Non-resistance

February 18, 2012 by scillagrace

Yesterday’s post was on Resistance, and the title was inspired by my “I don’t want!” mood. Today, I am seething a bit about some things, and I’m wondering how to employ non-resistance. Actually, it’s more like non-violent resistance. How do I look at something that I feel is unjust and respond in a way that does not blame, shame or reject but does state emphatically my position and reasons and allows me to live out my values?

I don’t know how to re-blog something, so I will give you a link to a post I’ve been following and commenting on that deals with the birth control mandate in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

I’m also going to include today’s post from my fellow blogger in the UK. She has decided to respond to suffering and injustice by sponsoring a girl in Kenya.

I feel that justice matters, that women’s health matters, that population control matters, that compassion matters, and that the internet should be used as a tool to discuss what matters (and that doesn’t include celebrity hook-ups, IMO!).

Not to imply that I don’t also spend time on things that don’t really matter. Like this afternoon’s Chicago Bulls game. Which is one reason I’m rather late in posting this.

I also feel that loving the universe matters, and I want to live out that value every day.

“I’m sorry; we can’t do that.”

November 10, 2011 by scillagrace

You know how once you get pregnant, all you see around you is pregnant women? I want to trigger that phenomenon in this post and bring awareness to something I feel is pretty common in our fast-paced American life. I want to see how often people come up with the “I’m sorry; we can’t do that” line when what they really mean is something else. Something like, “I’m sorry; I haven’t been trained to do that” or “I’m sorry; my computer can’t do that, and I don’t know how to do anything without the computer” or “I’m sorry; we aren’t willing to do that. Your request is not as important as other things.” The real answer is absolutely valid and a fine place to begin negotiations. The problem is, we don’t often get the real answer.

I worked in customer service for a few years, and I remember the nervousness that accompanied requests to depart from policy. I didn’t know if I had the authority to make exceptions. I often didn’t want to be in the position of the middle man going back and forth from the customer to my superior. It made me feel caught in a conflict that wasn’t mine, especially if it dragged on and on. Eventually, I got to the point where I rather enjoyed listening to people and trying to come up with creative compromises. But then I was told that I was spending too much time on these discussions and I should simply state the policy and get off the phone.

Dealing with people is tricky. They require your time, and time is money. To be an efficient society, we must streamline our systems. Any person who does not comply with procedure is throwing a monkey wrench into the works. So what do we value more, the “works”, the people, or some other ideal? Once you become aware that you’re getting an “I’m sorry; we can’t do that” response, what do you do?

Here are a few examples of this kind of exchange in real life. The first one is “How do you want your coffee?” Steve does not like the prevalent custom of serving coffee in disposable containers. He likes to drink his latte from a mug. He rarely orders anything “to go”. He values conservation of resources and energy and is not too concerned with “convenience”. We have breakfast often at a local cafe that has recently been hiring new staff. Young staff. I am patient and cheerful and as helpful as I can be when I’m placing our order. I got to ordering Steve’s latte and said, “With that breakfast, I want a latte in a mug with 2% milk.” “Um, okay. What size?” “In a mug.” “I’m sorry; we can’t do that.” We happened to have had breakfast there just the day before. “Well, yesterday you could.” A more veteran server came up behind him and whispered, “Yes we can. It’s served in a soup mug.”

I’m not saying this young person did anything wrong. It was probably about his third day on the job. The point is that we often get streamlined into making concessions in our decision-making and forget that there are other options. We don’t have to take the disposable option. We don’t have to take the profitable option if profit is not our highest goal. We don’t have to have a lawn or rake our leaves or live in the city or send our kids to public schools or give birth in a hospital. We don’t have to go “up and to the right” and continue to support a growth economy. But we’ll probably be told when we suggest an alternative, “I’m sorry; we can’t do that.”

Here’s another example. I am following a discussion on a blog about an architectural idea coming out of Italy. The title of the article is “Milan’s Vertical Forest”. http://pensci.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/milans-vertical-forest The premise of the idea is to create a “less crowded, less polluted, less inhumane” city by erecting high-rise buildings with open balcony space on all four sides to accommodate trees and greenery that would help clean the air and provide a natural aesthetic. It sounds great, but it makes me wonder whether it’s assuming “we can’t” do something else instead. If what Milan wants is forest, why not tear down the high-rises and convert the land into open green space? If what Milan wants is urban housing, why are they calling it a forest when in reality, it’s just apartments with more balcony space? Are potted trees really going to thrive there? And will people actually use all that space for vegetation instead of storing their bicycles and grills and laundry there? If we really want the city to be less crowded and polluted, why not encourage people to move out and work the small farms in France that are being abandoned, for example? No, “we can’t do that”, we have to think of solutions that keep people in the city and promote more construction and more growth. Well, we don’t have to. Let’s just be honest about what our goals are and discuss from there.

So what happens when you “throw a monkey wrench” into the system and ask for a different option? Do you get an honest negotiation? I would like to gum up the works of the political machine and ask for a candidate who would admit that s/he is not perfect in character, is not superior in knowledge about every facet of American life and doesn’t necessarily have to be the prime ideologue, but who would be a skilled administrator willing to represent the people and carry out their ideas.

I don’t want a cardboard cup with the shiny logo and a snappy lid. I just need a teacup to hold some tea long enough to get it to my mouth. Any Buddhist will tell you, it’s not about the teacup, it’s about the tea.

Living Heroically

November 6, 2011 by scillagrace

Discipline without coercion. Is it possible for individuals? For communities? Dare we believe that without obligation, people will make efforts to do their best and work toward the common good? Are people who do that “heroes”?

We dangle punitive measures and capitalistic rewards in front of the masses and hope that will encourage us to be model citizens, and then we have to deal with the greedy monsters that evolve wondering “What’s in it for me?” If I am of the 1% and super-wealthy, what incentive do I have to share? And what is the percentage of the 99% who hope that one day, they will become super-wealthy also and so feel no inclination to put restrictions on the rich? How many people are likely to come to a sense that they have “enough” all on their own and turn their surplus over to others? And when will that sense of “enough” kick in? What standard of living do we feel entitled to? What would it feel like to say, “This is all I need. I am not afraid to trust that I have enough”? Would it feel like freedom?

How do you discipline yourself without feeling a sense of obligation? Do you eat healthy foods because you want to? Or because some outside influence is holding up a consequence or reward? Do you make music because some authority is telling you to practice or for the sheer joy of it? Do you do what you do out of passion or fear?

On our first date, Steve played a kind of “twenty questions” game with me. I was trying to guess his three heroes in order to get to know him better. He maintains that each of these inspirational figures have a passion for something and demonstrate it joyfully. The first one is David Attenborough of the BBC Natural History Unit, groundbreaking writer and presenter of nature programs. The second is Julia Child, The French Chef. I was in total accord to this point, and also loved that they are easy to imitate in voice and mannerism to add levity to any undertaking (and we do this frequently). The third one was rather tough to guess, mostly because he wasn’t human. “An athlete” was about as close as I got. Finally, Steve led me to thinking about equestrian athletes, and I immediately thought of Secretariat. I found that rather a head-scratcher, though. How could a horse be a hero? And then he showed me the youtube clip of the final race in the1973 Triple Crown. It still makes him cry.

A horse cannot be coerced by the promise of fame and fortune, can it? There was no whipping, no carrot on a stick. Secretariat ran for the pure joy of running, it would seem. Feeling the power of his legs, the wind in his mane, the freedom of doing what he was born and bred and loved to do that day. Did he have a reward afterward? Did he develop a taste for winning? I suppose you could debate the emotions of a horse forever and never learn anything conclusive. You could also debate whether or not his race was something that created “good”. Many people were undoubtedly uplifted; just listen to the audio on the tape. His grace and beauty are captivating. And maybe a bunch of people were making money off of it, but the horse wasn’t. For that reason, it seems rather pure to me.

So what would it mean for you and me to be the heroes of our own lives? To be the best we could be not out of obligation or fear of reprisal or for monetary gain, but just for the joy of living out our own passion and interest, for the love of it? What would it be like to allow that to be our reward, our life work, and not ask fame or fortune from it? Would we share any surplus of our efforts? What if we all lived like that? Would we be able to balance the table top, enjoy sustainability and equality, as a community and perhaps as a planet? Is this a utopian ideal and totally unrealistic?

Probably. But I would love to feel the wind in my hair, too…

...like her. (My daughter, in France, living her passion.)

Mixing It Up

October 30, 2011 by scillagrace

“Politics and science don’t mix.” “Religion and science don’t mix.”

These are comments posted on an article about a skeptical physicist who researched global warming under a grant provided by the Charles Koch foundation and found that land temperatures are indeed rising. I read this article not long after reading an MSNBC article entitled “Do Science and Politics Mix?”. It focuses on some comments made by Mitt Romney and their interpretation by Lawrence Otto, author of Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America. He says that today’s political framework is based on “values” rather than facts. In other words, politicians are dogmatic about certain positions that they figure will stand them firmly in the good graces of their constituents and tend to dismiss scientific challenges.

Well, hell, what is science for if not to inform your decisions and opinions about politics and religion and education and health and economics and…everything? I mean, why bother to make observations at all if you’re going to ignore them? Why not just walk around blindfolded? And the same goes for science itself. Let your political and religious and educational and economic observations inform your decisions and opinions about science. It doesn’t make sense to be dogmatic in any of these areas.

Isn’t our world an interconnected web of infinite variables? There will always be more data to gather and look at, and there will always be vast areas where we have no data at all or no conclusive data. Mystery still abounds. But the point is, keep your eyes and ears and mind open. Make your decisions and form your opinions with as much humility and flexibility as you can muster. Always be willing to entertain and embrace new information and ideas.

What would you call that posture?

Squirrels are like fiddlers on the roof: light on their feet

Well, the media calls it “flip-flopping” or “waffling”. The media seems to like dogma and dislike progressives. People are fed up with the status quo and call for change, but those who embrace change are mistrusted and “hog-tied” by various conflicting structures. So we get nowhere new. What a pity. What a waste.

Have you ever heard the Zen koan, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”?

If you believe you have the correct image of what it means to be Enlightened, you’re wrong. Throw it out and keep practicing and meditating. As applied to our political situation: if you believe you have the correct platform to reform America, you’re wrong. Throw it out and keep listening to the people, keep observing the environment in the cities and the farms, keep choosing and deciding and recording consequences. Keep moving forward. Even if something seems to work, things will change. Review and renew. Be light on your feet.

Now, who’s got the courage to do that?