Money Can’t Buy Happiness

“Money can’t buy happiness”.

What does that mean? We’ve all heard it, and most of us don’t believe it.

“Sure money buys happiness.”

I’ve heard people say that a lot. Or this one:

“Maybe money can’t buy happiness, but without it you’re miserable for certain.”

What do you think? Before you answer, consider this: happiness is the experience of extraordinary moments.

When you are on your deathbed, what will you remember when you look back on your life? Surely you won’t remember everything, just those key moments that stand out: the extraordinary moments. Chances are those won’t be the moments you spent at work, or buying a computer or arguing with your wife. They’ll probably be moments like making a game winning catch in little league and being praised and cheered by your team mates, or the reminiscent tingling sensation associated with your first kiss, or holding your child for the first time. Indeed, most old and successful people will regard the poorest and most challenging periods of their life with the most fondness.

Moments have value and it is a value which transcends money.

When Billy Crystal is asked to talk about the most meaningful moments he’s had in his career he does not talk about hosting the Oscars or making movies with big name Hollywood stars; instead he talks about making his aunts and uncles laugh when he would perform for them at ten years old. Those are the moments that stand out with the most value.

Life is a string of moments, and for most of us we believe that money will buy us extraordinary moments. That belief is a fallacy.

Now let’s take another look at the statement: “money can’t buy happiness”. I think this means “money can’t buy extraordinary moments”. Extraordinary moments are manifested by people who have a creativity which is fueled by curiosity. Sometimes those people have money and sometimes they don’t. When they do have lots of money, but lack the creativity fueled by curiosity, they lament over what they don’t have (usually non-tangible since the tangible is accessible); when they don’t have money, but the creativity fueled by curiosity, they’ll work two jobs will still manage to make a boat out of an old garbage bin with their kids, or invent a new form of baseball suitable to a muddy field on a rainy day.

You don’t need money in order to manifest extraordinary moments. When people say “money can’t buy happiness”, that’s what they’re saying. Money can't buy extraordinary moments.

You should be doing something every day of your life to manifest extraordinary moments; moments that brings you joy and brings value to your day and your life. If you’re not, you need to start that today. Don’t wait for some imaginary event in the future before you can manifest extraordinary moments.

If you’re telling yourself, “As soon as I get…‘X’…, I can start my life”, whatever ‘X’ is: a husband, a wife, a particular career, a million dollars, a Ferrari; whatever ‘X’ happens to be you don’t need to wait for anything. You should have extraordinary moments every day, starting…wait for it…riiight…NOW!

All you need is a creativity that’s fueled by curiosity. All you need is a passion for being alive. Without that, all the money in the world can’t help you.

Don’t believe me? Check these out:

http://www.forbes.com/2004/09/21/cx_mh_0921happiness.html


http://www.american.com/archive/2008/may-june-magazine-contents/can-money-buy-happiness

It’s Not What You Have; It’s What You’re Able To Do With What’s Available To You

When was about 17 (back in the opulent 1980’s) I used to love skiing and I was good at it. At that time skiing was expensive, so there was a high cost of entry to get in. I would frequently see my peers on $1,000 skis, hand made in Switzerland, with $500 boots to match and their racing jump suits and so on. I came from a working class family, and we certainly did not have money like that to throw around, and my part time job after school at the local pizza place would not subsidize such extravagance. So, I had a pair of broken down planks that had served 5 years in a ski rental store that my buddy worked at. I got them for free because they were going to get thrown away. My boots were also broken down and salvaged ex-rentals and my outfit was jeans and a wool coat with gardening gloves: whatever I could find or scare up. Routinely I would get teased and ridiculed on the lift up the mountain:

“Hah, look at those skis! Those suck! What a joke!”

You’d think that this would bother me, but it only did the first couple of times it happened; because I quickly realized that I could always ski rings around anyone with expensive equipment who made fun of me. The people who had the finest equipment handed to them rarely knew how to use that equipment well. Whereas, for me, on inferior equipment, I was required to work real hard to ski at all so I was more committed to the sport. Once we got off the lift and started down the mountain they’d be struggling along in their $1,500 gear, sometimes in a wedge, and I’d blow right by them. I’d smoke them every time on my beat up rental skis that I saved from the dumpster. Once they saw how I skied the comments from those particular kids would stop, and sometimes we'd end up friends.

So in a very real way I learned that life is not about the equipment; it’s about what you’re able to do with the equipment.

In life, it’s not about what you have- it’s NEVER about what you have: it’s always about what you’re able to do with what’s available to you. From Benjamin Franklin, to Thomas Edison, to Steve Wozniak, it was about “what can you do with what’s available to you”, because nobody gave those guys anything when they got started.

You don’t need money and you don’t need things to manifest something extraordinary; and that goes for extraordinary moments or extraordinary things.

What you DO need is a creativity driven by curiosity. In the absence of money and proper tools, the creative mind always manifests the extraordinary.

What is Iconoclastic Pomposity?

Well, it is a term I coined coming from the following two root words, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as:

Iconoclast: a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions

Pompous: having or exhibiting self-importance: arrogant

Therefore, iconoclastic pomposity is the act of pretentiously defaming or destroying what others hold sacred or regard as tradition.

As an example, let’s take Andres Serrano’s famous photo; “Piss Christ”. In 1989 Mr. Serrano submerged a small crucifix (Jesus on the cross) in a glass of his own urine and photographed it. By its very name, “Piss Christ”, it is understood that the artist was crossing a line he knew would draw the wrath of others who follow the Christian faith (regardless of the statement he was making). Whatever the motives of the artist, both he and the art community certainly practiced at least a little bit of iconoclastic pomposity with the sort of “how dare you ridicule or judge me simply because I dropped your most sacred of all symbols in a glass of piss” attitude.

The artist new the attention it would draw, and the art community was arrogant about his statement.

Even though a nun at the time made the statement in an interview with Bill Moyers that “she regarded the work as not blasphemous but a statement on ‘what we have done to Christ’" (from Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ), this event most clearly illustrates iconoclastic pomposity.

“How dare you criticize or judge me, simply because I dropped your most sacred of all symbols in a glass of piss.”

Let’s take it a step further and combine the definitions of our words.

Iconoclastic pomposity: a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions while exhibiting self-importance or arrogance.

Sound familiar?

All societies, great and small have practiced iconoclastic pomposity in one form or another. Family units as well; whether blood related or not. Manifest Destiny and the taking of the America’s from the Native Americans was certainly a form of iconoclastic pomposity. Religious persecution of the Puritans, driving them to the America’s in the first place was equally an act of iconoclastic pomposity. The ensuing British suppression of the American Colonists was brimming with iconoclastic pomposity.

Any war that has ever been waged had its genesis in an act of iconoclastic pomposity. Certainly any form of Terrorism is brimming over with iconoclastic pomposity.

All intolerance in world history was seeded and fertilized by iconoclastic pomposity. Slavery is the result of such an extreme act of iconoclastic pomposity, that it defiles the most sacred of all institutions: the human soul.

Whenever one individual calls another stupid for not believing in the same religion, or lack of religion they do, it is an act of iconoclastic pomposity. Is there really a difference between “You’re an idiot because you believe in the Bible” and “You’re an idiot because you don’t believe in the Bible”? Two sides of the same intolerant coin. Iconoclastic pomposity.

Wherever 2 individuals argue not to uncover the truth, but to win and be right, they practice iconoclastic pomposity. Wherever there is argumentum ad hominem, there is iconoclastic pomposity. Washington D.C. and media networks are loaded with iconoclastic pomposity. Democrats and Republicans practice it towards each other each day.

Do you get the idea now?

So is Iconoclastic Pomposity good or bad? Right or wrong?

Well, its got nothing to do with that.

Iconoclastic Pomposity is the foundation upon which ALL human folly is built.

It provides a justification to cause harm to another.

Neither good nor bad. Neither right nor wrong. Merely instinctual human behavior- encoded in our DNA and passed down from our ancestors.

Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ”, and example of iconoclastic pomposity, was met head on with the iconoclastic pomposity of its opponents. Mr. Serrano had been granted $15,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts to create, among other things, the “Piss Christ”. Senators led by Jesse Helms were outraged that tax dollars went into a work they found so offensive, and tried to cut funding to future artists and more closely monitor the works of artists and how the grants were laid out. Their own sense of righteousness driving them to believe that their efforts were sound; to curb the free speech of all future artists because this one made something they did not like.

Which of them was right? There is no right. They were reacting at an instinctual level. They were both acting out of a sense of “right”. That is where the pomposity comes in.

So, you may wonder at this point, if indeed you made it this far, why would I name my blog after the “foundation upon which all human folly is built”?

Because once mankind recognizes that iconoclastic pomposity and all the intolerance and injustice it breeds; all the lies it perpetuates; all the truth it obscures; is instinct, then mankind can begin to forge a world without it. We can begin the long arduous process of purging the genetic code from our DNA. We can remove such needless suffering from the life experience of our descendants.

If you ask me, it’s already started. The fact that I can sit here and write this and post it on the web for any one in the world to see, sit her as a free man in a free country full of opportunity and wonder, that I can have the sum of human knowledge right here at my fingertips to draw from, is proof that we are evolving from our hateful past.

The time between World War II and 1998 is the longest period in recorded history that Western Europe has gone without a war. Sure, the threat of destroying the world with nuclear weapons had a little to do with it, but still, it’s progress. The fact that for the first time in human history slavery is illegal in all countries (although unfortunately still practiced at length) is a step forward. Now if we can get people to just obey that law, then we get somewhere.

The fact that world nations acknowledge human rights violations at all is a step forward. We stand at the dawn of a new era in human history, without doubt.

As long as human beings strive to uncover absolute truths about ourselves and our cosmos, we will progress toward a better world. A more tolerant world. A world in which iconoclastic pomposity will not longer drive human behavior.

Rambling on Truth; I can’t seem to let this topic go…

...begin ramble...

Destruction and Creation.

Two sides of the same coin. Tearing something down / Building something up. Looking for problems / Looking for solutions. Offering up a complaint / Implementing a fix.

One path is simple, obvious and easy. The other path is complicated, ambiguous and difficult; demanding determination, sacrifice, toil, blood and sweat.

The real interesting thing is that when one engages in the act of either creation or destruction the result is enormously satisfying emotionally. You might say engaging in either endeavor yields the same level of emotional satisfaction.

For this reason problem identifiers are more commonplace in society than problem solvers.

Now throw in judgment. Judging is also an act which provides extreme satisfaction. Judging a situation, identifying who or what is to blame and broadcasting the problem to others yields great satisfaction; and people love to hear it. Especially if what is said caters to what the listener wants to believe. Facts, at this stage of the exercise, get thrown to the curb. Judgment and opinion is king.

I refer here to the latest campaign for president, and indeed all political campaigns, where solutions are set aside for the focus on problems and on the personal character of the candidates. Many claims and accusations were tossed around in this last election, especially about the character of the candidates, but little focus, as usual, was put on the real facts behind the problems we face as a nation and how to find solutions to those problems.

Because destruction is so much easier to act on than creation, and because each yields equal amounts of satisfaction, I propose that man has a natural tendency to destroy (no great revelation here, I know). Destruction is simple, obvious and easy. Identifying problems and broadcasting them is simple, obvious and easy. The act yields great satisfaction to the individual engaged in it.

As a result, the act of complaining has become a full time job; a career choice. Commentators on television, radio and the internet spend their days looking for problems then complaining to the rest of us about what is wrong with our culture, our society and our country. There are even those who skillfully criticize and blemish the United States and what it stands for while hiding behind the American flag. It is astonishing. Yet, we all watch and enjoy the show.

Journalists have given way to “Opinionists”. Where a journalist presents factual, empirical evidence from all angels of a story, allowing the viewer, reader or listener to draw their own conclusion, an opinionist merely needs to passionately, and usually loudly (while interrupting someone) state what they believe to be true- even in the conspicuous lack of any evidence backing up the opinion.

We all know these types; we have made them and their venue hugely popular. We like to watch people complain. It is very entertaining.

However each of us must pay attention to the fact that we live in the information age. Much of the information that is out there, which is NOT backed up by empirical evidence, is usually an exaggeration, a misleading bit of information, or an outright lie. Even what may be said by the major networks can not be taken at face value without evidence to back it up.

One must always remember that just because someone wrote it down doesn’t make it true. Just because a man wears a suit and sits behind a desk on television does not mean that he is telling you the whole truth of the situation.

The good news is we live in the information age so we, any of us at any time with a few button clicks, can research any item for factual evidence. It is easy and quick to do; and necessary if we, as a society, are to prevent lies from becoming accepted as truth. To seek truth in all its forms is the most important duty thrust upon the people of any civilized society.

Now, there is the reality that anyone will find “facts” to back up their opinion. That is human nature. People have a natural tendency to look at and acknowledge only those facts that directly support their particular world view. In the process, any factual data contrary to that world view is overlooked or ignored. This is why it is so important that each person use the technologies of the information age to find the facts for themselves, the empirical evidence, to back up what they hear or read.

It is our duty as an ever advancing society to research for ourselves what is and is not true. It is our duty to not trust what we hear and accept it at face value.

There is a simple metric one can use in this day and age to explore the truth in a given story:

1. Empirical evidence: How often is the story relying on evidence presented dispassionately and from all sides to make it’s case? If there is no actual evidence, and only the opinions and statements made from individuals or “experts”, then the claim of the story is probably misleading or untrue.
2. Opinion: Is the story focused on one opinion only and show “facts” which reinforce the claims of that one opinion only? If no opposing side is shown in a story then the creator of the story has a definite agenda to sway the listener / viewer / reader. This means you need to go research this story because it is more than likely not entirely true; or it utilizes half truths and is misleading.
3. Scientific method: Are you, as the recipient of the information, getting the honest truth or a small piece of it; or a distorted piece? I’ll cite an example here. I went to college at San Francisco State University and was in the bay area during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that destroyed several freeways in the area. Two years later there was a big earthquake in Los Angeles, destroying freeways as well. On the national news (I won’t say which channel), a few weeks after the L.A. quake, there was a piece on traffic jams and how it takes such a long time to rebuild the roadways. As an example, the news story showed a recent massive traffic jam on the Dumbarton Bridge, south of the Bay Bridge. They interviewed a driver in his car talking about how crazy the traffic was. The news story went on to say how, two years after the Loma Prieta quake, the San Francisco Bay Area was still in massive traffic jams due to the rebuilding of the highways. This story was not entirely untrue, but it was not entirely true either. The footage they showed of the man in the traffic jam in the car on the Dumbarton Bridge was local footage from a few weeks earlier when a truck had spilled asbestos on the Bay Bridge. As a result the Bay Bridge was closed for a day to clean up the spill, then reopened the following day. So, on the day that footage was shot there were extraordinary traffic jams throughout the area (the Bay Bridge is the main highway across the bay), however that only lasted a day. In reality, the traffic in 1991 in the Bay Area was not nearly as bad as that news cast made it out to be. Was it a lie? No. Was it the truth? No. It was an exaggeration. Was it harmful to exaggerate? In that instance, no. But unless we, the people, pay attention and question what we see the potential is there for harm.

Information is powerful. Thanks to Google and the internet we all can wield that power responsibly for ourselves.

...end ramble...

Context and the Truth

A while back the local library had a sale. Seeing as I sold most of my things (books included) before I moved to California, I figured for fifty cents a paperback and a buck for a hard cover I couldn’t go wrong with picking up some new reading material.

I found a book entitled “Ten Great Religions”. This particular volume is hardcover and printed in the year 1883. The cover is worn and the pages quite yellow, but for the most part it’s in pretty good shape. The front and back covers are thick green, and in gold there is very old fashioned engraved lettering containing the title and beneath, a layered ring encapsulating the ten great religions in a sort of gothic design. There is no doubt that this book has traveled around during the last 125 years. It retains a sort of “sorcery” feel.

I brought the book to work and had it sitting on my desk when Gwen, an inquisitive and charming friend of mine, picked it up and started flipping through it. On the title page, written in green ink obviously from a pen requiring an ink well to use, and probably 100 years old, Gwen found a sentence written by hand from a previous owner. She read the passage aloud:

“The best thing God has bestowed on man is the power to take his own life. Page 345<>

She looked up at me and asked if this book was cursed. Perhaps the first owner cut his wrists or something. The passage itself, combined with the very nature of this ancient tomb (by our standards in California) was quite creepy.

Gwen put the book back on my desk and passed the creepy feeling onto me. Surely the person who wrote this was disturbed. Had I purchased a cursed item? I entertained the idea.

Obviously this quote, written by hand, was condoning suicide. Not just condoning it, but recommending it as a course of action; almost saying: “suicide is good, try it sometime”.

“The best thing god has bestowed on man is the power to take his own life” can not be interpreted too many different ways. It is pretty clear what this is saying. Suicide is God’s gift to man. What kind of religion says this?

I then went to page 345 and looked at the entire passage quoted:

“All religion is the offspring of necessity, weakness, and fear. What God is, if in truth he be anything distinct from the world, it is beyond the compass of man’s understanding to know. But it is a foolish delusion, which has sprung from human weakness and human pride, to imagine that such an infinite spirit would concern himself with the petty affairs of men. It is difficult to say, whether it might not be better for men to be wholly without religion, than to have one of this kind, which is a reproach to its object. The vanity of man, and his insatiable longing after existence, have led him also to dream of a life after death. A being full of contradictions, he is the most wretched of creatures; since the other creatures have no wants transcending the bounds of their nature. Man is full of desires and wants that reach to infinity, and can never be satisfied. His nature is a lie, uniting the greatest poverty with the greatest pride. Among these so great evils, the best thing God has bestowed on man is the power to take his own life.”

Given a little greater context than the last few words of the passage had given me, I now have a greater insight as to that writing on the title page of my ancient new book.

This passage sounded quite contemporary to me, as if a modern atheist was describing the failings of Christianity. More importantly, the creepiness of the last few words was lost in what was now obviously an intellectual exercise. The original opinion of that passage condoning, even recommending suicide was totally wrong. The real meaning of the passage was to point out man’s conceit and arrogance. This was an indictment of the human animal and all his wants and contradictions and how he wraps these evils up in the blanket of religion. How religion both reflects and encapsulates the folly of man. And in the midst of this great pit of want, fear and weakness, and total lack of virtue, the greatest gift this foul human animal has had bestowed upon him from the God he imagined is the ability to remove his existence from the cosmos; his existence being that dismal.

Well, not a very cheery thought, but certainly a completely different feel than “suicide is good, try it sometime”. This now sounds more like “your religion is the result of your own hubris; the best that it grants you is the removal of your own existence”.

As I read further, I found that the author of the book was talking about the ancient religions of Rome; the pre-Christian religion with Jupiter as it’s chief God. At this point in the book he was discussing the fall of this religion, which was replaced in Rome by Christianity. The passage quoted above which the author of my book used, in it’s entirety, was a quote extracted from the writings of Pliny the elder (a Roman philosopher who died in AD 79).

So, as it turns out, the passage written in my title page has nothing to do with what I had originally believed was an obvious meaning. “Suicide is good, try it sometime.”

Instead, the author was using this quote from Pliny the elder to demonstrate the fall of the ancient Roman religion and how it was expressed at that time.

This all became relevant to me when I applied it to today’s world of the “sound byte”.

So many of our modern truths distributed so efficiently to us are taken in little bits and pieces and delivered to us without proper context. It makes one realize that anyone can take any work of literature, religion or science and extract from it any meaning they choose to find. In reality, nothing is obvious to those who value intellect above all else. The simple and the obvious are for those souls too lethargic to find the truth on their own. It is much easier and less painful (in the short term) to believe what you hear than to question it and find empirical evidence to prove its truth. Finding the context of any statement determines its meaning. It also requires work.

Here is a sound byte for you. See if you can put it into context.

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” -Dick Cheney August 26, 2002

“President Bush would have ordered an invasion of Iraq even if the CIA had told him that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.” - Meet the Press, 11:25 a.m. PT, Sun., Sept. 10, 2006

Nothing

The smell of beer permeated the small apartment. The big bay window overlooked the busy street of Arguello, just next to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The décor was far from chic; an old shag carpet from the sixties with interwoven brown and gold strands; a mish mash of furniture picked from various garages, some old scratched up wood cabinets and a trashy modern particle board desk. A beat up old television sat on a milk crate behind which were fixed the faces of 2 young men, sitting on the floor, hypnotized to the sights and sounds of a hockey video game played on an outdated console system.

The "pièce de résistance" however sat in the middle of the room on the back wall: a sofa from 1968 composed entirely of red and gold paisley style flower patterns. Combined with the brown and gold of the shag carpet, and the "crème" color of the walls, staring at the scene long enough could induce the viewer into a state of hallucinogenic psychedelia.

Upon the sofa lounged 3 more college aged men drinking beers, one of whom was intently looking through a magazine titled "Modern Rome" (out of boredom no doubt) but obviously not finding anything of interest. The magazine featured on its cover the Vice President, pointing his finger while saying something presumably profound with a look of great anger upon his face. The headline read "Prostrate Before Your King".

Aside from the bleeping noises of the video game, the only other sound in the room was that of Chris, sitting straight up on an old chair adjacent to the sofa espousing ruminations on the failings of the current government while vociferously pontificating on the unstirred populace that tolerates such injustice.

The eyes of his audience were blank.

"…and people don't realize THEY have the true power. We give it up to these idiots who rule the country like the bunch of spoiled children they are and we openly let them walk all over us! I mean, just read Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz". It's all right there! Oz is the aristocracy, the dominant ruling class, and the munchkins are the proletariat, the workers; just allowing themselves to be dominated!"

Here came a pregnant pause, as Chris gurgled down almost half the beer from his bottle before continuing.

"I mean, look at women!"

At which point Jeff, the lad on the sofa reading the "Modern Rome" magazine said "I do. Every chance I get".

"Exactly", Chris now sat up and pointed excitedly at the fact that anyone had responded to him. "That's it exactly Jeff! The objectification of women is intolerable in our modern society! That is why I subscribe to 'Modern Rome', there is a whole article in there on the intolerable objectification of women. All about how our male dominated society views woman as nothing more than sex objects!"

Jeff, searching speedily back at the table of contents, then flipping through to the middle of the thick magazine, finally showed a spark of interest on his face. Holding the magazine aloft he announced; "Hey, I found some booty on page 97!"

On the sofa next to Jeff, Mike and Jon now stirred.

"Hey, let me see that", they announced simultaneously.

Unwilling to give up the magazine now that it finally got interesting, Jeff just showed them the images depicting lurid advertising of scantily clad women, surrounded by text no doubt explaining the cultural dilemma behind those images.

Chris sat back disappointed.

"You guys are idiots." He gurgled down the remainder of the bottle of beer.

At that point Vince arrived, back from working his day job as a ditch digger on a construction site in Oakland. Filthy dirty, in sweats and a beat up Oakland A's baseball hat on his head, he headed straight to the frig, without acknowledging the group in his apartment, and pulled out a beer.

"Why does my apartment smell like a festering armpit? Do you guys just bring 'stank' with you wherever you go?"

"Don't look at us" Mike snapped back. "Talk to your roommate, Machiavelli over here", he said pointing to Chris. "Besides, you don't have time to enjoy the aroma, you need to get ready, I fixed you up with a girl tonight!"

Vince gagged on his beer then spit what was in his mouth all over the two gentlemen sitting on the floor playing video games.

"What? I told you: don't fix me up any more!"

Mike shrugged his shoulders up with a look of concern.

"Vince, I'm worried about you. When was the last time you were out with a girl? You work in the day, you go to school at night and you sleep. Men NEED women Vince. We need food; we need air; we need women. When was the last time you were with a woman Vince? And I mean a real woman, no magazines, no polypropylene…real flesh and blood?

Vince filled the pause in the air with a wretched scowl of fatigue and anger.

"Look Vince, I gotta tell you I'm worried about you. You're like an ascetic monk. One more month of no women like this and I'm afraid I'll find you huddled in a corner rocking back and forth and mumbling to yourself."

Vince glared through his scowl. "Mike, how many times do we have to go through this? The last girl you set me up with slipped me a date rape drug and stole my wallet and my car! I woke up in a dumpster in Santa Cruz! It took me all day to hitch hike back to San Francisco!"

"Well at least you were on the beach, it was warm!" Mike shot back without a pause. "It could have been worse huh?"

"No way Mike, I don't trust your judgment". Vince wasn't having any of this.

The rest of the guys were still chuckling at the dumpster story.

"You don't trust me?" Now Mike took offense. He stood up, gesturing to his chest with both his hands. "Remember me Vince? Remember this?" Vince held out both hands depicting faint scars from an accident he had as a child, sliding down a storm drain as a crazy prank. As children he had convinced Vince to slide down with him, and the experience totally changed Vince's life. For the first time after that experience, Vince started taking risks.

"I'm here for YOU man, all your life I've been here for YOU! How can you not trust me! I set you up with a model for god's sake! Remember that? Huh? How many friends set their buddies up with a real live model, huh? I could have taken her for my self, but I didn't! Instead I thought of my great friend Vince, and I graciously presented her to YOU! And this is the thanks I get?"

Jon now sat up. "He set you up with a model dude! Are you serious?"

Chris now put in his two cents. "Oh god" he said through a chuckle, "only Vince could be set up with a model and blow it".

Jeff now shot in. "Was she a real model?"

"Absolutely" Mike confirmed.

"Technically, yes she was a model" Vince finally admitted, then angrily continued. "She was a model for high school biology textbooks because her feet were shaped like bird talons and she had seven fingers on her right hand!"

"Waitaminute waitaminute, waitaminute." Jon now stepped in. "You mean to tell me he set you up with a girl who had seven fingers and you couldn't figure out anything positive to do with that?"

"This is what I've been saying all along, the man has no vision" Mike affirmed, shrugging his shoulders and turning to walk away.

"Ok", Vince continued, "aside from that, she was a felon convicted of grand larceny and she was a cook in a crystal meth lab!"

"So you can't look past a couple of character flaws to see the true beauty of a human being? I had no idea you were so shallow", Mike shot back.

Vince looked at the young men facing him. He opened his mouth to speak, and realized the futility further conversation would bring. Instead, he bent his head back, put the bottle of beer to his lips, and drained its entirety. Sweet alcohol…dulls the pain.

Matt and Ben, the previously unnoticed identical twins on the floor playing video games while occasionally wiping spit beef from their person, finally put their two cents in.

“Vince, you spend more time acting like a girl than you spend chasing them”, Ben let out.

“Yeah man, shut up and take what you get dude. Beggars can’t be choosers”, Matt had to get something in.

Vince spent the next hour managing to convince himself he was going to ditch his friends as soon as he could. He hastily showered and dressed and before he new what was happening he was out on the street with the other six young men walking up Arguello toward Geary and an Irish Pub.

The thin September air was chilled, and the night was dull, so to spruce things up, in an act of violent petulance, Jeff walked over to the corner of the sidewalk and adamantly pushed over a metal news paper dispenser. This set off a chain reaction; the metal dispenser pushed was chained to 6 others. While the one Jeff pushed fell harmlessly (relatively speaking) into the street, the other 5 fell in slow succession as the six other young men looked on. Each fell into the street, save the last, which crashed into the passenger side of a brand new Porche 911 GT2, putting a large dent and scratch into the door and front panel, chipping the passenger side window, and setting off a World War II “air raid” style alarm.

All seven young men paused for an instant, as if this was a scene they had just watched on the television, before it dawned on them what was happening: then they all, in unison, sprinted as fast as they could up the street in a blind panic.

Out of breath they all ran into the crowded pub on Geary. Before Vince new what was happening, a pint was shoved into his hand and he was shoved in front of a young woman sitting on a stool.

“Mireille this is Vince, Vince this is Mireille” Mike belched, then leaned into Vince’s right ear as he moved away and said, “don’t forget, this is a sure thing; all pre-arranged; I even brought special flavored lubricants if you need them”.

Vince grimaced, then cleared his throat.

“Nice to meet you”

Mireille, smiling wide, got off the stool to kiss Vince once on each cheek.

“Enchanté”, she said as she stood up. She was about five feet ten inches tall, or about five inches taller than Vince. Her body was tight and fit and her face glowed with joy. Vince was taken aback.

“Uh…thanks?”

“You’re welcome” Mireille said in broken English.

“That’s a pretty accent, where are you from?”, Vince asked.

“I’m from France”, said Mireille.

Before Vince new it, a very large man pushed him aside and walked straight to Mireille.

“Scuse me darling, what are ya drinkin’ tonight”, he said with a lurid smile.

Mireille grimaced and pointed to the corner where Vince was pushed, “I’m with him”, she said.

Vince, walked back and reached up to tap the man on the shoulder.

“Dude, back off”.

“You gotta problem munchkin? Take a hike before you get hurt.”

Vince mustered his nerve and threw a punch right for the big guys throat. Unfortunately the big guy was quick, and Vince ended up hitting Mireille right in the nose. By then Mike, Chris, Jeff, Matt and Ben, all very large men, were on top of the big guy.

Mireille was bleeding profusely from her nose and leaning on the bar. Vince, stunned, grabbed some towels from the bar. As he approached Mireille he was pushed away from her friends and left the pub in a state of dejection.

He managed to ditch everyone.

He grabbed a cab and headed up to Ocean Beach.

A couple of bon fires burned and the air was cold. Vince sat on the concrete wall smoking a cigarette and just feeling tired. It seemed he was always pressured into doing things he did not want to do and he was growing tired of nights like this. Life it too short to spend it like this.

Just then he got a tap on the shoulder. A thick French accent said “excuse me sir, do you have a light?”

Vince turned to see Mireille behind him holding a cigarette and smiling, her nose wrapped in bandages.

“Mireille…I’m so sorry…”, Vince started.

“It’s ok, is ok really. That man was con, a real jerk. I’m sorry for you, you know”.

“But…where did you come from?”

“Ah, I have an American friend and she took me, the pub was no fun after that you know. We are at that bonfire down there.”

Vince lit her cigarette and she climbed on the cement wall.

“So, why would you even want to get a light from me after a punched you in the face?”

“Well, Mike talked to me and said you are a good guy. I’m new here and I’m looking to make good friends. Besides”, she looked Vince in the eye, “I get a good feel from you”.

Vince grinned a lopsided grin.

“Look, I know what Mike set up, its real gracious of you and all, and I know this will sound odd, maybe, but I don’t really sleep with girls I just met”.

“Pardon?”, Mireille, looked completely puzzled, like she did not understand his English.

“Well, it’s just that Mike told me that he set it up with you to sleep with me. Thanks for that, but it’s just kind of weird and…”

Mireille cut him off.

“I don’t care what Mike said I don’t sleep with you tonight! Is this a joke?”

Vince grimaced. Typical.

“My friends tend to be a little, well, intense. Look Mireille, I’m certain you are a great girl and I’m sorry for all this mess. Why don’t you just go back to your friends at the bonfire and forget we ever met.”

“So, unless you can sleep with me you don’t want to know me?”.

“No, I just feel awkward…all this expectation and pressure and; well I feel foolish.”

“Well maybe you are a fool, what has that to do with me?”

“You want to waste time with a fool?”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that. Perhaps, once you relax, you can be less of a fool than you think.”

Vince stopped. This girl really seemed genuine. He felt the muscles about his face start to loosen. He let go of the expectation of sex. He let go of the anxiety of beauty. He let go of all the things he imagined could go wrong.

Before he new it, he was the most calm and relaxed he had been in years, as the echo’s of their conversation and laughter raced out toward the sea.

The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind

The following is a response to a blog posted here:

http://conversationswithnoone.blogspot.com/

The article I am addressing is called “The Trinity of Truth”. I really liked this post, but I felt something was missing, so I posted 2 comments on that blog, but it still was not enough. The topic touched a nerve in me. It got me thinking so much that I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote what you see below.

Because this post is a response to the post at Conversations With No One, I suggest you read that post first, and the 2 comments, before reading this. If you make it all the way through, treat yourself to milk and cookies.

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First, we need to separate “Truth” into 2 units:

1. Truth: what humans experience as fact; reality through experience and observation.
2. Absolute Truth: cosmological fact based on the laws of the universe; cosmological reality as it exists in it’s un-observed state.

Another way to look at it is:

1. Observable truth
2. Un-observed truth

“The sky is blue” is an observable truth. Therefore we will say that “the sky is blue” is a truth as defined above.

When viewed in a way such that the infra red and ultraviolent spectrums are included into the visible light spectrum, the sky is no longer observed as blue, but something different. This is an absolute truth; a cosmological fact that exists whether it is observed or not.

Like an electron, any truth won’t exist in one particular spot until it is observed.

Example:

When our ancestors asked “why are we here”, they used their perceptions, trusts and expectations to craft an answer: “the gods created us”. The answer was developed from the perception that there is a greater and higher power than man, the trust that the natural cycles in the world (the seasons, the phases of the moon, the stars, the sun rising each morning) will never change and thus are controlled, and the expectation that there is a universal “justice” to counter balance the natural injustice all men face- that our unfair fates and unexplained tragedies have reasons that transcend the tangible and are not meaningless.

Before the question “why are we here” there was no truth about the matter. But when observers formulated an answer using their perceptions, trusts and expectations the “truth” magically appeared for all to see As a mind exercise lets say this truth popped into existence as a giant block of marble; a cube of raw marble within which the absolute truth (as we define it) rests.

In this way, truth can be distinguished from absolute truth in that it requires no evidence. Truth always begins its journey as a fact that “feels right” to the observer.

Now we introduce evidence into the mix. Our ancestors looked to the sky and saw that the sun, moon and stars all revolve around US. They have evidence. This is an observable fact. Now imagine that they go to our “marble block of truth” and take out a hammer (representing human curiosity) and a chisel (representing the use of argument amongst each other as a tool to discover or concoct “proof” that helps solidify the evidence). Through examination of the evidence, the crucible of argument to expose “proofs” that back up assumptions, and the infusion of the first main accepted truth (“the gods created us”), the logical conclusion is that we are at the center of the universe that the gods control. The celestial bodies revolve around us because we are at the core.

“CHIPADINK”

Our ancestors just chipped a little bit away from the ‘marble block of truth’ and got just a tiny bit closer to absolute truth. The chip that flew from the marble block is the evidence they observed then solidified through argument.

The more evidence mankind extols through observation, examination and argument (the last always used to establish proof) the more little chips are taken from the block.

Such that, millennia later, Copernicus (as discussed in a comment posted on Conversations With No One) develops evidence through observation, examination, and argument, that the earth is not at the center, the sun is (a heliocentric universe). Copernicus demonstrates how the motions of the planets can only be explained if they, and the earth itself, revolve around the sun.

“CHIPADINK”

Another chip away at the marble block of truth.

An important note: at this time it took tremendous courage to accept the reality that the empirical evidence Copernicus exposed revealed. Chipping away at the block takes courage because it radically alters beliefs and accepted truths that may be comfortable and “feel right”. To accept that we are not at the center- to accept this evidence and not deny or suppress it, took great courage.

However, even though the “heliocentric universe” is accepted as truth at the time following Copernicus, and indeed brings mankind a little bit closer to the absolute truth (that rests within the marble still), it is still not concurrent with absolute truth. The sun, as later discoveries showed, is not the center of the universe either. However, without that little chip away at the giant blocked “marble of truth”, mankind could have never learned that the sun was not at the center either.

Just like Michaelangelo finds a fingernail within a block of marble that will eventually become the Pieta, so does man slowly uncover absolute truth in the “marble of truth”. Each chip of evidence that flies away reveals a little more of the absolute truth.

So we have our Trinity of Truth (perception, trust, and expectation), without which there is no block of marble called “truth”. The block can only begin its existence if it is observed by us and manifested through our perception, trust and expectation. Evidence does not play a part in that initial truth. We accept it as true because it “feels right”. Once we begin to use evidence to examine our truth, we take a step toward revealing absolute truth. The deeper we get in revealing absolute truth, the more the evidence alters and manipulates the Trinity of Truth (perception, expectation and trust) from which the initial truth was born.

For countless generations it was accepted that time was a constant (it can neither be sped up nor slowed down) and speed is relative (it can be sped up and slowed down). Einstein came along and chipped away at the marble of those truths. Using evidence he uncovered something closer to the absolute truth, the cosmic reality.

Time is relative. Speed is constant.

As an entity approaches the speed of light, time slows down. This is not a perceptual slow down, it is a law of physics. Time actually slows down. Likewise, gravity will slow the passage of time (as evidenced by synchronized atomic clocks; one on earth the other in orbit; that go out of sync due to this phenomenon).

Speed has a barrier that can not be breached by any means. An entity can get to 99.99999….% of the speed of light, but never achieve that last fraction of a percent. At such speed, the entities energy is converted to mass making it heavier. This actually happens and is not perceived.

The theory of general relativity takes us just a little closer to the absolute truth…a truth whose journey began millennia earlier with the question “why are we here”.

Einstein’s discovery radically altered the Trinity or Truth (perception, expectation, and trust) which had been accepted for generations. Our perception of time, our expectations of speed, and our trust in the tangible were all radically changed as a result of what the evidence revealed to us about our world.

In turn, this altering of the Trinity of Truth helped drive a more detailed examination of evidence; revealing deeper layers in our “marble of truth”. The Trinity of Truth drives and manipulates the acquisition of evidence, and evidence manipulates and drives the Trinity of Truth.

Now imaging that the Trinity of Truth is encased in an orb; likewise evidence is also encased in an orb. The two are bound by a force like gravity or the nuclear force, and as such they tumble over one another. As the evidence orb descends it pushed the Trinity of Truth orb forward with a little more force. As the Trinity of Truth orb falls it, in turn, pushes the evidence orb forward with just a little more force.

The two orbs tumble about each other- separate but bound by a powerful force. The more observation is put into the mix, the more energetically they tumble. The less observation, the less energetically they tumble.

This is the relationship between observable truth (what humans experience as fact; reality through experience and observation) and uncovering absolute truth (cosmological fact based on the laws of the universe; cosmological reality as it exists in its un-observed state).

Each has the ability to distort the other, but neither can exist without the other.

Now, let’s factor in “observation”. Quantum science demonstrates that an electron does not exist in any one place in our universe until we look at it. Observation influences outcome. Once we see the electron, it occupies space in our universe, but until we observe it, it exists in a probable state; a probability cloud; many places at once.

Evidence is the result of observation, examination and argument. However, the act of observing influences the outcome.

Now, using this, let’s get back to our “marble of truth”.

Like a sculpture by Michelangelo, mankind slowly chips away evidence to expose the absolute truth that lies within. Like Michelangelo finds his figures within the marble as he carves, so do we find the absolute truth. But here is the rub: Michelangelo has the ability to turn his block of marble into either a Pieta or a statue of David. He has a level of control over what is revealed- his only outside constraint being the block of marble he has selected to start with for a particular sculpture. Because our process relies on observation, perception, expectation, and trust to chip away evidence and uncover absolute truth, mankind to has the ability (to a certain extent) to shape that absolute truth into a Pieta or a David- a cosmos of the tangible or intangible. To a certain extent, we find what we expect to find, because the act of looking makes it real.

The process of uncovering absolute truth must always begin with the “marble of truth” that manifests itself through the Trinity of Truth. After all the evidence is chipped away, however, we find that what we have revealed as absolute truth has been slightly distorted; partly by our Trinity of Truth and its energetic relationship with evidence; and partly through observation itself.

For this reason, absolute truth is like the speed of light. We can get 99.9999….% of the way there, but no matter how hard we try we can never achieve that last fraction of a percent, simply because the act of uncovering it distorts it into what we expect to see, how we perceive it, and what about it we find true.

Therefore, the pursuit of absolute truth never takes us to an ultimate destination. It is a never ending journey.