“There exists in our society a widespread fear of judging … [B]ehind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done… . Who am I to judge? actually means We’re all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend that they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites, and in either case should leave us alone. Hence the huge outcry the moment anyone fixes specific blame on some particular person.”

Arendt argues we shouldn’t be afraid to judge. That to judge is to tell good from bad. That it prevents us from falling in the trap of “thoughtlessness”. That to judge is a moral responsibility. And in order to judge responsibly, that we owe it to ourselves to train our imagination to go visiting, to see all sides of a problem as if they were our own.

Is imagination merely a talent, such as a good singing voice, the ability to “make things up: or “think things up” or “get ideas”? Or is it, like science, a way of knowing things that can be known in no other way? We have much reason to think that it is a way of knowing things not otherwise knowable. As the word itself suggests, it is the power to make us see, and to see, moreover, things that without it would be unseeable. In one of its aspects it is the power by which we sympathize. By its means we may see what it was to be Odysseus or Penelope, or David or Ruth, or what it is to be one’s neighbor or one’s enemy. By it, we may “see ourselves as others see us.” It is also the power by which we see the place, the predicament, or the story we are in.”

– From Wendell Berry, “God Science, and Imagination” in Imagination in Place.

Simply terrific.

It might be silly, but I am fascinated with reading about top athletes, and what they make of themselves over the course of their career. Kobe Bryant is of course an inspiring example, someone who not only has so much potential, but also works *so* hard at pushing himself towards excellence. What we often forget is that this comes at a price, something that perhaps became really clear during Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame induction speech.

The anti-Kobe might be someone who has as much potential, but did not put in the same amount of work, every day, relentlessly. That person might have a decent or even a good career, but not the stellar career we all thought he had in him. This person, is Chris Webber.

So what, I hear you think? Does it matter that Chris Webber never reached the level of Kobe or KG? After all, he has 5 All Star appearances, led the League in Rebounds in one year, and made it to the All-NBA first team. But I also remember the absolute hype when he first appeared on the scene: his talent was unprecedented, a big man with the skills of a guard. He was LeBron before there was LeBron. But you can argue that LeBron at this point in his career already made more out of his potential than Webber ever did.

Whether at the end of the road, you can look back on your life, and are happy or not with the life you have led, is a personal choice. Whether you have been relentless in the pursuit of excellence and often sacrifice everything for your career, or whether you decided to have a more balanced life, is a decision made by you. There is an excellent, excellent book I am reading that perhaps sums it up the best: The Book of Basketball, written by “the Sports Guy” Bill Simmons. His book is chuck full of awesome stories, and perhaps the best part are the footnotes. Here’s the footnote on Chris Webber:

Considering Webber earned nearly $200 million, can you call him disappointing? He ended up being no. 72 instead of no. 28 … is that the worst thing in the world? I think it comes down to one issue: You know when you go to a car wash and they offer you the “everything” package? Only a few NBA players are chosen every generation for the “everything” package. If they fuck it up even a little, it’s disappointing. So yeah, Webber finished no. 72. But he still goes to sleep every night knowing he could have been forty or fifty spots higher. And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything.

And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything. That’s pretty damning. It’s easy to be critical about top athletes, because we expect them to be competitive. But what about your own life? Are you living up to your potential? Are you thinking about it? But it can be quite lonely up there. And be careful: Fly too high, and the sun might burn you..

The place to which you feel the strongest attachment isn’t necessarily the country you’re tied to by blood or birth: it’s the place that allows you to become yourself. This place, she quietly indicates, may not lie on any map.

In Bale’s view “The Dark Knight” is an even lonelier outing for his character, who once naïvely thought his crime fighting could be a finite endeavor. “This escalation has now meant that he feels more of a duty to continue,” he said. “And now you have not just a young man in pain attempting to find some kind of an answer, you have somebody who actually has power, who is burdened by that power, and is having to recognize the difference between attaining that power and holding on to it.”

Reading an article in the IHT on the new Batman movie by Chris Nolan. The passage I quote above sounds like a description of the coming-of-age experience, but in extremis. As most of these experiences go, it starts with a sense of naivity, earnestness – we are anxious to venture out into the world, thinking we are ready to embark on a quest of searching answers to questions – who you are, what your place in the world is, what your potential is. Then, a life changing experience seeks you out, you got what you were originally searching for, but also much more than you bargained for. An escalation. Actions have real life implications. Your actions have real life implications, and its potential is both limitless and unpredictable. The realization of power, and its heavy burden. The realization of what you have done, what you can do, (the uncertainty of) what effect it has on others. But even more important is the question that follows out of that realization: now that you know what you can do, the differences you can make, and your actions are your choice, what will you do? What will you decide to do, and ultimately, who you are?

The value of being in a state of in-between, of not-quite-there-yet, but already too far to go back is one of a possible timely intervention in the face of reflection.

What I mean with that is, being halfway, we have enough experience and history to assess what is going on, where we are right now and where we are heading towards and whether that is a track you want to be on, or a track you need to be on: the two are not necessarily the same (never mind the possibility of assessing what is a ‘right’ track). If they are not the same, what takes precedence?

The hedonistic might answer that which you desire, which does not necessarily equate with what you want either – for sometimes you can overdose that which you desire, extravagant indulgement of the senses. Perhaps the suggestion then is that balance is key: wanting it bad enough, but satisfying the desire enough to keep the want going.

Personally, though, it seems I have chosen for the path which I need to be on. I do not particularly enjoy what I do right now – how does one measure enjoyment but through happiness? – but I consider the times I am going through as ‘good’ for me in the sense that I to be here to learn, to grow. One then, can measure, whether you are heading towards the right direction by measuring what one has learned, by growth – unmistakingly, then, the two years and then some that I have been here have been ‘good’: never before so challenged in my life, come across limitations and attempting to expand those limitations.

What is the difference though, with leading an ascetic life, if we define ascetism as growth through suffering? Perhaps we can turn to guidance from the lessons of happiness: once again, balance is key, but on another (meta) level: balance not just between desire and want, but between want and need. I have enough what I need, where do I get my share of what I want? A silent week of meditation, of turning off the noise, of religiously attending the temples of my life, watching film and listening to music, are some of the answers I turn to.

But why think in dualities and dichtomies? Why are the two, want and need, necessarily irreconcilable? How does one start to consider reconciling want and need? I apologize for a lack of answer on my part, and invite you to consider this question and share your suggestions.

“There exists in our society a widespread fear of judging . . . [B]ehind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done. . . . Who am I to judge? actually means We’re all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend that they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites, and in either case should leave us alone. Hence the huge outcry the moment anyone fixes specific blame on some particular person.”

“Socrates provided her model of thinking. In the agora or the gymnasium, he questioned others to see what ideas would not stand up. When he was alone, thinking continued as an internal version of that same dialogue. It was “the silent dialogue between me and myself,” Arendt wrote. It made the thinker like two speakers internally, “two-in-one,” always testing possible beliefs and actions, grappling with the reality of the outer situation by a kind of inner company.”

“But we would think it arrogant for one person to stand up and coolly say to another-”I, so-and-so, having considered it carefully, judge that what you, Mr. X, did, was morally wrong. I need no more authority to judge you than the fact that I am a fellow human being, and that I have judged by good examples, and asked myself what I, myself, could not live with doing.” Of course, it would be a very curious world in which one constantly dared to judge others, and not so much one’s enemies. As Arendt always insisted, the real moral issue was never with one’s enemies, who like the Nazis could be so obviously evil) but with one’s friends, and those one loved.”

ik werk tegenwoordig aan een onderzoeksstage bij een behoorlijk prestigieus instituut. eentje waarvan je nog wel eens achter de oren wil krabben, denkend wat je precies hier eigenlijk wel te zoeken hebt. daar zit ik dan, doodgewone ‘nuchtere’ ‘nederlandse’ jongen dan tussen. niet zo lang geleden was ik nog ‘gewoon’ aan het studeren in nederland. het idee verder studeren was niet op de radar, laat staan naar het buitenland. ik was een redelijk goede leerling op de middelbare school, maar zeker niet de beste van mijn klas. om vervolgens het eerste jaar universiteit gigantisch op mijn bek te gaan met informatica. daarna een van mijn belangrijkste besluiten tot zover in mijn leven genomen: weloverwogen en lang nagedacht, uiteindelijk voor het hart gekozen, en besloten sinologie in leiden te studeren. dat ging erg goed. er hoorde ook een stage bij mijn studie: ik werd bij de meeste grote (internationale) bedrijven links en rechts afgewezen. tja, had ik maar economie of bedrijfskunde moeten studeren. ik deed uiteindelijk stage bij een klein consultancybedrijf in e-business omdat ik toch wel het idee had dat consultancy misschien wel iets voor mij was. zoals de meeste studenten die geen idee hebben wat ze willen, leek consultancy wel een geschikte richting. nou, de stage was me goed bevallen: want ik kwam erachter dat consultancy toch wel erg vrijblijvend was – je laat je betalen voor advies, en daar zit natuurlijk inherent al een moreel dilemma ingesloten dat je het moeilijk maakt totaal eerlijk te zijn. truths are hard to believe when one’s income is dependent on the lie.

geen consultancy, wat dan wel? maar voordat ik kon afstuderen moest ik toch echt eerst een afstudeerscriptie schrijven. ik had het (briljante!) idee om mijn interesses voor china en computers/internet te combineren – ik zou gaan schrijven hoe internetcensuur in china toch echt een onbegonnen zaak was! ik wist immers redelijk wat van de internettechnologie af. (al lezend kwam ik tot een totaal andere mening: internetcensuur was eigenlijk helemaal niet zo onmogelijk). aangezien deze scriptie hoogstwaarschijnlijk mijn laatste bijdrage ooit zou zijn in academische en wetenschappelijke zin, besloot ik eens het achterste van mijn tong te laten zien en een zo’n goed mogelijke scriptie te schrijven. daarna was het immers werken.

dat liep even anders. na mijn scriptie (die goed werd ontvangen) ging ik een jaar naar taiwan. het scriptie schrijven zelf was me goed bevallen – voor het eerst heb ik mezelf gepushed, mijn best gedaan en dat smaakte naar meer. in taiwan kwam ik erachter dat heel veel studenten daar een doel voor ogen hadden: een vervolgopleiding in amerika. het academische mekka. ik dacht ook, waarom niet? twee jaar werken in nederland, en twee jaar studie in amerika later, ben ik achtereenvolgens in los angeles, oxford, philadelphia, michigan state, hong kong, new york, taipei, palm springs, san francisco, beijing, londen en nu in boston beland.

ik ben op plaatsen geweest, waar zoveel mensen alleen maar van dromen. waarom heb ik dan wel dat voorrecht? waarom mag ik hier wel zijn? wat doe ik, of beter, wat ben ik, dat dit mogelijk maakt? dit is geen nutteloze oefening in denken, noch een narcistische reactie van het moment. wie je bent, heeft direct gevolgen voor wat je doet, voor wat je hoort te doen. je zelf is onlosmakelijk verbonden met het handelen. wie je bent, bepaalt hoe je je leven leidt. wie je besluit te zijn, bepaalt je handelen.

hoe handel je, hoe leid je je huidige leven, en wat zegt dat over jou?

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Originally uploaded by lokman.

interludes, inbetween moments signify those periods in our lives where one is in transition from one point to another point. often regarded as dead moments, most people tend to get bored, try to kill the time or wait, wait, and wait. examples abound: our time in the plane, waiting at the bus stop, queueing at customs, insomnia. it prevents us from being productive citizens, from being functional, from being ‘somewhere’ where we have ‘better things’ to do. neither here, nor there, caught in limbo .. who we are, what we do, are unsettling questions we are forced to face.

temporary reliefs have exploded over the past few years, and included the ability to connect with anybody, anywhere, at any time. text messaging when you are standing in line, calling somebody on your cell when walking to your next destination, one can at least transmit one’s spirit, one’s voice if not the body, to somewhere else, thanks to the wonders of technology. alternatively, one can not only expand but also contract one within oneself, in order to avoid the existential unsettlement of the inbetween: the portable videogame, the ipod. sugar coated candy surrogates for the neither here nor there reality that is too boring, too static, too alone and too not-happening.

is it really that bad? what do we lose out on? what are we afraid of? once life offers us a glimpse of reality beyond the narcotics of a mediated life, what else is left? a vast emptiness surrounds us, amplifying the noise, but not the signal, that is in our lives. what is meaning, and where is it left? forced to deal with this question, most people seek to indulge in having the mundane live them, as opposed to living the mundane themselves and, carry the responsibility to change, assuming having a capacity (and its burden) to do so.

so the next time you are waiting, be comfortable with your thoughts, perhaps grab a blank paper and pencil, and contemplate this: where is the signal amidst the noise? what have you said and done recently, with whom? are you aware of your own living, your own breath? whose life did you touch recently, and how? perhaps it’s time (time!) to start living life, as opposed to having life live you.

“The heart has its reasons which reason cannot know.” There are limits to reason. There is mystery, there is passion, there is something spiritual in the arts—but it is not connected to Judaism or any other religion.For those who find a special inspiration in Judaism or Christianity or Buddhism or whatever, fine. If that inspiration leads them to work for justice, that is what matters.