Spirituality and the new year

The new year is more spiritually significant to me than Christmas is.  The new year is something very real--our planet completes a full cycle around the sun, and the seasons are set to repeat.  The exact date to mark a year completed is arbitrary, but once you start keeping track, at some point you have the start of a new year.

The story of the birth of Christ troubles me more than it inspires me to celebrate.  I don't want to be a junior high school essayist here, so you can go elsewhere for intelligent thought regarding Christ worship.

I'm not sure that the new year is spiritual to me.  I have the problem of being an atheist who doesn't believe in the supernatural but is spiritually curious.  Yeah, the fact that there is something rather than nothing is as spiritual as any mystical assertion, and art and love move me deeply.  But I'm not sure that I experience spirituality.

About the weather

I'm not any kind of Pagan earth-based spirit, new age smaggler, but I have an appreciation for what a blizzard can do.  Obviously I don't want a storm to damage anyone's health or property.  But it is certainly nice to see the world stop for a day due to things beyond our control.  I love sitting by the window sipping tea and watching the world come to a halt.  It is the inconvenience factor that moves me.  We are forced to break our routines.  I don't envy those who have to be somewhere no matter the weather, and I've been in that situation.  But I find a tranquility in it all.

Xmas Failure

No, it ain't working.  I'm not a Christian and I don't like Xmas.  Nonbelievers need to stand up and shun Xmas.

Capturing the spirit

I haven't had a religion-filled Xmas since I was just a little kid.  But I feel a spark of spirit in this one.  Nothing canned, just an affirming sense of goodness resulting from rethinking the way I participate in the spiritless commercial hellfest.  Sticking to my commitment to shop locally has been gratifying.  I care deeply about my community, and it feels right to act in line with that.

JohnEdwardsScamFreak

Q: Should our political candidates be proud family men?
A: No.

Q: Should their sex lives matter to us?
A: No.

Q: Why then should we be offended by Edwards?
A: Because he claimed to be deeply in love with his wife and paraded her around as part of his political brand.  And he turned out to be full of shit.

Q: What does this have to do with your search for substance?
A: Authenticity is part of the search.  The voting public pushes candidates to paint a picture of a wholesome family life whether it is real or not.  I'd rather candidates keep quiet about such things.  They can have whatever affairs they have, but it would be less scandalous if they never claimed to have been moral superstars in the first place.

Meaningful work

In our time of high unemployment, it is hard to say much about what kind of work is meaningful.  When so many people are out of work, even shit jobs have meaning.  In times like these, just being valued enough to be paid to do something beats the alternative of full rejection.  So this is perhaps a subject for better times, and a mere thought exercise in these hard times.

I know that there's a risk of appearance of elitism that runs with a discussion of what constitutes meaningful work, since it could seem intuitive to propose that low-end jobs are less meaningful.  But I think, to the limited extent I've thought about this, the claim of elitism can be dropped.  I remember the scene in Bonfire of the Vanities where the protagonist is unable to explain his Master of the Universe job to his young child.  I found that to be a poignant test of the meaningfulness of a job.  A janitor can easily explain to a child that he keeps a building clean.  But the novel's high-earning financial worker can't explain much beyond "I make a lot of money."

Making money is typically enough meaning for a worker, and that is ok for someone who is more family oriented than career oriented.  In that case, work is a means to an end--to support a family.  It probably is important that the worker doesn't compromise himself for the work.  But otherwise, work merely for pay isn't without respect.

There can be some simple tests of how meaningful your work is:

• Do you enjoy your work?
• If for some reason you could not do your work professionally, would you do it as a hobby?  Or if you were very wealthy and did not need the income, would you still continue your work in some form?
• Is your job compatible with your values?

I might want to think more about this.

Does everything happen for a reason?

I think the outright assertion that everything happens for a reason is easily refuted.  Over 200,000 human beings perished in the 2004 Asian tsunami.  The number of Jews killed in WWII is nearly half of the current total Jewish population.  And, well, if we are talking numbers, around 60 million people died in WWII.  If these things happen to teach us a lesson, perhaps appreciation of human life, it is quite literally overkill.

I think that people who claim that everything happens for a reason often mean that a benevolent god makes these terrible things happen.  And although they may seem terrible to us, they are means to some benevolent end.  But come on, that would be at the very least an inefficient method of achieving a benevolent outcome--whatever the heck that could be.

But at a very personal and subjective level, the spirit of the idea can make sense.  An individual may face terrible adversity, find personal meaning in it, and make the best of it.  It isn't necessarily that every terrible thing that happened to such a person happened for a reason.  It is more the case that the person wouldn't be who he is today without having these experiences, and he embraces his sense of self.

Real

Fewer than 2% of Americans work on farms, but about 20% dress like they do.  Our rural mythology, with the popularity of country music, Ivy League presidents speaking like country bumpkins, and men wearing cowboy hats at the mall, is fitting for a pre-industrial nation.  George Carlin wondered why it is socially acceptable for adults to dress up as cowboys, but not as pirates.

I should be fair.  Many people wear the baseball cap of "my team" that they certainly don't play for.  And if you really find that a cowboy hat protects you from the sun and rain or it represents your authentic culture, then I'm with you.

And I happen to think that a lot of country music is purely awesome.  Sometimes it is a mix of original rock styles with modern folk sentiments that is hard to dismiss.  There are hipsters like Ryan Adams (no, not Bryan) who have strong country edge to their music.  And of course some of it, like in any popular genre, is trash.

There's a song that I wouldn't normally care for, but it is partly in line with my quest for substance.   It is called "Real" and it is by James Wesley.  It makes the simple point that reality TV lacks substance.  He sings:

Where I live, housewives don't act like that
And the survivors are farmers in John Deere hats
Our amazin' race is beatin' the check
Prayin' that the bank ain't ran it through yet

 That sounds about right.

Shopping

I'm not a Christian, but I can't avoid the Christmas gift exchange without coming across as a total lunatic.  However, I am thinking this year I could be a principled shopper.  I'm not thinking reusable bags or any of that feel good bullshit.  My guiding shopping principle will be to avoid chains.  Under that umbrella, principled shopping acts at chains don't count.

Perhaps I'll give gift certificates from local places that people happen not to patronize despite their proximity.  That would mean business plus increased awareness for a store, since it requires the receiver of the gift certificate to enter the store.  And I know a fair amount of gift certificates are never redeemed.  If that happens in my case, I'll count it as a donation to the store.

Yeah, this is good.  If I am going to take part in the madness, I will direct my cash away from chains.  I'll have to do a little research, but that might be fun.

The diminishing returns of convenience

Labor-saving conveniences make a life of physical inactivity possible.  This outcome probably seemed desirable before we reached it, since for much of history people had to toil endlessly just to avoid starvation, and that toil itself was probably not only unpleasant, but unhealthy.  So with every incremental technological advance that relieved us of some of that burden, the idea of a life requiring no physical exertion could have seemed like a distant, yet attainable ideal

Our modern freedom from physical demands is a freedom to be idle, not a mandate to be so.  Obviously we have a tendency toward laziness.   I would guess that this drive to conserve our energy served us well as cavemen with limited caloric intake.  But now we risk our health and well-being when we live inactively.Perhaps the health-minded individual can take advantage of our victory over labor and obtain his needed amount of exercise only through enjoyable activities.  Playing tennis rather than harvesting barley.  Kayaking instead of running from a mountain lion.

But I think another option is to find a balance between labor-saving technology and physical labor.  By doing so, we can stop resenting a fair amount of physical work, since it fills our need for physical activity.  For example, we may want to reject powered lawn mowers, weed whackers, and snow blowers.  Shoveling and pushing a reel mower are pretty good exercise.  You just have to remind yourself that people actually pay for gym memberships.

This is one of a bunch of ways automobiles and their supporting infrastructure have diminishing returns.   Driving to all your destinations just isn't healthy.  (I find that driving somewhere and seeing the motion outside the windshield gives me a false sense of physical exertion.)  Living in a walkable community, one can incorporate regular, pleasurable physical activity into daily life.

I think a healthy amount of physical activity helps us feel more like our whole selves, where we embrace our animal capacity to use our physical bodies.  We should of course enjoy our freedom from excessive toil, but some activity is a necessary part of a healthy and worthwhile life.

What to do about cars

Choice of car doesn't necessarily even represent how wealthy the owner is.  I remember a coworker who held multiple low-skilled jobs in order to finance a car he couldn't normally afford, and I know young adults living with their parents and putting most of their income into their cars.  There are wealthy folks who drive shitboxes.  Above all, there is a limit to how much a car be used as a sign of wealth, since just by being behind the wheel, you are showing the world that you are not wealthy enough to pay a driver.

However, I'm interested in substance, not wealth.  So my question to myself is how to apply my quest for substance to my choice of a car.  One possibility is to use common sense and buy a car with basic features and a reputation for dependability.  Any additional money that I could have put toward a luxury car can instead be spent on things that matter more to me.  That could be as simple as putting it into savings to strengthen my financial independence, or forwarding some of it to a cause I believe in.  Or in someone else's case, this could mean working fewer hours of overtime.  But mainly, the money wouldn't be eaten by the car.

I'd like to think deeper here.  Why limit myself to a choice of which kind of car, when there is a very real question of whether having a car at all brings more substance than it takes away from my life.  Without a car you can save a shitload of cash and eliminate worries about parking, accidents, and maintenance.  I know, most people consider their car a necessity, and it is.  But the car is a necessity only if your lifestyle makes it so.  The choice is more than whether to have a car or not, but whether to choose a lifestyle that doesn't require one.

What does a car-free lifestyle look like?  Generally it requires living in a community where you can either walk everywhere you need to go or you can walk to most things and take public transportation to other destinations.  Rentals cars, car sharing, and taxis all may have an occasional role too.  And it happens that places that fit this description tend to be culturally and historically interesting.

Why blog?

I'd like to say I am a seeker of richness and not wealth.  I make the distinction because I feel that many expensive things sought in our society lack authenticity and substance.  Of course I won't argue that all things costly are spiritually hollow.  Costly medical care can literally save your life.  And FU money means you are beholden to no boss.  But I think we often seek costly material things that add little substance to our lives.  The huge but tasteless McMansion, the fancy car that is no more reliable than a cheaper vehicle, and the latest fashions that will look stupid in a year.  I feel deeply that I need depth in my life and this need is a strong and hungry force in my life.  My quest for depth, substance, and authenticity will be the initial theme of this blog.  It will probably evolve over time, but that is where I start.