Strikes and Gutters

So, I am now an ordained Dudeist priest. True story. Have a look at what it's all about at dudeism.com. I happened across it and determined that the basic philosophy behind it is strikingly in line with the way in which I want to live my life. I like to take it easy and not make too big a deal out of things. Whatever happens, you know, you just gotta roll with it.

The good news there is, that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on things, and it certainly doesn't mean that I can't proclaim it loudly, as I tend to do. It mostly just means that, whatever I believe and whatever I say, it's cool. It's out there, and you can do what you like with it. If you don't buy what I'm selling, that's fine. No harm, no foul.

Mostly, I'm thinking that people just need to leave other people alone. So many people just have to be in someone else's business, and that ain't cool. In general, I don't really care what anyone else is doing, with a big qualifier: as long as it isn't hurting or inconveniencing anyone else against their will. The problem with that is, for some reason, a lot of people just can't seem to help interfering with what other people are doing when they really have no business doing so. This can't just be human nature, I know a handful of people, including myself and my lovely wife, who just don't get involved in other people's affairs because it doesn't affect us and has no bearing on the way we live our lives. My conclusion then is that there is societal pressure to, well, put societal pressure on other people. Humans are, by nature, xenophobic. In philosophical terms, we are wired to be adverse to the Other. In lay terms, we shit our pants when presented with anything unlike us or the way we know life to be.

Jean-Paul Sartre famously said, "Hell is other people." Clearly, there is something to that. That is the very reason why most people tend to react so strongly (and negatively) when they encounter a person representing a very different lifestyle from their own. It's because the world outside their own monkeysphere is, in short, terrifying to them. (For more on the Monkeysphere, look at the Wikipedia article on it's technical term, Dunbar's Number or, for a more readable and humorous take on it, try this: http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html. I strongly recommend the latter.)

These concepts all intertwine, and all are valid and important. But you know what, dude? Other people ain't so bad. They're just trying to get through their lives just like you or me. They might go about it a little differently, or even a lot differently, but so what? Why should that be a problem for you? Just do your thing and let other people do theirs, and things will be a whole lot groovier, you know?