Most of us could easily compile a list of goals we want to achieve or personal problems that need to be solved. But what is the real significance of every item on such a list?

Everything we want to accomplish—to paint the house, learn a new language, find a better job—is something that promises that, if done, it would allow us to finally relax and enjoy our lives in the present.  Generally speaking, this is a false hope.

I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search.

Each of us is looking for a path back to the present:

We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now.

Sam Harris

Humanity fails. At the same time, it succeeds. This pattern is sequential and coinciding.

“Obviously, some part of us loves feeling 1) right and 2) wronged. But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out.

Except it’s even more insidious than most vices because we don’t even consciously acknowledge it’s a pleasure.

We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it’s a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive masturbation.”

-Tim Kreider

As soon as I was exposed, I was hooked.

It was there to get me the answers…to solve a problem by the simple start of guessing at why something was happening and then trying to prove it with a detailed protocol, documenting everything along the way. It was all so functional (and it helped me focus my scattered brain)

Science. Even considering the imperfect human application of it by scientists, with their biases and competitiveness, science will slowly discover the underlying reality of life. After more and more results, opinions and biases are squashed, pounded down by waves of unrelenting discoveries. Not statistics, which can be used to manipulate a perspective towards a biased agenda, but actual experiment-driven results.

Science simplifies things from the ego-muddled human mind. It drags us along with its data regardless of favoritism or money-influences.  Its story changes as we discover things. It doesn’t use dogma to force any truth upon our life. In fact, it leaves truth to be found by ourselves.

Science makes no claims to truth.

Science is a continual process of learning and revision: Guess, test, results, conclusion. Then repeat. As for Truth…the truth about living, the meaning in your life…these human truths are left to us.

The terrifying question of Why?

Why are we here?  After all the discoveries of the natural world around us, this question leaves us naked and exposed. No matter how much we learn about the world, we will always be left to ponder the meaning of our life in it.

Science doesn’t care about our feelings, but in the end, our feelings will determine whether our life means anything, and how to spend this short time we are alive.

“You should put them online to share.”

“Why?” she replied.

“To share,” I said, surprised at the question. “There are people who would love to see your stuff, it’s unique, the colors are fresh..you have a great style.”

“I don’t want to put them online. That’s weird,” she said.

I knew she was shy, but I wanted her to open up, and this would be a great way for her to see how she could be widely appreciated.

“It’s easy,” I said.

“I don’t want to share my stuff. It’s for me.” she said.

We haven’t communicated in a long time. But I am happy today, because today I saw her art. Online. She had begun to share herself.

She had stopped hiding, and started becoming an inspiration.

An inspiration for others to share themselves, too, despite their fears.

In the future, scholars will study and hypothesize the downfall of the United States.

Was it stretching themselves too thin, in military endeavors around the world? Or was it the Federal Reserve, which encouraged careless spending and unstable growth in our market?

It may be many causes, but at root they will find two main culprits…

Cheese and corn syrup.

It was them that dulled minds and bodies. With bellies fed, the fire was quenched, and others who were more hungry would take over the world.

“The top 10% have hundreds of billions in wealth, but it would only take hundreds of millions to cover the health insurance of all the uninsured,” she told me. She was grading papers. She was an instructor at Antioch College. She had told me the plagiarism of ideas in the papers was abhorrent.

“Wow,” I said, “if that’s true, I’d support moving that wealth around somehow.”  I went on, “I would like to see the breakdown though…Who has how much of the wealth in the top 10%. And where is their wealth…”

She got an impatient look on her face, “You can look this stuff up. It’s out there. Do some research.”

My irritation flared up, and I grew impatient, too… but I checked it, reminding myself she was an academic and her experience was probably more from published data, and less from real-world data.  And anyway, what good would my impatience get? I wanted to learn, not get into an argument.

“Shoot me some links on that,” I said. “Ok,” she said, but sounded more bothered by my ignorance.

I soldiered on, wanting to share my inclinations, “I’d rather focus on helping people, to empower them to be able to pay for health insurance themselves.”

“That’s kind of naive,” she said.

The comment did not cut deep, since by this point I was getting accustomed to her authoritative style. In addition, I was on my third beer.

She left after a few minutes. I gave her my contact info, to get the data from her.

Then I sat thinking for awhile. She was cute. I liked her passion. I wish I had steered the conversation away from the generalities of politics and sociology, and more about her.

I finished the last of my beer and thought, “There are really two kinds of people in the world. There are the ones who want to focus more on empowering people. And there are others who want to focus more on empowering the institution to help people. One is about giving power to the individual, while the other is about taking power and decision-making from the individual.”

Satisfied in my conclusion, I got the attention of the bartender, “Cash me out please.”

I gathered my things to go home, and found myself feeling regret.

Although I had solidified my philosophy, I had missed an opportunity to truly get to know another human being. And that misplay went against the very essence of my philosophy.

“Obviously, some part of us loves feeling 1) right and 2) wronged.

But outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but, over time, devour us from the inside out. Except it’s even more insidious than most vices because we don’t even consciously acknowledge it’s a pleasure.

We prefer to think of it as a disagreeable but fundamentally healthy reaction to negative stimuli, like pain or nausea, rather than admit that it’s a shameful kick we eagerly indulge again and again, like compulsive masturbation.”

–Tim Kreider