The Anti-Soapbox: Collected Essays Read online

part. How interesting is this, that one can avoid the pain of something “bad” simply due to their state of mind? Actual, outside reality stays the same; the only difference is in the drinker’s mind. Yet this difference is enough to spare them the very real pain that they might otherwise experience.

  Of course, the drinker’s avoidance of pain comes not by conscious choice, but by coin of obliterating their awareness and being sheltered from reality. All the same, it demonstrates the concept in question: pain is mostly in our heads, and we can choose against it using sheer power of mind. The drinker’s example shows just how much is in the mind and our reactions, rather than environment and circumstance. Here, I’m reminded of the old wisdom that life is “99% mental and 1% physical.”

  It begs the question: might there be a better way than alcohol and blunted awareness to escape mental pain? Can we somehow forego such inelegant gatekeepers that shelter one from reality, and instead avoid pain directly? The answer is yes, there is a way: good mental reaction, as to consciously choose not to self-inflict pain in response to “bad” things.

  How does one go about this, you ask? Like so many things, good reaction is simple in concept but complicated in practice. Once again, it’s all psychology. Mental reaction is an enormous subject, naturally, and one that does not condense well without losing meaning; but in short, the idea is to suspend all self-destructive reactions on a deep mental level—to choose, consciously, not to damage oneself by becoming needlessly upset or emotional. As easy as that sounds, the act itself requires a working knowledge of the self and the mind, as to make one aware of their deepest psychology. Otherwise, these reactions can remain subconscious, out of reach to one’s topside, conscious thoughts and, hence, largely beyond correction. The attainment of such awareness and self-knowledge is no small undertaking, often requiring much time and experience.

  However, the fact remains: good reaction is possible, and it is powerful, to the point of allowing a person to choose against hurting themselves.

  VI. DON’T FORGET THE “WHY”

  “Who,” “what,” and “why”—those three vital elements, of which most anything boils down to. For modern man, however, “what” holds greater import over its brethren, creating a silent imbalance that permeates much of civilization.

  We are, no doubt, a “what”-dominated people.

  From the ground up, the modern West is absorbed in the “whats” of life. “What’s that made of?” “What’s it compare to?” “What are its origins?” “What’s the best way to make it?” “What’s the best way to destroy it?” These are the questions that naturally arise from “what”-centric thinking, where measurement, classification, and reduction define an object’s existence. For the large majority of us, we don’t feel we know something until we can hold it in our hands, run it through a gauntlet of experiments, and learn its many “whats.” Only then do we as a people consider something real, right down to its very possibility. In fact, an insufficiency of known “whats” can completely revoke an object’s reality, even if that object is sitting in plain sight. In our “what”-centered world, if something can’t be classified and measured, it just doesn’t exist.

  Our “whats” hold great power these days, it would appear.

  Today, many societies practice the “what”-centered way of life described above, in which reality is founded on the collective “whats” that are presently possessed, as to define the society’s members on many levels. Once accepted, those “whats” then enter into the mass psyche, first filtering through experts and authorities and their interpretations, then flowing downward into the general populace. Eventually, in some shape or form, those original “whats” are gelled into something deserving that elastic, ever-changing designation of “real”; and from there, this “what”-defined reality will, more or less, shape society’s deepest underpinnings, as seen in the psychology, behavior, and decision-making of vast numbers of people. Powerful indeed.

  In this way, our “what”-centric information becomes who we are and how we live, including our most basic thoughts and feelings, and how we see ourselves and the world. As for whether this way of life is appropriate, that’s too big an issue to squeeze into one tidy little question; but, in a nut, the answer could go either way, all depending on the accuracy and broadness of those all-decisive “whats” (and, how accurate their interpretation, which requires a lot of faith in the experts who play gatekeeper on what is deemed real). Just keep in mind: Once upon a time, a large number of people sincerely believed the world was flat and was orbited by the sun, all because their “whats” were incomplete, and badly interpreted by the “experts” of the day.

  As it were, a “what”-centered society is only as sound as its “whats.”

  Never underestimate the power of information (and its interpretation) to dictate our lives and thoughts. This influence might be hard to conceive, since it’s possible to lack a solid concept of those very lives and thoughts being influenced—the concept of a personal, inner reality, which could be described as a way of perceiving what is or isn’t real. By and large, we grow up under one orthodoxy of thought and reality, without the luxury of other realities to provide contrast. Thus, we are, collectively, deprived a sense of just what a personal reality is, much less that we presently inhabit one; but, all the same, there are in fact many “realities” out there, each determined, at heart, by the “whats” that go into it, and how those “whats” are regarded by the individual. As outlined above, those “whats” can, and often do, undermine our thinking in significant ways, which in turn undermines our entire lives to some extent. For someone living in a flat-earth reality, would they ever get too far with their sciences or academics? Any science experiment founded on the assumption of a flat earth is doomed to be fundamentally flawed, in a reflection of its society of origin. All this from receiving bad information and then acting upon it, in the fashion of “Garbage in, garbage out.”

  For these reasons, it’s important to know just which “whats” are at the helm of one’s thoughts and perceptions, as to avoid falling into a modern-day version of flat-earth thinking. Yet, for all the “whats’” power, there is an even more important element that drives our lives: the “why.”

  When I refer to the “why,” I mean it rather literally: a thing’s reason for being. Whereas the “whats” are facts, measurements, and characteristics, the “why” is what can be done with a thing and its various “whats”—obvious, yes, but easy to overlook, and with great consequences upon doing so. If we focus purely on the “what,” our knowledge is incomplete, and therein lies potential dangers, for incomplete knowledge gives way to mental blind spots and misguided action. Not only does this tunnel vision render “what”-centered knowledge less accurate, but also less relevant, useful, and practical—and, less fulfilling. Consider someone with a whole lot of car parts, but no concept of a car; not only would that person be deprived transportation, but also the thrill of driving. There are, as it were, some very intelligent, learned people out there, possessing great masses of factual “whats,” without knowing the “why” behind them, or their underlying causes—thus denying these folks the meaning of it all.

  See knowledge as a triangle, with “who” and “what” forming the founding points, and “why” at the apex, the three forming a totality of truth and understanding. Without the “why,” we just don’t get the whole story, like a newspaper headline without an article.

  “Why” is the difference between wisdom and mere information; between true, practical knowledge and empty data; between meaningful conversation and incoherent words; between a person and a picture of a person. To qualify as total understanding, a thing’s “whats” must present all its angles and dimensions, since all hinge on one another to inform us on that thing’s complete reality. Thus, ignoring even one small aspect of something can limit and distort one’s understanding of it—to only know of that thing, rather than truly knowing it. If you know of baseballs, but not the game of baseball,
then you won’t really know baseballs. Only by understanding the “why” of that baseball—the game it serves in, with the athleticism and competition, and ballparks and crowds and overpriced beer, and trading cards, and doping scandals—only then can one possess a truly accurate, working knowledge of a physical baseball. Divorced from that context of the game the ball is made for, one’s basic perception of a baseball is sorely incomplete. A carpenter would see a hammer differently than would a stockbroker.

  In this way, the “why” factors into our everyday thinking and perceptions, such that, with only the “whats” of the things and people we encounter, we are denied a vital element of everything we see and experience. A “why”-deprived mind will go through life seeing only baseballs, never the game of baseball (nor the joy of experiencing it). Such are the consequences of forgetting the “why.”

  And make no mistake: mankind has, on the whole, forgotten the “why.”

  As it stands, we presently possess an excess of “what” but a drought of “why.” This imbalance is present high and low, from academia and the scientific establishment, to government and