Earlier this year, a colleague asked me what “my genre” is. I responded that it must be progressive rock. It's just weird enough to be interesting, just unexpected enough to keep your mind engaged, and just absurd enough to remind you that rules sometimes really are made to be broken.
I've listened to the Pink Floyd catalogue many times over, I've been listening to more King Crimson this year, and I've really been enjoying “Firth of Fifth” recently. I only really listened to Rush a couple of weeks ago, but they tick a lot of my boxes. I love synthesizers!
I have so much more to discover. Something to look forward to!
A quick disclaimer: Carl Jung has become popular with some right-wing commentators. Please don't take this blog post as evidence that I have any affinity whatsoever for those commentators. It's sad that so much has become political these days, but I don't believe in guilt by association, and Jung was doing his thing long before anyone had heard of Jordan Peterson.
With that out of the way, I recently stumbled across Jung's five factors of happiness, and I find it to be very interesting. This isn't the first set of guidelines I've come across in my life, the first list of ten rules or eight practices one should follow to find salvation, but I find it to be a bit more modern and understandable than some of those.
His five factors of happiness are:
Good physical and mental health
Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships
The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature
Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work
A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life
I would point out that this list may not be complete. A murderer or spoiled child might check all of these boxes, but would they be happy? I don't think so. Perhaps that's why we need multiple perspectives, after all.
I'm a perfectionist, and not in a good way. It harms me much more than it helps me.
I was trying to come up with a phrase that I might be able to repeat to myself as a reminder that progress beats perfection and that small steps in the right direction really do matter. I came up with this:
Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.
Consider saying this to yourself any time perfectionism gets in the way of your happiness, whether the source of your frustration is your diet or your wedding. Nothing is ever perfect, and I've come to appreciate that any goal taken to the extreme becomes truly neurotic and harmful. Hope for perfect. Aim for great. Celebrate good.
The other day, I was watching an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Raymond buys a special, expensive, rare, fad collectible card for his daughter. You may know the episode, Hackidu. It's a good one. Paul Reubens, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman, steals the show.
The point is, it made me very emotional, thinking of all the nice toys my parents bought me as a kid, including many that were fads, expensive, difficult to obtain, or simply extremely thoughtful. I grew up in the 90s, and so this list includes things like Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, baseball cards, video games, educational games, books, scooters, backpacks featuring TV shows I liked, and much more than I can honestly remember.
I'm very grateful for that. I hate to say, “it's the thought that counts,” as though I didn't enjoy the toys themselves, but truthfully, the thought and love they put into those choices is very meaningful to me.
I feel a bit strange being so emotional over physical things, especially when I dislike consumerism, but it was the thoughts that matter most. They show their love through gifts, to a large extent, and I am very touched.
In a recent edition of The Ethicist, a letter to the editor style publication from the New York Times, Kwame Anthony Appiah responds beautifully to a difficult question a reader asked about whether they should cut off an acquaintance who has committed racist acts.
Like you, I favor a bit of grace in a world full of sinners. And cutting off everyone who is morally flawed would leave you with a very small coterie of friends — who might then be tempted by the flaw of moral vanity. (In which case you’d have to get rid of them, too.)
You say you’re an equality-minded liberal. The way to live your creed isn’t by curating a spotless feed of spotless minds but by helping people do better. Hew to the norm; judge the person by what he does next; show grace where it stands a chance to help someone grow. That’s the difference between moral vanity and moral work.
This dovetails nicely with my last post, Counterproductive activism. I would never defend racist acts, obviously, but I agree that moral work demands helping others to be better, if at all possible. The rest, as he says, is moral vanity. Gosh, what a great term.
By the way, helping others to be better means approaching their wrongdoings with kindness, curiosity, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. It's a slow and painful process, but that's how change happens. This approach is needed even when others cause severe harm. In fact, it's needed especially when others cause extreme harm. Just ask Megan Phelps-Roper, who left the incomparably hateful Westboro Baptist Church only after others had the idea to challenge her with patience and curiosity. Telling someone off in the form of “advice,” when you know the message won't be heard, because it makes you feel better about yourself? That's not moral work. That's moral vanity.
Am I guilty of moral vanity? Yep, in ways I both do and don't notice. Even this post might convey a kind of moral vanity. If you notice times when I'm guilty of it, though, let's talk about it.
I want to help create a better world. That involves persuading people to see things differently—to care more about animal suffering, for example—but I also need to be sure I'm not pushing people away.
Little does more harm to a cause than the perception that its adherents are crazy. I've never heard anyone say, “Gosh, vegans are nuts… I should be one of them!” Purity tests are similarly destructive. Want to make an enemy out of a potential ally? Chastise them for not being good enough. On the contrary, celebrating small steps in the right direction achieves so much more than demanding perfection. (Guess who else isn't perfect. I'll give you a hint: you can find them in your mirror. Mine, too.)
Protesting outside KFC and throwing red paint on fur coats probably increases animal suffering, on balance, by deepening the resistance and habits of those who oppose ethical veganism. Similarly, having a meltdown when someone disagrees with one's economic vision probably hinders the economic justice they're after.
For that reason, I'm so frustrated and disappointed that social media fosters extremism and encourages users to preach to the choir. It's worse than a massive opportunity cost. It actually leads us to harm those we are trying to help.
Some of the best healthcare is free: fresh air, sunshine, exercise, clean water, good sleep, meaningful relationships, and real foods from the Earth. (Well, whole foods like these are not free, but they're often less expensive than the big, bright, fantastical confections that dominate grocery store shelves.)
Of course, none of this is enough, or our ancestors would have lived much longer than they did. Vaccines, medicine, and medical treatments obviously extend life and improve outcomes in profound ways. But to a large extent, what we're lacking—what I'm lacking, at least—is not the big business of medical technology. It's healthier habits and deeper engagement with the real world.
I'm just beginning to really understand this, and I want to be better, so I'm writing this partly as a reminder to myself.