Working to feel good about the world again

I was just thinking, today, as I watch people, administrators especially, work very hard to handle so many situations with softer gloves, as much as possible, which is a very good development, I think, that I don't really know, anymore, when I will feel good again about the world. In a deeper sense, I mean.

When I was out of college, in my first years of grad school, and completely in love, it was a high point in my life. I was totally committed to alleviating poverty (I was inspired to attempt a wealth equity movement, at one point, by the commitments and words of Muhammad Yunus after a RESULTS International conference I attended that he spoke at) and inner city school reform and giving everything I had to making the world a better place to live.

I had no idea just what pricks we were, then. I knew there were pricks in the world. But I didn't know that it was all of us. And I didn't know to what lengths we would go to have our causes will out.

It makes all my enthusiasm for those causes, many of which I share in the big picture, kind of lukewarm. When progress is made, at what cost and to what extent will people take credit even if they don't deserve it. And when progress isn't made or when we take steps backward, it can always be blamed on someone else. No responsibility for failures ever need to be taken because they can always be shifted elsewhere. It's such a weasely way to advocate and lead. And there's just no way that I could ever feel good about a world that does that and pretends that it is the best that we have to offer.

After Brandi and I broke up and she made a marriage decision that I never really ever have understood and which, if not cynical, she's given me very little reason to believe otherwise, I never have ever quite felt as excited about life as I did then. It broke my heart and introduced me to a harsh world in a way that I will never, ever feel good about, I don't think. My experiences with grad school were similarly rocky and then harsh. And I just don't think I will ever feel good about a world that always pretends that its harshness and pursuit of vices like greed and power-hunger are better than they really are.

I just can't respect people who act like this ugly little worldview they've imposed is better than it really is. It isn't better. It's small and petty and harsh and it certainly is far from our highest humanity. So be it. But at least have the balls to admit what dicks we are, I say. Don't expect me to celebrate that petty little worldview. Because it doesn't deserve to be celebrated. It doesn't deserve to be villified, necessarily. But it doesn't deserve to be celebrated either. It's a simple mistake. And pretending like things are going better than they are admidst that mistake is a mistake compounded by a less than honest attempt to defend ones' worldview. Everyone does it, I'm learning. And that really is the saddest part of all.

I was wondering, today, if I will ever feel excited about the world again. It is hard to be excited when you know just how harsh it is, and just how stubborn people are about keeping it that way.
My greatest hope lies in a younger generation that is much less self-righteous about life and one another, generally. They have their faults too. But perhaps they'll be more open to facing this mistake than will their stubborn and self-righteous parents and elders.

In the meantime, I would be happy to enjoy this life with a woman who would hope for something better with me rather than defending this ugly, dysfuctional mess that we have created today. And raising children who might do the same, even and especially if they might end up developing their own better ideas of how the world might be.

Mean-spiritedness is responsible for almost all of humanity's greatest sins. Pretending that it is better than it is is one of the most persistent features of humanity's more sordid legacies. Naziism, Communism, genocide, imperialism, slavery, racism, sexism, theocracy and religious fundamentalism, barbarism of one kind or another. What these all have in common is that they were all defended as hallmarks of a truly moral order and found defenses in the moral predilictions of the day. Because noone wants to face up to their bullshit. Ever. Which exactly why such issues need a softer touch. Because it is the best means of letting the bullshit go and opening up our hearts and minds to their experiences and difficulties and feelings of others than ourselves.

And I'd rather hold out for something better than pretend like this path is doing us better than it really is.

I will hold out for a world where nice guys finish first. Where good guys are those who want everyone to be a good guy, as much as possible, rather than trying to prove how much better they are than everyone else. Which isn't being good at all, as far as I'm concerned. I certainly want no part of that nonsense.

I will not settle for a world where assholes are so greedy for ego gratification that they want to both be assholes and get credit for being better than everyone else. There's noone to look up to in that world. Because it is a world that is so narrow in its view of what good people have to offer.

And, like Mark Twain, in that world, I'd rather go to hell with the sinners than go to heaven with the pious.

I want my heart to be open to the world again. I just don't know when exactly that will happen. I'll keep working at it.

If any side of the current political wars can claim victory in any of their battles, they are hollow, pyrrhic victories. Because who could possibly feel good about a world whose inspiration is not heartfelt commitment to doing good in the world, but the cold, hard fist of power and force. Force is not something to be trifled with or used so indiscriminately or with so little care. Force is something to be used as little and as discriminately and as relunctantly as possible. Aggression is something to be engaged openly and without shame, but not indiscriminately or without remorse or responsibility when it is more destructive than we might have intended. Everything else is a farce. And it certainly isn't our highest values.

And until the world embraces that value - that force should be used as little as possible rather than as a rule and certainly not as a governing philosophy - our current political moment feels like our greater potential held down by our more petty fears and envies and concerns. A life controlled is not a life of safety. It is a life of resignation, only made bearable by the hope for something better. And everyone seems to be able to see that in their opponents' machinations, as Jesus observed over 2000 years ago, but not in their own.

All the good we might do during this period is overshadowed by the fact that we are being such petty, unrepentant assholes. Which is ironic since our pettiness is because we are consumed with bringing down others whose sins and weaknesses, for us, feature larger than their strengths and efforts and accomplishments.

Perhaps our good outweighs our bad. But we will never really have reason to celebrate our accomplishments as long as our pettiness overshadows our generosity and compassion and humanity.

I work always to be more forgiving and generous about the current period. But the longer we pretend like we are handling things better than we are and that the consequences of our choices turn out better than they do, the harder it is to keep up the generosity.

Progress comes with more thought and compassion animating our worldviews, and with less meanness and pettiness, including thought and compassion and acceptance of our own meanness and pettiness. And the thoughtfulness about others, appropriately, prepares us to better facilitate the learning and development of the kind of people who we want to be and who we want to inhabit our world with us.

I probably just have a lot of growth to do in this regard. I assume it anymore. I just wish we'd all stop being such pricks, is the truth. I just want the love that I knew as a kid - toward me and from me toward others - to animate how people regard one another. A wholly unself-conscious love for others, without being naive of their or my likelihood for being a shithead, but also without some meanspirited need to rub their noses in it rather than forgiving them and letting them learn from their mistakes.

We are all like children, growing slowly and always into greater maturity, forever into perpetuity, with no real ending to that ever unfolding history.

Perhaps my own growth will come with forgiving humanity this bleak period, as we learn to be better, more grown-up, less defensive of our failures, and more thoughtful about how we treat others and our next steps forward. I'm sure that's true. I just feel exhausted by our stubborn clinging to pride in the face of our failure to build a better world than the one we've managed thusfar.

I'll keep working on opening my heart.

Love,
Ben