Meeting on "bucket list"

We had our meeting yesterday about the practice of making a "bucket list" of things we want to do before we die.

I was not prepared for the wide ranging discussion coming out of this topic.

Most people are somewhat put off by the idea but not exactly sure why.

Sandra nailed it in saying that a bucket list is all about ourselves, it has a competitive side to it, and also suggests that we need to be constantly doing something or being stimulated.

There is a preference of quantity over quality in putting emphasis on items on the list rather than the experience itself.

In planning for the list, it is also inevitable that the list takes our attention away from living for the moment.

Richard put forward the notion that we are not alone and even though the bucket list is normally aimed at maximizing one's experience out of one's life,  it is inevitably affected by our shared language and values with those around us and the community that we belong to.

Rafi did not see anything wrong with maximizing one's own experience out of life.  We contributed to society just by being part of it in paying taxes to support the government and partaking in business that by necessity is needed by someone.  In other words, there is no need to feel guilty about looking after ourselves and getting the most out of life according to our desires.

Ricki said that she makes lists to get things done but when it comes to life, she expects more spontaneity.

Marcy wonders why we need to do a bucket list when it is a good thing for us to do some short, medium, and long term planning in any case.  If we occasionally think about what we want to accomplish in the next 5 years, will it not do the same in terms of focusing our mind towards what we want?  As with all planning, we have to be prepared to change our plans when we get closer to the details and review them against our original goals.

John thinks bucket lists are fore people past the stage of looking after family and career demands. Retirement is the time when one can turn back to satisfying their desires and making a list is the logical thing to do at that stage.

While most of the time the list is about traveling to exotic places and doing unique experiences,  there is nothing stopping someone to make a bucket list of good things they want to do for the rest of humanity instead of just for themselves.

It may be the desire to create legacy, to be remembered after we are gone.

We are, according to sociologists, part individual and part bee in a hive.   Our ego is constantly putting ourselves first but we also want to be an accepted and valued member of our community.  Our motivations are constantly driven by desires to satisfy our ego as well as those around us.

We are all going to die but perhaps we can continue to exist afterwards as part of humanity through what we have done.

Bucket lists will be different for people in different situations.  For the third world, they are so preoccupied with survival that their desire is to stay alive, never mind what to do with their lives.  It is a luxury for the developed world to fret over what they should do with their limited time.

There is also the question of whether we are actually free to choose what we want to do with our lives. Past events, external situations, our relationship with others, and even random events box us into very limited choices of what we can do.  Some would say we are not really free.

However, we do make choices.  Maybe not out of a lot of possibilities but we do influence outcomes with our choices.  To that extent we are free within the constraints of the moment. We should not look at freedom in black and white dichotomy but shades of grey that we are forever trying to create more options to choose from.

As to my example of someone crossing off eating scorpions in his bucket list, there were no takers. Here is a BBC video on that form some years ago.  I understand that the locals don't go for this and it is only for the tourists.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaeWrmYIuoM

Nov 6 Should "bucket lists be changed?"

This coming Wednesday,  we will be discussing "bucket lists".

By now, most of us have heard this term made famous by the movie about two people who compiled a list of things they wanted to do before "kicking the bucket" and then go on to do and check the items off that list.

As in most movies, it is a heart warming story of how we should get the most out of our lives before we go.  As we will all have to go some time.

It seems so logical.  We make a shopping list before going to the grocery store so that we won't forget anything before we leave the store.  Make sense that we should make a list of what to do before we check out of this life.

Make the most of the time we have left in this life, maximize our ability to enjoy ourselves while we are here and expose ourselves to as many of the amazing experiences we hear about from others.

So, have you made up your bucket list yet and how many items have you already checked off on your list?

Have you been adding more items on to your list since it was first made up?

It is inevitable with the infinite possibilities out there in this world that we will discover more things we want to do as time goes on.

A list helps us prioritize what we want to do first and that is a good thing. But can we prioritize a list which we know is incomplete and will keep changing?

It also shows us how many more items we want to do versus the time left to do it.

Pressure!  A good motivation to get going but perhaps it also creates feelings of life not quite meeting our expectations?

Will a bucket list lead to rising expectations that is difficult for us to fulfill?

Leading us further away from contentment?

Should we consider additions to the list a real bad idea in this light?

What about the concept of living for the moment, appreciating the here and now.  "To do lists" of any kind is perhaps the worst way in terms of distracting us from being mindful of what is around us.

Then there is the unknowable of how much longer we have to live and what our health will be before the end.  We may have our eye on a particular chair in playing musical chairs but it is pointless if we don't know when the music is going to stop.

The primary objective of compiling a list is to be efficient in completing the items on the list.

We hope to gain a sense of achievement in knowing that we have done the most that we can do and we have done the ones that we want to do most.

Can this sense of achievement be accomplished by a list that is likely to keep changing? 

Are we more likely to feel discontented about the things we have not done rather than the ones we have already completed?

Do we need a bucket list to haunt us at our death bed?

Is the quality of the experience more important than the quantity of the types of experience we have had?

I met someone who told me that he had the experience of eating various insects in China.  These are considered delicacies and also a dare. Naturally I asked him what the various exotic insects tasted like.  He said he was too preoccupied with the idea of having to swallow insects that he didn't recall what it tasted like.  But he did check the item off his bucket list.

So, should we make up bucket list for ourselves and should we change it from time to time?

Meeting on "guilt"

We had our Ideas Cafe meeting yesterday on guilt.

There were a number of significant points that emerged out of the discussion.

1.  Guilt is an emotional response.  It is a fast reaction to and judgment of one's response to a situation.

2.  Like anger and other emotional reactions, these snap reactions alert us to pay attention to the situation but perhaps are not always the most accurate take of the situation.  The logical side of senses should be called into the picture to analyze, then confirm or question if this is the proper response.

3.  Guilt for our mind is like pain to our physical body.  Without pain, we will not be alerted to parts of our body that are being hurt and require attention.  Similarly, the guilt response focuses our attention to the implications of our action or inaction to a situation.

4.  Chronic pain can be counterproductive to healing of our physical body just like lingering guilt becomes useless in motivating us to do the right thing.

5.  Early administering of pain killers can dull our senses to our real physical condition that may require more attention.  Early brush off of a guilt response as "lesson learned, time to move on" may lull us into trivializing the experience and continue to commit the same transgression again.

6.  Guilt is judged by moral standards so ingrained in us by our parents or other powerful figures in our early life that we don't know where it came from and accept it as "innate".

7.  Chronic guilt is alleviated by examining and perhaps changing the moral standard used to judge the past event causing the guilt.  It is all in the psyche and how we look at the event without ever changing the facts of the event.

The discussion was very lively with several people mentioning that they often feel uneasy and "guilty" when crossing the border or when talking to a policeman.

Interesting enough, transgressors of customs rules at the border or traffic rules often justify to themselves that the rules are nonsensical and therefore feel no guilt at all in breaking those rules.

There is also the questionable association of pleasure with guilt and whether that indicated a particular type of upbringing we had.

When citing examples of guilt, cheating on one's spouse was the example that was used over and over again.  There has to be some strong association between sex and guilt and that should be topic for a great discussion some day!

10/30/2013 Guilt

This coming Wednesday at the Ideas Cafe, we will be discussing guilt.

The Wikipedia definition of guilt is an emotion that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard that they themselves believe in.

Note that the person has to believe that they have violated a moral standard and it has to be a standard that they believe in.

Modify any of the two beliefs and the guilt status will be changed.

Note that because guilt is based on the two beliefs, that it is an emotion and internally felt.  An oppressor cannot make us feel guilty with force unless they convince us to change our beliefs.

Guilt comes from doing something one believes should not be done or not taking action when one believes that action should be taken.

It is therefore all encompassing as a result on how we pass judgement on our everyday actions and decisions.  Therefore, pivotal to whether we live a happy, carefree life or one burdened with guilt.

Where do these beliefs come from?

Our parents and other authority figures central to our upbringing likely have the biggest influence on our moral standard.

Once accepted, these foundations are seldom questioned and become "inherent" in our judgement of right and wrong.  Is this where we get the emotional feeling that something just feels "right" or "wrong"?  And then use logic to justify that initial feeling?

On top of which, many of us believe in our "true inner self", that we must trust how we feel.  If we feel guilty, we must be guilty!

A well defined moral standard helps in deciding guilt. The religious have their holy books and messengers from god to help them determine where guilt exists.

But what about intent versus consequences?

Is the incompetent murderer intending to kill but did not succeed more or less guilty than the masterful executioner who kill with precision but not personal premeditated intent?

We don't punish murderers who bungled and ended up not hurting anyone. Is that "right"?

Can we live in a world without guilt?  How will be be motivated to fulfill our "obligations"?

Or are obligations just another form of guilt in disguise?

Is guilt the glue that holds social communities together?

Should we change our beliefs when we feel guilty and talk ourselves out of our guilty feelings?

Let's hear your thoughts on Wednesday!

Vancouver Philosophy Dinners Meetup "Embracing uncertainty"

I was at the Meetup yesterday facilitating one of the tables.

We discuss how most of us are "addicted" to certainty and becomes unglued when uncertainty strikes.

There are so many ways this topic can branch into that at first we were talking about how the certainty of our own knowledge blocks us from learning more (we already know!) and from seeing other perspectives.

There were quotes from Bertrand Russell, Erich Fromm to this effect.

It seems we generally want to be able to wrap an issue up as "settled" and put it away so that we can handle something else. 

Leaving issues open is to have loose ends everywhere potentially requiring our attention.  It is unsettling, and it makes it hard for us to proceed with confidence in our actions.

But then the other interesting thing that emerged in the discussion was that we tend to think of uncertainty in the negative. Talking about uncertainty generally suggests that things are taking a turn for the worse, we do not consider a surprisingly good turn of events as an uncertainty.

Is this just our conservative nature?  The evolutionary result of pessimist being more prepared for bad events?

The addiction to certainty is really our fear of the unknown and unpredictable.

The YouTube videos linked in the reference material for the meeting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEEpOVUtr0&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFRwhJEOos&feature=player_embedded

want us to embrace uncertainty.

It is true that some of us have a tendency to run off with our imagination on how things can get and quickly spiral down to the worst of the worst case scenarios.  The optimist amongst us tends to get push aside as naive.

But as the videos pointed out, crying "unfair", "why is this happening to me", "why are things going according to plan" when uncertainty strikes is obviously not productive.  Best to concentrate on the current situation, take advantage of the unexpected and deal with what needs to be done.

There is also a video of a Buddhist monk on the same topic.  How we should accept what is happening.  Change our plans to suit what just happened rather than trying to force our way through. He even advocated that politicians should not make any promises or should only promise with provisions.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pswsVGVdISY&feature=player_embedded

Here, I have to say that the complexity of our society comes into play. It is difficult to do anything substantial in our society without the cooperation of many stake holders who all have certain expectations of outcomes for the project.

It is difficult for a builder encountering foundation soil problems to just say he will adjust the building to suit.  There is the owner who expects the building for a certain use, the bank who expects the building to be worth a certain amount in order to grant the mortgage, all kinds or other sub-contractors who are expecting certain building costs for the original intended building.

In other words, all substantial projects require detail planning to minimize uncertainties and it is always difficult when things do not go according to plan.

Do we dare to imagine a complete cultural shift someday when society in general does not mind government deviating from budgets and promises?  That the same government will exceed our expectations as often as not meeting it?

In other words, it is complicated.

We can all benefit from the positive thinking advocated by the videos, and I wait patiently for the society paradigm shift.

We need more Buddhists among us.  

 

Meeting on identity protection versus freedom of speech on the internet

We had our meeting a few days ago on internet freedom versus reckless identity smears on the internet.

Cyber bullying was raised as the predominate issue and how teenagers cannot get away from the continuous cruel comments on Facebook and the preoccupation with counting the number of "likes" on people's comments even if they are cruel comments.

Some said they will never get on Facebook.

Richard proposed that we should look at each of the application providers as the equivalent of a state or country that we treat the physical world.

Every application provider has their rules of how they want to control their content just like every country have their laws on how their nationals can behave under their laws.

Facebook will stop a post upon a complaint and investigate.  YouTube will not show any pornographic videos, and so on.

While all the application providers strive to be as "free" as they can make it,  there are rules of privacy and engagement involved. 

We decide to join each of these cyber groups by using them with implicit agreement and knowledge of their operations.

From this perspective, we have the freedom to choose which cyber "country" with its rules to join,  much easier than having to emigrate from one country to immigrate into another just to change the rules of the game.

We also have the freedom to join multiple application providers with different identities although more and more there is a trend to verify the physical human behind these identities and place more importance to those where a human can be confirmed.

This perspective is also expressed in Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen's book "The New Digital Age" (The Ideas Book Club current book) where they predict that the virtual population will outnumber the population of the earth in the next decade.

But what of all the scams and lies floating around?  Where is the policeman?

Dan thinks there is a business case for someone to set up a for profit enterprise with the express purpose to checking out the authenticity of information on the internet.  Kind of a consumers report type organization helping consumers to separate the good products from the bad.

Dan also thinks that in a crowd sourcing type of community like the internet,  it is up to all of us to speak up when we see inappropriate content.  Much like the bullying cases where the bully gets bolder because the bystanders do not step in,  if we do not take on the lairs on the internet, the silence will give them credibility.

No one wants the controlled environment such as in China where the state controls the content on the internet and have walls to stop their citizens from accessing Wikipedia, pornography, and other content that the state deems inappropriate.

I can remember the early days of the internet when AOL take the position that their content is filtered and "safe" as a reason why people should get on line through them rather than just the completely open access through other providers.

History have shown that just about all of us prefer the open access.  We just have to deal with judging the content ourselves some other way.

Bullying and character assassination have been around before the internet.  Like a lubricant and enabler, the internet made everything easier and faster, including the bad stuff.

Our habits and attitudes have not changed fast enough to keep pace with the change and the cyber criminals have been able to take advantage of border limitations of law enforcement agencies and our habit to believe what we see in print.

http://www.factcheck.org/  is a website that supposedly checks on claims by politician.  Maybe we need more websites like this to help us deal with the internet?

If you know of other websites that can help us verify content and sources on the internet, please share them with us.  We need to promote truth and dispel myths if crowd sourcing is going to work!

9/25/2013 Identity protection versus freedom of speech

This coming Wednesday at the Idea's Cafe, we will be discussing identity protection versus freedom of speech on the internet.

Bruce told me about the story of a teacher whose reputation is ruined by his ex-girlfriend's cyber stalking.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/teacher-powerless-to-stop-ex-girlfriend-s-cyberstalking-1.1314610

It seems that there are lots of examples of previous love interests going on the internet to get even with their ex lover for being dumped.

Or the various examples of cyber bullying where private pictures have been posted on the net.

Then there is the news item of Yelp suing Vancouver man for submitting fake reviews http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/20/yelp-sues-vancouver-man-f_n_3965610.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada

According to Yelp, not only is this person paying others to submit false reviews to bolster businesses being reviewed, this person actually have the audacity to threaten Yelp with creating further fake reviews unless Yelp pay up.

Yelp is seeking a legal order for the internet provider to turn over the person's name and address.

We all know that the internet is the wild wild west and not to trust everything there.

But what about freedom of speech? 

What about people who wanted to put in positive reviews for a business because of a genuine positive experience with that business?

What about the neighborhood watch that wanted to alert people of dangerous criminals that have now been released from prison and living in their area?

May be even an ex lover warning other people to stay away from a predatory lover?

Not only can we not count on governments to referee because the internet cross borders,  it is hard to imagine anyone who can be the ultimate arbiters for content as diverse as found on the internet.

Social media and the search engine giants are staying away from anything remotely like censorship for fear of upsetting their participants. 

Governments like China do a good job of blocking what they deem undesirable for their citizens but not many outside the country would prefer that to the uncensored internet.

Yet a free for all internet ultimately damages its own credibility. 

Even if we bring in some form of world court on libel action,  we still have issues with ex lover's posting their ex boyfriend or girlfriend's private photos as permission was granted before their relationships grew sour.

As to the protection of the identity of the internet provider's client, when should the internet provider turn over that information?  What if the person is doing their false reviews while connected through a free internet connection at the local cafe?
 
Maybe real freedom is not as good as a restrained environment?

But what kind of restraint and by who?