Roadmap:
1. I take stock of 2008 "The Year of Responsibility"
2. I talk about what I did learn this year, which was not what I had planned
3. I set out my goal for 2009, "The Year of Accountability"
If anyone is reading this, you may want to skip ahead, part 1 is not very exciting, it is just for me to take stock of my performance.
1. YEAR OF RESPONSIBILITY CHECKLIST
I have been putting this off for a long time, but it is time to own up and take responsibility for "the year of responsibility." The original point of this blog was to start writing on a regular basis. It was a resolution as part of my goal for the "Year of Responsibility." I think the idea was that I after having learned self-discipline the previous year, it was time to put use my newfound powers for good and to share my thoughts with the world.
Like many of my goals for this year, the blog did not go as planned. I did not write in this blog once a month this year, nor did I accomplish many of the other goals that i set for myself. Let me take stock of how I did:
Blog - Did not write regularly. Did write some thoughtful, but rambling, posts that helped me organize my worldview, and helped me think about the big picture.
Community Service - I volunteered a few times at the library but it fizzled out, and once at my synagogue back in Dallas. I also ran in a breast cancer 5k, however, I did not achieve my goal of once-a-month regular service projects.
Shabbat - Started the year strong with this one, but faded away after the high holidays. I didn't always find the times that I went to synagogue rewarding, but i did enjoy the shabbat exercise, so the act of cooking dinner and lighting candles and trying to be mindful of the fact that it is shabbat was really nice. I think I will try to do this again.
Donations - I should be able to accomplish this one. I have given a good deal of charity and also raised money for the holidays.
Finances - The one stand-out success of my resolutions was that I have kept up with recording my finances every month. Next year I will take the next step and develop a formal budget.
Weekly review - Fail.
Write to people I care about - Fail :-(
Do the dishes - I seriously ended up doing more than planned on this one because i moved into my own place and it has no dishwasher so I have washed all of my dishes by hand. I have kept up with the dishes pretty well I would say.
Floss and take vitamins - Started out ok but failed pretty quickly into the year.
2. WHAT DID I LEARN/ACCOMPLISH THIS YEAR?
So, judging from part 1, I can't call the year of responsibility a success in the way that 2007 was a success for the year of discipline, but it turns out I did accomplish a lot this year, just not what I set out to do.
On Jan 6, 2008, I started dating an amazing, beautiful, fiery young woman. Very soon we will celebrate our one year anniversary, making this the longest relationship that I have had in a long time.
In 2007, I became my own person and figured out how to take care of myself and be the person that I wanted to be. This year, I turned my focus from taking care of myself and improving myself to taking care of a relationship. Clearly, bringing another human being into one's life is much different than making decisions alone. It requires having less control and giving more communication. It requires patience, listening, and sacrifice. A healthy relationship demands a lot of time and energy, but there are also great rewards. I have learned so much about how to understand someone else, and how my actions can appear to others differently than I intended them (and that I need to think about that more). I have learned a great deal about another culture, and learned once again how valuable each moment is.
In the course of being in a relationship, and also figuring out what is important to me, I have made some big changes in my life this year:
- I quit drinking
- I quit smoking pot
-I stopped eating meat (except seafood - try to do sustainable seafood) - this is due to my relationship, but also due to the fact that eating meat is a huge cause of global warming and also drives the corn subsidies that degrade the nutrition of our food and enable the obesity problem.
I haven't worked out as much as I would have liked to, but I have for the most part stayed in shape in 2008.
My grades in the PhD program have been surprisingly good. Lucky is in good health, and my fish has so far survived longer than any fish I have ever had.
I also gave away a lot of my old possessions and I am trying to clear out more and live more simply. For example, I don't subscribe to television anymore, I just have a rabbit ear antenna to watch a few events. (gasp, no tivo!)
So, I am very thankful for all that I have learned and grown in 2008 and all of the blessings that have been bestowed upon me.
3. 2009 THE YEAR OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Ok, last but not least, this brings me to next year. I do feel like I could have accomplished more in 2008, but it has become difficult to manage my time with so much going on in my life. Being an accountant, I immediately realized that before I can take full control of my time, I have to be able to measure it. So, the goal for 2008 is to keep track of everything I do. Here are the basics:
- Record what I do with my time every day (Hour by Hour, like when I was a consultant)
- Record what I spend (already doing it for the most part)
- Record what I eat
- Record my exercise
The idea is that is if I force myself to look at how I really spend my time, it will inspire me to use my time more wisely. For example, it is easy for me to get carried away playing video games, but if at the end of the week I have to look at a report that says I spent 20 hours (exaggeration, hopefully) playing video games last week, I will think "Wow, I didn't realize i was wasting so much time, that is too much video games." Again, the first step towards control is measurement. If you don't know what you are spending your time and money on, you don't know what to change.
If I get really ambitious I may post all of this data publicly. I'm not sure that anyone would be interested, but it may help me get organized, or at least feel some pressure to get my act together if i feel like I have to answer for my time in public (even worse than seeing that I spent 20 hrs playing video games is thinking that other people will know that I spent 20 hrs playing video games).
So, that is the main goal. I am using quicken right now to track my finances and I have looked into some free software for time entry with a iPhone app plugin. I will post more next year about my system when I get up and running.
Here's wishing myself good luck on a new year of accountability, hopefully I will have to take a real hard look at what I am doing with my life and find the best way to move towards the goals I left unfulfilled in 2008.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
L'Shana Tova and Happy Eid
Ok, I have to admit that I have really fallen short on most of my resolutions for this year, and especially on keeping up with this blog. I have thought about this and have a plan to try to recover next year, but I will write about that another time.
Today is the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and I would like to take some time out of my day on this holiday for some reflection here. I think it is more meaningful and appropriate to write in this blog on this holiday than to do chores around the house or play video games like I normally might.
I must confess that I am not feeling as positive as I would like to on this new year. I will try to end this post on a positive note, but I am going to write out the worries that are on my mind today first.
With that, let me put forth my version of a philisophical mashup:
Read this, which I saw for the first time today:
http://snuffysmithsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/world-without-islam-by-graham-fuller.html
Then read this, which I read some time ago and remembered lately:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/research/Hammond%20and%20Axelrod%20JCR%2006.pdf
associated video simulation of above paper:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/Movie%20Midwest%20Doc.htm
What do you think about when you read those two together??
I have to commend the first aticle that I read today, I think it is very good. I clipped the conclusion for my away message on gchat:
"But, at rock bottom, conflict between East and West remains all about the grand historical and geopolitical issues of human history: ethnicity, nationalism, ambition, greed, resources, local leaders, turf, financial gain, power, interventions, and hatred of outsiders, invaders, and imperialists." - Graham Fuller
To add to this mashup, let me recount a conversation that I had with my girlfriend the other night. The conversation was about the afterlife. I have written in this blog previously about my concerns with the concept of an afterlife. After some tense moments, I was able to convince my girlfriend that my conception of right and wrong and source of hope, which do not rely on the afterlife, are really the same as her beliefs, which rely more heavily on an afterlife. Once, she understood my beliefs, she was quick to point out that most people, at least in our lifetime, are never going to think about it the way that I do and never be able to be satisfied without an afterlife in the way that I am. Now that I write this, I realize that people have indicated this to me in the past, such as Paul or Guillermo, but never quite as clearly as my girlfriend did this week.
In our conversation, it also came up that people's need to have a special personal identity (Eckhart Tolle, or more appropriately, Jung, would call this the ego) really clash with the ideas of globalization and peace. My girlfriend also pointed out that even though it is good for people to come together and see the goodness in each other, people are not going to give up their traditions/identity. People have a need to view themselves as different or part of a special group. So if we can't get people to stop clinging to their groups, how do we get them to treat other groups equally?....this obviously refers back up to the articles I linked to above.
Not that this will make sense to anyone else but I guess a mental map for myself would be that people's geographic location of birth originally linked them into tribes who banded together out of economic necessity, the desire for increased economic comfort leads tribes to clash, and religion can band tribes together beyond geographic location and give tribes an identity which allows them to justify their economic desires or defend their economic necessities. Whether it is the imperialist who justifies the economically greedy expansion because the people he trods upon are not part of his in-tribe or the terrorist who justifies his defense of the economic resources through his tribe's ideology at the expense of the lives of the imperialist in a mirror fashion, both groups suffer from not treating the other group as an equal worthy of love and cooperation.
To tie one more point into what has become an incoherent ramble, today at synagogue I saw the backwards component of my own religion. I went to an orthodox service. Their beliefs somewhat clashed with mine, and there was more undertone of the "chosenness" of the Jewish people than I have seen in other services and more than I am comfortable with. There were also references to satan and ressurection of the dead, so clearly even within Judaism there are those who incorporate the afterlife.
Bottom line, all of these different trains of thought led me to be feeling low on hope for humanity and somewhat despondent. I also felt alone in my conception of the unity of the universe, even though I was in a sea of supposed monotheists. It was difficult for me to feel a connection with my fellow jews when i was congizant of the ethnocentric beliefs in the room.
However, I have regained strength and hope later in the day. I have been fasting for ramadan. Here I am, bringing my culture and another culture together, realizing that we are not different at all, respecting the beauty in some of their traditions. I will be so happy and greatful for Eid tonight, and that is positive. Furthermore, i found a blog from a comment in the graham fuller article that led me to someone that seems to conceive of the world and the problems in the world in a similar manner to the way that I do: http://promiscuous-dialectic.blogspot.com/2007/10/prisoners-dilemma.html
This makes me feel less alone.
Everything is just one thing....but I am trying to understand that not everyone can see that.
I apologize, once again, for how unorganized and rambling this post is. Hopefully these ramblings will lead to something coherent someday.
Today is the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and I would like to take some time out of my day on this holiday for some reflection here. I think it is more meaningful and appropriate to write in this blog on this holiday than to do chores around the house or play video games like I normally might.
I must confess that I am not feeling as positive as I would like to on this new year. I will try to end this post on a positive note, but I am going to write out the worries that are on my mind today first.
With that, let me put forth my version of a philisophical mashup:
Read this, which I saw for the first time today:
http://snuffysmithsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/world-without-islam-by-graham-fuller.html
Then read this, which I read some time ago and remembered lately:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/research/Hammond%20and%20Axelrod%20JCR%2006.pdf
associated video simulation of above paper:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/Movie%20Midwest%20Doc.htm
What do you think about when you read those two together??
I have to commend the first aticle that I read today, I think it is very good. I clipped the conclusion for my away message on gchat:
"But, at rock bottom, conflict between East and West remains all about the grand historical and geopolitical issues of human history: ethnicity, nationalism, ambition, greed, resources, local leaders, turf, financial gain, power, interventions, and hatred of outsiders, invaders, and imperialists." - Graham Fuller
To add to this mashup, let me recount a conversation that I had with my girlfriend the other night. The conversation was about the afterlife. I have written in this blog previously about my concerns with the concept of an afterlife. After some tense moments, I was able to convince my girlfriend that my conception of right and wrong and source of hope, which do not rely on the afterlife, are really the same as her beliefs, which rely more heavily on an afterlife. Once, she understood my beliefs, she was quick to point out that most people, at least in our lifetime, are never going to think about it the way that I do and never be able to be satisfied without an afterlife in the way that I am. Now that I write this, I realize that people have indicated this to me in the past, such as Paul or Guillermo, but never quite as clearly as my girlfriend did this week.
In our conversation, it also came up that people's need to have a special personal identity (Eckhart Tolle, or more appropriately, Jung, would call this the ego) really clash with the ideas of globalization and peace. My girlfriend also pointed out that even though it is good for people to come together and see the goodness in each other, people are not going to give up their traditions/identity. People have a need to view themselves as different or part of a special group. So if we can't get people to stop clinging to their groups, how do we get them to treat other groups equally?....this obviously refers back up to the articles I linked to above.
Not that this will make sense to anyone else but I guess a mental map for myself would be that people's geographic location of birth originally linked them into tribes who banded together out of economic necessity, the desire for increased economic comfort leads tribes to clash, and religion can band tribes together beyond geographic location and give tribes an identity which allows them to justify their economic desires or defend their economic necessities. Whether it is the imperialist who justifies the economically greedy expansion because the people he trods upon are not part of his in-tribe or the terrorist who justifies his defense of the economic resources through his tribe's ideology at the expense of the lives of the imperialist in a mirror fashion, both groups suffer from not treating the other group as an equal worthy of love and cooperation.
To tie one more point into what has become an incoherent ramble, today at synagogue I saw the backwards component of my own religion. I went to an orthodox service. Their beliefs somewhat clashed with mine, and there was more undertone of the "chosenness" of the Jewish people than I have seen in other services and more than I am comfortable with. There were also references to satan and ressurection of the dead, so clearly even within Judaism there are those who incorporate the afterlife.
Bottom line, all of these different trains of thought led me to be feeling low on hope for humanity and somewhat despondent. I also felt alone in my conception of the unity of the universe, even though I was in a sea of supposed monotheists. It was difficult for me to feel a connection with my fellow jews when i was congizant of the ethnocentric beliefs in the room.
However, I have regained strength and hope later in the day. I have been fasting for ramadan. Here I am, bringing my culture and another culture together, realizing that we are not different at all, respecting the beauty in some of their traditions. I will be so happy and greatful for Eid tonight, and that is positive. Furthermore, i found a blog from a comment in the graham fuller article that led me to someone that seems to conceive of the world and the problems in the world in a similar manner to the way that I do: http://promiscuous-dialectic.blogspot.com/2007/10/prisoners-dilemma.html
This makes me feel less alone.
Everything is just one thing....but I am trying to understand that not everyone can see that.
I apologize, once again, for how unorganized and rambling this post is. Hopefully these ramblings will lead to something coherent someday.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Hello Again, Blog
So, part of my new year's resolution was to write in this blog at least once a month. I've missed two months now. I don't know exactly what happened, I think I have been running away from it. I have thought about the blog each month, and each time I thought about it, it just didn't seem like the right time to write in the blog.
But, here I am, I made it back. Maybe I will write some extra posts to try to make up for the ones I missed.
I don't have a specific objective tonight. I made myself a shabbat dinner, poured a glass of shabbat wine, and sat down to reflect on my week and my year so far.
So, the year of responsibility has had mixed success so far.
carryover the year of responsibility:
diet - fallen off a bit, but not terrible. Haven't been drinking much so that has helped. My clothes are all too big now, so I really don't want to lose any more weight.
Exercise - Not as regular a schedule as I was on, but still working out very often. Have been running fairly regularly in the mornings so that has been good.
floss & vitamins - unsuccessful so far. I don't know. I just need to keep trying i guess.
Celebrate shabbat once a month - 4/5 so far. Missed April but did attend Passover seder in April. Celebrated twice at home and twice at synagogue.
Community Service once a month - 2 / 5. Not a great ratio so far, but I did call the Tempe volunteer service this week and turned in my application to volunteer at the library. I think I will be volunteering once a week, which is way more than once a month, so i think I am making progress on my community service this year.
Manage finances - have been keeping up with the finances in Quicken every month. Still not sure if i am doing a good job of budgeting myself or not, but i definitely have been much better about keeping track of the data.
Pick up dog poop - have been better about this. Carrying bags regularly, and picking up a lot more poop. I still don't carry a flashlight. Need to start doing that. Don't pick up the poop when I can't see it.
that is the status of the new years resolutions as much as i can remember right now.
I am really confused about things right now. I can't write any more. I will write more another time.
But, here I am, I made it back. Maybe I will write some extra posts to try to make up for the ones I missed.
I don't have a specific objective tonight. I made myself a shabbat dinner, poured a glass of shabbat wine, and sat down to reflect on my week and my year so far.
So, the year of responsibility has had mixed success so far.
carryover the year of responsibility:
diet - fallen off a bit, but not terrible. Haven't been drinking much so that has helped. My clothes are all too big now, so I really don't want to lose any more weight.
Exercise - Not as regular a schedule as I was on, but still working out very often. Have been running fairly regularly in the mornings so that has been good.
floss & vitamins - unsuccessful so far. I don't know. I just need to keep trying i guess.
Celebrate shabbat once a month - 4/5 so far. Missed April but did attend Passover seder in April. Celebrated twice at home and twice at synagogue.
Community Service once a month - 2 / 5. Not a great ratio so far, but I did call the Tempe volunteer service this week and turned in my application to volunteer at the library. I think I will be volunteering once a week, which is way more than once a month, so i think I am making progress on my community service this year.
Manage finances - have been keeping up with the finances in Quicken every month. Still not sure if i am doing a good job of budgeting myself or not, but i definitely have been much better about keeping track of the data.
Pick up dog poop - have been better about this. Carrying bags regularly, and picking up a lot more poop. I still don't carry a flashlight. Need to start doing that. Don't pick up the poop when I can't see it.
that is the status of the new years resolutions as much as i can remember right now.
I am really confused about things right now. I can't write any more. I will write more another time.
Friday, February 22, 2008
“And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make”
So, Month 2 of the year of responsibility is drawing to a close. I don't want to turn this into a status update. Instead, I want to write about something that I have been thinking about a lot over the past couple of weeks. I don't have my thoughts completely organized, but that's why this a blog, not a paper/article/book, right?
I guess that the question that I have been thinking about is this one: "How do we keep trying?"
Obviously, now I have to explain what I mean by that. What I mean is that, when we are young, we are full of hope, and dreams, and imagination. As we get older, that optimism and idealism is replaced with confusion, skepticism, and hopelessness.
How did this happen? When did all of our dreams die?
Maybe some people remember a specific day, some monumental tragedy that happened to them that erased their faith in the world and killed every dream they ever had. I think that most people, however, can't point to one event. What happens is that we have all of these dreams, all of these great things that we think that we can do. Then, one day, we try to do something and we fail. Not something monumental, just something small. Maybe it was a bad grade, maybe we struck out in baseball, maybe we tried to ask someone out and they rejected us. When that happens, we always ask "why did that happen?" That's what human beings do, that's what makes us human (I recently learned that it's called attribution theory in Psychology). So, something bad happens, and we can explain it one of two ways, either there is something wrong with the world, or there is something wrong with us.
In general, most people try as hard as they can to believe in a "just world" so usually we try to find something wrong with ourselves before we give up on the hope that there is order in the world.
Personally, I am one of those people that always thinks that there is something wrong with me before I think that there is something wrong with the world. It isn't that the world isn't fair, it's just that I' m not smart enough, or not strong enough, or not tall enough, or I didn't try hard enough, or I wasn't disciplined enough, or I didn't listen well enough, etc. Tons of people are like this.
In some cases this is ok. If the reason that we failed really was that we didn't try hard enough, and, by figuring that out, we try harder next time and succeed, that's great. But, what happens when we tried as hard as we could, or the reason we failed really just wasn't our fault? What happens, is that every time one of those little failures occurs, we believe in ourselves just a little bit less. Our dreams die just a little bit at a time. We may not have what it takes to be the president, but maybe we can be a senator, and when that dream dies, a state representative, and when that dream dies, a city councilman, and so on and so forth until our dreams become something manageable, or just die out completely.
Every time that these things happen, they hurt. That's the question we are talking about here, "How do we keep trying once we have tasted failure and it hurts?" What we end up doing is setting up all of these survival techniques so that we have more control. We take less risks with our dreams and with our hearts. We choose a career that we know that we can succeed at and be safe in instead of one we really want to do. If we don't try, we can't fail, and we can't get hurt. One of my psych papers this week talked about one mechanism that students use in order not to get hurt. Sometimes students just don't try, so that when they fail, they can tell themselves it was because they didn't try, not that they just weren't smart enough. They tell themselves that if they had tried they could have done it, but they just didn't want to try because it wasn't worth the effort. This is much less painful than trying your best and still failing.
One final point about this is worth noting. This concept also applies to love/romance. Everyone who has ever had their heart broken knows that it hurts….bad. When someone we admire tells us that they don't feel the same way about us, we think that maybe there is something wrong with us. We tell ourselves that there must be something wrong with us, otherwise why wouldn't someone love us? We tell ourselves that we weren't good looking enough, or caring enough, or exciting enough. Once that happens to us, how do we still believe in love? Our natural reaction is to protect ourselves so that we don't get hurt again. If we never let anyone in to see the true us, they will never be able to see that we aren't good enough and leave us. If we never give our heart to someone else again, they can't break it, when they leave, it won't hurt. "How do we keep trying once we have tasted failure and it hurts?"
So this is how, slowly over time, we stop believing in ourselves.
What happens when instead we stop believing in the world?
So, if something bad happens and it isn't our fault, then life just isn't fair. If we can give it our all and still fail, what is the point? What if I try to change the world and it doesn't seem to do any good? Well, shit, why should I waste my time and money trying to save the world while my neighbor gets rich and takes vacations to the Bahamas? If the world isn't fair, if "life's a bitch and then you die" as my boss puts it, then I might as well have a good time while I can. Eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow we die. If we stop believing that life is fair and has a meaning, then we might as well fight and claw and kick people in the balls and do whatever it takes to get whatever hedonistic (i.e. food, sex, drugs, material possessions) gratification we can get. Maybe, for some people, that gratification is enough to survive. They may not have found meaning in life, but at least they had a nice time drinking champagne in the hot tub at the end of the day, right? But, more people will work their asses off to buy some stuff, and sit around in their mansion with a bunch of useless crap asking themselves what the point of life is, why do they work so hard to pile up all these stupid possessions?
Or, if life isn't fair, and we can't control anything, we can just stop trying. Period. We can fly by the seat of our pants and take insane risks, let things spin out of control until we don't know drunk from sober or up from down, until we don't care about anything or anyone. Or, maybe we just commit suicide, because at least if we can't control anything else about ourselves or the world around us, we can control how we die.
Moving back from the extreme, I think over the course of growing older and experiencing bad things in life, everyone loses faith in both themselves AND the world to varying extents.
How do we keep trying?
The truth is, we can't fully control the world, or even ourselves, no matter how hard we try. That's what we figure out, right? So once we figure that out, how do we keep trying? The only answer that I know of is faith. If anyone read this far and has some insight, please chime in. We have to have faith that our actions mean something. We have to have faith in the world and also in ourselves. We have to have faith that even if we failed this time, next time we might succeed, and even if we don't, it is worth trying. We have to have faith that if we let someone into our heart this time, they might actually love us back, we have to take that chance.
When I use the word faith, it will have different meanings for every person. Some people will think of it as faith that if we give it our best in this life, we can have faith that it will pay off in the afterlife. Some people will think of it as if they have faith in God, and they keep trying, God will eventually provide for them in this life. Some people believe that if they keep trying, and do the right thing, even if they fail in this life, it will bring them good karma which will allow them to be reincarnated into a more satisfying life in the future. Some people just have faith in love, and if they keep showing love to the world, it will love them back. Some people think that, even if doing the right thing doesn't make the world better in their life time, maybe they will be able to inspire one other person, who may inspire one other person and so on, and one of those people may be able to make the world better eventually, and that makes trying today worthwhile. These are all totally the same thing. Exactly the exact same thing. I don't care how much you want to argue about it or what you want to call it, every religion or non-religious philosophy that tries to find meaning in life is telling you the same thing in one form or another "Have faith. Keep trying. Keep hoping." We can argue about which option is the best way to motivate people to do that, but probably different approaches work best for different people, so we should be accepting of anyone who is trying to do the right thing, regardless of which path they take to find faith.
Faith. Will that help you sleep at night? I can't guarantee it. All that I can say is that I think it's better than the alternative. Perhaps for some they can think of the alternative like Pascal did (math really isn't my thing), except instead of believing in God or not, you really just could phrase it as believing in ANYTHING or not. There really is just one choice, believing something matters or believing nothing matters. For me, this is also the only way to live without regret. If I know that I tried my best, and I failed, then I know that I laid it all on the table and I have no regrets. Also, having faith in yourself and in the world is a lot more fun than not having it. I want to delete that last sentence because it sounds so stupid. I keep writing sentences here and deleting them. I don't know how to write this last part. All that I can say is that I don't care if I get hurt. I've been there before and I've held onto it inside of me and lost hope in myself and lost hope in the world, and it wasn't fun. Now I let it go, and it set me free, and I'll never look back. I'm not sure if that last sentence will make sense to anyone but me, but it felt good to type…..so there.
Shabbat Shalom.
~Eric
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Food for Thought
I have been re-reading pieces of one of my favorite books, and I came back across a passage that really resonated with something that I have been thinking about lately. I think that this one paragraph is really talking about the biggest problem that we face in the world today, and maybe have always faced:
Faith in life's inherent worthwhileness and sanctity is needed to counteract the cynicism that sneers at life and mocks at the very notion of holiness. Against such a cheapening of life's values no social idealism that does not reckon with the cosmos as divine is an adequate remedy. How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime, when he leaves them without any definite conviction that the universe will fulfill the hopes that have inspired their sacrifice, or is even able to fulfill them? If human life does not yield some cosmic meaning, is it not the course of wisdom to pursue a policy of "Eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die?"
- Mordecai Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion.
Obviously, the discussion here comes from a religious point of view, but let's put the religion aside for a second and talk about the problem Kaplan describes. Namely, how do we motivate people to care about a future that they will never live to see? This is the fundamental question underlying our problems with the environment, corporate corruption, social security, and the list goes on. It is clear to see that we are raping the earth today at the expense of future generations. Framed correctly, many, if not all, major problems in the world can be viewed in light of this question.
I think that there are two potential answers to this question, and that the answers are not mutually exclusive. I will start with the one that I feel that I have more of a stake in. I think one answer is to attempt to find some way to economically reward (punish) people in the short term for actions that will provide benefits (cause harm) in the long term. "Pricing in" environmental externalities would be one example, but not necessarily a good one. The big question is, in my mind, how do we do this? Is it possible? I don't know. I don't know how to economically incentivize a CEO to make a decision that will make his company better off after he is dead, at the expense of maximizing profit in the short term. Or, i guess i should say that i don't know how to align short term profit with long term profit. That is the real question, how do we make short term profit and long term profit the same thing? I think that if we can do that, we will really change the world, and I am going to try to figure it out, or at least a little piece of it.
The other answer is Kaplan's answer, which I will quote at the end of this post. Kaplan's answer, is to teach people to make decisions based on faith that our actions have meaning, and that the world has meaning beyond "eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die." In other words, instead of figuring out an economic system that rewards doing the right thing (i.e. what i wrote above), figure out how to get people to do the right thing, even when it is not in their economic best interest. To him, and to me, this is the role of religion in our lives. I think that these two solutions go hand in hand and can both be pursued at the same time, but I think that I can make more of an impact on the economic side of things.
I hesitate to write about religion, but I am going to take the plunge and write a couple of related questions and thoughts.
If we accept this as the role of religion, one question I have is, does other-worldly religion help or hurt people in making the right decision? This is a tough question. I guess I should preface my thoughts on it with the disclaimer that I do not believe in Heaven and Hell, or in the afterlife in general. Or, more accurately, I just believe that the afterlife is irrelevant. With that said, there are both good and bad things to be said about those who focus on the afterlife. On the one hand, the afterlife does give people some incentive to think about right or wrong, because they are worried about making decisions that will get them into heaven or keep them out of hell, even when those decisions may not be in their economic best interest in this life.
The heaven/hell concept is also pretty easy for poor, downtrodden, uneducated people to understand and buy into.
On the other hand, the concept of the afterlife inherently makes this life less meaningful. If this life is temporary and miserable compared to eternal salvation, who cares what state the world is in when you die? If we think about it historically, the afterlife is the part of religion that was created as the opiate of the masses. The afterlife concept comes from the fact that in the middle ages, people felt so powerless in this life. They had no hope on earth, so they created a utopia in heaven where they could still have hope. I would prefer that people believe that such a utopia is possible on this earth. Also, the concept of the afterlife cheapens the value of doing the right thing. Instead of understanding that showing kindness to others is its own reward, people only see showing kindness to others as a path to eternal salvation. In the end, people are losing out because their salvation is right in front of them, not in the afterlife. I guess I have just shown my personal belief, but other people may disagree.
I only bring this up to say that the religious answer to the question of "How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime?" does not require belief in heaven or hell, or any religious dogma in particular. All that it requires is for people to believe that their actions have meaning, and that life has value. This is basically what Kaplan says in the quote below. This belief is what he labels as God, or the god concept, but you can label it anything you like, as long as you believe it.
So, I have written a lot here, and I will leave you at last with the next paragraph of Kaplan's book, and hope that people interpret it correctly without having read the rest of the book. I would be happy to answer any questions or discuss this further if anyone actually read this far and is interested.
From Kaplan:
Belief in God as here conceived can function in our day exactly as the belief in God has always functioned; it can function as an affirmation that life has value. It implies, as the God idea has always implied, a certain assumption with regard to the nature of reality, the assumption that reality is so constituted as to endorse and guarantee the realization in man of that which is of greatest value to him. If we believe that assumption to be true, for, as has been said, it is an assumption that is not susceptible of proof, we have faith in God. No metaphysical speculation beyond this fundamental assumption that reality assures both the emergence and the realization of human ideals is necessary for religious life.
Faith in life's inherent worthwhileness and sanctity is needed to counteract the cynicism that sneers at life and mocks at the very notion of holiness. Against such a cheapening of life's values no social idealism that does not reckon with the cosmos as divine is an adequate remedy. How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime, when he leaves them without any definite conviction that the universe will fulfill the hopes that have inspired their sacrifice, or is even able to fulfill them? If human life does not yield some cosmic meaning, is it not the course of wisdom to pursue a policy of "Eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die?"
- Mordecai Kaplan, The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion.
Obviously, the discussion here comes from a religious point of view, but let's put the religion aside for a second and talk about the problem Kaplan describes. Namely, how do we motivate people to care about a future that they will never live to see? This is the fundamental question underlying our problems with the environment, corporate corruption, social security, and the list goes on. It is clear to see that we are raping the earth today at the expense of future generations. Framed correctly, many, if not all, major problems in the world can be viewed in light of this question.
I think that there are two potential answers to this question, and that the answers are not mutually exclusive. I will start with the one that I feel that I have more of a stake in. I think one answer is to attempt to find some way to economically reward (punish) people in the short term for actions that will provide benefits (cause harm) in the long term. "Pricing in" environmental externalities would be one example, but not necessarily a good one. The big question is, in my mind, how do we do this? Is it possible? I don't know. I don't know how to economically incentivize a CEO to make a decision that will make his company better off after he is dead, at the expense of maximizing profit in the short term. Or, i guess i should say that i don't know how to align short term profit with long term profit. That is the real question, how do we make short term profit and long term profit the same thing? I think that if we can do that, we will really change the world, and I am going to try to figure it out, or at least a little piece of it.
The other answer is Kaplan's answer, which I will quote at the end of this post. Kaplan's answer, is to teach people to make decisions based on faith that our actions have meaning, and that the world has meaning beyond "eat, drink and make merry, for tomorrow we die." In other words, instead of figuring out an economic system that rewards doing the right thing (i.e. what i wrote above), figure out how to get people to do the right thing, even when it is not in their economic best interest. To him, and to me, this is the role of religion in our lives. I think that these two solutions go hand in hand and can both be pursued at the same time, but I think that I can make more of an impact on the economic side of things.
I hesitate to write about religion, but I am going to take the plunge and write a couple of related questions and thoughts.
If we accept this as the role of religion, one question I have is, does other-worldly religion help or hurt people in making the right decision? This is a tough question. I guess I should preface my thoughts on it with the disclaimer that I do not believe in Heaven and Hell, or in the afterlife in general. Or, more accurately, I just believe that the afterlife is irrelevant. With that said, there are both good and bad things to be said about those who focus on the afterlife. On the one hand, the afterlife does give people some incentive to think about right or wrong, because they are worried about making decisions that will get them into heaven or keep them out of hell, even when those decisions may not be in their economic best interest in this life.
The heaven/hell concept is also pretty easy for poor, downtrodden, uneducated people to understand and buy into.
On the other hand, the concept of the afterlife inherently makes this life less meaningful. If this life is temporary and miserable compared to eternal salvation, who cares what state the world is in when you die? If we think about it historically, the afterlife is the part of religion that was created as the opiate of the masses. The afterlife concept comes from the fact that in the middle ages, people felt so powerless in this life. They had no hope on earth, so they created a utopia in heaven where they could still have hope. I would prefer that people believe that such a utopia is possible on this earth. Also, the concept of the afterlife cheapens the value of doing the right thing. Instead of understanding that showing kindness to others is its own reward, people only see showing kindness to others as a path to eternal salvation. In the end, people are losing out because their salvation is right in front of them, not in the afterlife. I guess I have just shown my personal belief, but other people may disagree.
I only bring this up to say that the religious answer to the question of "How can a social idealist ask men to deny themselves immediate satisfactions for the sake of future good that they may never see in their lifetime?" does not require belief in heaven or hell, or any religious dogma in particular. All that it requires is for people to believe that their actions have meaning, and that life has value. This is basically what Kaplan says in the quote below. This belief is what he labels as God, or the god concept, but you can label it anything you like, as long as you believe it.
So, I have written a lot here, and I will leave you at last with the next paragraph of Kaplan's book, and hope that people interpret it correctly without having read the rest of the book. I would be happy to answer any questions or discuss this further if anyone actually read this far and is interested.
From Kaplan:
Belief in God as here conceived can function in our day exactly as the belief in God has always functioned; it can function as an affirmation that life has value. It implies, as the God idea has always implied, a certain assumption with regard to the nature of reality, the assumption that reality is so constituted as to endorse and guarantee the realization in man of that which is of greatest value to him. If we believe that assumption to be true, for, as has been said, it is an assumption that is not susceptible of proof, we have faith in God. No metaphysical speculation beyond this fundamental assumption that reality assures both the emergence and the realization of human ideals is necessary for religious life.
...and so begins the Year of Responsibility
So, this post is where I lay out the Year of Responsibility, which I feel like couldn't have arrived at a better time. First, however, I would like to follow up with one important lesson from the Year of Discipline that I left out of my last post. I think I am going to write a lot tonight.
Possibly the most important thing that I learned last year was how important it is to love myself. I have always really struggled with it, and this year I finally learned to love myself. This is important, because I realized that if I don't love me, how can anyone else possibly love me? I am sure I could write a lot about this, but I will just point out one offshoot of this idea, and leave the rest for everyone else to figure out on their own.
The one thing that I will point out is how this concept seeps its way into even small things in life. For example, eating a slice of pizza will taste good. In the short term, it will satisfy some carnal pleasure, and maybe bring me a moment of happiness. However, slice by slice, that pizza will make me feel worse about myself in the long run. Each time I eat a piece, i will be a little bit disappointed in myself, because I won't be the healthy, disciplined person that I want to be. Each time, I will be someone that is less of what I love about myself. I am not saying that I should NEVER eat pizza, nobody loves a boring anal hardass either. All I'm saying, is that little things which you might not realize affect your self-image do affect it, and that in the long run these things will add up to have a big impact on your happiness and fulfillment.
Ok, on to the Year of Responsibility. I may follow up another time with some big picture motivations for why I want to do these things this year, but for now, here are some specific goals that I have for myself this year:
- Do at least one community service project a month. (I am hopefully kicking this off tomorrow by volunteering at the food bank with my Mom's boyfriend)
- Celebrate Shabbat on Friday night at least once a month, by either having shabbat dinner and lighting the candles and staying in, or going to services, or both.
- Donate a minimum of 5% of my income to charity, with a goal of 10%.
- Manage my finances better. This will involve tracking all of my transactions in financial software such as Quicken, and possibly setting a budget too.
- Really sit down and do a GTD-style weekly review. This may start out as once a month and build up to weekly.
- Write in this blog at least once a month (I am going to start out right after this with another post tonight).
- Each month, write to one person that I care about but haven't kept in touch with when I meant to.
- Put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, instead of the sink.
- In general, make less of a mess to begin with instead of making a big mess, cleaning it up, and making another big mess.
Finally, a couple of holdovers from the year of discipline:
- Take my vitamins every day.
- Floss every day.
Ok, I may develop more as I go along, but I think this is a pretty good list for now. It may seem like a lot of resolutions, but I really think I can fit all of these in, and that I will feel really good about them when I do them.
Possibly the most important thing that I learned last year was how important it is to love myself. I have always really struggled with it, and this year I finally learned to love myself. This is important, because I realized that if I don't love me, how can anyone else possibly love me? I am sure I could write a lot about this, but I will just point out one offshoot of this idea, and leave the rest for everyone else to figure out on their own.
The one thing that I will point out is how this concept seeps its way into even small things in life. For example, eating a slice of pizza will taste good. In the short term, it will satisfy some carnal pleasure, and maybe bring me a moment of happiness. However, slice by slice, that pizza will make me feel worse about myself in the long run. Each time I eat a piece, i will be a little bit disappointed in myself, because I won't be the healthy, disciplined person that I want to be. Each time, I will be someone that is less of what I love about myself. I am not saying that I should NEVER eat pizza, nobody loves a boring anal hardass either. All I'm saying, is that little things which you might not realize affect your self-image do affect it, and that in the long run these things will add up to have a big impact on your happiness and fulfillment.
Ok, on to the Year of Responsibility. I may follow up another time with some big picture motivations for why I want to do these things this year, but for now, here are some specific goals that I have for myself this year:
- Do at least one community service project a month. (I am hopefully kicking this off tomorrow by volunteering at the food bank with my Mom's boyfriend)
- Celebrate Shabbat on Friday night at least once a month, by either having shabbat dinner and lighting the candles and staying in, or going to services, or both.
- Donate a minimum of 5% of my income to charity, with a goal of 10%.
- Manage my finances better. This will involve tracking all of my transactions in financial software such as Quicken, and possibly setting a budget too.
- Really sit down and do a GTD-style weekly review. This may start out as once a month and build up to weekly.
- Write in this blog at least once a month (I am going to start out right after this with another post tonight).
- Each month, write to one person that I care about but haven't kept in touch with when I meant to.
- Put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, instead of the sink.
- In general, make less of a mess to begin with instead of making a big mess, cleaning it up, and making another big mess.
Finally, a couple of holdovers from the year of discipline:
- Take my vitamins every day.
- Floss every day.
Ok, I may develop more as I go along, but I think this is a pretty good list for now. It may seem like a lot of resolutions, but I really think I can fit all of these in, and that I will feel really good about them when I do them.
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