Songs of Peaceful Resignation

Life has a nasty habit of abruptly becoming very busy, challenging, stressful, and overwhelming. In those moments it is important to step back, breathe, and realize that perhaps our big problems aren’t so big. Perhaps, much of our stress and worry is arbitrarily and unnecessarily self-inflicted. Perhaps much of the discomfort we feel is more a product of outlook than of circumstance, in which case it is easy to dispel. Perhaps life is too short to spend so much time buried in artificial misery, and it would be better to smile a lot and laugh a lot and say nice things to sad people.

When I find myself in need of a change in perspective, certain lyrics tend to drift through my mind- wonderfully apathetic and reassuring lyrics, from songs of peaceful resignation. I thought I’d share a few of my favorites:

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1) “I’m gonna live it’s alright, I’m gonna die it’s alright, it’s okay”
          -- Good Old War (That’s Some Dream)

This is the phrase I come back to most frequently. It’s the chorus to a beautiful and soothing acoustic song by Good Old War, which, for me, has an incredible ability to shrink all of life’s problems down small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. This might be my favorite lyric of all time, man, just give it some time to sink in.

2) “Take a step before running, take a breath now before you die”
          --The Black Keys (All You Ever Wanted)

This line comes from another great song, “All You Ever Wanted,” which I find to be smooth, steady, and inviting. While the label “songs of peaceful recognition” may not accurately capture the essence of the song, it certainly does for this line- so casually incisive- which always jumps out at me, and offers a similar effect to the Good Old War lyric.

3) “It’s the end of the world as we know it... And I feel fine”
          --R.E.M. (It's The End Of The World)

This is a pretty obvious choice for songs of peaceful recognition. It boldly states: the world is ending, and I don’t care. The song itself is not very soothing, its actually quite stressful...So don’t listen to it if you’re stressed! But, you might want to let this one line drift into your mind. It’s a great rephrasing of the central idea of this blog post: Whatever happens, happens. Not everything is in your control. Too much worry is counterproductive. Breath, laugh, listen.

4) “I know the rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years, it's even worse than it appears but, it's all right”
          --Grateful Dead (Touch of Grey)

This is one of my all-time favorite songs. The awesome lyric above, together with the other lyrics in this song, seems to produce a message of acceptance and resignation. Things are bad but it’s okay. Actually, things are worse than we thought, but that’s okay. This wonderful message is affirmed by the chorus which rings: “I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.”

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So there you go- a few great song snippets that often help me take a step back and feel alright. My suggestion to turn to ‘songs of peaceful resignation’ in times of stress and worry is not meant to instill a sense nihilistic emptiness; I don’t wish to argue that nothing matters so you don’t need to worry about anything.

I simply want to say that it’s easy to get caught up in the motions of daily life and lose sight of what really matters. And that’s no good. There’s too many real problems in the world for people to spend so much time worrying about the fake ones. We all need a change in perspective sometimes, and for me, songs of peaceful resignation tend to do the trick.

John Cage: Some Rules for Students and Teachers

I’m currently taking a class in school called Theory of Knowledge, which is part of the IB Diploma program I’m participating in. It’s a great class, which seeks explore the problems of knowledge- how we can be sure we actually know what we think we know- as well as other challenging existential, metaphysical, and societal questions. Today we looked at this list of rules for students and teachers, whose creation is attributed to the composer John Cage. I thought it was great, and wanted to re-post it:

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student - pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher - pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined - this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: "We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities." (John Cage)

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything - it might come in handy later.

There it is. I especially like the ones

• Always be around 
• Be happy whenever you can manage it 
• If you work it will lead to something 
• Nothing is a mistake

Some of the things Cage wrote seem similar to the idea “I have no regrets, only valuable new experiences,” which is a personal life motto I’ve developed, and blogged about before.

Stewart and Colbert Nailed it on Gun Control (Video)

There have been an unconscionable number of gun violence incidents in this country recently, prompting discussion in the ever-difficult debate over gun control. While it seems reasonable that in a country with far more guns, far less regulation, and, incidentally, far more gun-related deaths than any other industrialized country in the word, perhaps some new, restrictive legislation should be explored. Yet, as usual, this idea has been met with tremendous opposition. Why? I'll let Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert answer that.

Though these two pundits work for Comedy Central and use comedy as a vessel for delivering their commentary, I am consistently impressed with the legitimacy of their arguments. In fact, I often find that their response to news events is far more articulate and intelligible than anything offered by the actual news networks.

(By the way, lest you find it crude to apply comedy to horrific themes like gun violence, keep in mind they never mock the victims or try to trivialize the issue, but rather, use comedy as a tool for exploring complicated issues, and mock the idiotic arguments presented in the gun control debate.)

With that I give you Jon, battling through a cold to shed some light on this issue.:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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I really like the parallel to drunk driving and the point that we, as a nation, over-react to and child-proof everything, yet can't even being to talk about an epidemic of gun violence. Also, I think it's great how he exhibits at times such patient, rational, diplomacy, (like when offering to discuss hammer regulation,) that he makes the people who won't even talk about gun control look totally unreasonable.

Colbert also put out some great coverage, with his characteristic method of sarcastically siding with the extreme viewpoint he actually disagrees with: "It's just a little too convenient to be blaming guns for gun violence." This one's shorter, perhaps a little funnier, and perhaps a little more painful.

The Colbert Report
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Slaughterhouse-Five and Reflections on Destiny

Per my father’s recommendation, I recently read Slaughterhouse-Five, a classic and exceptional novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It follows the fictional Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier in WWII that is captured by Germans and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Dresden. The novels describes the tragic bombing of Dresden, a beautiful city that gets completely demolished, yet the novel is not purely historical.

At some point in his life, Billy Pilgrim becomes “unstuck” in time, which adds a very unique and surreal element to the story. He claims to have been captured by aliens, Tralfamadorians, who explain to him the true nature of time: that everything is predetermined and unchangeable. (They can see the entire past and future all at once.)

They put him on display at a Tralfamadorian zoo, and eventually return him to earth. Throughout the entire book, we (following Billy) jump sporadically to different times in his life. Billy attributes this time-traveling ability to his newfound understanding that our lives are already completely written. The author is deliberately ambiguous as to whether all this is real, or if Billy is merely delusional after a traumatizing experience in the war.

Either way, I thought the Tralfamadorians had some interesting things to say about time and destiny. There’s a great passage when Billy is in the Tralfamadorian zoo and somebody in the zoo crowd asks him what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far.

Billy says “How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace. As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time... If other planets aren't now in danger from Earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live at peace?"

Billy thinks he just spoke "soaringly," but the Tralfamadorians regard this as a stupid question, since they already know how the universe ends “and Earth has
nothing to do with it, except that it gets wiped out, too.” Billy asks how it ends, and they plainly state, “We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.”

Then comes the interesting part:

“If you know this,” said Billy, “isn't there some way you can
prevent it? Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?”
   
“He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him
and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.”

I don’t really believe that everything is predetermined. But sometimes it’s nice to think that way. What a relief! What a burden off our backs to suddenly realize that everything is already set, and now we can just sit back and enjoy the ride. In the novel, Billy is certainly comforted by the idea that all the horrors he endured simply had to happen that way, and could not have gone differently.

Yet as the website Shmoop explains, that freedom and comfort comes at a cost. He surrenders his free will- his desire and ability to change and improve things: “He doesn't prevent his son from going to war, he doesn't attempt to remind people of the bombing of Dresden – nothing.”

I think the struggle to find a balance between acceptance and ambition is one of the most complex and important struggles that we as human beings face. So much of our unhappiness and conflict comes from not being able to accept things as they are. Western materialism is a classic example.

We tend to think “If I only had a new car, a bigger house, a better phone.... then I would be happy.” We link our happiness to things; objects, achievements. But this “if..then” philosophy is an exercise in futility, because there will always be something newer and bigger and better, and so by not accepting what we have, we are unnecessarily preventing ourselves from being happy.

If you decide that what you have is what you want, then hey! Look at that! You have everything you want! Wasn’t that easy?

If everyone was perfectly content with what they have, would there be war? Would there crime? If we accepted everything that happens as perfect and unchangeable, simply saying “the moment is structured that way,” would there ever be sadness? Anger? Greed? Regret?

In the time I’ve spent in South America, I’ve found that many people there tend to lean toward this end of the spectrum. They are laid back and easygoing. I volunteered for 6 weeks in a community in the Paraguayan countryside, where I was thrilled by a standard response to the question “Que tal?” (How are things?”). People would reply “Tranquilopa,” a combination of the spanish “tranquilo” (calm, tranquil) and the indigenous guaraní, “opa” (everything, complete.)

Though they were poor and lived comparatively simple lives, the people seemed content to have and do very little. They would often sit for long periods of time, enjoying the company of friends and family, passing around a cup of tereré. Sometimes I would sit quietly with my host dad, just thinking and observing the scenery.

My partner and his host family passing around a cup of terere while we were volunteering in Paraguay, through the program Amigos de las Americas 

Coming from such a fast-paced, competitive, and demanding culture, it was a little unsettling at first to spend so much time simply sitting, but I soon had moments of profound appreciation for this way of life. Relax. Breathe. Take in the scenery. Enjoy the people you’re with. What else could you possibly need?

Towards the end of the trip, however, I began to get a little antsy once more. At some point, a beautifully accepting disposition begins to feel like a waste of potential. My ambitious American side, which has been exposed to the idea ‘you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it,’ since Kindergarten began to kick in, and I thought, Don’t you guys want to pursue something bigger?

For while there is power in acceptance, there is also merit to ambition. Not accepting things as they are is what drives progress and innovation. Why should we have to be cold, when we could be warm? Why should we have to die painfully of horrible diseases, when they could be cured? Why should we have to walk everywhere, when there could be speedier alternatives?

Rejecting the status quo and seeking out something better is how mankind came to domesticate crops, discover the earth was round, invent the airplane, and build the computer. Almost all the great achievements of humanity are direct results of dissatisfaction. But perhaps, so are our biggest flaws...

Life is short and everyone wants to live it to the fullest- as happily as possible. So the question is: is happiness best achieved through acceptance or through improvement? At what point should we strive for something better, and at what point should we simply accept things as they are? As with all things in life, I think the best solution is a balance. Everything in moderation. I suppose the exact ratio would be unique for everyone, but I think it’s important to remember that both are always viable options.

Many of us could probably benefit from letting go a little more often. When things don’t go our way and we find ourselves angry, frustrated, upset, or saddened, perhaps it would be useful to think: You know what? It's okay. It's perfect. That’s the way it had to happen. That's the way this moment was structured. Perhaps then we can let go, and put our energy into something more productive.

On the other hand, there are certainly many of us that could be happier if we took more control over our lives and our world. Instead of just feeling sad or angry about something, confront it head on. Fix it. Do it. Make it happen. Get it done. In some circumstances, this is the best way to deal with the situations that befall us.

The right balance between these two approaches is infinitely difficult to determine, but important to contemplate. Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the author of Slaughterhouse-Five, was certainly aware of this struggle, and articulates it perfectly in a short poem that appears twice in the book:

GOD GRANT ME
THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT
THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE,
COURAGE
TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN,
AND WISDOM ALWAYS
TO TELL THE
DIFFERENCE

Original Song: Ode to HD 40307g

While doing some research for a blog post that I will probably never publish, (a fate that befalls most of the blogs I start to write,) I learned that scientists have recently discovered a planet that could be habitable by humans. My initial reaction, sadly enough, was something along the lines of "hey, that's great, because when we trash this one, we'll have another in store."

I felt that concept could make for an interesting song, and when I realized the "D" and the "g" in the planet's name basically rhyme, making the name sing-able, I decided it had to be done.

This is my ode to the poetically named and utterly ineffable HD 40307g.

(The video at the start is from "slatester," the Slate News Chanel.)

Lyrics:

Intro:

It's the year 2073
And the world's no longer habitable by you or by me me
So it's pretty clear we'll simply have to leave
We're headed for HD 40307g

Verse 1:

Well we polluted all the air and water
And we paved over all the soil
And we chopped down the trees, and we wiped out the bees
And we slurped up all the oil

We debated and fought
Till the politicians got
What the corporations paid em for
And now we can't live here anymore...

Chorus:

But we still got HD 40307g
Yeah we got HD 40307g
Yeah we still got HD 40307g
And there's only 42 light years in between

Verse:

Well it's a pity about those spacious skies
And amber waves of grain
But I don't feel too much guilt, cause the things that we built
Looked much better anyway
We were sure living smooth
For a moment or two
Before the planet sent us away
But hey man, that's okay

Chorus:

Cause we got HD 40307g
Yeah we still got HD 40307g
Yeah we still got HD 40307g
And there's only 42 light years in between

Bridge:

And I know
We've been overly materialistic
We've been stubbornly unrealistic

And I know
Our greed and laziness is self-destructive
Our way of life is utterly disruptive

And I know
We could have learned to live sustainably
If we hadn't fought incessantly

And we hadn't clung so desperately
To our profits and our luxuries
And we'd tried to work more as a team
And now we still haven't learned these things

[Hey, there it is]

Chorus:

You know I'm talking bout HD 40307g
Yeah I'm talkin bout HD 40307g
Oh I'm talking bout HD 40307g

It might be exactly what we need
A new start for humanity
This time we'll live in harmony
With the animals and trees
Yes we'll live sustainably
So our new home will always be

HD 40307g

[Hey, I got dibs on the oil]
[Like hell you do!]
[Gun Shot]
[Screams]

...Yeah, on second thought..... we're gonna exploit this place to shit....

Call it Global Warming

Says the gray-haired intellectual to the unsuspecting handyman:

“Rough weather we’re having, huh?”

“Hmm? What do you mean? It’s nice and cool today.”

“Oh sure, I just meant, you know... Hurricane Sandy, which left 165 people dead and millions without power... and Hurricane Issac right before that, which set record rainfall in New Orleans, and caused billions of dollars in damages.”

“Right...”

“And geez, look around the world. In June, there were flash floods in Bangladesh that killed 130 people, and in July, 144 died in flash floods in Russia. There have been floods in Rwanda, displacing thousands, and wiping out all the crops there. Half of Malina was submerged by flooding. Typhoons in China destroyed 60,000 houses and caused 23 deaths.”

“Man, that’s awful.”

“And it’s not just the storms. It’s the heat and drought, too. Over the summer, daily temperature records were broken in every state. July was the warmest month ever recorded in the contiguous US, since they started keeping track back in 1895! And August 2011 to July 2012 was the warmest 12-month period ever recorded. Drought is becoming increasingly common, and it brings with it forest fires and food shortages. According to NOAA, 56.0% of the US experienced drought conditions in June. And by the end of June, we’d had 57 large wildfires that destroyed 1.36 million acres in the US. And as a result of the fire and drought, crop yields are down, warranting fears of rising prices and global food shortages. I mean, the price of a bushel of corn doubled between May and July, which is a big deal since we feed corn to livestock, and put high-fructose corn syrup in everything. But I digress.”

“Gosh, that is some rough weather. Weird planet we live in, huh? But hey, what can you do?”

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Global warming is here, and it’s a serious problem. The extreme weather that has recently devastated much of the US and the world is not normal, but it is becoming normal, and the only way to stop it, is to recognize it exists.

Yet, as we endure one natural disaster after another, the media continues to present these things as isolated, unfortunate incidents. Watching the coverage of Hurricane Sandy, I never saw the major news stations link the storm to the underlying issue of global warming. Certainly neither of presidential candidates did. Why? Because the notion of global warming has become moronically politicized, and draped in artificial ambiguity.

This is not a political issue, it is a scientific one, and among the world’s leading climate scientists, there is very little dissent. How can there be so much uncertainty and debate surrounding a claim that is so factually supported and widely-accepted among scientists? Two reasons. 1) Short-sightedness, denial, and procrastination, are inherent human qualities. and 2) Special interest groups, especially those of the coal, oil and gas industries, spend incredible amounts of money to belittle the “myth’ of global warming.

Sandy From Space

The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly visible, and will only get worse over time. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore reality out of laziness or head-in-sand denial. We cannot allow ourselves to be misinformed by the fossil fuel industry, or the politicians or scientists they buy off.

Yes, destructive weather is natural. It happens. Not every extreme weather incident is linked to global warming. But, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather we are currently experiencing is not normal, and almost every serious climate scientist agrees it is because of global warming. It’s because our modern lifestyle produces too many carbon emissions, which is trapping too much of the sun’s heat within our atmosphere, causing an overall rise in global temperature, which is melting ice that’s not supposed to melt, which puts more moisture in the air, which causes extreme and unpredictable weather.

That’s what’s happening. And the results of climate change, which once seemed like distant, hypothetical possibilities, are now here, and to the millions suffering because of extreme weather worldwide, they seem very real. If we don’t start making changes, climate change is just going to get infinitely worse. And we can’t start making changes, if we don’t recognize this exists. So, let’s talk about it! When horrific, destructive, unprecedented, weather incidents occur, one after another, let’s call it global warming. Don’t cover your eyes and ears. Don’t play the oil companies’ game. Don’t hide behind comforting lies, or convenient excuses. Call it global warming, and let’s get to work.