Life Experiences

Stepping away from practical stuff for a bit here, I was listening to radio lab's show about "diagnosis," and was struck by the comments of a pathologist looking at cancer ridden tissue. She said, "This person should find a beautiful place on earth and just stay there until it's over." And I actually cried just thinking how much I will miss this place when I die; thinking of all the times I've had my breath taken away by a place I could never have imagined; thinking of all the people who've made my life worth living; thinking of passionate moments that move in slow motion in my memory; thinking of the sensation of doing what I didn't think was possible; the joy of sweating; thinking of time with my mom and my sister. I am really going to miss this place when I go, and I wonder if these are the thoughts that go through most people's minds when they pass. I think all of us, in one way or another, experienced life here in a magnificent and unique way in our own minds. I might look at someone else's life and think it wasn't anything special, but I'm sure they have all their accomplishments, sights, and people, that they're not ready to let go of. And I can only wonder how sad it must be to die alone, with nothing really to live for, but fearing death all the same. This really is an incredible place we live in, and it's made more incredible by its transience.

On a similar note, I was watching Maddow last night talking about Ryan's understanding of foreign policy; she said something to the extent of, "you can tell he only learned this stuff for the test, and has no real understanding of the material." That's a familiar concept from school, but so rarely have I thought to apply it in real life. It is something that I struggle with, because in my life, I am careful not to expose myself to too much suffering, so I don't know what it's like to go bankrupt, lose my house, live in the ghetto, live on food stamps, be a soldier, etc. I read about their struggles and needs, but how much can I REALLY understand of those situations? How superficial would my understanding of suffering be? Would I be too insulated from these hardships to be qualified to speak on behalf of anyone going through them? Or would I be more uniquely qualified because I recognize this shortcoming? It seems this should be a humbling reality to anyone intent on making decisions for others. This could easily be brushed off as an unavoidable reality -- we all only have one life to live, and no man could possibly experience/understand everything -- but that's not to say it should ever be forgotten or not taken into consideration.

Foreclosure

I've been having a hard time articulating why I no longer even read my emails about the foreclosure fight, like the whole thing has just become subconsciously abrasive. It's not that I've forgotten why I joined the fight in the first place -- people are legitimately suffering, the refusal of the banks to help those in trouble get back on their feet is mule-headed and crippling our economy, and the practice of predatory lending is particularly insidious, greedy, and unethical. I guess the question that's started to make that argument less relevant is,  what isn't that way these days? Price markups and deception are ubiquitous -- Restaurants charging 3x what they pay for wine, 50x what they pay for soda; the absurd markup in retail on the backs of sweat shops; the calculating deception going on in grocery stores with "everyday low prices" now being labeled as if they were sale items, Apple charging 2x more than competitors because people are sheep and the product is so complex customers really have no idea why they're paying that markup; hell, even I live comfortably because the company I work for operates on a 50% profit margin. And what about all the other commonly accepted forms of theft? Americans lost $92B to gambling in 2007, how much more was swindled by health care providers and insurance companies, how much on vices -- drugs, alcohol, tobacco, porn; how much by the church and charities, how much by producers of products that don't work, how much by our government? All those except money lost to the government is voluntary, as is money lost to foreclosure. The point is, people make terrible financial choices everyday (myself included), so why are we SO up in arms about foreclosure? What makes us think we have the right to renege on this particular form of contract? I'm not saying we don't, just not any more so than we should be exercising our right to break free of other forms of consumer manipulation. If there's one thing Occupy really got right, it's how pissed off we should be about EVERYTHING. But what to do with all that anger?

I heard a great TED talk by Barry Schwartz on appealing to virtue rather than falling back on regulations and incentives. Barry essentially argued that rules and regulations are there to allow us to be mentally lazy, to not have to think on a case by case basis, and because somebody at some point did exactly what they shouldn't have and ruined it for everybody. That's not to say that most of those rules aren't reasonable and there for good reason, but rather that there are alternatives, and that even in the presence of rules and procedures, people ought to be making their own best judgment at all times. We ought to be making role models, and examples of good behavior and the virtuous. I'm sure in my own case, had I had a role model to follow for the benefits of coming in with at least 20% on a house, and banking locally, I wouldn't have such high monthly rates with a bank I'm embarrassed to be associated with. Likewise, I should be smart enough to not let that 20% rule keep me from buying at the most opportune time. The examples in the TED talk were much better than this one, this is just one petty application in my own life. Back to the foreclosure argument, we don't need the government to come in and place heavy handed rules across all banks (which would inevitably crush small and medium sized banks, and make "too big to fail" even worse), we need to make positive examples of those banks that are banking intelligently. Show the alternatives! Maybe instead of screaming and making a scene in front of Wells Fargo and BofA, Occupiers should be doing free advertising for their local banks... in front of Wells Fargo and BofA.

And yes, of course I am aware of the fraud that goes on in the mortgage industry -- robosigning, using MERS to subvert the public recording process, fraudulent foreclosure proceedings, etc. Except for technecalities in that last point, those arguments don't change the fact that we entered a contract, that the bank bought it (even if they can't PROVE it), and that the foreclosed have failed to uphold their side of the contract.

On this exact same token, banks have the money and the power to do exactly what I'm saying as well. If they don't want to throw an elderly military vet or a dying woman with cancer into the streets, THEY DON'T HAVE TO! The sheriffs do not have to enforce evictions, locksmiths don't have to change locks, etc. All of these people could act out of compassion (albeit at the risk of losing their jobs), if we lived in a culture that could think on a case by case basis. And it wouldn't BE at the risk of losing their jobs if it were either written in -- or better, understood to be in -- job descriptions.

Winners and Peacemakers

I was listening to a story about the bloodshed in Syria, and one of the guests made the assertion that "all men want peace." I immediately thought that can't be true, at least that certainly can't be the first priority of all men. So what is it that puts peace on the back burner? The number one obstacle I could come up with was the desire to win - and that of course includes all the reasons behind a need to win such as pride, anger, vengeance, etc. But what an odd realization, that winning could be the natural enemy of peace. Lefer pointed out that this can't be true on the whole, because often times, after there is victory there is peace. You see decisive victories like ours over Japan in WWII and the peace and prosperity that followed, and surely winning and peace cannot really be opposites. But what we concluded was that in the course of battle, they are -- a sort of transient state. I've often thought nations act with human qualities, like giant fractals of the people therein, and between these nation people there are relationships. In most cases these relationships are largely adversarial, rather than loving, and when we go to war, that certainly shows. In a fight between people who love each other, how often do we hear the sentiment that it is better to be happy than right -- pick your battles and don't let things get out of control. But with an adversary, we'd rather die than let the other win, and that is the sentiment that we see on the global stage. We compete militarily and economically with our adversaries, and why would we ever have the compassion to back down? It seems there's much more wisdom in forming meaningful bonds with other nations, and stop treating each other like adversaries. I know there are efforts to do exactly that, but we generally do so from a very self-interested perspective, and what was is that to form a relationship? We didn't become the dominant species by playing the game of survival of the fittest, we did so through cooperation.

I was also surprised to see this article put out by the Brookings Institute praising the ARRA efforts. I always thought Brookings was more of a conservative think tank than a respectable economic research organization, but I could be mistaken.