Those may be true considerations, but they do not detract from the importance of this moment: a sitting president has declared unequivocally his support for civil marriage equality. He has stopped the establishment liberals’ skirting around the issue, instead drawing a line in the sand: he will not be on the defensive any more when conservatives use this social issue to distract voters from the more material concerns of the economy and social services. This is huge.

Some argue that this doesn’t change anything. True, it doesn’t overturn the state laws and constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. It doesn’t overturn the “Defense” of Marriage Act. It doesn’t make opponents realize that their fears are unfounded and that their position is unfair to their neighbors.

What this does do is change the national dialogue, and that is huge. It gives the Democrats a moral issue to stand for, rather than to be on the defensive about. It makes it less taboo to talk about equal rights for LGBT Americans as an idea worth considering and embracing. It positions the Democrats on the side of progress. Not least, it is the right thing to do.

I worry that the left’s cynicism that Obama did this now and not earlier, that he wasn’t somehow “pure” about the issue, will detract from our support for him. Whereas we should be supporting this stand, donating time and money to advance the clearly better candidate, I fear from the blogosphere’s reaction today that many will simply tune out and not seize this moment. What a mistake that would be!

If you think you could be a better, more principled leader than Obama, then I urge you to run for office. If your views match mine, I’ll surely vote for you! But my guess is that you won’t get very far unless you learn to compromise, pragmatically delaying some issues or moderating your positions so you can make some progress with your opponents rather than being completely principled and making no progress at all.

By the same token, whatever reservations we may have about the motivation or timing of Obama’s announcement, the path forward is to celebrate, reward, and build on today’s symbolic yet incremental step. Progress will not be achieved by withdrawing from the political process because we haven’t reached our ultimate goal of civil equality fast enough.

The second interpretation of the question is what I want to discuss: as members of the atheist movement, how do we relate to the larger world? In other words, beyond simply interpreting our lives through an atheist lens, what contributions can we, as atheists, bring to society at large? How do we represent ourselves and “the movement” to the rest of society?

My contention in this essay is that in the pride of the New Atheism, not all our actions contribute towards the goals that we hold.

First and foremost, we seem to snicker a lot at theists. We do this because we’re so obviously right and they are so obviously wrong….but what does this accomplish? It reinforces the us-vs-them exclusivity, marking our membership in the in-group and their status as outsiders who just don’t get it. It is a way for us to be comfortable in our superiority. How useful is this sneering? It speaks to our basest impulses, those of demonizing the other, the very root of the ills we often decry in religion. As a practical matter, it does not make theists more receptive to our arguments: are you willing to hear someone else on the merits of their position when they are calling you stupid and baseless? Though we may get some enjoyment out of this ridicule, it does not advance rational discussion and makes us complicit in further fragmenting the town hall into a series of echo chambers.

Second, we proselytize. We tell people why atheism is the better choice, and why they have no grounds to be theists. Why do we do this? Because we’re right, of course! But now step back for a second. Think about the Christian proselytizers, or for that matter anyone who defends their religion. Why do they do this? Because they think they’re right, too. We are coming from the (eminently reasonable, to us) position that there’s no reason to believe things for which there is no evidence, and that it’s alright to admit ignorance of things we do not yet understand. Theists, however, are of the mindset, all too historically human, that the unexplained must involve supernatural agents and that traditional explanations must be true even if unverifiable. Given these fundamental differences, proselytizing is just loudly speaking past each other.

Third, we seek to make ourselves known to those who are seeking. There are those who are unsatisfied with the theist world view but don’t know of a better alternative. There are those who do but who are daunted by the prospect of being alone and ostracized by the social groups in which they are embedded. Knowing that there is a community of like-minded people who have thought about and are comfortable with these issues is a huge help for these folks. Note that this third point is somewhat analogous to the previous point about proselytizing, but the difference I am making is this: proselytizing is about converting people who have a different worldview and are not necessarily troubled by it; making ourselves available is about receiving with open arms those who are already predisposed to become atheists.

Fourth, we seek to gain acceptance and humanize ourselves to others. A common trope is that atheists are evil, and that we cannot possibly be moral without a revelatory holy book to guide us. Debunking these myths is an important and critical part of who we are. It dignifies us as individuals in the face of others’ contempt. It protects us as a movement of like-minded individuals. It helps us in welcoming newcomers, by removing the fear that we might be some strange, inhuman “other.” And it is the foundation for fighting for a place at the political table, which brings me to the final point:

Fifth, we argue for public policy. While minority religions are often good about supporting the separation of church and state, that support often wanes as those religions gain ascendancy. From our non-religious perch, we are in a good position to fight for the underdog, for those world views that are not those of the majority religion. At some point in the (unfortunately) distant future, should we ourselves become a majority, we will have to remember these lessons in tolerance as we allow others to hold what views they will, even if we personally think them wrong.

As atheists come out of the closet and gain more visibility in America, we face an important opportunity to present humanism as a viable world view for individuals, one that can act as a strong defender of a secular society that makes decisions rationally while protecting freedom of conscience. We’re more likely to achieve this if we stop the sneering and the proselytizing, and instead focus on visibility, outreach, and public policy. Given the theocratic bent of current political discourse, it is vitally important that we get this right—the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Seligman says there are three elements to one’s explanatory style around life’s highs and lows: permanence (how long causes are believed to last), pervasiveness (how context-specific the causes are believed to be), and personalization (how internal to the individual the causes are believed to be). Optimistic people explain positive experiences in terms of permanent, pervasive, and internal causes, and negative experiences in terms of transient, specific, external causes. In other words, good things happen because of the optimist’s enduring good traits which manifest themselves in most situations, while bad things happen due to very specific, temporary accidents. Pessimists explain events in the opposite way: bad things happen because of their enduring and pervasive bad personal qualities, while good things are specific, temporary, external flukes.

The asymmetry here is interesting, and neither of those two explanatory-style stereotypes seems like something I want to aspire to. Perhaps that’s related to my scoring optimistically when explaining bad events and pessimistically when explaining good ones. In fact, I wonder whether pondering the impermanence of all things and the traps of the ego doesn’t predispose one toward explaining all events this way, as due to accidental, temporary, external causes….

Seligman notes that while optimism is generally the preferable mindset in terms of getting individuals to dream big, act on their dreams, and get over failures, pessimists have a more accurate grasp of reality, and may thus have the more useful mindset for mission-critical applications like surgery, flying airplanes, and accounting. He notes, however, that we can choose to be flexible in employing optimism when it would be useful. His technique for doing this is based on the ABCDE acronym for reframing failures optimistically (interestingly, he does not reframe successes optimistically):

• Adversity: Some external bad event happens.
• Beliefs: Our explanatory style leads us to believe in certain causes for the adversity.
• Consequences: Those causes have consequences: how we respond to the adversity.
• Disputation: However, we can challenge our pessimistic beliefs using techniques such as seeing whether the evidence lines up, whether there are alternative explanations, what the implications of our beliefs are, and whether our beliefs are useful in any way.
• Energization (!): As a result, we can feel more in control of our response to the situation.

In essence, the book is largely just a motivational build-up to this technique, whose key step, “disputation,” is nothing other than reframing our internal explanations in a fairer and more useful way.

Mindfulness is getting more and more mainstream attention in the West these days, and with good reason. In a world where our default mode of operation is racing from one thing to another, where we strive to keep up with our social media lest we be (and be perceived to be) out of the loop, stopping to actually savor where we are is simple yet surprisingly hard recipe for appreciating our life while we’re living it. In the process, by learning to put our egos on hold, we can approach problems more objectively and empathize more easily with our fellow beings.

I’ve been interested in mindfulness for a while now, though it’s only recently that I’ve been “sitting” formally on a regular basis. Part of what made it hard was figuring out exactly what the nuts and bolts of the practice entail, without the mystical trappings that are extraneous and distracting in my secular, rationalist world view. Most of the books I’ve consulted include these metaphysical elements to some degree or another. Two that don’t (and which I’ve mentioned before) are Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are and Henepola Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English. Nonetheless, the first one I found a bit too vague for what I needed, and the second spent a bit too much time for my taste on Buddhist philosophy and terminology.

I now have a new favorite meditation manual, Ronald D. Siegel’s The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems. The first two chapters motivate and introduce mindfulness straightforwardly, noting its historical roots but not unduly burdening the reader with extraneous information. The real value of the book, however, lies in the third and fourth chapters, which contain directions on how to do various concentration and mindfulness meditations. These are the clearest instructions I’ve found yet, presented in a very approachable way. I particularly like the metaphor of the restless mind that will not focus for any length of time as an untrained puppy that you just expect you’ll have to repeatedly and lovingly tug back.

The following two-hundred-plus pages go into details of how particular meditations on certain topics and sensations can be used for rather specific life issues, such as fear, depression, pain, and relationships. These were interesting enough to read through and are a useful reference, complete with worksheets to identify problem areas and write down meditation intentions. They boil down to a common theme: using mindfulness and awareness of the present to ride and observe our unpleasant sensations, noting how they ebb and flow by themselves and in response to external circumstances.

For those serious about exploring meditation, this is the one book I would recommend to get started. I also recommend using a meditation timer to remove the concern of spending more or less time than intended; there are many phone apps that can fill this role, like the one I currently use.

As with many other people, my awareness of social unfairness began at home. My parents pointed out and lamented the injustices that plague the lives of the poor—both individuals and societies. Coming from Latin America, we were acutely aware of our differences with the First World—which is to say, aware of the widespread impact of American culture, consumerism, and foreign policy. I was to learn much later that my parents had actually been involved in progressive causes earlier, but growing up, I did not experience their angst and concern being translated to action. Instead, there was always this attitude that charity was just throwing money away: a feel-good measure that did nothing to advance the systemic change needed to solve the root problems. That stance certainly has some merit (“teach a man to fish” and all that), but it can all too easily become an excuse for inaction and helplessness.

As I grew up and my newspaper reading shifted from the comic pages to the front pages to the editorial pages, my sense of urgency around social issues grew. What also changed is that I finally had money of my own: first my grad school stipend, and then a real, honest-to-goodness salary. I now had much more motivation and many more resources than I had ever had before, but I was still confused as to the best means to effect change. I gingerly became an online member of one or two national progressive groups (they were pursuing systemic change!). I soon became inundated with solicitations from many more. Most seemed worthy, and I had money, so I sent fifty dollars here, fifty dollars there, fifty dollars everywhere, and got a walletful of membership cards. But was spreading my money around really effective? Was there a way to become more directly involved in creating change without either giving up my day job or throwing money at the problem as though it were somebody else’s job to fix?

And then 2000 happened. The suspense and non-resolution that followed that election felt to me like the beginning of a nightmare, one in which (I’m ashamed to admit) I disengaged in despair for eight painful years. I knew that disengaging was not helping anyone, but watching the social and political discourse was just too painful, when all I could do—all I knew how to do—was wring my hands at my own powerlessness to make the world right.

But soon enough, I wasn’t alone anymore. I eventually dated and married Knox. One of the many remarkable things about him is how centrally he values reaching out to others and building community. He’ll stop to help or chat with a neighbor just because; he’ll organize a community harvest to glean fruit that would otherwise be going to waste; he’ll spend much time helping folks throughout the country organize Soup Swaps where they can rediscover the fun of cooking and sharing and telling stories. In short, through Knox, I came to understand more viscerally how communities get built from the ground up based on individual interactions. At the same time, I noticed that this community-building was also happening on the national stage, as the left began to coalesce around the Obama campaign. Thanks to what was happening at both the national and very local levels, I came to realize that by fostering community, the isolated helplessness to which I had succumbed could instead become collective progress.

And so this year, at the urging of my friend Jessan, I got involved with the the Next Generation Giving Project run by the Social Justice Fund. I was fascinated by the discussions we had around wealth, class, and privilege—a complex of topics I want to keep exploring. We learned about fund-raising: I wasn’t very successful at that, yet I was still pleasantly surprised at how receptive people were to my pleas. And we evaluated a heck of a lot of applications in a few short weeks. Every night I would grumble at how long that process took, and yet, when I read each application, I would feel guilty about my complaining when it was them doing the hard, amazing, often thankless work down on the ground.

Now, unlike most of the really great SJF members with whom I worked this year, I don’t have a background in social work nor, as you see, in activism. I can’t say “intersectional analysis” without feeling self-conscious. That makes me feel like a bit of an impostor among all of you here tonight. But I know I’m not, because of course this is where my social justice journey has taken me: SJF is working for systemic change, by channeling resources to effective groups while building and sustaining a community working toward a shared vision.

I don’t know yet what form my social activism will take in the future, but I do know that I take to heart the old Jewish saying: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either.”

Thank you.

This is well illustrated, of course, by folks like the town clerk in New York who resigned rather than perform gay marriages, which offend her religious convictions. (Whatever happened to “render unto Caesar…?”)

However, there’s another aspect to the private morality/public policy question that puzzles me. The media talks about the legalization of same-sex marriage as heralding a surge in gay weddings. Marriage licenses and civil marriages, I understand. But weddings? Are people really not getting married if the state doesn’t sanction it? Are we really acquiescing to second-class status? Has the wedding industry really been ignoring this market segment?

I’m not arguing civil marriage does not matter; of course it does. It matters a lot. That’s precisely why celebrating your union before your family and community, in defiance of a government that tries to render it invisible, is a radical, transformative, and liberating act.

This isn’t exactly what happened to us, but it felt that way when we stopped at one of the many tea houses that dot Inari, a mountain dedicated to the eponymous Shinto deity of fertility and rice. The mountain is laced with paths marked by distinctive, bright orange torii, donated by the faithful. We quickly wandered off the main path and into some of the smaller alcoves and hidden shrines, and it is there, in the sleepy tea-stop that was just getting started for the day, that we had the first of several cups of tea that day on the mountain.

The numerous shrines and temples are not limited to the tourist sites like this particular mountain; they actually pervade Kyoto. It is not uncommon to see personal shrines in front of some houses, bigger shrines or temples occupying full house lots, or even historic shrines, plaques and all, wedged between glitzy modern department stores in a very lit and lively downtown shopping area. These places are not just for show: shoppers, tourists, and pilgrims will stop, set down their bags, and pay their respects to the deities by clapping, bowing, ringing a bell, and praying.

It is quite fascinating to watch the devotion of the faithful, to regard the opulence and beauty of these religiously inspired structures and statues, and to consider the time and resources that are used by religious observances. Not that the West can’t hold its own here, mind you, but this is a good reminder of how universal the religious drive is.

• So far in our Tokyo and Kyoto experiences, there is practically no public WiFi. If you’re lucky and happen to be passing near a rare store with open WiFi, you can get on for a bit using the weak signal. I had read that the Japanese have been relying very much on cell phones for a while and thus have been slow to embrace WiFi for getting on the web, but the reality of how utterly rare it is (and also, how I’ve come to rely on it to get around as a modern-day tourist) didn’t sink in until I got here. From what we could figure out in a couple of stores, mobile phone or portable hotspot rentals are charged by the month but require a contract lasting anywhere from three months to two years. We have not figured out how to get around this. We were lucky to be able to get a wired connection at our hotel in Tokyo.

• I find it dissonant that, in a culture that is often fashion-conscious and tradition-oriented, facemasks are so ubiquitous. In Tokyo, about a fourth to a third of the people seemed to be wearing facemasks; in Kyoto, much less. I’ll be curious about the countryside once we start biking. Facemasks appear to be part of the national concern with cleanliness . Some studies suggest they may work, though I have to wonder how much of it is simply group identification: “I think of myself as the type of person who wears facemasks” (the same way that I act and think of myself as a Seattle eco-do-gooder). Particularly amusing facemask wearers are the occasional smoker or takeout-coffee-drinker.

• Speaking of smokers, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a culture where people smoke in eating establishments. In all fairness, smoking is not quite as prevalent as in some other places (such as France), and there seem to be some rules about where one can smoke on the sidewalks.

• So far, there have been more English signs than I expected (especially in Kyoto). Some of the translations are humorous, but the message (usually) gets across. On the flip side, a surprising number of people (well, store workers and shop-keepers, I should say) know little or no English.

• Biking on the left side of the road will take some getting used to. Right now it’s a very conscious process confusion to look and walk where I’m supposed to.

The delights:

• Fresh sushi and riceballs and all sorts of hot, cold, and mysterious packaged foods in convenience stores everywhere! It’s true! And the fresh food is quite good!

• People have been very friendly and helpful and used to dealing with tourists, even if they themselves don’t speak English

• The best advice I got was to study katakana, the Japanese syllabary that is used for imported foreign words. I can recognize the symbols (what else would you do on the long plane flight but cram a foreign alphabet?) and am thrilled every time I can not only sound out a word, but also figure out what the similar-sounding English equivalent is. It would be cool if by the end of the trip I could be reading katakana rapidly, because at the moment….well, I’m not.

• The bullet train is fast. And punctual.

• People are on their cellphones constantly, mostly texting and browsing. They text as they walk, they text as they ride the subway, they text as they wait—but I haven’t seen texting and driving. Not everyone has their head in their phone, but certainly the majority of people I’ve seen in Tokyo. In Kyoto, this is a less prevalent.

The earthquake and nuclear disaster affected some things in Tokyo: many museums are closed; there is very little non-sparkling mineral water in stores; and the city is obviously not as lit up as it normally is (if things get back to normal by the time we fly back, I’d love to compare!). That’s pretty much it, aside from the fact that tourism is down nationally. Our hosts in Kyoto had almost everyone cancel, even though nothing here is disrupted, from what I’ve seen and read.

Next: assembling our bikes, which were just delivered, and preparing to pedal!

I am now on the lookout for The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which I expect will be just as good!

Check out my summary of the book below or the official website.