Making good choices and accepted other people's choices.

I have a good head on my shoulders. How do I know that?  It's because I survived my first job with my integrity and wellbeing intact. What was my first job? I sold tickets to porno movies for the mob.  I was 16 years old! 

Now, some may argue that working for the mob selling tickets to porno movies when you are underage is itself – a bad decision.  And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But in my defense, when I took the job, I didn't know that would be the job. Do I make good decisions? Yes, because I obviously handled what turned out to be a crazy job - quite well.  

The theater was a revival movie house. We showed more than porno movies. Just - we also showed slightly more porno movies than is legally allowed before you have to register as a porno theater. We got raided by the cops. A lot. The pornos we showed was almost all art films and cult films. It also turned out the theater was a money laundering operation for a gay mobster but that's another story.  

What I remember the most was how hysterical it was when young men, going to an art film porno on a Sunday morning, suddenly have to purchase a ticket from an obviously underage girl. They universally stammer their way into explaining why the movie they are going to see – wasn’t something they were PLANNING on seeing even though, that's totally what they had planned. They would make an excuse like - my girlfriend is shopping (even though there were no stores near us) and they had time to kill. What movies are available? Oh - it's a porno?  Oh well - might as well see it. Men, just so you know, you don't have to explain to anyone why you are going to a porno movie. The people selling tickets - don't care.  

Despite being surrounded by the mob, prostitutes (both male and female) and people doing drugs, and being head hunted by famous strippers to learn the trade, and being hit on, a lot,  I got through that job – without trying drugs. Without getting raped. Without having sex, without working in a sex club, and without going on any dates with questionable people, though there were a couple I seriously considered, including a concert pianist or the guy who went on to become a famous Oscar winning movie director both of whom – I liked. Despite everything I was exposed to and multiple opportunities to make questionable life choices, I made good decisions for myself.  

As for how this relates to Humanism. If you want to know why I am so completely non-judgmental when I meet people, it’s because – I’ve MET people.  You are almost assuredly pretty boring compared to some of the people I’ve met.   And I do love boring but interesting people so don’t think of that as an insult. If you are boring - I mean that you aren't making choices that create unnecessary drama and hardship for yourself or the people around you. I've seen PLENTY of that. I prefer boring over unnecessary trauma.   

(Note: If you want to learn how to make better decisions to avoid unnecessary drama and trauma - I have a course called Living Made Simpler that explains how I use the Humanist philosophy to making difficult decisions in all aspects of my life - https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/) 

The main thing I learned though – is that everyone I met, every single person I met, including the ones I knew enough to say no to, were human beings worthy of being treated with dignity. 

The other lesson? The reason I was ok through all of that, was because every single person I met, was ok with me saying NO.  Even the kind of scary, almost assuredly mentally ill guy that would come by on occasion to hit on me  – accepted me saying no to him. 

So – when we talk about rape, understand something important. People who don’t accept "NO" - ARE The problem and they are the exception. Because I’ve hung out with strippers, had extensive conversations with prostitutes brought by their Johns to see violent porno movies and other people of equally – interesting backgrounds.  And at no point, was I ever made to feel like I wasn’t safe or didn’t have control over whether I was ok with things or not. I knew what my boundaries were and kept them and my boundaries were ALWAYS respected.  It was ok for me to say no to people involved with the mob. 

Consent is everything. People who ignore consent are uncommon – fortunately – but they are ABSOLUTELY terrifying and do a tremendous amount of damage to everyone else.  

Making good choices, only works to keep yourself safe, if the people around you – respect your choices.  This is what we should be teaching – as normal. This is what I learned was normal selling tickets to porno movies for the mob. It must be ok for people to say – no thank you. I’m not interested in doing drugs, having sex or working at a strip club or whatever else I said no to.  If you want to do those things – have fun. But I’m not interested.  That was ALWAYS ok which is why it was ok for me to work there. 

Most people - accept consent as foundational to everything. Those that don't - are dangerous.  And when I say, accept consent. As soon as I said no, no one cajoled me or tried to make me change my mind. Never. If I said I wasn't interested, the conversation stopped there. Always.  Anyone who tries to make you change your mind, isn't accepting your no which means, they are dangerous. 

The single most important piece of advice if you want to be happy

Accept reality

As crappy as reality can be – rejecting it or denying it or fighting it only causes you more problems.  And this is a fight you cannot win. Reality is reality. You can’t change it.

I find that as soon as I stop fighting reality, my stress levels reduce. When I accept reality I am now able to find a solution to the problem I was trying to avoid and my life gets better and easier and less stressful.

this is a fight you cannot win. Reality is reality. You can’t change it.

Religious Tolerance

Why evolution may help us be more tolerant with intolerant people of faith.

Ok – so if there is anything I am not tolerant of, its intolerance.  The problem is that there are a lot of intolerant people in the world. I think good people who do tolerate and accept diversity are in the majority – but you wouldn’t know that by how vocal and obnoxious the chronically intolerant are.

Anyway – I was asked the other day, by a militant atheist, why reason and atheism hasn’t won the day and why I spend hardly any time railing about religion. My answer was simple.

Religious people aren’t going to go away any time soon. This isn’t a matter for reason. It’s how our brains are wired. Our brains clearly evolved to see patterns and to imagine intent in other actors. I personally think that we atheists, who don’t see patterns but randomness in the universe, are mutants, outliers. Clearly we are in the minority. Perhaps evolution will favor our brains in the long run, but in our lifetime, we are stuck with the wide variety of people who are alive on planet earth with us. And those people see and experience the world in a profoundly different way from us.

And this gets me to the topic of tolerance.  Religious belief and non-belief appears to be both a product of nature and nurture.  Nature gives us our basic brain structure that makes us more or less likely to see supernatural influence in the world. And nature dictates how we culturally assign values to those basic beliefs and experiences of how the world works.

The more we accept these differences, the less we have to tolerate them because it’s not a matter of toleration; it’s a matter of acceptance.

The limit of this is when people use their beliefs to oppress other people. That should never be tolerated. Accepting that people experience the world differently doesn’t mean they have the right to oppress or kill other people. Just as we don’t tolerate people with serious anger management and/or mental illness killing or harming other people as a result of their illness, we should not tolerate people with different religious brain wirings using their religious beliefs as an excuse to hurt or harm others either.

People will experience the world the way they experience it. What we need as a society is an agreement that these differences don't give you permission to harm or oppress anyone.  This is why as a Humanist, I’m both for freedom of belief, but I don’t tolerate religious based violence or oppression. I’m not anti-religion, unless the religion is anti-human.

I accept religion.  I just don’t tolerate the oppressive forms of it.

Fear of Solitude

Coming to terms with our inherent aloneness.

Humans are herd animals. We need to be with our herd or, because we are apes, tribe.  I see this in my son, who is a lot like my chickens. When he is too far away from us, he runs to find us and then calms down. It’s instinctual really.  We need to feel we belong to feel secure.

This is why the social exclusion that comes with bullying is so harmful. We experience social exclusion as pain (see: http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/gmacdonald/macdonald%20&%20leary,%202005a.pdf) It’s easy to understand why. Social exclusion or ostracism would have been, for quite a while in our evolutionary history, a matter of life or death.

Given our fear of being alone, how can you become comfortable with being alone and overcome your fear of solitude?  And why should you? One of the great existential problems we humans have is that we are stuck in our own heads. Our experience of the world is limited to our experience. We can know others only through the theory of mind, which lets us assume that others have brains and thoughts like ours. It’s very helpful, but imperfect. Because we can never really know what other people are thinking and whether they accept us or not, and that leaves us vulnerable.

The reason I think and teach people to become comfortable being alone is because if you are afraid of being alone, you not only have the existential fear of solitude, you also end up making choices to avoid solitude and those choices often involve allowing others to control us or hurt us. We accept this because it’s better than being alone. And I’m not just talking about abusive relationships. This can happen in friendships and work relationships too.

When you overcome your fear of solitude, you no longer allow your fear to dictate your choices regarding the actions of other people. And that’s a good thing. So, this is worth working on. Lose your existential angst and have healthier less destructive relationships. 

The question is – how?  The answer? Practice. There is only one way to overcome the fear of solitude and that is to intentionally seek it out. Maybe go for a walk by yourself. Go to a park for a walk by yourself. Go to a movie by yourself. Somewhere you can feel basically safe, but still experience solitude. The first thing I ever went to by myself was a Beatlefest. My mother insisted I go even though I couldn't find a friend to go with. I’m glad she did, I had a great time. And, I was safe. It turns out – people are basically nice. I branched out to going to movies by myself and then out to eat by myself. The more you practice this, the easier it gets and the funner it gets.  It’s self-reinforcing. I've even gone to amusement parks by myself and had a great time.

If you are ready to try and shake off your fear of solitude, start practicing. See what happens. You may find you like it. You will definitely become more confident as a result.

Help Isn't Coming

Back in August, the Harvard Business Review had an article about how to take ownership of your actions by taking responsibility for them. (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/take_ownership_of_your_actions.html )  The article quotes According to the article taking responsibility is the first step to developing a healthy sense of self and that we internalize the idea of taking responsibility when we realize, "no one is coming." It turns out that this is a liberating concept. Help is not coming. The responsibility is yours.

I am a Humanist so I agree completely with this assessment. Help isn’t coming in material or spiritual form. If we are going to solve our problems, we need to make it our responsibility to do so.  Instead of panicking that no one will save you, a Humanist accepts the responsibility that knowing no one is coming entails. The best part is that once we start fixing our own problems, people come to help us. It is often just getting ourselves over the hurdle of waiting for someone else to fix our problems that holds us back.  And yes, this is not just a liberating concept, it’s an empowering one. 

The article concludes by saying, “In a world where problems are getting more complex, determined and innovative problem-solving will flow from those who live as if help is not coming. Living with responsibility can make us stronger and more action-oriented individuals. It's up to you to make change and take responsibility for outcomes in your professional life. What are you waiting for?”

Well, what are you waiting for?

The Death of a Cat

One of our cats died this week. She was old. I wish I felt sadder then I do because, well, I didn’t really like her that much. She wasn’t very friendly, spent most of her time hiding under our bed and when she did venture forth, it was to pee on the floor and not in the litter box.  Needless to say, I am enjoying not having to clean up after a cat that wasn’t much of a pet.

My son, however, is quite sad.  Sally, was a very beautiful cat. She looked like a Russian Blue/Dilute Torti mix. She was seriously a beautiful cat. Too bad she rarely let anyone pet her. That is, up until the end. As she neared the end of her life she started to come out more and she even allowed my son to pet her and give her love. He was thrilled!!!

And then she died. And he cried. Which brings me to today’s topic of grief. Grief follows very similar processes regardless of who died. It is the same for a cat or for a human. The only difference is intensity.

So, to help our son, we obviously did not tell him he is going to see Sally again. The urge to ease his pain is strong but we resisted as we felt that would do more harm then good. We also refused to replace her with another pet as that would be cheating. She can’t be replaced and the sooner he came to terms with the reality of her death, the sooner he would be forced to experience his grief and eventually come to terms with it.

Like pretty much everyone who has lost a loved one, he at first tried to deny our cat’s death by hoping she would resurrect and then when that wasn’t an option, he hoped she could re-incarnate. He cried a lot and was sad.  We told him he would never forget her and that it was ok to be sad and to cry.  And now, three days later, he mentions that he misses her in passing but he has basically gotten on with the business of living his life.  He didn’t even cry himself to sleep tonight, as he preferred to discuss our plans for the weekend.

And that is grief in a nutshell.  Deny it, come to terms with it, feel bad about it and then get on with your life never forgetting the one you loved and lost.