Bumper sticker philosophy

This is a great example of bumper sticker philosophy. It is easy to say, "Yep, ain't that the truth." And, me as a middle class white male, I would say it mostly applies to me. The doors of opportunity were easy for me to open. I had a lot of help and support as a youth which gave me the skills, confidence and background to 'succeed'. There is no reason for me not to do for myself.

Now go to "the other side of the tracks" where all "those people" are getting welfare. Just picture one child. Picture him going to school and coming home to an empty house because there is only a mom and she is somewhere else. Who knows where. Who helps him with his homework? Who says, "I believe in you and doing this work will open doors for you."? Who watches him make mistakes and helps him learn from them? No one. He comes home and watches TV, plays video games or hangs out with kids in the same situation. These kids aren't going to get together and help each other with homework. He becomes an adult with no opportunities, no hope and no sense of duty to the greater good. He has a few kids with different women and takes no role in their life and the cycle goes on.

Personal responsibility is a learned behavior. Self preservation is an instinctive behavior but is not the same as responsibility. We have a system that is broken and throwing these people to the wolves to fend for themselves is insane. These are the communities we should be throwing money into and breaking the cycle. 
Imagine a school system with a 10 student to 1 teacher ratio. Imagine a teacher that is not worried about his/her own bills because they are paid so well they can do what they love, teach. They help teach the personal responsibility, they help create the hope. Imaging a police force that says I am here for you. I'm not here to punish you at every misstep but to serve and protect you." Imagine churches opening doors right in that community and saying, "We are all in this together. Let us help you build a strong, caring community. Child, we know your mom is not home but we have an outstanding after-school program. Your education is important. We believe in you. We will love and protect you."

Imagine that child growing up. He will have learned personal responsibility and when he has a kid he will more likely be involved than not. His child will have more opportunities than his father and the cycle continues but in a better direction. This seems like a better way of ending welfare than saying, "Pick yourself up by your bootstraps" to someone who never was taught how.

Siddhartha and the Gorilla

I was talking to two of my teenage son's the other day and they asked me what I actually believe. My answer, "Not much."  I went on to try to explain why that's a good thing but I felt my answer fell short.  The point I tried to make wasn't coming across.  There are plenty of people who don't have beliefs because they haven't bothered thinking about them.  That's not my case but the words needed to explain that to my sons were failing me that day. 

Thankfully, help was on the way.  I read  Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha many years ago and recently got an audio copy to listen to on my commute to work. Brilliant book. I listened to the whole thing twice and the last CD four times.

More on Siddhartha in a little bit.  First, I would like you to watch the short video and try to do what it says.  It's pretty simple.  You just have to count how many times the team in white passes the ball. See if you can get it right.

Did you get the right number?  And are you one of the fifty percent the missed the gorilla?

Now back to Siddhartha.  The following is an expert from it towards the end of the book where Siddhartha is talking to a long lost friend, Govinda.

 *****

"It's true, I'm old," spoke Govinda, "but I haven't stopped searching. Never I'll stop searching, this seems to be my destiny. You too, so it seems to me, have been searching. Would you like to tell me something, oh honourable one?"

Quoth Siddhartha: "What should I possibly have to tell you, oh venerable one? Perhaps that you're searching far too much? That in all that searching, you don't find the time for finding?" 

"How come?" asked Govinda.

 "When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes."

 *****

I think Hermann Hesse summed up the gorilla experiment perfectly.  

If a person is looking for something they can miss the beauty right in front of them.  If someone has a static and ridged belief system the truth can be held in the book they are reading or the person they are talking to but they will miss it if ideas and concepts don't fit what they are seeking.  

Our beliefs are the container in which our truth is held.  The shape of our beliefs and the size of our beliefs limits or filters truth. We cannot escape that but be can change the shape and size of the container to accommodate a greater Truth.

Recently I heard an old saying twice within a few days.  I hadn't heard it in a long time but as I was getting ready to write this blog the saying conveniently made itself available for me.   "If you're a hammer every problem is a nail."  The meaning is clear.  It's saying you need to open yourself up to look at problems in more than one way.  We're lucky to have a tool box full of extraordinary tools to solve problems and to deepen our understand of the mysteries of life.  These tools have many names, Christianity,  Hinduism, Buddhism,  Republican, Democrat, Atheist, spirituality, skeptic, Socialist, Communist,  naturalist, environmentalist, and on and on.   None of these tools can answer all questions and solve all problems alone.  If a person picks one as their hammer everything is a nail.  If someone seeks the truth solely through one belief system they miss the Truth.  Finding Truth can only be done with a full toolbox.

We have seekers and we have explorers.  Explores set out to find what there is to find but seekers have their eyes set on a target and everything else is irrelevant or an obstacle.  So now I can tell my sons I am an explorer and I don't want my beliefs to stop me from finding. 

The Act of Will

I was walking through Half Price Books one day on lunch break and saw a book sitting there titled, The Act of Will.  I liked the title so, without much thought I added it to my stack of books.  It ended up floating around in my computer bag for a couple of months and I would see it there when I pulled my laptop out but ignored it much like the other papers and stuff I should really clean out of my bag instead of lugging around.   Then, after ignoring it for so long, I decided to take it out and look at, with the plan to shelf it.  It was, after all, a random book I bought for a silly reason.

The introduction let me know that my random act was one of those mysterious events which makes you wonder about coincidence.  I'm in the process of writing a fictional book and the introduction of The Act of Will echoed the main philosophy behind my book. The author, Roberto Assagioli, asks us to imagine an ancient man coming to our time.  He would see us as demigods with all the technology he could only understand as magic or divine power. But now, imagine that person coming to our time is one of the great minds of the past, such as Plato.

Assagioli says, "He would soon notice that, though man has acquired an impressive degree of power over nature, his knowledge of and control over his inner being is very limited. He would perceive that this modern "magician," capable of descending to the bottom of the ocean and projecting himself to the moon, is largely ignorant of what is going on in the depths of his unconscious and is unable to reach up to the luminous superconscious levels, and to become aware of his true Self. This supposed demigod, controlling great electrical forces with a movement of the finger and flooding the air with sound and pictures for the entertainment of millions, would be seen to be incapable of dealing with his own emotions, impulses, and desires."

After I started reading this book I had to go back and revise mine and it influenced the rest of the book moving forward.  My belief is that technology has actually made it easier for us to become less connected, less in tune with who we are.  It is easy to escape thinking the hard thoughts about our purpose and just watch a TV show.  It is easy to find entertainment, find pleasure fixes, and avoid searching ourselves to find fulfillment. We can find ways to live a pointless and meaningless life and never strive to reach our potential.  Before many of the technological advances people didn't have much free time to reflect on who they were.  Their daily lives were filled with getting food and other necessities just to survive.  With each technological advance people were granted more free time.  This spawned some great mind such as Galileo and Da Vinci. But, for the most part, the path much of humanity has taken is to use the technology to avoid any inward look at themselves.


Assagioli started a branch of Psychology called Psychosynthesis.  He seems to carry a lot of Freudian Psychoanalytic theory forward as far as the parts of the personality but then he expands on it. One interesting thing is that he brings the concept of spirituality into his theory which Freud either ignored or rejected. But, Assagioli says he only takes people to the door of spirituality.  Which path they take is for them to search out.

So, when I was thinking about writing a blog and coming up with a name, The Act of Will seemed a logical fit.  In this blog I want to explore some of the concepts that drive me forward.  Many of these concepts are in my book but I think there are many that I won't actually have a solidified idea of what they are until I do the work of organizing them into words.  The public forum gives the chance to do so with the potential for input from others in a civil exploration of concepts.  Please feel free to join me in this exploration.

Here is a link to download a PDF of Roberto Assagioli's The Act of Will You can also find a link to buy it on Amazon on the "Book list" page of this blog.