An Essential Flavor

I am and I remain an advocate for non-centralized value systems; I do not believe that human beings - in general, anyway - have a hierarchy of values with a summum bonum up top that provides value to everything beneath. We have distinct values - competing values. However, I have also noticed that humans have a tendency toward an essential flavor in their values - something that they feel should be present in all their pursuits and experiences lest a feeling of absence be experienced.

This "essential flavor" does not necessarily give the experience its value, but it is something that is sought and expected, and when it is not present it leaves the perceiver feeling as though there is something inadequate. These "essential flavors" seem to take the form of a profound interest or preoccupation and when experiences do not account for this interest or preoccupation the person may feel as though they are a bit distracting.

To illustrate the concept, imagine a mother who can no longer lose herself in anything that does not in some way better her children. Imagine the devout believer who feels dissatisfied when he cannot tie his moment to God. Imagine the addict who no longer enjoys his activities unless he can enjoy them with his substance of choice.

To understand a person's desired essential flavor is one of the quickest ways to see how that person could be given satisfaction or given despair. Remove it from their life and, though their life remains rich, for a time it will darken and become gray without the aspect that they have come to crave. Add it to their lives, and perhaps even the most mundane of activities can be enriched with that special spark that will keep them content in the midst of it.

A Theistic Answer to Chaos

My response to how we are to love in chaos is that we must love ever deeper. That the answer to the inevitability of despair is more love. That the answer to uncertainty is love. And I call my answer theistic not because one must necessarily believe in God, but because I consider this response to be foundational block to a higher theism that is rooted in love of God first and treats belief as a secondary concern.

To draw out my response, I offer this scenario:

A man loves a sick woman. The woman is fragile; she may live, she may die, she may live well, she may live broken. The man loves her, but he can protect himself from despair by starving his love for her. He can take rational, tactical steps to kill his love by choosing to meditate on certain thoughts, directing his attention on certain areas, and placing himself in certain situations. Likewise he can feed his love and grow ever nearer to her, to the point that her death might leave him a broken man.

If he constrains his focus in this way he will either starve his love and become a living-dead stoic or he will feed his love and invite the world to destroy him. What would I tell this man to do?

I would tell him to love the sick woman. Love her more and more. And love his house as well, the house he can share with her and that will remind him of her if she should die. And love their friends and family who will stand near him but be able to do nothing to console him internally. Love his job, which will become a heavy burden if he has to perform it while grieving. Love the world which is so arranged that his misery is a certainty. And love God to such a degree that he will continue to love if she lives and love if she dies.

This scenario, captures what I mean by adding more and more love. If using the word "God" makes this difficult, I invite you to instead use the word "Other." Make the choice to feed your love of that which is outside of you, that which you can not control. Love what you love and love in such a way that you will love even if love leads to despair.

One may perhaps wonder if we have rendered the word "love" meaningless. What is it to multiply love in this way?

Scream that you want her to live - deepen your commitment to her and do not let yourself pull back to protect yourself. And if she dies, own your despair and defiantly spit out, "your will be done." And then live in that way still, continue loving and knowing that with or without your permission, "his will be done" and react to that with acceptance. Return at all times to a harmony between Self and Other/Perception and Mystery/Man and God, resisting both the urge to remove one or the other.

The Substantial Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain has never been an intellectual obstacle to theism for me. There has never really been a time that I can recall that I simply could not reconcile the concept of God to the concept of pain in the same worldview. Naturally there are many who would disagree with this. It seems to me, though, that while there is an intellectual Problem of Pain/Problem of Evil, it exists primarily as something for budding theistic thinkers to cut their teeth on and a persistent question for different intellectual methods and different schools of thought to be measured by. On the other hand when it comes to factors that determine whether or not a person will be a theist, there is a more substantial Problem of Pain, one that is not as easily wiped away by reasoning, language, and argument.

Whatever we say, whatever we hold true, if we mean it, we live with it. We live - and feel - according to whatever we honestly believe. Now, it is a comfort and a joy to imagine that God is on our side in life and wants us to feel well. If our lives are pleasant, it is a joy to believe that God made our lives pleasant. If our lives have little struggles and problems, it is a joy to believe that God is actively educating us and that he will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able (1 Cor. 10:13). On the other hand, if someone experiences a depth of despair, where their will and the world are completely at odds with one another, what joy does God bring?

Suppose we say that God works all things for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). What does this mean? Perhaps we take it to mean that God will eventually turn that despair into something beneficial. This can bring joy to a person, but, I think that this idea is not robust. That is, the idea seems to be there to bring joy and does not seem adequate for the phenomena it is supposed to have grown out of. This is because God is said to be all-powerful and is said to have created the world, and even if we allow for devils and free wills, it is hard to escape that God created the conditions necessary for the despair to emerge in the first place.

So God works all things for the good of those who love him? But did God not create the despair in the first place? The seemingly gratuitous, seemingly pointless pain and misery? Isn't that the logical consequence of the idea of God?

Of course we can avoid this conclusion several times over. We can say that it is not God's fault, it is free will. We can say that it's not God's fault, it's the devils. These are not robust, it is rare that our minds naturally lend themselves to these explanations, one must stretch and condition oneself to give these answers. Then we have more novel explanations: perhaps God is on our side but he is not all-powerful? Well, in that case some of us would naturally be inclined to worship him, but for most of us I think we would view God the way we might view Superman if he lived in the real world: helpful, powerful, but nothing transcendental.

Keeping God as God, and seeking a robust idea, most of us will come to the conclusion that God is the author of our pain. That the single most fundamental force - capable of moving the universe itself as well as any of its contents - decided to make you suffer. And you're told that good will come of it, but good from what point of view? After all, if human suffering is the means, human flourishing might not be the end. Is it good from your point of view, or good from some transcendental point of view that you have to climb up to? And how could you live a life with that notion? How can you live and try to escape your despair while also believing that God approves of your despair?

This is the substantial problem of pain. In such a situation, it is oftentimes easier to remove God from the worldview.

A Distinction of Note

Divide the joys of life into two camps: joys which are dependent upon the state of the world and joys which are only dependent upon one's own will.

The result of pursuing the first sort of joy is despair and frustration. That is not to say that there will not be happiness as well, but it will almost certainly be intermingled with life refusing to provide what it is that your will is demanding.

The result of pursuing the second sort of joy is numbness. One will be able to please oneself whenever it is wanted and consequently feelings will lose their dimension. Like soaking a canvas in blue or flooding a room with bright light: the details fade away and depth becomes impossible to perceive.

Happiness Tethered to Desire

If we imagine a man who wants nothing, do we imagine a happy man? Or if not a happy man, a man capable of happiness? What is happiness apart from a man's desire?

Of course we can define happiness in different ways, which means that there are possible definitions of happiness that do not require desire. Instead, lets focus on our gut understanding of happiness, the kind we inherit from culture and biology prior to reflection.

With that foggy notion of happiness, is it possible without desire? Is it possible without wanting something? I do not think I can conceive of it.

It may be pointed out that if we conceive of happiness this way, then we can conceive of a negative happiness as well, what would probably be called suffering. Suffering that would also depend upon desire. By wanting and having our desires frustrated we would experience pain.

To opt out of the game and try to quiet one's desires so that all suffering is manageable would also be to deny ourselves happiness. Happiness, under this conception, carries the risk of greater suffering. Is there a way around this? Would we really be better off escaping the risk of suffering? 

A Speculative Moment

Note: this is what I call Philosophical Fiction. It's speculation, it is fun, but it is not to be taken as a sincere search for the way things are, just a fun contemplation on the way things might be.

If there is a meaning to life, I do not think that it would be a meaning for us. We create hammers for a purpose so they have a purpose for us, but not for themselves. Computers are created to serve certain purposes for us, but they themselves have nothing to aspire to. Likewise, given the lack of a clear meaning for our lives, I should think that if there is a meaning to life it is not for us, not something that we aspire to, but something that we fulfill simply in the course of doing what we naturally do.

And if there should be a meaning to life, I would think that it lies in our diversity of experience and natures. Life produces a multitude of unique characters. Life can be thought of as a kind of arthouse, producing unique natures.

I think that the most persuasive theodicy I have ever encountered is the Irenaean theodicy. Making pain a part of the design is more effective than making pain a flaw in the design since the former does not force us to imagine an incompetent designer.

Relax; You Are Probably Just Hungry

There was one day in my life where I was just weary. Existence seemed to be a burden. Anything I read that I disagreed with seemed like malicious stones hurled at the house of cards I happened to prefer in those days. And everything I did agree with just reminded me what a loveless view of the world I had. Everything was just so... bad.

I remember standing there in my room looking at the floor and thinking morbid thoughts to myself. I thought about how hard life can be. I thought about how unsatisfying a day could be. I thought about how cold and indifferent the universe. I thought about... how long had it been since I last ate?

I took my morbid, dark, brooding (and, at the time, significantly overweight) self to the kitchen and microwaved something. I ate it while contemplating the futility of all human endeavor. The ultimate oblivion that awaited us. The cruel joke that was played on humanity by making our nature love existence while also promising to one day take it away from us. And after throwing away my ready-in-five-minutes chow mein container and returning to the poorly lit lair where I spun together my nihilistic indictments of our cruel universe (with Batman stickers on the wall), I realized that things did not seem so bad anymore.

I hadn't eaten for about 12 hours, not counting the time I spent sleeping. My body was unsatisfied and that produced a sensation of need and longing. I just didn't know what I needed and longed for. So everything I thought about was seen through the lens of dissatisfaction: thinking about life made life seem empty, if I had thought about something else that something else would have also seemed gloomy and drab. While I embellished a tad for the sake of being nominally entertaining, this is essentially a true story. I really was in a dark and depressed mood, all my thoughts were tending toward nihilism, and then I gave my body some calories and started feeling better.

After I noticed this, I decided to test the extents of this. I purposely went without substantial food for three days, only allowing myself water and the occasional energy drink. But this time I did so while expecting a morbid mood to seize me. It may have been a self-fulfilling prediction, but it worked. By the third day the world seemed gray and unfriendly to me: squabbles on the internet seemed more hateful, interaction with people seemed more frustrating, the universe seemed a little more indifferent. But I had the conscious thought that the world was not the way it seemed: I was purposely mucking with my own body and purposely producing impressions that were more antagonistic than they would ordinarily seem. I walked to a nearby restaurant and ordered a 1500 calorie breakfast while scribbling notes in a little notebook I brought with me. I walked out jolly enough and ready to continue being a human; the color returned to the universe and I walked home satisfied.

Ever since then I have always been skeptical whenever I or anyone else provides an explanation of their moods and emotions. You may think that the reason you feel anxious is that you feel you are surrounded by uncaring people, but maybe you're mildly dehydrated: go drink 32 ounces of water and see if you still feel unloved. Maybe you feel that the world is small, you're never going to go anywhere in life, and you're just spinning your wheels until you keel over. This may very well be true and you should certainly try to do something about it, but maybe you should get some sunshine first and see if you still feel that your lot is so terrible. I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just saying rule out biological explanations before you resign yourself to shouldering a new emotional burden.

We are insulted when someone says that our deepest and more personal (at the moment, anyway) struggles are just biological issues. It's insulting the way it is when someone disregards your discontent as being the result of hormones or someone saying you're only aggravated because you have high blood pressure. We are insulted because, dreadful though they may be, these morbid perspectives and perceived struggles seem real to us and we feel that treating them as less than real is a kind of retreat from the harshness of reality. Yet, maybe you have it backward, maybe reality will return once you get a little fresh air.

I am not saying emotional disturbance does not exist. I am not saying that it is impossible to be deeply troubled by what one finds in the universe. I am not even necessarily saying that those dark thoughts you have from time to time are false. What I am proposing a simple maxim, a helpful guideline that has worked for me: Whenever you're anxious, irritated, nervous, or troubled about something, make sure you are well-fed, well-hydrated, well-rested, and in good health and then see if you are equally anxious, irritated, nervous, or troubled.

You might be surprised how much can be solved by a hamburger and a bottle of water.

Mmmm, existential comfort.

Note: This blog was inspired by me coming home from work irritated and anxious for vague reasons. As I sat in my bed expecting a sleepless night followed by another shift at work I realized I was sweating from the heat of the house. Then I realized that my only hydration came from a Starbucks Doubleshot I had about three hours earlier. I started this blog anxious, paused to drink two 16 oz. bottles of water, and finished the blog more or less completely at ease.

Illness and Hedonism

It is inevitable, I am bound to get sick at least two to four times starting in November and continuing into January. Currently, I'm in the middle of my second illness, a mild cold. Fortunately, being sick gave me a time to reflect on my emotional reaction to an aspect of reality. It provided me with an opportunity to gain insight into my response to a particular experience. It allowed me to discover what understanding could be gained from the perspective of someone who is (slightly) sick.

Being sick sucks.

Apart from that mind-blowing revelation, though, I had a train of thought on the first night when I could feel myself getting sick. I will come to that train of thought in a moment, first, a little background information.

I'm no fan of hedonism. I'm no fan of the notion that pleasure is good and pain is bad, partly because I think it is quite possible for pain to be good and pleasure to be bad, but even more pertinently, because I think there are other matters that can be valued more highly than pleasure and that in those cases pleasure and pain are subordinate to those higher values. Of course, due to my current nihilism, I cannot say that there is anything actually better than pleasure, only that I myself am very much relieved that humanity has historically managed to find much that they valued more highly.

Two considerations always concerned me, though. While I always found a hedonistic utopia hollow, I also found any situation that did not contain pleasure to be unsatisfying. Pleasure was not sufficient, but it was necessary; if you're interested in testing this for yourself, try to imagine yourself in heaven, however you would like to conceive it, but imagine it without anything resembling what you would call a good feeling. This always concerned me because it seemed to lend credence to the idea that conceiving of something as good was the same as conceiving of it as pleasant. The other consideration was that it seemed to me that alleviating suffering oftentimes seemed important and worthwhile to me; seeing people I care about suffer, even if their sufferings were actually quite insignificant, made me want to make things better for them. However, if there were more valuable things to be concerned about, then why did I care so much about their suffering, why did it so easily become a priority?

The train of thought I had, which I think will explain those two considerations without falling into hedonism, was this: when I am sick all I want is to get better. I want to stop feeling bad, and in fact, when I am sufficiently sick, that tends to be the prime focus of my life. Once I get better, though, I move on to other considerations. The increase of pleasure and the minimizing of pain is not my prime value when I am well, but it is when I am sick. Why is this?

It occurred to me that the life of pleasure vs. pain could be seen as a kind of necessity. As an analogy, consider oxygen: no one would live their whole life in pursuit of oxygen, but take it away and that becomes the single most important thing in the world. Once access is restored, the formerly deprived person will go back to whatever he finds truly valuable in the world. There are things that are important or even vital, but which can be satisfied to such an extent that they cease to seem worth seeking until they again become lacking. Oxygen is one such thing for physiological reasons; pleasure and the absence of pain could be one such thing in a spiritual, emotional, or mental sense.

Yes, one can lead a hedonistic life in pursuit of pleasure and in flight from pain, but for most people, happiness does not consist of just matters of pleasure. Still, matters of pleasure and pain are a part of happiness, they must be tended to before we move on to our higher values. I conceive of it, now, like a pyramid, sort of like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; on the bottom of the pyramid are all the things that must be satisfied and moved beyond.

If you need to shit, you go and shit. But who would lead a life in pursuit of shitting? Shit, and then move on.

One thought occurs to me now, though. All those “higher” values, whatever they might be (say, love, power, harmony, or creative expression), do we pursue these things because we value them so much or do we pursue them because they're permanently elusive? They either can't be completely satisfied or they are very unlikely to be satisfied, so they can only be more fulfilled or less fulfilled. If they were to ever be fulfilled, though, would they too be moved beyond? A question for another day.

On Happiness

Original Posting

Everyone spends their life trying to avoid pain and pursue happiness. The perfect world would be a world full of many diverse pleasures, and pain (not just in a physical sense, but as everything that hinders our life of pleasure) does not exist or is at least brought down to its most most minimal point.

Is this true?

Is this really what we want?

Is this really the world that our common nature craves?

I don't think it is. I don't think that we want a world without pain. Not just because the existence of pain gives us an appreciation of pleasure, but because we were grown in a world with pain and suffering. It's what we crawled out of, it shaped our nature. To deny it would be to deny a fundamental aspect of life itself.

Life is happiness; life is also suffering.

Look at our art. When we are creative, what do we create? Do we create idealistic worlds of peace, harmony, and joy? No. We claim to want them, but we spend no time creating them. No, everything we create with a narrative (with the possible exclusion of bubblegum pop) always includes pain and suffering somewhere.

We grew up in it, we crave it.

I'm not saying we're all masochists or that we all want to sit around torturing ourselves. What I am saying is that any conception of a good life or a good world without suffering is a concept that doesn't understand human nature. It's listening to humanity's mouth rather than its actions.

We desire pleasure, fun, and joy; but deep down we wouldn't be happy without pain, suffering, and a little anguish.

So, if you are altruistically inclined, by all means work to make the world a more pleasurable place. Try to remove the pain in the world. But you better hope the pain isn't completely removable, otherwise you might go too far and fuck up the world.