Prejudice

Last weekend I went with a friend to climb at Tre Cime de Lavarado. Super cool! We had perfect luck with the weather, two days of sun, almost too hot but a bit of rain on Sunday morning. We were really beat up after two long days of climbing, so leaving home at Sunday morning was not such a bad concept after all.

What strikes me about this trip mostly is the attitudes many of my friends had. They thought we were mad to go to Tre Cime. So much loose rock, so crowded, so dangerous, etc. It seemed that every one thought we were bound to end up in trouble. Couldn't have been further away from the truth. Yes, there was some loose rock, but it was always either easy climbing or then there were enough places of good rock that we could place some protection. Yes, there was sometimes a bit of a crowd, but it never bothered me. For the exception of one mountain-guide abseiling behind us, who demonstrated astonishing lack of social skill and a superior level of besserwisser-attitude. But most of the time both days, we felt like we were alone on the mountain. Perfect.

So, the friends who condemned our intention to climb Tre Cime, did not actually know what they were talking about. They just had a preconception of what the trip would be like. It seems to me that somehow people tend to exaggerate their fears of the unknown. People who haven't tried mountain climbing have still heard of some of the dangers of climbing, and think that all climbing is always dangerous. Dangerous situations provide juicy stories and it is easy to generalize that this dangerous situations are commonplace. In my experience, this simply isn't true.

I once was planning a trip through Eastern Europe, including Belarus. People were terrified. Belarus? There's corruption and it's a dictatorship. True, but at least the streets are clean. I was actually more afraid in Ukraine, which was then enjoying its newly acquired democracy, but suffers from petty crime. Belarus, on the other hand, has a strong and brutal police force, whereby petty theft is almost non-existent. So, Belarus is more safe for a casual tourist (as long as you don't get in trouble with the police). It was just that people who haven't been there, knew only the bad stuff, and thought that was the whole story.

It seems to me that people do not realize how little they know. They have heard one thing about something, and they think they know everything.

Syylliset esille

Sain taas muistuttaa itseäni; syyllisten etsiminen on täysin turhaa. Esimerkiksi työssä viihtyminen on vain ja ainoastaan jokaisen oman itsensä vastuulla. Olen viime aikoina syyllistynyt useasti erilaisten tahojen syyttelyyn monesta eri asiasta, mutta se on täysin turhaa. Jos minä en viihdy, on minulla ongelma, ei kenelläkään muulla. On vain minun vastuullani etsiä keinot viihtyvyyden parantamiseen. Yksi keinoista on toki yrittää vaikuttaa muihin, parantamalla organisaatiota tms., mutta suurin työ pitää tehdä ihan vain oman pään sisäpuolella. Viihtyvyys paranee huomattavasti ihan omaa asennetta muokkaamalla.

Konkreettisena esimerkkinä mainittakoon klassinen väittämä "Minä en ole sellainen ihminen joka tekee asiat tavalla X." tai "Minä en vain osaa tehdä asiaa X." Jokainen voi oppia. On vain kyse siitä haluaako oppia tekemään asiat tavalla X. Jos menestyminen on kiinni siitä, tekeekö asiat tavalla X vai ei, niin se on jokaisen oma valinta, haluaako tehdä asiat tavalla X, vai jollain muulla tavalla. Toisin sanoen, jos menestyminen edellyttää asian X tekemistä, kannattaa se asia X tehdä, vaikka itse en olisikaan siinä niin taitava, tai en pitäisikään oikeastaan asian X tekemisestä. Härkää sarvista, jne.

Atheism and classic vocal music

I recently realised that I have a problem that has been disturbing me for quite a while even though I was not concious of this problem. I just had a queer feeling that something was not right.

It is all connected to the fact that I was really excited about singing old music, mostly renaissance and baroque. For anyone who know anything about these genres, also knows that a majority of the music in these genres is sacral in nature. For me, as an atheist, that poses a problem. Let me explain you why.

There are two different parts. Firstly, I do not believe in Jahve, so singing "I love god." is phony. I feel phony. A significant part of singing is the feeling - you have to feel the thing that you are saying. Singing without feeling is a technical executions that has nothing to do with music. I admit that I am unable to feel the feeling "I love god". I did not become a very good singer.

The obvious counter-argument is acting. Actors regularly act feelings that they would not normally feel. So why could I not just act as if I would, in fact, "love god"? Which brings us to the second part. Singing "I love god" in a Christian context is a whole other thing as singing "I love god" in an ancient Viking or Greek context, where god would, respectively, refer to Thor or Zeus. Namely, while Viking and ancient Greek religions have fallen into history, Christianity is (still) alive and kicking. In other words, whether the religions are alive or (practically) dead makes for a big difference, since for the living superstitions, we have to consider our actions in relation to those people who posses that particular faith. We are thus active actors in their faith.

Our active part can be made obvious by an example. Consider a scenario where person A sings "I love god" for a person B. If person A sings it with good level of passion, that is, if he sings it well, then person B can believe that person A actually believes in what he says. Suppose person B is religious, whereby the declaration "I love god" of person A, supports the belief of person B. Yet another person declares that he believes in god, which confirms his belief in god. Thus, when I sing "I love god", I support a superstition that I believe is false. I am actually supporting peoples' delusions. I am cheating them. Swindle is in many other cases an offence punishable by law, but in this case it is only ethically wrong. The responsibility of avoiding this offence remains thus on the conscience of each one of us.

Personally, I would feel quite ok if I would/could just act and that'd be the end of it. However, I have become stuck with this feeling of leading people astray. Simultaneously, I strongly believe that we must follow our own values. Therefore I will no more participate in performances of sacral music.

This result is, from an artistic view point, very unfortunate. Renaissance and baroque music is beautiful! To abstain altogether would keep me from a lot of beautiful music. Still, in a literal sense, all consumption of music has an active role (buying tickets, CDs, scores etc.), which I have been unable to circumvent. Let me know if you have any good counter arguments!

Brights

There's one thing that's been quite a while on my mind and I've been collecting courage to put it here. Lots of my friends know it, but putting it on the web is, still, a different thing. No, I'm not gay, if that's what you think although it might be just as well, but it is socially a similar thing.

However strange as it seems, in our society it is perfectly acceptable to publicly declare faith in any religion, but to state the opposite, "I am an atheist" is a big no-no. It is even considered to be good manners to allow public declarations of faith, after all, it is politically correct, but no such considerations are reserved for the atheist. If you are not publicly stating your faith, then usually most people see no wrong in trying to, for example, persuade that person to come to the church. People are not supposed to talk about atheism since even the option, even the possibility that you do not believe in any supernatural things, undermines the very essence of religions: their faith.

Specifically, imagine the two following scenarios:

1. Person A is a Christian and person B a Muslim. Would you think it is politically correct for person A to ask person B to join the local church? Oh, no! Horrific error! Person B would slap person A on the face.
2. Person A is a again Christin and person B an atheist. Would you think it is politically correct for person A to ask person B to join the local church?

Objectively, the two situations are not at all different. Person A is asking person B to convert. However, in case 1 most people would see it as a terrible social blunder, while in case 2, I believe that most religious people cannot see any wrong in their actions. In case 2 I predict that many religious people can even see themselves as philanthropists, trying to relieve the atheist from his misery into the intellectually fuzzy world of religion.

So the situation is many ways similar to how homosexuals were perceived in the 60ies. It was socially acceptable to try to match homosexuals up with the opposite sex. Until the gay-movement. Today the social position of gays is incredibly much better than in the 60ies. Not perfect, but better. The brights movement tries to achieve the same for the atheists. Since the word atheist has for many people a negative sound to it, someone (check wikipedia) coined the word "brights" to mean people that are sufficiently enlightened (= bright) to abandon superstition. Similarly, those who still cling on to their superstitions, are called "supers". All nice and positive words, that is, trying really hard to be politically correct here.

So here it goes. I am a bright. I am an atheist. I will take it as an intellectual insult if you try to invite me to your church.

I will, in this context, not try to list the reasons why you should not be superstitious. There are many excellent books and speeches available on that already (check out Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennet, Susan Blackmore, etc.) and quoting them wrongly here would do no one no good. The purpose of this article is merely to bring more visibility to the prevalence of atheism and the term brights, as well as, to reach equality between people who have this world-view and those who publicly declare superstitions.



PS. I am fully conscious that I did not write anything original, anything that someone else wouldn't have said before. I just feel that it is important to spread the word, to make the message visible in as many places as possible.

Reorganization

One thing that I keep hearing over and over again is "Do what you love". Especially the Americans seem to love that concept and they seem to have infected the notion to a lot of Europeans, too. Oh what a load of crap! This is a perfect medicine for unhappiness. For example, say you love singing. Go on to the Idols show and demonstrate everyone how wrong you are. You'll end up on the comical section where they play the worst contestants, the infinitely untalented and disgusting singers. Trust me. 10 million people will see that and laugh at you, not with you. Imagine how you would feel after that. Is the word happy anywhere among the top feelings after that? No. Feelings of being disillusioned, feelings of anger, frustration, and failure probably dominate over happiness.

I know I'm playing the devils advocate here, but my point is that everyone are not super-talented. Everyone cannot be pop-stars, astronauts, actors, professional athletes, self-made millionaires, artists or presidents. Everyone cannot reach their dream. That is just not realistic. Still, we have to be happy. So if the only way to become happy is to fulfill your dream, then most people will be unhappy. I hate it when that happens. And it does happen all the time. People are unhappy.

All this even though the solution is simple. Just reorganize the words in your head. Do not say "Do what you love" but "Love what you do". Plain obvious that it is a difficult task. But then who said that success would come easy. Of course it is difficult. Happiness requires effort. Happiness requires constant work.

Realistically, it is easy to say "Love what you do" but how do you get there? First of all, be around people who love what they do, associate yourself with them, be friends with them. Excitement is contagious. When other people get excited about something, let yourself get excited about that thing too. Lot's of people are scared that other people will think they are fools if they get excited about something, if they allow themselves to be influenced by somebody else. Ask yourself, are you afraid that the other people will think you are a happy person? Other people do not want you to be happy, they want people to be just the way they've always been, because it's safer that way. If you change, then perhaps also they would have to change, and that's scary. But if you want to achieve something that you haven't done before, you have to do something that you haven't done before. And that is exactly why you should surround yourself with happy people.

The source of many people's unhappiness is their work. They feel like they are not utilizing their full potential at their current work. So, look for a new job. But meanwhile, while your looking for a new job, try to be happy at your current job. Firstly, look for that person of your colleagues who's most happy - not necessarily funny, but happy. Go to lunch with him/her, get yourself involved in a project with him/her, talk with him/her. Secondly, think about the thing you most like at your job and the thing you most hate about your job. Embrace that thing you most like. Dwell in it. Try to do it better than ever before. And that thing you hate, find one small thing that you can improve on it. Just a tiny bit. Even a small improvement makes you feel like you're in charge. You're deciding what happens with you. The next step, the next improvement is already easier and after a while it becomes a natural part of you and of your job.

I feel like people are looking for a miracle pill, a Sorcerer's stone, a lucky break that makes them happy. But it doesn't go like that. Winning the lottery, your dream job, a new education - none of them will make you happy. You can make yourself happy. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to get a new job. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to become a singer. Please do that. But finding happiness is not a lucky break. It's hard mental work. You need to want to be happy. You need to want to change your attitude. You need to change your ways. The desire to change must come from within. No outside solution makes your inside happy. You must be ready to change, brave enough to challenge your own mindset, bold enough to admit that something I'm doing or thinking needs improving. Lastly, you cannot wait until tomorrow. If you postpone it, you will not do it. You need to develop a plan for change starting from now, not in ten minutes, but now. Really. Get a life. Now.

Selfish communication

Recently, I've been pondering on the inherent selfishness of communication. The basic problem is that every time you tell someone something, the reason for telling that something is completely egoistic. You either 1) put on a show, you entertain your companion, or 2) you tell something in order to get your companion to tell you something in a tit for tat manner. In the first case the objective is then that you want to appear favorably in your companions eyes. In other words, in both cases you tell stories in order to get something, information, recognition, favors, or something similar.

That this egoism would be a problem, is an illusion easily solved. After all, is there anything that we do, that does not rise from our egoism? We work for money and to gain recognition. We eat an sleep to satisfy our needs. We love to be loved. Even altruistic actions such as helping the elderly, giving money to charity, loving someone without response, they all give us a good feeling. The reward from a altruistic deed is that we feel good, like a better person. In this sense, communication is no different. It is an egoistic process to gain something we want. If nothing else, we want to feel good.

However, the more interesting problems arise in a more advanced case. Some feel that in communicating with others, especially in light conversation, they are in fact entertaining, putting on a show and at the same time loosing themselves. As if they were not truthful to the others, trying to be something that they, in fact, are not. The simplistic answer would be to say that if the person does not feel comfortable with the communication, he should not communicate. But from personal experience, I know that it is not always that easy. Often, you feel external pressure to be social. For example, your friends ridicule you if you want to go the sleep when everyone else is going to the pub. "Oh come on!" Like choosing to be alone (=choosing not to communicate) would automatically be an inferior choice (hint: it is not!). Again, a simple answer is to insist on doing your own choices and not to surrender to coercion. While that is easier to say than to do, especially without hurting the feelings of your friends, still, this is not the complete answer. I have a faint feeling that there is something about the concept of "putting on a show" that I do not yet fully understand.

Putting on a show implicitly indicates that your are dishonest, acting untruthfully, or that you are faking something. The main problem is then not that you would be dishonest to your audience, they love your show (at least to some extent), but that you are dishonest to yourself. You're doing something that does not match your feelings. Or, perhaps, are your feelings about what you are doing mixed. You gain immediate satisfaction from putting on the show, while simultaneously knowing that it does not provide lasting gratification. I feel like I am approaching the essence of the problem. Perhaps it is the superficial nature of putting up a show that is the problem. Entertainment over a pint of beer does not leave a lasting impression. It just does not feel important. And participating in something less than important is, well, superficial.

What should one then do? Like always, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of awareness. Realizing the reason for the uneasy feeling takes you more than half the way to the solution. Mostly it is a question of braking the habit of putting up a show. Realizing that your at it again, is, like I said, half the solution. The complete solution, however, escapes me.

Desires

After an all-too-long break, I'm here, writing again. I do have a lot of things to write about, but somehow I've gotten out of the habit of writing. Got to get back in there again!

Anyway, recently, I've thought a lot of about desires in the sense of "I want X". Two specific cues got me thinking about this:

1. While visiting a friend, he asked me: "Would you like to have something? Tea, coffee, juice...?" Usually, I don't have strong desires and I would go something like "Yeah, um-h, sure, I don't know, whatever." Some argue that an offer like that is literally an offer and a sign of the hospitality of the host. Therefore I can and should choose whatever I feel like, without consideration of the cost or practicality for the host.
   Personally, I would prefer more a dialog, with an answer like "Sure. What do you recommend?" or "Sure. I'll have what the other's are having." Such answers give the host more room to serve what is practical or especially good.
2. Another friend, a female, stated that she wants that the man takes the initiative, that the man should "make the move" so to speak. In that particular moment, I have to admit that I had no idea whether she implied that I should make a move (which was a tempting thought), or that men in general should make the move. This confusion originates from the fact that she did not give any indication whether she was interested in me or not. While this puts a lot of pressure on the man (me), it is also in contradiction with well-researched facts about human courtship. It is true that it is generally the men who "make the move", but generally "the move" is successful only if the female has first given a sign that she is interested, that she would like the man to make a move.
   

In my mind, these two examples demonstrate problems with stereotypical concepts of desire. I would argue that trying to force out statements of preference (or desire) squeezes out flexibility. When a host asks "Tea, coffee, beer or champagne, perhaps?" merely answering "Champagne", might be impractical if you are the only one drinking and the host has to open a bottle just for you. Or perhaps all the other guests are driving and cannot drink alcohol. "I would feel like champagne, but only if others join me", would state the preference, but gives the host as well as the other guests the option of nudging you to a more practical choice when needed. In this sense, in my opinion, forcing choices, or forcing statements of preference, makes the situation too black and white.

A second argument is that the "I want" attitude is an egoistic one. It excludes social interaction. "I want champagne." Period. Personally I feel that drinking champagne with a friend, let along a female friend, is doubly as pleasant as drinking it alone. Although I really, really like champagne, sometimes I would rather not drink champagne, then drink it alone. In the courtship context, I feel that it is perfectly ok that a man makes the moves in a context where the man and the female do not know each other from before, such as a bar. I would even see that as the preferred way of action. However, if the man and female know each other from before, if they are even friends, then the stakes are higher. To interpret the situation wrong, to make moves when the female is not interested, can incur serious damage to a friendship. An interaction will then probably lead to a more "mutually fulfilling" (pardon the pun) sequence of events. Thus the social interaction often gives a better result than just blurting out your own preference.

The other side of the coin is that persons without definite opinions are often perceived as weak, as if they were incapable of making a choice. Paradoxically, I do agree with this argument as well. Inability to choose is lame. It is a serious handicap. Paralysis before a menu in a restaurant is really annoying for the others in a group. To this problem I would offer a simple trick. Instead of the two opposite alternatives 1. "I choose X" and 2. "I'm unable to choose", I would suggest a third alternative 3. "I do not have a preference". In the original host/guest scenario we could then proceed with

• (Host) "Would you like some tea, coffee or juice?"
• (You) "I don't know", meaning, "I don't have a preference", and then continue "What are the others having?"
• (Host) "We're all drinking tea."
• (You) "I'll have one, too."

Note that, in addition to being practical for the host, this kind of conformity to the group standard will unify the group and build sense of community, instead of "He's the (different) one who drinks coffee."

In a situation where we really do have to make a choice, such as when eating in a restaurant, I would offer the no-preference case two different solutions.

1. Again, interact. For example, ask the waiter "What would you recommend?" if he did not already offer his opinion (they often have something ready). Say, the specials of the day are often something that the restaurant bought in a big quantity, whereby you'd get better quality for a cheaper price. Perfect.
   
2. The advanced technique: If you don't know what you prefer, then all the available options must be more or less of equal preference to you. Therefore, pick one at random. Number 3 is as good a choice as any. I've tried that a lot of times. In all parts of the world, it always works. Easy.