Changelings

My father was trying to explain to me about a moment that happens in one's life, the moment you stop changing. It's the time you just get tired, he said, where gritting your teeth is just too laborious and apathy is not only the easy, but preferred course. It's a point, he made it seem, where an individual is so ingrained in his own identity that it's no longer malleable.

If he's correct, I hope that I have 100 years before that day. It wouldn't be fun, not growing and staying sharp. Besides that, at that moment the stunted individual becomes a danger to those around him.

If one can no longer change--that is to say become better or even just adapt--that individual starts narrowing the circumstances in which he can function in the world, as a happy healthy human being. If you lose the ability to change, you lose the capacity to make the most out of life, which seems like misery. It seems like the beginning of road which leads to hopelessness.

I want to work really hard to stay flexible and be able to change. I think that's what youth is. We all should keep adapting, growing...trying to because we are not perfect beings. We are not god.

What's love got to do with it?

The last time I saw the phrase in text, it was looking up lyrics to a popular Fat Joe single. And, maybe he was onto something and maybe he just liked the rhyme. Nevertheless, the line finishes: "it should be about us, it should be about trust, babe".

Logic would suggest that love either has something to do with it, or it has nothing to do with it. This is of course not necessarily what human would suggest...it's much more complicated then that.

Lately, I've been thinking that successful, fulfilling marriages and love are divorced concepts. (Note that I've been thinking about this sort of thing because of the stuff I've been reading and the engaged/newlywed couples I've been around, not to mention marriages I've been attending or hearing about). What does one really have to do with the other, besides the notion that in the contemporary western tradition loves sometimes leads to marriage.

In what I've been reading and observing however, it seems like love has little to with what helps couples go the distance. It seems more the case that couples who are committed, diligent, flexible and adaptive are the ones that make it. Love certainly seems to provide energy and motivation, but in the big scheme of things is love really more than a very small part of what constitutes lasting relationships? Love doesn't pay the bills, does it?

I guess it just seems like there are bigger things at play then love. At times, perceptions of love make about as much sense to me as perceptions of money. There's so much money in the world, it's probably one of the most common things around. But, yet it's written up at the final destination for satisfaction. Just like love. People obsess about love. It's not just that love has it's place in our lives...it consumes. People fall out of love and relationships end. People say loving each other wasn't enough, so relationships end. So, how much does it really matter?

But the obsession around love, makes me feel like it matters. There's so much buzz about love--that seems timeless, genuine and pure--it prevents me from being totally skeptical about love as an idea. The prospect of the feeling, of the supposed state of mind, keep me a romantic. And, I think it does that to many people, even though it doesn't make sense.

If love didn't matter, wouldn't we have given up on the love idea by now? Love and romance have been present in literature forever--though it's connotation and meaning have surely changed over time--so does that mean it's something that has real value?

I mean, I want it to matter. And, I don't think I'm alone in this, nor do I think this desire is solely cultural or generational. It's something we hope for, even if it's not a game-changer in lasting relationships. And perhaps that's why it's so important, not because it has "anything to do with" but because it sustains hope. And maybe hope isn't all we need either, but I think hope is one of those things I'm willing to accept, nearly blindly, as something that could have a lot to do with the good stuff.

"The Joy of Having Less"

I was have an e-mail chat with a few friends about this article, it's on a NYTimes.com blog. Two friends had this to say in response:

MS-
does a simpler life necessarily mean one alone or at a great distance from those one loves? is this a key ingredient or potentially complicating element?

i can find myself in a blissful thoreauvian state where i want to count beans and listen to nature. and then i can find myself feeling like an anne sexton poem where i want to fuse my bones to another person or series of person in order to feel alive.

JH-
I also have some criticism regarding the fact that not everyone's socioeconomic situations lend themselves to being able to up and move. And, I too am a person who needs to be surrounded by people that I know and love but at the same time I really enjoy solitude and independence. It's a balance. I do think that different types of people reading an essay like this can pull what they are inspired by into their own experience -- what better can an essay do than that?

Me-
I think you're knocking on the door of something interesting and controversial, here:

"I do think that different types of people reading an essay like this can pull what they are inspired by into their own experience -- what better can an essay do than that?"

Forgive me if I'm interpreting incorrectly, but I think you mean--perhaps implicitly--that people can kind of take things and their own experiences determines what makes them happy. That happiness is something determined by an individual or at an individual level. Different people like different things. Maybe you didn't mean this towards "what makes a happy life?" at all, or didn't mean it as strongly as I've put it...but I'll leave it that way to illustrate a contrasting viewpoint.

I think it's an open question: are people made happy by a similar menu of activities, occurrences, habits or behaviors or does the pursuit of happiness depend mostly on the individual? I'm not so sure that individual characteristics matter. Why? Because it seems like the "happy people" have many activities, occurrences, habits and behaviors in common...a few simple things seem to make them happy, like some of the following:

Have good friends
Have work that you enjoy or find meaningful
Show love and commitment to your family and have sex with your spouse, often.
Have proper rest and nutrition
Give back to your community
Learn
Exercise
Live a life without excess
Follow the golden rule

The list goes on, but not for very long. And I'd like to emphasize...these things are pretty darn simple, no? They're almost timeless, which in my mind makes them more applicable and believable.

But, I think there's an argument to be made for people discovering and finding what makes them happy. I'll let someone else make it if it pleases them. If not, we wasted too much time agonizing over majors and careers ;)

Quick thought about weddings

Quickly, my attitudes about weddings changed a bit this weekend. They are not, steely affairs where the Bride's posse relinquishes the ability to be caretakers of the daughter and the demarcation of the Groom's buddies losing a direct link to their friend. This sentiment seems silly, yes, but believe me...it's all the more real the closer you get to the officiated parties.

Rather, weddings are a treasure of a celebration. They commemorate a timeless, sacred human bond of one person to another. That's a big deal, whether it's between friends, partners, or family members, because those bonds--ones that really bind--don't come around all that often.

I was mistaken for interpreting weddings as a moment for the splitting and suturing of relationships into a new whole. They are rather the celebration of something anew, instead of rearranging lives they are instances where a new, two-seated life is created.

A straight-forward observation, yes. Was a little slow on the uptake.

Concluding Thoughts on Peru

I noticed immediately, the idiosyncracy that distinguishes the USA from Peru. It wasn't even difficult. All it took was a staple of our culture: semi-fast food.

I was at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, waiting for a signature. I'd come to expect that counter service at places like Cosi would be decent at best. Most of the folks that have taken my order there, at any location across the country, don't seem to take pride in what they're doing. The same goes at 4/5 similar establishments. The woman didn't look me in the eye and she stuck to the script.

This is worlds apart from Peru. The people in Peru don't stick to the script, they make mistakes. They look you in the eye, and they have sincerety in their voices when they speak with you. Of course, this might have been a product of necessity (since we were gringos and people could barely understand our spanish)...but I don't think it was. In Peru every meal was fresh and everyone seemed to take pride in their service. All places were slow serving and they had limited menus unless the establishments had obviously western influence. Often times the owner/proprietor would be sitting with guests and would come to check on us, greet us at the door and generally be visible.

The difference in food service between the countries indicates a lot. The difference indicates our priorities as cultures, I think.

Peruvians really seem to value relationships, quality and intimate person interaction. In the USA we seem to value choice, predictability and efficiency. Both campus are obviously legitimate, but different.

I think our cultures could stand to learn from eachother. Which is hard for us in America to do because of our status in the world. We lead many things in the world, so we don't always get to learn from the cultures we're influencing...but we must. We're certainly not perfect here, even though there's a tremendous amount of pragamatism and idealism in our culture.

But as much as we're not perfect, we are leaders who yield strong influence abroad. Our music, our language and our style is everywhere. Our instutiutions are ever-present: democracy, republican government, ESPN...whatever. The world is still watching us.

Because of that influence and leadership we still hold, at least in the cultural and political realm, even though we may hold less influence economically...we must use that influence and leadership for good. If we do something, the world will follow us. Because of that we have to live up to the idealized versions of our ideals. If we do not, the world will follow by not living up to high standards. If we do not, we won't be true to ourselves, either.

Though, I really feel we're having an identity crisis as a nation. We don't know what's important to us as a nation, which is scary. If we don't know who we are and what we want, how are we going to lead other, less prosperious or less established nations.

Here's what I think is most important. We need people to do an exercise like this...so we can figure out who we are. A lot of people (my parents included) have never really thought about these things. It's up to us now to figure it out.

Things that really matter - divided into 4 categories. I was kind of inspired by a comic strip in Neal Strauss's Emergency.

Sound Mind - This means education and lifelong learning. I think this also assumes that education and reflection can't happen when a war or violence is going on in once's vicinity. Finally, with a sound mind, engaging oneself in work that's challenging, meaningful and that profilerates the beauty in the world also applies.

Sound Body - This means treat your body well. Not throwing one's body into imminent unavoidable danger, exercising and having sex are all important here. It's making our physical surroundings habitable too...greenies, this matters to you.

Intact Spirit - Inner peace and making sense of God and his/her role in our spiritual and physical lives. Finally, trying to grasp our mortality. This obviously requires freedom of religion and an intense emphasis on fair, reasonable empathetic dialogue.

Meaningful Relationships - Having friends and family and spending time with them. Sharing life with other people. I think what also fits here is "befriending strangers" and helping people who need help.

To me, these things are what's most important...things that matter flow from these four things for the most part, I hope. I think Americans at-large probabaly share some of these ideas too. Regardless, I hope as a nation we can understand the things that are really important to us then govern ourselves in accordance with these aspirations, values and ideas.

-nt