Standing up for children who are being publicly abused has been on my mind. Given my heroic friend James’ recent experience standing up for a child in Philadelphia, I think now is as ideal a time as any to explore and explicate my thoughts.

I believe that if we stand up for children, it should be a goal-oriented action. I also understand that adrenaline will be pumping through the veins of anyone who does so. Every time I have stood up for a child, I’ve felt terrified. Being among friends who also want to fight for children’s basic rights has helped, but the fear won’t likely dissipate in these situations.

Perhaps there are some scenarios in which you should not stand up for a kid. There are no obligations. We should understand why we want to stand up for children, and we should explore this now rather than in the heat of the moment. If you see a mother pop her kid in the face, you’re not going to have time to reflect.

The System

Social systems are incredibly complex, and the complexity often goes over our heads.

For example, when you hang out with five friends, a complex web of influence emerges. Not only do you influence Person A, but Person A influences you. Person B influences Person A, who also influences Person C. And, of course, the way Person A and Person B interact with each other influences the way Person C interacts with Person D.

I could keep going. I won’t.¹

The geometry of this hypothetical hangout is not five points in a circle, but is instead a dreamcatcher of complex relationships.

When standing up for a child, it’s not as simple as “Stop hitting your kid.” “Fuck you, I won’t.” The child, the abusers, “society” and you influence this system. Each of these four actors has conflicting and intensely strong interests. To look at the question of “Why, how, and when should I stand up for a kid?” without looking at these four interests would be incomplete at best, and harmful at worst.

1. The Child

I don’t want to create better parents. I want to create better childhoods. To this end, the single most important factor when standing up for children is the child. Not your comfort level. Not whether or not everyone around you wants you to shut the fuck up. Not whether or not it’s convenient for you.

It’s all about the child. The innocent, perfect child with big, sad eyes who just wants to stop being hit. He just wants to stop being terrified. He just wants to stop being terrorized.

He wants it all to stop.

That’s all that matters. Empathy for the child’s experience.

I’ve stood up for about five or six different children in public over the past three years. I haven’t empathized with the child fully in all of these situations, and sometimes it’s been more about feeling heroic, punishing or shaming the parent, or making a statement than about making a child’s life better. I’ve lost sight of this goal in these situations, and I regret that.²

In the future, I want to be more clear about what I would want if I were the kid. Does this mean starting gently and helpfully and increasing the firmness gradually? Does it mean physically intervening? Or, does it mean taking a broken record approach of “It’s wrong to hit children”?

I don’t know. It’s an unanswerable question. These situations occur in complex systems, so the “correct” approach will be different every time.

2. The Abusers

The abuser may abuse the child even worse once you’ve confronted her.³ You can’t know this information in advance, though.⁴ If a parent increases the abuse as a direct result of your intervention, it’s not your fault. The gloves are already off at this point.

If someone’s abusing her kid, the last thing she wants is for someone to call her out on it. An abuser will almost always hear “You’re abusing your kid, and that is not acceptable” as an aggressive assault. To say “Yes, I am an abuser” is to say “Yes, I am evil”. This is a psychological impossibility, so of course defenses will rise. And, in the case of abusers, these will likely be aggressive defenses. By standing up to an abuser, you’re poking a hornet’s nest, and everyone around you will hate you for it.

You’ll feel that hatred — that’s part and parcel of being involved in a complex social system. You’ll feel the abuser’s hatred. You’ll feel the child’s terror. You’ll feel all the murmured, unspoken voices saying, “Shut up. Just shut up. Leave her be. Stop causing trouble.”

3. “Society”

People do a lot of lip-service to children. They know that standing up for children is the right thing to do, and they know that child abuse is wrong.

Sadly, this is just talk. A good friend of mine, Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, was attacked in the media a few years ago. Why? Because he told a young adult two things (I’ve paraphrased):

1. It was wrong for your father to abuse you.
2. All of your relationships are voluntary. You don’t have to continue seeing them, nor do you have to end your relationships with them.

Two innocuous statements with which no competent psychological professional would disagree. This young adult, after consulting with a therapist, decided to take a break from his parents.

Any guesses as to how many e-mails Molyneux received lending support to this young adult for going through such a terrible time with his family?⁵

Zero.⁶

For a society that focuses so much attention on the effects of violent video games, cell phone radiation and Harry Potter on children, isn’t this pathetic? People love claiming how much they support children — that is, until it’s actually time to stand up for children.

So, if you choose to stand up for children, know that you’re going to feel the burning hatred of everyone in the room who wants you to shut up. They want you to shut up because your courage and empathy points out their deficiencies thereof.

4. You

You’re the only factor in the system you can really influence. Your choices, your words and your approach are just that — yours. It all cirlces back to the first piece of the system: the child. Remember your goal when standing up for a child: to create a better childhood for the child in whatever way you can.

In my experience as cog #4 (“You”) in this complex system, I’ve had a difficult time feeling clarity about my feelings (as opposed to the feelings of everyone else in the system at the moment of intervention). If I’m feeling terror, is that actually my terror? Or, is it the abuser’s terror of being exposed?

There are a lot of consequentialist arguments as to why it’s good to stand up for children who are being abused. For instance, standing up for an abused child could give the child hope that there are good people out there who care about him. Or, it could show the child that there are good people out there, and that good people aren’t pussies.

The biggest potential reason to stand up for a child who is being abused, though, is simple: child abuse is wrong.

If you saw a woman being cornered in an alley, and you had the ability to help her, would you? I hope the answer is “yes”, particularly if you have the means to do so.

Then why wouldn’t you do the same for a child?

We can refine our approach and determine the best ways to stand up for children. We can iterate, improve and discuss our experiences. However, we should not cower from protecting the vulnerable just because bad people want us to go away.

Self-Trust

Once you’ve done a highly significant (or even, in some cases, moderately significant) amount of self-work, there’s a point at which you can simply trust yourself to make good decisions. You can reflect on how you can do things better, to be sure, but constantly second-guessing yourself and self-attacking for all the things you could have done better is no way to live a free and happy life.

If you were the victim of abuse, one of the things that was taken away from you was your ability to trust yourself. Your preferences, your wants, your needs and your passions were pushed aside.

If you don’t trust yourself to do the best you can do in when a child is being abused, then any positive effects are accidental. Sure, you may help a child feel supported. You might cause an abuser to think twice before hitting her kid. You may even inspire others to stand up to abusers in the future.

But if you lack self trust, then you have yet to stand up for the child who needs your support the most — the child inside who was abused long ago, whose self-trust was repeatedly ripped away.

Stand up for that child.

So tonight, I was reading an article written by a prominent libertarian. It was a well-written and -argued piece detailing how the government caused many of the problems in the wireless industry, and it posited that regulating wireless providers would only make these problems worse. Sure, I expected the comment thread to be pretty bad — I’m not even sure why I looked. But look I did, and it wasn’t pretty:

“Fucking hipster”; “faggy lookin’”; ” dipshit hipster”; “that is one punchable face”; “No, that is a curb-checkable face”; “I really want to take a hatchet to that smug bastard’s face”; “I think I beat him up once”; “Not badly enough, apparently.”

Then, I heaved a big sigh of relief. After all, my sworn intellectual enemies on the left were only embarrassing themselves with such virulent displays of aggression. Right?

Oh, wait. Never mind. I got the story wrong.

This disgusting comment thread was on an ostensibly-libertarian website, Reason.com. The writer was Joshua Topolsky, former editor-in-chief of Engadget, and he argued that the wireless industry should be socialized. I vehemently disagree with his thesis, but I would never speak violently towards him. Threads like this make me embarrassed and disgusted to even be remotely affiliated with libertarianism.

Recently, it’s been bullshit like this from my ideological cousins that I’ve been more upset about. I expect articles by Paul Krugman to be ideologically unsound and internally inconsistent. Keynsian articles in The Economist, The New York Times and The Atlantic just bore me. They don’t upset me. Reading libertarians call for acts of violent aggression against someone they disagree with?

Shame on you, libertarians. You know better.

The Tea Party

In the common vernacular, “Tea Party” has become synonymous with “libertarian”. Every time I read “the libertarian Tea Party” or a similar variation in the news, I cringe.

I have more intellectual respect for socialism than Tea-Party-ism. At least socialism, as a political philosophy, has a common intellectual thread and a rich history of great — though tragically flawed — thinkers. Tea-Party-ism just has a bunch of conservative Christians who wear tricorn hats and wax eloquent about the Constitution (which they will gladly ignore when it’s convenient to do so).

The other night, I watched two minutes of the “CNN Tea Party Debate”. I would have watched more, but that was all I could stomach. In the clip in question, Wolf Blitzer presses Ron Paul as to whether or not “we should just let unemployed people die in hospitals?” Paul’s answer doesn’t really matter, because it’s not him I have a problem with (in this clip, at least). It’s the Tea Party audience that I scorn. Just listen to them cheer at the first mention of death.¹

Yes, I know the Tea Party and the Reason.com commenters aren’t the same people. But these libertarian trolls are conceptually equal to Tea-Party-ists, since they both pick and choose which illusions they’ll hold onto and which ones they’ll reject. And both of these groups are embarrassing those of us who are actually fighting for freedom.

How Do We Look?

It’s easy to point to other people and say, “Oh, they’re not accepting liberty because they’re too psychologically defended”, or “He wouldn’t have gotten it anyway. His wife’s in a teachers’ union.” But that’s not a scientific way of thinking. It’s storytelling, and frankly, it’s a pretty defensive way of looking at our failures. It’s no wonder libertarianism has languished for decades. There is simply no self-awareness in the movement.

An empirical person would ask, “How do we maximize our chances of spreading this message? What works? What doesn’t?” and would continually refine his approach. And while I don’t know I would measure this success, I sure as hell know that violent comments in response to an eloquent article is not the way to create a non-violent, peaceful society.

Think about the fence-sitters. These people could go either way. They read Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan and are scientifically-inclined, but tepidly (or not-so-tepidly) support the State. The cool thing about these people is that they’re easily swayed with sound, internally consistent, empirically verifiable arguments.

I know these people exist, because I was such a fence-sitter once. Before I accepted anarchism and atheism as fact, I was a Catholic conservative, and then I was an agnostic Objectivist. The one constant has been my love of science.

What do these scientific fence-sitters think when they see Ron Paul, the most prominent and vocal libertarian today, saying that he doesn’t accept evolution? Are they impressed by religious libertarians who demand that everyone else give up their illusions, but who steadfastly refuse to give up their illusions?

We simply can’t afford to turn away such low-hanging fruit this easily. And let’s be honest — people who already think logically and scientifically will generally be easier to talk to about than, say, a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical Christian or an Orthodox Jew.

Maybe Ron Paul and other prominent small-government libertarians have brought more into the liberty fold. I don’t doubt that for a minute. But at what cost? Are we anarchists, voluntaryists, and libertarians really willing to prostitute priceless credibility with logical folks in exchange for higher poll numbers? Will we bare our teeth at anyone who writes anything even remotely Keynesian? Or will we instead choose to show people what gentle, benevolent freedom looks like?

“What time is it?”

“12:30,” I told the group of four (maybe five) tall black men on the other side of South Street. I was talking on the phone with a friend, and I was mildly annoyed that they interrupted, but I told them anyway. Then I kept moving. Little did I know that these guys were plotting against me in that moment. And, who could blame them? I’m just some skinny, cerebral white kid. I’m an easy target, holding a $600 computer to my ear.

Who could blame them?

It’s weird. Being mugged has a way of distorting your perception of reality. I no longer feel safe in my relatively-quiet, relatively-safe, relatively-gentrified neighborhood. I know I’m probably safe, and I know that this was a freak episode. But, I still feel unsafe.

I’ve never been mugged before. In fact, I’ve never had my safety truly threatened by any stranger, ever. I feel like something’s changed within me, but I don’t know what. Maybe I’m more cynical. Maybe I’m more aware of the dangers of the world. I don’t know, but something.

I’ll never be able to walk around the city at night, even in an affluent neighborhood, again. At least, that’s how it feels right now, 18 hours after the incident. I hope after 1,800 more hours, I’ll begin to feel less twitchy and more comfortable in my own skin again. But, not too comfortable.

The men surrounded me while I was on the phone with Casey. They spoke no words, but they communicated everything they needed to. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant interaction. Within seconds, one of them (presumably the fastest track star of the four) grabbed my iPhone and bolted.

Fight-or-flight. I chose “fight”.

These assholes weren’t going to steal my $600.00 phone and get away with it. Nuh-uh. I pushed through the guys who had surrounded me. Run run run, gotta get them, gotta get them. Will I get them? Maybe if I scream. “HELP! HELP!” I screamed. I screamed louder. I started to shriek. “Can Casey hear me? I hope she doesn’t hear the screams. That will scare her.” There was no way I was going to catch up to this guy, but I kept trying. I saw a homeless guy and told him I needed help. He was drunk. He couldn’t do much of anything except watch.

I looped back around Lombard Street chasing this motherfucker back to South Street. He had disappeared. I saw one of his accomplices, who said “Get away from me, nigger.” I remember thinking that he said exactly what I was thinking, too. I’m not proud of that.

Isolation and Despair

I have a strong urge to isolate. All day today, I felt a deep sense of despair. This, for various reasons, has not been a very good month, and at times, I’ve felt like I’ve been running around in circles. Two steps forward, three steps backward. I woke up from a long nap today and just felt so helpless, so hopeless, so despairing. I didn’t know what to do.

I’m going to fight this urge. At the same time, I will try to understand it. It’s a pretty deep feeling, and it’s not about a piece of metal and glass being stolen. It can’t be—the feelings are too rich and too deep to be about a replaceable object, no matter how expensive said object may be.

—“What did the men look like?”

—“Well, they were tall, black, about my age, very athletic.”

—“What were they wearing?”

—“The one who took the phone was wearing a black shirt.”

That sure narrowed it down, didn’t it?

So, yes. I was mugged. I spent the evening going from police station to police station, and I was such a frazzled mess. I remember telling the policeman that I was a second degree black belt, as though he might care. I don’t remember why I thought this was relevant. Maybe I wanted to retain a shred of pride from the violation that had just occurred. He didn’t care.

I remember telling the Sergeant that I needed to log online to let everyone know that I was OK. I wasn’t surprised that I already had three or four e-mails from people asking if I was OK.

I knew I was chatty, but I also knew that I’d just been mugged and that it was two in the morning. I could either be chatty, or I could cry. And there’s no way was I going to cry in a South Philly police station.

When I was at the detective’s office, there was a little baby lying on the bench. Her mother was ignoring her. I got to rock her, cradle her, feed her from her bottle, console her. That felt pretty good, and it was the highlight of the evening. Not worth getting mugged to get to experience that perfect little girl, but it was a glimmer in my evening. She was tired. I was tired. Neither of us wanted to be there.

The police drove me home, and I finally arrived at about 4 AM. I don’t think I slept, but at this point, I don’t really remember. It feels like mid-morning or early afternoon, even though it’s about 8PM on Monday, June 13th.

The warmth and care I received from people was so incredible to feel and to experience. To everyone who sent me your care and concern, public or private, please know that it means the world to me. A few people on Twitter have even offered to chip in to buy me a new phone. Friends have offered to meet up for coffee just to talk (sounds good, but I’ll be getting tea instead. I’ve been overdoing the coffee recently), and best of all, friends and strangers on the Internet have just let me know that they’re glad that I’m safe.

It feels so good to know that so many people all over the world have my back.

Whenever I start thinking about isolating, or begin to feel as though I have no hope, I’ll think of each one of you. Even a quick @ reply to say “Glad you’re safe” feels like the greatest gift I could have gotten. It reminds me how glad I am that I’m safe. Because, really? I am.

“In an interstellar burst, I am back to save the universe”

In the next world war, jack-knifed juggernaut
I am born again
In the neon sign scrolling up and down
I am born again
- Airbag by Radiohead

They took a phone. A phone is replaceable.

They did not take my life. A life is not replaceable.

I’m so, so, so pissed off that they took my phone, especially since the phone is a vital part of my workflow for my job. I use it every day, and it’s an incredible productivity tool.

But, you know what another vital tool of my workflow is? My life and safety. That’s kind of critical to my productivity, as well. And, they didn’t take that. I got out of this scary situation without a scratch, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful.

Sure, I might feel unsafe for a little bit in Philly. Not sure if this feeling will go away soon, if at all. Sure, I may have a desire to isolate. And, frankly? Racial-tinged thoughts that I’m incredibly uncomfortable with will probably be surfacing over the next few days. Not proud, but it’s true.

But, in light of all of this, I still have my life, and I’m so grateful to have that. It’s the most important thing I have.

I love you.

Much fuss has been made — and justly so — over the recent patent trolling against iOS developers. Ben Brooks, John Gruber and Marco Arment have all explained the issue clearly and concisely, and I don’t disagree with any of their points. Essentially, a patent troll is threatening small businesses with exorbitant licensing fees. These small iOS developers probably won’t be able to either fight or pay them. That’s bullshit, and all moral people will agree here.

But, I’d be lying if I said I felt totally OK with all of the reporting that’s been going on about it. Something feels…incomplete.

All three primary actors (the small developers, Lodsys, and Apple) are players in this violent game of legal threats, and each one plays a distinct role.

The Small Developers

The small developers, such as James Thompson of PCalc, are blameless victims of a truly shitty situation, and my sympathy goes out to them. Simply by using the in-app purchase tools provided to them by Apple, they are the targets of a corrupt organization that makes its profit, like any good mafia gang, by threatening violators of their broadly-applied patents to pay up.

Unfortunately for PCalc and other independent iOS developers, they don’t have the resources that Apple does to fight these frivolous lawsuits. So, unless Apple steps in to indemnify or defend these small developers, these developers face the very plausible reality of being put out business by these patent trolls.

And that’s a goddamn shame.

Lodsys

And Lodsys? Nothing but contempt for them. To go after a handful of small business, knowing full well that they won’t be able to defend themselves, is a dick move. If you’re going to pick a fight, at least fight people who can defend themselves. Don’t pick on the little guys.

I consider a company a patent troll if its sole or primary source of revenue is through the licensing of its patents. This is the primary business model of Intellectual Ventures (a notoriously aggressive “intellectual property” company which Apple has invested in), and it appears to be the primary business model of Lodsys, LLC. Whether or not Lodsys, LLC is a shell company of Intellectual Ventures (as Josh Rosenthall suggests) is irrelevant. Both companies have the same business model: exploit the inefficiencies and imbalances inherent in the patent system.

Apple

I’m most interested in Apple’s seemingly-ambiguous role.

It is not the small developers, but Apple, that stands to lose the most. My gut says that the developers of PCalc and the other apps involved won’t go out of business as a result of this patent trolling. It could happen, and Lodsys certainly isn’t making life easy for these guys, but I think Apple will step in to protect the indie developers before it gets to that point.

One primary advantage of iOS (and, therefore, the hardware that runs it) is its vast library of applications. It’s safe to say that without the Apple app store, the iPhone and iPad would be much less desirable consumer electronics devices. So, Apple’s primary goal should be to make sure as many developers are developing quality applications for the platform as possible.

What happens when developers don’t feel secure?

They leave. Maybe they leave slowly, maybe they leave in a rush. But, they inevitably flee.

Even though Apple stands to lose the most, I don’t feel sorry for them. In fact, I think they should (but probably won’t) learn that violence only breeds more violence.

On Reaping What You Sow

“And boy, have we patented it.” — Steve Jobs, 2007.

Apple has, especially over the past few years, been incredibly aggressive with its patent portfolio. Just a few weeks ago, Apple sued Samsung, citing trade dress, trademark, and patent violations. Earlier this year, Apple sued HTC for similar violations. I remember reading a lot of commentary on the utilitarian aspects of the lawsuit. Will Apple prevail? What does this mean for Android? Will the trade dress dispute hold up in front of a jury? Conspicuously absent from the dialogue, though, was a moral condemnation of Apple’s actions.

Let me say it, then: Apple’s use of the law to “defend” its patent portfolio (or, more accurately, aggress against other companies) is an immoral violation of the nonaggression principle.

Threatening others with violence is no way to conduct business in a civil, peaceful society. If Apple is paving the way to the future with its technological innovations, it is also sustaining a dark-age society in which violence is the de facto dispute-resolution methodology.

By enforcing patents, Apple is drawing a very clear line in the sand: “Using the government to threaten force against those who copy our ideas is a valid and acceptable business practice.” That’s the line. That’s their standard. If they don’t like that standard being refocused back onto them, then drop the fucking standard. Drop the gun. Stop threatening companies with lawsuits because their products look too similar to the iPhone or iPad, or because they violate some obscure patent in your thousands-strong patent portfolio.

Apple has helped to create a world in which Lodsys and Intellectual Ventures can thrive, because it has said, in very clear terms: “We support this system.”

Call “Bullshit”

While I have no intention to stop using Apple products because of their stance on patents, I join Wil Shipley in calling bullshit on their aggressive stance on intellectual property — or, more accurately, “intellectual monopoly”.

All moral people should be condemning not only the aggressive actions of companies like Apple, but also the corrupt system that makes these actions possible.

Maybe Apple needs to play the patent game, since that’s just the world we live in. But, when you play by the rules of a violent game, don’t cry foul when you get clocked in the jaw.

There’s a girl I see every now and then. She’s cute, funny, smart, and enjoyable to chat with. I kind of want to ask her out — and by “kind of want to” I mean “really want to”. I think I have better-than-even odds of at least not being kicked in the balls. That’s a start.

But, I’m really scared to. I’m afraid she’ll reject me, I’m afraid that I’ll be awkward, and I’m scared that I’m just getting my hopes up for no reason. That’s a lot to be scared of, to be sure, but I also recognize that it’s not a do-or-die situation. Except for fifteen or twenty minutes of awkwardness, there are almost no long-term repercussions to rejection. And, of course, there is the slight-but-plausible chance of going on a nice date with someone, and the even slighter chance that it could develop into a relationship.

Hey, it could happen.

So, there’s almost no negative side to asking her out, except that it will feel a bit awkward and potentially (maybe even probably) a bit embarrassing. I can live with that. And, given that there is a very real chance of something positive coming from it, the choice is pretty clear, right?

Yeah. About that.

“But What If….”

It’s weird. I value decisiveness, yet find it very difficult to be decisive. When my friends come to me with decisions, I’m almost always the smartass in the corner telling them that they a) know deep down what the right decision is; and b) should go with their gut and just take action, one way or the other.

Do I take my own advice? Yeah, right. Just ask Emily, Casey, Jason, or any of my other friends who have, in their non-smartass ways, been very patient with my indecisiveness in several areas of my life. It’s almost comical, sometimes, how long I can go on torturing myself about a pretty tiny decision. “What if this happens. What about that? And isn’t the a chance that…?”

It’s maddening. While my friends are gratefully super patient and generous when it comes to my constant “what if”s, I’m sure there’s some cognitive dissonance for them. “Wait, isn’t Greg always talking about just making a decision and acting on it?” Believe me, the same question has gone through my mind about five times a day over the past four months.

In Which I Repeat Myself

“Wait. I read this same piece from Greg the other day, didn’t I? Some f-bomb-laden ramblefest about moving to China. Right?”

Yep, you sure did. I find it really hard to make decisions, and I find it even more challenging to actually follow through with my decisions once I’ve made them. Always have. I’d often rather feel the dull regret of fence-sitting than the sharp sting of “bad decisions” — whatever that means. While little regrets can accumulate over time, they rarely hurt in the moment.

Wow. If I had that “life is short” fury burning in my heart every time I wanted to ask a girl out or make a career decision, I’d be fucking living. Every day would be filled with rich possibilities and even richer experiences.

It should be clear at this point that I don’t live as though life is short. Not even a little bit. When you take months to ask a girl out, you don’t get to say that you’re living as though life is short.

Thinking My Way Up the Hill

As a logician, I have a fantasy that I can think my way out of a problem. Any problem, no matter how complex, can have a Golden Bullet, a simple answer, which will elucidate everything and make The Perfect Decision remarkably clear.

As an empiricist, I know that this is, to use the Aristotelian parlance, bullshit.

Not once have I ever come across a problem that could be solved by thinking. Not once. And yet, every time I want to make a choice with my career, ask a girl out, or make another life choice (big or small), I seem to believe that writing scripts of how every possibility can go (yes, I actually do this), and thinking through logical syllogisms will make a decision clearer.

Thinking doesn’t lead to better or faster decisions. And yet, like Sisyphus, I keep pushing this boulder of syllogistic reasoning up the hill.

Deciding to Decide

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

“Free Will” by Rush

Although to some, I’m sure it came across as “I’m moving to China,” my rambling rant about China was not really about China. Well, any more than this post is about asking some girl out.

It was, on a very deep level, about deciding to decide. I’ve made a commitment to myself to stop assuaging my anxiety with the easy to say (but hard to live with) “Maybe tomorrow.”

I honestly have no idea whether I’m going to move to China. I have even less of an idea as to whether I’m going to ask this girl out. But, I do know that I’m going to make decisions, and own them.

I’m done sitting on fences. Especially white picket ones.

This week was one of the most stressful work weeks I’ve ever had. It’s still not over. I’m living on about 12 hours of sleep since Tuesday (averaging four hours of sleep for three nights), and I’m about to pull one more really late night.

Sucks.

The details aren’t important. What matters is that, in the grand scheme of things, this was a really insignificant situation which could have been easily avoided by having a contract. So, it’s not like I was stressing out over a $500,000 business deal gone awry. At least that would have been exciting. No, instead, I was stressing out over petty bullshit, and it was mainly my own fault for not protecting myself.

I’m tired of these petty situations creeping up once every couple of months to ruin one of my weeks. I wish I was at least fighting for something exciting (with my career). Doing something that matters. Not spending my days writing bullshit articles that will go on bullshit Web sites that no one will ever read.

I want to do more with my life.

So, the Chinese brain-drain (as my friend Jason so eloquently put it), is creeping up on me. Right now, a number of my friends have moved to China, so there’s obviously an immediate draw for that reason. These friends are pretty awesome people, and being around them would be incredible. Of this, I have no doubt.

I currently live in Philadelphia, where there is a strong (and growing) community of philosophically-minded people dedicated to living lives of virtue. I’m humbled to count myself among them. I would miss the city and, more importantly, my friends, a tremendous amount.

On the other hand, though, China has a lot going for it. For one, it’s not America. I’m not being glib or hyperbolic. America is not a place I want to be when the shit hits the fan. Debtors are gonna come calling, and the economic situation is going to get worse. Way worse. As far away as I can get from the hyperinflation, unemployment, and angry mobs who lose their entitlements, the better.

Whether that means China, South America, or somewhere else, I’m not sure. But I am feeling increasingly uneasy about staying in America.

I’m a freelance writer, and I’d like to continue being an entrepreneur. The American legal system is not making this easier. Every time I look, it seems there are more laws and regulations that make it nearly impossible to innovate and create. That, compounded with the worsening economic climate, make America a pretty crappy place for a budding entrepreneur to live.

“But China’s Communist!”

Bullshit.

China is no more a communist country than America is a democratic country. Whenever someone pulls out the stereotypical, somewhat xenophobic proclamation that China is a communist nation, the first thing that comes to mind is: compared to what? Compared to mixed-market healthcare raising medical premiums? Compared to credit card laws making it nearly impossible for those with no credit to get a chance to prove themselves? Compared to the mercantilistic structure we have in place now?

Compared to all that, China is at least as good as America, at least in some respects.

Setting aside all the financial, economic, and political reasons that moving to China is seeming more salient by the day, there’s a strong part of me that wants to just fucking start living. A part that wants to stop dicking around, barely making ends meet doing a job that I do pretty well, but which is pretty unsatisfying on the balance. I mean, I like writing. I like it a lot. And, I’m pretty good at it. I could probably keep doing what I’m doing for years, increasing my income incrementally year after year. Eventually, with a stable enough income, I would be able to settle down in a nice white-picket-fence neighborhood, have a nice white-picket-fence family, a nice white-picket-fence car, and a nice white-picket-fence job.

But, frankly, I don’t want to live a nice white-picket-fence life. Not right now. I want to live, I want to explore, I want to sow my wild oats. I’m twenty two. 22. I’m feeling more and more stifled, and I can either complain about how my career and life aren’t going where I want them to go, or I can make a change.

I can take that first step today.

China is just one of many possible steps, but it’s a pretty goddamn compelling step. Life is short, and I want to make the most out of it. The following quote in an article by The New Yorker titled The Possibilian stood out to me:

The more detailed the memory, the longer the moment seems to last. “This explains why we think that time speeds up when we grow older,” Eagleman said—why childhood summers seem to go on forever, while old age slips by while we’re dozing. The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.

I’m not going to let my life fly by. No. Fucking. Way. I want to learn as much as I can, taste as much as I can, dream as much as I can, love as much as I can…live as much as I can.

Now, such a move would be incredibly difficult for me emotionally. My friends in Philadelphia are the most amazing people I’ve ever met. I love them to death, and I’d do anything for them. Getting to know them, some for about three years now, has been the most incredible, awe-inspiring experience a 22-year-old kid from Indiana could ask for. And, I’m quite certain there will be tears if I decide to move. I sure know I’d cry.

As it stands, I could probably make the move by the end of summer. I’d like to make my decision as quickly as possible, so to my friends in China: I may see you sooner rather than later.

The following article is one I wrote nearly two years ago. I’ve revised, updated, and amended it. It’s even more true for me now than it was two years ago.

Many thanks to Jake for recommending “The Story” by Brandi Carlile to me back in October 2008) This song resonates with me. A lot. When I first heard it, it hit me in my gut and I felt a complex flurry of emotions — primarily sadness and joy.

Is it the lyrics? Maybe.

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am.

But, I think there’s more.

At 2:53, Brandi’s voice cracks as she screams/sings the chorus. Her voice wasn’t supposed to crack at that point, if Wikipedia is to be believed. As the story goes, though, she decided to keep that “broken” take. She said the vocals were “technically wrong but emotionally right.”

It was a “mistake.” A mistake that totally makes this song.

Stefan Molyneux once told me: “Often, what we want the most is what we need the least.” This made sense intellectually when he said this. A lot of stuff makes sense intellectually to me at first before I get it emotionally, though. That’s how I tend to take things in.

I finally got it once I experienced this aphorism for myself.

My life right now is dramatically different from what I envisioned two years ago – or even one year ago.

Two years ago, I was at Berklee College of Music, studying piano performance with nary an idea about what I was going to do with my life.

Almost two years ago, I thought I would be finishing up a degree in Psychology. I even had the approved student loan application to prove it.

And a year ago, I was spending two weeks in London, seriously contemplating what it would take to move there.

Judged by an arbitrary standard of “success,” I’ve failed miserably at all three of these ostensible goals. All three are examples of things that I desperately wanted at the time. And yet, things didn’t go as I’d hoped. Painful, at the time, for all three instances.

Yet, things somehow worked out, and in each instance, my life is far better for it.

Brandi Carlile likely wanted to sing “The Story” technically spot-on…but that would have taken away from the core, essential beauty of it.

The picture of my life so far does not resemble what I envisioned painting a year ago. Or, for that matter, even six months ago. And I doubt the changes, revisions, and iterations to my vision of my future are set in stone even now.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

jasonmclaughlin:

I have released my 6-track EP today on Bandcamp. It’s a pay-what-you-want setup, with a $5 minimum. You can listen to every track in full before you buy it, but there are 2 bonus songs you can only hear after purchasing the whole album.

I feel so excited releasing this. It is the first full-scale completed creative project I’ve ever finished and released to the public. I have been making things since I was a little kid, and had to work through so much anxiety and self-attack to get to this point. I’d love to hear what you think about the music, and I’d appreciate any spreading of the word you can do through various social media and word of mouth. I’m trying to connect my music with people who will connect with my music, so if you know somebody who would like it, don’t hesitate to show it to them. Listening is free.

My admiration for the daunting amount of hard work, determination, and commitment it took to just fucking do this — make a long creative work with the (successful) goal of inspiring people — cannot be overstated. But I’ll do my best to overstate it, because I think you deserve overstatement and rank praise for this.

Jason, thanks for making this. Besides just being a fucking awesome EP to listen to over and over ad infinitum while living and enjoying life, it’s also an inspiration to me, on a broader level. And here’s why.

It’s hard work to put yourself out there. Making something that could be completely ignored or, worse, attacked, in the public sphere, is fucking hard to do. It’s emotionally challenging. But totally worth it. And it’s something I’ve been trying to keep in mind more and more recently.

I’ve also dealt with the sometimes-crippling challenge of starting projects and never finishing them. I’m currently working on a few large-scale projects, and your successful inspiration, execution, and completion of this project is something I’m going to keep in mind every time I start to lose motivation or inspiration.

Just the fact that you’ve created this work of art — which is enormously beautiful and passionate — would be enough for me. But your sheer passion and joy for creating stuff shows up in the content, as well. Seriously, “Tired of Being Quiet” sounds like a pretty fucking literal manifesto. A statement. A battle cry.

So, my friend, thanks. And everyone else: listen to this. It’s truly beautiful in its passion, depth, and inquiry into the human condition. Besides being just a fun record to listen to.

Thanks again, Jason. You’ve inspired me, and I get the sense that you meant to.

“Tired of Being Quiet” by I’m Not Dead, I’m Not a Robot

So go ask “why?”
And go ask “how?”
With the wisdom of a child
With the wisdom of a child
And you’ll find so much why
And you’ll find so much how
That you’ll want to

Sing so loud
‘Cause you’re tired of being quiet
I’m so tired of being quiet
Aren’t you tired of being quiet?
Let’s both stop being quiet together.

Yeah the world isn’t changed
By silent, frightened people
No that’s not how it works,
Oh that’s not how it works.
Mostly it’s been guns
Of the state, the church, the steeple
Open up your eyes and see all the people

Seriously, guys. Buy it. It’s worth at least what a caramel macchiato costs. Believe me on this one. It may just inspire you to create something, just as it inspired me.

UPDATE 2011-01-14 18:06:35: Forgot to mention that you can listen to the whole thing for free online.

I got a message from a girl on a dating site. She liked me overall, and thought I looked and sounded cool, but she had reservations about two things.

1. My answer to “Should the government help those who cannot care for themselves?” was “No.” She did not like this at all, as some of her relatives are disabled and she works with autistic kids.
2. I like Ayn Rand.

She said this was concerning for her, and that if it were just one of the two, that’d be fine. The two combined, however, showed her that “this” (whatever “this” is —sociopathy, maybe?) is quite important to her.

OK, that’s enough context. Here’s my response, which I was super pleased with. Thought I’d post it here. I’ve edited a few not-so-relevant details.

Hey.

First, I want to thank you for the incredibly detailed and thoughtful message. The fact that you put even an ounce of thought into writing down your objections¹ is pretty admirable, in my opinion.

So anyway, this is exciting. Turns out, the first issue you had with my profile runs up right against one of _my_ deeply held convictions, as well. Usually, I prefer to espouse my views in as nuanced and accurate way as possible – something which a binary OKCupid match question, by its very nature, does not lend itself well to. So, I’ll take this opportunity to explain my position a bit more.

1. I think that your passion for helping those who are less fortunate is incredibly inspiring and wonderful. As luck would have it, that’s a conviction that I also share. I give to a handful of charities when I can (which has, admittedly, been less than I’d like over the past six months. But I try.) I especially like charities that focus on helping children who, through sheer bad fortune, have less fortunate situations. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have even a shred of marketable skills and that I can make a semblance of a living in this rough economy. I want to do what I can to share to those who need help, and I think that others should, too.
   
   For the most part, we’re in agreement.


2. But (and this is a pretty big “but”) – I draw the line when it comes to government action, which I view as fundamentally different. Essentially, I don’t think that people have the moral right to tell others how they should spend the fruits of their labor. While I think it’s a pretty awesome thing to give to charity, I don’t want to use force – which is the root of taxation and governmental spending – to make others share my opinion on charities.
   
   That’s a pretty fundamental distinction, and it’s one that’s very important to me. Immeasurably so.
   
   Essentially, I’m an anarchist. Not the crazy, bomb-wielding, molotov-cocktail throwing kind. I simply believe that the initiation of the force is immoral, and it’s not just immoral for citizens. It’s immoral for everyone.
   
   Including people in blue and green costumes, those who label themselves “IRS,” and those who call themselves presidents and kings.


3. Referencing your mention of Ayn Rand, not quite sure how to approach that one. I think her plots are brilliant, although her characters are a bit flat (and mildly sociopathic at times). When it comes to basking in the glow of a joyous sense of life, there’s nothing better than an Ayn Rand novel. I also like, as per my profile, Dostoyevsky, but I’m nothing like the murderer Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment.

So I hope that wasn’t too long-winded. Essentially, we share the same opinion on helping others. Helping others in need is lovely, and everyone should do it. Making others do it through taxation, though, isn’t good.

Anyway. Hope this wasn’t too rambly and long. I hope I’ve communicated my answers in a bit more of a nuanced way.

Best wishes,
Greg

I doubt I’ll hear back from her. But I’m fine with that, as I’m really proud of the above exposition on my firmly held beliefs (which are mere conclusions of a rational methodology).

¹ - Emily, ha, I can fix anything I want to on my own site.

I’ve been loving the “It Gets Better” project. Any movement which can even prevent one single person from committing suicide’s got my full, unwavering support.

There have been a number of stunning contributions to this campaign. Here’s my humble contribution.

I was bullied pretty consistently when I was a kid, and a lot of it was for being perceived as effeminate. I’m not gay, but that was the constant refrain from age twelve to nearly the end of high school. It sucked, and it hurt like hell. I was never taken seriously, and I never felt truly visible for the person that I was. I was always the black sheep.

Even within my own family, I was the black sheep, the eccentric one, the outsider. Again, I wasn’t accepted for the person I was, quirks and all. My atheism was an embarrassment to my parents, and I think my effeminate qualities (like sensitivity and gentleness) embarrassed them, too.

(As a side note, the very traits I was bullied for are now the traits my loved ones seem to cherish and love about me the most. My sensitivity, gentleness, openness, and spontaneity). 

There were times in my life that I wanted it to end. I wanted to take, to shamelessly borrow the cliché, “the easy way out.” I imagined it in vivid detail, and thought there could be nothing better.

I’m not going to tell you not to let the bullies get to you. They’re going to get to you. And it’s going to hurt. Telling you “don’t let it hurt” isn’t going to make it better, and it’s frankly pretty insulting to you. If only it were that easy.

No, I’m not going to tell you that. But I am going to tell you, just as others have been telling you, that it gets better. It got better for me. And it’s continuing to get better.

But some of it will be dependent on your own choices. Your choice to take hold of your life. To take the reins. To hold on tight, knowing that you’re in for the ride of your life, with all of its ups and downs.

People don’t have the right to shame you, humiliate you, or make you feel like less than you are. They just don’t.

Remember that. And remember that all adult relationships are voluntary. When you’re an adult, you don’t have to have a relationship with anyone you don’t want to.

That includes bullies, friends, and even family members.

It got better for me, because I chose not to keep bullies of any kind in my life – period.

You can, too.

You own your life. It’s yours.