"Truth
is the only safe ground to stand upon" - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
"We
know truth, not only by reason, but also by heart." - Blaise Pascal
My
hippy attitude is to create the change I desire in the world. I admire Steve
Jobs to a great degree: he sought to change the world even in his somewhat
egomaniacal way. Jobs in the 2005 Commencement speech at Stanford mentioned the
Whole Earth Catalog: a countercultural magazine with the final parting message, 'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.' But, what is it, you ask, that you should be
hungry for? Isn't foolishness just simply foolishness? Perhaps. But hunger is
related to drive, and with his foolish mantra, Jobs introduced to the world the
iPod, iPhone, and iPad: things and tools that have somehow become business
devices and important drivers of commerce, especially regarding the App Store.
In that vein, my family has recently caught on to the Apple craze and started
to enjoy the iPad 3 I bought in March of this year. Jobs' death affected us not
because we wanted to be him; we didn't. We wanted to so desperately empathize
with his suffering—prostate cancer—tell ourselves we ourselves could overcome
such a thing causing pain and tears.
I
resonate with the truth of the heart; my mind is attuned to the message of 'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish' (scroll down for a post called 'I am Stupid,' hah).
Now that I’m now working at a software company in the Bay Area I don’t know how
my work experience will translate to my writing a good novel. This is a
stressor in my life. But you know what? At the end of the day, I still have my
dream which is to write. Everyone should have a dream, and if you don’t, then
consider yourself part of the 21st century counterculture. I write defending
the countercultures of the past, of Stein and Steinbeck and Hemingway—let me go
out on a limb and discourage others from accepting labels others will put on
these writers.
On
a postmodern note, I believe the young and old as well as the rich and poor can
come together. Let us have a grand old Tea Party at Wall Street and occupy all
of the streets; civility, pathos and empathy are so desperately in human need
but they are not part of the tone of the current dialogue surrounding politics;
talking heads on TV wish to suggest talks between Democrats and Republicans and
conservatives and liberals have broken down; I tell you yes, it has, and it’s
up to you to restore an intelligent sanity to the conversation.
I
fundamentally disagree with the idea of personal
happiness. True happiness is this: you are rich and you know how hard you’ve
worked to get there. The times you were late to work and feared losing your
job, the long hours and overtime you had to suffer through on the hardest of
days, and the kinds of personal Hells inexpressible in the workplace. But
really, you know you're not as ‘rich’ as some others you know or have read
about in books or on the Internet. You know you're not as smart or even as
dedicated to the profession you’ve chosen as you should be. But you survived all
that hard work. You did it; you did it; and you continue to continue. By what
motivation or driving force do you work hard?
Not
by anything in you, but by the stuff of others you cannot put a name to: the
tired shrugs and red eyes of your coworkers: realizing you are not alone. You
are NOT ALONE. So you walk around the office, eyeing cubicles and hushed
conversations between adults. You start talking. You show the empathy that has
taken you years to express clearly. The stories they tell are amazing: thematically
depicting the anxieties and fears of suburban and urban life. And you realize,
you are rich not through or because of your money, but precisely because of the
people around you. THAT IS BEING RICH. That is richness of spirit—of the
constant abnegation of intellectual poverty—a richness that spreads to others
and makes them rich—a happiness that spreads to others and makes them happy.
Not of money, but of happiness: the possibility of disinterested concern that
would cause us to put forward our brother and sister before ourselves.
'Put
a smile on that face,' goes the common expression. But smiling after going
through all the crap we’ve had to go through seems inappropriate. Maybe we
won’t be able to smile today, but we can damn well make sure the others around
us are smiling. That is life's purpose to me: communal love and acceptance. To
make sure we would all have ample opportunity to partake in that. We wake each
day and make sure we work for the poor, sick, and the suffering; I want to wake
up one day and have the courage to donate the entirety of my savings to Doctors
Without Borders. I don't do that on a daily basis, of course, but I work toward
that—I want people to live and help others. We can do at least that much.
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A
poem written this week:
Grace
presupposes the existence of love. To handle the oldest human
verity
as a UPS man carrying packages from mailroom to doorstop.
The
sun wakes and shines down happiness like raindrops settling
on
a car in which two people are kissing. Like brushing the top of
a
horse’s head — treat her with care — like a precious child.
A
boy and a girl on a swing. They promise. 'I promise to love you
forever,' he says. 'Me too. I’ll love you forever,' she says with
conviction.
They swing and swing and swing. An old Presbyterian
minister,
when he was alive, sang in a monotone voice, 'It’s a
beautiful
day in the neighborhood…' Mister Rogers knew all along
what
we casually forget: love is inside. Inside a stable, a car, and a
heart.
We can talk it out, he’d say. Go on a walk, kiss a horse on
her
mouth. Eat hay. To say hello to the UPS man. To greet the sun
with
a smile the new day deserves. But above all, to presuppose love
and
everlasting grace. Beat your heart like a drum and reach inward
for
the freedom inside.
