The Hollowness of Show

We seem to live in a world where appearance is everything and there is an emptiness behind the superficial.

I watched a time lapse photo on Facebook of an artificial tree being erected in a family living room.  The video is cute and the “tree” is lovely, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing.  The point of the video was (I think) to show the world the “tree”  and that the family had gotten that job done. The time lapse encapsulated removing the "tree" from its box, stacking its tiers, turning on its pre-strung lights and adding the coordinated decorations.  When it was over you imagined the family simply returning to their everyday lives.

But isn’t Christmas and the holiday season not really about the tree or other decorations, but something deeper and far more meaningful?  We can all admire a perfectly erected artificial tree, but I would rather have a less than perfect tree and focus on the time together selecting (perhaps even cutting) it and decorating it (perhaps with homemade decorations or ones that are otherwise individually meaningful).  And, if it is only about the photo op of the “tree” or checking off the box that one put up a “tree” then we have lost any deeper understanding of what that tree might signify to us as an individual, to our family, to our faith, to our culture.

In contrast I recently watched some videos of holiday celebrations in Eastern Europe.  Families laid beautiful tables using special dishes, but the decorations in the homes were sparse.  One family had their celebration around a kitchen table with stove and sink as the backdrop.  Yet, in these videos, the families were focused on one another as they enjoyed the meanings and memories of the holiday.

I can remember birthday parties at our family’s kitchen table.  The table was well set and decorated, but the stove, sink, and cluttered kitchen counter were the backdrop.  I hope my children were not ashamed or embarrassed by this, especially when the typical child’s birthday (including those of their peers) was celebrated at some sort of entertainment center where the parents can demonstrate that they keep up with (or perhaps surpass) the Jones.

Appearances.  They seem to have become important ends in themselves.  Not just noteworthy celebrations, but daily life as well.  New homeowners feel compelled to completely furnish and decorate their new home immediately; no waiting and saving and buying piece by piece.  Slower acquisition results in a décor scheme that includes unmatched but complimentary pieces.  Perhaps not the perfection of a décor right out of a magazine photo, but a décor that one can feel is their own – that has meaning to the one who created it.

Yet, in all of the above, what will people drool over and compliment?  In most instances it will be the perfect artificial tree, holiday celebrations not in kitchens but in elaborately decorated homes, birthdays planned and carried out at some impersonal venue, homes that indeed look like a magazine photo.  The point is not the underlying meaning, but what it looks like to the rest of the world.  It is superficial beauty with a hollow core.

And it is not just our environments; it is ourselves as well.  The first questions asked upon meeting or hearing about someone are usually aimed at identifying where the person works and what their social status is.  Not who they are but what label we can slap on them.   Do we even care if there is anything beyond the surface that we label and then judge?

There is a hollowness in all of this.  An emptiness that reminds one of those philosophies that assert the emptiness and meaninglessness of life itself.  Perhaps that is why there is now so little interest in history or so much focus on making things better and feeling good in the moment with no thought to or concern for how it might affect the future. 

Let’s think about where this attitude leads.  If everything is nothing more than a “tree” to get out of a box, put up and move on, wondering “OK, that’s done, what’s next?”  then we are well on the way to not just denying but destroying our culture and with it our very souls.

There was a time when this country tried to make the many Native American Tribes give up their cultures, their languages, their ceremonies, their very way of life.  When this country came to realize the mistake that was, the Native cultures were only able to restore themselves and survive because the elders had preserved traditions and understood their deeper meanings and were able to pass this on to younger generations. 

Yet, as today’s PC police chip away at anything that is offensive to anyone, they are in effect doing what we tried to do to the Native cultures.  The progressive “inclusive” movement tries to make everyone think, act, and be alike.  That requires individuals and families to give up their personal traditions and beliefs – the things that tie them to both their past and their future.  It requires them to give up their very souls.

As we lose what is individually meaningful, we are losing the understanding that is necessary to preserve individual families and the culture that is their soul.  Some may think this is the way to a better world, to the utopia that is (and by its very nature must always be) a dream.  It is not.  Rather, it is the way to a loss of individuality, of one’s very being.  It is the way to a hollow and superficial world, a world that has no meaning and therefore no respect.  No respect for culture or for the families and individuals from which a culture derives. 

When there is no respect, no understanding, no meaning to something, then there is no need to sustain it; it can acceptably be destroyed and forgotten.  And hollow people can go about behaving as they are told, with no understanding of why and no individuality or meaning to their lives.  And that, at least in my opinion, is not a utopia.  It is instead a hollow world that can very easily collapse upon itself and cease to be.  When appearance – the show – is everything, then we must wonder what happens when the show ends and the curtains close. 

The Costumed (Superficial/Shallow/Artificial/ Posturing) Society

People confuse appearances with deeper reality.  Perhaps it comes from misconstruing popular memes and sayings such as “If you believe it you achieve it,” “You can have anything you want if you dress for it,” or “If you want to be noticed, dress the part.”  Perhaps we are simply trained to focus on the superficial and to believe that if we get the superficial right, then we have succeeded in getting that which lies below the superficial right as well.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

First example:

When someone has denied sexual allegations, does his resigning, being fired, or even committing suicide as a result of those unproven allegations make the women who made them feel empowered?  Perhaps it makes them feel momentarily powerful, but they are anything but empowered.  Instead, they have revealed a lack of empowerment in their absence from coming forward  or taking appropriate action at the time of the offense and more importantly in their inability to use the legal system or other procedural means that provide them the ability to prove their allegations definitively and receive true justice.  Instead of their own empowerment, they simply rely on the current nurturing of such claims by media and others, sometimes for their shock value alone and sometimes as a way of removing or destroying those whom are disliked.  That has nothing to do with true empowerment of women.

Second example:

People are encouraged if not often required by school, job, etc., to do some sort of good work and then broadcast their good works to others as if this is some sort of proof of their inner goodness.  It is not.  Yes, some people who do good deeds in the form of some sort of public or community service are good people within their souls, but that is not necessarily so.  Others may do good works because they are required to do so or because they believe that their good works are a way to advance their own agendas or simply their own popularity and acceptance.  That has nothing to do with true inner goodness.

You may ask “Really what difference does it make?  The “me too” allegations (even if some are less than accurate or taken out of context) are making people aware of the problem of sexual harassment and even good works done with less than good motives still serve the people to whom they are directed.” 

While that may be true, it is also an acceptance that ends justify means.  But in this case the perceived ends are only that – a perceived reality that sees only a superficial and whimsical truth.  There is a huge difference between outer dressing and truly meaningful actions.  Just as fashions change, so too do societal trends; what is meaningful today may be insignificant tomorrow.  Women who are feeling powerful as they see their allegations have major impacts on the lives of the men accused may not feel so powerful when society takes a different view of such allegations.  But, if the focus of “me too” was instead to truly empower women with an inner strength that is not dependent on the whims of society or the strength of others, then that empowerment would remain regardless of the current posturing of society. 

Similarly, while any good works are helpful at the time they are done, if they are only done because that is the current fashion of society, then they can end when the designs of society change.  If we encourage good works only for superficial or selfish reasons we are doing nothing to create good persons within themselves who would choose to do good works regardless of the current trends and whims of society.  Hence those good works and their benefit to those served could easily end, whereas if we were more concerned with creating truly good people then those works would be far more likely to remain permanently ongoing. 

Posturing is not Being.  I can put on costumes that make me most anything, but who I am is the person with all the costumes removed.  It is who I am in my soul.  That inner being is what gives me strength, not the clothes I put on; it is what gives me whatever goodness I may have, not the clothes that I put on.  Yet, society seems to be dazzled only by the clothes, the costumes.  We think that they are the definition of whom we are.  We think that our costumes alone will define and sustain our world.  Yet, at some point those costumes fall away and we are all left with a deeper reality that we must face.

It seems that today so many fear facing that inner reality, and so they simply don more and more costumes, costumes that make themselves and others feel good, but which can be discarded anytime at their own or society’s caprice.  The souls of so many in society seem empty, yet they do not understand that superficial costumes and actions will not fill them up.  And so, society itself begins to lose its soul.

We all need to step back from the daily hysteria, posturing, and shallow if not artificial interests and behaviors of our society.  We need to take some time to focus on what lies beneath the surface, in ourselves, our children, and our society.  We need to forget our costumes and nurture our souls.  For it is only that inner and deeper truth that empowers us and our society, giving us all a better and more meaningful reality.

It’s All About Feeling Good

Taking cans out to the mailbox today to be picked up by the mail carrier for the local food bank, I kept thinking how foolish this is:  it would be much smarter, more efficient, and better for those in need, if instead of providing a few cans I and others were instead giving that cash to the food bank.  The few dollars spent by each of us for the few cans would go far further if the plain cash were combined and used by the food band to buy in bulk.  Mother Nature Network on 11/18/17 estimated that food banks pay about 10 cents a pound for the same food that costs shoppers about $2 per pound.  According to an NPR Talk of the Nation piece in 2011, for the same amount of money spent on buying cans for a food drive, donors can feed 20 times more families by providing cash as opposed to cans. That would create a far greater stock of food for those in need. 

So, why are we asked to donate cans and not money and why do we do it?  I think in large part because the tangible act of holding the cans and handing them over makes people feel good, like they are doing something.  It’s easy – maybe you have some old cans of beans in the back of the cupboard – pull them out, put them in the bag, and feel good as you get rid of them.  And look:  everyone can see your bag of cans by your mailbox – your neighbors will see you are doing good.  All public, positive, and immediate reinforcement – much more so than writing a check and mailing it off where no one sees your good deed and any benefits to you in the form of tax deductions will not be seen for months.   The bottom line is we donate the cans – to the mail carrier, to the bring a canned good to the ballpark day, to the school drive, etc. – because it makes us feel good.  Yes, it also benefits those in need, but this particular act of charity seems to be more focused on making the donor feel good than on providing for the recipients.

Nothing wrong with feeling good, unless it becomes the primary and driving force of all our actions.   And isn’t that exactly what seems to have happened in our society.  We do things because they make us feel good.  And part of that feeling good seems to be a sort of sophomoric popularity that goes along with defining the feel-good acts to be done.   Hence, we had those in the entertainment world doing more and more outrageous acts that felt good and in those circles made them more and more popular, until recently when the tables turned, and they have begun to be called out for their acts, acts which are no longer approved by the populace.  Now we have the “me too” crowd purging their hurt or hatred while being applauded for stating “me too.”  But, while this may make everyone feel good as they pat themselves and others on the backs for simply coming forward, just as giving a can is less effective than giving a dollar, saying “me too” or asserting a stand against all the accused is not really very effective beyond a momentary good feeling.

Looking at the “me too” movement, I see very little good in it.  And I ask myself what is it teaching our daughters, and our sons?  We  should be teaching that when people are aggrieved, rather than simply posting their grievance on some social platform,  they should take their grievance to a proper authority who must listen without judgment, assume that the aggrieved is not lying, will investigate further, and take appropriate action.  The aggrieved must also understand that they very likely will not get immediate gratification, but that in most cases in the end they will see justice.  And, we all should be taught that because each and every one of us perceives facts differently that all people involved in any incident need to be heard.  We also need to know that sometimes we absolutely believe something to be true, even though that does not match the factual reality.  That does not make a person a liar, but it also may mean that they will not get the particular relief for which they hoped.   And, when it comes to sexual harassment and assault, just as with most other wrongful behaviors, there are different forms and levels and all are not equal.  A lewd glance or remark is not the same as a momentary unwanted touch, and neither approach the level of actual rape. 

What “me too” teaches is that if you claim to have been a victim you will feel good.  Regardless of the severity of your harm, people will applaud you, giving you loving attention. You will be a welcomed member of the “me too” victimhood group.   You may feel good for calling out the one who affronted you in the way that revenge makes one feel good.  What does that teach?  Simply that victimhood and revenge are good.  It does not teach anything that might stop the cause of the victimhood.  And, it leaves out the important concept of justice.  Some may think that because the accused is immediately and publicly shamed that will stop others from behaving in the same way.  I doubt that.  Capital punishment has not yet stopped the sorts of heinous crimes for which it is a punishment.  And, to continue the analogy, innocent people are sometimes put to death, just as I suspect that public conviction upon a mere assertion of “me too” will result is some innocent people being wrongfully shamed.

But, back to feeling good.  There will be little permanence in a society that uses that as its guiding force, especially when it is defined by the values and mores of the day.  That is, feeling good as a response to external factors is a superficial way to find meaning in life.  And, as with anything superficial (that is, of the surface), it can easily be washed away.  If one chooses to be led by feeling good, let that feeling be guided by internal forces and values of goodness.  Yet, here is the problem:  as a society we seem to have lost those internal and constant values that used to guide us.  The superficial feeling has replaced those deeper internal beliefs. 

This need for and elevation of superficial gratification, especially gratification without difficulty and with public affirmation, would seem to lead to a selfish and often hateful populace.   A populace in which feelings eclipse all else:  facts, historic and religious values, respect for others, education, thinking, self-fulfillment, independence, justice. Let’s just look at a few of these.  Grade inflation makes students feel good as does passing a child forward whether they are competent in their grade level or not.  Tests, homework, hard work are not fun/do not make the students feel good, so we will dismiss them even if it means our students do not learn as much or do not learn to think deeply.   Facts can get in the way of feelings, so we will just ignore the facts we don’t like or alter them to our liking.  Hence we have competing “factual” accounts of most everything in the news – even whether the president properly fed the fish in Japan.  If one’s own feelings are most important, then they will outweigh feelings of others and this leads to disrespect for the others and their views.  Independence and the freedom to speak one’s views have become less important than conformance with the asserted group-think, and with that comes a government that is more and more intrusive into people's lives and hence their independence and ability to be who they are as individuals rather than a cog in the wheel of a power structure that may or may not have their best interests in mind.

Feeling good.  It can be momentarily pleasant, even helpful.  But it is far from the best guiding principle with which to lead one’s life or one’s country and society.