What Rednecks Have Taught Me

Growing up on the edge of the Chicago suburbs has shown me the highly noticeable difference between rural American culture and that of the city dwellers.  It used to mystify me as I sat on a train from Aurora to Chicago, watching the wide-open spaces become more and more densely packed with buildings which would gradually shrink in size.  Different sets of needs between rural and urban folks influenced different cultures which developed and percolated in America.  And since I believe it's important to understand the perspectives of everybody, I'm appreciative of the opportunity I've had to mingle with people from out in the "boonies."  Due to the combination of nature and nurture, I am not, at my core, the type of person to agree on political stances with most rural folks; however, working with the so-called "rednecks" has definitely coerced me into reevaluating my priorities.

I never thought I would have an outdoor job as an adult, let alone love such a job.  Here I am, though, enjoying the work I do and clinging to this job despite taking a pay cut to acquire my position.  I work as a civil engineer that oversees road construction projects.  And who are the people building the roads and bridges, with whom I interact?  They're the laborers.  They're Tom, Joe, Bob, Carlos, Miguel, and other assorted names that are mostly the simple Caucasian and Hispanic ones.  What do they have to offer?  Their physical bodies, for the most part.  Their muscle.  Their ability to exert forces and decisively move their muscles, their shovels, the machines that get the job done.  They do stuff.  That's what they do.

It sounds so simple, but that very simplicity is what leads people to take their indispensable actions for granted.  The things they do are basic, but we often forget that the basic needs we have are also the most important ones.  Consider Maslow's pyramid, or even just common sense.  Our most basic needs are food, water, shelter, safety, and protection from disease.  Now that we've established that, think about where these things originate.  Food comes from farmers.  Water comes from public entities that hire construction workers to create wells, water towers, and pipe networks, plus plumbers to get the systems working in individual homes and businesses.  Shelters are built by people who work with their hands, including hospice and police facilities, which give us safety and health.  You can see my point now.  It's the rednecks whom you make fun of that are an essential part of giving us all of our basic needs.

Rednecks receive a lot of condescension for being ignorant and "uncultured," but we need them. What's more, they are ahead of the game in a certain way when it comes to philosophy.  Believe it or not, despite their tendencies toward archaic religious practices and intolerance of other cultures, they have imparted upon me a complete restructuring of my perspective.  And that's because the people with the most developed and advanced ideologies lack something that labor-intensive rednecks have: a will to action.

Living life in the best way requires two things:  motivation and action.  In other words, there's dreaming, then there's doing-- and you need both.  Thomas Edison called them, "inspiration" and "perspiration."  However, most people consider one of these things more than the other.  There are the dreamers, who dwell on the potential of an idea more than its actual realization; and there are the doers, who jump headlong into situations without thinking about their consequences.  Privileged people often don't need to work hard to receive compensation, so they will more often be dreamers. But those who come from hardier backgrounds have to work harder to make a living, and they will thus learn the relative importance of labor and action over ruminating on details.

I know some people who ruminate on details until they hurt their own minds.  For example, some people will watch the news stories of all the crimes and social injustices in the world, and they will then post about how much they feel, hope, and pray for the wronged.  After an earthquake in Nepal kills 4,000 people, Americans read news story after news story about it and note how it affects them emotionally.  But does that really do anything for the tens of thousands of homeless, starving, and devastated individuals affected by the disaster?  No.  It fucking doesn't.

This is to contrast with the level-headed people on social networking, who will mention how they're affected by the horrible situation, but they will also do two things.  First, they ensure that their post about the tragedy is articulate and concise, because they know that it's not about them.  They won't write a five paragraph essay on their Facebook about the situation in Nepal (for example), because if anyone has a lot to say about the crisis, it will be one of the Nepalese who needs to constantly negotiate just to get the basics, like food and shelter.  It's not about you; it's about them, so that makes it rude and highly distasteful to make it about your emotions and not theirs.  Second, and most importantly, a level-headed person will place a call to action.  The whole objective of the media's attempts to raise awareness of a humanitarian crisis is to influence people to act, specifically to take steps to mitigate the suffering of those affected.  A level-headed person will make a short post that includes a link to a page where you can donate to relief efforts or sign up to help clean up the disaster.  Because it's not about you, and it's not just a casual conversation topic.  Shit needs to get done.  And I know that, if I was involved in a disaster, the people who would come to my rescue will be the ones we pejoratively refer to as "rednecks."  Because rednecks are the people of action.  And action is what we need.

Seriously, if a tornado were to destroy your house, who would come to your rescue?  If a tree fell on the wreckage of your house, trapping you inside, who would grab the chainsaw to cut it apart and free you?  It would probably be the guy who knows how to use a chainsaw!  I've been blown off the road by a blizzard in two separate occasions.  Both times, the people who came to my rescue weren't policemen or firemen.  They were rednecks.  They were rough, ready artisans piloting large pick-up trucks armed with chains and towing power to pull me back onto the road.

These are the people who inspire me to want to become a man of action.  All my life, I've just been a pile of ideas.  But ideas don't matter if they don't lead to real, practical decisions and work.  I referred to Thomas Edison earlier, but I didn't mention the whole quote he said.  I'll never forget how he said how "innovation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."  The work is almost all of it.  You still need the dreams, but remember that they only constitute one percent of the effort involved in any great step forward in life, according to Edison's approximations-- and I don't think he's too off-course. It's the dreams and the motivation which serve as the ignition for people to start doing great things, but the work is the part that really matters.  Dreams alone, without action, are useless.  There is no virtue in barking without an intent to bite.  So before posting about how virtuous you think you are simply because of your awareness of a global issue, consider that we'll probably judge that you're only trying to selfishly brag about your own "intelligence" and "awareness" if you don't also include a real, practical action toward helping the cause.  What matters is the real effort.  What matters is real work.  All my life, I've been a man of ideas and dreams, and now I just want to spit on that notion of who I've been.  Work is what's really important--doing, not dreaming.  Now I want to be a man of action.  Thanks to the hard-working people I've met at work and elsewhere for inadvertently setting me straight.

Not a Hero, Not Part of Your Parade

To all extroverts and global thinkers, pay attention please.  To all people who have ever felt the weight of the world crashing down on your shoulders, I implore you to read this.  To all people who have ever thought of issues as something global, such as race, war, poverty, group identities, power structures, or any of that other sociological stuff that considers humans on a macro-scale, listen up.  To the people I have loved whose minds fell victim to the temptation of considering humanity as a whole, read this below.

When you think about yourself in relation to the world outside as a whole (which is all the time for an extroverted intuit), it can be daunting. You think of all the problems of the world and all the people who don't care for you, and you shudder at the thought of letting these inadequacies staying that way. You panic, thinking that the world's failures are your failures, and that your squandered relationships must be the result of your own shoddy performance. But the world isn't just your stage. The world will not be carried on your shoulders alone. It may be tempting to look at disease, poverty, hate, war, and all the other negatives as one collective, global evil. But that instance of oversimplification pits your lonely self against the colossal summation of everything wrong with the world. And you vs. the whole world's problems--that isn't a fair fight, is it? 
Well, the good news about facing the whole world's problems is that the world's positive forces are fighting those negative forces every day. We're all in this together, so why pin all the world's responsibility on just yourself?! I used to panic, believing humanity was headed toward its demise as I considered global warming, useless political leaders, natural disasters, violence, poverty, and every other problem. But I take solace in knowing that people work every day to battle the bad in this world. Plus, I know that I'm only one human; I can only do so much. 
So, seeing that I alone can't rescue humanity from the summation of all its potential destruction, I know how pointless it would be to assume the role Earth's hero and savior. Seeing that I can't please everyone, I know how pointless it would be to try and be Earth's number one star performer. I don't want to be a hero; I don't want to be a part of your parade.

And I think that is why I love this song so much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHeK0Cwr9sg

On the Destructive Behavior of Analyzing People's Behavior

Psychologists, along with other individuals well-read on human behavior, may be among the first to preach the importance of accepting people for who they are.  This is horrifyingly ironic, and here's why:

First of all, breaking down people is, in a word, dehumanizing.  A compassionate person would argue that humans should be subjects, not objects.  I don't exist as a book for you to read; I exist as a human being who wants to be appreciated and cared for.  We all judge people to a certain extent, for the sake of our own self-preservation, because we don't want to end up fraternizing with a person who's going to hurt us.  But what of the judging that goes beyond that which we do to protect ourselves?  Though we all will get to know someone more deeply as we spend more time with that person, there's something off-putting about making psychoanalysis in casual settings a priority.

It all comes down to a little thing called "agency."  Maybe I don't need to be studied.  Maybe I don't need to be broken down into a bunch of theoretical classifications so that you can look up a bunch of generalist approaches to dealing with people of my supposed "type."  Maybe I'm more than just a focus for your analyses and social experiments.  And why do we analyze and diagnose people?  Why do we dissect people's behavior?  Are we doing it because we are trying to understand them and accept them for who they are?  Or are we doing it because we are looking for ways they can improve?  Are we looking for reasons to love a person, or are we looking for facets of a person that they should fix?

Whether you're looking for the positive traits or looking for the negative traits, analyzing someone's personality will reveal both the assets and the setbacks of a human being.  And even so, the criteria of what constitutes an asset or a setback is highly subjective; in fact, these "assets" and "setbacks" are merely your "likes" and "dislikes" (respectively).  Many analytic people fail to realize that their evaluations of other people are largely based on their sets of personal preferences, rather than some bank of concrete psychological knowledge, which in itself is still comprised of highly debatable notions.  In short, for the most part, your analysis of another human being is going to lead you to form a whole slew of opinions on what you like and dislike about someone.  But is that other person really going to benefit if you hand them your printout of everything you've noticed about them?  It is true that others can help us look inside ourselves and find ways to improve, but the presentation of a whole laundry list of character flaws is never productive.  Deeply examining any person is going to reveal a pile of discrepancies between that person's character and what you would like him/her to be. Everyone has flaws, and the traits that you perceive as flaws might not even really be flaws-- they're just things you haven't gotten to like!

And what even is a flaw?  A flaw is a quality of something that is less than ideal.  And what, in reality, of all the people and things in the universe, is ideal?  Does perfection exist?  No!  It doesn't! And your pursuit of perfection is even more ridiculous when you consider that this "perfection" only exists subjectively; your idea of a perfect human is different than anyone else's opinion of what a perfect person would be!  That means that your judgments of the other person aren't even being made so that you can objectively find the best person out there.  You are judging other people based on what your favorite person ought to be like.  So not only is your in-depth analysis of people based on the pursuit of something that doesn't exist (perfection), but you are also doing it at the discretion of what you want!  You're picking apart another person's psyche so that you can evaluate them against your subjective, flawed set of criteria-- what you want them to be.  That's a little selfish, isn't it?  And to put it bluntly, nobody cares what you want others to be.  Other people are going to be the way they are, and you're going to have to deal with it.  Instead of judging all of other people's failures to be the way you want them to be, perhaps work on learning to accommodate those who don't fit your ideal plan.  It's the only way you can learn to deal, because your ideal human will only ever be just that: ideal.  Don't let your idea of who someone could be distract you from who a person really is, complete will all of their perceived "flaws."  In fact, abandon those ideal perceptions entirely.  People are meant to be loved, and the only way you can do that is to face them and accept them for who they are, regardless of whatever starry-eyed perfectionist goals you may have.

What I mean to say is that we should give more thought to prioritizing our confirmed assessments of things over mere prospects and preemptive thoughts.  Some people act like they know how something is going to turn out just based on something they've read, when indeed, they do not.  I've had people tell me all manner of psychoanalysis they've run on me, trying to find a diagnosis for what is so unique about my mind and my psyche.  Besides the failure to acknowledge the social "othering" that comes with trying to label me with a diagnosis, the attempt to explain my character with some clinical mumbo-jumbo has done nothing to affect my approach toward life.  In fact, all it's done is influence me to consider myself a mentalcase, a broken human being.  Those who live in the world of intuition and theory will, all too commonly, bring toxic needless complexity to issues that are, in actuality, practical and visceral.

For example, we have become a society that seems to label issues of gender, race, and sexual orientation as abstract, convoluted fields of study.  While these issues are absolutely complex in their nature, they aren't complex because of their abstract, theoretical nature, like astrophysics.  These issues are complex in that they are personal issues, and every person has a different narrative to contribute to this subject matter.  An individual's stance on these issues, regardless of what it is, is based on personal emotions and simple recollections of human interactions.  This isn't a field in extensive textbook study; rather, it's a field in which we learn from the sharing of our human experiences with the goal of intelligently and tactfully approaching dissimilar people and treating them properly-- and it's just as important as learning any subject we can treat as a textbook science. The distress I have with some people's approach to topics in humanities in this-- some people look at subjects like this as nothing more than an opportunity to learn theoretical concepts and apply them. For example, many self-appointed "intellectuals" will pick up terms like "gender identity" and "rape culture" just so they can incorporate them into their daily conversation.  They go about memorizing facts about the history of the women's rights movement, and focusing their time on the theoretical postulates formulated by feminist theory for feminist theory, completely missing the most important objective.  The primary goal isn't to stuff your brain with any theory whatsoever--the point is to learn the essence and importance of looking at other people with not only respect, but with agency. Everyone, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other nebulous label, deserves not only to be looked at as equal, but as equally capable.  And that, in itself, is a concept we can easily simplify-- just treat all others as perfectly respectable, perfectly capable human beings.  And you don't need to learn that in a classroom!  For the most part, people begin to understand that just by interacting with other human beings on a regular basis!  And it isn't learned using the most complex inner machinations of the human mind; you learn it through the sheer impulse of compassion and hating to see others get hurt.

My goal here is to illustrate that understanding people isn't even a topic that involves complex, theoretical thought.  Instead of making humanity about facts and ideas, let's make it about interpersonal interactions and relating to each other.  Let's have conversations and listen to each other with ears of compassion, and let's leave the complex theory to math, physics, chemistry, biology, and medical sciences.  Those are the studies of the world that require the deeply intricate thinking. I will admit that the medical sciences do include diagnostic psychology, but we should reserve that only for those disturbed individuals that really need it.  As for understanding general people and learning how to socialize with them, these things are learned through practice; I'm talking about trial and error.  Get to know me, and forge a friendship.  If the friendship isn't working, isolate the problem between us and try to work together on it.  Friendship is like learning to ride a bicycle-- the only way to gain any sort of ability is to try it firsthand.  You don't learn to ride a bicycle by reading about it.  You have to just try it.  So stop trying to gain an understanding of me by reading about people like me.  Try me.

How to Look Like a Nice Person

Some people give all they can to people, but giving isn't a universally positive thing to do. Still, there are a lot of different approaches to garnering a reputation as a "nice" person.  Despite what may be a popular opinion, though, being a respectable person goes way beyond frequent acts of generosity. Truly nice people know to respect other people's boundaries, sensibilities, and self-worth, and that often means letting it be.  That's right.  Sometimes the nicest thing you can do is to stop drowning us in favors all the time.  Maybe don't bring your green bean casserole over for Thanksgiving if I said I could make my own.  Maybe don't tell me your tennis serving strategy if I already have my own. Maybe don't give me your advice on how to beat Rainbow Road if I want to figure it out myself! Sometimes, giving sucks, and being generous can be stupid.  There, I said it.  It's not that I'm a cross person at this party.  I'm not.  It's just that I have to compete with a host who's provided a veggie tray, a chocolate fountain, a fondue pot, two pizzas, and three different meat selections.  And if I add any more to this spread, I'll just add to what's thrown away later on.  Your contributions can often be unwelcome if I already have 100% of a perfectly good brain, thank you.  (Help when it's asked for is a wonderful thing, but that's a topic for another blog post.)

That weird dinner-party metaphor was a way of saying that offering your goods or guidance to someone may very well seem excessive to someone who receives tons already.  But giving to someone who has everything he already needs isn't only extraneous--it can be insulting, because it makes the assumption that the intended recipient was missing something.  And some people have insecurities about their own capabilities to run their lives.  Still others have an ego about their own levels of generosity--they feel better when they do things for others, as you should, but these people consider it a large proportion of their self-worth.

Thus, some people treat being nice as a competition, but competition involves measuring each other. The easiest way we like to measure people and their levels of charity is through money, but that's not fair, because people are thrown into grossly varied statuses of wealth.  What can you afford to give when you work 14 hours a day and still can't afford your own air conditioner?  And in any case, I don't think the amount of time, money, effort, or any substance is what determines if you're a nice person. People see generosity as a virtue, but I find that it's often met with scorn or disdain.  Giving people stuff is great, but there's an assumption made by the giver that goes along with it.

I grew up under the impression that self-sufficiency was a requisite part of adulthood.  So if I am to treat my peers like they're mature, I should treat them as if they're self-sufficient-- in other words, like they can handle their own shit.  Though there is a disgusting minority of spoiled people who expect every minute task to be done for them, most people don't like to be treated like helpless babies.  To me, allowing others to take matters into their own hands is a form of showing respect.  To me, a person with humility is a person who treats other people like they have the power to make their own decisions and take care of themselves.  Because no one likes to be told what to do all the time, and no one wants to listen to your bullshit pedagogy on how to live life and make proper choices (I say, as I type my bullshit pedagogy for all to read on the internet).

This works in theory and in practice.  You can talk about what you theoretically know and believe; you can give people direction or unsolicited advice in a particular situation.  And you offer your expertise because you care and because you want to help.  But imagine how the intended recipient of such advice is going to feel.  Say your friend is trying to hook up a new TV.  If you immediately interject and try to offer your ideas on how to do it, it may sound like you're assuming that your friend has no idea what to do.  This can come off as offensive, because, to your friend, it sounds like you have a low estimation of his/her intelligence.  Now, if you see that your friend begins to struggle with the setup process, you can offer your ideas, but even then, your friend might have a delicate sense of pride in his or her ability to complete tasks independently.  To varying degrees, people want to feel like they are capable--some want to feel like they can conquer absolutely anything.  Those who want to get everything done on their own will feel robbed if you tell them how to do it; it's like spoiling the answer to a mystery novel or a puzzle they're trying to solve.  Nobody likes spoilers.

In practice, you can do things for people.  But sometimes, doing something for someone kind of sends the message that they couldn't have gotten it done themselves.  I struggled with this a lot as a kid.  My mom cares about me a lot, and always did (hi, Mom).  She worked relentlessly to provide my brother and me with good food, a clean home, and activities to enjoy.  She would point out chores that would need to be done, but she would take care of them before I thought to do so.  Mostly, this was because days would go by before these chores reentered my mind, leading to an admittedly weak series of attempts to show my responsibility.  But every time she did those chores that I decided I wanted, I felt something I didn't expect to feel; I felt like something was robbed of me (even though the problem was clearly my own laziness).  I felt robbed of the opportunity to prove that I could do it.

So sometimes, when I think of doing lots of things for other people, I begin to feel concerned that I might rob those potential recipients of the opportunity to show their ability to do it themselves. Before you bark out orders to others on how to do things, consider that, maybe the importance of making sure others believe in their own capabilities outweighs the importance of making sure something is done the "right" way.  When I have advice to give, I consider that other people might not want to hear it, because they might think I'm a know-it-all who believes I'm smarter than they are. Before I tell someone that I think they should change, I consider the possibility that this person can handle their fucking shit just as well as I can, maybe better--and even if they can't, I can help them believe in themselves by shutting my mouth and letting it be, anyway, because their faculties should be good enough if I'm hanging out with them.  (If you need them to fundamentally change themselves on such a large scale that this

Being nice isn't taking the power and making the decisions for everyone, even if you know what you're doing, and even it's for their own good.  Being nice is recognizing the power inside of (most) everyone to support themselves and make their own decisions in life, and offering your power to others when they need it.  It's very important that we give help to others when it's requested, but shoving it down the throats of others when they don't want it can appear self-righteous, arrogant, and condescending.

This means that making yourself look like a nice person is a delicate balancing act.  You need to be someone that others rely on, but you also need to respect others' abilities to handle their own problems independently if they so choose, except in certain dire cases.  Even if you believe that you're trying to be charitable, your friend might be nothing more than disgusted by you when you snatch the video game controller out of his hand and beat the boss character for him.  Maybe he wanted the satisfaction of conquering the task for himself!  On the other hand, there are situations when you should step in and fight, but these are situations of dire need and personal safety.  For example, I wouldn't care about my friend's judgment if we were at the beach and we were encountering a stinging jellyfish.  My will to keep us both safe would override any will to respect my friend's insistence in doing things his own way, especially if my friend's modus operandae is to go up to a dangerous wild animal and poke it with a stick.  But for the most part, a nice person will grant another person enough agency to trust that other person to get things done smoothly and confidently. Succinctly, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose; but you can't pick your friend's nose, unless there's something in his nose that might infect his brain and kill him.  There's nothing nice, kind, or generous about taking over all the tasks and decision-making for another human being. There's nothing productive about doing all of another person's job so that the other person doesn't have to.  There's nothing respectful about overriding another person's opinion with your own.  Other people need to develop the skills, morals, and opinions necessary to carry on through life, and doing all the thought and activity for them prevents that development from occurring.  Be available and willing to help, but don't just barge in as if you're the only one who knows what you're doing.  Offer your services, act reliably, and be someone others can trust.  But also respect others' abilities and desires to get things done their own way, and leave them their space if they want it.

On the Corollaries Between Exercising And Understanding

The human body is a marvelously user-friendly device.  If you desire accessibility to a greater level of strength in any particular body part, all you have to do is use that body part repeatedly, and that alone signals to your internal command center that you want to increase the aptitude in that specific place.  Analogously, if you wish to improve your ability to perform a physical task, you can simply practice that task repeatedly, and your body will respond by funneling strength into the collection of muscles needed.  And as you perform that task more and more, you become more physically apt to perform that task well.  But let's compare the case of the physical skill mentioned thus far, to its mental counterpart, the acquisition of know-how.

Learning a mental skill is analogous to becoming physically adept at a physical task, because the repeated execution of the task leads to a greater skill that allows one to perform it with ever-increasing ease.  If you want to know how to do something well, you try at it repeatedly until it feels like second nature.  As humans, this might seem obvious, but it doesn't necessarily have to be this way.  In fact, some people resist this method of learning, choosing instead to treat the acquisition of knowledge as something far more abstract and random.

Here, I really want to discuss the difference between two types of people:  the intuitive and the sensing.  These words, "intuitive" and "sensing," are in reference to the popular Myers-Briggs system of personality tests and classifications.  (While I believe that the Myers-Briggs personality types fail to cover most of what is important about a person, they do lead to some conclusions that are fascinating and important in my eyes.)  What I want to focus on is the second letter in the type, which deals with the intake of information, or perception.  Intuition and sensing are two opposite functions that deal with a person's perception of reality-- simply, sensing is to take the world literally, for what it is, while intuition is an abstract, theoretical view of the happenings in the world.  Sensing-type individuals are the ones who live in the moment and see things for what they are, questioning relatively little about what they perceive.  The motto of a sensing-type person is "what you see is what you get."  Intuitive people will question beyond what they see, extrapolating on their findings with little or no provocation.  Rather than simply seeing what is there, and intuitive person will consider its past and future, or perhaps how a certain thing could be changed or improved.

These two different types of people are defined by their own default method of how knowledge is acquired, and I'm finding that one of these is much more useful than the other.  For sensing-type individuals, learning is primarily done in the way I first outlined-- through practice.  Repetition leads to an ability to apply their skills more and more smoothly until it becomes rudimentary.  This is the learning style that relates clearly to the acquisition of physical strength; use your triceps to lift something many times, and the body will respond by increasing the muscle mass in your triceps.  Do something more, and you get better at it.  It's a really simple and highly convenient system, but even so, the intuitive people living in dreamland forsake it for an abstract approach.

By my nature, I am one of these dreamers, but I have started to resent it in a way, because my priorities are learning more than ever toward application.  It seems to me that knowledge gained as a bank of abstract theory is harder to apply than knowledge gained through practice.  Knowledge gained through practice and repetition is granted purpose inherently during its acquisition; if you're doing a thing, you are learning that thing in the process, and the purpose of that process is to continue doing that thing with greater effectiveness.  So learning that thing already has purpose--to do that thing better!  But the acquisition of theoretical, abstract knowledge, has a theoretical, abstract purpose that's often harder to see.  It's harder for me to guarantee that I will use a piece of theoretical knowledge later in life, when learning a bit of practical knowledge through an action I'm committing already has an application--and I'm witnessing its application as I learn it!  When do I witness the application of a theoretical nugget of wisdom that I read in a book, hear by word of mouth, or hypothesize based on observation?  I can't ever answer this question quickly and easily, and that's why my grades in college started to decline.

When you learn theory in school, you ask yourself questions like, "when in my life am I ever going to use this?"  And as I've matured, I've found that I have little time for ideas that I don't use, now that it's my own responsibility to take care of myself.  Before, when I encountered a person without a desire to learn a particular thing, I would scorn them as an anti-intellectual, but now, when I encounter such a person ignoring someone's convoluted argument about something, I consider that person wise about the allocation of their own time and effort.

When it comes down to it, it's unnatural to be cramming a bunch of complex theory into your brain without witnessing its application.  The analogy I made comparing exercise to the acquisition of practical knowledge can't be made for the absorption of theory.  Because unlike the process of learning a tidbit of knowledge for the sake of doing it, the human body doesn't randomly decide to strengthen a muscle in preparation for a physical task that you might have to perform at some point.

This isn't to say that learning theoretical knowledge is useless-- in fact, this couldn't be farther from the truth, now that we live in a society that thrives on particular abstract constructs.  Three of the most important theoretical, intangible ideas that we live with are time, love, and monetary worth. These concepts meant nothing to homo sapiens ten thousand years ago, but with the advancement of civilization to the point such as it is today, having a grasp on them is fundamental to everyday acts of survival.  We need to understand manmade concepts like time, love, and money, as functioning in society requires us to plan our schedules, commit to relationships, and budget our earnings.  But even these actions can be learned by doing, rather than studying.  If you aren't sure what you can get away with spending, you find out by trying to spend certain amounts, in certain ways, and on certain things; then you learn from the results.  If you aren't sure what actions will please your relationship partner, you try them and see if he or she approves.  If you aren't sure how much action you can handle in your schedule, you will find out by measuring your own stress levels as you busy yourself to particular extents.

What I'm starting to discredit is when people make life decisions according to pure theory.  This may be a cliche, but it's one of the truest statements I can imagine:  you don't know if you'll like something until you try it.  Usually, this statement is used as an argument against someone who simply refuses to try something; but, it also applies to people who decide they like the idea of something before they actually get involved in it.  Some people look at their list of likes and dislikes as a large part of their identity; there's a reason why Facebook has an entire section on their personality profiles for "Likes." And for some such people, the existence of a certain something on their list is more a statement of self-identity than an actual emotional affinity for that thing.  For example, there are lots of men who claim to be into metal and hard rock, not because they actually enjoy it, but because of the statement of toughness it makes.  And lots of other people read lots of books, not because they actually enjoy reading, but so that they feel like others will see them as well-read and assume them to be intelligent. In fact, the things people claim to like can be just for the sake of SELF-image; for example, an avid reader might be trying to convince HIMSELF that he is intelligent because he read some books.  Or a patron of "gangsta-rap" might be trying to convince himself that he is tough enough to handle a tough life on the city streets.  In any case, some people like to subscribe to the idea of things before actually experiencing them.

Some people say things like "I would love to go to this place I've never been to," and "I would love to meet this person I've never met."  But what these people should really be saying is "I would love to try these things"-- the speaker, in this case, doesn't actually have any experience yet, from which to opine.  And trying things is great-- imperative, in fact.  But can we please give a little more thought to the distinction between "trying" and "doing?"  "Trying," in this case, indicates exploration:  trying to gain familiarity with the unknown.  This is fundamental for the human experience; this is how we develop any sort of understanding, from the blank slate we begin with at infancy.  However, when you deal with subjects with which you haven't come into direct contact, banking on unverified hypotheses is a fatal choice.  You don't know that marrying Josh will be the best choice if you haven't even gotten to know him yet.  You don't know that moving to Spain will lead to unbridled happiness if you've never even been to Spain.  You don't know that majoring in photography will be a good choice if you don't know what it's like to enter the workforce with a degree in that field.  And in some cases, like these, you need to make decisions about your future, but you can't possibly make decisions based on experience because you can't experience the future yet!  But you do have the power to make the most informed decision possible within your means-- date Josh and find out what he's like. Stay in Spain for several weeks and see if you enjoy life there.  Get to know some people who graduated with photography degrees and find out where it took them (likely, not far).  But most of all, stop giving priority to preconceived notions of things, and instead, default on the tried and true facts if they already exist in front of you.

When we launch ourselves into a new territory

The Requisite Entitlement of Being an Artist.

Feed your face.  Then, feed the people.  Only when both of those are accomplished can you then feed your head.

What do you hear when someone tells you that their primary goal in life is to be an artist?  Do you bask in the revelry of being in the presence of a dreamer?  Are you fascinated by the potential for this person to inspire you?  Do you feel inadequate, thinking of how you wish you were creative enough to pursue your artistic dreams like the visionary before you?  I don't anymore.

After your primary education, all maturing adults are eventually dumped into the "real world," as it's so called, in which we are forced, on our own, to achieve subsistence.  Once can marvel at the vast variety of career options that lie about.  As spoiled citizens of a developed country, we almost unanimously begin our career decisions by looking at these options in terms of what we want to do-- we ask ourselves, "which occupation is for me?"

Although children are always asked, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" another necessary question to ask yourself is, "what will the populace need from me when I grow up?"  Jobs, for the most part, don't exist because we simply want them to; they exist because there's a need for them. Finding an occupation that suits you is made vastly easier by the existence of a great variation in demanded skills, but these skills exist on the basis of public need, not the people's entitlement to do whatever they want to do.

So if jobs are in existence because of need, we must, then, address what people need in the world. Take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs; society's foundation doesn't rely on art.  The most basic human needs include food, water, shelter and clothing.  Once those are established, we can move on to utilities, security, transportation, infrastructure, fire protection, communications, and things that are viewed as needs in a developed society but considered luxuries to the very poor.  But the last thing on our list of needs, though it is still considered a "need" is self-fulfillment.  This category contains all the things we use to reach for personal happiness and satisfaction that don't really affect the world at large. These are the things we reach for in order to achieve nothing more than physical and mental stimulation.  These are things like art.

The first thing we consider when choosing our profession is our own selfish personal preferences; we don't start by considering the care demanded by those in our communities and across the world, which is actually the basis for all viable professions everywhere.  So, by this notion, a choice to specialize in a field less needed by actual people is a choice made out of selfishness.  In fact, I perceive a sense of arrogance whenever another person tells me that he or she is destined or intent to embark on a career of artistic exploration.  A decision to place art at the topmost ranking priority is a blatant disregard of the needs of others, or it is a failure to understand which, of the various needs of the public, are more important.  And a failure to understand the hierarchy of needs almost always stems from an ignorance that arises when a person has lived his or her entire life without a worry that their basic needs might not be met.  A person who experiences hunger knows the vital importance of maintaining access to food.  A person who experiences poverty knows the vital importance of maintaining a steady income.  A person who experiences significant pain knows the importance of avoiding the mistakes they made to create that level of pain.  Only once it is granted that hunger, pain, poverty, violence, theft, disease, and other horrors are all being consistently avoided, we can begin to consider giving mind to the sharing of ideas, art, music, and contributions to the entertainment industry.  And by that logic, a person who spends their entire life immersed in art, music, and other entertainment, is a spoiled soul, never having to worry about the loss of their most basic necessities.  A life of artistic creation, in which your self-identity is shaped primarily by theory, entertainment, and dreams, comes as a massive privilege.  While most of society is providing the tangible necessities that we all need, the lucky few get to live a life of intellectual luxury, stewing in the juices of their own dreams.  And a person who holds the belief that he or she deserves this life of luxury is an arrogant, entitled one.

The world needs you-- but the world needs particular things from you.  The world doesn't need art; it needs care.  The world has, first and foremost, needs that you may have never considered because you went your entire life without even considering the possibility of their absence.  The world is like a baby crying, and a hungry baby won't be calming down anytime soon if all you do is show it a pretty picture.  Give it nourishment, warmth, peace, and a place to sleep.  Perhaps the greatest irony is when entitled snobs from high society look down on the people who give us the necessities we require most.  We look down on the people who grow our food, take it to market, build our homes, pave our roads, and assemble our clothes.  We scorn them, pity them, and call them "rednecks" and "foreigners."  But these are the very people who breathe life into us.  They don't tend to be the most intelligent.  They don't tend to have the most informed political opinions.  But they work for us in ways that the self-entitled, self-proclaimed "artist" never will.  They suffer pain and hardship every single day, braving unsafe conditions and lackluster sleep schedules-- things that artistic spoiled brats couldn't even imagine as they sit on their laptop blogging (like I am now--yes, I am self-aware) sipping their Starbucks latte in the warm confines of their plush, comfortable furniture, away from the elements.  Making fun of the people who provide the most basic necessities is so commonplace, yet their will to comply with doing the dirtier jobs is the very thing that even allows us to sit pretty and dream about frivolous things like our artistic creative visions-- and do they get any respect for it?  Do we look at the "rednecks" and "hillbillies" of the world through eyes of admiration and reverence, knowing that their persistence and self-sacrifice are what grant us the privilege of living comfortably? Or do we dwell on how uneducated they are, calling them stupid, when, in reality, they are more in touch with the basic needs of humanity then we are?  Relative to the practical efforts made by these hard workers, the concerns of an idealist or artist are, to put it bluntly, a waste of time.

My goal in exploring this topic is to ensure that we are keeping our priorities straight.  Thinking and creating are great things to do, but we can't even begin to do that when we haven't taken care of our basic needs like food, water, shelter, security, and health.  And if you intend to live a life in which you never have to maintain access to these basic needs for yourself and for others, you're going to struggle with your own self-entitlement.  In reality, you are not entitled to these basic needs-- you need to seek them out yourself, unless you never plan on becoming self-sufficient.  And seeking out these basic needs will mandate that you drop your connections to your internal artistic dream world. Depending on your natural attraction toward dreams and theory, your integration into society and understanding of the real steps necessary for supporting yourself may prove very difficult.  But the sooner you shift to a more practical ideology, the sooner you will be able to achieve self-sufficiency, comfort, and, dare I say it, happiness.  Because happiness isn't just a state of mind-- it's also affected by physical pleasure, and by the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have all of your practical needs in check.  Confidence in your own ability to cover your own basic needs leads to a peace of mind at a level that's otherwise unattainable.  And in any case, no one, no matter how they feel, is entitled to a life where all one thinks about is art, because no one is entitled to a life where all of one's basic needs are maintained for them.  As you know, if you're an adult, it's no one else's job to take care of you.  You need employment, and employers only pay people who provide skills that are needed.  The skills that are needed, for the most part, are in industries oriented toward practical needs, unlike art.  In conclusion, take it to heart that you probably won't be able to survive on the pittance you'll earn going into an art profession, because people don't need art like they need real, tangible support.

And even though artsy-types like hipsters aim to create a guise of philanthropy and caring for the world, there is nothing more selfish than choosing a life of artistic immersion.  You can't call yourself a caring person if you don't know the first thing about caring about people, and that is:  you have to give people what they need.  Art is inherently something you feel like giving, rather than a response to the actual needs of others--no one involves themselves in art and music because they feel like they "have to."  Don't give people what you feel like giving; you have to cater to their needs.  No one wants to hear your alternative screamo-power-metal ballad that you taped in your studio apartment and defecated onto a CD.  No lives are going to be spared because of the acoustic guitar song you wrote about Darfur, and no mouths are going to be fed thanks to your painting of the school in rural China; no power lines are going to be installed by posting on Facebook about your electric company, and no better shelters are going to be constructed for the people of the Amazon when you photograph a rural Brazilian shantytown.  The people who really do good in this world aren't the people who sit around merely talking of what to do.  The people who change this world are the ones who act.  Let's take real action to create security, stop violence, feed children, build homes, provide utilities, and equip everyone with the real needs instead of doing what you feel like doing and mistakenly calling it "generosity".

And I know I'm not the most prolific provider of realistic goods and services for people, but at least I don't create drawings and things for the sake of my own catharsis and call it a productive career that I wish to engage in for the betterment of society.  If you're a self-proclaimed artist, meaning that you mistakenly feel entitled to a life of doing whatever you want, you aren't fooling me.  You're selfish, or else you have no grasp on what personal hardships need mitigation first because you're life was too darn easy.  Let's take a look at the true harshness of reality.  And let's pour our energy and compassion into the more practically responsible goals, shall we?

Things That Don't Need To Be Thought About

It took long enough, but I'm finally starting to learn a skill that many people across the world are innately born with.  People all across the world are perfectly okay becoming the cogs in our great worldwide economic machine.  That fact is something that needs to be true, and it's rather fantastic that it is.  We owe everything to the people who grow our food, make our clothes, build our infrastructure, and manufacture all kinds of goods.  And all of these people probably had big dreams to become something else, something super-special.  But they all put aside their lofty dreams of becoming rock stars and world leaders to sacrifice their time, so that we can all benefit.

These aren't the die-hard artists, the starry-eyed seers of the future.  These are just normal people who live in the moment and take the world for what it is.  They aren't the strongest creative minds the world has to offer.  They aren't the ones who study the world at length and formulate theories and pedagogy for other theoretical minds to consume in a college classroom.  They're just people, making the world happen.  They aren't the brightest, but in one way, they're more capable than my inventive and tragically active mind...

As some pretentious intellectuals will scorn those with an absence of thought, I look at those capable of mental blankness with uncontrollable envy.  At certain times, I find myself wishing I could just stop thinking about certain things, because some things don't need to be given any thought.  Terrible things happen every day, and horrifying global trends continue their tragic descent; whether on a personal or global level, when a bad occurrence is out of my control, there is nothing productive about ruminating on it for an extensive length of time.  And while training my brain to avoid dwelling on such perilous thoughts is a difficult goal for me, the people who accept life at face value without any advanced thought don't find difficulty in this.  I wish it were easier, and for most people, it actually is.  I wouldn't give up my perfectly capable mind for any reason, but I can't help but covet the luxury of deciding not to think of something if I don't want to think about it.