The older child speaks

I’ve had a few computer catastrophes lately. Whenever I resolve to do something like this blog, and I get behind it, life throws obstacles at me, and usually I just flake out. But in this case, it’s improved my resolve. I NEED to do this, so I’m still here, though I was ahead of the game in writing, so if I didn’t have anything I’d have a few days to catch up. Losing the back log slows me down, plus there’s the fact that I haven’t had a computer for days, so I haven’t been updating obviously.But I have a computer again, so I’m here.

 So I guess I’ll talk about my age. As I write this, I’m 20 hours short of being 48. I work in a hotel for near minimum wage. I’m divorced. And I feel about as successful as a person can feel. Because for me, I think you have to base success on the only thing that matters in life - joy, happiness and love. And I have had an abundance of all three throughout my life. I guess someone who does rate life on financial, commercial or business success could cry sour grapes, but I don’t see it that way. I’m very proud of the fact that I've never burned any huge section of my life chasing the almighty dollar, or devoting my life to a career for its future potential. I've really tried to live every moment, and enjoy it.  And I've spent most of my life happy, despite the roadblocks, the personal failures, and the disconnections that do occur. I miss some people I have lost (more on death in another post) but I also love the ones I have so much, I just can’t imagine things another way.

I think back. I would have liked to have saved my marriage, but the truth is I made my wife happy for a few years, and she’s happy again where she is now, and that’s good. It means I've helped someone I loved on their journey, and whatever my frustrations, how can I feel bad about that.

And I love where I am. I’d like more time. I’d like to free myself from a ‘clock in’ type job., but actually I think that’s possible, in a way I never did before. And there’s one more thing that I think keeps me young. I’m still learning. I’m still learning about life, love, computers, music, religions, and well, everything. As long as there is more to learn, more to embrace and more to look forward to, well that’s all youth is isn’t it? So I’m happy that I am still so young, to see the world of hope and possibility lay before me, and look forward to another 40 years of childhood, before I become the bitter curmudgeon many of my friends think I already am.

And now that I have left my house and restarted things, I don’t have a lawn to chase people off of like a bitter angry old man, so there’s that.

Honest to a fault?

I once recently read someone who said that they did not like the phrase honest to a fault. For them it seemed like using honesty as an excuse to avoid tact. I get that and I agree with it. Because in that case, the fault isn’t the honesty, it is the lack of tact itself. There really is no situation where honest is a fault.

In the classic scenario of a woman asking “how do I look in this outfit” honesty is still required. If she asks the question, she wants an answer, at least I think so. She is asking your help, to make her look like she wants to. She is asking your help, and by lying, you deny that help. Be direct and honest but you can do that while also using tact.” Other  dresses look much better on you” for example.

I have people in my life who have faced me with painful truths, and I am grateful to them, for while others avoided confronting me, indeed, perhaps avoided me all together, others have stood to me and told me things they knew that it would be painful for me to hear, because my awareness is the only way I could improve.

I’ve had hygiene issues, loudmouth issues, and a few other barriers in my social interactions, and I’m rarely (if ever) aware when they are happening. It takes someone facing me, and helping me understand what I am doing for me to discover it, and upon its discovery, change it.

And I try to do the same. I had one friend, who when he was not around, every woman I knew would speak poorly of him. Of how they thought he leered, how desperate he seemed, and how he always seemed to treat them like an object. Thing is I knew this guy. He was a feminist, and a heartfelt guy. So I took it upon myself to let him know. Not to call any woman out, but to let him know how his actions were being viewed. No one had ever talked to him. Just about him. Just around him. I felt someone needed to talk to him. Not to belittle him, not to judge him, but to help him stop, to help him improve. It worked, almost instantly. He made a concrete effort, asked me for advice and for cues when he was acting inappropriately. He backed off. And no one looks at him that way now. So the truth is he was a great guy, and had no idea what signals he was sending. Awareness was the key to understanding.

I recommend the Kindle singles book Lying by Sam Harris. He looks at many of these issues and has reached the same conclusions as I. That even white lies are damaging. One thing he does mention is there is something called ‘messages of expectation.” If someone asks you a question, and you know sincerely and surely that they do not want a real answer, but it is more a phrase or politeness, than the polite response is not a lie.

For instance “how are you today” from a total stranger. They don’t really want to hear about your cough, your friend’s illness, or how your rheumatism is flaring up, at least not usually. In this case, “I’m fine’ isn’t a lie, it’s a programmed response. I reacted to this at first, because truthfully if I were to ask someone how they were and they were to tell me, I would appreciate it, but I do get that most people don’t. So I can see how it’s acceptable.

What do you think? What’s the right answer to ‘how are you’ if fine feels like a lie?

And while I’m asking…and since I haven’t gotten any comments on this blog yet, how are you today?

Capitalism and the root of evil

I may shock some people here, but I don’t think the capitalist system is all bad. The premise as I see it is this. Each person is free to pursue ideas, and make things or provide services, and charge for them. Doing work or providing ideas in exchange for some kind of return.

It might be that you will discover that you can increase how much profit you make, by getting some more people to help you with the work, and giving them some share of the cash generated. On the whole this is a good system. If the people doing the hiring continued to think of it in terms of a sort of partnership, where the person helping is making it possible to make more money, and they should get some share of that, there would be economic justice.

Instead, we think of it as wages. Instead of thinking of the corporation or company as ‘everyone in it” we think of the owner and stockholders as the company, and those in it as ‘employees.’. Everyone in the machine, is part of the machine, and everyone who works, deserves credit for that work. If I generate a million dollars for you, it is not reasonable to keep 900,000 for yourself, put 90,000 back into the company, and compensate me with 10,000. If any employee position is not in some way helping your company do better, be better, or make more money in SOME way, you’d have never hired them in the first place.

That bears repeating. No company anywhere ever, would hire anyone if it was not beneficial to the company. Your job is not some glorious gift from the company. The relationship is symbiotic. They need people, and people need the job. The one sided view of employers as gift givers and even owners, is ludicrous.

Everyone matters.  Everyone counts. The idea that if my company succeeds I succeed is fundamental to how the process should work, how it has to work. If that’s not true anymore (and let’s face it, it hasn’t’ been true since the 1960’s) the system is broken.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Geenfield wrote a book which outlines the idea that a company can be ethical and still be profitable. Lets face it, they’ve done well. And they had rules when they owned the company, that the highest  paid employee could make no more than 30 times the lowest paid employee. And they got wealthy doing it. They aren’t the richest people in America, but how wealthy do you need to be. Their children's children may never have to work a day if they don’t want. I think that’s enough to legitimize the American dream, and they did it while helping their country and it’s economy, instead of destroying it.

Double Dip: How to be ethical and make money too

The greedy idea that if I just get you to make  more money for me, and give you as little as possible, I get richer, is destroying America. If you create something, you deserve some benefit for that. I’m not insisting wage  shares be equal, but they should be equitable. And they aren’t.  Not even close.

Not a review: Peace Love and Misunderstanding

So you might think you are coming in in the middle sometimes. I guess we all are. There are numerous incarnations and attempts of this blog before. This is the first real post of this incarnation. So sorry to have lost old stuff, but at the same time, every once in a while I need to start fresh, and tell myself this time I’ll keep up with it. So welcome back for the first time.

Every once in a while I like to talk about some of the many movies I watch here. I don’t like to review them, because you can find reviews anywhere. I’d rather just use the experience of viewing as a launching point for conversations. I think the best movies get you thinking about things outside the movie. This is part of my ‘Not a Review’ series.

We recently saw the movie, Peace Love and Misunderstanding. Jane Fonda plays a 60’s hippy living at Woodstock, who tries to reconnect with her straight conservative daughter. Since this isn’t a review, I won’t bother to go into much more detail than that, because there was just one thing that struck me after the fact.

In one scene, one character belittles Jane Fonda’s character for her promiscuity. The guy then defends her saying, “Well, I think she just uses it to cover up her loneliness.” And of course my wonderfully trained mind just nods and says ‘yeah.’

But there is no sign anywhere that this is true. Her character seems happy with most aspects of her life (except for her disconnection with her daughter and her grandchildren). She does not seem apologetic, desperate or sad about her relationship life.

Here’s an alternative idea. Maybe she likes sex. Maybe she enjoys sharing joy and love with others, and is comfortable enough with herself to do that. We are trained to believe that someone who is promiscuous cannot possibly be happy with it. And even I buy into it sometimes.

I write this not because I am a promiscuous person. I’m not. I never have been really. Well not by my standards anyway. By some I’m sure my numbers are staggering. But I’ve never been the sort to just hop into bed without thought of consequences, of calls tomorrow, and of future entanglements. But the truth is I’m not that person. Part of me wishes I could be that, and another part of me is glad I’m not, because there are consequences, emotional and physical (such as disease exposure), and maybe I think it takes a callous person to disregard all that. Or at least that I'd have to be less concerned. I guess fantasy is always different than reality. I am happy with who I am, but I still imagine different scenarios, and different me's,. The point is, I cannot say someone who chooses a wilder life, is not happy. I can only say they aren't me, but i can certainly imagine it.

If you are emotionally able to be happy sharing love then why not be promiscuous? Can someone be happy and sexual at the same time? Why does someone who wants to share pleasure automatically have to be sad and lonely?  I can certainly envision a person who is comfortable and happy with themselves, who wants to experience pleasure and share pleasure. That person may have a single partner or they may not. Even though having a life partner is something I desire and I am glad to have, I don’t think it is necessary to every person’s individual happiness.

 But I think we are jealous of people like that, and tear them down. We don’t have the power or ability to be promiscuous ourselves. I think we are so jealous of that freedom, that we sour grapes it, and say they can’t really be happy like that. That sexual relationships strung together instead of being one deep sharing after another, must be shallow exchanges, leaving the person empty and alone. We take the sexually liberated free person, and imagine them to be a victim of their own excesses, instead of admiring their understanding of themselves, and their ability to be free.

It’s like locking ourselves in a cage because it’s safe, and then imagining how scary it must be to live out in the big free world, with no bars or boundaries to protect you. How lonely it must be, to be without a cage.

And so it begins anew. This is my Phoenix from the ashes.