Condition: Loneliness

"Be warned: If you allow yourself to see dignity in someone, you have doomed yourself to wanting to understand and help whoever it is."--Kurt Vonnegut

How often have we judged people by their outward appearances? By their manners or lack of? Their haircut or grooming habits? The way they speak: with an accent or a lisp or with a strange sounding voice?Admit it, as human beings we all do it.

I would also put forth this reason why it seems to me more and more that people are judging others by standards that are arbitrarily invented to keep themselves comfortable. We have lost a bit of the extended families that we once were a part of. Yes, we are more lonely. I look around and I see this unconscious longing to overcome the loneliness that has crept slowly into peoples lives. A loneliness that in reality they are creating for themselves. They express this to others on Facebook. They practically cry it out for everyone to see. But that medium does not allow for a cure of the condition. It may actually enhance the feelings of loneliness. Do they think that "Look at all the people I am connected to, and I am still all alone?" That is what I hear and see. Facebook makes me sad. I feel the empty conditions--their longing to be loved--of some of the people I care for.

I will share an example of my own experience. I have officiated high school football for more than twenty years, and for most of that time, I encountered the same coaches and worked with a steady group of fellow officials. They would come and go due to life changes but there was always a core group.  That all changed 2 years ago and the whole group imploded. It happens to work groups just like it happens in families. A painful leap that is growth but leaves a feeling of emptiness.

I still love to officiate but now I have to embrace a new group. A group that I did not understand and actually thought I may not get along with. I had some preconceived notions of some of these characters from previous encounters at meetings, work at scrimmages as well as fellow officials opinions of them. In otherwords, my inside was telling my outside it was not possible to get along and have fun like I did in the past. So I plowed ahead. Fearful. Worried. Cautious. Longing for what I had lost when my little officiating "family" was no more.

But after working a few games with this new bunch of guys, I believe now that I was wrong. And I would bet that the other people that were going to work with me for the first time were probably experiencing the same thing. I hope they will feel better now about it like I do. Now I want to learn from them and become a cohesive unit. I want to continue to understand others.

And lastly, a simple recognition of the conditions leading to hopelessness--to loneliness--probably was personally cured by one of the nicest texts I ever got, a simple "Miss you, Papa."

Humanistic Economics

"Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation of man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations; as long as you have not shown it to be uneconomic you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow, and prosper." -- Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

A man's got to earn a living to get by in this world. But I have begun to take the approach that we should carefully control where we spend our resources to obtain what we need to be happy, provide for our family and support our community.  And community can be as large as you feel like defining it. 

Many major religions speak of the "community of man" in the broad context of the many "souls" that people the planet.  They look at the global development of their mission.

The flag wavers talk of "America" as the border of their focus. Buy American. Support Our Troups. America: Love It Or Leave It. Wonder what the American Indians would think about these slogans?

People in my home town say we need to narrow it down to our own local businesses. The ones that can outlast the Walmart and the Meijer stores.

But the one thing that I really try to do is find people that want to do things and are economically challenged. I found a couple reliable shade-tree mechanics that can help me when the projects get to hard for me with a car or truck I need repaired. Heck, they even work on my old John Deere Lawn mower at times. They are people that I can talk to--at length--about the vehicles problem. I can buy the parts at the local auto parts store and they charge me a fair price to install them. Or I can call them and talk about my problem and they can sometimes lead me to a simple fix on my own. These guys didn't go to school to be mechanics, they learned it by tearing down and building cars for mud bogs and racetracks. They seem to understand the soul of automobiles, if they have one. I believe my Jeep Grand Cherokee has one and it is headed straight to H#%@ when I finally pull off the road for the last time and put a bullet through its heart.

They are also schooling me. Showing me a way of looking at things. Helping me conquer the fear that always seems to proceed a major repair that I undertake. They have stopped by my garage when I reached a sticky spot to guide me along. They have shown me how to weld, use a torch and how to use heat to loosen parts. They have been customer support on the phone. They have "humanized" getting my stuff fixed.

I feel good about handing money over to people like that versus the dealership and the auto repair joints that I have dealt with in the past. They almost think of being paid as an afterthought. They love the challenge of auto repair. They love to talk about cars and their experiences with them. They smile and laugh about what they have done to help you. And they are the actual person that has done the work. Not the service manager with the manicured nails and the computerized billing that confronts you when it comes time to pick up your car.

So invite your mind to look for ways you can reach out to people rather than businesses. Find someone to sell you your meat from a farm and a butcher that can cut it the way you want it cut. Buy some produce from a roadside stand. Go to those garage sales that pop up all summer. Or find your own shade-tree mechanic, they are around every corner.

And find something that you can do for others that will fill you with the sense of accomplishment when you benefit others.

Wikapedia definition of Humanistic economics: Humanistic economics focuses on human economic activity as being social and altruistically constructed, not just individualistically and selfishly derived. The importance of the ethical individual living within a vibrant local community, not merely as a lone wolf nor as a consumer of mass culture and production on a global scale, is often stressed. The importance of accounting for externalities (items not always put on the economic balance sheet like pollution or loss of biodiversity) are other key concepts.