Revolutionary Misfit

Dare to be Inspirational

Poor in America

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Poor in America

After living in the U.S.A. for 5 months in a condition of economic lack, I feel at least partially qualified to offer an opinion of what it’s like to be…

poor in America.

You see, I’ve not always been poor. I’ve never been what I’d consider rich, but prior to my becoming an expat in Costa Rica, beginning around 2002…

I did have fleeting occasions of moneyed-ness.

Over a decade living in Costa Rica cured me of that pursuit…

the pursuit of happiness via money.

However, now I find myself right back in it…and I feel a bit unconditioned for the exercise.

Because, honestly, being poor in America is a real drag.

Wasn’t so in Costa Rica. There you can be poor and happy. People don’t look down on you. Like you’re some kind of oddball that needs to be kept at arm’s length.

They don’t give you that “get a job” look.

I don’t have a job. I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve been one for the past 20 years…

It’s been a roller-coaster ride.

Right now I’m definitely experiencing a stomach-turning dip.

I do still harbor faint expectations of climbing out at some point, but while I’m down here, I thought I’d give you all a little glimpse of what it’s like to be a poor bastard…

Just in case you’ve never experienced it for yourselves.

Luckily, even though I don’t have a car, getting around in Portland, Oregon, isn’t so hard due to the stellar public transport system.

I couldn’t imagine living without a car in the U.S. in a place that didn’t have that.

Even so, getting around can be a drag. Waiting on the bus is, well, waiting. And who wants to do that, especially in America.

And if it’s raining and cold, it makes the waiting even less pleasant.

But, I guess that’s something those of you with cars wouldn’t understand.

It also makes it a bit burdensome to bring the groceries home.

It does, however, give one an opportunity to see up close and personal what it’s like to be poor in America.

You can read it on the faces of your fellow passengers.

The quiet, well, here in Portland, not always so quiet, desperation…

tinged with anger…

and frustration.

Life for the American poor is very frustrating…because you just can’t have all that bright and shiny stuff that others have.

And we’re taught, conditioned, in the U.S. to strive to have what others have…

to covet.

Never-mind what the bible says about that…we’re talking capitalism for god’s sake!

And capitalism runs off the fuel of covetousness.

So, the poor are condemned to covet what they can’t grasp.

To just sit and stare out the window, blankly, at all that stuff…until depression sets in.

The poor here are a different breed than where I came from…my Colombian wife sees it clearly as well…

They’re a harder-edged breed than Latin American poor…and an angrier one.

They’re called on TV, the dependency class. And who wants to be called that…or even actually be it.

Do the folks at Fox News have any idea how it makes a poor person feel to be branded as a worthless “dependent?”

So, they have good reason to be angry…

It sucks living within a system that relentlessly tempts you to have and then condemns you for the fact that you don’t. Tweet it Out!

You’re not welcome here…that’s the message. You’re a reject…a loser. What’s wrong with you? What are you doing here? Get out? Not welcome…the bathroom in here is only for paying customers and you obviously can’t…just look at you!

Those are the messages WE get.

In fact, from the moment I stepped foot back on U.S. soil, that’s sort of the feeling I’ve gotten.

I don’t know, but maybe it’s time to rethink things?

Now, I’m sure someone will read this and think, wait a minute, our poor have it better off than anywhere else on the planet.

Well, that’s only if being “better off” is measured materially, which is, unfortunately, how everything is measured in a capitalistic society like the U.S.A.

But, from an emotional, or happiness, point of view…

according to my observations over the last months, they have it much worse.

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The Case for a Moral Universe

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The Case for a Moral Universe

My last post was an evil one…er, about evil.

If you happened to have caught it, you might remember my five quintessential evil acts…

  1. Exclusion
  2. Hatred
  3. Greed
  4. Indifference
  5. Cruelty

Wait, I can hear someone thinking, those aren’t evil. They aren’t even illegal.

True.

But all the criminals locked up these days aren’t necessarily evil. True that they did some bad stuff to end up in there…but in my mind evil is just another thing altogether.

And plenty of folks with evil intentions are walking around outside of prison walls…some are even the ones with the decision-making power to send the rest of us to that place.

You might also recall that the common thread running through this evil-ness is self-interest…

it is at the core of evil…in my opinion.

That is, self-interest elevated too far above impact, or the antithesis of impact over interest, as you might read somewhere else in this blog.

I ran across a video of the South African civil rights activist and Anglican bishop, Desmond Tutu. In it he makes the case for a moral universe.

His words made me ponder once again the nature of good versus evil.

Isn’t it true that our initial word view, if you can call it that, fresh from the womb, is one of complete and utter self-interest?

In fact, at that infantile stage of thinking, we can’t even distinguish a world apart from ourselves. It’s all connected to us…we are at the center.

Later on we graduate from that level of thinking…

well, sort of.

We gradually begin to recognize that a world indeed exists separate and apart from ourselves. And it’s a dog-eat-dog world indeed…a real jungle out there.

So much so that we fight to separate from it even further and create our own private universes…complete with the two-story house, two-car garage and white picket fence…that once again revolve around us.

You see, we can’t quite shed that need to be at the center, can we?

But the truth that Bishop Tutu is getting at, I believe, is that we are NOT at the center…

it is.

The universe is.

And we are all connected to it…not the other way around.

And by virtue of that connection, we are all connected to each other.

The universe is the glue that binds us…like it or not.

And that very idea means that there is no place in the universe for this obsession with self-interest. It is open rebellion against the universe.

That’s what makes it…and the five evil acts that so often accompany it…evil.

They are contra-connection.

But the universe is larger, stronger and truer than it (self-interest) or they (the five evil acts) are…

and as Bishop Tutu proclaims…the universe will ALWAYS prevail.

The universe is full of light and light is stronger than darkness.

Those whom we look up to as champions of light, or beacons of universal hope, were entirely un-self-interested.

The ones Tutu mentions…

Ghandi

Dalai Lama

Mother Teresa

and others I have mentioned in the past…

Mandela

ML King

They lived their lives in a way that recognized our universal connection.

They were stalwarts against the evils of self-interest run amok, which leads to oppression and unnecessary suffering.

They were good. They were moral.

And their very existence proves the case for the moral universe…as Tutu proclaims.

Their light shone in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.

You know how our lights shine in the darkness?

How we can win against it…against the evils of self-interest?

By our impact.

Just like they did.

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On the Need to be Pretentious

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The Freedom to be Unpretentious

I can be critical of developed country cultures (without naming names).

Are you put off by that?

Sorry, really!

After all, I am from the U.S. and I guess in many ways I’m the proverbial pot who called the kettle black.

I admit that, being a gringo, I’m often guilty of pretentiousness myself. It’s my way of denying (to the world and to myself) how average and unheroic I really am.

Pretentious is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as…”expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature.”

It’s the attitude of “looking down” or “talking down” to anyone who does not speak, look, dress, smell, or act just like they do.

The truth is that where you were born, or where you went to school, or what you scored on the SAT, your socio-economic position, the car you drive, clothes you wear, or any number of other such “feathers in your cap” do not make you better than the next person.

They only make your experience of life different.

Whenever I feel I must don my feathery cap of pretentiousness, I believe I’m just trying to draw attention away from my unlimited human inadequacies.

And we’re all just human.

My experience of Latin America has largely been limited to my time here in Costa Rica and frequent visits to other countries such as Nicaragua, Panama and Colombia.

With noted exceptions, usually from those of the “higher classes,” the culture here is remarkably unpretentious. Costa Ricans are quite comfortable being exactly who they are socially, economically, morally and in every other way.

There is not a sense, at least I don’t feel it, of having to “keep up with the Joneses.”

I have to admit that this competitive aspect of U.S. culture keeps me here in Costa Rica*.

In Costa Rica I can be poor and damn proud of it!

Here what you have, materially speaking, is not the measuring stick of what you’re “worth” and that is refreshing.

Is that 100% true in all cases? No and especially not in certain areas of San Jose, where U.S. culture and influence are very strong.

But San Jose is not Costa Rica and by and large outside of the social and business scene of that city, there is a liberating lack of pretentiousness. No one is going to judge you by what kind of car you drive, or job you have, or how big your house is.

They will judge you by how big of a smile you wear and whether you know how to be polite and, especially, based on your humility.

Being unpretentious means having the ability to laugh at yourself.

It is to have an awareness of who you are and to be comfortable in being just that person.

In Costa Rica you have the freedom to be unpretentious and just be yourself…as long as you let others do the same.

*Update: I repatriated to Portland, Oregon in March of 2015. I’m reposting this because it seems more relevant for me today than it did when I first wrote it years ago.

Who are You?

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beam me up scotty

Here’s a very old post from CRG that I always liked.

Should a human being be defined by one particular trait that tends to “stand out” in the mind of another, or in his or her own mind?

If other people see you as being fat, then do you tell yourself…

I am fat.

Is that who you are, fat?

Or, a father, a husband, a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker?

Or, an idiot…an idea of which I frequently remind myself.

But the question “who are you” really goes much deeper than surface-level characterizations, doesn’t it?

In fact, when you really think about it, it is a difficult question to answer. I mean sitting here pondering it, I really don’t have a quick answer.

I am Scott Bowers (or is it Costa Rica Guy?).

But that doesn’t answer the question.

Scott Bowers is a name that I inherited. I didn’t choose it. I don’t even like it that much. I would prefer to be Guillermo, or something similarly mysterious and Latin. But my parents saw fit to give me the name Scott, or David Scott to be 100% accurate. I guess I’ve just learned to live with it.

When I was young folks had the habit of calling me Scotty, as in “beam me up Mr. Scotty.” I really didn’t appreciate that so much.

Living in Costa Rica, the name Scott Bowers often poses difficulties. First of all, for most ticos, the name “Scott” is readily associated with papel higienico, or toilet paper. Not a very flattering association, huh? I am reminded of it often here.

And my Germanic last name, Bowers, is virtually impossible to pronounce for most Latinos.

But is that who I am…Scott Bowers?

No, the name in and of itself is meaningless and I hope that I am not, at least not entirely, meaningless. There are a few people in this world that find meaning in my existence.

But the real answer to the riddle of “who are you” cannot be found by looking to names, or character traits, and certainly not to the perspectives of other people. It has to be found in yourself and your unique position in the universe.

When you break it down to the lowest common denominator, who, or better, what, you are, is an “energy force.” An energy force with an ability to direct that energy to your choosing.

You are also an intrinsic component of this universe and when you direct your energy toward a determined end, the universe must follow suit as it is connected to you.

So maybe the answer to the question of who are you depends on where, or how, your energy is being directed at any given point along the space-time continuum.

Wow, I am beginning to sound a bit like Mr. Scotty from Star Trek.

I believe we too easily allow people and perspectives to define our place in this universe. When in reality, we have been gifted with the power to define that for ourselves and to re-define it as often as we see fit.

Of course, you can direct your energy in ways that are destructive, or to ways that are constructive. Or we can just do nothing at all and then our energy will slowly stagnate and dissipate and sooner or later our flame will begin to flicker until it is finally extinguished.

Haven’t you noticed that the more proactive you are, the more energy you seem to have? And the less proactive you are, the more depressed and non-energetic you feel?

So for me the answer to the question is that I am energy. Not a “hey that is an energetic fellow” kind of an answer, but really, when you get right down to it, that is what I am…

energy.

The “who I am” is part and parcel of how I direct my energy…positively, or negatively. I can direct it negatively and be an SOB, or positively and be a saint.

The crazy thing to think about is that this universe to which we are connected is comprised of an infinite number of “energy forces.” However, they have no will…their energy is directed according to physical laws. I mean Saturn can’t up one day and decide to change the rotational direction of its rings, now can it?

The only force that can be self-directed in a manner of the energy force’s own choosing is your energy, my energy, human energy. Hitler’s energy was self-directed, as was Gandhi’s and Mother Teresa’s, just towards different ends.

Does that mean that the “universe” is indifferent as to how I direct my energy?

Hmm, that is an even more difficult question best reserved for another post, another day.

The moral of this story?

Don’t let faulty answers to the question of who are you influence and thereby misdirect the focus of your energy.

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Will This Make Me Wealthy?

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Will This Make Me Wealthy?

I have long been infected with the entrepreneurial virus. I guess it’s like an STD that never goes away…

Not sure exactly where the infection originated. My grandfather and father were both similarly afflicted.

For many years any idea that popped into my head about starting a business would immediately give rise to the following question…

Will this make me wealthy?

Because if not…why bother?

I mean, that’s the capitalistic way to think, right?

It’s funny, but this little pueblo that we call Perez Zeledon…where I currently* reside…is a hotbed for entrepreneurial endeavors.

It is the veritable “Silicon Valley” of Costa Rica…

without the silicon, of course.

But for a different reason than the one up north.

I seriously doubt if there was ever a Silicon “start-up” whose founder did not ponder that same question…

Will this start-up idea make me filthy rich?

Of course, in their case “wealthy” would surely conjure up figures with more zeroes than my brain could ever envision.

Down here in the valle de El General, the motive is different.

People start businesses because, quite simply, there are no jobs to be had…period.

Actually, that’s becoming a phenomenon in the U.S. as well, which could be a topic for another post.

The entrepreneurial exploits here might be limited to a small neighborhood store (pulperias, as we call them), or a small restaurant (sodas, as we call those)…or simply selling “empanadas” door to door…

The goal is not to be “weal-thy”, but to just be well…

That is, folks here look at business as a vehicle for a life well lived, rather than life as a vehicle for a business well managed. Tweet it Out!

Get it?

I’ve never heard of an entrepreneur down here taking his or her life because his soda failed.

Lately, my mind has been probing business ideas. And I immediately caught myself falling back to the same old question…

Will this make me wealthy?

And then I asked myself…

Why does it really matter?

You see, I’m trying to approach life (and business) from a different perspective.

I prefer that the emphasis be, no, that the entire impetus be…

impact.

Wealth…or economic self-interest…shouldn’t necessarily be the focal point of my entrepreneurial imagination.

Oh for sure, we’ve all got to live, pay the bills and all that stuff…

But we don’t HAVE TO BE wealthy.

In fact, there are many ideas that could have far reaching impacts, but that would never make one wealthy.

So should those be screened out?

Of course not!

I shouldn’t play the role of the typical vulture capitalist against myself. That is, screening out any idea that doesn’t have the potential to “go public”, or “viral.”

Instead I can think of two much better standards by which to judge an idea…

1) am I truly passionate about it?

and

2) does it have the potential for impact?

If both can be answered in the positive, why not go for it?

I’m just plain sick and tired of the tendency to judge everything by dollars…by profit.

I’m more inclined these days to imbue my entrepreneurial ideas with the metaphysical and quasi-spiritual notion or belief that if it has the capacity for impact…then the universe will respond with a required degree of profit to keep it growing…

I know that sounds a little bit “fugazi,” but what the hell…

It makes me happier.

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*I moved to Portland, Oregon in February of this year (2015).  I feel I’ve lost a bit of the make impact the impetus mindset that inspired posts like this one. So, I’m reposting it as a gentle reminder to myself…

Endemic versus Reactionary Racism

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Endemic versus Reactionary Racism

My last post was a rant against the tendency of some on the right to use a sort of “reverse political correctness” against throwing down the “race card.”

In this post I want to make the case that not only should playing the race card be legitimate because it’s still in the deck…

but also because it’s a necessary move towards making it (race) obsolete as a factor in our society.

And I am talking about endemic versus reactionary racism. I will explain shortly.

When events transpire that are tinged with even the faintest scent of racism, the card should appear…every time.

Why?

Because racism is a problem so pernicious that it must be rooted out and eradicated from every facet of our lives.

It is one of the ultimate evils in our (and any) society.

But let’s get straight on what I am referring to by racism.

Every time there is a race eruption, you hear the specious argument that attempts to delegitimize use of the race card since it (racism) exists on both sides of the equation.

But there’s a big difference between black racial attitudes against whites, which I’ll call reactionary racism, and the endemic racism that is the prevalent evil in our society.

Do some blacks (well more than some perhaps) harbor negative attitudes towards whites?

Certainly.

But it’s not because of immutable traits like color, physical characteristics or culture…it’s a reaction to suffering the first 100 years of their involuntary presence in this country as chattel…

and the next 100 being socially, politically and economically oppressed.

That would tend to make one a bit suspicious, perhaps even pissed off.

Attempting to accuse blacks of the same brand of racism as that of the Aryan Nation is like condemning a Jew for hating a Nazi. They don’t hate them because of their blonde hair and blue eyes, Colonel Klink-ish accent or tendency towards anal retentiveness…

they hate them because those assholes tried to exterminate the Jewish race!

You see, it’s reactionary.

I grew up in the South during desegregation and was intimately exposed to racism. I knew very clearly (then, as well as now) that whites didn’t harbor negative racial attitudes against blacks as a reaction to the incendiary political views of the Black Panther party. They hated them because of immutable traits that they (the black people) were born with and could not change.

And that’s where the real evil lies.

So, it appals me when Bill (the bloviator) O’Reilly delivers a spitting venomous diatribe blaming the totality of problems blacks face in our society on their taste in music, or because they tend to be hornier than he would prefer them to be…while completely dismissing the fact that there has been systematic societal oppression against the black race for over 200 years!

The race card, as ugly as it might be, is a necessary tool to eradicate racism. Tweet it Out!

If an event in our society occurs as a possible result of race, it should be thoroughly investigated, prosecuted (if truly present) and bold steps taken to insure against racism’s future presence in a similar situation, so that real endemic racism has a chance of being eliminated as a pernicious societal sin.

That’s what I would term legitimate use of “the race card.”

I could envision that when that happens consistently, the reactionary “racism” that whites often lament will rapidly evaporate.

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Wisdom in the Weeds

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wisdom in the weeds

Why did I start this blog?

Believe me that’s a question I ask myself all too frequently. But I sort of realize that’s just the resistance messing with me.

Because the answer is simple…

I had to!

A while back I heard a soul-stirring BlogcastFM interview with a 50+ year-old lady by the name of Jennifer Boykin. She has a blog called Life After Tampons.

Imagine that!

And how on earth did she have the audacity to start such a blog?

Because she had to!

Check out this quote from this superb Srinivas Rao interview:

A person who insists on making his or her lessons matter…that’s what grows wisdom.

Now get this…here’s a tweetable for you that just might get at the core of my intention…my why…

Fame and fortune are fleeting and fickle, but legacy leaving lingers. Tweet it Out!

or, as I often suggest…prioritize impact over interest.

I hear lots of people saying this (certainly heard it from Jennifer Boykin)…just not exactly like I say it.

The impetus for impact making is not (or should not be) fame and fortune.

It’s like Jennifer said during the interview…not everyone can be a Chris Guillebeau. And truth be told, the world does not need more Chris Guillebeaus.

It needs YOU and the impact that only YOU can make.

Why you?

Well I can only say that in my case, even though the field of my life is strewn with some pretty wicked weeds…wisdom is nevertheless lurking therein.

Even though the field of my life is strewn with some pretty wicked weeds…wisdom is nevertheless lurking therein.

The impact that I alone can make is in large part a product of the weeds.

Oh for sure the weeds can choke the life out of you…if you let them.

Or, you can stoop to the back-breaking task of pulling them up and clearing the pathway for a beautiful garden to grow.

I can’t say my garden is all that stellar, but I’ve certainly done my share of weed pulling…

And making those life lessons in weed pulling matter is what will allow that wisdom gleaned to impact the world in a positive way.

Only I can do that.

You see, there’s good deal of wisdom in the weeds!

As Jennifer alluded, making my life lessons matter should be something that I insist upon…that should be my impetus for impact…not Guillebeau-ish popularity (sorry to pick on Chris so much…he is one of my favorite superstar bloggers).

Shouldn’t you insist on the same?

There has never been a better time in the history of mankind to insist on making your life lessons matter.

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Memorials and Manifestos

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memorials and manifestos

My E – “book” is now on sale. Well actually right now it’s FREE…for a few more days.

You can get it here.

I realize that there are some pretty radical concepts contained in the few pages of that “book.”

I put book in quotes because it’s not really a book at all…it’s a “manifesto” of about 11,000 words and some 65 pages, or so.

But hopefully words that will have an impact on someone who dares to actually read them.

Now I know that for some those words will be like fingernails scraping across the blackboard of your consciousness.

And that’s OK.

They are what I believe and I don’t pretend to present them as a gospel that you must also subscribe to in order to be greeted fondly by Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.

So, if you hate it…by all means let me have it…leave a 1 star review.

If you love it…4 stars and up are certainly welcome too!

OK, enough with the self-promotion.

There is a little concept divulged in the, uh, Manifesto that is dubbed The Big US…

Now if that’s confusing, here’s a bit more elaboration.

Today is Memorial Day in the U.S.A.

That’s a time when we remember those who have died fighting in wars that our politicians deemed necessary for some real or imagined (possibly contrived) national interest.

And we certainly should celebrate and remember those lives.

But… there is a flip-side to that.

And it has a lot to do with that Big US that Revolutionary Misfit often alludes to.

You see, as many as have fallen on our side, an even greater amount of loss has occurred on the other.

Can we all agree for a second that ALL human life is sacred…even those of our enemies?

Didn’t Jesus say as much?

About 4500 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Iraq War.

The data is less reliable on casualties of Iraqis, both military and civilian, but the numbers I am seeing are well above 100,000.

Now think about the run of the mill Iraqi military recruit. He’s probably just a guy with a family, who needs a job and decides the military is a great option to both provide for his family and give him a sense of national pride…the honour of sacrificing for his country…

Sound familiar?

I don’t mean to poo poo on Memorial Day.

I read a post yesterday by James Altucher as to why he hates Memorial Day. I certainly won’t go that far.

James said that he received an inordinate amount of hate mail due to that post…

an inordinate amount?

I would think just the headline itself would generate enough hatred to fuel an atomic reactor. (Actually I notice that he changed the headline to Why Memorial Day Makes Me Sad)

No, I won’t say that at all and hopefully this post won’t be taken that way.

But I will say that while we are remembering our slain it would be appropriate to remember those on the other side of the equation.

Do you think their grief is any less…genuine or deserved?

But they are not us, you might say. They are our enemies…we should rejoice that they are no more.

I don’t believe that. And I hope you don’t either.

I hope you can recognize that us as being the small one.

Here’s something I’m pretty sure about…

War is shit.

And while Memorial Day should be a remembrance of the fallen, it should not be a celebration of war. Tweet it Out!

There is hardly a justification for the mass slaughtering of people and the rampant destruction of our planet that is generated by war.

It sucks!

It would be better if it never did nor never would exist and that those valiant soldiers could have been engaged in more productive professions and possibly still be among us.

So, while we remember our fallen heroes, let’s also remember that hopefully their deaths will bring us closer to a situation in which we don’t have to remember any future casualties of war…on either side.

To coin an already too familiar cliche that represents the Big US quite succinctly…

We’re all in this boat together.

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On Being a Worry Wart

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Don't Worry

Of all the debilitating emotions one can experience on a day to day basis, I suggest the most insidious is worry.

Jesus himself even chimed in on the subject once saying, and I paraphrase,

don’t worry…

See those brightly colored birds?…

They don’t worry…

and neither should you!

But, why shouldn’t we worry?

There’s certainly a crap-load of stuff to worry about: like health, relationships, loved ones, hated ones, the competition, global warming, Obama, ISIS, ebola, the coming apocalypse…I could of course go on.

When you step back and think about it, worry is a pretty useless pursuit.

Getting back to Jesus, I believe he also said that no short person ever grew an inch taller by worrying about it…or something to that effect.

And isn’t it so true?

Worry never, repeat, never, accomplishes a thing…except anxiety, depression, or perhaps an early grave.

So why do we do it?

In my case at least, I always seem to worry about me. The focal point of worrying might seem at its surface to be otherwise directed, but it usually all comes back to me.

If I am worried about, say, my marriage…it is about how a potential split-up might affect me.

If I am worried about the health of some person near and dear to me, at the heart of that worry is not them, but how losing them might make me feel.

If I were genuinely concerned, then I would stop worrying and take some type of action that might benefit them. But I don’t because my incessant worrying isn’t about them at all, it’s about me.

You’ll never make an impact by worrying about it.

Worry is self-indulgence.

It’s a state in which we become literally paralyzed with nail-biting self-concern.

Yet it feels a little self-comforting because we rationalize that it’s not about us…it’s about being concerned over something or some person. But again, what makes you think that spending time worrying about them is really about them?

Is it doing them any good?

Will it solve their problem? Will it cure the cancer, help them out of a financial disaster, or help their kid get off of drugs?

No…it won’t do any of those things. All it will do is slightly appease your sense of dutiful concern.

If you’ve acknowledged that there’s a problem and you’re sincerely concerned, spend time thinking about what you could actually do, then the rest of the time doing it and not one second of time worrying about it.

You might not be able to solve the problem, but you can do a lot more to make some positive impact by selfless action than you can by selfish worrying.

You can do a lot more to make some positive impact by selfless action than you can by selfish worrying.

To stop being a worry wart and start doing is to prioritize impact over self-interest.

Don’t believe me?…just ask Jesus.

Oh, he also said that worrying implies an absence of faith.

That’s another big problem with being a worry wart.

The Universe won’t conspire with you unless you have faith. And worry is an utterly faithless pursuit.

So, don’t worry about it!

The Spine of Atticus Finch

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atticus finch supplies the why

An old post I wrote back when I was trying to figure out why…

…

In a past life I was a business lawyer, as opposed to a trial lawyer. However, I did go to a respected trial lawyer-oriented school, where we got to “play lawyer” frequently. And I did a bit of courtroom work in my earliest years of practice.

So, I have an appreciation for courtroom theatrics.

The most dramatic part of any trial, generally, is the closing argument. It’s where the lawyer supplies the why for the jury. The arguments that work best are the ones that are more than just a rehashing of the facts. They inspire the jury to come to the conclusion that the lawyer is paid to produce. The guilty or not guilty verdict, in the case of a criminal trial, or the nice fat damage award, in case of a civil one.

Even though fictitious, my favorite jury argument of all time is the one made by Atticus Finch in the classic film, To Kill a Mockingbird. Not only is it great courtroom drama, but it is one of the most inspirational Hollywood moments of all time…in my opinion.

I recently read Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit. One thing that really stood out to me is her insistence that every creative work have a “spine.” What’s that? Well, although it’s hard for me to describe succinctly, I believe it’s sort of like a therapeutic metaphor, or an object, activity, or idea that is used as a symbol for deeper meaning.

I’m not altogether cetain what Harper Lee’s spine was for her Pulitzer Prize winning book, but I would venture to say, perhaps, youthful innocence, contrasted with the evil of prejudicial hate.

Perhaps her spine was a call to innocence.

Tharp clearly states that the creator’s “spine” is not always revealed to the consumer. But it’s always at the forefront of the creator’s mind throughout the creation process.

I was thinking yesterday about what could or should serve as the spine for this creative undertaking upon which I have embarked, the blog Revolutionary Misfit.

First off, I want the content to inspire…to supply the why…much like a trial lawyer in a jury trial closing argument.

Since that’s what Atticus was attempting to do and since his attempt was deeply inspirational to me, perhaps that should be my spine for Revolutionary Misfit.

I want the content delivered within this blog to inspire…to supply the why…much like a trial lawyer in a jury trial closing argument.

It has all the elements I need. His argument pitted the impact of doing the right thing (what Atticus did by taking on the case to begin with) against the prejudicial inclinations of the accusers and of the jury.

It certainly dramatized the mindset of the small us with the attempt by Atticus to inspire Big US thinking…an attempt that failed to achieve its intended result, but was inspirational nonetheless.

Finally, Atticus tried hard to remove the impact blinders the jury was wearing that would prevent them from seeing the path to a positive impact (for Tom Robinson, cetainly, but also for the general idea of racial equality).

The climatic moment was when he delivered the emotionally gripping line, “in the name of God, do your duty…in the name of God, believe Tom Robinson.”

That pretty much sums it up for me. That line supplies the why. The why for impact.

And what is that why?

Our god-given duty to bring good into this world. We do that via our impacts, as varied as they might be.

The why for impact in my opinion is the why for our very existence. We were created for that reason…to bring about the unique good that motivated God to breathe life into us in the first place.

The why for impact in my opinion is the why for our very existence. We were created for that reason…to bring about the unique good that motivated God to breathe life into us in the first place.

So, what does that mean, practically, for Revolutionary Misfit going forward?

It means that the great Atticus Argument meets all requirements for supplying the why of this blog, especially that climactic moment…

in which his powerful words moved me towards the god-given duty for positive impact.

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