What Exactly is a Good Life?

Back in 1989 (wow, 33 years ago) I was asked to go to Stratford Ontario to give a public lecture about the Green Party. I don't really remember much about the event, but I probably gave my standard talk about how environmental concerns will grow larger and larger over our lifetime and how citizens should start taking them more seriously. If we do this, I would have argued, we will find that a great many things that we then found tremendously important would have become of far less concern. I also would have said that some of the things that we will find not as important will be economic growth and a rising "standard of living". Finally, I probably mentioned something to the effect of we can have all the really important things in a sustainable society such as friendship, artistic expression, justice and equality, scientific exploration, etc---but we cannot afford much of the frivolous stuff like tourists flying all around the world and engineering our towns and cities around the automobile.

As I said, I don't remember any of my specific language, but I do have one subjective impression of what was said---I kept a copy of an editorial cartoon from the local paper that was inspired by my talk.

I have scrap books, this was in one of them.

 

As I said above, it's a subjective response. One of the things I don't like about editorial cartoons is that their primary objective is entertainment, not information. (That's a nice way of saying that many cartoonists are just paid to be smart asses.)

Having said that, it is true that a large part of what I said then and am still saying now gets this sort of response. All of us have to make a choice about what is or isn't important. And, I would argue, the things that really are important in life can be easily supplied without creating runaway climate change---but the frivolous, dumb things often cannot. Unfortunately, many people see this as an attack on people living a 'good' life. And that's what I want to talk about in this op ed: "Just what exactly is a 'good' life?"

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Recently I've noticed something jarring about CBC news coverage of the recent global spike in inflation. Let me paint a picture. I've seen news clips of:

• someone complaining about the cost of airline travel: "$3000 return! That's five month's rent for me!" ($600/month rent---where the heck does he live?)
• another person complaining about the cost of food---he's looking at watermelons in a grocery in January
• a young guy complaining about gasoline costing $1.95/liter at CostCo and complaining---while filling up his huge gas-guzzling, immaculate (ie: not used to haul anything) pickup  

This isn't to say that I haven't seen news clips of people suffering real need. People are living on the street, food banks are emptying out, people working at several poorly-paid jobs that they drive to in decrepit cars. We have a lot of people who's heads---or even their nostrils---are just above the waterline and any inflationary turbulence risks drowning them. 

I'm not talking about these folks, I'm talking about the people who are complaining because they can't jet around the world on vacation, buy fruits and veggies that have been shipped thousands of miles, or, who drive in expensive, gas-guzzling ego props. And, I'm talking about the reporters on TV news that think these complaints merit time on the national news.

I'm old enough to remember when people didn't travel much. Indeed, in my grand-parent's generation most folks didn't travel at all unless they were going with a rifle on their shoulder or a carpet bag full of bibles (both scenarios we all can do without). In addition just about everything we ate had been raised within a very short distance of our home. We did drive gas guzzlers but only because back then all cars were---but not very far because even though fuel was cheap, we were poor. Besides, living on a farm there were always animals to feed and stables to clean.

What I'm trying to say is that people's expectations about what the "bare minimum" should be have expanded in some ways that I don't think are really healthy. This isn't an example of "old man Hulet" complaining about those "new kids" and their fancy toys. Instead, I'm saying that at least some of people's disposable wealth would be much better spent on different things than it is. That fancy new pick-up exists somewhat at the expense of a good public transit system. Those thousand mile watermelons are at the expense of people who have to go to food banks in order to not go hungry. And the money for those trips overseas would probably be better spent on building more social housing. 

The connection I'm drawing isn't clear-cut and obvious. I'm not saying Aunt Alice's trip to Italy involved dumping some stranger out on the street. If the connection were that clear people would probably be more aware of it. Instead, I'm saying that the society that creates the aspirational ideals of "travel broadens" and "whomever has the most toys when they die wins" is not the same one that would suggest "the existence of poverty is a stain on our entire community" and "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society".

Maybe in a future Star Trek utopia people will be able to do whatever they want without bad consequences for other people. But that's not the world we currently live in. There are environmental consequences from the frivolous consumption of fossil fuels. And poverty is a result of wealth stratification. In a world without "replicators" and "transporters", for one person to have far too much someone else has to get by with less than enough. Surely it's obvious to anyone with eyes to see that our current society suffers from a systemic misallocation of resources.   

Actually I'd like to go beyond this and suggest that there is a deeper issue here. Consider the following short video clip of billionaires throwing skittles into each other's mouths and listen to the banter between each of them. 

 

This reminds me of every dumb, stoned road trip I went on as a young man. I, at least, had the excuse that I was young and knew nothing at all about the world around me. But these folks are titans of industry who have enormous control over the lives of other people. And with all that power at their finger-tips, they used a significant fraction of the world's resources to spin in free fall and throw skittles in each other's mouths.

This isn't just about "things", it's also about "experiences". I once met a young man who had a good unionized job working at a menial occupation. He was making a lot of good money. Did he save it for a home, business, education, etc? Not really. Instead, he got into the habit of flying around North America to attend Rolling Stones concerts. I often wondered what the folks who fought for the forty hour work week and unionization would have thought of someone who had gained so much from their sacrifice but used it in such a frivolous manner. Some experiences cost nothing except concentration, courage, and, effort (eg: building a union)---others can be bought with the swipe of a credit card. The former build character---the latter are just another type of conspicuous consumption. 

Lots of commentators have talked about the outrageous amounts of money wasted on space tourism, but I'd suggest that the big problem isn't the money, per se, but rather the interests of the people involved. (I certainly don't consider the astronauts and scientists who work in space to be frivolous people.) Ultimately it is pretty much the same thing as when middle-class types go to some warm clime to sit on a beach. Indeed, for people who have a lot less money than Bezos and company isn't taking a jet flight as tourists pretty much the same thing? It's just a way to burn through a significant fraction of their income with no particular value except to show that they can afford to do it. At best it's a form of low-brow entertainment---like watching children's cartoons or one of those terrible movies that is all about the special effects. At worst, it's just a way of showing off to the other people in your life. Can't we come up with something better to do with our time---something that doesn't involve destroying the planet and keeping a fraction of the population poor?

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Time for the begging bowl. Writing this blog is real work and I put a surprising number of hours into it. So if you can afford it, why not consider buying a subscription? Pay Pal and Patreon make it easy to do. (Thanks Carol for being so awesome!) And by doing so, you'll be making a concrete statement about what you do or do not think is important in this world. 

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Part of the problem, I believe, is that modern people lack the vocabulary to even conceive of or understand the issue I'm raising. Early Christianity had a language that dealt with something quite different, but in the same vein:

• "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."
• "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of A needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!"
• “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

I say different, because I'm not interesting in perpetuating the baggage that has become associated with some of the teachings in the Gospels: 

• belief in God
• original sin
• the importance of belief in Jesus as the son of God
• the resurrection
• the virgin birth
• the importance of the eucarist
• life after death
• Hell
• etc

Instead I just want to focus on one particular thing: the importance of 'intangibles' in people's lives. This isn't the same as "the kingdom of God is within you" but---to paraphrase Mark Twain---something that "rhymes" with that notion.

I'm not sure if I can actually point directly to I'm talking about, but I think I can see the footprints it leaves in the lives of the people around us. For example, consider the care that many people put into their gardens, the food they prepare for their family, the charity work they do for the community, the hobbies they pursue, the political party they support. I believe I often see it in environmental protests. It's what inspires academics to spend hours and hours pursuing the exactly apropos quote for a paper or the experiment that explains the slight variance in a predicted outcome. 

I said that I cannot directly point to what I'm talking about, but only give indirect evidence. That's because those beautiful gardens, nice meals, etc, I mentioned above aren't the important point---they are just the result of what I'm talking about. Perhaps the best approximation I can come up with is to say that that what I'm talking about is something like what some people call being "spiritual"---as in the sense of "I'm spiritual, but not religious". (Most assuredly I am not suggesting that this is what all people mean when they say such a thing. But maybe some do.)

If a person hires an excellent gardener or cook, they do not partake of the spiritual dimension of exceptional gardening or food preparation. The spiritual dimension comes from the process of learning how to grow or cook something amazing. And you can't buy the personal satisfaction and growth that comes from really paying attention to what you are doing and learning about yourself and the world around you while doing so. That's a central part of the saying "the best things in life are free".

Over the last few months my wife and I have been working at improving our health through a dedicated regime of regular exercise plus a total rethink of our diets. We were stretching the other day and part of that involved going through a series of yoga "cat/cow" exercises. In the midst of it Misha called me out for the way I was executing a subtle detail of the "cow" move. She said I was "just doing it to get it over with". She was right and I quickly took advantage of the correction. 

I want readers to linger over that phrase "just doing it to get it over with". That's an important clue to large part of what I think is wrong in our society. Please note, I'm not fixating on the end result. It's true that if you put your heart and soul into doing things the best you can the results will usually be better than if you do a half-assed job. But beyond that, I'm suggesting that the more you put into what you do, the more personal fulfillment and personal growth you will get from the process.

 

 

(Of course this is only true up to a point and once certain other necessary criteria have been "checked off". I'm not suggesting that guards at concentration camps could find spiritual fulfillment through being the best sadists possible. Nor would I suggest that slaves should grow spiritually through being the best enslaved cotton pickers they can be. And many of the jobs people work at in our society are at best absurd and at worst harmful to the planet and other people. It's also very hard to find joy in work that results in exhaustion and barely keeps a roof over your head. This whole discussion is about one particular aspect of a huge complex, booming world. But it is an essential bit---and I don't think our culture gives it anything like the attention it deserves.)

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So what has this got to do with that speech I gave in Stratford 33 years ago? 

I hear a lot of people talk as if the key to environmental sustainability is to develop electric cars so people can still live the 'happy motoring' lifestyle, and, electric airplanes so we can have an environmentally safe Club Med. Anyone who's really tried to do the math on this sort of thing quickly realizes that this is not going to happen. But we can have an environmentally sustainable world with good public transit, where there are no beggars on the streets, and, people have a lot more opportunity to develop their creativity. There would be a lot fewer "things" and "tourism" in this world---but I believe there would be a lot more happy people. I also think that there could be a lot less poverty too. 

The problem is that the society we are living in now is incompatible with the one we could have according to the ideals I've expressed above. You can get there from here---but you have to be willing to leave here behind. It's easy for a cynic to make fun of any suggestion that we should try to change the world. (Hence the above editorial cartoon.) But someone has to make the effort to suggest things could be different if we really want them to ever be different.

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There's a Zen story that goes something like this. A poor, but happy monk was out one day gazing at the moon while meditating. A robber came by and ordered the monk to hand over his possessions, which he did. When the would-be thief realized that the monk was---if anything---poorer than he was, he threw everything down and wept bitterly about his lot in life and walked away. The monk looked at him with sadness and said "if I could, I would have given him the moon".

Our society is like that thief. I feels empty so it tries to steal the riches of the earth and take from future generations. But flying to other countries, eating foreign food, and, pimping our ride won't fill the holes in our hearts. But unfortunately, anyone who has found the answer to living a good life in harmony with nature will find it extremely difficult to help the others understand. 

And yet we still try---. 

Here's a statue of Ryokan, the actual monk of the Zen story.

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Furthermore I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!