Indelible

Do Not Bless Me

[originally posted in "Do not bless me" ]

Because I think blessings are a humongous sack of shit. That's not just my atheism talking, nor is it just the devil's advocate in me having a grand ol' time. No way. That is something I truly believe.

I'm going to start off on a very Libertarian path here. I believe everything a person obtains in the material and intangible senses is earned. Everything from your wardrobe to your job is ultimately determined by the individual, and (s)he is ultimately the only one that can make the efforts needed to obtain certain things. When it comes to a job, a person has to be persuasive enough, productive enough and loud enough to become promoted. (S)he must also be able to stay quiet when the time arises, be acutely aware of what actions to take and decide to not be such a crankyass toward his/her coworkers. I am of the camp that if a person does not get a promotion, it's on him/her. Even if it seems like a virtual tie and tenure is the only difference, that can be overcome by sheer moxie. Moxie is an individual trait and responsibility. And as far as divorce, natural disasters, crime and foreclosure, there are so many ways in which it is the individual's responsibility I won't begin to list them all. In the end, it is not a matter of fault but of choice. We do not always know for sure what will happen once we make a particular choice, but it is ultimately one particular choice that lands a person on one end of the luck spectrum.

Yes, I said luck. It is not a spectrum of divine grace but of luck. Choice is ultimately what determines your place on this spectrum. However, the only variable that comes into play and is needed (but cannot be seen) is the outcome. This variable is why where humans end up on this spectrum is entropic in nature. Without this blindness to outcome, the impact of choice on our lives goes from being computable in terms of an arithmetic equation dealing in real numbers to multivariable equations involving at least one imaginary number. Yes, Ribit, I am comparing this to fractal geometry

because it best illustrates the idea of infinite splits in an item, which is what happens when a choice is made and how the outcomes can appear

. You can also apply Chaos Theory here as well, which has a visual similarity. However, I mix enough metaphors as it is.

This brings me to the next component of rejecting blessing. The idea of 'being blessed" is definitely a Western one. How long it has actually been a part of Western culture as an everyday thought is not so easy to answer. Many assume it's been around for some time, most likely due to being raised to believe that their family and friends have thought this way for generations. However, it's not seen a whole lot in historical or anthropological artifacts. Because positivity themed writing is not as prevalent in historical literature and is not exactly easy to express in other physical manners (e.g. sculptures or other forms of fine art, financial ledgers, etc.), the only way to see it physically recorded is in diaries. Even this is somewhat flawed, as for many periods throughout history those who would have been able to keep diaries were often quite well off, thus able to receive the necessary education to read and write. The leveling of the education field only really began to make major progress starting in the 1870s, and 130 plus years doesn't give us enough time to see exactly how long this idea of "being blessed" has really been around. A common (straw mannish) argument is that being blessed does not need to be recorded because it is part of the faith. The concept of faith is another entry in itself, but it does tie into this topic since both actions require the person to make a choice to believe based on little to no evidence. If there is evidence, it is usually in the form of a vision that is most likely a psychosomatic reaction to some form of stimulus (not the bill ). If you're already applying the Occum's Razor Theorem at this point, I think I might love you. Ahem. Getting back on subject, the argument of blessing being like faith in that it does not need to be recorded is not a sufficient answer to the question of how long this belief has been around. In fact, the lack of physical evidence suggests that this idea is quite new in the total scope of human history. Any guess I make on exactly how long it has been around would be wild, but I'm willing to say this idea probably got its start after the Civil War.

So let's say this idea of being blessed is not very old. How did it become so prevalent in Western culture? I have a few ideas on this, and none of them are savory. Okay, my whole approach to blessings is pretty unsavory, but this stuff is loathesome in a much different way. First off is history. Obviously, the last hundred years or so have been pretty rough on Westerners. They weren't exactly a cake walk for Easterners, either, but the West has been on a paranoia roller coaster ride from Hell for a long time. So the idea of counting the small so-called positive things in life developed as a coping mechanism. The second theory pertains to racial/ethnic divides. To some extent, this is still in practice, but it has taken on a different form. This theory actually stems from the European colonialism that had a bit of a revival back in the 1850s to 1870s.

This decade keeps popping up. Is there something about that decade that would bolster my argument, maybe?

Anyone who didn't fall asleep in Western Civ (and even those who did) know the European explorers treated the natives like shit yet felt they were doing God's work in "saving" these people who didn't need saving. It's pretty easy to see how they might feel blessed in light of this situation. My third theory is the one that pertains to present day society and will undoubtedly upset the most people. The idea of being blessed is a psychological power play exploited by numerous organizations from charities to churches. What is this power play? As I explained about choice, odds are we don't even think about the potential outcomes for more than half the choices we make. If you applied Chaos Theory a couple paragraphs ago, this will make a lot of sense. These groups play up the randomness of outcomes, especially in the event of a natural disaster or other cataclysmic shift that ripples through a society. Playing up the randomness of the outcomes is an unspoken way to tug at people's consciences. After all, they need to have a Plan C in case Plans A

emotional empathy

and B

common human decency to help others in a situation where all of their choices had bad outcomes that they ultimately could not escape

do not work. Granted, there are enough times when this sort of power play benefits society. One example that comes to mind is the American Red Cross, which has managed to maintain a solid reputation for nonpartisan aid in spite of some of the crap pulled by hurricane Katrina victims who squandered Red Cross aid. People still donate to the fund because they are time tested, reputable and do a commendable job of not helping out to promote some sort of agenda. They are there to help. Period. End of sentence. That said, there are lots of organizations that exploit these unknown outcomes to push an agenda. Churches are especially guilty of this. Then again, plenty of them do it and will gladly tell you so. They want people to think they're blessed and then share that with others, be it through goods, services or preaching. Usually, they support that last action the most, though they won't say so 99 percent of the time.

This last one has shaped American culture in twisted ways. When Americans see slums in person, they often think of what they have and feel blessed for it. This is a bit of a paradox. We Americans are thankful for often having roomy houses, beyond basic foodstuffs, our own automobiles, luxury clothing and a lot of (superfluous) items we take for granted. How is this a paradox? First, we chose to acquire all that stuff. If the concept of being blessed is based on circumstances that are from the grace of god, how can all of these goods be considered blessings when we make the choices to have all of them? These choices range from simply pulling an artisan loaf of bread from the shelf to saving up enough money for a down payment on a car (or jumping on a zero down/zero percent financing offer back in the day). It seems off to me that we consider ourselves blessed to have a car to get around when we see other people that don't. Let's consider the fact that half the time we don't really know how life in these slums really works. It could be they don't need cars, and even if they were better off financially they still might not need them. When we are faced with these types of situations and say we feel blessed for what we have, we're doing nothing more than projecting our own lifestyles, choices and values on a culture that is not always similar to ours. This attitude combined with US corporations outsourcing a good lot of IT jobs to India has led to an even greater Western erosion of that country's native culture. The money flowing into that country has made life better financially for a chunk of them. On the other hand, what else has it cost them? Though we see Indian slums on the streets a lot, we often forget they have burgeoning upper and middle classes that behave a lot like we do. Is that a good thing? I'm not so sure. Those concerned about the environment will tell you no, as this Westernization of the East will cause a spike in pollution because more of them are choosing to have one (or more) car per household. It's an uglier tradeoff than we care to acknowledge. This cultural transparency is the other paradox. Perhaps in these slums they choose to simply persevere in such conditions because they don't have the information to make a choice to get out of it. A lot of Americans assume it's simply because they're poor. Financial poverty is only the beginning. Half the time, they're stuck because they don't know how to get out of their respective situations. Sometimes, they don't even know they have that option. Without actually going there and studying the slum situation in depth, I can't say what options they might have. However, their best bet is to follow Gandhi's advice: be the change you wish to see in the world.

Ironically, if they were to choose to follow Gandhi's advice, they would be doing more good than the Westerners who feel blessed for all sorts of crap. We Westerners perpetuate this illusion of being blessed because we continue to make choices that help us maintain this lifestyle that has ultimately been built up as a blessing. The idea of a bounty has been what's guided blessings for as long as they've been around. They choose to accept it and make further life choices based on what will help them maintain this cushy lifestyle. Hence, it jarred a lot of them when the financial house of cards collapsed. Those of us, meanwhile, who perhaps didn't subscribe to this idea of material blessing fared a lot better psychologically. And keep in mind this idea of choice applies to intangible aspects of Western life as well, especially government and politics. While the politicians make the decisions, we ultimately make the choices that will drive our society by allowing the lazy and inept to stay or riding herd on them to actually get shit done. In the end, it's all on us, and because of that, blessings have no role in our society. They never deserved it.