Walking With Leppers

Every day we encounter multiple instances when our ethics are put to a test. Whether it be kindness to the person driving ten miles under the speed limit in the fast lane, or not telling your boss they are full of shit, there is no shortage of circumstance in which we are given an option of treating a situation gracefully or errantly. Of the times we treat situations errantly, only a portion of those render negative consequences. Of the negative consequences, only a portion of those bring your character into question to others. If only a fraction of potential ethical missteps actually result in negative consequences, at what point in the process do we assume accountability? Where is the entry point of misconduct. Is it in thought, action, or consequence?

 When the word ‘sin’ is used, a majority of conversational avenues become closed. It is either because a) a person is committing a particular sin being referenced in said conversation and has no interest in admitting fault to their actions (when your Aunt says sex before marriage is sinful at a family reunion, but you and your girlfriend have three kids), or b) a person doesn’t believe in the verb ‘sin’ because he/she holds the belief that all actions are neutral, that there is no governing force of morality, and that all morality is simply a matter of perspective. If either of these are the case than there is no basis for making the proclamation that there is any such thing as an immoral act, therefore something as heinous as ‘sexual misconduct’ is only determined on a societal level and only wrong based on circumstance. While that may be true, and there is no scientific evidence to refute that claim, it leaves a major gap for excusing people for their shortcomings.

                While situational morality is something I don’t believe in, I also understand how easily it can be to find yourself determining how you feel about the actions of yourself or someone you admire based on your feelings of affection toward yourself or someone you admire. For example, when it comes out that a politician has been convicted of sexual misconduct, I find myself easily saying “throw them to the hounds”, but when someone I admire like Louis C.K. is exposed for behaving inappropriately toward women, I find myself looking for the easiest escape route, hoping to avoid making a moral judgement about his character. A frustrating example comes to mind when people who consider themselves politically left or right harshly criticize or attempt to downplay politicians who face allegations of misconduct (either sexual or other) as long as it is politically convenient at the time (cough cough Roy Moore/Bill Clinton).

                When you make a moral judgement as to the credibility of ones’ character based on instances of misconduct (sin) you are making what could be described as an evolutionary decision, based on its potential consequences to you or your family in its recurrence. In other words, if someone you know borrows money from you but fails to pay you back, you would be wise to no longer lend money to the individual. If you continued to do so, you would most certainly lose all your money, as the lack of remorse that individual had toward their neglect of repayment would provide them no ethical consequence for having never repaid their debts. In terms of survival only, it is never in our best interest to lend anyone money, or provide charity in any way. Scientifically, the only benefit to regarding sin as existent is in terms of its consequences on our survival. But if that’s the case, is there an evolutionary benefit to charity, grace, or forgiveness?

                The argument could be made that the dopamine release response to an act of charity is an evolutionary benefit. You could claim that the act of forgiveness relieves you of any negative and potentially harmful harbored feelings toward another, or that maintaining a relationship with someone who plays an important role in your well-being is worthwhile evolutionarily. But do either of these benefits outweigh the benefit of having never committed an act of charity? Scientifically, ethics are cold, brash, and baseless.

                The idea of ‘sin’ is simple, yet nowadays its nearly a sin just saying the word itself. It does, however, require that you view morality as something more than just determined by circumstance, and it also assumes that there is such a thing as free will. Of course our relation to sin as it aligns to religion is that it is the antithesis of Gods will and is a tool for Satan’s stranglehold on your spiritual well-being, but there is a more secularly digestible format in which to understand its significance— It is the idea that all animals on this planet commit acts of atrocity toward one another either reactionarily (emotionally) or instinctually in the name of survival—but humans are the only animals (that we can prove) have a recognition of these actions, their effect on others, the consequences they have on our own life, and an ability to make a conscious decision to deny these actions despite our emotions or instincts. (House pets, which humans trained, being the only exception.) At its core, the idea of sin is that we are given an opportunity to make a choice to do either right or wrong, and we choose to do wrong. We can make claims of other species' decision making based on ethics, but we cannot accurately determine whether it is based off of a moral code, or because it is evolutionarily advantageous. In the sense that there is provable, testable ethical decision making, we stand alone.

                While that isn’t so hard to understand (assuming you can first admit there is such a thing as right and wrong and that free will does indeed exist), the people who tend to use the term ‘sin’ in our society, most commonly, come across as judgmental, causing a reasonable defiance of their belief system and throwing out the simple idea that there is indeed a wrong way of dong things. There are many consequences on a societal level of dismissing the notion of sin—variations in a common right and wrong, denial of any right and wrong, lack of accountability for misconduct, etc. But what has caught my eye most recently is the magnification of sins committed by those whom we disagree with but disregarded when acted out by those who seemingly share rudimentary and convenient values with us. (politicians, actors, athletes. Friends, family, ourselves.)

                The flaw begins with the idea that it is our actions that define our character. That we can say one person is a “good” person because they have committed no obvious harmful actions, and another is “bad” because they have. You can never gain anything from judging a human or any other animal on this planet solely on their actions, nor would you be wise to be caught by surprise when a human or animal acts in a way that you deem immoral or unjust. While it may be evolutionarily beneficial to make a judgement as to potential action, there is no gain from judging their character wholly and independently based on actions. If you judge them only on past actions, you leave no room for the potential of reform. If a vicious wolf is kept in a cage and cannot bite you, does it cease to be vicious? If Hitler were to live a life of anti-Semitism, racism, and overall hatred, but were to have never stumbled upon the resources to act on his malice, would he then be a good man with incredible speech-making ability and leadership skills?

                No matter the nature of your upbringing, your career, your deicisions, or your actions, you are guaranteed to encounter thoughts and actions in yourself that you know are contrary to the well-being of your character. It is in our animalistic nature, even as children, to feel hatred, lust, jealousy, or malcontent. We feel this inevitably at some point within out lives. It is merely a matter of catching these inherent qualities as they occur, choosing not to act on them, and making an attempt to correct the soiled thought process that ushered their occurence before it becomes habitual. Worst case scenario, they continually occur and the inner-warfare of ethical thought continues with them. Best case scenario, they become secondary reactions This in itself is no grand statement or revelation in human psychology, but it does reveal a crucial point that is scientifically observable about sin.

                  Sin begins with thought. Bad actions are a product of bad thought. Good actions are not always a product of good thought, but rather a disregard for bad thought. It is an ugly reality, but it is a reality. The ability to do wrong dwells at the core of all of us as living creatures on this earth. The ability to recognize that, refuse to act on it, and work intently on redirecting and limiting those ill-thoughts is a beautiful opportunity that should not be taken for granted. And when it comes to making a judgement on another’s actions, recognizing their remorse, and eventually forgiving them for their actions, understanding the nature of sin within all of us (atheist, agnostic, religious, or whatever identity you lay claim to) makes for an easy point of reference. A point of reference necessary for understanding first the potential for sin in yourself, the potential for sin in others, and the ability to combat it and eventually conquer it.
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Half Empty

In 2003, the worldwide phenomenon of social media was brought to the light of public eye. After meddling with email, instant messaging boards, and the beginning stages of text messaging, society took a new leap (or some might say stumble) and a new tool of self-expression, Myspace, was created. A year later, Facebook lassoed our attention spans, and a year after that, Twitter. Eventually, a few years later, Instagram took hold, shortly followed by Snapchat.

While social media is most definitely a valuable tool to interact in many ways, it seems to unfortunately bring out, not only the worst in many of us, but also the most childish. It can often be used for pictures and quick statements. Initially, most of us were sold on the idea that it would be a 21^st century way of interacting with distant friends or relatives. Now somehow it mirrors a loneliness and lack of quality thought that I might have never known ran so rampantly within our peers. It serves as a panic room for our most exaggerated fears, a mediator for groups in disagreement to jab at one another, and it allows people who might never meet to provide either discouragement or affirmation of ideas. Within its first fifteen years of public access, it has become the center of many of our paradigms. A stop-gap for our own loneliness, lack of voice in social situations, and in many cases, a platform to illustrate our own mental misfiring’s publicly.

………….

When a bachelor cooks a meal he cooks for himself. When he shops he shops for one, and when he eats he gets his fill, assuming he has the time to finish his food. He may walk through the grocery store and find himself stricken by sadness at the family in the aisle beside him with the screaming children and the overburdened parents. Maybe the parents are well-off. They buy a mixture of healthy name brand foods and late-night junk food for the teenagers staying up late fiddling their fingers on an X-Box control pad—maybe they are pulling out the food stamps and divvying out calories evenly. Packages of block cheddar cheese, frozen apple juice, fat free milk, a tub of peanut butter, a couple cartons of eggs, and a box of Ramen Noodles might occupy the space around the child squatting in the grocery cart.

                The bachelor may find company with his friends. On a better night, he may find himself drunken on the dance floor with a girl he hardly knows who shares the same quiet yearning and emptiness as he. They may hope both of their negatives can converge to form a positive. They shuffle into a group of young people once regarded as “the future” of our species. Every adult had once warned them about the sharpness of a cold reality, which they now dull by gluttonous alcohol intake and slurred conversations about social justice and the nature of ethics. 

“Adulthood” used to have a grandiosity attached to it. It used to sparkle and glisten with the naivety and excitement only observed through the blissful eyes of the inexperienced. Like a Christmas present under a tree to a child, wrapped neatly are the contents of independence, freedom, and self-reliance. As a child you believe that once unpackaged it would most certainly be the key to a revelation of purpose and calling—right? Instead it was five days of hitting snooze on the alarm clock, sitting in traffic, getting stuck at the same intersections, cursing your career choice (or lack-of), all leading to a reward of mindless indulgences disguised as “youth”, which scientifically relate to an animalistic need for spreading your DNA in hopes to achieve some sort of physical immortality in the form of genetics.

Is this all?

The bachelor may never feel sadness when he sees the family beside him. He may only quickly glance over, only to continue his life the way it was as he entered the store. It is of course very likely he may go home, stare at his Facebook feed, engage in a dead-end debate with someone who disagrees on how we interpret the 2^nd amendment, and find himself in a technology fueled half sleep. It lasts seven hours, until the alarm breaks the slide show of random imagery telling stories of seemingly miscellaneous interactions and events that either happened, will happen, did not happen, or happened in a fashion entirely different than he had perceived in the time of its occurrence.

As the word “dream” drifts through his mind, his day dream ends, and his work continues. He sits in traffic on the way home and the dream lives on. It’s a dream of a new road, a new scene, a new city, a new apartment, a new girlfriend. Maybe a dream of the purity he once felt as a child staring at that present under the tree. It seems now as though when he had opened the seemingly innocent gift, the powers it granted him overtook him. His lack of preparation for the responsibility that comes with that big word “adulthood” seem to place him consistently behind the eight ball in his life, and what may now be “youth” and was once “childhood” will soon be “elderly” and eventually “deceased.”

Is this all?

If he were to have felt sadness while sitting in this grocery line it could have been either a sadness for the parents or an envy at their life. In all likelihood whichever it was, it was probably a little bit of both. He probably hasn’t the capacity of on-the-spot sensitivity to recognize what he feels. If he feels indifferent to his surroundings in the monotony of the moment, he suffers from the same ailment as if he were to feel sadness. Oddly enough, however, if he could suddenly uncover a hidden capability of reading another’s mind he might see that he is not alone in this ailment. What seems like jealousy, indifference, contentment, or sadness is actually rampant amongst the fellow shoppers. He might see that the family beside him is struggling financially, or maybe that they have so much money they’ve lost touch with necessity and recognition of each other. He might see that not only the father and mother feel this, but so do the children. He might turn and see that this is common with the customer in front of him, behind him, the one walking out the door, and even the cashier.

“Is this all?” They might all be asking. He might realize that it is not only he who desires more, but everyone he encounters.

The truth is none of us have ever or will meet someone who has it all figured out. The beauty of the human state is that we have such variety in temperament, feeling, personality, circumstance, and potential decisions. We are all within a spectrum of imagining and reimagining ourselves, how we view each-other, and how we view the world around us. We are in a constant state of coming and going, our society is evolving at a faster rate with each passing decade than it ever has prior, and every decision we make has deep implications for the future of us all and the generations to come.

Somehow we require so little of our interactions with each-other. For some reason far beyond my understanding, we have an entirely too low standard for those who’s views we align with our own. And for those whom we disagree, we meet on a hypothetical never-ending battlefield of social media and major networks. We gallop on the backs of bandwidth, wielding keyboards and shallow acronyms as our weapons of choice. But it is not our divisive opinions that are slaughtered in the process, instead it is our wit, integrity, and our responsibility as adults to lead our brothers and sisters of the human race, as well as the generations of keyboard wielding warriors to come.

Most importantly, however, we have very little requirements in the extent to which we achieve our max capacity as highly intelligent and capable beings on an individual level. We instead stoop our intellect to a level just above Chimpanzee. We exist just enough to pay the bills or buy into (or simply purchase) an excess of attractively packaged mindlessness that contributes nothing to either our evolutionary or spiritual character. Our society, science, and technology moves at such a pace that it could develop an ability to harness its own intelligence before we ever give ourselves the chance to recognize the potential of our own. Many of us have no intent to provide any contributions to our own well-being, let alone our families’, fellow countrymen’s, our species’, or planets. We dwell within our own contentment, malcontent, or envy so deeply that our thoughts and actions are immovably shallow.

This is not all.

It is not some peculiar and unfamiliar challenge we face. It is a problem of having a glass capable of holding eight ounces of water that is rarely filled past four ounces. It is not a problem of capacity, it is a problem of substance. Many of us have no problem talking, though nearly all of us portray ourselves as disinterested in consciously listening. It seems we poor the glass out before we can fill it up. While it could be simply labeled as a lack of thought put into individual actions, it is more a lack of quality thought, which is not insurmountable. We all desire more from ourselves, whether we recognize it or not. When we do not strive to grasp the reigns of our own pursuit, we find ourselves offering our inadequacies as reflections of ourselves in interaction.

Often, I thought this was solely a product of poor parenting. It is not. I could claim it is a lack of education, but I would still likely be wrong. And while those are most definitely contributing factors, improvements in those avenues and others like them only assist in preparation for the contents of the neatly wrapped gifts of “adulthood”. Adulthood is an achievement, much like old age. independence, freedom, and self-reliance are absolutely something to be excited about within your adolescence. But they are in themselves gifts earned through experiences who wield power, requiring responsibility, accountability, rational thinking, humility, and truth. Without these accompanying traits we are all bound to the slavery of our own pathl

essness and insufficiency.

When we get to the point of being an adult, we must require a base level of attentiveness and self-awareness from ourselves and each-other. After all, as a child, you aspire to have those characteristics in your back pocket as an adult. We are not victims of social media. It is not the inventions fault that we are disinterested in interacting with each other in an adultlike and responsible manner. Every one of us is capable of contributing more to the pot of human interaction than we put forth, and it is the pursuit of fulfilling those capabilities that will drive us away from the strife and divisiveness we encounter on these platforms. The gaps in our own mental, physical, and spiritual development are waiting to be filled by our desire to listen, learn, and grow—not to be exemplified by hatred and discouragement towards our brothers and sisters. We are capable of more. We are called for more.

We use the word “dream” to describe aspirations, but our aspirations for our own lives are far from measly dreams. They are not abstract and filled with miscellaneous content outside of our ability to guide. They are not theoretical and frail, able to be crumbled by circumstance or obstacles. They are attainable, they exist in all of us, and it is one of the great and exciting opportunities of life that we be granted the “gift” of pursuit. Find your capacity and exceed it. Fill your cup. It deserves all eight ounces of your being, not four. You aren’t chained to your job, you aren’t chained to your apartment, and the life you live now can ALWAYS be enhanced. As long as you are alive you can dream. As long as you can dream you can achieve. 

True North

Everyone has an independent view on morality it seems. Often, we break it down with such detail that we break it down to nothing. We think of morality as subjective or based on the culture— the values of the men and women who subscribe to Sharia Law will be different than the values of a gay atheist living in Portland, OR. We think of morality as scriptural— we get our values based on religious doctrines and we let them be the compass for how we perceive a “good” life to be in ourselves, and where we draw boundaries within our own culture or personal relationships. And many of us, including myself at one time in my life, believe morality to be essentially an illusion— a complete fabrication constructed by early humans to maintain order in a normally barbaric and inhumane early society.

In life you may find yourself directionless from time to time. You will without any uncertainty find yourself in circumstances that present themselves to you unexpectedly that you have not had adequate time to evaluate. Therefore, you may find yourself going through with unexpected and highly impactful decisions based on erraticism or instinct. In each of these situations our personal set of morals and values collide with our innate reactionary instincts, and we make our decisions either within our personal definitions of right and wrong, or we make decisions with our animal instincts— our ‘fight or flight’ reflex.

It’s important for us to know that when we view morals or personal values, they are not dependent on circumstance. If we allow circumstance to be a deciding factor in how we define morality than the boundaries of morality are in a constant state of fluctuation and redefinition. If, for example, we use the well-regarded value of commitment— we can agree commitment is either existent or it is not. You are not half-committed to something. You may make the claim that you are, but on a moment-to-moment basis you are either committed or you aren’t. If an alcoholic is committed to no longer drinking, he wouldn’t then only drink on Friday nights. He doesn’t leave himself a place for his commitment to sobriety to be on hold until the next day. That would be an example of being committed Saturday through Thursday, failing in your commitment on Friday, and recommitting on Saturday once again. If you are committed to getting in shape and you decide you are going to take a week off training and eating healthy, you are foregoing your commitment that week.

Commitment to yourself is an easy step to take. I can discipline myself for eating a piece of cake when I’m on a no-sugar diet and move on easily. The problem presents itself when we add extreme circumstance to the scenario—'I made a commitment to my wife when we were married that we would be together, as one body, through sickness and through health, until death do us part. I then found out she was cheating on me with a close friend of mine, so we were divorced.’ It’s easy to say that a man or woman who was wronged in a marital situation with something such as infidelity or abuse should feel no guilt to leave the relationship, and in many cases that is the best option or them at the time. But does that mean the value of commitment suddenly isn’t important? The circumstance doesn’t devalue commitment, the vow of commitment is broken due to the circumstance. In other words, the choice to cheat or the choice to divorce doesn’t make the value of commitment cease to exist because of the circumstances, it is simply disregarded. In this case, it may be best for the spouse who was wronged to get themselves out of the situation and recommit to themselves, maybe giving an opportunity to someone else who values commitment as much as they do. But it doesn’t excuse a situation in which two people disregarded their supposed valuing of commitment.

This particular value (commitment), even with its circumstantial contradictions, is an easy target to exemplify because most people and most cultures can agree upon its importance. And even when it comes to the example of divorce, some people may disagree with me, but most would be able to easily see how I or someone else could cling to that principle. You see, however, as you dig into more controversial examples that hit closer to home in modern day Western culture (homosexuality, wartime murder, abortion… etc.), how the topic can provide a very hard and slow-moving conversation with little give on either side. The reason, once again, is that we cloud our definitions of right and wrong with circumstance and emotion.

It especially becomes challenging when we enter ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ into the equation, because we often think to love or feel compassion for someone is to condone their actions. But does a parent who loves their child condone their child disobeying them? To punish your child, or even to allow your child to receive the natural punishments issued as a result of their actions, does not mean you don’t have love or have compassion for your child. It means quite the opposite. Your understanding of the consequence of their actions is superior to theirs, so it becomes your responsibility to present (or allow it to be presented) that which they do not know or understand.

 At first glance when you see the word ‘condone’ you might think just because you allow something, it doesn’t mean you condone it. “I don’t condone a woman’s choice to abort their child, I just believe it’s her body and her right.” The fact of the matter is, by definition, to condone is not only to allow but to also approve of. If you think that a child in the womb that is in its earliest stages of development, it does not have a pulse, and likely has yet to develop an affinity for ‘love’ and ‘compassion’, is not by your meaning ‘living’ enough for you to condone its preservation, then by all means, condone abortion. But if anything in you believes that even at the earliest stages of its development it is ‘alive’, then you are condoning the taking of a life due to circumstance. And we should all agree, taking a human life is not worth condoning.

You can go on endlessly with different circumstances and excuses for right and wrong, and an intelligent person will be able to refute the idea of its existence fairly easily. But I would be remised if I did not acknowledge a great possibility and likelihood that our conscience is not merely shaped situationally, but something much deeper than physical circumstance. It would be shortsighted in my belief to assume that something as serious as the taking of a life, or even something as basic as not being true to your word, would be a value that could vary if I were to travel to a part of the world where it was not common. If that were the case, then any set of even the most unimaginable wrongs (rape or molestation, mass murder… etc.) could be circumstantial and left up to interpretation. If that were the case than we are no different than our barbarian ancestors who more resembled beasts than the inventive, creative, compassionate, and unselfish homo sapiens we imagine ourselves to be now.

The idea that morality is not a victim of circumstance is not a new idea. All of the world’s major religions subscribe in some way to a belief that morality is endowed spiritually rather than physically developed. However, we often couple our disregard of their respective doctrines with a disregard of their moral teachings because they are outdated. “To implement the Old Testaments book of Deuteronomy into modern society would move morality backwards.”  To the naked eye, I can completely understand that. And I could write another two-thousand words in defense of Old Testament teachings as they relate to New Testament in the Christian Bible. I could write another about the immoral implications of religion coinciding with government and limiting freedom of choice.  To elaborate on either would distract from the overall point:

Morality is concrete. Just as a compass will direct us to the gravitational North of the earth, the magnetic pole of the earth will always change, but the northernmost axis will always occupy the same spot in relation to the sun, despite what a compass tells us. Our relationship with our moral guidelines do not deviate from their truth because of circumstance and it is our job as citizens to reinforce our inner morality. In a perfect world we could point to others and say “that is wrong!” and in some cases that is necessary, but it must first take place on an individual level. We must first recognize we as individuals are not bigger than the morals that guide us. We change, the world around us changes, the circumstances we come up against evolve as our species evolves—but that does not mean the value of community, love, charity, discipline, forgiveness, honor, truth, and the scariest of all, accountability, are to evolve as well. It is our moral ‘true north’ that elevates our being to a level not shared by any other living organism discovered up to this point. If morals are to evolve, than we have lost what got us to this point in the first place.

Pack Weight

If we were to itemize the things of greatest value in our lives we would nearly all answer our family and friends. Maybe we would be more specific and answer something along the lines of ‘my relationship with my kids’ or ‘time spent with loved ones.’  

                While it may be true that these are in fact the things that mean the most to us, the answer would most certainly be different if we were to rephrase the question: “if your house was burning down, what items would you grab on your way out?” Then your answer may change to something of sentimental value; a photo album, a letter from your wife in high school, maybe your record collection… You could also ask what are the most monetarily valuable things in your home? You may answer your TV, your furniture, your jewelry.

                Where it becomes interesting is if you were to be asked the question in third person: “What does your brother value most?” When you look at what another person may value most you find yourself categorizing it in a different way. Instead of viewing items or relationships with attachment to a specific world view or emotion, you begin to measure value by the things said person seems to have a particular interest in or the ways an interest can consume their life.

                “Take what you need and leave what you don’t” I’d say to myself if I knew I would be hiking twenty miles a day through mountainous terrain. If I knew I had to carry every item of ‘value’ on my back with every step I took, the light in which I view what is valuable would be quite different. I might instead value the basic necessities like food, clean water, warmth, and shelter.

 Its often stated when someone ventures off on a hike or even a vacation that they just want to ‘escape it all.’ The, for lack of a better word, value in hiking or camping is that you detach yourself from the burdens and weight of every day life that we seem to habitually carry. How can you receive work emails or phone calls if you have no phone or internet connection? How can you get a bill in the mail if you don’t reside at an address? How can you be stuck in traffic if you’ve pulled the key out of the ignition and walked ten miles from the nearest road?

It all seems so great and simple. Shut off, escape it all, clear your mind. But is it really effective? If you’re addicted to alcohol, sex, social media, or reality TV, hiking or other means of detachment don’t alleviate your addiction, they simply provide you with a forced restraint. You can just as easily carry a flask full of whiskey with you into the mountains. But even if you choose to deprive yourself of it for four days in the wilderness, you will still inevitably return to a world where whiskey exists.

Just simply detaching yourself from your burdens or added weight does not ensure that you will not be once again faced with the potential of reattaching to the burdens, it only briefly robs you of your access. There is only one way to truly face your burdens, whether they be physical addiction, emotional dependency, feelings of sorrow or hatred, or even the every day stresses of work or relationships. But it is not in fact to detach yourself from them, but to instead detach them from you.

If I want to shed the weight in my pack so as to alleviate the pain that is an effect of the weight, I have to quite simply shed the weight. I can only do this effectively if I empty out the contents of my pack and limit it to the things which I see as most valuable to achieve life. If ‘to live’ is the only requirement I deem necessary to spend a week in the wilderness, I will carry only the weight necessary to achieve that goal. If ‘to live’ is the only requirement I have for my day to day life in a society, which has and will always provide me with whatever addiction or burden I choose to carry, then I might not go back to the whiskey, the toxic relationship, or the endless social media dribble. If I view myself in the third person, “What does he value most?” I may find an ugly truth. What I value is not my family, it is not the sentimental item from a loved one, and it is certainly not the things I only require to live effectively. Instead what I value is the burden that I choose to carry. It is what I choose to consume myself with; hate, fear, anger, sadness, pride. All things unnecessary for life. All causes for addiction, helpless dependency, and pain. All values I nor anyone else can afford to carry.

Lucky

You see an NFL receiver sprint past the cornerback and snag a 22-yard touchdown reception out of the air on a perfectly placed throw. You watch an MMA fighter tag an opponent on the chin with a counter punch, knocking him out cold within two minutes of the first round. A CEO for a large international startup company pulls in ten million dollars annually. Your best friend somehow scores a few dates with a girl way out of his league…

You wake up every day and hit snooze on your alarm clock. Ten minutes goes by and once again you hit snooze. By the third snooze you’re nearly leaping out of bed, throwing your clothes on, grabbing a piece of toast for breakfast, and sprinting out the door five minutes later than your conscience will allow. You get to work four minutes late, slip into the office, and begin your daily tasks seemingly unnoticed. The first few hours of the day are filled with the anxiety that at some point your boss will inevitably bring up the fact that you were four minutes late to work and give you a similar lecture to the one your mom used to give you when you didn’t wake up for school on time. But low and behold, that moment never comes. In fact, you go the entire day without ever being disciplined for having been late to work. And even though you tell yourself tomorrow you will not hit snooze, you do once again, and once again you find yourself sprinting to your car, praying to the sky that you’ll get lucky and there won’t be any major accidents on the freeway.

Where does luck end and action begin?

                It often seems as though we live in a culture invested in teaching our youth that a particular word or phrase exists, but there is no interest in teaching them of the context where said word or phrase should actually be used. Often when people see other people who’s success they envy, rather than attribute that to action, they write it off by uttering a phrase such as “lucky you.”

                It is not incorrect to assume that every person you meet has received their fair share of luck in this life. Just simply being born in the United States is in itself a great representation of good fortune or “luck.” In the United States, the average citizen makes roughly $35,000 annually, nearly twice the average of the rest of the world. Barring incredibly unlucky circumstances, quite simply being born into this country gives you a fair amount of luck right from the get go.

                Though I may not feel so lucky when I’m cold and thirsty, tossing around my tent trying to avoid vicious leg cramps while reaching down to scratch my bug bitten legs, through my wilderness ventures, I hear quite often from my peers how “lucky” I am. In many ways they are right. I was born in a country that values its unique geographical features enough to preserve them for every generation, including my own and those who will follow. But the fact that I and many others like myself take advantage of this great opportunity to immerse ourselves in the natural splendors of our landscape does not infer that there is no sacrifice required to enjoy such treasures. In fact, every few months members of congress do their best to sell off these public lands without our democratic consent.

                So where does luck end and action begin? For the NFL player, it’s when he lugs heavy pads around, running full speed ahead into another person of equal talent, risking great bodily injury for the likelihood of only playing for a few years. He sets himself apart by his will to conquer. For the MMA fighter it’s being the first one in the gym and the last one out. The bravery to stand in a cage with the most talented and skilled fighters on the planet with only the time on the mat, the days of blood and sweat, and the drive to pull their aching body out of bed in the morning to do it all again, often while working a full time job. For the CEO, it’s the time spent evaluating themselves and others. Speaking with confidence and self belief. It’s doing what needs to be done every day to set themselves apart while everyone else is four minutes late to work, hoping no one noticed. For your friend, maybe he was the only one brave enough to ask her out… or maybe he’s just lucky…

                Webster’s dictionary says luck is ‘the force that brings good fortune or adversity’. Nowhere in the definition does work ethic, sacrifice, discipline, drive, persistence, attitude, or will to succeed come into play. And if luck truly is the greatest asset an individual has on their resume of success, then it should be known and taught that it is not a reliable component to expect or be sought after. The only reliable source of “luck” is the luck the can be created every day, in every moment, with every decision you make- or don’t.

Helplessness Blues

The president of the United States hits ‘send’ and lengthens the twitter feed. One of the most powerful men in the world, or at least seemingly so. He addresses the country and world one iPhone screen at a time. He echoes conservative clichés which go from his fingertips, to the excited eyes of each consumer, and to the lips of the talking heads. Eventually a conversation starts, between two, ten, one hundred, one million people, and eventually the entire world.

                A white supremacist drives a vehicle through a crowd of left wing activists, and days later hurricanes ravage their way through the southern United States. A statue that had been all but unnoticed to most of the world is destroyed for what it is believed to represent, while the remains of another scrapes against the asphalt in the ever swelling currents of what were only days earlier city streets. The climate is changing, the birds are chirping, the heads are talking, and even 200 miles and 15 days into the heart of the Scottish hills, the birds relay the chirps of these talking heads. You cannot be far enough to escape it all…

                I speak to well rounded, well grounded, intellectuals as well as people I would view as erratic and divisive. I speak to people of all faiths and all angles of the political spectrum, and through all the angles and all the compelling (or not so compelling) perspectives, I find only one commonality amongst them all; hopelessness.

                When I think of hope I think of a noun: a feeling of expectation for something to happen. That is to assume that hope is a thing. Hope is concrete, it either exists or does not. So in modern western society, where we have the conveniences of endless and readily available information, readily available food and water for our desired consumption, and even things as simple as laundry facilities and showers, how can hope not exist abundantly? Everything we could ever want or need is only a few minutes away should we make any sort of basic effort to attain it. How could we see point blank, on a daily basis, the potential of humanities creativity, ingenuity, and innovation, and still hope rarely makes itself visible?

Whether it be on a technological, political, or even moral scale, the advancements of mankind within the last 3000 years have been exponential! On a timeline of 4.5 billion years, 3000 is only a blink of an eye. Even in my short lifetime, society has evolved at and unprecedented rate. In fact, there are few places better to exemplify the advancements of our species than right here in the United States of America. Even still, if you were to only view human interaction through the vacuum of social media, you may just think we had and are still only going backwards…

A wise man told me faith cannot exist without hope. That is to say, a complete trust or belief in something cannot exist without first having the expectation that it can be true. Which brings me to the important distinction between how we view hope.

In one sense it is indeed a noun. I know that the sun will rise each morning, or the earth will continue its course and the sun will come into my view, therefore hope exists of its timely arrival and a new day beginning. But in another sense it is also a verb. Hope is also an action. It is not a feeling as much as it is an invoked desire. ‘I lift weights in hopes that I will become strong.’ Though I may be week, I hope that I will become strong by setting a goal for myself physically and setting out to achieve it. And that is not baseless, because it is an action which I put into motion. It is not faith because I am the creator of it and my action is how it comes into existence.

If I were to spend all my time hoping for natural disasters to prove climate change to be real, or hoping for Donald Trump to make a fool out of himself while giving a United Nations speech, or hoping a terrorist attack happens so that my theory about radical Islamic refugees can be true, then I most obviously am hoping maliciously for my own gain, that is the desire to be proven right. But this hope, while its creators would not willingly admit to it, exists within plain view to a far greater extent than what I would call a righteous hope. This hope, if brought into action, creates the opposite effect; hopelessness.

As much as I’d like to point my fingers at those I disagree with, and as much as my ego requires that I be proven right in my views of the world, I feel it is counterproductive to consistently dwell on differences of opinion as it creates a sterile environment where only hopelessness can grow. And as a living, breathing, voting,  privileged first world citizen, I view it as my responsibility (should I have an interest in a better world for my friends, family, neighbors, and species) to do my part to instill hope within our airstreams, once again. If hope were to take precedence over being proven right or having your opinion be heard, than it would create an environment for progress, and maybe even faith.