L-train

Running against the current

Eight years ago I was consumed on a warm, beautiful day in mid-August. I was consumed by pain. We lived on a circular block and I must have walked around it fifteen times trying to rid my body of the pain in my stomach. I felt as though I was poisoned, cursed, doomed to endure this suffering. With tears running down my face and sweat pouring down my back I sat down on the curb and just rocked back and forth for what seemed like hours.

I was taking the bar exam for the second time. I needed to pass it to keep my job. My hopes and dreams were riding on it. I was consumed. I was filled with an anxiety and depression that reached the very depths of my being. Although I was filled with this lethargic sludge, my heart and soul felt empty. I was at a very helpless place in my life.

I don't revisit this place very often, and I don't stay very long when I go there, but it does come and often without warning. It is not a sadness so much as a consumption of misery that is inescapable. It has no exit and no rug to hide under.

I recently took a trip back to this dismal sty only to find that I did have an exit, an escape. I can't explain this blissful exodus, only to say that maybe I've put some internal mechanisms in place to deal with such events; some unconscious survival techniques. I'd just like to thank evolution and mother nature for helping me to deal with myself.

my morning

sun explodes through brick
the hope of a new day tricks
the shimmer of a smile
that's been lost in denial
holds the expectation
without a proper explanation
of why it disappears
and is replaced by so many tears

the buzz of so many souls
who don't know their roles
trudge through life under the ever changing sky
with that melancholy despair look in their eye
its all about truth, lies, and survival
hope you all come to the revival

long strides, dark colors, dark faces
all fighting, working, moving to new places
without hope, without happiness, without peace
with anger, with fear, looking for a new lease
on life--this life, the one, the only
time erases both the true and the phony

Next Steps

So if you're one of the many people that are not bound by the many material vices of the modern world, what's next? This is the question I was discussing with my wife as we were in the middle of a conversation about being better people. She immediately said "what about being more reflective, less angry, less stressed, happier, and being able to deal with stress better." I whole-heartily agreed with her at which point in time I promptly made a very non-reflective comment comparing our relationship with another couple's. She pointed out my error and I immediately saw my folly and realized where I was in my own fragile evolution--not there yet; but I don't know if that goal is ever reached, for anyone, in a thousand lifetimes--its all about the journey.

Life is a never ending mountain climb. As soon as you reach a plateau there is another, maybe larger rock to conquer. You know that if you stop moving, if you fail to attempt to climb that rock, the only other option is to descend. So when the external vices are under control it is then the goal to corral the internal vices that can have such a detrimental effect on other things, or people.

I guess its like anything else; if you're disciplined and consistent at controlling the negative thoughts and emotions, eventually they'll disappear. It sounds so easy in my head and looking at it on the computer screen. Its shifting the paradigm. The second part is thinking about where you want the thoughts to go. That is, if a specific situation makes you have a stressful reaction, where to you put that? If you're used to projecting your stress onto others what do you do with it? Usually a stressful situation in under your control to do something about, so it would seem logical to proceed with not projecting the negative feelings upon others and turning them inward, deal with them head-on and come up with a positive solution. This is a simple approach, and there have been many parallel philosophies that have discussed the same course of action.

But that's another dilemma, there is a clear starting point, the stress, and clear end goal, turning inward and making a potentially negative situation into a positive, but what about the middle? The journey? This is the hardest part, this is where the actual "work" is done. But its all just a state of mind, right? Believe it and you can do it, right? Again easier said than done. (sorry about the cliches, but they're true) Maybe, creating some type of emotional tracking system, where it is recorded what the stressful situation is, coming up with solutions to relieve it, following through on the solutions, and reaching the inward, positive goal is the correct course of action. I think this would be poignantly reflective and paradigm changing solution to the dilemma.

Is competition the only spark for evolution?

The theory of fight or flight was first advanced by Walter Cannon, a famous psychologist in the 1920s. It was also called the "acute stress response". It basically puts words to the automatic human response to a stressful situation. This has been our history. This is who we are, how we react to stress, how we survive advance as a species. This is a very animal-like response to situations that we are forced to take action in.

As human we are animals, however, we have also been given the opportunity to use logic. The history of logic can be traced back to the great Ancient Civilizations of the past; Greece and Egypt. Logic relates to the mathematical concept of geometry, which has its origins in Ancient Egypt approximately 2,700 B.C. or roughly 5,000 years ago. When a numerical problem is presented and can be solved, it is done so with logic.

If we look at the grand scheme of things, we see that humans in their current state have been around for 6 million years. The logic was always there. It did not surface until around 5,000 years ago. That means that as humans, we've employed the use of logic, consciously, for 1/1200 of our recorded existence. By looking at it this way, we are still relatively new to the concept.

Why is logic important? It offers an alternative to the concept of this "acute stress response" symptom that has been embedded in our DNA through evolution. Instead of a fight or flight response, maybe there is an alternative. Maybe there is a way to logically think through stressful situations together, rather then possibly having a harmful, painful result. This, however, is not to discount the importance and value in the evolutionary survival technique of the fight or flight concept. Obviously, this evolutionary miracle has caused humans to survive and thrive throughout history.

So why use this strategy of logic in today's world? Simply because there is no need for fight or flight in certain situations when it used to be needed. For most of our existence as humans there was a grand need to survive, and only survive. Now (as I've posted previously) we have the ability as humans to do more than just survive; we've transitioned from the "need" to the "want." Of course, I'm writing from the perspective of the Western, non-poverty point of view. However, this relates because we have the resources, knowledge, and ability to help every society in the world do more than have the ability to survive.

Survival is based on "need." Need for water, food, shelter, and the competition for these things. Most of these "needs" are met without an unusual amount of effort in the Western world. Need to survive, in the past, often involved a competition for these things. Competition involves the fight or flight mechanism. Is the "need" great enough to have to fight for it? Or can it wait for another day/opportunity?

With the common competition for the "need" satisfied we've shifted this competition to the "want." The "want" of a better car, house, phone, or other luxury; things that are unneeded, except for that of shelter, however, in this case it is presumed that the person already has a shelter and just wants an upgrade. Do these "wants" have to be associated with the "acute stress response" mechanism that we needed in order to survive? No. We have, however, made no distinction.

Bear with me on my long and winding road here. The "wants" can included broad things like world peace, absolving hunger and poverty, seeking alternatives to conflicts that have in the past included violence, and narrow things like drug, alcohol, and substance abuse, gambling, stealing, or cheating on a spouse. This short list makes the picture clear.

Our "needs" were solved with being programmed with the "acute stress response". I also think that our "wants" have been programmed with the use of logic. All of the issues in the previous paragraph can and should be solved with logic, or at least logical thinking. We all know how to solve issues, so why haven't we? Because we're using the wrong schema. So how do we shift our response to these issues from the "acute stress response" to logic? By being conscious and reflective in the present when these situations arise.

Re-telling of a story

Human history is not easily digested on a day-to-day basis; for some reason it seems to change as time marches on with different interpretations. This process just pushes history into the fictional arena. It is no longer about the facts of an event, but how the event was interpreted? Every event ever recorded has been done so with bias either ever so slight to wonderfully wicked. This is fact, not fiction. So how does history re-invent itself? How does it change?



New evidence uncovered can be one way that history can be changed, or improved. Personal narrative and cultural artifacts add to our understanding of what has happened. These personal stories help us make connections between our own lives and the lives of those that came before us; and we can find the differences and similarities.

I've been reviewing the Constitution and have grasped the idea that it is a "living" document. The framers of the Constitution, particularly Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, created a document that was somewhat vague, but brilliant. Through their words they left the future open. They may have seemed like tall-drinks-of-water with wigs, but they had the foresight and the complexity to realize that the country would go through tremendous social, economic, and political changes in it's future. Because of this forward-thinking philosophy we still have a document today that applies to today's issues. Some things are antiquated, such as the 2nd Amendment's right to bear arms, however, most of the document can still be used today.

It is important to realize our place in history; our impact on "us." Humans have been conscious of their impact for about eight-thousand years, this is when we started keeping track of what we did and why these events were important. we've gained steam over time and find ourselves at a point where personal narrative and artifacts are recorded and preserved on a moment by moment basis because of technology. I know this seems like an essay for an anthropology class, however, I'd like to begin a dialogue, or monologue, of how we can put in place the foundations for philosophical and intellectual stimulation for the future; that is, what do we, or should we have the foresight right now to set up for human kind in the future; just as Jefferson and Madison did 233 years ago? What should we make crystal clear? And what should we leave conspicuously vague?

It is clear with the population rising, global warming threatening, and the conflict between traditional societies and modern societies coming to a head, that this world will see more conflict first, before things settle. What is the ideal solution to these issues? I'm not sure, however, using the instant collaboration that modern technology affords us could be an asset to coordinating helping our fellow human.

Again I've asked many of questions and have only come up with some vague answers, if that. As I ponder this last sentence I know that the solution lies is action and not reaction; in building and not lounging.

Carpe Diem and everything else thats fake

So who really lives for the day? How many people don't worry about the next day, week, month or year? Its an ideal that's not in our DNA. We all live for the day in our own way in order to survive, in order to be present and make sure we don't slip on to the train tracks; but to be ever present and to live every day like its your last is unrealistic. Being present and capturing a moment is different; its Zen and peaceful. The ideas are totally separate though.

Time is unrealistic; its an invention of man that puts some kind of structure to our chaotic world that we've created. Time is limitless and probably boundless, weaving in and out of dimensions that are incomprehensible. My conclusion here is that forever has come before me and will continue after me, what that means, I don't know--it tortures me sometimes, really, this is it? If that is true, then yes, maybe I should live more for "the day" than I do right now. When I'm stuck on this thought I try to find meaning in such a short existence. The only solution that appears in my mind is my family; my wife and children. I'm impacting them and how I affect them they take out into the world and impact others because of my actions; and vice-versa. How I impact them will affect how they impact their children and so on over the ages. So I feel as though that would be my legacy to them.

I have to love them and treat them right so they can take that with them and take that into the world; this is the only think I can think of that will have a lasting affect beyond my existence; and I am becoming peaceful with this proposition. It works for me as long as I am reflective that I am doing it the right way.