Engagement

The death of manners in American society has been rather precipitous and jarring for me. In the last two decades, the general public behavior on American urban streets has deteriorated. This has accelerated with the public use of PDAs, iPods, iPhones, netbooks and mobiles. The advent of hip hop culture prior to onslaught of these devices laid a perfect groundwork for isolationism and marginal aggression in the public space.

I understand the seductiveness of earplugs in modern urban America. I travel subways and walk frequently through urban neighborhoods, which are jammed with cars, bicycles and baby strollers. I can see a day when pedestrians may be wearing hi-tech glasses, equipped with GPS and a virtual reality, projected on the inside of the lenses. These, combined with earplugs, would provide the perfect mobile womb.

I happen to believe that staying engaged, despite the annoyances, is an important part of being a practitioner of humanism. So, I venture out unplugged daily. I hold doors open for others. I say thank you to store clerks. I make eye contact and smile at people on the subway and sidewalk. This is an essential part of my humanist practice as I see it. This is my own way of taking responsibility for improving my environment. Retreating into technology, in my opinion, is an irresponsible and antisocial approach to the stresses of urban life. Regular, peaceful engagement in the public space, I believe, is a way of promoting greater peace in society.

Rain

A pre-Spring rain storm has deluged my area this weekend. The power of wind and water is humbling.

When I encounter the unavoidable and uncontrollable effects of extreme weather, I try to use my powerlessness as a reminder of my true place on the planet and in The Universe. Rather than making it all about me, I try to understand that the "higher power" is simply the visible and invisible ecosystem within which I live, of which I am part. I am one relatively small creature in a massive ecosystem, relative to my size and individual, innate power.

Perhaps this is a key to why some members of the human species have taken a kick-the-dog attitude in their lives. Faced with their powerlessness in the face of their real place in Nature, they have retaliated against those elements in Nature which they can manipulate or destroy. They do this with a sense of impunity and entitlement, without regard to the ecological consequences for themselves, their fellow humans or the whole ecosystem itself.

This is not human ingenuity. This is a crime against humanity and our ecology.

The subtle and daily choices of the serious humanist in daily practice are sometimes exhausting. I often feel the temptation to say, "To hell with it!" And, sometimes I do simply go with the flow, when my energy runs out.

Each morning, however, brings an opportunity to start my practice anew, just as each moment is a decision, a cause, an effort. While water must seek its own level, we, as conscious beings, have the opportunity to actualize our own path, often against the gravity of human greed and indolence. It simply requires making that choice one moment at a time.

Fading

Graceful and natural aging in Western industrial culture has been corrupted by commerce and the pharma-medical industry. Hedonism has ruled the day. From Joan Rivers to Nip-Tuck, neurosis about aging has evolved into mindless and vacuous self-mutilation in the wealthier classes. This is occurring in a society which begrudges basic medical care for everyone. In fact, the same tax-evading seniors who are spending fortunes on growth hormone and plastic surgery resent supporting government programs to end porverty and provide a basic social net for all people in the society. This is narcissism of the worst kind, plain and simple.

I have come to see my own experience of aging as a gentle and appreciable fading of many of the urges and impulses which made my former life so complicated and frought with struggle. By accepting age and letting go of these habitually perceived necessities, my life has become simpler, calmer and less stressful.

The key to this method of aging is embracing the changes, physical and emotional (also physical in the sense of hormonal), which are inevitable, despite any measures taken to fend them off. For me, this does not entail letting myself go to pot, by any means. In fact, I exercise more regularly than ever, but more gently. I set goals and projects for myself daily, but I do so realistically with my most basic needs at the top of the list.

The Middle Path entails balancing these seemingly contradictory concepts and actions. The Western mind thinks in dichotomy. It is best to reject this mode of thinking , if you wish to age well. One must learn to think inclusively with an acceptance that many things, some contradictory, can be happening at the same time to achieve balance and wisdom.

Letting go, fading gracefully, is the key to dignified aging in my opinion. This is a keystone of my practice.