Facilitating Joy (part 2)

The second thing I like about approaching technology as a facilitator of larger processes: it helps me think about what technology is best for a given process I want to participate in. Sometimes what technology you can choose from is simply pragmatic: how much does it cost? can you get it where you live? how much maintenance does it require? But, those questions can be put inside a larger frame work that balances how well a given technology can facilitate a process against the ways that it does not.

As I talked about a couple posts ago, I am trying to get some distance from my cellphone. When trying to think about why I have a phone and whether or not I want to keep it, I keep coming back to two questions. What does the phone facilitate? What other technology can facilitate those things?

I use my phone for a few main activities: checking e-mail, sending and receiving text messages, making phone calls, reading the news, listening to music, and playing Angry Birds or KenKen. But, none of those things is directly a process that I am trying to participate in. The e-mail, messages, making calls--all of these are about communication for work and with loved ones. Reading the news is part of staying informed and feeling connected to my multiple communities. Music and games are part of being entertained and distracted.

There are two questions to ask: Do I want to be valuing those processes? Is my phone the best facilitator if I do want?

I still hold that perspective that you can make a god out of most anything, and so it is important to question what you spend most of your time on. In my case, that means learning a distinction between just entertainment and things that are both good and entertaining. I don't think playing Angry Birds really enriches my life in a meaningful way, so that's an entertaining process I can probably give up. However, feeling connected to the world at large, but especially to my loved ones, is a process that is like worship for me. I have rituals of staying connected through reading, writing, calling, etc.

So, is my phone a good facilitator of those processes that I want to continue to value in my life? I think my phone does a pretty good job, but it comes with a lot of unintended consequences. Having it on 24/7 doesn't just mean that I have 24/7 access to that deep feeling of love and connection  that I am seeking. It does mean, however, that I am 24/7 accessible to work. There are a lot of great things about the ease of communication in my work (especially since it is all remote working), but that constant work connection can become part of my disconnection from the  more important processes of connection to my loved ones and even myself. My phone also keeps me connected to those processes that I don't value.

Facilitating Joy (part 1)

I like to think of technology as a means of better facilitating a certain desired process. For example, a phone is a piece of technology that facilitates my being able to speak with people over long distances. My bicycle and my car are both methods that facilitate traveling over distances.There are two main upsides to thinking about technology this way, for me. For this post, I am just going to talk about the first one.

Viewing technology as part of process makes me realize that the individual piece of technology is not the goal. I remember dreaming of my first car in high school as I drove old, third-hand beaters or caught rides with friends for all my transportation. I now do have my own car that I like quite a lot, but I am not in love with it the way I was with the idea of having as a teenager. What changed?

My old view was that the car was going to make me happy because it took me places quickly and, often, entertainingly, as I sang along to the radio. My current perspective is that  going places makes me happy. I like being able to travel with ease to get food, see my friends, enjoy the outdoors, etc. I like all of those processes, and having a car makes them much easier for me in my current residence.

But, soon, I will be moving to Copenhagen, leaving my car behind, and buying a bicycle. I will be living a 15 minute bike ride from my school and with in walking distance from groceries and other life necessity. Do I feel like my happiness will be reduced by not having the car? No. My happiness will never be totally dependent on the car. Not having transportation at all would make it rather difficult to have access to the processes that make life enjoyable to me, but as long as I have some kind of transportation available, I will probably be able to find at least minimal access to those processes. Access to various technologies can greatly increase our ability and the ease with which we get to experience joy from our most important life processes.

So, how do we decide in our lives which technology to use? Cars or bicycles? E-mail or carrier pigeons? I think this view can help with deliberating what technology we want to be part of our lives, and my next post will be all about that.

Ring, ring...You calling me?

I recently had a fantastic visit to Bozeman, Montana. There are a number of joyous experiences to relate (one of the best being my friends pulling a great surprise on me), but, as usual, the thing that sticks with me are the great conversations.

Over the week I was there, we had a couple different conversations about phones and laptops that brought me back to my old desire to be rid of having a personal computer. Now that I work online, however, it is a lot less likely I will be able to, at least while living here. But, my planning juices are flowing, and I have decided to start part of my technology reduction plan.

I am moving to Copenhagen in less than two months, at which point I will either have to get a new cell phone there or choose to live without one. My current decision is to go without one, so I am starting while I am home with a gradual adjustment. I am going to start only turning my phone on twice a day. Once in the morning, once in the late afternoon. I will be able to get any messages and reply in a reasonable amount of time.

After I get into the swing of this, I will come back and write a bit more about the interplay of technology as improvement or as distraction. For now, I am going to shut my phone off, and find batteries for my old Elmo alarm clock.

Testing the Treadmill

Okay, this blog is actually a test of how well I can type while walking because I am trying to set up a makeshift treadmill desk at my parents' house. At any rate, it is a good excuse to do a bit of life updating here.

First of all: reason for the tread mill desk.
My new job is an online website research, writing, and editing gig. Which, by the way, I love so far. I love being able to travel this summer because I can work from every where, even if it does means that I am working most of the time I am traveling. It still gives me an opportunity to see all my friends before I go to grad school and still be putting some money in the bank.

As much as I love the job, I do not love sitting still for so long. My shoulders get tired as I slump over my laptop screen (bad posture, how do I quit you?). I also just get fidgety. I have a pretty good view out my window, and it can be nice in my room when the breeze is blowing, but it isn't really a great feeling to get up after siting at your desk for five hours straight.

Hence, treadmill desk. Currently I just have a wood plank laying across the plastic arms that stick out on my mom's treadmill, and it's working okay. I hope that I can at least do this a little bit each day so that I still get to stretch my legs outside of running.

Second news item: grad school!
Many hiccups have joined my foray into grad school life, but I think I got most of them ironed out this week. In the plus column, I have a place to live and a roommate that I am pretty psyched to meet. In the negative, I have to go to Chicago to do my residence permit application so that they can take my biometrics. What a hassle! Fortunately, I am already going to the Twin Cities in July for about five days, so I am going to swing down for a day during that and save myself a completely random trip to Chicago.

Otherwise, I have that great kind of nervous excitement about starting classes again, meeting new professors, and all the upcoming discussions for the next two years. It is one of those things where I willingly put myself into a stressful and, at times, trying environment, but I remain so thrilled with all the possibilities of what there is to come to know and know that I don't know. 

All my other life news is a bit more fragmented, but I'll write about it as things come up over the summer. Until then--

Surveillance and Safety

As the various questions fly around the surveying of American citizens by their government, much of the focus has been on privacy and the trade-offs that we should expect or be willing to make for the sake of one or the other. But, another set of questions is lurking in the background about what role surveillance actually has in creating safety.

I was fortunate enough to visit Kilmainham Goal in Dublin, Ireland just a couple weeks ago with my mother. The museum raises a lot of thoughts about how we see safety and surveillance as hand in hand. Kilmainham is an excellent example of the panopticon theory in practice. Even though the practices of isolation, silence, and constant observation were documented to drive prisoners insane, these practices have all carried forward in various ways, not just in prisons, but our larger sense of what makes us safe.

One of the most thought provoking pieces of information I learned from the museum was impact of mug shots. Before taking pictures of all incoming prisoners became common practice, it was quite easy for criminals, upon release, to invent new identities. If they were repeat criminals, they would not be charged as such if they had made sufficiently strong aliases. Once the photographing began, however, it became much more difficult to disguise one's self sufficiently to avoid being punished more harshly for repeat offenses.

Contemporary technology is giving us many more tools expand on this principle. In a few weeks when I go to apply for a visa to live abroad, my finger prints will be recorded. To switch my driver's license to another state, I had to bring several forms of ID and proof of my new address. My social security number helps verify who I am to the world. In many ways, the record keeping of humanity has made life more organized, as well as making it easier to pick out people who are not playing by the rules that governments establish.

The question is, does any of that surveillance actually dissuade me from committing crimes? I do not doubt that the U.S. government has stopped many crimes through surveillance. But, does it do anything to change the character of the surveilled? If I think I need something badly enough or deserve something enough, will the fact that I might be seen in the appropriating of it going to stop me?

I think surveillance is part of life. I think it can be a very good part of life. I think it can be part of making us all safer. But, it will never provide the kind of safety that making the world a just place will. When we feed the hunger, take care of sick, visit those in prison, cloth the naked--these things make us safe. Justice is building a world that we all want to be a part of it: not because it is perfect or always comfortable, but because it cares enough to ask us where it hurts before we have to lash out in our pain.

Knowing you on Facebook

I have been off of facebook for a while now. I don't honestly remember when I deleted (or deactivated, or whatever-the-heck it is called...) my account. I definitely went through a withdrawal period, and from time to time I have found myself discovering things I miss about having it. On the whole, I am happy with my life without facebook, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about how facebook effects my socializing still, today.

Facebook has been a popular subject of discussion for talking about privacy, social development, self-perception, and so on. Recently, I heard it remarked upon that facebook is sort of like a biography. Largely autobiography, but with the additional information provided by secondary authors in the form of friends who post to your wall with pictures and words. It is interesting to think of facebook as a large part of social interaction, not just maintaining but also the development of new relationships, in a context that face-to-face interaction could never provide.

For example, say I meet someone while wandering through my local used book shop. We exchange a few words, find we like the same author, and this person tells me that they are in a book club that I really ought to check out. "Find me on facebook!" they say, and so I go home and find this new acquaintance on facebook. We become facebook friends, and from there they send me a message with the data for the next book club meeting.

But, I am being given access to more than just that. With only a few moments of in-person interaction, I suddenly have access to all kinds of information about this person (the amount, of course, depending on how much they choose to share on facebook). I can potentially know who their family members are, what their religious background is, if they've been married before, their sexuality, who their friends are, what kinds of music they like, and on and on and on...

Maybe it is the idea that knowledge is power that can make it appealing to have access to this much data about another person's life with just a few clicks. There are certainly great possibilities to having that knowledge, but it is also knowledge largely without context.

I think humans have a strong preference for teleological views of most of our lives. We seek endpoints to aim at, to work towards, to worship. I am not say that it is not worth setting goals to work towards, quite the opposite in fact. The problem is failing to realize that that life is entirely process without endpoint. It is a building, tearing down, re-creating process that never stops.

Just as being a good person is an ongoing verb, not a possession that one gets after doing good deeds, relationships with other humans are processes. They are amazing intertwining of multiple individual becomings, as well as group becomings in their own right. I do not love getting to know my friends because I see our relationship as me discovering them through data that I slowly uncover and know about them. Rather, I cherish the friendships where I share in becoming with another person. We share music and food, ideas and emotions. They become the people who help form your decisions, who challenge you to be better. It is a blessing to find people you can  share your becoming with and an even greater gift to have others share their becoming with you.

It is a process. No amount of raw data about another person is equivalent to spending three or four years sharing time with that person, over food, hobbies, and silent moments. I am glad  for the many ways technology allows me to keep growing together with my friends across the country and the world, but at the end of the day I must remember is but a tool. The process is something we people must do with one another.

Congruency, inside out and back in again

Recently, I came across some quotes from Gandhi speaking about the importance of congruency between our thoughts and actions. It is that basic concept of authenticity, that you are what you say and do.

I am not one of the world's most congruent people. I strive for it, true, because I do believe that Gandhi gave a good starting definition for happiness when he said that "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." Still, I struggle. Why? Why is it so difficult to be congruent in word and deed?

I think it ultimately comes down to trust. Trust in others and trust in ourselves. For me, a big challenge to speaking my mind is fear of rejection. If I do not trust the people I am with, I will find it incredibly challenging to say what I think, let alone to say it in the way that feels most genuine to how I think. These situations make me feel inclined to borrow words from wiser or, at least, more quoted human beings who have spoken on the subject. In the worst cases, it can make me become a mirror of the person with which I speak. I adopt the other's manner towards the subject for fear of them rejecting anything against that view.

But, it goes deeper than that. We all face these times of rejection in the form of others' opinions. Sometimes it is easier to stand up to them, other times it is more challenging. This is because ultimately the trust that we need to be ourselves must be placed in ourselves.

Trusting yourself means knowing that who you are is valid. That  means not only you as a person with a particular opinion on a subject of conversation, but you as a person who has and will  continue to change your mind. I do not think people who believe they are right trust themselves. Confidence that you are in the right is not trusting yourself. That is a kind of faith that goes by the name of hubris in the most extreme cases. Instead, trust in yourself allows you acknowledge your self as valid in the world. It also allows you to change your mind because you know that you being "right" in the world is not the same as being "right" in an argument.  Your existence is good; it is good to be in the world. No matter how many arguments you lose, not matter how many times others can wave the flag of righteousness above your head--your existence is valid just in its being. No one, you or others, can prove you. You are worthy just in your being.

But, from being comes the call to be that which you are honestly, not hide behind what you think others want or need from you. That, I think, is the challenge of congruency. It is struggle to know you are worthy not only of yourself, but of recognition in the world. So much so, that you will fight to have your voice heard. Your voice--not the voice of popular opinion, coercion, or hubris.

In a program here at the women's prison, we use this saying: I am unique, I am important, and I am irreplaceable.  Without knowing this about ourselves, we are fall into the orbit of others' opinions without evaluating them. With it, I think we can all speak with clear voices, learn from one another, and be open to changing, growing--even if that means admitting you were in the wrong before.

But wrong or right--your actions matter because they come from you. I hope to live my life in a way that reflects what is inside to the world and acknowledges what I put out into the world is me. From that clarity, I hope to be kinder to myself and to others. It is a process, but it is one that, for me, has this refrain:

I am unique, I am important, and I am irreplaceable. 

Past, Generosity, and Future

Currently, I am weighing a big financial decision. It is one of those, "I am a grown-up" shocker moments, where I realize I have the power to really fuck up my life with a few decisions. Or, you know, these decisions could make life awesome...

Anyways, aside from the general angst of trying to make big commitments with big consequences, I am dealing with an additional problem: accepting help. My parents have offered to help me out with these expenses if I choose to take them on. It seems like it should be a no brainer: someone offers to make your dreams possible, to get a start on these long-term goals. Yet, I am resistant.

I find it very hard to trust people, even my parents. It is hard for me to believe others want me to succeed and want to share in the creation of my happiness by helping me financially. Why? What is it about life that makes me, and perhaps others, so unwilling to believe others care about our happiness?

I actually do know a lot of what makes me wary of trusting. I know and I try not to let it rule my life. But, I cannot stop having those feelings, even if I know they come from the past and are not reflective of the contemporary situation. It is one of the hardest truths in life, I think, to acknowledge that the feelings are real, even if they are not actually about the current situation. It is okay to be afraid of the things we are experiencing in the present because they recall a difficult or complicated aspect of our past. It is okay to stress about decisions because it is difficult to tell why we are making them: is it about what I want now or what I wanted so long ago?

Here's to generosity, and even more to those who can openly embrace it. I hope I can join you one day.

Killing the Cat

Curiosity is a prerequisite for every kind of education. Whether learning by doing, reading, hearing--a hunger must lie behind your seeking. Otherwise, we give up. We cast aside the struggle to understand with ease when the unknowns do not matter a whole lot to us. I am one to made an idol of curiosity. It is one of the aspects of who I am that I value with ease, one of the few that self-doubt has to work hard to make me anxious about.

 Despite my staunch admiration for curiosity and wonder in the world, I am faced with all its counterparts. Eavesdropping, gossiping, and spying are all kinds of curiosity about others. It feels twisted to me, however, to give them the same credence and awe that I give the curiosity that a child feels when watching a caterpillar cocoon open.

Aristotle spoke of virtues being a mean between extremes. If curiosity is a virtue, what are the extremes that it lies between? I am not sure I have the perfect one word descriptions, but the mean seems to lie between believing you are meant to have access to all information and believing that seeking information has no value at all. We can become absorbed with knowing to the point of valuing it beyond the people who lives are part of that knowledge.  Alternatively, we can be so indifferent to knowing the world that we do not believe anyone capable of knowing anything.

Either way, we seem to treat knowledge and the drive that spurs us to look for it often without thinking of knowledge as part of ethics. We think that facts are facts and have nothing to do with right or wrong. However, there is no going about procuring any information in this life without affect the rest of life on earth.

Do we become invested in knowing the lives of our friends through social media because we are concerned with the excellence of their lives and our ethical relationship in that process, or because we believe dogmatically that knowing is better than not knowing? We can choose to treat our knowledge of others as simply utilitarian power to make friends through the sharing of personal information. Many "friends" have been united by laughing over the personal problems of a shared enemy. But, it is difficult to use the knowledge of another person without inflicting harm.

Getting to know my friends is a great joy for me, only matched by my happiness at being known to them. I believe in the curiosity of our relationships, that we believe we can know each other within the willingness and ability we each have to share ourselves and receive the other. Curiosity only kills cats that forget the other felines.