How We Can Find The Worth Of Online Friendships Now

It’s the age of the world wide web and exchanging text letters by phone, the problem of friendship has become pretty confused. In the olden days, when I was a child, individuals could be friends with dudes and women in their neighborhoods and schools. If these individuals traveled regularly, perhaps they could have a pen pal too. Even then, they might have heard from that friend 3 or four times every year.

Even during the 80s, the period when I was raised, discovering acquintances outside of my own region usually entailed responding to a pen pal ad or paying insanely high long distance prices. Even if the individual was lucky enough to have acquintances in another country, he’d have to pay a fortune to keep it!

Now, I know about teenagers who might have approximately eighty thousand Facebook friends before they’re 70. And, these friends live across the whole world and are able to be contacted right now. Of course, these changes mean we have to reevaluate the whole concept of friendship.

Most individuals ask if we in reality call someone a friend if we’ve never really met them. If we merely write on someone’s Facebook wall every now and then are we really true friends? It is really a common debate among psychologists and various experts: is an online friendship legitimate or should a person have friends only in the real world?

These same experts note that one person can only have so many intimate friendships. And, that number is lower than the Facebook friends list of most people. These experts also talk about why knowing someone in the real world is more gratifying than an internet relationship.

I’ll concede that real world friendships are preferable to internet ones. After all, it is hard to hug someone you love by way of a computer. I’ll also agree with the gurus that it is nearly impossible to have a large number of intimate friendships with different individuals. However, the gurus forget the advantage of social media.

I have over 800 Facebook friends now. I’ve met most of them in person and use Facebook to continue to interact with them. I’ve added a few people I don’t know on Facebook also. A few of them are notable and some are individuals interested in trying to meet me. I fancy each one of my Facebook friends and don’t regret adding them.

The main reason I value Facebook and internet friendship is to network with other people. I’ve been able to expand my business and have capitalized on opportunities that my friends have offered me. None of these would have occurred without meeting people on Facebook.

I have an acquaintance who deleted her Facebook account because she believed the wisdom of the experts. She more or less removed herself from innumerable friends, acquaintances, and contacts. Sure, she didn’t have to hear the nonsense of different people. nonetheless she also could’ve missed real opportunities for advancement in her career. She neglected numerous friends who could’ve helped her and made her cheerful too.

I hope you found this essay beneficial. As you can see, I definitely believe in the value of internet friendship. I hope you consider keeping your Facebook account and can use it for networking with other individuals and molding deeper friendships.

The author of this narrative mainly writes about different topics. His interests entail answering friend questions and friendships discussions.

Self-Love Vs. Selfishness

When I was in High School and still living at home, we had a Sunday tradition that we engaged in religiously.  We would all get up in the morning, go to Mass at St. Paul’s church in Westerville, Ohio (know in those days simply as the ‘Ville)  (OK, I was the only one who called it that)  (Thought it made me look more Urban)  (Pope Urban that is), and after Mass we would truck over to Ryan’s Steak house.

Pope Urban, Homie

For those of you around the world, or the US that doesn’t know who Ryan’s Steak house is, it is one of the reasons that people around the world might not like the United States of America.  It is one of those places with a buffet a mile long, filled with all sorts of food, from salad to fried chicken, ribs, or whatever you can imagine.  And the best part is that they keep bringing out all sorts of new hot items. (As a side note, you are apparently NOT supposed to just go up to the buffet line and stick your face in the mashed potato bin.  Not only do they get upset, but the butter tends to scald your face.  Just thought I would warn you)

Now I have a philosophy about food: I like it.  A lot.  I have, to quote Chris Farely, what “Doctors call a bit of weight problem.”  It is certainly something I struggle with from time to time.  So those kind of places are just nightmares for me- any kind of all you can eat place- I feel like I have to get my money’s worth when I go in there, and I usually end up feeling bloated and sleepy toward the end of the meal.

Me, after a meal at Ryan’s.  Apparently I turn into some kind of bear.

There is nothing wrong with eating- nothing wrong with enjoying a meal with some friends, or family- nothing wrong with having a good meal, but there is something wrong with engorging yourself on the buffet line, to the point where an ambulance has to come get you to take you home.  I guess this would be a good analogy for the difference between selfishness and self-love.

I think that sometimes these two things get confused.  For instance, some people think that doing something nice for themselves is selfishness.  Others, may think that they are simply taking care of themselves, and it is self-love.  I guess it really is a matter of perspective, and relies mostly on your intentions.  I guess a blog on intentions would be an interesting post.

But for now, I guess the way that we must distinguish self love from selfishness is not in the act itself, but in the outcome of the act.  For instance, if a person takes time off to recharge, regenerate, and spend time with friends and family that is alright.  If the effect is that it begins to make their work life deteriorate, or they spend all their time in recreation, then it becomes selfishness.

Drinking isn’t bad, but fomr some people it is a totally sefish act- the purpose of the drink becomes escaping instead of relaxation.  Some people don’t have a choice in this by the way- but the same can happen in terms of anything that we use to relax.  Once it crosses the lone and becomes the primary thing we seek after to the neglect of other things, rather than being a support for our relationships and our work life, we have crossed the line over into selfishness.

So what is self love?  It is simply taking care of yourself- doing what is in the highest good for yourself, and something that augments, and does not detract from daily responsibilities and relationships.

I know someone once who had to deal with a particular issue in their lives, to the point where they had to seek out a support group.  That person felt incredibly guilty that they had to spend time in the group, and felt that they should be spending time with their family instead.  I had to explain to them that by spending time getting help with a particular issue, they would be a better friend, spouse, parent, and member of their community.  It wasn’t selfish, but self loving.

The real difference again lies in the intention- self-love always takes into account everyone around us- we do loving things for ourselves IN ORDER THAT we might love those people around us, and fulfill our duties.  A nice relaxing day at the beach or watching a ball game or even taking a walk in the park can mean the difference between a person who is a big ball of stress, and the person who is effective and efficient in their lives. 

In grad school, we had a professor who reminded us that you can’t give what you don’t have.  That completely applies to every aspect of our lives- For instance, I would love to give you a million dollars, but I just don’t have it (yet).  The same is true about love- if you don’t love yourself how is it possible to love other people?  Again, true self love is really directed away from ourselves- we love ourselves in order that we might love others.  Selfishness is simply about pleasing ourselves and our appetites, or running away from personal thoughts and feelings, or even responsabilities and relationships, that frighten us, and usually ends up hurting not only us, but the people around us.

One last note on self-love.  It is really hard to do.  We are probably the hardest person to love simply because me might not think we are worth loving ourselves, or know how to truly love ourselves.  We have to live with our faults, and it is sometimes easier to see those than all the good things we have and are.  No matter how “good” or “bad” we might be, we are loveable, we deserve and need to be loved, both from outside and within ourselves.

Network of Supporters

They are following me.

A whole group of people.

Sure you can’t always see them.

But I know they are there- watching me.

They are in the sky, on the ground- they are listening to my every word… bespectacled eyes leering at me through square glasses.

I am talking about my network- my Verizon Network.

I love those commercials where the network, lead by that nerdy guy, and the army of technicians and staff of Verizon follows the customers around making sure that their phone is working.  Frankly it freaked me out one day when I turned around and saw them all there.  Smiling.  Frankly, I wanted a little privacy… I mean… why did they follow me into the bathroom?

Of course, that is what the network is supposed to do- to make sure that you never miss or drop a call.  They are there to make sure that everything is in constant working order.  The commercial is trying to convey a truth- behind every Verizon phone call is an army of people making sure that it will be successful.  If only life could be that way.  Why can’t it be?  It is for me.

I guess I have another kind of network- a network that I have built from the ground up- a network of personal friends, mentors, supporters, and counselors that are available to me all the time in order my day, like the Verizon phone call, will be successful.  Not only that, but if anything goes wrong, they are there for me, to help me repair whatever glitch has happened in my system.

That means that there are people who I have to trust- every time we pick up the Verizon phone, we have assumed that the people working to make that call work are themselves trustworthy- that they aren’t going to listen in on that call and use that information against us in some way.  My network of supporters hear everything I have to say and know it, or else they are really no good to me.

I am always amazed when people try to do things on their own.  In reality though, we are conditioned to try and be the lone gunman in any given situation.  That is why when you go to the bookstore- any bookstore, there is a section entitled “Self-Help.”  I bet you won’t find a section called “group-help,” anytime soon.

I am not sure what that is- maybe Max Weber has something to say about that- how we are supposed to be individualistic and be self-sufficient.  That just doesn’t work really….

Holy Moly!  A Max Weber Reference!?  What could I possibly mean?

In ancient Rome there was a symbol that was commonly used called the fascies.  The fascies were a bundle of sticks that were tied together, because a group of sticks was far more sturdy and durable than one stick alone.  Why do we do it then?  That is, why do we try and go it alone?

I suspect that fear is a big issue.  Fear of looking weak- fear of someone knowing our secrets- of being vulnerable.  I don’t mind being vulnerable- I AM vulnerable.  If I was invincible I wouldn’t need anything from anyone- turns out that I am far from that.  So I must conclude that I do need other people in some way shape or form.

I guess when we realize, and really accept, that we can’t do it alone and that we are vulnerable, that is when we can tie ourselves to the other sticks and gain their strength, while lending my strength- what meager strength it is, to them.

Look at your support systems- are they working for you?  Are they appropriate?  Are they really addressing your strengths and weaknesses? If you “drop the call” is there someone there to help you re-connect?

I know that when I get upset or tired, I have a tendency to isolate myself from others- to hold my grief and pain into myself until it explodes out one way or another.  It simply isn’t healthy- no one, not even me, can take that or hold that in.  I don’t know why I even try sometimes!  I have my groups in place, my friends and family, counselors and spiritual directors standing by all the time to help me when I get into a bind.  They know that I am there to help them- sometimes I have to force myself to use them, and you know, I always feel better getting that stuff out of my system.

I imagine it is a lonely existence to try and be the lone gunman.  I know it is.  We aren’t designed to do anything alone, and yet for some dumb reason we try.  It is truly in our relationships that we find strength, peace, and serenity.

The Crisis of Identity- Man’s Search for Meaning- Some Reflections on Death

This last weekend I had the opportunity to take some time out for a spiritual retreat.  I was able to go with one of my dearest and closest friends to a retreat house in Fremont, Ohio, Our Lady of the Pines, run by the Sisters of Mercy.  It was a fantastic experience- there is nothing like a place that has been prayed in, and that is one of those places.  It reminded me a lot of the place in Morristown New Jersey where I spent thirty days in silence last summer. 

Places that have been “prayed in,” are obvious.  It is sort of like a hotel room that has been smoked in- it is in the walls and in the sheets and the bedding.  It is obvious when you first walk into the room that someone has been there who was smoking- in an analogous manner, the feeling that a place has been prayed in is just as obvious- it is in the walls and in the bedding.  It soaks into the carpet, and is reflected in the people who live and work there- it is obvious when you walk in, as you smell not the acrid smell of cigarette smoke, but the fragrence of holiness.

I spent the weekend in silence- except for the part where I visited my spiritual director in Toledo- the sun was out and bright (a nice change from the cloud belt of Columbus, Ohio), but there was also snow on the ground.  It made things even brighter!  On the last day I decided to go for a walk and to shoot some pictures of the grounds and the surroudning area. (I actually don’t have any pictures uploaded yet, they are still in my camera- and may be for another 3 or 4 years… you know how it goes!)  I walked through the cemetary where the sisters were buried from the decades past, and saw an even bigger cemetary just across the street.  So I mosied over there- I like cemetaries for some reason- I grew up near a giant one in Lima, so I guess I have never felt creepy there or anything like that.  Cemetaries tell a lot about the people who lived near them- whole families buried together- some people lived a long time, while others only a few days.  A gravestone is sort of like the tip of the iceburg- there is so much more about a person underneath that their marker just can’t tell.

One of the striking things about the grave markers though, was the fact that every single last one tells us about a relationship that the person it commemorates had- large or small they all had names on them.  Those names denoted a relationship with people of similar names.  As I mentioned above, there were whole families- sons, daughters, mothers and fathers- all buried together.  Some of the grave stones told of a married couple- the day they were married, the kids they had, when they were born and when they died.  Some were just little kids who only lived for a few days, but were never forgotten- even 50 years after her death at the age of 4 days, one person’s gravestone read beloved daughter.  There were fresh flowers there.

My favorite gravestone didn’t have a picture of a family member, or even a picture of Jesus or Mary (it was a Catholic cemetary), but a tow truck- a tow truck with the name Fischer Towing was carved into the side of a gravestone!  Must have been his truck.

Certainly gets one to think doesn’t it?  I mean, as another friend of mine often says, none of us are getting out of here alive.  Where is the meaning in our lives?  Where do we go when we die?  No matter how strong one’s faith is, that second question is always unknown.  The first though, I think can be answered.

A few months back I read (and wrote a blog on) Viktor Frankle’s book on man’s search for meaning, entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning.”  He talked about how he survived the death camps at Auschwitz because he had a meaning and purpose.  Those who didn’t survive, often died because they lost a reason to live.  We all need that or we die- we die in our daily actions, in our relationships, and in ourselves without meaning.  We are not meant to drift- even the ancient philosophers knew that we had a “final cause,” that is, something we are directed towards.

How do we find meaning then?  I suspect that is something that we all struggle with- it is the issue of trying to figure out our identity in this life- to give our lives meaning.

Frankle’s solution was an interesting one- he said that we have to imagine ourselves on our deathbed, looking back at our lives.  What do we want to see there?  What would we see if that day was tomorrow?  I do not believe that this exercise is intended to be moribund, rather it is a means to focus ourselves and the direction we are supposed to in life, and the meaning we attach to our identity.

I have a sneaking suspicion that those grave stones I saw last week were a key to the answer.  With the exception of the tow truck guy, nobody had their occupation on their gravestone.  But everybody had some reference, even if just a name, to a relationship.  Be it to God, or their spouse, or children or parents invariably what defined people were their relationships.  That is what gives us identity and meaning- or that is what should.

 Even the nuns who were buried there had an R.S.M. after each of their names, denoting a relationship with their order, and the other sisters in it.

My spiritual director told me the story of his uncle who was very rich.  He spent his whole life amassing a great deal of wealth- he never married because he was too busy making money.  He was a very successful man- when he was in his 60′s he had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair in a (probably very nice) nursing home.  My director told me that until the day he died he only said one phrase over and over- “what a rip-off.”

So I guess I would challenge you with the same exercise as Victor Frankle- if you were on your deathbed looking back on life, what would you see?  What would you want to see? What are the relationships in our lives that give us meaning, and how are they going? The answer to the second question is also the answer to our search for identity, and the search for meaning in our lives.

Only this way will life never become a rip-off.

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Curiosity Didn’t Kill the Cat, It Made Him a Better Cat

Recently I joined a networking group named Amspirit, which meets every Tuesday morning at 7:30.  Now you know something must be good if I am willing not only to get up at 7:30, but even earlier to drive 20 minutes to something that STARTS at 7:30.  If that isn’t a resounding endorsment for the Amspirit organization, I don’t know what is.  Learn more about it here:

Click the picture to learn more!

I have met some fantastic folks through AmSpirit already, and one of the neat things that I have been able to partipate in was getting invited to a book club on Monday mornings with some other members of the organization.  So that means that there are TWO mornings a week that I get up to meet folks from this fine organization.  I went to my first meeting of that group last week, and we talked about a book called “How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci,” by Michael Gelb.  A fascinating book, where he outlines the seven steps to thinking like Leonardo Da Vinci- a man who was a scientist, painter, and a physician among other things… truly a renaissance man.

Leonardo- not the Ninja Turtle

From this book we had a truly interesting and invegorating discussion lead by one of the members of the group.  The first of the 7 steps to thinking like Leo was curiosity.  From the summery of the book curiosita’ was defined as:

“An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous

learning.

 

Talented people go on asking questions throughout their lives. Leonardo’s

childlike sense of wonder and insatiable curiosity, his depth of interest, and his

willingness to question accepted knowledge never ceased. Curiosita is the first

of Leonardo’s characteristics that Gelb attributes to his genius.”

 

   

  I think that this is an important aspect to pursue in everyone’s life- often we get comfortable in simply taking what other people say as the truth- in essense we “borrow” their perception and make it our own.  When that happens we really get comfortable in simply accepting the world as other people see it, and never challenge the accepted norms of culture or thought.  If we have a sense of curiosity instilled in us, we can take a critical look at things, understanding the reality and culture that we live in, and making ourselves much more rounded individuals who do not simply live in the darkness, but understand in depth themselves and the reality that they live in.  That means we constantly have to challenge what we think we know is true- sometimes I suspect if we challenge things we can see just how close we really were- that things were true.  Other times, we might find that what we believed to be true was off the mark the whole time.

Truth is a universal thing- what is true today will always be true- truth- real truth is unchanging.  But only the one’s with a real sense of curiosita’ delve deeply into its profound depths and discover so much more than was first perceived.

 
He is challenging the norms….  what a weird guy!!

Light and Darkness: The Problem of Evil and How it is Overcome

As I write this post, I am sitting in one of my favorite green lazy-boy-chairs in my living room, in front of two halogen light bulbs atop a tall red tri-pod.  Yep… I am sitting in front of two blindingly bright lights that my brother lent me. 

Maybe this sounds dumb, or insane, but as a good friend of mine once said, “I am solar powered.”  I am not sure why I don’t live in Mexico frankly… I mean, I hate cold, love the sun, and would look dashing in a sombrero.  Instead, my base of operations is Columbus, Ohio, where the sun doesn’t even shine for half of the year.  Sometimes I think it would be better to live in Alaska or the North pole where it is completely dark for 6 months- none of that “tease” stuff where it is light out, but “dank.” (I have to say, that other than the sun not shining, Columbus is a great town to live in.)

Typical Overcast Day In Columbus

  So I compensate with the halogen bulbs.  I am not sure it does any good, but at least they reduce my heating bill a little as they are powerful enough to heat the house!  I am a guy who is very very sensitive to light and darkness.  There is always some mix of light and darkness for me, both in the physical world, and in the spiritual world.  I think that is the same for everyone really.  If we were totally light, I guess we would be perfect.  There are days in which it is just hard to put my feet on the floor, especially when it is dark at 7:30 in the morning.  Some people have varying degrees of light and darkness in their life too- some are darker than others.  I am always searching for good natural light- no matter how bright these halogen lights are in my living room, they will never ever be as good and refreshing as the light of the sun.

Some people thrive on darkness though, the same way that I thrive on light.  I try to surround myself with people who thrive on light, but inevitably I will encounter people who don’t.  That is frankly very hard for me, for as much as I am sensitive to real light, I have to admit that I am also very sensitive to spiritual light.  And in a similar vein that I am unhappy when it is dark out, I am afraid of the dark in a spiritual sense too.  It doesn’t matter if that darkness is in me, or in another person, I am wearied by it either way.

Light and darkness is a constant theme in a lot of religions and spiritual traditions.  Being Catholic, it is something that is very prominent in the liturgy- candles are processed in with the cross, advent wreathes are lit before Christmas- candle light pierces the darkness of the Easter Vigil as we await the resurrection. 

 

The whole liturgical season is based on the length of days and how much light is in the world.  This is why, for instance, Christmas is the 25th of December, when the days start to get longer, and Lent starts in the darkest month of the year, February, only to culminate in Easter in the spring when light begins to shine brightly again, and flowers start to bloom.

Other traditions have picked up on this though- the Aztecs sacrificed young warriors in an attempt to keep the sun going- Jews light Hannukah lights in the darkest days of the year- I could probably go on and on.

As light and darkness are themes in a personal sense, and a spiritual sense, they reflect the conflict that goes on in a cosmalogical sense.  Light and darkness have always been analogies for good and evil.

The good is easy to talk about in a sense- everything is good to some extent because it exists- good and being are synonymous with each other in a philosophical sense. 

Evil though- it is tricky.  It is tricky to define- it is tricky to see- it is hard to talk about.  Evil is as intangible at times as darkness that can veil our lives.

There was a class back in school called “the problem of evil.”  It is a problem.  For the most part of western philosophy, evil is simply a privation- that is a lack of goodness in the same way that there really is no such thing as “cold,” rather there is simply less heat.

Evil is like Cold- Less Good and Less Heat

But I have encountered evil in my life- it is dark- it is tiring.  I guess in another analogous way, darkness is simply a lack of light too.  But there seems to be something to evil.  It is frightening- exhausting.

I wonder if most “evil deeds” are done in the cover of night.  I am sure they are in fact.  I wouldn’t have any problem walking through Columbus in the day, but there are parts I would never walk in at night, simply because I know that in the cover of night, bad things happen.

When we sin, that is not living up to what we are created to be and are inauthentic, we want to keep that hidden and in the dark- evil deeds are much easier to do and to get away with when they are done in the cover of darkness.  I know that when I have sinned I simply wanted to keep that to myself, but like bread kept in a dark cold place, we beging to foul and fester and become nasty and deadly.

Evil and Darkness will eventually consume us

Maybe that is the solution to evil- in our own lives, and in the lives of others.  Rather than follow our instinct and hide evil behind whatever we can find, we should bring it into the light- expose it- and as light consumes darkness, bringing our own struggles and privations into the light will consume that as well.  Maybe we could call that “rigorous honesty.”

We can do that through prayer and meditation, journaling, speaking with a friend or a professional- there are a variety of ways to shine light into our own personal struggles with darkness, as well as others.

There are people who live in incredible darkness- people who try all sorts of things to artificially bring in light, just like I do with my halogen bulbs.  But there just is no substitute for the real goodness of true natural light.  Deeds done in the darkness always lead to more darkness, and when the light eventually shines on those deeds and on those people, all will eventually be revealed.  Goodness and light will always consume the darkness.

Maybe that is why dark people stay dark- they get used to it, and become afraid of the exposure to the light, because they are afraid of what they might see.

My Dad told me once that there is no such thing as a secret.  Everything eventually gets revealed, and the good or evil that we do will ultimately be exposed one way or another.  That is wise advice- if we try to hold the darkness that we struggle with in- or if we do deeds in the darkness they will ultimately be revealed as they come out in the wash.  I eventually have to pay my electric bill for the artificial light that I am using.

I heard once- share the bad, it is cut in half, share the good, and it is doubled.

There are no secrets really.   Everything is revealed, in this life or the next.

Light will always prevail.

More Important Than the Bible: Opinion and Truth

 This Post is a Re-Post from my Old Blog…

 

I found Waldo… he is strangely alone…

Do you remember those pesky magic eye puzzles that were all the rage ten or fifteen years ago?  About the same time as we were trying to find that stupid Waldo guy (who apparently liked to hang out in large crowds… I can relate) every single mall had a kiosk where they sold these stupid magic eye puzzles.

To the naked eye, it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting- a hodgepodge (love that word) of colors sort of splattered onto a poster.  Apparently, if you stared at this thing long enough, crossed your eyes, stood on your head, and had a few drinks, the image would change and you would see a farm-scape or a sailboat, or Waldo, in 3D appear before your very eyes.  It just so happened that the next kiosk over sold little bottles of Advil and eye drops, because not only did you have a headache from staring at these stupid posters, but your eyes dried out because you had to hold them open for so long trying to figure out if it was a monkey or a baseball bat that magically appeared out of the mixture of colors and textures.  These stupid things were just as popular back then as hyper-color t-shirts.  (Yea… remember those?  If you touched them they changed color because of the heat in your hand.  Until you washed them once.  I am sure we were all poisoned by those shirts somehow.  Maybe that is how we could see that magic eye puzzle- the hyper color t-shirts were making us hallucinate.)

I have to admit trying out these magic eye puzzles myself the first time.  I walked by the kiosk and saw people just staring into the collection of various eye puzzles, and decided to join the herd.  3 hours later, I think I saw a camel in a space suit pop out in 3D.

It is the Mona Lisa… you see it don’t you?

There were always three types of people at these kiosks- the people that would walk up and look into the magic eye puzzle and instantly yell out (as if any of us cared) “I SEE IT!!  IT IS A SUNSET IN TOKYO IN JUNE!”  Others, grumbling, also loud enough for people to hear, “I just can’t see it, it is just a bunch of colors running together… I just can’t see it… are you sure that’s there?”  The third type of person was the type that felt sorry for the second type of guy who couldn’t see the dolphin jumping out of a bowl of spaghettio’s and would help out assuring the incapable person- “It’ll be alright- just relax- let your eyes cross- don’t you see the dolphin?  He’s right over there!”

This one is meaningless… they just made this one to mess with us.

I think that the most entertaining feature of the magic eye puzzle was not the magic eye puzzle itself, but watching the people stare for minutes at a time into what looked like a child’s finger painting. 

I know the feelin’ buddy.

I did eventually see the images pop out of the posters, and it was neat, but I wonder if there was anything there at all, or if I was just buying into the hype of the magic eye puzzle.  Maybe there was something there and maybe there wasn’t- was it my own perception, or was I borrowing the perception from my neighbor who gleefully “got it?”

Here is an interesting fact I heard recently- up to 90% (90%!!!!) of our perceptions are borrowed from other people.

I will let that sink in for just a minute.

It’s like Homer Simpson once said- 42% of statistics are made up on the spot, but only 12% of people know that.  Sometimes we trust in the perceptions of others more than we know.

So when it comes to a world view- a cosmology as the philosophers like to coin it, a lot of our views come from what other people have told us.  I think that is what Nietzsche was talking about when he was talking about his “will to power.”  The will to power is the ability to impose our own perception onto the people around us.  It works- just watch the news.  They are imposing their views on us all the time, and I am even tempted to believe it simply because it is easier to believe them than to do the research on my own.  I don’t have the time, the resources or the energy to do that.

Perception is a tricky thing.  As I have mentioned in past posts, there are as many perceptions as there are people- if I am looking at this chair, and so are you, we may be seeing the chair differently- I may think it is red, and you may think it is violet.  Perceptions, whether given or borrowed, are never 100% accurate.  That is where communication comes in, in order that we may cut through what is mere opinion to the objective truth underneath.  Life is constantly about that- it is a constant battle that I think a lot people really don’t engage in too well because it is a lot of work.  Rather they would just rather accept the perceptions of others- culture, media, or what have you.

The rose colored glasses of opinion.

What is more important than the chair in our above example is not the chair necessarily, but our perception and our interpretation of the chair.

In a like manner, when we talk about theology, more specifically the Bible, it really isn’t the Bible that is important these days, but it is MY personal interpretation of the Bible that is important.  You can really interpret the Bible in any way you want- a great example that I like to use is the whole slavery issue in the history of the United States- the abolishionists used the Bible to go against slavery, while the south used it to support slavery.

So when it comes down to it these days, what is more important than the Bible, or the Koran, or the Torah, or the Big Book in this culture, is our personal interpretation of the book- I can interpret those books to mean whatever I want them to mean- or whatever someone has told me to interpret them as.  In order to interpret the Bible in the proper way we would need to go back to the original intention of the author (and the Spirit that inspired that author) and begin from there for a proper and true interpretation.  Otherwise the snake handlers are just as justified to handle snakes as any of the mainstream religions.

It is a fine line between figuring out the truth and separating it from mere opinion or perception.  As I said, this is probably the work of our lives, because the intellect seeks the truth.  I do not think that there is a simple answer to this problem, as it goes back to the radical individualism of our modern western culture.  Truth is out there though, it is simply not a matter of perception, but finding the truth requires us in some sense to question the perceptions that we have, the perceptions that others have, and to find the truth that underlies it all.  That doesn’t mean that a generally accepted perception isn’t necessarily true, but we should deeply question EVERYTHING in our search for what is true and what is merely opinion.

There are two philosophers that come to mind here that I think would be important to mention.  The first is Francis Bacon, and the other is Martin Heidegger.  Both of these guys were advocates of what I am talking about- Bacon said that we have preconceived “idols” of the marketplace- accepted notions that were given to us by our upbringing and inculturation that we accept as truth.  That doesn’t mean that they aren’t true, but that we need to toss them out every so often to test them to find which is true, and which is simply an “idol.”  Heidegger on the other hand advocates a similar plan- that is to “step into the clearing of being,” in other words like a forest to step into a clearing that the sun (being) is unobscured by the trees of perception and opinion.

The “clearing” of being

Only when we step into the clearing of being, and get rid of the idols of the marketplace, can we begin to compare our own and others perceptions of things- including things like religious texts like the Bible, the the truth.

I remember my first day in philosophy class ten years ago- we studied… I think it was the Phaedo by Plato (I could be wrong on the title of that one)- the whole thing centered on the difference between mere opinion and truth.  Its conclusion was that opinion can be true, but isn’t necessarily true, and it is our task- really our deepest desire- to separate opinion from what is objectively true.  That’s about as hard sometimes as seeing those pecky pictures in the magic eye posters.

At the end of the day, finding truth is sort of like picking Waldo out of one of those “Where’s Waldo” pictures.  There are a lot of things that LOOK like Waldo that are not, just like there are things that APPEAR true which are not.  We can never be content with a look a like to the truth, just like we are not done with our search until we find Waldo, or see the 3D image in the magic eye poster.

Where’s Waldo?  Where is the truth?

Keep your Focus

Diversity is death… that is a saying that I heard once at a conference a few months ago. lack of Focus is dangerous… It got me to thinking about a professor I knew in Rome. I can’t remember her name (which is probably a good thing) but I knew that she taught philosophy in English to a few English speaking students in town. I never had her myself as a teacher, but met her in a coffee bar in one of the universities I attended in Rome.

I was startled to hear how badly she spoke English- I knew she taught in English, and as I tried to strike up a conversation with her, her english just seemed to get worse and worse. Her accent wasn’t quite Italian, and it wasn’t quite German, nor could you say it was Spanish or French. I couldn’t figure this lady out really, even though her blond hair gave her away as something of the Teutonic variety.

Me fail English? That’s un-possible!

I asked her if it would be better that we spoke in Italian, as I figured maybe since she lived in town, her Italian would be better than her English. Just about anything would have been better than her English. So we switched gears into Italian, and I was started to find that her Italian was just as bad as her English. Finally, we switched into some broken Spanish (my Spanish was rusty at this point) and again, I was amazed to find that I spoke better Spanish than she did!

It turns out that she spoke 8 lanuages! And none of them well! I asked where she was from and she said Germany, but that her German wasn’t even all that good. I asked her what she spoke well, and she replied that English and Italian were her two best languages. She had apparently moved around a lot as a kid, and picked up a bit of everything as she moved.

I guess we can all be like that at times- Jack of all trades, master of none. But it is an expectation in our culture that we multitask- that we keep as many plates spinning as we possibly can without letting any of them fall. And there are plenty of people who are waiting for our plates to fall! The expectation is that we are supposed to be good at everything we do- be good soccer moms and executives- be good dads and football coaches- be members of the church and work and community- have a thousand friends who we write thousands of Christmas cards to. It can be maddening I tell ya!

But I often think of that professor in Rome- she couldn’t really speak any language well, and our conversation turned into a mismash of English, Spanish, and Italian. If we lose our focus, we will certainly be destroyed, simply because we can’t keep all those plates spinning at once.

Um… what a strange passtime

I once had a similar experience- I once took 22 credit hours one semester in college- studying 3 lanuages (Latin, Greek, and Spanish) in addition to all the philosophy credits I was expected to take. I didn’t learn any of those languages well, and I would have to say that by the end of the semester it was even hard to get my English straight! (I remember my friend jabbing me with a friendly insult, and all I could do was stare at him, because no coherent English words were going to come out.)

If we lose our focus and diversify our life so much that we spread ourselves thin, all we are going to be able to do is to stare at someone when they need a response. The same is true in our professional occupation as well- McDonald’s used to have good hamburgers, until they spread out into salads and chicken and cookies and all the other things that they do. If they focused on being the number one hamburger maker, maybe it wouldn’t turn my stomach so bad when someone suggests it as a nice pit stop on a trip.

Yuck… sorry Ronald

We can simply keep pulling the lever and hope for a jackpot- the reason slot machines work is because it is hard to take three diverse things and line them up!

So the solution is that we need to streamline our lives a little- understand what is important to us so that we can be a good focused person, and help the people around us. That means saying “NO” sometimes- that means drawing and keeping our boundaries with people and with ourselves. It means cutting out the fat and not sticking too many “irons in the fire.”

There are five areas of our life that we need to maintain- Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, Professional, and Social. Those are the five necessary components to being a happy person, and yet we have to prioritize even those areas. Setting short term easily attainable goals in each of these areas, and cutting out the fat when necessary will make us a well rounded person. Even then, there are times in which one of these will take president over the others. We have to make sure that we are maintaining a balance in all of our lives.

Think of it like food- when I get a plate of food I might have a piece of meat, a potato, and a vegitable. Rarely do I try and eat all three at once- I like to enjoy the individual flavor of each- to mix them takes away from the flavor of each part of the meal. In the end we have to know where to quit and when to say yes. I would recommend a book by Seth Godin called “The Dip.” You can find his blog here: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2123/17470696

If we stop trying to spin 10 plates, it may be easier to spin 5- now we just have to decide which plates to stop from spinning.

My Favorite Quote, Ever.

“There is no safe investment.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung, and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, even an animal.  Wrap it up carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your own selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenatrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love, is Hell.”

 C.S. Lewis, “The Four Loves.”

The Flabbergasted Philosopher is moving!

I have enjoyed wordpress so much folks that I have installed it into my own domain (thanks to the help of “the Shadow,” a guy who works for wordpress).  So for now I will be moving my blog over to www.totalpossibility.com/blog.  The new posts will be there, but I will let the old posts remain here until wordpress.com gets tired of me.   (I will find some way to move them over.)

18,500 Visitors!

As of today, January 8th, 2007, I have had over 18,500 visits to my blog.  Not too shabby for a blog that is less than 6 months old! (totalpossibility.com isn’t far behind that!)

This blog has brought world peace! (OK that is a lie)

So far this blog has reunited me with old elementary school classmates, introduced me to new and exciting people, solved world hunger, and eliminated the threat of nuclear war.  Who knew a blog could do all that?!

 I am also changing the name of the blog to simply “Total Possibility,” to stay with my website’s theme. (Don’t worry, I will eternally be Flabbergasted… I hear there are pills for that…)  There will be more exciting changes to www.totalpossibility.com as well. (As you may have seen if you are a regular visitor there.)

 I will update the main website when I update the blog, so there will be regular updates to both totalpossibility the website as well as archives in the blog, so you can go to either.

MORE EXCITEMENT?!?!?!

Some other exciting stuff coming is that I am going to expand my blog out to some other, hand picked contributors so that there can be more of a variety to the blog on some various topics.

 In addition to that, I am planning to start a podcast, which is one of the reasons that I am moving the blog. (wordpress.com doesn’t as easily support podcasting vs. if I have it installed myself.  That podcast will not only be me yakkin’ but other contributors as well.

So go and visit www.totalpossibility.com, and help me out by clicking on some of the google ads that I have there. (I don’t pick that content by the way… google puts up there what it dang well feels like, so if there is something weird, blame google) (I try and find some way to blame google for all my problems)  It’ll only take a second of your time!

 Tell all your friends and neighbors, cats, and dogs, heck, tell that creepy guy you saw at the movie theater last week!  There was a guy who used to come into the movie theater that I worked at in High School who looked like Elvis.  Mean guy actually.  Cool hair though.

 Joshua Wagner S.T.B., M.A.
Founder, CEO, President, Mail Clerk, and Dog Trainer to:
 Total Possibility LLC
(OK there aren’t any dogs) (There are a couple of stuffed monkeys).

www.totalpossiblity.com