Moderates United

Mexicans, to take but one example, value family and leisure.  This is a stereotype, but in my own experience largely an accurate one.  When Americans are busting their asses to get things done, Mexicans are sitting around talking.  Where Americans, given the opportunity for corruption or theft, by and large do the right thing, Mexicans take bribes and steal, if the victims are not a part of their social group.

These two factors, and these two factors alone, are the principle reason that our nations differ so much in their economic success.  Put simply, it is as simple as math figuring out why nations prosper.  We trust one another, because most of us can be counted on to do the right thing.  Mexicans do not trust one another, because a great many of them cannot be counted on to do the right thing.  That is why their nation is so awful millions of them choose to abandon it and come here illegally.

One is not supposed to say these things, of course, but I am not saying anything many are not thinking.

How did it get so hard to speak the truth in public?

I am tired and drinking, again.  But I will say again this life is endlessly fascinating.  My god there is so much to see and experience.  And even the ugly is glorious.

That sad looking kid on the bus, three rows back listening to his iPod?  He can teach you something.  And you can teach him.

Go to it!!!

I got into a minor pissing contest with someone today, who I have gotten into similar situations with before.  I look at him and all I see is a severely abusive father, and probably some sexual paraphilias of some sort.  He is a mess.

To the point, something pushed the present moment away from him, like a raft or life preserver that could have saved him from drowning in water that terrified him.  Nothing was there.  No one saved him.  And so he goes on, attacking the world, controlling the world to the extent of his ability.

For my part, of course, I am a bit vain and oversensitive.  I whine more than I ought to.  I’m working with guys whose work ethic I cannot but admire.  One electrician told me he had a severely strained groin muscle.  The doctor told him to stay off his feet for three weeks and ice it up.  Instead, he is working 80 hour weeks.  He is a better, tougher man than me.

I am still processing a story a guy I met in a bar told me last week.  He is a mortician, and his company does body pick up.  The cops find a suicide or homicide or simple death from natural causes, and after they have mapped out the scene, he takes the body to the Medical Examiner.

2 weeks ago he had to haul away two women, mother and daughter, who had had their home broken into, been ducktaped to chairs, and beaten so severely with something that their heads were gone.

The person or people who did this are still walking the streets, as far as I know.

Feel the horror of that image, then imagine, if you can, which is doubtful, a horror ten times that within the person who did that, a fear and sense of utter and complete powerlessness so overwhelming that it drives you mad.  You break, you stumble, you fall, and you never, ever get back up.  Your brain decays until it takes all your will and powerful intoxicants just to get through the day.

Morality in many respects is psychology.  The task is not to set rules, but to help people understand how the world works so that they can make good decisions.

And some people are so far gone they cannot be redeemed.  They can only be imprisoned or put to death.

That, at any rate, is the present state of our technology.  Perhaps one day methods can be devised to help even homicidal psychopaths deal with the absolute tyranny with which their souls are governed, by evils they likely in most cases can’t even recall.

This is random, but I felt I needed to post it.

To be capable of deep love for people who suffer deeply, you must be capable both of suffering deeply, and TURNING IT AROUND.  Pace, then lead.  That is basic NLP.  No wave is too large for the brave.  Let it break on you, then counterattack.

And I think to myself that if goodness is taking pleasure from the happiness of others, service of the sort most religions call for is really an act which brings pleasure.  We assume, mistakenly, that the deepest pleasures are those we generate for ourselves and ourselves alone.  But why do we think and feel this?  Why can’t I be HAPPIER, say, that my kid is happy, than in any other activity I can think of?

Nothing in this universe demands of us abject servitude, or unrelenting self abnegation. These are human constructions, derived from sadists and other malefactors.

The equation is simple: give up the easy and immediate for the harder but much, much better and longer lasting.

Goodness of this sort is not different in principle from the test sometimes given to 4 year olds, in which they are offered one cookie now, or two cookies in an hour.  Those who held out for two cookies scored very substantially better on the SAT 13 years or so later, and were better adjusted.

Ayn Rand’s mother made a similar proposition to her when she was about 3.  She had to give up a favorite doll for a year, if memory serves, to get 2 a year later.  Rand chose to do this, but her mother forgot about it, and had thrown away her doll.  That in my view is the ultimate source of Atlas Shrugged.

Life is endlessly fascinating.  How much we can see if we only look.

I am happy at this moment, and wish you the same.  It is quite possible for all of us.

There is some room for bragging, right?  I’ll take my victories where I find them.

I can cover leagues with a single step, a life in a breath.

Yes, I am drinking, but it only makes me more honest.

Can anyone  argue that we are infants, stupid, ignorant, just-at-the-beginning, when it comes to understanding the complex interactions of various sorts of music, dance, and mood?

Brainwashing, coercion: these are likely more advanced than I like to think.

But elicitive techniques, those which pull out, which facilitate expression, self creation, re-formation, joy formation: we are primitives.

And the primitives are likely advanced.

Never, ever, ever assume you know what needs knowing. You are likely a dumbass of the first order, not having even reached the level of being capable of learning.

Certainly, that applies to me.

Who can imagine the heights the human race can reach, if it ever applies its full creative instincts to qualitative joy, to Goodness, to harmony, peace, and the death of wars of various sorts?

I am a Humanist.  I do not believe we are the measure of all things.  That would imply many bad things about the things.  But I do believe we are, relatively, perfectable, that social life is perfectable, that many useful things are knowable that are not yet known or sufficiently widely practiced.

I think we need to keep plugging.  We need to keep trying.  We need to foster hope and accomplishment.  Believe more is possible, and dammit if it doesn’t show up on cue.

This whole happy thing is a bit new to me, but I am running with it.

There is a cycle of releasing trauma, but also of building the opposite.  I have tapped into all my underground reservoirs; I feel confident in this.  I have connection.  All the parts are in communication.  No part is forgotten.  Now my core self needs to build a home filled with light and love.

That no doubt sounds odd and vague.  Shit, I’m still figuring it out.  It will take time.

I watch people.  That’s what I do.  I talk to people, listen to them, listen and learn about their stories, their beliefs, what defines them.

And what I see is pain all around.  Most every person you deal with during the day, or see walking down the road, or who changes your oil: they have demons, traumas, they have not dealt with.

I look at our world, and all of us wandering around, crazy.

And I remember my job is to not be crazy, but to understand it.  And I go on.

That, my friends, is a boring drunk man’s tale.

And if you are crazy, be good at it, then come home.  We will welcome you, perhaps for the first time ever.

There is so much love in this universe.  If we can but manifest a fraction of it, we can change the world.

I would give everything I have and am to learn this skill.