almost a manifesto

Let me see if I can crystallize this…[1]

The path is not a competition, with others or self. It’s just a fucking path. Walk it or don’t, but don’t think there’s any kind of winning involved.

Accomplishment should be intensely personal. Those who will know about it by proximity are really the only ones that need to know.

If one listens to sycophants, one must give equal time to critics. Best, if possible, to ignore both (except for required civility).

If it’s hard and level and predictable, it’s not the path; it's a sidewalk. Turn left (metaphorically speaking) now.

Figure out what you’d bleed for and you’re on the way to figuring out your path. Besides, if you bleed, it’s a sport, and everything sporty is more fun.

Scars are tattoos that you earn.[2]

We do not fall so that we can learn how to get up. We fall because we trip, or drink too much, or get hit on the head. If you can learn to get up from falling, good on ya, but that’s not why you fell. Shit just happens sometimes.

Everything’s eventual, so don’t panic. A mountain in the way just means you have to switch to climbing shoes. Think of it as a great thing, like an unbirthday present.

The shortest distance between two points is fucking boring anyway.[3]

Climbing teaches us that falling doesn’t hurt. It’s the landing that does that. You’ll either survive the landing and get to quote Nietzsche for the rest of your life in an intensely personal way, or you won’t survive and, subsequently, won’t give a damn.

The journey means that mile markers are quaint novelties, not something to dance about. Mile markers just say “I’ve come this far”, but the truth is that they also mean there’s farther to go. The only one worth dancing about is the one that says “The End”.

There isn’t a mile marker that says “The End”. Not one we get to see anyway.

If you need a reason to dance, dance about the love you’ve given and received. It’s the best motivation anyway.

One of the best things about the no winning and no ending concepts is that you never lose and you always have more time to learn and grow. And that’s all that matters.[4]

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[1] Just for me, of course. I’m not referencing anything specifically except the bumper sticker, but chances are I’m plagiarizing something because, frankly, it’s all been said. So I claim nothing as original here, at all. Read at your own risk.

[2] My favorite bumper sticker. Ever. Even more than the one on my laptop: Kill your television

[3] Very sure I read this somewhere. Just can’t remember for the life of me where.

[4] Just, of course, my opinion. What the fuck do I know… J

locus of control

I remember in psych 101 talking about locus of control, how our lives could be diagramed as circles of influence and how, no matter how large the circle was, it was where the locus of control was situated – inside or outside that circle – that had the most impact on our sense of self-esteem and happiness.

The life inversion was about walking away from a large circle of influence. I no longer manage a staff of forty-odd people, or oversee million dollar budgets and revenue streams, or get to go on TV and do interviews, or do guest articles in Canadian poker magazines. But when I did, although the circle was large, the locus of control usually felt like it was firmly located just right around the edge of the circle, sometimes just inside, usually out.

And I was miserable.

We were standing outside at work the other night, smoking in the cold, and a woman was talking about her dentist. She said that he said (hearsay, I know, but I won’t be taking this to court) that he considered casino workers to be tough people. Apparently they don’t bitch as much about their pain as regular folk do and he’d decided that we must be made out of sterner stuff.

I wanted to suggest that he come spend a few minutes in our break room if he ever wanted to hear some serious whining, but thought better of it – I’m the new guy after all.

Somebody said, “Maybe it’s because we’re already numb.”

The storyteller laughed and said, “Yeah, we’re all dead inside already.”

Everyone laughed at that one. Gallows humor. Laughing at shadows to chase them away.

My circle is now pretty small. Inside of it with me are a triple handful or so of close friends and family, about a quarter of whom are in these digital environs, and whom I only know by the tone of their written words, and the honesty and fearlessness with which they write. I love my friends.

My locus of control now feels firmly within my circle. I choose my schedule, I set my agenda, I strive after things that I feel make me a better person and writer, I wrestle my demons, and I do it all on my own time, according to my priorities and integrity.

Even the casino feels like a choice now, not a sentence. I’ve finally answered the question, “So, are you planning on applying for management again?” with, “No way in hell”, enough times that people have stopped asking. I’m not a threat to their advancement aspirations, so I’m not a threat. I go, I deal cards, and then I leave.

I can see on their faces that they don’t get it. They’re working for a career, and making sure that their position is secure, and struggling to even approximate something akin to keeping up with the Joneses. They don’t really get the guy that’s just stopping in, as if I was just topping up the tank before I keep driving, because they feel stuck. It’s in their cynical voices, their scowls, their rolling eyes, and their disparaging commentary.

I feel bad for them, but only because I know what it feels like. Intimately. I remember.

It reminds me why I made my changes – why I’m making my changes. I’d rather be the only goldfish in a free pond than any shark in the ocean, fighting over scraps. I left that world, and love that I left it. I love that I don’t feel dead inside any more.

.........

P.S. After the SOTU tonight, I tweeted, “I feel like I just drank a can of Coke Zero”. “Decaf, no-fat, no-whip mocha” could be a substitute. Was it just me, or was there no fiber and lots of filler? Was that a “Why bother” SOTU?

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

I was talking with a friend today about how we ingest media these days, and specifically, how critically we take in the feeds that we receive from fourth and fifth estates. We both agreed that our suspicion of the 'party line' had increased exponentially over the last while with the effect for both of us that we ask very specific questions whenever we hear 'news', and pretty much regardless of the source. We now wonder what it is we're not supposed to be looking at when we see the disingenuous stories that seem to dominate the headlines, or at least the biases that dominate the way those headlines are reported.

We grow up (or perhaps grew up – my smart, young friends seem to be suspicious far more naturally these days) thinking that the news we receive through the mainstream sources are credible and unbiased by default. These are, after all, the professionals – the epitome of journalism and, ostensibly journalistic integrity. I grew up in the then-present mythos of Woodward and Bernstein, the Pentagon-Papers, war-journalists embedded in Viet-Nam, before the movies but just after the breaking news, when journalism was held up as the last great defense against corruption.

I don't feel that way now. Maybe (probably) I just grew up a bit. I've grown to believe that cynicism is a natural response to seeing the world the way it is. Psychologists routinely report that depression is statistically linked to a more accurate perception of the world around us, the world as it truly is. Being hopeful, resisting an unadulterated strain of that disillusioned perspective, requires either denial of the truth or a stubborn choice; a refusal to give up on what could be. Denial shouldn't be a viable option anymore, so that leaves making daily choices. Hard ones.

This isn't even about which side we take. I'm a firm believer in passionate disagreement and debate. I entertain dreams of that kind of respectful yet strong discussion occurring here one day, comments from honest and open people on both sides of an argument. I wouldn't for a second suggest that I'm detached or completely objective in the perspectives that I hold, but I hope that my opinions (because that's all they are) at least show that I've taken the time to investigate and think through both sides of an argument. My conclusions usually end up in relatively the same place: perhaps an inevitable destination because of my biases, or perhaps because of the logical result of the investigation – most likely (hopefully) at least a bit of both.

But we shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions. I've used the Descartes quote before: 'If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt all things.' This should be - has to be - the attitude that we take when looking at the world around us. So much of the world that we are presented with through the media, by our politicians and social leaders, is presented through a biased and manipulative lens, that we have to doubt what we see. Have to.

To not do so is to deny the simple truth that we all create our perceptions of the world through our own, auto-biographical narratives – that we are constantly being tempted to see the world only through the lens that we find most comfortable; the one that feels safest. We seek others that think like us, talk like us, are passionate about topics like us. It's so comforting to surround ourselves in group-think cocoons so that we never have to face the possibility that our perspective is wrong. Being committed (and continually renewing that commitment) to questioning what we see and how we choose to see it is part of our responsibility as citizens.

It's not easy, especially when we find ourselves in a comfortable place, that place where we feel at home and accepted and amongst friends. Ironically, that's when a questioning, self-cynical perspective is the most important. It's at the exact moment when we feel safe and included that we need to ask ourselves the hardest questions: What are my prejudices here and now? What is this place of apparent comfort encouraging me to not see? What biases are my deeply held beliefs fostering in me? How is my perspective encouraging me to dehumanize people who don't agree with me? Am I in danger of becoming that which I hate?

That kind of soul-searching and the constant state of imbalance it can create can be very disorienting, but it's honest. When we think that we're standing on concrete is when we should be most concerned. The world is made of sand, constantly shifting and never stable. Simply recognizing our inclination to try to delude ourselves into thinking it's solid when it isn't is an enormous challenge.

Our responsibility as citizens, if we care about ever evolving past war and greed and the creation of arbitrary differentiations between 'us' and 'the other', is to get comfortable with being off balance; with choosing to stay off balance in so much as we are constantly re-evaluating our beliefs and assumptions, constantly trying to see past ourselves.

It's a hard place to live, but nobody ever said that anything worth while was easy.

‘We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct.’ Author Unknown (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

A couple things happened this week that made me think of this one, both of them while I was surfing around on Facebook, and both of them connected to the kind of viral diffusion that social networking is capable of. While that viral dynamic can be a powerful tool and is probably the last truly free form of expression and dissemination left to us, that same freedom carries with it potential for manipulation, desensitization, vapid distraction and the perpetuation of a continual state of irrational fear, even if said state is mild. In a closed environment it’s usually easy to filter out the crap, but in a free one we have to be more careful and discriminating or we can be overwhelmed by a combination of obtuse ignorance and intentional misdirection.

If we fall prey to the BS, we will end up just following the herd, and that’s both boring and disgusting. I mean, if you aren’t at the front of the pack, then your nose is crammed in someone else’s fuzzy butt. Who wants that?

Neither of the two catalysts for this rant was substantial or dramatic in nature, but both were potentially dramatically viral, commanding trends that were noticeable. The first was completely benign drivel, a viral marketing ploy dressed up to be a game in the form of a chain thread encouraging people to do a search on their name in a small, slang-style urban dictionary, and then re-post the directions, and the ostensibly humorous or felicitous result of the search, as their status. As I said: benign, possibly even funny except for the utter innocuousness of the ‘game’. I think, most often, that while these kinds of viral marketing campaigns are meant to drive site hits, they are also something that the marketers behind them take evil glee in, sitting back, watching the hit counters surge, and chuckling over the utter manipulability of the populace they are paid to dupe and coerce.

On those grounds alone, I object to the ploys and strategies and refuse to participate. In fact, I find that I enjoy the sardonic responses to these threads far more than the thread itself. For this one, as soon as I saw it start to trend, I posted a modified version encouraging people to follow the instructions and substitute ‘SHEEP’ for their name. The result describes exactly what this kind of viral marketing counts on: the behavior of a creature devoid of reason that follows the fuzzy ass in front of them just because, in all absence of self-possession or independent thought.

The second example involved a scare chain thread warning people that they should perform a search for a certain phrase in the security block section of their privacy settings. The entry brought up a list of names of people you would never have heard of and the post suggested that these people somehow had access to your profile and personal information. They didn’t. The privacy block field was just acting as a search engine, pulling up the names of people who had expressed association to a certain company on their profile. So tons of people were starting to block other people simply because someone told them to follow a few semi-arcane and techy instructions. The list of people to block, which started at around 20, was up to around 75 by the time I checked it out, growing because the search was starting to draw on the names of people that had posted the status warning and were subsequently associated by reference with the company mentioned. Yes, I checked it out, right after I Googled the topic and found out it was a farce.

This is a less benign form of viral dissemination. I can only make guesses regarding the intent of the original publisher, but I can’t see it being a positive one. Taken to an illogical extreme, everyone on Facebook could have eventually posted the status, become associated with the company in the search engine, and we’d all have to block everyone. Stupid. And all it took to find out that the scare was a farce was to do a one-minute search and read an article.

My point? I mean, really, neither of these examples was going to result in a complete collapse of society, and the first one even had the potential to be mildly diverting and entertaining, right? Okay, if you say so… Don’t get me wrong, I like having fun. And having fun in general, being occasionally diverted by a good movie, book, game, concert, whatever… can be a good thing. Hell, I want to be a novelist, so I hope I can be diverting enough to sell a few books. My point is that we need to be conscious of when attempts are being made to divert our attention. If we are being entertained, we need to make choices about how and when that happens.

If you do this, pursue your entertainment with a bit of conscious awareness, then you will be declaring open war on the marketers of the world, just so you know. Their intent is to keep you dumb and make your choices for you, manipulating your attention and usurping your freewill. And it’s not just about diversion either. This concept applies to politics, consumption, social conformity, religion, self-development, fashion, fitness, self-perception and body image… the list could go on and on.

Our time, our generation, has been called the Age of Persuasion by Terry O’Reilly. We are all about ‘getting to yes’ and learning how to ‘make friends and influence people’. What we rarely take the time to realize is that, while we’re running around increasing our influence, everyone else is doing it too. We’re all running around trying to get one up on the other guy, be smarter, sneakier, horde more. We’ve been duped into this self-defeating behavior by ideologies and marketing philosophies that treat people as demographic targets and potential revenue sources instead of, well, people. We are deep into the process, in a very real way, of abdicating our humanity in favor of ‘greater profits and mechanical amusements’.

I’m not saying that you should forgo all forms of amusement. I certainly don’t plan on doing that and I need every one of you to buy my book if and when it gets on the bookshelves. We need that diversion sometimes, a chance to decompress and laugh or sigh or cry. What I am suggesting is that you keep your eyes open. That’s right, open ‘em up. A bit more now. There. Keep them that way. You make your choices instead of letting them make your choices. You see through their lies instead of them leading you through the fog. Take control of your life and your mind and your decisions. It’s empowering, trust me.

You may not always like what you see when you stick your head up out of the herd, but it has to be better than the fuzzy butt you would other wise be staring at.

‘Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.’ Henry David Thoreau

So, the renovations are done for a couple weeks. The process has been exhausting but a balm to me nonetheless; I love the smell of sawed wood and the satisfaction of building things. But I’ve already said that part, haven’t I? My friends’ home, which I am helping to refinish, is a beautiful place, full of kind and giving energy. It belonged to my friend’s grandmother, who I knew and loved, and was willed to her. It is an older house, the core of it built of cinderblock with several additions made over time, so the process of renovating it can be a challenge: updating what has been patched together and building over concrete with wood and drywall and paint.

They have chosen to fill the house with real hardwood floors and earthy colors, all things that remind me of them in many ways: Strong, solid, warm and generous. It is and will be a visually beautiful space, updated to be pleasing to the eye and built properly and to last.

But perhaps the most impressive part of the process is to see and feel the foundation that they laid before the renovations began. Before a piece of drywall was removed, or an outlet placed, or a paint color chosen, they built a foundation of trust and compassion and love in this house, one that they parade unashamedly for everyone to see. They have framed this place with caring and a sense of what is sacred to them that overwhelms any of the choices they have made regarding color or texture or product. To walk on its floors is to feel trust under your feet, and the walls are warm with integrity. I am biased, no doubt, by the generosity and support they have shown to me, but I think I am correct in my impression just the same.

It is a good house that has not and will not be one of Thoreau’s ‘unwieldy’ properties, the kind we see rising around us more and more these days as people attempt to fill voids of compassion and integrity in their own lives with the impressions of wealth that drive us into debt and beyond our means. That drive to build an edifice that impresses from the outside is so often built at the expense of what is inside. A good renovation can cover over crooked walls and update appearance, but it can’t fix relationship out of level or sprits that aren’t plumb. In an age of superficiality our houses often reflect our perspectives – something made pretty to distract us from what is not; a house made to provide the appearance of home, but unable to compensate for the lack of a home that it really is.

But not this one. This one is filled with good memories and being filled again with new ones, and it is not a prison in any sense of the word. It is a sanctuary, a sacred place made so by the intentions and actions of its owners. It is not ostentatious, but rather beautiful. It is not just a house, but is, instead. a true home. And if I am blessed to call it my home too, if just for a time, then I am fortunate indeed.

‘I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.’ Henry David Thoreau

I read a blog by a far more experienced and successful blogger today praising the virtue of being busy. He made a good argument and, for some, it might even be a right argument, but it’s not the whole story. I remembered and used this quote by Thoreau in my response, and remembering set of a cascade of thoughts about what I’m doing this year and why I’m doing it.

My recent biography in a nutshell: After nine years in the casino and gaming industry, seven of those in middle and upper management, I quit last February, sold almost everything, and took a job caretaking a remote ski lodge for the summer so I could write a novel. The novel is going well, I didn’t write “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” once while secluded, and I haven’t regretted the dramatic change in my revenue stream once (well, maybe once, but I can wait for new tires). I opted to chuck all that stuff, all that busyness, in the trash can in favor of a simpler, less rushed and far more satisfying life. I’ve written here before that one of the things I know about myself is that, while I can multi-task effectively, I don’t enjoy it. Nor do I think that I do my best work while engaged in it. I am a good, three-ball juggler at the best of times, and while I might not drop them if I juggle more, it certainly isn’t as graceful to watch.

So, ‘simple’ works better for me, even if I have to make some sacrifices in terms of social conventions, fiscal security and conformity. I want to live a creative life that leaves lots of time to do nothing more complicated than walking in the woods, reading a book, or doing yoga with friends. I think that, while the ‘busy’ and ‘successful’ mentality permeates and suffuses our culture, it is neither particularly efficient nor lucrative in terms of our meta-lives. I’m not one to pin high hopes on the bible, but I do agree with the statement, “What profit is there for a man to gain the whole world at the expense of his soul” (not the King James Version). We trade an awful lot these days to be ‘successful’ and secure, and how much is too much to pay for a nice car, house, bank account or sense of accomplishment if we have nobody to share them with, no love to experience, and no sense of our own character and dignity?

So, yeah, I’m all for being busy if the cause is right. I like hard work. I just question the causes that are popular in our culture. I’d gladly give up security, wealth and the high estimation of my banker for a profound sense of intellectual strength and freedom; happily drive a beater and pound out a novel on a six-year old laptop than punch a clock, own a new car and have a company Blackberry; joyously sacrifice a long list of accomplishments for just one that really, really made a difference; blissfully abandon days full of meetings and power lunches for those spent being with, helping and being helped by friends.

Perhaps I’m arguing semantics with my fellow blogger. Perhaps he means ‘busy’ in a healthy way too. I just worry that the healthy definition is out of common usage, replaced by one that is an illusory lie, a hologram that looks like abundance and efficacy but is actually just a matador’s cloak, sucking us into a chase for financial or commercial success that is designed to not have a finish line, that is really designed to suck us into getting a sword in the heart. Like the proverbial carrot on a stick that we are told we might reach one day but never do and never will, once we start down that road, enough is never enough.

I wish to refute that lie with every breath I take for all the remaining days of my life. I know in my heart that, if I do this, though no other person would ever hear or take note, I will have spent my life successfully by the only definition I care to use – my own. Maybe not very busily, but it’ll do for me…

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." Rudyard Kipling

This is one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes. It touches on a couple themes that are very important to me: Counting the cost of truth, and pursuit of individualism regardless of that cost.

Going against the flow makes for a turbulent path. It usually involves lifestyle changes that affect our views on materialism and the level of ‘comfort’ that we enjoy, how much we consume, how ‘fashionable’ we appear, how much we’re ‘getting ahead’. These are relatively easy sacrifices to make in the grand scheme, and usually this kind of cost is fairly obvious before we start on the path. It’s often why we start.

The harder part is the personal cost. If we have friends that are still committed to a more traditional lifestyle, there can be pressure from them and on them regarding friendship with someone that doesn’t conform. We learn who our real friends are. They aren’t necessarily the ones that are like us, but they’ll accept us regardless of where we’re heading just like we will accept them. Other friends may fall or drift away, and that’s sad but unavoidable.

That’s life.

How far we go depends entirely on how many and which sacrifices we’re willing to make. According to Nietzsche, no price is too high to pay that that sense of deep self-knowledge. Not everyone may agree with that. I find that the more I want to possess that sense of self-ownership and pursue it, the more I’m willing to pay, no matter how far I’ve come (not far) or how far I have to go (a long way).

It’s the journey that matters, after all. 


Update: 01.01.11 - Per the comment below, this quote appears to be from an interview with Rudyard Kipling, although it is nearly unanimously attributed to Nietzsche in popular usage.