My apologies to my 1 follower ;) Considering other things needing my attention this second semester, my blog experiment has been put on ice for now.
I certainly expect this tendency of having little to no time for myself (or at least for my experiment) to change in the coming months.
Thank you Olavo!
2010-12-10
2010-06-06
Too Expensive
Technically, if you take all the money you have at your disposal, and it's still not enough to buy this one thing, then it's too expensive.
No, I didn't look in the dictionary and I know it's probably not what people usually understand by "too expensive".
We can't just spend all our money on one thing. We have to save some for the food, some more for the apartment, electricity, internet, cable tv, movies, bars, travels, gifts, gas...
I'm playing with extremes. But I'll get to the point. Eventually. Or not.
Everything comes down to priorities. If we take a snapshot of ourselves when we decide if this particular thing is too expensive, what we're actually thinking is: What is more important? This thing I want to have or do, or the other things I'd have to or may have to give up to pay for this?
Some people would say, "Nonsense! I don't think about that at all... If I have the money and I want it, I'll pay for it. I'll see about the rest when it's time."
If you're one of these people, and you haven't realized it yet, I'm sorry to break it to you but what you're saying is that either this thing is more important than the rest, or fulfilling your immediate wishes is. Were it not the case, you'd make sure the rest would not be impacted.
Now that we have established how I think about priorities, we can see how it applies to every decision we make.
Except for some pathological cases à la kleptomania, lack of information, or a real pun from our memory (the classic "I forgot about that!" which is often my case), decisions are based on priorities.
Everything starts with our basic needs. Food, rest (may imply shelter). If you're starving to death, chances are that you'll do (almost) whatever it takes to eat. But once those basic needs are done with, we start prioritizing what we'll do next.
Some diversion can be considered a basic need. But what happens to our priorities if we start putting our own biggest satisfaction all the time before a lesser satisfaction that is shared by others? What message are we passing? I'll let you think about that and come with an answer on your own. Speaking of thinking about it, there are a couple of exercises I'd like to share with you later on.
I have been reviewing my priorities more often in the past few years. I remember myself a few years ago thinking that buying the cheapest without caring about how it got that cheap was a logical decision. Not my problem if it includes slave work or a little more pollution. Maybe because my old self had a more difficult time balancing the monthly budget.
Today, I feel I have enough to allow me to think twice before saving my own money at whatever cost. Maybe that's no big deal. Anyone can do that, right? Can you?
So here are the two small exercises I mentioned before:
Exercise 1
Imagine something you dream about having that is almost at your reach. Something you're sure to have, say, within 6 months. Now write that down. The exercise consists of answering the following questions to yourself (I hope you'll be honest to yourself):
1. Do you need that?
2. Do you need it for within 6 months?
3. Is it acceptable to have it within 9 months instead?
4. What if this 3 month difference means perpetuating suffering of some kind (not yours, sorry, that doesn't count in this exercise), would you still take it in 6 instead of 9?
Exercise 2
Imagine that you like olive oil. Or don't imagine, if you really like it. You have 20 options in front of you that range from $ 3 to $ 60. Suppose you don't know anything about the options except the price, so that you have no reason to believe that they represent different products. Now answer the following questions to yourself (same reason as for in Exercise 1):
1. Considering the conditions above, which option would you buy: The cheapest, the most expensive, or something in between?
2. Now suppose that you decided to look for more information and you found out that the lowest price means lowest product quality (tastes horrible, no nutrition value...) and lowest production quality (produced by slaves somewhere, makes a lot of people miserable, highest pollution rate...). At every small price increase, some characteristic is improved. Which option are you likely to take now?
3. Now think about the latest 5 things you did. How do they compare to Exercise 1 and 2?
That's it! I hope this post serves you some purpose. Discussions are welcome.
As for the next post(s), I plan to introduce you to the demi-cercle. A group discussion animated by a friend of mine dealing mainly with social topics. My plan is to post English translations of the minutes of their meetings. I just hope my priorities will let me...
No, I didn't look in the dictionary and I know it's probably not what people usually understand by "too expensive".
We can't just spend all our money on one thing. We have to save some for the food, some more for the apartment, electricity, internet, cable tv, movies, bars, travels, gifts, gas...
I'm playing with extremes. But I'll get to the point. Eventually. Or not.
Everything comes down to priorities. If we take a snapshot of ourselves when we decide if this particular thing is too expensive, what we're actually thinking is: What is more important? This thing I want to have or do, or the other things I'd have to or may have to give up to pay for this?
Some people would say, "Nonsense! I don't think about that at all... If I have the money and I want it, I'll pay for it. I'll see about the rest when it's time."
If you're one of these people, and you haven't realized it yet, I'm sorry to break it to you but what you're saying is that either this thing is more important than the rest, or fulfilling your immediate wishes is. Were it not the case, you'd make sure the rest would not be impacted.
Now that we have established how I think about priorities, we can see how it applies to every decision we make.
Except for some pathological cases à la kleptomania, lack of information, or a real pun from our memory (the classic "I forgot about that!" which is often my case), decisions are based on priorities.
Everything starts with our basic needs. Food, rest (may imply shelter). If you're starving to death, chances are that you'll do (almost) whatever it takes to eat. But once those basic needs are done with, we start prioritizing what we'll do next.
Some diversion can be considered a basic need. But what happens to our priorities if we start putting our own biggest satisfaction all the time before a lesser satisfaction that is shared by others? What message are we passing? I'll let you think about that and come with an answer on your own. Speaking of thinking about it, there are a couple of exercises I'd like to share with you later on.
I have been reviewing my priorities more often in the past few years. I remember myself a few years ago thinking that buying the cheapest without caring about how it got that cheap was a logical decision. Not my problem if it includes slave work or a little more pollution. Maybe because my old self had a more difficult time balancing the monthly budget.
Today, I feel I have enough to allow me to think twice before saving my own money at whatever cost. Maybe that's no big deal. Anyone can do that, right? Can you?
So here are the two small exercises I mentioned before:
Exercise 1
Imagine something you dream about having that is almost at your reach. Something you're sure to have, say, within 6 months. Now write that down. The exercise consists of answering the following questions to yourself (I hope you'll be honest to yourself):
1. Do you need that?
2. Do you need it for within 6 months?
3. Is it acceptable to have it within 9 months instead?
4. What if this 3 month difference means perpetuating suffering of some kind (not yours, sorry, that doesn't count in this exercise), would you still take it in 6 instead of 9?
Exercise 2
Imagine that you like olive oil. Or don't imagine, if you really like it. You have 20 options in front of you that range from $ 3 to $ 60. Suppose you don't know anything about the options except the price, so that you have no reason to believe that they represent different products. Now answer the following questions to yourself (same reason as for in Exercise 1):
1. Considering the conditions above, which option would you buy: The cheapest, the most expensive, or something in between?
2. Now suppose that you decided to look for more information and you found out that the lowest price means lowest product quality (tastes horrible, no nutrition value...) and lowest production quality (produced by slaves somewhere, makes a lot of people miserable, highest pollution rate...). At every small price increase, some characteristic is improved. Which option are you likely to take now?
3. Now think about the latest 5 things you did. How do they compare to Exercise 1 and 2?
That's it! I hope this post serves you some purpose. Discussions are welcome.
As for the next post(s), I plan to introduce you to the demi-cercle. A group discussion animated by a friend of mine dealing mainly with social topics. My plan is to post English translations of the minutes of their meetings. I just hope my priorities will let me...
2010-04-23
Black or White, or abstract veganism
I try my best to be coherent on my opinions, looking and neutralizing (when possible) that fallacy we all seem to suffer that makes us live quite well supporting opposing ideas, picking one or another when it suits us.
People that think about the problems of the World often come to a depressing conclusion that there's too much to change and it will never happen in one life time, maybe even in 10, or 100 life times.
People who don't usually think about that often use the argument that X is way more important than Y, so fighting for Y without fighting for X first is ridiculous. And we all know that nobody can fight for X, right?
Maybe. But if we always think like that, we end up having two wrongs: X and Y. Whereas if you can change Y but not X, and you do change Y, we're left with just X to worry about.
So here's my proposition:
Do what you can.
Maybe somebody will think about X while you think about Y. At some point, maybe both will be fixed.
So here's today's allegorical story.
In the past, I used to shrug off the idea of vegetarianism by thinking that it was just a result of people confusing food for pets.
When I finally took the time to read upon the subject, I found some interesting comparisons on how people used to consider slaves as non-humans and hence not being elligible to common respect. I also found many, many articles explaining how we can sufficiently replace meat protein with other vegetable options. And finally I realized that I loved vegetarian Indian food. So I couldn't sustain my comfortable meat-eater position anymore.
Before you ask, yes, it was a woman that managed to call my attention to some of the above. A radical, a vegan.
Anyway, when I decided to take off animal protein off my diet, it wasn't because I think killing to eat is wrong, nor for religious reasons, but because industrialized meat, poultry and co. really go for some extremelly cruel methods. It's the cruelty during the animal's life before it reaches our tables that bothers me to no end and make me not want to be conivent with it.
In the other hand, I'm not a natural militant. I don't like to keep poking people and saying how they're wrong and I'm right, and I'm not very sure that it's an effective method either. So I had to find a way to fit these new behavioral ideas together.
And here's where we get to the "Black or White" part. You've certainly heard this before: "The World is not Black or White". Well, it's true. Most of the time, reaching a goal is out of reach. If it's an ideal goal, it's unreachable by definition. So here's the way out:
Do what you can.
I came up with some sort of table with what is less ethically wrong and I'll choose based on it. For example:
1. Not eating any animal protein is the ideal goal.
2. Milk and eggs are less bad than meat.
3. Organic animal proteins are less bad than non-organic. The animals are supposed to be better treated.
And so on and so forth.
Somewhere in that table I'll prefer synthetic fibers over leather or fur.
Anyway, (1) is too difficult for me. There are many things that I'm not yet willing to let go, like cheese and desserts. Even though I realize that it's a somewhat unattainable goal, it's still the goal, the north.
So, ok, I want cheese? I'll look for the organic over the non-organic. I hope the cows that produced the organic milk which was used to produce the cheese were treated fairly.
So, let's say that I wanted to preach vegetarianism or veganism to you. I'd say, don't eat meat! If you say you can't, it's too damn good, then I'd say well, at least eat organic meat. Organic is too expensive? Are you sure you can't pay for it? Well, avoid eating meat when you can, like eat it only once or twice a week, for example.
Get the picture? For any goal, any effort is better than no effort. If you can do better than that, great! If not, well, do something. Anything!
Makes sense? Yes? No? Why?
On the next post I plan to target the "too expensive".
People that think about the problems of the World often come to a depressing conclusion that there's too much to change and it will never happen in one life time, maybe even in 10, or 100 life times.
People who don't usually think about that often use the argument that X is way more important than Y, so fighting for Y without fighting for X first is ridiculous. And we all know that nobody can fight for X, right?
Maybe. But if we always think like that, we end up having two wrongs: X and Y. Whereas if you can change Y but not X, and you do change Y, we're left with just X to worry about.
So here's my proposition:
Do what you can.
Maybe somebody will think about X while you think about Y. At some point, maybe both will be fixed.
So here's today's allegorical story.
In the past, I used to shrug off the idea of vegetarianism by thinking that it was just a result of people confusing food for pets.
When I finally took the time to read upon the subject, I found some interesting comparisons on how people used to consider slaves as non-humans and hence not being elligible to common respect. I also found many, many articles explaining how we can sufficiently replace meat protein with other vegetable options. And finally I realized that I loved vegetarian Indian food. So I couldn't sustain my comfortable meat-eater position anymore.
Before you ask, yes, it was a woman that managed to call my attention to some of the above. A radical, a vegan.
Anyway, when I decided to take off animal protein off my diet, it wasn't because I think killing to eat is wrong, nor for religious reasons, but because industrialized meat, poultry and co. really go for some extremelly cruel methods. It's the cruelty during the animal's life before it reaches our tables that bothers me to no end and make me not want to be conivent with it.
In the other hand, I'm not a natural militant. I don't like to keep poking people and saying how they're wrong and I'm right, and I'm not very sure that it's an effective method either. So I had to find a way to fit these new behavioral ideas together.
And here's where we get to the "Black or White" part. You've certainly heard this before: "The World is not Black or White". Well, it's true. Most of the time, reaching a goal is out of reach. If it's an ideal goal, it's unreachable by definition. So here's the way out:
Do what you can.
I came up with some sort of table with what is less ethically wrong and I'll choose based on it. For example:
1. Not eating any animal protein is the ideal goal.
2. Milk and eggs are less bad than meat.
3. Organic animal proteins are less bad than non-organic. The animals are supposed to be better treated.
And so on and so forth.
Somewhere in that table I'll prefer synthetic fibers over leather or fur.
Anyway, (1) is too difficult for me. There are many things that I'm not yet willing to let go, like cheese and desserts. Even though I realize that it's a somewhat unattainable goal, it's still the goal, the north.
So, ok, I want cheese? I'll look for the organic over the non-organic. I hope the cows that produced the organic milk which was used to produce the cheese were treated fairly.
So, let's say that I wanted to preach vegetarianism or veganism to you. I'd say, don't eat meat! If you say you can't, it's too damn good, then I'd say well, at least eat organic meat. Organic is too expensive? Are you sure you can't pay for it? Well, avoid eating meat when you can, like eat it only once or twice a week, for example.
Get the picture? For any goal, any effort is better than no effort. If you can do better than that, great! If not, well, do something. Anything!
Makes sense? Yes? No? Why?
On the next post I plan to target the "too expensive".
2010-03-14
Being conscious about: our planet.
Welcome to my little experiment! Maybe it will be yours too.
So we'll start a topic and discuss it. Sometimes the blog post will be updated to include insights shared from the comments. In fact, I hope it will happen often.
In the "end", if there will ever be such a thing, we should have something interesting to read... At least to those who contribute!
Now, about the subject.
I've come across many arguments as why we should care about our planet, as well as why we shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you've seen them yourself. So let's examine some:
- Why should we:
- Why shouldn't we:
I admit, I shamefully tend to agree to the "why should we" arguments. But if there's something I learned is that nothing is as simple as it seems, or there's always a deeper layer to dig.
Here's a fact. Human population grows exponentially. The planet doesn't grow. Being conscious about the planet will buy us some time, but won't sustain our exponential growth indefinitely.
It doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it (being conscious, I mean). I'm convinced that the sooner we start, the more time we get. But that's not a solution in itself.
So what then? Here are some options:
Option 2 won't come overnight. But then again, it's hard to estimate when our good old planet will become too small for our big family.
I'd like to call Option 3 the "natural selection" way. If we keep doing it, eventually we'll all compete for our daily bread and for shelter. I don't think it will be beautiful to watch, so I'd rather not see it.
For now, I'll give you this. It may be a shame, but we're like a disease. We want to grow until we can't anymore. But don't despair (yet)! All life is like that. It's just part of the game. If a life form goes the other way, it gets extinct. Most of us don't want to be part of an extinct race.
I don't, at least not tonight.
Other than that, most of us would like to see our family, friends, city, country, world, ..., (all in a people perspective) persevere. I think that the trick is to keep an eye on unneeded competition. Most of the time, we can grow together. Other times we need the competition for motivation.
Well, time to discuss!
So we'll start a topic and discuss it. Sometimes the blog post will be updated to include insights shared from the comments. In fact, I hope it will happen often.
In the "end", if there will ever be such a thing, we should have something interesting to read... At least to those who contribute!
Now, about the subject.
I've come across many arguments as why we should care about our planet, as well as why we shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you've seen them yourself. So let's examine some:
- Why should we:
- The planet's resources are limited.
- To preserve species for our next generations.
- ...
- Why shouldn't we:
- The resources aren't likely to end in our lifetime (or in n lifetimes).
- It costs us (time, money, ...) to preserve something that couldn't preserve itself.
- ...
I admit, I shamefully tend to agree to the "why should we" arguments. But if there's something I learned is that nothing is as simple as it seems, or there's always a deeper layer to dig.
Here's a fact. Human population grows exponentially. The planet doesn't grow. Being conscious about the planet will buy us some time, but won't sustain our exponential growth indefinitely.
It doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it (being conscious, I mean). I'm convinced that the sooner we start, the more time we get. But that's not a solution in itself.
So what then? Here are some options:
- We start controlling our growth.
- We find a way to expand into other planets (or other astronomical bodies).
- We do nothing about it.
Option 2 won't come overnight. But then again, it's hard to estimate when our good old planet will become too small for our big family.
I'd like to call Option 3 the "natural selection" way. If we keep doing it, eventually we'll all compete for our daily bread and for shelter. I don't think it will be beautiful to watch, so I'd rather not see it.
For now, I'll give you this. It may be a shame, but we're like a disease. We want to grow until we can't anymore. But don't despair (yet)! All life is like that. It's just part of the game. If a life form goes the other way, it gets extinct. Most of us don't want to be part of an extinct race.
I don't, at least not tonight.
Other than that, most of us would like to see our family, friends, city, country, world, ..., (all in a people perspective) persevere. I think that the trick is to keep an eye on unneeded competition. Most of the time, we can grow together. Other times we need the competition for motivation.
Well, time to discuss!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
