Better Not Best

In my life I have been both condescendingly called a ‘do gooder’ as well as, I think, called this out of affection. Usually, the first of this group, feels it necessary to call me a condescending ‘do gooder’ because I challenge their thinking in this area. Recently it was a discussion on whether there should be a bottom to where a person can fall. I said it should include housing, safety, access to health care and an education. They scoffed and called me a ‘do gooder’ and despite my in depth discussion on how it wasn’t going to cost more money, they still said it was ‘too expensive”. The second group, usually, see what is being done by all the wonderful people I have been able to touch and know and my really small part and they say, ‘you’re a do gooder’ and move on from this. They don’t usually want the details. Recently, it hasn’t been the two groups that have weighed on my mind but the title of ‘do gooder’.

In its basic definition it is a person that does good. When we identify ‘good’ it is in juxtaposition with some identified moral good. And when a person adheres to this identification we call them good. When we either think it is excessive or praise it in a teasing way we come up with the term, ‘do gooder’. When I contemplate this, or have, there has been a level of unease at it. This unease I have, I think, found the root of.

I am uncomfortable with praise. I love to give it, to see the strength that I have the blessing to witness in most all beings I have met. As I practice I see that this ‘sight’ has widened and deepened and what was lost to me, previous to this, is not revealed. This is something that I have found to be remarkable in my quest but also a sustenance to try harder. It has also deepened my conviction on the near total infusion of suffering for beings and that it need not be so. My empathy and, at my best, my compassion grows and deepens with my feelings of sorrow and tragedy.

This sorrow that is coupled with the understanding that the situation need not be drives me. My teacher goes to bed at 9pm and gets up at 12am and begins his studies/service, driven by the need to help all beings. I cannot match this but I know it is possible because I see it. I know that I can grow my proverbial shoulders and when I am tired I can think on the suffering of beings and my energy is infused with the critical nature of the situation. By being a Buddhist, and being convinced in the eternal nature of existence all these beings have been those that I have loved dearly, who have loved me dearly, and of whom my duty should be unending. From just a mundane view of love, a tit for tat sort of love, one should serve.

How can I serve? In my life it has been surrounded by the efforts of a ‘do gooder’. But what I realize now is that this actual service has been infused with an error. This error is the basis for what I understand is the catalyst for my suffering, our suffering. That is the belief in inherency. What this means in the lens of a do gooder is the mistake that what I am working on, for, is, in itself, an entity that can bring about the Best e.g. Happiness. It cannot.

From a basic understanding of reality we know once something is posited there is something outside of that sphere of knowledge as well. For example, if I posit a ‘here’ there must be a ‘there’. On a more subtle level we see that with any imputation, even the word ‘the’ from the standpoint of being a concept, at the very least, there is a ‘the’ and there is not a ‘the’. Existence and Nonexistence.

In the more gross level of work in Human Services, as my life has been dedicated to, hinges on some deep philosophical implications. What am I really working on? When I hear myself extolling our students to gain some sort of quantifiable education within the system that we live in I find myself in sorrow. I am not even purporting, honestly, an education. I want them to have one so that they can take care of themselves because it has become increasingly more difficult for students to do this without this certification. However, really, what I am trying to do is to lift them up to a level of relative privilege. There is the ‘haves’ as are defined by some organization that churns our ‘requirements’ and stamps it on a piece of paper. By its very construction, this organization and the system that lends it its powers, we create the ‘Have Nots’ because they are the one’s without this certification. Once we have identified this certification as a measure of exclusivity, for that is what a bachelor’s degree and postgraduate degree is, we attach to it the material benefits e.g. jobs.

If this was just in a more just society that decided that there was a bottom that we would allow anyone to fall to, or choose to be in e.g. access to healthcare, education, housing, food, clothing being something that I have thought of before. These also have been practiced as the base level communities would allow their neighbors to have. Ours is not this society.

In our society with no floor we see that this imputation of concepts is so insidious. Again, if we didn’t attach so much exclusivity and separation (the opposite of inclusive non-conceptual thought) it wouldn’t matter. But what I have heard in practice and seen is when a former level of exclusive bestowal e.g. bachelor’s degree becomes too common then the next level of exclusivity is accepted as the norm. I have seen this with social workers at my work where a Bachelor’s degree was preferred, and then required, then a master’s degree preferred, and then required, now a very specific type of master’s degree in Social Work or education.

Our system as it is, is not in the business of eliminating the ‘Have nots’. It says it is by upholding programs that try to support students to privilege who were previously not within those bounds, but it does not try to move toward Just, at the least, not to say benevolent. By not having a bottom it can only be in the business of trying to foist as many people into privilege that the system can manage and then continue that process as the next level of exclusivity is used to identify privilege.

I can continue with my ‘do gooder’ ways, mostly because I am ignorant, but also because I have it within the context of a trajectory of life. What my duties are, are to support students and to help them gain skills enough to find meaning in their lives. For the vast majority of humanity that has ever existed in order for this to occur one must have met a modicum of material stability. But this material aspect is only a tool, a necessary tool but a tool nonetheless, to be able to craft meaning. Now that I think about it I think I must put Transcendent as a qualifier for meaning. The meaning for one’s existence, from my vantage, must arrive at a place where it become transcendent. That it arises above the means to get to that understanding but does not invalidate the pathway to it.

It is this calling that I have when I am trying in my ignorant ways to be a good man, good husband, teacher, child, friend-to try to live up to the sacredness of my existence through action, and also, to help support those, serve those, so that they can attempt the peaks that were our own to conquer.

The Poor, Poor, Rich

I am writing this after I have watched a movie that, not too long ago, I would have thought of as sweet, at least in its attempt, coming of age movie. It was called Goats. Now, in my sour mood I found it saccharine and, beneath it, a clandestine effort to humanized the rich. This would not seem to be such a bad idea, after all, they are human. They have human faults and often dynamic and tragic existences. They struggle with the existential question, as we must all, in their own forms. However, in comparison to the portrayal of the not-rich-which is different than those in abject poverty but also includes them, is different.

In Goats the rich kid who lives in New Mexico with his hippy come new ager mother comes to adulthood. All the prerequisites of this, at least to hollywood, are there; the next door vixen, the surrogate father (who grows marijuana and carries a beard), the new-boyfriend, the absent but eventually, kind father. I was trying to look into this film but I could not get past the house, the car, the prep school, his fathers sweater, the pool, etc. The portrayal of this child coming of age was not much different but much more insidious, at least to me, of propaganda materials in Stalinist Russia. I wondered and wonder if the blatant aspect of the Stalinist propaganda, to my 21st century eyes, was as insidious and subtle to those in the culture of that time.

I find it odd how infatuated we have become with this storyline and methodology. The nuanced and dynamic rich who ‘hurt’ too in their familial relationships, their love, the right of passage. It is a powerful message but I am flummoxed as to why we do not want such a statement being made about the not rich? The Not Rich, Romney’s 47%’ers, are left to caricatures-to films that are not nuances, that are painted with big brush strokes-the gross poor shown in films of abject poverty-the streets of Calcutta or Chicago, crime riven, filled with emotionally or biologically starved people. Blank stares, want, etc. We also have the Roseanne effect of the ill mannered, burp and farting working poor. This is not to say that there are not aspects of this. There are. I have grown up in them. But when juxtaposed to films like Goats and The Way, Way Back with one of my favorite actors, Toni Collette, we see that the nuanced, humanizing attempt, is not even attempted in the films about not rich people. We see, to put into single definitions; starvation, penury driven criminal activity, and, well, grossness.

That on a per capita basis to be not-rich is also, to be, often, not white is telling to me too. To even take the ‘feel good’ movies of this population we see caricaturization rather than character development. Lets take for example, Finding Forrester, where there is a black child, a young Man, who is, it seems, inexplicably smart. The underlying message, to me anyways, was that it is amazing that a black man could be smart. One could say that this is the case in something like Good Will Hunting but, in fact, Matt Damon’s character is seen in Harvard just minus the accent. Rob Brown’s character is not. He is the anomaly more than just his smarts. Good Will Hunting is insinuating an economic discrepancy between the students and the janitor, in Finding Forrester there is an innate (as well as economic) divide. The entire movie focused on this inexplicability with, now that I think about it, the thrown in rapper hopeful actor-pushing his brother to be different than all of them.

It all seems to me purposeful. This effective drive to humanize the rich so that we are comfortable with the rich. That we think that being rich is in fact, normal. I watched a few episodes of Modern Family which was well written and funny. But it was wrong. There is not a single American in that show if America can be defined by the preponderance of the people in America. There is a level of wealth that the developers of this show were able to play off of and make seem normal. This darkly brilliant effort as laid the groundwork for us to identify with this group (“my family says that all the time!”). In this identification we find that our own lives are not the actual life. We find ourselves in disconnect with it because we are not what we see. Seeing is so powerful, it is the most evolved of our senses, and it crafts our worlds accordingly.

Everyone is like those on the television or the movies screens so every damn thing is alright. I will take my own failure to be so upon myself. I will hide my shame in debt to catch up to this ephemeral reality, I will sell my children’s future, and for what? So I can feel normal.

It isn’t alright. Our lives are important as well. Our lives are nuanced and beautiful, tragic, but beautiful. That we do not regard the majority of us as normal, that we do not depict it honestly and artistically, seems, to me, on purpose. This purpose, I believe now, is to keep us in want. In a place where we are always the stranger. Always in danger of being exposed as a sham, and in this fear we are vulnerable to being told what is normal, and we cannot craft our own reality if it is already forced upon us. Why? Perhaps it is because we are a frightened group of people. We are not afraid of work, perse, for I know no other people that work so hard at the mundane in life. A job, etc. This is not to say that mundane is not important, it is, but it is a secondary truth, a functional truth. Meaning is the lot of life and it cannot be found through the mundane lens. A pile of whatever is not satisfying to ultimate sense of Man-he becomes restless, dissatisfied, which, I think Schopenhauer points out, is symptomatic by the perpetual fidgetiness of the modern human. They are uncomfortable in their skin, so to say, because it does not stand up-the inherency usually attributed to the body-to the reasonable aspect of man. He sublimates it.

I think it is funny, that reason and logic are the means of our current manifestation and yet, we have given those up-they have lead us to this belief of meaninglessness. To separation. To fear. The fear to ever be able to attempt to climb that was our birthright in this form. We have given it over and used our Mind to subvert even our biological drives to life (environmental degradation, for example), let alone to strive for the transcendent drive to life. We are frightened of this Truth of purpose for what it demands is grueling but, in the end, ultimately rewarding. So, it is strange that we work so hard in the opposite direction for, ironically, we are afraid of the work..possibly. I can see that we may also be afraid of their not being a meaning. That the effort would be futile. That would frightening indeed for the savage we have become that is fascinated with such trinkets, to such a degree, that he has used them to measure his life. His whole life built up like some cheap monument.

yes, the rich are humans. But so are we. Our lives are important and nuanced and beautiful...too. That we feel that they are not because they do not fit some other’s nuanced life, one that is shoved down our throats as normal, does not make yours any less so. Measure a life by that which has been done to serve good, the best of the human nature, not by the frog skins and that which it buys.