This post is not about Donald Trump. This is about how much agency we actually have in the world, and why shitty things happen.
A little while back I wrote a piece on why I think we have control over our lives – that we can “set the trajectory of our own soul’s experience.”
Regular reader Rick (never afraid of a lyrical flourish) commented:
“Too much jungle juice on your yacht in the Mediterranean has addled your brain Jon… Calm down, take a deep breath and ask yourself whether you seriously believe that your prescription would help a person to “set the trajectory of his own soul's experience” if they were:
- a Jew under Hitler; or
- a peasant farmer slaughtered to achieve Stalin's industrialization goals; or
- a Tootsie watching in agony as his intestines were being eaten by a Hutu soldier; or
- a wife being burned alive on her dead husband's funeral pyre;…
… Get real Jon and stop rabbiting on about what the impersonal “universe” can do for us.”
I hear this argument a lot, so I thought I’d take it apart carefully.
First up, my position that we have freedom and control in our lives, and that we can create our own experiences, is not an absolute position.
I do not believe that we can do literally whatever we want in space and time. No matter how much positive thought energy I give it, I am not going to be a world-famous ballerina. These little Snoopy legs are not cut out for it.
Just to be clear, in case it needs stating, I do not believe I am a god.
That said, I do believe we have freedom and power and more freedom and power than we currently believe.
For me the best analogy I can come up with is surfing. The surfer gets up and rides the wave.
Now you might look at this and think, that surfer has no freedom at all. Their course is completely determined by the wave. And no matter what they do, at some point the ride ends.
But I look at that and say the surfer has a huge amount of freedom. They can pull moves. They can drop back into the barrel or shoot out into the open air. What they do with their time on the wave is totally up to them.
And importantly, the more skilled they are with working the wave, the more freedom they have. (Read that line again.)
Now it is true that some waves are better than others. Some waves give you glassy barrels that roll on forever. Some waves dump you on the reef before you’re off the board.
In this life, there’s not much we can do about that. We’ve all got to work with the waves we’re given.
And so does my philosophy of radical agency apply to someone who is a victim of oppression – a Jew, a peasant, a Tootsie?
Absolutely. The way I see it, they’ve just found themselves on a particularly gnarly wave.
And given it seems to take 40 years on the wave just to figure out how the wave works, they don’t have a lot of scope to enjoy the freedom and power I enjoy.
But that absolutely does not mean that the dynamic I’m talking about – about how we can set the trajectory of our soul’s experience – does not apply.
I remember reading Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Incredible book. In it, he relates the story of a young Jewish woman who decided that it was an honour to be asked by God to endure such cruelty and suffering, and by taking it on, she freed other souls from the burden. Her torment became a transcendental experience and she had visions of angels at her death bed.
This is a woman taking an incredibly gnarly wave, and pulling some incredibly righteous moves.
Likewise, I don’t want to be an arrogant turd. I recognise that everything I enjoy, and everything I’ve been blessed with, comes from landing a very, very sweet wave.
And I feel I owe it to everyone in history who has ever wanted a wave like this, to make the most of it.
Yew. Kickflip.
My point is, the physics of soul surfing are the same, whether you land a glassy barrel or whether your wave has you dashed across the rocks before you’ve found your feet.
My message is, given I don’t think many of my readers live under life-threatening tyranny, is that you have landed one of the sweetest rides in history. Learn how to work it. Pull some sick moves. Have some fun.
The other point I’d make is that I’d agree that the universe is impersonal. Totally. I think it totally doesn’t care whether you enjoy the ride or spend the whole time looking at your toes complaining about the heat.
It doesn’t care. But the physics of surfing are the same, regardless.
Lastly, I have enough awareness to know that there’s no real way to know. The evidence in my life points to something like this, but I could be kidding myself. I could be high on the jungle juice.
But if the evidence can be interpreted either way, why wouldn’t you choose to believe the story where life is a playful, creative wave and you have freedom and creative power.
Why would you believe that life is nothing but a meaningless flight from suffering?
Given we’re humans and humans don’t know nothing, why not choose the story that gets you most excited about life.
Surf’s up, dudes.
Like the surfing analogy? How else can we think about it?
Steven Vaughan says
Tootsie? The only relevance I can see is Dustin Hoffman is Jewish..Tutsi perhaps?
ron says
hi jonno, we in the west are riding a wave of sharks..big white pointers. its not safe to go surfing here at the moment. but yet the surfing analogy is relevant to life. if you enjoy the ride, good. if you find yourself in a rough place, play it cool and move on. you are right : we know nothing, except how to survive, and that is why we should not judge others, except those who need psychiatric assistance if they voted for h.r.c. i was just reading how every man woman and child on the planet has problems, perpetually. it is how you deal with problems that counts. john lennon had it right..problems = solutions. he sang about it and other things like life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans. what a fellow he was! an absolute genius. it is a shame that he was caught out causing so much peace in the world. you know jonno..i hate to say it (ok i type it) but religion is a curse. its just a shelter for imbeciles and a use for charlatans and criminals. there you are i have said it. (typed it) keep up the good work. o.b.t.w. as a writer of controversial subjects or anything else you must accept criticism. it comes with the territory.
Trevor Baret says
Love it Jon,
That jungle juice has not done any harm at all.
My life has not been as easy as I would like, but there is no doubt that I have been given a sweet ride. It took me longer than it will take my daughter to become exposed to the tools to learn how to ride this wave with skill.
At 63 years, I am getting started. Finally on my feet and settling in to that tube… I have passed the reef by (at last) and see beautiful glassy water ahead. It is still a gnarly wave, but I have learned a lot more about how to handle it, and I think (hope) the bumpiest part is behind.
I am pleased that I was not born into Nazi Germany, as I would have been a sympathiser with the Jews and tried to help them escape, which would certainly have got me in trouble – but that would have been the way I chose to ride the wave I was given.
I have also chosen to ride my current wave in the way I have. I wish I had learned more, earlier, but I figure the next 40 years will be great fun, and make up for some of the stuff I missed earlier.
The fact is that the coral reef is only a little below my feet on this wave, but the ride is wild and fun, and as long as I stay vaguely upright, the coral won’t touch me…
Watch out for the Grommets Dude…
Rudi K says
Hi Trevor, What makes you think that Jews during the 6 year rampage of war in Nazi Germany were the only people that needed to be saved? What about those killed during that same time in Russia, English ruled colonies, French and American domains. Or perhaps you spare a thought for a Million Palestinians driven from their land and homes or being killed by Israel, without any outrage by people who have been and still are conditioned by the Nazi stories, whether true or not. The insidious result of that conditioning is that people who ride this argument are made t to believe the only crime ever committed on people en mass was on the Jews by Nazis and that therefore any reference to that event (even with the barest of knowledge) frees them from critically illuminating other events at that time and of course today. Nothing, so the propaganda goes, could ever “beat” the Nazi crime and therefore any further argument about crimes most end here. Well, for Jews that is understandable, though in current world events also hypocritical. for any one else it is a cop out. So Trevor, there are still many people today who need rescuing in the next 40 years of your life. Start with people in our Australian concentration camps, Nauru and others.
Trevor Baret says
Hey Rudi,
I was certainly not trying to make any sort of universal comment. I simply used that as an example, and I took it from the context of Jon’s article and his quote from Rick. I definitely did not suggest at any time that they were the only ones that needed to be saved.
I didn’t write anything controversial, so why attack me?
The reason why the Nazi treatment of Jews is such a commonly quoted situation, is that there is no other time in history where six million people of a single race (yes, they do consider themselves to be of a race, given that their religion is inherited from family and not a matter of choice) have been systematically hunted down and gathered together into camps where they were subjected to horrific medical experiments, and slaughtered in gas chambers or by other means.
But that was not the reason I used that example – you are the one who brought up whether other injustices may or may not be able to “beat” this. You also imply that it is only propaganda – you probably need to check the carefully detailed Nazi records. They were nothing if not meticulous in recording their own atrocities. Not propaganda, but well documented fact – documented by the perpetrators themselves.
As for me – I have spent the last 39 years helping people with pain and disease – commonly at my own expense. Nothing other than my demise will stop that. You don’t need to worry about the next 40 years of my life. My conscience is clear, and thousands of lives are better because of what I have done to help them.
Colin Glover says
Jon keep it up mate your not perfect and nor am I or DT or the rest of the worldly beings. I’m so glad you referenced Viktor Frankl. What a giant he was. Enunciating how even in the most appalling of circumstances one can find freedom of choice and compassion. I find I can open the book almost anywhere and find a passage that shines a light of hope out of despair.
In spite of all the shark attacks on the NSW coast their are surfers still going out in search of hope and freedom.
KiwiAl says
Hey Col,
Be nice to sharks! The oceans (and the world) really needs them. Besides (not sure which country, probably USA, but):
“37 people were killed trying to get a snack from a vending machine from 1978 to 1995. That’s an average of 2.18 deaths a year, making this cause of death WAY more likely than shark attacks.”
Things have probably changed since then, sharks are probably starving because we are stealing all their food, and maybe it’s now compulsory to bolt vending machines to walls, but I’m sure you get my point. The oceans, of course, are simply underwater jungles, they are home to wild, hungry animals. Fact is, sharks don’t like eating people. We probably taste like shit. Shark experts now believe it’s usually a case of mistaken identity. And sharks may be smart enough to know that humans are more than likely to exact revenge in kind, or worse.
How many attacks on NSW coast?
Simon says
Some would be surfers don’t have waves, or even a beach, or surfboard.
NoelA says
When you see happy children playing with a crushed plastic bottle in a country other than the one we are lucky to be in it assists you to see that its not about what you don’t have but you do with what you have got (or been given)
Simon says
No it’s about what I don’t have, I was in the wrong fire, and I’m more than 50 G in debt. Because there were no TV opportunities for politicians, I was fined for not putting my tax return in instead of getting any disaster relief, because I worked for myself, and what little paid work I can find time for in between being ripped off for free work for accommodation, I’m mostly ineligible for any dole, free work doesn’t count as working for the dole, only sitting in a hall does, so my competition for housing resources get govt. subsidised but I don’t. After being in the wrong fire, everything is about what I don’t have.
Al says
Good grief? Such profound insight from a person who ‘noticed’ but did not so afford to $ assist (?) but currently propounded importance that IS self-assumed to be worthy of being noteworthy on a blog that is solely dedicated for promoting investing in personal financial self betterment? Did your (assumed) children have equal same sanction or was ‘the bottle a dirty-verboten potential germs issue’ and whisked away? Bottom line: Did you donate your assumed faith in that child’s future with action and set up a personal $ child sponsor link? – Did your note (obviously)(accidental) actually omit ‘what’ in context of how you noted(?)
Rudi K says
Hi Jon, somehow I lost my original post. Here is the essence of it.
Comparing life’s event to the peaks and troughs of the ocean is an apt analogy. And the illusions we are fed with such pictures are becoming deeper and deeper entrenched in our “Scheinwelt” (illusionary real world). Because what we are made to believe the real surf is, are indeed man made waves in a large pool, made by machines. !Because they are safe and risk free!- for our protection, – we are told, because we know what is best for you. The machines are operated by a seemingly world wide uniform press and media fraternity, spitting out the party line slogans to ride the comfort waves. > Big bad Trump is evil, he will throw you into the maelstrom of horrendous ocean surf that will surely end your world < Believe us (the fake journalists of the world) because WE know best what is good for you. For that we do not even have to go out into the streets anymore to listen to the worries and concerns of the the people and to write their REAL stories.No, we do get all our knowledge (far superior to the rubble in the streets) from Government and corporate wisdom sent directly to our computers. All we have to do is uniformly tell of the horrors that await the people if they do not ride our tame and man made surf. Put the fear of God (only in America) into them.
SACK all these so called journalists. They are still at it in the aftermath of their exposed ineptness. SACK them all. Trump obviously knew what the party line journalists could not possibly know in their air conditioned or heated computer office boxes. I am sure Trump had his people in the streets, listening to their real fears.What can we learn? Bombard the media moguls with our demands for truth and facts – not propaganda.
Rick says
Jon, your argument rests on an analogy – a notoriously unsound basis for arriving at accurate conclusions. You chose an impersonal wave for your analogy, which prejudices your argument in favor of the impersonal conclusion you prefer.
Let’s look at things a different way. The universe consists of impersonal and personal entities and forces. The evidence is that under certain conditions people (personal entities) have gradually grown in their ability to tame impersonal things.
What were those conditions? Progress was extremely slow under the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks and Romans – indeed under all empires until Christ. Why? Their main focus was on brutal control of other persons. Their biggest advances were in the field of taming impersonal things that could help them conquer people.
After Christ there was a gradual, but clearly perceptible change from leaders who lusted after power to leaders who devoted themselves in loving service to people. The clearest examples were in Britain, simply because it was cut-off from papal power by 22 miles of sea known as the English Channel. Courageous people in Europe, like the Bohemians (today’s Czech Republic), Waldensians, Albigenses and Huguenots provide many other inspiring examples.
But it was the Christian faith and values of a minority of kings, judges and other leaders in England that reformed the age-old system of tyranny by the strong over the weak. Against great odds, they gradually based our common law on Jesus’ love-based values. After about sixteen centuries their patient efforts provided a system of justice compassionate enough as the basis for widespread freedom.
From the 17th century as parliament gained greater authority, freedom and learning flourished. It freed-up publication by the greatest crop of scientific geniuses the world has ever seen: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Halley, Harvey, Pasteur, Boyle, Hooke, Bacon and Newton. They built science.
England, where scientists were not persecuted, then became the cradle of the agricultural, industrial, medical and transport revolutions. Thereafter, the love-based values of the common law, expressed in parliament and by reformers like Wilberforce and his “Clapham sect”, gradually channelled the fruits of those revolutions into widespread prosperity. Those common-law values also restrained the curse of corruption, identified by renowned economist Hernado de Soto in “The Mystery of Capital” as the main cause of national poverty.
That is why you are “riding your wave” Jon. And none of it is the result of impersonal forces in the universe. It all came about by the passionately committed, love-based service of Christian kings, judges and other leaders in many fields – especially the scientist named above (all bible-believing Christians) on whose foundation all our gadgets, including your nice home and yacht in the Mediterranean were designed and built – by people, not by impersonal “forces”.
Why is the universe so dependent on persons and personal relationships? It is because that reflects the nature of our Designer: Father, Son and Holy Spirit as revealed so clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ to anyone who does not refuse to see.
John says
Hurrah!!!
KiwiAl says
Hi Rick,
A truly excellent and well written post – right up to your last paragraph. There, your beliefs and mine sharply diverge. I heartily agree with you that Jesus Christ had a huge role in all this – the raising of mankind from the particularly savage, murderous brutes we were, and inherently still are, to something a little more civilised. However, in my view, our beloved “science” of which you write, has, quite effectively, undone most of that good work. It has dismantled God, and left many of us with nothing to believe in.
Without the powerful guiding words and examples of Jesus Christ, echoed weekly in church, to temper our daily thoughts and actions, “we” revert to selfish, rude, greedy, brutish savages, as we are seeing out there every day. Just read about some of the horrific child abuse cases, some of the horrendous murders people are committing, and look at all the greed and corruption of our “captains of industry and commerce”, who, sadly, so many look up to. Look at what your(?) / Australia’s own Gable Tostee case shows about the behaviour of our young people… Not to mention our politicians who keep on making the despicable, immoral and disgusting, all nice and legal. Being legal, lots of people think it’s ok to do these things. Remember Sodom & Gomorrah? Look at us now. The human species has reached the peak of civilisation, and is now sliding back into the morass. And, through our actions, unfortunately but inevitably, we are taking the whole planet with us.
I want also to respond to your comment:
“Why is the universe so dependent on persons and personal relationships?”
To which Universe do you refer? Persons and relationships are vanishingly insignificant, compared say, to the nuclear power of our own sun, of the gravitational field that holds it together, and keeps it orbiting the centre of our galaxy about once every 250 million years. Even the power contained in a kilogram of Uranium 235 appears to dwarf our individual power. How is the Universe dependent on us? So far, I don’t see it!
But on a brighter note, I believe that somewhere between what Jon says and what you said, there is an unrecognised truth. What Jon said parallels what the Bible / Jesus Christ himself often said. 1 Corinthians 13:2 is perhaps best known:
“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”
Here, the Bible (God through Paul?) speaks of faith sufficient to move mountains. Is this a real thing, truth, or is it a lie?
If it is true, then isn’t Jon on the right track? Aren’t we ‘all’ missing something very significant?
Rick says
Hi KiwiAl, When at Monash University I had the privilege of being taught by an information scientist whose work was published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. Since then I’ve followed the arguments he and Dr Lee Spetner began.
Get hold of the DVD “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” by half a dozen of the world’s leading scientists. Things are nowhere near as gloomy as you think.
It is true that non-scientists who listen to David Attenborough’s well financed propaganda, think that “if there is a God, science makes him irrelevant.”
However, leading information scientists can now make a valid SCIENTIFIC inference that everything was intelligently designed. Their work is so rigorous that it persuaded the world’s most notorious atheist, Prof Anthony Flew of Oxford, to write his book “There is a God.” Many others have joined them including the renowned physicist, Sir Fred Hoyle, and his ANU disciple Dr Paul Davies as well as Dr Dean Kenyon who had to recant from what he wrote in his acclaimed book “Biochemical Predestination.”
The entire SETI program (the search for extra-terrestrial life) is based on one simple principle: namely, that if we ever receive recognizable information from space, it will be proof of the existence of intelligent life out there. Yet, to protect their own beliefs, agnostic scientists refuse to accept that 3 billion carefully sequenced pieces of information in the DNA molecule in every cell of our bodies is proof of intelligent design. It is the most densely packed information in the known universe – and NO person, scientist or otherwise, has ever observed information that was not designed by intelligence.
As Sir Fred Hoyle said: “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Rudi K says
Rick, I am not sure if you are actually saying that Britain’s 300+ years of brutal colonial exploitation was based on providing “loving service to the people”, and thus the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan were perhaps an even greater sign of loving affection (The lying leaders of those wars would have been hanged if Nuremberg Laws were applied universally, and so would have many colonial overlords).
It is a fact, though, that Britain’s school history lessons teach such historical untruth and therefore you may be excused from uttering such quirky “knowledge”. You cannot, however, if that was the intent of your comment, be excused from critical examination of such “truths” as there is a lot more UNBIASED information available today.
Rick says
Hi Rudi K, you have a very jaundiced view of history. Certainly, progress has been slow and people and nations have and can easily regress if they lose faith.
As for your accusation that my information is biased, read my post to KiwiAl below.
ron goddard says
goodness me!! jesus christ? you mean jesus of nazareth? when did the christ come into it?
another point for rick. dear man the chinese were ‘universes’ ahead of the euros. until 1434. they had astronomers, navigators etc. etc. etc. so far ahead of the italianos etc. christo columbo had a map of the ‘americas’ handed to him by king philip of spain in 1492, and said to christo : go forth christo and hit those silly buggers over there for all the gold you can get. we know they’ve got it so bring it back cos ever since we kicked those b. jews out of our country they took all the gold with them and now we’ve got hardly any!! . so christo sailed forth and hit the carribean as per the map he had. also galileo had maps of the heavens drawn by chinese astronomers. going back to 870 b.c.they had to do a good job or lose their heads. you see, a huge armada of chinese ships (2,200) sailed to venice via the dalmation coast (and through the then navigable suez canal) in 1434 and handed the vice roys of venice all sorts of goodies in exchange for the italiano goodies. its called trade. the chinese of course knew about venice because of one man : marco polo. that is what sparked the rannaisance in euro. then. after that visit the middle kingdom closed up shop and stayed home. they must have had a change of ‘dynasty’. anyway if you want a good read get a copy of ‘1434’ its quite authentic and verifiable. written by an englishman so it must be true. jonno you say we can ‘thinking’ about your little narrative. people have tried thinking before and it usually ends up in disaster. the human mind is a very powerful force. how many times have you ‘changed your mind’? mind changing is a very challenging occupation. ask any woman. 🙂
Suzsi Welch says
Oh good grief.
Tutsi – African population also known as the Watutsi in the Rwanda and Burundi areas of Africa.
Tootsie – 1982 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman in drag.
Andrew says
Yeah Suzsi…. had me scratching my head too until I realised it was a typo…!!
Peter Harkin says
I often drink with an old mate named Mo who was a POW in Changi. We talk about choices in life and also how the cards of life can be dealt cruelly. Mo never complained about life because he was pleased to be alive and in his nineties. He knows six ways to cook a rat and brews the best beer on the planet. His quotes are priceless. Failure is the starting point of success. Wealthy people often don’t have much at all. My favorite one is “Don’t take life too seriously, it’s not permanent”
Andrew says
Jon,
Well, after reading all the comments, I bet you are glad you opened that can of worms…!!!
jessica says
I am not sure when the time will come that each of us realises that actually, contrary to what you have written, we are all gods. We are all interconnected we are all One. Each of us here as an expression of divinity. Spirituality doesn’t seem to get a good rap, on the whole, but it interests me just how many and how often you use words that are key to this genre: universe, soul, god.
When each of us finally gets our shit together to look within and face the good and bad within each of us, instead of pointing the finger at others, we might actually begin to get this ship afloat, to add to your water analogies. What do you think the soul is?