Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Song #11: "Blood on the Windshield"

My latest song concerns a miscarriage of justice in the Deep South. Intended for a mature female voice. Here is the tune (.mp3), the sheet music (.pdf) and me singing the song, poorly (video 2:27 5/23/12). The full lyrics are below (not too meaningful without the music). Both the tune and the words are my own original work. I've gone as far as I can within my current technology. Now it's your turn! Midi file available upon request.

Blood on the Windshield

Mother Moon rose twice on a Southern night.
She would swear to God what she saw alright
Was the Douglas boy.
Can't trust those eyes.
But the sheriff said nothin' happened here
Nosy Nellie needs to know.
It's a simple case of knowin' your place
When the brothers need to show.
There ain't no crime.

There was blood on the windshield.
Blood on the wheel.
Blood on your hands,
Now how does it feel
When all you can get is
What you can steal.
In bed with the Devil.
Makin' a deal.

Got a helping hand from the Ku Klux Klan
When both Earl and Dave from the feed lot store
Came around just to chat.
All friendly like.
Sayin' no one here has ever took exception
To the Douglas Family.
If the younger member hit a little bump
On his daddy's property,
It's black and white.

There wasn't blood on the windshield.
Blood on the wheel.
Blood on your hands
And blood in that field
And blood in your hair,
Now how does it feel?
In bed with the Devil.
Makin' a deal.

If I had a way I'd leave this town.
There's a darkness lurking all around.
After fifty years, you'd realize
For justice here, you close your eyes.

Mother Moon rose twice on a Southern night,
But she's not sure now in the dark daylight,
'Cause the sheriff says nothin' happened here,
And the law should know who would disappear.
If there ain't no body, there ain't no crime,
So there ain't nobody to blame that time
He got blood on the windshield.
Blood on the windshield.
Blood on the wheel.


Lyrics and tune copyright © 2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173.
Conceived near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Released from Las Vegas.
Here is my complete song archive.
My songs and screen stories are indexed at LoveStrangely.com

Kilroy Café #11: "Invasion of the Mind Parasites"

Here is a reprint of an old Kilroy Café philosophy essay. (It was published 6/11/08 as a PDF but this is its first appearance as text.) You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see other Kilroy Café newsletters and the KilroyCafe Twitter feed.


Invasion of the Mind Parasites

By GLENN CAMPBELL

They come into our brain because we invite them, but once they arrive, they don't want to leave. They take up residence in our neurons and eat up precious cognitive resources. They delude our thinking and make us believe we can't live without them then they slowly drain our life force and give us nothing in return.

Mind parasites.

We may not know what consciousness is, but it's clearly a finite resource. There is a limit to the number of thoughts you can think in a day. Mulling things over in your head takes time, so the more things you try to think about, the less time you have for each.

"High quality" consciousness is when you have plenty of time to think about the things you have done and are considering doing. It tends to result in wise decisions and positive outcomes. "Low quality" consciousness is when you process the world only superficially—a few seconds here and there. This results in ritualized answers and many stupid mistakes because you haven't thought things through.

If you subdivide your consciousness by thinking about more and more things during the course of a day, the quality of your thinking is going to degrade and, by extension, so will the quality of your life.

Think of the driver you encounter at an intersection, cell phone glued to his ear. What can you expect from his driving? His reaction times will be slowed, and clumsy errors are likely—the penalty of divided consciousness.

Some studies have shown that drivers on cell phones are worse than drunk ones. Some jurisdictions have responded by banning the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, but speaker phones aren't any better! The problem isn't the use of the hand but the division of consciousness, which distracts from the business of driving.

Likewise, when you experience too much mental stimulation during the day, the quality of your inner life will deteriorate. Today, unfortunately, we receive far more stimulation than is healthy, and it is actively marketed to us as a positive thing. Who would choose five TV channels when they could have five hundred? The trouble is, with so many options available, you're naturally going to watch more, and the quality of your non-video life is going to suffer.

The mind parasites are objects and activities that we voluntarily take into our lives but that drain our mental resources thereafter. Big screen TVs are going to be watched, and video games will probably be played—over and over. Even buying a book can be a parasitic drain because it creates a pressure to read it, to the detriment of, say, just sitting and thinking.

All sorts of seemingly "good" things are mind parasites in disguise. Every new activity or obligation is a tax on your cognitive resources, leaving less for all your other activities. People tend rationalize the loss by believing that they can simply become more efficient in their existing activities, but it's a delusion. Why volunteer for one good cause when you can join ten? Well, with ten projects going on at once, you can't possibly to generate the same creativity and wisdom you could for one.

Once upon a time, stimulation, like food, was hard to get. If you lived in a remote village in the pre-electronic era, you had plenty of time to think things through. What you longed for, however, was new ideas. Now, however, there are too many ideas, and we tend to get fat on the easiest ones and ignore the rest.

Overstimulation breeds passivity, the most destructive disease of modern life. When you don't have time to think things through, you tend to let others make decisions for you. Overstimulated people won't venture far from their comfort zone, because they understand, rightly, that their driving skills are horrible. If something upsets them, they don't despair for long; they simply change the channel.

It's really sad. The mind parasites have created a society of zombies. They aren't bad zombies out to suck your blood or anything, but you can't expect much initiative from them. They may respond honorably to the stimulation in front of them, but don't expect them to act preemptively or understand the long-term implications of what they do.

How do you control the mind parasites? You lock them out. Instead of 200 channels, you opt for zero: no TV, no radio, low noise and limited obligations. Your resting point should be a place without stimulation, from which you can make occasional selective forays into the modern world.

The mind parasites may seem attractive in the store, but you don't want to invite them into your home.

—G .C.


©2008, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
This issue was re-released from Las Vegas.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
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Saturday, May 9, 2009

Kilroy Café #47: "Dark Star Duet: A Model of Dysfunctional Marriage"

Here is the latest Kilroy Café philosophy essay. You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see other Kilroy Café newsletters and the KilroyCafe Twitter Feed.


Dark Star Duet
A Model of Dysfunctional Marriage

By GLENN CAMPBELL

There can be a lot of reasons why marriages fail, but one model seems common. I call it the "Dark Star Duet."

Imagine a binary star system: two stars revolving around each other. One star is normal like our sun, and the other is a black hole. The black hole sucks up more energy than it gives, and the normal star must give more than it gets. A continuous stream of matter and energy is drawn from the healthy star to the black hole, never to be seen again.

This is the perfect model for how many marriages work—maybe even most! One party is the provider, perhaps too strong and adaptive for his or her own good, and the other is the perpetual child: needy, jealous, demanding and increasingly unstable.

This model knows no sexual preference. It happens in gay relationships and straight ones, legal marriages or ad hoc ones. "He" or "she" could be either party, so I will just call them "A" and "B" using the masculine gender.

There have always been substantial differences between "A" and "B". "A" is the responsible one, the flexible one, the one who can rise to any challenge. "B" is insecure one, the inflexible one, the one who freaks out at any unexpected change and who always needs a crutch to lean on.

From the beginning, "A" could probably see some of "B"s helplessness, but it seemed endearing at the time, since being able to help made "A" feel loved and useful. "B"s insecurities seemed like nothing love couldn't fix. It turned out, however, that love only made things worse!

That's the dark side of security. Whenever you have a communistic system where people are supposed to share everything equally, one party inevitably starts taking too much while the other must give more than his share to make up for it.

If insecure party "B" faces a painful decision in the real world but has the backup plan of obtaining the artificial protection of "A", he's usually going to take the easy way out, expecting rescue. "A", being ever-adaptable, is usually willing to play the hero, especially to avoid "B"s bad behavior.

But "B"s behavior gets worse and worse! The more he relies on "A", the more "B"s self-esteem plummets and the more panicked he becomes about facing the outside world alone. Soon, he can't politely ask for "A"s help, which would be too humiliating; he has to manipulate "A" through temper tantrums, health complaints and other forms of trickery.

This bad behavior may not have been present before the marriage, when "B" was reasonably independent and functional. Marriage created the dysfunction! "B" assumes marriage means his partner will take care of everything, especially when "B" is feeling unwell. Indeed, "A" is usually willing to pick up the slack to keep the peace, which essentially gives "B" permission to be even more ill and dysfunctional.

Soon the binary model becomes obvious: Star "B" is sucking energy out of Star "A" and giving little in return.

You might think this would automatically result in divorce, as "A" gets tired of covering for "B" all the time, but it usually doesn't. It's a duet, remember!

"A" feels responsible and recalls his promise to stick by his partner "in sickness and in health." As "B" becomes more "sick" and detached from outside reality, "A" feels he can't withdraw because "'B' would never survive without me."

It's the perfect dance of Yin and Yang, addict and enabler, black hole and entrapped star, and it will usually continue as long as sufficient resources are available to support the system.

In most cases, "A" isn't willing to make the break unless the dysfunction gets so bad that he has no choice. Especially if there are children involved, the costs just seem too high. So he must survive through appeasement, denial and overcompensation. Marriages like this can limp along for years, and they are all around us if we care to look.

That's a shame, because "B" would actually do better on his own, facing the real world directly without the artificial and debilitating protection of "A". Unfortunately, "B" won't go gracefully. He has to be pushed.

If the mutual dysfunction exceeds the resources to support it, the system will collapse eventually. Divorce will happen, but can take a long time to get to that point: years or decades. Too bad it can't happen sooner, at the first milestone of trouble, but it's human nature to hold on… and on!

I can't tell you how to escape, but I can tell you counseling isn't going to help. There's no talking it out, because ones whole personality is the issue.

You either take action or you don't.

—G .C.


©2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
Released from Las Vegas.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
You can Retweet this article on Twitter™.
You are welcome to comment on this newsletter below.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Kilroy Café #3: "Sex Fraud"

Here is a reprint of an old Kilroy Café philosophy essay. (It was published 5/30/08 as a PDF but this is its first appearance as text.) You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see other Kilroy Café newsletters and the KilroyCafe Twitter feed.


SEX FRAUD

By GLENN CAMPBELL

WARNING: This issue may not be suitable for young readers. Or old ones. Conservatives may consider it inappropriate. Liberals, too! Come to think of it, just about anyone with gonads is bound to be offended by what I'm about to say.

Sex.

There, are you offended yet?

No? Then maybe I need to expand that statement.

Sex is meaningless.

In fact, it's one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on humanity. Sexual attraction is responsible, on the whole, for far more suffering than pleasure. If the whole thing went away, we'd all be better off.

I'm not saying sex can't be pleasurable, especially if it's been denied to you for a while. I'm also not arguing for its public suppression. On the contrary, I think people should have sex whenever & wherever they want, because as soon as they have unlimited access its meaninglessness becomes obvious.

Sex is like chocolate cake. It sure can be enticing from afar and when you take your first bite. As soon as you eat your fill, however, it quickly loses its appeal. If you're surrounded by chocolate cake and can eat as much as you want, it soon becomes as routine and uninteresting as cornflakes, and your hungers move elsewhere.

The human sex drive is certainly a powerful force—when denied—but the promises it makes are illusory and unfulfillable. Sex seems to be telling us, "Follow me and I'll give you eternal bliss." Unfortunately, such a state can't really be achieved.

The most you can reasonably expect out of sex is a temporary release from the drive. If you scratch the itch, it will go away for a while. When any hunger is relieved, it is usually pleasurable, especially when accompanied by a drug-like high, but such happiness can't last long and tends to decrease in intensity with every repetition.

Just because an itch goes away doesn't mean your life has meaning. The next question, after intercourse, is, "What do we do now?" and sex by itself doesn't provide any answers.

More than just procreation, sex is a human bonding activity, like mutual grooming. It certainly plays a role in drawing people together and encouraging intimacy, but it isn't intimacy itself. That's something much more complicated and difficult to sustain, requiring entirely different skills.

How do two people get along when they get so close they can clearly see each other's flaws? The answer in many cases is that they can't and shouldn't, but sex draws them together anyway.

The real tragedy of sex is how it is used to sell people things they don't need. It's such a powerful drive that if you censor it and ration it out in tantalizing little bits, there's no end to the stupid dog tricks you can get people to perform.

Think of the sexy girl in a car dealership ad. How does her presence have anything to do with the performance of the vehicle? Yet she wouldn't appear in the ad if the pitch wasn't successful—if guys weren't being duped into buying inappropriate cars by her smile and cleavage.

People are suckered by sex into a vast array of inappropriate and ineffectual purchases. Those include not just cars and consumer products but also destructive relationships and bad lifetime investments.

Instead of being the euphoric bliss it is promoted as, sex more often lands people in prison—and not just the kind with bars on the windows.

—G .C.


©2008, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
This issue was re-released from the Phoenix airport, Gate A20.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Kilroy Café #46: "The Fallacy of Justice"

Here is the latest Kilroy Café philosophy essay. You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see other Kilroy Café newsletters and the KilroyCafe Twitter Feed.


The Fallacy of Justice

By GLENN CAMPBELL

Whenever someone is hurt by the illegal actions of another, they are usually moved to seek "justice" for the crime. Unfortunately, justice usually does nothing to repair the damage of what happened. Justice is an illusion mostly, not a real solution to anything.

Justice is a theoretical accounting system in which all bad acts are paid for with corresponding punishments. If a member of your family is murdered, you are probably going to tell the press, "I won't rest until this killer is brought to justice!"

But no justice can bring back the lost loved one. It can't turn back a moment in time that has already past. It can impose pain on the guilty, but it rarely makes them accept responsibility for what they have done. Justice alone can't make you whole. By focusing on the person who caused your loss, you may be neglecting more productive actions to cope with it yourself.

If your family member had died of an incurable disease, their death may have been no less painful or tragic, but you wouldn't be seeking redress. You would move quickly into the healing process, learning how to adapt to your new life circumstances. If, however, the death could be attributed to some outside party, like a drunk driver or a doctor who did something wrong, you are more likely to go into revenge mode first. This can extend the "anger" phase of grieving for years and delay the "resolution" phase.

The Chinese proverb says: "He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself." Revenge may disable the culprit but it also cripples the avenger for as long as his crusade continues.

Justice is good for only one thing: It can sometimes prevent similar tragedies from happening to others. Obviously, if someone has killed once, there is a fair chance he'll do it again. To the extent that a past action predicts a future one, justice can take a destructive person off the streets or otherwise dissuade him from repeating his behavior.

Deterrence works best for low-level crimes where the response is swift and the penalty is painful but recoverable. It is certainly true that most drivers will stop speeding once they have received a ticket or two. Justice works here!

However, it is not necessarily true that justice deters serial killers. They know they'll get the maximum penalty for just one killing, so why not kill 20? Justice also does not deter impulsive risk-taking or lapses of judgment, like teenage drag racing or drunken brawls. Even a competent, rational justice system can't do much to deter major crime, because almost everyone who commits one doesn't read the law and has no plans to get caught.

Unenlightened societies (like ours) rely almost entirely on justice to deter antisocial behavior instead of addressing the underlying factors that breed the behavior. It may make you feel good—and look heroic in the press—to hunt down criminals and lock them up, but if your social system is cranking them out even faster, you're just assuring an ever-growing, ever more vicious prison population. If someone is released after spending many unproductive years in the slammer, has he really been reformed or just hardened? Justice hasn't thought that part through.

If your life has been touched by crime, you can't afford to wait for justice. Yes, you may have a responsibility to society, even to the perpetrator, to see the transaction through—say, by testifying in court. For society to function, there must be an illusion of justice, where crimes reliably result in punishment. We all have a stake in maintaining this illusion, but justice probably isn't going to help your situation personally.

The fact is, there isn't any justice. The world is and always has been an unjust place where virtuous people are routinely crushed and the immoral get most of the earthly rewards—legally! You can spend your whole life waiting for justice, waiting for some authority to recognize how you've been wronged and compensate you for it, but for the most part it ain't gonna to happen. Instead, you have to take matters into your own hands and seek your own resolution.

Your main task is not vengeance but to deal with the tragedy as it is now, on Day Two, regardless of how it happened. You must approach it as an act of God no one can be blamed for.

What is more important than justice? Actual results! As a moral entity, your goal is to secure the best possible future for yourself, the people you care about and your society. Justice in the court system or at the end of a gun barrel has little to do with your future. Sometimes, the best future is achieved by letting justice pass. It all depends on the situation, not on a rigid formula of crime and punishment.

Remember the stages of grief: denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance. Your primary job is to get to acceptance as quickly as possible. Obsessing over justice probably won't help you get there, only delay your arrival.

—G .C.


©2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
Released from Bedford, Massachusetts.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
You can Retweet this article on Twitter™.
You are welcome to comment on this newsletter below.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Kilroy Café #10: "Male Sports Addiction"

Here is a reprint of an old Kilroy Café philosophy essay. (It was published 6/10/08 as a PDF but this is its first appearance as text.) You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see other Kilroy Café newsletters and the KilroyCafe Twitter feed.


Male Sports Addiction: A Clinical Profile

By GLENN CAMPBELL

Untreated mental illness is one of the greatest tragedies of our society. Vast human potential is wasted by demons in the mind.

One such disorder afflicts primarily males and is so pervasive that it is often seen as "normal" in spite of its devastating effects. This disease has spawned a huge legalized industry of pushers and traffickers who provide the vulnerable victim with the illusion of happiness. Like cocaine and alcohol, this addiction draws the victim away from productive pursuits and encourages him to neglect his family and responsibilities as well as his own health and future.

I am speaking, of course, of spectator sports and their insidious hold on the male brain. The average male, if given the opportunity, will watch sports all day and all night, discuss sports continuously with other males and act as though sports really meant something, while all constructive and meaningful activities fall by the wayside.

Why does it matter who Notre Dame is playing this weekend? It doesn't mean anything! Which team wins the game has absolutely no bearing on any conceivable human problem. It is hard to see how sports can even qualify as "entertainment." A ball gets thrown around a field in exactly the same way it was done last week, while in living rooms around the country, you have clusters of males gathered around the screen, transfixed and thoroughly engaged as though something important was happening.

Every so often, the room erupts in communal groans, explosive cheering and vigorous whoop-whooping, and you have to wonder, "What kind of insanity is this?"

Obviously the sports gene must have passed me by, because I have never felt the urge. For a while I tried fit in, forcing myself to watch, but I never had the same feelings I saw in my brethren. Eventually, I had to admit that the lust wasn't in me. I have since "come out" to my close friends and family, who recognized from the beginning that I was different, but I am still reluctant to discuss my sports disinterest in public for fear that I might be seen as "fruity" and somehow not a man.

The male's obsession with sports resembles in many ways his inexplicable interest in pornography. Both are useless, repetitive "watching" behaviors that serve no productive function yet seem to fascinate the male to no end. I mean, how many times can you view jiggling breasts and the crude sex act and not get bored? Quite a lot, it turns out, but the man's interest only lasts up to the moment of his own release, at which point the whole fascination with gynecology, phallic operations and the female form instantly vanishes.

Sports are more dangerous than sex because there is no obvious point of satiation. An average male can watch mindless sports until all the pizza is gone and the fridge runs out of beer—and he's ready to do it again as soon as those supplies are restocked.

Pornography has an evolutionary basis. Obviously, there is a reproductive role in a male wanting to inseminate anything with two breasts. The sports obsession is harder to explain. Perhaps it is the modern expression of a "war" gene. There appears to be a primitive emotional urge within the male brain to band together with other males in a "team" and beat the crap out of other teams. In modern society, males rarely have an opportunity for physical warfare, so watching it done in a staged environment could serve the same neurological need.

Males also seem to have a built-in predisposition to the collection of statistics and arcane facts, an illness I call Male Data Collection Syndrome (MDCS). Give the male access to any kind of useless and repetitive information, and he will be inclined to write down the numbers, build a spreadsheet and plot a graph, no matter how meaningless the data may be. Sports provide ample opportunity for such vapid statistical analysis, as numbers are generated every time someone throws a ball or swings a bat.

The people who suffer most are the families. The world is full of children who are forced to grow up without fathers, even when the sperm donor is physically present in the home. All potential "quality time" is absorbed by the sports addiction, and unless the children can quickly learn the language of sports and join Dad in front of the tube, they're effectively left to raise themselves.

I pity also the man's spouse or significant other, who thought she we would be at the top of the man's list of interests and not seventh behind the NBA, NCAA, NFL, MLB, NHL and PGA. The legend of the "football widow" is no joke. Everyone tries to laugh it off, but how can you have a meaningful relationship with someone whose first love is a team of muscular guys? Sadly, due to the year-round, 24-hour sports cycle, there is now no relief from widowhood for these long-suffering victims, who see their romantic dreams being sucked away by ESPN.

It's not unfaithfulness exactly, but it isn't the kind of undivided attention the woman thought she would get.

—G .C.



ALSO SEE: Preening and Nesting Behavior of the Human Female: A Study (Kilroy Cafe #7)

©2008, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
You can Retweet this article on Twitter™.
You are welcome to comment on this newsletter below.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Kilroy Café #45: "Work Sucks!"

Here is the latest Kilroy Café philosophy essay. You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see my other Kilroy Café newsletters.


WORK SUCKS!

By GLENN CAMPBELL

After years of scientific study, I have determined that work sucks.

I caution, however, against the over-interpretation of my findings. Most people need to work for both financial and psychological reasons, and I am not suggesting that everyone withdraw from it immediately. If you have to work to survive and to assure the health of your loved ones, by all means do it.

My only conclusion is that having control of your own time is better than ceding control to someone else. If you have the option of pursuing your own goals instead of someone else's, you should probably do it.

For teens in the audience who may be unfamiliar with the concept, "work" (aka "a job") is trading your time, skills and attention to someone else in exchange for money. Money, in turn, is used to buy things you need, like food, shelter and internet access. It's hard to imagine, but without money (yours or someone else's) you couldn't go online, and if you didn't eat, your body would go offline permanently!

Most of us have to work to make money to live, but that's not the only function work serves. It also gives people something to do. It lends them direction when they otherwise might not have any.

The fact is, when most people have time to themselves to use however they wish they invariably waste it on meaningless activities. They'll text each other all day, hang out at the mall, spend hours on YouTube, and engage in various repetitive and addictive behaviors. Work and the economic pressure behind it at least force them out of the house to do something.

When you first get involved in work, it can be seductive. You become part of a "team" engaged in a common task, and the fact that you have to show up at a certain time and obey certain rules helps give structure to your life. The money you earn can also be appealing. With it, you can buy some of the things you see on TV that everyone else already has.

But work can also be a drag after a while. It becomes especially intrusive when you begin to discover more important things to do with your time. I can't say what these things might be, but let's suppose there was a social cause you believed in that needed your attention. Work would probably prevent you from helping as much as you wanted.

If your work does nothing more for society that cramming unhealthy food down its throat, doing it may begin to depress you. The money you make doesn't compensate for the icky feeling inside when you realize you're not doing right for other people and going nowhere with your own life. The money, too, is never enough. Once you start spending it, you realize how inadequate it is. If you play this work game for long, it eventually feels like prison.

Indeed, for the vast majority of the world's population, work is little more than slavery. They don't call it "slavery" these days because technically people are free to leave their jobs, but if they do, they and their families will starve.

Once you have been in the workforce for a while, you will probably start striving for a better job that gives you more of the things you want and less of the things you don't want. But work is work—serving someone else's interests—and there will always be a limit to the satisfaction you can get from it.

Even "good" careers like doctor or social worker can get you down after a while. Turns out, almost every worker is a slave, if not to an economic system then to a governmental one where they are serving a bureaucracy more than the people they really want to help.

Ultimately, you may find that you have better uses for your time than any employer does and that your own intelligence knows the best way to serve others. That's when you realize how much work really sucks. It's a drain, and it should be avoided whenever possible. When you need to do it, you'll do it, but you don't want to do any more of it than necessary.

You can avoid work through a combination of extreme frugality and finding innovative ways to make money that involve relatively few compromises. Frugality may be painful, but not as much as working long hours at a job you don't like for things you don't need. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the moneymaking ideas. They are unique to your time, place and skills, and you have to find them on your own.

The ultimate goal is to spend more time doing meaningful things and less time doing non-meaningful ones. That, over time, is where your life has to lead.

—G .C.


©2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
Written at the Food Court in Eaton Centre, Toronto.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
You can Retweet this article on Twitter™.
You are welcome to comment on this newsletter below.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Kilroy Café #44: "The Secret of Eternal Youth"

Here is the latest Kilroy Café philosophy essay. You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see my other Kilroy Café newsletters.


The Secret of Eternal Youth

By GLENN CAMPBELL

Old age is a philosophical problem, not a physical one. All of us are doomed to die, and we are not sure when. The body may slow, and mechanical systems may begin to fail, but that's no excuse not to make the most of what time you have left.

What makes a person "old" is their attitude toward life. We know that old people are set in their ways. They do the same things the same way, day after day, year after year, and although they may complain about their lot in life, they are unwilling to change.

If you offer them ideas for change, they respond with a million excuses which usually go like this: "I can't do X because of Y, and Y is non-negotiable." What makes a person old is the accumulation of all those non-negotiables.

This has nothing to do with chronology. There are old, decrepit people in their 20s and young, productive ones in their 70s. The difference is the weight of obligation they have accumulated around them, inhibiting youthful change and adaptation.

When a young person dreams of going overseas, he just puts on a backpack and goes. Whatever obstacles he encounters, he finds a clever way around them. An old person may dream the same dreams but he doesn't act on them, being weighed down by commitments both real and imaginary. He'll say, "I want to visit Europe, but I don't want to do it until I can fly First Class." Hence, he never goes.

Barring dementia, there is no neurological reason why personal growth can't continue for a lifetime. Apart from extreme physical activities, a 70-year-old can learn anything a 20-year-old can. A few neurons may have been lost along the way, but this is made up for by greater worldly experience and cognitive efficiency, which should allow the 70-year-old to cut more quickly to what is most important.

The problem is that most chronologically old people don't want to change. They can't tolerate true growth because it would disrupt their prior investments.

These investments can be external contracts, like mortgages and marriages, or they can be emotionally invested philosophical assumptions. If someone has built his life on one theory ("Money is the most important thing."), he isn't likely to say, "Oops, I was wrong," and switch to a contrary idea. To avoid the perceived loss of his past investments, he will hold onto his original theory long after it has lost its practical value.

The young person has fewer prior investments, so he can move in any direction. He isn't beholden to a theory, so he can choose the one that works best at the moment. When new opportunities arise, he can jump into them quickly, then withdraw when they stop being productive.

What seduces the typical young adult is the delusion he has found his one true path and doesn't need any other. That's when he starts signing unnecessary contracts; the obligations start accreting around him, and in no time he's frozen in amber and gets "old."

It is a given that you have limited time on Earth. Right now, we're looking at about 100 years tops, probably a lot less. Chronologically young people tend to blow it off and say, "I have plenty of time, so there's no need to get serious now," while chronologically old ones say, "It's already too late. You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Both are wrong! Each of those years has the same value, and you can't afford to waste it.

The typical "retired" person squanders his remaining days because his can't-do-X-because-of-Y conundrums get in the way of more productive uses. He blows away his hours playing bingo, fishing or doing crossword puzzles because anything else he tries runs into a wall of anxiety. Acceptance of the new requires abandonment of the old, which is usually distressing.

He rationalizes: "I deserve to waste time because I've worked hard all my life and need a break." It's old-age narcissism! There is no excuse for retirement—or at least retirement from meaningful missions. It is cowardice to think you can't change or that you can't be productive right up until the day your brain gives out. If you are not productive, it is because you choose not to be, because you can't bear the grief of abandoning an old path for a new one.

To remain young and flexible, you have to shed obligations at a rate greater than you are taking them on. For example, if a pet dies, you might consider not getting another. This sort of simple withdrawal opportunity happens all the time, but most people don't use it. One obligation ends; they are free at last, and they immediately replace it!

If all else fails, you can fake your own death! Before you dismiss this option, think it through. You are going to die anyway, right? Then all of your obligations are going to have to get along without you. Rather than letting death call the shots on its own unpredictable schedule, why can't you arrange to close your obligations in your own time and your own orderly manner? If you "die" early, at least in some conceptual way, then you are free to start life over with a fresh slate, as a young person ready to move in any direction.

To remain young, you have to see that all those non-negotiables are in fact negotiable. Death, after all, is going to wipe them out for you, so why not take the initiative and do it first?

—G .C.


©2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
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Friday, May 1, 2009

Kilroy Café #43: "No Pain, No Gain -- not true!"

Here is the latest Kilroy Café philosophy essay. You can click on the image above for a larger version or print it out on a single page via the pdf file. The full text is also below. Also see my other Kilroy Café newsletters.


"No Pain, No Gain" —not true!

By GLENN CAMPBELL

"No pain, no gain."

You often hear this phrase from people who are fixated on inflexible goals. It's a fallacy. This saying alone has probably caused far more pain than gain in the world.

While it's true that you sometimes have to endure pain to achieve important goals, it doesn't necessarily follow that you will achieve your goals simply by virtue of enduring pain.

For example, take the boxer or other sports addict determined to get to top of his field. Every day he goes through the same grueling regimen, working out for hours and continuously pushing his body to the limit. "No pain, no gain," he says.

But the chances of him reaching the top are very low, and he'll get little reward if he makes it only part way. He'll succeed only by knocking done countless opponents who are just as determined as he is. And, if he does reach the top, the glory will be fleeting. Sooner or later, he's going to be washed up, a has-been, with no useful skills to fall back on.

Meanwhile, all sorts of real opportunities have probably passed him by, things he could have achieved with relatively little pain. His fixation on one goal and on self-inflicted "discipline" have blocked out all other options.

The world always focuses on the winners: the Tiger Woods and the Lance Armstrongs. It conveniently overlooks the 1000s of losers who were no less determined. All of them are saying "No pain, no gain," as they try to smash through whatever obstacles get in their way.

Underneath that phrase is a narcissistic assumption: "Because I have endured so much pain, the world owes me a reward." Not true! The world doesn't owe you anything because you have suffered, because you are virtuous or because you have paid your dues. The world is indifferent and won't give you anything for sacrifice alone.

"No pain, no gain," is magical thinking. It doesn't make sense. It often results in people deliberately courting pain when easier and more elegant options are available.

That doesn't mean the path to your goals is always easy. You often have to make sacrifices and compromises to get what you want. You always want to look for graceful solutions, though, ones that finesse around an obstacle rather than smashing through it. If you are relying on force to get you through obstacles, you are probably doing things the wrong way, and eventually one of those barriers isn’t going to fall.

The "No Painer" usually has a role model of someone famous and successful he is trying to emulate. He has probably studied that person obsessively and thinks if he follows the same pattern he'll achieve the same end result. So he plows ahead, smashing through obstacles, leaving a trail of bodies in his path. But the strategy rarely works. Turns out, the world has changed, and what worked for his hero probably isn't going to work for him.

"No pain, no gain," is usually spoken by someone with a single, lofty, inflexible goal—to become world champion, a famous author, a pop sensation, the top of the pyramid. He never seriously questions that goal. It's a religious thing. Faith tells him the goal is what he needs, but he never asks himself why he is seeking it or what it is really going to do for him. The biggest letdown is when he gets to the top of the pyramid after a lifetime of hard work, only then realizing that it isn't really what he needed.

A better strategy is "No brain, no gain."

You can endure pain when necessary, but it's much better to think your way around obstacles rather than smashing through them. A little bit of planning and foresight can often avoid a whole lot of future pain.

Brainpower not only helps you gracefully evade obstacles, it also lets you adjust your goals according to unexpected changes in the environment. No matter who you are, unexpected opportunities are bound to appear in front of you, but you have to have the wisdom to see them and the flexibility to change course.

Often, these opportunities are remarkably easy. If a new path taps into skills you already have, it might feel almost effortless to you, but you have to be willing to change course. The No Painer can't see these opportunities, both because he is committed to his current path and because the new one just doesn't seem painful enough for him.

A No Painer will select a single point on the map, draw a line there and follow that line no matter what. A No Brainer will choose only a general direction. He may have a destination in mind, but once he hits the road, he follows the lay of the land. The map is flat and theoretical, but the land itself has something to say and can't be ignored.

It is good to have goals, but the real world is bound to muck them up. You can try to smash through reality when it stands in your way, or you can listen to it, understand its rules and take advantage of its opportunities.

—G .C.


©2009, Glenn Campbell, PO Box 30303, Las Vegas, NV 89173. See my other philosophy newsletters at www.KilroyCafe.com.
This issue released from Great Sauk Trail Rest Area, Princeton, Ilinois.
You can distribute this newsletter on your own blog or website under the conditions given at the main entry for it.
You are welcome to comment on this newsletter below.