Life Is a Job

I had been dwelling on the difficulty of making life have meaning the other day, when I ran across one short, key sentence in Frankl's The Doctor and the Soul:

Life is a task.

Exactly. Amen. Almost the same words I had been thinking.

I lose patience with people who keep talking about how life is a gift, as if it came wrapped in pretty paper with a cute bow on top, and we open it to find the most awesome playstation/smartphone/lego set/malibu barbie/pony combination imaginable. You insult me when you say life is a gift. Being born a gay child to Christian fundamentalist parents is not a fucking gift. Ever.

Life is not a gift. It's a fucking job.

But it is a job that if you work hard at and keep at it, you can make it somehow meaningful. I believe that you don't have to have been born in fortuitous circumstances to make life have meaning. You don't have to have hit the jackpot of good looks, material comforts, or decent parents. You just have to take whatever you find around you, whatever your circumstances are, and metaphysically macgyver it into something meaningful. And that job is different for every person.

Shift

I took a four day weekend to celebrate being on my own for five years. And while I was out and about, I noticed all the parents, kids and college students stocking up on supplies and clothes for the school year. The beginning of the school year always felt like a renewal of sorts to me (although I wouldn’t have called it such when I was a child). So I ended up using the weekend to turn a psychological corner. I’m calling it the end of summer, but I’m really looking to rein in the hedonism of the past several months.

I don’t want to go into details that are too personal for a public blog. Let me just say that in a final push to exorcise the demons of the relationship I escaped 5 years ago, I let myself be lax on curtailing my pleasures. My weight, among other things, suffered. I’m not the bloated thing I was a year ago, but I was inching back toward that thing.

I have stuff to do. I can’t let my evenings and weekends be totally wasted on shopping, television, etc. I can’t let my brain or my soul go to waste.

I need to be healthy all around.

This comes back to the meaning-making theme I’ve written about. I found out that those who said Frankl said meaning was to be found in work, love or suffering were being too reductive. What Frankl meant was that meaning could be found in creativity-activity, in experience (including but not limited to love) or in suffering (provided the suffering was involuntary and inescapable).

I like this better. I don’t have to try to make my job intrinsically meaningful (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t), nor do I have to luck out and find the right person to love. I can turn activity, creativity or experience into meaning-making happenings.

Still, in reading Frankl, I do tend to react to some of his, shall I say, less than ideal turns of phrase. When he says, for instance, that instead of focusing on what we ask from life, we should focus on what life asks from us, I want to say that life doesn’t have the right to ask that question. If I answer it, I answer it for myself.

Man's Search for Meaning

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

—Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006, p. 79-80.

One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus everyone's task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

—ibid., pp. 108-109.

This emphasis on responsibleness is reflected in the categorical imperative of logotherapy, which is: "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now."

—ibid., p. 109.

Thus far we have shown that the meaning of life always changes, but that it never ceases to be. According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.

—ibid., p. 111.

Violence and the Moral High Ground

Yesterday's shooting at the Family Research Council really disturbed me. Of course, we are still learning about the details of the incident and the perpetrator. But it highlights an issue that needs to be addressed in the LGBTQ community: the potential for violence.

FRC, and other organizations of their ilk are our mortal enemies. Of that there is no doubt. They will not rest until LGBTQ people disappear from society. As a former fundamentalist Christian, I understand their thinking. They cannot compromise; to do so is to risk hellfire. To achieve the world they long for, LGBTQ people must die or become straight. We must be wiped off the face of the earth.

Faced with such enemies, I find it easy to give into hate, and to wish the same fate upon them. Throw in a culture saturated with guns and violence, and the mix becomes toxic. I understand the frustration LGBTQ people feel, but we must not let that frustration get the better of us.

So let me be very plain here: we must resist and denounce violence. We must not inflict acts of violence upon our enemies, even if they inflict acts of violence upon us. I'm not saying you should not defend yourself when physically attacked in the streets. I am saying we must not go and shoot at the people who would happily kill us if they could.

Why? Well, for one very obvious reason, it's simply wrong. Just because Christians want to destroy LGBTQ people doesn't mean LGBTQ people ought to do the same. I think we can agree that just because Christians think something is right doesn't make it right. Killing people is wrong. Shooting at people is wrong.

Secondly, if the culture wars turn into shooting wars, we will lose. They outnumber us, and they have most of the guns. In terms of sheer attrition, the religious right can kill more of us.

Third, perpetrating acts of violence on Christians is exactly what they want. They love feeling persecuted, because it makes them feel holier. Using violence against them will not lead them to question their own acts or motives. They already believe they are perfectly right; shooting at them only confirms that belief in their minds.

Finally, we cannot let ourselves descend to their level. The only way we have of surviving the culture wars is to maintain the moral high ground. If the Christians are the only ones behaving odiously, in time the great middle (social, not geographical) of this country will come around to our side. If we descend to their level and end up behaving odiously as well, the rest of the country will not give a damn about our rights. The only way we have of surviving the culture wars is to appeal to the humanity of the rest of society. We cannot do that if our side perpetrates violence.

We have to have higher moral standards than the Christians, especially when it comes to treating our enemies like human beings. I won't say we have to love them, since the word "love" has devolved to signify mere affection. Rather, we have to give them more respect than they give us, to resist their ideas and their influence with rationality and appeals to the hearts of the larger public, and not visit the same harm upon them they would visit on us. We have to be stronger, more patient and better people. That's the only way we'll survive and thrive. Besides, it's the better way.

Brief Notes

1. I've been researching meaning-making, and while what I've learned has been interesting, it's also left me a little bummed. Frankl, for instance, says meaning is found through love, work or courage. I doubt that I'm capable of love, I've never been able to find a meaningful career, and the last time I had real courage was 20 years ago when I came out. I don't know whether there are any other sources of meaning-making. I'll keep looking, but I'm not optimistic. For the time being I'm just faking my way through this shit.

2. I want to get through this Frankl book as quickly as I can (I have a second book by him, but I'll hold it for later); I've got a mental list of books I'd like to read next. Two that I've already started are proving to be quite good. The Ball by John Fox is about why people play sports, and has chapters on basketball, soccer, lacrosse, and even the old Mayan ball games. It's actually very inspirational. The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner is a classic survey of economics which I read over 25 years ago and desperately needed to re-read. I'm particularly interested in the chapter on Adam Smith, since I've come to believe today's "conservatives"* don't really understand him. After that I plan to read Smith himself; also Vennum's book on lacrosse.

3. Speaking of lacrosse, I've begun to collect the parts to make a long stick. I don't play, and never will (I'm too old and too poor), but I want to learn how to toss with both short and long sticks. I have a short stick, which I purchased whole; but I want to put together the long (defensive) stick, including stringing it, just for fun.

4. I also want to get back into hand-crafts more. I feel better when I engage in some kind of creative work.

5. I thought it was odd that last night five of my must-see television shows came on. I don't really have a whole lot of must-see shows. Even shows that used to be must-see for me have begun to feel old and less enjoyable. I would love to be able to cut my must-sees down to almost nothing. I hear of more and more people cutting the cable completely. That would be a very interesting experiment.

6. Speaking of cutting down on things, yesterday's entry highlighted how I've begun to feel about my use of substances, particularly alcohol and caffeine. I, too, am tired of feeling poisoned. I want to feel better. Cleaner on the inside.

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*I put the term "conservatives" in quotes because the people today calling themselves conservative are not actually conservative. Our country as a whole has been dragged so far rightward, words have lost their original meanings. Today's "middle of the road" folks are actually very conservative, while the "conservatives" are actually reactionary radicals, bent on destroying the country as we know it in order to create some monstrous vision of "purity" from the ashes. There is no longer an effective left in this country, just moderates, conservatives and radicals. Also, we don't really have capitalism in the US any longer, as Smith, et al., understood it. Capitalism is investment in the production of goods and services, and exchanges based on that. We have "financialism": making money from money, all profits based on ethereal instruments, without true goods/services/entities underlying them. Thus, the seeds of our doom.

"Clean Living?"

[Context of the scene: Dave is an ex-con, imprisoned for tax evasion, who's begun to hang out with skateboarders down the road from his housesitting job. He sees them mostly as hard partying punks, rather than athletes. Steve is a competitive skater; Dave, Steve, Bobby and others have traveled to attend a skating competition in Houston.]

When he woke up again, it was light. The digital readout on the tv said 7:30. Steve’s bed was empty. Dave put on his jeans and went outside to look at the morning. He heard a car start on the street behind the motel and then saw Steve in the parking lot, warming up. He was in shorts, socks, and tennis shoes, touching his toes. Dave nodded to him, unsure of where they stood.

Steve nodded back. “Want to run some?”

“I haven’t got anything to wear.”

“Those sneakers you had on last night’ll work. I’ll loan you some shorts. Come on.”

They ran south along the 59 access road, past an orange-and-white Whataburger and a giant supermarket called the Fiesta Mart. Steve kept the pace down to where Dave could handle it. He was the closest to cheerful Dave had ever seen him. “This isn’t how I pictured you,” Dave said.

“I don’t recommend this for everybody,” Steve said. “Somebody like Bobby, he’s probably got to keep fucking himself up for a few more years. That’s cool. You need that too. I’m not sorry I did all that when I was a kid. It’s just, after a while the engine starts to miss. You get tired of feeling poisoned all the time.”

“Clean living?”

“A joint or a beer every now and then won’t hurt you. Even that doesn’t get me off like it used to.”

—Lewis Shiner, Slam (1990), pp. 139-140 [emphasis mine].

Freaky

First I’d like to apologize to any of my readers who may have been concerned about me based on my recent blog posts. I can get very negative when I’m writing online; and blogging (as well as tweeting, etc.) tends to open up the floodgates of my psyche, similar to having a beer or two at the bar. I think it’s all part of exorcising (exercising?) my demons. And being a queer kid raised by religious fundamentalists, I can assure you they are Legion. Nevertheless, like the Tao, my personality has ebbs and flows, and I never stay in bout of downer-ness for very long.

Thankfully, I’m able to get the appropriate kicks in the ass from various sources. Last night, it was watching the movie Chronicle (finally) and an episode of CSI called “Freaks and Geeks” that slapped some sense into me.

I’d forgotten my core values, especially valuing my own inherent weirdness. I’d taken getting older as a command to settle down and embrace blandness. I’d let being irritated by a few freaks over the years convince me I was inherently bourgeois, when the truth is that not only do a few freaks irritate me now and again: everybody irritates me sooner or later, so there’s no call for me to dismiss any set of people categorically, nor force myself to conform to one set based on the dismissal of another. Along the way I lost the sense of my own beautiful weirdness, my own call to be different, unique.

My calling is to solidify, then transcend my Self. My calling is to finally learn the compassion for others I did not learn as a child.