Being myself...being with people who are themselves...and being better people, together...
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: I heart Huckabees...
Topic: people
I've been in kind of funk, today...just thinking about the times in my life when I've been a real shithead...of which there has been plenty...

You know what kind of life I want...as much as possible...

I want a life...

Where I can be myself...

And where others can be themselves...

Shitheadedness and all...

Not to rationalize or excuse the shitheadedness...

To face it honestly...

But where I can be with people as I am...and as they are...and not as we wish that we were...which just seems kind of a waste of a life, really...

Since it's bullshit...

I want everyone around me...

To feel at ease...

About their racism...their homophobia...their sexism...their immorality...they're drug use...they're violence...they're greed...their laziness...their self-centeredness...they're sectarianism...they're hate for foreigners or Republicans or Jews or whatever...and to face up to their bullshit...and then just love and accept themselves and each other for it...

To just be themselves...and face up to their lesser selves...they're baser qualities...

And to just feel accepted for them...and to accept themselves for them...and...ideally...to accept me for them, as well...

To me, that's what real love is...everything else is bullshit...

And I'd like to meet a woman...someone who does that better, as well...someone who loves others and herself, for real...someone who can love people even for all of their bullshit...without making excuses for it...but without wanting to control them or hurt them, necessarily...we all want to control or hurt people, of course...but someone who wants to avoid doing either, as much as possible...

I'm tired of fake overwhelming genuine...and cyncism overwhelming idealism...

I want someone in my life who takes being genuine and being idealistic and being a sweet and vulnerable and being decent to others seriously...

And someone who has a sense of humor...a sense of proportion and perspective about life...a sense of what matters and what doesn't...

And a vision of life not based on spite or control or vegeance or superficiality or money or whatever stupid fuckin' things people base their lives on...

I want someone who I instantly know is an amazing person...because she makes me want to be a better person in her presence...

It's been a long time since I've met a person like that, nevertheless a woman...

Maybe that's what I'm missing...

Meeting people who inspire me, again...

Because anyone who wants to control me...

Does not inspire me...

And anyone who wants to control you...

Is not really a friend...

Or anyone who really cares about you, at all...not really...

They're your jailor...not someone who loves you...

And I'm just not interested in living my life with someone who wants to control me...

I want someone who can love me...and continue to grow...and give me space to grow...and to not believe in some mythical time or place when they are done growing...and impede everyone else around them, as a consequence...

People who want to control me...or who rationalize a right to control me...will lose my company, soon enough...

I just don't have any use for it...or for them...as long as trying to control me is the way they relate with me...

How hard is that?...to not want someone to control you?...to just want someone to love you...and to trust you...and to trust that when you fuck up...absent all kinds of foolish efforts to scare and pressure you...that you'll take responsibility for your bullshit...

Someone who lives with a sense of purpose...without having to control people...and specifically...to control me...

I'm not Bill Clinton...I won't settle for Hillary Clinton...

I want someone whose heart I can trust...which is very rare, these days...

I do have to say that despite what shitheads adults can be on this count...that the next generation, in my school, at least, looks like they do a better job of this...no surprise, of course...and a reason to hope...

But there's got to be at least one woman from this generation who I can trust and who challenges me and supports me in a way that facilitates growth for me, in this regard...

Because if there's not...

I don't see much use in working on behalf of any cause...

None of them really inspire me all that much...without the opportunity to think freely about them...and choose them freely...and to not have people trying to force my hand, all of the time...

No friend who does that is much of a friend, at all, as far as I'm concerned...no family member really loves me who is looking to control me...

And I don't need anyone's love...which is conditioned...on the right to control me...

And as painful as it is to live without some people in my life...

I'd rather live without them...

Than live with the lie...that it is okay...or constructive...or good...to control me...or anyone, for that matter...

People can be good...and still live with the ugliness and bitterness in their hearts...that leads them to want to control others...

But being good also means facing that ugliness and bitterness...

Contemporary entertainment...movies...music...theater...

It's penchant for darkness...it's tendency towards ugliness...so much of the cynicism and unoriginality...

Reflects our own ugliness...and bitterness...and darkness...

We should definitely embrace it about ourselves, I think...

But without facing it...

Our culture stays mired our own desire to escape from ourselves...who we really are...our real lives...fantasizing of a life where pain is avoidable...

And leaves us the shitheads that we become...when we refuse to take responsibility...for our shitheadedness...

Personally...I'd rather live with the hope...that people can and will transcend this less honest...less mature way of avoiding the tough work around being good and decent people...rather than faking it...to avoid all of the pain...

Than live with the dishonest reality...that we are all really doing our best to be better people...to be the best people that we can be...to be decent to ourselves and one another...

When we spend so much time trying to avoid what nasty, bitter, ugly people we can be...

It is our only hope, really...

And I'd rather live with the hope...

Than the ugly reality...like it's better than it really is...

How petty and immature and small most people can be...

And I'd like just one woman whose view of the world is bigger than all of that...

George Orwell's 1984 features Winston Smith...a man disillussioned by the totalitarian world of Big Brother...who seeks love...to try to find some hope...amidst the bleak realities...of total control over his life...

What we need is not some middle ground between totalitarianism and freedom...between total control and love...

What we need...is more freedom...and love...generally gentle and decent guidance and engagement...and sometimes a stronger hand, when nothing else seems possible, and when a stronger hand will help and not make things worse...but always realistic and thoughtful and loving...

Not some pale imitation based on some artificial middle ground...between totalitarianism...and freedom...

We need a world...where people live out of their consciences...and where we are more readily and often and seemlessly engaging each other...and living out of more independent...and more genuinely interdependent consciences...

And I'd rather hope for that world...

Than live with this one...pretending that it is the best that the world has to offer...

How anyone could look at this world and think that it is the best that people have to offer...or presume, arrogantly, that we will ever pass the laws and make the rules and pressure for change and force a world that will be the best that we have to offer...

Is well beyond me...it is hubris in the extreme...it is what the Greeks warned us all against most, in all of their philosophy and literature...

And now I know why it was the most serious of human errors that the Greeks wrote about...

As someone who has been guilty of it, more than once, myself...

If humanity is unredeemable...it is our own damn fault...because it is our responsibility...to redeem ourselves and one another...

And if we can't do that...then our hopelessness is not the result of something beyond us...

It is the result of our own goddamn cowardice...

And then there really is no really good reason to save or redeem or protect or defend us, anyway...

Because we haven't earned defense or redemption...

And then it really doesn't matter...

Any of it...

Either we find the courage...to be better people...

Or there's no reason to debate it, at all...

Because none of it really matters anyway...

And none of us matter, either...

Being better means freely facing our ourselves...our strengths...our flaws...our talents...our weaknesses...

And we do that best...

Without pressure...without force...without vengeance...without hate...

We do it best with love...and with honesty...and with a commitment to freely giving up our worst behavior...to be our best selves...

Everything else is us giving up...

And while quitting is not unredeemable...

It's not a virtue, either...

And certainly shouldn't be held up as the standard for goodness...when it is clearly cowardice in disguise...

And I just have no time for cowardice...

And I would like to meet one girl who is similarly unwilling...to accept that kind of cowardice in herself...

Today I'm facing my own cowardice...

In hopes of meeting a woman who similarly aspires to be a similarly worthy and decent human being...

I don't understand how so many people can live the lie about themselves...and pretend that it is the truth...

But I know one thing is for goddamned sure...

I'm not fooled...

And I'll stand for a higher, more honest, more decent standard...as long as people stand for a lower standard for themselves and for others...

It makes me so sad that people would settle for so much less for themselves...

And I'll hold them to a higher, more honest standard...

Until they can do it better for themselves...

We've got a movie we're in the middle of...A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou...I guess I'll get back to the movie and do some cleaning...

And wonder about how long we can lie to ourselves and each other with impunity...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

For the most part...we're all in this boat, together...
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Elizabethtown...written and directed by Cameron Crowe...
Topic: people
I was just telling Melissa...about my fundamental issue with politics...and all of the most serious problems among people today...

Which is...

That we are constantly fighting...and engaged in power battles...and arguing...and identifying...

With one group against another...with one ideology against another...with one political party against another...with one kind of people against another...

Now...there are clearly times when we have to act when people are acting destructively towards us or people we love...or people we care about...or people we identify with or ally with...and, sometimes...given trust in the relationship...when they are acting destructively towards themselves...

And the terrible and needless tragedy to the whole thing...

Is that better ideas...stronger thought...about how to deal with the problems that face us...

Not only transcends ideology...or groups...or parties...or personalities...or whatever...

But that the largest picture...

Is that policy...ideas...politics...conflict...whatever...

Is supposed to look out for all of us...for all of our interests...

Each of us...

And all of us...

As much as possible...

It would serve all of us, better...

If we thought of each of us...like family...

And by family...I mean a strong family...

Where everyone really does look after everyone else...

Or, at least, that is the standard that they aspire for...and are held to...

Jay P. Greene is a Harvard education policy thinker who just came out with a really exciting book about vouchers and public school reform that I was perusing, today...

But the one thing that struck me while I was reading it...was...

That what has always bothered me aboout education policy debates...

Is that...sometimes...it's as if...some people argue about education policy...like we're arguing for some kids' success...and not others'...like some kids' success...has to come at the expense of others'...

Rather than all kids' success...being something that we're concerned about...and that we hold ourselves to the highest expecations around...and that we all root for...no matter where they go to school...no matter it gets paid for...no matter what stronger or weaker choices that adults make in supporting the success of all students...

And that's the same I feel about all people...

That policy...that our discussions about people...

Need to be looking out for the interests of all people...all the time...as much as possible...

Sometimes those interests come at odds...and we need to sort through that fairly and with integrity to all the people involved...

But...generally...they don't come at odds...generally...supporting each person...means supporting all people, better...

And all policy discussions...and life discussions...need to happen in that larger context...with that larger purpose...with that larger idea in mind...

It's one of the things I love about this movie...

That sense of love...that sense of family...where...despite all our quarrels...

We're looking out for one another...

For real...

Not fake...

And when we're not...

That we feel and hold one another to a sense of accountability to that ideal...

That falling short is not an excuse to give up on the ideal...

It is recognized honestly...to hold each other and our ourselves accountable...to live up to that ideal...

And the fundamental ideal...for each of us...

Is that we do good in this world...out of a sense of free will...out of a freely developed and freely chosen conscience...

Not because we're scared of one another...and not because we're scared about what others might think about us...

But for real...

And that we cut through the bullshit...through the denial...around how not living up to that ideal means that won't get there...no matter how much we try to, futily, force our way...ultimately...to nowhere...

Without our consciences...without our higher and highest selves...guiding us..

There is no way...

And coming to terms with that...

Is the only way...

To get where we want to go...

Everything else...

Is illusion...

And self-delusion...

And deception...

And self-deception...

It is...

Denial...

And there is no way out of it...

Until we face it, honestly...

For the most part...

And as much as possible...

We're all in this boat together...

And there is no way out of that one...

No matter how much we ignore it...

No way...

Obviously Osama Bin Laden has to be captured...or die in the process of capturing him, if he threatens those trying to capture him...

And obviously we need to use good judgment about who we can trust more and who can trust less...

And that judgment will always be subject to thought and experience...

But...for the most part...

We are all in this boat, together...

And it will be a much smoother and more productive and smarter ride...

If we all learn to have discussions about the voyage...

With everyone in mind...

And not just the groups we try to hide within...

Scared of some or another group of people...

That's what Martin Luther King taught...what Ghandi taught...what Jesus taught...what the Buddha taught...what the enlightenment thinkers taught...what America's Founding Fathers taught...

James Madison's famous Federalist Paper #10 is dedicated to this theme...the theme of factions...

Madison is talking about how factions manipulate government for their own purposes...

But the general idea...is that there are many among us...

And the truth is...that...it is often...

Us...

All of us...

Who divide ourselves in different groups...

Losing track of the bigger goal...

Which is a world that looks after all of us...

For the most part...

One big loving family...

Are there members of the family who fall far below the standards of decency and humanity and respect for differences of thought and conviction and all of the values that we take for granted?...

Definitely...

The people who killed their fellow Muslims over this whole cartoon nonsense in Denmark and France...

Definitely fall far below the mark of basic expectations of humanity...

Hamas...rationalizing terrorism...to get a better land deal from Israel...

Obviously fall far below the mark of basic expectations of humanity...

But...generally...

We are all in this big ass boat together...

Looking after one another (or at least we should be)...

Working to lift each and all of us up...

Rather than giving into our worse instincts...

And lifting ourselves and others up...

Means embracing those worse instincts...

And then heading to higher ground...

We all gots 'em...

To we might as well ante up...

Embrace them...

And head to higher ground...

Together...as much as possible...

And always working to reach back...

And lift others up with us...as we head to the highest ground:):):)...

If you haven't seen Elizabethtown, yet...I definitely recommend it...

A pretty remarkable love story...and story of family...

Have a good week, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben