Hypocrisy?
Those people who read this site and know me personally may consider some of my writing hypocritical. I won’t directly address whether that makes sense, contextually. After all, this web site is not about me, it is about ideas. If I claim to believe in certain idea(l)s and not apply them to my own life, or if I claim to follow them and do not, then, certainly, accusations of hypocrisy have merit. But is it that simple?
I had another blog, a personal blog about the author, which I closed down specifically because it did not adhere to certain principles. It was probably even hypocritical at times. Not because it was personal, but because it was a waste of time. It wasn’t sufficiently honest. That’s how I felt, anyway. I’ll bring it back when I determine how to make it both honest and productive. That might be soon.
This web site began as a somewhat ironic outlet for descriptions of what could be done, by myself or others, theoretically and ideally, with technology, in order to make it better, and the world along with it. It has drifted into a kind of diatribe (I called it a manifesto) of what should be done. Whether I, the writer, subscribe to or follow the underlying principles in my own life has been sort of beside the point. The voice in the writing usually represents only a small part of my mind, an imaginary character that rants and raves out of sheer frustration. In other words, this blog has become a vent. Which makes it pretty irrelevant, except to me, and maybe not even then.
Speaking personally, I’ve been under a lot of self-imposed stress for the last few years. Not “pressure”, at least, not external “pressure”. To continue with a tired metaphor, it’s a combination of internal pressures (contradictory emotions) and external forces which are pulling me in different directions. So what? Everyone feels it. I get sick of people denying it, pretending they have it all together, or worse, excusing themselves from dealing with it by just walking away or by claiming they haven’t the strength or power to deal with it. I’m tired of a world in which most people deal with their problems by abandoning them. I’m sensitive in that way.
I know that others have more powerful forces, internal and external, acting on them. People with heavier responsibilities. People with fewer opportunities, with less flexibility. I don’t have children or other dependents. I don’t have big expenses (although, let’s be honest, most “expenses” are luxuries; if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise, you’re in denial). I’m not badly in debt. The thing is, my life is a result of my choices, and that’s true for almost everyone who lives in my “world”.
If your job or career were your parents’ idea, then you probably sold out to them for love or money or attention. If you have children, then it’s because you probably chose to have them, or accepted the odds when you had sex. If you’re busy all the time, it’s most certainly because you want to be busy all the time. If you’re an addict (drugs, video games, sex, sleep, whatever), it’s because you just don’t want to face the world without the help of your artificial mood stabilizers. That’s OK. It’s your life. It’s your brain. It’s your body. It’s your choice. The monkeys on your backs are yours to bear or, dare I say it, abandon. Chances are, if you’re reading my words, that no one forced them (monkeys or words) on you at gun point. Maybe you were foolish once, and you’re living with it now, but aren’t we all? Is self-restraint not an option? Are some of you out of control? Predestined to a fate not of your own devising? What do you believe?
All I’m saying is that I don’t exempt myself from my own judgements. In that way, I am not a hypocrite. What I do wrong is that I allow myself to get so worked up about the level of atrocities committed by others that I conveniently ignore my own small transgressions. For example, I have too many electrical appliances that I leave on overnight. I eat too much meat and manufactured prepared foods. I consume too many bad popular movies and other crap. I waste time surfing the Internet. I sometimes entertain fantasies of power and success heedless of the necessary costs of achieving them. I’m addicted to learning because it puffs up my ego. I’m addicted to other things that I won’t mention. These are my choices. I can’t blame anyone else. (I am wholly in the camp of those who believe that an addiction is not a dependency, but merely a habit and a preference, and that the key to breaking any habit is to replace it with another, better one.)
The whole point of the writing on this site is to convince people to stop blaming anyone else but themselves. To convince people to say, “If I want it to change, I have to change it myself.” Which means that I have to change myself. I have to do different things. I have to find better habits.
That said, the fact is that there are more egregiously awful transgressors out there, mostly governments and corporations. But those institutions and companies are made up of people, and its the choices of those people that have the most profound effect on the world, on the environment, and on the chances of the human race to finally grow up and set a deliberate course for itself. What I can do is demand better results from my government, and only give money to those corporations that act responsibly.
Do you see where I’m going with this? As an individual, the best I can hope from that strategy is a clear conscience. But what good is that? I want the world to be a better place! And that requires co-ordinated effort on the part of millions of people. And I can only get that by convincing millions of people (yeah, right) to co-ordinate with one another. And I can only convince by talking and writing. It’s not about setting an example. I’m not trying to appeal to people’s emotions. I’m trying to appeal to their reason. If people aren’t reasonable, then I’m wasting my time venting and effectively being ignored (whether people read my writing or not has no bearing on whether they are ignoring me; please spare me the semantic rationalizations).
I realize that, in fact, not accounting for other people’s emotions is probably my biggest failing. This is not because I am a cold person. It’s obvious that emotions run high in some of my writing. Nor is it, petty accusations to the contrary, due to a lack of empathy. I happen to believe that people (including myself) over-indulge in their emotions. I must acknowledge that my words will have emotional results in my readers, even if it’s only boredom and irritation. Without emotions, we would not be human. Our emotions give us purpose, and meaning, and significance. That doesn’t mean that our emotions are necessarily a good guide for how to behave, especially if we learned inappropriate ways to act on them. Nor do emotions excuse us from dealing with things frankly and honestly. And they should not be used to encourage people to behave without thinking, because that is unethical.
Honest words are the tools that I aim to use to get my point across. Not violence. Not deceit (lies or withholding important information). Not threats. And not appealing to irrational feelings. Just the facts as I see them. Just the implications as I imagine them. If that’s not enough, then the world will not turn out the way I want it to. So it goes. I do wish that my words were sufficiently compelling to at least elicit some kind of meaningful response from those few who do read them. That means you! I guess I’ll have to write better words.