What's your conviction? Show it off.

I had lunch with someone today who I hadn't seen in 4 years. It was a bit odd that he asked me out of the blue, but the purpose of the lunch revealed itself after 15 minutes of small talk - he was witnessing to me. This was the first time I felt alienated from Christianity as a spectator on the other end as a "lost soul."

It intrigued me how gutsy it was on his part to engage in conversation and nearly debate at some points on the philosophy of Christianity. I've already considered (in great detail), a lot of the doubts, fears, facts, philosophies etc of Christianity to land me in my current belief system, so it was a bit of a regurgitation exercise. However, passion can trump logic sometimes, and this guy was passionate about his beliefs without going overboard to warrant a lot of respect.

Sharing the gospel is a fundamental ideal of Christianity and this guy was certainly upholding that. So rather than engaging in a heated discussion, I heard him out, nodded my head and smiled, although I didn't appreciate the part where he presumed to know what my future held as if he knew me better than I knew myself. I live with my current belief system because the objective and critical thinking I've performed as opposed to the numerous Christians who are quick to judge non-believers but fail to scrutinize their inner convictions or uphold its ideals.

This conversation also made me question some of the Christians I know much better on a personal level. If a near stranger can come out of the blue and challenge my beliefs, I wonder why the clergy & church-goers I know better aren't doing the same (and not necessarily specific to myself). If Christianity is a part of one's belief system, isn't witnessing a core part of the philosophy to share your joy, especially with your friends or younger peers regardless of how uncomfortable or doubtful it makes you feel? The stoicism I see in some proclaimed Christians convinces me further that there is a greater distribution of belief in Christians ranging from lukewarm acceptance to passionate conviction vs. non-believers, who simply reject the ideas. If fear (of judgment, damnation, not fitting in) is the culprit for hanging on to Christianity, do more research because that's the ultimate cop out for having a belief system which should define your identity. That's glorifying yourself, not God.

Your strongest convictions show through your deliberate actions. I simply don't see this in a lot of the Christians I know. Today's lunch buddy was a resounding exception.

Daniel Haddad

I just found out yesterday my buddy from college was diagnosed with cancer back in March and has been undergoing intense chemotherapy since.

I encourage you to check out his blog, in which he writes about his cancer journey. It's quite humbling to read his experiences on the symptoms, suffering, and family/friend support. The pictures alone show a lot of pain and emotion you can't help but empathize with.

Reading through it and remembering times with him in college really shakes my core because he was the tall, athletic guy who didn't take his youth or health for granted. He was the guy in school you were convinced was untouchable and that future success wasn't a question. It reminds me that we need to grip tighter on to the things we cherish and let go of menial things we waste too much time praising.

Our trivial complaints, worries, and fears are peanuts compared to the struggles he's enduring.

Wish you all the best, Dan.

The Century of the Self

This BBC series is very powerful and really makes you question your niche in Western consumerist, desires-based culture. It’s long, however, so Fight Club will deliver the same message in a more entertaining package. If you’re interested in the history of how our culture became this way, however, keep reading.

The film is a documentary on the studies of Sigmund Freud and its applications by his nephew, Edward Bernays, to create PR and mass consumerism by appealing to humans’ irrational desires. Yes, irrational. Bernays used Freud’s theories to drive America from a needs culture to desires in the 1920’s, allowing humans to identify themselves with products and advertisements. For example, Bernays started the trend of female smoking by appealing to a woman’s desires for freedom and individuality. Female smoking sky-rocketed as a result and Bernays realized he had discovered a way to control the masses. Later, he staged a fake media company to create Communist-ties propaganda against the President of Guatemala (Arbenz), who was speaking out against the political vice United Fruits (now Chiquita) had over the governments of Central America through the production of bananas. As a result, President Arbenz was overthrown in a coup and Bernays successfully duped Americans and Guatemalans into believing Arbenz had Soviet ties, when in fact he had none.

Now go figure why certain countries despise the US. By threatening our so-called liberty with an irrational fear of Communist rule, Bernays achieved his political and business agendas to create more wealth at the expense of Guatemalans’ chance at economic independence from the US. So how much can you trust the media and politicians whose agendas are wealth and power?

The film even dives into the roots of representative democracy, which we believe to be the ultimate means of freedom and liberty. But is this conventional wisdom correct? Bernays master-minded techniques to appeal to our over-arching selfish desires by creating a system which we believe we have complete freedom over, when in fact it meets others’ agendas by convincing us we have the upper hand through a false sense of security. So what happened to us over the past 90 years? Granted, it’s not directly our fault. We were born into a very keenly devised marketing campaign which tailors to our desires. The average American watches 120 hours of television a month, or 5 full days. The human mind doesn’t stand a chance against a barrage of advertisements and media driven fears in that quantity.

What we fail to do is dig deeper to discover our real needs and identities by simply accepting the status quo. The same techniques Bernays used to dupe us into a false sense of true democratic liberty and Communist threat still pervades today through media, television and consumerist ideals. We identify ourselves with new purchases, which we believe expresses our personalities and uniqueness because we personally identify with advertisements, when in fact, the person driving next to you in the same car also has the same outfit, same phone, same sunglasses. Business / political agendas are met and we believe our personal ones are too, but are they? It creates drones with a narrow self-fulfilling interest, not unique individuals with an outward looking focus. It leads to an all-consuming self who fools him/herself into believing that by having monetary desires met, often times at the expense of our health, democracy is at its best. But is it? Happiness is still on the decline here despite more advancements and products to fit every niche of our desires. Question whose agenda created this culture and how we continue to contribute to it. To believe in it and defend it fully is to plead ignorance.

Self-Acceptance is Sexy.

Being comfortable in our own skin. A trait we all strive for. Accepting our emotional, physical, mental, what-have-you flaws. It goes in hand with confidence, and confidence is sexy, regardless of what flaws people have. Insecurity breeds a lot of things which manifest themselves differently in people. Jealousy, hatred, bragging, over-compensating.. It also causes us to pass judgement on to others when they don't meet our rigorous standards, which are set due to our insecurities. It's something I'm certainly guilty of and still trying to progress, mainly because it creates so much bias and prevents me from seeing the perspectives and values of others.

While a healthy dose of insecurity is necessary, I believe, to help us self-reflect, it can also significantly impede us and divide us.

I believe all of our problems certainly need to be addressed, but that in the grand scheme of things, someone is suffering more than you. That brings comfort to realize, it's never all as bad as we make things out to be. Perspective is powerful.

Failure

I'm a strong believer that failure is a key to learning anything. There's no way to understand success otherwise. It breeds out fear, enhances our experiences and builds confidence in hindsight. We tend to avoid too many things and situations that intimidate us of failure or judgment.

With weight lifting/running/cycling, training to failure is a proven method that forces muscles out of apathy to re-adapt to the stress and grow with ample recovery. Our bodies are so resilient, we have to constantly shock it to adapt to new levels of training and skills, otherwise our efforts are fruitless and our desires to become more fit remain pipe dreams of hope.

Our minds work the same way, but our fear of failure keep us from pushing the envelope further. In a way, our mental fears are analogous to pain but far more complex and conservative in that we seek to avoid failure rather than test our limits. We all have varying physical pain thresholds to push our bodies to the extent it can handle training. Do you ever notice how kids have the least amount of fear when skiing or playing? They don't have the phobias we develop slowly with age to become conventional wisdom. They don't rub Purell on their hands at every chance. They get sick, re-adapt and play hard again. They don't stereotype or judge others until their parents and peers hand these misconceptions over.

We tend to look for comfort in the wrong places these days to alleviate what our fears are preventing us from capably doing. Job security, over sized Joneses-type homes, domestic comforts, and gadgets we don't really need. In a way these play into a mentality of wanting approval from others and that time is so precious, a gadget must cut available corners to prevent us from failing to meet a time criteria we put too high of a value on.

I like this website, which posts humorous, yet insightful cartoons on life lessons. The Fear post from yesterday doesn't ring true with me, however. I believe we're all capable of facing most of our demons and living up to them through experiences of failure. We can all tackle our mental and physical challenges.

The buck doesn't simply stop at identifying our fears and conceding to them by looking for comfort in material items we have control over. This is a menial pursuit we all have to face up to or die submitting to a boring existence of consumption and comfort.

Roadtripping

I'm going on a road trip with my good buddy next week from San Fran up to Portland, camping in Redwood parks along the way. It'll be a good time to clear my head and hopefully realize more what I want to do next. There's nothing like exploring nature to re-awaken your senses. The solitude helps re-align your priorities and get a more objective view of yourself. It'll also help me escape from the STUFF and conveniences at home I've become re-accustomed to again. I've bought more menial things recently so taking a trip and living out of a single bag always helps me realize how useless so much of it is when I get back home.

I planned the trip so we purposely don't have a shower for 3 days, but Ed is a laid back guy who goes with the flow. He can rough it like the best of them. Actually there's a few cold rivers we can take a dip in so we'll have some semi-showers. I don't think I'd take the trip solo with many of my other friends because I probably wouldn't hear the end of it from them about missing their conveniences or luxuries. My sister was on the verge of going, but her last day of teaching is next week, which is a bummer since she can rough it better than most guys I know! We'll be stopping by some good craft breweries (Rogue, Russian River & Lagunitas) to recharge along the way.

Here's a LINK to our trip.

De-Evolution

On the back of a comment left on my previous post and the recent doping confessions by Floyd Landis, I want to expand a bit more on what I believe is a current de-evolution.

Sports are one aspect of modern activities where competition has led people to consider extremes in order to stay "competitive" at the expense of their integrity, putting the entire sport and true competitors in question. We've come to praise athletes with so much adoration through television viewership and support, that certain sports have lost their sanctity. This defies pure passion and talent, one-upping the man who goes against those principles simply for a taste of personal glory. I still have a lot of faith in people, however, and the bio-feedback mechanism for such actions presents itself as a guilty conscience. Floyd Landis went so far as to publish a book defending his honor as a clean rider, spending millions in legal fees, and pleading his case on Larry King Live. Now that the beans are spilled after no longer finding himself capable of living down such a profound lie, his reputation and credibility are shattered. He didn't help the sport of cycling either.

These sorts of actions have led to a de-evolution of sports and humans in general. Fitness
exists at a myriad of levels because tens of thousands of years ago, the fittest individuals scored wild game before slower individuals to ink out the best of our species. The Romans competed in sports and I'm sure our hairy ancestors did the same to pass the time because our complex minds need the mental challenge of risk/reward to accompany the physical aspects associated with it. Then modern techniques such as mass farming came 10,000 years ago and transportation came along more recently, providing the means to increase our population hand over fist. We're a clever species. We discovered a way to go from one end of the world to another by hopping on a plane and to consume an articially processed meal for a fraction of what it costs for food our bodies are designed to eat. We now have to actively (no pun intended) look for ways to be more fit and mobile, forcing ourselves out of apathy sitting in front of our TVs over a microwave dinner. The current state we've evolved to has led to a series of unnatural extremes, both of which are contributing to this de-evolution. The doping super human athlete vs. the man 500 pounds heavy. We've taken these things so far to create more wealth, fame, comfort and new records that it goes against the preservation of sports and humans as they're intended to be. We've shifted to a mode of exponential growth at others' expense, not preservation and long-term betterment. Poverty only exists because a baseline is set from standards of wealth. Therefore, a relative niche of poor folks must be present along the statistical bell curve. That's acceptable. The unacceptable part, however, does not have to do with their relative lack of wealth but their condition to be on the brink of death / survival in order to be classified as extremely poor.

The positive aspect to all this is that clever minds used to put us in this predicament are also available to research health and crack down on the extremes. The daunting part is, however, that money still drives the desire for achieving more even faster at the expense of someone else, even if that includes the perpetrator as the victim. Case in point - Mr. Landis.