Some folks decry the collateral damage wrought by progress. They pronounce a return to the earth, free of modernity’s inventions and values. They urge us to disconnect and unplug from the apparatus of technology. They say the only way forward is to go back.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you will find people who want to push the throttle of progress ahead to its logical extreme. They preach salvation through invention and technology. Consumption drives innovation, they tell us, and to embrace our human destiny as manufacturers and miners is proclaimed as a moral ideal.

Enough is another addition to a growing call for a sustainable-yet-progressive middle ground. Not only in terms of resource consumption, but all the more so in terms of our own attitudes, workloads, desires, and expectations.

You can learn more about the book at enoughbook.com. And…a big thanks to Patrick for the opportunity to write the forward!

Insofar as I can deduce from the literature of previous generations, my contemporaries were virtually the first wave of children to be told — practically en masse — that “You are special. You are unique. There is no one else in the world like you.” Children’s books and pre-school songs reinforced the central message of our specialness.

Our parents, to their credit, simply wanted us to be happy. In fact, “I just want my children to be happy” seemed to be the overarching motto of parenting (which even prevails to this day). Since our parents raised us amid the pop-psychology self-esteem movement of the 70’s and 80’s, it makes sense that they would want to instill an unshakable view of our own intrinsic self-worth. “Believe in yourself” was the unchallenged recipe for success.¹

But this message was drastically different than the story our grandparents told our parents: “You need to work hard. You need to provide for your family. You need to build a security blanket.” Given the stories and life experiences told by many of our elders, this advice makes abundant sense. Life seemed far too uncertain to waste time prioritizing existential identities as the cornerstone for successful life.

The messages are polar opposites. One says, “Life owes you nothing–go out and make it for yourself,” while the other preaches, “You are destined for glory if you just believe enough in yourself.“²

The problem, of course, is that the “You are epically special” message is simply not true. At best, it’s a logical non sequitur (if all of us are special, then none of us are); at worst it’s a recipe for isolated loneliness under the facade of rampant egotism.³

The reality is, of course, most people just have a reasonably good life. They don’t shine. They don’t do anything spectacular. And so to give children the illusion that they are “special” and “unique” and that there is “no one like them” and that they will be a star, that they will shine (because their t-shirt says they’re going to be a rock star) sets them up for disappointment and confusion.⁴

I wonder how much of my generation’s emotional psyche was indelibly etched into existence by this overt indoctrination of our own so-called “specialness”?⁵

1. Whatever “success” is. Untangling our own understanding of success becomes a rather convoluted discovery now, see Success
2. Worth further consideration: the economic impact of the self-esteem movement. When a generation thinks highly of itself, does this actually make it less economically competitive? C.f Think Immigrant, Artisan and Waitress.
3. See We’re All Above Average?
4. Dr Helen McGrath, The Hurried Child, CBC Ideas, December 14, 2010
5. How this mindset, combined with the self-promotive capacity of the Internet, combines to create a lulling placation and apathetic population is something I explore briefly in Opium of the Internet

Here’s the test: think about a proposition you believe as true. It can be anything, for example…

Apple products are superior to Microsoft.
Human carbon emissions are increasing global temperature.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
The New York Yankees are the best team in baseball.
Herbal remedies are better than industrial pharmaceuticals.
Lower tax rates increase economic development.

Those are just examples. (Maybe you believe the opposite of those statements, that’s fine too.) All you need to do is fill in the statement for yourself: “I believe that…”

Now, the test: what would it take to convince you that your belief is wrong?

Philip Tetlock suggests that the more difficulty you have answering that question, the more likely it is that you are dogmatic in your belief. On the contrary, the faster and easier you respond to this question, the more capacity you have for critical self-analysis.

One sign that you are capable of constructive self-criticism is that you are not dumbfounded by the question, “What would it take to convince you your wrong?” If you can’t answer that question, you could take that as a warning sign.¹

Of course, the problem with dogmatic beliefs is that thinking and higher-level analysis is simply suspended, whereas an investigative person will be in a constant state of exploration, reconsideration and reevaluation. Even their core presuppositions are regularly up for review.²

I contend that the world does not need more dogmatists, either on the left or the right of the religious, political or economic continuum. Rather, we need an entourage of extremely self-critical individuals across the spectrum of these polarized debates. If you’d like to join the revolution, I think we can call ourselves the Dogmatic Moderates.³

1. Philip Tetlock, The Folly of Prediction, Freakonomics Radio Podcast, 2011/09/14
2. Also related to the theme of critical self-reflection: see We’re All Above Average, posted here earlier this year.
3. See Creed of the Dogmatic Moderate.

No matter who is describing success, it is usually exemplified by something external to us. That is to say, we never exist in a state of “successfulness” without attaining some accomplishment that is deemed greater than (or equal to) the sum of normality, as dictated by someone (or something) other than ourselves.

Sadly, in spite of the stupendously marvelous creation that is you (an autonomously conscious and breathing phenomenon) you are never simply a quantifiable “success” in your natural state, at least not in the way humanity tends to use the concept of “success.”

To be a real success, you apparently have to do something.

And, alas, the pursuit of success is a very stressful occupation. Since the definition of success exists apart from the practitioner, then one is always cognizant of the terrifying reality that one may “arrive” at success only to determine that the finish line has been moved somewhere else by the whimsical ebb and flow of culture. Success, it seems, is a moving target.

All to often, the elusive apex of “success” is reached only to haunt the mind of achiever with a ringing “So, now what?” Thus a new pursuit of success is often undertaken, with the protagonist pitifully unaware that they are investing everything into acquiring a ephemeral figment of human ingenuity.

Herein lies the culmination of our review: “success” is an illusion. Granted, the human experience is full of tantalizing tokens, symbols and rituals to represent this apparently highly-sought status. But every diploma, certification, award, medal, pay-grade promotion and recognition is simply another construct of this brilliantly (and humanly) crafted mythology.

While I may in fact be able to “successfully juggle three balls in the air” this can only denote me as a “successful person” when and where juggling has been determined to be criteria for “successful living” (which is a valuation upon which I as a juggler actually have zero control).

Thus no single human being is intrinsically any more successful than another human being. Success exists only in the judgments that one or more humans make about another; no one can acquire success except by performing to a criteria set by the judgments of others. If the true definition(s) of success did indeed exist solely in the minds of each person, then we would all be able to claim to be successful, and therefore success would be null and void in the absence of any “unsuccessful” people.

This leads to an interesting talking point: successful people, by nature of their imaginary status, require the collective affirmation of unsuccessful people. Put tritely: winners can only congratulate themselves upon the evidence of losers. Here is society: a colossal game of make-believe wherein socioeconomic class becomes the tool of vilification (and self validation) for the elite. The problem with this game is that the rules are ever-changing, morphing in continual adaption to the collectively recognized “winner” of the success game. Nobody, regardless of ranking or standing, actually has any control of the game’s future or any concrete understanding of the rulebook.

Thus, whether you live on the streets or roll with the aristocrats, the title of “successful” or “unsuccessful” is equally ensnaring. It is all a game, but the consequence of “losing” in this game — not having the upper hand on the leverage of defining the elusive marker of “success” — can mean facing the gnarly reality of physical want and need.

Perhaps it is time that all of us take a few steps back and redefine “success” not in terms of accomplishments but in terms of values. What do you value most in life, and how do you nurture these values through your daily routine of choices and decisions? When we place values as the core markers of success, we can begin to define success as something other than the cultural whims sweeping by us.

Today: Seek every opportunity to second guess the things that give you “freedom” — for unbeknownst to many, the things that claim to bring liberation are often nothing but the clever disguises of captivity.

‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten… Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.‘²

As with most tidbits of virally shared data, most people refer to the source point at which they encountered the content in question.³ Browsing through the vias, hat tips, and trackback links, something becomes ironically apparent: while many people seem to sympathize with the implied message (that we’re losing some degree of capacity for higher-level literary discourse), very few people actually wrote anything about the image. Most people simply reposted it, retitling it something humorous like Don’t Like, Hate It or Do Not Like This. Very few people offered any further reflection on the issue, and even fewer brought any kind of critical analysis to it–for example, is it even fair and logical to interpret Orwell in the context of social media?

Let’s acknowledge the irony: the functional difference between “reposting” something versus clicking a Like button is rather minuscule: both actions ultimately rebroadcast the content to others. But the irony here is further amplified because the idea itself being “rebroadcasted” is that Like fails to engage in any literary exchange of substance, feeding a “narrow range of thought.”

Consider this in light of Bruce Powe’s description of a post-literate society:

Literacy: the ability to read and interpret the written word. What is post-literacy? It is the condition of semi-literacy, where most people can read and write to some extent, but where the literate sensibility no longer occupies a central position in culture, society, and politics. Post-literacy occurs when the ability to comprehend the written word decays. If post-literacy is now the ground of society questions arise: what happens to the reader, the writer, and the book in post-literary environment? What happens to thinking, resistance, and dissent when the ground becomes wordless?⁴

Thus I ponder: do we become a post-literate society at the moment we manifest an incapacity to discuss our own potential status as such? If so, are we already there?

1. See image on Tumblr
2. George Orwell, 1984, Part 1, Chapter 5
3. I, for example, first came across this image via a website called this isn’t happiness
4. Bruce W. Powe, The Solitary Outlaw (Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987); cited by John O’Leary, Popular, Informal Education, Presented on TVO Big Ideas, Published 07/29/2011

Srikumar Rao thinks so:

In some way, shape, fashion or form you are devoting your entire life to being happy. Everything that you do — your job, family, children, relationships, whatever — is a quest for happiness.¹

The Dalai Lama agrees:

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of life is towards happiness…²

It seems hard to argue with happiness as the ideal end goal for life. (After all, nobody wants misery as the logical alternative.) Happiness is a prized state in our culture, and possibly the underpinning narrative of capitalism itself, the economic engine of our society.³

But as counter-cultural as it may be, I have serious misgivings about the pursuit of happiness. There is a massive, irreconcilable clash between our modern obsession with happiness and the lives of our cultural heroes like Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa — people who would have never inspired us had they simply taken the path of least resistance in order to achieve their own happiness. No, these individuals followed a trajectory set by a pursuit of meaning, justice and purpose. Values set their respective frameworks for making decisions (and significant sacrifices) in life.

Sheer happiness for happiness’ sake leads to numbness. I can not imagine any other consequence. For once happiness is achieved, what remains? Does not the bubble of the happiness economy eventually burst under the surplus of indulgence?

Once personal happiness is dethroned as the crown jewel of existence — once the dream of a tension-free life is finally disregarded as the rhetoric of infomercials — the world explodes with opportunities and possibilities to pursue causes drenched with meaning. This is, I think, what Viktor Frankl was pleading with us to acknowledge:

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.⁴

If not today, then someday, the choice will confront each and every one of us: do we choose the path of happiness or the path of meaning?

For further contemplation…

CBC Radio Ideas, Say No To Happiness, June 20, 2011
Gil Fronsdal, Investigating Happiness, Recorded 2011-08-01
Ancient Hebrew Teacher, Ecclesiastes 2

1. Srikumar S. Rao, Plug into your hard-wired happiness, 2009
2. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Howard C. Cultler, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 23
3. See the BBC documentary, The Century of Self, Episode 2 for some further investigation of this line.
4. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), p. 105

photograph the present;
record the present;
video the present;
check-in at the present;
’Like’ the present;
tag the present;
tweet the present;
post the present;
share the present;
comment on the present;

…is it still the present?

“How many of you expect to die?” she asked.

The audience fell silent, laughed nervously and only then, looking one to the other, slowly raised their hands.

“Would you prefer to be old when it happens?” she then asked.

This time the response was swift and sure, given the alternative.

Then Dr. Lynn, who describes herself as an “old person in training,” offered three options to the room. Who would choose cancer as the way to go? Just a few. Chronic heart failure, or emphysema? A few more.

“So all the rest of you are up for frailty and dementia?” Dr. Lynn asked.¹

I long to be fully cognizant of death, thoroughly salient of my fragile mortality. For only when attuned to life’s inevitable demise can I choose to live it fully. Acknowledging it’s nonnegotiable temporality is the only way to begin embracing what it truly means to be a living, conscious being.

You are going to die. It’s the most important thing you can realize.

I was first prompted to seriously consider death — and my personal, unavoidable pact with it — several years ago when I read The Blessings of Being Mortal: How a Mature Understanding of Death Can Free Us to Live Wisely and Well by Margo Drummond:

It is in facing that final commonality called death that can enable us to live more fully and freely. The denial of the reality of death deceives us into thinking that we have forever to live, and therefore often deprives us of truly living in the here and now. The acceptance of the reality of death and the fact that we don’t have forever to live on earth can free us—to make the most of the time we have… Whatever one believes about death is really a statement of what one believes about life. The fact that death is the antithesis of life means it is death that gives life perspective.²

Become as acquainted as you possibly can with the idea of death. Then live, fully live: let the awareness of your every breath permeate your mind. Yes, you are, my friend, going to die. So come, now, let’s be fully alive today.

1. Jane Gross, ‘How Many of You Expect to Die?’, New York Times, The New Old Age, July 8, 2008; I came across the work of Dr. Joanne Lynn, quoted here, while listening to The Far Side of Aging, an episode of the Krista Tippett on Being (American Public Media) featuring Jane Gross
2. Margo Drummond, The Blessings of Being Mortal: How a Mature Understanding of Death Can Free Us to Live Wisely and Well (Sandwich, Massachusetts: North Star Publications, 2001), from forward, and p. 1

The ancient Greek word for walk, peripateō (literally, “tread around”) was used to describe the actual physical act of putting one foot in front of the other and as a metaphor for living (often translated into English as “behave,” “conduct,” or the manner by which you “lead” your life). There is something analogous to moving your body through space and moving your life through time. Thus “Walk the talk” and “Take the high road” remain in our conceptual lexicon to this day. Life itself is a process of treading around.

To walk is to lack a place. It is the indefinite process of being absent and in search of a proper. The moving about that the city multiplies and concentrates makes the city itself an immense social experiment of lacking a place—an experience that is, to be sure, broken up into countless tiny deportations (displacements and walks), compensated for by the relationships and intersections of these exoduses that intertwine and create an urban fabric, and placed under the sign of what ought to be, ultimately, the place but is only a name, the City.¹ (Michel de Certeau)

Take some time to wonder as you wander.

1. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everday Life (trans. Steven Rendall) (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1984), p. 103