If life was all in your imagination and it was only as real as your experiences, why would you bother to help anyone else?
Everyone wants a larger experience of love life at every level, in every way, every moment of every day. But who is "everyone"?
__________________________________________
Around 11 pm last night I ate a huge gooey warm chocolate chip cookie and washed it down with a delicious glass of cold milk, and life was perfect. I'd done my job, I'd written, I'd earned my place to be.
The other week my class talked a lot about morality, but what's wrong with eating a cookie? When you're a kid they tell you that the man who gives you all of your favorite things reads your letters first, accepts your offering of cookies and milk, and then shares the joy of life's toys.
My mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. There is no contest on this. Sometimes I suspect that's the only reason my cousins Mike and Dan came to stay with us for two weeks every summer. They just wanted some of Aunt Sue's divine freshly baked cookies.
Sometimes my roommate can tell I have cookies, and he not so subtly asks if I'm about to heat up a cookie in the microwave, even though I've clearly been cooking something else for half an hour. But I take the hint and give him a cookie, and he smiles and says thanks and I say, "No problem! I love sharing cookies, and too many are bad for me anyway!"
He got me on a good day. Once I was pretty sure that he took a cookie without asking, and I was really pissed out of principle, even though I knew that I could afford them more easily and that the damn cookie wasn't good for me anyway. There's something about controlling your own property...
___________________________________________
When I was in Cabo last week, I was relaxing on the beach when I noticed the Tao yin-yang symbol on the side of a massage hut. Whenever I think of Taoism I think of the old story where they say, "Who knows what's good or bad?" because good things lead to bad things and vice versa.
__________________________________________
Today I got to class one minute late, and someone had written on the board, "If Teacher Ben arrives after 9:30, he has to pay $5!" I already had four dollars in my hand, prepared as a generous donation of my own accord, so I laughed very hard.
I have a rule in my class that if you're not there by 9:30 and want to get counted in attendance, you have to bribe the class a dollar. If you're over an hour late, it's $2. After two hours, you better have a doctor's note. I pocket the dollars and write the total on the board so we have full transparency, and then we spend it all when we have enough.
The last time I spent the money, we had about $25. One of my students, a Brazilian who works in the oil industry, had been insisting for weeks that I organize the class somehow and get them to hang out on his downtown apartment's rooftop for a barbecue. Brazilians love to barbecue. This guy was jacked, and made no secret about how much he loved to eat steak on a regular basis. When he finally revealed that it was his last week in class, I caved to his friendly wishes and organized a class field trip/pot luck dinner to his apartment's rooftop, where we barbecued and played games and spoke English as a basic requirement for the experience. I used the $25 to buy sausages, which went over well with the crowd.
When I arrived today, my phone said 9:29, but the class clock said 9:31, so I fished a few of the previous day's dollars from my pocket and added four more to the total, making it $55. By the end of class we had $61. Chung Fu!
On Monday we read about deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. In the past 80 years, 20% of the rain forest has been cleared by cattle ranchers and land speculators. Interestingly, the worst offender of deforestation is a man named Maggi who has a soy bean empire. I'd been under the impression that eating tofu was theoretically saving the forest, but now I'm not so sure. Although Brazil is now the leading exporter of beef in the world, most of Brazil's beef is actually exported to Europe, not the US, because we have enough of our own. We ended the class with the students writing about the most important problems/issues facing the world.
This morning, even though I was late, I knew exactly what we were going to do. I was well prepared with course syllabus handouts, project handout's and the day's lesson plan. I'm always vaguely aware of what we'll do because of the continuity of text book material, but I also thrive on the spontaneity and never like to have too much planned. I think I've finally struck a decent balance.
Today we began by writing about charitable causes that we thought were deserving of donations. The top four were the Red Cross, World Hunger (mostly Africa), educating less fortunate children, and stopping child kidnapping and slavery (specifically in South America). Through anonymous votes we narrowed it down to World Hunger and educating less fortunate children, and after the final vote, educating less fortunate children won. Unfortunately, nobody knew of a specific charity that helps less fortunate children become educated. I contributed a dollar a day to Plan International (for five years... now, like many people, I donate to various charities that I research), and that's really only because the right canvasser jumped in front of me at the right time six years ago in NYC. I'd literally just gotten a raise at my first well-paying job. Now some girl in Burkina Faso is supposedly getting cleaner water and food or something. I'm supposed to write to her, but I don't, because it's strange. The only times I did, an older woman wrote back to me saying she was doing fine. I asked one of my friend's who got his masters in international aid and non-profit work, and he verified that they're an honest organization, so I feel better about it. Nothing special, just one less dollar a day that I spend on myself. One less beer a week. Still imperfect, still occupying space, still consuming the world to get by.
Anyway, we'll see what we come up with tomorrow. We're not going to fix any problems, just throw a little bit of our money at them, instead of spending it on sausages and steak for ourselves like the other time. I don't regret the other time. But it's better to mix it up.
After the voting we watched a video from the History Channel series The History of US. We learned about the settlers who starved when they first came to America, and how the tobacco industry and help from native Americans saved them. Then we learned how colonists got so damn mad about having part of their hard-earned money taken away by England that they decided to risk their lives and kill people over it. Then their descendants killed all of the Native Americans who had saved them and given us the inspiration for the "Thanksgiving" holiday celebrating appreciation for everything you're lucky to have. Now their descendants still complain about being taxed by the nation with the most affluent, wealthy and easy existence in human history.
__________________________________________
I talked about video games yesterday. Maybe life really is like a video game. The bad guys that get hurt are just pixels that can be recycled at any time, the good guys that get hurt are just to make the story better and they'll greet you safely at the end, and you should never really worry about getting hurt because there will always be extra lives and power-up items to help you through. All that bad stuff is just to make the game that much more worthwhile to play. Maybe.
So if life is only as real as the feelings you feel, why bother giving money to some distant person that might not even exist, or might as well not as far as your reality occurs? What's the difference between someone starving in Africa or some advanced alien starving millions of galaxies away? I don't know.
But I do know that at the end of class, one of my students gave me three cookies because she works at Mrs. Fields. I ate one of them happily, and then I gave the other two to this homeless guy who's always on the same corner handing out street sheets. You know how much effort that cost me? Zero. Do you know how much of a better person that makes me? Not at all. All my bad stuff is still in me. I'm still going to be selfish and indulge in the world's pleasures. I did just get back from vacation in Cabo.
So why bother? Well, because there is now less fat and sugar in my body, sucking my life away from me. A little is perfect for the body, but too much is no good.
And it's not just physical. As unimportant and simple and fleeting as that cookie transaction was today, something about me feels better knowing that I didn't need it, and it was so easy to let go, even though I was hungry at the time. I'm an American, so I wouldn't want anybody to take my stuff, but I also understand the freeing feeling of knowing that what matters most is what I am, not what I have. You only have things as tools to help you be more of you and have higher quality experiences that the world wants you to.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stress you or attack you.
Here.
Have a cookie.
Everyone wants a larger experience of love life at every level, in every way, every moment of every day. But who is "everyone"?
__________________________________________
Around 11 pm last night I ate a huge gooey warm chocolate chip cookie and washed it down with a delicious glass of cold milk, and life was perfect. I'd done my job, I'd written, I'd earned my place to be.
The other week my class talked a lot about morality, but what's wrong with eating a cookie? When you're a kid they tell you that the man who gives you all of your favorite things reads your letters first, accepts your offering of cookies and milk, and then shares the joy of life's toys.
My mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. There is no contest on this. Sometimes I suspect that's the only reason my cousins Mike and Dan came to stay with us for two weeks every summer. They just wanted some of Aunt Sue's divine freshly baked cookies.
Sometimes my roommate can tell I have cookies, and he not so subtly asks if I'm about to heat up a cookie in the microwave, even though I've clearly been cooking something else for half an hour. But I take the hint and give him a cookie, and he smiles and says thanks and I say, "No problem! I love sharing cookies, and too many are bad for me anyway!"
He got me on a good day. Once I was pretty sure that he took a cookie without asking, and I was really pissed out of principle, even though I knew that I could afford them more easily and that the damn cookie wasn't good for me anyway. There's something about controlling your own property...
___________________________________________
When I was in Cabo last week, I was relaxing on the beach when I noticed the Tao yin-yang symbol on the side of a massage hut. Whenever I think of Taoism I think of the old story where they say, "Who knows what's good or bad?" because good things lead to bad things and vice versa.
__________________________________________
Today I got to class one minute late, and someone had written on the board, "If Teacher Ben arrives after 9:30, he has to pay $5!" I already had four dollars in my hand, prepared as a generous donation of my own accord, so I laughed very hard.
I have a rule in my class that if you're not there by 9:30 and want to get counted in attendance, you have to bribe the class a dollar. If you're over an hour late, it's $2. After two hours, you better have a doctor's note. I pocket the dollars and write the total on the board so we have full transparency, and then we spend it all when we have enough.
The last time I spent the money, we had about $25. One of my students, a Brazilian who works in the oil industry, had been insisting for weeks that I organize the class somehow and get them to hang out on his downtown apartment's rooftop for a barbecue. Brazilians love to barbecue. This guy was jacked, and made no secret about how much he loved to eat steak on a regular basis. When he finally revealed that it was his last week in class, I caved to his friendly wishes and organized a class field trip/pot luck dinner to his apartment's rooftop, where we barbecued and played games and spoke English as a basic requirement for the experience. I used the $25 to buy sausages, which went over well with the crowd.
When I arrived today, my phone said 9:29, but the class clock said 9:31, so I fished a few of the previous day's dollars from my pocket and added four more to the total, making it $55. By the end of class we had $61. Chung Fu!
On Monday we read about deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. In the past 80 years, 20% of the rain forest has been cleared by cattle ranchers and land speculators. Interestingly, the worst offender of deforestation is a man named Maggi who has a soy bean empire. I'd been under the impression that eating tofu was theoretically saving the forest, but now I'm not so sure. Although Brazil is now the leading exporter of beef in the world, most of Brazil's beef is actually exported to Europe, not the US, because we have enough of our own. We ended the class with the students writing about the most important problems/issues facing the world.
This morning, even though I was late, I knew exactly what we were going to do. I was well prepared with course syllabus handouts, project handout's and the day's lesson plan. I'm always vaguely aware of what we'll do because of the continuity of text book material, but I also thrive on the spontaneity and never like to have too much planned. I think I've finally struck a decent balance.
Today we began by writing about charitable causes that we thought were deserving of donations. The top four were the Red Cross, World Hunger (mostly Africa), educating less fortunate children, and stopping child kidnapping and slavery (specifically in South America). Through anonymous votes we narrowed it down to World Hunger and educating less fortunate children, and after the final vote, educating less fortunate children won. Unfortunately, nobody knew of a specific charity that helps less fortunate children become educated. I contributed a dollar a day to Plan International (for five years... now, like many people, I donate to various charities that I research), and that's really only because the right canvasser jumped in front of me at the right time six years ago in NYC. I'd literally just gotten a raise at my first well-paying job. Now some girl in Burkina Faso is supposedly getting cleaner water and food or something. I'm supposed to write to her, but I don't, because it's strange. The only times I did, an older woman wrote back to me saying she was doing fine. I asked one of my friend's who got his masters in international aid and non-profit work, and he verified that they're an honest organization, so I feel better about it. Nothing special, just one less dollar a day that I spend on myself. One less beer a week. Still imperfect, still occupying space, still consuming the world to get by.
Anyway, we'll see what we come up with tomorrow. We're not going to fix any problems, just throw a little bit of our money at them, instead of spending it on sausages and steak for ourselves like the other time. I don't regret the other time. But it's better to mix it up.
After the voting we watched a video from the History Channel series The History of US. We learned about the settlers who starved when they first came to America, and how the tobacco industry and help from native Americans saved them. Then we learned how colonists got so damn mad about having part of their hard-earned money taken away by England that they decided to risk their lives and kill people over it. Then their descendants killed all of the Native Americans who had saved them and given us the inspiration for the "Thanksgiving" holiday celebrating appreciation for everything you're lucky to have. Now their descendants still complain about being taxed by the nation with the most affluent, wealthy and easy existence in human history.
__________________________________________
I talked about video games yesterday. Maybe life really is like a video game. The bad guys that get hurt are just pixels that can be recycled at any time, the good guys that get hurt are just to make the story better and they'll greet you safely at the end, and you should never really worry about getting hurt because there will always be extra lives and power-up items to help you through. All that bad stuff is just to make the game that much more worthwhile to play. Maybe.
So if life is only as real as the feelings you feel, why bother giving money to some distant person that might not even exist, or might as well not as far as your reality occurs? What's the difference between someone starving in Africa or some advanced alien starving millions of galaxies away? I don't know.
But I do know that at the end of class, one of my students gave me three cookies because she works at Mrs. Fields. I ate one of them happily, and then I gave the other two to this homeless guy who's always on the same corner handing out street sheets. You know how much effort that cost me? Zero. Do you know how much of a better person that makes me? Not at all. All my bad stuff is still in me. I'm still going to be selfish and indulge in the world's pleasures. I did just get back from vacation in Cabo.
So why bother? Well, because there is now less fat and sugar in my body, sucking my life away from me. A little is perfect for the body, but too much is no good.
And it's not just physical. As unimportant and simple and fleeting as that cookie transaction was today, something about me feels better knowing that I didn't need it, and it was so easy to let go, even though I was hungry at the time. I'm an American, so I wouldn't want anybody to take my stuff, but I also understand the freeing feeling of knowing that what matters most is what I am, not what I have. You only have things as tools to help you be more of you and have higher quality experiences that the world wants you to.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stress you or attack you.
Here.
Have a cookie.
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