What Are People For?

What Are People For?[1]

            The inspiration for writing this essay comes from the train of thought that every young person deals with for far too many hours and years of his or her youth: What do I want to do with my life? ‘What do I want to do’ ultimately means ‘what do I want to be?’ What role do I want to play in my community? How do I intend to support my family, if I choose to have one, and myself? But there’s a further question, a broader question that underlies any personal answer regarding how to live: ultimately, what are people in general for?

Of course, there are more answers to that question than there are people alive on the planet. But we can examine some of the popular ones:

Some people believe that people are for innovation: technological, philosophical, artistic or otherwise. There is a grand narrative of history and it is our duty as members of the species to advance it slowly but surely towards its ultimate aim. This argument seems to be supported by social experience. After all, evolving systems seems to be humanity’s strong suit, for better or for worse. Some artists and thinkers’ life goals are to make a pioneering statement. Some engineers, scientists, and programmers’ life goals are to invent something pioneering to make life more efficient, more connected, more enabled, better.

            There are others who believe that people are for ending suffering. This attitude seems to be the inversion of the first one. You could call them the clean-up crew: humanity has its wastes and excesses, and the ‘ending suffering’ people focus their lives on resolving the backlash that results. These people come in two distinct types (though some embody both) – spiritualists and activists. Spiritualists tend to ascribe to spiritual paths based on the premise that ‘life is essentially suffering, and the journey of it is to extinguish that suffering’. Activists tend to see human suffering in less essentialist terms – i.e. it’s not an inherent part of life, it’s just a recent development in the world due to human greed, imperialism (corporate, state, and otherwise), pollution, bad economics, etc. To both types, suffering is either something that can be fought against and won or something that can be fought against and cannot be won, but, ultimately, what else is there to do in life but try? So they try.

            Looking at these two attitudes towards what people are for - innovation and the alleviation of suffering - we find undercurrents of views on history and teleology, which imply in their own rights how to live, and where to invest one’s energy. Do we put all of our chips in in the name of advancing humanity’s arching narrative? Do we disregard that narrative and focus instead on its dark side in order to reign in its by-products, destroy its negative influences?  

Here is where I take a step back from broad generalizations and dial in on my own quietly personal answers to these questions. In doing so I abandon the top-down approach to looking at the world and begin again from the ground up. On the ground, first and foremost, we encounter ethics: a piecemeal approach to what’s what in the world, which in time will mosaic together a vision of life. Declare what you believe and allow that to turn around and tell you who you are.

An example of this kind of exploration:

This I believe: local economy and face-to-face human interaction are the foundations of real community. Cruelty and exploitation are their antitheses. Anything gained by force and at the expense of another, doesn’t belong to its recipient and can never be sustained in the long-term. Violence begets violence and exploitation is a form of violence far worse than any of the traditional forms of brutalism. Love, which I would describe as the dedication to and cultivation of relationships, to people, to the land, to one’s home, is the mortar that holds the world together.

            Some activists believe that civilization is a cancer that is killing the Earth and must be destroyed. This is an attitude I can sympathize with due to undeniable global symptoms of pollution, extinction, land death, and human misery. Yes, these activists do have a point. But they also might be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It seems to me that not only is there is a kind of natural inevitability to humanity’s building of homes, communities, and networks, but there’s something deeply beautiful about it. Though it would seem that selfishness and a willingness to exploit have thrown an otherwise mostly benign endeavor out of balance with the land base, and the consequences have been mostly cataclysmic.

            In opposition to a mass-produced, mechanized, globalized economy, I support subsistence farming, natural building practices, and strictly small-scale capitalist exchange (limited only to people who know each other, or at least are willing to get to know each other, and have an interest in each other’s wellbeing), for the larger the scale, the less personal it becomes, and the more it seems inclined to decimate communities and land bases while blindly charging in whichever direction smells the most strongly of profit.

In response to the ‘innovators’ mentioned above, I must admit, I’m not particularly impressed by technological innovations, though neither am I a Luddite. I remain unconvinced that greater physical or digital connectivity actually facilitates a substantially better life for anyone. Yes, it’s nice to keep in touch with friends on the other side of the world and convenient to be able to visit them after a flight of only a few hours, but as far as our daily relationships to our lives and our homes are concerned, these novelties and conveniences really don’t make a huge difference. Meanwhile the dark side of continuous technological growth seems to be pretty consistently poisonous, though I would never actively rally against technology.

            Just as economy, manufacturing, food growth and distribution should all be locally produced, so too should law and order be locally determined. Relinquishing civil liberties in the name of ‘security’ is a reactionary by-product of paranoia. It’s been said for thousands of years that the more you watch people, the more in need of being watched they will become. We must maintain our faith in the power of individual responsibility, for it’s the only thing that stands between a free society and a fundamentally oppressive police state defined by its surveillance. Besides, following the adage that says you get back whatever you put out into the world, I suspect that external ‘threats’ are only a reaction to the behaviors of a sick society. They need to be addressed not with walls, fences, and guns, but with re-evaluating the behaviors and purported values of the society itself.

            In response to the ‘ending suffering’ advocates mentioned above, I declare that I’m not convinced that the key to good health is in a rigidly followed diet, avoiding toxins, or consistent exercise routines. Good health is an unremarkable by-product of happiness. People with active healthy relationships, who like the work they do, and enjoy spending time outdoors, tend to be the happiness, i.e. healthiest people.

            Finally, I think the idea of ‘multiculturalism’, which includes the assumption that travel is always a good thing, interacting with people from diverse backgrounds is unquestionably important, and keeping abreast of major happenings on the global stage is a citizen’s duty – long considered cardinal virtues among self-described ‘progressive’ people – is one I have always agreed with without hesitation until recently. While much can be learned from travel, expansive interactions, and following the news, when these things are elevated to virtues in their own rights, it discounts the importance of contextualizing them within one’s daily life.   

The Tao Te Ching states that

If a country is governed wisely,
its inhabitants will be content.
They enjoy the labor of their hands
and don't waste time inventing
labor-saving machines.
Since they dearly love their homes,
they aren't interested in travel.
There may be a few wagons and boats,
but these don't go anywhere.
There may be an arsenal of weapons,
but nobody ever uses them.
People enjoy their food,
take pleasure in being with their families,
spend weekends working in their gardens,
delight in the doings of the neighborhood.
And even though the next country is so close
that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking,
they are content to die of old age
without ever having gone to see it.[2]

            This is a verse that always struck me as oddly out of place. It always seemed bland and jarringly closed-minded. However, within the context of the question ‘what are people for?’ I’ve begun to see the power and wisdom of this verse. People are for living together with those who have an equal love for and stake in the land that they all call home. If one had only the choice between expanding her horizons or deepening her roots, I’ve now come to see that the latter has more value. A spiritual parable states that if you keep digging wells looking for water, none will ever be deep enough to actually find it. 

People are for enjoying work and free time equally. Art has a beautiful place in human life, but I disagree with those who would elevate it to our highest aspiration, the highest human value. A life lived well with diligence and imagination is an art, though it has nothing to show for itself, or to show off when the hard work is finished. All it offers is an unquantifiable sense of easy satisfaction, and love for the land, the community, and the self. 

            I once heard a religious parable that went to the effect of, “A kindly, beloved king journeyed a long distance to visit a holy woman and ask her for her blessing. Knowing the king was a good man, the holy woman consented and spoke the following words: ‘the father dies, the man dies, the son dies.’ Horror struck, the king got down onto his knees and asked what he had done to deserve such a curse. The holy woman gazed at him softly and responded, ‘there’s no greater blessing for each generation to live out their time fully and move peacefully on at the end.’ By this she meant, no parent shall ever have to bury his or her child.”

           

            So its seems as if innovation may more often than not be little more than a novel distraction from the adventure and responsibility of living and working within the community and the family. The alleviation of suffering seems noble, but perhaps it focuses too much on the suffering part and not enough on what comes after suffering. How do we spend our time when we are no longer suffering? The answer is the same as ‘what are people for?’

            People are for living in dialogue with the land they call home. People are for doing work that is useful, that is necessary, and that is beautiful. People are for being present with their families, being kind, supportive, and playful. How an individual fulfills these obligation defines who or what (s)he is far more than any professed beliefs or values.

            After playing the role of the traveling activist for the last eight years, I’ve lost faith in activists who go elsewhere to be helpful. I’ve lost faith in those on a spiritual journey who don’t have time for their neighbors. I’ve lost faith in artists who make art for the anonymous ‘public’ instead of for those with whom they are in love. All of these people’s hearts are in the right place, but they seem oblivious to the beating heart that has always already been right beneath their feet.

            People aren’t for anything particularly sexy or interesting. We are for living together, working together, playing backgammon together, eating meals together, fixing problems together, and supporting the efforts of those who we call by their first names and stop and smile when we see them. When we’re wrapped up in all of that, the question of ‘what do I want to do with my life’ disappears, for we are doing something: the most essential thing.

November 2013

Boulder/Golden, Colorado

             

             

             

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[1] The title of this musing is taken from a musing of the same name by the great American essayist Wendell Berry. Admittedly, the train of thought I’m about to explore comes in a large part from having read a lot of Berry’s work. But that doesn’t necessarily make these thoughts derivative. After all, Berry’s an octogenarian farmer from Kentucky, and I’m, well, not.

[2] Mitchell, Stephen, Tao Te Ching, v. 80