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My Purpose

I’m beginning this article now, appropriately, sitting on the curb in a McDonald’s parking lot. I’m here to tell you that life sucks, or at least it can suck. See when things are going to shit it can seem like they will always stay that way, this plays into the concept of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is exactly as it sounds, it occurs when a person possesses the belief that no matter what they do, bad things that are going to happen will happen. So at that point when we’re down in the gutter, when life gives us a shit sandwich and not even a napkin or a cup of water, what are we to do? The answer to such a question, is ironically enough another question, and that is “What is my purpose?”. I promise I’m not going to run you around in circles here with vague philosophical answers, I’m going to try to answer that question the best I can, and answer it with inclusion of all beliefs and backgrounds in mind.

I’ve been living with depression for the better part of three years now and with that depression suicidal ideation has never trailed far behind. When you are suicidal you are at the point where you’re in a high noon situation with yourself, a classic duel between you (presumably the sheriff) and your depression (the bastard trying to raid the town). To win this duel you must produce an ideology to pull yourself out of it, that’s your weapon, your trusty piece. Also I will note, this is an extreme case, but can still be applied to anyone who has gone through a tough spot in their life (i.e. literally everybody). The ideology, or better put, purpose that I was able to produce out of this has to do with the human condition.

When thinking about our purpose popular trends tend to lean towards the nihilistic or the religious. Many believe that ultimately there is no purpose, that we will live or die leaving no distinguishable mark upon the universe. Others believe in a god, or a spiritual afterlife,  that is testing us or observing us and that we operate to serve that power. Now personally I reject the latter claim being as I was never able to find a faith or religion myself, however my claim does not discredit a theology in the least, but can coincide or reinforce it. Now on the former claim I do believe that in the grand scheme of things we do not matter, and all of our actions will eventually be forgotten; However, we are not in the grand scheme of things. We live in the now, we are emotional, and the things done now matter now. Ideologies looking at the grand scheme of things put us in the position of emotionless beings able to see the whole picture, but that is not us, which leads me to a more optimistic conclusion.

So during my darkest moments I asked myself “What if I will never be happy again?”, and then it hit me like bird shit on a hot day. I realized that happiness is the most important thing to the human condition. Think about all of the decisions that you make on the day to day, really think about them. Do you do anything that doesn’t in some way promote the happiness of yourself or others? Put quite simply, we like being happy, one could be the most unfortunate person on the planet and still live a wonderful life if they have found happiness in it. So I believe that our purpose here on this Earth is simple. We are here to try to make everyone as happy as possible on this crazy fucking ride we call life.

So to go back and answer the question “What if I will never be happy again?”, my answer now is that that is irrelevant. Even if it was possible that I would never be happy again (and I don’t think it is barring any sudden death) then it is still my purpose to try to promote the happiness of others, because we’ve got one go of things. We’ve invested so much time into our own lives, and have only got one ride on it, so while we’re here we might as well try to make the world as happy as we can possibly make it. I believe with all my heart, that that is our purpose here, and I hope that in your darkest time you can find some comfort in it. I know I have.

What Are Facts?

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What is a fact?  According to Google, “A thing that is indisputably the case”.  Yeah… I don’t know about that. Personally, I find a huge problem with this definition.  I feel that facts are not nearly as concrete as people believe they are. That they are instead forever changing as people and society grow over time.

Some may say, “a fact is a fact” or, “a fact is true and there is no changing it.”  The thing is, that’s not always the case. Facts are always changing and will continue to change as people’s opinions do.  It used to be a “fact” that the world was flat. It also used to be a “fact” that atoms were the smallest form of matter. For god sake, it used to be a “fact” that people of color were of a lesser, subhuman species.  All these “facts” were indisputably the case, yet as we all know these examples are no longer even considered.  

Facts change, which proves it is no more than an opinion.  Facts like two plus two equal four is an example of a universally agreed-upon opinion.  One where everyone’s opinion agrees, so it appears undeniably true. We consider facts as such when everyone’s opinion is the same on a given topic, which leaves no argument and the disillusion of total truth.  

The only reason that two plus two does not equal five is because of the mathematical rules we have implemented into a human-made system.  If we were instead taught that two plus two equals five and then rearranged the systems, logic, and axioms so that this opinion stayed true, it would be no different than the answer being four.  This way of thinking stays true for anything we consider to be absolute and unchanging. Therefore, if everyone were to suddenly start calling cats dogs and dogs cats would that make everyone wrong or would a new reality emerge?Some people may say how those people were just wrong when they thought the world was flat, that they instead believed in a false fact.  Yet that statement makes no sense. The people of that time did not believe their facts were false. It was not until the day they were told otherwise that they even begin to question this once invincible truth.  

Plus, and this is the hardest part to accept, who is to say that the very facts we believe today will be the facts we believe in a year, in a month or even tomorrow.  The opinions we have today, that we consider facts, will stay that way until different opinions are agreed upon. Thus, replacing the old with the new.  

So in summary, a fact is when everyone’s opinion is the same which makes it appear indisputable. I’m not saying there are no facts, I’m simply redefining the word. So who cares.  Google’s definition, my definition, does it matter?  I believe so, simply because of the effect it has on people.  I believe it leads to a huge change in the mindset of the public.  Facts are agreed upon opinions. This means that literally anything, any idea, any belief, any thought, can be debated and disputed.  Meaning there is no guarantee that anything is certain and will always be certain.  

By understanding that we cannot know for sure that anything will always be true, means that people can talk openly about anything.  Anything and everything is up for debate and debate we should. We should want to know the absolute truth, and we should do everything we can to find it.  

The irony of this is that we will never know if we have stumbled upon the absolute truth.  Assuming there even is one, we would never know if we came across it. This can be a little sad, but I will encourage you to look at the issue from a different light.  By never knowing if we have crossed the finish line, we will never stop racing. We would never stop modernizing, growing, and learning together. This is why I instead see this ironic twist as a blessing.  Together we should strive to debate and discuss this infinitely confusing world. If we can do that together, then let the opinions come, I want to consider them all.

How Vulnerability can lead to Invincibility

Vulnerability is the state of being exposed to possible harm or attacks, either through physical or emotional means. Almost nobody wants to feel this, yet arguably everyone needs to. 

With few exceptions, people are born with the need to emotionally connect. This commonality largely leads to our desire for comfort and well-being. In short, we want to be happy. It’s that simple. A way to ensure such happiness is to minimize emotions that go against it. To do this, many of us attempt to minimize our vulnerability, our state when discomfort can affect our well-being. Our intentions are clear cut, but the consequences of these actions are damaging.

To reiterate, vulnerability is defined as a state of possibly being attacked emotionally and physically. Both mental and physical components of our well-being are affected by our vulnerability to certain situations. Yet there is a reason why we, the public conscious, mostly associate vulnerability with mental attacks. 

Humanity has created a society that allows physical safety for us. Yet this is a fairly recent achievement. Of humanity’s two-hundred thousand years of existence, only five percent of that has been spent building civilizations. Before that we spent our days running around, looking for our next meal. In those years of do or die, we learned many skills and ways to think, one of which was to contain our vulnerability from the outside world.

Nowadays, the typical person is much safer physically than his or her ancestors. Because of this, our physical defenses have gone down over the centuries and been replaced by mental ones. The shift in how we defend ourselves has allowed people the ability to close themselves off from others. The issue with this is that people cannot suppress one emotion and leave the rest untouched. In my personal experience and research, attempting to suppress one emotion will result in all of them being suppressed.

The worst part is that our technological innovations have made this work easier. How many times have you looked down at your phone rather than exchanging a slightly awkward ‘hello’ with someone? At that moment we feel insecure because we don’t know our relationship with that person. Instead of addressing it, many of us take the easy way out and ‘happen’ to be looking the other way. We still walk past that person, but it feels a whole lot easier because mentally we are miles away. 

This phenomenon is also partly why I believe people get mentally addicted to objects and activities.  Whether that be a phone, drug, alcohol, food, or sex, we begin to rely on these things because they make us feel less vulnerable. When under the influence, people enter a different headspace that distracts them from their psychological pain (not to mention most drugs flood the brain with dopamine, a chemical that causes happiness). Addicts need an emotion, or lack of one, and find that relief in something external to them, no matter the consequences. 

I think we can all agree that we would rather feel happy than sad. The harder question is how do we achieve this? How do we, ourselves, minimize sadness, rather than having something suppress it? I think the answer to this question is by allowing our vulnerability to coexist with us, by accepting that it is an emotion that is as valid as any other. Our emotions make us who we are, and we should be proud of them, all of them.

Not just the part you want to see, but the whole thing.  Yes, the glorified Instagram image of you is great, but the picture of you before you understood that hardly anything matches with orange is just as important.  The A you got in mathematics should make you proud, but so should the C you got in Spanish. We should strive to see ourselves for who we are and smile anyways.

Not just that but we also need to take risks.  To not hide in our phones when we are unsure whether to wave at the person walking past us.  We should instead look them in the eyes and say hello. Sure, they may not say it back, and you may feel embarrassed, but who cares.  At least you tried, and maybe next time that person will say hi to you after he or she reconsiders their action. This fear of being vulnerable and looking weak needs to end.  We are all weak in some ways, and we are all strong in other ways. Let’s embrace that and be proud of who we are, who we truly are.

Who is Biased?

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I, like half of the United States, have divorced parents. Seeing both sides on a regular basis, I was lucky enough to be met with love no matter the roof I was sleeping under. So in that regard, I could never ask for more. I have loving parents and I am forever grateful for that. Yet, through this love came a war. A war on who my parents wanted me to be, and let me start by saying, they wanted very different things.

My mom wanted me to know how to survive. She wanted me to be tough, strong, and the type of person who would never be pushed around. Alternatively, my dad wanted me to know how to live. He wanted me to be caring, safe, and the person someone goes to when they need to talk about their feelings.

Both parents loved me, I’m grateful for that, but with these different parenting goals came different rules. Their differences would seem to show in everything I did or did not do. From one saying to fight the bully and the other saying to tell a teacher. One believing in having closer friends, and the other in a closer family. One taught me to get dirty and play rough, while the other taught me to stay inside and keep warm.

As a child, all I wanted to do was make my loving parents proud. Yet this seemed impossible. No matter what I did I seemed to always be displeasing one or the other.

In response to this impossible task I started living two lives. I became two people. I would play differently, talk to different people, and react to things differently, all depending on the house I was living in for that moment. This was my life for quite some time, more than I would like to admit. Yet eventually it came to an end and the two conflicting worlds finally merged.

I still do not totally know what it was, but one day I simply started seeing what I was doing to myself. I realized the duality of my own personality. And I didn’t like it.

Eventually I collected myself and developed a singular Jake West. Through this process an amazing trait formed. I learned to keep an open mind. From years of seeing such different views it became clear that neither side was entirely correct. I learned there is no right or wrong in almost all debates and decisions, there are simply opinions. These opinions form from biased backgrounds and differing childhoods. They form from the limited knowledge we are taught and the limited information we learn. Depending on where we live and who we are raised by, this limited knowledge differs from person to person.

What I write for you right now is not a fact, but merely a biased opinion. A biased opinion that I hope to be as unbiased and as factual as possible, but an opinion nonetheless. What I have found in society is that we treat these opinions as if they are facts and then refuse to allow anyone to change or sway our unarguable facts.

I believe this is, without a doubt, one of the greatest mistakes our species is currently making in modern times. We are treating our opinions as facts and acting on them in certainty. We are discrediting people who have put just as much time and effort into their biased view as the person trying to discredit them. And all of this is limiting our ability to share knowledge and understand one another.

So, I have one request from this post: listen. Listen to your friends and listen to your enemies. Listen to your superiors and listen to your inferiors. Especially listen to your children and listen to your guardians. We must listen to one another because what everyone has to say is important. Everyone. There will always be something to take away from a conversation and there is always someone who can teach you a new bit of information.

We must understand that our views, our opinions and our thoughts are biased. We are all biased and we are all not completely correct on our view on the world. If we can learn this, then we can learn to truly listen. Once we begin listening we will be that much closer to seeing the ultimate truth and that much closer to seeing humanity come together. My childhood taught me this, and I hope one day your experiences will teach you this as well.