Doing things merely because you think you can get paid is a sort of sucky motivation. Art and ideas have intrinsic value. We ought to do them for that reason. Let funding details be secondary concerns, if that. Heck, a lot of writing and art can be done on spare time, and if it is something worth doing then why bother with schemes for getting money for doing it at all! Doing it can be it’s own reward.

You become valuable as someone who can articulate or fully understand an idea, or as someone who can produce some art etc. Of course there are plenty of legitimate ways to capitalize on that value. I don’t want to minimize that aspect of things, but I find the suggestion that we give so that we can get off putting. I am more and more considering how bypassing ideas or art of someone who is primarily concerned with getting paid, for those that were published for their own sake, is a decent idea.

One rarely knows what is good for us and what is bad. Therefore if we knowingly put ourselves in the hands of Almighty, whatever happens must be deemed good. And I try literally to follow that precept. - Gandhi

As one who has often been labeled as an idealist, where the implication was clear that it is a negative attribute, this quote resonated with me. It’s not not because the assessment isn’t true, I am pretty idealistic, it’s that the judgement is both hypocritical and arrogant.

That comes off as overly defensive maybe, but allow me unpack it. The underlying assumption and attitude is that it is better to be pragmatic. So, when I say that the critique of idealism is hypocritical I mean that the brand of pragmatism that criticizes idealism is itself an ideal. If by ideal we mean that which is the best way of doing things, or determining what are the best things to do, then pragmatism is simply a particular one that says we ought to determine our actions based on what (we guess) will produce the best outcome. Pragmatism seems to be a peculiar sub-species of utilitarianism. Unfortunately as part of being ‘realistic’ they often attempt to bypass meaningful debate by labeling so called idealists as having their heads in the clouds, or up their butts or something.

The arrogance of the pragmatist lies in the assumption that we have either sufficient knowledge or reliable methodologies for concluding what is ‘best’. There are clues for that sort of thing. Patterns of cause and effect. I don’t mean to say wisdom isn’t important. Being pragmatic isn’t all bad. It can be a highly beneficial thing when given the proper role or emphasis. It becomes bad when we are willing to sacrifice principles on its behalf. I think this happens to often. However, I don’t see people jumping at the chance to cave on issues they care about. Rather than consciously capitulating, I notice people making the sacrifice in the name of pragmatics preemptively by avoiding or refusing to see any given issue as one where principles apply.

For example as I ate today I marveled at the taste of the peppers in a way that I just wouldn’t have otherwise. The dirt, water, and sun combined with biological processes to produce something nutritious, colorful and spicy. It is truly amazing! Yet it is something that is so easy to miss when you aren’t involved with it as intimately as gardening forces you to be.

Then there is the sense of confidence that comes with the knowledge. I am not anywhere close to being able to feed myself, much less my family, but I am closer than I was; close enough that I feel like if I really wanted to I might be able to.  It is difficult to articulate, but there is something very liberating in that.

Gardening turns out to be yet another case among many that I have been noticing lately where thinking in terms of typical pragmatics fails – typical pragmatics being concerned with efficiency and measurable results. Life is more multidimensional. It exceeds the measurable environment it takes place in. That’s worth keeping in mind I think.

without further ado, a few other ways we can look at “need”:

• I need this to feel safe.
• I need this to feel loved.
• I need this to feel mentally balanced.
• I need this to feel emotionally healthy.
• I need this to feel like you care about me.
• I need this to feel like I am fulfilling my purpose.
• etc.

Then I thought, ‘no, surely they must have accounted for such a thing as the perpetual recurrence of hunger.’ So then I wondered what the statistic is for obesity. Well In 2010 is was around 2 in 6. These are people that struggle with hunger in a way, though probably not the way the billboard meant. Theoretically it seems like simple math to balance these statistics out, some people have to much food, some people don’t have enough. Heck we’d have food left over to balance out some other small country that ‘struggles with hunger’!

Going yet farther in my minds rabbit trail I wondered what the overlap of these two groups was. How would people with an overeating problem answer a survey that asked if they ‘had difficulty fulfilling their hunger needs’? And how many people because of financial limitations eat cheap crappy food that makes them fat and unhealthy while doing a lousy job at satiating hunger for any length of time because it does a lousy job of providing the nutrients the body is asking for?

They more I think about it the more I am convinced that isolated statistics are good for nothing more than propaganda.

“Fear less, hope more;

eat less, chew more;

whine less, breathe more;

talk less, say more;

love more, and all good things will be yours.”

- Swedish proverb

Hence the new theme and removing all the old post on here that were redundant because they are on my other (professional) blog.