Never Walked In High Heels

Being an individualist is not terribly popular these days. There’s a lot of talk about what someone can do for society, how to help the faceless “others” who are less fortunate than you or even how to help charities of this nature by making a tax deductible donation to X. Theses are all good actions worthy of some (albeit often minimal) praise on some level. But even with the best of efforts to move towards utopia, something insidious almost always creeps in, and here is no exception.

Perhaps I simply see this because I am an American living in London. But recently it seems as though there is more attention given to the ‘toiling masses’ rather than the individuals who are either in need of help or those who can help. The power and the preciousness of the single human being has been replaced by concern for a faceless mass who seems to always be in need of help and never getting any. Charity has become an impersonal act of the bank account rather than requiring eye contact.

But the ‘faceless mass’ way of thinking has done more damage than simply disguising taxes as alms. We have forgotten that each of use are created and not generated. This fact has little to do with any sort of deity and more to do with just how many fingerprints and events it takes to form a constantly evolving person. Our current popular views on biology and society, taken to the next logical step, teach not only that life is random but also that each of us are not particularly unique. If we are nothing more than cells and labels, existing for eighty years or so, then the value our impact for the history of man is small, we can do little to change the world, and there is a vast amount of feebleness in any of our actions. Often when I talk to people is seems as if they refuse to hold their own sprit, the part of them which has yet to be defined by any scientist, dearly. The willingness to compromise to things which insult the soul for the security of feeling others standing beside us is rampant within ourselves.

If we stop recognizing the value of the individual and his unique spirit, we cease to acknowledge the most powerful natural resource in existence. It is not enough to try and help in order to ‘do good’ in the world, like everything else ‘doing good’ can quickly become yet another form of legalism. But when you look the individual, be he servant or the one in need, you begin to value that person until it is impossible to generalize a person back into a faceless mob. Looking at a person means understanding them, their conditions, and valuing him for it, rather than expecting him to relate in predetermined way which ultimately casts him back into obscurity.

Less and less people want to live forever. This is not to say they don’t want to die, they just want to go on surviving as a biological entity rather than being themselves to the greatest of their ability. A group of such people no doubt make a homogeneous mass which is easy to define and then dismiss. It is the unique individual who understands that he is fearfully and wonderfully made which makes the conditions of society better; it has never been the other way around. Most people who cannot acknowledge their own value, simply as people who will never again exist are content to live simply at the status quo. If you look at every civil rights movement in history and think of where it would be without the individuals associated with leading it, it doesn’t take long to see the value of the human spirit who sees people living rather than a group surviving.

Each person has value because man is an end unto himself. He needs to be nothing but himself to the best of his ability. Even if you don’t believe a part of you lives on forever, your own individual uniqueness acts as a form of accountability simply because you will never exist again. In some way, a person by being himself has value because he is one, and with that single man, he can only reach people by seeing what each person is.

I was out for breakfast with some friends of mine when I was introduced to an older woman who I knew by association. She was wrapped in a blue-green scarf and she looked really quite fascinating. We began talking and someone brought up the political subject of X. Now for the purpose of this entry, I am not going to tell you what X is. X is a certain national figure, but I will not give you any other details or political associations. If I did, the purpose of the piece would be lost. I like X but X is not particularly popular in the mainstream right now, and I know if I would tell you who X was, I would immediately lose you, I think your reaction would be focused on X rather than on the point of this entry. This is evidenced by the woman’s reaction when I gave my opinion on X.

“I can’t believe you like X! What is there to like? There is nothing to like about X.”

Her response was so visceral that it was shocking! Here I was, a perfect stranger giving my opinion and she immediately shot me down like a schoolgirl wanted to shut up anyone who didn’t believe in her popularity. However, in this response she made it clear that not only had she no respect for X, she had no respect for my opinion of X, and through her ungracious response made it clear that she had no respect for anyone who wasn’t as starkly opposed to X as she was.

Now, had I known her for years, and years, I could understand her reaction, but on first acquaintance it was shocking. It made me feel repulsed by her, and as I was just trying to gather up information about this woman to determine whether or not she could be a potential friend, this graceless display came out, making it doubtful that I would ever want to be her friend in the first place. It also made me question what she valued. Clearly, it wasn’t me. I had commented that I disagreed with her within the first hour of us meeting. That couldn’t have been a particularly good introduction, but later in the conversation she claimed that she was a great “embracer of freedom.” Now, given her reaction to our differing opinions, I immediately had doubts as to whether or not this was really true. Freedom, more often than not, means that people are free to agree with us, but in the case of this woman, she wasn’t interested in anyone feeling free to disagree with her. And for that matter, did she really even respect her own opinions? If she did, surely she thought that they could stand up to my own disagreement and would be able to at least hold her tongue rather than immediately jump all over someone who disagreed with her on a relatively small issue.

Disagreement in my mind is one of the most important and fascinating elements about human relationships. It’s through disagreements that we all become better people, not clones of each other. Our ideas are challenged and refined until they become impermeable and at the same time flexible enough to take on a great many people and relationships despite the contradictory beliefs. If there is disagreement among seemingly educated people, shouldn’t the first question be, why do you believe that, not how could you ever believe that?

I had known her for less than an hour and in that time had seen a single reaction that immediately turned me off from seeking a further long-term relationship. Because of one reaction, one potential friendship was gone.

“Dear Athena, thank you so much for the invitation to see you perform at Sadler’s Wells next month. Unfortunately, due to the current conditions of the economy, I feel that I cannot take on any additional clients as it would not be fair to the clients I am currently serving. Thank you again for your invitation. Regards”

Okay. I get it. The economy is bad, really bad actually. The UK and the rest of the world are slowly grinding to a standstill. People are being laid off. The housing market, which dictates so many other seemingly unrelated things, now seems to be everywhere—shooting up one minute and failing the next. It’s rough and nobody likes it. But now it seems that on top of all the other problems, people are actually starting to use the economy as an excuse for everything.

And when I say everything, I mean everything—completely unrelated items such as kicking the dog when you get home, or not considering clients for a potential acting agency. You and your wife got in a fight? Blame the economy. Late for work three days in a row? Well, it’s because the economy is ruining public transportation. Kids not doing well in school? It’s because the economy is so bad that nobody can focus anymore. All these problems are very real and money does affect everything, even corners of our lives that we can’t imagine. But there comes a point in time, where people can only blame their issues on their own choices and not on external problems.

I can appreciate that being an acting agent in London is hard, very hard. So hard in fact, that in the best of times an agent might not come to your show. She’s not interested, or busy, or she has a full roster already. All perfectly acceptable reasons for not coming out to a production. To hide behind conditions when they have nothing to do with the present situation is to ultimately change excuses to consistently avoid the truth. Just say you are unable to make it to the show, or you can’t take any more clients. That reason is actually as acceptable now as it was three years ago.

And the fact is this entire letter is reflective of how we got into the economic mess in the first place. People blaming other people rather than taking action will always lead to disaster be it war, economic downfall, or social upheaval. And then to say that something wouldn’t be, “fair to other clients,” is absurd. Nothing is fair, I get that, and within a certain acting agent’s roster, clients are competing against each other for the same job. Is that fair? But there is a world of difference between a job being inherently competitive (and therefore refined by competitive people) and one that is ground to a halt by a bad economy.

If a man didn’t make the cut for his NCAA college basketball team, would that be blamed on the bad economy as well?

In college when we would go the health center, everything was blamed on a virus. You could go with a broken leg and the nurse would tell you that the broken leg virus has been going around all season. Now it seems we have the bad economy virus. Yes, it is extremely easy to lose both hope and momentum when in a recession, but that is the last thing any of us should want to do. Closing our hands, clenching our fists, and hiding under the bed in fear of what my happen will only serve to make a bad situation infinitely worse. If everyone responded this way how could we ever hope to bring about the level of optimism and opportunity needed to make things better. You’re scared. I’m scared. We’re all terrified as to what may happen, but the truth is that the doors that seem to be closing because of the economic downturn were always difficult to open in the first place. Storms are always hard to weather and challenges come and go. The difference is that Fox News and CNN don’t usually focus on it when you’re terrified. Keep your hands out and open, look for the opportunities that still exist, and take sensible risks. The rules are really the same as always. These include our most basic instinct: Refuse to become paralyzed when everyone else around you is doing just that.

I’m disabled, I live in a socialist country, and I live among those very  strange people called artists. My monthly healthcare premium is exorbitantly high due to a preexisting condition. If anyone should be pro universal health care it should be me.

Obama’s current push towards free health care fills me with dread and little else.

Now there are some healthcare practices which everybody should have for free. And if there ever could be such a thing as free universal health care the world would doubtless be a much better place. But on this planet, the terms “free” and “universal” are very often mutually exclusive.  

If someone could just answer a few questions that I have, I would feel much better. The first is: in a government hospital, who do you sue when malpractice occurs?  I only know to ask this question because I have two childhood friends who became disabled from blatant medical malpractice in an army hospital. The problem, of course, comes in when you’re looking for a malpractice lawyer willing to try and sue the US government. And even if you are fortunate enough to fine the one self sacrificing attorney willing to jeopardize his career to prosecute his country’s government, what makes anyone think that the courts will be imperial? In a world where politicians think they are also doctors, who heals the justice system?

People have often reminded me when I bring up this question that I am ‘focusing on the exceptional situation, and the exceptional situation will always be the exception  not the rule.’ Maybe because I consider myself to be an exceptional person, I find this concern valid. Problem is, I don’t know anyone who isn’t “exceptional.”

This ‘exceptional argument’ leads me directly into my second question: when government starts making medical care decisions, who is going to keep politics out of the operating room?

Any healthcare system is going to be working with the problem of limited resources and limitless ailments. Any medical professional that engages in the battle  for health is admirably fighting a loosing  and highly inefficient war.  Government, on the other hand, is inevitably about pragmatism and finding the best answers for the greatest numbers of people. Everyone forgets that ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ focuses on being efficient and that such smooth running bureaucracies cannot  leave room for exceptional people.

And so, inevitably, when you add politics and government to medicine, everything becomes about cost and value. Limited resources, such as beds, will be  dived up according to which life needs to be saved for the greater good and which ones will be a drain on society.

In America’s national healthcare debate, no one is bringing up that there was a society which tried universal healthcare back in the 1930’s. It was Germany and it lead directly to  the Holocaust via Action T4. For those out there who know their history and still think I am leading to an exceptional leap of logic, let me ask: do you really think that Nazi leaders were all that different  from us? Are we not, as humans, made from the same stuff?

I really don’t have a problem with universal heath care in America as  long as someone could address these issues rather than repeating an ideal. But any attempts to define the limits and concerns about the system are met with harsh accusations of conspiracy theory. These are logical questions  not being addressed, which makes me wonder: what  else will be ignored in the name of pragatism? 

Money is a very strange thing. Money when you are a follower of Christ is an even stranger thing. It is too easy to fall into the trap which absolutely states that money is the root of all evil. For too many, every mouthful of food on your spoon is one that is taken out of the stomachs of starving children in some impoverished country. And thus, not having money becomes an opportunity for reverse snobbishness as much as having money does.

If we are to believe that a person’s value in not determined by his bank account, then it should also follow that his morality should not be determined by his poverty. At this point most of my friends say, “Well that’s easy for you to say because you’re considered extremely privileged by the rest of the world’s standards.”

If you can read this, you are extremely privileged too. There, what do we do now?

One of my dearest friends now lives in Russia. Her family has adopted 9 children and there are always rumors of more. My friend lives her life on a shoestring with so much class and honor she’d make Emily Post squirm. Devoting her life to serving others, she uses every bit of her advanced liberal arts education to make ends meet. When we pack for trips together I’m almost embarrassed by the lotions, the extra tires, the tools, the creams I need to pack to have a ‘normal life.’ And I can’t help but wonder when I crossed over into the realm of high maintenance?

And when she came to visit me in the UK for the first time, she came into my flat and said “wow, being here is so restful.” There wasn’t an ounce of judgment in it.

She doesn’t expect me to live like her. And in this lack of expectation she is the richest person I know. She knows first hand how hard living cheaply truly is. And because of this, she knows that I can’t walk everywhere or sew buttons back on my clothes. And while we both have the responsibility to use our resources as wisely as possible, that’s not going to look anything the same for both of us.

No two people are uniform, so why should their budgets be identical? If a family has a kid whose wheelchair can only fit into an Escalade, should they be ashamed to buy one? On what grounds should they apologize for it? For that matter, which one of their peers has to deem it a ‘need’ before it is the moral vehicle to buy? Or is it the government’s role to determine that?

For the moralist out there, it never says ‘money is the root of all evil.’ Maybe to you we seem the incongruous pair. God has given us very different resources to use wisely. There were many times that the Hebrews and the Gentiles both were aided by very wealthy people. These are the types of people who support my friend, who buy her groceries so she can serve without needing an income producing job at Starbucks. Without giving people like that, nobody could afford to take a vow of poverty.

My Dear Friend,

Last night you asked me how I could claim to be a capitalist and state that all men and created equal. You asked me how I could ever reconcile my political views with my faith without claiming hypocrisy. I wasn’t very impressed with my own answer. I don’t think you were either. You are right - On the surface these two will never mesh.  But my life is full of what seems to be contradictions. I invite you to check your premises, starting with the fact that all capitalists are “greedy.” Beware of such absolutes, it only takes one oddball to prove you wrong.

One of the things I so love about you is your fierceness in protecting your own freedoms. Here is something that you and I stand together on, for I would rather die than lose my independence. I have seen you give up the predictable comforts which come from having a “safe life” in order to have the life you want to lead. I have seen you  defend my freedoms to those who cling dogmatically to their prejudicious. And I have seen you demand from others that they rise up and assume the responsibility that comes from freedom.

So why are you shackling yourself with your own economic theory?

It disturbs me to see you claim that everyone should have the same amount of money, assets, or capital. What this will turn you into is someone who sees others with one of two lenses. The man who has even just a little bit more than you, you can only resent. Whatever he has should be rightfully yours. The person that has a little more than you is terrifying. What you have should be his. If he cannot have it, then you are the source of injustice. You only have two options for relating to people, fear and hate. Both put chains around your ankles. Neither will give you the freedom you yearn for. 

But people should work regardless of payment, you told me. Maybe they should, but they won’t. You know that. Why should you work that extra hour at the office if it’s only going into the pocket book of someone else? Why not work two hours more then? Or four? How can you even bother to go home, as doing so only takes food out of society’s mouth?

Don’t say that this is an extreme example. It isn’t. It has happened to every system which has attempted economic equality. If a system does not hold true within extreme examples, how will it ever hold up under the strain of reality?  

This is where I believe charity and service do come in. I’m not saying if someone can’t help themselves ‘that’s just too bad.’ But give it to the efforts and people you value, the ones who you want to see helped in the world, the causes that no one else is fighting for. You earned that money, you have a right to decide exactly where it goes and who it helps.

I believe God made all men equal. I believe that God made man to be free. I believe that God made man to work. These are not contradictory, they are self evident. But these three tenants do not promise anything, be it wealth or safety. They don’t promise an easy ride, or that you’ll be born where opportunity simply rolls out in front of you. All they give you is the right to exist with the knowledge that you have the same innate value as every other person who will ever exist and it is not based on your bank account. After that, it is up to you to remain free. 

I hope you keep your freedom. 

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

As I grow older, it can sometimes be an increasing disappointment. In my quieter moments I can hear an ongoing mantra, as consistent as the clicking of a train on the railroad tracks across from the neighborhood, as it grows into the ebb and flow of the nightly schedule. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, the world wasn’t supposed to be like this. “

I’ve heard my friends say this numerous times, but not the way I mean. They say it in reflection of poverty, unrest, and fragility. And I can see where they are coming from.  When we were children, we weren’t expecting the very harsh reality of a fallen world. But there’s something even more sinister lurking in this society. Nobody ever told me that people will rest on your ability and use it as an excuse not to foster their own. 

I don’t know why this is surprising, it was evident for me to see in the grade school math class where we were forced to work in groups. All of the sudden, I had so many friends that  kids were lining up to sit at my table. And everyone else’s grades shot up, except mine. Eventually, the smarter kids in the class would get fed up and try to sit together, only to have the teacher claim that the new seating arrangement made her “uncomfortable” and that she would have to change it.

In recent years I have witnessed the death of personal responsibility. Maybe it was dead when I was a kid, but I was taught that assuming the mantle of personal responsibility was the first step in protecting one’s precious personal freedom. You cannot be free and still remain dependent on anyone, nor can you be free and be forced  to save others who do not value their own freedom. The now consistent demands of government and intelligentsia that those who have succeeded should now share their success with those who haven’t even tried only discourages success. What is the point of moving ahead if it only guarantees another chain around your ankles? Why bother trying to earn more money if it’s only going to force you into a higher tax bracket? Why take personal responsibly for yourself if it forces you to become responsible for everyone else as well?

Thus we breed irresponsibility. 

Finding someone who loves his freedom is becoming next to impossible, and thus have ended a good many potential relationships on my side. Someone who recognizes the intrinsic value of his freedom can only then know the vast and irreplaceable value and potential of any human life. I couldn’t see myself with anyone who didn’t appreciate that his life and freedom was connected directly to his actions. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t love being free. 

There’s got to be some people left who recognize that the motor of the world is man’s mind and that are willing to hold themselves to the standards it takes to ensure progress.  I’m not that last person to love my life and my freedom, am I? If I am, it explains a lot. Now I know why people find me intimidating. But these are visions that I cannot give up in a world which demands self sacrifice from its most successful. As much as I am hopeful about finding these men, if I don’t find them, I cannot compromise  and bring in someone who does not value his life and his freedom enough to keep his standards high. 

Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Opportunity and innovation was to go as far as a human mind was willing the pave the road forward. We were never meant to be held back by a by a government that was there to protect us. But the people who refuse to recognize their own value cannot ever recognize mine. And if that means it will be while before I find a partner to meet my standards, that is fine. I can wait.

As long as I don’t have someone, who encourages dependency, tied to me, I’ll be fine. 

In the list of the few teachers I didn’t get along with, there has been one name that has come back to my mind in recent months. He was loud, obnoxious, and arrogant, always interrupting students the second we got off course. He used to strut, yes strut, in front of a classroom full of seventeen year-olds, waiting to write the next discussion point on the board. Looking back, he was the only teacher I remember from high school who dared to grade papers in red pen. I’m sure I had more teachers like him, but this Economics teacher was fiercely Capitalist, supremely self-righteous, and made Ayn Rand look like a soccer mom. 

These days, I wish he taught kindergarden. 

Why do we insist on not teaching our children the basics of Economics? In between the Maths, Sciences, and Phonics, all the building blocks which are supposed lead to a full functioning member of society, there is no time to learn about the basic bedrock of what holds society together: money. The word problems in arithmetic class aren’t enough. “Sally sells seashells at seventy cents” only serves to teach young people the value of numbers, not the value of money. We give them no concept about how taxes work or how money stabilizes a society until they a practically full fledged members themselves, and even then the value of money is rarely discussed. In the affluent public schools we teach that charity is done by giving money away, not by acting on the problem. We teach to give to the poor without question, rather than teaching that even alms can be an investment. And in doing all this we teach that the best way to solve a problem is by throwing more money at it, rather than seeing where the money is already going.

This form of financial education only serves to create a bigger schism between classes. We divide the world into haves and have nots, keeping the latter dependent on the former. Resentment naturally becomes a two way street.

There is a common thought, I suppose, that often leads young people astray in the first place: “Let kids be kids,” we say, rightfully protecting the innocence of youth.  But there comes a point where a chick has to battle with his own strength against the reality of the shell protecting him. If you break the egg for him, the chick never develops his own strength and dies in a relatively short  time. To intentionally keep a child ignorant about the basics of life represents a grave failure as a parent.

If you think I’m overreacting, I’ll make it concrete. I recently spoke with a young woman who is currently getting her masters. She graduated from one of the top liberal arts colleges a few years ago at the top of her class. And she was horrified to learn that when she makes a deposit in the bank, the actual cash doesn’t just sit there until she is ready to take it out. She didn’t understand what it meant to be FDIC insured and had never heard of some stocks going up in a recession.

How is it this student went to some of the best schools in the world and managed to miss this information not only in Economics class but also in History, Math, Government, Art History…

We should be teaching the basic principals of saving, credit, and interest from the day children are able to understand that money exists. We should be teaching teenagers how to follow investments in a mock stock exchange competition. And nobody should be allowed to graduate high school without knowing how to do taxes, set up a long term savings account, and handle APR. Failure to do so creates a system that combines two of the most crippling elements in the world: fear and guilt. Fear, from not knowing how to handle money, and guilt from having it in the first place. 

My teacher was a man who, sadly, didn’t have many of the qualities a good teacher has. I’m sure he drove the school administration nuts. (More power to him for that!) But he understood the fact that if people didn’t appreciate and even respect the value of money from a young age, economic chaos was certain. 

As I remember this teacher’s behavior whenever a student finally conceded that he was right, I hope we don’t give him a chance to strut during this modern economic period.