Harold vs Dexter

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive"

- Harold Whitman

When I first read this quote something stirred in me. Something shifted in my heart and there was a deep voice in my soul that said "Yes!" It was almost like I could feel my spirit expand within me and I felt a surge of energy and excitement.

And then I watched an episode of Dexter and had second thoughts.

Killing people makes Dexter come alive (at least in the first season). While this makes for great television (my friend is a writer on the show) it begs a bigger question...

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that..."

I doubt Harold would give the same advice to Dexter. Or, more likely, Harold would expand the conversation to discuss how killing people doesn't really make Dexter come alive. He'd probably say that there's something more to life than Dexter has discovered.

And thus starts the dialogue:

What does it mean to be fully alive?

And do we ask ourselves the same question Dexter should when we read Harold's quote?

I mean, sure, we're not murderers. So at least we have that going for us.

And I know that it's possible for me to be fully alive being a writer, or an executive or teacher or musician...

...or is it?

Is there something more to life than doing what you love?

Because it seems like Harold's quote was penned far from adults who can't read because they've never been to school. My sense is that this quote was conceived in another world where no one dies from dehydration, curable disease or malnutrition. It has become famous in a culture where most can read, most have plenty to eat and most will die of old age.

This quote is on t-shirts, bumper stickers and religious books in this land where the most common form of suffering is experienced by the lonely artist, the apathetic student or the bored businessman.

Now, I know existential suffering is hard. It's hard for everyone. But could it be that the cure for our existential pain isn't simply to do what we love, but to become a humanity which loves people more than what we do?

What I still love about Harold's quote is that it gives people hope that life is possible. We need people to remind us of that. We need that stirring in our hearts that life can be incredibly rewarding, fulfilling and vibrant.

And perhaps there is no greater thrill than doing what we love.

But we also need people to remind us that there is more to life than finding our bliss, and that it's possible for us-- all of us-- to find our bliss by meeting the needs of others.

Maybe what the world needs, more than for you to come alive...

Is for you to become the kind of person who's alive by meeting the needs of the world.

No Need for Heroes

I don't need a lot of things.

Yogurt? Don't need it. Coffee? Nope.

And if you were to ask, I suppose I would say I don't "need" to be, you know, stronger.

Now, I'm pretty thin. I'm not much help in times of manual labor but I'll do what I can. If I were alive 10,000 years ago my genes would have died with me.

I say I don't need to be stronger, but that's because I'm not living a life that requires me to be stronger. I go to meetings, I write a lot, I go to films, out to eat, I like to travel. Occasionally I like to embarrass myself by playing basketball with my boss. None of these things require a particular degree of strength.

Lifting cars doesn't particularly excite me. Being more helpful on moving day does, but not enough for a $1,000 annual membership to a gym.

I manage my life with the amount of strength that I already have.

After all, it's not like I'm a superhero or something.

In the class I teach at Pepperdine we spend some time talking about heroes.

Whenever the subject comes up it's always a little embarrassing for me. While I have many heroes (and not just my dad-- although he's at the top of the list) I've discovered that a lot of people, especially the older they get, don't have a lot of heroes.

I had one student say to me, "Why should I need a hero?"

And I suppose we don't. Just like I don't need to get stronger.

On the other hand, if I dream of a life that requires a stronger me, then that's who I'll need to become to create the life I want to live.

The same is true for heroes.

After all, what do heroes do? I mean, they inspire us. They give us a picture of ourselves that we could become.

And, unlike a membership to the gym, having heroes are free.

But those things are only valuable if we're desiring to grow. Heroes only appear to us when we have the humility to admit that others are farther down the road than we are. They help us create a better future.

Could that be why there are so few heroes for us today? Not because we don't need them, but because we haven't yet found the dreams for our lives that demand them?

For while we may have no need for heroes, the world most certainly does.

Say 'Goodbye' to Goodbyes.

The last three "goodbye" parties I've been invited to I haven't been able to go to.

I wanted to go, but it didn't work out.

Actually, I can't really think of the last "goodbye" party I went to.

I have a friend doing peace work in Palestine that emailed me a few weeks ago. I have friends in South Africa that I tweet with. I have friends in Boston, Denver, New York, Phoenix and Kansas City that I talk on the phone occasionally with.

And those are just my friends that live someplace else. And those friends are totally unrelated to my work.

Now that we have email, cell phones, AIM, Skype, Facebook and Twitter it has become even harder to understand when we are separate or when we are together. Like friends who are dating it's hard to know how to define our relationships.


I now use the same technology that I use to communicate with my South African friends as I do to communicate with people who live 15 minutes away.

And we never say "goodbye."

150 years ago, if a family member moved from Kansas to California, it was highly likely that you would never see them again (and probable that they wouldn't survive the trip, anyway).

Today, I don't even go to the going away party because-- honestly-- what will really be changing? We'll still text. We'll still email. I'll get-- not just Christmas updates-- but hourly updates from my friends on Twitter and Facebook.

150 years ago I wouldn't know if you were dead or alive. Today I'll know what you had for breakfast.

Same distance. Totally different relationship.

I actually spent less time talking with my sister the first year she moved to LA with her family. We were used to talking on the phone, and when she moved 15 minutes away it felt weird to call her.

Have you ever noticed that as your social circles change and shift people tend to get hurt? You move to another city and lose touch with friends. You didn't mean to...it just happened.

But if you wanted to keep in touch you could have. You could have texted, called, emailed, skyped, Facebooked, or DM'd me on Twitter or AIM'd, visited, or-- heaven forbid-- written a letter. Yet you did none of those things.

And I just wanted to let you know that really hurt me.

Yes, you.

And that adds a lot of social pressure to maintain an ever-increasing Rolodex of people you were actually pretty good friends with for a certain period of time. Not that you can't still hold an affection for those people...but that affection will probably not be backed up by any concrete action.

And maybe that's okay.

What is the role of goobyes in a uber-transient and uber-connected society? What is the role of goodbyes in a world where goodbyes are no longer geographically necessary but still physcologically necessary? And what happens to our capacity to make new friends locally when our current social wattage is being used up by people from our pasts or who live in other parts of the world?

Maybe we should have more ruthless evaluations of our own social capacity, where we say "goodbye" to some old friends and to a very, very select few we say "We're still going to talk, even if it's once a year." Or maybe we should stop having goodbye parties and start having "our relationships are going to change and that's okay" parties.

Doesn't mean we can't still be friends.

At least on facebook.

On passion.

"I'm passionate about so many things."

I hear this phrase a lot. Especially with people in their 20s.

We are the generation cursed with endless opportunity. 500 years ago if my last name was Builder I'd be a builder. If my name was Spears that's probably what I would make for a living.

But our names no longer shape who we will become, and it seems as though the sky is the limit when it comes to what we could do with our lives.

It's a time of amazing privilege. And it's an incredible annoyance.

Consequently we are the generation that is "passionate about so many things." But I don't think we mean it when we say it. What we usually mean is that we have the potential to be passionate about a lot of things...but we haven't decided what those things are going to be.

And while waiting for something to be passionate about we're passionate about nothing...not even figuring out what to be passionate about.

The word "passion" is an interesting word. I think when we use it most of the time we use it in the sense that we're interested in something, or that something energizes us or that we enjoy it.

In this sense people can be passionate about yogurtland and urban outfitter sales, nice cars and new iphones.

But this is only half of meaning of "passion."

The word "compassion" means literally "to suffer with." The word "passion" means simply "to suffer."

"The Passion of the Christ" is the narrative of the final hours of Jesus' life as he is executed by the Roman government.

Parents, almost all parents, are passionate about their kids. Children bring parents such joy and they require such great sacrifice. Gandhi was passionate about Indian independence. Martin Luther King, Jr. was passionate about Civil Rights and, later, the politics surrounding the Vietnam War. Children, Independence, Civil Rights, Peace. These are all things they suffered for. These were things they were passionate about.

Artists are passionate about art. Composing, writing, painting and dancing-- while all in some sense euphoric and pleasurable-- are also acts akin to giving birth. Sometimes creating just hurts.

You know you're passionate about something when you're willing to suffer for it.

So most of us aren't "passionate about a lot of things." That will only come once we have the courage to sink our teeth into something.

The world is full of causes worthy of our full devotion. Pick one and go.

Cellphones and Hand Grenades

Watch the two 60-second videos below. One is a commercial for a Israeli phone company where a bunch of soldiers play soccer with Palestinians on the other side of the separation barrier. The other is a spoof of the commercial used with real footage of a group of Palestinians who actually tried kicking a soccer ball across the real fence. It's my first experience seeing actual footage of tear gas and grenades.





My first thought that the spoof was tragically hilarious. And if the short film wasn't created by a company more committed to selling phones than creating peace, then of course it would have seemed more sincere.

But either way, both shorts represent what art can be at it's best: a picture of what we hope the future will be and a picture of how the world really is. Vision and Reality. Hope and Sobriety.

It's also a picture of the prophetic role artists can play in culture: helping us see things as they really are and inspiring hope that they don't have to stay that way.

Imagine the day when vision and reality become the artist's paintbrush not simply to sell phones, but to lead a community or city or country out of the world as we know it and into a world we could barely dream of.

There are a few already creating this world. We need more. See one community of artists' attempts here.