primacy vs. decency: a question of balance

It's a concept that's had many iterations in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. 

We see it in psychoanalysis in the war between the id, aspects of the ego, and the superego. We see it in dual-processing theory of mind that, with support from neuropsychology, explains the internal conflict between human motivations as the reciprocal relationship between System 1 (the instinctive, interactional aspect of consciousness whose actions are solicited by the environment) and System 2 (the hypothetically-capable, computational aspect of consciousness that allows for consideration of the possible). We see it in Hobbes' social contract theory and the need to sacrifice certain freedoms in order to live in harmony with others. We see it in Buddhism, which in its Four Noble Truths explains the cause of human suffering as Dukkha, the inherent desire that the ego has for something other than what it has, and includes in the Path of Liberation from Dukkha the imperative to behave decently towards others and to practice discipline. 

Primacy vs. Decency. The will to put one's own needs and desires over the needs of others, and the mandate to consider the needs of others when making decisions. 

In different societies in the world the consideration of the collective and the goals of the individual hold different respective weights. In Japan, for instance, the needs of the collective are held to be of greater importance than the needs of the individual. Regardless of the relative weight primacy and decency, they are widely recognized to be in mutual opposition.

Being animals, perhaps primacy is written in our neurons. The drive not just to survive, but to feel good, to do well and to succeed, whatever that may look like. Perhaps even the drive to dominate is wired within us, which is why we require laws to be enforced upon us by governing bodies.

I try to maintain the faith I have in people. I am lucky to know a great deal of wonderful people who hold the good of their loved ones, perhaps even the good of humanity as a whole, as a high priority in their thoughts and actions. Sometimes it's hard in this world to think that people are inherently good, because there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. But sometimes something so blindingly brilliant will happen and my heart will swell with love because someone has done something so wonderful for someone else, simply because something inside them told them to. 

I've asked myself many times and in many different ways, what is the inherent nature of humans: is it primacy, or decency? History and certain writings and learnings across cultures will have us believe that it is primacy, and that decency is something that is imposed upon us. But I don't know if this is true. Does primacy necessarily entail disregard for others? Does decency necessarily entail self-sacrifice? 

This question of balancing my own self-interest and the imperative that I feel to help others is something that is central in most of my thoughts and actions. I was raised with the idea that our purpose of life as humans is to leave the world better than it was when we entered it. But I also want to suck as much experience out of this life as I possibly can, just for me and me alone. 

Carving out this balance between primacy and decency is the work of my life, I feel. I walk that line every day and I constantly feel the gravity of each pulling me in both directions at once.

"the strangest thing is, you still have to brush your teeth"

that feeling in your body when it tries to protect you from the full weight of what you've just heard

cold in your chest

tight

vice-like

and everything becomes just a little more irreal

and all at once time becomes both more and less important

insignificant but all you'll ever have

all you've ever had

(how much of it wasted?)

and you place your head in your hands and bite back all of the words that are fighting behind your teeth

and you feel restless and violent inside

so you get up

and you go outside and stare into the middle distance

and the kids in the next yard are laughing

and someone is playing top 40 radio on a stereo

and someone is mowing their lawn

(your grass is getting quite long too, will have to cut it soon)

and the sky is not the bluest blue but still blue

and when you read all those poems and stories about how strange it is to have the world keep spinning around you

as if the weight of it had not just crashed down on your head

as if you could just fill your time like you always did with the knowledge of this living inside of you

as if the very fabric of reality had not just shifted catastrophically

now you understand what they meant

making others laugh and the need for love and acceptance

I am a ridiculous person. 

Though I can be deadly serious about things that I am passionate about, more often than not you'll find me saying or doing something just a little bit ridiculous - putting on a weird voice or acting out a character of my own devising, using terrible groan-worthy puns, or making up random songs about my current situation. I say and do ridiculous things when I'm with my friends, family, and peers, but I'll also say and do ridiculous things in public, among superiors, and even sometimes in professional situations. This is just a part of who I am. I value silliness and do not deem it to be mutually exclusive to professionalism and hard work. In fact, I find silliness to be essential to hard work. I need to inject a little silliness into my day to day life to keep me sane and to keep me energized when I've been slogging away at a project for hours at a time. 

me playing with bubbles on my 25th birthday+

I love being silly just because it is intrinsically gratifying. Being silly is fun and I think that fun is one of the most important things in life. Being ridiculous and yes, childish at times, helps remind me not to take things too seriously, to lighten up about my apparent problems, and to remember that things are never as grave as they seem in comparison to the plights of others.

I also love being silly because sometimes it makes other people laugh. I love making other people laugh. I crave it like a drug. There are fewer things more gratifying in this world than reducing a room to laughter. I will, without fail, try and strike out with jokes nine times out of ten, but it's that one time when I can get a room laughing that makes me keep trying. 

Humour also happens to be something that I find very attractive in other people. I say humour but more specifically I mean wit, the characteristic of being both clever and funny at the same time. Now, don't get me wrong, I love silliness for the sake of silliness - no cleverness required. But there's something about wittiness that I just adore. It's something that I try desperately to cultivate in myself, because I know how much I love a witty person, and I want to be that loveable too, dammit. 

I have begun to realize that my joy in making others laugh stems largely from a need for love and acceptance from others. When others laugh at one of my jokes, it's like they're saying, "We hear you, we like you, we care about you." This is so important to me. I was bullied as a child (as so many of us were) and humour became my way of attracting friends. I was overweight, awkward, and felt like an outsider as a preteen. I had some serious issues with my sense of self worth and it manifested in destructive ways. In my gradeschool class of peers who (in my eyes) were all incredibly intelligent or beautiful or athletic or artistic or what have you, I sought to create a unique identity for myself through humour.

After Robin Williams killed himself last year a slew of articles emerged about how those who are the funniest are often the saddest*. While research on the topic is still in its fledgling state, anecdotal evidence seems to lend truth to this notion. Just look at all of the comedians and funny people out there who have dealt with mental health issues and addiction. Perhaps these people use humour to secure the love and affection of others, just like I do. 

I realize that I may rub a lot of people the wrong way. I've gotten feedback in the past that I'm a bit 'intense'. But this is who I am. I am ridiculous. I am silly. I try to be witty when I can. I try to make others laugh. Whether it's borne out of a need for love and affection or stems from the intrinsic value of making others feel light, if only for a moment, this is as much a part of me as any negative feelings ever were or ever are. 

Thank you all for putting up with me. I hope I can make you laugh someday.

+ Photo Courtesy of Mel Althouse

* http://time.com/3103256/robin-williams-dead-jim-norton/

* http://time.com/3104938/depression-comedy-connection/

the realization that perpetually gouges me open

the chance encounter of their meeting as commonplace as any other,

significant in the way that nothing actually is.


they have histories of secret suffering kept from one another.

faces turned inward, away from the world.

away from each other.

childhood torment. families, slashed apart and thrown together. sacrifice. anguish. pain.

death.

a thousand untold stories swirling in every cell.


the complication of each is a mirror of the other.


they are both broken.


their jagged edges fit nearly seamlessly, save for the hairline cracks

where the light of their joining shines through.

disaster, cruelty, tragedy, and finding meaning amidst the absurdity of human existence: reflections from stoic philosophy

I can't help but feel helpless in the face of disaster, cruelty, and tragedy. 

The massacre of hundreds civilians in Kenya. The earthquake that killed thousands in Nepal. Police racism and brutality, in the States and elsewhere. Human beings are constantly faced with disaster, cruelty, and tragic circumstances that are outside of their control. I feel the pit of my stomach drop when I consider the senselessness and magnitude of the pain and violence that people have to face every day. My sheltered mind cannot begin to comprehend the hardships of others. 

I am reminded time and time again of the utter absurdity of human existence, of the fact that we are beautiful and brutal accidents. We have not been put here for any reason, let alone put here at all. We just are. We are the products of muddy circumstances and the imperfect heuristics used to navigate them.

Human life is not imbued with any higher meaning or purpose. We are all essentially fractional slivers of experience in an eternity of non-experience. The course of time, family genealogy and our own genetics have combined in such a way as to grant us the briefest glimpse of life. Thousands of us could be snuffed out at any moment, and for no good reason, other than the ideology of others or the movement of tectonic plates. Other than few influential people, most of us, when we die, affect our small circle, perhaps with a few fading ripples, but leave no other trace of having been alive at all. All lives end, and most marks fade, if marks were even left in the first place. 

We are islands of time with a void of nothingness spreading out infinitely behind us and in front of us. And we hurtle towards the void in front of us and try to do as much as we can with the circumstances we have, in order to feel that this little slice of time has meant something.

I draw on three meditations from Stoic philosophy* to keep my island from collapsing in on itself or being sucked into the void. 

Meditation One: The View from Above 
This meditation captures the reflections from the paragraphs above. It captures the absurdity of human existence, the fact that human life is not inherently imbued with meaning, that we are all drops in a vast ocean. Picture yourself from above the earth looking down, and meditate on the smallness and relative insignificance of your existence. Remember that your experiences, joys and sorrows alike, do not matter to most other people, to the planet itself, to the universe, to anything really. This keeps one from falling into the trap of egotism and narcissism but left unchecked can cause feelings of nihilism and apathy.

Meditation Two: The Inner Citadel
Just by virtue of being alive, having volition and consciousness, feelings and thoughts, we are infinitely powerful beings. Despite the fact that we are not externally imbued with meaning or significance, we have the ability to create meaning for ourselves. We can do everything we can with what we have to create lives and selves that mean something, we can do everything we can to make a difference in the world, we can experience things fully, we can learn, we can love, we can hurt and feel and experience at all. Time flows through us unrelentingly, within us and without us, but we have the power to alter the shape of our lives and this in itself is the closest thing to the divine that we can achieve. This keeps one from falling into the trap of apathy and nihilism, but left unchecked can lead to egotism and narcissism.

Meditation Three: Premeditatio
This meditation is used to practice gratitude for current circumstances. It is a common notion that we don't know what we have to be grateful for until we lose it. This meditation draws on this aspect of human psychology and instructs us to practice losing everything you love. Imagine that all that you hold dear were swept away tomorrow. It could easily happen, if the reports in the news are telling us anything. Imagine everyone you love, gone; all your possessions, destroyed; all your freedoms, revoked; all your dreams, crushed; your light and your life; snuffed out. Practice this and let it flood you with gratitude for the things that you have.

I find myself pulled between the extremes of egotism and nihilism, stretched thin between believing in my absolute worthlessness and my absolute importance. Tragedy, cruelty, and disaster are sobering reminders that we are all just blips of light in the darkness. But we are sources of light nonetheless, points of light where there could have been nothing at all.


* I draw particularly from the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, and my understanding of it is greatly shaped by the pedagogy of Professor John Vervaeke.

femininity, gender expression, feminism, and cognitive dissonance

I have come to realize that most of the things that are considered to be physical hallmarks of femininity have to do with not being in the world and having experiences. 

Meaning, these hallmarks of femininity are indicators of someone who is sheltered, kept indoors, away from the elements, and away from the world. 

Women wear makeup, because we don't have to sweat or go outside in the rain. We wear high heels because we don't have to run or walk anywhere. We wear dresses because we don't have to run or climb. We have long, perfectly styled hair because we don't have to worry about it getting caught in things. We wear painted nails because we don't have to use our hands. White women are deemed prettiest, because they don't go out in the sun. We shave our body hair because we don't need protection from the elements. We don't have scars because we don't come into contact with danger. We can't have wrinkles because we shouldn't age. We have to be thin, because we don't have to be strong and resilient in the face of life's challenges.

God forbid we actually went out and did anything.

This realization has caused me to struggle with how typical expressions of femininity play out in my feminism and in my gender presentation. Most of these typical feminine expressions are very impractical (as in, they take a LOT of time to execute), and many of them are designed for the male gaze (for example, heels put the body into lordosis*, pushing out the backside, which is also the position that female mammals assume when presenting themselves for mating behaviour+). 

I struggle with the idea that women can participate in these feminine rituals solely for themselves. This is not to say that I believe that it's impossible - I know and respect a number of people who fully believe that women can and do engage in feminine expressions to satisfy themselves and no one else. I'm just saying that I am incredulous. Yes, wearing makeup or wearing heels can make you feel better about yourself. But is it an intrinsic feeling better? Or is it extrinsically motivated, even in the smallest way?~

As a result of this line of thinking, I have made many changes in my gender presentation over the years. As the wonderful artist, writer, and all-around amazing thinker Clementine Morrigan^ once said of her gender presentation, I want to simultaneously celebrate and subvert femininity. I am very proud of the fact that I don't shave my body hair, or typically wear makeup, or typically dress femininely, or wear heels. But I do wear makeup sometimes, and sometimes paint my nails, and sometimes I like to wear skirts (especially because it throws people off when they see skirt + leg fur). This typically happens when I go out, and yes, I'll admit, I do it because I feel better about myself, but I feel better about myself because I think these things will enhance others' appraisals of my appearance. The result of this is an experience of cognitive dissonance whenever I "femme" up my appearance. 

I'll end by making it very clear that I respect however anyone wants to present their gender identity, and that I do not believe that engaging in feminine beauty rituals makes anyone a 'bad feminist.' That helps no one. We live in a world where, unfortunately, women are still valued for their appearances moreso than the contents of their hearts and minds, and there is a lot of pressure on women to present as typically feminine. I have no issue with others' gender presentations or identity - femme, masculine, androgynous, or anything in between - you do you, and for goddess' sake, love yourself and be happy with who you are. I just struggle with these thoughts sometimes, and thought I'd put them out into the world to see what comes echoing back. 

* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3206568/

+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lordosis_behavior

~ (I am incredulous but also relish conversation and debate so if you'd like to speak to me about this then please engage me.)

^ http://clementinemorrigan.com/

products vs. processes and the myth of infinite consumption

Odds are if you've spent some time around me you've heard me rant about the process-oriented nature of human beings and how stupid consumerism is.

Now, if there's one thing that I can't get behind, it's people who stand up on soap boxes and preach at you while not acknowledging their own participation and complacency in the very systems they are criticizing. So allow me to make the following disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: I fully acknowledge that I benefit from capitalist, consumerist society. I enjoy it, to a degree. Most mornings I buy a coffee from Cafe Plenty. I really like to go out to eat. Once or twice a year I buy shoes that are made in China or some other low-income country where individuals are being exploited. Sometimes I buy things I don't need.

*exhale*

There. Now that I've got that out of the way...

We all have an ache inside of us. Well, I say 'We all.' What I mean to say is that, I suspect that here in the developed world, many of us, especially us younger gens, have an ache, an emptiness inside of us. An itch that can't be scratched. Why else would we sanctify notions like fulfillment, unless we experienced some sort of emptiness? What is fulfillment without a certain space to be filled? I feel it; the drive to improve, the yearning for love, for happiness. The deep, desperate desire to live a good life, a passionate life.

I'd hazard a guess that you feel it, too. Even just sometimes, when you're alone with your thoughts, trying to fall asleep, thinking, "What am I doing? What's it all for? What would I do if I could just drop everything right now and attend to this emptiness inside of me?" It's something existentialists and philosophers have been mulling over for years.

What is this emptiness? I believe that it stems from the knowledge that we have limited time. It's the ever-present implicit knowledge of our impending death. I know, a bit melodramatic. But in all seriousness. We are all painfully aware, at all times, in the darkest recesses of our minds, that time is running out, so we'd damn well better make the most of it. We'd better find love, fulfillment, acceptance, fun, happiness, comfort, passion, all those things that we long for and strive for, the end to all of our actions. Because time is running out.

I believe that human beings are fundamentally process-oriented. We are most fulfilled by processes. What do I mean by processes? Well, I mean anything that unfolds over time. A walk in the forest. A conversation with a friend. Enjoying a favourite meal. Listening to music. Swimming naked in a cool lake. Creating or appreciating art. Making love. Processes.

But the thing is, processes are hard. They require a certain amount of energy and dedication - some more than others. And many of them, the more social ones in particular, require being a warm and caring person around whom people would want to spend their time. It's hard.

Products, on the other hand, are easy. What's easier than going out and buying something? Assuming that you have the capital, of course (whether that comes from working two minimum wage jobs at 60 hours a week or having it handed to you because of your socioeconomic status). It's just so easy to go out to a store and buy something, even if you don't need it.

Advertisers and corporations, I think, pick up on this. They know that we're process-oriented beings, but that processes are harder to get at, and a hell of a lot harder to sell. So they disguise products as processes. You're not buying the makeup, you're buying the self confidence that the model exudes when that handsome man gives her the eye. You're not buying the car, you're buying the winding miles of driving down empty coastal highway. You're not buying the shirt, you're buying the approval, regard, and envy of your peers. Products disguised as processes.

So we try to fill this process-shaped hole inside of ourselves with products. And when that doesn't work, what do we do? Buy more products, of course.

And so the myth of infinite consumption is created. But the real myth is that we'll have enough stuff so that somehow, someday, we'll be happy. We'll have the big house, the cottage, the three cars, the massive entertainment system, the designer clothes, etc. etc. etc. etc. until we die, surrounded by all of our stuff.

And not only does this lead to extreme alienation and unfulfillment, but it harms our planet. Because hot damn, that new iPhone 7 is out and I need it in order to (insert process here) so I'll just chuck my iPhones 1 through 6 into the nearest landfill. I'll just throw these old products away. But, as we know, when it comes to our planet, there's no such thing as 'away.'

This is something that I have come to realize. This is why my phone looks like it's made out of lego. This is why I try not to buy products (unless they're absolutely hand-made, like the bracelet I got in Costa Rica, or if I absolutely need them, like winter boots). This is why I spend a the majority of my paycheques on concerts, meals with friends, and travel. I'm not saying that I am a perfect person - goodness knows I could do without most of the things I have, and sometimes I do slip up and make unnecessary purchases. But I'm trying.

Next time you feel that hole opening up inside of your soul, ask yourself if it's really product-shaped. Because I have a feeling that we're all being tricked into denying our process-oriented nature, to the detriment of our minds, spirits, and planet.