Life Lessons

I've come down with a crappy cold, it seems like just yesterday I had a similar bug. But so it goes. It's given me some time to just chill out and stop running around like a crazed weasel. The weasel-go-round has been pretty non-stop since we got back from Hawaii, and I've given myself precious little time to just be. Be married. Be peaceful. Be quiet. Already.

So I've had time to read a book that one of my friends gave me for my birthday called Eat Pray Love. This is an awesome book. If you're in any way a spiritual seeker, or if you're in any way a woman, this is a great book. It's an autobiography of a year of travel and spiritual seeking, and the author is painfully honest about her own shortcomings, her frustrations and personal pain. It's also really funny in parts, and very inspiring. So many of her obstacles remind me of my own, and of how much the universe has to teach us if we would just shut up and listen for a minute.

So that's my New Year's Resolution for this year. Shut up and listen. This book reminded me that we don't find meaning or God or connectedness through ruminating about the past or imagining the future. Those activities have their place, but the most powerful and poignant experiences are found right now. So I'm going to listen more. Listen to silence. Listen to those around me. Listen to myself. Listen to my dog.

This does not mean that I plan to cure myself of my endless diarrhea of the mouth (or of the keyboard), or that I will transform from an analytical, inquisitive person into a Zen master. I have no plans to stop being me. I'm just going to listen a little harder to the world around and inside me to determine who me really is, and maybe to help her expand a bit.

Whirlwind Tour

The holidays were nice this year, if a bit hectic. In the space of two weeks, I gave my thesis presentation, turned in our paper, got engaged, went to Hawaii, got married, hosted my parents, graduated, had a birthday and Christmas and started planning our reception.

Whew.

Any one of these events would be exciting (and possibly overwhelming) one at a time, but the confluence of events has made it challenging to keep my head. Still, I am surely thankful for all of these good things in my life, and we've gotten so many good wishes from friends and family! I am looking forward to settling into being married, graduated, and older.

Merry Holidays

What is it like trying to find a cocktail dress days before Christmas when all the over size eights are long gone? Not. Fun.

http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/2007/12/tucker.html

The definition of courage.

http://www.dooce.com/2007/12/13/because-i-couldnt-say-it-phone

Orchids, Lava, and Waterfalls

Pretty much describes my day. We drove to Hilo on the other side of the island. It poured rain most of the way, but we braved our way though the Botanic Gardens, which came highly recommended. Armed with $2 plastic raincoats, a loaner umbrella, and bug spray, we traversed a mile or so of rainforest riddled with interesting plants and flowers. It was drippy, but fun. The pictures aren't as good as I'd have liked, we opted to leave our excellent loaner camera safe in the dry car.

Then we headed into Hilo where we took a helicoptor tour. It was a bit of a white-knuckle ride for both of us (and a bit green-faced for me) but it was really cool to be able to see bits of the active volcano - there's no foot access right now.



After some ginger-ale, we headed back towards Kona, but stopped at this amazing waterfall. Then it was back to the hotel for some much needed rest. zzzzzzz....

Volcanos and Black Sand

Yesterday we traveled down the coast, around the tip of the island, and into volcano country. We saw some really cool stuff. We took a short hike around a steam vent area. There are these big cracks in the earth with plants growing out of them and steam bellowing up. Very prehistoric looking, I kept expecting a T-Rex to go crashing by.

Then we looked at this HUGE crater of an inactive volcano. The area at the top of the mountain is very arid and dry (and rainy and cold), but then we drove down to where the lava tube was (a big cave created by lava) and it was warm and humid and very tropical. The lava tube was cool, and very dark.

After that, we drove all the way down the coast past a bunch of craters to an area where there are petroglyphs carved in the volcanic rock. That was really cool. Many pictures.

Then we drove home, but stopped at a black sand beach that was riddled with turtles.

Things I learned yesterday: Chocolate covered macadamia nuts are evil. EVIL. Remember to bring a swanky dive flashlight if you're going to hike through a cave (we didn't).

Today we're driving north to see some waterfalls, and then taking a helicopter tour of the lava flows. Very cool. Hopefully we'll get some good pictures.

Hawaii, continued.

The newlyweds split up this morning to pursue their own activities. David went diving. He saw some cool fish, some wacky looking lobster, and a huge freaking humpback whale. He's doing a night dive tonight with manta rays.

I, on the other hand, pursued my love of coffee into the mountains south of our hotel.
There are hundreds of coffee plantations in that area, each one being fairly small because of the labor-intensity of harvesting coffee. I learned a whole lot about coffee, and I got very, very, very wired.

I visited Kona Joe's coffee plantation where they grow coffee in a vinyard-style like wine. This is supposed to make the beans ripen more evenly, and produces higher yields. The coffee was really good, I had a cup of the medium roast, cafe au lait style.

Then I went to Greenwell Farms a bit further down the road. They have lots of fruit trees, and amazing coffee. I took a bunch of pictures there as well. I saw some cool wildlife - birds and colorful lizards. The scenery is beautiful just about everywhere you go.

We're going to drive further down the coast tomorrow, and then visit the volcanoes on Weds. via some hiking and a helicopter tour. More pictures to come, watch my flickr page.

Mawwiage

Mawwiage.
We done went and got married.
(<--click the picture for more pictures)

Aloha, peoples.

We are in Hawaii. It is freaking gorgeous here. Everything is beautiful. Rocks, trees, plants, water. Really amazing. People are also really nice, and it's an easy trip for me to the driver on because everyone here drives like me - a very cautious Grandma. I've gotten confused and turned around a bunch of times, but I have yet to hear anyone honk.

The weather is pretty beautiful, though it's been a bit stormy. Humid, upper 70s low 80s. Ideal for a nice winter getaway.

We're staying at the Sheraton, which is pretty, but fairly lame. I always thought I'd love staying at a luxury hotel, but in fact, deep down, I am a cheap ass. It's not luxury enough to be actually luxurious, and they charge you for EVERYTHING. The very pricey restaurant totally sucks, too. Lame.

Still, the bed is comfy, the views are great, and the staff is helpful. So can't really complain. Except I just did.

We drove down the coast today to an historical sight where most of these pictures were taken. Some spectacular views, foliage, and wildlife.

David's dad George* kindly lent us his amazing camera, which makes even a spaz like me look like a good photographer.

Jet lag is kicking our asses. We managed to sleep until 4 this morning, and then got hit with the tired baseball bat around 6pm, when coherent sentences stopped happening.

Check my flickr page for updates, I'll be posting more tomorrow, most likely.

*George, consider yourself blogged.

End of the road

I stole this from Cortney:



We turned in our thesis tonight! Woo! And had a good dress rehearsal for the presentation. A few tweaks and I think it will be really hot. And then I will be really hot in Hawaii!

I told you there'd be more

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is a woman in a film that one of my professors showed us. She had advanced leprosy, had lost facial features and limbs, but when someone asked her how her life was, she said she was full of joy because life was beautiful and God was with her. At the time it was incomprehensible to me, I saw it as delusional - a defense mechanism against the harshness of reality.

But now I think something else entirely. Life can be physically and emotionally ecstatic when we're connected to ourselves and to our source, and I think that we are capable of remaining connected even when we're in terrible physical, emotional, or mental pain. Even if my foot is aching, the rest of my body can still feel good. Breathing feels good. My aching foot doesn't nullify that experience. Some pain is probably more insistent, but I think it's amazing that this woman whose life was unbelievably terrible by most "standards", had an ecstatic experience of life.

I think that pain is most frightening when we are cut off from our source (which I can only reach from within myself) and feel totally alone. Some people find that suffering strips them of belief - if God loves them, why do the innocent suffer?

Innocent or not, I have experienced emotional and mental pain, all the more because I didn't believe in anything beyond my awareness. For me the key word is "believe". I did not reach this different place in my spiritual journey by changing my beliefs. My experience of existence changed. I don't believe in God, I am experiencing God. For me, experience is not contingent upon a belief or lack of belief. Hopefully this means that as my awareness expands, I don't have to fight my own self-imposed boundaries. I don't believe, I experience. That means I also don't have to argue with anyone else about the validity of my experience, since it's entirely subjective. If I share my experience, some people will find it interesting, some will label me deluded, and with others it will resonate. This doesn't change my experience, and it is not meant to change anyone else's.

All the same, I wonder if belief is easier to maintain during difficult times. I'm finding that when I'm stressed out or depressed, my connection to spirit is tenuous at best. I find myself grasping, trying to re-capture the sense of happiness and peace I've experienced lately. It turns out that a shift in my perspective does not obliterate all of my baggage in one fell swoop. Damn.

Instead of grasping, I'm trying to remember a few basic things: I can only find peace within myself, it does not come from externalities. I don't have to cling to suffering, I can let it go when it's told me whatever it's there to convey. I can let go of the illusion that I can control things that I cannot. The ego is a tricky thing -- it sneaks back into the equation when you're not looking, and convinces you that your limited awareness is the sum of reality.

Last week I got into Baylor Law School for the spring. My ego, tricky little bastard that it is, told me that this meant I was destined to go there, and that everything was working out because of my newfound spiritual resonance. Silly rabbit. Then I found out that Baylor was giving me exactly nothing in scholarships, and to pay for it I would have to max out my student loans for thee years and take out additional supplemental loans. The degree would cost me 90k. Suddenly Baylor did not look like my pre-destined path. And my ego decided that it must be because I did something wrong - didn't study for the LSAT enough, got over-confident. It felt like my fate was rejecting me, and it stung.

But here's the thing: it's always a trap when you think good things happen to you because you're good, and bad things happen to you (or someone else) because you (or they) are bad. If the Universe is guiding us through multiple incarnations to enlightenment, as the Upanishads say, or God has a plan, as many Christians believe, the point is we're really not going to see the point when we're up close to it. Our egos like to feel like they understand, that they're in some kind of control, but they're not. My ego wanted to believe that Baylor was the plan, because my ego really dislikes the unknown, but the flip side of that over simplification is the emotional smackdown I end up taking when things do not go as I desire them to. I feel that, as the Upanishads say, God or Self is beyond duality, and our egos are all about duality. Something I need to remember the next time I convince myself that suffering=punishment and pleasure=reward.

Pema Chodron says that life is a big, smelly, interesting mess of experiences, and that none of them, whether they are pleasant or painful, are intrinsically bad. They're just the stuff of life. Literally.

Current Addictions

• these brownies
• books by Deepak Chopra
• my new iMac with Leopard
• CS3 (except the crashing)
  
• Iron and Wine
• the dog (who is the ultimate foot warmer in cold weather)
  
• Yoga Nidra
  

Thankiness

Things I am thankful for today:

1. David and his lovely family
2. Great friends
   
3. Loki (in spite of the fact that he spent most of the day hiding under the bed)
   
4. Cooking my first turkey and having it come out YUMMY.
5. Iron and Wine
   
6. Helpful motherly Thanksgiving cooking advice from Nancy and Anna-Marie
7. A really excellent couple of weeks
   

Coming Out

I've been experiencing something very new recently, and I've been unsure about whether or not to discuss it/blog about it. Spirituality is controversial at best, and people tend to have very powerful feelings about it, for good or ill.

I find that I've always linked spirituality and religion, and assumed that if I believed in God, I would be joining the unenlightened masses that believe in a male, humanoid, capricious, cruel, often discriminatory, and all-powerful deity (this secular perspective of religion, while terribly reductionist and judgmental, is not uncommon). In spite of this, I have been spiritually seeking for a long time, for the last ten years or so at least.

What have I been seeking? Insight, truth, some sense of belonging, justice, kindness, peace. It is a very long list. But I have never felt the presence of God, nor have I felt any real connection to most of the religious texts I've read or rituals I've witnessed. I often experienced it as empty, cryptic, contradictory, and conformist. My belief system has been largely agnostic, humanistic, and rationalistic. While I've felt some sense of resonance with the work of Jung and Campbell on archetypes, myths, and the collective unconscious, and an affinity for Buddhist practices and principals, I have always felt very much cosmically alone.

As I've gotten older, that sense of being alone has become harder to ignore, and harder to tolerate. As we age, the inevitability of our own death (scary) and of those we love (scarier) becomes inescapable. Buddhist principals say we should neither cling to pleasure or run from pain, but this is incredibly difficult when what lies beneath the clinging and running is emptiness, fear, and often in my case, despair. Easier to be caught in the karmic wheel than face the abyss. Anxiety and depression have been the periodic result of this struggle.

Recently my perspective has shifted dramatically. I have experienced a spiritual awakening. I don't know a better way to describe it. I have become aware, from deep in my being, that we are not alone. I have begun to experience God or Atman/Self or God-Consciousness (call it what you want) in a way that is very immediate and tangible. It is a mental, emotional, and physical experience.

I've been reading a whole lot of stuff to try and help me understand what I'm experiencing. Deepak Chopra, The Upanishads (pre-Hindu texts), Rumi, Hildegard von Bingen, the Thomas Gospel (this is one of the Gnostic texts - concurrent with the bible but not associated with the church), and a stack of other books. I've had to re-evaluate my fairly ignorant opinions of people with religious or spiritual beliefs. I'm realizing that strict rationalism or humanism that excludes the validity of others' spiritual experiences is just as dogmatic as any religion that does not allow for a personal experience of God.

My beliefs are no longer secular, but they are also not strictly religious either. I think that all of the universe and what lies beyond is some form of consciousness, and that I am part of that consciousness. It feels as if I am a cell in a body that exists to experience itself - my life is a vital part of that consciousness' awareness. This leads me to feel as if the difference between myself and other beings is not as substantial as it once seemed. It also gives me a profound sense of the ecstatic quality of life, something I have had difficulty accessing in the past. I find it easier to forgive myself and others, and easier to let go of fear and shame, emotions that have been very difficult to release in the past.

Strangely, I have been drawing mandalas for years, mostly because I thought they looked cool. Now I think perhaps my higher conciousness was struggling to express itself.

I decided to write about this because I really like to blog about my thoughts and feelings, what I've been reading, and my personal reflections. This is a big shift, and has brought on quite a bit of obsessive book reading, so I'm sure there will be more about it in the future. I am a little worried about the reaction of some of the people I know read this blog, but I think it's worth it to stay authentic in a forum where that's kind of the point, you know?

Parallel Universe

I swear, job hunting in this town is just like dating in this town. You post your online personal/resume and inquire about interesting people/positions. Prospective dates/employers contact you and you begin conversation/flirting/negotiations. You have a phone conversation/interview. You have a first date/on site interview. You wear your nicest clothes and try not to seem too slutty/desperate (even if you are). You try to keep you wits about you by not drinking too much tequila/coffee. You want to come across as witty/intelligent and attractive/a good investment.

Then the date/interview is over. You wait by the phone. You check your email constantly. You try and predict whether or not your date/possible future boss liked you, how long it will take them to contact you, whether or not you should contact them. You imagine possible future scenarios, both good and bad. You come up with wild theories for why they haven't called you yet.

And of course, you face the inevitable rejections that come with dating/job hunting. Your date/interviewer says, "I really enjoyed our dinner/interview, I'll be contacting you very soon. When are you free/what is your availability next week?" And then... crickets. Or the classic lame excuses: "I couldn't call, my cell phone died and my toilet overflowed."/ "I got swamped and we decided to go with someone else (so I didn't bother to tell you I'd canceled your interview or given the contract to someone else)."

The emotions that go along with these two scenarios are about the same. One is about the hope of future happiness, while the other is about future paying of bills, but both tend to affect how I feel about myself, at least temporarily. Both also take a certain amount of resilience, and a good sense of humor.

More fun with technology

Though I am a self-professed brand whore, Apple is really starting to piss me off.

I had backed up all my TV shows purchased through iTunes on my external hard drive. Smart, right? So after the big crash, I copied everything down to my new computer, and then synched it to my iPod. Oh, but first, I had to get a third party program to grab stuff from my iPod and put it on my Mac, because Apple doesn't like you using your iPod as a hard drive - you might be using it for naughty pirate activity or something. Whatever. So I got all my data on my new computer, and then synched to my iPod. Then I deleted off my computer the stuff I don't need - namely $200 worth of television shows that suck up enormous amounts of space.

Guess what happened? The next time I plugged in my iPod, it removed it all. Yep. No more TV shows, anywhere. Lovely.

At a friend's urging, I emailed Apple (let me say, finding a customer service email on that website is no mean feat, and don't even get me started on Adobe) and said my stuff had been eaten.

I got an email back saying I could re-download everything I'd ever bought, and chiding me for losing my data. Obviously they didn't read my original email where I said I had backed up everything, but then freaking iTunes ate it all.

So now I'm re-downloading about 50 gigs worth of stuff. Why am I downloading all of it, rather than just the stuff I want, you ask? Well, I tried that, but iTunes freaks out and starts re-downloading the stuff again anyway. So I'm going through all my files (again) and trashing the old ones, which I will delete when all this crap is done re-downloading.

Not the most efficient system ever created. And I guess I'm going to burn my library to DVDs or something, since there's no way to sync your iPod without it removing stuff you've deleted from your hard drive.

Microsoft is looking pretty sweet right about now.

Tragedy Strikes

This morning my computer succumbed to the mac version of the Blue Screen of Death. Hard drive go boom. Very lame. The apple geniuses snots couldn't recover my data, and they wouldn't let me keep my hosed drive for data recovery if they were going to replace it. So I got a brand spanking new iMac, and it is a lickable piece of hardware, I tell you what. 20-inch super hi-res screen. Very nice. I still have to decide if it's worth paying to recover my hard drive before I have the apple folks replace it. I'm currently trying to get all my thesis data, school stuff, random pictures, and music back. Luckily I backed up a lot of stuff, but not all of it. But, when all is said and done, I'll have a working laptop and a sexy desktop, so it's cool.

In other news, Loki is still afraid of wind and toddlers, but not of deer. Big-ass deer. He wants to chase them. So we now have a list of two things he is not scared of. Deer and tarantulas.

Brave Sir Robin

Loki and I take a two mile walk several nights a week. When I first got him this was a bit too much exposure to the scary outside world and he'd get pretty freaky by the end. But as he's settled in, it's gotten better. Still, Loki manages to exhibit fear of people, toddlers that are a block away, runners, walkers, big dogs, little dogs, anything with wheels, phantom cats, air, and feet. Also, it should be noticed that he shows no interest in squirrels, toads, bugs, or birds. But what, you may ask (as well you should) is he not scared of? What was he, nay, fascinated by and supremely interested in? The GIANT FREAKING TARANTULA that walked across our path this evening. Yep. His new best friend. He kept pulling on the leash, trying to get back to it as I bravely skittered past. Yapping tiny poodle? Way too scary. Huge hairy spider? Let's be best friends!

To round out his inappropriate circle of friends, I think I'll introduce him to a skunk as well. And maybe a hyena.

Musings

I've been working on writing a personal statement, and it's a beeotch. I must be witty, literate, blindingly intelligent, and authentic. In two pages. I'm very good at writing to a specific audience, and this is the opposite, really. I want it to be authentic, but it has to be self-aggrandizing without sounding like it is.

Anyway, I've been doing quite a bit of free writing to try and determine what it is I really want to say. What in the fairly twisty path of my life has lead me to this point? How does being an opera singer, a web monkey, and an ethics student get me to this point? So here's my latest thought.

From the opera world, I realized that people need some form of moral and ethical framework in order to not go all Lord of the Flies on each other. And that's pretty much what it was like, a whole lot of the time. Young singers were encouraged to act like anyone but themselves, people abused each other, victimized those with less power than themselves, colluded, and behaved mighty sexually inappropriately. If you questioned or fought the system, you didn't "belong". It was pretty much a big dysfunctional family where society's basic ethical norms didn't apply, and most people didn't make it beyond about a 14 year old level of maturity. Imagine, a world run by pissed off, middle-aged 14 year olds.

While consciously I bought into this world for a while, as I got older I had an increasing sense of dissonance with it. Eventually I realized I would never be able to reconcile the joy I got from singing and from striving to perfect my art, with the misery and pain I experienced while doing auditions, competitions, or having to tell my teacher (repeatedly) to stop being an autocratic, abusive, bastard. I realized that someone could be a brilliant artist and also be a pedophile, mysogonist, or bully. Artistic talent does not actually excuse those things, and the "artist temperament" is largely and excuse for infantile people to continue to act like spoiled two year olds.

Art is all about pure self-expression and it serves a vital role in our society; it helps us connect to our basic nature and our kinship with each other. But the world of artists (at least the one I was in) is rigged to destroy and devalue the artist's individuality, personality, and moral compass. These things could not co-exist for me. So I left.

The lesson is, in order to be vital, alive, and to contribute to your society, you must be connected to your own sense of ethics, and your subculture's ethical framework must at least partially support this. Some rules are good. An entire lack of rules, not so much.

In the business world, I've seen a lot of crappy ethics as well. But there's a big difference. There are basic rules. Businesses are required to meet those wacky ethical minimums we call "laws", and people may actually have to pay a price if they repeatedly violate them. The system does not always work, and corporate culture, like any sub-culture, is a tricky thing. But policies exist, as do human resources departments, sensitivity training, and ethical codes. People, being people, do not always pay attention, but at least the language, structures, and therefore awareness is there. If you believe in your individual rights, and you believe you have a right to protect them, you do have some recourse if someone behaves inappropriately towards you. Compared to the opera world, Corporate America is a bastion of sanity.

But here is why the larger system works. And this harkens back to my rant on cults and ideologies. Our legal system is messy and sometimes extremely obnoxious. But that's why it works. We enforce laws, but the the court system is there not only to decide if a law was broken, but to evaluate the spirit of the law and decide if it is just and appropriate in each individual case. So laws change, evolve, are struck down, and created in response to the evolution of our society. Society gets to take a fresh look at a law each time a case is brought to court.

Moral development happens in stages, and I believe that our system supports a higher level of moral development for our society than more rules-based systems do. Following rules does not make you ethical, it makes you obedient. To be ethical you must consistently examine your own internal reaction to events, compare them with your knowledge and experience, and decide if your reactions are consistent with your current level of development. Ethics are evolutionary, and like it or not, so is law. Law evolves and changes because it is constantly challenged. I think this is pretty cool.

The norms in the opera world were not challenged; they developed largely unconsciously and created a lot of victims and not so many adults. The norms in the business world are developing as organizations realize that they are responsible for the behaviors of their employees. Society changes, which drives changing legislation. And the courts are where legislation is tested and applied, or not.

I like to test things. I like to question, and push, and throw rocks at rules and ideologies and beliefs and see what happens. My own even more than those of others. I like to inquire and argue. This gets me thinking about several possible career paths that I would not have considered even a year ago.

End of an era

The next seven weeks mark the end of my time in the MSOLE program. It turns out I'm a total school nerd and am all sad and shit that it's almost over. So much that I'm looking at PhDs and other advanced degrees, in addition to searching for the right job (the test that shall-not-be-named went okay, I'll know my score in a week or so).

All that aside, the last chunk should be fairly intense, as we have a rather large report to write and at least three presentations to do. The project has been really interesting and has been a great learning experience.

I do miss working (and having a refillable bank account) and am looking for contract work or a full-time gig. A good job would certainly make me re-think my whole I Love School perspective. School is awesome, but pay the bills it does not. It also does not pay for shopping sprees at Sephora, Nordstrom, Anthropologie or the 24 hour basket of goodies that is the internet.

Also, a good job could fund the distance PhD program I'd really like to do, but currently can't afford. Or, I could get a job and get one of those life things and actually do other stuff in my spare time. What is that again?

The big icing on the graduation cake is David is taking me to Hawaii in December. I've never been, and am totally looking forward to it.

Mostly it's going to be very strange when MSOLE is over. What will I do with myself on Weds. nights and Sun. afternoons? Who will listen to me yammer about ethics and philosophy and theology and not be bored silly? I think I may go back and try and beef up some of my papers and submit them for publication. Because I'm not a nerd, no not at all.

Dog Update

Because everyone loves blogs about dogs.

Loki is doing really well. He's still like a very skitsy cat around people who are not-us, but he's happy and silly and very sweet and affectionate. He and David get along frighteningly well, he's not underweight anymore, and we just love him to pieces. His latest nicknames are Brave Sir Robin (bravely ran away away), Prairie Dog Companion (he sits up on his hind legs and looks like a prairie dog), and Tiny Dancer (he dances when we come home). He has long drawn out battles with his toy purple dragon that involve much biting, jumping, and throwing (with occasional growling). He still only barks about once a week.

I'm stressing about what to do with him when we go to Hawaii in December. I have a very generous offer for a sitter for him, but he's such a stress case when he's out of his element, I would really love to find a house-sitter who is female, calm, and good with twitchy small dogs so he doesn't have to leave home. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Bear with me

So I'm studying madly for the test-that-shall-not-be-named, and I'm spending an inordinate amount of time trying to understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. In the King's English, this is an "if then" statement. The thing that flummoxes me is that they are not reciprocal. If A, then B is not the same as if B, then A. If it is 95 degrees outside, Michelann is grumpy. But if Michelann is grumpy, it might be 95 degrees outside, but Michelann may be grumpy because Loki ate her shoe (for reals), or some other reason unrelated to the temperature.

If Michelann is not grumpy, then it is not 95 degrees outside, but if it is not 95 degrees outside, Michelann might still be grumpy. This is called the contrapositive. It makes a kind of sense in the real world, but it's really hard to tease out of statements with quadruple negatives and slithery double-speak. Trust me.

Then something occurred to me today. Remember how I mentioned the Platinum rule? Do unto others as they would have done unto them. This is just a recommendation, it's not reciprocal and it doesn't predict an outcome. I like it from an ethical standpoint because you don't assume everyone is just like you. But the Golden Rule is a little different. Observe.

"Do unto others as you would have done unto you."

From this comes the assumption that others would like to be done unto as you would. So:
If I want a pony, then everyone wants a pony. According to the laws governing necessary and sufficient conditions, the contrapositive says that if someone else doesn't want a pony, then I must not want a pony.

MWP(me want pony)---> OWP(others want pony)
OWP ---> MWP

And this is obviously not the case. Just because someone else doesn't want a pony doesn't mean that I can't want a pony. Hence my preference for the Platinum rule.

And Loki really ate my shoe. But I'm not grumpy.

Lost in Translation: For the Ladies

Lately I've been observing a lot of miscommunication between men and women I know. I see both genders wasting a lot of energy on trying to convince others that they are right. And I want to ask, do you want to be right, or do you want a positive outcome? Myself, I prefer the outcome. I will sacrifice my rightness for harmony, provided I end up actually getting what I want a reasonable amount of the time.

For example, when I got home from the grocery store today, I opened the garage door so David would know I was coming in, hoping he would then volunteer to help me carry the groceries. David may not have remembered that I was grocery shopping, but this is beside the point. I was tired, grumpy, hungry, and itching to kick someone's ass. David did not come to the door, nor did he offer to help me with the groceries. So I dragged them in myself, and put them away (in a slightly louder and more percussive fashion than strictly necessary).

Now at this point, I'm faced with a choice: grump at David for not having anticipated my needs and helped me with the groceries (rather than finish his pool game), or instead ask him to help me fix dinner, and forgo the recriminations. I opted for number two, asking "Would you help me fix dinner?". In return I got to bypass a big chunk of my cooking prep, and also felt less neglected and pissed off. I could have gone the other route and said something like, "I really wish you'd helped me with the groceries, they were really heavy." The outcome of this action would have been to make David grumpy at me, as he would have felt that jumping down his throat for something that he didn't know I needed (a decent point), I would have felt guilty, and probably still grumpy, and our evening would have been significantly less pleasant. Would I have been right? Who freaking cares? Would the outcome have been positive? No.

For the ladies, there's a little trick I learned from Men are From Mars blah blah... Use the word "would" when you ask your guy for something. It matters not at all whether or not if the something is a favor, something you're entitled to, or common sense (something you thought he should have already known). Not even a little bit.

If you say, "You really should call your mom so I know what to bring to brunch", you will be met with stony silence, whining, or some other form of evasion. If you say, "Would you call your mom and ask her what we should bring to the brunch?" you give him the perception of a choice. This does not mean you feel any less strongly about your preference for the activity. The difference between a choice and not a choice might seem trivial to you, but to men it is NOT TRIVIAL. One implies the opportunity for him to do something you will appreciate and recognize him for (positive reinforcement is a possible outcome), the other implies that if he does not perform your request, he will be less than adequate/manly/helpful/appreciated - he will be not even meeting the minimal standards, let alone getting approval. This makes for an unhappy guy, and an unhappy guy is less concerned with having a happy girl.

Here is a handy reference manual:

You say: Please take the trash out now, or we're going to miss the pickup.
He hears: You are a lazy ass (disrespectful).
His reaction: Bite me.

You say: I need you to take the trash out, now.
He hears: I command you in the name of your mother to take out the trash (emasculating).
His reaction: Bite me.

You say: Honey, could you please take the trash out for me?
He hears: I'm not sure if you're capable of taking out the trash, but I wish you would (belittling).
His reaction: Bite me.

You say: Would you take the trash out tonight?
He hears: I have the option of taking the trash out and getting approval, or not taking it out and not getting the approval (respectful).
His reaction: He takes out the trash.
You: Give him approval.

You might argue that he should know to take out the trash, that he previously promised to, that you don't trust him to do it if you give him a choice, or that there is no reason for you to give him a choice as it is his responsibility. I have two words for you. Positive. Outcome. And that positive outcome not only includes a happier you and a happier guy, it makes other conflicts easier to deal with because you haven't worn each other down over stupid shit. Ultimately, we all want to be treated with respect. It's just that we sometimes have slightly different versions of what that is, and we mistake our own particular preference for that of others. At school we've talked about the Platinum Rule, which is "do unto others as they would have done unto them." I totally concur.

How I keep myself amused:

Well, there's blogs:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/09/08/dude-3/
(I just want to point out that icanhascheezburger is generally way too cutesy-poo for me, and this comes from a cute overload addict, but this one was way too funny)

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2007/09/how-to-make-a-k.html (I'm so totally doing this to Loki)

Best of Craigslist. O. M. G. People write these random treatises to the world at large or anonymous people. There is some great stuff.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/398503026.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nsh/398608788.html

Other than that, it's the same old. Studying, job hunting, studying. Lame post, I know. More soon.

Rocks and Viruses

I've been thinking a lot about where the line is between a religion and a cult, or a philosophy and an ideology. I think it is obvious that the main differentiator is the individual - do you need your beliefs to be simple and dogmatic, or can you engage in critical discourse? Does your relationship to the world change, or is it fixed?

But what about the nature of the belief system itself? How does it deal with challenges? Both political parties in the US have changed tremendously over the past 100 years. Sometimes one or the other seemed more dogmatic and purist, but sooner or later that purism was fractured by reality and the changing demands of society. So the two party system has continued, in spite of massive changes in the values and demographics of American society. At the same time, more extreme and ideological political systems, such as Communism, have largely failed. Pure, unadulterated capitalism has also failed. I guess I should say how I define failure - I believe a system has failed when basic ethical norms are regularly violated and are not adequately punished or prohibited by the system.

Democracy (theoretically) allows for self-correction, adaptation, change, and most importantly, ongoing challenges by members of the system. Any system that prohibits these things and threatens to harm or dissociate itself with those who challenge it is what I would consider a simplistic, dogmatic system. That's when it enters the realm of cult or ideology for me. I think that the fact that the Bush administration is so far out of favor now is a testament to our system's resistance to reverting to an ideology. The tension between the parties MUST continue to exist in order for our country to continue to mature.

I think an interesting analogy (and I ripped this off from Neal Stephenson) is the idea of viruses. An organism that is going to survive for the long term is one that can sustain multiple attacks from external sources - environmental and viral. It adapts, builds antibodies, evolves. If you apply this to a social system, cults don't have much in the way of antibodies. They isolate themselves from critics, define themselves as "special" or "chosen" in some way, and those individuals involved must either turn all their energies towards accepting and supporting the beliefs of the group, or risk expulsion. I think one of the main features most conspicuously lacking in cult-like organizations is humility. From the Nazis to the Branch Davidians to Scientologists, you're not likely to see members of these groups involved in any kind of public or academic discourse on the nature of their beliefs, and I suspect this is because these systems have no immune system. Belief in a superior race or creed does not lend itself well to humble self-examination, which doesn't leave much room for testing and debate.

Compare this to Christianity or Buddhism, and you see organizations that have evolved, broken apart, re-formed, adapted, changed, and are very much a part of the intellectual and spiritual development of the human race. I am not claiming that there are no Christian or Buddhist factions or individuals that are dogmatic and ideological, but the systems themselves have proven over 2000+ years that they can withstand change and growth.

So my litmus test for an organization of any kind is, can you throw rocks at it? Can you test and question the beliefs, and do the members of the group regularly examine their own ethics and behavior based on those beliefs? If rock-throwing is taboo, then it's probably not a system I really want any part of. But if rock-throwing is encouraged, if the system does not fear viruses but welcomes adaptation and change, then it just might be worth checking out.

Kids These Days TM

Today's rant is on a phenomenon I like to refer to as Kids These Days, or KTD^TM . KTD^TM refers to the fact that most modern philosophers, thinkers, gurus, shaman, rabbis, priests, lamas, high school principals, and prophets have a tendency to state that things are worse than they've ever been, that people are more unethical, have worse values, talk to each other less, eat worse food, fornicate more, kick more puppies, and generally suck more than ever before in history. And the fun thing is at every point in history the KTD^TM phenomenon has been along for the ride.

I don't buy it. The world has changed technologically, yes. But I don't think people evolve or devolve that quickly. It takes tens of thousands of years for species to develop, and I think human history is pretty damn cyclical. So you think civilization is collapsing because there's a huge gap between the rich and poor (and this has never happened before)? French Revolution. Reign. Of. Terror. Look it up. My favorite sign of the impending apocolypse is the spawning of tons of mean-spirited reality shows about lame, stupid people. But the ancient Romans really came up with the whole bread and circuses, opiate of the masses thing.

Is technology and the infernal interweb ruining our ability to relate to each other and destroying the fabric of society? Consider what Mark Twain had to say about telecommunications in the year 1890:

"It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the admired, the despised, the loved, the hated, the civilized, the savage (every man and brother of us all throughout the whole earth), may eventually be gathered together in a heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss, except the inventor of the telephone."

Testify, M.T.

If gluttony (which we call the obesity epidemic), lust (promiscuity and the ensuing STDs), avarice (corporate greed), wrath (violent crime), pride (Paris Hilton), envy (coveting your neighbor's BMW), and sloth (damned video games) are particular problems of the twenty-first (or twentieth, or nineteenth) century, why Dante know so much about them? The Buddhist-based book I talked about recently, Healing through the Dark Emotions started to piss me off for the same reason. If people are really especially escapist and immoral and without compassion in the modern era, why did the Buddha need to spend all that time under the bodhi tree figuring out how to let go of attachment and be compassionate and teach others what he discovered?

Could it be that the human condition has always been pretty much the same? That we suffer and feel joy, we cause pain and we feel compassion, and that perhaps we could learn from our history instead of negating it by claiming that everything is new and unique?

I tell you, Kids These Days ^TM just don't know their history.

This morning's little misadventure

I was walking Loki this morning on a 2 mile loop I do, most of which is in the McMansion area which borders on the Greenbelt (a wildlife nature preserve area that loops around Austin). We were a bit more than halfway done, when I leaned back to stretch my lower back a bit, and Loki pulled the leash out of my hand. It's one of those retractable leashes, so the handle is heavy, and the sound startled him and he ran a bit. I called him back, and as he ran towards me, he realized he was being chased by a scary hissing thing (the leash handle) and TOOK OFF. He was back up at the other end of a very long street and out of sight in about thirty seconds, me screaming his name (the old one) the whole time.

I walked/ran back up the street, calling, searching, stopping people, nothing. I had to get all the way home which took a while, I called his foster mom who came out to help me search, and David who came home from work. We all agreed that he'd most likely headed into the greenbelt to hide, and were afraid he'd gotten tangled in something. I was totally freaked out, afraid he was gone for good, that he was hurt, that he'd starve...

This area is HUGE. The houses are huge, the yards are huge, and most of them back up on this big greenbelt area. There are TONS of places a very small quiet dog could hide (he's barely made a peep since we got him). We combed the streets and the greenbelt for three hours, calling and putting up posters the whole time (I'd also like to point out that it's brutally hot and humid).

By 1pm my feet were blistering and I was dehydrated, so I headed home to change shoes and drink some water before heading out again (I'd already been by the house several times in my search in case he found his way back), and guess who was on my porch? He's only been with us for two days, had never been walked in that area, and he found his way home. He promptly came up to me, laid down on his belly, and peed himself.

Needless to say, we are very happy he is home. I don't think he took city streets, judging by the amount of mud on the leash handle, but however he got here I'm glad he's back. I think he's going to keep us.

In no way related to business, leadership, or ethics

Dog!

This is Loki (nee Berkley). He's a rescue dog that I'm "testing" for the next couple days. I actually stalked him online for a few weeks about a month ago, when I was still too heartbroken to adopt, but was looking at the rescue sites. By the time I got the nerve to ask about him, he was gone. But lo and behold, he re-appeared this week, and I put an application on him.

It's been a strange thing. I'm still mourning Simon, a lot. Having a new pup around reminds me of how close we were. But I think I will sad be for a long time, new dog or no. There's no replacement for him, and it will take a long time to build a bond with a dog like I had with Simon after 10 years. He was one of a kind.

But this little dude is a total character, in a very different way. He's very timid, was probably not socialized much at all. He's pretty jumpy, but loves affection and is great on a leash. After just the afternoon he's chilled out quite a bit. David and I are enjoying him so far. He has mastered the fine art of pathetic cuteness, thus earning the nickname, His Royal Patheticness. So far he's also Bat Ears, and The Half-Blood Prince.

At first I thought about calling him Yogi, because when I was doing yoga I got into bridge pose, and he inserted himself under my lower back, like a yoga prop.

Noise wise, he hasn't made a peep so far. I'll be posting regular updates for all the crazy dog people (you know who you are).

I'm not settled on the name yet, so if you have suggestions feel free to let me know.

Heroic Harry

David and I read the last Harry Potter book on Saturday. I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan. I've always loved fantasy and sci fi, and the HP books are up there for me with Lord of the Rings, the Oz books, and more recently the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman.

There's been lots of yammering lately about the quality of Rowling's prose, but I'm going to sit that one out. I really enjoy the books, and I love the cleverness and imagination in them. But I read something really silly today in the Wall Street Journal.

The reviewer points out that the final book solidifies Rowling's intentions to create a Christian allegory, much in the spirit of Tolkien and Lewis. Okay. Rewind. Tolkien - not a Christian allegory. Big, epic hero story, with roots in a whole bunch of different traditions. The dude created an entire genesis and mythology and multiple languages. He created actual languages. His work transcends one particular religion. Lewis, on the other hand, big Christian allegory. And, might I add, fairly one dimensional. I find his stories to be simplistic (and sometimes quite bigoted - see the later books in the Narnia series) morality plays. For a far more sophisticated Christian allegory, check out the Ender stories by Orson Scott Card. Again, it's the hero story, but from a Christian perspective.

So let's take a quick look at the themes underlying HP (avoid this if you haven't read the last book yet and don't want spoilers). Harry is raised in physical and spiritual poverty, discovers secrets of his birth, goes on a long, difficult journey where he faces many tasks, is guided by a wise man who subsequently dies, faces loss, doubt and disillusionment, sacrifices himself, visits the underworld/afterlife, returns, and defeats the current embodiment of evil. This is not a uniquely Christian allegory. This is the hero's story, which has been told since the dawn of man, and exists in every culture in some form, and in every era. Parsifal, Jesus, the Buddha, Luke Skywalker, Dorothy... this is the monomyth. News flash - the redemptive power of love and forgiveness is a universal concept that is not tethered to one religion, race, or culture. Sheesh.

/end rant

I really enjoyed the last book, and the series as a whole. I'm looking forward to seeing what Rowling dreams up next. In the mean time, let me know if you've read any good books lately!

Ruminations on systems

One of the terms that's been thrown around quite a bit in the MSOLE program is "systems theory." It took a while to get my brain around this concept, but now that I have, I can see why my professors bring it up all the time.

Systems theory basically states that most things exist as part of a system, and are often a system themselves. So a human body is a system, made up of organs and other stuff. Organs are systems made up of cells, which are systems made of molecules, and so on. A thing is a system if it's components are varied and work together in some way to create the thing. This is a crappy explanation, but think of it this way; a plant is a system - lots of different types of things make it up - cellulose, chloroplasts, water. If you hack off the roots, it may die, and no longer be a living plant. A rock is not a system. It may have several components at the molecular level, but they're not interrelated. If you hack a piece off of it, it's still a rock.

Systems that are self-correcting - those that need to maintain some kind of equilibrium to survive are called negative-loop systems. Systems that grow or shrink are called positive-loop systems. So our bodies are negative-loop systems; when we get to hot, we sweat to cool down, and when we get too cold we shiver to warm up. The survival of the system depends on equilibrium. But a cancer is a positive-loop system; if allowed to grow unhindered, it can disrupt the body's negative-loop system.

Take this to a sociological level, and you have systems like families, cultures, countries, and so forth. Systems theory, as it applies to business and leadership, is really useful for taking a wider view of things like corporate change efforts, government regulation, and culture.

My current class is on business ethics. There's lots of interesting debate on the dichotomy of capitalism, the publicly-held business model, and ethics. If publicly held corporations exist in order to provide value to shareholders, and everything else serves that goal, there's a lot of gray area when it comes to what is acceptable and what is not. I'm doing some research right now on the difference between personal and professional ethics, and it seems like personal ethics are often more Kantian (absolute) in nature, where traditionally business ethics are more utilitarian. So the big question becomes, who gets the utility? If it's the stockholders only, then other people (employees, community members, etc) pretty much get the shaft. This seems like a very linear way of looking at ethics and responsibility. Put your stakeholders in order of importance, and make decisions accordingly.

Proponents of newer models of global business ethics obviously think otherwise. There are lots of models out there for how to convince a corporation to give equal weight to other people who are affected by these decisions, like consumers (who may not want to pay for shoddy products), community members (who might not be happy about excess toxic waste), or employees (who may not feel so good about layoffs or restructuring). But most of the stuff I've read for this particular class so far goes at it from a linear standpoint, and I don't think it's a linear problem. I think it's a systems problem. Screw with your customers to drive up profits at the end of the quarter, and you may be facing lawsuits the next quarter. This is because you're messing with the system, which consists of everyone affected by your business. Cut employees to reduce costs, and you end up with low morale, high attrition, and reduced efficiency. It might not bite you this quarter, but it will within a year or so. Again, look at the system as a whole. These decisions may not negatively impact profit to shareholders first, but it will effect them within one or two business cycles.

Ultimately, I think systems thinking forces us to take a longer term look at the consequences of our actions. If Krispy Kreme had thought about the potential longer-term problems that might ensue from cooking their books by over shipping to vendors right before the end of the quarter (and then picking up the excess donuts after), it seems like they might have changed their practices a bit. A 75% drop in stock price since 2003 might not seem like an acceptable loss, in hindsight.

I think infusing more systems theory into the field of corporate ethics could be really useful. It's still pretty utilitarian - the greatest good to the greatest number - but because you have to see the issue from a more birds-eye standpoint to understand the systemic effect of decisions, those decisions are less likely to be harmful in the long run.

On a lighter note

I have perfected the art of light stuffed French toast, and I now share it with the world. (or the three people who read my blog) I give you:

Blueberry Stuffed French Toast

1. 8 slices brioche or challa type bread (if you can get the Apricot White Chocolate bread from Central Market, it's amazing)
2. 3/4 C egg beaters
3. 1/2 C 2% milk
4. 2 t maple syrup
5. dash cinnamon
6. 4 oz. Neufchatel
7. 1/4 C part skim ricotta
8. 1 bottle DanActive vanilla
9. 1 tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 tsp honey
11. 1 C fresh blueberries
12. cooking spray
13. Turbinado sugar
    

Preheat oven to 350. Generously coat 8/8 glass pan with cooking spray. Combine ingredients 2-5 in a shallow dish, whisk to combine. Combine ingredients 6-10 in a blender, pulse until smooth.

Toast bread to remove extra moisture, allow to cool, and then soak in egg mixture until soft and saturated. Layer the first 4 slices on the bottom of the pan. Layer blueberries on top, and then pour the cream cheese mixture over it evenly. Top with the remaining 4 slices of egg-soaked bread. Sprinkle top with Turbinado sugar. Bake approx. 40 minutes, or until top is browned and the cream mixture has turned purple and set up a bit.

Simon

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I lost my beloved little dog Simon a week ago last Saturday. He was eleven and a half years old, as far as I know, and he was a corgi-american esquimo mix, as far as I know. I adopted him when he was about a year and a half in April of 1997, so we spent a little more than ten years together. He was my constant companion, through road trips to California, to life-changing cross-country moves, unemployment, over-employment, bad boyfriends, good boyfriends, Simon was always with me.

He was a funny little dog, my brother still refers to him as the gerbil. He was one of those dogs whose behaviors are more "foxy" or even cat-like. He was affectionate and sweet, but very self-contained. If was in trouble he wouldn't slink or show submission, he'd just kind of eyeball me. As soon as I broke eye contact, he'd be right back to jumping around in circles. I though I'd mastered the art of repressing, but Simon had it all over me. Simon was a really good dog though, so there wasn't much cause for yelling. Other than occasional trashcan dumping or kleenex chewing, he was amazingly low maintenance. But he was really good company.

I always had a clear impression that Simon thought he was much larger, and much more butch and masculine dog than the reality (a precious little fluffy girl dog). He loved to romp with big dogs, and despised being picked up. He enjoyed a good cat-barking-at, although he did get his ass seriously kicked by one once. After that, he kept his distance for the barking. Once, we were coming up the stairs in my apartment building, and there was a cat lurking on the other side of the rail. Simon darted around to chase it, but when it didn't retreat, he came back around to the other side of the rail and barked at it through the bars. That was my Simon.

We spent our first summer together at my parents house while my boyfriend at the time was away on an internship. My parents had just gotten Amber, a sumo-big golden retriever puppy. While she lumbered around, Simon would dart in and out, baring his teeth and sneezing ferociously. Yes, sneezing. It was one of those things. Amber would generally respond by drooling all over him, leading to Shaun's next nickname for him, "Slime-on".

I have hundreds of stories, all of which are utterly entertaining and riveting to me, and maybe a select few other insane dog people. But here's the gist. Simon was a light in my life when everything else was dark, or worse, when it was utterly cold and gray. And he was there with me sharing my joy when I was happy and content. He never ran out of love, or silliness, or affection. I wish I had given him a fraction of what he gave me, and I would do anything to have back all the moments when I took him for granted.

I think one of the great tragedies of death is the surplus of love we're left with. When you really love someone, it doesn't matter that they're not there anymore to receive it. So I'm left with all this unspent love for my little companion, and it just aches. Beyond the shock of losing him so quickly, beyond the daily pain of having to re-learn how sit at my computer without him pressed against my leg, or lie in shavasana after yoga without him lying next to me licking my arm, or putting on my tennis shoes without him going apeshit because it means there's a remote possibility that he's getting a walk, there's just this irrational, impossible desire to have him back long enough to give him some of the vast amounts of love that will forever remain unspent.

Be at peace, petite chien. You are loved.

Machiavelli and Ethics

When someone calls an action "Machiavellian" it tends to imply that person acting is doing so entirely out of a desire to acquire and retain power, without any regard to ethics. The thing I've always found so interesting about most unethical behavior - political, financial, social - is that in the best of situations, it's generally a wash. That peon you're screwing over to win favor with your boss - she might be your boss in five years. Not too bright, Machiavelli. That social program you're shutting down? It might be saving your budget this year, but the problems it causes are going to cost taxpayers much more than what you're saving. That river you're polluting to save yourself the cost of upgrading your plant? You're going to have to pay the piper eventually, whether it's when legislation catches up and you have to pay to clean it up, or you get your ass sued off for giving a bunch of people leukemia. Somehow, I don't think that Machiavelli was such a short-term thinker. A fast power grab today is not a good idea if it permanently tarnishes your reputation in the future. I think you can be a heartless bastard and still understand this fact.

I think the orientation towards long-term thinking is the rational side of ethics. We've so divorced ourselves from the "softer" side of our humanity in regards to work, that it's sometimes difficult to argue for ethical, respectful behavior. There seems to be a gulf between what is "professional" and what is "ethical", and I've spent a lot of time over the last two years contemplating why this may be. I have some theories, but they're not ready for prime time.

What I do know is that I can make a damn fine argument for behaving ethically to the most self-interested person on the planet. The thing is, I'm a fairly big fan of the free-market economy, in theory. But that economy is currently so short-term focused, that ethical atrocities seem to be taking place unchecked. If we could all pull our heads out of our collective asses and look down the line a few years, we might come to understand that instant karma may not get you instantly, but it is going to get you eventually. So the next time you humiliate an employee just because you can, or you vote against a needed social program because you don't want to pay $200 more in taxes per year, think about the potential long-term cost of those actions. Machiavelli would be proud.

Brief Update

The last couple of weeks have been pretty intense, so most of my philosophizing has been going on off line. In short, my dog Simon passed away last weekend, and I quit my job this week. Both rather life-changing events. One necessitates much weeping, the other much scouring of on and off line publications for gainful employment.

I don't have the heart or strength yet to write a fitting tribute to my little dog. He was an awesome dog, I miss him all the time, and I'll leave it at that for now. Peace.

s'more thoughts

I've been reading a book called Healing Through the Dark Emotions, by Miriam Greenspan. It's pretty cool, because it validates a lot of my own synthesis of the things I've learned from experience and study. Humans, especially modern American humans, have a tendency to run away from emotional pain. Back in the day, when our culture was less secular, we rationalized pain by saying that God was punishing us for our sins. Nowadays, we pathologize it and claim that not only are we suffering because we've done something wrong (not eaten right, not exercised enough, not prayed to the right God), but that suffering itself is dangerous to our health and should be eradicated. Newsflash, people, suffering is unavoidable. Also, life is terminal. Not happy facts, but facts nonetheless.

Greenspan (and the Buddah) believe that accepting suffering is the path to greater awareness, and a more fulfilling, awake, meaningful life. Greenspan thinks we're medicating ourselves into numbness and through avoiding our own pain, we blind ourselves to that of others resulting in things like emotional and physical violence.

I tend to concur. When I'm feeling scared or upset, I want to fix or eradicate it somehow. I often blame myself for suffering and try to find some way I caused it. This means that I've absorbed the idea that I can somehow prevent myself from suffering (that there was something I should have done differently), and I hurt because I've made a mistake. This seems pretty pointless, as a good portion of the time we don't cause our own suffering. Lots and lots of things that cause us to suffer that are unavoidable. I think that the idea of personal responsibility and personal power is great for helping you focus on your goals, but it's fairly shit for dealing with suffering. Suffering is a fact, and it doesn't matter if you brought it on yourself, your neighbor brought it on you, or it was an earthquake. All suffering deserves compassion, and I think that at least some of the people who espouse personal responsibility in this way (Stephen Covey, I'm talking to you) do so to not only avoid their own pain, but to inure themselves from the pain of others.

It's not that we shouldn't reflect and learn from our mistakes. I just think that in the moment that we experience emotional pain who or what is to blame is not so relevant, and the search for the source is a way we avoid the experience. After the storm has passed, reflection is a good idea and helps give meaning to our suffering and allows us to feel compassion for others. But in that moment, I think the best thing to do is actually check out that storm - is it rainy with sorrow, or full of jarring, bright, scary lightening? Not all pain feels the same, I feel fear in my stomach sometimes, and grief more in my back. Greenspan talks about the value of checking in with the body when we feel emotional pain and letting ourselves experience it rather than fight it. It's tricky, but when I have managed to do so, I've generally come out the other end a little wiser and much calmer.

While this may seem a bit of a jump, I think the topic actually relates closely to leadership and ethics. Leaders have responsibility to those who follow them, whether it's a transactional relationship (like a job), or a transformational relationship (like a priest or teacher). If a leader has no relationship to their own suffering, then the organization they lead can become a reflection of that inner disconnect.

In modern companies, fear is often viewed as an undiscussable and taboo emotion. To show fear is to admit weakness, and in our patriarchal organizations weakness is not tolerated. So the leader who not only hides their fear from others, but also from themselves, has no little incentive to experience compassion for the followers who feel fear, trepidation, or insecurity when facing a challenge. A culture then emerges where fear is banished from what is espoused, creating a powerful undertow that erodes at the morale, relatedness, and development of employees, and damages the organization as a whole. I believe that in this way unsurfaced and undiscussable emotions create entropy that organizations have tremendous difficulty diagnosing, let alone overcoming.

Thougths on personal ethical responsibility

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side." - Gandhi

This encapsulates for me the issues I've struggled with in Buddhism. Gandhi, a Hindu, points out that the teachings of one religious leader or another never, ever, trump morality. If you behave in a way that is immoral (or unethical) you are acting against the will of your spiritual practice - REGARDLESS of what your pastor, priest, rabbi, or guru says.

I had a personal falling out with Shambala after I read some of the details of the founder's behavior. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche did some seriously unethical things in his life. He was promiscuous with his followers, he was known for being verbally abusive, was a raging drunk, and he even encouraged and condoned the promiscuity of his HIV-positive successor, resulting in several people becoming infected. Rinpoche did some amazing things in his life, too, and a lot of his teachings are really wonderful. Now, if you follow Buddhist teaching, everyone is allowed to be a fuck-up. Fucking up is part of what it means to be human. But in my estimation, he took this a step further, and found a way to conveniently sanctify his screw ups. He claimed that a guru could behave in an irrational, abusive, and destructive manner towards his student, if he felt that the student needed that experience to progress in his or her personal growth. He called this "crazy wisdom." Uh-huh.

Let's review Gandhi's quote again, shall we?

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side."

So do non-theistic Buddhists have a loophole because they have no God to answer to? As a non-theist, I'm going to answer with a resounding "no." If anything, we non-theists should understand with perfect clarity how important it is to strive to be ethical and compassionate in our lives, since we don't have a strong belief in a post-mortality cosmic spanking or reward. What you do on earth matters, because as far as we know, it's all we have. If you're unkind, cruel, or abusive towards another person, no matter how "enlightened" you are, I don't believe that it's justifiable. I'm not saying that you can be a teacher and never hurt someone's feelings. We're not talking about being truthful, we're talking about being deliberately hurtful.

Since the Buddah said that the first noble truth of life is suffering, I believe that life presents us enough opportunities to suffer and then grow, without some crazy-ass guru screwing with us. Call me crazy. Just don't call me crazy-wise.

There are countless examples throughout human history of a movement, religion, or organization deciding at some point that it supersedes the boundaries of morality. We all know, in retrospect anyway, that the Spanish Inquisition, the concentration camps, and 80's hairstyles were all fundamentally wrong (okay maybe not the last one, but you know what I mean).

I had a point here. What was it? Oh, right. No matter what you believe, you don't get a golden ticket that says you can turn your ethical decision making process over to someone else. And even if you think you do, you don't. Whether you have to answer to a God at the end of your life, or just your own conscience, your actions are your own.

Wherin the old and the new intersect

I've been thinking a lot lately about my previous life as an opera singer, and trying to figure out how all that history integrates with the path I'm on now. For a while I've been feeling as if the "new" career is totally independent of the old one, and nothing that I learned in the music world applies to what I do now.

But really, that's not true. I've been part of many different types of organizations. Musical theater productions, operas, conservatory, orchestras, agencies, start-ups, corporations, and now grad school. Each shared some characteristics with some of the others. What I find especially interesting about reflecting on some of those less corporate environments is this: in some ways, they were the most functional and effective teams I've ever worked on. Now don't get me wrong. Performers, directors, conductors, the whole lot of them are notoriously narcissistic nutbags. There are very few exceptions. Impulse control, self-reflection, and other emotionally intelligent traits are not much in evidence. Verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and other misbehavior abounds. But somehow, maybe due to the nature of the endeavor, the show goes on. And it usually goes on alarmingly well. Everyone remembers their lines, makes their entrances, gets the lighting cues right, plays the right notes. When someone flubs, everyone helps to get the ball rolling again. The most assinine, self-centered conductor will help a singer out of a jam - mouthing the words or catching up if they rush. Sopranos who are snitty, petty competitors off the stage work beautifully together during a duet.

So what is the source of all this heroism? How do people who are generally less mature and self-realized somehow transcend the ethical and interpersonal quagmire that is corporate existence? Well, they don't, exactly. Misconduct is pretty common, but the funny thing is it rarely jeopardizes the final product. I think that something about the nature of the organization pre-disposes it to function properly and well, despite all the machinations of the individuals.

Conversely, lots of corporations are filled with people with good intentions, much clearer ethical rules, and subject to far more public and legal scrutiny. And yet, huge ethical lapses are becoming more and more obvious. If you've heard me talk about this before, you know the saw. The structure of the publicly held corporation - the fact that shareholders are not ethically or legally responsible for the actions of the employees - seems to predispose it to violating established ethical and legal norms.

I think this provides a pretty good argument for the foundation of our thesis. The organization has it's own personality, tendencies, and pre-dispositions that are a complicated blend of the collective culture, the values and goals of the founders and execs, and the market pressures. So much of the literature we've read for this program talks about personal responsibility. "Be the change you want to see in the world." Covey, Titchy, many of the others say that if you don't change it yourself, quit your bitching. But there are much stronger forces at play, and while I'm all in favor of setting a good example, there's another saying I tend to believe more: "Culture eats change for breakfast." And I'd like to add to this to the mix: the personality of the organization far supersedes the personalities of the individuals. And the legalistic or even conventional structure of the organization has a huge effect on that personality. Perhaps even an insurmountable effect.

Another thing that occurs to me is that concept of heroism. To be heroic (or to fit the hero archetype) one has to have something at stake - risk of loss, and some kind of transformational process. So a lot of the literature on teams and heroism often have a foundation or at the least a lot of case studies on the military. But in the military, there's a very immediate danger of death or dismemberment. So people have a lot to lose if they don't work together effectively, and the consequences of poor leadership and poor teamwork are dire.

While performing is not life-threatening, it can feel that way. Anyone who's ever had stage fright can attest that your body does not know the difference between that fear and a tiger running towards you. Your brain may say, "no reason to be afraid, just singing for some industry big shots." but your body says, "Tiger!" So again, the stakes are high, immediate, and the consequences of screwing up are psychological death and dismemberment of not only yourself, but your peers (and probably your reputation and career).

In the corporate world, obviously some survival instinct also comes into play, but not with the immediacy of a more time-restricted scenario like a battle or a performance. Maybe that's why dysfunction can creep in unnoticed, fester and grow, and then surprise the shit out of everyone when suddenly they realize that, oh, growth is at -30% and the CEO has been diverting money into his Swiss bank account. I also have a really hard time buying the CEO as Hero myth. No babies are being rescued from burning buildings, and the idea of a CEO making a major sacrifice for someone else (what with those compensation packages) is pretty laughable. So for me, that idea just does not resonate. Maybe we need to look at organizations through a different lens, and stop trying to find our heroes in those with positional power. Maybe the organization will be heroic when it re-defines itself into something more ethical, responsible, and connected to all the people that comprise it.

Just a thought.

The Further Adventures of Literal Man vs. Symbolic Girl

So I asked David, as per usual, if he would call me tonight when he got to his hotel (he's fishing with his dad and brothers), to which he replied, as per usual, "I'll think about it." Or it might have been, "I'll try," which is also interchangeable with "I'll do my best." That's about when my head began spinning around and I started speaking in tongues. Let's look at a translation, shall we?
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My perspective:
Symbolic Girl says: "I would really like it if you would call me tonight."
Translation: "Call me or I'll start to worry you ran off with the stripper you met at a roadside diner right before your car flipped over and you woke up with amnesia in a hospital in Bermuda."

Literal Man says: "I'll think about it."
Symbolic Girl hears: "I will call if I feel like it, but I really don't want to and you can't push me around, nyhaaa."

His perspective:
Symbolic Girl says: "I would really like it if you would call me tonight."
Translation: "I would really like it if you would call me tonight."

Literal Man says: "I'll think about it."
Translation: "I will call barring unforeseen events that might prohibit me from calling, but I won't say "yes, I'll call you" because that would mean that if said unforeseen events were to occur I would have to bend space and time in order to call and that might not be possible. Hence; maybe."
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So you see the dilemma: Literal Man hears Symbolic Girl's question literally and gives her an answer that is scientifically and statistically accurate. But Symbolic Girl hears this answer and tries to interpret what it says about Literal Man's feelings towards said request (and herself), taking into account his word choice, tone of voice, body language, time of day, and wardrobe.

Recommendations:
Symbolic Girl: Ask all questions in the form of yes/no or multiple choice. Be specific. Leave as little room for (your own) interpretation as possible.
Literal Man: Keep in mind that when Symbolic Girl asks you amost any question, be it "Would you call me tonight?" or "How does this shirt look?" or "What time is it?" or "Do you enjoy knitting?" she is usually actually asking "Am I important to you?" Answer accordingly.

General update and further thoughts

General update:
I have a total of 28 weeks of class left before I (theoretically) graduate. How I do thesis research and coursework at the same time is a bit of a puzzle. I'm unrealistically proud of my 4.0 average, but prioritization may come into play during my last two classes and necessitate a B. Which is really counter to my uber-perfectionist-secretly-afraid-I'm-really-a-slacker personality. Hopefully I can pull it all off and also not drive David completely insane. Come December, I will have three, count them, three degrees to my name. Woo! Anyone know where I can get a business ethics related PhD? I keed, I keed. I think.

Further thoughts on the nature of leadership, ethics, and organizational culture:
Most organizations really don't know what they're doing. The things that the founders/leaders are comfortable with or uncomfortable with become conventions, and then they become unsurfaced cultural artifacts - rules of conduct that we generally pick up intuitively and then promptly forget. The problem is most people don't give a lot of thought to the fact that when they form an organization they're creating a mini-society in their own image. And all of our personalities are limited and flawed. So unless our founders and leaders are introspective enough to recognize this fact, some really strange, counterintuitive, and bizarre behaviors can become codified.

I recently finished what I hope proves to be my FINAL paper on my Former Place of Employment, and the most interesting thing I learned was how a really self-referential, self-reinforcing culture can blind people to physical, obvious truths. It's not just about how the culture effects the way you see things, it's about whether or not the cultural constraints allow you to see it at all. And in the case of my former place of work, the espoused (projected) internal culture was so strong, and so embedded, that as long as you can speak the jargon, wear the tee-shirt, and shake the super secret handshake, you can get away with pretty much anything. As you might imagine, this leaves room for some teensy little ethical problems. It means that crafty and unscrupulous people figure out how to work the system, and work it they do. Meanwhile the execs continue to comment on the openness and beauty that is their organization, even when evidence to the contrary has been formally presented to them by people they pay to do just that.

What is it in our makeup that allows us to put our faith in human systems that are by their nature flawed? Seriously. We're human, we're flawed. But we're always holding out for that nirvana-like place where we no longer have to think critically, question, or suspend judgment either way. I'm highly inquisitive by nature, but I do it, too. What gives?

Anyway, those are my Deep Thoughts of the Day. Enjoy.