The Elephant and the Blind Men

Once upon a time, a blind man was travelling down a road when he ran into an elephant. Feeling its trunk, he said aloud, “I have found something very strange! It feels like a snake!”

He soon discovered that he was not alone. A second man, also blind, had found the tail some minutes before. He agreed that it was flexible, but disagreed about it being thick, “It is a strange thing, but I think it’s a rope!” Just then, another set of blind travelers came to the creature and found its middle. They began to discuss amongst themselves the thing’s rigidity and strength. But when the pair came to talk about shape, they began to disagree vehemently. One hugged the leg and, from the roundness, insisted, “The thing is a tree!” The other pushed against the creature’s side and argued, “It is far too flat to be a tree. Surely it is a wall!”

Yet another blind man passing by heard the commotion. He would not approach the others or what they gathered around, and was astonished at the discussion. He mocked, “How can there be anything there at all? How can you all honestly think you’re right? Can’t you see (but alas, you are blind) that, at best, only one of you is right? If you ask me, I think it most reasonable that there is nothing there at all. You desire to feel ropes and trees and walls, and so your imagination gives birth to ropes and trees and walls.” Annoyed at the foolishness, he continued on his way.

The blind man touching the trunk, heard this rebuke, and had an epiphany. “No indeed! There is certainly something here. But it must be a very wonderful thing! We all truly feel differences, but maybe that is because the thing has no fixed shape. It is not really like a tree or a wall, but it may become like them. Truly, the best picture of this thing is like water. It may freeze solid and feel like a tree or a wall, but its true essence is water. Water may melt and be flexible like a stream and feel like a snake or a rope, but not be a snake or a rope. None of us understands the true essence of the thing and not even sight would reveal it.”

Just then, the Tree Grasper saw a vision of the thing like a thunderbolt from heaven. He and declared with a voice of wonder and conviction, “It is one creature!” There was silence. The others furrowed their brows, clutching tighter to their respective parts. “How could that be?” asked one of them. “It is a living thing, like a snake. But it is more rigid with strong bones, as our friend who felt the wall declared. It is flat in some places, round in others. We are all right about different aspects of it, but united in our error: it is not just one experience; it’s bigger than that. The thing is great enough to include each of our experiences.”

Just then they heard a new voice, one overflowing with confidence and joy. “It is an elephant!” the voice declared. The blind men were thrown into confusion. They stood and waited, turning their heads toward the newcomer. Eventually the Rope Grasper mustered courage and meekly asked, “What’s an elephant?”

Though they could not see it, the stranger smiled wryly. Then, with a voice full of music and authority, he commanded them, “Look and see!” Instantly the veil of darkness tore like a curtain, and light streamed in through the eyes of the once-blind men. They began weeping, but through their tears they saw that it was as the Tree Grasper had said. They all gathered together around the “snake” of the trunk and saw how it connected to the head and they understood how it helped the elephant eat and work. They went to the “rope” and laughed together about how it looked and how it expressed the creature’s mood. They saw that the “wall” and “tree” men had also been right; it did indeed have great strength. They realized that the strong bones and sinews of the creature were the only thing that ever could bind together “tree” and “snake,” “wall” and “rope.”

The men stood now blinking in the sun. In all the excitement, they had forgotten the stranger. And then they turned around and beheld the man. He was strong and standing tall, arrayed in fine clothes and wearing a crown of gold. The edges of his lips were upturned, his teeth were exposed, and his eyebrows were raised. The men looked then at the first smile they had ever seen, and could not keep themselves from returning it.

“Who are you?” they asked together in awe.

“I am the Prince, and this, whom you have been prodding, pushing, yanking and hugging, is my elephant,” he declared with a dramatic gesture to the creature. “She is well trained her to endure all manner of investigations by all manner of people.”

“Why do you have an elephant?” they asked.

“Movement!” declared the Prince.

“But where shall we go? Our homes are in all different parts; where can we go together?” the men asked.

The Prince replied, “You will come into my palace! Today, I am adopting you into the royal family! As of this moment, you are brothers to one another and heirs of the kingdom! Come home with me!”

And so the Prince called the elephant to kneel, and the once-blind men leaped up onto her back. As they climbed on, he set a crown of gold on the head of each one, embraced him, and looking him in the eye he said, “Welcome!” And so all of them began a journey toward the Palace of the Prince, united now as brothers, sighted men, and newly-crowned Princes of the Palace.

The Cult of Food – How to Smash the Idol of Food

This is good food.

I have a friend who was not allowed to have candy as a child. He came across a huge sum of money ($10) and decided the best possible use of the money was to purchase candy. He ate the candy defiantly, overwhelmed with the forbidden pleasure. He ate and ate and ate. There came a point when he stopped enjoying the candy, but still he ate. Later, he felt sick, but he did not stop. He continued to eat. Finally he vomited.

We are so busy trying to follow our food taboos, we forget the moral world. Eating is an important human activity because it is a moral activity; animals eat by instinct, but people have spirits. We may be gluttonous and eat too much (as above); we may be vain, desiring the praise of men, and eat too little; or we may be both gluttonous and vain and drink Diet Coke. But though the dog may eat to the point of vomiting, men need not do so. Humans can practice virtue every time we sit down to eat. We can practice Temperance thrice daily, eating that which is good.

Temperance is stopping to think: what actually tastes good? How much of it is most enjoyable? Like all virtues, Temperance does not mean less pleasure, but more. Temperance is stopping eating before you vomit. Temperance is eating enough to prevent starvation. The problem of gluttony is not that we seek too much pleasure, but that we do not seek it hard enough.

John Piper wrote about how we were created for enjoyment, both ours and Gods. God gave us physical pleasure and is glorified when we take pleasure in it. He wrote “How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God.” And I think this is the medicine for our disease: to enjoy eating. To consider the mystical union we have with God and His Creation, when we transform matter outside of us into the flesh and fuel of our bodies. To be mindful of the multitudinous flavor of our food [think grape], to be grateful for having any food at all, to be loving to those around the table. Monounsaturated fat is not a good thing, but gratitude is. Omega-3’s are not good, but community is. Fiber is not good, but beans are. We don’t need experts and rituals to know what is good; just ask yourself, “Did eating that make me feel good afterwards?”

We perpetually talk about ‘health.’ But the first thing to remember that such talk is not truly a sign of health; healthy people talk about the things their health allows them to do, not the thing itself. Sick people are ever concerned about health. We have replaced “Good” with “Healthy” when we really want that which is Good. We should eat because food is Good, not because it is Healthy. The word for “diet” comes from Diaita in Greek, and meant “a manner of daily living.” We have made it into a monomania for a particular food or nutrient. Rather than asking, “Is this food healthy?” ask, “Is this food Good?” Or better yet, don’t ask anything and just get on with enjoying it.  As Chesterton writes in Heretics, “A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. … The food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking about his tissues.”

Let us remember that food is Good, and the eating of it. Let our eating be worship, but not an orgy before Pleasure, nor a dirge to Thinness. Let us use food and its pleasure to build friendships. Let us pursue culinary arts to give great pleasure in good things to our families. Let us prevent them from robbing the mystical act like a temple, leaving it sterile and bare. Let us get such pure pleasure from our food that we can thank its Creator with a nourished body and uplifted spirit. Our answer is not to compose some happy life as a food-fearer or food-worshipper. The answer is to smash the idols. Let us reclaim food as a human possession, not a god.

<--- Back to "The Cult of Food – Anorexia and Obesity as American Idolatry"

The Cult of Food – Anorexia and Obesity as American Idolatry

We have a food problem in America. We cannot seem to decide whether food is a thing to bow before and worship with Super-Size fries or an unclean thing, something to expel from the body like a poison. Should we celebrate it in raucous festivals in red-and-yellow temples, or should we fear it with a violent asceticism?

Like some ancient cult, we are dominated by mystic fears about food. Don’t touch this (it has sugar). Don’t eat that (it has artificial sweeteners). Our “diets” are no better than focused taboos. “Carbs are bad,” “Stay away from fats.” A hundred thousand priests with a hundred thousand rituals have arisen to meet our needs to worship Thinness, the wasting of human bodies, ever chanting that it is healthy. Doctors and nutritionists and psychologists all attempt to describe how to appease the vengeful god. Pious to a god that hates pleasure, we have drained enjoyment from eating like blood from a slaughtered animal.

The ancient and terrible god Molech demanded that his devotees make their children “pass through the fire,” throwing their infants into the welcoming arms of his red-hot idol. One million of our women have been burned by the fire of anorexia. Though we don’t use wood, we offer our young by the fires fueled by glucose, consuming their bodies no less than literal flames; though our fires are secret, they are no less lethal than our ancient forbears'. And according to the ancient tradition, Moloch hungers for the flesh of the most beautiful among us. By ferocious irony, our richest are made to literally starve themselves to death. Millions more are secret followers, mingling guilt with every meal. Women especially are burdened with a perpetual shame, reminded always by the most devoted ascetics on billboards and movies that they are not thin enough.

But our madness has two faces. In this very same society, we also cannot stop eating. One in three Americans is obese. Not just “overweight;” obese. Obesity has spread like a plague of the soul, born out of the South, leaving no corner of the country untouched. The map looks like some zombie outbreak. I wish that, like zombies, we really did hunger for brains; maybe then we’d be able to stop and think. Largely because of this plague, ours may be the first generation in the modern era that will not live longer lives than our parents; the advancement of public sanitation, vaccinations and antibiotics will be reversed by this new kind of blight.

There are two idols before whom we worship, sometimes on the same day. One demands our surrender to pleasure, the other to our body. One worshipper pays homage to food by eating the flesh of creatures raised in horror before golden arches; another worships food by violent asceticism, rejecting pleasure entirely for fear and guilt, and making a carrot stick a meal. Diet Coke has become a symbol of our duality. We lust for the short-term pleasure of sweetness, but fear the consequences of eating. So we eat that which does not satisfy and drink that which does not fill.

Holocaust of Hearts - On the Tragedy of Modern Romance

Rodin's "Martyr"

Last week I was driving to work and listened to the radio for half an hour. The first song was sad and told a story about a broken relationship. So was the second. And the third. As the commute continued, song after song played that told the story of a broken relationship. The stories told of cheating, of changed phone numbers, of emotional scars, of futile attempts to reconnect. For half an hour, a river of lament flowed through my soul as the music played. That morning, there was not a single exception; every story was about romantic pain.

Maybe it was a fluke. So what songs are radio executives playing, whose profit depends on their selecting songs which speak to our hearts? What are the chart toppers? #1 this week is Somebody that I used to know, all about a broken relationship where the man has been completely cut out by his former lover who sings, “Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over.” #3 is Payphone, about a man trying to call his former lover back to remember the relationship, but concludes:

If "Happy Ever Afters" did exist
I would still be holding you like this
All those fairy tales are full of s***
One more f***ing love song, I'll be sick.

Presently the song that’s been on the charts the longest is Lmafo’s “Party Rock Anthem,” (61 weeks) in which the singer brags of his conquest of your girl, “In the club party rock, lookin' for your girl? She on my jock.” Maroon 5 in Moves like Jagger (48 weeks) has to account for the scarred heart he is singing to, “Maybe it's hard/When you feel like you're broken and scarred.” Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger (22 weeks) argues that the pain of breakup is a good thing in the end; after all, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

In music, we feel the mood of a culture. And this cultural mood matches very closely to the experience of many of my close friends. The only thing like the pain of a breakup is death. I’ve counseled friends and family through a lot of difficult times, but breaking a long-term relationship seems to me to be the only thing that can approach the ultimate tragedy of death. It’s terrible. It’s a pain that interferes with daily life and that persists for months and even years. And it’s not rare. It’s like some savage rite of passage, something we all go through before reaching maturity.

And the data bears this out. OKCupid, a very popular (>3 million users) dating site with my generation who boast that “We use math to get you dates.” According to them, we (mostly 20-somethings using the site) have relationships that last 12-18 months, and on average we've had about 5 lifetime sexual partners. Maybe a girlfriend or two and a few flings.

Just consider that for a moment. The data says that our relationships do not last. Most of us want Happily Ever After with one person. And we go into relationships hoping that it’ll end that way, at least eventually. But it doesn’t. Most of the time, with a periodicity of about a year, one member is torn from the union like an arm off a body. And it hurts. We lower our expectations, we try to convince ourselves that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, we make ourselves more reserved and less idealistic. But it still hurts. We make a lament, our voices rise up, and our cries of agony fill the airwaves. We are in torment. Has any other culture suffered as we have? Or have men and women always been tearing each others’ hearts to shreds as a matter of course? Is this just the final station of the train that is the Sexual Revolution? Are we satisfied with the new rules of the game? Can we be saved from this terrible fate?

This is a eulogy of the American Heart, a message to recognize and mourn the tragedy. Unlike most of my essays, I’m not going to pretend like I have all the answers. But I can do is this: I exhort you to pray for the end of this holocaust of hearts.

*For those of you who know me, this is pretty amazing. Plato (in the Republic) joined forces with Oliver Sachs (in Musicophilia) and my roommate Michael Hole (who whistles every single second of the day) to deliver a team flying face kick to my nonmusicality. I discovered that my car was equipped with a radio frequency receiver. There are transmitters, which modulate the frequency, which send out music that my receiver can pick up. Anyways, these devices are wicked cool!

Storytelling and the Meaning of Life (2 of 2)

Rodin's "Walking Man" at Stanford

Telling Great Stories

Learning to tell a good story is perhaps the most challenging and most important thing that can occupy our species. We are ever persuaded to add this or that perspective. And, most of us weary and unthinking, do. But what kind of story do we want to tell our grandchildren? Certainly we want it to include virtue, courage and kindness, loyalty and love. Adventure and romance also should find a part. But how often do we make our decisions with aesthetics in mind? How often do we consider our own decisions as an author considers those of his hero? Do we live the kind of romance that makes it into sonnets and plays? It’s like we’re in a movie and we don’t realize the cameras are rolling, having missed the director shout “Action!” Henry V goads his men to courage by reminding them that their heroism will make a great and oft repeated story: 

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.” 

As a society and as individuals, we have failed to answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Douglas Adams answers sarcastically, “42”. Apple’s question-answering program Siri (sometimes) answers the question, “Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” Would Troy have fallen, Odysseus sailed or Aeneas founded Rome with a “be nice to people” script? Would Julius have crossed the Rubicon, Washington the Deleware, or Eisenhower the English Channel if their stories were about living together in “peace and harmony”? This is the question facing us every day. And, in the immortal words of Rush “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” If we wake up without answering it for ourselves, we let our bosses or governments or societies answer for us. Why do you go to work on Monday morning? Why do you drink on Friday night? Why do you do anything?

Who is telling your story?

If you do not have a clear answer, you will be at the mercy of every wind of fancy in politics, economics or religion. Your self-confidence will be at the mercy of every boss, supervisor, racial majority, or whomever else happens to presume power. The conflicts in the story will lead to anxiety and depression at best, and calm slavery at worst. The stronger your story, and the louder your voice, the more resistant you will be to tyrants. And so, in retrospect, I am glad that I discovered my weakness. I am glad that I remembered my own story and learned to tell it in the face of an alternative version. I hope that others would do likewise.

<-- Back to Part I - My Hijacked Story

Storytelling and the Meaning of Life (1 of 2)

What I was doing. Engraving from courtyard in front of MPPC.

My Hijacked Story

When I was young, my dad would tell me stories. And then, as the story continued, he would stop, and it would be my turn to continue the story. The story game would continue as the hero would be controlled alternatively by my dad and I. But I played the game again a few weeks ago. Except this time, it was not with my dad and it was not a fictional story. It was my story. And the co-narrator was the doctor supervising me, my attending.

Like the stories we used to tell, the story she told was very different from the one I was trying to tell. In my story, I was a hard-working medical student with my shoulders in the yoke, and though I didn’t have the mental strength of others, I nonetheless would press on hard. In her version, I was a stupid medical student, lazy and unwilling to do what the work required. And for about a week, I forgot about my version of the story.

Victor Frankyl was a Jewish psychiatrist during WWII. He was captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. There he saw what kept men alive. It was not a sexual impulse as Freud suggested, or the “will to power” proposed by Adler, but it was meaning. Those prisoners who could put their struggle into a good story were those who survived. As soon as the events fell outside the story a person was telling, he gave up hope and ran into an electric fence or a bayonet. In Frankyl’s opinion, stories matter, maybe more than anything. The human soul cannot live without them. Frankyl escaped and survived the camps, ultimately founding a third Viennese school of psychotherapy (after Freud and Adler) called Logotherapy, whose focus is on helping patients find meaning to their lives.

So what was my story? I had two, and they were contradictory. That week, I lived in a tension. I experienced terrible anxiety: hands sweating, voice trembling, body trembling. I thought I was the Hardworking Ox, but I was treated like the Lazy Dunce. What was I? How had I allowed this to happen?

This happened because I believed a story that was false. I trusted my supervisor too much. Storytelling is serious business. Everyone but true friends will tell stories about you that benefit them. Business will tell about your being happy when you buy their product; this is the gimmick of every commercial. Government will tell about your being safe when you give up your freedom; this is the underlying message of every dictator. Society will tell about your being accepted when you conform; this is the bad kind of peer pressure. Bosses will tell about your being successful when you work hard; this is the cheese at the end of the rat maze. But none of these stories should be your story. None of these people actually care about you mainly because none of them actually know you.

After that week I remembered: “This is not my story!” And I began to win back my freedom. I wrestled in my soul to remember: “You are the Ox,” no matter how often I was treated like the Dunce. Slowly, I regained my confidence and my identity.

This episode taught me an important lesson. A prince in prison is still a prince. He will maintain his dignity, and not allow any jailer take it from him. His story will be about injustice, and about perseverance in the face of adversity. But if he ever accepts the story of his jailer, he gives up his crown and renounces his throne. So my readers, Princes and Princesses, do not listen to your jailers, masters or slave drivers. Tell your own story. Define victory on your own terms. Do not let their ideas of success or richness or happiness persuade you. This is why the Ancient Greek advice, gnōthi seauton, is so important; it is critical to “know thyself” if you’re going to tell a good story.

--> On to Part II - Telling Great Stories

Hunger Games, The Philosophy of The

My best Katniss impression.

*Spoiler Alert!!*

I went to the movies, my first time in a long time, to see the biggest opening day of a non-sequel ever. That’s right, I saw The Hunger Games (I read the book a month or two ago). The first thing to note is that opening weekends are crazy. The second is that the people watching the movie were not all adolescent teenage girls. A wide variety of ages and classes seemed to be present in the very, very long line.

In terms of adaptation, I tip my hat. The author was a producer, so I'm not terribly surprised that the movie was quite faithful to the book and the short cuts were on less important matters. It was shot well, and had enough "extra scenes" that it didn't feel like it was a duplicate of the book (ahem, Watchmen). It was cast very well, and they pulled off a good movie without famous actors (except for President Snow, who was very convincing and very creepy).

Of course, the book is better (isn't it always?). Nevertheless, the movie has two distinct advantages. First, the poverty of District 12 can be displayed visually with great power and contrasts powerfully with the Capitol. This effect was profoundly evident when they get off the train from District 12. I flashed back to my return from Kenya, stepping off the plane in LAX and feeling profoundly disturbed and confused by the glitz and glamour of the US; I had "reverse culture shock" as it is often called. The movie was able to create that moment for the otherwise uninitiated audience by making the Capitol downright strange and frivolous. Secondly and most profoundly was the irony involved in going to the movies. I paid $11 for entertainment about people paying too much for entertainment.

Another feature that I’ve seen come up a few times in “young adult” literature is absent parents. Katniss has a dead father and a mother who is severely psychologically withdrawn. Artemis Fowl has almost an identical dynamic; his dad died and his mom was homebound, so he had to raise himself with the help of a faithful butler (named “Butler”). Harry Potter was an orphan. Heroes for today’s teenagers are those who, against the odds, figure out how to grow up without parents.

I'd like to say a word about the Hunger Games universe. thing to note about Panem is that it is a world that contains Evil. It’s not as obvious that it’s a world that includes Good; virtue is clearly present and the Good is at least there by implication. But the Capitol is certainly Evil. President Snow is Evil. And, like any successful movie, this is almost a prerequisite for a good story (or at very least, a profitable one).

The other thought that occurred to me first in the book and then powerfully in the movie (the train scene) is that one of the other critiques is on the present American economy. We in the US live lavish and rather ridiculous lives which can only (presently) be maintained by people from poorer places sending stuff to us. As in Huxley’s Brave New World, we are so tranquilized by our entertainment that our thoughts are ever on trivial matters. People are living in horrific conditions all around us, but we can’t seem to care. Effie is the embodiment of this: ever concerned about desserts and manners when life and death are at stake.

Katniss, the protagonist, is strong, independent, resourceful, shrewd, courageous, and uncompromising. Perhaps most in conflict with the modern hero, she has loving kindness when appropriate and she is violently ruthless, when appropriate. She soberly faces the horror set before her with an unbreakable spirit. She does not cling to life, and would gladly lay down her life for her sister or friend.

I believe it is these virtues, forgotten and spurned by modern American code, which make her attractive. She is the exact opposite of the “good kid.” Her friend, Peeta, is the good kid. And he tries hard, makes a valiant move or two, but would certainly be dead without her. Before the Games, she lived by breaking the law and hunting outside of the gate. She was resourceful and taught herself; she was independent and owed nothing to the state or even her parents. She, unlike everyone else, was her own master. To really stand up to evil, the kind of evil in the Capitol, nice-guy morality fails. Katniss’ morality strikes a blow. And even in failure, it’s not a pitiable thing. Katniss is most certainly not one of those whose “cold and timid souls know neither victory nor defeat.”

What is the message of the story? Should you obey authorities? No; not when their laws are unjust. Is violence always wrong? No; sometimes killing is the right thing. Is evil a fiction? No, it’s very, very real. Is a strong government a good thing? No; it’s a great danger. She’s the ultimate teenage hero, rebelling against those above her with shrewdness and courage. And if I were an evil puppet master, this is exactly not the kind of idea I’d want floating around in teenage heads. Rebellion can be justified? Rebels can be heroes? But fortunately, those in authority are too smart for their own good. I’ve read critiques by more sophisticated thinkers who seem to think the movie is about reality TV, gender equality, football, or mindless violence (though one or two or three see something deeper in it). Sure, there is a critique of our being bloodthirsty and voyeurs. And so they content themselves thinking, “Ah, it’s just about reality TV and violent movies. Nothing disruptive.”

But the most important message of the book has been expressed variously by young teens as, “The government is bad, mmmkay?” and “The people in power want to keep it that way.” The government in the story is bad. And this is what America is (or will become). We must do something, and that something might include violent rebellion.

Those raising the alarm are not rare, but they’re rarely taken seriously. The average American never has to look at the American life and ask, “Is there something fundamentally wrong here?” Alarm raisers tend to get dismissed from the prophet Jeremiah to Ron Paul. Suzanne Collins is not being dismissed. Where fact and authority fail, fiction prevails. The Hunger Games is being embraced en mass. Not by prophecy scholars, political fear-mongers, or culture watchdog-ers, but average, everyday teenagers (and then everyone else).

It is disturbing that even fresh teenage perspectives see the world with such cynicism. Why, to teenage eyes, does the Capitol of The Hunger Games look so much like Washington DC? The government of The Hunger Games is one where security and comfort have been made the highest priorities. Freedom was the cost. And with the cost paid, the peace and security were also lost. The way to fight it is with shrewd, bold defiance and virtue. This is the central political message, and perhaps the central message. And young people are listening.