Greetings, my millions and millions of loyal readers. I’m sorry I’ve been away so long.

Recently, I have noticed that I’ve become more pessimistic about many things in the world. In all honesty, I think this point of view is warranted, and necessary in some ways. However, it does not always lead to happy conversations (or pieces of writing).

Therefore, throughout December, I’m going to write a piece a day about something positive.

That’s where you come into play, my faithful, literally billion readers. I need help with positive news stories, personal stories….or whatever else is making people feel good.

So if you come across something that makes you smile, if you have something in life that has made you happy or restored your faith in humanity (and you feel comfortable sharing with me, who will post it to the 6 billion people who frequent this blog. We’re going to get that last billion soon, I know it!); please send it my way.

Until then, entire world. Buh-bye!

When it comes to a dilemma, decision, or question of any kind, there are right answers and there are wrong answers. The easiest way to look at this concept is through math. 2+2=4. 2+2 doesn’t equal 5. Nor does 2+2=a delicious elderberry pie. 2+2=4 and we can prove it through examples, logic, mathematics, and probably other ways that I can’t even imagine.

However, it’s possible that someday, we will learn that 2+2 does not equal 4. Maybe a more advanced alien race will come down to earth and show us where we made an error in our math rules. We might learn that 2+2 actually equals “molten lava”.

Once we get our proof that 2+2=molten lava and not 4, we will now realize that 2+2=4 was wrong. It looked right. It seemed to add up. But we now have much stronger evidence that 2+2=molten lava.

This now rock-solid proof of 2+2=molten lava would show us that, even though we were pretty certain that 2+2=4 before, we now see that the slight room for error was justified. We can also see that things we did based off of the belief that 2+2=4 were wrong. We were operating off of a faulty elemental belief.

That example is a little bit insane. It does, however, provide a solid foundation for slightly more abstract points in the discussion of right and wrong, which is where we will go next.

“Racism is always wrong”. I think (I hope) that most people would agree with this statement. But when it comes to more sociological or abstract items, some strange things happen in the brains of many people.

I think almost everyone you meet will agree that racism is wrong, but many of those people probably participated in racist acts at some point in their lives. For example, a white person may have dressed in blackface for a sketch or costume 20 years ago. At the time, this person may not have had any intention of acting in a racist manner. But either way, he did. He acted wrongly. Even though this person was wrong, he will many times try to find a way out of admitting fault: “it was common back then” or “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings” or “it was meant to be funny, not racist” or other common defenses often come up in these situations.

As hard as it is to accept, there is right and there is wrong. We may not know what the right answer or action is, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a right answer or action. Our lack of knowledge does not absolve us of our mistake. Even if there was no possible way we could have ever known that we did the wrong thing, we still did the wrong thing. Unfortunately, instead of taking responsibility for our mistakes, many of us try to push back, redefine terms, or lie.

Luckily, there seems to be a movement where the average person is acknowledging the existence of right and wrong. Where apologizing earnestly and without qualifiers is a common practice. Even those who acted with the best of intentions, but made a mistake, are starting to realize the weight of their words and actions.

It’s good to see, but we still have a long way to go.

“For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

“They always win, how in the world can they lose? Ooooooo They never lose, never lose. Because the rich get richer. And the poor keep on getting poorer.”

One of these quotes is from the Bible and the other is from an O’jays song. See if you can guess which is which. The answer may surprise you…

The original question, “can you create something from nothing?” can be examined in a number of ways.

Firstly, we could look at this in a prime mover metaphysical sense. For example, how could the universe develop from nothing? People often point to this question to make a case for the existence of god. These discussions are fun, but I don’t understand them well enough to effectively weigh in. So, let’s stick with slightly less abstract matters pertaining to this subject.

Looking at it from a physical perspective, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around something coming from nothing. For a tree to grow, it needs the seed which it sprouted from as well as the soil, water, and sunlight that nourished it. It isn’t just nothing and then a tree without an “in-between” phase. But is that all it needs to grow to maturity? What else allows a tree to thrive for hundreds of years and surpass the ones around it?

Let’s treat this tree like one in a story book and say it has the ability to work towards growing as well. It’s capable of putting in effort. So, it gets enough water, soil, and sunlight and it works hard to grow. It’s grown past all of the other trees and now, it is shading other trees from getting any sunlight, preventing them from growing. But our tree can keep growing forever and ever at this point, the sky is, very literally, the limit.

That tree’s hard work did not lead to its growth. The fact that it had every resource it ever needed in order to thrive allowed it to gather even more resources. The rich got richer. Or in this case, the tree got…tree-ier.

The point is, if you are successful, stop telling people you achieved this success because you worked hard. There were thousands/millions/billions of other people who worked just as hard as you and never experienced success due to a variety of factors including where they were born, when they were born, the environment they grew up in, the functional ability of their brains, and on and on.

Billionaires are now routinely flying to space for a thrill while the lowest paid workers in their company are denied bathroom breaks throughout the day.

But we keep defending these billionaires, saying that they worked hard and earned it.

They didn’t create something from nothing. They multiplied the something they were given by gathering every resource they could in excess and denying others these same resources.

So, what is the solution?

It’s really not that complicated. We know what is included in the basic elements of living: food, shelter, clean air, and I would also include healthcare (there are probably a few others that could be debated). These things, at a minimum, provide a person with dignity and the ability to continue living.

Raising taxes and allocating more funds toward people receiving these resources would solve the issue. This way, less people would have to eat out of dumpsters and sleep on park benches until they’re woken up by the sound of their boss’s rocket taking off for another trip to the moon for the fun of it.

It shouldn’t be hard for us to agree that everyone deserves the necessities of life and a little bit of dignity regardless of where they come from or how hard they’ve worked. But somehow, it seems like this is the hardest thing in the world for us to accept.

A strange trend I’ve noticed in the past few years is the following: no one will commit to anything until the very last minute. It’s like we have to ensure that nothing better will come up before we agree to something. What has caused this shift from where people used to commit to plans, to where we are now?

My initial thought was cell phones.

Nowadays, we can instantly and immediately change plans and make new ones by sending a quick text message. Back in the day, things had to be planned in advance and people had to agree upon meeting locations, plans, etc. Otherwise, no one would be able to find each other or get together at all.

But now, with a 3 second text message, we can completely flip plans and end up downtown for an art exhibition on platypuses (platypi? that makes me think of a plate of pie. MMM..plate of pie) rather than uptown for drinks.

However, I don’t think cell phones are to blame.

I think we’ve all consciously (or subconsciously) agreed that our society should be value-driven. We prioritize doing whatever will generate the most value and we think that everyone else should accept this as a necessary aspect of signing the social contract.

For example, if we had plans to meet up with a friend for a drink, this friend should totally understand if we cancel last minute or wait to commit to this drink until the last possible second. What if our favorite band announced a pop-up tour down the street at the same time as our get together? What if our boss decided to take us all out after work to celebrate the end of the week? You should understand that! It will bring us more value than meeting up with you!!!

This brings me to unrestricted capitalism, which seems to be the direction that a large chunk of the world thinks we should push towards. I see it like this:

1. In a capitalistic system, having more capital (money) is good.
2. Justifying obtaining more capital is, therefore, excusable in many situations.
3. Capital is an end in a capitalistic society, not a means.
4. In fact, capital is the most important end.
5. People are not seen as ends, but as means to obtain more capital.
6. Therefore, using means (people) to get more capital is perfectly acceptable.

These capitalistic values are so strongly reinforced in our society that it has pervaded our relationships with friends, family, and people in general. Few see an issue with someone getting stomped on and removed from a job so that someone else can get a promotion and obtain more capital. Phoning it in as a student and only studying to pass the test is the norm in schools, where almost no students see the value in education for the sake of education.

So something as trivial as cancelling plans with a friend last minute may not be be devastating to our society. But our dogmatic devotion to capitalism may be.

Has there ever been a time when you’ve truly done something just because it was the right thing to do? Or even just purely for the sake of doing it?

It’s almost impossible to think in such a way as a human. We don’t do anything just to do it.

• We clean for a reason:
  • To make our guests feel more comfortable so that they don’t have to sit on a pile of old records and magazines while they swat away fruit flies;
  • Because we like the look of a clean room;
  • Because our roommates made us…
• We help people for a reason.
  • It looks great on that empty section of our resumes under Volunteer Activities
  • We can tell our friends about it and make them feel bad that they aren’t helping someone else.

You could take any situation and figure out that there was some underlying incentive for performing a conscious action.

The problem is that many of us tend to only do things to receive extrinsic rewards. Our incentives are reserved to cookies, trophies, or admiration of our peers.

But when these extrinsic incentives lose their appeal, we begin to see no purpose in doing certain things: “if there is no reward for helping this person, why should I bother?”

This has to be one of the biggest fundamental faults of our society (and if you’re truly cynical: what may lead to our ultimate collapse). Extrinsic rewards cannot be enough to keep us afloat.

We need to reserve incentives to intrinsic rewards: feeling good after helping someone, knowing that we did the right thing without someone else validating us.

Ever the optimist, I hope that this can become a reality. That we can do a good job because it feels good to work hard and not because we will get a good letter of recommendation. That we will volunteer because others need help, not so that we can tell our friends about how tired we are from being so selfless.

If you are religious, good deeds for the sake of good deeds are an integral part of your religion, so do them for that reason. If you’re not religious, good deeds should be done to show religious people that goodness doesn’t need to be guided by religion.

Whatever your core beliefs are: STOP doing good things so that you can be recognized and rewarded. Instagram has enough posts about how important your volunteer work is. Do good things because good things are good…was that too many goods?

Recently, I’ve started going on runs without my phone. I used to always bring it with me, even if I wasn’t playing music. It just felt like it made sense to have my phone with me while I ran. After all, if I stopped for even a second at a traffic light or because there were too many people on the sidewalk, how would I pass the time until I could run again? Or what if a client emailed me while I was out and I didn’t get to it in time?

It took me an embarrassingly long time to break the habit. I felt naked leaving the house without my phone. It felt as horrifying as forgetting to wear a shirt to the grocery store.

But slowly I came around to the idea of not having my phone in my pocket at all times, and the change was dramatic.

I have legitimately noticed an improved ability to think: I can problem solve through issues that come up in my head in a more logical manner.

I feel less anxious: I’m not worried about the work I have to get done or the things I have to do. I can look up and enjoy the sight of birds flying by, squirrels hiding their nuts from me, as if I would take them. Unless…

I’ve also noticed that my technology does not like being left home alone. That I have more notifications when I get back home. I get more news alerts, more social media updates, and more app notifications.

I’m not sure when it happened, but I think we all agreed that technology should take the wheel and we should just sit back and relax like the giant people in Wall-E.

Of course, we could all agree that we don’t want this technology anymore. We could all come to a unanimous decision that we want to return to rotary phones as our sole means of communication and horseback riding as our sole means of transport. But…We’re not going to do that. We’re just not.

So maybe technology is in control to some extent, but it doesn’t have to control every aspect of our lives.

We have the ability to leave the phone at home when we go out to dinner. We can go for a walk without technology.

Those Facebook and LinkedIn updates can wait, I promise you.

How many times have you argued with someone and come to the conclusion: “we aren’t going to reach common ground. Let’s agree to disagree”?

I would contend that much of the time when we reach this conclusion, it’s because we are staying on the surface level of an argument. The surface level is what we build up to using building blocks in the form of our past experiences, our morals, and our understanding of truths about the world

Therefore, when we argue about any given topic, if we don’t get into the underlying principles that have led to our conclusions, there’s almost no chance that we can ever understand the other person’s opinion.

Let’s take a topic that is often hotly debated (but not too hotly, I’ve only got 1000 words at my disposal): vegetarianism.

Alan is a vegetarian.

Deanna is on the carnivore diet.

Alan makes the claim: “Everyone should be vegetarian.”

So let’s assume, for the sake of this post, that both of these people are reasonable. There are some unreasonable people in the world, who doggedly cling to their beliefs no matter what. But let’s put them aside for now and say Alan and Deanna are reasonables.

Even for these reasonables, if they debated the question as stated, and didn’t dive below the surface, this topic could quickly devolve into name calling and insults. Deanna could be called a murderer (she was actually a convicted murderer, but that is a red herring that doesn’t factor into this situation), Alan could be called weak and privileged.

But in discussing this point, let’s say that they eventually come down to two very basic, yet deep thoughts about the topic:

Alan:

1. I believe that animals are distinct from plants and should not be killed for food;
2. All of the nutrients that humans need to survive can be obtained from plants, they cannot be obtained by strictly eating meat;
3. Factory farming is the only way we can currently meet the demands for meat in our world.

Deanna:

1. Animals are lower life forms than humans and we should be able to use them as we see fit, including eating them exclusively;
2. All of the nutrients that humans need to survive can be obtained from eating meat, they cannot be obtained by strictly eating vegetables;
3. Animals can be raised sustainably to fill our current demand for meat in the world.

Let’s leave point number 1 for both Deanna and Alan for a moment.

Let’s assume points 2 and 3 could be researched and the actual truth could be determined. Because Deanna and Alan are reasonable, no matter which way the truth points them, they will accept it. So, points 2 and 3 will be researched, the answer is some third possibility that neither of them considered, and they abandon these points.

But number 1 needs further investigation. This isn’t something that can be easily researched. Is it religion or experience or something else that has led them to feel this way? We then journey even deeper into the topic of morals: what is the underlying basis for their morals. What are the differences and similarities? From there, each person can gain a better understanding of why the other person feels the way that he or she does and they can build back up to the surface issue again, perhaps modifying their initial stances based on improved understanding.

I think this is the only way to proceed within our divided society. We need to immediately abandon the assumption someone is racist or hateful or misogynistic because he or she feels a certain way, or says something as a one-off comment. Why does he feel that way? Why does she think that’s the case?

This is the only way we can possibly have debates that actually discuss issues, platforms where people are allowed to make mistakes, and a world where people actually think about why they feel a certain way. I can’t see us remaining this divided forever. It will come to an unfortunate breaking point unless we all do our parts in attempting to understand one another.

I ask this question with a very specific purpose in mind. But let me preface this by saying that whether you are right wing or left wing when it comes to politics or sides of a chicken matters little to me as long as you’re a reasonable person. I say this because I firmly believe that reasonable people, on both sides of the aisle, agree on almost everything. It’s the very minute details that lead to heated arguments and tipping toward one side or the other.

Don’t get me wrong, these minute details are incredibly important. they can lead toward a vote that will change the lives of millions of people for generations to come. So, no matter how small these details may seem, they are important.

But back to what most reasonable people agree on. I would go as far as to call these our shared morals. Things that we just kind of accept as the right thing to do or say and with which all other reasonable people feel the same way. I would argue that one of these things that all us reasonables agree on is that we shouldn’t kick someone when they’re down, friend or foe (metaphorically and literally speaking. Except for sanctioned MMA matches).

I was shocked to see a very distressing thing happen on Facebook (I know distressing and Facebook rarely go together…): a Facebook group of which I am a part, that has very partisan leanings, posted an article about a politician from the opposing political party that has to step down from his post due to a cancer diagnosis. It was right there in the headline they posted: “BLANK Steps Down Due to Cancer Diagnosis.” But the person who posted this article didn’t JUST post the article. She went on to mark it with a caption that had celebration balloons and a question of whether or not there was anyone from “our” party who could run and take over the seat.

Hoping to see that maybe someone, anyone would respond in the comments and at least acknowledge that this person, who is dealing with a life-changing disease, remember, is deserving of some dignity and that celebrating this was in poor taste. Instead what I found was that not a single person pointed out the fact that this politician was soon to be dead and maybe the tone of the post should at least include some perfunctory condolences. Instead they excitedly brought up potential candidates and moved past the issue as if the person didn’t exist. I sent out some messages to the people involved in the matter asking their thoughts, but did not hear back. At least not yet. But it does look like the original poster at least removed the celebration balloons.

So, here’s my unreasonable take on the matter: if you can’t accept that all people deserve dignity, no matter how much you disagree with them, you are not reasonable.

Many people are horrified by the prospect of writing. However, I think it’s important that we all write in some capacity, daily.

In no way am I suggesting that we all need to become full-time writers. The world couldn’t function that way. What I’m advocating for is that everyone write something, anything, every day.

It can be something creative, funny, impassioned, nostalgic…whatever you like.

But when we leave this earth for whatever awaits us after death, the staged pictures and videos of us aren’t going to leave our friends and family with any way to speak with us. And no, I’m no lunatic who thinks that in a Harry Pottersian way we can talk to books and they will talk back, of course not.

But with well-thought-out words, we can comfort our loved ones, and really anyone for that matter, whether we’re still on this astral plane or not. And in this we way can communicate no matter where we are physically or spiritually.

For example, I still randomly come across these old text messages, Facebook posts, tweets, and other written things that my dad had posted before he died. It’s fun to read them and it’s much more of an experience than is looking at old pictures of us (although that can be fun too. I didn’t forget about you, photographer lobby).

Additionally, I’ll occasionally stumble upon old letters or notes from others who have passed, such as those from my grandpa. And him being the incredibly practical person he was, it always amazed me that he had gifted me the following framed pictures with this caption on the back

:

On a bigger scale, we can see how much we value writings from people like Marcus Aurelius, the ancient Greek stoic emperor who wrote in his “Meditations” daily. There’s no way that he would have written the things he did so that other people could read them, they were clearly intended for his eyes only. But looking back at these passages, we can see that even the most powerful person in the world at the time sometimes didn’t “have the energy to get out of bed” and had to remind himself frequently of “the beauty in the world” just to keep on living. This shows us how anyone, no matter how important or valuable, can become depressed and has to search for ways to deal with it in order to get through the day.

But it all comes back to writing. If we didn’t have the work of Ann Frank or other key historical figures, would we have the knowledge we have now?

If I didn’t have these aforementioned messages to look back on, I’d probably quickly forget the influence of those who had come before me. For example, I have no idea how my great-great-great granddad viewed the Albanian tax system he had to deal with, but it sure would be fascinating to read about. If only he’d kept a diary…

So, whoever you are, no matter how small you think your role in the world is or your influence on others, know that your writings could one day help someone who is struggling with the same things you are. Or they may lead a future script writer toward a key portion of history for a period piece they’re working on. Or these writings might be immediately consumed in a fire after you go. But either way, you’ll have written down your thoughts and even if you’re the only one who ever reads them, at least one person will have become better through your writing.

So ends my 30 days of daily blogging. I might keep going every day, or I might go to once a week. I make no promises. But I’ll see you all soon on here in one way or another. Thanks for stopping by!

The other day I was watching my favorite Scottish Vlogger, Dale Phillip to find that he was once again on one of his many trips to India. On such trips, he samples the local fare, interacts with the people who live there, and generally soaks in the environment of that beautiful country.

But every time he buys anything, he always shows the exchange rate at the bottom of the screen. Often, he’ll be able to get a considerable amount of food or a nice-looking article of clothing for less than a dollar or for a few dollars at most.

For example, I watched a video where he ordered a humungous plate of rice, meat and veggies and it only cost him the equivalent of 30 cents.

The vendor who sold it to him looked thrilled to receive a 2 dollar tip.

Setting aside the fact that these currency exchange rates probably necessitate an in-depth discussion of economics, world politics, and philosophy to fully understand (mostly because I probably wouldn’t understand or follow the discussion very well); I was simply struck by the fact that money has legitimately no value as a physical object. It can’t be used as a tool, it can’t be eaten…it is simply used to place value on something else that has actual value.

And yet, we spend our entire lives trying to accumulate more and more of this money. We spend extra time at the office causing us to miss time with loved ones, vacations, and celebrations all just to make a few extra dollars.

Many of our conversations are centered around the price of things and how we can or can’t afford to do something.

I literally can’t imagine a world where money didn’t exist. I’ve seen these movies set in medieval times where they barter and trade, but it honestly seems like a fairy tale, like things never could have been that way.

I’m also, by no means, advocating for us to go backward in time to a bartering society. I don’t think I’d do very well as a fish monger who has to barter seasonally with the tailor, old Tom, to get my son a new pair of pleated pants (although I would enjoy changing my LinkedIn profile to reflect that I’m a fish monger. And I would enjoy getting to know this “Old Tom” I keep hearing so much about).

I just wonder about how we assign value to things and if, because moments with friends and family can’t be assigned a monetary value, we have few qualms about neglecting them for activities that can generate more wealth. If we were forced to assign a monetary value to something like “an hour with family”, how much would it be worth in USD?

Anyhoo, we’re winding down this 30 for 30 blog edition tomorrow. I’ll continue posting, but I don’t know if it will be with as much frequency. We’ll have to see about that.

Tune in tomorrow for the finale, it’s gonna be a doozy (assuming I can come up with a topic that is indeed, a doozy).