The Book of Mark

Theory 31: The Value of Conscious Wisdom (or alternatively) "Smart" just means "Less Dumb"

2009-08-22T18:20:00.004-04:00

One of my greatest joys in life is looking back and remembering how much stupider I used to be.

That’s it. That is Theory 31.

As you can see I have spent over a year working on being more concise. Those who don’t enjoy my babbling can feel free to click elsewhere.

And now for a marginally relevant digression to show my theory in action:

As a recently minted 37 year old I spent a morning caressing my hangover and thinking deep thoughts about what I have learned in the last year. I think it is crucial to regularly stop and perform this exercise (thus the theory). Of the things I have learned this year, this is my favourite:

I envy my friends for having me to mock.

Cool eh? I can see that coming up as a daily quote on my customized iGoogle page. Makes me feel pretty smart.

I am going to go back to explaining the theory now.

¬¬¬¬

I have never really understood why people take pride in being smarter than other people. Clearly intelligence and wisdom are extremely useful in navigating the world and interacting with the other humans, and I have no doubt that it represents a tremendous advantage. This can lead to all kinds of valid emotions, such as being incredulous at the stupidity of others and how it inconveniences you, or being relieved that you aren’t as dumb as all of those people that you aren’t quite as dumb as. It makes sense that being smart is both important and even rewarding, but taking pride is a horse of a different colour.

Sometimes I enjoy watching my cat and thinking about how stupid she is. She can’t learn simple patterns, she still thinks that walking on my lap top is a good idea and she refuses despite all my encouragement to learn a second word. I could go on and on.

The fact that she is smart relative to other cats is not important. She is dumb relative to me.

Other times I picture an alien (possibly the one from Theory 10) looking down and enjoying how stupid I am. I can’t break bad habits (or even snap), I routinely do things that I know are not a good idea and I find matching my socks to be a terrible imposition and an affront to the entire species. I could go on and on.

My point is that there is no objective measure for the term “smart”. (I consider useful tools like IQ and EQ more a means of trying to quantify the subjective and I I am also taking a broad definition of smart that includes base intelligence and the ability to gain wisdom.) “Smart” is a completely relative term that in and of itself sheds no light on anything. When I call you “smart” I am really just saying “many humans are dumber than you”. So what?

If we work from the starting point that “the” (or at least “a”) key goal in life to is generate some level of happiness or contentment or at least some sense of satisfaction and/or appreciation from the experience, I am convinced that being smart relative to other humans adds little to the equation. I know it can help, the same way that being born into a rich family can help, or that being tall can help, but I think we tend to confuse intelligence with worth and self-identity, and this makes no more sense than feeling superior for being born tall or being born into a great family (like mine). People will still ultimately be judged on whether they do the right thing (in some collective sense), and the right thing isn't the same as the smart thing.

I know another cat that is much dumber than my cat, and he is a much more content cat. It is not because he is dumber. (It’s actually more because he is less of a complete bitch.) My point is that ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s immaterial. Anybody who thinks that his/her wisdom, intelligence or insight is some kind of burden needs to be reminded that he/she is a complete moron next to the alien that I made up in my head.

(Sometimes I picture another, even smarter alien watching the first alien while it is watching me while I am watching my cat. Then I picture another smarter alien and then another. I picture some remote planet where quantum physics is grade one fodder for some alien in special ed. That is how I discovered that marijuana, unlike intelligence, can be evaluated objectively.)

There is one thing, however, that we humans are “smart” enough to enjoy: we get to consciously experience becoming wiser. We get to look back on all the dumb things we have done and see them for how dumb they really were, and deep down we get to know that we are doing now is also dumb and we will probably look back on it and feels stupid. It makes no difference to becoming a “self-actualized person” to measure how smart we are relative to one another, but it makes a huge difference to feel smarter than the poor fool that we know we used to be. We evolve and improve before our own eyes.

No matter your level of existentialism or self-loathing, this (in my mind) gives the entire experience of living some level of depth and meaning completely separate from any notion of external meaning or divine fate. As you will soon see, this is an absolutely crucial part of the larger theory that “The Book of Mark” is trying to construct.

You’ll have to wait to find out why. Or you can just not care and stop coming to this site - whatever – I haven’t posted in a year so I have given up on having (or even deserving) readers. I now just use this blog to keep a factual record of how dumb I used to be.

The End.

As an additional side note, for those of who have noticed that I have started to post my theories out of order, I would like to remind you that this is my blog and you should feel free to send any complaints in a self addressed envelope to the deeper regions of your own ass.

Theory 20: A Picture of Dorian Graying

2008-05-13T18:39:00.004-04:00

As a 35 year old man who has to stretch before playing ping pong, I have many reasons to suspect that I am old and past my prime. Hangovers are harder. New technologies frighten and confuse me.

Worst of all I remember how, when I was younger, people who are my age now would tell me how old they are. They would tell me how their bodies are changing, or how they are always tired. I remember thinking “35 is old.”

I suppose that most of us view life as some kind of crooked bell curve where, after running around like an idiot for 15 years, we suddenly begin this steep ascension leading to our glorious twenties, where all the energy of youth finally combines with the freedom of adulthood. Then, at the onset of thirty, mortality taps on the shoulder and the long process of watching your body deteriorate begins. For most of us, death isn’t a man in a black robe with a scythe, it is just a small innocuous leach that starts sucking the life out of you on your thirtieth birthday and never stops to breathe until many years later when you yourself finally stop breathing.

Something like this:

We modern humans make it tough on ourselves - we consider ourselves in the absolute prime of our lives when we are in our twenties and then one day the number on the left column changes and everyone shifts gears. Houses get bigger and further away from civilization, kids start dropping like troublseome triffles. We get tired. We get serious about the future. We settle down. The fun and silliness all slip away, and we start to feel older. We feel the days when we had limitless future as turned into our limited present, and our whole lives are no longer ahead of us.

Now that I have climbed the crooked mountain to 35 I have some observations.
It is true that we all experience a gradual physical decline for the majority of our lives. I haven’t bothered to look it up, but personal experience backs up the theory that this begins right around the age of 30. However, I have learned this slow decline is offset by sharp increase in our ability to navigate the challenges of our lives though wisdom and experience. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our "emotional prime", "intellectual prime", or even perhaps our "spiritual prime", doesn’t really greet us until after our physical prime has run its course.
When I was younger I remember hearing a lot of nonsense from older people who would say "if I only knew then what I know now . ." I never really believed this. After all, why couldn’t these people just tell me what they had learned? If there are these great secrets that you learn when you are older, why hasn’t someone shared them?

Sadly, I have now come to suspect that people tell the secrets that one learns with age all of the time:

"Be true to thine own self"
"You reap what you sew"
"The trick is to only get a LITTLE high"
(I could go on and on with these common wisdoms but I need to get back to going on and on about my main point.)

These are concepts I was able to grasp as a younger man when I first heard them. The problem is that they seem to gradually take on more and more meaning as time goes on, and I have realized how difficult it is to be true to yourself, or how it takes a life’s commitment to sew enough for a good reaping, or that sometimes you’re already much too high before you know it.

Thus the contrast of the human aging process: if we experience our spiritual or intellectual or emotional prime after our physical bodies have already passed their prime and started to decline, then at what point are we really in "the prime of our lives"?

It seems to me that to even make a cursory answer at such a complicated question I need to break down all aspects of the human personality and chart how they rise and fall during the human aging process. But that's just me. So, in the most cursory of ways, that’s is exactly what I am going to do now.
Noted sociologist/daydreamer Gary Gygax once, as part of some other less meaningful project, actually took the time to break down all human (and near human) characteristics, both physical and cerebral, into six main categories. I am now going to prepare a chart for each of these six categories attempting to describe how each one is affected by the human aging process. I am not going to bother commenting during these because that would make the theory too damn long. Suffice to say I put this together intuitively and without research. This remains a cursory glance based on immediate intuition: a simple experimient into my own perceptions and what I might learn about them.

Characteristic 1: Strength

Characteristic 2: Intelligence

Characteristic 3: Wisdom

Characteristic 4: Dexterity

Characteristic 5: Constitution

Characteristic 6: Charisma

I will say again, this is quickly thrown together and not meant to be scientific. In spite of this, I was still curious to see what I could learn when I jumbled it all together. Here is your composite chart of human characteristics through the human life cycle. complete with a trend line provided by the good people at Microsoft Powerpoint.

Turns out I accidentally proved (using the broadest possible context of the word) that the prime of your life, when you look beyond simple physical characteristics in order to incorporate the full life experience, is actually 35. More importantly, the ages of 45 and 55, despite further physical decline, still rank roughly as high as the period when we are 25. Gotta love the crap that you can mathematically prove with charts.

What does it all mean?

Before I alert the scientific community, there are a few small caveats we should all keep in mind:

1) The values I gave for each characteristic were arbitrarily chosen by me. I have no doubt that many of you will take issue with some of my choices. I encourage you to repeat the exercise yourself and determine your own average values.
2) I should confess that the human characteristics I based this analysis on are not quite universally accepted, though they do have a strong following.
3) The idea of giving all six characteristics equal weight, though damn sporting, is also arbitrary and without and scientific basis, in keeping with the general theme.
4) In spite of this negativity, I did stay true to the experiment and stick with my initial intuitive values for each human characteristic.

Nonetheless, (can I still say "nonetheless" or has that ship sailed?), it does leave us with one piece of information, a little thing I call "Theory 20":

We humans have a tendency to put far too much emphasis on our physical being when evaluating our own life span. This leads to a lot of unnecessary neurosis and insecurity, and prevents us from realizing how much opportunity we still have to develop. However, if one takes a balanced approach in looking at the full experience of life, taken in context with our continually expanding life spans and our gradual decline in physical ability, we are fortunate to be at or reasonably close to the prime of our lives for much longer than we allow ourselves to believe. Our strengths and/or our challenges may change, but life is no less enriching. As someone who is only beginning to get a glimpse of the value of experience and wisdom, and only beginning to understand the true commitment that applying these qualities require, I feel that 35 may very well be the best year that one gets to experience.

36 I am a little worried about.

In considering this theory one question stuck in my mind. If all of this ridiculous age-friendly optimism holds true, than why do most people over 30 not share in my theory?

Well, aside from very real and practical considerations like both having and raising children, or feeling naturally compelled to compare ourselves to our parents, I suspect the answer lies in something as simple and shallow as this:

Update on Theory 20

2008-04-03T00:45:00.002-04:00

The next theory should be out within a week or two. The latest topic will explore how we view and experience age. I hope for this theory to include charts.

Of course this will require me to figure out how one attaches charts while using blogger. Sadly, this will probably involve me doing some basic amount of research.

Sigh.

Theory 19: Frankenstein’s Burden or Beer and No Clothing in Las Vegas

2008-03-10T21:54:00.004-04:00

The best Book of Mark theories flow seamlessly from paragraph to paragraph until the new theory inevitably arrives in a puff of what has the distinct appearance of logic.

Sadly, this is not one of those theories.

This week I will be jumping all over the place from tangent to tangent, and then I will try to miraculously pull it together as one coherent point in the end. What’s worse - this is my "green theory". I am assuming that some people might find this annoying. Let me know what you think.

Tangent #1: Las Vegas

I am standing in a popular and ridiculous night club in the former desert of Las Vegas. Full of liquor and deep in thought, I am amazed as usual at the lavishness of Las Vegas, the hordes of beautiful people and the mystical paradox of human accomplishment and shallowness.
A tall person walks by and my mind wanders to Frankenstein, and just like that, standing drunk at 4:00 in the morning, I finally have a handle on elusive Theory 19. How fitting.
I owe a lot to Las Vegas. After all, I may not believe in God, karma, or that everything happens for a reason, but I am still a reasonably spiritual person who needs my fix for transcendental journeys of the soul.

Muslims perform the Hajj; Buddhists travel to Bodh Gaya or several other places; Devout Christians travel to the Way of St. James in Spain; Less devout or "half-assed Christians" travel once a year to Church on Christmas Day after they are made to feel guilty by the Charlie Brown Xmas special. I don’t feel that I have those options, so I go to what I consider to be the most spiritual place in the world: Las Vegas.

I don’t mean to insult anyone with that rather reckless comparison. To the untrained eye, Las Vegas may appear to be nothing more than a blended frozen cocktail of neon, fake breasts, gaudy carpets and underappreciated money. This view is both short sighted and unimaginative. Las Vegas is more than just a vacation destination for people who like to cheat on their spouses and contradict their thinly woven moral codes. It is a microcosm of the strengths and flaws of our very species, and these observations are key to Theory 19.

Tangent #2: Frankenstein: It’s alive.

Although most of us remember the Frankenstein story from its many brilliant adaptations as part of the classic Hammer Horror Film Productions, the truth is that it originated from the wordy, preachy but also brilliant Mary Shelley novel. (Note - that is an especially funny link.) Ms. Shelley was not a big fan of the industrial revolution and was trying to warn of the dangers of human progress. It was a story of man trying to accomplish more than it should, and having to live with the violent and frightening results. Ms. Shelley may not have stopped the revolution, but if she were alive today (a movie Hammer should consider) she would have little trouble spotting how increasingly relevant her science fiction has become.

Tangent #3: The Evolution Paradox

Let me start by saying that I have always been and remain a big fan of human freedom (including capitalism) and the human evolution that results from it. Leaving humanity unfettered is the key to its growth. I seem to recall I may have made this point before. However, we need to take a realistic view of this. The truth is that human growth, progress and evolution often comes at such a breakneck pace that it causes terminal and devastating side effects. (For more on this I recommend Ronald Wright’s fantastic 2004 book A Short History of Progress which is available free online right here.)

Back in the 50's and 60's we got an unprecedented taste of the inherent danger of "not recognizing our own strength". Children grew up in the shadow of a potential nuclear war. This was probably the first generation to grow up understanding just how much of an impact we can have on our own planet - if we get ourselves worked up enough we can completely destroy it. So what have we, the post-nuclear generation, collectively learned? For one thing, we have learned that there is more than one way to skin a planet.

Amidst the genius of insulin, the Internet, micro-loans and a million other things, we are living (almost literally) on the hot seat with the threat of a new ice age (arguably self-made). It is nice to see global warming getting some press (has anyone ever used the term "scorched earth" literally . .) but it is not our only serious problem. I am putting my money on mass extinctions as the next hot button issue. Ultimately it is difficult to argue with the fact that human evolution and progress, the concept I still stand by and adore, is gradually depleting all of the natural resources that we rely on for life, security and 21st century convenience. (On a personal note, as a scuba diver, cyanide fishing of coral reefs and the fact that fish in the middle of the ocean are full of mercury are two things that I have never been able to get my head around).
How do we reconcile this? How do we manage the complex relationship between our growth and the question of whether or not we can manage it? Well, if you ask me, it all starts by taking the Frankenstein monster and putting him on a plane to Vegas.

Tangent #4: Putting the Frankenstein monster on a plane to Vegas.

The business plan for Las Vegas, wherein everyone can have free liquor, cheap food and the freedom to do WHATEVER they want, shows a tremendously insightful and pessimistic understanding of the human spirit. Most people focus on the freedoms that Las Vegas provides, but the far more interesting part is that all this is provided with a reasonable expectation of profit. Give people whatever they want and they will hand their money over willingly. It is that simple. Most of us live in a world of stifling routines and constant boundaries. Days blend together and disappear. We don’t give much thought to what we would do if we were completely free to do whatever we wanted. So we go to Las Vegas where it injects excess and decadence directly into our senses. Then it sits back and lets us do anything we want. Anything. Many a free man will make poor choices.

This point has always deeply attracted me to Las Vegas. Is there any bigger insult than being told you can do whatever you want by someone or something that is assuming you are going to screw it up? I have spent hundreds of hours learning how to count cards, as well as reading many books on poker, in a desperate attempt to prove Vegas wrong and show that I can beat the system, walk the edge, have my fun, and still not be a victim. Playing Las Vegas perfectly requires a delicate balance of greed, excess and restraint. Sometimes I have proved them wrong, and sometimes I haven’t, but it is always on hell of battle. Over the years I have seen a list of people make some pretty horrible choices in Vegas. We talk as though Vegas is to blame, but it isn’t. Vegas is just providing the ultimate forum for us to be ourselves. I go to Las Vegas to stand at the edge of myself and let go. Then I wake up, brush myself off, and disappear back into my routines like everyone else, but I am richer for the experience (metaphorically speaking if not literally).

In many ways, Las Vegas is a modern day Frankenstein’s monster. I stood in the club at 4:00 in the morning and marvelled how it ever came to be that humanity transformed a desert into this ridiculour power-sucking Roman orgy. You have to appreciate the human achievement, but you also have to fear it. There is danger in letting this many coiled up people break out of their routines, free to let their natural urges collide with one another.

Las Vegas, more than anywhere on the planet, hosts humanity’s all-important battle with itself. Reserved people lose all control, cheap people lose all of their money in a blink of eye, married people lose their spouses, etc. Otherwise progressive and evolved people come face to face with their caveman nature and make choices. Las Vegas encourages them too. It promises that what happens in Vegas will stay there, so it is OK to loosen yourself from social boundaries and be free. One by one, in a world with no rules or boundaries, we all draw our own lines, exercise our own restraint and determine who we really are.

Tangent #5: Passing the almighty buck:

Most people blame governments and big business for many of today’s problems. I have problems with this. Ultimately, big businesses spend millions of dollars trying to find what we want them to sell us. Governments (even the crooked ones) are ultimately responding to the demands of their people (in very different ways and for a host of different motives).
Human growth (as a whole) is a product of human demand. Each one of us are collectively responsible for what we demand from governments, our restaurants and our malls. We want cheaper widgets and more powerful cars. We want better food produced at an industrial pace. I certainly want these things, and I could go on and on.

Theory 19: Miraculously pulling it all together

If human demand is driving growth, than it is human demand that also must evolve. We are no longer living in a bottomless world and we all have to show some measure of restraint. I will be the first to admit that I refuse to accept Ms. Shelley’s warning: I want to create life; I want to progress; I want cooler gadgets and amazing technological change. I do not want to hold humanity back out of fear, though I will admit to being a little scared.

So I give you Theory 19: The only way we survive our own ambition and greed is to accept the burden that Dr. Frankenstein did not: We have to see our monsters for what they are and recognize how much power we truly have. Our boundaries are gone - we’ve outgrown them as a species. We can do anything now, and the planet is at our mercy. We are a drunken species on one hell of a bender in somewhere in the soul of Las Vegas. It is up to us to draw our own individual lines in the sand. One by one, each and every person must accept the importance of our individual choices, because together they move the species as a collective whole.

Tangent 6: Frankenstein’s other burden

It is of course the result of a common misconception that Frankenstein is a name synonymous with the monster and not with the Doctor. I suppose Doctor Frankenstein would have found some irony in this - the genius of his achievements are forgotten or ignored - all that matters is the monster that he created.

I just spent the better part of this theory casting our species as Dr. Frankenstein. What are the odds that we suffer the same lesson?

I would wager that Vegas has a line on that somewhere.

Update on Theory 19

2008-02-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

My lazy, deteriorating brain seems to be making a small comeback of late, which means I am feeling a renewed enthusiasm for this project. I more or less kept the site afloat last year in the hopes that I would soon see the passion return. Hopefully I can keep some momentum going.

Theory 19 (wherein I get to talk about Las Vegas) is 75% complete and should be up by next week. Plus I have actually already started Theory 20.

Legitimate reason for optimism of just talk?

Place your bets.

Book of Mark Xmas Special Part 2: How the Book of Mark Saved Christmas from Charlie Brown

2007-12-25T14:45:00.000-05:00

Many of you may not remember this, but Christmas was once a holiday on peril. It was a holiday that had lost its way. Then, to everyone’s relief, Charlie Brown came along in 1965 and delivered a Christmas special (sponsored by Coca-Cola – really) that reminded everyone that Christmas had become too commercial and was supposed to be about religion. The struggling holiday was saved. For you youngsters, that may seem ridiculous, but back in the old days this was exactly the kind of radical thinking that was needed. Try to think of it like the emergence of unions – it was critically necessary at the time but eventually became a lot more like a pain in the ass.

Nowadays, Christmas is in again in crisis. Religions are clashing, people are spending themselves into dangerous debt and toys have become so ridiculously cool that they pose a long term threat on reality in a Matrix-like kind of way. Most importantly, a lot of depressed people feel even more depressed at Christmas.

Well, here at the Book of Mark we have spent all morning trying to think of some clever suggestions. Here is how I would save Christmas:

1) It’s time to kill Santa once and for all.

Let’s face it – old men dressed in flaming red costumers, smelling of liquor and offering your children toys for sitting on their respective laps is not the kind of role model we should be advancing. It undermines everything else we tell our kids. I was having dinner with a friend who told me that their youngest daughter was terrified of Santa Claus and willing to forego gifts just to avoid having to meet him. That girl gets it. Why don’t we?

Why not fake a sleigh accident with a drunk driver and try to kill to birds with one stone?

2) Say “Happy Holidays” and not “Merry Christmas”

Seriously Christians, get over yourselves. If the idea of wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” is truly an effort to wish that person good tidings then why not say it in the way in the way does this best. This isn’t about Christmas being under attack, this is about all of us getting our God-groove on in any way we want. It’s not as though we are doing this to because people are offended by the word Christmas. Everyone has Christmas whether they are catholic or not. I recently learned from a Jewish friend that many Jews refer to Christmas as “Jew-movie day” and they all go to movies free from Christian babbling. This explains why the Jewish community was so far ahead of the rest of the world in panning the Godfather Part 3.

The point is, saying Merry Christmas isn’t offensive to other religions, it’s just that saying “Happy holidays” makes a point of including them. Isn’t that better? As a non-religious person, I envy all God-worshippers equally. It’s like the old saying “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”.

3) Bring Commercialization To The Next Level.

Everyone complains the Christmas has gone too commercial, just like Charlie Brown said. They emphasize how the onslaught of advertising has created a culture of accumulation whereby sharing time with your loved ones is all about spending more and more money on them.

Sure, that may seem true for you, but let’s take a broader look:

What about the people who are alone on Christmas? The people who have nobody to buy gifts for or to share a turkey with? I am not saying we need to feel sorry for them, I am saying that they represent a pretty big market. Why aren’t we marketing to them? Why aren’t we commercializing Christmas loneliness?

A simple example:

The divorced father who doesn’t get to see his kids on Christmas is sad. He is alone and he desperately wants to pass the time. He wanders to Swiss Chalet for a “Festive Meal” and then he walks around the stores for a bit, then he goes home and watches television to kill the evening. Sadly, all that is on are cheesy Christmas shows about the importance of family and the joy of Christmas. He is depressed; just as many other people are at Christmas. (Thus the popular though not technically true rumour that suicide rates are higher this time of year.)

Fear not, for capitalism can save him:

What if, instead of a festive meal, he had “The lonely Xmas special”. Instead of stuffing and cranberry sauce on the side he would get macaroni and cheese on the side with a little Mr. Noodle bowl to take home for later. When he wanders the stores he is pleasantly surprised to see that the porn shops are having a “Spank yourself through Christmas” sale where all kinds of wonderful new porn is available at seasonal prices. When he gets finished with that and turns on the TV, some of the channels have decided they will have a bigger market by catering to him. Instead of Christmas specials it’s a Shannon Tweed marathon.

These ideas are really just off the top of my head, but you get the point. Real commercialism would take of advantage of these untapped markets and not keep trying to cater only to the fictitious perfect Christmas family. Real commercialism knows where the money is. I can only assume that those firm ties between Christmas and religion are still holding us back. That damn Charie Brown. He swung the pendulum too far.

Well, I started with cartoons so I will end with cartoons: In the words of an animated cracker factory:

“Christmas is a family holiday, happy families. Maybe single people like Christmas, we don't know. Frankly, we don't want to know. It's a market we can do without.”

Happy holidays everyone. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Theory 18: The Half-Finished Ballad of the Dreamer/Quitter

2007-11-13T18:11:00.000-05:00

I had promised a theory on the laws of attraction but that one has now been moved to Theory 21. I think that I’d like to take a moment and look back at some ideas that inspired me when I was younger:

“Work hard.”
“Never give up.”
“Hang on to your dreams. Never let them go.”

All of us old people miss being young and idealistic. We loved that intoxicating delusional invincibility. Nonetheless, let’s be clear about a few things that us wise folk don’t bother mentioning aloud, but all quietly agree upon:

“In many cases working hard is vastly overrated.”
“Giving up can be a good idea when it turns out your goal was stupid in the first place.”
“Most importantly, when appropriate, have the courage and foresight to let go of your dreams. Cast them aside like a band-aid that’s starting to fall off by itself.”

I have read that one of the most common characteristics of tremendously successful business people is a singular obsession towards one topic. Good for them. I used to think that I fit this ‘mould’. I used to be singularly obsessed with being a rock star; Then I wanted to be a lawyer; Then a poker player; Then a good husband; Then a writer who updates his blog more than once every month. Instead, I became all of those things and less. I became a Dreamer/Quitter. To horribly misappropriate from a poet who found a fork in the road, I truly believe that that has made all of the difference.

Put another way: Your priorities are the most important decisions you have to make. I have found that as I get older, I get better at prioritizing. It would be silly for me to stick inflexibly to my old priorities. Futherless, often my priorities change due to unforeseen circumstances. Sticking with one idea of what my life should be would have closed me off from all kinds of wonderful (and wonderfully horrible) experiences. This is why I am glad to have had the courage to be the quitter that I never had the foresight to dream that I would be.

However, before I shout “Three cheers for quitters” from the rooftops (though in reality I usually lose interest by the second cheer), I want to take a moment to point out why a Dreamer/Quitter is vastly different from your average run of the mill quitter. Most people quit because they are scared, or they are lazy, or they lack the strength and determination to overcome barriers. These are not the quitters I am toasting today. A Dreamer/Quitter only gives up on his dreams for one very important reason:

The Dreamer/Quitter often quits on one dream because they find a new dream that they like better.

Therein lies Theory 18:

Dreams are like ‘rum and cokes’. We should cherish each one when it is with us, but we must not be afraid to accept when they are finished. We should just be smart enough to make sure that another one is on the way.

I have always been, and will always be a dreamer. The best dreamers have always been quitters. We get the most practice.

Theory 17: The Art of the Insult or The Shadow of an Appendix

2007-08-24T02:29:00.000-04:00

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"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one."
-- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if there is one."
-- Winston Churchill
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The purpose of this essay is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Insult. I will be discussing the two key components of the Insult, which I refer to as “The Render” and “The Shadow”. I have included a great deal of formal background information and unnecessary nonsense in order to give the appearance of a formal essay. I am really not sure why. Nonetheless, we begin with the obligatory Table of Contents:

Table of Contents:

1) About the Author
2) Introduction
3) Historical Context and Significance
4) The Two Building Blocks
a. The render
b. The shadow
5) Delivering the Perfect Insult
6) Appendix

1) About the Author
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"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
-- Samuel Johnson
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The author was raised in a family where every visit to the dinner table was effectively a desperate battle to maintain one’s self respect (and perhaps cripple someone else’s). Being a creature of comfort the author then sought out friends of like mind. This played a key role in the formation of a verbally aggressive social group, which remains intact and Insulting in all respects to this day.

The culmination of these experiences have combined to create a belief that sticks and/or stones, though reputed to be bone-breakingly strong, are a lesser option to the kind of brutal psychological damage you can inflict on someone if you are graced with the right combination of luck, opportunity and skill.

2) Introduction to the Insult

When it comes to human interaction, we live in a subjective world. What is “fat” to one person is “skinny” to another, and what is “phat” to some is “lame” to others. There are no answer books or cliff notes to help us sort out whose impressions are objectively right or wrong, so we all form our own opinions and for the most part they go completely unchecked. However, this inevitably leads to some conflict, because our own subjective opinions don’t usually align with the opinions of others. In a world of 6.7 billion people, most of whom are incapable of shutting up long enough to think of anything interesting to say, there is inevitably some conflict, some disagreement and some jockeying for position.

The Insult is a key mechanism through which we voice critical comparisons. It is a tool of language whereby the Insultor speaks poorly of the Insultee. For example, you may feel that someone’s sister is unusually promiscuous, or that someone’s mother’s obesity is sufficiently noteworthy that it is worth making some kind of special effort to point it out publicly. The Insult is your tool for bringing such conditions to public attention.

3) Historical Context and Significance

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You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.
-- Dorothy Parker
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(Authors Note: This portion is purely conjecture. Absolutely no research was done)

I can only assume that the Insult has been around for as long as people have been able to communicate. I can easily imagine cavemen making fun of each other simply by pointing and laughing. This is no doubt when the male of the species began its gender-long tradition of taunting other men for the substandard women that we drag into our caves, or for the shoddy wheels that we keep reinventing.

Although the Insult has always been with us, there is an argument to be made that it is more important to our civilization now than it has ever been. In the past, disputes were more likely to be resolved through physical conflict or by the maintenance of a strong class system. As we all collectively evolve to become more like the cool people we watch on situational comedies, the need for a civilized method of resolving conflict has become increasingly important. The Insult is the most aggressive form of civilized discussion (assuming that threats are not considered civilized.) Cats hiss, snakes rattle and people “put others down” in the hope that this will somehow put them “up”.

It is also important to note that today’s society has evolved to become remarkably sensitive and prone to psychological damage. As a result, there is a disturbing trend within pop culture for people to overtly toot their own horns. This is increasingly evident in all of the main pop culture outlets including modern politics, pop and rap music, competitive sports and, most notably, professional wresting. Not surprisingly, modern Insults have followed this trend, becoming more and more direct and less and less subtle. While it is true that this makes for more boring Insults, it provides a tremendous social advantage for anyone who has a true understanding of The Insult, its building blocks, and its hidden implications.

3) The Building Blocks

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Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.
-- Robert Benchley
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a. The Render: How you choose to make your point

In many situations, the rendering of the Insult is the actual key to the Insult itself. This is the key difference between saying “Your mother is fat” and “Your mother is so fat that . . . “ Most would agree that a “Your mother” joke is judged completely on how well the Insultor renders the shape of the mother, and not on the mother’s actual shape.

Generally speaking, the most successful way to “render” an Insult is to incorporate humour on some level. This can be done through over the top exaggerating, subtle innuendo, or even physical gesturing.

[Author’s Note - Count me among those who long for the days when Insults were a lot more creative. A brief google on the likes of Winston Churchill, Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde reveals a cornucopia of brilliant Insults. I have long dreamed of sitting at the Algonquin Round Table and being insulted by everyone who was there. I wonder what would Harpo Marx do?]

[Author’s Secondary Note – I am pretty sure that I have never used the term Cornucopia before unless I was referring to an obscure 25 year-old Black Sabbath song.]

b. The shadow

This represents the most overlooked aspect of the Insult: what it tells you about the Insultor. In my last theory I spoke a great deal about how aggressive behaviour is often just a cry for positive attention from others. The Insult is an example of this theory at work, for it too represents an aggressive action. Noted alchemist Sir Isaac Newton once posited that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” and the Insult is no exception.

Put another way, every Insult may attempt to shine the focus on the Insultee, but if you pay close enough attention, it also provides an equal amount of information about the Insultor. When the Insultor puts someone down, he leaves a clue, a hint, or sometimes even a clear indication of his own insecurities and inadequacies. I call this the “shadow” of the Insult.

When you stop and think about it, an evolved person stands very little to gain for aggressively pointing out other peoples’ faults. Yet it remains something that so many of us like to do. In a world full of insecurity and uncertainty, we make fun of people that are different as a way of showing that we fit in. We point out others’ inadequacies as a means of highlighting how we don’t share them. We point our fingers at others as a means of asserting ourselves.

Trying to improve yourself is hard work. Nobody is perfect and everything is relative. Sometimes the easiest way to feel better about yourself is to feel less about others. The key point is that when we resort to an Insult as a means of asserting ourselves, we are making our need to feel better about ourselves visible for all to see. However, most don’t see it because the focus is on the Insultee. The weakness of the aggressor lingers in the shadow of the Insult.

4) Theory 17: The Theory of Insults

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"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."

- Abraham Lincoln
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Finally, I give you Theory 15: The perfect Insult is one which provides a brilliant rendering while leaving the exact amount of shadow that the Insultor desires.

Recognizing that every different situation requires a different Insult, the right mix of render and shadow will always vary. Friends often engage in the vicious insulting of one another as a means of play fighting. In this instance, a big shadow is desirable, for the goal of propping yourself up through lowering another is completely transparent and understood. Not everyone is comfortable just “whipping it out” and seeing whose is bigger. Some of us prefer to talk things through.

In the case of a pure insult, where the intent is to truly hurt someone, the Insultor runs the risk of casting a lager shadow than he or she intends. This behaviour is aggressive and emotions are necessarily involved. As such, if there is any real practical value to take from this essay, it is that if you really want someone to feel insulted, you need to remove your shadow completely. The elusive Perfect Insult: where the Insultee is not even aware that there was intent to Insult. Somehow an innocent suggestion is made that strikes the desired point home, seemingly by accident. Here the Insultor gets no credit for the render of the Insult, for nobody recognizes the accomplishment. The render becomes more about nuance than descriptive language. The Insultor sets aside the glory of a great Insult to maximize its impact.

All of this explains why Dorothy Parker delivered her Insults with her signature indifferent drawl, or why so many of Churchill’s brilliant Insults are perfect comebacks that sound so similar in form to the original Insult that was leveled at him, as if he is always ready to win a battle of wits, but only bothered when engaged by an aggressor.

5) Appendix

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“This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.”
-- Dorothy Parker
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A great deal more could be written on this topic. As usual, I am stopping my analysis at a point befitting the goal of this web site. I have said many times that you can only expect so much from cereal box philosophy. However, for this theory I thought it would be nice to leave you with a little personal story for context.

About 6 years ago I spent a month or so juggling some combination of pain and denial until my appendix finally burst, sending me to the hospital. To my friends’ surprise, when I finally emerged from my recovery, I was less Insulting and less mean, (which was interpreted as less interesting and less fun.) This disappointed my friends, who still miss the more judgmental and entertaining Mark. Naturally, my friends drew a connection to the loss of my appendix. (Perhaps it is not so vestigial an organ after all.) To this day, any time I speak with a hint of empathy, I am quickly reprimanded and told to “get an appendix”.

The fact of the matter is that, when I consider the behaviour of my friends and I, I realize that many of our Insults, particularly those whispered about strangers we don’t even know, were really just a poorly veiled attempt to boost or maintain our own self-confidence. Aggressive and secretive Insulting of complete strangers is a hallmark of deep-seeded insecurity. However, to this date I have never pointed this out. Not even as part of a nice retort Insult. An evolved person would take little interest in this teasing. Ceasing such behaviour represents growth and is a reward all its own.

On the other hand, if I were an evolved person who had risen above using Insults, I clearly wouldn’t have spent several weeks fine tuning my advanced theories on the subject. The truth is, I have simply never found a way to render this Insult without leaving more than the desired amount of shadow.

I will make certain to let you know if I ever think of anything.

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"I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."
-- Groucho Marx
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Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
-- Oscar Wilde
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Update on Theory 17

2007-08-08T09:36:00.000-04:00

I have completed about 75% of my formal essay on “The Insult”. As this will be a stand-alone document it will include some new features such as clearly defined chapters, a table of contents and an appendix. However, as with most of my theories, there will be fewer footnotes giving credit to others than there probably should be.

Being a social being, I am spoken for this week, so I would expect the final version to arrive next week between Monday and Thursday (August 14 to 17th).

Theory 16B: The Hidden Value of Needy Gene. Part B: The Crooked Path to Enlightenment

2007-06-22T00:48:00.001-04:00

Um . . where was I?

When I was younger, I was remarkably stupid. As a hyperactive adolescent I have very vivid memories of trying to impress certain people because I mistakenly thought that this would somehow help me to gain self respect through the invisible magic of gaining the respect of others. I was much too focused on how others saw me, and I now realize that this led me to make many a foolish mistake.

Now, as a 34 year-old man-child, I remain remarkably stupid, though my acne for the most part has cleared up. Like most people, I still worry too much about others’ perceptions. However, I can proudly say that years of foolishness has led to some moderate amounts of middle-aged wisdom, which is why I now know to temper my own insecurity with a healthy understanding of the remarkable shortcomings of those I used to try to impress.

Which takes me back to where I left off . . .

I have a vague recollection of promising that Part B of this theory will vanquish foes, get you laid and make you feel better about yourself. Seems easy enough.

If you haven’t read Part A, or if it’s been 10 weeks since you read it, here is a quick quote that sums it up:

“Our society is the inevitable result of one simple fact: Humans are weak, needy, and above all else, seek the approval of other humans. People need people, we all know that. I’ll go one step further – the fact that people need people is the driving force behind a very large proportion of every decision we will ever make. It is the most prominent explanation for everything that will ever happen.”

The grammar is shaky at best but the point holds. Feel free to go back and check my math.

Assuming I have convinced you of that, here are the three remaining points I am trying to sell you:

1) We all need to give a great deal of thought to how much our subconscious, through its need to interact with others, is impacting all of the decisions that we make.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is very healthy to seek out other humans. After all, we humans have physical and psychological needs, both of which are based on screwing with each other. Also, we happen to be the most interesting thing on the planet. We create paintings, pornography, velcro, war, the Internet, and, most importantly according to historians, sliced bread. You never know what crazy thing we are going to do next, and we do it all for each other.

The problem occurs when our subconscious is focused more on the fear of encountering negative interaction rather than the exhilaration of seeking out positive interaction. We humans are often horribly traumatized when taunted, excluded, bullied, or judged poorly by other humans; so much so that we go to great lengths to avoid this by applying the old adage that the best defense is a good offence: One race naturally hates another because it is insecure and fears the unknown; High school teenagers bully each other verbally and physically because they feel a desperate need to assert an elevated status; We wear clothes that we think others will like rather than what we like; Men beat women to assert dominance, grown-ups beat kids, kids beat each other, etc. When we don’t keep a close eye on our subconscious, it can trick us into doing lots of bad things that we do out of fear and insecurity.

2) Once we better understand how our subconscious “neediness” is screwing with us, we can use this to better understand how other people’s subconscious “neediness” is screwing with them, and how this impacts how they treat us.

This is effectively the same point as #1 but taken from a different perspective. We need to remember that much of the behaviour we fear from others is not really a reflection of us being judged poorly, but instead a reflection on someone else’s fear and insecurities. I have always read that bullies were actually cowards but it took me a long time to figure out that this wasn’t just some lame comeback that the victims of bullies had gotten together and agreed on at one of their nerd meetings.

3) Knowing more than other people about what is driving their behaviour and how they interact is a tremendously powerful tool, and you can use it to vanquish foes, get laid and generally just feel better about yourself through the magic of feeling less about others.

Imagine a world where you are arguing with someone and this person suddenly starts personally insulting you in front of others. Now imagine that, rather than feeling insulted, or hurt, or embarrassed, you instead feel pleased because this was precisely the result you were looking for, and your body language exudes confidence for all to see because this insult lets everyone know that you have officially won the argument. That’s basically how it works. We need to recognize that awakening aggressiveness in others is actually a sign of burrowing through their sense of security to the point where they feel insecure and lash out. We humans tend to focus on our insecurities so much that, when dealing with negative interaction, we focus on our weakness rather than the weakness that the other person has shown us.

I spent a whole bunch of theories talking about self-actualization and focusing inward rather than outward. I still believe all that stuff. However, when evaluating ourselves, we often make the mistake of trying to live up to perfection. This leads to feeling of inadequacy when dealing with others, but we are so self-involved we forget how others have the same imperfections. Others are often a great deal worse at the game of life than we are, and this is most evident when others intentionally try to cause us harm, revealing their weaknesses and insecurities. We fear situations where others are aggressive towards us, so much so that we fail to see the position of power it puts us in.

Humanity is far and away the universe’s greatest accomplishment, but we still collectively suck ass. We are generally in denial of our needs and so narcissistically focused on our own faults that we overlook the faults of others. The people that make us feel the worst about ourselves are often the people who subconsciously feel the worst about themselves.

At long last, I give you Theory 16: Although lofty spiritual goals like enlightenment require that we focus inward on improving ourselves, the day to day pleasures of life such as impressing others and earning their trust (whether you are looking to get laid more or paid more) require that we take a broader perspective. Understanding and recognizing the fears and insecurities of others is as important as recognizing the subconscious pressures behind our own motivations, and it provides us with a competitive advantage over those whose actions would otherwise frighten us most. In other words, we should all be much better at seeing the coward behind the bully, and it should actually make us feel better, rather than worse, about ourselves.

Any graduate student of philosophy worth his or her salt would probably want to point out that a theory which attempts to gain advantage from the insecurities of others flies in the face of any true path to self-actualization. This explains a great deal about what I dislike about graduate philosophy students (who can now use my own theory against me).

I struggled with this theory because it is more theoretical as opposed to practical, and I kept trying to do too much. I promised you all kinds of practical uses and yet I am really just speaking in seemingly desperate broad theoretical terms. However, I am pleased to report that the theories that will follow will provide thorough and practical examples of this theory at work.

Theory 17 will discuss something near and dear to my heart: how to insult someone to his/her very core (excellent foe vanquishing material). Theory 18 will address the amazingly delicate and subtle game of human attraction (i.e. getting laid tips). I have no doubt that my former significant others will look forward with curious anticipation about my thoughts on that one.

Until then, I can only promise that my own personal state of neediness has finally returned to the lofty level where I can promise that I will talk to you soon.

Where's Marco?

2007-05-04T00:51:00.000-04:00

The management apologizes for the record delay. After three discarded drafts, and getting repeatedly sidetracked entertaining an endless stream of negligent parents, we will be returning to regularly scheduled programming very shortly.

Theory 16: The Hidden Value of the Needy Gene. Part A: How the Universe Actually Works.

2007-03-05T23:22:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wish you could go back in time and give yourself advice?

If I could go back in time and counsel younger Mark using whatever wisdom I have picked up at the bar over my 34 years, I would probably have two important things to say:

First – I would tell myself not to worry about how I dress because one day in the future people will actually pay EXTRA money for hole-riddled jeans that are made to look more worn out than they really are. I was ahead of my time.

Second – I would tell myself about the theory that I give you today, because knowing then what I know now would have made life a lot easier.

I spoke a lot about “self actualization” in my earlier theories. There was lots of discussion about dropping the masks that we project, eliminating distractions and just focusing solely on your own self improvement.

Assuming you buy into my babbling, you have to wonder at some point what the larger sociological implications are if we all live in a society where masks, distractions and “the small picture” are so prevalent.

Our society is the inevitable result of one simple fact: Humans are weak, needy, and above all else, seek the approval of other humans. People need people, we all know that. I’ll go one step further – the fact that people need people is the driving force behind a very large proportion of every decision we will ever make. It is the most prominent explanation for everything that will ever happen.

As you would expect, it starts with sex.

We all know that every animal in the kingdom is hard-wired to propagate the species. However, other animals, even though we pretty much kick all of their asses on the food chain, are a lot more emotionally efficient when it comes to propagating. As far as I understand, they pretty much end up with kids every time they get horny.

Humans, on the other hand, probably “practice” sexual reproduction somewhere in the nature of 500 times for every time they produce an offspring. (Numbers may vary due to self confidence, virility, and/or ugliness). What’s worse, a whole bunch of us humans like to discuss our feelings after almost every practice session. Our sexual habits are a big part of who we are, and they pretty much scream “needy” and “approval seeking” no matter how you slice it.

This nicely segues us to the relationships behind the sex. I could probably make a whole post about this alone. Let me just sum it up by saying that we all know the world is full of people who judge a big chunk of their happiness and self-worth based on whether they have found their soul mate. There is no other possible explanation for the stunning success of the television show Ally McBeal back in the 90s.

Sex and relationships are the tip of the iceberg. Almost every single decision we make can be tied to seeking the approval of other humans: We dress, we buy crystal wine glasses and set them aside for guests, we save up for a nice car, we argue to assert our point, we make jokes, we monitor the Jones’ that we are trying to keep up with, we pass judgment on others to make us feel better about ourselves, we entertain, we compete with each other in a million different ways, we wear heels, we write self-promotional blogs to try and make ourselves look clever, we fight feelings of inadequacy, we keep secrets, we go on diets, we look up to people, we look down on people, we follow customs, we whiten teeth, we read about celebrities’ personal lives, we brush hair. I could go on all day. (I often do.) My point is that our need for other people drives us through every single day of our lives.

Our entire political system is based on politicians monitoring approval ratings. Our economic system is base entirely on human exchange.

Let’s face it: Even if there are people who don’t need people, those people’s genes are out of the gene pool within one generation. The rest of us that need people and need relationships will keep on passing on our neediness, and the self-contained humans who are off being hermits in the forest will die out quietly without any of us noticing. Natural selection favours the needy.

The important thing is that knowing is half the battle.

You may wonder why I would choose this theory as the one to pass on to younger Mark when I travel back in time. The truth is, younger Mark may not have been completely ready to appreciate theories about self actualization. On the other hand, he could have used more sex, and he also could have stood to have a bit more confidence about his place in the universe. This theory has a practical and immediate value for everyone.

In Part B, I will tell you how to take this information and use it to improve your life, vanquish your foes and just generally feel better about yourself through the magic of thinking less of everyone else.

Update on Theory 16

2007-02-24T18:14:00.000-05:00

The last theory, numero 15, was a segue theory. It is supposed to take us away from decision-making theories that focus only inward and move us in a direction where we consider how we interact with other people. As I will explain soon, this is an extremely important distinction.

On a personal note, I have been very hesitant to introduce my “human interaction theories”, mostly because of how people in my life will perceive it. I am hoping people will read my theories as broader philosophies rather than backhanded jabs at any of the individuals that I have shared my life with.

Already with the theories I have posted I have been a little disturbed by how many times someone interpreted a statement of mine as a veiled attack on some specific person. Such behaviour (Cdn spelling) on my part would seriously undermine my efforts and go directly against what I am trying to do. I encourage those who know me to take my efforts on face value and not try to read gossip in between the lines.

Theory 16, tentatively titled “The Hidden Power of the Needy Gene” is underway and should be up soon. Hope you enjoy. It is the first of three (possibly four) theories that make up a group I call “The fools of engagement” theories. As you can see from the timeline since my last post, I have struggled with it a bit because it is so broad in nature, but I am getting there now.

Theory 15: Live Each Day Like It Is Someone Else’s Last

2007-02-06T23:41:00.000-05:00

My grandmother, who turned 87 today, once told me something that made a lasting impact:

“It’s hard when all your friends keep dying”

If there is one thing we tend to underestimate as we all buy new shoes, make career choices and upgrade our furniture settings, it is the mortality factor.

Most of us have been alive for as long as we can remember. Picturing ourselves as somehow ‘not alive’ is both confusing and a little bit “trippy”. Somebody once said “Live each day like it is your last” – a nice piece of reality-altering philosophy that will help you seize each day. Of course, taking this too literally can make that statement true a little sooner than it needs to be. There is a danger to assuming that you will die soon and forsaking the long run completely. However, in spite of its relative simplicity, I have always liked the concept of setting aside daily life to confront the concept of mortality straight on. Here is the thing: I think we should project mortality on others as much or more than we do on ourselves.

When I was younger I started to play a strange psychological game. I would imagine the emotional impact it would have on me if the person I was speaking to would suddenly die. (This is one of many, many reasons why I am not a good listener). If you have known me for a long period, chances are that I have tried to come to terms with your untimely death several times while I was pretending to listen to you. (In my defense, if you were saying something interesting, I probably wouldn’t have started daydreaming.) I suspect that started this habit as an insecure measure to try and prove to myself how stoic I thought I was. In time, as I actually got good at this and a little more honest about how much the people around me actually mean to me, I came to really benefit from the experience.

This is never a violent or angry exercise. More the opposite, I tried to come to terms with the fact that everyone I care about will die. I can only assume lots of people do this, though I have never discussed it with anyone. After all, everyone around us will actually die. It’s not like I’ve added an unexpected plot twist or anything. We all have experienced death, been to funerals, and comes to terms with these kind of issues before. Everyone feels intense emotion when they lose someone, and we often wish that we had worried less about the details surrounding our relationships and just enjoyed being around the people that we had lost. Moreover, we regret not letting loved ones know how much that they had meant to us, often because we don’t necessarily realize these things until we have lost someone. Some people carry these experiences with them for the rest of their lives; others push it deep into their subconscious and rush back into the safe routine of day-to-day life.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is to not fully appreciate the people around you. When you think about it, nobody really owes you a second of their time. Most people struggle with their own lives, held back by their own faults, but some still try to find a way to share their lives with you.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Gee Mark, picturing all of my closest family and friends dying sounds like a lot of fun. Do you have any advice as to how I can ensure that I get the most possible benefit out of the experience?”

Fear not enlightened reader, for that is why I am here.

Picturing your loved ones dying is not only morbid, but it is also difficult. It takes practice to really put yourself in a frame of mind where you can accept such a drastic change. I find that the trick is to smart small and think about how the details in your day-to-day life that will change.

“Who will I play golf with?”

“What will happen if I need a jar opened?”

These may be the least important results of a tragedy, but this forces you to actually take a practical look at the changes you will face. Once you start to put a face on change, your imagination will get the hang of it and start to run with the idea. Eventually, you begin to get a sense of the loss. Suddenly, the things that irritate you about someone become less important. I think that we worry too much about people's faults when we should just be thankful that they have brought the strengths of their personality to our lives.

And so I give you Theory 15: Take the time to accept that the people in your lives will die, and you may be forced to live through it. Whenever you lose someone, you are forced to take stock of yourself and decide whether you truly appreciated that person. One of the best ways to make sure that you did is to regularly remind yourself that you have only limited time with the people around you, while they are still around.

(On a sidenote, if you picture someone dying and you don't miss then as much as you thought you would, stop wasting your and his/her time. Set them free to find someone else who will appreciate them. I regret how much energy I have wasted on the wrong people.)

Personally, my favourite part of this entire conversation is the hidden irony of the benefit of selfishness. I started out being horribly narcissist (as per my usual formula), picturing people dying and thinking only of myself and how I am affected. However, the better I got at doing this, the more I started to see past this and focus only on what I appreciate about other people. If you can truly become a better person from such self-involved introspection, than maybe the Book of Mark will have a practical use for me besides just tracking over time the impact of my many horrible vices on my ability to express a thought clearly.

As for my loved ones, let me just say two things: First, the wisdom of this theory has long helped me put up with each of you even though so many of you suck so very much. Second, I just want to say that all of you really mean. . .

Ahh screw it. We’ll talk later.

Right?

Update on Theory 15

2006-12-30T02:08:00.000-05:00

I will be doing some traveling starting at the crack of dawn tomorrow and lasting until mid-January. It is a reasonably well earned vacation and I hope it will serve to add some context to my future theories.

In any event, Theory 15 is called “Live each day like it is someone else’s last.” It is one of the last in my “How to start thinking more about the Big Picture” bag of tricks. I had hoped to complete it before leaving but I couldn’t.

I hope you have all had a happy and safe holiday, and I’ll resume this conversation in mid-to-late January.

Book of Mark Christmas Special - The True Spirit of Christmas (Specials)

2006-12-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

I had a weak moment on Saturday night. I was full of disruptive chemicals and mutinous thoughts as I meandered through some back-Toronto alleys on my way home to my condo. It was about 2:30 in the morning and I decided, having fought off the urge to bum a cigarette from anyone during the evening, that I would stop in and buy a pack for the sake of enjoying just one smoke. (As someone with Crohn’s Disease, this is even more stupid then it would be for most people.)

This was not meant to signal any plans of re-emerging as a full time smoker; I just felt like it. Nonetheless, here in Canada where insane taxes lift the price of smokes to $10 per pack, this was still a rather remarkable impulse buy.

The next evening, about to retire and remembering that I was flush with cigarettes, I figured I’d head down for final a breath of poisoned-treated fresh air and then do the right thing and give the smokes away.

A couple of homeless people were nearby so I figured I’d give the nearly full pack to them. They thanked me and I walked back to the front of my building to finish my cigarette.

Now, if you have any experience watching horrible television you should already be way ahead of me here. Cheesy scenes involving homeless people and “the gang” learning a valuable lesson about “giving” are a key part of the network TV Xmas special formula.

Before I headed back in, I looked over and, to my surprise, the two homeless people had grown into a group of homeless people. Word had spread on the street about the tobacco mother-lode, and it turned out that these homeless people had no problem with sharing.

As you can imagine, this made me realize something truly important: I live by a lot of homeless people. No wonder I got such a good deal on the condo.

I looked over back at them with the obligatory amount of sympathy, and then my mind started to wander as I pictured their hard lives and imagined what impact street life must have on their respective life expectancies. I even wondered whether it was really such a nice gesture to give them, or anyone else, cigarettes. You certainly aren’t helping anyone’s plight, and you are only enabling unhealthy behaviours. (Canadian spelling)

It was only then that the full picture of that had happened truly dawned on me, and I understood the true spirit of a Book of Mark Christmas: I uncovered a twisted line of reasoning that made me feel a little better without actually having to do anything.

Check my math here:

1) Cigarettes are bad for you. It was dumb of me to buy them.
2) I, and many others, still clearly enjoy cigarettes on some level.
3) Homeless people have it tough, so much so that I would assume their life expectancy suffers.
4) I would further assume that homeless people are less likely to die or become seriously ill from smoking. They share the same risks as the rest of us, but other risks such as hunger, cold, lack of nutrients, unsafe surroundings, possibly more serious drug addictions etc. likely combine to pose a greater threat.
5) In fact, one could probably go far as to suggest that smoking, statistically speaking, has less of an impact on the health of homeless people as it does on others.

Do you see where I am going here? I had hit on a hidden efficiency. The pleasure of smoking, which someone like me can not afford to engage in, is less harmful to the homeless. It is a luxury that they can better afford than I can. By giving them cigarettes, I had turned a negative into a positive. Rather than hurting myself, I was enhancing their life, also hurting them, but in a way that was less likely to matter. They got to enjoy the benefit, and, to use a football analogy, the penalty would likely be declined

I waved goodnight to them and went upstairs to my room with a new vision for the future:

I hereby declare TODAY (whatever day it is that you are reading this) the first ever “International Give a Homeless Person a Cigarette Day”.

Hey, we can all do more, and most of us probably won’t, but this is something even the laziest of us can do (provided that you are a smoker). If you are not a smoker, but you happen to be a real do-gooder, go into a variety store and experience the joy of buying your first pack of smokes, then turn around and give them away.

To sum up

a) I found a way to discuss the plight of the homeless and made a very token attempt at improving their lives while still doing nothing to address the problem itself.
b) I made a bunch of assumptions without backing them up in any way, and then used those assumptions to support my point.
c) I spoke in a smug manner and acted as though I was superior while offering no reason for anyone to accept this.

That, my friends, is how you make a Christmas Special. Now get out there and give away some smokes.

Theory 14: Judging A History Book By Its Blown Cover

2006-12-14T00:03:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed how often my recent theories involve stepping out of your own conscious persona and focusing on some other version? It seems I am always encouraging you to think with your 12 year old self, or your 19 year old self, your mind with auto-pilot switched off, or your mind with immediate feedback underemphasized, or your mind with a specific focus on your emotional side, or on your rational side, etc. etc.

Now that I think about it, I recall one commenter specifically complained about this several theories ago and asked when I would finally start to focus on my actual current conscious thoughts.

Well we all know I am not about to go and do that. That’s clearly what everyone else is doing. I am trying to be original in the manner that I go about stealing other people’s ideas. Instead, this week I will encourage you to set aside your own mind entirely, and focus instead on minds that don’t even exist yet. How would they judge our decisions?

Many of my stranger memories involve sitting in history class in Grades 9 and 10. For some reason I have very vivid memories of European history, even though I still don’t know my own license plate and I have a lifelong problem of confusing the names of old and current girlfriends. (This is an especially tragic concept for those of you who can estimate how few girlfriends I am actually talking about). My first theory about this selective memory was simple – Grade 10 was when I first started drinking, so it makes sense that I remember things up to that time but not after. However, it later occurred to me that I don’t remember anything from any other class during that time period. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I subconsciously enjoyed history (14 year-old Mark would be a little bit surprised to hear this).

One of the best things about history is that it makes you feel superior when you learn how stupid everyone was in the past. I especially liked doing that. I would sit in class and take great pleasure in absorbing how stupid society was then as compared to now. Let’s face facts; many of the ancient Greeks like Plato who form the cornerstone of modern philosophy never quite reasoned that pedophilia might be a bad thing. Many of the architects of the very “liberty” that provided the cornerstone for the US Constitution had slaves. These people were, relative to their time, moral people and intellectual giants. They are the very best that history has to offer. It’s just that, in this day and age, even a regular guy like me can apply simple hindsight and cry foul. As time goes on, we all get a little smarter and grow a little less tolerant of screwing little kids and enslaving people. We evolve. (As a whole anyway - there is clearly a bottom element still guilty of these crimes. I am pretty sure I have already discussed this.)

Of course, the scary thing about this is when you flip it around: The evidence suggests that in the future, people will learn about us (bear in mind, we will be history at this point), and they will likely shake their heads and wonder.

There are all kinds of things going on that we can imagine history might want to put a bit more emphasis on: the fact that the world is getting hotter, that fish in the ocean are so full of mercury that they can make us sick, that all kinds of Naziesque atrocities go on uninterrupted in the “less important” parts of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to be up on a pedestal here (not yet anyway) and I am not trying to make this a political discussion. I am stating the obvious. No matter what our political beliefs, we all know these problems exist and we live with them. Looking over last year’s itinerary I can find very little that I have done to make any of these problems go away.

I also don’t think for one minute that blaming politicians that we (for the most part) elect is any kind of solution.

I do think, however, that we would all be in better shape if we spent more time looking at how history will perceive us whenever we make a choice. I am not just talking about big moral decisions. I think many people think more broadly when faced with greater issues.
This kind of crap is easy when you speak things like violence and intolerance. We all know we are not a perfect species. For today, I am really talking about how the little parts of day to day life might be met with ridicule in the future.

That was where the ancient Greeks and early Americans got into trouble. Nobody could touch them on the bigger issues, but they failed to see how some of the simple things they took for granted ended up making them look very bad.

And so I give you Theory 14: Every now and then, stop what you’re doing, in the middle of any daily task or activity that doesn’t appear to be significant, and look at how it will be judged when we are part of history.

Here is a list of things I see every day, still accepted as norms in modern society, that I think our generations, including the royal we, will be judged harshly for in the future:

1) Uncomfortable shoes. Seriously ladies, what in the hell are you thinking? I know I am extreme in that I have never noticed a woman’s shoes once in my life, and I am not tall to begin with, but shoes are designed to help protect our feet and make movement more comfortable. How insecure to we have to be that we deny those two most important features just to try and make legs look longer?

2) Bottled water – In any city with adequate tap water, bottled water is 100 times more expensive, less healthy (either by contamination percentages or the flourise debate), tested much less frequently, and unbelievably unnecessary assault on the environment. All because of brilliant marketing. Look it up.

3) Same sex marriage – Don’t they deserve the same shot at unhappiness as the rest of us? Pro-gay or anti-gay, what are we straight people really giving up?

4) Pure-bred dogs: It is thought that dogs evolved to become domesticated because those that were the tamest and friendliest had the best access to the human cornucopia of waste, and were treated better. Over time, the dogs that behaved best, either through being the friendliest or the most useful, continued to mate with other superstar dogs. Eventually, you have the ultimate in friendly pets. Nowadays, we place on emphasis on direct bloodline so we can better control what the dog will look like. I recently came to understand that this means that the finest and most expensive dogs are inbred with direct family members to control results. Of course, this also causes all kinds pf problems and horrible birth defects as recessive genes are given a clear path to the end zone. We want our dogs to be prettier so we make them genetically inferior. Even the past can make fun of us for this one.

5) Fashion. My understanding of fashion is that we are all supposed to accept blindly that whatever we wore five years ago was horrible and whatever we wear now is objectively superior. Until things become retro, in which case we repeat the cycle as necessary. The goal is some paradox of trying to make yourself “stand out” by looking just like other people that “stand out”. Fashion industry execs are some of the smartest people in the world.

6) Drug laws: Don’t get me started.

7) The pursuit of accumulation – How many people work ridiculous hours so they can buy objects that add no value to their overall happiness. I am all for capitalism, but why is it some people use life just to enjoy having things instead of the other way around?

Now I am on a pedestal. What can I say? Every now and then I think about this kind of thing while driving my SUV to the cottage, munching on a veal sandwich and waving to the recreational hunters.

Theory 13 – Reverse Cognition: Thinking and Feeling in Middle Management

2006-11-16T01:08:00.001-05:00

Just to mix it up, I am going to give you a sneak preview of this week’s theory at the beginning. Then when you read on you can watch as I desperately try to pull it together.

“I submit for your consideration Theory # 13 in Book of Mark – While it is fine and dandy to let the dominant side of our brains make the day to day decisions, I recommend that we let the weaker side of our brain set the boundaries that our dominant side must adhere to. We must regularly communicate with, and even report to that part of us that isn’t fit to be in the driver seat. It should be our middle management.”

Maybe next week I’ll pull the old cinematic trick of writing out the theory and posting it with each paragraph in reverse order.

-------------------

I have only ever taken one psychology course, and I didn’t love it. I now find it a lot more interesting, but I am a long way from being an expert.

Back in the day when the concept of human psychology was still relatively Jung, we discovered that, when making choices, the brain operates in two distinctive modes: the thinking mode and the feeling mode. Further, we have come to understand that each of us has a preference as to which mode we use when we make decisions. Many of us prefer to make choices using the rational side of our brains, while others like to feel their way through decision-making.

(For psychology majors, note that I am ignoring the ‘sensing’ and ‘intuition’ functions because they are less involved in making decisions, they are more involved in gathering information, and, most importantly, because I know less about them.)

Although both the thinking and feeling sides of decision-making are very important, everyone sticks to the dominant mode in the vast majority of cases. Jung made it clear that we can’t develop all of our decision-making and information-gathering modes equally. When we make choices, we follow internal processes that are completely intuitive - it is so deeply embedded within us that we can’t help but stick to what we know.

Sadly, I believe that this leads to serious errors in judgment that are both predictable and avoidable. If we take the time to understand ourselves and the way that we approach decisions, we can learn why we make the mistakes we do.

If you will indulge me, let’s see how this plays itself out in some shameless generalizations.

The danger of making some choices “by feel”:

A person whose dominant mode is “feeling” rather than “thinking” needs to understand and recognize that life is full of scenarios where our own wiring makes our feelings a danger to us. Crimes of passion, losing your cool, or just failing to fully understand the consequences your choices can all result in choosing “by feel”.

I’ll give you an extreme, but highly scientific example.

Have you had a friend end up in a bad relationship, or even a VERY bad relationship?

It is often easy for us, the impartial observer and friend, to see the disaster coming. We can recognize that the new person that our friend is connecting with might be abusive, too angry, too self destructive, too incapable of making our friend happy.
But why doesn’t our friend see this? Many probably assume that only truly insecure and weak people fall into the situation of being trapped in a bad or abusive relationship. It is also important to remember that people who make decisions by feel have a lot stacked up against them in this situation.

We know that instinct plays a big role in how people choose their mates. When our hypothetical friend finds a new love interest, his/her brain floods his/her system with feelings. Where poetry could never agree on what love is, science has managed to pin down what these feelings are: a healthy dose of phenylethylamine, dopamine and norepinephrine. When mixed together and administered at a “love level” dosage, these chemicals can get you pretty fucked up. They also force us to overlook what might have been shortcomings in our respective mates, or clues of incompatibility – these chemicals give us a one track mind. Our body intentionally undermines our rational thinking by doping us up and making us feel very good. After those chemicals wear off (30 months at the longest), we get hit with a whole bunch of new chemicals, as lust fades to nurturing affection. These represent a less intense high, but another obstacle for the feeling mind just the same.

In order for “feelers” to break the cycle of an abusive relationship, they must put aside what their brain is making them “feel” and go against the way that they have made almost every other decision within their lives.

The danger of making choices “by thinking”:

In spite of the example above, I think that what we feel is extremely important. I make all kinds of decisions just by “going by feel.” People who think too much but don’t take time to “feel” life are especially boring people. They tend to make great long-term choices, but they don’t have a lot of fun, and are often unhappy. Furthermore, because so much of our intelligence comes from subconscious thought rather than fully conscious thought, it is incorrect to assume that thinkers are any smarter than feelers when it comes to making decisions. People going by feel have the benefit of instinct that can be a wonderful advantage (as well as a disadvantage as discussed above). People who use rational thought alone have less access to their own instincts, because they act more on what they understand in their conscious mind rather then the subtle signals of their subconscious mind.

After all, if the goal is to be happy, you need to understand that happiness is a feeling, so people who are more natural thinkers need to reconcile that rational thought is often a difficult tool to use when the goal is accomplishing a sensation that you are going to feel rather than think of. When I look over my life, as a person who has been accused of thinking too much, I have to admit that some of my happiest moments were sitting in a cottage stoned out of my tree thinking that the inflatable dear head on the wall is probably the coolest things ever. That was more about feeling a sensation of happiness than it was about thinking. (At least I think it was.)

Thus, we are faced with a contrast: People who make choices by feel or by thought both have advantages and hurdles. Moreover, we are all wired to have a dominant way of processing information, so it would be foolish of me to suggest that people change this. How do we know we are using the best “mode of decision-making” at any given time, and are we even capable of switching back and forth if we wanted to?

A common theme in the Book of Mark involves using excessive contrast to bring grounding. I can’t practically propose that everyone starts making decisions in a different manner than we have our entire lives, but I can offer a simpler solution, one that I would imagine is a fairly basic principle for psychologists. We need to make a point of touching base with our recessive side – we need to think the “wrong way” (relatively speaking) to make sure that we are actually “right” when we are thinking “the right way”. Our weaker mode of thought may be too useless to be put in charge of the day to day work or making choices, but there is one task that it is perfectly suited for: middle management. As much as I hate to say this, we need to insert a little bureaucracy in our thinking patterns.

For you feelers out there, go ahead and make your decisions by feel. Don’t even feel guilty about it. However, I propose that you should set aside time to reflect through your thinking mind. Rather than looking at individual decisions, look with your weaker mind at the bigger picture. The big picture is actually a lot simpler than day to day life. Little things like “Do I like myself?” or “Am I the type of person I want to be?” are the kind of simple questions that are better suited to our weaker side. Have an honest conversation with yourself about who you are and what your moral boundaries are. When the heat of the moment arrives, and your emotions are pushing in a certain direction, you can follow them blindly as long as you are staying within the boundaries that you promised you would. Actually sit in the dark and let the weak mind set the boundaries, and you can let the strong ‘feeling mind’ run freely within those boundaries.

For you thinkers out there, the same theory applies. As every good psychologist on horrible television sitcoms has explained to me, you need to set aside time to get in touch with those feelings. Little questions like “Am I happy? Am I enjoying life?” will force you to face certain failures in your day to day decisions. If you are an extremely good rational thinker, you may even do a good job of working that into your rational decisions at the ground level. Also, if you have the mental and physical capacity to indulge in chemicals without ruining your life, try to get drunk and/or stoned now and then. I sure do love my sharp contrasts.

And here is where we insert the Theory from the beginning of the post. Stay tuned for some further discussion in the random thoughts and practical applications:

I submit for your consideration Theory # 13 in Book of Mark – While it is fine and dandy to let the dominant side of our brains make the day to day decisions, I recommend that we let the weaker side of our brain set the boundaries of behaviour that our dominant side must adhere to. We must regularly communicate with, and even report to that part of us that isn’t fit to be in the driver seat. It should be our middle management.

Appendix: Some random thoughts and practical applications.

1) Should I “follow my heart?”

Sometimes our dominant side has trouble making a decision. Something holds us back. When asking others for advice, some people like to say “Follow your heart.”

The only thing your heart wants to do is to continue pumping blood throughout your body without undue blockage or contamination.

Think I’m knitpicking? Well I have a good reason. When people say “Follow your heart”, they really mean “do what you FEEL is right”. They romanticize it by tying it to the heart, but we know that it is really your brain that decides what you feel. What this person really is saying is “follow the part of your brain that goes by feel instead of thinking rationally”. That is an important distinction. If you are a chronic thinker, following your heart may be a good idea. If you are someone who is already a “feeler” when you make decisions, you may need to wonder why you are questioning it. You may be better off with someone saying “Follow your brain.”

2) How do you “follow your heart” anyway?

The truth is, it is often tough to know what we want. We get stuck with choices and we try to figure out which choice will make us happier, but it proves difficult. We can’t tell what we want. How do we follow our heart if we don’t know what it is telling us?

This is probably a question best asked to some sort of trained professional (priest, psychologist, cardiovascular surgeon, etc.), but I can offer one of my endless stupid tricks that will work in some situations where you are trying to choose between exactly two choices.

Whenever I can’t decide something, I flip a coin. Before flipping it, I convince myself that I will do whatever the coin says. I promise to follow it. When I flip the coin, I blank my mind and try to pick up on what my initial reaction is. About half the time, I get an initial surge of disappointment. My brain sends a signal that I have made the wrong choice. In such instances, I break my promise to follow the coin and reverse the decision. It actually works – forcing myself down either path gives me a glimpse of which path I might want to choose.

You are probably wondering how anyone would be able to convince himself that they will do what the coin says after having broken this promise numerous times. This is yet another situation where alcohol and drugs are a backseat philosopher’s best friend.

Theory #12: Micro-Choice Inertia

2006-10-26T00:57:00.000-04:00

If you are following along with the home game version of the book of Mark, you’ll remember that, after 10 theories mostly dealing with self-actualization, we are now in the early stages of different theories about practical decision-making in a complex world.

Today’s installment may seem straightforward, but I think when applied properly it is probably one of the most useful in the package. Whereas the last theory dealt with “fork in the road” type decisions, this week I am concerned with more subtle decisions, the kind of decisions we keep subconsciously putting off to the point that we don’t even realize that we are neglecting to make them.

How many times have you heard someone look back over a period of time and express surprise and regret over how quickly time has passed, how quickly we age, how little has changed, and how little he/she has accomplished?

One of the key factors behind poor decision making is the fact that the details of life can sometimes distract us from the bigger picture. (I have already spoken at length about the details of life.) Many times we don’t even realize that we are not accomplishing what we want from life because we are not focusing our attention where it should be. I believe that the choices we make are often, when taken alone, small and insignificant. However, when taken together, a series of small and seemingly insignificant choices repeated over a period of time can total the sum of one very wrong decision. Because these are smaller decisions, we lose sight of the fact that we are slowly, almost undetectably, making an error in judgment.

I offer a simple four part test that you can apply to many different problems in your life. It is an exercise is demonstrating how easily it is for us to fall off track, and how simple it can be to get back on track just by keeping your focus on the bigger picture. I encourage you to try this exercise out with questions like:

Why is my career not going as well as I hoped?
Why do my relationships keep ending the same way?
Am I saving enough for retirement? For my child’s education?
Why am I still such a lousy golfer?
Why do I sometimes make bad moral choices?
Why do I drink or smoke too much?

One thing to note about this four part test – it isn’t mine. I stole it from a candidate I was interviewing. He didn’t mean it as a life theory and was applying it as a management style for specific situations, but I liked it so much I have adopted it. The candidate didn’t get the job and now he is getting plagiarized, and because I am not sure which candidate it was (two of them were very similar) I can’t even give credit. Nonetheless, I benefited from his wisdom and now so can you.

Besides, I have already been pretty clear about the fact that I am going to be borrowing from other great thinkers.

On with the test: Next time you find yourself struggling with a specific goal, or wondering why a certain part of your life might have gone off track, just take a moment to answer the following four questions:

Question #1: What is it that you want? (What are you trying to accomplish? What is the goal?)

Seems easy enough, but sometimes we are spinning wheels and not focusing on the prize. Let’s put it this way, if you don’t know the answer to this question, you have already discovered why you are struggling, and answering Question 1 is the only thing you need to be working on.

Question 2: What are you doing to accomplish your goal?

It is amazing to think of the cartwheels we will do just to prevent having to pass judgment on ourselves. Separating self-bias and judgment from the equation, and forcing us to objectively list what action we have taken, can be an eye-opening experience that makes it much easier to face the reality of question 3.

Question 3: Do you believe that what you are doing in Question 2 is enough to accomplish your goal?

Here is where the participant will often open his/her eyes and realize two very important things:

a) I am simply not doing enough to accomplish what I want to.
b) Nothing will change unless I change it myself.

Question 4: What more do you think you should be doing?

Alas, the answer to question 4 may not be as simple as we all hope. It may involve making life changes, re-evaluating priorities, and even seeking help from others. Nonetheless, if you emerge from the first three questions with an honest assessment of things, the answer to question 4 can ultimately be the ticket to reaching your goal.

Clearly, this is a very straightforward exercise to undergo. Most people, as I explain it to them, look at me cock-eyed when I first go through it (bear in mind this conversation usually takes place at a bar), but I think that most of us are guilty of falling victim to bad habits. It is very difficult to change habits unless you are looking from a broader perspective.

The answer often falls in the little decisions we make day in and day out, not in big landmark decisions that bring sudden lasting change. We often need to change our daily routine and realize that it will take a series of small steps, rather than one big one, that will get us where we need to go. Putting aside $100 this month may only make $100 of difference. Making that decision again and again over 15 years can make a world of difference. It is the same with turning down that one cigarette when you try to quit. One cigarette doesn’t hurt you, but repeating that decision does.

Therein lies Theory 12 in the Book of Mark: Seemingly small choices involving the details of life can distract us from the big picture. Sometimes we need to step aside and honestly evaluate our activity to help us get back on track. The “micro-choices” in life, when added together, can be just as important as life’s big decisions.

Theory 11: The Longest Run. Part B: The Gamblers' Code

2006-10-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

I have now started Part B of Theory 11 on three separate occasions. Unfortunately, I lack the focus to write about what I have scheduled, so I keep on finding myself rambling about things well outside the scope of this web site.

How ironic that just as I gear up to write a Book of Mark submission on how intelligent gambling can help people make better life decisions, the American government moves to prohibit Internet gambling by attaching new regulations to the recently passed Port Security Bill. (For more on how this will impact online poker, I’d suggest going here.)

Having poker attacked by the US government, just as I planned to praise playing poker, has just been too much of a coincidence for my mind to pass up. I keep going off on a tangent.

I am going to try again now and do the post I set out to do. See if you can pinpoint the exact moment when I wander off topic:

Here is where we left off:

Your decisions, not your genes, will define your life.
From the moment you are born, you learn of the importance of your decisions. Your brain receives positive feedback when the results you desire occur as a result of your decisions. Your brain receives negative feedback when you make a decision that leads to bad results.
There is a great deal of gamble in life. Sometimes it is very difficult to know what the results of your decisions will be, and results can often punish good decisions and reward bad ones.

Here is where I am going:

I believe that many people make bad decisions because we are often guilty of relying on our own brain’s feedback without considering the importance of sample size. We rely too much on our own perceptions and do too little to investigate the larger law of averages.
Even though you can’t guarantee what result will come from a single decision, you must accept that the better you are making decisions, the better the results of your decisions will ultimately be.
In order to make better decisions, you must strive to better understand the gamble within life. In order to do this, you must distance yourself from short term results and focus solely and the quality of your decision-making. When you do this you are rewarded in the long run.
As the quality of your decision-making improves, the immediate results of your decisions, whether they are good or bad in the short run, become less and less important. You can still rely on the longest run working out.

Naturally, I hope to draw these points out in a logical way, with all kinds of pertinent examples. Still with me so far? Ok then.

I would now like to take a moment to address every religious person in the world, be you Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, a rare surviving Branch Davidian, or anything else:

Through the course of my life I have gathered that most you benefit from your own personal beliefs and have become better people as a result. I have only respect for that. Good people use their faith as their own inspiration to do wonderful things, enriching their lives and the lives of people around them. Unfortunately, some people use religion not as a means for their own enlightenment, but as justification for limiting the freedom of others, and for other horrible acts.

In short, I make a practice never to judge people by their religion alone. Religious beliefs have inspired great things in great people. They have also inspired horrible things in lesser people.

That pretty much covers my thoughts on religion.

South of the border in the great United States, I have watched as religion has increasingly become the sole driving force behind many of its most important political decisions. Freedom, the one ideal that the US still regularly trumpets as its mandate, is what ends up suffering. Like I said above, religion is what you make it. Too many countries make it into a manipulative fear-mongering tool to justify putting limitations of people’s freedom and slowing down the entire human evolution train. The US has chosen its company in this respect, and it will certainly make for historic times.

Must. Get back. On topic.

Poker, like religion, is also what you make it. To many people, it is an outlet for one’s darkest weakness: A need to surrender to chance and to continue risking until all is lost. My loose understanding of psychology is that chronic gamblers (chronic LOSING gamblers) suffer from innate self-loathing or insecurity to the point where they must keep going until they lose everything. It is an adrenaline rush, and it is fiercely addictive. Bad things happen when people fall too deep within the clutches of gambling. This is why Senator Frist is trying to ban it. He assures me that anyone who loves families must support a government-forced halt to this behaviour.

Believe it or not, poker can also be a positive thing. I know this first hand. As someone who loves to gamble, but will not stand for throwing money away, I was forced to learn to play well. I take pride in the fact that I am a winning poker player. I am NOT a great poker player. I will probably NEVER be a great poker player. I play because I love to play, and I love what it teaches mr about myself.

Being a good player requires many skills, but there is one skill that I value above all others: I have learned to appreciate the long run. I have learned, very slowly and very painfully, that even when you put yourself in a great position, when the money is all in and you are a giant favourite, you still lose fairly often. In fact, you have to let go of the romantic notion that can EXPECT to win on ay given day. There is just too much chance to allow for this. However, if you make right decisions, again and again, over many hands, over a long period of time, you can rely on more good things happening than bad.

Some time ago I stopped worrying about whether I won or lost individual hands. I started taking amusement in bad beats. After all, I play a lot of hands. I have to expect to get unlucky every now and then. But, I trust, I ACTUALLY TRUST, that I am making enough good decisions that it will work out in the long run. And it generally does.

Life, like poker and religion, is also what you make it. We all are forced to make millions of decisions every single day. Some we stress over as if they will be sole determining factor in how life will turn out:

Which career should I pursue?
Should I buy that house?
Should I be gay or straight?
Should I have children?

Don’t get me wrong, those decisions will have a dramatic impact on your life. Some decisions change everything. Some decisions, such as moral decisions, can never be undone. (I consider knowingly making bad moral decisions the poker equivalent of playing with more than you can afford to lose.)

However, if you keep grinding out good decisions, day in and day out, it almost won’t matter what fork in the road you will take. Every single path can lead to happiness provided you navigate it well.

Unfortunately, many poker players take a different tact. They don’t learn the math, and they rely only on personal experience to guide decisions. They remember and attach too much significance to individual hands. They remember the times when they made (mathematically) the wrong decision, and got lucky. This luck ends up costing them more in the long run, as they repeat their mistakes and eventually it all works against them, rather than for them.

Sadly, in life, the metaphor holds. People use single events as a justification for continued poor decision making. They believe what they want to believe and they let their minds convince them that everything will still somehow work out in the end. They don’t evaluate their decision making objectively because they don’t want to face the path they are actually putting themselves on.

And so I give you Theory 11 in the Book of Mark – If you focus on the quality of your decision making process, as opposed to the results that occur from individual decisions, you can have faith that good results will consistently follow. Life may not always be so predictable as to give you the exact results you wanted when you want them, but, IN THE LONG RUN, you will be a consistent winner in the high stakes game of living life. In fact, as long as you trust in your ability to make decisions, you can stop sweating about individual choices. You’ll be OK taking almost any path.

In Part A I posed a hypothetical about a very unfortunate woman. You can argue that she may have wanted to be a better driver, but there is no clear mistake that she has made. The gamble in life means that some horrible things can happen that really aren’t your fault. You need to learn to deal with bad beats and trust in yourself.

Unfortunately, if you live in the US, you may not have the option of using poker as a tool for developing respect for the long run, for trusting in your decisions, or for learning to take bad beats. Your freely elected government feels that poker’s potential for leading people to bad decisions is too much of a threat to your vulnerable sensibilities. I understand that having your own religion is still legal for now, even though it carries many of the same risks as poker. You may want to pursue that perfectly legal option.

Funnily enough, as I head into a period of life that seems to have more forks in the road than I can remember, I take great comfort in what poker has taught me. I don’t really know where I’ll be in two years, but I trust myself to end up somewhere nice.

Theory 11: The Longest Run. Part A: The Rebirthing

2006-09-21T01:20:00.000-04:00

I have the Internet again. Nice work friend who taunted me two posts ago. Now I can resume my foolishness.

Please close your eyes and imagine the instant before the moment when you were born.

Wham! You’re born.

Just like that, you have begun the experience of life on the planet earth. You know nothing and you can’t even see. Life is a complete mystery for you.

It is, however, only a partial mystery in my eyes. Being a grown-up of moderate intelligence, I can feel confident that I know at least this much:

1) Roughly nine months ago your parents’ hormonal urges somehow collided in a manner that allowed for fertilization. You are the fruit of a moment of orgasm, so you can rest assured that it’s mostly downhill from here. Just hope and pray that this is the only time that you have any direct connection to getting your parents off.
2) Your parents, with an assist from their respective parents and so on, have uniquely combined their gene pool to create the blueprint for your personality. Your genes are a substantial part of who you are now and who you will always be. There is nothing you can do to improve on your genetic toolbox from here on in, so you are going to have to make the best of whatever that you have.

As your mother sets her eyes upon you for the first time, she wonders what type of person you will turn out to be. If by chance she knows the identity of the father, and even knows a fair amount about him, she can already take an educated guess as to the overall potential that your genes will probably give you. Now all that is left to determine is how your experiences will interact with your genes to determine what decisions you make during the course of your life. Nature and nurture can argue all they want about who deserves the most credit for who you really are, but it is your decisions as a living person that will ultimately define you.

Early on, the decisions are automatic and have little impact. However, gradually, as you realize that you control the movement of your hand, or that you have the power to hurt others, or that you are ultimately accountable for your own choices, you begin to have a larger impact in your own life, and in your own development. Unlike the problem with inheriting your genes, you learn that you do have some control over things through your own life decisions.

Bear in mind, you aren’t just controlling your own movements; you are playing a part in controlling the world around you. You make a decision, and your action causes reactions throughout the cosmos, which in turn generates even more results that happened thanks to your original decision. It is fairly clear that is in your best interest to make the best decision whenever possible. The value of your choices generate the extent to which subsequent results are favourable (Cdn spelling) to you.

At least you assume they do, but themost intelligent decisions don’t always cause a fair result, do they? Irony would never let that happen. Sometimes you take the safest route and get mugged; you take every precaution and get unlucky; you exercise and live healthy and still end up getting lung disease faster than a smoker can say “I would kill for a cigarette.”

Life isn’t always fair.

So, even though we last left you as an infant who doesn’t know anything, already you face the three-headed challenge of (1) living with the fact that you can’t influence your own genetic makeup; (2) needing to understand that you can control your fate to some extent through the decisions you make; and (3) needing to accept that this won’t always help and will sometimes even backfire. We all know that the right choice can produce the wrong result.

There is a great deal of gamble in life. I myself have been coming across a fair amount of forks in the road lately, and wondering which direction to head in. I like to think that I am pretty good at making decisions, ample evidence to the contrary aside, because I, in my own way, take decisions very seriously.

In Part B – The Gamblers Code, I plan to tell you what I think the key to making the right decisions is, and why I think that a lot of people screw up both their decisions and, in turn, their lives.

In order to try and keep your interest through yet another dragged out two-part theory, I will leave you with a quiz:

Clear your mind.

A woman is driving home with her child in a car seat. The child had begged to be allowed to ride in the back seat without being in the car seat. The child may or may not be old enough to ride without a car seat but the mother had decided that it was probably safer, and definitely easier, just to strap the child in the seat.

The mother, as we all do in life, comes to a fork in the road.

Both routes can take her home, but the left turn is a little faster. However, as the woman arrives at the fork, she has a funny urge to turn right solely to mix it up and break from routine.

“Another time,” she thinks, because she remembers that she is in a hurry and has important reasons to get home sooner. She turns left.

A giant truck pulls out onto the street without warning and is headed straight for her. While an excellent driver might have been able to avoid the truck, the mother is only a slightly above-average driver. She collides with the truck. A horrible accident occurs. The mother survives but the child dies. The paramedics comment that, unusual as it may be, the only hope in this case would have been if the child was thrown clear of the car.

It is a simple question, but I suggest that it will help you determine whether or not you have some important problems with your own decision-making.

So I ask you: What was the mothers’ biggest mistake?

Stay tuned for Part B: The Gamblers Code, wherein I get nice and arrogant and try to tell you how my vices can help you make better decisions.

Intermission 2: How do I suck, let me count the ways.

2006-09-14T00:13:00.000-04:00

No theories of life this week. As we all know, theories of life are for people who can function reasonably well in society.

First off, let me just say that it takes a strange combination of vision, incompetence and external stimulants for a former IT specialist to go 6 weeks, despite all reasonable efforts, without Internet access in a big city like Toronto.

I have some pretty cool stuff coming in the book of Mark: I am going to harshly but constructively criticize people that think everything happens for a reason; I am going to help you visualize your loved ones dying; I am going to both attack and support a deterministic vision of existence; and, I am going to try and explore racism with some brutally honest statements about how our cowardly minds (mine included) really work.

Is it just me or do I use colons and semi-colons more than most people? There’s a Crohns Disease joke in there somewhere.

Sadly, I am not going to do any of this until next week at the earliest. It’s pathetic to even talk about it, and I am about to prove how pathetic it is: I was watching a rerun of Beverly Hills 90210 today, which I haven’t actually done in over a month for the record, and Andrea tells Dylan that the best advice you can give a writer is to not talk about writing but just do it. Great advice for a teenager, though as I vaguely recall the actress was 37 at the time and the actor portraying Dylan was 30. In other words, even though I am watching a teenager’s show, I am at least relating to actors in my own age group (as they then were).

In spite of Andrea/Gabrielle’s wise counsel, I promise I will get going again as soon as I have the Internet. Life is hard without knowing what craziness he is up to, or how she will react to Lucas winning Rock Star, or even how the world will react without its greatest podcast. I need food for my hungry brain in order to provide you with the mediocre level of writing that all 17 of you have become accustomed to.

The really sad thing is that, in every different situation that I have had problems getting Internet access, I have had friends in moderately high places willing to help me out. At the time that I was being screwed over by the first telco giant, whom I finally fired after months of poor service including two weeks of down time, I actually knew a senior executive who I have been friends with since high school. Impressive? Apparently not, and he has since quit that company since anyway. After a week of working with another friend who is a Professor of Computer Science, I came to accept that I couldn’t just access the Internet for free with a wireless card. (Note: I am stretching by including him on that one.) That was three weeks wasted and I began to develop my little inferiority complex. Now another friend who mocked my last post in the comment section, and who holds an impressive title at my new telco giant letdown, is on the case and is trying to figure out why my technical issue has been escalated three times without any feedback. He still doesn’t know. My complex has mushroomed to the point that I can’t buy toilet paper without asking the stranger in the grocery store for her advice, when the facts suggest I ought to be an expert.

In short, I have learned two things:

1) My friends aren’t as useful as they claim they are.
2) I probably couldn’t survive without them.

When I do get the Internet, I promise to come back with incredible enthusiasm, which renewed access to pornography can only do so much to alleviate.

Theory 10: Practical Applications of Utilitarianism When an Alien Threatens to Kill You. Part B: The Vulcan Threshold

2006-08-31T17:44:00.000-04:00

WARNING: CHRONOLOGICAL FAILURE. If you have not read Part A you may want to skip down and read that first.

It has now been four weeks since I have had the Internet at my home. In case you are wondering, I live in a condominium right in the heart of downtown Toronto, a place many would consider a major metropolitan city. We have all kinds of “big city amenities” like a subway, a healthy nightlife, several professional sports teams, regular smog warnings, etc. We are serviced by numerous large telecommunications providers, all of whom are apparently incompetent.

I have now switched from one abusive telco conglomerate to another, and the difference has been palpable. I now get to spend my evenings listening to an entirely different voice telling me that the next available operator will be along when he/she is good and ready. If I were half the man Al Pacino used to be I would take a flame thrower to this entire world wide web-less situation. Alas, I am not half the man Al Pacino used to be. I am, at best, about 4/5ths the man that I used to be. I will deal with this new devil and take whatever lumps I am served. However, sometimes, when trapped between sleep and drunkenness, my mind wanders to those heady days when I wouldn’t have put up with this bullshit, when I roamed the earth as its master, back in the early 1990s, in my prime, before the aliens.

The early 1990s were tumultuous times: The Toronto Blue Jays were showing us all that the World Series isn’t just for the United States; a young Mike Myers was teaching us that hanging out in your parents’ basement was actually really cool; and, the formerly obscure rock titans known as 95 South were permanently changing the music landscape with the release of their breakthrough masterpiece “Whoot, There it is”.

There I was, in the midst of all that turmoil, a philosophical genius thumbing my nose at the rest of the world. I marched through my final years of higher education in a rum-induced haze, flaunting the law school grading system that ensured all exams were submitted anonymously. I snored through classes, wandered in and out on a whim, and oozed my own refreshing scent that somehow let all those around know that I fancied myself their intellectual superior.

I believed that the rest of the world was trapped in the minutiae of day to day decisions, forced to make endless evaluations of every scenario in order to calculate the more practical choice. Stuck in their own webs of self-delusion and insecurity, they lacked the one thing that could bring a centre of gravity to the abyss of their existences – they were not truly living by principles and principles alone. They were compromised.

I had decided on my principles and I was sticking to them, driven to become my own version of a Randian archetype. Life was simple, and I had the depth of a cartoon character, but I felt certain that I was heroic cartoon character, like He-Man or the “Mark” from G Force: Battle of the Planets.

In short, if you look past the fact that I’m exaggerating, I was a lot like most other 20 year-olds: arrogant and self involved.

At the same time, there was a mad professor who resided at my law school, a man who had graduated the top of his class back in the days of Charles Manson (a person whom this professor shared an odd physical resemblance to at the time.) It was this man who would present the alien hypothesis that would cause so much trouble to my blissful superiority complex. This professor claimed to teach criminal law, but this was in fact a thinly-veiled farce he perpetuated in order to have the freedom to drill his students with the most evil of all philosophical theories, a toxic cocktail I had never encountered before that featured one strong dose of determinism mixed with a shot of relentless practicality.

Indeed, he was a worthy nemesis. Occasionally I would drag myself from daydreams to get sucked into arguing with him. Ironically, we both enjoyed this because we seemed to see the great argument of life the exact same way, but we chose the opposite ends of the spectrum.

On the surface, the mad professor’s theories seemed as simple as mine. He believed that there were no real choices in life, that some combination of nature and nurture made our every move inevitable. The idea of being proud or taking credit for something was ridiculous. We were all just ants playing out our assigned role. Moreover, the idea that criminals, rapists or murderers deserved any blame was preposterous. These people were playing out their inevitable roles the same as you and I. (I will be getting to the determinism equation in Theory 14, and I’ll actually get to create a parallel universe in the process, something which I’ll admit to looking forward to).

More perplexing than removing all choices from his human equation was his subsequent explanation for punishing criminals. He felt it was ridiculous to blame them for their crimes, but he felt we must punish them anyway. Not because they deserved it, just because it was practical. It was the greater good. Utilitarianism in its ugliest form. He took the guilty, made them innocent, and then punished them anyway as a sacrifice for society. He was against everything I stood for. So I argued.

Suffice to say, I challenged him on sacrificing people for “the good” of society. As you can see in Part A, I felt strongly that the greater good was always served through fairness, not through sacrificing the innocent (who in this case were also guilty by definition, but that was no longer relevant for the purpose of the argument).

I told him that sacrificing the innocent was never justified. Life was about principles. If you abandoned principles and started to compromise for the sake of being practical, all was lost. To me, the principles were the only thing that ever mattered.

He assured me he could come up with a hypothetical scenario where, if given the choice, I would forego my own principles and make the practical choice.

I told him he couldn’t.

He assured me he could.

My mind conjured up all kinds of horrible scenarios, but I had done this exercise countless times. I was confident he had nothing.

And then he told me a story.

Imagine, if you will, a scenario where aliens come to the earth. These aliens quickly and credibly establish that they can destroy the planet on a whim. They are horrible beings, the kind of aliens who would presumably listen to Celine Dion, eat their steaks well done and constantly re-raise with only Queen-Ten unsuited.

Further imagine that the aliens allow me to be the person who decides humanity’s fate. They give me a clear ultimatum. I must either horribly torture or kill a completely innocent person, or they will wipe our entire species out.

That’s it. That is all there is to these aliens I keep talking about. It is nothing more than a two paragraph hypothetical, that, even on my worst of bad bays, is unlikely to ever occur. I hated how the aliens had so fortuitously eliminated my argument in Part A about evolution. Evolution was no longer in the equation if everyone was going to die. Suddenly the idea of killing one innocent person, given that we were all going to die, became the greater good.

I smirked at the mad professor and life went on.

I have thought about it ever since.

As dumb as it may sound, this theoretical posed a major problem to my own self-image. If I were to admit in any hypothetical scenario that it might be better to abandon my principles for a practical solution for the “greater good”, I would be walking a slippery slope while opening floodgates while trying to put toothpaste back in the tube all at once. I would be admitting that there is a point of compromise, where principles give way to the practical. I couldn't go around acting superior, I would just be another shmoe. And that is just what I became.

I hate to tell you this but, if you are the innocent person is this hypothetical, than you’ll be the only person on the planet who has a worse day than me, because, in the words of the Mad Professor, “Screw the innocent guy. We have to be reasonable.”

Gradually over time I began to see the wisdom of this theoretical, and the aliens began to appear in real life scenarios. What about bombing and killing civilians to fight a greater threat? What about Nazis? What about telecommunications companies? It turns out that in many cases Fox Mulder was right and the truth is metaphorically out there after all.

Ever since then, I dropped my pretense and joined the rest of the world. I have tried to walk that fine line in the sand, trying to determine for me that exact threshold where logic supersedes idealism, and the needs of many outweigh the equations of right and wrong. Having seen friends and family have children, I now appreciate that almost everyone is forced to make sacrifices when the practical becomes more and more important and you are no longer just looking out for yourself. I have come to appreciate that compromise is a part of growing up. I too am compromised.

So I give you Theory 10 in the Book of Mark: As much as we don't like to admit it, sometimes we may have to comprimise our principles for the sake of being logical, and for the greater good. Where we draw our own compromise threshold goes a long way to determining who we are.

I hate this theory.

So begins the 2nd Chapter in the Book of Mark. We move from actualization through choice to using choice as a means of practical living. I hope you’ll enjoy.

In the words of those great maestros:

“Whoot. There it is”

Theory 10: Practical Applications of Utilitarianism When an Alien Threatens to Kill You. Part A: Viva L’Evolution

2006-08-16T18:43:00.000-04:00

I have been giving the term “Internet surfing” new meaning as I wander from computer to computer over the last two weeks because my own Internet connection is down. My quality of life has suffered, and the quality in the Book of Mark has suffered.
To top it off, I haven’t been able to play any poker. I miss the Internet. I may actually be forced to do some revisions on Theory 9 and 10 when I am up and running again. Nonetheless, the show must go on, and so I ask you:

When it comes to judging people and humanity, are you a pessimist or an optimist?

I am both: First one, then the other. I am highly suspicious of just about anyone I don’t know. I just assume that most people are idiots, and I think the stats back me up. On the other hand, I believe in one force that VERY SLOWLY fixes everything and provides me with great optimism: Evolution.

I already talked about this in Theory #3. You may recall me ranting on about how we only grow through the freedom to make mistakes, as individuals, and as a society. Sure, evolution is painfully slow. It may even be so slow that we are moving backwards as a people through most of our lives without ever living long enough to see the resulting two steps forward. Still, I am somehow cheered up by the fact that we are part of the process of humanity becoming more than what we are.

At this point you are probably hoping I won’t try to bore you by spouting off some of the few things I remember from university. You should know better.

Somewhere around the turn of the 19th century some guy named Bentham came up with “The Greatest Happiness Principle”. He, along with John Stuart Mill’s dad thought that the right thing to do in every situation is one that causes the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest amount of people. Simple and practical, n’est pas? Much like a Book of Mark theory.

Practical as it may sound, I have always disliked this theory because it is a bit TOO simple. Utilitarianism (with a slight nod of the head to John Stuart for trying to salvage it) is the basic idea of maximizing utility for all. It has often been criticized for lacking any kind of moral or principled approach. I agree. It might be better for ten people if you sacrifice one, but is it actually fair? And if it isn’t fair, is it really better? I vaguely recall that Star Trek used to love playing with this one.

Speaking of Star Trek, I should point out that, due to my complete lack of Internet, I have been watching more TV lately. There is a two hour time slot where there is pretty much nothing on except Law and Order. When you watch Law and Order, it is fairly common to hear defense attorneys say that the North American legal system (which I have studied but can safely say I know nothing about) is founded upon the principle that it is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man. I can’t even begin to imagine how much that must suck for prosecutors, but it has always made for decent TV.

You might ask yourself why this is really better for society. In a practical sense, the math simply doesn’t add up. If 100 guilty people go free you have to assume, guilty bastards that they are, that they will utilize their freedom to run about and cumulatively do all kinds of incalculable damage to other innocent people. If we had just convicted them all (and sacrificed the one innocent guy, who statistically, you may remember, is probably an idiot anyway) we would be a lot better off. Crime begets more crime as its impact continues to live with its victims. We are just creating more criminals; all for the sake of one innocent. Any good utilitarian, by Bentham’s standards, should be all over this like a criminal lawyer on the Constitution.

Sadly, I actually believe all this stuff about society not convicting innocent people. I am one of the many people who think that when you cross that line you are headed in the wrong direction and morality is not a street with a lot of U-Turns. I CAN”T STAND when the government, or just about anyone, tries to create the greater good by inflicting controls on others FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. I also can’t stand when they sacrifice people or principles FOR THE GOOD OF SOCIETY. I grew up with the naïve but simply charming idea that we all have to take a principled approach in life in every single thing we do. We can’t turn our back on our principles and jump up and down saying the end justifies the means, no matter how compelling a read The Prince might be.

What’s more, I always liked to take the concept behind so-called utilitarianism and argue it to fit my own philosophy. I have always thought that the evolution (yup, we’re back to evolution) of both people and society is exactly what is best for the greatest number in the long run. Sure, you can argue that you can produce better results in the short run by convicting the odd innocent person, or by banning poker, or sacrificing certain principles for a better short term result. I just don’t think that is really what’s best for the greatest number in the long run. We are all a small part of the evolution of humanity in each and every seemingly meaningless decision that we make, and what is best for society is for us to do whatever foolish thing that we think is the correct moral choice. The most important thing we can do is to live by our own individual principles. That is the way we grow as a species. It doesn’t even matter if we are wrong in our choices. It isn’t our job to be right all the time and if it was we would fail. It is our job to feed the incalculably large and painfully slow evolution machine that keeps us moving forward.

As a young adult, I clung to these principles. The world was black and white and decisions you made were either right or wrong.

Unfortunately, with the wisdom of age comes the cowardice of compromise. One day in law school, while ignoring the things I would later learn watching Law and Order, a radical professor introduced me to a hypothetical question that he liked to use just for the purpose of screwing up idealistic people like me. He introduced me to the aliens, and they have forced me to start inserting surgical little contradictions into what is supposed to be a uniform philosophy. The aliens pretty much took my entire belief system and forced me to question it. They changed the Book of Mark, introducing some unwelcome chaos to a world once comprised only of philosophical law and order .

Stay tuned for Part 2 . .

Theory 9: Casting The Gazillionth Stone

2006-08-10T20:19:00.000-04:00

If this is the first Book of Mark entry that you have ever read, let me just start by apologizing. This one is more crass than usual. I didn’t mean for it to be, it just turned out that way.

Furthermore, if you were to ask me which of my theories that I do the worst job of actually following in real life, it would probably be this one. I’m working on it.

Theory 8 talked about how we are best fit to judge ourselves. This logically begs the question of how fit we are to judge others.

I recently learned something interesting about cats. They like to lick their own asses. Not only that, but if two very special cats get along very well, they don’t mind licking each other’s asses.

Having witnessed this several times in the presence of various different non-feline humans, I have learned that we all react the same way when we watch cats lick each others’ asses. We laugh, and we say “That’s disgusting”. The owner is often embarrassed and puts a stop to it.

While I don’t begrudge anyone else their own personal tastes, I am not one of those people who enjoy the idea of licking asses. Most Crohns’ disease sufferers don’t. At least I assume we don’t, I have never gone to a meeting or anything, and even if I did there is no guarantee it would come up.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that I was reincarnated as a cat, and I didn’t like to lick my own ass, nor would I lick the asses of other cats. Further imagine for a moment that I was aware of how humans would perceive this and I myself still saw the world as a human would. I would think the idea is disgusting.

After about a week, Mark the cat would smell like ass. (Some of you might think this resembles Mark the human). We all know that cats have some special SUPER-SALIVA comprised of some combination of CLR and Liquid Lustre that allows them to lick themselves clean without actually getting sick. They lick their own asses not for the naughty, forbidden pleasure of self-ass licking but simply to keep clean. Mark the cat would not be clean, and everyone would say ``That `s disgusting.`` Mark the cat, by trying to be less disgusting in the eyes of humans, would fail and become more disgusting.

People are different from cats, and when we form basic opinions about cats licking their own asses, using all of our most well-meaning judgmentalism ©, we can only reference our only experiences and perceptions to form our opinions. We don’t understand the natural instincts of cats and it is silly for us to judge a cat through a human’s values.

As much as it may seem I just love the term ‘ass-licking’, I am assuming that by now you see my razor-thin point. Humans are all different from each other too - so much so that we are often intimidated by the differences between us. We have our own insecurities and we don’t like seeing things that are out of our comfort zone, so we put down things that are different for us. All of our judgments are, naturally, created using our own personal opinions. Our opinions are derived through our experiences and, more importantly, our perceptions. We have only our perceptions to rely on, and I am gradually learning the world is so big that I can’t really get a good look at it all. The depth of my perceptions is limited, so my judgments are limited.

Some people have logical minds, and they use their logic to weigh options and make considered decisions. Others are intuitive and work with gut feel. Some won’t eat pork, some wear capes, some wear formal headwear, some wear gold chains. We all have different upbringings and experiences, and these are all we have to draw from when we make our decisions. We judge others through our own eyes without having the benefit of the perceptions of others. When we see something we can’t relate to, we dismiss it as inferior.

On the flip side, let’s be practical for a moment. I am not pretending that all judgment is wrong. We can’t all wander the planet and accept everything that people do because we’re afraid to draw a line. If we are all going to accept the radical idea that we should cram together in civilized existences, we need to agree that there are some acts that no society should forgive: acts like pedophilia (how did ancient Greece miss this one?); murder (unless you are challenged to a duel); or theft (which rules out any practical application of communism.) I am not saying that we should never judge. We HAVE to judge. I am just saying that we are NOT FIT to judge.

How do we reconcile that?

I give you Theory 9 in the Book of Mark: Don’t judge people unless you absolutely have to. The world is more complicated than we like to think, and there is more than one way to skin an ass-licking cat.