I think we can all agree that business is necessary.   Not only from a make-a-living standpoint, but to generate the various things we need — or want — to survive.   But where that business falls in terms of its motivations, goals, and means is on a wide spectrum between two points:   Pure Philanthropy and Pure Greed — you do it for the betterment of the world, or you do it for the money, or as more often happens — a combination of the two.

This, then, has been the key point that I have been thinking about:   What combination of the two makes me happiest and most fulfilled?

It surely isn’t Pure Philanthropy — I am not employed because I feel a sense of having to better the world with my work; at least, not in a pure sense.   But even more so, I don’t ever envision myself working for a primarily-philanthropic business where the goal is to “do good things” vs. anything else.    This is because I have enough things of my own goals and volitions that I would happily accomplish if I didn’t have to earn a living.   Since I must do the latter, if it ever comes down to, “don’t work or work for a social benefit company”, I’ll probably opt for staying home and completing my own goals.

This is not to say that I’m incharitable — it’s simply to say that I don’t ever see myself being able to have the time and availability to engage in such purely unselfish activities with my time and efforts.    But, I do see myself volunteering in my free time for such things, and I think that’s where my contributions will emerge from.

On the reverse, I could never be simply money-grubbing.   There’s no soul in it, no conviction, no trust, no heart.    When your only god is the almighty dollar, your means become whatever they must to get it, no matter the associated non-monetary costs.    I won’t sacrifice my family, friends, sense of goodness, heart, mind, soul to the cause.    Those with the most toys don’t win, they just end up with a playroom full of toys and nobody to share them with.

That all being said, I don’t work for my health.  (Indeed, my health suffers rather greatly from having to work!)  I work because money, like it or not, makes the world go around, provides for almost everything in this post-industrial world, and is a necessary evil for so very many reasons.   So while I’m not a whore to the system, I am still planning on trying my best to earn as much as I can, advance my career as far as it can go, and to rise in the ranks of the business world so I can get the funding to accomplish everything I’d like to be and do.    I worry all the time that I’m not doing enough, fast enough, good enough, big enough, and the top of my career is looming ahead of me and that downhill slide to retirement is getting ever closer.   I fear it so much it makes me ache at night sometimes, simply because I know that I only get one shot at doing this the right way and I hate the idea of pulling out at 70 and saying that I had a mediocre run of it.

So, I don’t think either side of the equation is fundamentally evil — I have to be doing a job where I am earning money and being successful and I also have to be doing something that ultimately creates something of worth for the world as a whole, even if it’s a limited audience.   There are times when it’s perfectly fine to say, “Let’s to X because X will generate us a metric buttload of money.”   Likewise, I need to always be looking at the things I’m doing and say, “Is this really worth the money?   Will I hate myself in the morning/5 years/later?”

The balance must, ultimately, be struck.   Money, life, and everything in between.

Where does that line fall for you?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2011. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

A lack of food means a short temper.

A lack of touch means impaired learning.

A lack of water means hallucinations.

A lack of sex means a strained relationship.

—

Fulfill the physical and the mental follows; like a puppy panting in the desert, it comes.    The crude supplies the foundation for the fine.    The biological drives the logical.   Our art is propped upon piles of vegetables, feces, and pillows.   Technology is powered by the passion excreted by a thousand sweaty bodies, humping and gasping,  filled with water and steak and wine.

—

I am amazed at the ways in which our physical state affects our mental.

I am also abhorred by the same fact.

When will we break free?

And…what do we do in the meantime?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2011. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

There is no inherent Purpose to your life, existence, or presence.

You’re not here to fulfill any particular duty, perform a service, bring meaning to someone’s life or situation, teach a lesson, provide a basis for change, revolution, or stimulus.    In no way are you charged with a mission or quest; you are not abiding by any master’s wish or mandate.   There are no giants and tilting at windmills will, at best, earn you a concussion.

You are not here for any reason at all — and BOY am I getting tired of people who think they are.

“You are not an accident.  Your parents may not have planned you, but God did.   He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose.  Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose.  You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense.   Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.” — Dr. Rick Warren

The above, printed on a Starbucks cup (because they are the bastions of profundity, you realize), seems to indicate that there’s some sort of reason for all this being what it is — which, if you were the author of, The Purpose-Driven Life, you’d certainly hope so; your book sales depend on it.

It replaces responsibility with destiny and destroys our ability to be flexible to many different points and ideas.   To say, “God ordained it!” incites within us a fear of the Almighty, a yearning to learn “his plan”, a pressure to question at every turn whether or not you’re doing “God’s will” or your own, and how could you be missing The Plan so badly?  How can this disaster, this death, this disease, be part of THE PLAN!?    I must need more faith!!

To present life as if destiny had a hand is raising false expectations and stripping people of their ability to take charge of their own lives and actions.  Warren and others shovel piles of this neo-religious offal into a crowd of desperate faces in the hopes of giving Hope, but they succeed only in cultivating a crop of people who are confused, misdirected, and maligned towards some sort of hidden reason for their existence that doesn’t even exist.

Despite all this he did, however, get one sentence right:   “You are not an accident.”    You aren’t; you are the result of biological life, a system of chemically-driven rules and laws which has been chugging along for millions of years and will likely keep on doing so assuming we can come up with a good use for Styrofoam.   Sperm + egg + timing = you, and that’s no small feat considering the myriad of dangers and factors working against it, but it’s nothing even close to being a purposeful event, let alone a miracle.   You are certainly not an accident, but you’re not unique; being a part of about 200,000 births every day of the year ensures that there’s an awful lot of life happening that isn’t you.

Don’t fall for the trap of thinking you’re special.   You’re not.

But this is not the end.

You have no purpose for being here — but that does not mean that you cannot have a purpose.   Your presence is not mandated by some cosmic force or grand plan, but that does not in any way lessen the impact you can render on the people around you and the world as a whole.   There is no one scheming in the background to use you to affect anything in particular while you roam this hurtling ball in space; it is up to you to make that happen, if you wish.

It’s a wide-open field, really.   You could choose to become a rather average human being, unspectacular and normal.   Living day-to-day, doing what’s necessary, making your way.   Many folks do and they’re welcome to it.   A hermit’s life is perhaps appealing instead, isolating from society, taking and contributing only when needed.    Or, maybe the flashy life is for you; Hollywood, girls, cars, money, sex — a fountain of riches and smiles and parties.    Whatever you choose and work for, you can probably accomplish.

But what is the purpose in all this, besides simply becoming a cog in the gears of the world?   Another human kicking out 80-ish years and then becoming another slot in the ground for eternity?

This is where the real, “Purpose-Driven Life”, comes into play.   Your ability and freedom to take your life and make it more than the average — more than just the minimum. To effect real change in the world.   To reach out to people and connect to them in new, intimate ways; ways that are more real than the facades we erect and the white lies we tell.    To love and cherish and value that which is true and right and good and to banish that which is clearly evil and destructive, cutting down the walls of destruction and prejudice and taboo and culture so we can lay bare that which is right.   To ensure, whether locally or globally, that your presence will be felt long after you are cold in your grave and the generations have moved on.

That is your possible purpose.    Perhaps.   There’s nothing saying you must.

In the end, nobody can direct you where to go or what to do, or even insist that you generate anything meaningful at all.   Millions of people all over the world, every day, die and leave behind very little in the way of contributions, affecting only a few friends and family members, and generally being forgotten after two, three, or four generations.   This is the way of the world and our lives and it happens all the time.   Nothing unique or special or purposeful.

But, if you feel that perhaps you’d prefer to make a stronger statement, a bigger contribution, a larger Effect — then make a purpose and strive for it with all your heart.

You may not have come into the world for a reason, but don’t leave without having made one.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 9 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I shook the blob out of the can and into my hands and then worked it up a bit before gently laying it out in front of my son.  “Touch it,” I urged him, smiling as I watched him press a finger into it.  For the first time he connected with an extremely classic toy as a complete newcomer — and I think he was instantly hooked.

As we pressed out shapes with cookie cutters, smashed the Play-Doh with our palms, pressed out our handprints, curled “snakes”, and rolled balls to make snowmen of unrealistic colors, I reveled in the simplicity of our playtime.   Like other classic toys — blocks, Crayons, puzzles — Play-Doh is only a barebones medium for what your mind can envision; it is still up to you to create something from the shapeless mass.

In some fashions, the ability to take a material like Play-Doh and shape it into anything at all is analogous to our abilities in life.    The situations, people, and opportunities we face every day are very often shapeless forms; how we perceive them, interact with them, influence them, and build them into something else determines how we function and where we go.

This doesn’t always apply, of course — life is also full of cookie-cutters.     They are the forces that shape and pre-define limits and boundaries to the events we interact with.    This can be problematic; we may have a star-shaped hole to fill and can only find a rectangle piece; we try to massage it into the right shape, but we may very well end up with a shapeless mass that is even worse than useless.

There is at least one property of Play-Doh that we do not, unfortunately, get very often — the ability to SMASH.   Create a crappy-looking car out of dough?   Grab it in both hands and squish it back into a lump from which can emerge something new.    Screw up and blow the job interview?   They look poorly upon people smashing their offices in an attempt to change the situation.    Time does not take well to do-overs.

Three hours later we finally packed up the Play-Doh into its cans and put all the cutters away.   Keston cried when we finally put it away, saying that he wanted to keep playing with it.   I explained that it was late; we really needed to put it away, go to bed, and get some sleep, but maybe we could play more tomorrow?    He was thoroughly convinced that this was the prime time to be playing, but we eventually got him redirected and back to a happy mood for a trip upstairs to bed.

I wonder what he thought about this first experience with being able to make something out of practically nothing; of directing his own input into an unbounded matter.    Did he feel empowered by the ability to make whatever he liked of the situation?   Scared to have a lack of definition and instruction on what to do?  Or did he find it amazing to make a mistake and then to simply — erase it?

It will be years before he makes these same associations and analogies, but as we fell asleep that night, I hoped that he will always find in himself the ability to create, to change, to influence, and to shape the world and his reality to a new and better day.    If he’s lucky, that will occasionally include yellow cans of squishy-soft blobs in bright colors and a familiar smell that will always bring him home.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was recently interviewed by TechCrunch and one of the questions was about privacy and what people were willing to post online today versus when Facebook first started.   He said he views Facebook as needing to be at the leading edge of the social norm for what was considered, “private”, and to make innovations to match stride with the way people are changing their online personas and information.    He also said that the social norm has shifted and the mainstream no longer thinks of privacy as something as important anymore.

Older generations seem to have huge issues with privacy and keeping identifications and information under wraps; I have almost none of this.   Do you want to know my underwear size?   I’ll tell you.   What do I care?   Ultimately it doesn’t matter.    If that’s going to be the deciding factor on what you think about me, then so be it, we might as well get that out right now.    I just don’t see what the point is of keeping about 98% of what we have traditionally kept private as…private.

Sure, there’s plenty of things I don’t discuss with others.   I don’t talk about the things that only pass between myself and my wife and don’t belong in anyone else’s ears.   I don’t talk about family issues with just anyone.   I don’t talk about my job because I like being employed and I prefer to stay that way.

There are tons of things, however, that people get tied up about that just seem nonsense to me.    Where you work, where you went to school, what clothes you wear, what religion you have, what political party you belong to, what you do in your spare time.    What’s the point of keeping all this under wraps?

Maybe I’m just naturally trusting and open.    Maybe I have an innate sense of when to open my mouth and when to just listen.    I see the revealing of myself through the various channels available as being something inspiring and connecting.   Maybe I’m just a dolt.

Folks, what’s your take on privacy and where we are these days?   Do you feel like you are becoming less private and more open, or do you guard yourself tighter given the environment today?    Do you think this trend is good, bad, or indifferent?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 9 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Whether or not climate change is taking place or not, and regardless of whether that change (if it exists) is drastic or not, we still are behooved to apply our advances in technology and industry to lessen our negative impact on the world around us.     When the industrial revolution began, factories and homes spewed completely unfiltered dirty coal smoke into the air without any concern for its impact on the world — but then again, the technology had not progressed to the point where doing something about this pollution was feasible.     And yet,  nowadays we have numerous technologies to prevent contamination of the earth and yet we do not always apply them, or we are too willing to fore go them in favor of a higher number on the corporate earnings report.

For us to possess the technology and resources to minimize our impacts and not do so is deplorable at best and downright evil at worst.   The exploitation of any resource by the human race has been generally frowned-upon by history in the past; will we be found in the future to have been apathetic about our responsibility to the planet that gave us so much?

Catastrophic climate change or fearmongering activist hype — which ever side of the battle, or area in between, that you plant yourself in this debate, the result is the same:   Should we not be doing better by the Earth since we clearly have the ability?

I think the answer by anyone involved is — or should be — a resounding, “Yes!”

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

Sometimes simplicity is the best solution in the long run.

I come from a long line of very down-to-earth farmers on both sides of the family.   I was born and raised riding across fields, hearing the squeal of pigs and lowing of cows in the near distance, and the various smells of the seasons drifting across the farm (some of them more pungent than others, of course).   While I didn’t choose the profession for myself, it still runs in my blood as a vocation that involves good, honest hard work, feeling independent and productive, and good people.

The farmers in my family are a resourceful bunch.   That is not to say that they are stingy or tight; if equipment is broken and truly needs replacement, something shiny will be soon to follow, much to the heartburn of their banker.    But they have never been adverse to using baling twine, fence wire, duct tape, or a few well-placed bolts and screws to bring the foundering building or machine back into usable service.

Last night I helped my father to unload 3 racks (~300 bales) worth of hay into his barn by means of a chain-driven conveyor that ran from the rack to the haymow.      This we do to prevent having to toss (yes, toss) all of these upward into the gaping door, a process I am rather unfond of, especially when I’m helping to do it.     About halfway into the first rack the damned thing up and broke, the chain flailing as the motor tried to move it without a top sprocket  to rotate around.    I lept from the rack and yanked apart the cord and extension and then waited as Dad gave it a look.

The conveyor is old — color: rust;  brand:  unknown;  volume:  loud;  default sound effect:  squeal.     But it works very well when it doesn’t break, so we had a vested interest in fixing it.   Plus, my ability to toss 80 pound bales over my head is severely wanting of late.

Dad hammered.   And he hummed.   And he pried, bent, shifted, wrenched, jammed, jimmied, fiddled, screwed and swore for about 10 minutes as he cajoled the sprocket back into the conveyor and back into commission.    A few tests, a few tweaks as we ran, and it’s practically as good as new, and all for the cost of some elbow grease and good old fashioned practicality.    We unloaded all three racks with no other problems except the fact that we were both covered in hay bits and desperately needed a good shower.

Sometimes the simple solution really is the best one.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?“

My response is thus:

God is the watchmaker; we are simply a cog in the works as is everything. To have evil present and not mitigated is not malevolent, it is simply allowing the watch to tick as it must, for without evil, the watch cannot run.

On this Monday, when much evil can and will be present in all sorts of forms, what is your response to this puzzle, dear reader?

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

I find this phenomenon most prevalent at work, where I know most of the people I cross paths with in the course of my day.   Of course, I’m working (in theory), so I’m not in the mood, the mindset, or the time frame to stop and have an involved chat and find out, really, how s/he is. But, at the same time, I feel like a complete twibber to walk past a person and not say…well, something, anything, rather than silence or some sort of avoidance.

The real wretch of the experience is the eye contact.    There are such varying degrees to which you can take it, but for a proper transaction to take place, you have to somehow subtly agree on the duration and intensity of your stare.    Remember — we’re not being verbal here, so it’s Body Language 101  for the win — if you’re lucky.     Do you lock eyes intensely or out-of-focus casually?   Do you try to be coy and give a twinkle or a sordid wink?  In my experience, the ladies in the office seem fairly receptive to a smiling glance whereas the men don’t take a wink to be a sign of cordiality, no matter how much joy I put into it.

Naturally, there are always the Violators, the ones who will go against the grain of what you are trying to accomplish with your brief acknowledgment.    They come in one of three forms, none of which will make your day any faster or accomplish anything but encouraging one of the parties to scamper off behind a trash can, weeping:

The Weirdo: Exchanging a look for too little of time will earn you a bashful title, as if you’re constantly turning away early on the eye-to-eye exchange, you look like the submissive sort.    This might be an acceptable situation to be in, say, a relationship (if you’re into that sort of thing), but passing in the hall you look like you might cry.     On the other end of this spectrum is the creepy guy that stares a little TOO long, way past the time you’ve defined with your body language as the, “casual glance period”, making everyone feel like something bad just happened or the salsa from lunch is about to repeat on you.    Or, as some women experience it, the guy that meets your eyes and then swiftly glances downwards at other vistas, if only to emphasize the fact that he’s noticed your eyes but not nearly as much as your boobs.

The Quirk: Second on the Violators list is the non-conventional person who answers a comment or a question with something meant to be quirky or unusual but comes off as being strange or odd.    “How’s it goin’?” someone might ask my boss.   “Livin’ the dream!” he replies, confident that he’s being unique — which he is, but it sets people aside when they hear it, much as if he had answered the question in some ribald fashion, like, “It’s going INTO MY PANTS!”      Nobody likes the clever ones.

The Conversationalist: Last but certainly not least troublesome of Violators is the Conversationalist.    One comment to this person as you pass in the hallway and you are STUCK — 15, 30, 50, 90 minutes later, your coffee cold, feet sore, and your brain fried into a small puddle of gasping protoplasm, you are released to go back to your cubicle and have a good cry, now knowing more about the love life of the Conversationalist than even Maury Povich would be able to extract.   These folks do nothing but interrupt the salmon on the way up the river.

Despite all these hazards that must be navigated, to say nothing of the standard act of meeting in the hallway, we still feel the need to do something as we pass on our way to the next location.     A nod, a slight wave, a finger-gun, a salute, a fist-bump, an eye-roll — we feel the need to somehow convey to each other that we see them and they’re there, but really — we’re just trying to work, ya know?

So, folks — how’s it goin’?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The early recordings (currently being played on the podcast as a revival and fundraiser) are more formal than the modern ones.    They are more prominent people of the times, politicians, actresses, people of note, whereas the more modern you get, the more you get deeply personal recordings from any number of ordinary folk and celebrities alike.   Not all are old or wizened, but many are — I suppose by a later age, your beliefs have either cemented themselves — or stagnated.

It should be said here that in this context, “beliefs” not only encompass any religious beliefs, but also ones about the world as a whole — ethical and moral beliefs, ways of viewing the world, expectations of your fellow human, your ideas for the betterment of humanity and the world, and the pursuit of happiness, meaning, and fulfillment in this short life.

I was listening to a recording on the way home tonight and was musing about my own beliefs and whether or not I could even hope to start putting them down in some format that I could ever record on an “official” copy.   I suppose I have done that already, somewhat, both on my main website under my Beliefs section and here in this blog, under the entries marked by, “Controversies“, but I’ve only really gotten started.    I want to not only attempt to lay out my beliefs but to have them scrutinized, analyzed, and picked apart by the masses — in this, I feel, I can make them stronger, better, less instinctual and more logical, more meaningful to me as a person on a life journey.

I don’t know if this will actually accomplish what I am after or if, at the end of it all, I will know that I know more about particular aspects of my beliefs and less and less about other areas.    It is one of the great adages of philosophy that the more you know, the less you truly know, and the field of knowledge is truly never-ending in its scope.   The reality may be that at the end of the journey I find myself at the beginning, endlessly to revise my beliefs and understandings till the end of my days, never finding a true answer to any of it.   I may, in my efforts, simply be climbing Sisyphus‘ mountain.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth

How about you, dear and gentle reader?   If, given the chance to record your own audio file of your beliefs, or to write them down in a book, would you be able to?   How many beliefs would you say are “cemented” within your mind compared to all the “fluid” ones?   How do you develop and extend your beliefs during your life — or are they a static phenomenon in your life, something unchanging despite the years?

If you feel like sharing, let us all know how you process your own beliefs, whether they be religious, life, or otherwise.    Together, I think, we can better each other in this fascinating process of sorting ourselves out into a better mindset.

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

Bow Before the Sacred Cow (moo.)

There is a term used in businesses and other organizations to indicate those things that are traditionally regarded as “untouchable” in terms of their being questioned or modified — the so-called, “sacred cows”.    (Borrowed from the Hindu religion.)  These have long been hindrances in business practices because people fail to explore why a particular practice or system is being used the way it is — they just assume that it’s The Way Things Must Be Done™.     However, it occurs to me that this isn’t only applicable to the working world, we have many steers and heifers wandering through our lives that we fail to examine or pay attention to, and we need to be willing to slaughter them in the name of progress, new ideas, and better wisdom if that is what’s required.

Think about your own life — what cows do you hold near and dear to your heart?    Here’s some areas where I see them in both my life and others:

Religion — Big one!   You knew it was going to be in here, didn’t you?    Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I’m a huge fan of questioning one’s religion and figuring out for yourself what really matters and what is simply bogus.    Holy cows roam free in the religious world where some practices and ideas stay the same for centuries or longer without any in-depth exploration.    Even simple things like, “What hymnal should we use?” can spark the, “Don’t kill my cow!” argument with great swaths of people popping up complaining about the possible change, citing history as a precedent.    “It worked for my grandmother, why should we change?”

Traditions — We all have family traditions and most of us enjoy them to one extent or another, but when was the last time that you challenged one of them as being irrelevant or misplaced?    In some families, that’s nothing less than treason, but why should it be irreverant to probe into the meaning and applicability of the things you do year in and year out?

Business — Time and time again it’s been shown that good business is a balance between doing things in ways that work and doing things in new ways that may or may not work better.     As a younger person in business, one of the hardest things I have to face is convincing the older staff that systems can be changed without sacrificing the stability they’ve enjoyed so far and, given the chance, can even be improved upon.  Fear is the glue that holds sacred cows in place and keeps them from being herded in another direction.   (Gives some interesting visions of incredibly sticky cows, now, doesn’t it?)

Your Halo is Slipping

Life Philosophies — Many people, including myself, find it hard to break out of the typical “normal” life that has been prescribed by society and to choose a unique and interesting path.   The cow becomes sacred because it’s a societal pressure and deviating outside of that not only brings you problems in terms of diapproval but issues with the economics of the situation.    As much as I’d love to be in school longer, economically, I had to do my 4 years and get out to a job.   I would love to stay home and write or do something else, but the bills wouldn’t get paid.    Becoming a bum would be fun, but it would be frowned upon.   The cows become sacred as a standard that we are all expected to follow, even if someone could deviate without becoming a liability on the system.

There are many other places where this crops up — how we live, how we work, how we act, how we love.    What are some holy bovines in your life, and what are you doing to try to negate them, or do you simply embrace them wholesale because — that’s what you do?

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

After all, I’ve already blown through 31 years, most of which was spent figuring out life and all its complex nuances.   I mean, the first 5 years are a wash — you don’t recall anything, and you’re just learning basics.   The next 15 you’re toddling through your childhood, blissful and ignorant, mostly ignoring the turmoil around you, until you hit adolescence, are suddenly told to act like an adult, get a job, and be mature, and then you spend the next 10 years figuring out, exactly, how to do so.   So by the time you emerge from the haze around 25 or so, you’ve generally got the course of the ship sorted out but you’ve spent over 1/4 of your life doing so.   Good job on the efficiency.

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen the movie Twilight and you know nothing about it and want to be completely surprised, then stop reading now.   If, however, you’ve read the book or at least know the basic premise, nothing will be revealed here that might detract from that.   I just had to warn those out there, like me, who had not read the books and had not seen the movie until last night.

At the end of the movie, Bella is presented with a curious choice:   Edward can easily make her into a vampire simply by biting her and letting the venom take its course, and then they can stay together forever (since vamps are immortal), but she becomes what he is, a “monster”, destined to stay the same age forever, constantly running away from suspicions and curious humans, attending high school over and over, and either sating her thirst with the blood of animals or falling to the burning desire to nurse on the carotid of some unfortunate sod.

Her family, friends, and others not afflicted similarly would fade away; grow old, sick, and die in time, while she remained the same in physical form, forever bearing the weight of the ages on her soul.

The bonus to this, however, is she gets to remain with her true love for all time; to never grow old, sick, or die; to have the strength to defend herself against almost anything and to do superhuman feats with ease.    She would easily get to experience centuries –  millennia — of human progress and invention, the ebbs and flows of societies, cultures, and countries, and to experience all that technology has to offer for the future.

But is the sacrifice worth the gain?

That is the question, and that is my question to you, dear readers — what is the solution to Bella’s Dilemma?

I admit; the appeal to become immortal and see all that is to come, to have the strength and ability to be diseaseless, and to retain that which is myself — my thoughts, my actions, my experiences that I took so long to acquire and paid such dear prices to have — this seems a wonderful thing, perhaps.    But at what cost?

Would you willingly expose your neck to the fangs of infinite opportunity in exchange for the everlasting stigma?   Or do you accept the ravages of time and the inevitable end?

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

I like wearing work boots; as a man, they are solid, tough — they mean business.   They lace up tight, no sissy crap here, and have demanding looks and ground-thumping tread.    Although they usually make my feet too hot, they make me feel that much taller, that much steadier, so the payoff is definitely worth any hassles.    They tell my feet that they can handle anything, step on anything, or grip whenever’s necessary on the roughest surface.   RARGH!

Other examples:

• Button-up Work Shirts — make me feel more professional than, say, a t-shirt, perhaps because they are thicker and have more layers and a collar.
• Suits — make me feel stuffy and contrived and not at all comfortable, so I’ll prefer to NOT have them when I can.   Unlike some folks, they don’t make me feel more professional.    I suspect that’s partly because I’ve never had a suit that really FIT very well, and I suppose if I went and dumped the Serious Cash(tm) on a real, fitted suit, I’d think otherwise.   But I have better things to spend my money on at the moment.
• Nice Jeans – Automatically, they make me feel like I should be going out somewhere, even if I’m not.   Put ‘em on, toss on a belt, put on some shoes or boots, and I’m feeling like I should be at a bar or something.
• Muscle Shirt — I think of working on something when I wear one of these; they indicate that I should be using my hands and arms to move something, lift something, do car work, handiwork, or something similar.    They’re not a sit-around-the-house shirt so much as a get-off-your-ass shirt.
• Tank Top – Instantly makes me feel white-trash, or naked, or both.
• Tool Belt — The ultimate in a man’s accessory line, a tool belt cinched up around my hips with various things hanging from it immediately ups my testosterone level by a third.    It’s just the sheer heft and connotation of it that I, Nathan, a Man, can come by and fix it, by god.
• Boxers — Always feeling like I’m half-nude whenever I wear boxers, as everything’s always flopping about, so to speak.   Very…disconcerting.

So, Ladies:

I often wonder about how clothes make YOU feel.    (And no, honey, I’m not planning on trying on your things.)   But really — I know how clothing makes ME feel, and I assume, most other guys, but…how about women’s clothing?    Do bras make you feel constrained or secure?    Are pantyhose sexy-feeling or are they just a nusiance?   When you wear a low-cut dress, does it make you feel exposed or hot?   Are skirts really drafty?    I’ve heard you can add lace to anything and suddenly feel better about it — true?

I find the way we all react to clothing just fascinating; most of those makeover shows are centered a lot around clothing.    Simply take a bum and clean him up and put him in a suit and suddenly you have a completely different person, both in how they look AND in how they act…isn’t it funny?

What do your clothes do (or not do) for you?   How do you feel when you wear particular things?   Curious minds want to know.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 10 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The problem is that the question for me is stupendously hard to answer; not so much because I don’t have any plans, but because the idea of a future for myself is so very hard to describe;   more often than not, I simply lack the vocabulary to express exactly what’s in my head about where I want to be.   I’m not talking about material or economic goals, but rather how I envision myself as a person.

KT Tunstall‘s song, “Suddenly I See“, is probably the closest expression to describing what I really desire to be, way down in the cockles of my heart, the real motivation behind what I am and do.   Despite the fact that she’s singing about a girl (probably a model or a celebrity), the sentiment is the same.    When I think about how I interact at work or in my personal life, the image of the person that leaves a positive impression on everyone they meet; someone you just notice when they walk through the door, and who leaves you with more than you had before — that is what I envision for myself.

And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm — KT Tunstall

The big problem is how to do this, and the bigger problem is how to accomplish it in such a way that I won’t compromise my core values and strengths.    I think I’m a rather nice guy most of the time, and I try my best to be sincere, genuine, and casual.   I don’t have any desire to be mean, nasty, or snotty, nor to exert a personal impression on others through the blatant display of power, hubris, or disdain.   Sure they’ll remember me, but not necessarily in the way I want.    I also don’t want to be pandering, like a slimy salesperson, trying to get the buck no matter what (or who) he has to sleeze up to get it.   I do have principles and prefer to keep calling my spades a shovel.

In a lot of ways, this is why I love interacting on the Internet, whether it be through my blog, website, Facebook, Twitter, or any other means.   Throughout my life, I’ve met some awesome people.   Through my travels, I’ve met tons more and am incredibly lucky to have tons of friends and family in an entirely different country, all of them great folk in their own right.  Via the wires and fiber optic cables of the nets, I have already and hope to continue to meet many more.

Why is this important?   Well, I don’t have a clear-cut plan on how to make myself someone that folks never forget or at least someone that leaves a positive influence on their lives, but I do know one thing — the more people I consider to be interesting, intelligent, engaging, and endearing that I surround myself with and interact with, the more I learn about what it means to be a good, decent, and dynamic personality.

Essentially, I’m learning about myself from a hand-picked section of humanity.

It’s hard to gauge how I’m doing or how far I have to go — the journey probably never ends.   Well, no doubt a eulogy at my funeral might be a good indicator (or how many people show up), but right now I’d rather be kept guessing if that’s my only means of evaluation.  I always like to think that I’m being as good and interesting as I can right now, but I also know I have much to learn and accomplish.   I just hope to always have exposure to all the best that is available through you, dear readers, and the many other people in my life.

So, I guess the question of the day is — how do YOU make a positive influence on all you touch and everyone you meet?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 8 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

There are so many aspects of our lives driven by the fact that we are physical beings.   Besides the metaphysical realities of having weight and height and being unable to walk through walls without serious lacerations, there are so many chemical and electrical impulses that our bodies respond to and that influence our mental and emotional states.

Just in case you’re not into thinking too much today, here’s a few examples:

Sleep – How many of you can go 48 hours or more without sleep?    Ok, college kids, put your hands down.   I’ll bet you’re mentally and emotionally changed by the time that 2,879th minute ticks by.    Science tells us that if you managed to stay awake for 5 days straight, you’d be dead.    I suspect 98% of us would be comically narcoleptic long before then.

Food and Drink — It’s just a fact that a gain or loss of food/drink in our systems changes how we think, feel, and act, no matter how you try to overcome it.    Sure, monks try to eat rice to make it as bland as possible, and they’re calm — but take away that Uncle Bens and I think you’d have some pretty pissed-off be-robed dudes.

Sex – Face it, you can be as new-age, modern, or celibate as you like and the drive to stick it into someone or have it stuck into you can still overwhelm us at the best of times.   That drive to at least aim for procreation can consume thoughts and alter our emotions and affect us physically — even when we struggle otherwise.

That’s just a few of the many scenarios that you could possibly come up with (I encourage you to make a list if you’re really that bored), but the point remains the same — there’s some forces that are physical that affect the mental. And we can’t seem to get away from it.

Meditation is often cited as that which can break us free from our physical bonds and give us complete control mentally, but the fact is when you’re done hummming and ooooohing all day long, you’re still as hungry as a bear.    Drop a deadly Ninja into a sea of slithering, oiled nymphs and I guarantee he’ll twig on.    It’s just the nature of things.

So — we have these massive physical forces that not even the best of us can walk through unscathed and unresponsive — why do we fight them at all?

Well, modern humans seem content on thinking that fighting one’s nature is a good way to improve oneself and to seek a higher state of thinking and being, since animals and plants obey their natures and don’t really rationalize their behavior, they just react.     This is why rabbits multiply like — well, rabbits, and eagles make lunch from mice.   I have yet to see a condor stop and go, “No, you know what?    I want the filet tonight, thanks.”   Humans are trying to get away from just reacting (except in the deep South), and I think that’s a good goal.

Therefore, we’ve determined that a) the physical affects us greatly and b) we’d like to break away from it if possible, or at least overcome it, so….c)   when do we say, “Enough is enough!”

This one is tough — when do you obey your physical nature over your mental?    Certainly I think it’s silly to say, “Eating is giving in to the physical — don’t eat!”     Everyone needs it to survive, it’s a part of the nature, and you can’t think straight without it.     But you definitely DO hear folks saying, “Sex is giving in to the physical — don’t sex!”    Silly, right?   But then again, we don’t have corner sex deli’s, either, and can’t grab a McScrew in a drive-thru.   (if you did, it’d clog your arteries, and not in a happy way).

So where’s the line?   Pursuit of a better, less-physically-influenced human is a great thing, but how far is too far?    Are we already suppressing our natures too much, or do we need even more restraint?   Obviously, these are important questions to figure out as we progress the human species forward for, if we are wasting our time sitting here philosophizing when we could be out eating, drinking, and “being merry”, why aren’t we clinking glasses already?

Your thoughts, gentle readers.    Soon to come:   The Controversies:   Nathan and Belief.    Stay tuned.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

Lucky for you, I’m here to set things back onto the straight, narrow, and funky.    Because, as you well know, the world needs more F.U.N.K.

I see the problem as a component of two difficulties:  Correct definitions and Correct actions.   These days, neither of the arrows shot at these two issues come anywhere near the bulls-eye (and most end up pegging Cousin Eddie), but I think with some plan-of-attack changes and management, it’s foreseeable to have a better handle on the world’s impoverished.

A Lack of Diamonds is Forever

Poverty is never going to go away; I know this because it exists because of a very fundamental part of the human psyche – greed.  This is not always a necessarily evil part of us, as it is the same part that enables us to survive and beat off the competition so we can catch the deer first, pick the best fruit, or mate with the least hairy of the females.   But it is this greed that also enables poverty to exist in the world, as it is a matter of someone not having what someone else has, and whether or not they have it legitimately, it is greed that prevents us from giving it up to the poorer.

The only real way around this is either a) a fundamental change in the way humans approach greed and the drive to survive, or b) socialism.   The problem with the latter is that, while a nice concept that everyone goes and shares and gets along and nobody ever backs over anyone else’s petunias, it doesn’t work.    Been there, done that, hello U.S.S.R., anyone?   The theory, again, violates human nature.   The former won’t happen until we all learn to transcend our physical bodies and turn into pissy little beams of light.   Unless you’ve got some mad skillz that you’re hiding from me these days, I think we’re a bit off of that one happening.

Why fight at all, then, if it will never go away?   Simple — because poverty, as defined, can be improved. That is, the level at which we accept that the worst off of us have to live can be raised.   Sure, they may not be ritzy by the time we’re done, but at least they won’t be swimming in their own feces, and I think that’s a good goal for starters.   That, and nobody should have to subsist on Twinkies.    Nobody except cockroaches.

Who is Poverty and Why is it in my Backyard Grilling Brats?

One of the biggest problems I think we have with poverty is Correct Definition.   If you ask someone, “So…what’s poverty?”   Sounds like a simple question at the get-go, but if you really ask, you might get a pretty widely varied answer.   This is because the actual definition of poverty, the one everyone else has, and the one we should be using are vastly different.

Essentially, when one thinks of “poverty”, either they imagine the fly-ridden, emaciated masses somewhere in the armpit of Africa, subsisting on a thimble of rice and mouse turd garnish, or they think of the godforsaken trailer-trash hells of Kentucky and similar areas.  Perhaps shacks come to mind if you’re feeling exceptionally generous.

The government, on the other hand, sets a “poverty level” at an income number that, frankly, some of us wouldn’t be sneezing at were we to actually make that in a year for sitting around and doing nothing.   It’s not a good wage – don’t get me wrong, but it’s better than Spam and ramen every day.

So, the first big problem is to get an essential, minimalistic level of poverty defined.   I might be in poverty compared to a corporate CEO, but I’m richer than heck to a bum in a cardboard box.   These definitions don’t help us and only cloud the issue.

Instead, we need to be specifying things like, “Nutrition that meets an average of 75% of the RDA” or “Shelter that maintains a dry and warm environment of at least 55F or higher”.    Specific, non-culturally-specific definitions are what will help us the most in starting to bring the level of living upwards.   Since we cannot, per above, eliminate it, we can at least establish a minimum level under which we want NO human to live is we (or Sally Struthers) can possibly help.

Wrong Direction, Tapioca Lobe

Many feel the way to attack poverty is to trot on down to the local homeless shelter and start handling out Twizzlers and cans of Yoohoo.   Unfortunately, while it’s going to make the guy in the brown-crusted bunk feel better for a few minutes (that is, until he gets massive heartburn), it doesn’t really do anything in terms of fighting the situation of the poverty he is in itself.

Thus are the efforts of thousands of organizations around the world wasted each year, battling poverty from the ground-up in providing food, clothing, and supplies to the en-roached masses, while the root cause of their desolation remains unresolved.

This is why I’m all in favor of top-down approaches to making the situation better.    Attacking the system that got people in the situation in the first place will ensure that it breaks once and for all, bettering their lives and their progeny as well.   Laws are a good start, but oftentimes influences like cultural influences, economic systems, and political turmoils play a vital role in establishing the standard of living experienced.    It is a complex and confusion game to play, heading off the system at the root, but it is the only one with true long-term advantages towards poverty.

That’s not to say I don’t support the bottom-up efforts; rather, these should be used as a stop-gap measure, not the primary means of assistance.    Their reward, while much more measurable than the former, is less sustainable.   Forward-thinking and visionary people will have to choose between giving bread to a man or fighting to change the economic system of his country such that a decent living isn’t out of reach anymore.    For those on the front lines, this is, no doubt, a bitter pill to gaze at levelly.

One must always be careful to closely analyze efforts in light of whether they are bottom or top attacks, as some can masquerade as the other.   For instance, teaching job skills or giving education to an impoverished group looks to be top-down, but is actually bottom-up if they do not have the resources to actually USE the skill in the end.   It makes no sense to teach job skills if there is not a sustainable job market waiting to absorb them on the other end.    Short-term solution, long-term problem = bad.

Skinny is Not Always Better

The particular extent to which a solution applies itself is also important to consider.   Widely-spread solutions are most often better because, although their effect may be muted due to being raked over a large problem area, they raise the net level of the whole place vs. only isolated pockets.   In other words, if you had the opportunity to give a buck to everyone in an entire city of low-income people, or $100 to one, particular person, the former solution is better because the entire populace will benefit, improving the situation as a whole, albeit by a tiny bit.

Finally, artificial situations are killing valuable donations all the time, and poverty especially needs to watch out for this trick question.   Going into an area and raising artificial job markets, education, resources, supplies, funds, etc. will not work in the long-term without support.   Efforts to combat poverty need to work with the local climes, not against them, and not in such a way that when all supports are pulled, that the cave collapses around the heads of the townspeople and they wonder what the hell just happened.

Is poverty solvable?   No.   Can we do better?   Yes.    Can we at least make poverty something that at least ensures you can eat, drink, and stay warm?   I like to think so.

What are your feelings on poverty and the problems we face with solving it — if it is at all?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Janet wrote about her birthday and so forth, as one often does. My comment was such:

First off, a very happy birthday, if belated.

Secondly, I wanted to comment on the phenomenon of birthdays. It’s funny — every year goes by and still a part of me wants it to be a day that’s somehow different from all the other ones, but the older I get the less remarkable they are. Is that the case with everyone — do we always want the day to be special, even if it isn’t?

I rather think it’s silly of us to expect our birthdays to be anything of note, but there’s some small kernel inside me somewhere that does. I’m not sure where that comes from — childhood expectations? Flirtatious hopes for something miraculous? I don’t know.

I don’t even mention my birthday anymore when it comes for fear that I’ll be perceived as being an ass and self-centered. (not that I’m calling you an ass, Janet, this is just how I feel) The question is, how important are birthdays anyway? How should we feel about them, really? Does it matter once you’re ancient like me? (30)

Aren’t we a funny species in what we do, celebrating the day we are born but ignoring the date of conception;  getting all tied up about when we get married but not the date when we met someone.   Who picked these dates in the first place as being notable?

So, dear reader, your thoughts?    And for the record, it is nowhere near my own date of birth, so this is not a subtle plea for recognition.  It is, very much, something that’s always plagued my thoughts.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 9 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

My good friend Henry recently introduced me to Bad Buddhist Radio, a podcast by Ryu Cope, a guy who is putting some practicality and sense into a rather old philosophy. I’m not all caught up with the episodes (there are over 50 now), but I’m loving it so far and it has caused me to muse more than once in the past few days.

When most people think of Buddhism, they think of it as a religion. Ryu clears this up pretty quickly in his first episode, telling some history of the school of thought and detailing the story of Siddhārtha Gautama, an ordinary guy who decided that life had some figuring out to do, and basically came up with four universal truths about life and an eight-faceted way of dealing with the difficulties therein.

The stuff about gods and religion and karma and so forth came years after Gautama got his vision for a better way of living, and Ryu is into bringing back the “true” Buddhist system of philosophy, discarding all the “add-ons” and liberal interpretations of the four noble truths and eight-fold path and just going back to the way that he thinks Gautama meant for people to think about his ideas.

I tell you, it’s been both an eye opener to some new ideas and an awful lot of nodding on my part, confirming much of what I’ve come to believe in my life; the concepts of seeing a situation as it truly is instead of through our own personal filters and bias, of living a life of truth and honesty because it truly is the best policy, and making sure that what you do is motivated by true and honest intention and not because someone else is making or influencing you to do so. Ryu is very articulate and has really opened my eyes to the Buddhist philosophy and I am eager to explore other interpretations and texts of it.

I think that, while Ryu is probably a bit brash and simplistic for someone out there looking for thick, heavy philosophic discussions, he is a fresh, very palatable speaker and keeps his audience well-entertained during his show while dishing up a good tutorial on the thought school and giving you something to think about at the end of the day.

If you’re even a little bit curious about Buddhism, I’d highly recommend his show, even for an overview of the philosophy. The Bad Buddhist is fun, amusing, and if you’re not careful, you might even learn something or find a new way of viewing the world. I know I have.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

If you’re anything like me, the sound of steel drums and bongos, instead of making me look cool in shades, dreads a-swingin’, and chilling out on a sunny beach, instead puts a bright spotlight above me with a neon sign that says, “White and GEEKY“. But, in reality, nobody has theme music. No one really has an orchestral cresendo when they lose their virginity. Life just simply doesn’t have a soundtrack.

So…where did they come from?

Have you ever thought about that? If I don’t naturally get a, “wha-wha-whaaaaa,” in the ear when I screw up, why do people get them in the movies? Oh, sure, I know that the music and sound effects adds to the emotion and drive of the film and gets people engaged in something that is, essentially, make-believe, but how did the first person that tried to emulate a sad situation pick out the muted trombone for the task? Would a tuba’s, “pa-bum, pa-bum” sound really sound like a fat man walking in a forest if you hadn’t heard it before?

I’m constantly fascinated by the sound effects and music that are picked to frost a motion picture. Sometimes the soundtrack is the main feature and you can tell that the power it has doesn’t even compare to the crappy acting and story behind it. Sometimes you are just aching to have someone bring in some orchestral support to a scene that seems dull and uninteresting without that support. And on the really good films, you don’t even notice it, because it fits together so perfectly that you are simply mesmerized.

Some soundtracks can continue to convey that emotion away from the movie itself and some sound completely and utterly idiotic without the supporting visual. Pirates of the Caribbean is a recording that I can listen to often without the movie, but while LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring sounds fine without the movie, LOTR: The Two Towers does not and is really only for diehards like myself that don’t get out on weekends and prefer knowing how many decilitres are in a hogshead. (about 2,385 if you were curious)

The emotion can be powerful — people have been swept away by the soundtracks of such classics as E.T., Rent, Titanic, and Harry Potter to say nothing of the multitude of violins that gave their lives for horror flicks and shark movies. The right music and timing can recreate anger, happiness, tears, joy, and sorrow, all at the flick of a conducting wand and a few good sound technicians. And yet, I have yet to figure out exactly how they know that a crescendoing line will bring me out of my seat and to the heights of adulation when that has never, ever happened in my real life.

Despite this purposeful deception and misleading, we humans seem relatively happy to let ourselves bask in the glory of the soundtrack and all of its effects. We are eager to let ourselves go to the mystical places that cinema takes us; the soundtrack is just another train to far away places, situations beyond our dull, dreary existences, a ticket to a lovely fantasy. And we’re all aboard and ready to rock.

So, think about that this week as you go about your “usual” activities. What would a composer be working on for you right now? Would that stupid move you just did earn you a circus riff? Would opening the door in a towel for the UPS man get you an oboe twittering along? Hum along with it a little because, you never know — someone might be recording your life’s soundtrack.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Three cheers for the euphoric inaction of the masses.

Don’t get me wrong — I love baby seals. I just can’t eat a whole one by myself.

The environmental crisis: Mother Nature’s way of possibly eliminating from her system one of the most annoying of parasites all the while the fleas attempt to analyze, test, and make plans for repairing the dog while still being able to suck blood at an alarming rate. “Compact Fluorescents!” they yell with exuberance. Net effect? Some hillbilly down in Kentucky, noticing the sudden drop in his electrical bill, upgrades his lamp to a 100 watt bulb. Such advances must be truly exhausting for the folks at Greenpeace.

I could not be pegged to be much of a die-hard for end-user environmentalism; it strikes me sour like the Democratic Party’s traditional way of approaching social ills such as poverty, jobless rates, and healthcare. The attitude of caring for the end instead of fixing the means turns rancid after a few iterations and people start realizing that bailing out the Titanic with a wineglass probably isn’t going to benefit the masses in the long run.

Likewise, whilst all of the bloggers out there today typing feverishly have the best of intentions and may even spark someone to think a little, their mutual clickity-clack orgy of plastic and electrons won’t remove the swimming pool that has suddenly appeared in the first-class dining room. While peace, love, and universal happiness practically streams out of the sparkling fiber today, I’m a little miffed by the fact that the train keeps on chugging despite the cow on the catcher, no matter how much she moos.

Where, then, should efforts be placed? This is the question on everyone’s mind; or, at least, should be, whether you are making your reforms for the true benefit of your planet or as a publicity stunt for The Corporation. The answer ends up being just as obscure as the data that assails us from every angle about the problems that currently exist, how they are issues, where they come from, and who is responsible. The glass covering the donations bin is at least as smoky if not more obscure than the windows on the world in the first place.

The first rung in the ladder that we climb is You. If you are a normal human being, you may read some of the postings for Blog Action Day, perhaps even muse about them, and then promptly jump into your gas-powered car and drive home tonight. Don’t worry — so will I. In fact, most of us will. Only the very few folks out there who have chosen to follow a life outside of mainstream society will be bicycling or riding a hemp-powered scooter or floating home in a hydrogen balloon. I certainly don’t think less of you because you’re doing what you have to do to stay alive and make your way, but it points to a greater influence than your simple vehicle choice.

You begin to climb the ladder of cause and effect as you move away from the reasons why you drive to work, or take public transportation, or other means. People have to get to work from places far removed from their jobs. They live at those places because they’re cheaper or nicer or safer than closer places. They are nicer/safer/closer because they’re newer. They’re newer because someone built them recently. Someone built them because they figured they could make money, and they did so because people with good jobs bought them. But now those people have to get to their jobs. Et voila. Haven’t we been here before?

The problems in environmental reform aren’t easy to pinpoint, but everyone seems to have a good idea of what they might be. Global warming. Pollution. Natural resources. Endangered species. Yet, when you really explore each of these, you discover that the reasons are problems can go backwards up a long chain of responsibility and causal relationships ad infinitum. This is not to say that a reasonable and impactable point can’t be found along each of these to effect change, it simply means that it may not be the most obvious, cheapest, or simplest. Teaching the masses to use hybrid cars isn’t always a win-win situation. There are real, economic, political, and psychological reasons for the way some things are and a movement to buy organic goods may not be effective enough to make a difference to those where their situations simply prevent them from taking a similar step.

So, the day will progress much as any other does, with cheery little blog postings smattering the ‘net and making those squishy little sounds that warm, sloppy kisses make upon landing on the lips of easy opportunity, and pupils will scan and twitch and read and comment until everyone has filled up their own buckets of responsibility and goodness to the brim, sighing contentedly. A few lights will be turned off quicker tonight; water will cease running for a few seconds less at every toothbrushing, and cars may be driven a little less forcefully on the commute home. But tomorrow is a new day — a new start for the world — and has anything really changed at all?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 9 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

The ability to use such a natural occurrence as something to jaw about to others has long been a staple of conversational science, starting from the time when homo erectus first looked out across the plains and muttered, “Shit. Ogg going to get plastered.” Upon first meeting new people, we are quick to bring up a common subject and discuss, at length, such items as rainfall, wind, temperature, and humidity, all the while feeling like we should have stayed home and watched Oprah Organizes Ohio. Despite the best efforts of our teachers in school to hammer the concepts of engaging, interesting dialogue into our thick skulls, the weather has become a quick-and-dirty tool to pull out in an effort to get some sort of rapport established and a relationship off to a start. First dates, traffic tickets, job interviews — there is simply no end to the situations that will bring out our intense, artificial interest in precipitation and why it ruined my leather deck chairs last summer.

You might very well feel uncomfortable dressed up in a suit and tie (mustard-stained wifebeaters being your preferred clothing of choice), but a few jabs concerning the recent thunderstorm that kept you up all night and sounded, “like a nuclear freight train from Hell on jungle juice“, with your fellow mourners and suddenly attending the celebration for your dead aunt isn’t so uncomfortable. We pull out the Weather Card in all sorts of uncomfortable situations, using it as both an ice breaker and a distraction from the nasty event at hand. Family gatherings, pre-makeout sessions where you’re simply stalling till it gets to the good part, weddings where you want to scream, “DON’T DO IT!!!”, and business meetings after the CEO has ripped a new hole in the fabric of space-time with his untimely utilization of burrito gas are all times in which we scramble frantically for the latest in weather and attempt to throw it out in the crowd so someone, anyone, can rescue the masses from themselves and get them hurridly back to inane chatter.

Everyone has weather and all people have an opinion on what state it is currently in, if any. Weather can have varied states, even between neighbours, despite the fact that George didn’t get any more goddamned hail than I got, but his tomatoes certainly look better, that bastard. What constitutes a state of “good” weather to a skier may be “horrible” to the débutante stuck in her house and blocked from exercising her wallet at the local bingo parlor — it all depends on your viewpoint. So, even though the wedding reception might have gotten rained on, you could easily have a three-hour argument with Uncle Jerry over whether or not it was a, “cool, refreshing rain” or a “soggy, bloody wet mess”. The possibilities for a good hearty brawl are nearly endless, and can only further relationships between you and your stinking, lying family members (may they rot in peace).

Different folks approach weather in different ways, often depending on their employment. Well-seasoned farmers sit around small country cafes; calloused, cracked hands cup lukewarm mugs of blackened mop water, be-seed-hatted heads nodding sincerely as their peer talks about next week’s weather report and how it will affect crop prices or the harvest. Golfers stand on front porches, their eyes scanning the horizon and looking a sign that they will be able to escape to the verdant fields of their pleasures yet again (thereby avoiding whatever list the wife has come up with), and baseball players both curse and praise the sun that allows them to play. Any change in the weather will have at least one person jumping for joy, one trying new profanity on for size, and a wide range of color in between. It is one of the few events in the world (besides an American presidential election) that can universally piss off and reward all at the same time to masses of people.

How we talk about the weather is almost as varied as when, our vocabulary and usage leaving no end to the possibilities of description and grammar when referring to what is happening outside. A “squall” is hardly definitive in its extent, and “sprinkling” clearly has a very wide range of interpretation. While a 20mph movement of air very well may be “windy” for a New Yorker, Chicagoians are stacking goose feathers outside in such weather. If you are smart, you will quickly learn to leave such generalizations as “hot” and “cold” out of your repetoire or you might face something like, “Hell, you shoulda been around for the winter of aught-four; the balls on the brass monkeys were falling like hailstones and one night even God froze solid and we had to crack open a volcano to thaw the bastard out!” Clearly, there is some discrepancies present in our terminology that not even a four-year degree can resolve and make proper enough to be 100% convincing during the five o’clock newscast.

So why is weather such an important aspect of our lives and our conversations, despite its fickle nature and hard-to-reconcile differences in opinions, attitudes, and viewpoints when discussing it? The fact is, weather is a global linker — it exists everywhere, all peoples have to contend with it, and its very nature both intrigues and flabbergasts us each on a regular basis. Despite the best efforts of so-called, “meteorologists”, the skill of predicting the weather ends up coming down to sticking your head out of doors and seeing if it comes back soaked. “My god, Betty. I do believe I was just beaned by a domestic shorthair! Time to get the kids under cover.” This places all of us into the same boat, cramped for space, dying for a sandwich, and completely unsure of the direction or speed of the ship, yet we heard that there’s at least a 50% chance that it’ll get better tomorrow. In the meantime, we shrug, nod our heads and sigh at the latest, ‘forecast’, and prepare to keep on plugging whatever it was before we got pulled away from our train of thought.

With weather, like many portions of life, an old adage seems to apply the best:

If you don’t like the weather around here, just wait a few minutes — it’ll change!

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

This is not a new concept, as it was conceived in 2004 by Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski as a way to bring people together for soothing sessions of touch without moving past that into the realm of eroticism. “Sounds like an opportunity for an informal orgy to me!” you might be saying to yourself, my astute and perceptive reader, but real, moderated Cuddle Parties do not allow anything of the sort to happen. While there may be some more informal events that result in more than just snuggling next to someone else, the official gatherings are overseen by trained “lifeguards” that ensure any overt sexual energy is safely and harmlessly dispersed without anyone getting wound up too tight. They have quite the FAQ and rules list that details the expectations and questions that arise from such possibilities.

This idea of a group of people getting together merely to touch and be touched has fascinated me for a long time. I have long been someone who has a, “touch tank” that needs to get filled from time to time to keep my sense of wholeness strong, and so the thought of having an event where this takes place in large numbers is rather intriguing. Sure, there’s a part of my mind that embraces the idea of canoodling with some attractive person of the double-X chromosome type, but even Cuddle Party accepts the idea that being attracted to others is all a part of the system. After all, who doesn’t like curling up with a hottie?

It certainly does edge on the realm of “Hippie Land” and approaches the idea of human interaction from a very different angle, but at the same time, it brings to mind a lot of interesting thoughts. For instance, would the human race be better off if we touched each other more? I think it’s pretty damned hard to be mad or upset with someone when they are in your arms. Office politics just wouldn’t be the same if we greeted coworkers with hugs and sat around board rooms on beanbags and sharing a quilt, right? These are extremes, of course, but the thought of letting closeness that is brought out in a Cuddle Party, between absolute strangers, trickle down into ‘normal’ society is fascinating.

Think of the entrepreneurial possibilities for a Cuddle Parlor! I think there would be pretty good money in establishing a business where you can arrive, change into a pair of PJs, and choose some employees to cuddle with. Perhaps you want a half hour session of nestling underneath a warm quilt with an attractive member of the opposite sex, or maybe you’d rather pick a few people and form a puppy pile. Instead of the brothel idea to provide sex to its clients, you’d be providing non-sexual touch and reassurance in a physical way. You fill some rooms with mattresses and quilts, some with beanbags, hang some hammocks, and sleeping bags are available just around the corner. People who are trained to cuddle only, dispel any sexual overtones, and guide newbies in the art of snuggling would be available to help remove the stresses of the world for awhile in a warm embrace. The options are both breathtaking and endless in the same shot.

I think participating in one of these parties would be a great experience; of course, provided that my wife was along and up to the game. (I’m not about to offend She Who Makes Life Worth Living or make her jealous.) That being said, I sincerely doubt that there will be any of these cropping up in the Midwest where people generally follow the beaten path and men are fond of the phrase, “I told you I loved you when I married you; if anything changes, I’ll let you know.” It does, however, sound like something that could more easily happen in a liberal college environment where boundaries and societal taboos are stretched a bit more than in the regular world. (Come to think of it, I think I had some cuddlefest moments back in the day, but they were usually me trying to hang on to my roommate because my knees had become pudding-ified with too much vodka.)

So, how about you? Do you think you would ever dare participate in one of these events? Do you consider yourself the cuddly sort or would this completely violate your personal space and make your skin crawl?

The world tends to be big, nasty, and unforgiving, but maybe in the solace of a warm room, a pair of pajamas, and the arms of another human, we each could escape for a moment and just be. Maybe someday — we all can.

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

I’ve always known that there was a continuing trend towards alternative education and the upbringing of children, but in recent years it has gotten even more obvious that there is a leaning towards the “feel good”, non-consequential instruction of our youth, mainly started and perpetuated through our public school system where, suddenly, you can no longer “win” or “lose”, everyone simply succeeds or fails together. I’m unsure if this is derived from our crappy legal system’s kneejerk reflex for litigation or simply because we have become wishy-washy, but it is, at the heart, a disturbing trend.

The world simply doesn’t work that way, in an “all’s fair” manner, and preparing our children for a reality that doesn’t exist is poor parenting at best, and abuse of perfectly good minds at worse.

Tony Woodlief, author of the pamphlet, Raising Wild Boys into Men: A Modern Dad’s Survival Guide, has outlined this shift of concentration on fairness and entitlement in an article in The Wall Street Journal, entitled, “Don’t Suffer the Little Children“. He quotes from the economist Thomas Sewall who, 20 years ago, separated human world attitudes into “constrained” and “unconstrained” ones, the latter being the utopial, free-love folk, who believe in the goodness of humankind and their potential to be geniuses and philanthropists, whereas the former understand that, while this is a nice sentiment indeed, some jackass is still going to screw them over at the used car dealership if they turn their back.

While the unconstrained worldview teaches that traditions and customs are to be distrusted as holdovers from benighted generations, those of us with the constrained view believe it’s good to make our children address their elders properly, refrain from belching at the table and wear clothes that actually cover them.

This I cannot disagree with, and will vehemently argue that, in general, respect carries you 300% farther than disrespect, even if it seems that the situation would warrant a more informal attitude. Besides that, children learn best by example and by repetition of core activities, and to relax those in the face of a casual situation means you are asking for them to forego the principles at the most inopportune times. I know we will have to force our children to act in a proper manner in the privacy of our own home, when the curtains are pulled, so when we get into a public situations we won’t find one of them buried up to their hips in the cocktail sauce, cheeks bulging with carefully stowed shrimp.

He continues with a passage in which I start to see a few places where I differ slightly from his opinions:

It’s not surprising, then, to see Mr. Sowell approvingly cite Edmund Burke’s observation that traditions provide “wisdom without reflection.” This is lived out in our house by the dictum that parents are to be obeyed first, and politely questioned later. That seems oppressive to parents with the unconstrained worldview, who want to nurture Junior’s sense of autonomy and broad-minded reasoning. It’s awfully useful, however, when Junior is about to ride his bike into the path of an oncoming car. Obedience may be a dirty word in progressive schools and enlightened parenting circles, but it saves lives.

At first, the Sowell quote got me in a bit of a tizzy as the subphrase, “without reflection”, is a sure red flag in any philosophically-geared mind, as the entire school is about investigation into statements of truth. However, he rescues this by the qualification that the parents are to be, “politely questioned later”. However, I wonder how far Mr. Woodlief’s opinions go in terms of what his children can and cannot question, and how much freedom they are allowed to explore in non-lifethreatening environments.

While I can fully agree (and will probably practice) a “obey now, think later” approach when it comes to most commands handed down from me, as a parent I feel I also have an obligation to let my child, in controlled and monitored ways, explore options and ideas without restriction. Younger children will not, obviously, be given as much leeway, and the ‘letting go’ portion of my parenting experience will no doubt be fraught with second-guessing and much trepidation, but will be necessary in larger and larger amounts as my child begins to take on the responsibilities once assigned fully to me.

Essentially, controlling your children to the utmost will not do any more good than allowing them completely free reign, because it denies them the ability to screw up. That being said, unlike the unconstrained folks, swift and decisive correction and explanation must follow any misdemeanour so as to provide the necessary instruction to the child. The delicacy of this entire situation is that there is a very thin tightrope to balance on between control and freedom, and that is the line both me and my wife must strive to walk as best as possible.

I am absolutely enamoured, however, with Woodlief’s admonition that children are not entitled to anything and the recent trend towards a sense of ‘ownership’ of their lives and opportunities, yet without the responsibility of the consequences of their actions, has steamed me and continues to be something I swear my children will not exhibit in their personalities.

You are born in bondage and should be darn grateful for the free room and board. Besides, if you want to talk about restrictions on liberty you can take it up with your mother, who hasn’t had an uninterrupted trip to the bathroom since 2001.

This sounds so incredibly like my own parents that I grin every time I read it. I was frequently told, as a child, that I was welcome to walk out at any time, but I was to leave my clothes on the floor and take nothing with me, as none of it was mine to take. Needless to say, nobody ever saw my bare ass marching down the road with a thumb in the air, so I apparently got the point or wasn’t mad enough to make good on my threat to “run away forever”.

At the heart, Woodlief’s article revolves around one of the principles I’ve believed for a long time — humans are, at their core, beings driven by greed without any sort of safeguards at all. We are greedy for food, love, money, jobs, power, position, recognition, acknowledgement…without any restriction on these tendencies, society would fracture into factions each interested in obtaining the best situation for themselves to the exclusion of the other sects, and ultimately, to the exclusion of each other. We can observe this today as the gap between the poor and the rich widens and the middle class bands together to take on the rich at their own game, yet in a completely self-serving manner.

Everyone is, essentially, out for themselves. It is the principles of morality and ethics, coupled by a sense of responsibility, accountability, and compassion that keeps us from becoming an awful, rouge species. As parents, we are therefore charged with the correct instruction and corralling of our children so that when they have grown and taken over at the wheel of the world, they do not wreak chaos in the fabric of non-evil give-and-take that so many have worked so hard to establish. The last thing I want is my kid sending Earth to the shitter because I failed to whack his/her bottom when they needed it.

Regardless of my abilities and accomplishments, however, they’re going to end up policing the ones that do run amok, which will probably include a few children themselves, the lucky schmucks. Best of luck to all of us.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 5 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

There are, however, a lot of jobs out there to which people say they have been, “called”, the most common being of the religious field. Others include various charities or service organizations, as well as teaching, instructing, and musical fields.

This is a curious idea in my head, to be “called” to a profession instead of simply picking it.

First in my mind is an analysis of the term itself — called. Clearly, nobody picked up a phone, rang up these people, and told them what to do. They did not receive a letter in the mail dictating their lives, nor a whack on the head from a passing stranger. Many religious figures would no doubt describe “divine intervention” or communication of some form, a miracle, sign, or transmission from on high, as it were. That covers the clergy, but what about teachers and people working for service organizations? Did they receive a memo from God? I suspect many would say their “heart” moved them to do what they do. I don’t know about you, but talking organs freak me the hell out.

Secondly, say they receive one of these ‘calls’ by whatever means they get — why believe it? Why listen to some sort of mental blip that says, “Go be a preacher!”? Unless you had one of those visions where the sky breaks open, a light shines down, and doves alight on your shoulders with olive branches and manage not to soil your Sunday best, why would you not just think to yourself, “Goodness, what a weird thought.”? Are you in the habit of listening and acting upon every thought that enters your mind? I’d be in big trouble if I did.

Or say you pass by a poster in the hallway describing a charitable organization’s efforts somewhere in famine-ravaged Africa and suddenly feel a tug on the ol’ heartstrings to join up — why act on it? Why not just say, “Wow, I’m a human being, that really hits me. Hrm. I wonder what’s for supper?” And yet there are hundreds if not thousands of people who, each year, join such efforts on exactly such whims.

I knew quite a few people like this during my time a Luther College. Most of them were a little strange to start with, so it wasn’t so much of a stretch to think of them traipsing off into the wilderness and fighting malaria with a pointy stick. They were often the sort of people that you’d imagine finding in burlap, sucking the cream from grasshoppers, and generally living it up in a small gully on the edge of a rainforest. But a good deal of them were perfectly normal folks who turned a very sharp corner at some point in their lives and decided on an alternate path.

It does seem that most of the things one can be “called” into as a profession (or a way of life) are service oriented and low-paying. Very few preachers pull down the big bucks, and unless you’re a televangelist with a schmoozey attitude, the white collar and Corvettes don’t match. You don’t hear of Peace Corps volunteers with mansions — it just doesn’t happen. Teachers are some of the worst shat on in this country and yet they continue to regularly bend over for the job.

So, sometimes I wonder if people don’t make up this whole, “calling” thing to justify why they are going to spend their lives doing hard work, getting low pay, and enduring crappy working conditions. It’s like they’re saying to their parents, “Well, Mom and Dad, I would be a surgeon and make millions, but I’ve been called. I hope you understand.” The parents, not to dare go against something as sacred as a call, just nod their heads and resign themselves to a mac’n'cheese child.

Many denominations of the church use calling as a way to transfer preachers from one place to another. “Reverend Willaby has been called to St. Louis.” Bullshit. Billy-Bob has gotten a job offer for a bigger and better church to preach at than Dinkport, MO, and is moving there because he likes the area and the pay better. But it seems almost sacreligious to say a minister wants to get — shock, horror — PAID well. For shame — you’re doing God’s work! So it’s almost like a conspiracy: “Don’t say you’re going for the money, just say you were called there — they can’t say anything to that!” I’m sure sometimes it’s legitimate, but a lot of the times, it looks like a racket.

So…what do you think? Are you called to your profession, or do you simply do it because that’s what you went to school for and it pays ok? If you feel you’re called, why? What event was it that inspired you to choose this path and not something else? Do you question the senility of your decision? If you don’t feel you’re called, would you change if you got a call, or would you just lay off the whacky weed?

The phone’s ringing, but is it a call or just a telemarketer?

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