The Joy of Christmas

It's "that time of the year" again, the time of year that Johnny Mathis tells us is "the most wonderful time of the year," with the principal themes being snow and presents and flying reindeer and Christmas trees and housebreaking elves and joy and oh yeah... there's often something in there about Jesus and shepherds and Heavenly Hosts of angels, too.

With all of that going on, it's easy to see how some people (those who overthink everything, mostly) might become conflicted about "the true meaning of Christmas."  That's  a no-win question to ask, though, because obviously Christmas (like almost everything else) is in the eye of the beholder.  As Lassie's grandfather, Gene Lockhart, pronounces from the bench in the 1947 classic (i.e., the "real") movie "Miracle on 34th Street," when it comes to Santa Claus, at least, "Many people firmly believe in him.  Others do not."  It should go without saying that the same holds true for Jesus of Nazareth.

Believers of all stripes tend to agree that Christmas is supposed to be a time for fellowship and good cheer and helping the poor.  (You should have gotten all the giving of thanks out of the way a few weeks ago, because there's a special holiday just for that, backed up by a Presidential proclamation.)  Gift-giving is also very important, and it is the absolute only time you're going to see wonderful holiday treats like egg nog and fruitcake.  (Brrr!)

Christmas is a time for family, they say, and that's probably one of the reasons that Christmases all tend to blur together over the years, because families are steeped in crazy traditions.  According to my mother, in my birth family we had a tradition of never eating Christmas dinner.  For a while I was married, and in my "in-law" family they had a tradition of having two Christmas trees and a six-hour stint of gift exchanges that began at 4 a.m. and involved literally dozens of packages for each person (some of which were "real" presents, and some of which were stuff like tubes of toothpaste and rolls of tape.)  And sometimes families vow, for one reason or another, not to decorate, "gift," or celebrate at all and the day winds up as gloomy as almost any other day in houses like that.

We had a thing for a couple of years called "The War on Christmas," and what was up with that?  Apparently, some large retailers decided (or were pressured into deciding, depending upon whom you ask) that their sales would improve if they dropped all references to Christmas and just stuck to "Holiday Sales."  This was a big mistake, obviously.  First of all, those who celebrate Christmas, at least in part, because it is the date appointed as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus H. Christ were mortally offended, and immediately struck back with protests and boycotts.  Secondly, sales did not go up because of the misguided effort at "inclusiveness," because people who weren't celebrating "Christmas" weren't planning on buying gifts because of it, and changing to the "Holiday" signage did nothing to change their plans in that respect.

The people who argue that Christmas has morphed into a largely secular holiday have a valid point.  It isn't Jesus who's out there peddling all that merchandise, it's Santa.  And although Santa is, at least nominally, derived from legends of the Christian St. Nicholas, the character that we worship these days is as Pagan as all get-out, what with his magic arts and flying forest animals and Druid-inspired Christmas trees.  Basically, though, the holiday is two holidays, peacefully co-existing for the most part, because the Jesus Nativity story is alive and well and makes everybody feel good, too, albeit in a quieter, less expensive way.

The "holidays," including most especially Christmas, can be tough on people psychologically because sometimes the joy can be hard to come by.  If you're sitting in the dark without power or Christmas movies on TV, if your family is far away and there's no one to feast with, or if you've lost your "Christmas Spirit" and are consumed by doubt and despair, you've also got to contend with the inevitable feelings of guilt that arise when you realize that you are miserable at "the most wonderful time of the year."  Unless you're one of the lucky ones whom Santa comes bounding down the chimney to take on a life-changing sleigh ride or three ghosts undertake to "scare straight," you might feel a little lost.

But there is a cure for that, if you dare to take it.  Struggle into your snow gear, hit the streets and start spreading the cheer yourself.  Walk up to the first person that you meet (if they don't look too dangerous) and wish him or her a "Merry Christmas."  They'll probably say it right back, if only reflexively, and you'll start to feel good.  Repeat as often as necessary as you continue walking to the local liquor store for those Christmas Spirits, and don't spend a lot of time dwelling on the fact that whomever you just "Merry Christmased" might be back there scratching his or her head wondering exactly what you meant by that remark.  It's the "Holidays."  Chillax.

Friendship

Friendship is a mysterious thing.  Sometimes it just sneaks up on you.  Sometimes it’s born out of the smoldering fires of antipathy.  And sometimes it just disappears.

We’ve all had the experience of “like at first sight.”  Some people are naturally attractive to us in the friendship kind of way, as if they were soulmates from some prior bout with existence, happily rediscovered.  (This theory was really big in the late Nineteenth Century.)  But sometimes you really don’t like your friends-to-be at first.  In fact, some people who wind up becoming very good friends start off trying to wring each other’s necks.

Of course, just because you like someone doesn’t mean they’re going to turn out to be your friend.  Sometimes you encounter someone whom you like immediately, want to spend time with, and are sure would be a great friend.  They may even indicate that they feel the same way about you.  But it never really happens, because one or the other of you is just visiting, or is about to move away, or is somebody else’s husband or wife and they don’t like you.

Friendships, like marriages, are often over long before they are ended.  People fall out of friendship just like they fall out of love.  Plus, friendships sometimes wither because of factors beyond the control of the friends themselves, for example when it is necessary for one friend to relocate thousands of miles away.  Children are particularly vulnerable to losing friends this way, because they are in the thrall of adults and don’t usually even get a vote.  But it can happen to adults, too, especially those in the thrall of giant corporations where one must move around to every obscure city in the Heartland (or, these days, Asia)  in order to struggle up the corporate ladder.

Of course, “friendship” is a term subject to interpretation.  Deep down inside, we all know that most of our “friends” are really just “acquaintances,” people we know situationally, like “work friends,” or people with whom we hang out through sheer force of habit  (like more “old friends” than anyone will ever admit.)  Sometimes “acquaintances” can evolve into true “friends,” and sadly the reverse is also true: “friends” can devolve into “acquaintances,” or even simple “pests.”

One can be extremely social, amass a myriad so-called “friends,” and be the loneliest person on earth.  You can “friend” a lot of people on Facebook or keep up a busy social calendar, or bounce from one group activity or social event to the next, without ever spending five minutes of actual one-on-one conversation with anyone in the crowd.  You can be acquainted with someone for years and years, and yet know almost nothing about them.  Mostly, these people, just like you, are only hanging for the company and the noise that keeps them from having to listen to the voices in their own heads.
 

Take a minute and think about it.  Which of your “friends” are irreplaceable?  In fact, aren’t most of your “friends” already replacements for other now-departed “friends”?

Show business “celebrities” talk of almost everyone as their “very good friend.”  Well, come on, it’s a tough business and you never know when you might need somebody’s “friendship.”  But could it possibly be true that someone could have thousands of “really good friends?”  I guess that would depend upon your definition of a “really good friend.”  In Hollywood, the definition has to be pretty loose.  And what about all those smiling diplomats on the news?  I guess that Sly Stone was right:  “Smilin’ faces sometimes pretend to be your friend.”

Which brings us to the subject of “frenemies.”  For various reasons, people sometimes choose to hang out with those they hate.  High school and workplace social hierarchies being what they are, I guess folks sometimes feel they have no choice.  So they paste a shit-eating grin on their carefully plucked and made-up faces and wait for a chance to watch from a front-row seat as their “beloved pal”  gets what they pray is his or her inevitable comeuppance.

A somewhat related scenario occurs with romantic breakups, when one or the other erstwhile partner makes the almost obligatory request to “still be friends.”  Many of these people were never friends to begin with, of course, and in such scenarios the suggestion is just a bad joke.  And if they were friends before they became lovers, becoming lovers probably spoiled the friendship for good.  But sometimes lovers are also friends , and when they are the friendship can sometimes survive the breakup.  This, however, is very rare and mostly happens when the breakup is for larger-than-life reasons, e.g., the breaker-upper woke one morning to realize that he or she was gay all along, or the broken-up-with partner was kidnapped by aliens and presumed dead after seven years.

But all of these observations don’t really get us very close to understanding what a friend is.  If you want to understand that, you have to look at the very rarest category of friend, the “lifelong friend.”  Of course, there are “lifelong acquaintances,” too, but it’s pretty easy to tell the categories apart.  “Lifelong friends” are the ones whom you’re still glad to see when you run into them.

Over the course of twenty years or more, probably the minimum threshold for “lifelong friend” candidacy,  people who have been “friends” all that time will have had their ups and downs, they will have had fights and disagreements and troubles of various sorts in addition to all the rollicking good times.  And if they have remained friends through all of that adversity, they’re probably real friends.

A real friend will lend you money, if you really need it and he or she has got it… at least until the first time that you don’t pay him or her back as agreed.  A real friend will drive you someplace if you ask them, and will agree to be a godparent to your obnoxious child.  A real friend will take your part against the world… but will also tell you if you’re acting like an asshole.  A real friend won’t always tell you the truth, but will have a plausible reason for lying when he or she does.  A real friend will be sorry when you move away or die.

When all is said and done, there is still that mystical, mysterious element to “friendship” for which we really don’t have a good explanation.  (I’d say “pheromones,” but that’s already being used to explain sexual attraction.)  All the above-referenced observations may tell you who is actually your friend, but are they really sufficient to explain why?  Maybe the reincarnation thing has something to it, and it really does take several lifetimes to work up a friendship, just like those Victorian romance writers thought.  But one thing is sure: if you have identified a true friend In your life, or maybe even a few of them, you are fortunate and you should treat the friendship with the respect it deserves. 

Obamacare and More

Well, it looks like another big wave is starting to break.  Probably shouldn't have turned our backs on the ocean.

The "Affordable Care Act," aka "Obamacare," is over 900 pages long.  Nobody knows all that's in it; nobody knows how all the different sections of the law will interact with each other in practice; nobody knows what the next big surprise headline will be.  But we DO know a few things:

1.  Obama was genuinely surprised to find out that he'd been lying to people for years when he told them not to worry, because if they already had health care they liked, they could keep it despite the enactment of Obamacare.  Not good that the principal architect doesn't know what he's built-- "Frankenstein," anyone?

2.  Premiums for individual health insurance policies "in compliance" with Obamacare requirements are going to be at least triple what most people were paying for "non-compliant" individual policies before the enactment of Obamacare, and although there was a lot of talk about some non-compliant plans being "grandfathered in" that won't happen with any plan that's undergone a "major change" since enactment of the law-- i.e., virtually all of them.

3.  If you can't afford to pay for a "compliant" individual policy because the premium is too high, people who make very little money will be eligible to have a big chunk of their premium paid for them by the government-- i.e., the taxpayers-- but ONLY if they buy "compliant" insurance available through the exchanges set up by the Federal government or several of the states.  (In case you're worried about insurance company profits, don't.  They don't care whether they get paid by the individual policyholder or the government, so long as they get paid, and there's no limit as to what they can charge for the insurance they sell.)  Bad news: no matter how little money you think you make, you're still likely to be paying more for your insurance when the dust settles... even after factoring in a subsidy, if applicable.  But good news: even if you're 80 years old, you'll have maternity coverage.

4.  The plans available through the exchanges provide coverage through "narrower" networks of providers, meaning that only a fraction of the doctors in the insurance company's "regular" networks will be accessible by persons insured through the exchanges, and the odds of a particular doctor being accessible are lower across the board.  In some cases, it will be very hard indeed to see a doctor with a particular specialty, and long drives and long waits for an appointment are going to be in a lot of futures.

5.  Many of the plans offered through the exchanges offer "good quality healthcare at an affordable price" by simply bypassing major medical centers like UCLA or Cedars-Sinai (to name a couple of L.A. favorites.)  Where will the "insureds" be going instead?

6.  Not to harp on a small point, but so far it doesn't look like the government has the capacity to sign up all of the necessary participants by the deadlines it set for itself (and for the signer-uppers, too, if they want to avoid paying a tax penalty.)  The Federal website still doesn't work, and EVERYBODY is keeping a tight lid on how many people have actually managed to sign up so far.  This is fairly alarming, given that the sign-up deadlines are fast approaching, and the Feds have mentioned figures like 16 million as the numbers of people they've got to sign up in the first year to make this plan work.

7.  The plans won't work anyway unless a lot of young, healthy people, presumably those without insurance from their job or school,  sign up and pay those premiums instead of simply skipping it, as most young healthy people with no money have traditionally done.  After all, the penalty, at least for the first couple of years, is a small fraction of the premium, even factoring in a subsidy.  On the other hand, everybody with a pre-existing health condition who does want insurance is going to sign up for sure, (well, they will if they can get onto the website) and maybe get a subsidy.  The math is not looking good.

8.  The people who actually manage to sign up for insurance may not understand just how little they are getting.  "Bronze" insurance plans available through the exchanges are basically the same as having no insurance at all, except that they come with the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars a month (or for some, helping the government pay hundreds of dollars a month) to insurance companies for the privilege of not receiving benefits.  These plans, like most of the others, include high out-of-pocket limits, and pay only 60% of covered medical services.  Not a good deal, especially if you're a gambler and understand the odds. Besides, a real gambler would just "go bare," anyway, since the emergency rooms will still have to treat you even if you're non-compliant.

There's more, of course... and we'll continue to have more nasty surprises as the law goes into effect.  For example, many or even most small employers (under 50 "full-time" employees as defined by the statute) may bail on providing health insurance benefits once they realize that a) they don't have to; and b) it's O.K. because the government has guaranteed "affordable" health care to their employees who buy individual policies; and c) they don't really have a choice,because it's too complicated and expensive to offer the benefit any more anyway.  As for the large employers, who will (eventually) be required to provide coverage for their employees, they too have a choice.  They can reduce the size of their workforce to keep the cost down; they can eliminate jobs so as to avoid the requirement; they can provide a really crappy (but cheaper) benefit; or they can pay a fine (which, as with the individual penalty, might actually wind up being cheaper than being compliant.)  Employers have to watch out:  if they provide an insurance benefit that costs too much, they will wind up paying a penalty, too, which is actually higher than the penalty for not providing the coverage at all.

Over the last couple of weeks, it has become apparent that even the proponents of this crazy 900+ page law-- up to and including the Proponent-in-Chief himself-- have absolutely no idea of what it says in the aggregate or what its pitfalls will ultimately turn out to be.  Mr. Obama, for example, "didn't know," (until 2010, anyway) that people would lose their health plans and their doctors because of the provisions of his Brave New Law.  The Administration (in particular Kathleen Sebilius) "didn't know" that the government website, which was rushed online without being tested, wouldn't work.  And nobody but the health insurance companies seems to have realized that this law does absolutely nothing to "rein in the cost of health care," while at the same time providing a Wall Street Bailout-style windfall of increased (and now mandatory) premium payments for the health insurance companies.

The Tea Party is full of anarchistic, incoherent rabble-rousers, but it's got one thing right.  This particular law, ostensibly designed to "fix" the "health care crisis" in America, is actually making it worse.  It needs to be scrapped, and a new law written to take its place, one that requires universal healthcare (whoops!  Just lost the Tea Party)-- not semi-universal health insurance-- and provides for a single payer (i.e., the U.S. Government.  Yes, I'm a Socialist on this one) and if we can't get it together to do that, we should leave it alone.  Although the "marketplace" wasn't doing a good job of delivering "quality health care at an affordable price," it was doing better for most people than the Affordable Care Act will do. 

On the Positive Side of the Ledger

Regular readers of this mess will have to acknowledge that my view of life tends toward the dark side.  War, famine, idiocy, fanaticism, hypocrisy, climate change… you know, reality.  But every once in a while even I have to acknowledge the beauty that surrounds us in this vale of tears.  The other day, for instance, I was up quite early, as is my wont, and was treated to a most spectacular sunrise.  The sky was ablaze with brilliant oranges and yellows and reds, speckled with dark clouds, and there on the Eastern horizon was the blazing ball of the Sun peeking up over the hills across the harbor.  The dawn was still, as if the world was holding its breath to take in the glory of it.  And I stood there in the upstairs dining room of my house, gazing through the arched windows at all of this, seemingly staged as a private spectacle just for me, and I felt awe, and something like ecstasy at the wonder of it… and a little guilty because I so rarely, these days, get past all the crap to take this in.

Then I thought of the beautiful souls with whom I’ve come in contact over the decades comprised by my life, human and non-human, and the love I’ve felt and still feel for them, and I heard myself whisper a “Thank You” to the Universe for the privilege of having known them.  I thought of the warmth of the Sun on my skin, and I understood for a moment how ancient people, so much more in touch with the rhythms of Nature, had little choice but to decide that the Sun was a god.  I thought of the goodness of peaches and apples and berries and, of course, wine.  I remembered myself as a small child, back when my Mother and Father were all-powerful and all-good, my ear pressed against my Father’s hairy bare chest as he quietly rumbled out a lullaby.

I often calm crises at work by reminding the staff that in a hundred years none of whatever is causing the crisis will matter, and probably won’t even be remembered at all.  But it’s hard to practice what I preach.  I find myself cursing at the traffic and scrambling to meet “deadlines,” and getting worked up over the headlines in the Timeses (New York and L.A.).  But when I’m standing all alone in the early morning looking at a dawn like that, or on a hill looking out over the sea with a storm building up, or at kittens playing in the “Ponytails” in my front yard, my proper perspective returns, and I forget all about the petty follies that are perpetuated by our so-called “modern civilization.”

Thousands of years ago, shepherds used to lie around staring at the stars in the brilliant night sky around the Mediterranean, and they were able to pick out the images of gods and heroes, great beasts and timeless beauties.  Now, with all of our much-vaunted technology, we can see a lot more… but in some ways are able to see a lot less.  Ancient people knew that every rock and tree and spring had its own spirit, and they took pains to appreciate and propitiate those spirits, because they recognized that they were an integral part of Nature, just as we humans are.  Now, though, it seems that our LED’s and halogen headlights have blinded us to the presence of the spirits that abound in Nature, and that our i-Pods and rap music (and let’s not forget “Fox News”) have drowned out their voices, too.  So it’s only once in a while, such as when we’re all alone in the still of the dawn, that we’re even aware of the essence of the world.

The old saying is to the effect that one must take time to “stop and smell the roses.”  I recommend that you try that, and I personally think that early tomorrow morning would be the perfect time.

Know Thyself... and Then Quit Whining

“Know Thyself” is one of the Delphic Maxims, inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.  Like much of ancient wisdom, the meaning of this admonition is open to interpretation.  According to the Suda, a 10^th Century encyclopedia of ancient Greek knowledge, “the proverb is applied to those whose boasts exceed what they are” and  is “a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude.” I guess that the message is that nobody’s opinion of you is any good, including your own.  So how do you know who you are?  What’s the song say? “I’d like to get to know you… if I could.” Popular music can be cryptic, too.

Nelson Mandela once said that “[o]ur deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”  Wonder why you get a little chill as those words sink in?  Because Nelson Mandela is right.  Some people become very uncomfortable around mirrors, you know.  Maybe they don’t really want to know themselves, because if they did they would have to assume responsibility for their thoughts, words and deeds.

These days, people seem to spend most of their time coming up with excuses (or, more euphemistically, “explanations”) as to why their lives are screwed up.  They blame their parents.  They blame the economy.  They blame their luck.  They blame their “addictions.”  Rarely do they blame themselves, because that would inevitably lead to questions like, “Well, if you think you’re on the wrong path, why don’t you simply try a different one?”  In other words, if you’re fat—lose weight.  If you’re poor—figure out a way to earn more money.  If you’re unhappy—find something you like to do, and go do it.  And so on.  For obvious reasons, people for the most part don’t want to go the “get a life” route: taking personal responsibility can be a lot of work.

Kids sometimes sit around the house moaning that “there’s nothing to do.”  If it’s a rainy day, it’s because they can’t go outside.  If it’s a sunny day, it’s because “there’s nobody around.” Adults often spend a lot of time moaning about all of the things that they “have to do,” including go to work every day to support those brats sitting around the house.  Yet when somebody wins the lottery, and with it ostensible freedom from the toiling part of their daily lives, like as not the inevitable “human interest” story about them in the local paper will report that they slogged back to their job as a toll-taker on the expressway the Monday after winning and have no plans in the immediate future to quit. 

People complain that they are “stuck” in jobs they don’t like, find excuses to stay married to people they don’t love, go to hear sermons  they don’t believe, vote for candidates they don’t trust, and watch television programs they acknowledge are “dumb.”  You’ve got to ask why.

Psychologists tell us that everything we do is the product of conscious or unconscious choices.  And there’s a logic behind each choice, too, a logic grounded in fear.  If the range of possible alternative realities seems too unpleasant… or too unknown… people have a tendency to stay put.  Yup.  The old “fight, flight or freeze” again.  So if one is afraid of change, they fight it; afraid of bad consequences that might result from changes in their life, they fly away from them; and if they’re generally unhappy because they’re in a predictable rut, they dig in a little deeper rut and freeze until they’re numb to the pain.

Now, it goes without saying that one can’t adapt to life in a prison cell (or a self-dug rut) and retain even a semblance of sanity if one is going to insist on being hyper-aware of one’s circumstances.  Prisoners daydream and fantasize and zone out a lot to pass the time… except when they’re out in the general population where they might get killed, of course.  Then the Law of the Jungle kicks in again.  Outside prison walls, the rest of us are able to deny reality with fewer restrictions—look at those idiots texting as they hurtle down the freeway.  People spend a lot of their time imagining what it would be like if they were fit, or rich, or educated, or married to someone they actually liked, or divorced from somebody that they actually can’t stand, or living in the country, or traveling around the world.  But very few of them do anything much about it.  And when they do think about their unsatisfactory situations-- usually because they have to, for some reason—they will declare either that they’re “grateful” for all the non-crappy parts of their lives (by implication having concluded that their lives, however crappy, are as good as they can expect them to get) or that there’s “nothing to be done” about the crappiness.  “No Exit,” as Jean-Paul Sartre might say.

Existentialists have one thing going for them.  Their denial is not complete.  They acknowledge the futility and absurdity of their existence.  Heck, they even revel in it.  They have no responsibility for trying to “improve” their situation, because they believe that their situation cannot be improved, and they can churn out volumes of well-supported reasons for this belief.

Another avenue to acceptance of one’s miserable lot is adherence to a religion, Catholicism and its offshoots being the obvious case in point.  During the Middle Ages, the lot of the common individual was pretty shitty, indeed.  People lived in squalor, misery, ignorance and filth.  They were plagued by wars, starvation,  witches and, yes, plague.  To keep them from going ape and threatening the (relatively) better situations enjoyed by the “nobility” of Europe and the clergy, somebody had to come up with a mythology to explain to the peasants why it was worth enduring all the squalor and misery and filth, and the theologians came up with a pretty good story.  “We’re living in squalor and misery and filth,” they said, “because Man sinned against God (by being disobedient and seeking after knowledge) back in the Garden of Eden and so we’ve got to endure this crap until we die… but it’s only temporary, because if we’ve been really good while enduring the squalor and misery and filth, then we’ll go to Heaven and live forever without any squalor or misery or filth.”

That was the “carrot” dangled before the disease-ridden, oppressed and ignorant populace back then, but the Church concluded (rightly enough) that it wouldn’t be sufficient by itself to ensure compliance or complacency.  So they added a “stick”:  “Oh, and by the way, if you’re not good at enduring the squalor and misery and filth, and you don’t ‘render unto Caesar’ and follow the dictates of the Church, our loving God will cast your damned soul for eternity into a lake of burning fire, and you’ll be poked in the ass by devils with pitchforks while you labor in squalor and misery and filth.  Amen.”

They didn’t get 100% compliance, of course, but the one-two combination of  salvation and damnation worked pretty well.  And besides, they needed some non-compliant people to hang and burn at the stake now and then in order to maintain the urgency of the message.

Anyway, the fatalism of the Existentialists and the hope of the Medieval peasantry give you two ways, at least, of rationalizing a miserable existence until you’re dead.  There’s another way,  the concept of Tao, primarily promoted by Eastern religions such as Confucianism and Zen Buddhism, which is, conveniently enough, roughly translated as “The Way.”  I mention this as sort of an afterthought, because it’s not really practical for most Twenty-First Century Americans.  The object is to harmonize one’s will with Nature in order to achieve what has been termed “effortless action”.  It requires meditation and moral practices that aren’t really in sync with our smartphone-driven, Nature-bending, “busy” lives here in the good ol’ USA.  So unless you’re now living on one of the four or five Colorado mountaintops that isn’t adjacent to a subdivision, or on a private island, or something like that, the Tao is going to be a tough path for you to conceptualize, much less follow.  More power to you if you decide to make the attempt, but I’m going to have to turn my attention now  back to the mass of un-Enlightened readers.

Here is the step-by-step, color-by-numbers, Rachael Ray quick, easy way to gain mastery over your life:

1.      Acknowledge that  your life is less than perfect, and that whatever combination of bad circumstances and bad people brought you to whatever pit you’re residing in presently, it’s your fault if you stay there.

2.      Acknowledge that you are not as good as you could be, and that there are any number of things you could do to try to improve yourself.

3.      Acknowledge that other people, whatever their circumstances, are plagued with the same doubts, fears and inadequacies that you are.

4.      Work at improving yourself.

5.      Work at improving  your life.

6.      Stop worrying about why you’re here.  Go about the above-listed activities serene in the knowledge that, although you will never achieve perfection, eventually it will all stop… or change…or something… when you die.  And there you have it, How to Live Your Life.

 

 

Speech Codes and Other Obscenities

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The Glory of Humanity

So how do you feel about human beings?  Are they the pinnacle of creation, or just a bunch of dirty monkeys with expanding waistlines?  Well, if you’ve ever been to any sort of church, you know that there is an official answer to the question of humanity’s place in the Universe.  For the most part, theologians of any stripe have no problem with the concept that all of creation is specifically intended for our exploitation and amusement.  But suppose we think about it rationally for a space.

Human beings share about 99% of their DNA with their closest relatives, the chimps.  Chimps share a lot of our behavior, as well.  They rape, and kill for sport, and even wage small-scale warfare among themselves.  They use tools.  And weapons.  They communicate in a fairly complex way, and organize and cooperate and plan.  A few have even mastered ASL (sign language)  so that they can communicate more effectively with us.  And they sling shit at zoo visitors sometimes, who knows why, just as if they were rioting human prisoners.

We don’t treat chimps very well, using them for painful medical experiments and zoo spectacles and one-way space trips and whatnot—things that we generally agree that we shouldn’t do to human beings.  But why exactly is that?  What makes the life of a serial killer, a slaveowner, or a monster like Adolf Hitler more valuable than that of a peaceable, ASL-signing chimp?

Of course, chimps are just one example of humanity’s myriad victims, from fellow hominids like Homo Neanderthalis to the American “buffalo” (actually a bison, I hear) to the African elephant to all the species that wink out each year  as their habitat is slashed and burned into oblivion in the Central and South American rainforests.  And we “do” ourselves, too.  Think Inquisition.  Think Holocaust.  Think World Wars I, II and III.  That’s why I’m sure that UFO’s aren’t really spaceships.  If any truly advanced civilization ever discovered us, they’d immediately call pest control.  But many years after the Roswell Incident, we’re still here… although it may just be a matter of time.

And what about those hypothetical aliens?  Actually, to talk about the “possibility” of life on other planets is similar to talking about the “possibility” that human activity may be screwing up the climate.  The consensus seems to be that although the case for the existence of extraterrestrial life remains circumstantial, because our technological limitations have thus far prevented us from going to take a look, the odds are pretty good that we will eventually discover "life as we know it"...  and maybe some other kinds, too.  The elements essential to "life as we know it" (carbon and hydrogen, for example) are scattered throughout the small part of the Universe that we can see.  There are a hundred billion stars in our little galaxy, the Milky Way, and based upon what we’ve seen so far, it looks like many of them… well, perhaps all of them… have planets.  Statistically, as least, it seems very likely that We Are Not Alone in the Universe—i.e., that there are somewhere other creatures who, if they’re anything like us, will consider themselves the Lords of Creation. 

If it so happens that we encounter intelligent life at some point, once again the numbers tell us that it is probable that their civilization will be far in advance of ours in many ways.  Remember, what we call “civilization” is only about six thousand years old at the extreme outside, and for most of that we used only muscle power.  What happens if our infant civilization meets a mature one?  Or even a teenage one?  What will our own civilization be like in another ten thousand years?  Assuming, of course, that our civilization (or any other) can last ten thousand years without blowing itself up. 

Since we’ve never been farther than our own moon, and are at the very dawn of the “Space Age,” I think we’ve got to assume that it’s statistically likely that the technology of any space travelers we run into for the next few thousand years will more likely than not be overwhelmingly superior to ours.  In such an encounter, we will be the Neanderthals.  And remember—the last time Neanderthals met a more advanced culture—Homo Sapiens—they were hunted to extinction, and consumed as food along the way.

Of course, there are those who contend that we ourselves are alien in origin.  http://now.msn.com/humans-are-martians-in-origin-says-scientist-steven-brenner?ocid=ansnowex .  Who knows?  But whether or not Steven Brenner and Arthur C. Clarke (remember those 2001 “monoliths”?) or Ridley Scott (“Prometheus”) are right, it doesn’t get us any closer to divinity.

Remember, dolphins have bigger brains than we do.  Next time you’re on the bus, take a look around at your fellow “Lords of Creation” and think about that.  Or check out the headlines in your local paper.  In my local paper today, it says that the Syrians are bombing their own capital city, while the rest of the world is wondering whether it’s really worth punishing the government there for using horrific, long-banned chemical weapons on the civilian population.  There’s a story about a guy who cooked his three-month-old son by leaving him in the car in triple-digit heat while he went into a sports bar to smoke a joint with his buddy.  There’s a story about the National Park Service’s futile attempts to persuade the public that forests sometimes have to burn in order to stay healthy… and the countervailing efforts of other government agencies to immediately stamp out every spark (so that tourists won’t be disappointed because there’s haze from the smoke spoiling their view, among other non-scientific reasons.)  There’s a story about how now that two states have legalized pot for “recreational” use, the federal government has decided that it won’t be enforcing its crazy anti-marijuana laws anymore, except some places, some times, against some people.  You get the picture.

You might argue  that it’s harmless for people to strut about believing that humanity is “special.”  But it’s not.  Remember, Hubris (aka Pride) is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and it achieved that status for a reason.  Humanity’s conceit is the reason that many of our fellow Earthlings have been hunted to extinction, often just for sport.  It’s the reason that human activity has screwed up the climate and destroyed entire ecosystems, sometimes through simple carelessness, but often as the “unexpected” byproduct of ill-considered attempts to “improve” on nature.  It’s the reason we’re too superstitious to control our population before we exhaust the diminished resources of our little planet.  It’s the reason that we employ theology and ideological wishful thinking instead of science in our efforts to understand and control criminal behavior, educate our kids, and husband our food supply.

People are quick to jump on someone who believes that they are above it all (meaning “above the rest of humanity,” which apparently is all that most people think should count) except, naturally, if they are a film, sports or pop music star, or a member of the British Royal Family, or really, really rich.  But it’s just as ridiculous to think that human life is more sacred than any other kind.  Trust me, the world is going to miss the last Sequoia tree, blue whale or elephant a lot more than it’s going to miss you.  It’s time to get a little more Enlightened, folks, before it’s too late.

 

 

Nuts

So how does one tell if one is nuts?  I mean crackers, wacko, off, screwed up, wackadoo, loony, bonkers, deluded, hallucinatory, schizophrenic, loopy, raving mad, around the bend, screwball, ditzy, weirdo, disturbed, psychopathic, sociopathic, insane?  Crazy, in other words?  And what difference does it make, when you get right down to it?  If you're not crazy, then everyone else is, right?

There is a master reference work called DSM-5.  The "DSM" part stands for "Diagnostic Manual of Statistical and Mental Disorders." (As for the "5," that's there because there have been four other versions of the manual before it, duh.)  The DSM-5 is utilized by professionals to diagnose the particular flavor of nuttiness of their patients, and while there's a lot of controversy within the head-doctor community about some of what's set forth in the DSM-5, it's pretty much representative of the "consensus" in the field... until the DSM-6 comes along, of course.

Since the DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013 there is no longer any such thing as "Aspberger Syndrome," did you know that?  If you thought you had that on May 17, you're just "autistic" today.  Now there's no "bereavement exception" to save you from a diagnosis of  depression if you're depressed because a loved one died, and there are fewer flavors of schizophrenia, and if you're confused about your gender, you no longer have "gender identity disorder," you have "gender dysphoria" instead.

Some have expressed concerns to the effect that the pharmaceutical industry may be exerting an undue influence on the content of the DSM-5... and on mental health treatment in general.  The knee-jerk response of many doctors is to medicate first, and ask questions later, if at all.  There are jillions of pills available, all different sizes, shapes and colors, and they are doled out like candy to anybody who asks nicely (and a lot of other patients, too.)  Hell, if you live in a major urban area, your GP may be willing to pass out some anti-depressants, based on your self-diagnosis, without any kind of a mental examination at all.  You might even be given a free sample of mind-candy.

Look, we're animals.  Organisms.  According to some scientists, what we experience as emotion is really just hormones and enzymes and things bubbling around in response to electrical alarms going off in the nervous system.  So it makes sense to smooth out the ride by introducing a little equalizer into the system, sort of like dumping a can of STP into the gas tank of your car to increase performance and get rid of engine knock.  Right?  Well, it seems that pill-popping is in the ascendance in the head-shrinking world, and that the efficacy of the Sigmund Freud / Tony Soprano-style "Talking Cure" is being called into question more and more.

The problem with seeing what is euphemistically called a "professional" to chat about what's wrong with you is that it costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time.  Americans are O.K. with spending a lot of money, especially if they can brag to their friends and neighbors about how much they're spending and what a good deal they're getting.  But they don't like to spend a lot of time doing anything except dashing to their next meeting, youth soccer match, hair appointment, restaurant date or personal training session.  Heck, shows get bounced off TV if it turns out they're hard to follow if the "viewers" don't actually sit down and watch the screen.  So fast-acting drugs are preferable to someone who doesn't feel well, as opposed to pouring one's heart out to a paid sympathizer for a couple hundred bucks an hour for years and years.

The other problem with non-drug therapy is that the patient actually has to be willing to confront the issues.  Since their unwillingness to confront the issues is usually the catalyst for the festering unhappiness that drove them to the "professional" in the first place, this is asking a lot of most patients.  They prefer to be given the answer to the problem, which in fact no responsible "professional" will even attempt to do.  "The answers lie within."  In other words, somewhere deep down inside you know for sure that your mother never liked you, and why, and that you're unhappy as a result and that because you're unhappy you eat ice cream in the middle of the night a lot and that because you do that you don't get enough sleep and are doing a crappy job at work and everybody now perceives you as fat and lazy and so you have no friends and no life.  But you'll never get over it until you confront the root cause of the problem, acknowledge your mother's faults, get angry with her, forgive her, let go and jump start your life.  And by the time the "professional" obliquely prods you into doing all that you'll have spent a whole lot of time and money.

Or... you could pop a few pills and feel better right away (unless you become manic or suicidal, as the fine print in the little booklet that comes with your pills will tell you). 

Or... you could pop the pills and go once a week to talk with the "professional," and spend the time talking about how much better or worse you feel each week without ever having to get down to the nitty gritty of why.  Some "professionals" are easy to fool.  Some don't care.  And the rest stick with the Prime Directive and go through the process of obliquely prodding you into figuring out that you're spinning your wheels.  Some people (Woody Allen, for example, or at least his movie persona) are able to remain in therapy for decades this way.

Unhappiness is the usual catalyst for a trip to the "professional," I'm told.  This is interesting, because it is only in the last couple of hundred years that "happiness" has been considered a possibility by most people.  For most of human history, the closest anybody ever usually got to happiness was to get through a whole week without developing a goiter or leprosy, having their village sacked and burned, or having a spell cast upon them by a witch.  And given the present state of the world as reported by the media you have to allow for the possibility that it might be the people who aren't unhappy who are the crazy ones.

And as implied in Paragraph One above, it simply may not matter whether you're officially crazy or not.  There really doesn't seem to be a whole lot of "normal" out there.  What most people seem to mean by "normal" is either "like me" or "boring."  (And when talking about most people, those two labels mean the same thing.)  Most of the truly happy people I've come across would fall into the category of "eccentric" or "free-spirited," terms which any "normal" person would recognize as euphemisms for "crazy." 

On the other hand, there are a lot of evil, depressed, violent and angry people, too.  But anyone who's studied history would recognize these terms as descriptive of a lot of high achievers, from Genghis Khan to Edith Piaf to Adolf Hitler to Andy Kauffman to Richard Nixon to Vincent Van Gogh.  In fact, you couldn't write the history of the human race without a lot of emphasis on the evil, depressed, violent and angry people, aside from a couple of short chapters on Clara Barton and Mahatma Ghandi, and what would be the point of that?  In any event, anybody who's been through History 101 knows enough to tell you that "normal" for the human race is definitely shaded toward the dark side.

"Times have changed, though," the optimists say.  True.  And we change with the times, too.  What may have passed for socially acceptable behavior in a Viking raider probably wouldn't make it in Manhatten these days (remember those credit card commercials with the barbarians asking "What's in your wallet?") but a lot of the assholes wandering around Wall Street in their two thousand dollar suits are just as dangerous.  Are they crazy, too?  Or are the rest of us crazy for propping up the system that bailed out their bonuses?

Eric Berne wrote a book called "I'm O.K., You're O.K." back in the 60's or '70's.  I doubt if transactional analysis is still en vogue anywhere, but the title of the book is worth thinking about all by itself.  I suppose at least some people (Anthony Weiner and that old dude in the Mayor's office in San Diego, for example) won't have any trouble with the "I'm O.K." part.  It's the "You're O.K." part that really causes trouble.  Sad to say, it's generally easier to see other people clearly than it is to see one's self-- if you take the trouble to look at all-- because we've got a little distance.  And then you've got to ask yourself, "If they're O.K. and they're not like me, how can I be O.K.?"

Maybe Anthony Weiner has it right.  Self-esteem trumps public opinion anytime.  And hubris is certainly a "normal" state for humankind.

Frankenbabies

Genetic science is progressing by leaps and bounds.  Crazed scientists are sequencing genomes and splicing genes and cloning right and left.  Congresspeople who failed high school biology and voters who never heard of it are passing laws regulating "stem cell research."  We're on the verge of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," but the thing that seems to scare the common person most is the possibility that "genetically modified corn" may be lurking somewhere in the freezercase at the grocery store.

Disaster is lurking in a lot of different directions:  Laboratories are incubating all sorts of deadly viruses, some only a couple of mutations away from being virulent and deadly enough to wipe out the whole of humanity if and when they are released.  Farm animals are being pumped full of antibiotics so that they can stay alive under atrocious factory farm conditions for long enough to be slaughterable, giving the "bugs" a chance to acquire immunity to those self-same antibiotics in time to keep the antibiotics from saving you the next time you've got an infection.  But if you really want to try to anticipate trouble, I'd suggest  you focus on humanity's inherent silliness and vanity.

Right now, it's becoming popular to breed fluorescent fish and clone dead pets (sounds like "Pet Sematary," only without the ancient Indian burial ground, to me.)  But it won't be long until we get down to the real meat of the matter and start concentrating on the serious business of making people look "better," and eventually act "better," too.  Now there you'll start getting into some interesting situations.

Of course, not every dad will want his kid to be an NBA star-- some will opt for football or baseball, instead.  And if and when it becomes both technically possible and marginally affordable for moms and dads to tinker on a cellular level to customize their kids I'm sure that you'll you see a lot of celebrity lookalikes and superheroes and Barbie dolls walking around, too. 

Because human beings seem to have a strong herd instinct, the longterm trend will probably be toward "standardization" of appearance.  But then again, people want to be distinctive, too, and therefore there will be a countervailing trend toward "customization."  And the genetics companies will be happy to oblige, offering "upgrades" to the basic "Hunk" and "Hottie" models for an additional fee.  Pretty soon kids will be like cars or cellphones or televisions: everyone has a "luxury" car and a "smartphone," and a flatscreen HD TV, it's just that some are more expensive... and better all around... than others.

No matter how much money some people have, it won't be enough to buy them good sense or good taste.  And that will hold true with kid-designing, too.  Just check out some of the plastic surgery abominations pictured in the tabloids on sale at your local supermarket if you want to know how warped people's vision of "beauty" can get.  Just think collagen lips, permanent makeup, facelifts after which one's ears wind up on top of one's head.  Your imagination isn't going to be good enough to prepare you for what's coming, at least not without a fistful of those mythical LSD-laced potato chips you may remember from your college days.

And suppose people had the power to insure that their kids had IQ's that were twenty... or fifty... or a hundred points higher than Mom and Dad's.  How's that going to turn out, leaving aside for the moment the indisputable fact that kids already think their parents are morons?  Imagine the resentment of a generation of real, not just imagined, geniuses raised by a generation of dolts.  "Logan's Run" time, for sure, for anyone over 30 in a world like that.

Let's be honest with ourselves, just this once.  Mary Shelley proved definitively, with her chilling tale of "Frankenstein," that human beings are too stupid and short-sighted to design a superman.  Aldous Huxley and Hitler gave us something to think about in this regard, too.  Just this once, couldn't we hearken to the wise words uttered by Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park," when as Dr. Ian Malcolm he castigated the idiots who decided to clone dinosaurs by observing, "You were so busy trying to see if you could, you never stopped to ask whether you should," or something approximately like that and at least equally terse and profound.

With all the new "fertility science" and egg-freezing and sperm donating and zygote-growing-in-a-Petrie-dish going on, people have it in their heads that anyone can be a parent, whether that's what Nature wants or not.  That's bad enough, all by itself.  But if we start tinkering at the cellular level with the goal of achieving the dream of creating the "perfect child" for everyone, we'll deserve whatever cataclysm awaits.  Ever hear of Pandora's Box?

Unhappy Endings

We've all been conditioned by Hollywood to expect that everything will turn out right in the end.  It's pretty much a rule in Tinseltown that you've got to have a good outcome, no matter how twisted the tale.  And not only does the story have to end well, there can't be any loose ends left dangling, either.  No ambiguity allowed.  That's why all those one-hour crime shows seem to move faster at the end-- they have to cram in the answers to all the little questions that have been raised in the first forty-five minutes, along with a tidy ending.

Popular fiction, for those who still read, is fraught with the same expectations.  There are strict formulae for success in any of the "genres."  The books are so predictable that some aficionados of "romance" novels, for example, plough through two every day while doing the laundry or waiting for the kids to finish soccer practice or drying their toenails or eating lunch at their desk.  The object of this consumption is not to challenge the imagination or develop new insights, not by any means.  What it's really all about is anaesthesia, an attempt to blunt the dull pain of monotonous, everyday existence.

It's not just "romance" novels that provide this release, of course.  "Mysteries" will do it, too, and I remember that long ago there used to be a thing called "Westerns."  And almost every kind of book has vampires in them now, unless the book has got zombies, instead.  Mostly the vampires are assigned the more sophisticated, glamorous roles, while the zombies are concentrated in the areas of "gross" or "hilarious."

Now don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against a little escapism.  Hell, I spent all six years of my stint at the University of Blank stoned out of my skull, and I've imagined a lot more than I've actually lived.  (You have, too, Smartass.)  But I've paid enough attention to real life to know that those formulaic happy endings are more than elusive... maybe even mythical... in the real world. 

Now, if one were to accept the premise that real life is crappy, as Jean-Paul Sartre and the rest of the "Existentialists" did, it would be perfectly natural to opt out when it came to structuring your entertainment, and to demand "upbeat" or "inspriational" endings to your stories... which you would probably immerse yourself in every waking moment you could, because that would be the only way out of the crappy morass of existence.  That would make sense.

However, many of the people who consume this crap will tell you, if you can get them to put down their paperback or their I-pad or their Kindle for a moment, that they are happy... even that they "love" their lives, and life in general for that matter.  If so, why wouldn't they be more interested in exploring the joys and mysteries of life, as opposed to avoiding any type of honest reflection?

Again, that big river in Africa, "de Nile," rears its head.  My own take is that because people realize at some level that they are stuck here, and are afraid to leave, they have no choice but to try to convince themselves that their condition is A-O.K.  Many choose drugs, some choose religion, some choose popular fiction and the movies.  These diversions provide a buffer against the "real" world of war and disease and pollution and rape and murder and hatred and violence and poverty and slavery and disease and death and disappointment and frustration and guilt and doubt and so on.  Not only does formula fiction insulate them from all this chaos, but the happy endings allow the fevered reader (or viewer-- I know that many people don't read) to experience a vicarious simulacrum of good feelings for a fleeting instant before grabbing the next book (or DVD).

Here's a radical thought: maybe the people who "love" life would get more out of it if they were to love it the way you're supposed to love people-- with acceptance of the whole package, warts and all.  Is it really better to have everything sanitized and predictable?

You might have noticed, if you know any "intellectuals," that they are a pretty gloomy bunch, on the whole.  Not a whole lot of laughing in those smoke-choked cafes.  Not a lot of good times and humor in those dense tomes they churn out.  (Ever try to read "Atlas Shrugged?")  All very serious, all very gloomy.  "Intellectuals," however, embrace at least some of reality... the part that hurts and is incurable.  (Check out "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus.)

Both the mindless and the hopeless have it wrong, though.  There is a middle ground.  At least in theory, it should be possible to "love" life, even while acknowledging that it sometimes sucks, to navigate life with one's eyes open.  There is beauty in grief as well as in joy, after all.  I never felt love for my late father or my late brother or my dead cats any more intensely than when I lost them.  And when I read about war or death or hunger or disease, I feel grateful for the peace and the life and the plenty and the health that I am privileged to enjoy for the moment.  This is called "The Pleasure Principle," and it's something that you study in Psychology 101.

Again, there's nothing wrong with a little numbness from time to time.  But I'd suggest just using it as a spacer.  You might try picking up a real book next time, something with some real thoughts, ideas and emotions in it.