jmaria200

[jmaria200]

To be human

What does it mean to be human? Writers and philosophers have told of the ability to transcend our physical world through spiritual wholeness, but how is this "wholeness" obtained? In essence, human existence is a life of relationships: a constant balance between individuals and themselves, between individual and collective survival, and between the human species and the environment. The human brain is essentially an organic problem-solving machine looking for solutions to maintain each of these relationships as effectively as possible. Such a balance was easier to maintain in the small groups we originally lived in on savannahs. The development of civilization with its many distractions, pressures, and temptations has made the brain's tasks infinitely more challenging. Modernity has somehow become defined by the erroneous ideas that the highly intelligent homo sapiens require neither their natural habitat nor their fellow homo sapiens to remain healthy and, given that our global society is reaching potential stress points of eight billion of us living on this planet as well as the oncoming climate crises, I think it is time to thoroughly re-examine these ideas as I believe the human species need not return to its origins, but rather acknowledge and honor them in order to live healthy lives.

The Self: Do We Know Who "We" Are?

Internal pressures of "selfish" genes of living organisms on this planet push to replicate and be passed on to the next generation. That is in a nutshell what it is to be alive at least in the eyes of evolution. Living things are attracted to that which will help them complete this replication mission i.e. sustenance, safety, and sex, and avoid that which hinders them i.e. sickness, poisons, and physical threats. Each living thing has this basic programming and the human brain is no different, however, because our brains are complex, essentially, built upon the brains of our evolutionary ancestors, those of reptiles, mammals, and primates, the attraction/avoidance programming becomes more layered as evolution does not discard earlier versions but rather builds upon them creating what is known as the triune brain in neuroscience. Each part of the aforementioned "brains" within the human brain plays a role in keeping an individual alive and these elements must be coordinated in order for the brain to function effectively. A coordinated brain will access threats and challenges and problem solve them. Unfortunately, this is a very fragile balance that can easily be thrown off by the stress of modern living. If we were solitary animals like tigers content to live alone until the need to mate. But we are more like bees requiring relationships with each other not only to be successful as a species but to survive individually maintain our interior balance. I will briefly summarize each part of the triune brain here and how it can influence the interplay of identity, stress management, and behavior. I will mainly focus on more modern times and trends although given the underlying mechanisms of human behavior have largely remained the same, one can extrapolate that while many of the following behaviors were present but possibly in different degrees.

The primitive functions of survival, threat avoidance, and reproduction are the responsibilities of the oldest part of the brain: the primal brain also known as the reptilian brain. This part of the brain acts instinctively in response to sensory information from the outside world. Being the oldest part of the brain makes the reptilian brain the most out of date with the modern world. Our reptilian brain is still programmed for the savannah where food was scarce and threats were many. This is the part of the brain that wants things now and takes the easiest route to get there and is easily overwhelmed by modern conveniences and exploited by advertisers that lure us with positive rewards like competition with others, sugary or fatty foods, and sex. And because the primal brain acts unconsciously and instinctively it can't be forced to change, but rather conditioned over time through repetition and self-mastery, which is why it's so hard to kick bad habits like eating junk food or smoking. When you resist eating that cookie you want or having sex right away with the girl or guy you just met, you are resisting the urges of your primal brain. In humans, the pre-frontal cortex is responsible for mastering the urges of the primal brain, but without the self-awareness of urges and under the chronic stress present in modern living the pre-frontal cortex is often suppressed as the brain believes it is under threat. Instead, individuals fall into cycles of self-preoccupation and pursuing desires that often interfere with personal growth and long-term goals.

The limbic system (paleomammalian brain) evolved from the primal brain first in mammals and regulates what is known in humans as emotional responses as well as multiple internal processes, and makes our often unconscious value judgments. The limbic system records positive or negative behaviors as memories that can shape learning and development, especially that of our character. One area of the limbic system that is of particular importance is the amygdala. Barely the size of a kidney bean, the amygdala responds to external or biological (internal) threats and regulates fear and anxious emotions. Working with the primal brain and autonomic nervous system, the amygdala helps generate the fight or flight or stress response raising the body's blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing in preparation for facing a threat. Our stress responses were developed for finding solutions to immediate threats, such as a hunting predator that could be met directly, but, modern society, in its collective efforts the minimize threats and profit from providing distractions, has generated larger and more unpredictable events that do not have clear and immediate solutions such as long term debt, a toxic work environment, etc that this fight or flight response for which this system was never designed keeping stress elevated in the form of anxiety and/or depression as the underprepared brain attempts to find solutions. The pre-frontal cortex is again assigned the task of calming down the amygdala and the stress response, but without the proper training, it can become impaired by this chronic stress. Over time this chronic stress and anxiety can lead to a breakdown of the body in the form of heart disease, high blood pressure, depression etc. In general, the lack of emotional mastery contributes to the phenomenon more common in the modern world is the inability of people to neither identify nor properly master their emotions and attached feelings. This is a set of skills that must be mastered from childhood through modeling by a parent or mentor who so often today has not had the skills Instead, in response to triggering stimuli, people attempt to suppress or re-direct such emotions leading to reactions like anxiety or depression becoming more and more exaggerated.

The emotional memories of these experiences are laid down in the hippocampus of the limbic system shaping future behaviors to similar stimuli. The hippocampus will effectively knit together disparate timelines into the brain's ongoing narrative, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The deeper these narratives are lodged the more they configure our identities. Narratives complicated by emotional trauma and internal conflicts can form long-term insecurities and responses that are misaligned with related stimuli. For example, if we were traumatized by a parent, we will most likely act out that trauma in future relationships. An individual will remain emotionally immature and on perpetual high alert looking for ways to alleviate emotional stress through distractions and avoid future triggers. These behaviors allow more primal urges to take importance hindering the brain's learning and development when it comes to making decisions and problems solving in a complex modern world. The individual's identity remains less fully actualized and more easily shaped by outside forces as the locus of inner control is externalized in exchange for a sense of implied safety and control by those in power.

The neo-cortex (neo-mammlian brain) is the part of the brain that first became important in primates. It is where the more abstract, high brain functions are performed including logical thinking, language, working memory, motor function, etc. The neo-cortex allows for an infinite amount of learning and for human culture to develop. The front of the neo-cortex known as the pre-frontal cortex is much larger in humans than most other mammals and is of particular importance to executive functioning and decision-making. This is the last part of the brain to develop at age twenty-five and is generally why teenagers and young adults struggle with impulsive behaviors and planning ironically at a time when they're often expected to make life-changing decisions like what college to attend and what career to pursue. The pre-frontal cortex is divided into three major structures based on their functions: the medial prefrontal cortex, the lateral prefrontal cortex, and the orbital prefrontal cortex. The medial prefrontal cortex functions in attention and concentration battling against the increasing distractions that modern life offers. The lateral prefrontal cortex is involved in planning and daily life tasks. Finally, the orbital prefrontal cortex is responsible for emotional processing and control. This is the part of the neo-cortex involved with keeping control of the previously mentioned strong emotions connected with the primal and limbic areas of the brain.

While the human prefrontal cortex's is quite advanced it is also sensitive to stress and lifestyle choices including diet, sleep, and exercise and requires vigilance to remain healthy something our lifestyles often do not promote. Puzzles, games, reading, and other challenging activities can help strengthen the prefrontal cortex. Eating a diet high in sugars and fatty foods, sleeping too little, and sitting in front of a computer or television that comprises the typical day for many modern people, in general, can lead to atrophying of the pre-frontal cortex and its abilities decision making, regulating emotions, etc. Combine this with the stress from daily living that keeps our fight or flight system constantly firing it is little wonder why the prefrontal cortex stands little chance in the face of the complexity of modern life.

In the worst-case scenario, the under-educated individual lacks self-awareness follows his or her more primal needs at the expense of others and is plagued with insecurities and mood swings while constantly spinning stories that justify their own behavior. This is not an uncommon situation in human existence. Even those who are educated frequently lack emotional maturity gained by life's experience and self-awareness and will try to disguise this behind intellect. In order to reach a state closer to full maturity and self-actualization, an individual needs to avoid an unhealthy lifestyle, develop self awareness, and root out insecurities in their thinking.

The Collective: Who They Are.

Imagine early Hominidae living in Africa. These "great apes" were probably much more prolific back then and are considered the common ancestors of chimpanzees, gorillas, gibbons, and homo sapiens. They more than likely lived in clans in dense jungles and had short, stout bodies and long arms designed for walking on all fours and climbing. Climbing was an excellent way to get food, travel, and avoid predators. Then at some point, a group of these Hominidae migrated to the savannah or the landscape they were living in became a savannah. That left these apes having to move through open fields where they were vulnerable to stalking predators. They had to evolve the ability to move quicker, from walking on all fours to bipedal creatures. This allowed the hands to be freed up to make things like tools and weapons for defense. This evolution also led to the ability to use fire to cook food and thus absorb nutrients more efficiently, allowing more energy to be put towards larger brains. As humans evolved clan structure expanded to include unrelated ones, but these relationships weren't as close and had to be developed through mechanisms of trust and mutual benefit. This became known as reciprocal altruism (reciprocity) when one member makes a temporary sacrifice for another member with the expectation that such an action will be returned. This principle guides much of human interaction and allows humans to cooperate in groups larger than family units. Also, humans could be wired to live as a collective as mirror neurons pinpointed in the brains of humans and other primates allow one individual to mimic the actions they observe in another and could potentially be the biological basis for empathy where one person puts themselves in the place of another a necessary skill in proper social functioning of a group.Also, cooperation became a way to survive. Humans who were more socially adept at collaborating with other humans in group hunting and foraging parties were generally more successful than those who tried to keep food for themselves. If you can work as a team to bring down a mammoth you're more likely to survive a long winter than each individual hunts and kills a single antelope.

Back then humans lived in small, interdependent tribes where everybody depended on everybody else and those who were selfish were often rejected. Today humans live in cities of thousands or millions. The interdependence and familiarity that once applied to daily life no longer does. It is much more easily to violate social mores anonymously.

Consider again the Hominidae living in forests and later the savannah. These were their habitats, the same as the chimp or the lion. Now take that chimp or lion and put them in a house away from their habitat and pride or clan. Both would be unfamiliar with the technologies involved and probably wreck a lot of stuff. But most important of all they would likely become the equivalent of bored, lonely, and finally depressed(to witness a similar scenario look at a lion in the zoo. Often they do have partners to alleviate some of the effects of loss of habitat but they are not the animals they are in the wild). These mental and physical health costs of habit loss are well-known among animals, but I believe it's time to look at the descendants of the homindae more closely, homo sapiens. Yes, our well-developed brains allow us to navigate technology in the average home, but can we not consider how it affects us emotionally? Is it not time to consider that isolating ourselves in the suburban dream home.

Dealing with such a complex society requires complex mental navigational tools. Successful interdependence required each member to be able to negotiate and reflect on their actions in regard to individual and group needs. These needs give rise to conscious self-awareness and morality. The generated "self" became a mental means to define individual boundaries but almost always changes in relation to the group and the environment. The self allows a human to be both an individual and part of a collective, however, maintaining this balance requires a lot of external and internal care and support.

In a sense, evolution traded more complexity that allows greater social integration for increased fragility of the individual. The features of the complex human nervous system including the primitive brain, limbic system, and the most recent addition, the neo-cortex where the logic, pattern recognition, and self-referencing modules are located must all work together in a homeostatic relationship that can relatively easily be disrupted by outside influences like isolation, stress, and helplessness. The nervous system relies on neural feedback from the external environments in the form of emotions that help to build the narratives at the basis of processing information. The more accurately these narratives match the environment the more effective the nervous system will be in fulfilling its primary function of survival. The more disconnect between the external world and the nervous system, as in the case of chronic stress, the more it will become dysregulated leading to many mental and physical issues including mood and personality disorders, auto-immune diseases, and mental illnesses. An unhappy and stressed human will be engaged in self-medicating behaviors to try and relieve emotional dysregulation that serves as the foundation for anxiety, depression, compulsions, etc. Also the brain, in an effort to relieve this interior stress, will attempt to match the external environment to its internal one using techniques like denial and disassociation. In short, the brain will generate a reality for itself or "see what it wants to see".

[jmaria200]

American expectations

Americans traditionally expect that their lives will progressively get better, that where they currently are is just a stop along the way to more money, career success, recognition, and happiness.  This is part of the great “American dream” that has fueled the goals of so many people. And if someone doesn’t achieve these? Well, they must’ve been lazy, not worked hard in school, etc. But is this really how the world works or just what we’re told? Does the American dream apply to everyone? Or rather was it the White Man’s American dream all along? It’s this look at the flip side of the American dream that discredits it in my opinion.

I recently read a article entitled “The Grim Secret of Nordic Happiness” by Finnish writer Jukka Savolainen that caught my attention. Briefly the article discusses possible reasons why Nordic countries including Finland, Denmark, Iceland etc. often top the rankings of the annual World Happiness Report that measures each country’s overall happiness. The report relies on Gallup polls that ask participants to rank their best potential life based on an fictitious ladder where rungs are numbered 1 to 10. The higher the rung the better the life. Then they are asked to compare this potential happiness to where they currently stand on the ladder.  Given such a no frills definition of happiness, Savolainen surmises that it is no wonder his fellow country man and other Nordic people rank high on what he labels “average life expectation” (Savolainen). On objective measures of life Finland has very low poverty levels, top notch universal healthcare and education, and bountiful vacation and parental leave. In addition to this, the egalitarian nature of Scandinavian people is often traced to their Lutheran roots and Janteloven or the Law of Jante, a social code that dictates “ emphasis on collective accomplishments and well-being, and disdains focus on individual achievements.” (Scandinavia Standard). The idea of Janteloven found it’s beginnings in the works of author Askel Sandemose and his 1933 book A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. In Sandemose’s work, the individuals of fictional town of Jante are expected to assimilate to the group.  The laws of Jante speak to people not thinking their are smarter, anything special, etc. Today this code is often reflected in the way the people of Scandinavian countries celebrate their strong social welfare systems as opposed to the individual achievements and celebrity of countries like the United States.

In the Eastern practice of Buddhism seeing oneself as interconnected with the world around one is seen as the more natural way of being.  When one let’s go of the “self” as a separate, isolated entity and comes to terms with the universality of human existence, one can feel less alone and more joy and desire to reach out to others.  Anger, greed, and delusion arise from over investment in the self, also known as the ego in Western psychology. Even small threats can make the self lash out in defense leading to conflict and pain.

I bring these examples up to highlight ways of considering human relations differently from Western culture, especially American culture.  I’ll focus specifically on American culture in this blog entry as I’m convinced that we are on a down slope and it is not a failure of individual striving, but a failure to be egalitarian, to understand our connections, and work for the greater good.  I’m not saying that we all need adopt Scandinavian culture or become Buddhist, but what if we were to embrace more modesty and let go of personal striving for the empty promises of materialism and instead put that money towards the greater social good. Yes, this country has wealth but much of it gets funneled into military spending on weapons, debt, and the pockets of a handful of the super rich.  I believe daily people get put through the shredder of this culture in the name of the American dream: long work hours or no work, a broken healthcare system that leaves millions uninsured, stagnant wages, excessive cost of living, etc. When it seems that one just being human is not enough to earn respect and a decent way of life there is something wrong. How does this happen? That is a complex question to answer, but I will attempt to address some of it here.

Fear and Anxiety

If there was any place to start with America’s woes I would say it is fear, or fear mixed with uncertainty also known as anxiety. Fear was useful for us as humans. It helps keep us alive and learning what is dangerous but when we become afraid and we don’t have enough information or the wrong kind of information, we become debilitated. People who are in a state of worry can be swayed to believe ideas without evidence or that contradicts reality because they’re world is being filtered through their worry. Anxiety causes people’s worlds to contract and creates distance from our fellow men and women and fosters a sense loneliness. Anxiety seeps into our culture in many ways. There is the worry of personal lacking generated by a continuous bombardment of messages convincing people they’re insecure and need the right hair shampoo, the right clothing, the right exercise equipment, and the list goes on. There is the anxiety of not being the right skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. There is the concern of being a victim of “the system” instead of being able to trust it. A culture where trust and connection have given way to mistrust and disconnection is not healthy culture.

Cultural Values

As individuals we each put greater importance on certain values. We also do this collectively including values of family, kindness, respect, financial success, materialism, modesty etc.  As Jukka Savolainen highlights in the article “The Grim Secret of Nordic Happiness” Finnish, as well as their fellow Scandinavians, often focus on modesty, sensibility, and egalitarianism while it’s is no secret Americans put more value on personal achievement, materialism, and financial success.  Values are not problematic in and of themselves. It is when people become personally attached and competitive that values in a culture can become unhealthy. Americans tend to believe that acquiring more the means to a satisfying life and that sacred word “happiness”. This is just not the case. Buddism, like many of the world’s religions, teaches that attachment to objects leads to suffering. We work long hours to have our big televisions, closets of cloths, and luxury vehicles, but we still feel empty and ready for the next “dose”. This effect is often called the hedonistic treadmill.  As mentioned int the previous paragraph, fear creates disconnection and increases self involvement. We can’t worry about the other person when we aren’t okay. This is communicated in our values as well. Civil service, community, and generosity get pushed aside for individual success, competition, and greed.

Intolerance

The tendencies for humans to divide into groups or tribes, into us and them, is part of human nature and it takes real effort to overcome these tendencies. As humans we seek easily distinguished patterns and categories that we use to identify someone as part of the in group. People in our group are people we know; we believe we can trust them.  Group selection helps to build communities churches, and national identities, however, the stronger in group identification leads to greater unity against other groups.  When we take more of a individualistic stance and work to understand our commonalities through education, communication, and exposure to those who are different can alleviate fears and build bridges between different groups. See they are just like us.  Religion, skin color, ethnicity all serve as markers of in groups and out groups. Group dynamics are exacerbated by stress often leading to expressions of racism, xenophobia, etc.  Such dynamics have had a strong presence in our culture since the founding of this country. The subordination of black men and women by enslavement was a part of this country’s foundation. States were admitted to the Union as either slave states or free states. Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington espoused life and liberty for all but were both slave owners. Slavery was normalized in parts of this country until the adoption of the 13th amendment in December of 1865 and, despite this measure, the ideologies behind slavery and intolerance have cast a long shadow still present today. Intolerance is part of our culture. The first step would be to come to terms with this concept and discuss it openly in a way that is productive; but, facing our darker sides is painful and messy so people are more likely to look the other way or rationalize their bias in some way.

Leadership

One of the main reasons intolerance and fear remain strong in this country is that hateful, scared people more than often elect leaders who continue to propagate fear and hatred and greed as well. Recently leaders and their followers have tried to “make America great again” and “stop the fall of the Western world”. The basic problem is that great public leadership does not coincide with intolerance. In general leadership takes qualities of compassion, humility, and courage that such people often don’t exhibit. Also people who run on a platform of intolerance will most likely resist aiding the public at large as it would potentially benefit those they fear and hate. They might not even help the people who elected them. Consider the recent example of Donald Trump’s election and four years in office. He made promises he never kept like creating jobs, bullied people when they didn’t do what he wanted, and slandered people of various ethnic backgrounds, yet Congress members protected him and he was nearly re-elected. On the way out of office Trump helped orchestrate the January sixth insurrection. He convinced people to turn against their own government then left them to face the consequences. The Congressional leaders with ideologies similar to Trump continue such machinations in more subtle ways. They manipulate their supporters to some extent to stay in office while dragging down the ability of the United States government to effectively meet the needs of it’s people.

Many business leaders are culpable in this country’s current situation. They have helped fuel the culture war to hinder much needed much needed reform in oversight and regulation that allows them to advantage of loop holes in taxation, damaged the environment, and exploited workers with often legal but unethical business practices. Ill informed people being preyed upon by those in media and faith based organizations who are spreading misinformation and lies. Government is suppose to help balance to influence of negative capitalism and corporate influence, but this is near impossible when the government itself has been gridlocked.

Conclusion

Along the way I’ve mentioned potential solutions to these problems, but where we start is trust. Trust in each other. I’m not saying this will be easy. America is a nation that aspires for people of various cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs can live together peacefully.  It was dream of our founding fathers that their newly found country wasn’t ready for even back then, but my bet is they hoped it would be someday. Unfortunately, this has not been the way of human beings throughout history so far.  We unite against common enemies, but otherwise we tend to fight among ourselves.  But humans have and can evolve. Moral evolution is a big part of what has allowed us to survive.  At one time we were slaughtering other tribes and having world wars between countries. Today such things sound like fiction and with good reason.  In psychology human beings are seen as having three layers of personality: our traits, our beliefs, and our story. When these are in balance, a person can be more authentic and less conflicted. The same goes for our culture. When our traits, beliefs, and story as a culture fall into alignment we can be more authentic as a nation. Balance is key between opposing ideologies too. Those who believe strongly in individual rights and those who stand more with group identity can learn from each other. Corporate and government interests can balance each other out. Conservatives and liberals can learn from each other. It really just comes down to we have to trust each other enough to agree to this. The culture war in this country is similar to physical war in that each side must put down their weapons and start an honest discussion about what common goals they share rather than what divides them. Americans can leave behind chasing shallow expectations of big houses and big vacations and instead expect more important things like equal treatment, guaranteed health care, and fair wages. Then maybe we can be more content with our lives as they are like the Scandinavian countries and less attachments in the spirit of Buddism.

[jmaria200]

Guidelines for Surviving American Culture Now

America is a country liberties, wealth, and technological advancement that are often unheard of in much of the world. We can generally marry who we choose, vote for who we want too, and our freedom of speech is protected. Our poorest citizens still have more than most of Bangladesh. But it would be naive to think that such benefits do not come at a cost. We are a people with a crises of identity as we strive live up to lofty enlightenment goals set by our founding fathers and fail to repeatedly. Our current society is marked by predatory capitalism, degradation of social welfare, and inequality fostered in part of a rapid technological expansion and a societal decline. We’re no where near anarchy but, realistically, these factors have eaten away at the organization foundations that support everyday life increasing the likelihood of being exploited. I’ve brought together guidelines, some which are researched and some common sense, to hopefully help bolster the chance of healthy living in today’s America.

1.) Avoid commercials in any form. They’re usually meant to make you feel insecure or sell you stuff you don’t need. Listen to public radio stations without commercials, mute or switch television, and radio stations when commercials come on. Subscribe to streaming channels that don’t have commercials like Netflix. Educate yourself on products and places out there instead of being fed information by advertisers.

2.) In fact, try to limit television and other media as much as possible. It is a very America past time and actually can keep you isolated from other people that can make your life more exceptional.

3.) Ditto for computer and your phone.(Wait did I advocate for putting down the phone. Oh, no. Not one of those people!) Yes, these are tools that have their place in our society and should remain there.  When they become almost a way of life (think of two people sitting at a table together looking at their phones) things have gone to far.

4.) Instead have real hobbies. After you pull away from the electronics, you might find that you have time for maybe taking up dancing or building models.

5.) Avoid the typical American diet, especially processed sugars. I recommend reading books by authors like Michael Pollan that advocate for whole, natural foods. You’ll probably lose weight and feel much better.

6.) Cook your own food and eat in as much as possible. If the food is tasty and relatively healthy, the company is welcome, and the ambience is amazing, yes, enjoy your night out at a restaurant. This is a special moment. Eating out should be special. I think in this country we’ve become enamored with eating out because we’re tired, lazy, busy, etc. We drag ourselves to grim, sterile places and suck down greasy food. This perspective has spawned America’s fast food nation and it has helped make us sickly.  We even export fast food to other countries. It is something we are known for and that is not good. This is a case again where people who want to make money don’t always have our best interest at heart. Even sit down restaurants can put a lot of fat, salt, and sugar in their foods. Sometimes it’s just about appealing to our urges. When someone else prepares our food we just don’t really know what is in there. When we make our own food, we can have more control over our diet and what we put in our bodies. We can choose to eat whole, natural foods instead of stuff created in laboratories. If we are demoralized about our lives then we will often won’t care what we put in our bodies, which is not caring about ourselves.

7.) Treat media, social, and otherwise, with care. Just like we should be careful what we let in our bodies so should we be with what we let in our heads. Yes, I have a Facebook account, but no I don’t believe it is anyway a true substitute for a face to face friendship. Once again use social media a tool to get something done or keep in touch with already established friends, but you’ll probably end up alone and depressed if you actually think most of those followers are true friends or that everyone else’s life is perfect as seen in posted pictures. Media in general can sell you on many opinions and ideas. It’s up to you to decide who you are going to listen too and about what. This is when being educated and a critical thinker really helps.

8.) So read (and sometimes watch) stuff that informs you, challenges you, and gets you thinking. Yes,we can all veg out on mindless entertainment. The American movie industry has proven that time and again through the years. You can also go through life mindlessly as well unsure and afraid about what is happening around you and rallying to causes you don’t know much about and watching the institutions of this country crumble. Plenty of business people and crooked politicians will love you for it. But if you come armed with an informed perspective then you can be an active citizen of a democracy and standing for something.

9.) On that note, get out and make connections. Join associations. Volunteer. Attend a civic meeting. These have become lost arts in our culture of sitting home and streaming media. Such activities will almost always improve your life as you meet new people. Don’t worry so much about what people think. If you’re authentic people will connect with you. Everyone is insecure out there in some way like you.

10.) Really understand what it means to be authentic vs inauthentic. I didn’t know the answer to this riddle for most of my life. I usually thought being authentic as having the near perfect life, but that is a distortion like the pictures on Facebook. Authenticity is something that comes from knowing and loving who you are and accepting that faults and all. It also means that because you are comfortable and compassionate with yourself you will want to be that way with others. Being inauthentic is often connected to fear and anxiety about ourselves and the world around us. Fear contributes to insecurity and making poor choices especially in the face of stress. Modern American life has gotten especially stressful as we are afforded less and less control over our lives therefore...

11.) You will need to learn how to manage chronic stress, anxiety, and other negative thoughts and emotions if you want to live authentically. Human beings were designed with the same fight or flight response as all other living things on this planet. It helps keep us alive. But modern society has plenty of ways to send this system into overdrive where we find ourselves anxious and worrying. Fear and anxiety contribute to poor values and a break down of social ties.  Rule of thumb is if your doing productive worrying over real problems that’s okay but if it’s just plain general anxiety, that is probably a bigger problem that needs to be rooted out. You will probably have to make some decisions about changing your values and your lifestyle, which can be good.

12.) Beware of those who are inauthentic. They’re more common than you think. Human beings are social creatures who are actually designed to bond with each other with compassion and empathy and, while we are all inauthentic or insecure at times to others, there are those who are inauthentic about who they are. They often lack empathy and seek to antagonize and take advantage others. These are often people who were raised by insensitive parents or caretakers and developed personality disorders like narcissism, Machiavellian, or psychopathy.  Essentially they are people who are self centered and have questionable or no morality. Often they can end up in positions of power as they are ambitious and savvy. In a climate of fear these personalities can gain influence and control by manipulating others as is increasingly common in modern America. Being self loving and compassionate towards ourselves and each other is the best defense.

13.) But do listen to reasonable people with different opinions. Our somewhat quarantined lifestyles combined with the constant influx of information has divided Americans along many different lines. We tend to exist in echo chambers where we can hear our opinions and beliefs bounced back at us and never really know what the other side believes. You might be surprised that if they’re rationale they’re probably more similar than you think. 

14.) Get out in nature. Today there is so much living we can do in our houses and office buildings staring at screens. But I’m not sure I would call that living. Even on nice days I rarely see people outside or outside for long in my neighborhood. Humans lived close to nature for thousands of years. Our separation from it is only a recent phenomenon. Research has shown that nature can help with emotional and psychological well being and it’s good exercise. Also you’ll be more likely to go green as much as possible if you actually see what is out there to save.

15.) Opt for public transportation whenever possible. America fell in love with the automobile and fell hard. After all it contributes to our privacy and sense of independence. One could say now we’re having some buyers remorse as we sit in seemingly endless traffic jams. I don’t know about you, but I think driving brings out some of the worst in people too especially in a time of social corrosion where road rage incidents are climbing. Yes, your city may not have much in the way of a public transportation system, like many American cities, but still use it when you can. Again you will be helping the environment.

16.) Go green whenever possible.  At this point in human history, this guideline is common sense.  We depend on this planet and we have damaged it. Not trying to something about this issue is more about lack of willpower than lack of information and understanding. Yes, going cold turkey on driving a car or using plastic is probably not realistic right now, but do the little things like recycling, limiting water usage, pushing for greener options with your wallet, etc.

17.) Be educated about education. Sure it is mandated and can be great  to have an education in this country. Life today requires too much not to be. But be smart about your education. Be aware of the state of American public school systems that still churn out students on an industrial level. Be aware of the business nature of colleges that often sell one on the promise of a bright future with a large price tag attached. Determine first if college is even right for you.

18.) Football is a game.  I have often considered European futbol (soccer) a drawn out, dull sport. What the hell is so exciting about people running up and down a field for hours? Where’s the big scores, amazing tackles, and seemingly constant last minute heroics of American football? Yes, the National Football League boasts huge scores, salaries, and profits. Sunday is the day devoted to football and the Superbowl is practically a holiday. Fans often live and die by their team. Heaven help a losing season. On the other hand, my concern is how the NFL is really slick marketing of a product where the more superficial aspects of current American ideology: winning and celebrity leave behind good solid character and sportsmanship that people should be aspiring too in society, especially children. How often do you hear about a player that is cheered for getting out there and just doing a solid job? Football tends to play into the cultural paradigm that being exceptional is what matters and anything less, well, ends up in the Canadian Football League. Not to mention the most exceptional team today, the New England Patriots, has constantly been accused of cheating and stealing. It is a league whose power often allows it to defines it’s own narrative forgetting the darker side of what is by definition a violent sport where people sacrifice their bodies( Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy anyone?). Also when it comes to the endless excitement, I’ve heard there is only eleven minutes of actual action in a football game. Eleven minutes! The rest of that three to four hour game is people walking up and down a field, huddling up, kicking off, and most of all commercials poured on so thick that it is nearly suffocating.(Take that soccer). Consider the cost of a single football game with parking, food, beer, etc can range into the hundreds of dollars for that eleven minutes of action. Whether the experience is worth the money depends on the person, but, in an age when less and less of us have expendable income, the ‘true’ fans still seem to fork over the money without a second thought. When it comes the fanatics raging in their chairs, it generally it’s just not healthy when one’s emotional well being hinges on anything outside of themselves, sports or otherwise. The guys on the field should know this as well. Either way it is awkward to watch a grown man have temper tantrum in his living room or on the sidelines over a lost game. Don’t get me wrong. Many NFL players, staff, etc. are amazing people and athletes who work their asses off and deserve what they earn, but these achievements and the league as a whole should be kept in a realistic light.  The NFL is an organization that needs to be held accountable for what it does and how it treats its players, its fans, and, in the end, football, like a soccer, is a game for entertainment.  We are entertained and then we turn off the TV or drive home from the stadium.

19.) Spirituality and religion: Anyone who has lived in America realizes that American life is heavily influenced by organized religion especially the many forms of Christianity. While some form of spirituality, or belief in something bigger than oneself, is considered part of emotional maturity being part of a organized religion is a choice. This idea tends to get lost as people are often indoctrinated by their parents, or other caregivers, and this grooming is reinforced by the large community or society.  Such an omission is common as it opens the door for dissension in faiths. In other words, while one can leave a religion, one often doesn’t because of potentially being ostracized. I believe that if the faith one was brought up in no longer fits, then one has the right to follow their desires and beliefs on what spirituality means to them.  If one does remain in an organized religion I heavily recommend doing so with eyes wide open. While there are plenty of decent people serving religious mission, the blind faith religions engender is often allows exploitation especially in current times when people can feel lost and vulnerable and are looking for answers. Despite their supernatural underpinnings, religious organizations are organizations run by humans, therefore, they are vulnerable to human error.

20.) Get enough sleep: Today’s America wants to keep you doing things and distracted as much as possible, which keeps you off the sheets. Since the invention of the light bulb and the electric grid, humans can now live well into the night, however no one told our biorhythms that still operate on the original daylight schedule. Less than seven hours of sleep is typically not enough for the average human being despite the modern ‘remedy’ that is caffeine. A self professed night owl, I’m as guilty as the next guy when it comes to staying up late. Daily life is taxing on living creatures and sleep is the brain and bodies way of hitting the pause button to regroup and heal. Putting it bluntly, if you don’t sleep enough you are wearing your body and mind down overtime and you can probably expect a host of health problems.

21.) Be skeptical of mainstream culture and “common sense”. Doing what everyone else is doing seems mandated especially when you’re a teenager and trying to figure out who the hell you are. When you mature enough you figure out who you are and understand just pointless it was to want to be like others.  

[jmaria200]

Ennui Stymie

For the first twenty seven years of my life I lived with my parents and brother in a white and red Cape Cod on a sixty by one hundred lot with a patch of green grass in front and behind, just enough to be called yards that needed mowing constantly in the spring and summer. There was (and still is) a little white picket fence in the front yard and a spreading maple tree (long gone and replaced by a small red maple and a pine tree). The house sat on a relatively quiet street with the occasional burst of traffic. There was also a two car garage with a barn like cupola on top behind and just off to the right of the house from which a long driveway stretched to the street. Garbage is whisked away every Thursday from the end of that driveway. Ten minutes away(within bicycling distance)was a grocery store and twenty minutes away was a mall. I attended a proper Catholic elementary school and high school that were both nearby. The evening seemed to set without concern as neighbors predictably arrived home, walked their dogs, and sat down to dinner. As a teenager, strolling past lit windows on a muggy summer night, I imagined catching glimpses of girls in their bras, looking lost, seductive.  At twenty eight, I left home, moved to different suburbs outside another city for four years, then lived in that city for five years. Now I live in a slightly bigger Cap Cod house on a slightly bigger road. I have a wife and two children. I mow the lawn. Garbage is collected every week. There is a mall ten minutes away.

Suburbia, not the city, not the countryside, but something in between. Suburbia where life is as regular as the rising and setting of the sun. Nothing fits the American dream more appropriately: home ownership, privacy, community, security, materialism.

[jmaria200]

Sweet Pain

05/28/2018

Sweet Pain

05/28/2018

The first full day of the new eating lifestyle has come and gone and I’m in such need of a piece of strawberry licorice. I not sure if I should call it a diet(actually you don’t lose weight this time around), a lifestyle, torture, etc. It’s official name is The Whole 30, another food fad that attempts to right the wrongs of the American diet. This time sugar, specifically processed sugars,(you know everything that tastes great and is addicting), preservatives, starches are the enemies and the Whole 30 commands you to get rid of them, cold turkey. Instead you are beholden to meat, nuts, fish and other proteins and fruit for thirty days.

My wife, a worse junk food junkie than me, is on the hunt for the latest ways to curb her yearnings and this was her latest find. Having long waged the secret inner war with my sweet tooth face it almost all of us do, I signed up and even after the first day I’m craving good old fashioned sugar. Lord, what would we do without it in this country? Maybe not be so fat? I’ve decided to keep this online journal of my progress and my pain over the next 30 days.  

5/29/2018

I feel lethargic, my mouth is constantly watering, and my head is fuzzy, . This marks the second day of the Whole30. Food, once reliable comfort, has become a antagonist. The kitchen is a mine field where I must step carefully. It is so easy to pluck out a sensual chocolate covered marshmallow from a red colored box and bite into it. The food I can eat sits like a bag of sand in my gut. It keeps me sustained but not happy.

I’ve read some of the literature and what I’m going through is quite normal and it will get worse before it gets better. My body is converting slowly converting from sugar based fuel to fat fuel (apparently good fats) however it doesn’t know how to do that yet so I am sluggish. I think I will accompany this blog with some research on the story of Americans obsession with sugar and processed foods. Writing will help distract me.  

5/30/2018

Here I am two days behind. I’ll try to catch you up. I’m going to try to focus on not what I and my wife are doing this meal plan but why we’re doing it. Why this radical life change? I found this list symptoms from a website of a fitness expert. Guess what these refer too. 

Anxiety

Changes in appetite

Cravings

Flu-like symptoms

Depression

Mood changes

Dizziness

Fatigue

Headaches

Shakiness

Changes in sleep patterns

Weight loss

Stomach flu? Food poisoning? Nope. These are the symptoms of sugar detox. Yep, that’s right. This is what happens if you take sugar out of your diet and I’m not talking about cookies and ice cream and chocolate. This plan goes much deeper: bread, pasta, beans, etc. All of these types of food are broken down into sugars in your body and sugars are being linked to inflammation, bad skin, poor mood, etc.

Now America is the land of diets and eating fads as in the end we as a society have little idea of what to eat and what is good for us. If this meal plan sounds like one the many movements out there that finds its enemy: fat, gluten, carbohydrates, etc and profits off getting people worked up about it, your right and I agree. More to come on this.  

6/8/18

It is now day 11 of the Whole 30 food plan and clearly my attempts to keep up with this blog on a regular basis have failed. This is a conglomerate of previously mentioned twin infants that need near constant car and the mission to find not only summer employment but full term employment.  I can easily recap most of what has happened in those missed days.

First, I feel I must break away from food talk only and integrate my career story as it is the other side of the coin that is my life right now and it is in trouble.  My job history has been a floundering mess. I won’t go into all the gritty details as I feel they’ve been with me for at least a quarter of my life here on earth and they can get repetitive and depressing.  Let’s say I had little idea of what I wanted to do coming out of college. I tried a few different fields usually based more on “this interests me” than real research. This tactic did not work very well. The pile of temporary, part time, and “road not taken” jobs grew and grew and, at forty two, I have yet to have a steady full time job. I discovered a love of teaching in my mid thirties, specifically freshman composition at the community college level, but I have remained woefully underemployed as an adjunct for five of the six part years.  This lack of opportunity is a combination of the need for excessive education and experience for even entry level positions, the ongoing deterioration of the the writing career field, and the heightening level of competition.  I also believe my subdued personality does not help my chances.  I now have a family that depends on me and I’ve been able to do no better than a one year contract for the small Onondaga community college in upstate New York.  Since then I’ve tried to shift into high school teaching. Once again the need for degrees and certification is rigorous. I have a master’s degree, albeit not in education, and was led to believe by the recruitment people of Anne Arundel community college master’s in education program that I could potentially land temporary teaching employment while gaining my certification. The Baltimore County public school systems didn’t seem to see it this way.(go figure) I’ve also had little to no help in figuring out what to put in my application packet to make me a more attractive candidate.  Since the Onondaga success, my job search has become a rather dark cycle of sending out applications and getting rejections.  Being a daddy doesn’t allow me much time to network and I tend to be poor in this area. I’ve sought out help from the state career program, but it is painfully slow.  I take time to write about because I think the cumulative effect has become a mixture of depression and anxiety. Depression? That word is scary what with two celebrities having recently committed suicide in thew news. I have a family history of it. I have felt worn down and isolated lately but could it be that? Not knowing for sure is more worrisome which might lead to more depression. I go to bed anxious over money, anxious that my family will be well off, and wondering how many more years I need to struggle. II worry about retirement of course. I’ve scraped and saved what I could but without a solid income it’s going to be woefully inadequate. Could it be depression? I keep searching out some signal of depression in my consciousness as if I might uncover it but people who are depressed generally aren’t good at diagnosing their own condition. It’s hard to link the physical symptoms to something mental. 

So what do I do? Well, I’m working hard to stay focused, to get more organized, but I need the help of others and that help is hard to find. I need career help. I’m leary of the integrity of paid career consultants but how long can I keep floundering? I can see this summer will be tedious. It will be about slowly piecing together the knowledge to get a foot in the door in high school and probably working a part time job that is a poor fit to get there. I will need strong doses of positivity and support in my life and a real sense of direction. I’m not sure where to find that right now. I love Aurora but she is not strong at being emotionally supportive, at least not for me.  I will have to do some research on where I can find the help I need. I will leave my story there for now.

Whew, one of the best functions of writing is catharsis, to get one’s thoughts out there. It’s not pretty but it’s necessary. I wrote the previous section because it captures what is happening outside of the Whole30 and being a father and is vital to how I have been feeling over the past four days both mentally and physically. At first I’d naturally thought my symptoms were linked to the change in eating habits, but last Wednesday they took a real turn for the worst. I hadn’t felt that strange in a long time-just heavy and thick headed with blurry vision and shortness of breath. Each day I’ve felt a little better thankfully. I went to the doctor today to rule out physical cause. She didn’t find anything obvious but I still have blood labs pending that the neglected to get done. The intense labor of the Whole30 hasn’t helped my mood. No single meal is a simple grab and go and the constant preparation is taxing. in fact, I must bring this blog to a close now.

6/23/18

We are a nation of sugar addicts. “Two hundred years ago, the average American ate only 2 pounds of sugar a year. In 1970, we ate 123 pounds of sugar per year. Today, the average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year. This is equal to 3 pounds (or 6 cups) of sugar consumed in one week” (www.dhhs.nh.gov). Sugar is everywhere in our diet slipped into breads and bacon to make them more desirable so we eat more. Here’s the little secret that is not really a secret: these foods are desirable while not satisfying so we eat more and more so we buy more. Food companies figured this out a long time ago. It’s good for business and bad for people. These are one of the tenants of the Whole 30, to become aware of how we are being manipulated this way. Whats more, like many business influenced trends, these machinations only become really effective when they are normalized by culture. Just think about how many American cultural norms involve sweets and processed food of some form: cakes at birthdays, drinking alcohol at social gathering, cheap vending food at sporting events. If you want to stand out at just about any social gathering  American society, try avoiding foods with sugars and processed foods.  Many conversations this way leading inevitably to discussion of the Whole 30. This was one of the most surprising side effects of being on this meal plan. I and my wife had to educate the waiter of a expensive steak house in Washington D.C. on the guidelines of our meal plan. Most dining out experiences will be this way. Sorry, but we can’t eat ninety five percent of the food on the menu. 

Just walking into a grocery store, I was shocked by how much was off limits: pasta, cereal, juice, etc.  That was one of the great challenges of this diet. What could we eat? Obviously, there was meats and vegetables and fruits but what about diary? beans?. They don’t have added sugar, right?  While diary and things like beans did not have added sugar they include sugars and other chemicals that aren’t necessarily healthy.(For more on this read the accompanying book It Starts With Food).  If you’re skeptical at this point, I’m understand. I’m still a skeptic. After all, the Whole 30 is another lifestyle program, one of many products that is being marketed to the public in the age of food confusion in this country.  

7/1/18

Promises, Promises...

“Systemic inflammation” seems to be the catchphrase behind the Whole 30. (There’s a lot of food science behind this that I won’t go into. Again read the book). The jist of systemic inflammation is that bad foods silently hurts your body. Over time this damage shows up as illnesses including allergies, depression, and diabetes. Eating foods that contribute to both physical and psychological well being can lead to better health. This idea seems legitimate enough but then the authors also include anecdotes by people with illnesses ranging from lyme disease to diabetes whose symptoms disappeared after being on the Whole 30. You can practically hear the credibility of the writers straining here. I had eczema before the Whole 30 and and I still have eczema after it. All in all, taking sugar out and adding more protein is beneficial to people but let’s hold off on the miracles.

While I’m on the topic of veracity, I can understand the authors of the Whole 30 exaggerating the effects of their meal plan- after all maybe one person out there with lyme disease did experience an improvement in their symptoms and, if this doesn’t happen, no one would necessarily be worse off-since their plan seems sound and is self directed for the most part. I didn’t need to constantly by products from the authors of the Whole 30.  But what about those companies that, for all intensive purposes, are influential on our health, what about the stories that the food industry tell? 

“the post-crash world appears to have become much more cynical about the behavior and motives of corporations.” (Beatte).  Unless you’ve been “off the grid” for most of your life you’re probably all too familiar with the constant avalanche of ads that are forced upon Americans everyday so much so that, like me, you’d do anything to get away from them. Now I’ve already covered the influences of advertising in another part of this blog; however, the food industry holds a special place among advertisers as, for better or worse, they often determine what we put in our bodies in this country and this isn’t necessarily due to their popularity but a well designed combination of market control and addiction.

The master plan

The current state of the American diet is, like most institutions, a result of the interaction between corporations, the government, and the individual where each party is both influential and under the influence.  However, what is key here is that the influence of the individual has eroded significantly over the years unless they happen to be wealthy enough to be influential. Government has responded more to these wealthy and corporations creating more and more of a corporate dictated agenda.   

The Food Guys

If you do a little research you’ll find that thanks to constant mergers and take overs about ten mega corporations control most of the U.S. food production. Think about that, just ten! Some are well known like Pepsico, which owns Tropicana, Quaker, Lays, while others are more obscure like Unilever that owns Knorr, Good Humor, and Skippie. Regardless, you can bet you’ve eaten something made by one of of these ten companies recently.  Much like health care and airline travel, a key aspect of weakly regulated capitalism is that power in the form of market control can be consolidated in the hands of a few major players and this is scary especially when it comes to our food.  These companies may not necessarily set out to give people cheap, poor quality food  but this arises out of an effective business model that calls for high profit and low cost and if one is successful they can dominate the market. This model may work for computers or cars but not necessarily food. 

Now before I go on lambasting corporations there are some important details to cover.  A good capitalist would probably argue that companies are simply responding to market demands. This is one of the classic “pass the buck” phrases business people use to recuse themselves(and it drives me crazy)but it is important to consider. Keep firmly in mind the question: “Who has helped create these market demands?”

Today, people have less free time to prepare and consume their meals. Yes, this seems to be the trend ever since the post World War II years when consumer culture took off in this country and packaged, processed food along with it. Appliances became more commonplace in the home, woman started to go to college and get jobs outside the home, and the car became more available. One of the largest changes in the household was the television. Now with the help of the tv dinner one could watch their favorite shows and eat at the same time. Over the years the cost of living has increased, wages have stagnated, and people have to work more than ever to keep up. Business stepped up and what started with the tv dinner has slowly blown up into a full industry of packaged, processed food. These foods were tasty and easy to make. How many times has these phrases been uttered in a food commercial?  Consider though who has influenced many of these lifestyle changes? Who has increased the working day, kept wages generally flat, and increased costs? The general picture is that businesses have either through direct influence or through influence on government public policy and today Americans are probably more stressed and less healthy than every before.

Consider how foods are advertised in this country. Let’s take the Coca Cola corporation. Coca Cola is best known for their soda but they also control a large percentage of what we drink: Perrier water, Minute maid juice, and Nos energy drink. Coca Cola often uses images of young, hip looking people smiling and drinking their soda(Heck, what company out there doesn’t use young, hip, ethnically diverse people to sell their product? That is a generalization...let us continue). These ads remind you that drinking soda (pure sugar and other flavorings in carbonated water) can be fun and social, so much more than just soda. There is of course no mention that soda with destroy your teeth and probably cripple your health over time. An advertiser would have to be insane to let on such information about their product. But imagine if they did. If there was a disclaimer at the end of soda commercials. Would it make a difference? I’m betting not and this is where the addiction factor comes in. Look at smoking. It is well known that smoking can cause serious health problems and even death.There are commercials and prints ads constantly advertising these facts yet people continue to smoke because it is addictive. In the information age, people generally know the health threats of drinking soda over a life time yet they still do. This is where individual choice does come in(more on this later) and, as mentioned before, sugar is another addictive substance and companies rely on this.

The Coca Cola corporation doesn’t claim their product is healthy but many other companies do. Take cereals. Breakfast cereals are often so processed that there is little nutritionally value, yet companies put labels on like “part of a balanced breakfast”, “containing vitamins A, B....”, “5 whole grains”. Companies attempt to replace some of the lost nutrition in these foods but they are far from healthy. Also any nutrition is offset by the amount of sugar in these cereals. This is especially tragic when one realizes that some of the worst cereals are marketed to children with flashy cartoon characters, logos, and commercials. I admit it wouldn’t take much for me to eat a bowl of Count Chocula even now knowing how bad for me it is. That is growing up in this country. I hope different for my children, but the corporate machine is hard to escape.

The Men in Black

“Read the farm bill, and a big problem jumps right out at you: Taxpayers heavily subsidize corn and soy, two crops that facilitate the meat and processed food we’re supposed to eat less of, and do almost nothing for the fruits and vegetables we’re supposed to eat more of.” (Haspel)

Healthy food like fruits and vegetables are usually more costly to grow and transport and organic food can’t use chemical pesticides,herbicides, or genetically modified organisms. Since the 1930′s the United States government has subsidized (helped pay for) farming in this country to protect our food sources as raising food can be unpredictable.  The Farm Bill began with good intentions but the money has slowly been funneled to supporting a few crops like corn and soy that are versatile and can be broken down and used in many processed and unhealthy foods. Consider that our government is supporting the production of poor quality foods? What does this mean for us? It means the commonly cited downsides of the the American diet: diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. all given a stamp of approval by politicians who are pledged to watch out for us. On the plus side not being subsidized is often favored by farmers as they don’t need to meet the regulations set by the government but it still means people will pay more.  People do have the choice not to eat these foods, but realistically not everyone can afford these costs and, if they can’t, people become trapped eating unhealthy food cycles not to mention deepening the already aggravated class divide in America. It’s much easier to get potato chips than organic fruit. Organic apples are on average three dollars a pound(which means about two) while potato chips are three dollars a bag. You can eat a lot more chips for the same money but the chips are sad, empty calories but, as I mentioned earlier, people will buy and eat them not because they are healthy but we have slowly become wired to do so. Currently slashing or stalling social welfare programs is the trend in government. Public policy has become heavily influenced by corporate interest over public good due in large part to funding of campaigns by companies and the wealthy ergo there is little possibility right now.

Choice of the People

Our American class structure can be seen in our food. The neighborhood I currently live in, which shall remain unnamed for reasons of privacy, is considered marginal. People are more often working class and black. This neighborhood was also known as a urban food desert for some time.(One neighborhood over is a wealthy, mostly white neighborhood with a high end, albeit expensive grocery store). Food deserts are areas without a decent source of healthy foods. They exist in the poorer sections of many major U.S. cities including New Orleans, New York, and Memphis. 7-11′s and corner bodegas often don’t count. In fact, the convenience store is one of the greatest offenders concerning food choice. They have made food too convenient. Just look at the shelves of any convenience store.

A low end grocery store finally came to this neighborhood. They stack most of their products on the floor instead of on shelves, their staff is poorly trained, and, while the store does sell fresh produce and even a little organic food if you look hard, the majority of the products are standard processed foods: Drakes desserts, chips, processed meats, etc. I’ve watched people in line with carts filled with soda. I can’t be too critical as I was making poor food choices all the same, but not on this level. Why does anyone would need ten bottles of soda? The evidence is in the obese bodies and poor skin. Yet, people consume these foods. This can be for three main reasons: they are aware but apathetic, they aren’t aware, they are aware but not doing enough or following one the ineffective “diets” out there. Often the poor and working class fall in the second category.

Back to Biology

Early humans had to eat what they could kill or gather(Raising crops for a stable source of food came later). We subsisted on meats, berries, nuts, etc. These were necessary, nutritious sources of protein and fiber. Fats and sugars were rare and highly desirable as they meant easy calories especially for lean times. This is where our evolutionary biology was cemented and still functions this way, but now we are provided a plethora of cheap fats and sugars everywhere. They taste good and give us a quick boost. But these foods don’t provide sufficient nutrition so we are constantly needing to eat more and more while gaining mostly empty calories and health problems. This makes sense if you stand back and think about it. This is the “addiction” factor that aids companies in getting us to eat poor quality food. The food makes us feel good in the short term, but in the long run we crash and need more. Thus, the “addiction” factor.

Apple or Ring Ding?

While sugar, fat, and salt can be addictive and some people have financial problems, ultimately people choose what they put in their bodies and their bodies will hold them responsible. This is especially true when we are people who know or suspect what we eat is bad for us and continue to do so.  I believe this is tied to an idea I’ve brought up before, our culture. America is the land of opportunity where we can all have the American dream that are really just that for most of us, a dream that we continue to cling too. This ability to better ourselves is both beautiful and tragic. America is a society whose people struggle to face it’s darker sides instead burying them in indulgences or placing blame elsewhere. This collective denial makes us extremely malleable. We are already primed to believe in our food, our politics, our society.  No matter how self destructive over time vices become misconstrued as personal rights. By buying gas guzzling vehicles, shopping, indulging in poor quality foods, collecting dangerous guns we declare our freedom from the system when it’s the system that is providing these.  This beautiful psychology that companies can only cheer us on and count their money. Buy more. Eat more. Excess is wonderful. Be rebellious and trendy by buying phones and drinking soda. Companies let us down, cheat us, and we still buy their products and elect officials who take their money.  We grumble when the government doesn’t punish these companies but we don’t either. Despite having mentioned the short comings and influences of corporations and government, it is up to us to determine what is good for us. I believe what we’ve lost sight of the most in this country is the sense of personal advocacy and a sense of unity to stand up ourselves, the power of the customer, of the voter. Instead we fight and criticize and go along.

The experience of the Whole 30 has helped me be a healthier person, but it has really helped me take action and reconsider my perspective concerning the food I eat. I’ve tried to relay the many facets of what I’ve learned here for others who may be curious. Also I should end with there are some positive changes on horizon.  Organic food is now available in more grocery stores than ever before. The fast casual restaurant offer healthier choices that have eaten into the profits of fast food companies like McDonald’s, all because educated customers have demanded it. However, changes need to come from the top down, from the government and that is where the real hard work comes in because first we need to heal the rifts in our society. Then maybe we can eat better.

7/5/18

The Results.

The end of the Whole 30 has arrived, well, it actually arrived more than a week ago so clearly I’m not a dedicated diarist. I’ve also done the “reintroduction” portion of the meal plan where by I bring back the foods I’ve given up.I’m going to discuss both the small scale and bigger picture results of this experiment.

The results:

I can taste more, For example, fruits are sweeter and meats are richer.

I have more consistent energy.

I don’t get as hungry between meals.

I don’t have the craving for added sugar that I once did but I can tell from sampling foods with added sugar that it is quite easy to go back.

Diary is hard on my stomach.

Alcohol gives me a headache even after one glass of wine

[jmaria200]

American Narcissism

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment opens with Russian student Rodion Raskolnikov deciding to kill a devious pawn broker, Alyona, for her money. In the vein of the recently developed philosophy of nihilism, Raskolnikov claims he is a superman whose disdain for emotional connections allows him to rid the world of a such a person without reprocussion for greater good of society.  He succeeds with the crime but can’t overcome the moral and ethical anguish and fear of punishment that plagues him until he finally turns himself in to the police. Much like Raskolnikov, American society seems to have a penchant for punishment of the devious “pawn brokers” in our midst, those we have judged to fail to live up to our standards. We incarcerate, marginalize, impoverish those who can’t keep up and we imagine we will face little to no repercussions. After all, there is no immediate individual punishment but rather the more easily dismissed deterioration of society.  Yet, America appears a society haunted with the conflict between the enlightment ideals we uphold: equality, freedom, and happiness  and the harsh realities of our day to day lives: systemic racism, lack of social welfare, etc. We do little to dwell on or discuss these topics in any productive way and are often slow to change.  Maybe somehow we know the punishment is still coming.

First we’ll look at some ways American society has been and possibly become even more penal over the years then consider some explanations that will touch on economic, social, law, and even religious aspects of our society. .

Jailhouse rockin

While their are absolutely those who deserve to be locked away shouldn’t we start to question this practice when we have more people behind bars than any other country? “The incarceration rate in the United States of America is the highest in the world. As of 2009, the incarceration rate was 743 per 100,000 of national population (0.743%). We have more incarcerated people than any other nation. ” (circle.org). These point to this country’s continuing reliance on incarceration as a solution to society’s problems. Federal and state laws of mandatory sentencing and repeat offender laws that have caused an explosion in imprisonment. I think we need to have a honest conversation about why this is so and is imprisonment really working especially for low level crimes, such as drug offenses, as being put away for years? Often these people are drug addicts who need understanding and support (More on this later). The U.S. now spends around 80 billion a year on all of these inmates. This translates to two hundred and sixty dollars a person triple of what it was in the 1980′s. This is money that is not going to education and rehabilitation of inmates. Does prison work? The research says no. “Two thirds of prisoners re-offend within three years, often with more serious and violent offenses” (Gilligan).  It is the difference between restraint and punishment. We put people in jail because we want to keep them from hurting themselves or others. If we punish them while they are in there then how can we expect them to not come out more angry and violent? Research has shown that children who are punished become adults who punish others. The same with inmates. Proper therapy and rehabilitation has shown much more positive results. Also while these men and women are losing valuable labor skills and life experiences while behind bars and the punishment doesn’t end when they are released into society. Their prison record follows them around with few if any employers willing to hire them. Those jobs they can get are gritty and low paying. Is it any wonder that there is a high rate of return . Our society locks these people into an endless cycle of punishment psychologically and financially. This works for most of us as long as we’re not the ones caught in this web.

Legal Nightmares

This cycle often begins with our legal system. This system, like much of the rest of our economy, has become lopsided. Except where our economy tends to favor the wealthy our laws focus on poorer, mostly minority criminals that are easier game. Is it any wonder that much of our prison population is made up of young black men? They face a revolving door of fines and jail time with little to no actual help while white collar crime( that often affect a much larger percentage of the population) get off with collective slaps on the wrist. Imagine if we prosecuted those behind the Great Recession the same way we did local gangsters.Towering above the interstate highway not far from my house is a giant billboard advertisement for an personal injury lawyer. Recently, I pulled up to a bus and see another advertisement for a different personal injury lawyer staring with conviction at me.  You also see their cheaply produced commercials most often on late night television. I don’t need to be a advertising executive to know these billboards and commercials are expensive so I must ask when did personal injury law become profitable enough for giant billboards and tv commercials?  Aren’t these the lawyers often labeled “ambulance chasers” trying to find anyone who feels wronged by another and looking for financial payback? After all, lawsuits and suing people are ideas thrown around casually in our society.  For as long as I can remember being a lawyer was up there with being a doctor or engineer when it came to taking home a big paycheck in this country. Lawyers have been hailed on television as defenders of the righteous and upholders of the good over evil. Yet, these personal injury lawyers often seem to have turned the legal system into a way for people to “get what is coming to them.” While litigation does serve the purpose of allowing victims who have be wronged to receive financial damages lawsuits have become so common today that often people in positions of authority, such as teachers and health professionals, who are trying to exercise their influence  for fear of being sued much more so than in the past. While a teacher shouldn’t be taking rulers to the knuckles of students, parents don’t need to threaten a lawsuit because a teacher sent their student to the principle. I believe this rampant use of the law to punish is the result of the deterioration of trust in our society combined with entitlement.  This has contributed to the watering down of authority in this country.

The Drug War

Probably the area of our society where Americans use of harsh force is most evident is drug addiction and the drug war. We have thrown good after bad in an attempt to stop illegal drug use and to this day we continue to pour gasoline on a viciously burning fire.  The story begins around the turn on the century when Harry Anslinger and his newly minted Federal Bureau of Narcotics needed funding and began outlawing drugs starting with marijuana. Anslinger justified his moves by convincing people drugs would take their minds prisoner when in fact it was often the result of emotional trauma. He was also a racist who connected marijuana usage to the plague of Hispanic migrants that often smoked it entering the country.  Prior to Anslinger many drugs, like marijuana and cocaine, were used in prescription drugs and could be prescribed, therefore, those who had become addicted to these drugs could receive them legally and still function in day to day life. Once Anslinger and the United States government outlawed these drugs people start turning to street dealers and anyone else who could bring them drugs. These drugs were usually of cheaper quality and cost much more. Many dealers were addicts themselves trying to support their habit. Gangs of dealers began fighting over profitable territory.  During the 1980′s availability of and use of drugs like cocaine began to rise in the United States pouring in from other countries like Columbia. Federal, state, and local stepped in to quash the ever spreading usage and gang battles and the modern drug war was born. The war escalated through the 1990′s with harsher and more frequent sentencing as politicians were elected on promises of stemming the drug problem. Billions of dollars were gobbled up, thousands died, and thousands more flooded into American prisons for drug violations and the drug problem only got worse. Our society is slow to understand that not every problem can solved with stricter rules and punishment and this is starkly evident in the drug war. We, like Anslinger and others, fail to understand why drug users become drug users and this is really the key to dealing with drug use and the drug war.  It wasn’t the drugs themselves that were the problem but the emotional trauma they’d grown up with and dislocation present in modern society that drug users were trying to escape by using.  Men and women who are psychologically damaged and couldn’t confront these demons sought to bury them in mountains of cocaine. America’s answer was to further berate and isolate these already damaged people. The drug war started by Anslinger was focused on cutting off the user from their drugs but this only allowed gangs and cartels to step in and profit by offering these drugs at a very steep price. Instead of seeing the errors of their ways hooked users grew more desperate turning to crime to get their fix and thus the law enforcement increased in a horrible cycle most of use are familiar with today. 

The Poor and Homeless

This is absolutely an area of our society where we can do better. As one of the richest countries in the world, we should have some of the best social welfare programs, but this is not the case. Many of those mentioned in this essay fall into the category of poor or working poor by U.S standard: those with disabilities, the addicted, etc. Those who either due to mental or physical impairments have fallen through the cracks of competitive American life and there is very little to stop their plunge. The lack of a social welfare net is often related to both greed, of course, and how we see the lower class in this country. What word doesn’t invoke more distaste in the mouths of the average American than the idea of the slothful and uneducated poor? Why should we tolerate these people often looking to work the system and skate by while hardworking man and woman watch helplessly? They are responsible for their broken lives and it’s up to them to clean it up. Right?  This is the rhetoric we often hear from many of our politicians and business leaders. The poor are lazy, parasites that just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Ironically, often those judging the poor are poor themselves or close to it.  The impact of poverty in this country can be seen in the numbers.  According to the U.S. department of Health and Human Services the poverty line for a single person is $12,410 annually and for a family of four is $25,100. I can only imagine the heart breaking struggle of trying to feed a family of four on $25,100.  As of last year the poverty rate in the United States is “12.3 percent, based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 estimates.” (ucdavis.edu). That is about “39.7 million Americans” (ucdavis.edu) living in poverty. But when it comes to justice, to politicians pushing their agendas, and government cutting social programs, the poor become a faceless mass that must be dealt with harshly.  On average welfare payments are "$24.77 a day, which is $750 a month, or $9000 a year”(Worstall). Consider that the average rent alone in the US in 2016 was “$1,050 a month” (department of numbers. com) and the picture of being poor in America is very grim. After all isn’t easier to penalize the freeloader than say the corporation that may get greedy now and then or cut the military budget when there are so many terrorists out there?  Then there are the those who live right around the poverty line, who make enough to not to qualify as welfare recipients but not enough to actually live comfortably. Often these people are known as the working poor, often those at the lower tier of the service and retail industries: maids, waitresses, etc. The working poor often include immigrants, which deserve to be addressed in their own section following this one.

Ableism

Able..what? “Ableism is a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other” (Center for Disability Rights.Org). I didn’t know this term either until I recently learned it from a section on stereotypes in the text book of a Communications class I recently taught. I was fortunate enough to not be a person with serious physical disabilities but I can say I’m guilty of some of it’s seemingly innocent practices including having to discover how a person became disabled or instantly thinking they need help. I’ve come to realize that I do take being able bodied for granted as many of us probably do in this country and that there is a certain atmosphere of shame that surrounds those who are disabled. I believe I became more aware of my views when a friend of mine ended up in a wheelchair after living as mobile adult due a complications from diabetes and much of what I write here comes from his experience.  Naturally this was depressing experience for him.  He developed serious complications called Charcotes disease where the bones in his feet more or less dissolve away leaving him unable to walk. His leave from work ran out and he was let go. To this day, he has been unable to find a job and had to go on welfare, which, as mentioned before barely covers cost of living.  To the state’s credit he was placed in decent living conditions but he continues to struggle with medical issues and medicare does not cover only some of his medical costs.  Basically, once again the social net is so thin it is barely there and it leaves people in this country feeling devalued and forgotten. If one is a able bodied person, it often can be struggle to keep up with our competitive culture, but for those who are physically disabled it seems down right impossible. 

Environmental Causes

There probably isn’t a more helpless victim of certain beliefs and practices in American culture than the environment.  It can’t launch protests and it doesn’t have a vote, which probably makes what we do extra cruel. It’s hard to say that how we treat the environment is so much punitive as it is neglectful. In truth, we are actually punishing ourselves when we damage the environment: food supplies, weather, air quality, etc. but  we pretty much know that at this point so it is redundant for me to say more.  As is often the case, we apathetically push these concerns off to the future like a credit card bill whose payments have not come due yet. There are countries like Germany which has completely gone off fossil fuels and the Netherlands that build special bridges across roadways so they can pass safely and recycle plastics into roadways.  Americans do make certain efforts including recycling and some renewable energy, but they often seem half measures. We still pollute and consume much more heavily than we conserve. This is in part to the grip large business has on the government and policy here. Polluting coal and oil are highly profitable and the people making the money intend to stay that way and have the money and influence to do so. The current Trump era offers little hope as he is one of those business people who believes in profit over protection. Under Trump we have withdrawn from the Paris Climate accords, stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of it’s power, and further deregulated the fossil fuel industries. We are also hard pressed to change our ways because American culture prides itself on a culture of consumerism and materialism. Companies cater to our aspirations to have a lot of stuff, eat excessive portions, etc. The current estimates put our timeline at little more than a decade before the changes to the planet are significant. Out of all the issues listed in this blog, it is going to be the most interesting to see how this one turns out. 

Mental Illness

It is brought up with each mass shooting and an explanation for really odd behavior.  Often it takes the death of a famous celebrity such as actor Robin Williams or musician Kurt Cobain for mental illness to take the spotlight before we move one once again. Mental health in America has made much headway over the decades, yet it still carries stigma in a society that emphasizes projections of happiness in the public arena and personal struggles are often kept private. “Americans don't just perceive stigma around mental illness, a substantial share also admit to having negative feelings about the mentally ill.” (Weldon). In rural areas and, especially among men, mental illness is still viewed as a weakness that one just needs to tough through.  In frontier land qualified therapists are few and far between and hard to attract due to low salaries and overwhelming responsibilities.    

While every country has their struggles some are better at providing overall quality of life for their people than others. Countries such  When I think of other countries that have overall better quality of life one of aspects that sticks out to me is a stronger spirit of collective identity and humanism. Social capital is a sociology term applied to “the potential of individuals to secure benefits and invent solutions to problems through membership in social networks” (Poteyeva). They have strong viable safety nets to catch those who fall and because of these factors less people do. Americans have reversed this idea instead allowing power and wealth to be concentrated in a small percentage of society. What is most likely at work here is social identity theory and in group bias formulated by psychologist Henri Tajfal and John Turner in the 1970′s and 80′s. . Human beings are adroit at identifying with those they consider similar and and distinguishing themselves from those who are different.  Naturally, these behaviors ensure that we care for our own over others.  A sense of social and economic equality can contribute to a collective identity, communication, and trust between groups. Economic and social inequality can exacerbate these in group bias.       this is due to ever growing fear, disassociation, disillusionment, ignorance, and misinformation. Few events highlight this than our political elections. We often laud(while also envying) those at the top of our society and revile those at or near the bottom even though we are many of those same people. This punishment takes more than one form: incarceration, antipathy, hatred, and most often lack of funding. We have developed an inclination to sweep away people and problems away and move on even more so in our modern attention starved society. Also, in our individualistic society the blame is on the individual ignoring that fact that he or she is woven into a much larger picture. People are successful and rich because they have made the right choices and the failures have made the wrong ones. They deserve what they get without mercy. These views are a part of a complex web of capitalism, religion, media, tribalism, and politics. In the end, on a national level we often refuse to have honest conversations about societal issues and how American society and its influential institutions play their part. Consider honestly how inmates, addicts, welfare recipients, and even the uninsured are regarded in this country? Consider even why racism is still dug as deep as it is into the roots of our culture. When we start talking we will start trusting and caring more.  Some people can’t be helped and will take advantage of the system, but this is the minority and we need more trust and compassion.  

[jmaria200]

Epoch

When I began this blog I and my wife were expecting twins. Then, this past Wednesday, on July 27th, we became parents. This happened nine weeks early and the world shifted on its axis. Life has become haunting long white hallways, beeping and pulsing machines, and scents of over cooked food mixed with sterilization. It is surreal and scary.

Early Babies

Around 4 o’clock I’d gone for an afternoon jog that Wednesday.  I wanted to see how close I could make it to Fort McHenry in the Federal Hill, the next town over. I was wrestling with my recently purchased phone because it wasn’t properly set up and I wasn’t sure if this status contributed to my not getting my wife’s urgent calls. Ten minutes from home, for some reason, she got me.

“My water just broke, I need you home,” 

I went numb all over.  

“Are you serious?” I said knowing right away she was. The pregnancy had been tedious one fraught with concerns and frequent doctor visits. My wife was older and was carrying twins which made her a high risk pregnancy. She’d been measured forty one weeks when it had only been twenty eight. Various doctors said either that they weren’t concerned about the excessive fluid retention she was experiencing or that it was possible to keep growing.  We bought into their expertise and now it had proven wrong.

“I need you home right now.” 

Words like “Holy Shit, or Are You Fucking Nuts“ should have left my lips but all I got out was “All right.” Part of me was convinced it was a false alarm. Still I took off as fast as my body would take me. Having already run for forty five minutes, it didn’t take my limbs to grow heavy and my chest to tighten up. I kept thinking this is what happened to people in movies and books. Not in real life. We hadn’t taken any classes, packed any bags, even had a damn baby shower. 

Sweating viciously, I fumbled with number fingers to get the fucking key in the door. I shot into the living room expecting my wife to be struggling on the couch but there was no one there. My brain didn’t comprehend. Had to be the bathroom. Not there either. 

“Aurora!,” I started hollering up and down hallways. 

Nothing. 

Desperately I went back to to my phone and saw a message there. 

She had a friend who lived nearby drive her to the hospital. She’d called her sister was on her way to pick me up. I let out a lungful of air and jumped in the shower. I couldn’t think but I couldn’t stop moving either. I play music while in the shower and decided I should now, maybe to keep some normalcy. The one song I remember was “Apologize” by the group “One Republic”. 

Ten minutes later I was grabbing fistfuls of clothing and anything else I thought was important. What was important: toothbrushes-would this be an overnight stay-snacks? pillows? clothing? There was a class that taught us what to pack in a bag for the hospital. We hadn’t taken it yet. Reality was a boat tipping dangerously to the side despite my mental efforts to keep it upright. My sister-in -law showed up while I was still scrambling around. After an additional five minutes of mindless looking(I even stopped and gazed at nothing from time to time) I threw my old duffel bag in the back of her car and we took off.

When I walked in the maternity ward of Sinai hospital I expected people in scrubs and hair nets and babies to be flying out but I found my wife laying quietly in a bed in the triage area where she’d been every previous time she’d come in with an issue.

False alarm, I thought. All is normal. False alarm.

The nurses, one who’d been there for almost every previous visit, was discussing testing for amniotic fluid. We almost knew them by first name. Then my wife asked for her sister and, since only one person could be with her at the time, I had to leave, which ticked me off a little. Wasn’t I the father of these future children? But I respected her wishes. In the meantime, for the some reason, I decided to get my phone working. Call it an escape or just my paranoia. Twenty minutes had passed before sister in law came out and said they were moving my wife.

It looked like all was not normal and we were staying. Maybe just overnight. We followed a hallway past the triage area, through a set of the many electronic doors that don’t open if you stand too close, and found my spouse in a more typical hospital room filled with loud electronic chatter. They had what looked like hockey pucks strapped to her belly and nurses were adjusting these ad-nauseum to monitor the babies heart beats.

“The baby girl’s amniotic sack had ruptured,” she explained sounding scared. “I’m going to need to stay in the hospital until they are born.”

My heart began to chatter again. The pregnancy was in jeopardy. The babies might come two months early. We were use to things not going as planned but this wasn’t just about us. Also one thing you naturally do when in a unknown situation in a hospital is gauge the mood of those who work there. If they panic, you panic. Since non one was panicking I figured okay then. Ride it out. Also I wasn’t loving two months of hospital visits. 

We shooting to keep them in until thirty four weeks, the doctor had said.

They administered magnesium to stall the potential labor and made my wife feel strange. At that point, I’d envisioned staying until everything had settled then going home to my bed but my wife requested I stay the night. Ergo, I put on the television stretched out on the vinyl couch near the window. My wife was swollen and sore and couldn’t stand up, but otherwise all right except they kept adjusting those dam microphones again and again.

The neonatal doctor was sent in to discuss premature delivery. It was sort of like talking about what could go wrong before a big surgery. Does nothing for your piece of mind. 

“At twenty eight weeks we’re concerned about their lungs being undeveloped. Also there could be bleeding in the brain as there are ventricles in there that aren’t fully developed.”

Basically, premature children is all about under development. I and my wife listened and nodded and were both still convinced these babies wouldn’t be coming tonight. Who wanted that badly to enter this world?

Then the contractions came sometime before midnight. My wife was curled in the fetal position at one point. The contractions were like rubber bands slowly tightening and releasing.  The staff gave her a second drug to stop the labor. Who knew one could even stall the process. And, yep, they were still playing with those damn hockey puck microphones strapped to her stomach as the babies kept moving. 

Disney’s version of “Hercules” was all I could find on the television; I wanted to get lost in the moving colors but there was too much action. 

A young doctor, who looked like someone who would play a doctor on tv, checked in regularly.  He had been checking on the dilation of her cervix mostly by sight as there was a fear of infection. The tv doc pulled out a a large spotlight and did so again. Apparently dilation was holding steady yet my wife was still having contractions. 

As the pain geared up, the nurse suggested either stronger pain medication, that might sedate the babies if they do show up, or an epidural. My wife agreed to the epidural. Now most people who’ve seen movies with labor scenes have probably heard of epidurals.  I knew they were for pain but never underestimate how complex and painful they were. In marched the anesthetist and opened a packet of tubes and equipment.  The nurse propped my pregnant wife up and the anesthetist proceeded to either drive a spike or something close to it into her spine from the way my wife hollered.

There came a momentary calmness after as the contractions were blunted. 

“It’ll feel like pressure. You won’t feel the pain, but it doesn’t take away the pressure.”

Then the head obgyn doctor came in. I’d seen her earlier that night but I had no idea who was who at that point. 

“I’m going to check you again,” she said to my wife. After a short examination she declared “You’re dilated to three centimeters. I can feel a little head pushing. Sorry, these babies are coming tonight.” 

And just like that. Like a badly scripted show we were going to become parents  at three thirty in the morning on a Thursday. No typical rush to the hospital with my wife in labor, no classes, no grandparents in the waiting room.

Ten minutes later they were wheeling my wife to the operating room while leaving me to pack together our stuff. I felt like a guest at a sleep over who gets kicked out at the last moment. I was given the proto-typal blue suit and hair net that almost all surgeons wear and told to wait five minutes. I’d been charged with taking pictures/video like a good husband and I was experimenting with my wife’s Iphone by taking pictures of just about everything in the room. 

Then they came for me. I was led down another wide, white hallway to double doors. Inside was like another world. I’d been inside operating rooms before but always as a patient. Now I could actually study the place. Everyone was dressed the same as me. To the left was the Neonatal team with life support equipment ready. In the center was my wife or should I say my wife’s upper half surrounded by more equipment with a cloth stretched across her middle hiding the surgeons that were already at work. Suspended above the operating table was a pair of those classic spot lights that people stare up into as they are leaving this world or maybe returning. Nothing like that would be happening now.  I huddled up next my wife and the anesthetist and started filming. At first all was pretty quiet. My wife looked at me with glazed weariness. I took her hand and kept watching the blood pressure on the monitors.  Thoughts of women losing blood too quickly during cesareans was in my head, but, once again, no one else seemed to panicking yet so I wasn’t. In fact, The anesthetist, the same woman who’d put in the epidural, narrated what was happening, which was somehow comforting. She asked if I wanted to see what was going one beyond the cloth.

“I’m okay. I get woozy of this kind of stuff.”  Not a chance. I considered becoming a doctor until I realized I was bad at chemistry and grew light headed at the sight of blood. The calmness continued until my wife started to shift on the table and cry “Oh, oh”

A “sorry” came from the other side of the cloth. This went on for about ten minutes more. The camera was still rolling on my wife’s phone. A nurse noticed this and asked me to stop when the children was born. Another nurse, or doctor,(it was hard to tell) then said “You can’t be filming in here.”  Regretfully, I turned off the camera seconds before the tiny, moist pale form my daughter appeared from the other side of the curtain with the most beautiful little cry that cut right through me. 

The nurse laid her on a little table and a group of nurse and doctors closed in blocking my view. 

Her brother silently followed close behind.  The neonatal staff closed in looking anxious for the first time. I could see someone massaging his chest.  The silence was frightening. Were babies this small suppose to come out crying? Was he okay.

“Is he all right?” my wife said in a harsh whisper. “Is he all right?”

“Yes, I think he is,” I said reading body language as best I could. 

“Congratulations,” one nurse said after another. 

Tired and lightheaded, I happen to remark offhandedly “This is too much for me.” 

At this point, our guide, the friendly anesthetist turned serious. “Are you okay? “She pretty much cajoled me from the room. I went and sat and drank orange juice and tried to recall this was all real.

I made it back int time to watch our daughter, the future Amaris (named for a co-worker of my wife’s) being wheeled out in a plastic box known as an incubator. She was a little, red body thrumming and covered with what looked like saran wrap. Our son, future Jacob, picked from a list of Biblical names, was already gone. 

The surgeons took what seemed like forever to put my wife back together. 

“A lot of layers here,” one of them said overhearing me talking to the anesthetist.

The last official race I’d run during my running days was an over night relay from Cumberland, MD to Washington DC. I’d gotten maybe ten minutes of sleep that night after seven miles of running.  That was how I felt in the recovery room after. It is surreal when the night runs seamlessly into the morning without any gaps like one has somehow violated a law of nature.  .  Aurora was nodding off in her bed and I was trying vainly to sleep on anything I could find.The last mission was the fate of the babies. The first seventy two hours were the most sensitive and we were only three hours in by seven. At eight am I was allowed to see them for the first time in the neonatal intensive care unit (nicu) a large room lined with machines, incubators, and desks. Part machine, part doll helplessly laid out on their backs under plastic casing and wires and tubes.  The head doctor, the woman who’d prepped us before, was thrilled and I tried to be the same. These were my children after all but it had all happened so fast.  

“You can touch them,” she said. Hesitantly, I reached in and touched the incredibly soft, almost paper thin skin on my son’s leg. He moved just a little. He was real.  I stayed until my wife was able to see our children. She put her hand right in a placed it on each of the their little chests and told them they were loved. It was one of the most touching moments I’ve ever experienced.

 Back in the room a rough and ready nurse with a very slavic name burst in, took care of my wife, and started shoving papers at us. “You don’t look very happy about those papers,” she said. I fought back rage and said something to effect of “I’m ready to fall on my face I’m so tired.”“Why don’t you stay here.”“With all due respect, not a chance.” I made it home, called my parents, and tried to grab some sleep. While I was laying there a swell of emotions brought tears to my eyes.  I cried for awhile eventually drifting off. The sonic ring of a phone brought me out. I told my parents as many details as I could then feel back asleep.

I spent the next five days shuttling back and forth between the hospital to see my wife and children and home.  We watched a Harry Potter marathon on tv and ate bland macaroni and salads. There was no comfortable way for me to sleep in the room and I resisted the idea. With all the noise and necessary pestering from staff, a one has to be ill to really get any sleep in a hospital.  Aurora came home on time, suffering only occasional pain from her cesarean, and ever since we have been made the daily sojourns to the nicu.  Regular skin contact has been shown to help premature babies develop better(now there I go sounding like a public service announcement). Seeing our children hasn’t been all joy as it involves two activities I don’t enjoy driving and being at a hospital. I think hospitals are confining and sterile. Also we’re constantly interacting with the nurse staff, which is often more interaction than I’m comfortable with and not everyone working there is a real people person. Although it will mean long days and often sleepless nights, I’m looking forward to taking the babies home or having them “graduate” as the nicu pamphlets state.

The First Real Challenge

Our ritual went on for three and a half weeks when Jacob came down with bacterial menegitis. In short, it is a common bacteria that most people can resist but not a premie with a weak immune system and membranes around his brain and spinal cord became inflamed. It’s present in most pregnant women and Aurora had been given antibiotics before giving birth and the babies had been given them right after but the bacteria had somehow hidden out and survived in our son. He’d started looking listless in the days leading up to the diagnosis and last Sunday we got the call as we were walking out the door to pay a visit to the nursery. Thus, the circus began again. 

We were back at the hospital and the first few hours were terrifying. Premature babies are tedious to begin with but an ill premie is a downright nightmare. Every moment feels like walking a fine wire and there really isn’t much you can do. Jacob had turned gray and, if it hadn’t been for his vitals remaining strong, it looked like he might be fading. In fact, his heart raced through the night. I thought he might blow out a blood vessel. Thankfully the staff had acted quickly in getting antibiotics in, which had hopefully stopped any long term damage but it will be a long time before we know for sure. It is hard to describe how it feels to come close to losing one of the most precious people in your life even before you really get to him.  My wife kept a vigil at the hospital until Jacob started to pull through. He started to recover from the illness but the treatments and tests wore him out. The doctor had to intubate (insert a tube down one’s throat and have a machine breath for you. People probably know this from final moments of characters in hospital scenes) Jacob at one point as he was growing too tired to keep breathing on his own. The tube started causing mucus plugs that would block his airway. Then there was the blood transfusion, eeg test, spinal taps, pic lines for antibiotics, etc  The weird image (if you consider it ) of three large people gathered around a lump of flesh no bigger than a teddy bear. 

As of this writing, Jacob is going to make it. He is still agitated by touch and agitated in general but stable enough that the doctors removed his breathing tube and put him back on a nasal cannular which is that clear tube one sometimes sees in the noses of elderly people who need oxygen.  The cannular allows him to more of the breathing: a great sign.  I and my wife have returned home to our semi normal life with hospitalized children. My wife contacted her mother who rushed up here as Jacob was recovering. While I appreciate her desire to see her grandchildren and support her daughter we didn’t really need a house guest to think about. I will continue to update this blog as our lives with these two amazing children unravel. 

[jmaria200]

Music for the people

Before I begin this blog on music, let me set the table. The enjoyment of music is a subjective experience and, while certain music can be agreed upon and good or bad, everyone has an opinion and even the strangest music(I’m thinking death metal here) will have some loyal followers who will want to argue it’s merits.. Arguing music falls right with religion. People are going to believe what they believe and they have the freedom too so in the end it’s a zero sum game. In the end,  for many musicians, it’s not about whether music good or bad, but if enough individuals of varying tastes and intelligence find your music appealing to satisfy one’s desire to share and maybe even make a profit.  Or maybe one just wants to make music in their room for themselves. That is perfectly fine too. 

This piece is my perspective on current and past music trends. I’ve listened to a lot of music over the years. I try not to limit myself by age and generation so I follow older bands and artists like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and  and more current bands and artists like Florence and the Machine and Sam Smith. I was brought  listening to music. My dad had a very broad collection. I spent evenings with  Pink Floyd, Van Morrison, George Clinton, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Ray Vaughn etc.  This background lent me an appreciation for many genres, though genres tend to be ephemeral and changing depending on whose labeling them, there are the standards including: rock, pop, metal, electronic, classical, r&b, hip hop, funk etc. There are the derivatives of  the larger genres such as alternative rock, pop rock, hip hop rock. I generally don’t listen to country music (except Johnny Cash and a few other classic country music people) gangster rap, big band, blues though I’ve heard plenty of examples in movies, on television etc. The point I’m making is that while I’m not a music critic, I can speak with some knowledge, but it still is, of course, my perspective.

Mainstreaming it.

Mainstream, popular: these are terms that define whether or not a piece of art has been accepted by the larger public. Whether it is a film, a book, or a painting, many artists seek out:mainstream because mainstream means big financial reward. Lots of people will purchase one’s product. Some people will just because it’s popular.  Mainstream is also seen as vacuous, common, unoriginal. Something simple enough for the great masses to enjoy, but too simple for the greater minds of society who thirst for the complex and the different (just picture the haughty art connoisseur explaining the meaning of a white square on a white background). Terms like “sell out” are thrown around by “true” fans when counterculture/alternative go mainstream.

Counter what? 

Counterculture, more commonly given the softer label “alternative” today, is the other side of the coin. The artists purposefully defying mainstream culture in order to maintain their authenticity, be true to themselves, resist the temptation of money, etc.  They may feel alienated by society and produce art, music, films, that appeal to those who likewise do. More often than not what starts out as counterculture ends up mainstream to a certain degree: think punk music in the late seventies and eighties, grunge in the nineties, folk music to some extent today. More often than not these terms mainstream and counterculture are really just ways of trying to create artificial intelligence gaps. Besides a person can love mainstream blockbuster movies and have a collection of photographs by a obscure Finnish photographer. 

Genre Jam

Okay. It was vital to get these terms down in order to discuss most art form as they will come up again and again. When I consider today’s music one thing I must say about today’s generation in general is that whether one identifies as mainstream or alternative, both sides tend to reflect very sanitized tastes. Where has the desire to “Beat on the Brat” or “Rape me” gone? Today’s music tends to revolve around themes of heartbreak and love. I believe this speaks to a generation/society that is generally self focused(selfie anyone?), which is not necessarily a bad development, but tends to leave out a broader, global perspective (Sunday, Bloody, Sunday). Also the music industry has become so fractured and there are so many choices that all artists seem alternative now as the goal of most artists is to play to their particular group and if they happen to have a broader appeal all the better. Having said that, depending how to group bands and musicians, it appears that there are two major divisions in today’s music mainstream pop and alternative rock.

Based on what I’ve witnessed, this is the landscape of the American music industry circa 2015. You may agree or not

Pop

Pop has surged to become the mainstream especially of the young: those anywhere from nine to twenty.  Since the youth culture is generally the one that sets the trends in this country and have the spending money, they demographic companies want to go after and pop music is their conduit.  Pop music is designed to be trendy and catchy and speak to simple themes like love, friendship, heartbreak, what your typical teenage daughter would relate too. Today, it is usually synthesized music with singers who tend to be more entertainers than musicians (but that is debatable) and, surprisingly, sexual innuendos are common, especially when pop is merged with hip hop/rap or electronic dance music,  

Rock

Unless it is pop rock/emo, standard rock music has generally fallen to the fringe, with exceptions like the Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, or Red Hot Chillie Peppers. Very few rock bands appeal to today’s broader music culture and stations that play rock sound like tributes to the previous two decades much like classic rock and roll stations harken back to the seventies and sixties. I believe this goes back to the current tastes and trends. Rock music tends to have dark themes that appeal to those who are angry and disillusioned. Today’s youth aren’t really angry the way those who gave to punk and grunge were. Likewise, rock tends to appeal to men more than woman and, as mentioned before, today’s mainstream market is more focused on woman.

Indie/Alternative

This is the other major division of music today though not nearly as visible as pop.  Groups like REM are considered the one’s who set the guidelines for alternative music.  These are your college radio stations. This is where the counter culture thrives more or less, the artists that seem to exist in this limbo between mainstream popularity and absolute obscurity. They focus more on the art of music and less on the glitz and glam and might sell out a bar, but not a stadium. The music tends to be experimental integrating folk, blues, jazz, etc. These are the musicians and bands that dress like your friends in jeans and fedoras. Often an alternative artist will hit the note with people and rise up to the mainstream  i.e Vancejoy, Hozier, then sink back down or remain there( Lorde). This is also where older artists who are still releasing material tend to congregate(Paul Simon, Chrissie Hynde, Paul McCartney). My biggest criticism with this genre of music is that in it’s desire to be introspective and thoughtful, it can also be bland at times. Often it is the type of music that you picture hearing in the background at a hipster party.

Classic Rock

This is a genre that remembers what are considered the glory days of Rock and Roll during the Boomer generation in the sixties and seventies. These are the songs that appear on soundtracks of Martin Scorsese movies and are constantly quoted as influences of musicians today.  The power chords and blues rock of mega groups like Led Zepplin and the Rolling Stones, or the pop rock of the Beatles. These groups make up the foundation of this genre and, as once relevant rock groups slip into irrelevancy, like Guns and Roses. they a relegated to the classic rock and roll designation.  At least every city has one classic rock station that seems to appeal to the now elderly boomers yearning to hear the same Boston or Steely Dan song they’ve been hearing for thirty years now.  If you had a parent who was a Baby Boomer, like I did, you know classic rock. I frequently wonder if this genre will generally fade once it’s generation has moved on? We don’t listen to big band much anymore, but then again classical instrumental music has survived centuries , but I think that’s a different animal.

Blues/Jazz

Developed in the Black communities of the south and mid-west and considered one of the few original American musical legacies, blues typically garners respect as it is a music difficult to master and speaks to the raw human struggle and emotion. Lately, blues has become more of a cult following so that silver haired, middle class, white men in their  late 50′s  who wear Harley Davidson vests, can still look cool when going to wine festivals.  The last mainstream blues artist I can remember was Stevie Ray Vaughn.. Outside of cities that have a vibrant blue legacy, blues has been fading in this country ever since the early twentieth century. In fact,  British musicians like the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton reintroduced blues into this country in the form of blues rock. Jazz, a close cousin to blues, has gone the same way. i can’t name any current jazz artists, but that’s just me though it does speak to jazz’s obscurity. Often someone seems like a cultured music aficionado if they have John Coltrane or Miles Davis in their collection. The early twentieth century was also known as the Jazz Age. I’d call today the Pop Age.

Hip Hop/Rap

Even though hip hop and rap can be considered distinct music styles(one doesn’t need vocals in a hip hop song)I’m grouping them together here because they often are grouped together and for the sake of brevity. From it’s roots in the poor neighborhoods of the 1970′s Bronx, hip-hop/ rap has flourished in America. During the eighties it was Run DMC, Public Enemy, and NWA. In the nineties, it was the east coast/west coast battle with artists like Biggie Smalls and Tupac and Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre. Today we have Kanye, Jayzee, and Nicki Minaj. Since Aerosmith did “Walk this way” with Run DMC it has been common for rock/pop artists to cross paths with hip/hop/rap.  Some groups integrated both into their sound like Limpbizkit and Lincoln Park.  In this era of constant compilations, if you want street credit, you include a hip hop artist i.e. Nick Jonas and Gemini , Arianna Grande and Iggy Azalea, etc. Hip-hop/Rap seems to offer the edginess that bubbly pop often lacks. Hip hop/rap artists also find success when mixing with disc jockeys producing electronic dance music, such as Nicki Minaj and David Guetta or Little John and Dj Snake.

Electronic Dance Music

I typically consider electronic dance music(EDM) as a European product that American’s adopted, but I think this is due to the heavy German influence on early EDM by groups like Kraftwerk and the European Electronic Dance boom of the nineties. While the first Electronic Dance music origins can be traced back to the 1960′s in America where soul and funk music required the use of a bass guitar and synthesizers to get the beats going. Also the Theremin, an electronic instrument that makes sound through motion and first used commercially by the Beach Boys in the song Good Vibrations, is thought to be the beginning of electronic music. In the 1970′s, the rise of disco created a new style of electronically generated music. This gave rise to the more experimental decade of the 1980′s where progressive rock bands mixed synthesized music with rock instruments and Electro, House, and Techo gained popularity.  The nineties brought the boom in European electronic music most notably in France, UK, and Germany. 

Today the marriage of pop stars and electronic music disc jockeys is the new norm.  Rihanna, Ellie Golding, Niki Minaj  have worked with names like Calvin Harris, David, Guetta, and DJ Snake, djs who have gained as much celebrity as their pop start counterparts.

Country/Folk

You won’t find electronic beats or women wearing next to nothing here. Country and folk are often looked at as the honest music genres for decent people in these United States of America. These are songs about the everyday, common folk. Country tends to go one of two ways: depressing much like the blues or up beat and almost pop music like also known as pop country. More often this music is so sugary sweet, it might give you cavities.  In fact, Taylor Swift and Shania Twain started out here then crossed over to more mainstream pop music. As, I mentioned before, this genre  I can’t say much more  because I don’t listen to this type of music except for the occasional classic country of Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson. When I think of folk, I think of acoustic guitars and Arlo Guntherie or early Bob Dylan . I think of this genre and the music of the traveling man with nothing much except a guitar and the shirt on his back.  

[jmaria200]

8 million seeds

I grew up forty five minutes from New York City, one of the most populous cities in the United States that rose from a Dutch trading post to one of the major cities of the globe.  I’ve had friends and family live and work in the city. My father raised us working at the New York City World Trade Center (and was there for 9/11) I’ve felt it’s pulse as I walked it’s canyon streets after a bar or club night and I’ve loved it. I’ve stood in Times Square and let the river of people flow around me. It feels like being at the center of humanity.

New York City feels like it was built by dreams and is also an engine of dreams. How many times is the trope of making big in the Big Apple played out in movies and in real life? The artist moves to the Soho neighborhood with barely a dime in his or her pocket, starves, meets the right people and influences, and soon enough their work is on the walls of the Modern Museum of Art.

The Big Apple is a symbol and a never miss tourist destination and the considered the financial engine of the country. It has restaurants that only the wealthy and the famous can eat in. It is an extroverted, rich young person’s dream come true constantly beating with every sort of entertainment one could imagine that goes all night, culture, and amazing sight, all reasons why it’s considered a sign of status to even live there. (Also history and art for more cerebral people like myself)  People like me who grew up on Long Island were commonly seen as country bumpkins.  One had to live in the city to be blessed by it’s sophistication.    

Now that I’ve sung it’s praises let’s take a harder look at this complex organism New York City is also city of excesses. 8 million people call it home.  It is excessively expensive.  A three room apartments rent for close to a thousand a month (I’m thinking mostly Manhattan here). The Big Apple consumes an amazing amount of resources and produces an excessive amount of garbage. In short, poverty is as common as a New York bagel. Thus, New York City, in this case, is an example of overpopulation. 

I’m will first clarify that I’m bias on this point. I’m an introvert and not a people person. I appreciate my fellow human beings, but in small doses. People, like anything else, can overwhelming in great numbers. While there are positives that people bring:sharing, novelty, connection, etc. more people means more cars, more garbage, and more stress. Besides I believe one can get a lot of the same positives from a small group as they can get from thousands of people.  That being said, my viewpoint is not without merit.  

I usually like to consider the natural order. When it comes to population in nature the norm is equilibrium. Populations aren’t suppose to run rampant. For example, by hunting and eating deer, wolves keep the deer under control. If the wolves over hunt the deer then the wolves begin to starve or must find new hunting grounds, therefore the balance is maintained. If the either population reaches excessive numbers they begin to compete aggressively for what limited resources there are and we have survival of the fittest. If you put thousands of mice in a maze, they will probably become very agitated, competitive, and start attacking one another. This is akin to what happens in our heavily populated cities.

Human beings have since stepped outside this order. We have no natural enemies and we’re able to reproduce often and exceedingly live longer. We have, for all intensive purposes, become a species whose numbers out of control and, much like any other species, we concentrate where resources are most available such as cities like New York, Mexico City, Tokyo, etc. If we have no outside competition and our numbers are so great, we naturally compete with each other. This is part of the human existence whether we realize it or not and it tends to lead to higher increases of behavioral problems and crime.  People label New York City people as angry and indifferent, which are natural stress responses to constantly living in crowded conditions. Let’s not forget spread of disease. The more packed together people are, the more easily epidemics can spread.

Generally, the farther down the socio-economic ladder one is the more they experience these stresses. Think about it. The upper class spend much of the their resources keeping out the general population: private estates, exclusive clubs, private schools, etc.  That is one of the greatest benefits of being wealthy, more control of one’s environment. They are able to exist where the abundant resources are without dealing with many of the drawbacks.  They will also be the last to feel the negative effects of disappearing limited resources. The working class and poor are more likely to be overcrowded. They have to live in high occupancy tenements, take public transportation, go to public schools.  

Cities like New York City is typically viewed through the lens as a natural progression of human society and of being glamorous and exciting, but I think we don’t take into consideration what overcrowding does to the human psyche. There is really such a thing as too many people and that is really the point of this essay. If a lot of people want to live in one place then they should. Right? If that’s where the jobs are then that’s were you go. Considering the fortunes of many small towns that relay on one or two industries and it is understandable why especially those with limited resources flock to cities. But maybe this isn’t always the answer. Maybe we shouldn’t be so resigned to being packed together with our fellow human beings.  We should be asking ourselves will living in a highly crowded area be mentally healthy? We aren’t going to start limiting the size of our populations and overpopulation is generally one of those taboo topics that makes people uncomfortable.  No one really wants to discuss out right because the solutions are often controversial. Governments would need to be the ones to control population and this probably probably wouldn’t be enforced equally. Just consider China’s dilemma and their choice to limit child births and the favoritism towards boys has left many female babies abandoned.  Also many people probably don’t feel that it is a problem. If we can reproduce it’s a our right.  With this attitude we’re basically saying that we’ll populate until there isn’t enough resources to sustain our numbers. at least not until we are forced too. 

The size of cities are generally limited by other factors besides the consideration of what is healthy for it’s occupants. Developers typically guide the expansion of a city and they’re interested in fitting the most people into the smallest amount of space. This is why condominiums and apartment buildings are so popular in cities like New York, especially in the present.

All indications point toward a continuously expanding population. We’re nearing 9 billion people on this planet which is considered the threshold for numbers. We can either meet this fact head on or most of us keep acting like it’s not something to be dealt with. Inevitably, we put it off for the future, but we need to think about it now.  

I think planners and develops will have to design future cities with population stresses in mind. For example, by creating more local open green spaces especially on top of buildings, putting more distance between apartments in multiple dwelling units, wider sidewalks( or maybe putting sidewalks on a different level from cars throughout a city), and more efficient public transportation the stresses of overcrowding can be somewhat mitigated. Public transportation is an area of this country that sorely needs to be upgraded: high speed trains,  a more automated busing system, heck, even planes with more room for occupants. Also cities need to use resources efficiently as possible. There are European and Asian countries already heading in this direction like Norway and China.  

Yes, there will probably have to be some population control down the road especially in countries with very limited resources. This of course would be a highly contested topic as the majority of people want to have children and even multiple children, but considering China and India’s current problems, I think it is a conversation many countries will eventually need to have. 

Or maybe we’ll have settled another planet by then.  

Either way the human race has become the most successful organism to ever live on this planet. Right now, nothing short of a lethal pandemic could put a dent in our population. But we are limited by our environment whether we admit it or not. While I’m dazzled by the lights and energy of a New York City streets, I do keep such thoughts in the back of my mind. 

[jmaria200]

I vs We

Civilization is defined as “the advanced state of human society, in which a highlevel of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached”. Mesopotamia is considered the “cradle of human civilization”, the first to be called a true human civilization. Prior to this development human society was composed of nomadic tribes that hunted for food and followed tribal laws and traditions unique to each. Because they were nomadic and had to rely on limited food sources, these tribes were generally small,  Then, at some point, humans developed agriculture: growing food instead of hunting it. Because agriculture meant food was replenish-able and human beings no longer needed to move around, human populations could expand eventually creating settlements.  These larger populations needed a system larger than tribal rules to sustain them.  Governments developed which provided public services in exchange for taxation. Industry, culture, and science were able to develop and flourish with the stability that civilization brought. The great ancient civilizations of the past: The Incas, The Romans, The Egyptians, are all considered shining examples of human civilizations and set them mold for how humans would live from now on.

The Box.

These early civilizations eventually gave rise to our modern version and all it provides. Our civilization of concrete and steel buildings, internet, grocery stores, automotive, railways systems, etc.  Unless we happen to be part of the few last remaining human tribes (such as: The Bedouin, The Aborigines) we have been brought as part of modern human civilization and we, for the most part, are no longer able to be independent of it.  You go on a camping trip you still bring pieces of civilization: tent, sleeping bag, propane stove, lantern, etc. Even on survivalist television shows, the host may eat insects and build shelters from branches, but her or she still has a full camera crew with them. It’s like we step to the edge just to taste the allure of surviving without society then pull back to safety. (One of the most fascinating shows is Naked and Afraid on the discovery channel where people are left to survive without even clothing.)

But the safety civilization often builds doesn’t really exist.  If civilization suddenly vanished and there were no department stories, no gas stations, no hospitals, would most of us know how to survive? Media celebrates this as well because once again we’re fascinated with this idea. (There are also some survivalist who take this seriously and have shelters stocked with supplies, but they are usually written off as fanatical and they are still trying to maintain civilization as they know it) Think of how many television series, movies, and books are built on this possibility usually connected to zombies or some sort of apocalypse.(Margaret Atwood’s Mad Addam trilogy features human’s who are genetically designed to live off nature (they actually can digest plants) after human civilization is wiped out by a deadly virus).   In reality, I don’t think we would be eaten by zombies, but civilization will change. The weak and sick that the system helps to protect would be at the mercy of the vicious and strong. Even some of the not so weak. Simply put the breakdown of civilization and it’s laws would re-establish the survival of the fittest that civilization has helped separate us from. Those who had more resources would use them to either isolate themselves or take from those with less. Illnesses, once treatable, would run rampant. A historic example was the fall of Rome. Civilization deteriorated and people grown comfortable with the current status were at the mercy of sometimes savage tribes. 

Survival of the fittest laws exist the natural world because life is more about the survival of the species through reproduction not necessarily the individual. Humans, however, are able to contribute to their species in other ways and possess morals and ethics.  I’m advocating that each individual in society( I’m speaking mainly to American society), much like our nomadic ancestors, have some skills developed of how to survive in the wilderness other than what one learns from survival shows. I realize this was probably the concept behind Boy scouts and Girl scouts, but it should be more universal. Make wilderness training a mandatory program at all high schools and continue to disseminate information to the public through media. Supply each family with a survival kit and make sure they know how to use it. Make “do it yourself” instruction part of every family education. Too often does an individual run out and buy a new appliance or possession because they don’t take the time to try and fix it themselves. Of course modern advances in appliances have made them near impossible to do it yourself.

Going Green

Having an understanding and a closer connection to nature would probably lend to a greater respect for nature. Our rampant pollution clearly demonstrates an apathy for nature whether we mean it or not. Rivers, fields, and wetlands have become convenient trash dumps because they’re not city streets or town roads (although we throw trash on those too).  If we have a society more attuned with nature, we, as a group, would realize when we needed to step back and rethink how we live. Civilization, with it’s amazing structures and technology, tends to make us feel egocentric and insulated. If we throw a cup on the street we’re just throwing a cup on the street not helping to slowly change the surface of the planet. We hear about melting ice caps and rising oceans and we look around at our walls and roads and high definition televisions still intact and we carry on. Of course, the recent changes in climate have forced some of us sit up and take notice, but not stop burning fossil fuels that creates the green house effect changing the climate. We live in an inertia until we’re forced out of it.

What are we thinking?

There is also the social and economic factors to being part of any group.  A group will eventually develop some hierarchical structure and its rules will favor those at the top with more resources that can benefit the group more so than the those at the bottom.This is especially true of a civilization that embraces capitalist philosophies the way America does. We often weigh each others merits by our socioeconomic levels. The rules of the group apply more to those with less resources. We see this all the time when the areas inhabited by higher socioeconomic individual areas typically are better developed and receive more funding, albeit schools or roads, than areas where people of  lower socioeconomic means live When businessmen get off with fines for crimes while working class people get jail sentences. The larger poor are seen as the engine of the car with while the wealthier are steering.

Also one must generally follow the rules and behaviors of civilization in order to be part of it. This to can become so commonplace that we “do what everyone else is doing” and lose connection with our own feelings and reasons. We look to others for cues about how we should think and feel and fear to deviate.  In this country we have built into our collective conscious that in order to be proper Americans, we must be proper constant consumers, that the poor and lower class are shiftless, that a child should have a better life than their parent, and upward mobility in society is still generally achievable by all.  These ideologies can be both helpful and harmful. If you are not upward mobile, you may feel you have failed.   Another example is the tendency for people feel isolated in today’s modern society(where people spend more time with machines than people and are distanced from their families) has combined with technology to give rise to a celebrity society. We believe we need every moment of our lives to have meaning to others and advertise these mostly banal moments on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I think we need more real human connections, that we need to re-establish the family at the center of life, to share the special events of our lives rather than these fabricated online realities.

Walking the line.

Ultimately, I believe many of us(here in the country especially) need to be more at ease with comfortably distancing ourselves from civilization, from the system, and group think. I’m not advocating breaking away completely or having anyone run off and live in a cabin by themselves, but simply looking more carefully at the laws and beliefs that govern our day to day lives and deciding which of them aren’t working for us as individuals and which we want changed. In other words, questioning the status quo. Listen to what other’s say, but realize it is okay to have one’s ideas. Support what is promotes life. And above all, think!   While every system needs it’s blind followers, these people should be the minority not the majority.

This should all sound familiar. History is rife with those who have become famous (or infamous) for questioning the status quo: Socrates, Galileo, Henry Thoreau, Martin Luther King Jr. etc. It usually falls upon the intellectuals of a society to question the system. People who were not satisfied with the current thinking. While these people were seen as rebels at the time, they are typically regarded as heroes by history. The difference between these people and anarchists, is that they weren’t trying to break the system, but move it improve it. 

[jmaria200]

I do

    I do? I do what? I agree to get married? I agree to remain with the same person for the rest of my life despite desires to do just the opposite? What does this mean for us men and our sexual desires? Lets consider the foundation of marriage from a biological viewpoint first.  

    Biologically the males of most species are programmed to procreate as often with as many females as possible to ensure continuation of the species.  In turn, the females nurture offspring for a certain amount of time depending on the species.  For cats, this can mean months while, for humans, it can mean years. At some point in our relatively short history, the human being, especially the human male, traded the traditional biological drive to procreate  for monogamy with a single mate and stability. Polygamous practices were more common place in ancient civilizations life spans were not as long and are still practiced in certain cultures today, but generally monogamy works out best for the slow developing human being. The full development of such a large brain, a trademark of homo sapiens, requires a long gestation period. Humans are quite helpless at birth and require a long period of care to allow their brains to develop as compared to other species whose young are born relatively developed and independent, therefore, it became necessary for long term, monogamous bonding to provide the stable environment for these young humans to grow.

      From a societal standpoint, marriage ,or wedlock, is the cultural and social ritual that more or less developed to ensure an environment for raising young as well as the passing of property rights and protection of bloodlines. During most of Western Civilization marriage was about money, power, and survival.  In certain Eastern cultures marriages were arranged. Friends and lovers were sought for passion. Only recently have people married because of love. Ironically, shortly after love entered into the equation of marriage, divorce sky rocketed. People had the freedom of choosing what they believed to be the best option and they were going to exercise it.

     For the individual in modern times, marriage is commonly about learning to care for another individual and moving past the self centered views that tend to dominate adolescence and early adulthood. For men, marriage can foster fidelity and chivalry and create stability and emotional security for women.. 

     So where does this leave the human male still carrying around this basic biological programming to spread his seed? Frustrated or satisfied.  Probably a little of both.  He can be satisfied with one woman or at least he can convince himself he can. After all, are not humans more mentally and emotionally complex than many other animals and require more than sex?  The typical goal of dating and, yes, sex is to find the best fit of a mate, is it not?  Isn’t a satisfying emotional connection what love is all about? Also many religions look down upon sex before marriage to avoid pregnancy before a family has been established since most religions also disapprove of contraception leaving the dedicated follower with even less options for sexual release(granted it has been shown that even the more religious of American society tend to ignore these rules).  

     Then again there are the anomalies of the human species, both men and women, who swear by the single life and never marry or marry, but have multiple sexual partners. What about them? The choice not to marry can be for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with sex, but, regardless they have rejected some part of marriage. Might they simply be listening more closely to their biological drive?  I’m thinking this applies to men more than women, but, while it’s known that both sexes can be promiscuous, even with contraception, it is typically easier for men.  Women get pregnant which tends to put a wrench in the single life.  There are the swingers who have their cake and eat it too.  They marry, but choose to remain sexually free.  This lifestyle is more than likely for only a small group of individuals as such practices tend to generate intense jealously, a lack of security and, increased disease transmission. The swinging lifestyle does raise the question" Are individuals who can overcome their jealousies and satisfy their sexual desires actually happier?“  Maybe swinging calls for a deep trust among partners that few couples are able to develop in today’s world? I don’t have the answers to these questions here, but they are worth considering in examining the institution of marriage in this country. 

      In short, guys still generally want to have sex with many of the desirable and young women they see and this goes on throughout most of their lives regardless of age, family, or marriage.  Looking back at biology,  nature has helped fashion both the previously mentioned desire and the object to be desired again ensuring continuation of the species. A healthy woman’s late teens, twenties, and possibly thirties are her most fertile time so it’s no mistake that they are also the most desirable.  They’re skin is soft and firm and their breasts and hips are full, which are all signs that they are at their ready to bear children. Clearly hormones are at work giving them the best chance for finding a man to impregnate them and they come a running if they can and want too if they can’t.  Unless a man has completely lost his libido, he desires are there and, more often than not, he seems to be trying to mentally re-live their days of single sex.  This desire pervades American society. Pornography, strippers, man themed restaurants like Hooters and Tilted Kilt with young women in small uniforms all seem to allow a conduit for this pent up desire for the young, fertile females men now live with. Male sexual desire can be found in pop culture as well. Consider the song title "Tempted by the Fruit of Another” by the alternative rock group Squeeze or “My Best Friend’s Girlfriend” by the rock group “The Cars” where the speaker relates his desire for his best friend’s girlfriend. The immature, married or, about to be married, man wrestling or giving into his sexual desires is central to many comedic films including the recent “Hangover and American Pie movie franchises”.  Advertisers, who are keenly attuned to most human desires, are especially aware of men’s lust. Just look at how almost everything aimed at men: cars, beer, sports, power tools, etc involve young, scantily clad women.

    Women have the equivalent of romantic novels and movies, but these ventures are usually viewed as the woman desiring to strengthen the emotional bonds of her relationship through example and not simply for the quick, physical satisfaction attached to men and male oriented products. “Why can’t you be more like him or kiss more like that,” women may pose to their partners after watching a romantic film.  

     Societal views of each gender’s focus have shaped the responses of others when partner cheats. Men cheat more often and this is because he can’t control his physical desires. Women cheat less and she must have cheated because her spouse has not satisfied her and drove her away. These common beliefs have been debunked over the years and it is known that both men and women cheat about the same and for similar reasons: loneliness, lack of respect/love, boredom, but perspectives are slow to change.   

     Although married and in my late thirties, the glimpse of a young women still instantly attracts my eye and, with a healthy imagination I begin dreaming of the sensations, tastes, and, yes, even smells of what sex would be like with her. I find that the first temptation after marriage is the first real test and the hardest.  For married men (and women) there is the first time someone else is truly attractive for physical or personality reasons and one must resist.  I came across such a woman recently. She is well endowed and clearly flirtatious.  I keep reflecting back to what I would’ve done as single man and what I’m now missing. I keep reminding myself of my vows and finding other ways to vent my libido.  I think it is healthier for men to come to terms with their ever present sexual desire and find proper outlets in their imagination and within their marriage.

    Sexual desire and satisfaction is more of a mental game(which is why one stands and other sexual fantasies becoming real tend to fall flat. The fantasies rarely live up to the reality and the emotional component of sex is necessary, especially for women.) and, realizing this, I believe men can have sexual experiences while being loyal. Along with traditional pornography, as a fiction writer, I utilize imagination in stories where I experience sexual adventures that I couldn’t in real life. When I’m studying a desirable women, I try to visualize what I can’t see from what I can see. I rarely over look a well shaped female body. It is almost not possible. I find myself reflexively glancing at young women and by now I’m quite familiar with the game of attraction between men and women. 

    Most human beings learn the game of the pursuer and the pursued that defines sexual attraction and this game is evident at some level throughout life. During the single years the game, if done properly, can lead to a date. A man continues to play the game after settling down and this can be a healthy outlet if kept within a certain limit.  I, like many men, have developed all sorts of subtle ways of appraising (covert glances, peering over reading material, etc) the opposite sex. Young women, in turn, are quite aware of this attention remaining aloof to most of it.an aspect of day to day interactions that frustrated me to no end during my single years. I considered many woman vain and self absorbed using this attraction to unjustly boost their self image and take advantage of men. Often women in their twenties do fit this profile. Many find a certain insensitive joy in their power over men, much to the chagrin of the men. but most were just unaware or being careful. After all, there are plenty of men who don’t take losing the game and unfortunately can become abusive.

     Another avenue for men’s fantasies is their own marriage.  Hopefully, we’ve all married someone who enjoys experimenting in bed including sex toys, sharing pornography, role playing, etc. My wife stared out enjoying a variety of activities, but then developed anxiety over sex and we’ve been working at getting back to our previous comfort.  Aside from from raising the bar in bed, a vital part that, I think, many couples forget and why sex withers between a couple is the lack of sensuality.  Men and women need to maintain their physical well being as much a possible well into later years. I believe few people are turned on by an out of shape body.  Also, women especially, should understand how to be sensual, how to dress sexy, and turn their men on including kissing and performing oral sex. Too many couples seem to think sex is about taking it as it comes or pushing past lack of desire.  I realize it sounds old fashion, but it does hold true still that If a man is expected to take care of a women than a women needs to make sure she’s satisfying his desires in bed. 

     Flashing back to my single days, even then I was not aggressively trying to have sex for two reasons. One reason was I lacked self-confidence and it takes a strong dose of confidence to off set repeated rejection in the dating world, especially from the less friendly women.  I really didn’t believe I was desirable and would boost the self image of another individual. Actually, once I learned that these were false self beliefs, I was able to meet a better adjusted woman who eventually became my wife and marriage has further increased my self confidence, both I think are vital points for the single crowd. The second reason was sexually transmitted diseases.  I reasoned that a well adjusted woman doesn’t typically go to bed on the first few dates(I realize I’m probably insulting numerous women here) so it was actually more concerning, not less, when a woman would rush into bed and got me thinking “If she does this with me then how many others has she done this with and how careful is she?”  While this concern might have been exaggerated, I can say I was able to avoid contracting a serious diseases.

    What I do miss about single dating is the novelty, the novelty of meeting different people and, yes, the novelty of sex when it did happen. How each person kissed, moaned, smelled, moved, etc. Also I should add the novelty of the overall experience. Each date had it’s own experiences including: a new restaurant, a new part of town, a new apartment. As previously mentioned, what I don’t miss is the insecurity and frustration when a relationship I was trying so hard to nurture falls apart for reasons I could neither understand nor influence. Break ups were always hard and, when single, I could count on seeing other people happily together. Marriage brought security and peace of mind.

    Aside from attraction to strange women I would probably never meet, what about the female friends already in my life? Friendship is a relationship as well and begin from some of the same elements as a sexual relationship: mutual background, values interest, and respect.   Some of these relationships began possibly because of an subtle attraction or evolved into this situation.  This raises the age old question of the male/female relationships: can men and women be friends?  Pop culture, advice columnist, and Hollywood have attempted to tackle this question many times. I recall the recent movie “Best Friends” with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, where two people tried their best to remain friends while being attracted to each other.  Marriage, of course, puts a stop to all male/female relationships evolving into more than friends. In my life, The chemistry of female friend relationships changed the moment I became serious with one woman and only further solidified once I became married.  Those that flirted no longer did and I saw less and less of others, which could have been coincidental.  In reality, this was probably simplified my life as friendships which evolve into serious relationships can’t go in reverse and, therefore, must dissolve all together. Ultimately I think the answer to the man/woman friendship depends on the people involved and the situation. Some can do it and some can’t.

    Marriage is a serious life changing decision and, like many such decision, has it’s positives and negatives, but I believe most would agree the positives outweigh the negatives.  Marriage life change comes down to priorities and humans need a certain amount of emotional stability and loving relationships as both children and as adults as marriage provides this, but, in today’s world, we tend to put too much stock in marriage. One person can’t be everything for us. When we do, I believe and the statistics support that marriages tend to fall apart.  Humans are sexual creatures and, regardless of culture and religion, require an outlet for these sexual desires.  If they aren’t readily available people usually find ways as shown by the booming porn trade and romance novels in America. Think “Fifty shades of Grey”  We naturally get bored and need some variety. While the swinger lifestyle seems attractive and I’ve had my share naughty fantasies, I don’t promote such a lifestyle. There are other effective channels for this sexual desire in respect to our marriages and ourselves. Couples should experiment and, yes, watch porno together, men should use their imaginations, and there is nothing wrong with the occasional glance at a hot woman. Marriage is about helping someone else live and grow not controlling them.  Part of marriage that is essential, but can be overlooked is trust.  If women trust that men will be well adjusted enough to satisfy their sexual desire and remain loyal then they will. Men also need to know how to vent their sexual need. There will always be those that can’t appropriately, but I’d rather live in world where people can marry and understand their sexual needs than simply ignoring them. 

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[jmaria200]

Girl with Pink Hair

I was at an organization whose title shall remain nameless for a reason I won’t disclose at this time when I came across the girl with the pink hair. While I was in the red carpeted lobby waiting for the elevator to the third floor, this woman in a green sweater came up behind me.  She was short with the well tempered pudginess of a middle aged professional.  I quietly wished her and her entourage to go in another direction (I’m one of those people who find elevators uncomfortably close and savor an empty car to myself), but they were destined to join me.  As we entered the elevator together, I noticed that the group included a young girl as well, a young girl.  I didn’t look at them during the ride (wishing I was somewhere else for that minute), but they filed off ahead of me and that is when I made a careful study.  Now they could’ve been there for any number of reasons,  and a young girl being at such location naturally summons concern,but the air of excessive compliance coming from the parents and how they walked with the girl in the middle of the group as if she were a guarded, fragile treasure told me that they were there for her.  Oh, yes, whatever dark behavior had risen up from the confusion of those tender, teenage years and  corrupted their little girl, they were there to exorcise it out.  Their manner said it couldn’t been nothing more than a family trip to the fair, but in another hour they might be screaming and shouting as the sadness poured out.   Not to mention she had raging pink hair.  This was a pink so bright and multifaceted only a young female could pull off.  The hair combined with black horned rimmed glasses (I can’t remember what she wore.  I tend to rely to much on my memory) screamed of the teenage mantra of “notice me”.  As they walked single file toward the same office as me, I couldn’t help, but wonder if it was an eating disorder, depression, or a combination of both. Maybe this could be labeled a tabloid like interest in the suffering of others, but  I couldn’t help myself.  As they idly took their seats in the waiting room,  I wanted to know the secrets of the girl with the pink hair.   

[jmaria200]

Ice to Eskimos

Ice to Eskimos

Remember the old saying when it came to sales? If someone was a good enough salesman, they could sell ice to eskimos.  In other words, they could sell items to people that didn’t need them.  I think this is effective launch point for discussion of marketing and consumerism in America. Let’s take a moment to consider the mighty marketing/advertising engine of America.  The great insidious machine that is both right in your face and behind the scenes leaching into people’s inner dialogue like chemicals into drinking water.  Business itself is neither moral or immoral, but the ideas and practices they tend to embrace and promote to be profitable are commonly counterproductive to the individual’s and societies best interests.  Like a bacteria that is harmless when kept under control, but dangerous when rampant, corporate culture needs to be kept in it’s place. I believe America has failed to do so in our recent history.  To live in this country is to be part of this process and know it’s terminology: supply and demand, consumer, product, impulse buy, etc. whether you realize it or not. Now let me be clear. When I speak of the great machine, it is generally not the small companies that have marshaled enough for a single slot of air time at one in the morning or taken out a small square in the corner of a magazine. These are companies utilizing marketing and advertising for the original purpose of building their business.  I’m speaking of  the great corporate behemoths that pummel us so often through our televisions, computers, radios, and phones as to help define our behaviors and culture to ensure their profitable futures. You know them. You probably have their car outside your house, their phone in your pocket, or drink their beers.  They are relentless and apparently are not satisfied until their product pushes have helped set our self views, our topics of discussions, how we judge each other, and the foods we eat. When was the last time you or someone you know cringed away from a product because it wasn’t name brand even though it didn’t significantly look or taste any different ?  It isn’t enough for us to simply buy their products. To be a large, successful consumer facing corporation in this country is to insert yourself into every facet of a consumer’s life.  Commercials, especially, can be as awe inspiring as religion and preachers could only wish it were as profitable and it begs the question of who is the conqueror and the conquered here? Have we won out when we’ve got the perfect car, drank the perfect scotch, gone on the perfect vacation? Companies desire us to think we do so we’ll keep buying scotch and going on vacations especially in a country where about seventy percent of the gross domestic product depends on consumer spending. Is the constant persuasive deluge akin to the colonial practices of the Spanish outlawing the pagan religions and culture of the Aztec’s in favor of European ways? One culture supplants another (albeit more subtly) with it’s ideas and values for it’s benefit. Have we lost sight of what is important to us in favor of what is important to others.  After all, I can’t remember the last time someone sat down specifically to read the ads in a newspaper or watch commercials (unless they came on during the Superbowl of course which could be thought of as the Easter Sunday or Passover of advertising).  The marketing/advertising machine is a necessary part of this countries economic well being and a problem.

The Resistance

There is “resistance” to the excessive marketing/advertising in this country. Many of us battle back with DVR’s that allow us to record our shows and fast forward past the commercials. There are ad blocking programs on the internet and we opt to pay for television and satellite or streaming radio instead of being bombarded forcing these companies to engineer new and inventive ways to reach our psyche  They now have turned to increasingly sneaking their products into our shows. (When was the last time you just happen to see an actor clearly holding a bad of Doritos or drinking a can of Coke?) There are commercials at movie theaters (I never thought I’d miss that pre-show silence) on webpages, and on the sides of vehicles.  Digital billboards are replacing the traditional static ones where multiple commercials can be presented to drivers.  This age of information revolution is a two way street. Information can find us as easily as we can find it.  There are companies that exist simply to mine our habits.  When do we shop? For how long? What do we buy? What websites do we look at? For how long? More than likely, not even scientist critique our every move as much as marketers.  These particular companies then package and sell our information to the companies that want to sell us stuff and the marketers that tell them how.  Ever notice how an ad for the very same sandals with the white rhinestones you were admiring on Zappos coincidentally show up in the ad boxes on Facebook a second later as your checking out the latest pictures of your two year old nephew?  It feels as if they can’t let us rest for even a second yet we forget how much we need this materialism to be happy.  And do we really?  It’s a question as old as humanity itself. Ask this question of most people, even the wealthy surrounded by a million dollar estate, and they would flatly say “no” mostly because this answer is more socially appropriate. Who wants to admit they’re manipulated, but one of the great contradictions of human beings is that we don’t always confess, or are even aware of, our true underlying desires. For example, Americans claim they believe in healthy eating, yet steakhouses rarely are short on business. Guess what? Marketers know this. In fact, they count on it. 

Ways of Seeing

 "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger is a fascinating four part television series that criticizes hidden ideologies found in Western cultural aesthetics including materialism and advertising.  I’ve seen only the fourth part of this series so far, but this particular episode offers a look at how images once captured in art, and now in photography, has been appropriated for the purposes of creating a constant state of desire for materials and constant envy. To see how these techniques are constantly working on us just take a look around. We are a nation of debt where people are renting cars and buying clothing they can’t afford. Near impoverished individuals who can barely support themselves are burdened with expensive phone contracts.  It is the mentality of putting off ones financial obligations into the future that constantly shackle people to debt in this country. Think about the latest American recession. At the epicenter was banks luring naive people into houses they couldn’t afford.  Despite all of these dark lessons, why is desire and envy still so alive in this country? Turns out it is part of being human.

Human Nature

Competition and desire for inclusion are both part of the human condition and usually at odds with each other.  Like most species on this planet, we often compete for limited resources. Those with similar resources and opportunities are usually grouped into social classes.   In some countries these classes are determined by religion(like India) or gender(many Middle Eastern countries).  Previously, in countries like England(which American derives much of it societal structures), social class was defined by birth.  One was either born into a established upper class family or lower class. The lower class could not have access to the lifestyle nor the elegance and proper breeding required of the upper class; therefore, there wasn’t this push to generate envy in the lower classes. In a democratic society like America, many of these imposed social limits have been removed(family name and background still do play a role in access to opportunities especially at the upper levels of American society) there is perceived equality and social mobility that accompanies the belief each person can gain access to all that society offers. This equality is incomplete as most do not have access to the upper levels of society. Class limits still exist, but are typically based on purchasing power. 

On the other hand, generally, humans rely on social feedback to measure their own well being and self view.   We seek out social approval since,especially in the early days, to be ostracized from the group meant certain death. Before they were masters of planet Earth, early humans survived in a dangerous world because they lived in packs and protected one another.  We still have the innate desire to be part of a group, but just think what our human groups look like now. In the modern world, we are constantly exposed to the level of success and materialism attained by celebrities, Forbes 500, athletes or, more likely, the Jones down the block often making our lives seem paltry by comparison. Not surprisingly, we identify most closely with those most similar to us and one of the most effective and well known marketing techniques is “word of mouth”. Having a neighbor or a friend recommend a product has been shown to be better than television or print ads. 

Marketers have simply taken these natural desires to measure ourselves against each other and stand out and have inflamed them. It’s not just the who they are or where they come from, it is what materials they possess that makes them stand out. The elegance and grace of the old world has been replaced by glamour and envy of material possessions as means to a better life.  Forget the present. This “happiness” is perpetually in the future contingent upon our ability acquire these products and services. The smiling family engaging in a Disneyland vacation seems so much happier than we who sit at home surrounded by our ordinary lives.  The young hip man drinking beer with a girlfriend that puts our wives to shame just seems so much, well, better.  These typically suggestions work on people at more of a subconscious level breeding discontent and envy.  In the serious “Ways of Seeing” Thomas Berger outlines basic categories of desire that advertisers target:  the dream of a night out where everyone is having fun and you are the reason, dream of the skin, the item that touchable and sexy, and dream of the far away place where one can encounter the exotic, the escape. Not to mention the marketers/advertisers work has been made easier in this country by the general isolation and discontent of a overworked American population. (When next you feel an intense stab of American pride for being one of the great global economic powers be aware of how millions of workers sacrifice daily quality of life to keep that engine turning.  We are not a country forgiving to it’s workforce.)  Forget it if you’re say in your teens or younger.  Kids are the Holy Grail of advertisers, especially teenagers with more money than judgement and confidence in their pockets.  We, as good Americans, are to envy those who have more than us.

Happiness?

All this pursuit of happiness that marketers push begs the question “what is happiness?”  It’s apparently what everyone needs and doesn’t have.  Sounds like a riddle, no? Self help books and advice columns are constantly trolling for this answer. In this modern era, objects are constantly tethered to happiness, but happiness has nothing to do with what we own, but, I think, in many ways we’ve lost sight of that. I think we get happiness and contentment confused.  Happiness is the stuff of corporate ad men and contentment the message of spiritual leaders.  By definition happiness comes from the attainment of what is thought to be good while contentment is satisfaction without desires. With all these false ideas of happiness drummed up by the profit makers, the true answers tend to get lost.  As mentioned before, happiness existed long before the modern commercial era and, if we ask ourselves, humans instinctively know where real happiness comes from.  It’s what we need to hear and often involves hard work and struggle and can make us uncomfortable.  Its the people around us and pursuits that fulfill us. The world created by advertisers contradicts our real world and can be jarring or even fall apart when put up against the stark realities we face: death, war, etc. “Advertisers are really just selling products, but in doing so they seek to fill the gap between where we are and the better world we wish desire.”(Ways of Seeing) They include all the elements and make all the promises, but can’t really fulfill any of them leaving us empty and constantly seeking more.  The imaginary filling of this desire gap leaves little room for real action to create a better world such as political action (Americans will sign up for credit cards, but they won’t vote) or spiritual fulfillment in whatever way one may find it.  All of the great religions speak out against material excess and obsession. One of the more constant messages in church services is to not put materialism before God. The evils of excess materialism have been well documented.  This is in part why this author finds dedicating oneself intimately to the corporate lifestyle to be so empty. People who do so need to balance their lives with life affirming activities which is probably why so many super wealthy are philanthropist.  It is ironic too that typically the higher one goes up the socio-economic ladder in this country the more people judge each other on material wealth.  These are generally those who receive some of the best education and “worldliness” are some of the shallowest people. I believe this attests to the quality of character it takes to resist the lure of judging each other by possessions.

Proud to be an American! 

We are generally a proud, idealistic, and independent society in this country or at least this is how we see ourselves.  I believe the real cleverness of marketers/advertisers(and politics, less we forget political races rely on marketing sometimes more than companies) is that it takes these perceptions and bolsters and undercuts them at the same time. The more likely we believe we are the ones in control of destinies and the more we see our fellow human being as competition that must be overcome and the less likely we are to look for outside help, which actually makes us more afraid, isolated, and, thus, easily influenced by the constant reminders of our shortcomings that marketers rely on(On a side note,I can make the case that these are the same strategies behind cultural and political divisions in this country, but this is for another discussion)  Not to mention the plummeting standards of education in this country that have stripped people’s sound judgement and ability to see through deception.  All of these factors have helped developed a very susceptible population.

How can we help? 

Companies are there in our televisions and on our computers extending their open hands to “help” us “for only $9.99 a month.”  While capitalism itself is not evil, having a society so influenced by capitalism creates a culture of cost. If happiness can be labeled with a price then why not health and education and people. As mentioned before the established class divisions become those who can afford to keep living and those who can’t and that is exactly what has happened.  Of course, the corporate motto is those who can afford should have the best “benefits” for their money. This idea of “benefits” may not be as economically traumatic when it comes to products. If you can’t afford the luxury car you do have the choice a small compact for cheaper, but generally the idea of these bonuses and benefits (think blue tooth, in dash gps, satellite radio) raise the price of of cars in general. (Currently most of Americans can’t afford a new car or they must take out loans with long time spans which accrues more debt).   These business ideas of offering the best to those who afford it can be devastating to the general population in the realm of necessary services such as healthcare and education. Hospitals and colleges don’t intend to price out the poor, but they race to build new buildings and upgrade to the latest equipment for the benefit of those with purchasing power naturally drive up costs of these services in the process instead of trying to meet the needs of the lower class: those whose wages and opportunities have stagnated, which make up most of this country.

Solutions?

So what do we do? Why have I even bring up this topic? Am I dispelling marketing and advertisers all together? No. A free market is defined by businesses freely marketing their products which should be present for an economy to be prosperous.  Am I proposing the monastic life without possessions as the only way to happiness? No. Living in a society requires certain possessions like cars and computers. Therefore, what I am proposing is it up to the American public to take charge of themselves and strengthen social bonds. In fact, the solutions are as old and common place as the issues. People have constantly faced the influence of outside forces and needed certain societal and personal guidelines to maintain their well being and collective identity. Think the Jewish tribes of the Old Testament facing the temptation of idolatry. What follows are both the issues created by excessive corporate influence and the ways they can be mitigated. 

1.)Cohesiveness: We need to foster more cohesiveness, compassion, and a common identity in our society other than the excessive individualism and consumerists that are the trademarks of American culture. Apparently, Americans are currently more divided as a nation than anytime since this country’s civil war.  We’re divided politically and socioeconomically, yes, but I also speak to how many different cultures are struggling to live side by side in this country. If we are able to build more common ground, a stronger set of national values(think education, group achievement, equality) can work to offset the more indulgent, selfish values promoted by business.  At one time, people lived and died together in small close knit towns where, for better or for worse, everyone knew everyone’s business. This kind of support and cohesiveness is ultimately beneficial for the individual’s psychological well being.  Currently, we make it a practice to spread out and think real, social connections can be fostered through computers. Despite our more isolated living style there are steps that can be taken. Parents need to spend more quality time with their children. The liberal socialites in the coastal cities need to find common ground with the conservative farmer in the mid west. In fact, the influence of corporate culture is evident in how this country is governed. Just consider the two types of common business models when it comes to employees. Companies with weak business models typically consider employees a cost they need to keep as low as possible while those with more positive outlooks see employees as investments and include incentives to keep them happy. Consider, for a moment, how certain groups in business and government view the poor in this country. They are regarded as costly leaches who take advantage of the system.  The decades of self centered indulgence have effectively created not only a nation of self interest, but  a business and government leadership as well. Sure we grab the flag and start singing the national anthem when an outside force challenges us, but how often do we think of singing when it comes to embracing each other? Certain groups and countries much older than our own have revered cultural traditions and beliefs that help unite them and define their social consciousness. These traditions typically aren’t sacrificed in the face of making money, and if they are then we get much of what is happening here in America.  For example, we have allowed important part of our traditions, our holidays, to be hijacked by corporations. People(the poorest of us) work on Thanksgiving. Christmas is more about gifts than religions. One sure way to build a cohesiveness in this country is to get consumerism out of our traditions.     ,

2.) Responsibility: For most of this essay,I have given corporate culture their fair rap for their part in the dissolving of our society, but ultimately it is on our shoulders as country and people. We are the consumers and we have choices whether we know it or not and that is vital to this discussion. We have become a disposable society in our products and our attitudes.  We’ve have a quick and easy culture built on promises of services, food, products, right now with no hassle. We can throw away our garbage, stream movies to our homes, and anonymously surf the net. We’ve become a country that is overworked and relies on toys and television (and now smartphones) to raise our children and they, in turn, become adults that feel they need stuff to be happy. As I mentioned before with credit cards and mortgages, we shuttle our responsibility to the future and even the next generation.  We, as a country, need to take the responsibility now for our choices and the mentality that “the buck stops here”.  If we are in debt, we have chosen to be there and we need to pay that debt off.  If our children are misbehaving and doing poorly in school, we need to work harder as parents.  Dealing with hassles and the tougher challenges of life are what help build character, mature adults, and let us know what is worth while.  Just ask any of “the greatest generation” of this country that lived and served during the Great Depression and the Two world wars in this countries history. They were handed more struggles than almost any other generation in this country and are remembered for their resilience and pride. There were, of course, downsides to such hardship(I believe we might all know a grandparents or aunt who was an obsessive penny pincher from their Great Depression experience) but they knew what they had in life and they respected it.  They had character and their sacrifices and hard work gave rise to a more prosperous time in this country that evolved into what we tend to take for granted today.  "Sacrifice" ah, there is beautiful word in this essay that goes hand in hand with responsibility. Previous generation knew how to sacrifice for the common good for example in times of war. I can only imagine what went through their minds as they witnessed what came after. The children of the “greatest generation” known as the “baby boomers” were the first to benefit from this new found prosperity:college, consumerism, jobs, etc. and, arguably, the modern sense of entitlement.  

3.) Judgement: So we know we have choices, what do we do?  How do we make the informed decision of what is best?  In my household growing up, the informed decision was preached on a regular basis. Rarely was something purchased without research and knowledge and, while one could dream, reality was kept clearly in focus. My parents were part of the baby boomer generation, but they were far from spoiled. They came from a background of immigrant families who had to work hard for what they had. While others were celebrating free love and altering their minds, my parents were earning their way into college and learning the importance of making sound choices. This, I believe, is the final piece of the puzzle and the second most important point.  This is where education and exposure come into play.  Good judgement and common sense tend to be the domain of the informed and, in part, why education is seen as necessary-don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of well informed and educated people with terrible judgement-but overall the results are generally positive.  Mandatory, public education is our nations attempt to create a well informed and rounded nation and is ,I believe,one factor that truly separates us from less humanitarian countries, but, as mentioned previously, this endeavor is beleaguered by shortfalls including: unimaginative, one size fits all curriculum, a business mentality, social inequality, and the quick fix society we live in.  If we can keep with touch with everyone we know online, get fast food when we’re hungry, and ask our phones for answers, why do we need education? Thankfully, there are still areas of life where being a mature, professional adult with good judgement is still required such as :parenting(unfortunately shirked too often) and on the job.  After decades of inadequacy, the education system is currently being restructured in this country and we’ll have to wait and see how this impacts future generations.  Imagine if we get to the point where we can make the informed decision that benefits no only us, but others.  This probably will take sacrifice on our part. That the quick fix or the easy way out are not always the best answer. Do we really need all those extra features on our cars or that unlimited minutes on our phone? Paying for all the little extras whether one needs them or not is a common practice of the rich to demonstrate their wealth and domination. I’d rather have people who share than dominate. There are plenty of companies today that rely on sub-par products and services being bought by people who don’t really know better or care(otherwise they wouldn’t exist. Remembered a product can only exist in the market if there is a demand for it by consumers) , which brings me to my next and final point.

4.) Willingness:  Are we, as a people, willing, I mean really willing to do this, to put any of these needed changes into effect. I believe this is the most vital point, yet there is the littlest to say about this topic as, I feel, it’s self explanatory. Human beings, especially those who are comfortable, live with a certain amount of inertia. We prefer a certain amount of routine and continuity, which is why people would put up with brutal leadership rather than resistant to changing their day to day consumption habits in the face of environmental destruction.  We naturally resist the desire to change. Clearly, on a national level, this is the case.  Governments are suppose to represent the will of the people in America and altruistic people interested in bettering their future do not elect selfish leaders with strong monetary interests who bicker and finger point. The leaders of our country reflect out national mindset.  Once again if problems can be swept away or put on hold then why not.  Our big screen televisions and ipods can keep us willfully distracted until something we can’t ignore comes along.

This essay has been as much a critique of American culture as much as American marketing. After all, they mirror each other.  In the for profit arena, companies can only do what we allow them too. The elements behind excessive consumerism in America are so important and interlace with so many other issues in this country because they are part of who we are as humans and how we relate to each other. Let me say that what I’ve written in this essay is not true of all people in this country. It is more of a general sense of where we stand as a nation.  There are plenty of individuals and groups who aren’t mindlessly swayed by marketing and corporate culture and make mindful, informed decisions everyday and putting me to shame with their actions.  After all, I’m guilty of a number of the poor choices I’ve mentioned, but I’d like to think I try to approach every purchase and choice with thought and common sense. There is positive change happening in the way we conduct ourselves, but it remains on more of a grassroots level or in certain states in this country.  Change won’t take place on a larger scale until the federal government is on board and setting the example, but first we voters need to put them there.  I’d like to think of this as a cyclical problem where each generation suffers from the mistakes of the ones before and, with this knowledge, eventually tries to set them right. I would like to be around to see this happen.  I wrote this essay to put in order my ideas and understanding about marketing and consumerism so often evoked by day to day exposure. There are numerous debatable and provocative claims made here that could spark long and possibly heated discussion if others should read this essay, but I welcome such a discussion. I’m sure this essay will evolve as my knowledge and understanding do as well.