Either the universe(s) are the result of randomness

Either the universe(s) are the result of randomness and natural processes or there is a spiritual and supernatural actor involved.

If the universe is solely natural, then you and I are the results, ultimately, of random atomic bumpings and jumpings, and whether you believe the universe natural or supernatural is of no more consequence, significance, or importance than whether a rock tumbles left or right. In that case you have no purpose and no responsibility. Nothing is either good or bad, and you should do that which will make you happy, because there is nothing else.

Then the question, becomes; how do I maximize my happiness?

Is it with wealth or power or pleasure? No, because history is full of examples of those who have none of these and are happy and those who are rolling in it and are still miserable. You know this. You have gone from happy to miserable within the space of minutes with no change in your material circumstances. However, a sudden increase or decrease in perceived material circumstances can precipitate happiness or unhappiness.

What does that tell us? Perception trumps reality. What you think is more important than what you have.

If that is the case then, again, how do I maximize my happiness? By pursuing better circumstances? No, I do it by controlling my thoughts.

Epictetus Quotes

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase. Control thy passions, lest they take vengeance on thee.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.

A wise man is he who does not grieve for the thing which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forebearing.

Epictetus (55 AD - 135 AD)

Ignore Truth at Your Own Peril

Ignore truth at your own peril. No one can cheat. Your flaws and
mistakes and misplaced loyalties will be revealed to your harm and the
harm of those around you as surely as death comes to all men. Correct
them now, before it's too late.

Why Strong Teeth and Bones are Important

Work hard for strong teeth and bones. That's all that will be left of
you in a hundred years.

The Man I SHOULD Be and Why

I value things that are truly valuable...not the evanescent and base. I love beauty and truth and wisdom for their own sakes. I seek them above all else because what else is there worth my life? I live my life one moment at a time, and I will not give my life to the banal and worthless.

I love others as Christ did...fully aware of their flaws yet unconditionally loving. I'm not sure exactly where I stand with God and Christ, but what an example! I act as if my children are watching and mimicking me...as if they see everything, even my thoughts. I strive constantly to improve, because I can! And who wants to look back on their life and see unfulfilled potential?

I live every moment in the best manner I am able, learn from my failures, and pave the way for the future. I waste no time on regret or foreboding...I cannot change the past and can only affect the future through what I do RIGHT NOW.

I show others the way and leave telling to the preachers. To the extent I am successful in my aims, I will draw followers. First my children, then others. To the extent I am unsuccessful, I will not draw others and will not lead them in a wrong direction.

I fill my mind with good things; wonder, joy, beauty, wisdom, truth, kindness, peace, forgiveness, and love. I care for my body as the chariot of my soul.

Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
--Marcus Aurelius

Why do I live this way? Because I learn from my own experience and that of others. Solomon knew it. Marcus knew it. A million others prove the point by succeeding at what does not last or matter. They succeed in a million ways, yet are not successes. What is outside a man does not bring satisfaction and fulfillment. These come from living as you know you should.

I do not seek physical pleasure or avoid it unnecessarily. I have the power of reason, and I will not be controlled by nerve impulses and chemicals, like an unreasoning animal. The body serves the mind, not vice versa.

I think and do only those things of which I can be proud. The truth will out. "As a man thinketh, so is he." I will be a true philosopher and shun masks and makeup. Only then will I be truly confident and unshakeable.

This is all a work in progress and success is not easy. Yet I only have to live one moment at a time. But what a reward! To know that I have nothing to hide! To know that those things I value most cannot be taken away!

Less is More: Lessons from Traffic Intersections Without Signs

Tom McNichol, in Wired Magazine for December, 2004, wrote an insightful and revealing article about carefully designed traffic intersections that do away with warning signs, stop lights, and the like, in favor of safe confusion. I'll let you read the article for yourself, but what a fecund concept! The basic ideas run something like this; remove the things that make people feel sure of themselves, and they will act with more caution; and use design, rather than explicit rules, to
enforce compliance. Examples from the article include, narrowing residential streets to slow traffic, removing center stripes on roads to reduce driver speed and increase caution, and making intersections more ambiguous to increase driver caution. I was skeptical at first, but the
article details the success of these techniques.

This gets the gears between my ears churning and turning. Where else can we use design to minimize rules and maximize proper behavior. Where else can we take things away to increase their effectiveness?

One example came immediately to mind. I can't recall where I read this, but an author had suggested that instead of asking video rental customers to "Be kind, rewind." that they instead be encouraged NOT to rewind. Cheating becomes impossible! If you choose to rewind you are
giving the next renter an unexpected bonus, but otherwise, every renter has to rewind their own tapes.

Anyone have suggestions or examples of their own?

Women and Their Choice of Partners

I think women tend to marry for two different reasons
(a lot of the time), and I think evolutionary theory
will back me up on this.

The first is because they find someone exciting who
"does it" for them; someone who excites them, or whom
they "just can't live without." They might have a
strong sexual and/or romantic relationship with this
person.

The second reason is because they find someone who
they think will make a good father and husband;
someone who might not be terribly sexually attractive,
or isn't as exciting as other men. However, they may
see this person as a good friend with good prospects
and a reputation for reliability.

Women (advice to my daughter) should only marry
someone who fits both criteria, and they should listen
to older more experienced people when trying to judge
whether or not their choice might be a good provider.
It is very difficult for a young person, especially
one who is in love, to accurately judge something like
that.

Men (advice to my sons) should clearly understand
which one they are, and shouldn't marry unless they
fill both rolls. They also need to listen to older,
more experienced people, and for the same reason.



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A Firm Foundation for Happiness

Striving well creates continual blooms of happiness, but the flower of achievement fades with the day. What achievement made you happy when you were five? Learning to write your name perhaps? Does this achievement still fill you with happiness? Why not? Because your circumstances and expectations have changed, but the point is, today's achievements will not bring happiness tomorrow.

All things judged against external cues have this weakness; their ability to satisfy depends upon circumstances over which you have little if any control. Think of the high school beauty queen among Victoria's Secret models; the playground bully among Navy Seals; the town mayor on the floor of the senate. In all these, the external standards of comparison have changed and, in doing so, have have transformed the superior into the inferior. "But you can control these, by changing your surroundings." Yes, but then you are imprisoned in a cell of your own design.

Think of the aging actress, trying desperately to hang on to beauty and fame, "trying with food, and drink, and magic spells, to dam life's natural flow and not to die," as Euripides said. Think of the virile, young soldier who is in an accident and becomes a quadriplegic. Think of the proud husband whose wife decides to leave. In all of these, external circumstances have changed, and what once brought joy brings sadness and a sense of loss.

Things judged against internal cues do not have this weakness. Therefore their ability to satisfy is within your control. Am I doing my best? Am I working hard? Am I being as wise as I can? Am I living as well as I can? These things can and do bring dissatisfaction and unhappiness, but it is within your power to change that in an instant by an act of will.

A word of caution; judge these things only in the present moment. Don't waste time lamenting past or fearing future failures. The past is gone, and the future is not yet here. You have only this moment. Rejoice when you use it well.

We live only in the present, in this fleet-footed moment. The rest is lost and behind us, or ahead of us and may never be found.

-Marcus Aurelius

Relative Happiness

I was happy because I expected nothing and found a dollar.
I was disappointed because I expected a ten dollar bill and found only a dollar.

Why am I unhappy right now? Because I expected something more.
How can I be happy right now? By thinking about how it could be worse.

Don't hanker after what you don't have. Instead, think about the finest and best that you have, and imagine how much you would long for these if they weren't in your possession. At the same time, don't become so attached to these things that you would be distraught if you were to lose them.

-Marcus Aurelius

Youth vs. Old Age

Alyssa has seen fourteen summers; eight cities with populations greater than 500,000; less than 3 percent of the earth's surface; no deaths; one birth; the inside of four hospitals; and the inside of one thousand three hundred and ninety-eight family dwellings (all of them within the continental US). She has an opinion about almost everything. She's pretty sure she is right. Youth.

Harry is in the hospital at this very moment (the 82nd hospital he's seen). He has a tube in his nose that brings him oxygen so he won't die, another tube that puts food right into his blood since he can't chew, and yet another tube that carries away his liquid wastes. Harry has a very intimate knowledge of tubes. In addition to this knowledge of tubes, he's seen 73 summers; 23 cities with populations greater than 500,000; over 6 percent of the earth's surface; hundreds of deaths (enough that he can no longer count them); three births; and the inside of over fourteen thousand family dwellings (spread among eight different countries). Harry has an opinion about almost everything, but he's pretty sure he is probably wrong about an awful lot of it. Old age.

Sucks to be Harry, don't it? If you had to choose, would you be the young, foolish, know-it-all with fourteen summers under your belt and the ability to do a passable imitation of the latest dance moves popularized by Britney Spears, or would you be the worldly wise Harry with an intimate knowledge of medical tubing, among other things? Easy question. Isn't it?

Here's a secret: both Harry and Alyssa will see three more summers before they experience what it feels like to die (once each). Now which would you rather be?

Before you answer, take note: Harry will recover tomorrow and be released from the hospital the day after that, around three in the afternoon. He will go home to a wife who loves him. His children and grandchildren will come and see him. He will savor each and every moment of his life like never before, at least partially because he will now have an intimate knowledge of tubes; a knowledge that he won't need again. Tomatoes will taste better to Harry, as will clam chowder. The weeds in his front yard--the ones he's been trying to get rid of for years--will now amaze him with their tenacity. His grandchildren will seem much more clever and interesting (just ask him). Even the pain in his knuckles that he gets before a thunderstorm will be welcome.

Alyssa, on the other hand, will spend the next three years mostly upset in one way or another. Some examples include (but are not limited to)...

1. Getting a new boyfriend with whom she is happy for a total of 17 and one half hours, before she begins to obsess about whether or not he REALLY likes her, and what he thinks about her latest hair style, and whether or not he was checking out the swollen, milk-production glands which jut from the upper torso of Katie Oswald. Alyssa's new boyfriend will get really sick of this within another 22 hours, and they will spend much of their time together, over a seven month period, frustrated and angry. When they finally break up Alyssa will spend weeks crying. Weeks!
   
2. Receiving a new transportation device (courtesy of dear old dad) which will have four doors, power steering, a "bitchin'" stereo, and a moon roof. In addition it will have the attributes of being close to the ground, streamlined, and fast in comparison to the vehicles other girls her age drive...if they have vehicles to drive at all. Alyssa will decide within three days that it isn't as cool as the car Beverly Dempsey drives. She really hates Beverly Dempsey, the snotty bitch. Alyssa will also be very angry when her father expects her to pay for her own gas. This will force her to get a job which she will hate. She will be even more angry when a young rival (no doubt envious of the size and shape of Alyssa's budding milk-production glands and streamlined transportation device) uses a sharp piece of metal to scratch a line into Alyssa's transportation device. The scratch will extend down the driver's side from front to back a total distance of 27 inches.
   
3. Noticing the fact that, although many boys become excited by the size and shape of her milk-production glands and by the size and shape of the large muscles on either side of her tail bone, there are several boys who aren't. One of them especially--Beverly Dempsey's brother--won't seem to notice these attributes of hers. Alyssa will undertake many actions to remedy this. One of these actions will be; to buy trendy, expensive, revealing clothes which she hopes will emphasize said physical attributes in case the young man in question wasn't aware of her physical qualities (because they weren't set off to their best advantage). This action will result in no noticeable difference in the young man's demeanor and a number of loud and emotional brew-ha-ha's with her father who will object to the expense and cut of the new clothes. Another of these actions will be; to consume large quantities of liquid alcohol at a youth get-together where the young man is present. Alyssa will do this in the hopes that he might think this action admirable and subsequently find her physical attributes more interesting. This won't work either, although the quantities of alcohol she consumes will cause her to lose consciousness. Some of the boys who had previously noted her physical qualities and found them admirable will take the opportunity thus provided and capture on film images of the parts they find most admirable, sans expensive and well cut clothing. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, the images will be quickly and inexpensively made available to anyone at her school who wants to see them. This will result in further unhappiness on the part of Alyssa. And so on, and so on.

So, now that you know them a little better, would you rather be young, beautiful Alyssa or old, feeble Harry?

Euripides on Infomercials

Trying with food, drink and magic spells,
to dam life's natural flow and not to die.

Life is now longer, on average, at least for those of us living in nations with decent health care. But we all still die.

Question: is it better to have a three day vacation that brings joy and satisfaction, or to have a three week vacation filled with boredom and sadness? The length of life is not as important as the quality. Of course, we would prefer to have both; a long life filled with joy and satisfaction, but if we had to choose, who wouldn't prefer a short life worth living over a long life which we are anxious to discard?

Follow the thought to it's end. Aren't we foolish to search so diligently for longer life--through medicine, or diet, or exercise, or avoidance of danger--while failing to find happiness?