Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started

Tag: responsibility

Review – The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

by Mark Manson, published 2016

How much deep wisdom can you expect from a recently published book written by a youthful individual who writes a blog about his opinions for a living? Not much, if you’re reasonable, and in that sense this book managed to be both exactly what I expected it would be and enjoyable nonetheless.

My basic gripe with this book is that it doesn’t manage to fully develop or even adhere to its titular theme, the idea of “giving a fuck.” It’s a cheeky way of stating something more profound, and while Manson manages to explore the profundity I don’t think he does it thematically which creates a disconnect between the marketing of the book and its ideas, and the actual philosophy itself. I think this book would’ve been more interesting if it was not called “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”, which is a not very subtle way to appeal to a potential audience at the cost of the integrity of the book itself, which is otherwise sound.

But I am “not going to give a fuck” about that, because it’s irrelevant in light of what value I did take away from the book, which is notable. There are many pithy concepts in Manson’s work, I will list some of those that I found myself dwelling upon and try to share why they were meaningful to me.

Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience […] The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The denial of failure is a failure. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.

The concept here is not that struggling towards achievements gives achievements their meaning, but rather that it is unavoidable to struggle towards achievements in life. Furthermore, attempting to avoid the struggle is irrational because the avoidance of struggle is a struggle. Instead of one struggle (toward an achievement) you now face two– the avoidance of struggle as struggle, and the struggle towards achievement itself. Or, even worse, you face one struggle with no reward, the avoidance of struggle as struggle.

Embrace the struggle as necessary and vital.

No matter where you go, there’s a five-hundred-pound load of shit waiting for you. And that’s perfectly fine. The point isn’t to get away from the shit. The point is to find the shit you enjoy dealing with.

“The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one.” […] hope for a life full of good problems […] Happiness comes from solving problems. Happiness is […] a form of action; it’s an activity. […] Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress […] True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to head a small retail sales organization in need of a turn around. It was hard work, the hardest work I’ve done to date. And I was successful in my work, but most of the time it didn’t feel that way to me because of my inexperience.

The thought I remember having most often was, “Am I doing something wrong?” My problems seemed to multiply without end. Every time I fixed something, something else broke. Every time I thought I had configured the organization, our processes, anything, into some kind of stable equilibrium, it would start tilting in another direction all over again. I became very discouraged because I associated this inability to find stability as some symptom of my incompetence or inadequacy as the man in charge.

I brought this up with more senior people in the organization during several sit downs and the reply I got each time was, “That’s business– there are always more problems to solve.” I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it’s also life, life is a series of challenges and obstacles to overcome. There is no equilibrium, no final resting state besides death. Everything in prelude is constant turmoil and flux. You can accept that and get on with it, or you can invest a lot of time and energy in being bitter and resentful about it (speaking from experience here!) and you will succeed wildly in this failure of imagination if you want to do that.

It took about a year of struggling with that sense of self-doubt before I came to terms with the inescapable nature of recurring problems. At that point, I came to appreciate the concept philosophically– there were always going to be problems to solve, no matter whether you screwed things up or batted it out of the park. And once I had that piece, I realized the next piece was to find problems you like to solve. If you’re going to deal with problems, you might as well have fun with them.

This connects to my theory of investment, as well. I believe the ideal for investment is control, ownership, being in a position to add value by being a change agent. And so from that standpoint I believe the most fundamental investment value, besides price, yield, future prospects, etc., is that you select investment problems you enjoy solving. You be an owner where you can add value with your solutions to the problems the company faces, and where you enjoy providing those solutions.

Real, serious, lifelong fulfillment and meaning have to be earned through the choosing and managing of our struggles.

Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who run triathlons and have chiseled abs and can benchpress a small house. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who fly to the top of it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

This ties together the ideas of avoiding entitlement by embracing the necessity of struggle, and selecting struggles you enjoy. It provides explanatory value for the outcomes we witness in other people, particularly people who excel in certain fields. It helps us appreciate where their success comes from– their embrace of particular struggles. It helps us to understand that it is unreasonable to expect to enjoy those same rewards without the same affinity for those struggles.

We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond.

“With great responsibility comes great power.”

A lot of people hesitate to take responsibility for their problems because they believe that to be responsible for your problems is also to be at fault for your problems.

Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense.

Many years ago I became interested in the thinking of the psychologist and philosopher, Nathaniel Branden. One of the books I read which had a big impact in my life was his not-so-subtly titled How To Raise Your Self-Esteem. It is a humongous work inside a small package, a title I can easily recommend to anyone, and there is one sentence in the book that hit me like a person you’ve always respected and admired admitting they can’t stand you: “No one is coming to the rescue.”

I made a lot of excuses for myself back then. I don’t know if it was a sense of self-pity or a sense of cosmic divinity (how could I of all people be meant to suffer or be anything but perfect?!), but I was good at sitting around waiting for everyone else to get clued in on how great I was. I spent A LOT of time trying to figure other people out and rationalize why, despite my brilliance and benevolence, they didn’t like me, weren’t attracted to me, didn’t enjoy my company, etc. What I didn’t do much of was think about what I could do differently to get different results in my life. My attitude was, “This is just the way I am, if the world doesn’t appreciate it, then fuck ’em!”

When I read that no one was coming to my rescue, I first thought, who would come to my rescue if someone was coming to my rescue? It wasn’t god, as I didn’t believe in it. It wasn’t my parents– my parents love me, and they didn’t seem to have taken the opportunity to rescue me from my struggles so far, so it seemed safe to assume they weren’t just waiting for the right occasion. It wasn’t my friends, they were struggling with some of the same things I was. And it wasn’t some random stranger, they don’t know me and couldn’t care about my struggles. By process of elimination, it dawned on me that the only person who could come to my rescue, was me, and even I wasn’t getting off my ass to do the deed. So, Branden was right, no one was coming to my rescue.

That’s when I stopped the unsatisfying game of assigning fault, and took up the mantle of responsibility for my own life. It’s been an imperfect practice, and it always will be, but it’s made all the difference in my life since then.

Life is about not knowing and then doing something anyway.

“If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.”

Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it.

This is a great reminder for me because I am a cerebral person. The thing I struggle with the most is overthinking my problems. This was again something I had to learn on the job while heading the retail operation. I would face a problem and try to find the “perfect” solution for it, which inevitably meant thinking and thinking and thinking again. I received another bit of wisdom in one of those senior manager sitdowns: “You’re never going to have the time or the ability to implement the perfect solution. Consider a couple options and then pick the one you’re most comfortable with and accept that you might make another mess that you can clean up later.”

Again, the lesson applies to life in general. You can think your problems to death, literally (see Buridan’s ass). You’ll get more places by simply doing, and dealing with the consequences. Consequences are unavoidable and there are always more problems to solve whether you get the current one right or wrong. There is also a parallel to investing practice here– facing a sound investment with a 10% return potential, should you hold out and wait for one that could return 20%? No. Invest whenever you can find a safe return and worry about whether you’ll have free resources for the 20% return when you come to it. If you do otherwise, you may give up even the 10% return chasing a phantom 20%.

Commitment gives you freedom because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous.

I’ve been kicking this one around a lot with friends recently. During the financial crisis, I was enamored with the idea of living with no flag, traveling around the world as a lifestyle, being a “citizen of the world.” It’s a sexy, exciting dream, but it makes no sense. Part of what makes being a “citizen” of any place enjoyable is the commitment you make to that place which allows you to have deeper connections and experiences than a mere tourist. It can be captured in the metaphor of the traveler who wants to know where the locals eat. You can’t eat like a local when you’re always on the move. You can’t live the life of a citizen when you’re an uprooted, uncommitted nomad.

This also dovetails with the simplicity mindset of Marie Kondo’s “Life-Changing Magic”. When you live life simply and rid yourself of ill-used possessions, you commit yourself to fuller utilization of the possessions that remain. You commit to a particular use pattern and give up the elusive dream of having and using it all, which is impossible. The things you discard are marginalia, they are unimportant, frivolous things in your life.

With your limited “fucks to give” in life, you must draw a close bead on the things you’re aiming to achieve.

Death is the only thing we can know with certainty […] it must be the compass by which we orient all of our other values and decisions.

And then there’s that. It’s great that the book tries to wrestle with the issue, because we have an anti-death culture, this diseased belief that “death can’t happen here.”

Yesterday I was re-reading the preface of Phil Fisher’s Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. The preface is written by Phil’s son Ken, who is also part of the investment industry. At the time Ken was writing, his father was suffering from dementia and slowly dying. Ken reflected on the former vitality of his father which had now diminished, and lamented the fact that he tried to continue the game of investment even in his old age, which Ken argued was a young man’s game.

One example he provided was a time when his then eighty-year-old father told a group of people of some stocks he was picking which he looked to own “for the next thirty years.” The people he was speaking to thought this was cute, but Ken thought it was depressing and nonsensical. It was extremely unlikely his father would be around another thirty years and so his behavior and values were mismatched for what was appropriate to his stage of life. In effect, he was squandering what little time he had left, because he would not be honest about the inevitability of his impending death.

Ken suggested he would’ve been better off visiting with family, traveling or just taking it easy. And I agree. There’s a wisdom here in understanding death and keeping it, in some sense, in the forefront of one’s mind. We should be making the best plans we can with the time we think we have left, but we should never kid ourselves about how much time that is likely to be and what kind of plans are appropriate for the occasion.

Why I Try To Avoid Visits To The Doctor’s Office

I don’t go to the doctor much. I think that’s a good thing, but people who believe “an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure” might be horrified to know that I don’t even do my so-called oil changes and other regularly scheduled maintenances with regards to my body– false positives, risk of complications from the cure that are worse than the disease, etc.

Generally, if I’m not in pain, I’m not going to see a doctor. And even sometimes when I am, I think, “This too shall pass” and carry on. I pay attention to my body, I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing when I’m in trouble versus experiencing discomfort that will resolve itself over time. I have a pretty high pain threshold I think, I won’t even mention I have a headache until I’m somewhere around a migraine for someone else.

And I do believe in prevention! That’s why I eat a nutrient rich diet, exercise (weight lifting) weekly and walk my dog daily. That’s why I work hard to keep a reasonable bed time and get as much sleep as I can. That’s why I try to think happy thoughts and help others do the same. And that’s why I listen to my body and take it easy when it tells me “No!”, rather than flailing myself before the altar of No Pain, No Gain and reveling in masochistic torture.

So I do my darnedest to avoid visiting a doctor. That’s why I’m bummed I decided to go in today, and that’s why I think this decision was yet again illustrative of my principles!

You see, where I live, medicine is practiced a bit oddly– legal liability dictates that the doctor does anything he can to avoid taking responsibility for your treatments and it’s consequences, as they don’t want to be sued for malpractice. But their medical school instruction plus their ever closer relationship with the State leads them to an aggravated mindset anytime you insist on thinking for yourself and following your own judgment. Think about that, they don’t want you to make your own choice, but they don’t want to be responsible for the choice you make.

I had some kind of strange reaction to an insect bite on the back of my calf last night. I don’t know how it happened or what bit me, I’ve never seen anything like this on my leg, nor felt this kind of pain, which is severe but within my tolerance levels. Normally, I’d just keep walking around and unless it seemed to worsen or I showed other symptoms, I’d just let time work it’s magic on healing it. Painful, yes, but nothing my body can’t handle.

Unfortunately, my plan was to travel out of town for the holiday this week to spend time with family. If my condition worsened, I might end up in an ER in a strange place. I don’t want to end up in an ER, and certainly not in a strange place. As a result, I decided to visit the GP at the last minute to see if they thought it looked dangerous. If it was going to kill me or save my tissue, I’d want to intervene, but anything short of that I’d just make do.

I should’ve just kept on going and took my chances.

The doctor squeezed me in, which I’m very grateful for. But because I hadn’t seen them in over ten years, they subjected me to a battery of questions about my health, my family’s health, and so on. I spent 20 minutes talking about everything but my bite and about one minute actually discussing the course of action about the bite.

I got lectured about the need to do regular check ups. I got lectured about treatments available for some historical conditions, as if I was unaware, hadn’t tried them and was suffering needlessly (because the assumption is I don’t take care of my health). I witnessed the doctor exhibit some unhealthy conditions of her own and then was told not to worry, wasn’t contagious, etc.

The worst mistake I made was mentioning that my wife is pregnant and nearing her due date.

“When did you last get your tetanus shot?”

This is a terrifying question. Something innocuous like this, ostensibly asked our of concern for my health and the health of my family, could lead to a spiral where either the baby snatchers come for my kid, or I submit to vaccinations and other invasive treatments I don’t have any interest in.

She continued, “I don’t mean to alarm you, but EIGHT babies in the whole state died last year because of whooping cough connected to tetanus, likely contracted from a parent or relative who didn’t get their shots. I wouldn’t want you to be one of them!”

When she said 8 in the whole state, I wanted to laugh. Are you kidding? I probably have more risk driving my baby around in its car seat (don’t worry, she lectured me about that, too). And its probably not PC to say, but I doubt those babies had my socioeconomic background (ie, I’m wealthier and I don’t have relatives traveling back and forth to third world countries or other impoverished areas). It’s simply not reasonable to be worried about this risk, measured against the potential complications.

“It’s really quick and out nurse is great with shots, can I go ahead and get that taken care of for you?”

No, thanks, I’m traveling and don’t want to deal with it right now.

“Okay no problem, I’ll put a note in your file that you’re going to come back in two weeks and take care of it. Due to state mandate, they won’t let you go near your baby if you don’t have an up to date tetanus shot.”

I sure hope I don’t get that call.

Review – The Secret Of Childhood

The Secret of Childhood

by Maria Montessori, published 1936, 1982

If you’re looking for a “how-to” on the Montessori Method, this isn’t it. What this book is is an exploration of the philosophical foundations of Maria Montessori’s view of the child in society, based upon some of her historical experiences and study of related social research.

Although this book was published long ago, Montessori’s revelation appears to be, by and large, still a secret. Sadly, it is not just a cultural secret. Even in the West, and particularly the United States, where her ideas seem to have the strongest following, the parenting and educational mainstreams seem to have done little to absorb Montessori’s insights into both theory and practice. If Montessori was correct in her discovery, then it says something both appalling and demoralizing about the failure of society to integrate such important truths. So, what is this “secret”?

The secret of childhood is that it is a period of time during which the child works, not to assimilate himself into society, but to assimilate himself into himself. We hear echoes of Max Stirner (1806-1856, Germany) in Maria Montessori (1870-1952, Italy), for example, compare Stirner,

school is to be life and there, as outside of it, the self-revelation of the individual is to be the task… only freedom is equality… we need from now on a personal education (not the impressing of convictions)… knowledge must die and rise again as will and create itself anew each day as a free person.

to Montessori,

Adults look upon a child as something empty that is to be filled through their own efforts, as something inert and helpless for which they must do everything, as something lacking an inner guide and in constant need of direction… the adult makes himself the touchstone of what is good and evil in the child. He is infallible, the model upon which the child must be molded… An adult who acts this way… unconsciously suppresses the development of the child’s own personality.

or to Montessori’s son, Mario, from the preface,

Man has discovered flight, he has discovered atomic energy, but he has failed to discover himself.

or to Margaret Stephenson, a Montessori instructor, from the foreword,

How can one learn through group play what it means to be a mother, father, space pilot, dog, when one does not yet know what it mean’s to be one’s self?

This psychic development of the child, a “universal” as Montessori puts it, into an individuated person, the man, unfolds along a predetermined path dictated by nature.

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult’s life, for it is in his early years that a man is made.

That is not to say that man’s childhood development is deterministic, but that there is a logic and a succession of predictable stages and events to it, much like a caterpillar becomes a cocoon and then a butterfly.

The place an animal will have in the universe can be seen at birth. We know that one animal will be peaceful since it is a lamb, that another will be fierce because it is a lion cub, that one insect will toil without ceasing since it is an ant, and that another will do nothing but sing in solitude since it is a locust. And just as the lower animals, so the newly born child has latent psychic drives characteristic of its species… A child develops not simply as a member of the human species, but as a person.

And the implication of this fact is that the child, in his childhood, has special needs during this period of development which will allow this process of psychic development to occur without obstruction or injury, ranging from the suitability of his environment, to the tools and instruments he has at his use, to the way he is interacted with and communicated with by adults, who he sees as omnipotent, almost magical, beings of power and authority. (Isn’t it funny to stop for a moment and consider how sure of ourselves and the nature and limits of the adults around us we are, and how truly mysterious any of this was when we first made our way into the world as small children? Just ponder that for a moment if you’re having trouble grasping the significance of Montessori’s “secret”.)

What are some of these differences and needs between children and adults? The first is understanding the significance of work to each. For adults, work is a means to obtain a fixed and known goal, and the general idea is to work efficiently, that is, to get the highest yield in terms of outcome for the smallest amount of resources and energy expended. But for children, the purpose of work is to learn about the self– work is not performed to obtain an income, or to be fed, or to avoid a threat, but rather work is performed to experience the psychic benefit of knowing how to perform the work.

An adult walks to reach some external goal and he consequently heads straight for it… An infant, one the other hand, walks to perfect his own proper functions, and consequently his goal is something creative within himself.

In working, a child applies their intellect to the world, they come to understand their power and ability as a person to influence and change the world more to their liking, a fact that mature adults take for granted.

His hands under the guidance of his intellect transform this environment and thus enable him to fulfill his mission in the world.

Because of this, a child may be seen to work “aimlessly”, or “inefficiently”, or “incompetently”, but this observation is made from the point of view of an adult which is not applicable to the child and their psychic purpose in working. Montessori relates how adults who are finished working are typically tired and in need of rest or recreational stimulation, whereas children who are finished working are exhilarated and self-satisfied at accomplishing whatever it was inside of their psyche that compelled them to perform their work.

Another need is the need for separate property. Children exist in a world created by adults, for the benefit of adults and adults can be capricious with their property and arrangements in ways that are befuddling and intimidating to children. Everything in the child’s world (for example, in the home) belongs to the adults– the furniture, which is sized for the adults; the dishware and glassware and silverware, which is sized for the adults; the books, the clothes, the walls, the art, even the pets!

[An adult is tempted to overvalue his material possessions when they’re being handled by a child, such as with a glass of water being carried by his child.] The adult who does this may even be very wealthy and intent upon increasing his fortunes many times over in order to make his son still more wealthy than himself. But for the moment he esteems a glass as something of greater value than the child’s activity and seeks to prevent its being broken [and so interferes needlessly with the child’s development in stopping him from his activity with the glass].

Montessori describes the adults as “kings”, who may of occasion grant the child a right to temporary use of the king’s property, but never the right to possess the property themselves.

An adult, however high or low he may be, is always a powerful being in comparison with a child.

The child can feel as if it lives only at the mercy and privilege of the king. The child is constantly being instructed and informed how to use something, what to touch and what not to touch, to keep away from this or to go be near that. The child needs some of its own things, in sizes and qualities specific to its uses, so that it may explore and understand and “work” in the world around itself without constantly being in conflict with the adults.

An adult is constantly interrupting the child and breaking into his environment. This powerful being directs the child’s life without ever consulting the child himself. And this lack of consideration makes the child think that his own activities are of no value.

A final need is for adults to appreciate the differences in perceptive faculties of children, who, as Montessori describes, pay attention to details not just different in magnitude, but in kind.

A child’s psychic personality is far different from our own, and it is different in kind and not simply degree.

Adults are accustomed to looking at the world and paying attention to details in a particular way based upon their individual goals, ambitions, professional outlook, educational level, etc. etc. But children often pay attention to details quite differently, and in ways that conflict with adult perceptions or treat them as non-sensical or unimportant.

Children an adults are in possession of two different mental outlooks… Adults frequently attempt to point out ordinary objects to three- or four-year-old children as if they had never seen anything before. But this must have the same effect on a child as one shouting at another whom he thinks to be deaf [who is not so].

An adult may wish to draw a child’s attention to the beach and the ocean, but the child is fascinated by a tiny bug crawling across the sand. Adults are often quick to pass judgment on the child in these moments, as if they are “wrong” for not being interested in what the adult wants them to be interested in, or even questioning their intelligence or development when they seem incapable of taking such an interest. But as with work, observation serves a different purpose for the child than for the adult– it is not to satisfy his desire for recreation, or to attend to a productive goal, but to stimulate his psyche according to these innate, natural needs of his development.

Here are some other interesting quotes I collected:

  • The child is a universal… There is, in reality, only the child of all times, of all races, heir to tradition, hander-on of history, crucible of culture, pathway to peace.
  • The absorption of culture, of customs, of ideas, ideals, of sentiments, feelings, emotions, religion, take place during the period of the absorbent mind, in the child from zero to six.
  • We should try to understand that there is an intelligible reason behind a child’s activities. He does nothing without some reason, some motive… A child does not simply run, jump and handle things without purpose and thus create havoc about the house… Knowledge always precedes movement. When a child wishes to do something, he knows beforehand what it is. [A very Misesian idea!]
  • An adult’s avarice, which makes him jealously defend whatever he owns, is concealed under “the duty of properly educating one’s child.” [What Stirner would refer to as a “spook”, or a mental hobgoblin an adult uses to frighten his own psyche and thus prevent himself for taking ownership over his actions.]
  • When a child moves slowly, an adult feels compelled to intervene by substituting his own activity for that of the child. But in acting thus an adult, instead of assisting a child in his psychic needs, substitutes himself in all the actions which the child would like to carry out by himself.
  • What an adult tells a child remains engraved on his mind as if it had been cut in marble.
  • When a child is disobedient or has a tantrum an adult should always call to mind the conflict and try to interpret it as a defense of some unknown vital activity necessary for the child’s development.
  • Toys furnish a child with an environment that has no particular goal and, as a consequence, they cannot provide it with any real mental concentration but only illusions.
  • Before anyone can assume a responsibility, he must be convinced that he is the master of his own actions and have confidence in himself.

I enjoyed reading this book, it stimulated MY psyche and made an impression upon me in terms of how much more there is to think and know about this subject than what I possess currently. I also enjoyed the archaicness of it, Montessori writes like a civilized person of years gone by, speaking articulately and frankly about the world around her without apology and with much conviction and passion for her subject, something which doesn’t seem to exist anymore in our world of sterile, clinical academics reluctant to take a position on anything of import. But it was not always an easy read and it was fairly repetitious. I will likely come back to the book at some point to re-read certain passages that I found hard to appreciate without an experience of raising a child myself. Yet, I wouldn’t recommend this as an “essential” title for someone looking to up their parenting game unless I already knew they were more philosophical in their approach.

Skeptical Remarks About Dog Ownership

I own a working breed dog, but I do not have a working purpose for the animal as I live in a suburban community that is at least a one hour drive away from the kind of terrain and property arrangements where one might actually be able to put a dog to work. Currently, I also live in a smaller-sized apartment with my wife, the Wolf, which meets our space needs in large part without being wasteful, but which is not ideal for the dog who would do better with a yard to run free in. I have several friends who think our dog ownership decision is something of a lifestyle mistake– they see only costs and are unclear on the benefits.

In the interest of trying to think objectively about my life choices, I want to explore their skepticism as if it were my own. Why do I own a dog? What am I getting out of this seemingly parasitical arrangement?

In many ways, owning a dog is like having a child who never grows up:

  • the dog is dependent upon you for its feeding and care
  • the dog imposes additional costs in terms of food, occasional medical attention, dog equipment (leash, collar, dog toys, etc.)
  • the dog has limited communication capabilities and often leaves its owners guessing as to what its needs are and how they might best be resolved
  • the dog has a penchant for behaving in unpredictable and undesirable ways (barking at strangers, pacing about the bedroom late at night, distracting visitors)
  • the dog puts severe constraints on your ability to travel and come and go as you please, requiring special arrangements anytime you’re out of town for extended periods of time
  • the dog thrives on routine and predictability, which means your life becomes more routine-based and therefore monotonous to the extent you decide to cater to your dog’s needs
  • the dog represents a commitment and the responsibility which entails can not be shed at a whim

These shortcomings and limitations of dog ownership are very real. I have counseled many a friend and young family member to think twice before taking on the responsibility of a dog while single and resource-light. The demands of letting the dog out throughout the day and giving the dog substantial exercise can be extremely stressful to a young professional or amateur careerist operating on their own, not to mention the hindering effect dog ownership has on the attempt to have a nightlife and with it, a sex life! Taking on a dog before you take on a full time partner is like turning on a homing beacon for the irresponsible and imbalanced that simultaneously sets off an ear-piercing frequency that can only be sensed by the collected, cool-headed types you’d ideally want to attract but are instead unwittingly driving away.

And while the ongoing costs of dog ownership are fairly minimal (dog food is the gag fate of impoverished elderly people everywhere for a reason), dogs seem to have a nasty habit of swallowing things, breaking things or otherwise becoming near-fatally ill in the most costly and inconvenient manner possible for those least able to bear the financial strain, and such situations can be an impressive financial setback for those just starting out in life. How would you like to shell out $2,500 cash for surgery on a recently discovered tumor your poor old dog has developed? Or spend multiples of that treating an animal who is congenitally predisposed to the painful and debilitating disease known as degenerative myelopathy?

One of the supposed joys of dog ownership is taking your dog out in public as you traipse about town. But in doing so you take two major risks. The first is that you will attract a crazy person with an obsessive compulsion to pet or otherwise inappropriately interact with your dog. The second is that your dog will become frightened or alarmed by another animal, ideally a small child, and bite, at which point you will now have a dead dog (put down by the authorities) and a costly lawsuit to defend yourself against from the animal’s owners (parents, other dog-owner, etc.) which you will undoubtedly lose.

To avoid such troubles, you might think of taking your dog to the park, where it can roam and run and chase a ball to its heart’s content with little risk of an upsetting interaction with a stranger. But if you live in a town like I do, with strongly enforced leash laws and bans on dog activity on school grounds, which constitute a majority of the open public spaces nearby, you’re kind of out of luck on this draw. You can’t let your dog, legally, off its 6-foot leash which doesn’t make for a fun game of fetch, and you can’t, legally, even go to most of the places otherwise suitable for playing with a dog unless you’re interested in attracting a dog catcher and paying a fine and/or losing your “privilege” to own a dog (said privilege operating on two levels of irony given the tenor of this post so far, and the views of this author on the role of governments in society).

In that case, you might go to a dog park. These are specially designated areas where a variety of dogs of differing size, temperament, training discipline and owner profile all congregate and go nuts on one another, rolling in fleas, transferring diseases to one another, pissing and shitting all over the place and more than occasionally getting into fights. Many of the owners are the same caliber of insane as the standard weirdos who might try to approach you when you’re out about town walking your dog, which is also enjoyable. And you can still get sued if something goes wrong. (You could also be mauled yourself!) A dog park is actually a good case in miniature for a broad policy of social segregation, of dogkind and mankind alike.

It’s actually difficult for me to think of anything I enjoy about owning a dog that I could not enjoy without the dog itself. I could say that owning a dog is a good excuse to get some exercise and walk the neighborhood, but I could surely do that without the dog and in fact many people do, some jog instead of walk but nonetheless they get it done without a four-legged friend. I could say that a dog is a good home security system, but it’s probably inferior to today’s WiFi and app-connected DIY home monitoring system technology in both cost and effectiveness, and unfortunately this “security system” goes on vacation whenever you do, needing to be boarded at additional expense away from home when you’re away. I could say that a dog provides one with warmth and companionship, but that’d be an indication of an imbalanced, emotionally needy mind that could probably get that relationship more authentically from another human being after some workouts with a qualified therapist. And I could say that a dog adds a playful spirit of spontaneity to one’s life, but I’ve never been fond of jumping out of airplanes and I imagine you could accomplish much the same thing that way if you really wanted to do so. Besides, as I said before, where I live there’s no place to play with my dog and it’s hard to be too spontaneous in the living room in the small hours of the evening.

What value, then, is there in owning a dog? For someone with a working purpose connected to their lifestyle (shepherding, farming, mountain rescue, police/security work), dogs probably make sense. In fact, anthropologists and evolutionary theorists posit that dogs were domesticated thousands of years ago precisely because of the important functional relationships they could establish with hunter-gatherer societies.

But we don’t live in those societies anymore, at least, I don’t, and for the modern, non-rural person such as myself a dog doesn’t seem to have much of a purpose.

And since we all live in interventionist welfare societies now, maybe it doesn’t make any sense to have children, either.

Our Philosophy of Parenting in 60 Seconds

When I meet people who have small children or recently gave birth, I typically ask them the following question: “What is your philosophy of parenting?” I usually follow that up with, “Are there any specific methods, practices, approach or ‘-isms’ you subscribe to in raising your kids?” I mostly get puzzled looks, even from close friends who know me well and should have an idea of what I am getting at with my questions.

If someone were to ask me the same question, here is how I would explain our philosophy in approximately 60 seconds:

When we chose to conceive, we made a conscious decision to bring another life into the world which would be physically, emotionally, intellectually and financially dependent upon us at birth. This child did not have a choice in entering the world in such a state. As the child matures, it will develop the capability to transcend this condition of dependency. Our obligation as parents is to help our child gain physical, emotional, intellectual and financial independence as it progresses in its development, always being mindful and respectful of the limitations it has at any given “stage”, but also being cognizant of the great potential it has to go beyond it. We will seek to always treat the child with respect for its eventual independent personhood. If we can not only help our child to successfully achieve its independence, but also instill it with a desire for interdependence such that it sees value in voluntary relationships with us and other people in society, we will feel greatly rewarded. We hope we can be living examples to our child of the value of peacefully relating to others for mutual benefit, rather than seeing the world as a zero-sum game where our child gets trapped in the master-slave mentality.

If my conversation partner shows additional interest at this point, I might follow this up with an example of a specific methodology we plan to follow, which we have researched extensively and which we have observed the beneficial effects of with our own friends and their young families– RIE, or Resources For Infant Educarers. RIE is the first actionable link in a chain starting at infancy and extending to that moment of independence/interdependence which seeks to build a conscious, self-confident identity for the child in a relationship built on respect for differing needs and active communication.

These are examples of our “philosophy of parenting” and how we plan to practically execute it in raising our own children. It’s maybe worth exploring what our philosophy IS NOT, and the kinds of parental obligations we philosophically reject, but that is probably grist for another post.

Ron Paul’s Ten Principles Of A Free Society

I thought this deserved a separate post from my recent review of Ron Paul’s Liberty Defined.

At the end of the book, Ron Paul listed “ten principles of a free society” and I have slightly edited them below:

  1. Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they’re derived from nature, not political agreements
  2. Consent is the basis of social order; any arrangements built on voluntary consent are permissible
  3. Private property is owned by individuals and their voluntary organizations; it is not rented or permitted by political organizations
  4. Government is not a tool for redistributing wealth or granting special social privileges to certain individuals or groups
  5. Individuals are responsible for their own actions and can not be protected from their consequences without shifting the cost to others
  6. Money should be determined by the market and not monopolized and counterfeited by government fiat
  7. Aggressive and preventive wars are incompatible with the voluntary social order of the free society; embargoes are a form of warfare
  8. Juries may nullify (judge the laws, not just the facts) at will
  9. Involuntary servitude is not permissible, this includes: slavery, conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution (ie, taxation and “deputizing” private businesses and their resources to perform regulatory functions such as tax collection, immigration enforcement, etc.)
  10. Government agents must obey the same laws and moral codes as private citizens

I think this is a pretty good list. It definitely could get a conversation going. However, I wonder about some of the items on this list being redundant. I think the list might be able to be further circumscribed. I also think that the list goes back and forth between prohibitions, and declarations of principles or conditions or reality (thankfully, it doesn’t contain any positive obligations!) While the list seems fairly complete, I wonder if it captures all essential issues of a free society.