We All Must Try To Be Good.

My Literal Heart

I envy one particular quality in sportsmen: their heart. I said this to quite a few people I know. It's ringing pretty well and it's actually true.

Today I was playing soccer with my friends. I'm a defender, I always am. We've been playing for about an hour and I failed to tackle the opponent, who had the ball. He shot but our goalie implemented a brilliant save. In the moment of the save, something happened in me. In my literal heart. It felt as though my chest was too small for it and all the blood in the world wouldn't be enough, flowing in my body. With my heart pounding madly, I stopped on the field. I wanted to catch my breath, I thought this sensation would pass but it seemed to be increasing. The one thing in my head was: I'm gonna die right now. I began coughing, fighting for air and I could stay on my feet but I could hardly move, let alone sprint from end of the field to the other. I walked off and sat down and looked at the ground, which was supposed to be green but it was gray. The players, the walls, the trees--really everything was gray. I drank and rested and the world's colors slowly crawled back. My heart was a lot more peaceful. I lay down to the ground and looked up at the sky. It was blue all right but I saw countless little dots, rushing nowhere but with great speed.

While down there, I contemplated my miserable state. Why do I have to be like this?! I didn't know whether it was something serious or something that just frightened me because it hasn't happened before. But I thought it was truly the most unfair thing in existence. Not because I'm a totally righteous person or I deserve to live. The reason for this was that I thought I haven't done my share. Not just the things that can make me happy in life but the part that I haven't walked to the end of the paths of my missions. I haven't done everything for the girl I love; I haven't put myself to service of the church; I haven't published anything; and countless other things. It would have been a very bitter death but I didn't die. My heart eventually calmed down, I'm much better now. Momentarily, rather ironically, I envy the very literal hearts of sportsmen the most.

I've been wondering what meaning this event may convey--if any... Maybe not many things just this: my life is not in my hands but in God's hands. And this, also, is very literally perceived. And I'm thankful that I'm alive and thankful for everything.

All the suck for the awesome

Difficulties may come. Or actually do come. We like to call even the less trying days hard ones, too, but now I'm speaking of real difficulties. As I said, we come across those times.

I'm convinced you know what I'm talking of, when I say being the burn-out one, doing the monotonous routine you swore to never do, dreaming big but always being stuck in second gear... These all are quite common symptoms of a-normal-life.

I've just arrived at the end of one of these periods. It's been a quarter year, that I lived through many sufferings. But I must admit, that most of them were self-inflicted, for all this served an indeed great purpose: the benefit of my personality.

I've been very reluctant towards my studies in mechanical engineering. I grew to hate my uni, and all that came with it. BUT this time has come to an end, when I realised, how incredibly much I've gained from this. I learnt truly spectacular and useful matters, and I've made important acquintaces, valuable friendships. True ones. Much more true ones, than what I foresaw for the period.

All in all, I'm clearly grateful for the thing I hated the most in the past couple of months, since I feel like I've become a better man through them. It makes me delightful to have been able to just remain on the surface.

Oh boy, I'm exhausted, so I suppose this post will end up as some nonsense but I hope, that for some of you out-there, it will mean what I meant...

(via https://vine.co/v/eqZrIDZ2uUH)

Metaphorically resonant…

My girlfriend and I visited a castle last weekend. It was smaller than the ones people usually visit, though I dare say it was much more picturesque, than any one I have ever seen.

My girlfriend is a very inspirational person and I'm glad she convinced me to go. I like castles and nice buildings just fine but an unusually busy period of summer was just over, so I felt overall tired-- almost too tired to go.

After exploring every empty hall, every majestic architectural feat, we headed home. I was happy to be able to rest and also to have visited this castle. The whole thing was good as it was.

Later (now), sitting at home, this trip began to hold importance, other than being a fantastic vacation. As it is said above, I've been very active recently. I was so active, in fact, that I've begun to believe, that it is all right to stop for a little while. Well, OK, periods of relaxation are inevitable, that's true. What I realized, though, is, that even in times of rest and peace, I can't stop completely. We aren't cars, which you turn off, when you arrive at home and turn on the next morning, when you want to go to work. Our breathing doesn't stop, our hearts don't stop beating. Even when the world is quiet, we need to stay in motion, or else, much like our organs, we will be difficult to reactivate. Life can be grand but only if we live it.

The Father is so surprisingly close that I stand astonished. When I saw how much I'm not hearing Him speaking, I asked and He came to me. Now I feel renewed, strengthened and lifted up. There's nothing I fear now. :)

Some things we do are as reasonable as dropping salt to our eyes.

If you want something you've got to stand up for it and ask it, otherwise no matter what a decent person you are, you'll never get it.

Well, bravo. I'm a huge fan of capitalism myself. It's great to see well thought out arguments like yours.

There's only one major issue that I've identified: This isn't about capitalism--it's about libertarianism. I'm not sure if you've read Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia but that's the thing for you.

Robert Nozick talked a lot about the minimal state, a concept that celebrates economic and moral freedom of the individuals and gives only limited role to the state: creating a legal system that protects people's property and guarantees the validity of contracts. This is very similar to your reasoning but it's libertarian philosophy and not directly the theory of capitalism.

Capitalism and libertarianism seem infinitely intertwined. Even so, if you look up the definition of capitalism and study the main ideas of libertarianism, you will find yourself wondering if the two are separate at all. They actually are. The U.S. didn't cease to have a capitalist system under Obama's presidency, though he's definitely not a libertarian.

In today's world, after Keynes and his successors, we have a mixed economic system, that's not laissez faire but it's also clearly not communist economy. The state does this and the state says that, courts rule this and that way and many complain why we don't have the original capitalist freedom. So why is this? Is this something good?

I could bring economic arguments but I'm sure I'd be making mistakes but more importantly the reason for having the current system can be found in political considerations:

#1: The market might always find balance eventually but, in the meantime, individual lives, which' survival are dependent on economic safety, can be hurt. So the economy of the country may find balance after a year or two of necessary fluctuation but in those years a family may go bankrupt, people can become desperate and not all of them are good-enough economists to be able to avoid undergoing serious losses. You said that these are inevitable casualties but politicians found it otherwise. More on this later.

#2: In a competition the strong/smart prevails and the weak/feeble-minded stays behind. You understood this as the order of nature. But nature isn't fair. We can say it's random and random doesn't equal fair but receiving in proper proportion in accordance with one's desert is. Being born strong or weak clearly has no relation to our desert.

According to Weber, capitalism was an unavoidable consequence of the emergence of Protestantism: People experienced a new freedom and the sensation of equality and autonomy spread very fast. And of course capitalism was a much better system than feudalism that preceded it in Europe. But it seems today that capitalism is and has been evolving.

You found morality in rewarding the productive and by the promise of these rewards motivating new members of society to become productive. It is, in fact, very moral, however, this can mean in a way rewarding the capable and ignoring the incapable and that is immoral. Why? Because no one made themselves capable. You might think hard work is your own merit, though if you can work hard it means that you have sufficient concentration and the sufficient abilities. These depend on genes and other external variables, so they do not originate from your own doing, ergo it isn't moral to reward you for something that you just happened to have.

I have introduced some political and moral arguments against laissez faire libertarianism but what are ideas for corrections--you may ask--nobody asks this, of course, but it's good to think that I'm not writing to myself...

One of the most famous political philosophers of the 20th century, John Rawls, recognized how libertarianism is unfair and so he said that a system should be formulated from behind the veil of ignorance: We decide without knowing what will be the most profitable environment for us, only considering what will surely be beneficial for everyone, since we can be successful salespersons or Hispanic cleaning ladies. Of course the veil of ignorance is an abstract thing, not something real, but it is a fair concept. Or is it? 

Even Rawls came to realize that even though capabilities are contingent, the able should not be withheld their reward because they used well what was given to them. So he created the difference principle: Inequalities may exist as long as they are profitable to the whole community.

Politicians seem to have adopted Rawls' ideas, though in a very weakened way (for which I am grateful by the way). What we see today is capitalism but fixed with the tools of fairness. Politicians understood and admitted that capitalism is a clever system, working very well most of the time, but they also said that people should be protected and aided because not everyone can stand their ground in an economic competition. They decided to help the weak because politicians can't settle with inevitable casualties of any standing economic system but they ought to bring welfare to the whole community. In the other hand, politicians can never ignore what is owed to the productive and able.

At the end of the day, though, I still root for capitalism because so far it's been working nicely. What must be observed in this question is that this system has been based on morals and values, not on figures and balances. We should be critical and be critical with the eyes of the idealist and not the pragmatist.

Is capitalism working?

I believe that people should be left alone and allowed to succeed or fail. People need liberty and a system that guards their liberty.

I love capitalism. Capitalism is good but it has a bad name. It’s not primarily about capital and investing. It is about property. As the legal thinker William Blackstone wrote:

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. [Note: By “despotic,” Blackstone means “absolute.”]

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Diving Head First

What I want this post to be is a reminder for later times.

"6 Be determined and confident, for you will be the leader of these people as they occupy this land which I promised their ancestors. 7 Just be determined, be confident; and make sure that you obey the whole Law that my servant Moses gave you. Do not neglect any part of it and you will succeed wherever you go. 8 Be sure that the book of the Law is always read in your worship. Study it day and night, and make sure that you obey everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Remember that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."" Joshua 1:6-9 GNT

I am standing up now and doing what my tasks are. I will keep on writing but with determination and confidence. I will also study and think as well as I can. I will run as fast as I can, do as many things as possible.

I do realize that the quoted scripture is not a promise given to me. It teaches the right mindset: when I see my mission, I have to be determined and confident. (I also realize that a mission can only be something through which I glorify the Lord and something that's focus is Jesus. Although it is not limited to the explicit forms of worship; it may take the form of art, for example (see also: Switchfoot))

It is highlighted even in the scripture above but it's also said beautifully as follows:

" 8 Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, because it promises life both for the present and for the future. 9 This is a true saying, to be completely accepted and believed. 10 We struggle and work hard, because we have placed our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all and especially of those who believe." 1 Timothy 4:8-10 GNT

It is the spiritual ground, where I must be standing firm before anything else and only from there can I move out to do anything.

So let this day be remembered and may purity, love and humility toward God be the things marking the way.