Posted on by Craig Bergland

Thanksgiving Thoughts: Screw Your Fussy Food

To tell the truth, I have had more than enough of moderately well off white people telling the rest of the world what it needs to eat. This is made even worse because all of those proponents of specialized diets that may or may not actually be healthier for people don’t realize how much privilege is involved in being able to eat that rather odd-looking, tasteless mess and slapping it on the Internet for all to see.

I think it’s great if you want to run off to the organic grocery store, take your purchases home, and concoct something that I couldn’t even begin to identify but that makes you ecstatic. Good for you! Before you turn on your computer and start telling the rest of the world how they need to shop at Whole Paycheck and search for alternate protein sources for their vegan diet, or only eat raw foods, please consider that the majority of people in this country and the vast majority of people in the world simply can’t afford to eat that way. In fact, a great chunk of the world struggles to find enough to eat, period.

The same social conscience that leads you to elect not to eat meat for the sake of animals is often quite blind to the truth that there are children who go to school hungry every day in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet. Only you can decide if it is more ethical for you to overspend on your exotic diet in light of those hungry children, or if perhaps some of your resources would be better served helping them eat better. Maybe you are one of the very lucky few who can do both! How wonderful!

I’m just saying that before you start waving the flag of privilege you might want to consider how it looks from the outside.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Becoming Comfortable with Change

My wife laughed when she saw the title of this post. She knows that my number one pet peeve is when a store rearranges its shelves. I’ve reflected on this, and determined that there are two reasons it irritates me. The first is that it takes me longer to find what I came to buy. I don’t want to wander around your store endlessly searching for things that, just one day earlier, I could find in my sleep. That’s the second reason I despise store resets – I know they are manipulating me, hoping that in wandering around searching for the things I want I will find other things that I will buy. What they don’t know is that on principle I never buy any extra items after they shuffle things around. Take that, you retail bastards!

We all resist change to one degree or another. It upsets our routines, or our understanding of our world, or our sense of safety, and so we push back. Consider the Buddhist teaching that says everything changes all the time. Some of those changes are so insignificant we don’t even notice them. Consider that dust settles constantly in whatever room you are sitting in reading this post, and you aren’t even aware of it. Other change we welcome. If you are sick right now, you would welcome the change of recovery. None of us get too upset that new mail comes to our mailbox regularly, unless it contains a jury duty notification. Then there are the bigger changes that we despise. Someone close to us loses a job, or is getting divorced, or receives a bad diagnosis at the doctor. Our world is turned upside down, and we cry out against change. How could this be? How could this happen to him/her/us/me?

It helps to work with change before a big change comes along and knocks us onto our heels. We can take a few moments at the end of our day to reflect on what changed today. Did we fill up our gas tank? Stop at the store? Get a day older? If every night we make a list of five to ten things that changed today, we will gradually come to see that change is constant. Of course, when we receive devastating news we will still be upset – but we won’t be asking ourselves “how could this happen?” We will understand that everything changes all the time, and that knowledge will free us energetically to respond to the demands of our new situation.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Guns, Schools, and Selfishness

At a certain developmental stage, young children are appropriately concerned only about themselves and what they want. At that stage, that behavior is appropriate and we would be wrong (and ineffective) if we tried to hurry them out of that stage. We would interfere with their normal, healthy development, and they would suffer consequences at they moved into adulthood.

When we are adults, living in society, and presumably capable of understanding the world in a much broader way than a three year old does, we come to realize that some of the things we might want to do that we cannot do out of concern for the greater good. For example, we might want to drive through a school zone at seventy-five miles per hour, but children might be hurt. We pass laws to make such things illegal, and no reasonable person objects to those laws.

You might think that same logic would apply to questions of gun control given that high number of gun incidents in school zones. You might expect that reasonable people, seeing the danger inherent in the regularity with which shootings and near-shootings* occur at schools in America, would be willing to change our laws to restrict access to firearms even if such changes impacted their perceived right to own as large an arsenal as they might like. You would be wrong, however.

America is well past the point where there is any reasonable argument in favor of the status quo in gun control. What we have isn’t working. Any politician who argues against stricter gun laws is likely in the back pocket of the NRA and is corrupt and needs to be removed from office. Even the most rudimentary understanding of any of the world’s great religious and spiritual traditions tells us that nothing is more important than the health and safety of a child.

The truth is that when we encounter someone who believes that their need to own a gun is more important that a child’s need to life, we have encountered a moral midget who needs to be ignored. If we are to live in a civilized society, we have to do everything we can to ensure the safety of our children. If you feel you need to hunt, I’d suggest you buy a bow and arrow.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Wounds

Life hands us all a variety of wounds. These wounds are of different sizes and depths, different intensities and duration, even of different quantity and quality. Our task is not to avoid them, but work through them; not to pass them on to others or try to ignore them, but to understand and heal them.

These important parts of life aren’t always fun. Quite often they cause pain and struggle. This important work is, in part, what our spirituality should equip us to undertake. Doing this work constitutes enlightenment, salvation, awakening – whatever your word for the goal of life may be. We do this work best in community, which is why friends, colleagues, and groups to which we belong are so important.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Social Media and Seeking Support

There are things that are clearly out of the ordinary, beyond the pale, tragedies of great scale and scope that can set is back financially to a profound extent. I have no problem with people turning to social media for support both emotional and financial in such situations. If your home is destroyed and you lack the resources to rebuild, by all means ask for help!  At any time if you need to vent about something, I believe social media can be a great platform on which to do so. If you vent constantly I may unfollow you for my own sanity, but I will still support your right to vent.

The other day I saw an actress with a net worth of two million dollars begging for money on Social media because her child had been the victim of a crime. The reason she needed the money? To catch the criminal. Apparently she feels that law enforcement can’t do the job and she can’t liquidate enough of her assets to hire a private investigator? Are we serious?

Then there are the average people who seem to think the world should contribute for their normal, daily expenses. I struggle to understand why anyone would ask for help paying for their Kleenex when they contract a cold, or for cremation expenses for a beloved pet, or to pay for home remodeling, or any of a number of other routine expenses that are simply a part of daily life. Are we really that entitled?

Life brings with it a fair amount of adversity. Working through that adversity is how we grow and mature. At times it may feel as if you are the only one who has ever struggled with a certain kind of adversity, but I can assure you that you are not alone. Trying to make a quick profit off of daily life isn’t only unattractive, it stunts your growth.

Asking for emotional support or that a neighbor bring a casserole on a difficult day builds community. You won’t find that kind of community in the Internet. You can find it outside your front door, but you would do well to say hello to your neighbors today rather than wait for the crisis to arrive. Can we think of other, more healthy ways to seek support in our lives?

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Just say no…

Earlier this evening I browsed an article online that showed television and music stars from the 1970s in a “then and now” photo series. Hence, the title of this post.

Boys and girls, just say no to cosmetic surgery. More than half of the celebrities in the article were not recognizable, yet they all had similarly distorted faces. Two of them looked like they had aged naturally. The rest, though recognizable, clearly had more than a little surgery and other treatments. Their mouths had gotten wider, their cheekbones higher if not evenly so, their necks bore significantly more wrinkles than the rest of their face, and their eyes had become more round. In short, they weren’t fooling anyone.

We all age, and as we do so it shows. The alternative is to look less than human, distorted more than aged, and run the very real risk or not recognizing ourselves in the mirror. I guarantee that will bring less happiness, not more – both to you and old what’s-his-face in the mirror.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

The Great Lie

From farm to factory
They said it would be a better
Life and so we upped and moved
Though they did not say for whom.

From working hard to working
Harder the open spaces had
Disappeared in favor
Of canned sardines packed on a shelf.

It is all your fault they
Said and so we redoubled our
Efforts to no avail wages
Stagnant as expenses climbed.

As the good life turned sour
The lie that we were to blame when
There was nothing more to give
Rang hollow, an empty coffin.

One day we will wake up
And take back our lives no matter
The cost, reclaim the power that
That has always been our birthright.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

The “Potential” Movement

Whenever I receive an email that asks, “do you want to grow, to flourish, to be the best possible version of yourself?” I do two things. First, I check to see that my wallet is still in my pocket. The second is that I delete the email.

Why delete the email? I delete the email because I reject the notion that some person who (1) has never met me, (2) is looking to turn a quick profit, and (3) believes that a preformed, one size fits all program to maximize human potential is either possible or desirable, has anything to offer me.

Determining for any person what will maximize their potential requires establishing a relationship with them over time and thereby coming to really understand their history and their circumstances. It simply isn’t a cost effective way to run a business, so businesses offering to maximize your potential are forced to cut corners to maximize their profits. That’s why you are much better meeting with a spiritual guide or companion to investigate your humanity than a spiritual snake oil salesman.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Some thoughts on going to a concert

I have heard people complain that they can’t go to a movie anymore because there always seems to be someone nearby who is carrying on a conversation with someone, taking a phone call, has seen the movie too many times and so speaks the lines with or before the actors do, or any number of obnoxious behaviors that might be appropriate in your living room but certainly aren’t appropriate in a theater.

I am coming to think that concerts aren’t much better. Of course, if you are at a Metallica concert you probably wouldn’t even notice any of these behaviors because you would be far too busy thinking about how much they suck and wondering why you spent your money on these outrageously priced tickets, but I digress. Here’s my list of things not to do at a concert.

  1. Unless the artist has specifically invited you to sing along, don’t. The reason is that william hung american idolyou can’t sing – not even a little bit. I so want to break this to you delicately. If you auditioned for American Idol, your audition would be one of those they show for people to laugh at. Even if you sing in your church choir, screaming descants at the top of your soprano lungs, you still don’t sing as well as the artist you paid to see and hear. How do I know? I know this because you are in a seat, not on stage. If you are still convinced that you are good enough to sing along, sell all your shit, move to Nashville, and spend the rest of your life waiting tables while you wait for your big break, which isn’t likely to come. If I end up being wrong about you and you do make it in Nashville, let me know and I will send you a written apology. Until then, please shut up at concerts.
  2. I don’t care how much you love God and really want to tickle his ass, leave hands_raisedyour arms down. The reason is that while you are waving your arms about reaching for God’s butt, the people behind you can’t see the artist they paid a lot of money to see. You are being obnoxious. Obnoxious people really irritate the shit out of Jesus, and he will slap you silly when and if you manage to get to heaven – which isn’t too likely, given that you are so selfish that you raise your arms at concerts. If you aren’t trying to tickle God’s testes, why in the world are your arms up? Are you being mugged? Call 911, but put your arms down.
  3. Don’t try to carry on a conversation with the artist or scream out that you love 9_creepiest_stories_of_celebrity_stalkersthem. They aren’t your friend, even if they are nice to you. Lots of people are present to hear the artist sing, or tell jokes, or whatever they do. They have not purchased tickets to eavesdrop on your private conversation with the artist, no matter how fascinating you think it might be. If you feel compelled to shout, “I love you,” don’t. Seek help from a qualified mental health professional immediately before you get arrested, you budding stalker. Your love is unrequited. In fact, you are scaring everyone around you. The artist does not love you and never will. In fact, if you keep screaming stuff at their concerts, they may very well come to despise you. Just stop.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start. Shape up, or stop going to concerts. It’s just that simple.

Posted on by Craig Bergland

Everything has Multiple Causes

M. Scott Peck, of The Road Less Traveled fame, liked to save everything is multiply determined, which sounds much cooler than “has multiple causes” but isn’t quite as clear, so I surrendered coolness for clarity. That may be the story of my life, but that’s another post.

I was in a room full of people gathered around a common purpose last summer. As they moved about I suddenly saw quite clearly that they were all responding to one another out of the dysfunction of their histories. I could only see that because I knew some of the people, but the insight was powerful. In effect, they weren’t responding to one another at all but rather to a great combination of people past and present, most of whom (and in some cases all of whom) weren’t physically present. There were, however, dozens of uninvited guests who were psychically present. 

It was as if everybody had been handed a script as they walked in the door. Since there weren’t enough copies of the same script for everybody, copies from three or four different plays had been randomly distributed. Nobody wanted to be rude, so nobody mentioned the different scrripts. They simply read their lines at what seemed to be the appropriate time, whether or not they made any sense. At the end of the night everyone went home confident that a great time was had by all – except, of course, for anyone who tried to make sense of it all. Those people were mostly silenced by the others who were afraid that the mystique would be broken and actual sharing might occur, opening the door to emotions and other messiness not generally encouraged in polite company.

As a result nobody was transformed, no one experienced growth, no connections were made, and those with some level of awareness noted that they left a room full of people feeling somehow more lonely. Getting to the bottom of such things required time and, most often, some assistance, so most people prefer to just put such things away in a closet in the basement of their live. They carefully padlock the door so nothing can escape, but as the contents of the closet sit unattended they grow. The roots of the issues become entangled and potbound, depleting the energy of their host, until one day they demand attention and refuse to be ignored.

Far better to open that closet now.