Photo by Joe Shlabotnik

Everybody has their own way of seeing the world, their own behaviors and beliefs.  There are a lot of conflicts that arise out of this and at the core of the conflict is the belief that whatever ideals we hold are the “right” ones.  I would say that one of my own beliefs is that there is no “right” belief, there is no objective moral truth.  Of course this creates somewhat of a paradox since this would also negate my own claim, but I will explain it nonetheless.

If we can look at the world and everyone in it through the lens of knowing that there is no objective meaning to be sought, a very different picture emerges.  Without the meaning, all of our attitudes, personalities, and ideals become completely arbitrary.  We can see them as a result of environments and biological proclivities.  Whether I am an extremist Christian or an atheist, an environmentalist or an industrialist.  All of these balances have no pull to either end.  I might as well be any of them.  I think that this is somewhat of an inevitability with human beings.  There are so many of us that everyone will never think the same way.  We take on these roles to play because without them, the stage becomes lifeless.  The roles make our lives interesting, even give the semblance of meaning, and provide us with comfort.

We need everyone else to play the roles as well, that’s the only way it all works.  What point is there to protest for peace in the absence of war.  We all need each other, even our enemies, to give us the chance to live our roles.  I need the murderer to show me fear, hate and anger just as I need a beautiful woman to show me lust, love, and happiness.  It is easy to marginalize the negative things simply because it would be more convenient, but they’re all part of the game.

Maybe you don’t agree with me, but that’s okay.  Even to think about this picture in a hypothetical sense offers some curiosity.  To imagine the whole world, with all its plights and delights as just a whole lot of people pretending in order to escape the meaninglessness.  It lends some sort of appreciation to even those we despise, if only for a moment before we cast it aside.  You then get reminded that this is my role, to show what I think, to convince you as we all try to convince one another.  But that’s what makes it all so interesting.

Photo by Philipp Klinger

The rules and ideals we hold to be true for ourselves and the ones we seek to impose on others must mirror one another.  To do otherwise is hypocrisy.  To expect a certain treatment while we treat others differently is hypocrisy.  When this imbalance exists, the reactions we have to rules and ideals are meaningless.  A rule that is not applied to oneself and others in the same fashion ceases to be a viable rule.

To make my point more clear, I offer the following example.  In my classroom building, the elevators are always quite busy.  As the doors are closing, more people will often run up and open the doors to get inside.  At other times, when I have been inside the elevator when this happens, I notice people grumbling about the delay this causes.  This is so common that now, when a person comes in at the last minute, they will apologize as they enter.  This is baffling to me.  Why would a person find it necessary to apologize for exercising the right that they have to use the elevator?  I asked this person why they apologized, and they told me that it was because people have complained in the past.  I have been using these elevators for over 2 years, and I know that most people have rushed in at the last minute at some point in the course of their schooling here.  The same people who complain about late comers have most likely been in the same situation themselves.

Why complain about someone else doing a thing that we ourselves will do in the same situation?  These hypocritical complainers must view their actions as being excusable because it serves their own interest.  But the actions of the other person are not excusable, because it hinders their own interests.  This practice of taking whatever actions benefit ourselves most creates countless inconsistencies.  To me it is ridiculous to expect to be treated differently than how we treat others.  If everyone were to live in this way, society would cease to function.  This same sort of thinking applies to many other everyday situations.  Cutting people off in traffic and getting angry when cut off.  Taking to long in a line and complaining of others who do the same.  Why can we not think that maybe they are in the same situation we were in when we did the same?

We cannot elevate ourselves above everyone else in how we apply our principles.  If we live by ideals meant to rule only ourselves, then they are not ideals at all, but simply living in a self-serving manner.  If we can notice and eliminate these hypocrisies, a lot of everyday annoyances and frustrations might be eliminated.  Treating others as we expect to be treated.  This lesson is taught since kindergarten, and yet it is one that is not remembered.  I think it’s time to re-apply it.

Photo by Procsilas

It seems an especially difficult thing to love everyone, as some people might.  In my understanding of love, there would be no desire to change the thing that you love if you truly loved for what it was.  So if one were to love everyone, the problem I’m about to describe wouldn’t apply.  The problem is that people are so complex that it is impossible to find a person that could be deemed perfect in the eyes of anyone.  There are so many different sides to a person, that even someone we deeply respected or admired might have a side to them that would be unappealing to us.

As I see it, there are initially three possible attitudes we could adopt in our view of others.  We could choose to like everyone, dislike everyone, or be indifferent to them.  Each of these must be applied to everyone, because choosing to like or dislike only certain people would be to suggest that there is some level of perfection, or some level of inexcusable faults.  Also, if we were to choose only certain people, then everyone would choose different sets of people.  Even the person we might most despise would be liked by someone.  In this case we don’t approach any conclusive decision about the population because our own liking or disliking would be meaningless.

The problem I see with loving everybody is that if we really were to love everybody and accept people as they are, then we would not be right in trying to change them.  This creates a conflict because everyone holds certain values to be important, if we loved everyone, we would love even the people that embodied the opposite of our values.  If we are to accept everyone, then why hold our own values to be important at all?  If we are accepting of everything and do not seek to change anyone, why speak of such values at all?  Of course this is under the assumption I have made that loving entails unconditional acceptance.  This may not be true for others’ view of love.

So I decide to choose between like, dislike, and indifference.  This also became quite perplexing as I would waver between the three of these over the course of the last couple of years, depending on different experiences with people.  I still feel there must be some way to resolve this inconsistency.  I don’t think we can be indifferent completely because nobody is born indifferent.  People are driven to indifference through negative experience, and just the fact that this experience affects us defeats the purpose of indifference.  We are left with dislike and like.  Every person I know has sides that I like and sides that I dislike, so it’s hard to write anyone off to completely dislike or choose anyone to completely like.  My solution has become to like or dislike based on the sides within each person.  This way, there is someone to like in everyone, and someone to dislike.  This view also leaves room for change.  I can still hold my values and desire change based on those values in the sides that I dislike.  Right now, this is the best balance I can strike between complete liking, which I feel excuses too much, or complete dislike, which is too harsh.

This view is very much something I thought of recently, so I would be very interested to hear your own solutions or opinions so I can improve this idea or see the faults in it.

It’s really surprising how much you can notice around you when you come out of yourself.  If you can leave the thoughts about your own life and day-to-day chores, your mind is able to soak up and give new meaning to so many things that you might have missed before.

I’ve been visiting India almost every summer since moving to the US in 1998, but when I was there this summer, I noticed a lot of things that I had missed before.  It was probably a result of the changes my mind has been undergoing in the last couple of years.

The thing that struck me the most was the vast cultural differences that exist between the social classes in India.  Now I might have known this at some level before, but I probably only knew it as a dry fact in my head and not something real or observable.  In America, a person earning $30,000 a year and a person earning $300,000 live similar lives.  Of course the latter has a lot more luxury, but they are exposed to the same TV shows, they both drive cars, enjoy central A/C, and if they were to meet on the street, they could probably carry on a conversation with each other pretty well.

Now consider this image, on a busy street in downtown Bangalore, there is a new nightclub that’s just opened and there’s a massive crowd of young Indians waiting outside, busy on their cell phones, adjusting their designer clothes, and sporting the latest looks from GQ.  Directly across the street, there’s a building under construction that has just shut down for the night.  Sitting at the 1^st floor windows, are some of the workers that have just finished.  These are people that make about $40 a month for their labor. They’re sitting and looking at the crowd assembled outside the nightclub.  These workers don’t know why the club goers are dressed so weird, they’re trying to understand why everyone is trying to argue with the doorman to get in.  This is quite different from the small roadside huts that they will go on to have a few drinks at.  The alcohol the workers drink come in plastic packets, they don’t speak English, they don’t know about the economy.  The two groups of people that are 15 meters apart from each other, from the same city in the same country, wouldn’t be able to carry on any type of conversation whatsoever.

It’s hard to describe the image, especially since I can’t convey the feeling I got when I realized this difference that exists.  It’s hard for people in America or other developed nations to understand I suppose.  If you have spent a lot of time traveling, I’m sure you’ve noticed this, and if you’re planning on traveling, keep en eye open for this, it really is quite startling when you first realize it.