It’s hard to separate morality from social convention.

Unless you’re one of these people who are going to freak out if I use the phrase “relative morality” in a sentence, read on.

 

Constantly re-examine your ideas of morality. 

I wrote a long and winding thesis citing everything from the shifts in morality that the Israelites had to adopted while wandering in the desert to the immorality of mixed-race marriages sixty years ago that has dissolved today…but I doubt it’s entertaining enough to be blog worthy. 

 Long story short, most morality is really social convention in disguise…yeah, that’s right…I said “most”.  Not “some”, I would go so far as to say “most”.  Consider most of the things you consider to be moral, and ask yourself “why?”  This is often a tough question as people don’t consider what their moral compass is before deciding on their morality.

 

I’m not here to question what your moral compass is.  You can use your faith as well as you can use political philosophers.  Jesus has some great things to say in the vein of morality as does John Locke.  Choose your own moral compass, but recognize this danger:

Most great thinkers of their time, if they think for long enough, wind up contradicting themselves.  Freud and Brecht are good examples of great thinkers who by the end of their careers completely refuted what they stated as absolute at the beginning.  Sometimes you’ve got to ask “Okay, that was a good idea then, but do you still feel that way?”  If enough time has passed and the answer is still “yes”, then they are probably dead (or in the case of Jesus, not dead but only speaking in mysterious ways).  I bet even Socrates might have had some decided changes of thoughts if he hadn’t sucked down that hemlock.

 

That’s one thing all great thinkers have in common: the ability (or perhaps the need) to change their mind.

 

Unfortunately I’m not a great thinker.  I recognize the need to change my mind and reanalyze pretty much everything, but I need help.  This causes me to have crises of faith, both in philosophy or religion.  Often in these crises, people either break ties from their faith entirely or embrace it unquestioningly, pretty much because it’s easier than admitting their not a great thinker.  As we learn from the MTA:

 

“To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.”  -Henri Poincare

 

So if I’m supposed to question my own thoughts, morality, and even those sources that teach us our beliefs, what can you count on as a moral compass?

 

One piece of advice that I got from Michael Pollin is “Shake the hand that feeds you.” 

Sure, he’s talking about food.  Basically he’s saying know where your food comes from.  If you can’t shake the hand the feeds you, you can’t trust the process that created it.  A couple months ago I was in Lancaster where I could shake hands with a chicken farmer.  I challenged the ways he raised the chicken, and he was happy to talk to me about it.  That vital challenge cannot happen in the dairy aisle of Shop Rite. (I’ve tried it, the crates of eggs refuse to give up their secrets.)

Perhaps we should do the same with morality: “Shake the hand that feeds you.” 

Know where your morals come from.  Find a living barometer that you can question and challenge and (perhaps more importantly) questions and challenges you back.  In this way you can keep your morals alive and vital.  Nourish them by questioning them and changing them.  If you can’t shake the hand that feeds you, you’ll be taking your morals out of context.  Perhaps the Ten Commandments would be worded slightly different if they were written for us instead of the ancient Israelites.  Perhaps John Locke might question his own views on revolution in the grip of the modern government-industrial complex.  Perhaps even Henri Poincare might have changed his beliefs on belief if he had lived long enough.

If your moral compass has shuffled off this mortal coil, it is your duty to continue thinking for him not to let his thoughts fossilize with his bones.  His mind might be gone, but his thoughts can still survive and thrive and grow into new and wonderful things.  His books aren’t his thoughts; your questions about his thoughts are his thoughts.

Things that have been in my mind in June:

Message to the Electronics in My Life: You’re not the boss of me!

Dear microwave:

>beep beep beep<

I hope that you don’t feel like I’ve been neglecting you, but I feel that you’re too needy in this relationship.  I know that sounds unfair since you give so much and I give so little, but it’s just how I feel.  You’re really great.  You reheat my tomato soup to perfection and…

>beep beep beep<

…let me know when you are finnished with a hearty beep.  I heard the beep and there are a few things I want to get done before I retrieve the soup  So, really…the reminder beep every thirty seconds is unecessary.

>beep beep beep<

Seriously, can I just finish this blog and then I’ll get my soup.  I heard you the first time, seriously.  Your beep was more than sufficient to alert me that you did a job well done.  Now I will get my soup when I’m good and ready.  Look, even if I did miss hearing that you finished heating my soup, the fact that you’re no longer microwaving it is a good clue. 

>beep beep beep<

What do you think is going to happen?  I’m one day going to look up and see the light off inside you and say, “He’s probably not done, yet…maybe he’s just taking a break.  I’ll give him more time.”  It’s not going to happen.  I’m smart enough to realize when you are turned off.

>beep beep beep<

Look, sometimes I just don’t feel like jumping to attention every time you’re done your job.  The soup probably needs to cool, anyway!  You usually overheat it. 

>beep beep beep<

Seriously, why won’t you just let me finish this blog?!?  Please, please, please stop beeping…what’s the worst that will happen if I don’t fetch it right this moment?  Maybe it will get cold and I’ll have to microwave it again.  That’s okay.  I don’t mind that.  Would you mind that?

>beep beep beep<

Okay!  Fine!  I get the point.  I’ll get the soup.  I’m just warning you that it’s real easy to replace you with a machine that doesn’t need instant gratification…

>click<

There.  Are you happy now?  My soup is in front of me cooling instead of inside you.  I’m still not going to eat it until I’m done this blog, so it will be exactly the same temperature as if you hadn’t been beeping on and on.  You’re starting to remind me of my printer at work.  You might know him.  He has a warning beep that sounds like a truck backing up.  He beeps like that when he’s out of paper…even if he’s out of paper because I’m refilling him.  You know what I said to him when I couldn’t take it anymore?  “I know you’re out of paper!  I’m the one that took the paper cartridge out!” and then I took him to the hallway and left him there.  Yup, just bought a new one.  Replaced him.  Just like that…and the same could happen to you.

Seriously, you just need to relax.  I have more than enough demands on my life.  Don’t go beeping at me everytime you feel you need something.

Yours,

Jason

Let’s Put Rice Bowls in Plastic Surgeons’ Offices

When I was little, we had a rice bowl that Sister Donald gave us during Lent to put money in.  The idea is that we would give up a luxury in our life and every time we would normally buy it during lent, we would put that money in the rice bowl.  The money would then be offered up to the children of Ethiopia. 

 

My vice was Funions.  I loved going to the deli and snatching up a bag of those delightful deep-fried onion-salt-dusted Styrofoam rings.  Once a day during lent I would go without those onion-resembling treats and and put $.50 in my rice bowl.  By the end of lent I would have almost twenty dollars to buy rice for those starving children.

Many people ceased caring about the Ethiopian Children once it was realized that a large percentage of the rice bowl money was going to logistical fees and celebrity endorsements leaving very little for the starving children.  My new interest is universal health care.  Obviously one problem with universal health care is making sure that the government does its job regulating it and serving the people.  The other problem would be the cost of establishing such a program.  Ratical.com estimates that to provide supervision, regular retraining, infrastructure support, basic medical supplies and salaries for a viable universal health-care solution for Americans would cost about $15 billion per year. 

 

I have trouble wrapping my head around large numbers, so let’s pick something to compare it to.  Something at random.  How about cosmetics?  Americans spend $8 billion a year* on cosmetics.  That gives me a point of reference.  The cost of a universal health care system would be twice as much as Americans spend on cosmetics every year.  To dovetail onto cosmetics, it just happens that the cost of elective corrective surgery accounts for the $7 billion* per year, which would again be roughly half.

 

This means if each American had a rice bowl and put their cosmetics and plastic surgery money into it instead of making themselves more beautiful, we would have enough for every man woman and child in this country to have free health-care.  No American would go without health care ever again…something that every other industrial nation in the world already has. 

Okay, I don’t expect Sister Donald to start passing out rice bowls to every person in America that puts on make up or has plastic surgery, but if we put a 100% luxury tax on cosmetics and elective cosmetic surgery that alone would pay for universal health care for all Americans.

Of course that’s easy for me to say as I don’t use make-up or cosmetic surgery, but challenge me.  Pick an multi-billion dollar industry that you think I use to excess and see if I’d be willing to pay double what I do now for universal health care.  I’d pay double for my morning coffee every day if I could see a doctor for free.  I’d pay double for my phone bill if I could have free prescription drugs.  I’d pay double any time I bought electronics if I knew that if I ever inherited my mom’s, grandfather’s, or uncle’s cancer that I would be treated without being a financial burden on my wife.

It’s not that I’m not willing to pay for health care, but even with insurance it’s still terrifying to get sick. 

Universal health care is one solution that works for the rest of the world. 

 

Perhaps a more American thing would be to regulate health care so that insurance companies would be required to treat those people that the ensure.

 

…but I’m still fond of putting out rice bowls at plastic surgeon’s offices.

*Watson, Jonathan. Health Care Systems: Rethinking health care systems. 2005

My personal stance against flyering in my neighborhood:

Since moving to the new apartment, any business that leaves a menu or a flyer in my front door is blacklisted.

Eventually I’d like to organize the neighborhood or start a website for a more effective boycott, but until that time my personal boycott will have to do.

As of yesterday, these are the companies that made my blacklist:
MET Supermarket
Pad Thai Restaurant
Amadeus Pizza
Dispatch Moving and Storage
24-Hour Locksmith

As of today they’ve been frequent offenders…but the only offenders.  There’s plenty of businesses in NYC that I choose not to frequent those that litter on my front stoop.

That was until…today.

This morning I found this on my doorstep:

Okay, New York businesses whose name begins with the letters A through Z, you’ve just been put on my boycott list.

Conversations in the Elevator: An Update of an Old Buddhist Tale

There once was a very wealthy man who had everything he could possibly want…but he was discontent.  He wanted to know what was the point of it all.  He was told to seek out the Buddha.  At this time Buddha had gone through his “questioning and fasting” phase and was now in the “fat and wise” stage.  Besides being fat and wise, he also was living on top of a nearly unreachable mountain.  The rich man hired a team and set out for the mountaintop.  Five months of journeying and a considerable percentage of his wealth later, the rich man finally arrived at the Buddha’s abode.  He told the Buddha that he was happy in all things, but he wanted to know what the Buddha knew.

“What’s the meaning of it all?” 

Buddha nodded in thought and sat for an hour…and another…by the time that three hours had passed he was nearly at his wits end. 

Out of patience he pleaded, “Well?!?”

The Buddha looked at the man, smiles, and says, “You are the Buddha.” 

The rich man was disgusted.  He spat upon the ground. 

To himself he thought, “Months of travel and the better part of my fortune gone, and that’s all he has to say?!?”

To the Buddha he said, “You are a pig!”

The Buddha nodded. 

The rich man stood perplexed, “What?”

“That’s the answer.”

“What’s the answer?”

“Buddha sees Buddha; pig sees pig.”

In a similar vein, this morning I got on the elevator with a woman who works in my office and a random delivery man.

The man said, “You shucked?”

In this story, I’m the one that is perplexed.

He repeated, “You shucked?  Something shucked you in morning?”

I shrugged, helpless to understand his question.

“Your hair…it’s shucked.”

He made a “scared” face and I realized that he’s referring to my Mohawk.

“No.  I did this on purpose.”

He got off laughing and it dawned on me.

“Shocked,” I said to the other passenger.

“What?”

“He was saying ’shocked’!”

“Yeah.  What a douche-bag.”

“Really?  I thought he was being friendly.”

She said nothing out loud in response, but her face clearly said, “You’re a douche-bag, too!” 

Moral of the story:

Friend sees friend; douche-bag sees douche-bag.

Tell me how does it feel…how does it feel…to be (married to) me?

On a particularly spasmatic day of my life, I was running from audition to tech to a show, not allowing enough time in between.  These are the days my wife dreads, because I then call her to ask her for at least a dozen favors.

She bails me out, and before I hang up I realize that my life is probably about twelve times crazier than she thought it was going to be when she married me.

I pause for reflection.

“Becky, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What’s it like being married to me?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“Well…my ear is sticky.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s mango juice in my phone.”

That pretty much sums it up.

What I’ve been talking about this past month:

I found my first dead body yesterday.

My upstairs neighbor was an old, solitary man who died peacefully in his sleep.  The problem was that since he was so solitary, nobody knew for a few days.  I happened to be the one to find him and call 911. I assumed it was pretty routine, but when I told the story to the police, they told me that I would also have to tell my story to a detective as well.  The homicide squad showed up and I told them the story, but after telling my story to the 911 operator, the policeman, and the detective I also had to tell the story to the EMT.  I was a little surprised that I had to tell the story to the EMT, but he seemed to think it was important.

“You the landlord?” he asked.

“No.  I work here.”

He wrote that down; he had started taking notes as soon as he saw the state of the apartment.

“You’re the super, then?”

I explained that I worked for a university that leased some of the apartments in that building.

“So you only lease to students?”

“Right.”

scribble, scribble, scribble.

“So how did he (referring to the deceased) get into the building if he wasn’t a student?”

“We only lease half the building.  The other half is rented by professionals and the like.”

This seemed to satisfy him.  He started measuring he body.

“So how’d they get in this building?”

“I assume they contacted the management company.”

No…he wasn’t measuring the body; he was measuring the bed.

“Do you have their contact info?”

“The building manager’s on his way.  Are you…are you measuring the apartment?”

He scribbled down the dimensions of the apartment.

“Do you know how much he was paying for this place?”

I shrugged and then turned to go upstairs.

He called after me, “What’s the building manager’s name?”

I know that it’s hard to find a good apartment in this town, but I seriously…can you wait until the body is out the door before making an offer?

Good News! One of Mrs. T-Z’s students is sick!

…with Swine Flu!  I’m really excited about this.  Here’s why:

09/11/2001 – 8:46 AM – I’m five blocks away from the Twin Towers.  I spend the next six hours hiding under my bed until the police come to evacuate my building because, in the policeman’s words, “your block is on fire”.  He tells me to pack an overnight bag, but I don’t see home for several weeks.

08/14/2003 – 4:15 PM – I’m living in Jersey and working in Spanish Harlem when the lights go out and the alarms go on.  Our building is evacuated as a precaution, but I can’t get home since the city was blacked out.  I walk from Spanish Harlem to the Bronx to spend the night on my friend’s floor.

12/20/2005 – 7:45 AM – Wake up in Brooklyn with plans of going into Manhattan to see the original cast of Spamalot while they’re still together.  I really considered walking to Broadway to see the cast since the subway was on strike.  I decided against it and stayed holed up in my apartment.

08/08/2007 – 6:22 AM - We are on our way home from our honeymoon and out of town when a tornado struck very near our Brooklyn apartment.  We were sleeping safe and sound in Lancaster, PA and were completely unharmed and in fact knew nothing of it.  We completely missed it. 

I will not let that happen again.  I have been a part of every major historical event in this city since I moved here, and I don’t intend to miss this one.  Mrs. T-Z is home sick, but I’m making her go in tomorrow, hug each student, throw away their tissues by hand, and kiss each on on the top of their heads!

I will be a part of this.