Simple Analysis for Everyday Life

There is a fundamental, primary skill that I believe every human being should possess, if he or she is to avoid as much suffering and anguish as possible.

It is a skill based in intellect, and I observe that it has never been taught to most of my fellow humans.

The fancy term for this skill is rhetorical analysis. Though I've taught a rhetorical analysis unit at the University of Arizona, I'm hardly an expert. But I did see the effect that learning this skill had on my students, which I'll get to in a minute. For now, I'll summarize what this skill does.

Essentially, when you hear a speech, or an opinion, or see an advertisement or look at almost anything containing text, symbols or a "message," you do not accept it uncritically. What I mean by this is that before you metaphorically consume something, you evaluate it--a "sniff" test, if you will.

With this skill in practice, you should be able to determine what someone is *really* saying, what they are trying to convince you to do, whether they are telling the truth or using bad logic or an appeal to your emotions, and whether you want to accept the premise and argument as sound.

In school, you ask these questions, but they are good for life, too. My students, whom I mentioned earlier, entered my class largely willing to believe what they heard or saw. They accepted speeches as factual, arguments as persuasive, and advertisements as effective. While this makes life seem smooth and easy, it results in a person being deceived, and worse, acting according to the deception much of the time.

Poor rhetorical analysis in a targeted audience is the dream of every marketer, politician, scam artist and intellectual fraud.

The good news is that you don't have to be a victim of these hucksters. The good news is that you can ask them questions, and work to uncover facts and realities and motivations, all of which allow you to live a more conscious, intentional life. And this is what I saw in my students. Once they could penetrate the smoke and the veils, they were awakened to how often they were being lied to, defrauded, convinced to behave contrary to their true principles. Indeed, this kind of analysis often helps reveal to you what your true principles are.

Like my students, I used to be far more willing to uncritically accept what was hurled my way. And life was easier, in that I didn't feel as though I had to think as much about what people told me. I trusted.

But that trust was given to the undeserving, and while you might consider me naive and blameless, I might argue that my ignorance and participation in the charade had no good excuse and in fact caused harm.

So, what I recommend to you all is to ask the questions. Chances are your emotions have already been telling you things seem off, but can't tell you the full story. Adding this kind of analysis to the messages around you will bestow on you a clarity of thought that cannot be bought or even valued. This is priceless, and essential.

For me, there is a transparency to the world and its actors, and it is a burden lifted. Someone is lying to me or using bad logic? Why trouble myself over her efforts? Someone wants me to buy something, but now I can ask myself if I want it or if they want me to want it. I can protect myself from a lot of negative actions--both others' and my own--just by taking a few moments to penetrate the rhetoric.

So what are the basic questions? This is my list for getting started:

1. Who is the messenger, and what is his credibility or authority?
2. Who is the message intended to reach? In other words, who is the targeted audience?
3. What does the message hope to achieve? To inform, persuade, motivate, enrage, etc.?
4. How is the message constructed? In other words, does it use facts, emotional appeals, logic, comparison, etc.?
5. What is the message? In other words, what is the argument or thesis?

There can be more to it, of course, and one can go deeper into a message, but if you feel like you need clarity in your thinking, these five questions are a fine place to begin.

"The Joy of Less" by Pico Iyer

Something I found in the New York Times that I think readers of this blog would enjoy.

Pico Iyer, a travel writer, posted his thoughts on what he has found makes him happiest:

I’m no Buddhist monk, and I can’t say I’m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I’ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a cell phone and high-speed Internet, I have time to play ping-pong every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).

And later, he says:

I certainly wouldn’t recommend my life to most people — and my heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted. But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down. The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends (whose motivations they are no longer sure of). And I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.

Read the entirety of his post here.

Against Franticness

There is something that's been bothering me. I've noticed it in recent years, but especially in the last year, and I have finally been able to put my finger on it. Perhaps this will not seem like a revelation to you, perhaps it will. Whatever it is, I think it's unhealthy, unproductive and causes needless suffering.

This thing that's been bothering me can best be described as a collective hyperventilation, a national franticness. (I know that's not a word, but I think it's clear what I mean.)

It's epitomized by the way people talk to each other: Not really listening, paying continuous partial attention, only hearing the words that will give them the jumping off point to say what they already know.

It's a literal rapidity of breathing and speech, a kind of anti-calm pervading conversation. It's the tenor of the television talking heads, constantly screaming.

It's the parents worrying that their kid is going to fall behind if he's not enrolled in preschool math tutoring, or the daughter who won't get into college if she doesn't excel at volleyball and academics and community service, and...the list goes on.

It's the colleagues who have heard of this Twitter thing, and worry that if they don't instantly jump on board, regardless of the value, they will lose their jobs, their employability--their very souls, it would seem, given some of the strident proclamations I've heard on the subject.

We're told, of course, that these things are necessary, that they make us more productive, more connected, more intelligent, more successful. But all I see is that the opposite is happening. I am no Luddite--I'm blogging, after all--and I don't blame technology for all of this. Technology is merely allowing our neuroses and fears to grow and be transmitted faster than ever, adding to the cacophony.

If everyone with an iPhone or Twitter account was calm and centered and at peace, those tools would serve some amazing thoughts, I'm sure. However, the majority of people I encounter are barely breathing, certainly afraid, and in a near-constant manic state.

If a body's health is measured by its ability to breathe deeply and maintain a calm heartbeat and a steady blood pressure, then our national body is profoundly sick.

Lately, for many reasons which I won't go into here, I find that I'm disengaging from this mass panic. I just don't buy it. I don't feel a part of it. I went running with my dog the other day, and enjoyed the cool morning air, still full of dew, enjoyed the wind rustling the pecan trees, loved watching my dog's pink tongue flop around as she ran. The world, despite its troubles, is still a profoundly beautiful place, if we only make up our minds to notice it.

I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if people stopped trying to fix everything, stopped focusing on the drama and the pain of other people, and worked on creating peace and calm and focus within themselves. Then, when others truly did need you, you'd be able to help, you'd know what to do, how to listen, what you should do. You'd have inner resources upon which to draw.

None of these frantic people have any inner resources. All energies are being discharged outward, but in an undirected way. The energy and reserves are misapplied, wasted, lost.

My point, if I have one, and I'm not sure I do, is that I'm coming to the conclusion that the best thing I can do for myself, others, the world, is to be a person who is at root calm and peaceful. Someone whose mind is unclouded by the turbidity of rapid, fearful, undirected thoughts. The second best thing I can do is to help others figure out how to do this, when they ask.

I am ever more certain that being frantic is the worst possible course of action, in any circumstance.

The next time you find yourself noticing a rising sense of franticness, please stop and breathe, deeply. For as long as you need to, until that feeling of terror leaves your body and is replaced by a quiet calm. Then proceed with what you have to do. Then you will do what is right.

Who Is Your Black Hole?

Everyone either knows one, or has one. Similar to the vampire, the black hole sucks away all your energy. But unlike the vampire, the black hole does not actively pursue your energy. In fact, your black hole may not even know that you're there.

Like a cosmic black hole, a person fitting this description is an unlimited vacuum, with an insatiable appetite. But whatever you throw at this person--the energy, the love, the affection, the anger--it is instantly destroyed. Not even the residue of your energy remains. Literally nothing can escape the destructive power contained within this person.

Because I am a caring, compassionate human being with love and faith for people, I have found myself uselessly slinging energy into these black holes. Indeed, I used to think that I could only be a caring, compassionate human being IF I flung my energy at these black holes.

Of course, at the time, I had no idea these people were black holes. They were people I loved and cared about, felt attachment to and affection for. But now that I see their true nature, I am no longer slowly destroying my own life to save theirs. I still love them. But I now know I can't save them.

The person who is a black hole has the same kind of fearsome pull that these gravitational marvels do. They hurt themselves, hate themselves, hurt others, hate others, destroy themselves, try to destroy others. Their desperation and misery are what makes nice people like you and me so eager, so willing, to help them.

But here is the lesson: No one--and I mean no one--can help them. The only help they will ever have must be of their own volition.

In the meantime, until you learn this lesson, you will do many things: You will neglect your own pursuits, you will neglect your health, your family, your friends and your neighbors. You will neglect your career and your hobbies, your sense of humor and your civic duty. But wait, you say--I have friends, I have a family, I have hobbies.

But if you have a black hole in your life that you are actively attending to, you are showing up, maybe, but you have little left to give to those things. You are not really there. And the reason is because the energy you're slinging into that sad, inescapable darkness is never returned to you. You are being sucked dry.

The saddest part of the black hole/energy donor relationship is that you may be doing everything you can to perpetuate that person's misery. Sure, it's unintentional, but the maw of this ravenous beast only grows larger the more it has to devour. In fact, while you can't help this person, you may actually speed the process of their self-help by starving the beast of your energy.

Now, of course, not everyone who needs help is a black hole. But if you've read this far, you already know if you have one in your life or not. Their energy is unmistakable, their sadness and emptiness seemingly infinite.

Here is another lesson: You are not selfish or wicked if you no longer want to dump your energy into this abyss. Far from it. You are not lazy or bad. Nothing you did caused this black hole, and so nothing you do can repair it.

Reclaiming your energy from this enormous drain is, if you can believe it, the least selfish thing you can do. Because actually, thinking you--one person--can solve this person's incalculable suffering, is actually a very egotistical act. You may be great, even a hero to many. But this level of darkness requires a force far greater than a single, fallible human being. Your ego may hope that you can work miracles, you may yearn for the day when you can say you saved someone, because that would feel so good. But that's your ego, and it's not telling you the truth. What that person needs is the kind of seismic spiritual shift that cannot come from the material world, and that includes you. So, yes, you're important, but you're also not that important.

So reclaim your energy. No matter where you put it--be it for your health, your intellect, your cooking, your job--no matter where, it will be better than where it's going right now. It will do more good for you-- and for the world--for that energy to not be uselessly, futilely, instantly destroyed.

I wish that those of you struggling with black holes may find peace.

How to Watch

This picture, taken this April, is of Thomas Jefferson's terrace garden at Monticello.

I was there recently, and while I'd been there once while I was in high school, I'd forgotten what a beautiful, serene place it is. No wonder Jefferson desperately wanted to return there after his presidency was over.

One of the things I forgot (or maybe didn't ever know, hard to say) about Jefferson was that he was a committed, passionate gardener. He ordered seeds from catalogs, shared cuttings and seeds with neighbors, and kept detailed logs about what he had planted and how it did.

Interestingly, I learned that he met with failure again and again and again. For example, he was determined to try to grow wine grapes, but never succeeded.

I am a new gardener, and have already learned a lot that I didn't know. So much knowledge has not been passed on, and so though it exists somewhere on the web or in a book, each discovery feels as new to me as anything could. For example, I had no idea that lettuce "bolted" in hot weather. I didn't know how much plant was created to grow one single crown of broccoli. I mean, wow, broccoli is a massive plant!

Thinking of Jefferson in his garden, season after season, whether meeting failure or success, is a profoundly calming thought. In fact, being in my garden is a profoundly calming activity, even though I often meet with failure.

Why should this be? Why do I find failure in other areas of life so frustrating, but not here?

I think because my approach, much as I have read Jefferson's to have been, has been one of a fascinated experimentation. Everything is new, and everything is a surprise. Everything is something to watch. I am not as eager for the results--though they can be delicious--so much as for the satisfaction of cultivating something living, surprising and literally wonder-full. I know it is a cliche to be amazed by a tiny carrot seed becoming a carrot, or a little broccoli shoot becoming a towering plant, but it is only a cliche until you have experienced it yourself. Once you have seen it with your own eyes, you realize the miracle.

There's a big movement, at least in the U.S., to grow your own backyard veggies. Since Jefferson always envisioned a nation of self-reliant, educated citizen farmers, I think this is a very good thing for our spirits, as individuals and as a nation.

While I advocate gardening, it's certainly not mandatory. But I think what should be required of every bliss-seeker is the kind of watching--the expectant attention--that the gardener gives his plants, but to as many things and as many people as you can.

It's easy to form an opinion, to have a thought, to say your piece, but it's much more important to Watch.

Always Be Seeking Truth

That's the answer, as best I can guess, to my good friend Teddy's question to my previous post. He said:

The challenge becomes holding on to the vision you've enunciated, because the forces of the world keep clouding our line of vision, making us see nothing but the narrow, trivial, parochial day-to-day details that we need to just survive. How do we hold onto the timeless while we try to hack it now in time?

If you haven't seen the great movie Glengarry Glen Ross, there's a scene where Alec Baldwin's character is talking to a bunch of salesmen, wherein he gives them the formula for success in sales: ABC--Always Be Closing. He repeats it like a mantra, and tells them that if they are going to make it in that business, they'd better listen.

So, lately, like a mantra, I've been seeking the Truth, but with a capital "T." Teddy's right: the forces of the world do conspire against us to keep us small and upset and shriveled. The people in "power" do not want us to reach our potential, have an interest in keeping the status quo, have an interest in confusion and obfuscation. On a more micro level, it's also just the minutiae of daily life--earning a living, taking care of the house, educating the kids, what have you--that keeps us myopically focused on the here and now.

I know it's unfashionable of late to say that there even is a Truth. After all, isn't truth just what we think it is? Isn't everything relative? My truth is what I believe, your truth is what you believe, etc. ad infinitum.

But the only way we "hold on to the timeless while we try to hack it in now time" is to attune ourselves to Truth. Which means there must be at least something that's universal, something that's True.

But what is it? Does it even exist?

First, it's a mistake to think that you can solely come to Truth through reason and rationality. You need these things, but reason can serve our basest, most depraved instincts, too, so it must be checked by something else. After all, the intellect can perform mighty tricks of ratiocination that can lead to somewhere very, very dark.

But it's also a mistake to think that you can rely entirely upon emotion to find Truth, since emotion and the instantaneous reactions emotions can elicit often take us to improper conclusions, at best, and terrible deeds, at worst.

But you do need both of these tools, so how do you harness them properly? What causes them to go so profoundly awry?

In my search for Truth, I recognize the culprit again and again and again, both in my own life and in my study of history: Ego.

Ego is the entity that lies to us all about our importance, about what we want and need, about the importance of the ephemeral world. Once we can begin to act in ways not driven by gratification of Ego, we begin our journey toward seeking truth and serving truth.

Practically speaking, I have found that there are already ancient practices meant to aid humans in truth seeking, in diminishing the power Ego has over us. In many ways, it is the role of ritual and religion, though many of those practices--especially in the West--have been profoundly corrupted by man's Ego.

For me, the practice of yoga, meditation, and now, tai chi, have done wonders for my ability to perceive and move through the world in a less ego-driven fashion. The temporal world is still there, but I am more likely to see through it and less likely to be tempted by its fleeting and material promises.

As they say, there are many paths to the kingdom, but I truly believe there is only one kingdom. It has many names: Nirvana, paradise, heaven, enlightenment--even happiness and bliss.

Every culture in every part of the world speaks of this kingdom. But we make a mistake when we conceive of it as being "out there" or as a place. The kingdom--bliss--is not out there. It is the oldest Truth and it is within us. It is hard to grasp, because in a sense, there is nothing to grasp. There is no "it" and there is no "other."

We find this unified, harmonious experience when we meditate on what we know in our bodies and in our consciousness to be fundamental and universal: the great, the wondrous, the awful, the beautiful, the terrifying Mystery.

So, again, practically speaking, the next time you find yourself distracted by the stuff going on all around you, repeat to yourself: Always be seeking Truth.

And that, friends, is what I have to offer for preserving this penetrating, clear-eyed vision when the duststorms blow and men work as hard as they can to wound you. And as you go to work, and mow the lawn, meditate there, too, and there you will ask the questions that will lead you to an ever more satisfying, blissful life here on earth.

I Was Wrong

I abandoned the blog, I abandoned my readers, and I abandoned my pursuit of bliss in a big mistake.

What happened? I made the all-too-common error of confusing bliss with livelihood. While I still maintain that our livelihoods should bring us satisfaction and even joy if we're lucky, our bliss does not rest anywhere external.

Fundamentally, bliss is gratitude and equanimity, even in the face of great challenges and long odds.

When the economy imploded last fall, I made the mistake of thinking that bliss would be unattainable for all of us. My business was suffering, and it hardly seemed to be the time to encourage others to leave paying work to pursue something insubstantial. That was a mistake, to a certain extent.

I now see, in retrospect, that the world's cycle is always rising and falling, falling and rising. We must not ride the outside of the wheel, must not be attached to fortunes or failures, but we must be at the center, at the hub. There we will find balance and peace and bliss.

So if you have a crappy job, it does not mean you cannot have bliss. If you have a great job, it does not mean you have bliss. Bliss only comes from finding the center in any circumstance, during any event.

So instead of asking, "What is bliss?", we should also ask, "Where is bliss?", and, "Who is bliss?" and, "Why is bliss?"

For me, after suffering a very strong re-action to the world's falling fortunes and struggles, I came to a place of detached observation. I still participate in the world--passionately at times--but without attachment to the outcome. Instead, I choose to act--not react--according to my own beliefs, principles and values. If the world challenges me, so be it. I am not here to please the world. I am here to be here. I am not exactly here to please myself, either. I am here to acknowledge and venerate my time here, make something of it that is in service to spirit and not ego.

I went to the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit recently, and was amazed by the glory of the ancient Egyptian society, now lost. The world as we conceive it--the trappings, the politics, the buildings and men--are all impermanent. But we can each profoundly know what is permanent--the blissful constant of the universe--because each of us contains that spiritual beauty.

Slave or pharaoh, merchant or priest, none of us individually can spin the wheel of fortune in our favor or out of our favor. But what actually turns the wheel? Isn't it the axle, moving through the wheel's center? As a centered, blissful being, even the slightest pressure--a leaning more than a push--has more power to move that wheel than does anything we might try at the wheel's rim.

What passes for power in the ephemeral world is simply force. Real power--and real bliss--emerges like a divine light in the middle of darkness, and it never uses force. Its ability to do good in the world can only--has ever only--come from its ability to inspire men.

Art in Hard Times

OK, so I've been struggling with this, and now I'm turning it over to you. When times seem hard or uncertain, what kind of art do you turn to? Or do you turn to art at all? Do you find comfort in the idea of art, or does it leave your consciousness because you are focused on other things? In other words, in hard times, what role does art play in your life?

I'm not interested in ideas about art, I'm interested in experience. While I know art should lift us up, remind us of beauty and our better selves, what I want to know is, when the chips are down and money is tight and you're not sure if you're safe in your own home, do you find a place for art, or does it fall away as irrelevant?

I need some comments on this one, so I'm gonna beg. Please, dear reader, share your experience with art (and by this I mean literature, film, music, visual art, theater, dance) when the going gets tough.

Thank you in advance. It means a lot to me.

Keep Your Commitments

No matter how small. Don't make any you can't keep. Be honest, forthright, straightforward. Don't mislead or tease or hint that you will do something when you know you will likely do the opposite.

I am so sick and tired of people flaking out, forgetting what they said, making promises or appointments they knew they couldn't or didn't want to keep and elevating others' hopes in bad faith. Stop with the bait-and-switch, the disappearing act, the just-couldn't-handle-it mentality.

If you do this, you will slowly make people hate you. You will also slowly succumb to a lifetime of bad faith actions, which puts you on a path to ill-will, bad karma and endless victimhood.

Don't do it. No excuses. Just don't.

Be responsible, keep your commitments, and don't make any you can't keep. Whatever it is, act in good faith.

Just Say No to Bread and Circus

Today I'm just gonna talk about what's on my mind. I apologize in advance, but I think I've been avoiding the blog because I have felt, of late, like the world and what is going on renders things I say here insignificant. Maybe that's not true, but in any case, I may be able to get back to thinking blissful thoughts once I ramble on a little bit. Feel free to join my rambling in the comments. I'm curious what you all are thinking about lately.

As for me, I feel a bit traumatized. I feel like what we've been going through is kind of a financial 9-11, only in slow motion and with no end in sight. I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that I'm worried. Am I overreacting? Am I not reacting enough? What the hell are we supposed to do?

The emotions I'm feeling are varied. Anger. Confusion. Sadness. Fear. Despair. Frustration. Helplessness. Hopelessness. Vulnerability.

I talked a little about this back in my post on July 23:

Humans are not capable of going it alone, so I guess what I am suggesting is that we take this relative calm before the storm and we begin to reach out to each other, mend the social fabric, and work together.

Well, the storm is here, and I've been doing this, trying to invest in the people that matter, trying to build my social network of people I trust, and yet, these feelings are with me. The people I talk to--friends, family, neighbors--all feel the same way. There's something in the air--a charge in the atmosphere--that feels oppressive and burdensome and, to my mind, claustrophobic.

Sometimes, I truly feel a little crazy. And yet, the world seems crazy to me.

I was reading Campbell's "Myths to Live By," and there's a chapter where he talks about the "present moment." (Which was 1970, when he wrote. However, I still consider this the present moment. Humans are so bad about thinking of time in terms of their own lives, but one generation is less than a blink of an eye, so 40 years is nothin'. Indeed, 100 years is nothin'.)

Here's what he writes:

"But then, in the midst of all that optimism [post WWI] about reason, democracy, socialism, and the like, there appeared a work that was disturbing: Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West. Other writings [appeared]: Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, James Joyce's Ulysses, Proust's Remembrance of Things Past and Eliot's 'The Waste Land.' In a literary sense, those were very great years indeed. But what certain of its authors seemed to be telling us was that with all our rational triumphs and progressive political achievements, illuminating the dark quarters of the earth and so on, there was nevertheless something beginning to disintegrate at the heart of our Occidental civilization itself.

And of all these warnings and pronouncements, that of Spengler was the most disquieting. For it was based on the concept of an organic pattern in the life course of a civilization, a morphology of history: the idea that every culture has its period of youth, its period of culmination, its years then of beginning to totter with age and of striving to hold itself together by means of rational planning, projects, and organization, only finally to terminate in decrepitude, petrification, what Spengler called "fellaheenism," and no more life.

Moreover, in this view of Spengler's, we were at present on the point of passing from what he called the period of Culture to Civilization, which is to say, from our periods of youthful, spontaneous, and wonderful creativity to those of uncertainty and anxiety, contrived programs, and the beginning of the end.

When he sought for analogies in the classical world, our moment today corresponded, he found, to that of the late second century B.C., the time of the Carthaginian Wars, the decline of the culture-world of Greece into Hellenism, and the rise of the military state of Rome, Caesarism, and what he termed the Second Religiousness, politics based on providing bread and circuses to the megalopolitan masses, and a general trend to violence and brutality in the arts and pastimes of the people."

Whew. That's depressing. But there's more.

Campbell then presents a poem by William Butler Yeats, written in 1921, and titled "The Second Coming":

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I find this poem as "awesome" as Campbell does. It electrifies, terrifies, connects you with the long, slow gyration of history in its fullest sense.

OK, so we've drawn this fate. What now? The thing that comes to me are the words of Gandalf (yeah, I know, but Tolkien was a genius) from the Lord of the Rings. (I'm quoting from the film.)

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

And so, I guess the answer is that we, each of us, is meant to be here, meant to face what we've been given, and decide whether to align ourselves with the light or hide our heads and therefore encourage darkness.

Some of us will be Frodos. Some of us will be Gandalfs. Some will be Samwises. Some Aragorns. And, unfortunately, some will be Gollums. And Orcs. And Saurons. You get the drift.

Joseph Campbell didn't write about heroes and cycles and quests and The Call for his own amusement. He wrote, I believe, to create a document that proved these archetypes were ancient, profound and very, very real.

I am searching for who I am in this time. I don't want to be a Gollum. I want to be a hero. And I'm asking you to be one, and I believe the way you start is by opening your eyes, thinking, reading, analyzing, feeling and listening.

I asked earlier "What the hell are we supposed to do?" My best guess is to do two things primarily: be a friend to others and educate yourselves.

Don't believe anything you have not analyzed. Read history, economics, philosophy, the great books. This is not the time to pretend things are normal and fine. I'll keep watching a little TV and movies (to lighten the mood), but most of my time will be spent educating myself and caring for myself, my family and my friends.

What about you?