Conversation Pieces

Artistic Integrity Is Expensive

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces artistic integrity, creative professional, creativity, intellectual property, sell out, selling out 8

If you have never been called a “sell-out” then a couple things may have happened 1. people aren’t really being honest to your face or, 2. you aren’t making that much money. There is a rare faction of creatives that manage to drive head first into the world of profitability without having to confirm to the demands of buyers, agents, clients and the like. So many more of us have to make a pivotal decision. Every creative professional must choose between making the work that feeds your soul versus what feeds your belly.

It is a simple thing to decide for many, they have no problem exploiting every opportunity on the way to the top, it may not even occur as a choice but a matter of survival. Capturing big clients or doing work that is more commercially accessible can lead to quick and early gains that define a type of success that many artists aspire to have. When you grow up in an environment where there are little resources creativity may be your saving grace. Be it the street artist that gets spotted by a gallery owner or someone who stumbles upon grandma’s secret recipe book, we all have a skill, product, or method that makes us valuable on the market. Find the corner wall tv mount as a creative resource for your tv experience.

Transitioning from a place devoid of resource to being thrust in to a place with an abundance of them can be a wild ride many will not refuse. But nothing is free and these large financial gains come with prices of their own. Maybe it is the chef that is made in to a celebrity, going from spending time cooking their favorite foods to book signings and TV appearances all because a need to sell more and more product, no longer a chef but instead becoming a “personality”. Our inspiration to create may not end with us creating to make our livelihood, the more people we bring on to help us along the way, the more conditions are placed on our time and work. Especially if there is momentum, the bandwagon can grow quickly and for the individual it becomes harder and harder to steer the ship.

Another breed of artist though is the one that declines the fame and fortune to pursuit a creative life on their own terms. This individual is idealist, steadfast in their resolve to make the work they want to make even if it means they have to struggle along the way. What can seem noble and driven by principle can also be a product of the ego. Our ideals are and extension of ourselves and if we are unwilling to compromise them it may mean we will have a lot of difficulty. Integrity and stubbornness go hand in hand. This artist takes pride in the struggle.

Let it not be viewed as all struggle though, there is a privilege that goes along with the life of the artist with integrity. It is someone that can stand to endure the pain of hard times that come with unchanging views about their work or it is someone who already has enough financial backing to sustain themselves until things take off. This path comes with freedom to create when and where a person wants. Resources, albeit limited, are used wholly at the discretion of the artist. The only person whose opinion matters is the person that has created the work. Not a gallerist, or a distributor, or executive, just the creator themselves.

We have to ask ourselves what we are creating for at the end of the day. If our work is simply a means to an end, a job, then to pursuit more and higher paying work is a great goal. If however the goal is to express freely, then all obstacles to free expression should be removed.

Our recipe, product, skill, or method is ours to use in which ever way we choose but each path, comes with its own benefits and sacrifices. Would you prefer to give up some control to see your efforts carried further? Or would you rather not compromise your vision to create what realizes your vision? Of course neither direction is concrete, and you can choose to follow whichever your desire at any moment in time. But it is necessary to observe that there is no easy answer.

While sticking to your guns can cost you money it may pay you back invaluably in the long run with your reputation. They say money can’t buy everything, but you can’t artistic integrity doesn’t always pay the bills.

Human Compromise: A Society Of Anarchy

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces, Uncategorized 0

The passionate anarchist who screams “Down with the system.” while throwing a molotov cocktail at a riot control officer believes that he is calling for anarchy when he as well as the officer in front of him may ALREADY be living in anarchy. Is it possible that what we think of as social order is actually a myth, and what we would commonly perceive as chaos exists to uphold a more stable structure of order than we can even comprehend. It all comes down to words.

Language is so frail that we often break it without knowing and continue prance around with leaky symbolism dripping truth from our phrases. Such is the case with terms like wild, freedom, and anarchy, these are all words that carry substantial connotations but we don’t necessarily use them correctly. A common fallacy is the conflation of the three into one idea or logical sequencing that some how one leads to the other when that could not be farther from correct.

So lets start with freedom, the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Easy enough concept to grasp right? But when we think of freedom on the context of society we immediately see why the concept of freedom does not fit. Now we will come be back to freedom but hold this question in the back of your mind for now, How can we be free within a framework that is specifically designed to hinder thoughts and actions deemed uncivilized, dangerous, or threatening?

Another thing we have to consider is this notion of humanity as a whole and what we regard as acceptable behavior. We are not thought to be wild, because that would mean giving in to all of our basic urges. It is expected that we subjugate our basic instincts to our intellect in pursuit of enlightenment or knowledge. Through out so many religions we are asked to forego basic pleasures for the chance at higher reward in the afterlife or elsewhere. This depravation of our animality is what is known to separate man from beast. Again we find a contradiction, if we were to completely deny our basic instinctual programming it would be to deny what drives us to desire not only sex, companionship, and acceptance but also food water, and shelter and as we more closely approach enlightenment we also more closely approach death. It would seem that the human paradox is actually more of a human compromise. Be animal, but not too animal, be enlightened, but not too enlightened.

Since we have a foundation for freedom and an understanding of what it might be to be wild we can look at our third and perhaps most sensitive subject. Anarchy, is a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws, according to Merriam Webster. Under this, there is no safety from the violent whims of our collective and conflicting desires. If something is wanted, it is taken unless it protected. Even this respected dictionary uses the world wild in the definition of anarchy. So let us go back to wildness for a moment.

Wild, there are many definitions, but the first is this , living in a state of nature and not ordinarily tame or domesticated. Nature is significant here because if things that occur in nature untamed are wild, and the freedom is the condition of being unrestrained then the meaning of wild and free are quite similar. But this also means that society is designed to keep us from being free. This is of course why the passionate anarchist is throwing the molotov in the first place as he see the inability to be a member of society and also be free.

If you are still here with us lets us go back to anarchy. Darwin, was one who is heralded as being able to point out many “natural laws” many of these laws we tried to replicated in the development of our societies such as natural selection and so forth. But one thing we missed is that none of the natural laws need to be upheld by by the members living within their system. That is to say, there is no one enforcing natural laws, in fact, that is the very stipulation that makes them “natural”. These are laws of the wild that are as inalienable as freedom. So how could it be that inalienable laws need to be enforced or protected? The definition of anarchy clearly states that it is the absence of laws but if natural laws are inalienable then is a state of anarchy not impossible? If freedom is the condition in which we might find ourselves most fit to be, why would we allow for any of those freedoms to be taken away?

None of this is new, many would say we trade freedoms for safety. A safety afforded to us by our mutual agreement to work collectively for the benefit of the majority. This would be the very very structure the passionate anarchist defaces when throwing his cocktail. The question we find lying underneath this all is whether we are safer at the mercy of our societal laws that must constantly be fought for and upheld, or if we would be safer at the mercy natural laws that are part of the fundamental framework of our life itself, that have existed before we our existence?

If natural laws are inescapable and inherently upheld, and our societal “laws” must constantly be protected and enforced would that mean that they are of an inferior quality or not fit to deemed laws at all, and are instead simply “rules” meaning a governing set of principles that are meant to keep us on a straight path just as a physical ruler is a straight stick used for the same thing.

If we were to pull all of these frail definitions own in to one simple a simple phrase it might go something like this:

Society is a system of rules designed to keep us within a particular set of straight paths, and kept from deviating into the wild. Freedom however, is a natural state of unstrained movement that will perpetually be at odds with society as it seeks to be untamed. Anarchy is the state of being without laws, but may be impossible given that natural laws are inherently inescapable. Our acceptance of societal rules as laws is a fallacy given that societal rules are not inherently upheld and need to be enforced invalidating their position as law.

Could it be that given the above phrase, the only place anarchy could actually exist is within society, as society is governed my rules NOT laws and so we are only as safe as our ability to uphold those rules? Compare this to living in the wild, in a state of freedom, which is supported by inalienable natural laws that do not need to be upheld.

Words are quite frail indeed.

Culture In Pandemic

Caroline Giegerich Conversation Pieces 1

Photo by Daniel Tafjord

The first case of COVID-19 was traced back to November 17th in Wuhan, China. Four months since then, the U.S. is starting to feel the full weight of the virus which can go highly undetected given “mild” symptoms in 80% of those infected. Over the past week, life has been transformed for many across the country in profound ways. Bars, restaurants, churches, gyms and other non-essential businesses are shutting their doors. College students are leaving campuses rapidly to continue their semesters from home with uncertainty about when they will return. Colleagues work from home. Parents homeschool their children. Employees are being laid off from their jobs. Customers in grocery stores are fighting over toilet paper. The general sense of fear and anxiety is pervasive, etched in the faces of those all around me. We recommend you to check this review and learn more about these amazing natural health products.

That all said, after living in NYC in the days right after 9/11, I know that tragedies ultimately have a positive connective force amongst us. People I don’t know tell me to “Stay safe” on the elevator. As a New Yorker, having someone dare to speak to you is an astounding event. For many years now, I have felt that community was eroding as narcissism prevailed. The bright light of the mobile screen seems to have become the principal form of social interaction. I worried about these developments for many reasons but partially because there is power in strong communities.

Resilience is a characteristic of a community rather than of one individual. For example, after the tsunami tragedy in Japan, many pointed out that the strong connective tissue of local communities reduced deaths far more than the strength of the infrastructure. After Hurricane Katrina, those communities with powerful community ties moved quicker in rebuilding efforts than those that did not. Sharing resources to battle disaster is more effective than hoarding your own 40 rolls of toilet paper, in essence.
Now, I’ve lived all over the U.S. and nowhere do I see less community cohesion than in urban environments. That said, I suspect this coronavirus is already helping us to pull together. Italians are singing from their balconies and Spaniards are clapping for their health workers. Here in the U.S., children are singing online as their school performances are cancelled, restaurants are giving out free meals to children who typically get their meals at school, and neighbors are helping people they have never met get supplies if they need to self-isolate. We all have the power to make the acts of kindness far stronger than the panic and fear.

Acute stress reminds us of our humanity; the importance of social connection and love. That’s ironic of course during calls for social distancing, but that distance is just proximity. It doesn’t tell the entire story of course. For example, take this husband celebrating his 67th anniversary outside his wife’s window as she is in isolation in her nursing home. Here’s another of Chinese healthcare workers dancing with their patients in quarantine to lift their spirits.

While the virus is scary and something to be concerned about, some positive effects are bound to take shape as well. The one that feels most palpable right away is the construction of a stronger community. We need each other now more than ever and this time now is a power of our connection to each other. Whether it’s joining a Netflix Party to watch your favorite show together with friends, a virtual dance party or a family group chat over Zoom, people are getting together more than I have seen in a very long time.

Emergency situations bring out the humanity in all of us. They give us a moment to come together and create great things even in our isolation. On the other side of all of this, it is my theory that we will all be a more powerful community of survivors. To all of you, I hope you stay healthy and weather the storm as best you can. Be well. Take care of each other.

Equal Access To Creativity?

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces albert einstein, creativity, equal access to creativity, kevin doe, macgyver 1

Do you remember MacGyver? It was a TV show in the late 80’s with a secret agent who basically could build just about anything with duct tape, a swiss army knife and a few random objects that might be lying around. Watching an old re-run of this show will easily get you thinking about how you can put the miscellaneous items in your house to better use. But MacGyver’s creativity seems to occur in response to not having the specific tool to do what was needed, forcing him to craft something on the spot. It begs the question of whether necessity is the only mother of innovation. And if so, at what point does immediate access to resources begin to dampen creativity?

This doesn’t end with Macgyver. We see it all over the world with innovations happening in Sierra Leone with Kevin Doe’s radio, and in the Iraq war with improvised exploding devices, and perhaps even in your back yard with some kids building a fort or a tree house out of scraps of materials. One constant in each case is that all of these people are building something that, they could have gone out and purchased if they had the money to do so. The marvel of their creativity isn’t as much the final product that they created, but how non-apparent the solution they came up with was. In some cases it implies a profound sense of technical ability, and in others it make be a high level of resourcefulness, but the definition of creativity is to be able to make something out of nothing. We prize creativity because its ability to allow us to overcome the voids in our resource pool and make things in spite of this lacking.

Does this mean that those with great resource are not creative? Absolutely not, innovation comes in all forms throughout human history and persist today all over the world. At core, the spark of the innovations is no different but with great resource often comes the ability to scale or tackle much larger problems. Kevin Doe built a radio from scrap parts with very little formal training in the middle of Africa. The question that has been asked is What could that same mind accomplish with a higher quality education, and material resources? MacGyver is a resourceful guy in the television show but his character is a formally educated scientist and trained bomb technician so the fact that he is able to make incredible things out of common objects could be as a much a contribution of his education as it is creativity. Kevin Doe had little resource, MacGyver had plenty but both were incredibly creative.

Einstein is famously quoted as having said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” but Einstein also struggled with school early on and found alternative ways of educating himself outside of the traditional school system. His innovations were a product of his imagination, and that led his experiments, but experimentation is an educational method as well. Albert Einstein was very well educated, but in a non institutional way, and seemingly because there were little limitations on his learning environment, there very little boundaries on his creative capacity.

If we see examples of creativity in both places, where people have a lot to work with, and also very little then it seems that the primary conditions for creativity to thrive are and abundance of time, and a particular need. The time is needed for education, or cultivation of some kind either formal, explorative, or experimental. The need is just a motivator and as scientists might call it, a stimuli. Motivation is key, because it propels your will to persevere and be patient. This motivation exists in all of us as a part of our natural desire to maintain homeostasis and fulfill our basic human needs. Time however is not something that everyone has equal access to.

There are those of us that have the leisure time to pursue education in several fields because out food and shelter needs are being met, but there are many of us that do not. As a result, is it possible that creativity itself is stifled when we do not have adequate time to cultivate our imaginations. If we follow Eintstein’s logic then we should be providing ample time to imagine and develop these questions, because they will be mature into needs that should have to be filled.

Assuming that creativity is the driving force behind most of our human functions both economically, and culturally we should seek to avail proper conditions for creativity to thrive for as many of us as we can support. If not, we are limit our overall ability to grow as a result of shared innovations, and perspectives. The best thing about creativity as a resource is that it is 100% green and totally renewable.

Creativity for all.

Mind Blown: Grieving Knowledge

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces 0

If the beliefs we have about ourselves make up our identity are not connected to truth. It means that we could be 1. incorrect about our identity but also that, 2. our identities (self-perception) can shift with knowledge alone.This shift in identity from wise to ignorant can be significant enough to require reconciliation. It’s worth exploring the possibility that coming into awareness of significant information, actually requires grieving. But first terms…

There are several definitions of grief but we will begin with the working definition that we use in our workshop Grief Practice. Grief is the process of realizing that what we hoped or believed to be real is no longer a part of our reality. This comes when we experience the loss of a loved one but it also happens at the end of a relationship, or other, smaller experiences of loss (mundane grief).

Often times we think of grief as a product of things not going the way we planned in a negative way. However, this feeling can from positive changes as well, like empty-nest syndrome, or homesickness. In addition to this, we can also experience grief as we learn more about the world and ourselves. The shock of new information can also spin us into grief, as we work to fit the new information into our conceptions about the world. This can happen when a romantic partner says they have been having an affair or even if humanity were to lean we are not the lone sentient life form in space. Similarly, knowledge can disrupt our sense of identity, as in if we were to find out that we are adopted. While it might answer many questions for some, it is just as likely to give rise to much more in others.

When we acquire significantly novel information in can disrupt our understanding of other things. The process of us rebuilding new constructs can be painful and cause anxiety. In order to move through this process, we must be willing to understand that is indeed natural, and cannot be expedited, but it can be understood. The way we have come to remember events in our lives is cumulative and when fundamental pillars of belief are jolted it can be destabilizing.

Our familiarity with the process of grieving can make it a more graceful transition but we can not avoid it. The same as there are certain acts that can not be undone. What has been seen can not be unseen. Instead, we must reconcile, accept, and learn to live with a new understanding, in a new way, as new people.

Are You Reading Too Much Into Things?

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces shakespeare, subtext, text 0

Do you remember your high school literature class? The teacher told you to read a poem by Shakespeare or Langston Hughes and made you pick apart every word in every line to try and dissect the author’s intent. The key to this exercise is that by looking at the authors choice of words, their characteristics, arrangement, and meaning we can better understand, not only what the author was trying to communicate, but why. Though arduous, the task can prove to be some what helpful provided we attribute a relative mastery to these authors’ command of the language.

Someone with a great command over language can communicate complex emotions by using much more that words at their face value. The problem is that the average person may not have the same expertise with language as Shakespeare. It makes sense to harp on the words of a master author, especially when chaperoned by someone with an English degree, but otherwise all of Shakespeare’s complexity might be lost on us.

Let’s stay in high school for a moment. Do you recall writing and receiving letters from your crush? The adolescent love detective inside us combs through these letters as if conducting a forensic investigation. If they put hears over the “i” them it means they might like you, but maybe that is just how they write their “i”s to everyone? We do this now as well.

We read into emails from our coworkers, and we read into Facebook messages. We break apart comments from our ex-significant other on our Instagram pictures, and of course text messages. There is never enough information on the page or screen is there? Words alone are so mono-dimensional that we need this context and subtext, to create true depth of meaning and valuable communication.

The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Does any of this help?” If most of us do not have degrees in English and are not trained to analyze the complex messages of written word could we be misinterpreting the message that a person is sending us? On the other side of the coin, if we are not masters of language ourselves, are we accurately sending the messages we want to communicate?

There used to be set rules for language that we all had to follow. A large part of these rules where grammar and punctuation. That helped relay pace and tone. These are the things our english teacher tried to instill in us. But at the same time we were learning an entirely different set of rules on the playground or outside of the classroom. How can we be sure these rules are standardized to minimize miscommunication? Or does that even matter.

If your co-worker sends you an email in all caps you’ll assume they are freaking out and may respond with “ALL CAPS? Are you mad?” but it all too often they were simply working on a spreadsheet and forgot to take off the caps lock. We didn’t learn that yelling equals caps lock from our english teacher. That intensity is communicated because of the harsh emphasis on each letter. But that is what bold is supposed to be for. Except you can’t use bold in a text message so we have switched to using caps, which has translated over to computing as well.

With the rules, as loose as they are, does it really help us to dissect other people’s messages when we don’t know what set of rules they were trying to follow, if any at all? It is far more likely that person is making a hunch about what you will understand based on what they are writing and there is an increasing amount of slack in these rules which means the margin for error is much higher. You could be not only reading in to a subtext and getting the wrong message, but the subtext you are searching for may not even be there.

We make assumptions this way about what the message “really” is that may be contrary to what is on the page. This is especially the case when we re-read something that was only drafted once before sent. Instead of making assumptions about the content of the message, ask yourself about the type of message it is and consider how much thought may have been put into its composition. Then, only invest as much time reading into a message as you can reasonably assume was put into writing it in the first place.

Until someone takes the time to ask, and verify intent we can get caught in a vicious cycle. This is of course easier said than done in the heat of the moment but if we practice verifying intent in casual communication we are more likely to do so when is really counts.

Outsourced Thinking & Authority

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces authority, critical thining, education, government, law, thinking, trust 0

Ask yourself what you know, then ask yourself how you know it. When you look up above your while standing outdoors, how do you know that to be the sky? You know that you are looking above your head because of the position of your own neck, but the fact that what you are staring into is called the sky is something you learned somewhere from someone.

This is the pivotal moment when have the choice of asking a few more questions or accepting the knowledge as fact without further inquiry. We can recall the image of a child incessantly asking “Why?” in response to every question they are answered.

But this nagging curiosity is actually the root of knowledge. The scientists, philosophers, artists, and explorers research, learn, investigate, and express to bring us closer to answering these why questions. For many of us we are not availed the opportunity to ask them for ourselves so we have to trust the work that is done in the sectors of society that are tasked with uncovering our knowledge.

These knowledge farms, which are often educational institutions or private research firms, then pass their information to the government, and corporations. These organizations are the pillars of our lifestyle, they make everything, regulate everything and enforce everything. These institutions not only make the rules, but they define ethics and morality based on the knowledge they have sourced or acquired.

This is not problematic when the system works ideally. But when an individual holds up a badge they are symbolizing the trust we have granted the institution that licensed them to do their job. When the standards are not met, we have a break in trust, and can not have stability in a social agreement without trust.

When we do not commit our own searches for knowledge and find our authorities to be untrustworthy we can find a sense of turbulence in our social system. When we lack the means of verifying the information we are given from institutions trust is further eroded.

This is similar to the effect we would find when shop for healthy foods or check out healthy options, we trust the FDA to allow appropriate labels for foods. If we don’t trust the FDA, we have little means of verifying the labels that are allowed, especially while we are in the process of making decisions in the grocery store.

Our institutional authorities are those that do the research and thinking on our behalf, they tell us what models should work best for us and we put faith in those models. This leaves us without additional inquiry.

It leaves us save in the arms of our governing bodies, but stripped of the pivotal question that rests at the base of all knowledge. So when we do find the courage to question those trusted with doing our thinking for us, and finally pose a simple “Why?” the answer is all to often the same one we would give a pesky kid with too many questions…

“Because I said so.”

And this answer is not only insufficient because it provides no information, it is insufficient because it rests on power. The use of status quo, tradition, and authority as validity for our social conditions or what we consider knowledge is not based in reason. This answer seeks to skirt the inherent subjectivity of all society to critique.

All of society is subject to critique because all of society is constructed.

Knowledge itself as we use the term could be defined as a series of reasonable expectations of consequence based on fundamental principles that are self-evident, unchangeable, or occur naturally without intervention or assistance.

The sense of relating to the world in this way stems from the fact that Reality absolutely stable. The rules of Matter, Energy, and Timespace are both, seemingly permanent, and unalterable by human interference. This, however does not prove to be true for laws of our government.

Society, as a construct of humanity, is built on the consensus of people, and as a result is only stable relative to the stability of our mutual agreements. This means that everything that we have learned to be factual based endorsements from institutions that claim authority. The authority that they claim is only relatively stable because we do not have unanimous agreement about its validity.

The beauty of the natural world is the quality of absoluteness about the experience of the phenomena, this grants us the quality of objectivity. Objectivity is then proven by our physical response to the phenomena presented. Ie. if there is an obstacle in the path of a group, we may go over, under or around it, but if the object is made of Matter, we can not go through it without displacing the Matter from which it is made. There is no dismissing, or avoiding the object, it must be addressed.

But in our social world, we see some rules that are inconsistently applied on many different criteria. Natural may be harsh, but it applied harm indiscriminately. The consistency of nature is what makes it absolutely trustworthy.

Institutions are relatively trustworthy, more so than we are as individuals in some areas, but because they are not absolutely trust worthy we can no afford to outsource all of our thinking, we must continue to investigate and explore the areas where our institutions and social compact need to be edited.

This work, means being in touch with our own sensory experience of nature enough to know the difference in feeling from what is True and what is constructed.

Broken Trust = Broken Faith

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces faith, future of religion, radical, restoring trust, tomorrow, trust 0

There is a lot of stigma surrounding religion in some circles. It is some times described as oppressive and homogenizing. Criticisms about traditions of various religions come in to question for moral reasons. At the same time we find ourselves more and more secluded and disconnected from each other in a data driven world. We seek meaning and connection in our lives now as much as ever. As much as it is criticized so much of this meaning has come from religion through out our history. So what is so different now? Why when we have an ever growing hunger for the needs religion fills are we further and more detached from it? The answer is Trust.

With the growth of the technological revolution, we have seen story after story of religious institutions and individuals betraying our trust and calling our faith in organized religion to question. In the US we have seen Christian terrorist groups like the KKK, and the Army of God just as we have seen international groups like the Al-Qaeda. It is not only that radical violent groups of religions have alienated us from organized religion but we have also seen questionable behaviors within non violent religious groups.

Revered Jeremiah Wright came under fire in during President Obama’s first campaign for openly making racist remarks to his congregation. Several Catholic priests were accused of sexual molestation in the early 2000s and women’s rights is an on going issue in Muslim nations. With all of this it is scandal we have seen an even further separation of young people from organized religions voluntarily. In addition there are some fundamental Christian groups in the United States that denounce gays and those that have abortions, and even the use of contraceptives. So separation is also caused by religious groups at times.

What seems to have happened as this generation has matured is a deterioration of the core belief that religion was a safe place, and a community where the priority was connecting with a higher power or enlightenment. Instead religion has come to represent dogma and blind tradition for a lot of young people. Not that this is the case entirely, but it has certainly led to people speaking less openly about their faith and sharing their beliefs.

It could be that this separation is partially responsible for our disconnectedness. We are not digging deep in to the heart of our beliefs in the peer groups we frequent and as such can not form stronger bonds with those that share our beliefs because we don’t even acknowledge them publicly. The Church, Temple, or Synagogue should be a place where you can come to celebrate your faith and share it with like minded people. For the most part this still seems to be true but there is an overwhelming sense that our society at large is less comfortable with the open expression of religion than it would be of non-religious beliefs.

We debate over whether or not God should be mentioned in schools or printed on the dollar. This debate creates some division, but it more so highlights a division that is already there. A division that occurred as a result of the above but also because of scandal, and exclusion but also because of a lack of faith, not in the principles the institutions stand for but, the institutions themselves. And if there is no place to safely practice faith and exercise traditions, then how can we expect it to do so?

In or for us to build faith, and connectedness to religion we must restore faith in the institutions whose purpose it is to facilitate it.

The Privilege Of Curiosity

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces appetite of the mind, curiosity, drive, hindu, homeostasis, jonthan edwards, motivation, privilage, soul 0

The differences between science and religion are often argued. Each attempts to explain, observe, and reveal insight about our reality and universe. The solutions posed are as varied as the people that propose them but beneath them both is a desire to seek a broader understanding about our existence. Investigation is not a uniquely human ability nor is our curios nature isolated to us. Yet, in no other species is the quest for understanding so rich as it is in the human heart and still varies greatly with in us as individuals. Those that are curious seek greater understanding and undoubtedly find it through study, experiment or observation. Each of us as infants are curious but this wanes as we become adults and so it must be acknowledged that the benefit of curiosity is an appetite and capacity for understanding that does not persist equally in us all. Without legitimate interest in understanding, full comprehension is un achievable.

Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) explains the soul as having a sort of pain , ” that which is in hunger or thirst.” Which he goes on to state, ” if the Soul had never experienced that food or drink remove that pain, it would create no appetite to anything.” Here is describing appetite almost as an itch,that needs to be scratched having a previous state of satisfaction to reference the absence of it motivates us to try and return to it. Under this theory, we can only have an appetite for things we have experienced before. This makes perfect sense from the creationist standpoint right? It would mean that we are from a particular source, and our spiritual appetite is motivated buy the desire to join with that source again. This view presupposes we have a soul and, without that fundamental component the theory is flat.

Looking to science for an explanation of curiosity though, we do find some parallels in explanation but drawn from a different fundamental point. In 1865 Claude Bernard described the process of homeostasis. Medically this is the process by which the body maintained equilibrium internally. Each of our bodily functions is self-governing as a product of our brain and cellular instructions. So physically when you have an appetite it is a signal for food triggered in your brain as a part of your bodies homeostatic process. It is an internal condition that stimulates appetite for maintenance as opposed to a return to a state it was in before. This appetite is natural but very simple. It triggers appetite for food in general but does not dictate which specific type of food necessarily this does not address cravings, desire or taste.

Hindu offers a hedonist view to resolve this question of appetite. The Path of Desire, has along it pleasure and an exploration is required to reveal this pleasure. This is not the final stage on our journey under the teachings of Hindu but it is a necessary place to pass through. Here we are guided by the Path of Desire to find pleasure for ourselves. Think of it as the lobby of a building with many more floors and rooms, but a room that must be passed through to reveal the others. Our drive here is not motivated by appetite or balance but a divine path.

In these cases and many more we recognize that this drive is not unshakeable. We are often distracted by the simple realities of our social world. These distractions keep us from servicing our appetite, maintaining homeostasis, and staying on our divine path. For some, it is easier to stay curious, and driven, undistracted by what is happening just in front of us in pursuit of what is beyond it. This makes salvation, education, and enlightenment, much easier. By acknowledging that this ability is not evenly present in all man, but in some cases particularly a special trait we see that those exceptionally curious have great advantage in pursuit of any form of satisfaction or success.

It could be argued that resilient curiosity is born into us but there is evidence to support the idea that our investigative drive lives or dies by circumstance. If it is something that must be protected to survive, who’s job is it to protect it? If it is something that lives within us, then why does it not drive us all with equal intensity? This appetite is what drives interests in our minds, to pursue knowledge,as well as in our hearts to pursue companionship, and in our spirit to pursue enlightenment. It is not only of interest in general but identifying which interests are paramount, and who is to say which satisfactions are of higher merit than the person in pursuit of them? The implications span through out our lives, so which of all the things we can do, should we do?

Religion and science seeks to answer these questions as well. Sometimes with various types of faith, and also with economics, and morality. Regardless of motive or intent, observing various places in our lives where we are drawn to acquire greater understanding we should seek also to protect that impulse from distraction, or catalyze the impulse to proceed through it. We must also observe a lack of curiosity and seek to excite that feeling through reference or exploration, this is the function of inspiration. Inevitably, with enough time, every impulse will be satisfied, or the impulse it self will be deterred from or changed. Conversely, in time, every appetite will return, or the life itself will cease to be.

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Your Desires Dictate Your Direction

C2O Editor Conversation Pieces buddhism, chastity, christianity, desire, kelly mcgonigal, monk, willpower 0

Ever wonder why chastity is so heavily suggested in Christianity or why Buddhist monks live modest lifestyles? The core tenant is simple, our desires are powerful and obstruct “good” decision making. What is said to be good or bad is completely subjective to the particular person but we all have done things in the past that were based on our want of some thing. For many it could be the temptation of a lover that has lead us to stray out of a meaningful relationship. Others manage to practice will power or moderation. No matter what our mechanism is, we seem to recognize that we need them. Acknowledging that we need to be in control of our wants is a universal idea from east to west. The question though is when and where to apply this idea.

All too often in religion and philosophy we take a particular principle and apply it through out a system when it should only be used in context. While it is certainly true that we should be capable of raining in our desires and learning our impulses we should also know when to follow our hearts and lean into our wants. Both Buddhism and Christianity make distinctions between basic desires and greater ambitions but we don’t always utilize them comprehensively and have an even harder time recognizing where our wants are coming from.

A wild animal that smells fresh meat in a field is likely to move towards it naturally to follow its basic need for sustenance and because this is behavior is pretty reliable it is easier for humans to manipulate wild animals, trap, train, and tame them. We humans are animals too though, and the same devices are used to bind us, and control, and get us to conform. “When we free ourselves of desire, we will know freedom and serenity.”, it is a Buddhism that speaks to the power of self-restraint. But to deny your basic urges would be the same as a wild animal denying its need for food.

To look at our desires objectively we must step away from the connotation we place on them as negative or positive. When a wild animal follows a scent it is neither doing sinful or holy. It is the animals innocence that keeps it in the clear. We react to internal stimuli the same way, but we acknowledge emotions that qualify the stimuli and a consciousness that allows us to observe the stimuli objectively. It is commonly held that if an animal is hungry it has no choice whether or not to eat, while a human has the ability to control its basic urges to keep from acting on them.

But as Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal states our will power is finite and is also related to our health and creates stress. So while we may think we are advanced and can avoid our satisfactions we have increasingly less ability to do so as stress increases and it begins to effect our physical and mental health.

This is what makes monks particularly interesting. A monk can exist in any religion but they have chosen to live free of temptation. While this is incredibly empowering it also comes at a cost of being incredibly isolating as well. Since so much of civilization is based around succumbing to basic desires of violence, lust, gluttony, these few have chosen to remove themselves from it completely. It is admirable but not particularly practical for the rest of us. So how do the non-monks deal with our desires and maintain control especially if our will power is finite.

We should recognize that to deny our desires causes stress, and that is something we can only sustain for sometime. Along with this realization we should find specific outlets to ease this tension by directly or indirectly addressing the desire at hand. If we want sugar, then it may be acceptable to set controls around our sugar consumption. In other cases we may need to remove the stimuli from our environment completely. These decisions are ours to choose and we should take great care in doing so.

We are animals, complex, but animals nonetheless. The goal is to be the ones holding the carrot in front of our own heads and to not be controlled, but practice self-control. It is there that freedom lies, not by succumbing to our desires, nor ignoring them, but finding a balance between them.