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Who is wise? One who learns from all. – The Talmud
In many disagreements – not only in the home but even at the international level – it is really not ideological differences that divide people. It is lack of respect. Most disagreements do not even require dialogue; all that is necessary is a set of flash cards. If Romeo wants to make a point with Juliet, he may have elaborate intellectual arguments for buttressing his case, but while his mouth is talking away, his hand just brings out a big card and shows it to Juliet: “I’m right.” Then Juliet flashes one of hers: “You’re wrong!” You can use the same cards for all occasions, because that is all most quarrels amount to.
What provokes people is not so much facts or opinions, but the arrogance of these flash cards. Kindness here means the generous admission – not only with the tongue but with the heart – that there is something in what you say, just as there is something in what I say. If I can listen to you with respect, it is usually only a short time before you listen with respect to me. Once this attitude is established, most differences can be made up. The problem is no longer insoluble. --Eknath Easwaran
Bill Harryman has posted three entries recently that I’ve especially enjoyed. First, is a wonderful personal essay describing his spiritual development over the past four years. Do yourself a favor and check out this remarkable and remarkably eloquent story of interior struggle and change. Second, is a link to a poignant video showing a young girl and her mom forgiving the man who fired a shot into the air that ended up paralyzing the girl from the waist down possibly for the rest of her life. Finally, there’s a post and some thought-provoking follow-up discussion about religion scholar Karen Armstrong’s recent appearance on the Charlie Rose show discussing her new book about the Axial Age and commenting that some permutation of the “Golden Rule” seems to be the guiding principle of all the great wisdom traditions.
Enjoy.
“Not very long ago I'd have relished the opportunity to get into a good knock down drag out battle over politics, religion, or whatever. Now I don't want to bother.I get the Voice. And the Voice tells me that the division has taken place- the aligning of sides is all but complete…I don't want to engage in pointless debate over whether the far right is as bad as... or shouldn't we all sit down and share... can't we come to the conclusion that there is grooviness on both sides...No. We. Can't…There are those who would destroy us, those who see, and those who cannot see. No dithering, no equivocation.”
The comments above seem to reflect the general thinking of the folks over at One Cosmos. Does anyone find this way of thinking a little disturbing? The Right is right and the Left is either stupid or profoundly psychologically disordered and, in either case, is “out to destroy” goodness, and there is no middle ground. Either you hear “the Voice” and get it and align yourself with truth, justice, and the American way, or you don’t, and if you don’t, you never will, and you will forever be aligned with the forces of darkness that must be condemned and destroyed without dialogue or equivocation.
"Nagarjuna, consider yourself banned. I will delete your posts as soon as I see them. Again, this website is entirely inappropriate for you. I don't know how I can state it any more clearly: YOU DON'T GET IT. I'm usually pretty astute, but I didn't expect you to be as insane as Chomsky."--Bob Godwin, blogger, author of a book about spirituality, and clinical psychologistThere’s the old expression “Banned in Boston.” I’d like to suggest a new expression: “Banned from Bob’s Blog.” That would be me. As of today, I’ve been told that I will no longer be allowed to post comments there because I’m too “spiritually immature” or just plain stupid to “get” what Bob’s Blog and its politically, psychologically, socially, economically, and spiritually enlightened community of commentators is all about. Maybe they’re right. Or maybe they’re the ones who just don’t “get it.” Or maybe we all don’t “get it” as long as we ignore, reject, and denounce one another as evil or idiotic and avoid opening our minds and hearts to genuine dialogue with one another.
Of course, if Spiral Dynamics is sound theory, people of profoundly different outlooks on politics and spirituality may be incapable of dialoguing with one another in any productive fashion. They’re simply coming from such disparate value structures that there’s no possibility of meaningful communication. Or is there some way for dialogue to be conducted that would make it possible for motivated people of different value structures to understand and empathize with each other far better than they do now?
I’d like to think that there could be some kind of gap-bridging communication between people online in places like message boards and blog sites. I certainly think that when I hang out online with people who see the world of politics and religion differently than I do, I’m enriched by the experience and respect them and their views more even if I continue to disagree with or question them. But I guess that people who think they’re superior and that they already have the answers aren’t too interested in hanging out with or understanding those they label and mock as infantile, insane, or stupid to believe what they do.
So, I’m banned indefinitely from posting comments on Bob’s Blog. But I’ll continue to read it. Why would I bother under the circumstances? Because I think I have a lot to learn from that blog. It may not be all of the things Bob and his friends are trying to teach. Or should I say “preach” about the evil stupidity of “leftism.” It may be some things they’d rather people not know about the flawed motivations and psychological shortcomings they’re too busy projecting onto and attacking in others to acknowledge in themselves. But I’ll no doubt learn something worthwhile, and I may even be posting entries here on some of what I learn.
Bill Harryman has had a difficult life. His father died when he was thirteen, and he had to take care of his mentally handicapped mom and himself. He was a gifted child whose mother was incapable of encouraging that giftedness or enjoying its fruits. Bill grew up frustrated, resentful, and angry and acted out these emotions with alcohol, drugs, and petty crime. He was headed down a dark path until he hit bottom and began changing his life. But his mom, whose intellect was stunted by severe childhood malnutrition during the Depression, never stopped loving her son unconditionally and doing her best for him. When other mothers might have thrown up their hands in despair and walked away, she remained there for him as fully as she could be until she died last summer of uterine cancer. Today, Bill has written a moving tribute to his mom and to the capacity of the human spirit to transcend adversity.
My situation was different but not very happy as I was growing up. My mother was fifteen when I was born, my father twenty-one. They got married but separated shortly thereafter. Mom and I lived with my grandparents until she remarried when I was seven. My grandparents mostly raised me while Mom worked and went to school. She dropped out of high school as a freshman but did so well on a community college entrance exam a few years later that she was allowed to attend there and excelled. However, she couldn’t continue her education at the time because she had to work full time to support herself and me. When she married a man thirteen years her senior, she felt locked into the life she had forged for herself.
Her marriage left a lot to be desired. The man she married was insecure and jealous whenever she talked to other men. They drank and argued a lot and he even physically abused her at times. I could never see him as a father or get close to him, and I often feared him. He was good at technical things and at working with his hands, I was mentally handicapped and psychologically averse to both, so we had almost nothing in common to share. I spent most of my extracurricular time hiding in my room when he was home, or I was outside on the basketball court or in the bowling alley. I spent as much time with Mom as I could when my stepdad wasn’t home, but I never felt as close to her as I would have liked. I was much closer to my grandparents. I never really saw Mom as my mom. I think I saw her more as a big sister. My grandmother was my mom. But she and my grandfather had lived hard lives with scarcely any formal education, and I often felt frustrated that I couldn’t share my intellectual and academic interests with them during all the time I spent with them the way I would have liked.
As I grew older and more and more down on myself over what I perceived as my intellectual and social inadequacies, I grew more and more unhappy. I left home to live with my grandparents the day after I graduated from high school. Mom separated from my stepdad shortly after that, but we had little contact with each other until recently.
Only after I got married almost three years ago and my second stepdad died of cancer shortly afterward did Mom and I begin seeing and talking with each other more. In fact, I’ve probably seen her and talked with her more during that short time than I did for the whole thirty years or so preceding it. I decided to move to Sacramento partly because I wanted to live close enough to her to see more of her. Yet, even now, I find it difficult to call her because I don’t know what to say to her. We both want to be closer to each other, but we’re not sure how to make it happen. Our politics and views of the world are so different. She is so much smarter than me that she can’t understand my shortcomings. There is just not the warmth and rapport between us that I wish we could have, and I’m sure she wishes it too.
But I love her and will try harder to be a good son to her. I’ll call her in a few minutes and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day and spend time with her as soon after that as I can. And even though I’ve often thought otherwise, I’m grateful that she gave birth to me and then sacrificed so much to support and raise me as best she could. There must have been times when she resented me for taking away from her the kind of life she would no doubt have liked to live. I could see her continuing on in school and becoming a very successful lawyer, businessperson, or academic if I hadn't come along when I did. But she never let on, never complained that I had dashed her hopes and dreams. She just worked hard and did the best she could. And I AM grateful.
I love guitar, but I don’t try to learn to play it because I could never come close to playing the kind of guitar music I love. It demands too much technical skill and musical knowledge. I love to write, and I do it because I feel skilled enough at it and blessed with enough to write about that I consider it worth my while.
Or so I did until I discovered a blog today that seems so clever, profound, erudite, and well written that I wonder why I should even bother to keep writing this blog or anything else except personal correspondence that doesn’t try to say anything insightful or deep. I will keep on keeping on with this blog and soon, I hope, with a new one devoted to examining Integral philosophy from the ground up. But it will be a little harder now that I’ve found Robert Godwin’s blog and am painfully and irrepressibly aware that my words sound crude and my thoughts ignorant and stupid compared to other people out there. I may not like or agree with everything these gifted writers say. For instance, Godwin seems to find political liberalism totally lacking in psychological and moral maturity as well as intellectual merit. But he and they can explain and defend their views far more capably than I could ever hope to explain and defend mine. Part of me says, “Why bother?” But then another part of me says, “Because writing is what you do best, and if you’re not good enough to do even that, what’s the point in doing anything at all?”
So whenever you feel driven by a compulsive, destructive urge, don’t analyze it; don’t talk about it; don’t dwell on it. Turn your attention away from it by throwing yourself into work for others. It can starve the desire away.--Eknath Easwaran
Eknath Easwaran says that just as houseplants need water, fertile soil, and careful tending to thrive, so many of our psychological problems and cravings require our attention to live. If we turn our attention to serving others, our problems and cravings and the suffering they produce will often wither and die.
I don’t know if this is true. It sounds too simple to be true in this age of sophisticated psychological understanding of the human mind and condition. Many would say that trying not to think of something unpleasant or harmful merely suppresses it in a way that makes it stronger and more problematic. But I can see how contemplating and analyzing it could also strengthen it by nourishing it with one’s prolonged attention when that attention could be directed to other, more productive matters.
Perhaps it depends on how we stop thinking about it. If we do it in a fearful, angry, or rigid way, we may make matters worse. If we do it with a kind of gentle firmness supported by a consistent spiritual or integral practice, it might do more good than harm.
Perhaps this is a matter for psychological study. Perhaps psychological studies have been done that show which approach is best for dealing with unwanted thoughts, emotions, and cravings. I’m sure such studies have been done, although I doubt that their results are definitive and universally applicable. I would like to do an informal study of my own by trying what Easwaran proposes and seeing what happens.
I went bowling with my wife this morning. We both struggled with our games. But I think she struggled more than I did. She recently converted from a 12-pound conventional grip, beginner’s ball to a 14-pound fingertip grip, reactive resin ball, and she had been throwing the new ball surprisingly well. But today she was throwing the ball all over the lane and not rolling it the way she had been. I could see that something was wrong in her backswing and release, but I couldn’t explain to her what it was, because the same learning disability that makes me so inept at so many things makes me utterly inept as a bowling coach. I’ve been bowling and watching professional bowling with almost religious fervor for over forty years. But I can’t analyze someone’s game on even the simplest level and tell her what she’s doing wrong, much less why she’s doing it wrong. Nor can I analyze my own mistakes and correct them or understand others when they tell me what I’m doing wrong. I just can’t conceptualize the mechanics of it in my mind. I depend solely on “feel” in my own game and am useless for advising anyone else.
I find this so frustrating at times, because not only can I not help anyone else to improve, but I’m also incapable of improving my own game beyond a modest level of proficiency. Oh, I can average over 200 on typical “house” conditions, and I’m averaging 220 in the league my wife and I bowl in now, but put me on the kind of lane conditions the pros bowl on in tournaments or put me up against professional or really good amateur bowers, and I’m hopelessly overmatched. People tell me I have the physical talent to be much better than I am. But I know that I’m not smart enough in the ways I need to be to get significantly better. At times, I just want to quit. I don’t want to go on stagnating with no hope of rising to a higher level. But I love the game too much to quit. And so I keep on keeping on, but never feeling close to satisfied with the results.
I’m not a fan of TV whose idea of “reality” programming is to throw people onto a deserted island or into a confined space and use the most diabolical tricks to poke and prod them into acting shockingly nasty to each other in order to win the big bucks. In fact, I find such programs appalling and the American public’s fascination with them disconcerting. And there’s no denying the American public’s fascination with them, given their consistently high showings in the Nielsen Ratings. What is it about human nature that takes such pleasure in watching people deceive, demean, manipulate, betray, and otherwise hurt one another for the winner-take-all pot at the end of the ordeal? I don’t understand, and I’m not sure I even want to.
But after watching snippets of Fox’s Unan1mous, I know what I would like to see on these shows instead of what I do see. Unan1mous features a mixed-bag group of men and women confined in an underground fishbowl and instructed to vote for one person among them to win the $1,500,000 jackpot. Of course, they don’t unanimously vote for the same person the first time around, since they all want to win the money, and, of course, the jackpot total diminishes with each round of voting and with each passing second between votes. Everybody ends up trying to manipulate everyone else into either voting for them or voting against someone they despise. People end up lying and crying to each other, shouting insults at each other, and being reduced to the worst of their natures. It’s thoroughly ugly for them and for us.
What I would like to see on this show and those if its ilk is at least one person who exhibits outstanding character and decency to everyone and ends up winning the grand prize. I don’t want to see anyone rewarded for acting like a Machiavellian jerk. My ideal may not be the way of the world or the way of shows like Unan1mous, but I’m determined to do my best to act the way I’d like to see people act in my ideal world and to see if maybe, just maybe I can inspire others to do the same.
So today I begin my fortieth year. For the first time in my life, I am happy with who I am. I am still committed to being a better partner, a better trainer, a better Buddhist, a better friend, and a better human being, but I am grateful for my life as it is right now.--William Harryman
Bill Harryman's Integral Options Cafe is my favorite blog, the kind of blog I wish I could write but could never hope to. It's a wonderfully unique combination of Buddhism, integral spirituality and philosophy, spiral dynamics, depth psychology, poetry, photography, internet news, social and cultural commentary, and gratitude presented with sparkling clarity and an eye-pleasing layout from the warmly personal perspective of someone who gives every appearance of being an exceptional human being, although I’m sure that he would fall over himself to dismiss such a claim with the sincerest of modesty.
Today is Bill’s 39th birthday, and I want to wish him the happiest birthday in the world and to enthusiastically urge everyone who hasn’t already to check out his blog and enjoy a genuine Internet treasure for as long as it graces us with its luminous presence. I hope that he and it will continue to do so for a long, long time.
Ford Motor Company is rolling out a desperate “do or die” advertising campaign. It’s been steadily losing national market share over the past decade or more, and now it’s going to target “values, attitude, and emotion” more than it does specific demographic groups to try to appeal to a broader range and to larger numbers of the American public fed up with inferior domestic vehicles. Its “Bold Moves” campaign features American Idol and Grammy-winner Kelly Clarkson singing her new song “Go.”I have a different suggestion. Why not make better vehicles? Instead of making unreliable, cheap looking, fuel-guzzling crap-on-wheels, why not design and sell vehicles in all the major categories that at least equal the best of the Japanese manufacturers in reliability, durability, safety, performance, fuel-economy, aesthetics, and quality of materials and construction, and then back them with the best warranties and customer service in the business? Even if Ford has to charge more than its overseas competitors to succeed, I’d pay more, significantly more to buy a DOMESTIC vehicle where QUALITY of product and service is the overriding priority, and I strongly suspect that a great many other people would too. What I WON’T do is be suckered by advertising lies such as “Quality is Job 1” or empty gimmicks such as pop-singing American idols into buying another inferior Ford, and I hope the American public won’t be either.My wife and I may be in the market for a minivan in a few years. So, why doesn’t Ford make one at least as good as the Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna and more fuel-efficient than either, and back it with a warranty far better than either? If Ford does that, we’ll buy one. If it doesn’t, forget it. The lousy Freestar is not an option. And if gas prices go so high that a minivan is out of the question, let Ford come out with something at least as good in every important respect as the Honda Civic or Accord or Toyota Prius and give it a better warranty, and we’ll buy it. Hell, I might buy a Focus Wagon now if, in addition to its superior driving dynamics and practicality, it were as reliable and durable as a Civic instead of the cheap-looking piece of rolling recalls and premature obsolescence that it is.Come on, Ford. Give the American public and the world superior quality, warranties, and service, and you won’t need Kelly Clarkson to sell your vehicles. They’ll sell themselves, and you will thrive instead of reeling on the brink of collapse.
I recently wrote here and elsewhere about illegal immigration. When I look now at what I wrote then, I regret that I allowed frustration and anger to shape so much of the content and spirit of my words. I haven’t joined one of the many groups opposing illegal immigration precisely because I don’t share the reactionary political, social, and religious views and agendas they espouse. Yet, my previous words on the issue of illegal immigration sounded pretty reactionary in their own right, and they were. They were reactionary in the literal sense of reacting with frustration and anger to the demonstrations and their aftermath that occurred last month.
I believed then just as I believe now that illegal immigration is wrong and that we should stop it. For, contrary to what demonstrators last month and yesterday seem to be saying, I don’t believe that “borders are fallacies” and that nations don’t have the right to regulate who crosses their borders to visit, work, and live in them. I acknowledge that people in Mexico and other countries live desperate lives of crushing poverty from which they have every reason to want and try to escape, but I still don’t believe that this gives them the “right” they insist that they have to defy our laws in coming here to work and live or to stay here if they came illegally just because they have worked and lived here a long time and put down roots. If our country wants to let some of them stay and others come here, this should be seen as the gracious extending of a PRIVILEGE and not as acquiescence to a “right” to which they are automatically entitled. I think what bothers me most about the demonstrations last month and yesterday is that those participating in them seem to believe that it is their RIGHT to disrespect and defy our laws, and to leave their jobs and their schools to support this so-called right and to encourage others to exploit it
I’m sorry if this makes me come off as sounding like some kind of blue-memed simpleton who says “the law’s the law and we should obey it just because it is the law” but I don’t say we should enforce immigration laws just because they exist. I say we should enforce them because we can’t afford to let everyone live and work here who wants to and let them receive financial and medical assistance when we can’t even provide enough financial and medical assistance to American citizens and legal residents as it is. Our first responsibility as a nation is to American citizens and legal residents, not to the world-at large, just as every nation’s primary responsibility is to its own citizens and to others who legally reside within it.
Of course, I realize that no country exists in a vacuum, and certainly this one doesn’t. We interact with countless nations and impact and are impacted by them. And we share a porous border with a country with notoriously corrupt government, squandered resources, and impoverished people. We as a nation should be doing more to encourage Mexico to clean up its act so that its people can build good lives for themselves there instead of needing to come here to survive and prosper. But our greatest responsibility as a nation is still to provide for its own, and it should do this before trying to provide for everyone else. And I would add that the greatest responsibility of illegal immigrants here is to work together to improve conditions in their own countries instead of coming here and trying to bring all of their relatives here and insisting that they have this “right” while they wave the Mexican flag and thumb their noses at our laws and people.
If I sound like I’m getting angry again, I guess maybe I am a little as I recall the scenes from yesterday’s demonstrations and the strident words of spokespeople for the demonstrators insisting on their “rights.” But I’m going to take some deep breaths, relax, and try to open my mind to the full complexity of the situation, and open my heart to the desire that we all have as human beings to provide healthy, happy lives for ourselves and our families.
There is no perfect solution to this problem. But I hope that we can mindfully work together to forge the best solution possible. And that’s enough of my rambling on the issue of illegal immigration for the time being.
I’ve dedicated this blog to discussing general subjects and issues. I’m planning to start a new blog with a more specialized purpose. I’ve been reading about integral philosophy for several years. I’ve done it mostly by reading works by and about Ken Wilber. But I haven’t approached this reading in a systematic and disciplined way. Consequently, my knowledge and understanding of integral philosophy is sketchy at best. I’d like to change that. I think I must change it if I’m to make further progress in my philosophical and personal development and write a meaningful book someday about plausible religion. For I can think of no better guide in these endeavors than the integral framework that sages such as Ken Wilber and those of his Integral Institute are piecing together.
So, I’ve resolved to roll up my sleeves and really begin to dig into the integral literature and discussions available in books and on the Web. My chief sources in the beginning will be the books of and about Ken Wilber and his Integral Naked website. And I propose to study this material not only in solitary silence but also by publicly questioning and commenting on it in a blog dedicated solely to that purpose. I know that I’m going to have countless questions and observations about what I’m reading, and I want to articulate them as clearly as possible and share them with everyone who’s interested in accompanying me on my journey and in helping me to navigate across the complex terrain. I know that I’m intellectually limited in how deeply I can go with this exploration. But I agree with Joseph Cambpell that I should follow my bliss in this regard as far as it will take me.
Yesterday was a dear friend’s birthday. At least she used to be a dear friend. I used to love her with all my heart, and I went through the proverbial tortures of the damned when she didn’t love me back. I would like to think that we’re still friends, some 27 years after we first met. But I don’t love her anymore. Did I ever really? What IS love? At times I wonder. Is it just a feeling that one recognizes when one feels it and that can come and go like the wind? I used to say that I feel what I feel and won’t try to label it, since labels are static, artificial, and simplistic constructs into which we try to shoehorn dynamic and infinitely complex and vast processes that can’t be so contained and for which we suffer when we try to do it anyway. I was very much influenced by sages like Alan Watts when I took this stand.
But when I felt certain things for certain people, I wanted to honor that special feeling by giving it a special name called “love.” I want to honor the feeling I have for my wife now by calling it love. When she asks me if I love her, I don’t want to reply by saying: “Well, my dear, all I can truly say is that I feel what I feel for you, and I won’t presume to give it a label that can’t possibly do justice to the impossibly vast and complex reality of it.” No, I tell her I love her, and I do.
But what is this mysterious thing called love? And if I once felt it so profoundly for my friend for so many years but feel it no longer for her, will I always feel it for my wife no matter how many years pass and how many difficulties may beset us? Yes, I believe that I will, because I believe that the kind of love I’m talking about is not merely a feeling that one falls into and can fall out of but is also a CHOICE of feeling and conduct. I haven’t stopped loving my old friend because I fell out of love with her so much as because I CHOSE not to continue loving her, and I can go on loving my wife because I CHOOSE to do so with my heart and actions. I don’t have to be able to formally define love with words to do this. I can let my life serve as an ostensive definition of not only the kind of love I feel for my wife, but of all the higher forms of love of which I’m capable.
As Mother Teresa said in my favorite of all quotes: “In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
I was out walking yesterday morning and saw a cat chasing a squirrel that it almost caught until the squirrel scurried to safety up a tree. If the cat had caught the squirrel, what should I have done? What would I have done? I once saved a squirrel that a cat ran down and caught in my yard. But what if it happened in someone else’s yard? Would I have the right to go into that yard to make the cat release the squirrel? Would I have an obligation to do it? Suppose the resident of that yard were present watching his cat catch and maul the squirrel. What should I do? What would I do?
What would YOU do?
Sometime back, Joe Perez posted an entry in his blog complaining about Crash winning the best picture Oscar over Brokeback Mountain. I commented that I'd seen Crash but not Brokeback, and that Brokeback would have to be awfully good to deserve the Oscar over Crash. I said I looked forward to seeing Brokeback so that I could decide for myself.Well, I've finally seen it, and I have to confess that I liked Crash far more. I'm not saying that Brokeback was a bad movie by any means. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I saw it. Furthermore, I think it had important things to say about the impact of forbidden love on those caught in its grip and in its orbit, and about how all the more tragic forbidden love can be when there's no good reason for it to be forbidden, despite what onward Christian soldiers of bible-thumping fudamentalism and Brokeback protestors dressed in devil suits would have us believe.Yet, Brokeback left me strangely unmoved. I enjoyed the skillful acting, the majestic scenery, the glimpse of Western Americana, and the novel treatment of an important theme, but for some reason I can't quite nail down, I never felt emotionally involved with the characters or the story. While my wife and sister-in-law sat sniffling and wiping away tears through several scenes, I felt amused and touched that they were touched by the story, but I felt little or nothing directly toward the story. And it's not that I'm incapable of feeling moved by a film. When the racist cop in Crash rescued from a fiery death the black woman he'd harrassed earlier, I felt tremendously moved, and tears welled in my eyes that I tried my best to conceal from my wife. But when I saw Ennis smell Jack's clothes and clutch them to his breast, I admired Keith Ledger's acting but felt nothing more.If this had been a similarly crafted film about forbidden love between women or between a heterosexual couple, would I have felt more? I was certainly moved as a teenager by Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. But that was an eternity ago, and I have changed profoundly since then, and not necessarily for the better in all ways.
The federal government proposes to crack down on illegal immigration. As I’ve written previously, I agree with the end but not with the proposed means. I don’t believe that we should turn undocumented immigrants into felons or erect huge barriers along the borders. Instead, I believe that we should issue foolproof national ID cards to all citizens and legal residents of this country, require everyone holding or applying for a job to have a card, and severely penalize those who employ workers without cards. If undocumented aliens can’t work here, it seems to me that they won’t stay or come here. Then I believe that we should make all jobs pay well enough in wages and benefits that American citizens and other legal residents will have better reason to take them. If we still have a shortage of workers, then we can establish quotas allowing enough workers to come here from other countries to fill those jobs. As for the undocumented people here already, some means should be provided to allow those among them who are worthy to become documented within a reasonable period of time. This process should include significant but reasonable penalties for their having come here illegally in the first place. And the Constitution should be revised so that only children who are born here to American citizens automatically become American citizens. Furthermore, I believe that this country, private organizations inside and outside this country, and capable individuals should, as a moral imperative, work to try to raise the standard of living in Mexico and Latin America by fostering better education for their citizens and more and better economic opportunities there. That way, not only won’t Hispanic people be unable to work and live here illegally, but they also won’t feel any need to.
Do I believe that these measures are practicable? Of course not. I can’t imagine that enough politicians would ever have the courage to stand up to business lobbies and other pockets of opposition to implement my suggestions or alternative measures powerful enough to actually stop illegal immigration. Thus, I believe that we will continue to have a flood of illegal immigration, a growing underclass of exploited undocumented workers, and enduring disrespect for our immigration laws until this country becomes increasingly overpopulated and economically depressed.
There are times when words can’t begin to describe the magnitude of one’s emotions, and this is a time when nothing I could possibly write could even begin to convey the depth of my grief over the news I’ve just received. My dearest friend has died. Her name was Nancy, and she was the kindest person I’ve ever known. We met online on a religious bulletin board approximately thirteen years ago. I was, as usual, arguing against Christian teachings, and she, a Catholic, wasn’t about to let me go unchallenged. She came after me verbal guns blazing, and if someone had told me then that we would go on to become the very best of friends, I would have thought that that was just about the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard.
Nancy lived in Florida and I in California, but we began e-mailing and then calling each other on the telephone and even managed to meet a couple of times and spend time together when she came to the Bay Area. We became very close emotionally. We could talk to each other about anything and everything going on in our lives, good or bad, joyful or painful, and that made our friendship grow even deeper and stronger. When my grandfather died, when my girlfriend broke off with me and I was almost suicidally depressed, when another girlfriend left and I was my senile grandmother’s sole, around-the clock caregiver, when my aunt Kathy died, when my grandmother died, when my girlfriend came back and then left again and I was alone, when my stepfather died, when I needed advice about my new job or anything at all or just someone to listen, Nancy was always there for me. She was there for me and got me through some of the most difficult times in my life. And she also shared in my best and brightest moments.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard Nancy’s husband Bill’s voicemail message this morning informing me that she had “passed on,” but it still shocked me to the core of my being, and my heart filled with indescribable grief. I want to call Bill and offer him words of consolation, but I’m waiting until I can compose myself enough not to break down on the phone with him. What can I say to him that can possibly have any point, any meaning, and do any good at a time like this? And how can I say it without either letting my grief overwhelm me or holding it so strongly in check that I sound cold and indifferent to his terrible loss?
I said I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s gone, because she suffered from more medical problems than any ten people should have to endure between them. And she had been hospitalized recently for pneumonia and blood clots in her lungs. But when we last spoke almost two weeks ago, she seemed to be recovering and was going to be sent to a rehabilitation center to regain her strength before she went back home. But what would she have gone home to? More hardship and suffering as her lupus worsened, her bones became more brittle from prednisone and forced inactivity, her eyes weakened to the point where she couldn’t read at all or watch any television, and she became unable to care for herself in any way without help?
She is surely better off now. So, why do I feel the way I do? Because I have lost my dearest friend. Because I feel a hole in my heart and in my life that can probably never be filled.
Farewell, Nancy, my dearest of friends. You were a special, wonderful lady. I loved you. I always will. You will never die in my heart.
In yesterday’s Century City, a teenage girl sought to legally force her parents to stop their constant surveillance of her. They had installed a camera in her bedroom and required her to wear a biochip that allowed her position to be tracked at all times and directed surveillance cameras wherever she was to zero in on her every move. Her parents believed that they needed to do this to keep her safe from the big, bad world and from herself. They had obtained psychiatrist’s records indicating that she had talked in therapy about contemplating suicide on occasion. Her attorneys pointed out that there was a significantly higher suicide rate among young people watched in this way than among those who weren’t and argued that this was because these kids were overwhelmed with depression over having no privacy. In other words, the measures designed to keep them safe (and earn security companies a lot of money) were actually placing them in danger.
I continue to be impressed if not dazzled by Century City’s brilliantly creative and perceptive treatment of legal, social, philosophical, and ethical issues that will surely face us in the near future when they don’t already today. Surveillance cameras already seem to be everywhere. Tracking devices can now be installed on vehicles to monitor their speed and location, and companies and parents are doing this in increasing numbers to keep tabs on their employees and children. We can even be tracked by the chips in our cell phones that send out location signals to towers or satellites. How long will it be until the very scenario portrayed in yesterday’s program of fiction becomes tomorrow’s reality? And will we be safer and better off when it does, or will we be miserable, like the girl in the episode, over having our privacy stolen from us?
In a recent post, I expressed approval of the prospect of having omnipresent traffic cameras monitoring our driving and nailing us for infractions such as running red lights and speeding. I said if this is what it takes to keep us safe from ourselves and each other on the nation’s highways and byways, so be it. But it would be awfully easy to extend this line of thinking and acting into an Orwellian society completely devoid of privacy. Is this what we want? Some say that it shouldn’t matter if our every move is being tracked and watched if we’re not doing anything wrong. But are they right? And if they’re not, what should we do here and now to place reasonable limits on these kinds of technologies? Or should we wait and see what develops and then try to close Pandora’s box after we know precisely what it’s let out and how badly it's harming us?
“He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is.”
--Meister Eckhart
Bill Harryman’s gracious Happy Birthday comment over a week ago said that a very wise person once told him that we are exactly who the universe wants us to be. I replied that the universe may want me to be who I am, but I don’t want to be who I am even if I am, ultimately, the universe. I went on to say that if I can ever clearly reconcile this seeming contradiction, I’ll be well on my way to being who I want to be.
I may have been more or less joking when I wrote that, but I think there could still be a lot of truth to it. On the one hand, I do believe that I AM, ultimately, the unified totality of existence, and, therefore, I am what the universe is (“wants”?) to be. On the other hand, I, as the universe, want to be other than what I am. I want to be wiser, healthier, happier, richer, more mindful, more loving, more disciplined, and a better husband, son, friend, person, and so on ad infinitum.
Upon further thought, maybe what this boils down to is that I, as the universe, am what I am but NOT what I WANT to be. In other words, the universe is the way it is, but it “wants” to be something else, and this “wanting,” from wherever within the universe itself it comes, spurs the universe to change, to grow, to evolve. I hope to grow to a better understanding of this over time and to be able to articulate it much more intelligibly here and elsewhere. If and when I can, I think I’ll be closer to who I really want to be, and I’d like to think that this will be a good thing.
