Tag Philosophy

AFYM: Just show up

Max Beaulieu Leave a comment
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There is a strange ethic that runs through the culture like a common cold, or maybe a better comparison would be Mono. You know that disease that all the teens gave each-other when Stacy would make out with Jack and Jack with John, and John with Jill, ect. It would make you lethargic, and not want to do much of anything.

The ethic I am so haphazardly talking about is, well the idea of making up for yesterday.

“i didn’t eat well yesterday, best eat extra good today.”

“I didn’t workout hard enough yesterday and so I’d better do double today.”

and So on.

But the problem with this mentality is that it is a self replicating problem, and discourages what I think is the ultimate virtue that being Habit.

Habit, and true habit, is kind. Now some will say you must be firm, and kindness is weakness, and trivial kindness can be a sort of weakness.

After all, is it truly kind to simply let yourself become fat? No, it’s not, and it’s a trivial sort of kindness, a short term sort of kindness that is confused with genuine kindness.

Genuine Kindness is to forgive the mistakes of the past and to simply resolve to show up, and do your best today.

Notice I said, forgive, not to forget, it’s important to remove stumbling blocks in the road, and to make the journey as easy as possible.

But the key, the ultimate key is to simply show up, and frankly that’s what most people need anyhow. Many a job or task simply needs a touch of human attention to run properly.

The world you see is quite boring in it’s growth. Even the most exciting events , avalanches, birth, and volcanic eruptions, are actually the final culmination of a million, million little actions taken over a period of time.

So, the key is to simply show up, and peruse that greater kindness. Each day take note of the past, and your failings and then put them aside.

If you ate poorly yesterday, eat well today, but just as well as you intended to yesterday, no more.

If you quit early exercising, exercise as much as you intended the day before and no more.

If you do force yourself to do more, your mind will inevitably, and quite subtly begin to see the task you want it to do as a punishment, and like all punishment will seek to avoid it.

If you further push yourself with negativity, you will catch your mind between two bad options, and well that is a very bad place for a mind to be. Learned helplessness is one hell of a drug.

So, to vastly simplify complex ideas, treat yourself as you’d want a kind father, mother, coach or authority figure to treat you. You can hold yourself to high standards, but when you fail, this kind figure steps in.

He or she says, “now, listen here, you failed to meet X goal, and that’s ok, but I know you can do it. So let’s just try our best today.”

While this is simple, if you’ve been negative to yourself, it can take a long time. That’s alright, keep trying, keep forgiving yourself, and keep showing up.

AFYM:Nihilism is a crutch

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Life is a tragedy.

We are born in an arbitrary, and unjust world.

We are raised into a world, if we are lucky we are taught love, only to come finally to the realization that everything, even your body will be torn from you.

This is the first half of most existentialists’ arguments, and where many a young person stumbles. They read this and tossing aside the difficult, and often cryptic words of a philosopher decry “NOTHING MATTERS!” and so they slink into the realm of the NEET.

Ultimately this is a mistake, because it is a false wisdom predicated not on life experience but the experience told to them by a far away authority figure. (many of which are hopelessly misunderstood, and in the second half of the work that is so casually tossed away find logic to refute Nihilism.)

The truth is Nihilism is most often unearned. “Nothing matters , god is dead, there is no point to anything”, goes the Nihilist, but go to any of those saying these things, and ask, “what have you done to prove or disprove this?”

ideas you see are sticky things, and people forget that at our core we are a very advanced animal that came from a much less advanced iteration. This iteration favors laziness and ease to all things, and Nihilism fits this bill perfectly.

“If Nothing matters? Well then I don’t have to do anything. I don’t have to have any responsibilities. It’s not my fault, the world is inherently meaningless so I have no motivation.” is the line of logic, and it is a terribly convenient one too.

It is much more difficult to go out and test these “truths” than it is to simple accept them, and moreover it is a vast over estimation of the cognitive power of the self.

Can anyone really know if nothing matters? Do we know without a shadow of a doubt that the heat death of the universe will happen? OR that in that strange place after it there may be some change, some dissonance that starts everything? Or that there might not be some interaction from dimensions above?

We do not. To reject Nihilism, and for that matter all dogmas is to assert one’s own humility in the face of the unknown.

To paraphrase Socrates ” all I know is that I know nothing.” And there is some beauty in that.

The Shadow

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The sun rose on the ashen plains of the soul, as it always had, as it had in the days of the first man, as it had in the day of the last man. No moment passed without her witness, and now she trodden beside him, his uneasy gait, plunging and rising, the tide of the testament to impermanence.

He could not conceive of her. She trailed him in the corner of his eye, and the animal part of him knew her, urging him forward, sweat pooling at the palms of the man, beyond his recognition.

The man for his part rubbed his hands on his dirty leathers, and walked into that dying sun, the orange rays burdening his eyes. Death urged him forward, her lips dry and cracked her visage unchanged, but eagerness shone in her eyes.

This would be it. No more sentience, no more work, no more hands to hold, no one else to watch over, no one else to lead back to the fold. The grand experiment, would be finished, once again the universe would be cold, and dead and quiet.

The man turned, and faced her for the first time seeing her, and with a gasp he was no more, but death remained. No bliss came. Somewhere far off in the darkness, another sort of creature’s mind awoke, and death with her cracked lips cursed the silent earth, and began the long quest once more.

The Hate You Love to Give

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Anger is useless if it isn’t focused

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Roar as the dawn rises, in the stench of blood and rot. we dwell in cities iced in luxury but the core is soured, old milk on hot pavement, the carton looks fresh and new, but chunky truth hides in the middle.

So many rage. I see it. I feel it. Every time a shooting happens, each time a man’s neck is kneeled upon, each time a polotical scandal breaches the surface.

“Has the world ever been this bad?” Utter lips, their question rhetorical, they know in their heart it’s never been this bad.

Or has it?

I am going to say something controversial, the world is better than ever.

The world was much much worse in the past, but we didn’t know about it. If you wanted to learn about the atrocities that a black man in the south lived through you might have to actually track him down and ask him, or more likely his surviving relatives.

If you wanted to know about political corruption you had to hope the newspaper told you about it.

Now everyone is a whistle-blower, and the hot steaming truth of the horrors of the world once hidden from us is at our pocket level each day, and each night.

Moreover, we are fed this horrible info, because capitalistic systems have figured out that the best way to monetize us is to make us upset.

And so we walk around in a state of low level upsetness, each horror we consume adding to our guild and existential debts.

I ask, what value have we derived from the overflow of knowledge? What do we glean from this consistent impotent rage, checked by flare ups?

Nothing.

And why? Because Citizens of the United States are constantly allowing themselves to be distracted by the next outrage. They eschew dialog in favor of looking good to their peers, and they push agendas lazily from behind a keyboard.

This is not an indictment, Real, Long Lasting change, is difficult, messy, unsatisfactory, and slow.

The kind of change being demanded by various protest movements is one of systemic policy making, and requires organization and an effective organization requires a unified ideal.

Part of the reason many left leaning movements in the united states have fallen apart can be see in the disparate elements of the party.

Not that this is a particularly good thing, but the right wing of the united states was quick to back the president. While seemingly spineless this sort of rallying can be no means dismissed as ineffective.

Most protest movements fall apart simply because they have no unification. Factions within the movement draw lines, and preform social signaling to prove they are the most worthy.

Without a clear structure, clear goals, and a unified long-term strategy, people who want to enact change will either burn out their rage impotent or potentially more dangerously flock to utopian ideals.

One needs only look at the 20th century’s death camps, famines, wars, and police states to know how dangerous utopia can be.

Who are you preforming to?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2UY0a08RQ
It’s all a game

As I continue my mindfulness practice, I’ve been able to put space between my thoughts and myself.

As I observe the thoughts my mind spontaneously generates, I have taken to gently confronting them with reality. Recently, my father told me he’s never judged me, and for the first time I believed him.

For much of my life, I found myself living in the shadow of my father, making him the villain of my life, and now looking back, I can see I was deeply wrong.

In reality I was preforming to no one. I wanted a villain because it gave me an excuse not to try. I learned to be helpless, and I learned to ignore how my father loved me because he did not love me in the particular way I wanted him to.

My perfectionist desires, so branded into my mind ensured I’d never be content with what is.

As I find myself accepting what is, I am not happier, but I am sure as hell better able to deal with the world.

The sucky things still suck, but I don’t expect them not to suck, and that makes them suck for a shorter amount of time.

As I look at how I think now, I catch myself asking, “who are you preforming to? Who are you posturing for? No one can see your thoughts but you?”

The hypercritical part of my brain automatically generates these negative thoughts. I can see where it learned these behaviors, the people who imparted this negativity, but I see now, I let them.

This is not to say that I am at fault. No the fault lies in those people who were cruel to me, but I think the part of me that is responsible is the current version of me.

The child in me had no idea of how to resist or move around the wills of other people, and allowed the strongest to be imposed. That was not his fault, he was after all a child.

However, as an adult, we can choose. We can go back to the past events and forgive everyone involved. We can see those people who visited cruelty upon us were victims in their own way, and we can forgive our younger self for not resisting them.

Most importantly, we can observe the thoughts and learned behaviors with a mindfull eye, and question them.

“Am I really a loser? or was I a child with a learning disability that limited his ability to gauge social ques?”

“Am I a failure?” Or are my standards set without limits or regards to my abilities?

Do my thoughts align with the most objective reality I can grapple with?

Nonetheless, I know I am not done, but in reality, nothing ever is.

Ideology: The Memetic Virus

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The Shepherds of Ideology

I live in a small conservative town. The people are kind for the most part. We have our fair share of entitled people, but for the most part most people just want to get along.

I have a habit of engaging in dialog with almost anyone. It’s something I’ve done for a long while, and it often leads me to philosophical paths. I do not intend for things to go there, but I like big ideas, and to hold ideas in my head that I don’t particularly agree with.

However, in my town the two pervading forces are church, and right wing politics. Interestingly enough, I am not anti-religion, nor am I hyper liberal, but to many of those possessed by these ideologies any amount of fervor other than the maximum is not pure enough.

Many a kind conversation has turned sour when certain topics like mortality come up. I see the speaker’s eyes glaze, their jaw slacken, the words ” what do you think happens when you die?” dribble out of their mouth, and flop with a wet thud onto the floor.

In my younger days, I used to argue. I used to bring up philosophical questions, I used to care. But now, I kindly refocus the conversation, or attempt to. I’ve taken to directly addressing the wet mess on the floor. To some this is a wake up call enough but to most they begin to push their ideology.

This is not an exclusively Right-wing or religious idea. Man is a religious creature, and having killed god has sought for some time a replacement. Some have turned to post modernism, others harder to the established religious and some have turned to the state.

I understand. The need for certainty is a powerful driver, as someone who suffers from mild to moderate OCD, I have lived nearly each day in the shadow of doubt. But it is that doubt that has made me understand the importance of not knowing.

Ideologies are set in stone. There is no wiggle room. No doubt. One must conform to the tenets of the ideology, even as they are poorly defined.

There is no easy answer on how to avoid becoming possessed by an ideology, but there is a feeling. Supreme certainty of ones actions is a dangerous feeling, and one that should always be tempered with doubt.

Social Media Is Mental Junkfood

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As I’ve referenced before, algorithms keep us unhappy. I am guilty of this as much as anyone.

The never ending cascade of worm filled toffee apple of reddit is my go to. It’s a carefully calibrated algorithm that enrages me with news of the tragedies of the world, mixed with the most beautiful scenery, food, women and inventions.

It is a beautiful lie.

All social media is at it’s best an incomplete picture of the world, and reddit is no different.

As such, it begins to erode our view of our own life if we let it. I find myself viewing people, food and situations through the lens of comparison, which is not fair to anyone, especially not myself.

Reality is dirty, dusty and uncurated, and more and more I am trying to live in that world.

What happens when no one can buy what you make?

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Henry Ford 1919

Make the Best Quality of Goods Possible at the Lowest Cost Possible, Paying the Highest Wages Possible”

Henry Ford

Henry Ford is not someone that I would aspire to often. Ford did some things right, and like many historical figures he was a complex man.

That being said, he understood a core concept of Capitalism, one that many, I’d argue most companies have forgotten.

If you cannot pay your workers enough to afford you products, you will eventually murder your own bottom line.

Searching for jobs of late, I’ve found many that are hiring, despite the pandemic. However, the wages being offered are shall we say misaligned with the geographical location.

I did a quick cost estimation, and it would take most people to live in a studio apartment in Los Angeles alone 22 dollars an hour, if they were to pay for all of their expenses. ( health insurance, rent, car repair savings, savings for retirement ect. )

However, the number of full time 40 hour a week positions paying under that, jobs that require years of experience, and a college degree is staggering, and unfortunately short sighted.

The long term health of the world has long been put aside in the shadow of the nuclear bomb. The decision of business leaders to not pay their worker’s enough, while lining their own pockets, has had a profound impact of the psychy of the american worker.

First off, it has led to a decline of so many non-essential and non-competitive businesses. Millennial Killing X industry is little more than a dog whistle to those businesses that refuse to adapt, and shows how symbiotic “journalism” has become. (a topic for another day).

The younger population has no excess income, and so have begun to shy away from those dalliances that their parents afforded. One of these is the overwhelming number of people who are in my life deciding not to have children.

This is a direct result of not being able to afford them. This is of course a long term problem, a problem that Japan is facing right now, and one that is threatening to hurt their economy and national security.

I could go on, but I will end with a simple query. When the party is over, and all the capital is sucked up into the bank accounts of just a few, where do you get your food cooked, and your shelves stocked? who grows it?

When the last employee is bankrupt who will make your economy run?

Understanding the 1%

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John D. Rockefeller 1885- One of the Richest Men Ever

I think much of the criticism of the 1% of wealthy people is valid and justifiable. However, I am reject the dehumanization of these people in order to push an ideology.

Capitalism with all of its failures is in my eyes the most efficient way to distribute goods and services. That being said, there is little reason for certain things to be monetized, and it is the role of the State in these places to act as the governing body. Private healthcare, private prisons, and private schools all have perilous moral quandaries attached to them.

(how can a doctor do no harm when he works in a system that perpetuates that harm?)

However, Capitalism’s biggest failures are of course those who’ve generated the most “success” (in the 1950’s version of the word, meaning money).

Imagine becoming exorbitantly wealthy. You no longer have to work or to struggle. Your wildest fantasies become real. You can use your money to overcome nearly every single problem in your life. You eat lobster and prime rib for every dinner, and fly to Japan for the weekend. It is perfect.

The rub begins a few years in. The brain is a pesky habituation machine. It is the core of human nature to always hunger for more. But what happens when there is no more? When your wearing a 200,000 dollar watch there is no finer watch. Sure you might collect art or real estate after that, but it all leaves you hollow.

Life is meaningless without struggle.

For some, they turn to philanthropy, to problems that their money cannot solve to focus on. Bill Gate’s attempts to combat disease, or Elon Musk’s adventures to Mars and to AI Human fusion are interesting examples of this, (not that either of them is perfect, they are by all accounts human and horribly flawed).

The other choice is to do the thing that once brought them satisfaction, accumulate greater wealth.

One might even see them as the modern day dragon, dragons themselves being commentary on the behavioral sink that wealth hording is.

Not only does this lack of meaning lead to a skewed view of reality, the social interactions of the Megawealthy are by and large skewed to their own fellows.

Fame and money attract people who are scammers, and beggars. Each interaction becomes a calculation for the uber-rich, what does this person want from me? Even if say you become friends with a lower income individual who desires nothing from you and asks for nothing, there will always be someone in that person’s life who will attempt to use you through them.

The lack of needing anyone else as a consequence of being wealthy is also incredibly isolating.

When you take all of these factors together you begin to piece together the lie of wealth.

The wealthy begin to see anyone not as wealthy as beggars and thieves, they no longer see themselves as part of a community or country, and very little brings them the same rush that being wealthy once brought them. Thus the modern day dragon is born.

Does this make their behavior right? I cannot say, all I can say is while I do not excuse them, I understand them.

Algorithmic Dystopia: Part 2

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By © User:Colin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Choose a website. Any website. Chances are you are not being shown the true chronological and wholesale content of that website.

Instead you are seeing what the complex math of an Algorithm decides is worthy.

Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter are the biggest offenders of this but they are by far not the only ones.

While this might be argued to give a better user experience, I’d argue that it’s more about the nature of causing conflict, which extends user time, which by and large is an attempt to extract advertising revenue.

This makes sense. We were offered connection, at the price of privacy, but these things were not spelled out to the public. We were blissfully unaware that our information was harvested, and sold to the highest bidder, the advertisements were the icing on the cake, the extra money.

The real dystopic algorithm is the one that shows us the content that prompts interaction, and then proceeds to take note of that interaction.

Slowly, but surely these algorithms attempt to understand and exploit the cognitive weaknesses inherent in all human beings.

All of this of course comes down to the idea of money. Or should I say the idea of a Zero Sum game idea of money. But that is a topic for another day.