Or did someone else choose it for you?

    If you’re living a life that looks the way it does out of necessity to fulfill a function that is more useful for someone else than it is for you, stop and think what you can do to re-design it so that it functions first for you. 

    If there is anything essential and exceptional about American Freedom, it’s to be found in the answer to that question.