You Must Hear Them Better When They Yell

“If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas.” ― Steve Maraboli

How has it reached a point where everyone with a microphone these days seems to be telling us that they know better what is right for us then we do? I am talking about FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, comedy shows, dramas, radio disk jockeys, even the guy holding the sign at the intersection. We are treated as if we are just simple, stupid hicks. We are looked at by these con artists and spin doctors with their smug, satisfied smiles and provided their simple answers to our varied and many complex problems. Their statements seem so emotionally satisfying to that primitive part of our brain that we can’t help but think about jumping on the bandwagon, shouting amen, or buying a couple gallons of that snake oil they’re peddling. 

In the eighties it was “Tear down the wall” and now we are exhorted to “Put up a wall.”

So let’s dissect a couple things:
• Because someone knows more and bigger words, this does not make them smarter.
• Not believing the same things as what you believe doesn’t make them right and you wrong, right?
• Failing to agree with the majority does not make that minority opinion or viewpoint necessarily a terrible problem, or make them terribly wrong.

Basically, (in my humble, un-shouted opinion) we need to work on having a high level of respect for the many differences of opinion, more than what is happening around us these days. Having moral, policy, or ideological differences is not a failure by one side to “get it.” You don't have to save me from myself or my personal values. I am great with them and we are getting along splendidly.

I am waiting for the ridicule to stop, and empathy to begin to evolve in some people. I am waiting and hoping to hear people without all the shouting and name-calling. 

Basically I am waiting.

It may be a long wait for me and I hope that to have enough gas in my tank. 

The Unexpected Should be Expected

“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.” -William Wordsworth

Betrayal can come in many forms. It can surprise you unexpectedly when it arrives or it may creep up on you over time and space. Getting older can seem like a betrayal of sorts, as our body and mind seem to decline in its abilities and functions. Our brains do not seem to be cognitively wired to foresee this coming as time marches on. Sometimes our brains do not see the sudden betrayals, the quickening of a dispute, or the rapid reversal of an opinion or a flat out lie that throws you under the bus.

Nature however, as Wordsworth so eloquently states, seems to gather up a consistent and perfect track record of non-betrayal. It moves along laws that can be deciphered and understood, especially when science is applied. You may argue that an earthquake or a volcanic eruption may be nature betraying man, but is it not more nature just being nature. How can we look at it as a betrayal in the sense that humans define betrayal?

When I ponder this, I have new found respect for the existence of the natural world and an understanding of my place in it. It is often easier to exist against a human-less backdrop of earth, trees and sky than in a group of homo-sapiens. Anything that may happen to me while i am in nature should be unexpected yet perfectly reasonable if it occurs. Swimming in the ocean? Get eaten by a Great White Shark. Living in San Francisco? That big earthquake is coming. Build your house in a flood plain? The rains will someday be a fallin’.

So I, as Wordsworth, will continue to love the fact that nature will not betray me. And I will try my best to be more like nature with those around me, so they will not experience the unexpected from me. And hope that they will be more nature-like in return.

We Could All Use a Little Bit More Empathy

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” - Noam Chomsky

Chomsky tackles the very difficult problem that we face when we strongly disagree with someone. I would gather that if you have lived any sort of life, you have encountered people that would fit this profile. The belief that keeps me going despite running into the obstacle of those we might consider nut-jobs, crazy, stupid, delusional or any of the many variety of things that make us “despise them,” is empathy. Specifically empathy, where it involves understanding the emotional states of other people and that ability to imagine oneself in another’s situation. That can be a very difficult process that takes some imaginative and sophisticated effort to accomplish.

I am not writing about sympathy and pity, as empathy is distinctly different. True empathy will create pro-social behavior as we accommodate our thinking about the differences of how we think in regards to people and their ideologies. This will lead, I believe, to a positive state where we will help and aid one another, regardless of how strongly we can disagree about matters. We can start to focus on long-term welfare and social issues as well as improving attitudes toward those stigmatized groups that dwell all around us.

We need more cooperation, not competitiveness. More empathy. When we are empathic toward others we should be putting a considerable distance between the beliefs and viewpoints that we hold, and the experiences that shape others basic sense of self. Have more understanding. This attitude will create a condition of unconditional positive regard for one another and will create for most people a greater sense of mission. Helping others and not focusing on just helping ourselves for any of the variety of fear or selfishness we possess.

All this is difficult to measure. But I have tried to be more empathic in my thinking and I believe that it has helped me to be more connected to people at a higher level, and is a sort of recovery process to the narrow mindedness that I have suffered with in my past.

Empathy is a form of expansion of consciousness. That is what I like to think.

Drivin' Down the Road Having a Vision Quest

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead." -Ernest Hemingway

I found myself silently contemplating Hemingway as I motored through Seney Michigan and crossed the Fox River a few weeks past. The story goes that the Fox was the actual location for the setting of Hemingway's classic short story, "Big Two-Hearted River." The story discusses a disillusioned and wounded soldier who embarks on a somewhat vision quest of a camping and fishing trip in the northern Michigan woods. I would recommend at this point you write down a note to self to take the time to read this story if for no other reason than to try to understand what it would mean to seek peace and a sense of balance after having your soul traumatized by war. After all, there is a lot of our family and neighbors returning to us having experienced first hand these experiences.

A quiet and peaceful break was part of my reason for being in this part of Michigan, and since silent contemplation seems to be one of my true talents, something that is not easily judged, I am often lead down paths of wonder. In fact, this is how this post came about, wondering about my world on a mini "vision quest while driving down the road" in remote Schoolcraft County. I was specifically remembering the above quote and was formulating how you can "ask the dead" so very many of the questions that we face or the adversarial encounters we experience, and mine from them their collective knowledge. Or, as our parents used to tell us, to learn from our mistakes. We can also learn from the collective wisdom and observations of historical, literary, family, mythical, and anyone else who either wrote down, spoke, carved or painted on a cave wall, or similarly have shared their thoughts (and often their mistakes).

As George Harrison said, "We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it." In my experience, the past is filled with everything I failed to be as well as all I have succeeded at. I realized in my mini vision quest that in order for me to move forward I needed to let all that "stuff" die--both the good and the bad--so that I can be free to live now and keep inventing this gift of life that I have been granted. Every time I visit my past it cuts me somehow. It seems overly endowed with very sharp edges. And I have been fortunate to not have experienced the trauma of war. What sharp edges must cut at those who have.

As John Buchan so well stated: "We can pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves." Basically, throw away the present and future by dwelling on the past.

What the Founding Fathers Said

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”― George Washington and John Adams.

Both of the above founding fathers, in the Treaty of Tripoli signed in 1787, shared this belief about where this country, the young United States of America, stood in reflecting what it stood for on the world stage. What does that quote mean to us today when we face so many issues that change long-held beliefs and the right of all citizens to be protected by the concept of social justice for all in our country? 

Around 1787 History Lesson: The United States was battling the unsettling and dangerous threat of the Barbary Pirates. These pirates, or privateers as they were also known, came from the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and other small states, but were under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire. Their predation of American shipping interests extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along the West African seaboard, into South American waters, and to Iceland in the North Atlantic. The treaty was designed to address ending piracy on American shipping on the high seas, and this treaty passed unanimously in the Senate (only the third such unanimous vote of the first 339 recorded votes in the early Senate, and I am only guessing that those senators read the whole treaty before voting on it). In fact, official records show that the entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor, and copies were printed for each and every Senator. 

What do you think the founders meant by this? I don't think they were just pulling a fast one. They came to the colonies to escape religious persecution, and created a republic. Yes a republic, which is a form of government in which power resides in elected individuals representing the citizen body and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. This republic was created so that it protected religion while also acknowledging that the government would remain secular, protecting each and every belief equally (each and every citizen) and not endorse any one religion over another. This also includes the freedom of choice of whether or not to choose a religion at all.  

In fact, it was President Thomas Jefferson who later wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), "The First Amendment has erected as a wall of separation between Church and State." 

And to handle this concept fairly, not everyone agreed with this perspective. James McHenry, the Secretary of War, protested the language of the treaty. "[He said] at the time, [The Senate] ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that 'the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.'What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow (Joel Barlow was the United States consul-general to the Barbary States who handled the translation of the treaty from Arabic to English) was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion."

I for one feel safe knowing the historical perspectives and having the opportunity to question motives in their entirety whenever our government gets into the process of deciding what we should believe. But we are blessed by the gift of having the choice of what to believe, and that the constitution gives us an opportunity to entirely respect the beliefs of others. Entirely! This does not mean to condone behavior that is hurtful and mean and destructive to the lives of any United States citizen. We are all created equal and need equal treatment in our country. Apply the golden rule. Anyone can apply that rule, it is not exclusive to any group. You don't even need a religion.

Please revisit and read what the founders of this great nation wrote, don't take my word  or what the spin-doctors spin. Before believing anything you hear or read, try critically looking at it, and then decide. We all deserve to give ourselves that gift.

The Journey Versus Easy Access

“A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.” -Edward Abbey

In Desert Solitaire, a narrative by Edward Abbey, he writes that he sees the wilderness and the parks as places that should remain as untouched an unaltered as possible, regardless of the difficulty accessing it would be for some of the population. His meditations on how he sees modern man and his need to move quickly through time, getting places quickly in their cars, is solid philosophy. At least as solid as the fluid essence of philosophy can be.

It is difficult to see him as right in his answers to the problems that he outlines. Problems such as paving the wilderness to reach key points of interest and landmarks, often at the expense of destroying much wilderness in this process. I believe he is well intentioned, his hearts certainly in the right place. Here is where I would recommend that you should read this book. With an open mind. Slowly, with consideration at a walking pace and not our normal barreling forward with a reckless abandon pace.

I remember when I was a young kid my own parents took me to the Lake of the Clouds, nestled among the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I distinctly remember a spectacular and challenging hike and climb to reach the overview to view the vista of the lake. Many years later, I took my own children to this spot, but instead of the long hike and climb, we drove right to the top on a paved road, took a few constructed steps to the overview, and there we were. I felt distinctly like someone, a traveler perhaps, whose land no longer matched the map held in his hand, in my memory. The site was still spectacular but my children missed the journey, a journey that was just as much a part of the experience as the beauty of the overlook. We did see a sow black bear and her cubs cross a paved road and navigate over the steel guardrails that were installed to keep the motorists from plunging into Lake Superior. The bear sighting is memorable but the habitat we viewed it in was somewhat questionable. (We saw bears in the UP on my vacation trip as a child as well, in both natural surroundings as well as at the local U.P. dumps the bears would frequent in search of an evening snack.)

Isn't part of life, and its experiences of the journey through time and across defined space, worth some effort? Some sweat equity, some blisters and bruises, a case of poison ivy or insect bites would only add to the experience. Can the modern feeling I experience, that of having somehow broken connections with nature and its multitude of perils, joys, hardships, wonder, challenges, initiative, and efforts, be reestablished?

 

Technology to Get to the Primitive

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”― John Muir

I always feel particular close to nature when my wife and I hike the Pictured Rocks Lake shore, an annual endeavor of ours each summer. Even though this wilderness area has vast stretches of primitive trails, it still takes technology to get close to the trail heads we hike. Technology such as roads and the cars that travel them. However, even smaller technology plays a closer role on the primitive parts of the trail during hiking. Water bottles take the place of an animal skin to carry our water. Yet an animal skin water container was to primitive man advanced water-carrying technology, necessary to survival between water sources.

Being alone is less important to me on the trail for me to experience the wilderness, than is having silence. My wife and I are of similar nature and appreciate silent moments filled with wilderness sounds. We have stood and listened to what surrounds us: birds, bubbling brooks, waves, storms, and whispering trees. We find joy in silent, observant, and appreciation of what surrounds us on a trail snaking through the wilderness. How my body feels on the trail—fatigue, invigorated, refreshed. However, even the hiking shoes that are technology over our ancestor’s bare-footedness leave the occasional blister or hot spot on my feet.

Perhaps if I never had shoes I would not miss them on the trail. That is how the human mind seems to work at times, seeks solutions to what it sees as a problem. How to make it easier to hike a trail? Invent footwear.