The Speck in the Storm

Photo by Renee A. Pflughaupt

July 19, 2011.  I arrived home at that ambiguous hour between late at night and early in the morning as the winds were conjuring a thunderstorm across the horizon.  The clouds had yet to unleash their torrent upon the lands below, but the sky was already flooded with lightning; it was lit as much as not, and the echoing thunder of each bolt would still be rolling through the hills when the next struck.  At times, the lightning lit the heavens so brightly I could not help but shield my eyes, yet I found the beauty of the storm overwhelming, and neither could I look away.

Within the past month or so before that night, I had seen the end of a seven-year-long relationship, moved back into my parents' house, and received the offer to renew my graduate teaching assistantship in Morgantown only a week after I had left the city.  I wasn't even sure if I had lost my path in life, or if I had simply given it up.  I only knew whatever it was I lost, it was the result of having lost hope — I had over time grown increasingly disillusioned with society and humanity on a whole, and the turns my own life had taken did nothing to restore any hope to me.

Yet here I paused to simply watch the storm, its majesty overwhelming.  Its beauty and power left me in awe as I watched the immense force of lightning being tossed about whimsically by nature.  With each bolt burning hotter than the surface of the sun, unleashing thunder that shook the hills for miles, I came to realize how small and powerless I was compared to even a single lightning bolt, and here the sky swarmed with them.  How much more insignificant, then, is a single person when compared to the grandeur of the universe, when our planet is but a speck of mud orbiting one small star at the outer reaches of a galaxy so vast that it takes light hundreds of thousands of years to cross it — a galaxy which in turn is just one of hundreds of billions in the observable universe.  And these stars that populate this immense universe live their life cycles over the course of millions if not billions of years, and each of these lives is but a tick of the clock that drives the galaxies.  We are but the tiniest of particles struggling in vain to leave an imperceptible mark on the universe within the briefest of fractions of a blink of the cosmological eye in which we live.  ...And here I was wasting time worrying about how I didn't have a job or a girlfriend.

A sense of absolute insignificance flooded over me.  Yet, in the midst of setbacks and stumbles, I didn't find it threatening or insulting.  I found myself neither disheartened nor defiant, but relieved if not liberated.  Everything I was — the music I had played, the pictures I had doodled, the programs I had coded, all my greatest accomplishments faded away into nothing amongst the echoing thunder, but so too did all my failures, my mistakes, my incomplete projects, student loans, and lost relationships.  The universe did not judge me, neither good nor bad.  In the end, whatever would be would be.

In retrospect, the difference between being at odds with this nearly nihilistic rumination and accepting it had nothing to do with how significant I previously thought I was, but how significant I thought I should be — how significant I thought I deserved to be.  When I lost hope, I had not found myself lamenting that I had neither found my place in the world nor left my mark upon it, but only the disparity between the actions of humanity and what little of the truth I had come to understand having pursued objectivity and reason for a number of years.  Still seeking the same objective truth, I found no reason to fight the truth I was now confronted with — even that of my own insignificance.

Yet as my mind wandered through these concepts, the storm raged on, still demanding my attention.  After all, why would I bother thinking about myself when I knew how small of a thing I was?  And so my thoughts continued to roam freely throughout the storm, until eventually I found myself contemplating the mechanisms underlying the formation of lightning — the tiny ice crystals that collide midair, exchanging even tinier electrons, until at last they push the electrical charge of the atmosphere far enough out of balance that it snaps back into place suddenly and violently — striking as a lightning bolt.  All the awesome power of lightning that inspired my feelings of insignificance had at its core insignificant specks of ice exchanging even more insignificant particles until enough of their efforts combined to shake both heaven and earth.

Why, then, could it not be true of people?  Surely I was still insignificant, but if I were to combine my efforts with other insignificant individuals, together we could achieve something truly significant.  And unlike the storm, my influence was not limited to immediate physical interactions — through language we are capable of communicating across expanses of both space and time.  Moreover, I realized I need not be an unaware pawn in a greater game of chess when the human capacity for abstraction should grant me the necessary tools to consider the whole that I was a part of.

I knew I had realized something significant, but it would take me years to begin to appreciate what in particular that was.  The most immediate truth of that night — that we should, whenever possible, aspire to combine with others into something greater than our individual selves, choosing whenever possible cooperation over conflict — has remained unchanged.  Yet as I set down that road, I never would have predicted how far it would lead, and I dare not speculate how much further I can wander down it.

Blocks and Building

 I once read an article about the thermodynamic likelihood of amino acids — not a full scholarly article, I'm sorry to say, but just the sensationalized write up on such an article that tends to find its way around social media.  Although the article itself was interesting (if not a bit exaggerated on conclusions and understated on actual information, as such articles tend to be), the thing I find I remember most is the first comment displayed at the bottom of the page.  The comment, apparently following the site's trend of sensationalized, hasty conclusions, declared that, if the building blocks of life were likely to form, there is obviously no need for a god to have formed life.

The first logical fallacy that struck me was that this conclusion relied on the assumption that any deity would be acting as simply some sort of mediator of activity within a universe.  To the contrary, if we assume that a deity were instead dictating the design of the laws of such a universe instead of simply acting within those laws to assemble together bits and pieces of matter, we could just as easily — and just as fallaciously — conclude that a universe likely to give rise to life in the wake of chaos suggests the existence of a creator.  Ultimately, though, the only thing that the likelihood of the appearance of amino acids dictates is that life, however it came about, used the building blocks that were available.  To assume that the formation of these blocks directly implies the formation of proteins or organisms is much like assuming the presence of any Lego bricks leads invariably to double-decker couches.  Certainly, it is a possibility that such things are formed, but the end product is dictated by the assembly and not the type of parts used in it.

Yet in a system with sufficient complexity, with pieces capable of acting on other pieces in so many varied ways as is possible in chemistry, self replication becomes possible.  Moreover, variances in conditions introduce imperfections, which in turn introduce variance into the replication and diversity into the population.  Although such variance is typically meaningless and often even detrimental to the process, any sufficiently random probability distribution will have individuals ahead of the average population, and if they successfully replicate, their advantage perpetuates.

In computer science, such selection of the best performing individuals of a population is exploited in genetic algorithms.  In a randomly generated population of possible solutions, some solutions will inevitably perform better than others.  These individuals are then replicated — not by their own means as in nature, but simply by the framework of the program created for them — and random variation further creates better approximations of the solution.  Although genetic algorithms by no means guarantee ideal solutions, with the right parameters they converge on accurate approximations, sometimes finding unexpected solutions to complicated problems.

In genetic algorithms, the advancement is just a probabilistic outcome of reproducing individuals that best meet some metric and introducing random variation to better explore possible solutions.  In life, the same probabilistic advancement holds true so long as there is sufficient capability for self-replication and diversification, but in the absence of an algorithmically imposed metric to compete over, survival and reproduction itself becomes the metric, further reinforcing the feedback loop that serves to perpetuate self-replication — the "circle of life".

If you try hard enough, any movie can be about information theory or heuristic algorithms.

Without much consideration, it seems unlikely that order can arise out of chaos.  It is difficult to fathom that every bird, tree, mushroom, person, and virus is just a clever arrangement of mud, digested and reorganized by fractal patterns dictated in the genetic instructions that are contained initially in a single cell.  "Dust you are and to dust you will return" — whether created by deity or probability.  Yet order underlies chaos, and just as the right conditions can rearrange the molecules of rocks to manifest that order on a larger geometric scale in crystals, so, too, can the right conditions manifest patterns in causality instead of geometry.

In the end, it seems, (or in the beginning, chronologically), it is not the building blocks that matter as long as they allow for sufficient complexity to produce imperfect self-replication.  From there, the nature of probability and causality will take its course.  Again, though, this does not presuppose neither that there is nor is not a creator.  Perhaps life is a pattern that forms in any universe where self-replicating causalities are possible, regardless of the underlying engine.  Or perhaps the existence of a universe where life is likely presupposes some sort of intentional creation.  Neither is certain.

Instead, this comments on how there are more complex patterns that arise from seemingly simple and chaotic patterns.  It suggests an interplay between things — an interconnectivity that gives rise to epiphenomena, or mechanisms that are far more than the sum of their parts, becoming patterns of higher order that, though composed of and mechanically driven by the underlying composition are ultimately dictated by something beyond them.  So, too, do the principles of interconnectivity and  diversity that drive the evolution of organisms or the growth of a seed into a tree resonate in methods for personal and societal growth.  Connections between us and beyond us are what will allow us to grow, both as individuals, and as a community.  Yet just as the fractal patterns that drive the complexity, diversity, and interconnectivity of life are dictated by far simpler rules replicated innumerable times across innumerable variations in the underlying conditions, it only takes little connections and cooperation, echoed across society, diverse as the people who participate in those connections, to create growth.

In the Beginning, God Created Science

To explain where I stand regarding religion, we must go down a path that starts with me leaving the religion I was raised to believe.  One of the first steps on questioning my religious path was the idea of young-Earth creationism.  Although I did not leave strictly because of differences in beliefs on creation, my understanding of such still played an important role in where I find myself.  The discussion of creationism may not be entirely critical to my discussion of religion itself, but it illustrates points that will be explored much further in time.  Moreover there is always value in exploring truths so long as we also explore where they fit with truth on a whole.

Although I have, admittedly informally, studied evolution and cosmology, it was not purely from these that I drew my conclusions about creationism.  Instead, I found if we assume that the universe has an intelligent, omnipotent creator, then we can reasonably from this assume that the nature of the creation reflects the nature of the creator.  If we examine the universe around us, we find that it is mechanical and logical — the moon orbits the Earth, which in turn orbits the sun, which in turn orbits the center of the galaxy, and a multitude of other moons, planets, asteroids, stars, comets, and varied additional cosmological bodies join in this synchronous, clockwork dance.  Even the multitude of things in the universe from stars to planets to people to trees to toasters are all made up primarily of different arrangements of the same three fundamental subatomic particles.  Gravity and mass, light and electromagnetism, even superconductors, dark energy, and antimatter all adhere to the laws of physics (even when we yet do not fully understand those laws).

It stands to reason, then, that the creator of a mechanical, logical universe must favor mechanical, logical methods.  I find it difficult to believe that any being would have created such an organized universe by magically calling it into existence — why begin with a poof of mysticism and then settle into physics and chemistry?  Why would we be composed of cells instead of being mixtures of classical elements housing some sort of actual ghosts if such mysticism gave rise to us?

(Although not critical to the discussion, I also believe that there is plenty of magic in the universe, even if it is driven by the laws of physics instead of some sort of ethereal, impossible mysticism.  As Lee Siegel, magician and professor of religion, said on the matter, "By 'real magic,' people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers... 'Real magic,' in other words, refers to the magic that is not real; while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.")

Maintaining the assumption that the universe was created by an intelligent deity, there are three possible conclusions here: The first, and perhaps most unsettling, is that the deity is inconsistent, and does not follow the patterns or laws he, she, or it establishes.  Whether the deity is whimsically waffling or intentionally manipulating things is difficult to say; this does not dictate that the deity is also dishonest, going back on promises made, but at the very least it allows the methods of fulfilling those promises to be wildly variable.  Although this is not quite the territory of word-twisting trickster gods, it still seems well outside the realm of what I am comfortable devoting my life to.

The second possibility is that this deity is not omnipotent.  The universe was created within certain physical laws that even the deity must adhere to.  If this were the case, though, we could assume that the method of creating would also adhere to those rules, and that young-Earth creation scripture is still simply allegory, not literal narration.  Moreover, such a deity limited in power contradicts the statements within the Bible — whose literal interpretation gives rise to young-Earth creationism — that "with God all things are possible."

The last — and it seems to me most likely — possibility, is if this logical and mechanical universe were created by some intelligent deity, then that deity, too, is logical, and not prone to fits of mysticism.  This, of course, neither serves to provide evidence that such a God is impossible, nor to show that such a God is likely.  This only serves to demonstrate conclusions that can be reached from the assumption that there is such a creator given the nature of the creation, even before we start to account for fossil records and cosmology.

One further point of interest is that, as young-Earth creationism is a strictly Biblical construct, proof of its truth would serve as proof of the existence of the Biblical God.  This, in turn, would necessitate obedience over morality and call into question the old theological arguments on free will.  Additionally, faith would be unnecessary, and devotion to such a God would not be — and reasonably could not be — any demonstration of such.

Moreover, it was not my personal conclusion that the theory of young-Earth creationism was inaccurate that led me away from religion, but the way the religious used it to create divisions between themselves and others.  Even though I was raised as a Christian, I now find myself on the theism-atheism axis as agnostic — not because I wish to sidestep the conflict between theism and atheism, even though ultimately such conflict had its hand in driving me away from religion initially, but because there either is a God or there isn't, and my beliefs on the matter will not change that.  Potentially, my beliefs on the matter could affect what happens to me, but, in pursuit of the abandonment of ego to devote my life to greater truths, I do not care what happens to me as long as I can spend my life doing good for others.

I became agnostic not over differences in beliefs, but in part to avoid the common pitfall of so many religions and religious that places theology before love.  I was dissuaded that religion can so thoroughly be distracted from the idea of love by so much else — by creation mythologies, by money and politics, by finding dividing lines between themselves and other religions, or even neglecting to serve others in the pursuit of personal growth.  I understand that this is a matter of the practitioners and not the practice, but nevertheless, having myself through the pursuit of objectivity and rationality concluded that selflessness is the best path, it is sometimes difficult to accept that religion, claiming to be from a higher source, does not more readily lead down the same path.  Furthermore, although I admit there are many things that can be learned from studying religion, I fail to see the necessity of fully devoting myself to any single religious practice.

This does not mean I would advise anyone against accepting Jesus or becoming enlightened through Zen, only that I have chosen a different path.  I would, however, advise against a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, echoing the Zen belief that truth is not something you create, but also it is not something created by the words of others.  Truth may reflect in words, but it remains something we must seek to understand fully, not accept blindly or acquire through memorization and recitation.  We must be reminded that we should place the truth before us, and not rest our egos on our understanding of the truth — an understanding that is inherently limited and therein never gives us the right to place ourselves or that understanding before others.

This post is part three of an ever-expanding discussion of religion.  Find part one here and part two here, and expect part four by next Monday.

On Practicing Religion

Even though we have discussed the discussion of religion, we still have some things to address to further bridge the rift fully into discussion of theology itself.  Like many, I have many more disagreements with the way I see religion practiced than I do with the theology.  Ultimately, I found there to be certain truths that echo through the teachings of religions, and to let my disagreements sever these connections would be doing myself a disservice, placing me unnecessarily at odds with ideologies and individuals alike.

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness — a declaration that brings a wide variety of reactions.  Although I ultimately turned from the Witnesses, it was not for the typical reasons alone — I was at the time too young and invincible to spend much time considering their stance on blood, and seeing birthdays and Christmas from the outside for so many years made compulsory celebration and gift giving seem insincere and needlessly consumerist.  I disagreed with their choice of young-Earth creationism over evolution, but that was not what drove me away.  In the end, it was not their interpretation of theology that I chose to leave, but the way they let those conclusions separate themselves from others.  I disagreed with their disagreements most of all, which is necessarily a difficult position to uphold.  Even before I understood the grander mechanisms of the world the way I now do, I thought it obvious that religion should bring people together, not push them apart. 

I would not go so far as to suggest that discussion of theology is unimportant — I would not suggest that we should not consider whether we go to heaven or are resurrected on some kind of restored earthly paradise as the Witnesses argue, or even whether we are to be reincarnated or if death is the ultimate end.  To the contrary, I believe that truth should be sought to whatever end it yields.  Nevertheless, I would say that such differences in beliefs on the afterlife should have less influence on how we live our current lives; specifically, we should never let these disagreements on the metaphysical side of religion get in the way of us loving others, especially when such love is one of the core commandments of the religion.

And so, disagreeing primarily with disagreement, to turn my back utterly on religion and morality would be to repeat the mistakes of the religious practices I was trying to escape.  When we let the difference between our understanding of truth and someone else's drive a wedge between us, we are ultimately serving our ego and not the quest for truth, which ultimately does everyone a disservice, most of all that which we claim to seek.  Since gods of war are no longer prevalent, there is no purpose for conflict in the name of religion that could not be better served by a peaceful approach.

This holds all the more true in conflict against religion.   The existence of a deity can neither be proven nor disproved, largely because there is no strict definition for "God" and therein arguments devolve quickly into semantics.  Every logically sound argument for theism I have encountered has been based on so loosely defining a deity that it becomes just a new semantic argument for existing phenomena.  Yet every logically sound argument for atheism I have encountered has been based on so strictly define a deity as a caricature of itself that it could not possibly exist.  As such, to believe that there is no God is no more based in empirical evidence than to believe that there is a God.  Because atheism comes with none of the same commandments to spread the word that theism often has, evangelizing atheism becomes more about attacking the beliefs of others than spreading absolute truth.

Yet as purposeless as the evangelical atheist is, the theist who attacks instead of understanding and relating directly acts against commandments to love.  We could argue whether it is worse to evangelize pointlessly or directly act against one's beliefs, but we would be missing the point.  Vilifying the opposition does nothing to overcome the problems of religion, instead perpetuating them.  The conflict is the problem, not the rationalizations we introduce after the fact.

Neither theism nor atheism are inherently flawed in their rationality.  As I stated, it is the people who practice these that are flawed and therein introduce flaws.  Religion is indeed often used as justification for atrocities, but so is nationality, race, capitalism vs. communism, and any other difference between two groups of people.  Similarly, atheism does not presuppose immorality, as there is significant basis for an objective moral stance — one that, again, very much mirrors the core moral stance of many religions.

Religion or its absence is not to blame for the conflict that surrounds it, but instead the dehumanization and vilification of others is what drives these evils.  To attack beliefs because of their practices (driven by its practitioners) is to simply complicate the matter — if we fight against beliefs because those beliefs lead to fighting, we only serve to counteract our intentions.  As a letter on Zen by Layman Hsiang stated, "If we raise our voices to stop echoes, we are not cognizant of the fact that sounds are the roots of the echoes."

On Discussing Religion

The topic of religion is often a difficult one to breech.  Even when approached calmly and rationally, it is full of difficult topics that require much more time to grasp than we typically are admitted in a normal conversation, or more space to explain than can be reasonably occupied by an article.  Even with what we already know of religion, simply compositing the ideas into coherent strings so that we can share that knowledge with others can be a daunting task.  I have both piles of papers and folders full of text files that I could present as evidence to my own efforts to overcome the challenge of discussing religion.

In some circles, it is simply impolite to discuss religion.  Yet in avoiding discussion of religion, we hide away things essential to ourselves, and we widen rifts we should be bridging.  Moreover, there are many around us who misuse religion, invoking it improperly in an attempt to justify attacks on others, whether physical or otherwise.  If we are to overcome the differences between people, whether or not they are elevated to violence, we must therein be prepared to approach the subject.  However, in order to discuss religion, I believe we all need to sit down and have a discussion on discussing religion.

The first thing to remember when discussing anything, but religion especially, is people are people, not perfectly rational robots, and as such we cannot refuse to examine the reasoning behind our own points, and all the more so we cannot expect others to immediately acquiesce to even the best reasoned arguments.  Especially in the matter of religion, where so much cannot be objectively proven, we must keep in mind that debate is about changing minds, not being right.  If we attack, we will put others on the defensive, and they will reinforce their position regardless of what that position actually is.

Too often I see opposing sides make a mockery of what they disagree with — theists of atheists and atheists of theists.  They would drive wedges between groups with straw man arguments and tactless jokes.  I am rarely an opponent of humor, believing anyone who believes a topic too serious for humor does not take humor seriously enough.  Yet if you mock the opposition while never mocking yourself, it becomes clear that your intentions are not about comedy but instead about rivalry.  I do not believe religion too sacred for jest, but only such mockery a poor mask for belligerence.  Remember, in order to have anyone follow our path, we must start from common ground.

In many of the dominant religions it is not difficult to find this common ground.  There are truths that hold regardless of religious beliefs, and many of these resonate within the religious teachings themselves.  A key tenet of most religions is love — not putting ourselves before others, and remembering to show kindness even to those who we may not think deserve it.  And, as tends to be a common theme in my writing, love is not some purely spiritual invention but an objectively beneficial approach to life — we are each only a trivially small part of the universe, yet if we work with those around us we expand our influence and use their experiences to grow.

These points echo not only in what we discuss about religion, but on how we discuss religion.  We need to remember whatever ideals we pursue — whether theistic, philosophical, or simply scientific — are to be pursued without ego.  The things most worth pursuing are those things beyond ourselves — beyond our egos — for being driven by something beyond ourselves is the surest way to make progress.  If these ideals are truly worthy of pursuit, then our pride will only serve to do them injustice.  Moreover, if we wish others to pursue the same, we can cooperate with them, and help them to see the goal, not our inevitably incomplete position on the path to it.  And if they choose not to follow us, we must not see it as an attack on the ideal, and moreover we must not see it as an attack on ourselves.  If there is truth in our paths, and if anyone else also seeks a path of truth, then, in due time, our paths will cross.

Ducks and Dehumanization

AP Photo / Bill Haber

 
Today, my sister shared the most recent Duck Dynasty scandal on Facebook, and my attempt to comment on it grew well beyond a reasonable length for the medium.  Ultimately, I decided instead to share it here:

Sidestepping the obvious logical fallacy that morality is a purely religious construct (and consequently a matter of obedience instead of any real dichotomy between right and wrong)...

I see this, and my first thought is that this man's claim to fame is essentially playing a caricature of a backwards, backwoods hillbilly, not representing a voice of reason.  As I said when there was a similarly misguided quote by some member of Duck Dynasty about homosexuality (possibly the same person for as much as I pay attention), reversing the popular axiom: If it's a duck, then we shouldn't be surprised if it looks like one and quacks like one.

Yet, earlier today I briefly overheard as a coworker was listening to some sort of talk radio, as the pundit gave his opinions on a news story.  The verbal attacks the pundit made against various individuals and organizations sadly came as no surprise.  I didn't even have enough context in the brief listening period to determine if there were any blame to be had by anyone involved, and therein had no basis for judging his claims.  What bothered me was not the obvious logical fallacies that plague so much of talk radio.  No, what bothered me was the hate.

It bothered me how unreserved the hate was.  It bothered me that this voice didn't simply feel compelled to hate, or assume the right to hate.  It bothered me that, instead, this person seemed to believe that it were his duty to hate.  It bothered me that this person not only hated without hesitation or apology, but that this person believed that such hate was the only possible response.  It bothered me that this pundit expressed that it was the only possible response for not just one misguided voice on the radio, but anyone, and that we, the listeners, were obviously full of hate as well.  And it bothered me that this was a voice that people look to for information — if not guidance.

This went beyond simple eye-for-an-eye mentality.  This was not a matter of justice, or simply punishing misdeeds.  People were utterly dehumanized.  Harm was wished upon them for its own sake.  And somehow the point was missed that what went wrong in this incident and all the incidents leading up to it was primarily the very same dehumanization, villainization, and stirring of conflict and division in humanity.

By now you have likely noticed that I haven't discussed details of the story, partly because my exposure to the topic was limited, but moreover I chose to deliberately avoid the generalizations that allow for such dehumanization to take place.  Whether it was a man or woman, liberal or conservative, atheist or Christian, or youth or elder matters nothing.  Too many times I have seen articles denouncing intolerance and bigotry against a group only to turn the very same against the group that perpetrated the injustice.  Just because some Christians fail to love their enemies doesn't mean we should attack all Christians, and just because some of those who turn against theism also turn against morality doesn't mean all do.

The problems in the world are not a particular subset of villainous folk.  The problems in the world all come from the lines we draw in the sand.  We may not see ourselves as villains, but the moment we choose to point a finger or shake a fist instead of offering a hand, we add to these problems.  The moment we separate ourselves — whether as individuals or a group — from others, we become part of the problem.  We may not harm people, and we may not even wish harm, but unless we prevent harm, then it is a matter of culpability and not morality.  There is a difference between pacifism and passivism.

We blame the problems on others, failing to see our own faults, and then wait for someone else to fix everything.  (Why should we fix it?  It's not our fault.)  We let others fend for themselves, sacrificing the potential they could in turn offer us if we just helped them, even a little.  We let economic disparities grow exponentially and unsustainably.  We let social inequalities persist that should have been dismissed generations ago.  We watch as the world is destroyed for profit.  And the moment you protest that you are are not responsible for the economic disparity, or the multitudes of inequalities, or the environmental catastrophes, or any other of the crimes perpetrated by humanity, you become part of the problem, not so much because you have separated yourself from the problem, but because you have separated others from yourself, and we can never hope to offer a solution while putting those who need the most guidance on the defensive.

We are each members of humanity, and only humanity can solve humanity's problems.  It is when humanity struggles against itself — when we struggle against others, whether through action or inaction — that problems arise.  As I have said before, progress will only be made by having others walk with us, not stand against us.

One Simple Step to Saving the World

Months ago I wrote about how the cruelty of the world terrifies me—how greed wins out over kindness with alarming frequency, how people villainize one another to avoid addressing our problems ourselves, and how this in turn creates harmful rifts within society.  I still fear that all progress is superficial, and that the core problems remain unchanged.  Instead of racial rifts, we villainize the police.  Instead of taking real efforts to heal economic disparity, we villainize Walmart.  We hide under the blanket of these illusions of Big Bads, convinced that the problem is somewhere else in the world, somewhere out there, not among us, not within us, and not to be solved by us.

One of my friends recently echoed my sentiments when he told of how, when delivering food, his customer overpaid.   He returned the excess money without hesitation, but his coworkers celebrated the act as an anomalous kindness, noting that they themselves would probably not do likewise.  Although trivial when considered as an individual act, it's the compounding of the many of these acts—right or wrong—that occur throughout the day and throughout the world from which greater goods and evils arise.  Moreover, it's the failure to perceive the humanity of the person that is wronged which echoes through all evils.

Often people read or hear my words and end up asking, “what, then, should I do?”  People are looking for a simple “To do” list or Ten Commandments to check off progress in their free time and feel good about themselves.  There is a simple answer, but it’s necessarily ongoing, unceasing.  There is no one thing—or even a list of things—we can get over with and call the world saved.  Sure, there is a list of what needs done: education reform to focus on utilization of information instead of retention, economic reform to oppose the ever-growing economic disparity, social equality regardless of race, sex, orientation, or religion, environmental reform to ensure our survival, and this list is just the beginning.

Yet the simple answer that all this stems from is this: love.  Love unquestioningly.  Love unceasingly.  Love those you might not think deserve it.  Love in action, not only in word.  Keep striving to love more.  It sounds too simple, but the problems in society are easily traced to just as simple of causes.  Economic disparity arises from simple greed, but if we distributed wealth to facilitate cooperation and community instead of competitively hoarding it, we would not only see the decrease in poverty, but we would in turn facilitate technological and cultural progress.  Similarly, social inequality arises from these rifts we create by villainizing each side, combating each other instead of banding together to overcome ignorance and misunderstanding.  Yet efforts through love to create universal community would in turn create universal equality.  If it seems too simple, then reference how, as I pointed out before, just as it only takes the combined spark of a multitude of tiny ice crystals to conjure a lightning storm, change can come from something simple if there’s enough of it.

A number of years ago, prompted by my tendency to describe love as a series of neurochemical imbalances, a friend asked me to actually define love, in a broad, platonic sense, without resorting to snark.  I failed to immediately come up with an answer, but eventually I concluded that love at its purest is selflessness—putting someone else before oneself.  Although I haven’t changed my definition, I have expanded upon it.  As I’ve realized that selflessness gives rise to emergent patterns, creating communities capable of so much more than disjointed collections of individuals, love becomes more than an interaction between two people, or one person’s consideration of another.  Love finds a curious life unto itself in the same way the complexity of our consciousness rises from the interaction of neurons which seem completely unrelated yet nevertheless underlie its mechanisms.  Love becomes about not just a couple separate individuals, but something that grows beyond them while simultaneously improving them with it.

So, go forth and love.  Help others to love.  Maybe enough of us can come together to conjure a storm and make a difference.