Daylight

People are figuring it out every night. Over wine, over cocktails, over a few beers. Peace is found, with friends, with our kin. We are made this way. Outside of this environment, in the daylight, we struggle. This has been noted many times, with much worry and anxiety. Still, we can write in the warm candlelight of a bar, and all is well.

The "wise" often tell us we're struggling because we are doing it wrong. We are the enemy. But where does that leave us, besides doubting our humanity? I have been told to doubt myself for thirty years, and I have tried to oblige. Today, I see little reason to continue.

Doubt – the notion that we should refrain from doing – leads to doing nothing. We need something to guide us, something to do. Our doubt leads to our inaction; the action of others, however ill-informed, fills the void. Only a positive suggestion can lead to something.

Still, on the whole, we do in fact struggle. We commit crimes against each other. We hurt each other. We build glass ceilings. This is true. Why is that? Why is progress so difficult?

What are we doing to change? In our nights and weekends, we are in love with our harmless TV shows. We are reading our celebrity gossip and our sports dramas. We are hiking and dancing, finding a release, a distraction that we desperately need. What we do is necessary; it is the follow-through to our days.

As we acknowledge our need for release, what we need to change becomes obvious:

Our days.

How do we even begin?

Why I started meditating

My neighbor asked me to take a meditation class with her, and I said yes. I'd been curious about it for some time, but I was concerned I'd lose touch with my friends, and society in general, becoming unable to relate with people, as mystics, hippies, and advocates often appear.

I'd been battling with the concepts of emptiness, a lack of intrinsic meaning, and the absurd for about six years. At the beginning of this struggle, a friend suggested I read The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus. This lead to The Rebel, and to Resistance, Rebellion & Death.

I found Camus' argument enticing. For me, he basically said, "Yeah, so there are these notions like emptiness, and they're powerful, and I believe they are real, and to that I say, 'fuck off, I get it,' and we have a choice here so let's create what we want and let's want something good and let's enjoy it."

Yet, the method for living this way proved elusive. Aiming high, I started a business to end war. It was hard. I grew tired. Burned out, I started an organization for swing dancing, a seemingly trivial matter. I read all of the books on creating successful teams.

I began searching for ways to defeat the passion-to-burnout cycle, with a focus on group dynamics. Perhaps an answer is to deliberately create a culture. This search was primarily an internal one, and continued that way for a couple years.

In 2011, Willpower by Baumeister & Tierney hit the shelves. By itself, it helps us understand the importance of snack time. More importantly, it was a gateway into the new wave of cognitive psychology books. I was learning how to change the habits of my body, and how to guide an organization by learning what works for people, and I was very excited about it.

After a year of this, I met my neighbor, who had just moved in. She invited me to a community event that had a jazz band, a dance floor, a local-farm-made meal, and a psychology talk by a university professor. Yes, please.

It turned out that this professor, who was talking about habits and the latest research, has been studying Buddhism for the last 25 years, and was teaching a university class on meditation. At the same time, my yoga-teaching neighbor was putting together a pranayama course, and traveling to other cities to study Dharma; most days, we would walk to a coffee stand and talk about it.

I want to do something. I suppose that's what made me start looking into all this stuff.

Perhaps more, I've wanted to be a good person for as long as I can remember. And a good person does something important, I've perceived. But what's important? And if it's important, why aren't we there already?

And this desire to be good is probably just built into my brain, near my ears, because that's where it fit, when my ancestors needed to be good to survive the drought.

And before that. Of course. The start.

World view

FUCK THIS IF ONLY YOU COULD SEE THE BEAUTY IN THIS PLACE
AND GO JUST GO TO THE END AND SEE IT JUST TO SEE IT IF YOU
COULD AND WHAT'S THERE IF YOU REALLY LOOK AND GIVE A SHIT
ABOUT YOUR BROTHER AND YOUR FATE AND YOUR LOVE AND
YOUR EVERYTHING BECAUSE THAT'S ALL THERE IT IS HERE YOU ME
AND THIS DIRT ALWAYS ALWAYS AND WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU
WANT FROM IT SO JUST GO BE THAT ALREADY AND FIGURE IT OUT
AND LIVE FOR FUCK'S SAKE GOD OH MY GOD PLEASE I LOVE YOU
ALL AND STILL WE ARE HERE IN THE MUD TRYING TO FUCKING
CLAW OUR BLOODY HANDS OUT OF THIS HISTORY AND FOR WHAT
TO DO IT ALL AGAIN AND TO FIND NOTHING AND TURN IT INTO
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL SO GO BUT WE'RE STILL STUCK IN THE
EARTH AND THESE BRAINS AND THESE RULES FOR THE TIME BEING
AND IT'S PERFECT SO FUCK YOU YOU MAKE SOMETHING THAT CAN
KNOW ITSELF JUST GO JUST GO JUST GO JOIN ME LET'S GO I LOVE
YOU AND WE'RE HERE AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS SO LET'S HELP
THE SEVEN FUCKING BILLION PEOPLE JOIN US HOLY SHIT WHAT DO
YOU WANT THIS IS WHAT WE ARE I CAN'T LOVE YOU MORE THAN
THIS I CAN'T BECAUSE I TRIED AND I CRIED FOR DAYS

Prelude, one of many

Thoughts on writing: With much reading, there comes a desire to write. The head becomes full, and a need to share, reiterate, and convey a sense of worth – and time well-spent – is felt with increasing frequency.

There is much madness in this place, when observed with the perspective of a strict logician foolish logician.

We've been here for a while, but allow me to comment on our present day.

Who are you? To whom am I writing? I am writing for myself, it seems. I am writing with the hope to find people I would enjoy spending time with, now and in the future, perhaps even after my death. After all, and to perhaps give my own And I am writing with the hope that it will give me strength; it will help me remember the things that were important to me, and inspire provide me with some purpose on my terms, or at least the as much as that can be true (how dramatic! alas, for health)., as they say).

Writing is as noble I believe writing with something to say is a noble – and

In the march of history, I would like to take part, to play some role with some use.

We are at such. an. interesting. time. that it seems tragic to not see what's at the other end, to see where this goes, with passion and drive. What are we waiting for??? What do we have to see, or be told? Do we have to be given permission to do something with what we've been blessed? to bring people up, out of the slums, to share the experience of this world outside of death and poverty war and poverty. With this at my side, I write.

Conclusions so far.

1. Finding the right means is the end. The goal is to find the right means, the best process, for crafting our society in peace. "The end justifies the means" is a falsehood.


2. When confronted with the void of meaninglessness, choose to create something beautiful from your point of view. 


3. Experts are rare. Be aware of this, have an opinion, have a "growth mindset," and build something great.


4. Conflict is a natural element of human behavior. Scarcity is the root of all conflict. If you can resolve a scarcity problem, you can resolve a conflict. 


5. Time is running out for you, but not for the world. We're in this together. Pass the baton. 

Books:

• Switch by Heath 
• The Rebel by Camus

47th street jive

I walked by a man on 5th street, and he asked if I could spare 50 cents. What? I don't carry change -- I stack my quarters on my bookshelf, to feed the laundry machines downstairs, and I throw the rest of the cumbersome metal into a bucket on the floor. The times, they're a-changing a little; he should consider changing his business plan, or at least study his market a bit more.

I work in a cubicle, and overhear men talking on the phone all day. They're in meetings, they say; they tell me they're talking to college graduates, professionals, and grown, adult human beings -- I'm not so sure. Everyone enjoys spending their lives in a different way, however, and consenting adults should be allowed to do what they like, as vulgar as it may appear to those listening in.

At work, when there is a perceived problem with the software we're making, people love talking about it. Sometimes they have meetings, they say. I'm glad the software engineers aren't invited -- that might put the other folks out of a job.

At the investors' conference, the angels tell us they are bored. They are lonely, want more friends, and want to be entertained. They say, "Name me someone who's not a parasite, and I'll go out and say a prayer for him." They will give him $300,000 in exchange for his friendship, and do this but five times each year.

The rules of the road have been lodged -- it's only people's games that you've got to dodge. I have my secrets, and I share them with a few, but we can't all escape, and I need to leave soon.

The least we can do

There is discrimination in this world -- and slavery, and slaughter, and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty, while the nation grows rich, and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.

These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.

But we can perhaps remember -- even if only for a time -- that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek as we do nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Our answer is to rely on youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in; and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, a young woman reclaimed the territory of France, and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.

For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged; and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.

Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live.

Robert Kennedy. 1966. [Source]