Seeking a world counter to the “Dog Eat Dog” mentality.

When was the last time you saw a dog eat another dog? The last time I saw two dogs interact, they were sniffing butt and play chasing each other back and forth until they were exhausted. They would rest and then do it again. The dog world is more like sniff each other out and play till you are exhausted. Granted my dog has had issues with other dogs in the neighborhood, but there was no dog eating going on. I believe we have been duped into believing that cutthroat competition is the philosophy that will lead to our fulfillment in life.
I recently assigned a writing prompt fishing for a personal reflection on my students’ sense of cultural identity. Many identified that seeking and obtaining money was a priority. Some were willing to forget personal hopes and desires in order to live with lots of money. Sure money might buy all kinds of stuff, but does it buy us fulfillment or even a sense of self identity? According to Minecraft creator, MarkusPersson, not at all. While discussing the American dream with a few students, one was adamant that taking care of number one (selfishness) was the order of the day and American culture forces you to be that way because everyone believes in it. Yet it is a hollow promise. Society (or at least a few key people with lots of money and power) tells you one thing in order to serve itself. She went on to say that there was no hope left in the world because the opposite of hope is fear and everyone is afraid of losing money, happiness, friends, etc. It was truly sad to think that this was true; I couldn’t help but argue that it wasn’t true, it doesn’t need to be true, and for our own sanity shouldn’t be how we organize our lives. 
American life has potential to present the ultimate proof of Buddhist thought. Desires bring suffering. Ignorance is not bliss, but a form of suffering. If you reduce desire than there is less suffering. We desire the “good life” but yet depression, bullying, gun violence, widespread judgment, and poverty are realities that we can’t seem to shake. While this may not be true for a billionaire, who has everything, who can throw elaborate parties, who may be the poster child of the good life, finding fulfillment is going to be difficult, building relationships with people is going to be difficult, because there are not very many people who can relate to the billionaire. There are many people who identify with struggle, hard work, and occasionally success. 
While we all have the goal of pursuing happiness, it has become a shallow materialistic enterprise. Those that have the most toys wins? Really? The materialistic attainment of stuff in pursuit of happiness is a farce. What is happiness? According to the school of positive psychology, one formula is gratitude over gratification.  Even if you delay gratification you see positive results (cool study testing kids with marshmallows). If you practice gratitude on a situation to situation basis, it doesn’t matter if you are a paraplegic or the poorest person in your neighborhood; if you are grateful for what you have and what you experience, you will be happier. Modern psychology also identifies that a sense of community or belonging is a human need. Human connection is actually a new response to everything from depression to addiction. 
Is fear the opposite of hope? Fear is a function of worry that perceives threats or danger; in the face of the American materialistic lifestyle, fear might be an emotional response to the idea that you might not achieve something or you might lose something that might lessen your condition, your lifestyle, or your situation.  Are we really in danger if we don’t have what we want? If we suspend attachment to things, outcomes, conditions, or even whole lifestyles, then, when things shift and change, we are more able to adjust and change with them. If we resist, in most cases we will just be spending lots of energy. 
Yet back to the marshmallow study that proves delayed gratification, the environment or culture can negate any benefits due to trust issues.  Aikido practice seeks to harmonize with the natural social world. Western practice seeks to order the natural social world. While neither is easy or even, in some situations, possible, each has a very different intention and potential outcome: harmony versus competition with the external. A competitive environment begets mistrust and survivalist attitudes. Therefore the ultimate practice in seeking happiness would be to harmoniously pursue gratitude, community, and reduction of fear. 
Parallel to the Buddhist idea that ignorance brings suffering, the opposite can also be true. Self-knowledge and the seeking of wisdom and understanding can reduce the insecurity of unhappiness and fear. Coupled with gratitude and a sense of belonging, one who seeks to best know oneself and share their experience with others would be the most happy and fulfilled. I know this to be true since when I saw my first marriage disappear; holding on to judgment and expectations lead to suffering, but when I sought self-awareness and self-knowledge with compassion and understanding, I couldn’t help but move on to a better life. 
One step further I am reminded of a great conversation with my sister years ago; one that concluded that self-centeredness is not the same as self-awareness and each has very different impacts on the individual, their community, and their culture. One such topic in a recent blog addresses this issue, but commentary points to the fascination with social media as evidence that we are more self-absorbed and only more self-aware when we unplug. 
So back to the dog eat dog analogy. We are more fulfilled when we genuinely connect with ourselves, with others, and in a legitimate way with our communities with gratefulness and compassion, not when we compete till the death, even if our culture tells us this is how it is.

A Rhetorical Argument against YOLO

Yolo is defined by the Urban Dictionary as an abbreviation for "you only live once." This also means the “dumbass's excuse for something stupid that they did.” It has been misinterpreted as live life to the fullest. It is also identified as “one of the most annoying abbreviations ever”....Yet people, students, and celebrities alike continue to use it. Why? Philosophically yolo means that because you only live once, any mistake or unintended negative outcome is blown off as inconsequential. Disguised behind the idea that we are living a conscious life complete with mistakes, we are not critically thinking about our actions, behaviors, or thoughts. While this has not only been embraced by many people, it poses one of the major philosophical dilemmas of our generation. We don’t feel the need to take responsibility for our actions and we are flippant towards the consequences.  

It is very common for politicians or celebrities to deny and deflect blame. It is very rare for individuals in the public eye to genuinely apologize; instead it just comes off as a PR task. Consider the likes of Justin Bieber, Michael Richards, or Kanye West (CNN). You mess up, you publically apologize and contain the damage. If your ego doesn’t get in the way or it is possible. Sure we all make mistakes and it is a great thing to know that you can develop as a human being over the course of your life. However, yolo poses a whole new philosophical apathy that is troubling to the intellectual engagement of the human race. In other words, Ive messed up and I don’t care. 



It therefore may be the most self-destructive attitude that we can take during the present day. 




There are people who look at the state of the world and decide that there are so many problems and the world is so messed up then why bother? With so many examples of yolo and celebrity apathy that why do I care? Parallel to the apathy and self-disengagement of yolo is the attitude that the world is going to hell so what does it matter if I screw up or screw off? This does nothing to solve the problem, but is defeatist and counterproductive. And according to some psychologists may actually be a sign of mental illness and non-resilience. 




Because of that reality, we must embrace an attitude opposite of yolo.  The Urban Dictionary identifies yodo, or "you only die once," as a way to pick on people who foolishly follow the values of yolo. However, this does nothing, but further perpetrate the problem of disengagement. Undermining someone else’s empowerment or even struggle doesn’t solve the problem. This is also a fundamental element of bullying, the belittling of someone else especially if that person is in a perceived or actual inferior position. 




We need an attitude of engagement, of personal responsibility, of corporate responsibility, of community-wide empathy in such a way that helps to not only give us a sense of belonging, but heals the personal and social wounds we have suffered, to not only connect people who are isolated or marginalized, but to enhance our individual and social lives. Personal responsibility can not be interpreted as a self-centered survivalist reaction. While we must look out for ourselves, there is much social criticism of various individual experiences, celebrity or peer, as ego-driven, contrived, overblown, mundane, or meaningless. Why aren’t we more empathetic towards our fellow citizen’s experiences and challenges? Why are we so judgmental and critical? Why is bullying such a social pastime in our schools? While engaging in personal responsibility will ensure our self-advocacy and self-development, it isn't the only thing that counters yolo. As a society we need to learn and practice empathy; we need to practice positive relationship building; we need to remember that our actions can have consequences; we need to remember that examples of helping our fellow human can have a lasting influence not only on the person we help, but our own sense of self-worth.  




Barack Obama has proclaimed Sept 11 National Day of Service and Remembrance in honor of the first responders of 9/11. He has also encouraged people to volunteer on January 19 a National Service Day celebrating MLK. While days like this do much for our communities, we need to embrace this much more as a community ethic. To help each other is to help oneself. When we connect with a fellow human being and give them a helping hand in a moment of need, then we engage in a fulfilling experience and an improvement of our own character. There are many studies that show the effects of service work; however, why isn’t it more of an American value, practice, or pastime? Is it possible to embrace values parallel to the American dream that champion helping our fellow human or neighbor, any of them in any way that we can? This should be the norm, not the exception. 




Furthermore, if we actively are reflective towards our actions, whatever they may be, then we are more likely to advocate for our own improvement and involvement in many areas of the social process. The Brookings Institute has identified personal responsibility as a key factor in the health and vibrancy of our lives. 




Another challenge to the idea of yolo is the philosophical grounds that we truly don’t know if we only live once and therefore it is self-damning to not care about our performance or improvement over time. What if we do live multiple lives? What if reincarnation is a real concept? While religion has championed an afterlife for centuries, science still has not proved or disproved the existence of an afterlife or reincarnation. There are psychologists that are calling for more study into client revelations of significant and real evidence of past life experiences. See Brian Weiss’s Many Lives, Many Masters or Michael Newton’s The Journey of Souls or Ian Stevenson’s 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. While trying to avoid a faith based argument, there does still need to be more evidence and more study. However, if this is the case, then would we only prolong our development by embracing apathy or yolo? What is our role in reincarnation? Why would it be being so flippant that we shouldn't be aware of the consequences of our actions. It would also harkens to the tragedy of the commons. An individual's self-centered behavior essentially will undermine the benefit of public use of specific resources. If we had a continuous eternal role to steward the earth, each other and ourselves, then we also must recognize the responsibility to learn how to be not just better, but our best. An old carpenter’s motto that resonates here is that we all do better when we all do better. In order to best organize our own lives and development it requires engagement and personal responsibility, not apathy and selfishness. 

Here’s to rejecting yolo and seeking to do better for our collective vibrance and improvement.

Married Expression...Does anything really change after the wedding day?

I recently got married. It was a wonderful and magical celebration of love and community. While we will cherish the memory forever, there is something else that I have begun to notice and appreciate. Many people have asked us “hey, has anything changed?” At first I don’t think anything really did. However, I am beginning to think that it has and is changing. Our partnership does not, contrary to the conquering youthful skeptic romantics such as Kierkegaard’s Johannes Climacus in The Seducer’s Diary, end with our vows. It deepens and continues each and every day much more like Kierkegaard’s Judge who responds to Climacus arguing the aesthetic and ethical benefits of marriage. Yet it grows even further in other ways. Granted I must add the disclaimer that we are but a mere few months into our married life, yet our awareness and intentions in this regard are essential. We committed even before our wedding day to a team effort that we continue to practice and challenge, with which we work and play every day through every mood and circumstance.

Yet I did not fully realize how much community is an important part of our expression of partnership. The thing that highlighted this for me was being with family and friends over the holidays. The way that we interacted with each other and others was an intimate mixing of love, cultured, community, partnered, and individual expressions. I experience love individually as I experience it directly and personally. For example, we tend to be fairly tactile and so many times unconsciously I will touch my wife’s leg, arm, or the small of her back. I experience the feeling of connection directly and personally in reaching out and touching her. However, it became clearer to me that we all exist in unique entities; we are each different worlds of love, molecules of phenomenology in vastly diverse expressions of relationship or even its absence. During our wedding I thanked our wedding guests with a similar sentiment that draws us all together. “Each and every one of you is an essential part of what inspires us. You are all unique, dynamic and moving love poems in your own right. We are all on our own journey; learning love, exploring partnership, managing compassion, connection and development. Whatever that might look like.  The day to day simple joys, the ups and downs, the obstacles, the disappointments, the tripping and falling to the point of utter failure…and finally the glorious accomplishments, milestones and achievements further communicate to us that love is an important element of quality in our lives. Whatever your path of love our collective stories enrichen not only our lives, but our growth. As we are inspired by, learn from and love you, we humbly hope that we have stoked the fire in you and consequently in the ones you touch, personally and professionally. Your struggle through love’s challenges encourages us to weather the storms of life as we hope ours encourages you; your compassion and joy energizes us as we hope our energy brightens you,  your process inspires us to never give up as we hope we inspire you to persevere.  Your story becomes our story.”  

During the holidays I saw this idea play out in the reflections of single people hanging out with friends, yearning for a deep connection with someone else, and whatever that meant for them personally; I heard this in the reflections of fellow couples sharing their recent move, their travel, their work, their stories, their interactions with parents, family, friends, each other, etc.; I felt this in the frustration of coupled and individual discussions about…a whole host of issues that we experience from day to day and over the holidays. Yet I think we are starting to come into our own as a married couple, because we are beginning to exist as a resonant example of love, of partnership, of marriage, and what it is in all its complexities. I don’t claim to have the perfect relationship, but we have a strong relationship that uniquely expresses itself as we interact with other people. Through that interaction we inspire and we are inspired in turn. I found many of our own conversations during the holidays reflected on the people we were with and how their story affected us. Some more than others, but still recognized. One particular example is the discussion about kids. Seeing friends with kids and seeing them interact inspired quite a few discussions about when to have kids, what our common values are around raising kids, the infinite difficulties in parenthood, and even childhood memories. Kid energy, good and cranky alike, is just infectious at times and especially around the holidays.

I was drawn to reflect further on how culture or society influences this conversation as well, in an interaction discussing the viral video of an experimental and guided interaction between young boys and an unfamiliar girl. The boys were introduced to the girl, asked a series of questions including what they admired about her and then asked to slap the girl. Not one of the boys slapped the girl. Granted the video could have been edited as warranted and has some further ethical controversies, but it brought up an interesting issue. Society tells us many things, often that it is ok to be violent, essentially to slap the girl. Yet none of the boys did so for a host of reasons including “you shouldn’t hit a girl,” because “I’m a man,” because “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”  Society influences us here in a myriad of ways: as ethical guidelines, as media messages, as real world examples, as traditional customs, as proverbs, as social roles, as a constant and loud cacophony of feedback. Do we experience love for us and for our partners (follow your heart?) or for others and for society (what society tells us is right?)? What is our real expression of love or partnership? If you love someone just for the sake of loving someone, it will never hold a candle to the experience of truly loving someone who loves you back through all kinds of challenges. Love is a process. It is a conscious choice. Those boys certainly could have slapped the girl, but didn’t. There were many messages we heard about what a wedding should be; we shirked many of them and put together a unique expression of who we are. Despite what society tells us, we choose to go through the process of loving, of relating to another human being, of seducing as Kierkegaard’s Climacus, of nurturing within a marriage as Kierkegaard’s Judge, or of expressing it in our own personal way. Yet we do so within a very dynamic social environment. For better or worse.

Much like cancer researchers who have clearly shown the genetic etiology of cancer and who are beginning to explore how cancer develops within environmental factors, and in diverse environments, the environment is an essential element within which we exist.  Like one’s health, love can be fit as a fiddle or suddenly turn toxic.  It is very important how I think about it, yet the social environment through which I interact on a regular basis is also important. I came to realize then that not only does it matter how I think/feel to me, but it matters how the culture thinks/feels to the community in which I live.  In such a way we continue to develop as a married couple. Through our constant interaction with a dynamic community that expresses love in infinite ways, we share the experience of ourselves, of love, of partnership, of community, of life and we grow. In that sharing no matter where we are, no matter what our perspective, in being true to ourselves and our intentions, we affect those with whom we have shared our experience and vice versa. Therefore in response to Tom Stoppard’s definition of love from The Real Thing, I would counter that the public knowledge of the couple hood, not of the combined individual, but through the individual expression of self within the couple, the real self within a real relationship, in the face of public audience in its raw truth and scrutiny, is where love is and inspires. This sharing, as I ended our appreciation at the wedding, “little by little collectively brightens the world.” Take care, love and be loved.