Psuedothought

Category: Uncategorized

  • Immigration

    Yesterday, I was digging a trench for my girlfriend’s dog that we would later fill with water for her physical therapy. My girlfriend’s dad employs an illegal immigrant who is a good friend of his. He keeps him working because, one, he struggles to find work and two, his son has leukemia. He usually comes out to the house at around 6 am to do work, and will work all day if given the chance, but lately he’s been coming out later. He comes later now because ICE stake out taquerias and corner stores in the morning in an attempt to find blue collar illegal immigrants. This man lives in fear.

    The complexity of the issue is not lost on me. For me, perhaps, I know it better than most. I have grown up around illegal immigrants, or more precisely, their children. I have known them, befriended them and I suspect I had once dated the daughter of one. In fact, before my current girlfriend’s parents got married, her mother was an illegal immigrant. My girlfriend is half English and half Puerto Rican, by the way. What does it say that you assumed she was half Mexican? What does it say that you then assumed that it’s her dad that was illegal, even though that’s impossible because Puerto Rico is a US territory? And what does it say that you see her mother in a better light knowing that she’s not Mexican? I think it says that the central ideological issue that most people have with illegal immigration has nothing to do with the law. For some few, they validly appeal to the economic implications of illegal immigration. For others, they less validly appeal to increased crime rates. Where I’m from, most use this as the veil through which they can safely impart hate upon those who are different from them.

    This isn’t a non-issue. Our asylum system is broken. Entry level and construction jobs overwhelmingly employ illegal immigrants because they can pay them a low, or even illegal, wage, that Americans would not accept. Illegal immigration contributes to the drug trade and to crime. In most cases it takes 8+ years to attain a citizenship in this country. These are not easily resolved issues. However, is ICE the solution we need? Do we need to be rounding people up? Preying on those who want a better life? Does it not bother you that if your answer is ‘yes’, then you are an institution? You have sided with bureaucracy over empathy. That you have decided to appeal to “life is unfair” rather than be the force for fairness. Does it bother you that you would do the same in their situation? What of David? What of his son with Leukemia? What of the better life he wants for him and his family? What about Asian, African, and European immigrants? What of them? What does it say about you that when I say “illegal immigrants” that you don’t consider these other demographics?

     I think people get lost in the sauce. They see numbers and crime rates and cherry-picked aggresses against the US population and they conclude that we should round them up and send them home. As much as you’d like to assume they are, these are not sub-humans. They are people who suffer as you and I. The complexity of the issue is not lost on me, but if your knee-jerk reaction to this post is to disagree, then it is very much lost on you.

  • Is Happiness a Meaningless Pursuit?

    Pt. 1

    Sisyphus Finally Unlocks Gold Boulder ...

    I have recently finished the book A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. In the book, the author equips the reader with a number of tools that they can employ to achieve “tranquility”. He shows the reader how they can use negative visualization, the trichotomy of control, the internalization of goals, psychological fatalism and other tactics to achieve emotional and psychological tranquility. I was eager to put these tactics to the test.

    I engaged in negative visualization, the internalization of my goals and psychological fatalism to great success. I found myself to be happier, more content, and more grateful for my privileges. “Great!!!” I thought. I had done it. I now have the key to minimizing my suffering. “Now what?” I asked myself. It wasn’t very stoic of me; But really, now what?!

    I know I know, to want is to suffer, to lust is to denigrate, to control is to disappoint, yada yada. But now what? Really, It’s a good question!! Is tranquility really the end goal? Does the stoic sage know the meaning of life and if they do, is it really to mitigate one’s own suffering? To want for nothing? To neglect what one cannot control? To let the world be? Is the goal of life to be happy?

    Matthieu Ricard might answer yes.  Born in France in 1946, he initially pursued a career in molecular genetics, earning a PhD from the Pasteur Institute in 1972. However, he abandoned this path to dedicate his life to Tibetan Buddhism. He was later subjected to a brain scan that suggested inordinately high levels of happiness and low levels of negative emotion. He was dubbed “happiest man in the world”. An interesting story, but all I see is a man who spent decades forsaking the external world so that he can find peace.

    On paper, it seemed to me that these pursuits are rationally sound. You don’t have the genetics you want? It’s okay, you can’t control that. You don’t have as much money as you want? It’s okay, money is an empty pursuit. You and your wife aren’t having sex? It’s okay, sex is just the friction between sexual organs. There are wars and famine that you could have a hand in opposing? It’s okay, you can’t control others. Your mom dies? You shouldn’t mourn outside what you can’t control because she wouldn’t want you to be sad and it helps nobody. You want more in life? To want is to suffer. Every practice outside of negative visualization just felt wrong. I pride myself on intellectual honesty, I champion rationale, and these are nothing if not rational statements; but my feelings told me a different story. A more human story.

    As much as I might try to convince myself that I am rational, I am, first and foremost, human; and I am defined by my condition. I realized that it felt wrong, not because these tenants are irrational, but because they are antithetical to my humanity. Do I really want to limit my suffering? That which breaths life into me? Should I suffocate my struggles and wants until I am wantless, delighted, forever happy? No. My Sisyphean struggle is my value. Sisyphus does not retire. He does not settle for the bottom of the mountain. What a story it would be if he said “well, I can’t control the boulder, my efforts are moot and I shall rest at the bottom of the mountain for all eternity”. BOOORING…Useless. Meaningless.

    Here are the questions at hand: Should you engage in a battle for what you believe to be your highest good, or strive to achieve perfect internal tranquility? Are they dichotomous? Is there value in Stoic practices? If so, where do we draw the line between useful stoicism and limiting stoicism? Is the pursuit of happiness meaningful? What is our condition?