“I failed because I believed.”

Here then my divulging:

The Failure of Belief

Belief and I grew up together, side by side, one serving the other in a sort of symbiotic dance that required that each perform his duties to the relationship and everything would stay stable and manageable.    It was a great arrangement — until it fell apart.   The breakup, as they say, was not pretty.

These then were revealed to me the day that I held aloft a clear vision, a logical evaluation, an immolation for all things previously known as “fact” or “truth”; once I performed the Cartesian act of reduction, I arrived at a very dark place, devoid of much except my own beating heart and the sound of my sighs.

It was many days.   It was many weeks.   It was many, many months.

Slowly, like the slow unraveling of a fiddle-head in a misty meadow, a few truths appeared, unhindered by the ponderous maille of blind faith that belief had clothed them in.   They were young, virginal, and shy; quick to run away in the first light of day, hard to defend in the heat of battle.   But they were pure.

There were not many; it was hard to conceive of each one, to give birth to that fully-separate being, and they were very needy.   They required a delicate food, untainted by any preconceived notions or generalizations; they consumed only the finest of evidence, the sweetest of arguments; their palates were extremely discerning.

Over the years I have tried my best to help them to grow, but the progress is slow and daunting.   Each is different, each requires a specific way of caring for it.  A few I’ve had to mercifully take out back behind the shed, because ultimately they were doomed to not survive, and having been down the road of letting beliefs wither and die slowly, I am not prepared to do so again.    This time, it is swift and clean.

Belief doesn’t show up at my door much anymore; there’s little that can be considered a “belief” so much as a truth or a knowledge that lives here.    I have no room in the inn for anything based upon fantasy or dogma or superstition; anything not supportable by the logic I have been blessed with is severely looked upon and disciplined into whatever can be saved of it.

But I am better for it.

And I am cleaner.    Clearer.

I am able to see others for what they are, not for what I suppose them to be.   I see everyone’s flaws as being something that we all bear, that we all have, and those are what build us up or tear us down, universally, and by gaining understanding of each other, we gain more than simple knowledge.

I see the world through clear glass; a world where fairness does not exist, where sometimes circumstances pin people in places they have little or no control over, where influences are sometimes greater than the individual spirit, and where damned-do, damned-don’t is the rule of the land more than any other principle.   Where each and every one of us needs each and every one of the rest of us, fullstop.

I see women now, not as the mystical objects of my youth, but as the wonderful, spicy flavor in every dish of life, one that I would desperately long for were it not present.

I understand now that love — pure, true love — comes in as many fascinating and dazzling forms as a cave filled with a thousand suns and it is all legitimate and good and right.

And I see truth; not as I want it to be, not as I hope it to be, but as it is.

For all the failure of belief, there is victory in that.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2011. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

“You are present at your own grade school/high school/college graduation. What words of advise do you give to yourself, and how do you make sure that younger you remembers them?”

Below is my meager response.

Notes

The first I barely noticed as I enjoyed the incredible high of handing in my very last final before the end.    As I gathered up my notes at my desk, I saw it scrawled across the open page of my notebook in an oddly-familiar handwriting: “Pffft.   That was nothing.”

Taking the advice, I thought nothing of it at all and raced for my locker to gather the last of my things and make a quick escape before someone – anyone – could pin me down for one last requirement, test, signature, or blood sample to get out of the place.    12 years and I was finally FREE!

As I whizzed my wrist around the combination and yanked open the door with a CLANG!, something orange fell and poked me in the forehead.    I picked up the loosely-folded piece of bright cardstock and read, “The best is yet to come.”   I grinned, thinking that one of my friends had gone a bit off on the happy tree and, elated with the prospect of summer and the end of tedious days with books, was spreading the joy.

That was…until I found the next note.

Written on dark, navy blue paper in white pencil and folded tightly in the front pocket of my leather jacket, it tomed, “The worst is yet to come.”   I looked around the empty hallway as I shrugged my backpack on my shoulders.    “Ok, “ I said to nobody in particular with a half-hearted laugh, “now you’re just fucking with me.”   I marched out of the school and into the sunlight to face the upcoming days of frolicking and celebration as we prepared to graduate at the end of the week.

Disconcertingly, however, the notes kept appearing at random intervals and odd places.   Two inside my diary, one saying, “Women are just people – treat them like it,” written on a pink, flowery-cut piece of paper, but on a stark-white sheet: “Sex is everything you imagine – and nothing that you think.”    In the church bulletin that week, “Believe what you believe and not what you are told,” and in my apron at my carry-out boy grocery store job, “Hard work pays; Smart work pays better.”

I started collecting all of the notes in a crinkled envelope I kept in my back pocket.   I would obsess over them at random intervals, sitting in my car at night before going home, in bed late at night, in the shower where I found the one in the ziplock bag that said, “Friends will be lost.   Family will die.    Appreciate your showers.”

I asked my friends about them; I cornered my family.   Nobody would admit to it and I couldn’t tell if they were putting me on, but none looked like they even had a clue as to what I was going on about.   Some were typed, some were handwritten, but I never was able to place it, though it all looked familiar.   I assumed that, at some point, the trickster would out.

Graduation Day and, even as I unsheathed and put on my robe, another note fell out onto the floor.   I threw up my hands to the sky and shook them in mock rage, and then read it aloud to the room, “Question Everything.”   Profound, I thought, given a day that’s supposed to say that you have the answers to most everything people think you should, but I tucked it away in my pocket with the rest of them.

The usual ceremonies, the choir singing in the background, the speeches, the, “You’re now ready for the world” dronings, but during it all, I couldn’t help but feel the burning of the notes in my back pocket, taunting me with all of their quips and advice.    Was I hearing the truth or was this all a lie?

Outside the hall and shaking hands, greeting, tears, congratulations poured in from friends and family in the usual way.   The crowds thinned and eventually I headed off down a hallway to the bathroom to take care of some business.   Suddenly a man approached me from a side hallway and said, “Nathan.”

“Yeah?” I questioned, looking him over.   He was about my size, a bit heavier, with a hooded jacket pulled up over a sunglass-adored, bearded face.   He looked, frankly, like a pervert.   “What’s up?”

“Congratulations.”

“Err…thanks,” I responded, not quite sure what to make of it all.    I started to continue down the hallway; nature called, after all.

“Hold it!” the man exclaimed and then extended an arm with a folded piece of green paper in it, “This is for you.”

I took it in my fingers, tentatively, as if it would explode, and opened it.    In neat handwriting across the center it said, “Reality is not what it appears.”   I looked up sharply.

“YOU!” I shouted as the man had already whirled around and was rapidly making an exit towards the outside doors, “These were from you!?    Wait, wait….who are you???” I started after him.

“It’s just advice – that’s all.   But I’d pay attention to it if I were you!” he sang over a shoulder, laughing, and slamming through the crashbars to the outside.

I hit the door just seconds after he and, bursting through, flew blinking into the sun.   I pulled up short in the parking lot and glanced around frantically – nobody.  There were only cars.

Entering back into the school, I shook my head, unable to come to terms with all this craziness.   Unfolding the note again, I read the advice again and sighed as I agreed that reality was certainly being odd.    Then I noticed on the back, in tiny print, a note, and I gasped as I read:   “To Nathan, Congratulations on your graduation.   Heed the advice.   See you in 2011.   – Nathan”

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2011. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

And now…on to the winners!

Tied for 3rd place with 12 overall votes each, Lea from Move Along and Julia from Randomly Yours, Julia:

Lea from Move Along

Julia from Randomly Yours, Julia

In 2nd place, with 15 overall votes, yours truly:

Yours Truly

And in 1st place, with 18 overall votes and almost 20% of all votes, our new Blog-Off for Babies winner, Rebecca from Iowa City Quilter!!!

Rebecca from Iowa City Quilter

Congratulations to the winners and especially to our first place winner, whom had never blogged before this contest.   Not too shabby for a beginner!   I think she has a long career in blogging if she chooses to keep it up!

Rebecca will receive $40 of the prize money and I receive $10 myself.     The other $50 will be donated to the March of Dimes in Rebecca’s name and the Blog-Off for Babies to help support mothers and their born and unborn infants in proper nutrition, educational materials, and support.     Nothing like saving a baby!

A big, big thank you to everyone who participated in this contest — you are the ones who make this fun and enjoyable.   I hope you all had a good time and along the way stretched your blogging skills a bit and maybe found a new blogger or two that you want to follow from here on out.

If you have commentary about how this blog-off was run, postive or negative, please let me know — it’s always good to know what you could do better the next time!   And, speaking of next time, I’ve heard some feedback indicating that some of you wouldn’t mind doing this again, so let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in.    If you’re just a reader this time but wish you had been a writer, let me know that, too, and we’ll keep you in mind for the next one!

Congratulations, everyone!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Psychologically, it was stable and steady-as-she-goes sailing, as traditions were defined one way, emotions another, interactions with humans were expected to go this particular way, relationships worked like that, romance and love were best done like Example X.

This was also the case in the mental world with my understandings and faith.      Faith, in similar ways, was a concrete, true thing — Jesus loved me, the Bible was flawless, the earth was about 6,000 years old or so, and Samson beat the living tar out of a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass.   The mental and faith aspects of my youth were pretty solid, unchanging, and concrete as well as the physical.

And then…I grew up.

The concrete facade of childhood starts to develop cracks when you get into the higher grades of school and your education starts to turn from the scheme of, “memorize this, recite that” and into more abstract thought — “what do you think about love?   Why do you think the character in the book committed that crime?   Explain a hug to someone who has never had one before.”    You start to notice that there are variations, exceptions, in how you perceive and understand the world and your mind starts to supplement your knowledge with new branches of ideas attached to the old, a new addition on a creaky old house.

Then you graduate from high school and onto college and the landscape shifts in a major way again — now everyone is intensely interested in what you think, mostly so they can pick it apart and find the flaws in your belief.    Logic, persuasion, argument, and debate wreak at the knowledge you carry in your head, the waves crashing against the house you’ve built, but you realize it’s made of sand — fluff that falls apart at the first splash of water, the particles unable to hold together under the onslaught of evidence.

Frantically, you try to bolster it up — you build braces, reinforcements, new rules and exceptions to fortify the existing structure.   After all, this is what you’ve known your whole life — we must save it, SAVE IT!   Hurry, hurry — your mind reeling and your eyes blurring from the battles you wage all around you.   You nail on more and more slabs of justification, trying desperately to tie this to that like it was before, but the cracks are there and growing, and time is limited for your sand house, and one day it becomes too much — your fingers slip and a wall breaks and the roof teeters and you scream and — it all falls apart into NOTHING.

And there is silence.    And the drip of water.    And a weeping soul.

From the wreckage, the flotsam and jetsam of childhood understanding and thought, emerges a single brick set upon the ground.     It is a long time coming and hard fought.   Then another appears next to it.    You sit and study the bricks for a long time, estimating, calculating, questioning.   At some point you mix the mortar of logic, of perception, of understanding.     Care and patience go into this recipe, along with deliberation and calculating — you do not want to get this wrong.   At long last the mixture is complete and you cement the two bricks together, shaping things to match neatly, evenly, solidly.

The building is slow and the process is labor and mind intensive.   Every brick comes slowly; the mortar even slower.   Sometimes entire sections have to be torn down and replaced, brick by brick, from the bottom.    Months, sometimes years pass between additional pieces, the wall weathering the storms and problems but biding its time.    The architect shows up from time to time simply to look, to examine, to calculate.   He smiles, he frowns, he thinks.    And sometimes that’s all that happens.

And sometimes a new brick appears.

This, then, is the most important lesson that you may ever learn in this brief existence of life.    The ideas and concepts taught to you as a child are useful as a child, but they don’t have much of an analogue in the real world.   There is very little, if anything, that can be said to be wholly true, right, or correct without exception, and a mature and seasoned outlook is one that keeps few of these concepts as unchanging and solidified.    Even the strongest of walls may be toppled, the greatest of beliefs shattered into the void.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to learn and come to terms with and yet, as I look around at others, their lives, and their understandings, I wish it for those that cannot see the shakiness of their own houses and the imminent dangers that exist if a large wave were to crash into it, toppling all they know.   I know that this is how everything works together, yet I cannot force their hand or their minds…I can only suggest, show, and hope that along the way, something sticks.   It is all I can do.   It is why I write this blog and the things inside of it — not just for myself, but perhaps for those still struggling to hold together the shack of youthful thought, hoping they can rise again and find the security and solace in doing so.

I think, I ponder, I question, I muse and along the way, I can see the haze of a new brick coming into existence.    It is one in a million in a structure of a thousand years, and I’m just getting started.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Calm, deep breaths cleared the haze and whirling as his vision settled down and locked into place. Glancing up, he noticed only high, waving grasses blowing in a merry breeze that whistled past his temples. The man struggled to his feet and gazed about him in half-apt wonder and amusement. Spread before him was a rolling, shifting sea of golden grasses set underneath a sharp, crystal-blue sky. The cool, almost crisp wind cut easily through his thin shirt and pants, chosen more for their authenticity to the time than insulating value. That was all right, he thought as he shivered and cast about the ground with his eyes, time is short. The mission comes before warmth.

Locating a bulging, nondescript denim bag on the ground, he slung the rotund sack over his shoulder and, looking around, attempted to get his bearings. A short search on the horizon later, he found what he is after and took off at a hurried pace, plowing through the foliage in a direct path down the hill and towards a clearing.

Nearing the break in the waist-tall grasses, he slowed, searching once again, and then found his target. A small, humble two-room shack sat there at the one end of the clearing, a straw-covered barn a short ways distant and looking forlorn with its natural pate in disarray. On top of the building was a tall, solid man with sinewy muscles tightened against the pitchfork held in his sun-darkened hands. Wild hair and beard flew backwards from his face as the wind whipped it in random directions at whim. With another solid grunt heard over the entire clearing, a load of hay left the pitchfork and thumped solidly to the ground.

The traveler came within a few tens of yards of the building when its occupant glanced up and saw him approaching. A single hand raised in the air in a greeting, and the man quickly worked on disengaging from the barn, hitting a pile of hay at the bottom in an impressive dismount. He trotted towards the stranger, then stopped a few yards away to size him up.

“Ho,” he said to the traveler, glancing nervously at the man’s shoulder and the rather large burden slung there.

The traveler smiled in greeting.

“Hello,” he said. “Are you Charles?”

“I am,” said the farmer, with curiosity. “But I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Mister…”

“Smith,” replied the stranger quickly. “Just call me, ‘Smith’.” He smiled warmly again.

Charles nodded once quickly, and then leaned on the pitchfork. “What business do you have around these parts, Mr. Smith? We don’t get many visitors here in the Dakotas.”

Sighing, the strange arrival set his heavy bag onto the ground and glanced about, nervously.

“My business is with you today, Charles, and nobody else. Can I trust that no one else is here but yourself?”

“You may, ” replied the homesteader with caution. “The girls have gone into town on an errand today. But I do not understand what business you may have here. We have need of little that we do not raise ourselves and have no money to buy anything high-society,” he adds with a worried and skeptical glance at the bag.

Laughing, the stranger shaked his head vigorously.

“No,” he replied, “I am not here to sell you anything at all, nor am I here to con or otherwise swindle you. Rather, I come to help. Do you remember last week when that group of Indians came to town?”

Charles face darkened as he pressed his lips together tightly. “I do, ” he said, “but what of it? The warrior warned us of seven months of winter. I admit, I was a bit cautious at first to hear such a thing, but I’ve seen the muskrat lodges — they’re the thickest this year as I have ever seen. If it isn’t an impressive winter, I will be sorely surprised. We move into town next week, just in case such a thing comes to pass.” He nodded in the direction of a nearby hill over which a well-worn path wound.

The traveler nodded sagely as he was talking.

“This is all true and, although you may rightly have pause to believe what I am about to tell you, I know of this winter and what it brings, and the advice is well-placed. The weather will indeed turn badly and the entire town will suffer the consequences, including your family, Charles. I do not have to tell you what it means to have seven months without supplies from the trains, do I?”

A shocked look crept its way across the farmer’s face, first starting at incredulity, then to fear. He shook his head slowly.

“I know you are a godly man, Charles, ” continued the stranger, his audience now held firmly in deep concentration. “The prophet Nathan came to David to warn him of God’s law, if you recall. While I am not here to warn you against wrongdoings as in David’s case, I am a ‘Nathan’ of warning, and I bring you this knowledge, which is for you and you alone: The winter will be hard, very hard — your family will make it, but only by the skin of their teeth. One wrong move and you risk it all. I have come to help.”

Spinning quickly in place, he dug into the denim bag slumped loosely on the ground and came up with a shiny, foil-wrapped package that glinted and shined in the afternoon sun. Handing one to the flabbergasted farmer, he gestured towards it and then the sack.

“Inside these sealed packages are what we call, ‘survival energy bars‘,” he instructed. “They are a high-energy food that can sustain a man for over three days with a single package when eaten a piece per meal. Sealed in these packages, the food will keep for years without spoiling. There is enough here to get you through the hardest parts of this coming winter when food will be scarce and supplies short. Do not waste them.”

The farmer’s eyes shifted rapidly from the silvery package in his hand to the bag on the ground. Charles suddenly stiffened and looked accusingly at the man, shaking the package at him. “How do I know you’re not trying to pull something over on me? This is food? Nobody could fit enough food for three days into a package this size! And years!? Why should I listen to you? WHO ARE YOU?”

Staring at him steadily, the traveler intoned evenly, “Listen to me and listen carefully: I do not intend for you to believe me completely,” he instructed. “The story is amazing and unbelievable and the packages equally so, I realize. You do not have to take my word for it now. Keep the bag of provisions hidden in the attic of the store until winter comes and then, then you shall see the truth in my words and how much I have helped you.” The traveler sighed. “I don’t expect you to believe me, Charles, but at least take them with consideration. Feed one to an animal first, if you like, and prove that I tell the truth,” he pleaded. Glancing about, the stranger sighed again. “Time is short, good sir. I cannot stay much longer. But I need to know — do you understand the idea of these provisions?” Charles nodded thoughtfully.

“I do,” he said, finally. “Although I do not know the rhyme or reason behind your arrival today at my stead and the meaning of all this.”

“You are a reasonable man, Charles, ” replied the strange man. “I knew you would not overreact and instead think solidly about this. It is in the best interest of your girls that you do so.” The farmer stiffened.

“What do you know about my family?” he asked, quietly.

The stranger grinned. “I know much, ” he replied. “Enough to know that they are the light of your life, and many others, and it would be a shame to see them otherwise. This is why I help — I am a father, too.”

Nodding to the man, Charles bent and took the strap of the bag in hand.

“I will keep these against not having to use them at all, ” he said. “But I thank you for your generosity and kindness. ”

“Quite so, ” said the stranger. A strange beeping suddenly erupted from his arm. “The time is up, I am afraid, ” he said. “but I will leave you with the knowledge that no matter what comes, hold fast. Everything turns out all right in the end.” The thoughtful farmer nodded and bowed his head.

“For me and my family….thank you,” he said. “Where are you off to now?” he asked.

‘Mr. Smith’ smiled and laughed. “Oh, only about four hours away from here — and about 129 years.” At this, he began to shimmer brightly in the sunshine, skin and clothing waving in a flux of time and space.

“One hundred and twenty-nine…YEARS?!?” gasped Charles. “But…but that’s impossible!”

A final smile burst from the stranger’s face as it started fading from view. “Nothing is impossible,” he said, becoming only a slight haze against the prairie, “Remember that; nothing is impossible, Mr. Ingalls….”

A sudden pop was heard, and then nothing.

The grasses of the prairie shifted and hissed once more in the crisp afternoon breeze, leaving nothing but a faded blue bag and a thoughtful farmer calmly stroking his beard and gazing into the endless swells of the horizon.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

• Contest Details
• The Participants and Week 1 Topic

Well, I think we had a GREAT first round! Lots of terribly interesting entries, thoughtful commentary, and I think it really helped some people to get the juices flowing.   If you didn’t stop by to read the entries from last week, I encourage you to do so and leave some commentary for our participants — they love comments!

• Erin
• Courtney
• Rebecca
• Rachel
• Joe
• Lea
• Nathan
• Julia
• Stacey

TOPIC FOR WEEK #2:

(a bit involved in the explanation, but…interesting, I think.)

You are allowed, through the miracles of science, to travel into the past for a span of no more than 24 hours. You are allowed to take with you ONE piece of current modern technology with which you may change the lives of ONE family that you can visit during your stay. Assuming that there are no long-term, widespread disastrous outcomes from this altering of the timeline, when and where would you go, what piece of technology would you take with you to leave with them and why, and what do you think the experience would be like?

You must choose a time of at least 1909 or earlier to return to. You must be able to physically carry or roll the item along with you. Be aware that it has to actually work with the other resources they have –  IE: they won’t have the Internet, so email isn’t going to work. Etc.

Enjoy, and happy writing!   Spectators, new posts will be available for reading as of Wednesday, July 15th, so stop by and read up then!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

This all being said, I cannot help but wonder and muse about where in life I would like to be and what I should be doing about it.    I don’t know if it’s the chasing of a fantasy that is alluring or if I simply want to better myself, but whatever the reason, I have deduced some ideas on what would entail a “best life” for myself and how I am most likely falling dreadfully short of it.

Building Relationships

There are moments with this aspect that I feel comfortable and others that I’m woefully inadequate.      I have gone through several different periods in life where I’ve felt more or less connected to the people that surround me, based on various circumstances, but at the present time I find a strange mix in progress.    There are some very close, many very distant, and an increasingly large amount of people in the space between having an intimate relationship with and simply being an acquaintance.    I do attribute part of this to the phenomenon of the Internet — it allows me to maintain any number of “semi” relationships with people all over the globe, but rarely do they turn into something deeper.   In some ways this depresses me because I feel that, as a human being, I should be connecting with folks on a higher level than I am.   In all the experiences I’ve had where “souls have touched”, there’s a fascinating revelation on the part of both parties, and you gain a huge amount of knowledge not only of the other person, but yourself.

Building A Career

While the naysayers may argue that one can life a great life without any sort of measurable career (and I certainly can’t disagree), for me it is an increasingly important aspect.   More often than not I feel left behind by the other folks my age doing great and wonderous things, and here is little old me, plugging away at a good but relatively lackluster job in a backwoods of Iowa.    It’s not that I don’t appreciate where I am, but I spend a lot of times thinking and musing about where I could or should be.    I can’t help feeling that on this problem, I’m constantly dropping the ball and falling behind the times.    Having a career that I can not only look back on and say, “Wow, I did really well” but will support my family not only now but well into the future is incredibly important so I can fulfill my role to them as best as possible.

Building Experiences

If there is one aspect of my life where I will feel that I always possess room for improvement, it’s in the Experience arena.    Whether it is traveling to see other places, trying new foods, meeting new people and cultures, or experiencing new forms of music, art, and human expression, there never seems to be enough.     Every instance results in an expansion of my brain and understandings and if I could, I would try to capture it all.

Half of the problem is setting up the stage for getting all of your experiences in the first place — most cost money, time, or both.   Of course, with my wife being Australian, I’ve often toyed with the idea of starting a lot of things over by moving over there for awhile.   It would certainly bring along with it a lot of new experiences, people, and events, but at the moment the economy and job markets are so restricted as to make it a difficult choice to just “jump in” and do and hope that you don’t sink into the quicksand of, “oh crap.”     Even the thought of simply changing my career to something completely different has crossed my mind, if nothing else for the variety and to see if I can hack it in a different position other than the one I have right now.     It is a pity that there’s so much planning, thinking, and gambling involved with experiences and the consequences they bear.

Building Myself

I admit it — I’m terrible at this and I really need to get better, both from the mental and physical aspects.

Mentally, I’ve probably stagnated somewhat since my college days simply because I don’t have the time and someone standing over my shoulder saying, “Do this!   Read this!   Think about this!” and my available opportunities to go sit under a huge cottonwood and let my brain mull over a philosophical issue is few and far between, if not a complete and utter fantasy all together.    I’ve looked into classes and possible degrees and so forth, but really — I can barely find enough time to finish a novel by reading it a few pages at a time while I’m on the shitter; an MBA seems an impossible task at this juncture in my life.     I do my best to keep up with the world, politics, the economy, and philosophy as I can, but it’s only tidbits and slices of the pies out there, not the entire item, so I come away feeling like I’ve had the horse doovers and not the full meal.

Physically — I’m a wreak.    Fat, overweight, and out-of-shape essentially mark my existence.    Caffeine addict, unable to resist any reasonable attempts at temptation, utterly unable to shed stress and anxiety when I want to.    Sleeping 5, maybe 6 hours a night, drinking far more substances other than water, beating myself into a pulp on a regular basis.    It’s been this way for a long time and I’m still struggling with how exactly to change the paradigm for the better on a permanent basis.   I am the king of picking a strategy and going balls-to-wall for between 4-6 weeks and then getting distracted by, well, life, and then reverting back to the ways that best fit ordinary life, which is pretty much where I am right now.       I need to change, I have to change — but I really lack the direction of choosing the best for me and my life in this struggle.

The Whole Package

Ultimately, I don’t think that I’ll ever fully fulfill the above requirements I’ve placed upon myself for a “best” life, but at the same time, having a position from which to start and a goal in the distance to strive upon is worth a lot and at least gives you somewhat of a measuring stick to figure out when you’re sliding and when you’re gaining.    I don’t know as though any of us can fully fulfill a “best” life but we can always improve, and that’s pretty much my goal for now — and for the rest of whatever I get.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Today is the first day of the blog-off and the first topic is being given out, which I’ll mention in a bit, but first I thought I’d introduce the participants to you, the readers, so you can get to know them a bit.   If you’ll notice, on the left-hand side of this blog there is now a “Blog-Off” section with links to each of the blogs involved so you can easily click over and read each of their entries.

The Participants

Joining in the Fun

Just because you aren’t one of the bloggers in the competition doesn’t mean you can’t participate!   Feel free to follow along, read all the entries, and comment on them.   We bloggers LOVE comments and especially when you’re doing a blog-off, comments help you gauge how you did on the topic given.    So chime in!

Week 1 Topic:

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the first topic.   Here goes!

Topic: Oprah has popularized the phrase, “Best Life” with a series of shows centered around so-called “experts” talking about how to have, “the best life”.    What is your definition of a “best life” and how do you think you are — or are not — fulfilling your conception of it?

There ya go!   Your topic for the week.    Entries are due by the end of July 7th (Tuesday); voting can begin on Wednesday through Saturday night.     So get writing and have fun!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 13 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

SO!   I give you my very first “vlog” (video blog).    May the snickering commence.

For those of you reading this via reader, you may want to load this up into a web browser, or simply click on the following link to go directly to the YouTube video:

Asshat on Camera

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

We’re having a Blog-Off and you’re invited to participate!   This contest will involve writing a blog post on your own blog, then reading and voting on the posts made by the other people participating.   At the end of the contest, the blog with the most points wins!     Prize money is awarded to the 1st and 2nd place winners!

The other half will go as a donation in the winners’ names to the March of Dimes, a non-profit charity geared towards helping prevent birth defects, miscarriages, premature babies, and problem births by giving mothers resources and education to make healthy, happy babies.    I’m desperately glad that my own son is healthy and doing well, but I know there are parents not so lucky, so I think this is a worthy cause.

THE DETAILS:

Cost:   $10 per blog participating.    This can be sent to me via any known means.   PayPal is easiest, but you can use whatever you like.    I do not accept beads.

Writing/Voting Cycle: You get your subject on Sunday.   Your post is due to be published on your blog by Tuesday evening.   You then have Wednesday to Saturday to read and vote on your top 3 entries and submit those to me.    I’m not going to be a stickler on times because we’ll have some foreigners and different time zones, etc.

Subjects to Write About: To be determined — once I know who is participating, I’ll ask for suggestions and then choose the best and most appropriate ones.

Prizes:  1st place gets 40% of the pot, 2nd place gets 10% of the pot, and 50% of the pot goes to charity.    Not huge amounts, and I’d ask for $20 from everyone, but…we’ll try this first.    $10 anyone can afford.

Penalties:   This is pretty simple — if you don’t post, you don’t get to vote that week and nobody can vote for you.     If you are unable to make a deadline, contact me…I’m not going to be a hardass if you have a real reason for slipping a date around.    That being said, don’t be slack if you don’t have to be.

Round 1: Topic on July 5th, Post due July 7th, Vote due July 11th.

Round 2: Topic on July 12th, Post due July 14th, Vote due July 18th.

Round 3: Topic on July 19th, Post due July 21, Vote due July 25th.

Round 4: Topic on July 26th, Post due July 28th, Vote due August 1st.

Winner Declared: August 2nd

HOW TO ENTER:

Paying your $10 donation secures your entry into this contest, so get that taken care of and then you’ll be signed up and ready to go.    Below is a PayPal button for your convenience.    If you need my mailing address, let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

Any questions, ask!    If you’ve done a blog-off before, why not jump in again?    And if you’ve never done one, they’re TONS of fun, and provide good inspiration to writing entries, so come along for the ride!     Let’s do some writing and save some babies!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 15 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

So, me and some other folks have chucked in some cash to participate in a Blog-Off, both to support breast cancer and to have fun in the process.   The voting will take place before Sunday of this week and one of us will be crowned the winner.    If you care to check out their blog entries on the same words that I covered, head on over to the links of participants at the bottom of this posting.

More importantly, if your love of sweater cows is as big as mine, and you have a few spare bucks, I’d encourage you to donate to Courtney’s quest or a similar one near you.    Let’s work to keep breasts a pleasurable thing and not something of pain.

3rd Blog-Off Participants:

Bella
Patti
Ryan
Erin
Jason
Michael

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

False dichotomies, like the one above, are prevelant in almost every facet of media, advertising, literature, and policy. They are an effort by others to direct the outcome of decisions or direct us away from the alternatives because they do not suit the agenda of the issuing party.

Either we stay in Iraq until their government is stable, or we pull our troops out and they will fall into chaos.

The problem is, it only gives the person making the decision a narrowed set of answers from which to pick. Thus, if you disprove one of the options, the other one must be the one to pick, despite its validity. Thus, the person (or entity) asking the question is automatically directing you to a small subset of possible answers simply by not mentioning the alternatives.

In November, you get to vote either Republican or Democrat.

What about Independent? Green Party? Jedi Party? All of these will be valid choices when it comes time to vote, yet by implying that the choice is limited to only the standard 2-party system, the fields is naturally narrowed through the process of disinformation and exclusion.

But…this isn’t news. Sales people, news reporters, and politicians have both been using this technique forever to try to skew the public’s opinion and viewpoint on anything and everything. The car salesman smiles at you, “So, will you take the red car or the blue car?” By eliminating your alternatives, they try to pin you down to a decision that, one way or the other, will be beneficial to them.

More disturbing than the false dichotomy, however, is a recent trend towards what I will term a blank dichotomy. This is a situation where normally a false dichotomy would be presented, but instead of presenting two or more options in the limited scope, only one is presented and the others are implied. This is happening more and more often and it’s quite unsettling.

This is very, very much like stating an unsupported opinion, except it is leading to the end user. They are encouraged to, “fill in the blanks”, with whatever their minds come up with. Since nothing is specifically stated, the person’s mind naturally starts off thinking of a default thing and then quickly proceeds to something in the extreme.

We must fight terrorism.

What does this statement leave in the wake? A person reads this and naturally thinks, “Well….terrorism has the word, ‘terror’, in it, so whatever will happen if we don’t fight terrorism must be pretty darn bad.” Their mind searches and reels until it settles on something that fulfills their requirement of “something really bad”. Thus is panic and terror already present in something that, by itself, doesn’t elicit any particular conclusion or feeling.

Few people are testing these statements, however, and the general public ends up believing what they are told by “authoritative sources” without truly exploring the validity or application of the information to reality. The media is therefore free to direct the populace’s minds on various tangents without having to do much work at all, resulting in a lot of “shell” reporting and information gathering. All you need is enough.

So…what does this mean for you, gentle reader? How do you avoid and handle the false and blank dichotomies?

Simple — learn to think for yourself only and when someone else is doing the thinking for you, question the validity of their conclusions and statements. Don’t automatically assume that those in charge and feeding you information have your best interest at heart or choose to tell you the whole story. Most of what is out there now is skewed in some direction or another, it is up to us to use our minds to decipher the jungle and make sense of it all. (Yes, this post is skewed, and you know it. Sort it out, dummy.)

False, blank, true — whatever your choices, burn those brain cells for the truth, and the truth will set you free.

(or not, as that’s another blank dichotomy, too.)

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Are you banking left or right?

How’s your speed? Your thrust? Your position?

In the world of aircraft, it’s all about your attitude, the combination of which direction the plane is pointed and the settings of the other systems of the plane. You might be climbing, you might be diving, you might be stalling — it all depends on your attitude.

Likewise, many things depend on your psychological attitude as well, not just your viewpoint, which many seem to cite. The emotion with which you approach a situation is important, don’t get me wrong, but so are other aspects, like your preparation, your determination, drive, willingness to risk, and ability to improvise just being a few. You can’t fly a plane simply by pointing it “up”, nor can you pilot a successful life by simply attempting to be positive about everything.

Nothing grates on my nerves more than the perpetual happymonger who insists on spreading fucking joy into every crack of existence just for the sake of being the ray of sunshine up everyone’s ass. Anyone who sees past this can easily point out the many different flaws in this system of constant cheer — life isn’t always pleasant, and being happy isn’t always productive. Sometimes it’s very applicable to the situation; many times it isn’t. Having someone shove that down your throat constantly just ends up labelling them as the eternal jackass.

Is this a matter of attitude? Clearly not. Pure emotion is usually extremely dumb. Attitude is smart — it is your emotional state plus all the above components, arranged in a manner such that when the bumps and struggles of your situation do hit you full-force, your airspeed doesn’t fall so far that you drop out of the sky. The way you initially formulate and interactively adjust your attitude shows a lot about your ability to handle life situations with intelligence and experience.

The Attitude Captain amongst us will evaluate every possible aspect of the situation, assess them all with objectivity and fairness, and then approach with their attitude adjusted, having their pieces in place to make a successful go at it. The Captains are also sharp enough to know the limits of their planes; if things won’t hold up in a hard turn, they know better to use some other aspect to replace what that hairpin turn would have gotten them. If they get halfway into a loop and find out they don’t have enough speed to keep going, they can quickly grab their other resources, realign them, and get out with all engines still turning over.

These I envy. They are the ones who simply radiate confidence and assuredness in life, the people you admire from afar in a crowd, even if you have never met them. Their attitudes are pointed in the right direction, and all their settings are within the green. I often long to know their secret, because some of them fly so far and hard and fast and never catch ground.

No two airplanes are built the same. Likewise, your craft might be big or small. Your engines may be tiny, but you are able to easily make turns. Maybe your powerhouses are huge, but you can’t stop on a dime. But all of us have the ability to use what we have to get where we want to go and to get there safely and smartly.

Pilot on first runway, you are cleared for take-off en route to the rest of your life. Safe travels.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Yes, that means you, too, Mr. Atheist.

Religion starts with beliefs, you see — things that we accept without question, without examination, without solid proof. They extend from the very inconsequential to the very serious and taint nearly every aspect of our modern lives, oftentimes without making themselves obviously known, but ultimately affecting vast tracts of our lives. Religion then takes these beliefs, removes questioning and doubt, and makes them habit.

“But, Nathan, ” I hear you ever-so-daintily chide your computer screen, “I thought religion was about God?”

Well, think about this, then: Are you patriotic? Do you think your country is pretty great? Have you always thought that? Do you stand up at parades, salute the flag, clap for soldiers, put your hand on your heart during the national anthem, and celebrate your country’s independence?

Funny. People stand up in church, make the sign of the cross, reward pastors and priests, kneel to pray, and celebrate Easter, too.

Do you really know why you do any of these activities? Do you know the true meaning behind each action, where it came from, why people do it, and how it is supposed to matter? Do you think about such things each time you do them or are you simply mechanical about it? Do you feel like a schmuck if you don’t do them, but can’t really figure out why? Ah, ha. Busted.

At this point, there will be some readers who are screaming at their monitors like morons, “What??? Beliefs are bad!?” No. Did I say anything about beliefs? Yes, I did, but I also said that religion are beliefs gone out of whack. To be honest, we require beliefs to cover the gap between what we can reasonably examine and prove and what we require to function as humans in a complex world.

I cannot prove that my car will always stop when I hit the brakes, at least, not without a great deal of my own examination and/or research. I do, however, believe that they will work and work on a consistent basis. This belief covers the gap between what I know about how brakes work and the fact that I need to drive my car to get to work.

In fact, I would go as far to say that I am religious about my brakes. I hit them without question, as a matter of habit, never giving them a second thought. Like I said — some things are trivial.

But when it comes to more serious matters, this is where religion has its major talons sunk deep within the structure of our lives and refuses to let go without a fight. “You have to go to church!” Do I? “You have to pray if you want something!” I do? “You have to bow down three times a day on a carpet!” Really? Why?

It is questions like these that go unanswered in modern religions. Oh, sure, they get answers from the proponents of the religion, but that’s like asking a car salesman why you should buy the new model on the lot. The answer you get is tainted and skewed and simply cannot be trusted to give an objective viewpoint on the subject.

So, then, what to do? Well, a person should have enough sense to question all of these things themselves, to derive the best possible answer from all available information, and come upon a conculsion for themselves with a varying degree of certainty. Then that conclusion should stay available for further scrutiny at any future time given a change in the information making it up or the evidence supporting (or denying) it.

The fact is, people are lazy and critters of habit. They prefer to stick with their religious mantras and habits rather than break free and find their true meanings and beliefs. It is easier to go to church every Sunday, sing the hymns, put the dot on your forehead, cross yourself, or stand up when the flag comes by than it does to question these actions and examine them.

But, really — ask yourself: Are you comfortable with treating your beliefs on life, morals, salvation, sin, God, and patrotism like you treat the braking system of your car?

I think your car’s out of control and headed towards a cliff — here’s hoping you’re right!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

It is, in many ways, an antiquated word, ranging up there with names like, “Gertie” and the concept of ironing and starching your underwear.

There is a lot of emphasis on winning however. You can win a reality TV show. You can win the lottery. You may even win an all-expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi. There was talk of, “winning the war on terror”, but now nobody really believes there’s anything there to start with, so that’s a bit hollow at this point. However, you certainly don’t see the government using the term like it did in World War I and II — “V-Day”, “Victory at Sea”, etc.

So, what’s the difference between “winning” and “victory”?

Both appear to be measurable — one knows when they have won or when they can claim victory in a situation. In fact, in many ways, one could say that winning is a part of victory. So — winning is a subcomponent of victory. What else does it encompass then?

From what I am able to tell, victory has a larger component than simply crossing a line ahead of someone else. It contains within it an emotional or psychological component as well, perhaps a welling-up of satisfaction that accompanies the winning, or a morally- or ethically-influenced sense of “correctness” about your win. There’s a clear superiority to your winning the contest versus the other party(ies) success.

“Not only did we win,” says the coach, “we were victorious.” Their sense of goodness surrounding their win might have been brought upon by soundly defeating a rival team in a fair match or simply winning with good spirits, sportsmanship, and ethics. Perhaps this win was a particular moment in the team’s history, prompting not only another notch in the stick for the good, but a turning point in attitude, team spirit, or camaraderie.

So, taking this into account, when in life should we try to win and when should we be victorious? Are we winning too much and leaving victory and its concepts behind in modern usage?

Our society is very “win”-oriented, prompting everyone to engage within a contestual activity with one another. The problem arises from the vast and increasing number of people who are out to simply win the activity rather than make a good, solid, and fair victory instead. Crossing the line ahead of anyone else, regardless of your journey to the line, has become the point, urging everyone to bend, flex, or even break the rules to get the advantage over others.

This is partially because victory oftentimes rewards no better than winning, at least in terms of material or monetary goods. This leads to lazier winnings, trying only to finish and using whatever means available to do so, rather than making a judgement call about the quality of their performance. Without external incentives, the standard goes straight down the flusher.

How, then, should good people be using this information to apply to their own lives? Simply put, winning is fine and good, but winning isn’t everything. You may very well have that top job, but if you had to burn bridges, shun friends, backstab co-workers, cheat, and slander your way to the top, you have only won, but not claimed victory. You are a scum; a successful one, granted, but morally and ethically vulgar.

The true victor, on the other hand, considers the journey as a part of the end result. The quality and content of the struggles and challenges that are overcome and the methods used to do so are what really rest in the victor’s mind — “How can I succeed and remain a good, moral, and ethical human?”

The victors no doubt lose more than the scandalous winners; of that I am certain. This may lead to much depression by the good folk of the world, but fear not — your victory, when it comes, will be that much sweeter, and you will still be able to live with your head held high in the knowledge that you won and you did it with a clear conscience. That, in and of itself, may be the best victory of all.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I am what you would call a “breast man”.

The soft rolling hills, erupting forward in a parabolic curve that I cannot miss or ignore, the calling of the siren to the starry-eyed sailor…

I often ask myself, why? They’re just another body part. Nobody gets bent out of shape over elbows — why a breast?

The teasing of the flowery, silky, or lacy straps, rising up the back to the peak before diving sharply downward to cradle the softness within, they tease — always tease — the path of breadcrumbs to the house of treats…I am Hansel, I long to get lost in the woods…

Chemically-speaking, these are not amazing devices. In fact, the majority is made up of fat. I might as well have a prolonged infatuation with a can of shortening for all that amounts to. In the biological world, they aren’t even unique, as other animals have them as well, yet I don’t catch myself watching a cow’s udder as she passes.

Cloth pulled tight across them, the classic t-shirt, the button-up that isn’t entirely, the thin nightgown shifting slightly in the breeze. Each curve of the hill, each hint of the peak, my mind cannot help but become a virtual miner, pulling back the layers in my fantasy, wondering what lies sleeping beneath the layers, the hidden softnesses…

I wonder if much of it comes from instinct, a nod to my more primal urges and needs, those imposed upon me by my animalistic nature. Perhaps this has a great part in my fascination with these features of the female sex and my desire to see, caress, touch, and fondle them. Or maybe I’m just obsessed. Women like washboard stomachs for some reason, why not breasts?

Those who know about breast cancer know a lot about breast health. You can find medical information on breast health on the internet. It is good to know facts on preventing breast cancer.

I am like Santa Claus walking down the street, making mental notes on the good and bad little children. It is well that my inner monologue isn’t published in an RSS feed to the world, for it can be quite impressive at times. The wide array of sizes, styles, and shapes always keep me on my toes. “Oh, how cute”, will be one, and another, “Nice, very nice”, and the occasional, “OMG, would you look at that!” Yes, let’s keep that mental thoughtstream out of the public domain for now.

I have known many pairs in my life, both casually and intimately. From the very small to the very large and anywhere in between, it never ceases to amaze me that they all attract in one way or another. I thought at first that my fascination was only because of a lack of exposure, that once I got used to the idea, it would no longer hold my mind as tightly. Sex was often that way, giving me uncomfortable long nights of imaginations of some time in the future when I was a teenager, leading up to my current state of still liking it as much as I thought I would, but not nearly being so obsessed with it as I was back then. Breasts, however….well, they just don’t cease to ever amaze and confuse.

Hours can be spent with them when the person is willing, adoring them, caressing them, appreciating them in ways that would make a good deal of the general public blush…

I am likewise amused to hear women talk about their own, as of course their attitudes towards them are vastly different. Sure, many find them to be a source of pleasure during sexual acts, but at the same time, they agonize so much over them. How to cover, lift, separate, squish, push, pull, squeeze, rearrange, flatten, plump, hoist, lower, shape, or otherwise adjust. Whether they are showing too much or not enough. How much cleavage? Do my nipples show through? Bra straps peeking out? Mine are too big, too small, too round, too pointy, too flat, too plump, too high, too low, too wide, too narrow, too heavy, too light. Not the right color, nipples are too big, too small, too many freckles. Breasts, to women, are often like shoes that never matches the dress they want to wear, no matter how many pairs you try on.

And, just when you think they aren’t enough work already, add on top of this the need for mamograms, X-rays, self-examinations, doctor exams, biopsies, poking, prodding, feeling, squishing, hurting. The constant fear that the part of your anatomy that makes you look most like your gender might eventually kill you and you might not catch it in time.

Breasts, to a woman, are just one big stress-fest.

I smile internally as I see another great pair walk by, happy for me for the beauty that I’ve seen, happy for the woman that she has such beauty from the outside. I can only muse, of course, about the beauty within, but I can hope…

I think in many ways I appreciate this feature of women all the more because of the strife involved with them, of the concentrations on them that give such huge pressures to women in fashion and self-esteem, and because of the dangers they possess to the unlucky ones.

So, perhaps my attraction isn’t entirely instinctual, but a combination of that mixed with a healthy dose of admiration for a body part that, were it an elbow, just wouldn’t get as much attention.

Author’s Note: This entry is the third round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “breasts”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention. And I’m a breast man, so I’m all for it.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

In an age where almost everything can be explained or reasoned by means of physics, biology, chemistry, technology, or good old cause-and-effect logic, is there any room in our psyche for the concept of “hope”? Clearly it still exists in our culture, but is it necessary? Is it healthy, or are we simply deluding ourselves into a fantasy world?

I’ve always thought of hope as, “emotional wishing”, and in many contexts, I think this description fits it pretty well. Hope is often viewed as the true wishes of the heart, the desires of the inner person for events to transpire in a particular way, to turn out in the favor of the hopeful or of their friends and family.

Wishes are, for the most part, irrational longings. They are what people want to happen regardless of the probability of it actually coming to pass. Despite all odds or impossibilities, wishes remain a staple part of many people’s lives, coming into play both as children and adults, simply changing in content as the individual moves through life. Some consider wishes to be free; they are the unfettered desires of the mind, free to float about, unchained from reality’s sensibilities and accountabilities.

I have always viewed wishes as being quite dangerous and often inappropriate. Large amounts of wishing often means that the individual is not tied closely with reality in their mind, or they are avoiding the arduous task of dealing with harsh and unpleasant events and situations. Using wishes in this manner is a self-delusion akin to drowning your sorrows in an alcohol-fuelled fog, only this one is completely self-brewed and bottled, labelled with fantasy, corked with irrationality, and leading up to one hell of a “morning after”, complete with a psychological walk of shame.

Wishing as a child for events is simply a matter of being young and ignorant of the inner workings of reality; wishing as an adult is a denial of the basic fundamentals of life, resulting in a moment of irrationality — a cowering of the mind behind its fantastical blanky. On the whole, wishing ends up being a fruitless waste of time and energy in most cases.

Hope would no doubt be described by people in a much different manner. There is an element to hope that wishing does not encompass; a sense of purpose, of assuredness, or guarantee. The hoper is often very committed to their vision of reality.

The religious would say that their hope for the spiritual rewards and gifts are backed by their tenants; their hopes are the true longings of an inspired and faith-filled heart, backed with a spiritual insurance policy and guarantee of deliverance. Years of study and teachings, exposure to the ideas of the faith, and stories of others who have benefited from their particular religion lend much “evidence” to their experience, often making doubt a thing to keep far away from the core of the belief.

Others view hope as a sort of emotional bridge between what you really desire to happen and the reality of the situation. In this manner, hope appears to be a wish backed by some rationality or evidence, but not fully, and the desire to merge the current reality with the proposed end result is filled in with emotion and desire in the form of hope. Perhaps Johnny has a job interview with Google. He know he has a decent chance of getting a job, but he’s not certain of it, so he hopes that the result will be a new position. There is nothing at all to suggest that he has the job in the bag, 100%, but it’s leaning in a certain direction. Hope, in this case, does the rest of the work.

So is hope harmful? I often wonder about this because, although wishing is purposely unbacked by evidence or rationality, there are certain moments in which hope plays a similar role. There are great swaths of people who rely upon their own justifications for their hopes, no matter how self-deluded they are. Their hopes are rationalized out by their own logic, but that evidence is flawed to start with, so the resulting hope is likewise erroneous.

Thus, I usually try to shy away from making both wishes and hopes for my life. If I find myself utilizing one of these justifications for holding onto a vision of an alternate or futuristic reality, I chide myself, mostly because I can never be sure that my own rationalizations for feeling a particular way have a foundation in unbiased logic. I can say that I hope that my child is beautiful, but I have no evidence to support this thought. Of course, I have no evidence to the contrary, either, so my stakes are evened out in this particular case. But the point stands that I probably do not have a rational reason and I am better off in the long run if I mull over the odds as they really are and not as I wish them to be.

A great deal of people would no doubt argue against the idea that hope is no longer applicable, saying it gives emotional and mental coping power to those in difficult situations, allowing them to continue on in the face of adversity. While I agree that it does seem to have empowered the many inspirational folk to weather the storms of life, I wonder what delusions they have had to ascribe to in order to accept such hope into their minds to the point where it was a motivational factor? Which person is more likely to be wiser and better balanced after an experience, the one that states, “I always had hope that this would turn out OK” or the one that shakes their head and says, “Look, I didn’t have a hope in the world. Everything was against us, nothing was going right, and we buckled down and did what we could. The fact that we ended up here is nothing short of amazing.” Which person has learned a more valuable lesson in life?

I do not think that hope is completely and utterly useless. There are times in which we should allow ourselves to go, to dream the impossible dream, to envision the world that we would create if our minds would allow us. Like a daydream, these fuel creativity, passion, inspiration, and amusement. It is, however, difficult to recommend the path of hope as a regular implement when life instead calls for wisdom, rationale, and realistic coping skills. These tools end up giving the person a much firmer foundation upon which to weather the hurricanes and persevere through all the nasties that are thrown at them.

I wish for you, all of you, the best and most productive use of hope in your lives.

Author’s Note: This entry is the second round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “hope”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention.   And who doesn’t like breasts, really?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The reality TV show’s motto is, “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast” — it requires that the contestants not simply “stick around”, but to engage themselves within the challenges, to constantly modify and adjust their strategies, and to rise above the struggles of the situations they are placed in. It is an active role that they must apply themselves to in order to come out on top.

This is not unlike real-life challenges.

“He is a survivor.” Is he? Or did he merely not die? Is he now a shell of a human, emotionally and psychologically wreaked by the experience, a stripped out hull that, while he did indeed manage to live past the experience, he essentially died within? You see, because survival requires so much more than simply plowing through to the other side of a barrier.

The root, “survive”, comes from the Latin super “over, beyond” and vivere “to live”. If you notice, it does not say “lived through” something, nor “lived around” something…but lived over something. I think that’s a very important distinction.

I think of the many survivors I know in my life, not only concerned with diseases, but with other challenges, from day-to-day struggles with jobs, money, life, and relationships to those huge events of disease, injury, disasters, and family crisis. The ones that really shine and deserve the title, “survivor”, are those that do not simply make it through the ordeal but learn, grow, adapt, and not only beat the situation but give it a thorough whipping.

This is not to say that all survivors come through unscathed; indeed, part of the process of becoming a survivor is to become maimed, hurt, beat down, and flayed open. At these times, we see what they are made from as they change their strategy, learn new things, evolve, and climb back up the shaky ladder once more. They may fall back down again and again, maybe even getting hurt worse each time, but the will to keep fighting to emerge pulls them onward. The light may get dim, it might even become so dim you can hardly see it — but they come back from the brink to succeed once again. Survivors are admired for the quality of their struggling, not their shiny trophy at the end.

The urge to survive is deeply embedded into the human psyche. It has, in fact, been essential to our existence to persevere. Lying down in a ditch and wallowing forever has never been a tactic that results in an improved species. Likewise, those that are now successful, wealthy, well-adjusted, and socially nimble have become so through surviving above and beyond their fellow humans. This carries onwards from the simple berry-gathering and buffalo-hunting of years past to the new challenges everyone faces in this modern world. The mountains to climb have changed names and shapes, but everyone still has to scale sheer faces to get to the top.

I’d like to posit that survivors are not necessarily those that manage to avoid death. Even when dying people can be survivors, fighting the stacked odds, listening to the ticking of the clock slowing and yet not succumbing to its incessant chimes. I do not view the terminal survivor as the person who fights death to the bitter end; rather, this sort of victor is the one who faces the inevitable — not with fear and shaking, but with a firm resolution, a drive to make the most of what is left, to love those close to them, make amends where necessary, and use the opportunity to teach, inspire, and motivate others in their own lives. A survivor of this kind lasts long after they are gone, continuing to affect the people that knew them and sometimes ones that never had the opportunity. They are the ones that come to mind often, bring a smile to your face, and give you hope for something better when the odds are against you.

To those who are survivors now and in the future — good luck. You’ll make it, you’ll succeed, and you’ll be better than before. Remember all those who have been survivors before you and around you.

Outwit the challenges, Outplay the games, Outlast the fear.

Be a Survivor.

Author’s Note: This entry is the first round in a Blog-Off run by Courtney Slavin of Five Second Dance Party. Each week we have to write a blog entry centred around one word. This weeks’ word is, “survivor”. To read the blog entries of others that are participating, head on over to The List. The proceeds of this Blog-Off go to support breast cancer research and prevention. Being a big fan of them myself, this is a pretty darn good cause.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS