The summary of our view of suffering is so short that it feels like I’m making a straw man of it, but I don’t think I am: suffering is bad, and it should be avoided. Our idea of a happy life is one without suffering, and our ideal society is one where nobody suffers. It’s hard to even think where to begin with it.

But is suffering really a bad thing? I suspect that it might not be, in a way.

Exercise hurts, doesn’t it? Especially when you’re out of shape, and you do something that you know fit people should do, like run 15km or lift something really heavy or bike up a huge hill. Not only does it hurt to do, it hurts for days after, and you can even injure yourself. This is why, when you’re starting to exercise, it’s important to learn to exercise properly. You warm up, you don’t overexert yourself, you learn the proper form. In cycling, for example, you learn to pedal from the ball of your foot, to keep your knees in line with your leg and ride a bike that fits. Not only is this more efficient, it reduces the strain on your joints and feet. If you just start cycling hard on a poorly sized bike and with bad pedaling form, you’re likely to injure yourself, and it’ll take ages to recover. Yoga is another good example: bridge pose can wreck your lower back, the plow can hurt your neck, headstands can do both, and let’s not even talk about something like Dwi Pada Sirsasana. So you learn to watch your body, and know the difference between stretching and overextending.

Of course, we all know that exercise is good for you when you do it right. At the end of all of that discomfort, you come out with more powerful muscles, better flexibility, a stronger heart, more efficient lungs, and so on.

I propose a definition: suffering is the sensation of spiritual exertion.

Most of us have had the opportunity to meet someone who has suffered a lot and come out of it with a presence. They are probably not very loud—they might not say much at all—but they somehow fill the room. You get the impression that on some level, they see right through you. It’s almost unnerving. You could say that these people have suffered well. On the other side, we probably know people who, under the weight of their suffering, have turned into brittle, neurotic shells of people. You could say that they haven’t suffered well; that they’ve injured themselves.

We can’t avoid suffering. Just like we can’t live without using our bodies, we can’t live without using our spirit. No matter what, there will always be a box to lift or a flight of stairs to climb. Likewise, there will always be heartache and disappointment. We already know that if we don’t want to experience physical discomfort in our everyday lives, we need to keep our bodies at a fitness level that can handle those boxes and stairs without undue discomfort. But we don’t seem to accept that for the spirit.

Of course, when it comes to spiritual exercise, there are a few obvious problems. Mainly, we don’t know what we’re doing, or what we’re straining, or how we can hurt ourselves. In fact, I don’t think we consciously control anything that we do, spiritually. We do seem to see a cycle, where people repeat painful patterns until they see them and understand them, and then something opens up and they move on, to get caught in something more subtle. This process of opening and increasing subtlety makes me think that spiritual exercise looks something like yoga.

When you do yoga properly, your mind is engaged in a specific way. You aren’t focused on achievement, you’re just watching. You watch your position. You watch your breathing. You watch your muscles and your joints, and where they are tight or where they strain. You go into everything fully, but only as far as you feel you can. You accept your limitations and keep going, and you open up.

And so it follows that the way to suffer is with that same watchful awareness and acceptance. You go into everything fully, but only as far as you feel you can. You accept your limitations and keep going, and you open up.

In the chakra system, we have low-vibration energy that comes into your sushumna through the muladhara chakra, and its vibration is raised as it passes through you and leaves at a very high vibration through your sahasrara chakra. But where does that low-vibration energy come from?

In some theories there’s another chakra below the root chakra, the “earth star,” which is perhaps to be viewed as the earth’s crown chakra. This evokes the idea of an earth mother; that is, Gaia. This seems to be the widely accepted interpretation of the source. But while we’re borrowing from the Greeks, let’s point out that they had a division here: Ge, Gaia’s realm¹, referring to the earth, underground, agricultural fertility, and so on; and Chthon, referring to the underworld, the realm of Hades, Hecate, the furies, and all the gods that we view as creepy because they involve death.

Now, it’s not surprising that we’d overlook this distinction in the West, because it has been an exceptionally long time since Christian areas of the world believed in a unified afterlife that was below us: after Jesus, all good Christians go to the sky, and what’s left down there isn’t much fun. Not only did this destroy our culture’s conception of the underworld and our understanding of the allegorical significance of an underworld descent, it made death even worse to think about. And so we assume that the source of the energy for our chakra-cogs is the Gaia of life and fertility, which detaches the whole concept of the subtle body from death and gives a comfortable feeling of magic.

But what happens if we assume that the energy Chthonic instead of Gaian? First of all, that energy flowing up our sushumna stops being psychic power and starts looking like our life force and a host of more familiar metaphors: the thread of fate, the candle-flame of the soul, and so on. And then the idea of improving the flow of energy starts looking a bit different: less like a psychic awakening and more like having a stronger life force, a thicker thread, or a brighter flame.

Essentially, it becomes clear that the subtle body is a metaphor for the psyche.

Let’s look at an ideal activation of the chakras². First, as a child (when your root chakra is activated) you develop a “primordial trust” that “the earth is a secure place which provides you with everything you need.” As puberty comes along, the sacrum is activated, and you “open yourself towards others, especially people of the opposite sex, and behave naturally.” Your creativity is awakened. As you grow to maturity (solar plexus activation) you develop “a feeling of peace and inner harmony with… life in general, and your place in life in particular,” you find your calling. With this solid foundation of safety and belonging, you are able to view others with compassion and acceptance—the activation of your heart chakra—and then (apparently in your 30s) learn to express yourself without fear with the activation of the throat chakra. Through this open and honest communication you gain the wisdom that comes along with the activation of the third eye, and finally, generally somewhere around 50, you get your crown chakra activation and gain a deep understanding of what this whole ride has been about.

This is the story of an ideal life without unaddressed psychological trauma, and the activation of each chakra corresponds to a new stage in our personal development. The work done to clear blockages becomes a form of therapy. For example, Kundalini dance turns into a form of movement therapy, with music chosen to bring up blockages from a specific chakra, and then dance to work through it. It even throws Tantra into a theraputic light of sorts.

This interpretation puts the chakra system approximately in line with a lot of other things: if chakra blockages are called attachments and patterns, it lines up with ideas from Zen, Buddhism and Hinduism about acting without attachment and seeing through illusion. It also fits nicely with psychotherapy.

I love it when things come together.

1. In fact: Gaia comes from Ge (earth) and Aia (grandmother).
2. The quotations and approximate activation ages in this paragraph are taken from The Chakra Workbook by Shalila Sharamon and Bodo J. Baginsky.

This sort of thing has happened before. Here’s the shape of it: some strange people start doing something. It’s misunderstood, except by a handful of people. That handful of people just happen to be “cool,” and so the whole thing draws more people, understand it or not. Eventually the strange people that started it get tired of it or the stuff that’s grown up around it, and they leave. The subculture stops evolving and turns into a historical edifice or parody maintained by people who mostly never understood it in the first place.

Everyone likes a bandwagon, and that’s why after the punks we have Punks¹, after raves we have Ravers, after hippies we have Hippies, after hipsters we have Hipsters. In all of these we have (occasionally very convincing) vestiges of the original philosophy, politics and attitudes that started the movements, but really, they’re just party scenes.

And hey, what is it that everyone hates about the Hipsters? The almost complete conformity under the banner of rebellion? The self-mockery? The shitty fashion? Wait, which party scene am I talking about again?

But to return to my original point: everyone accepts that it’s poor form to make fun of Punks, Ravers, and Hippies. They’re all adorable in a way, like lost puppies with strange hair. Hipsters are really no different, and if you leave them alone then all those negative attention seekers will move on and this mess will wind down to a niche just like every other dead party scene.

1)Yes, this is the same capitalization scheme used to discuss political philosophies, to distinguish followers a philosophy (like conservatives) from the party that forms around it (like Conservatives). It’s vaguely surprising how perfectly the distinction holds when talking about subcultures instead of political philosophy, until you grant that all of these movements had sound and subtle philosophical plumbing underneath them at the start.

And it’s a total toss-up.  They’re both amazing.  They’re completely different.

Aurore is fast.  I’d blow past people on Carrera, but this is something else entirely.  Aurore’s top gear is 53/12, four and a half tire revolutions per pedal revolution, and Carerra’s 46/17 is just over two and a half.  While I would hit the limit of my spinning ability on a straightaway with Carerra, I’m not powerful enough to use Aurore’s top gear at a proper cadence unless I’m going slightly downhill.  Apparently this isn’t at all abnormal.  Additionally, having gears means that the thought of going up a big hill is only mildly disgusting.

Aurore is also smooth.  The carbon fork and stays absorb a lot of the (irritatingly frequent and large) bumps that I encounter on Edmonton’s (shitty) roads.  Sections of road that were bone-rattling on Carrera are only uncomfortable on Aurore, and going over them more quickly feels less stupid.

Aurore is an amazing machine.  But she doesn’t win, because Carerra is so much goddamn fun to ride, for almost completely different reasons.

The fixie versus freewheel thing has probably been done to death, and I don’t think it’s fair to compare them¹.  With a freewheel bike, the core mechanic is “pedal means go, brake means stop.”  When you ride one, you’re driving.  Riding a fixie feels more like skating: every motion of your feet has significance, and it feels more like a different interface to the ground than a vehicle.  It’s really no surprise that people who have been riding other kinds of bikes have trouble with fixies, at least at first.  The idea of brakes being only semi-useful is understandably strange, because vehicles have to stop.  It’s the same with the idea of not being able to coast: what’s the point of driving a vehicle if you can’t just sit and let it carry you a bit?  But once you accept this conceptual shift, the reasons for loving your fixie are just too clear.

For me, the biggest one is probably speed control.  I accelerate as hard as I pedal, I slow down as hard as I resist.  Another one is feedback.  Based on what’s coming to me through the pedals, I can feel the ground I’m going over.  I find that these two things combine to make the ride almost meditative, because any time my mind wanders the pedals bring me right back.  I also find that my cycling style changes, because I never want to touch my brakes.  On one hand, I’m more aggressive in taking safe openings that I see; on the other, I’m way more cautious of everything that can move.  It’s a wonderful experience.

So I guess that puts the whole fixie debate to bed for me.  They’re awesome, but so are other bikes.  I’m now bicyclically polyamorous.

1. In my defence, I’m only going to contrast them.

I have always held that neither evidence, logic, reason, observation, math, nor any other liberal socialist propaganda technique constitutes a rebuttal of anything I believe based on supposition, gossip, superstition, illiteracy, or incomprehension.  Believing things that are verifiable has never helped anyone make good decisions, and there are studies that prove this [1, 2, 3]. It follows naturally that nobody should ever try to teach me anything unless I already agree with it or know it, and that goes doubly for any children I might have (because they’re chattel until they turn 18). It makes me so happy to see that the government agrees with me:

“This government supports a very, very fundamental right and that is parental rights with respect to education,” said Premier Ed Stelmach.

Awesome!

Now that we’re finally making some progress on denying the existence of evolution and homosexuality, there’s another issue that I’d like to raise again, because it’s lain dormant for too long. That, friends, is heliocentrism.

I’ve thought this for a long time, and had merchandise for it even.  But I think that the time to act has finally arrived.

We geocentrists have mountains of evidence to support the truth of our statements.  Even the scientamists will admit there’s nothing wrong with our view of solar mechanics: those lovely elliptical orbital equations of theirs still work if you make Earth the origin, they just get really huge and ugly.  And hey, you know what?  So’s your liberal heliocentrist face.

So let’s get out there and spread the word.  I want to make it as difficult as possible to teach that the Earth moves around the sun.  Write letters to your overpaid conservative wankjob bureaucrat!  March in the streets!  Spin fire poi while shouting, “This is the way the universe works, bitches!  Deal with it!”

1. Kiss
2. My
3. Ass

But what came to mind earlier today—thanks to this lies.com link (courtesy of blunt object)—is that print media, even with most of it on the verge of collapse, is probably the last actual home of investigative journalism.

Think about it: in a newspaper, a story can be 300-500 words, easily.  If it’s a big deal, it could break 1000.  That’s room to present a few things in some reasonable detail.  Print magazines can go even further.  For example, Rolling Stone recently did a detailed article about AIG and the wall street collapse.  It’s a really good one, and it’s long.  Some research and digging went into this.  Matt Taibbi had more access to the relevant information than your standard blogosphere hack.  He was also paid to do his research, which is something else that most bloggers don’t have going for them.

On the other hand, TV news and the blogosphere both suffer from an alarming flood of populism, because they have tremendous flexibility in their structure and what they cover in response to what’s popular.  Newspapers would secretly love to be in the same boat, because it’s great for advertising revenue.  But it has a price.  Check out the face of the new media:

Top WordPress.com blogs today

1. CNN Political Ticker
2. FAIL Blog: Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments
3. Celebrity Baby Blog – People.com
4. PEOPLE TV Watch

So we have a condensed version of a TV news network that uses almost exclusively wire-service material and sucks even more when it doesn’t, and then we have embarrassing pictures, babies and celebrities.

And hey, this publication already exists.

Tom think about book.  Smart man talk in.  Say words not mean stuff.  Tom no get.

Tom look down.  See flower.  Pretty flower.  Yellow.  Tom pick flower.  Stare at.  Spin in fingers.

Tom think hard.  Make face.  Think what man say.  Dog not mean dog.  Dog mean not cat.  Dog mean not chair.  What mean cat?  Not dog.  Chair not dog too.  That mean cat is chair?  Tom no get.

Tom look at flower.  Dead now.  No make seeds.  Tom feel sad.  Flower not chair too.  Flower is dog?  No.  Flower mean not dog.  Dog no make seeds.  But dog not dead flower.

Tom think about words.  What is words?  Words name stuff.  Oh.  Sun hot.  Tom brain hurt.

Think.  Have word for thing.  World mean thing and not-thing.  Oh.  No not-thing mean no thing.  No not-dog mean no dog.  If world only dog, no dog.  Just dog parts.  What dog parts?  This wrong.  Tom no get.

Tom lean back.  Hit tree with head.  Hit not-Tom with head?  Tree is not-Tom.  Tom look at flower.  Dead yellow not-Tom.

Tom look at feets.  Feets on legs.  Legs with hairs.  Small hairs.  Legs is Tom.  Oh.  Legs is not-Tom?  Tom is not-legs?  Tom is not-tree!  Oh.  Tom get.

Tom look at river.  River has water.  Tom think.  Words like water?  Words move together?  No.  World is water.  Words chop water.  No splash.  Words chop world.  All same.

Tom head hurt.  Want sleep.  Then book.  Tom like smart man.

The crux of it seems to reduce to one question: “What do you mean by ‘meaningful’?”  Purposeful?  Satisfying?  Does it need to benefit society?  Would actually doing meaningful work benefit it anyway, by default?  I decided to settle for “satisfying,” which seems like it would be close enough, since if I was satisfied with my work, by definition I wouldn’t care too much about the rest of it.  And when I tried to think of what kind of work could be satisfying, I couldn’t think of anything.

So I thought I’d try consulting the blogosphere.  What else are people thinking about the idea of “meaningful work?”  Well, it turns out that most of what Technorati finds are management blogs.  “How can we increase employee engagement?  Make them feel like their work is meaningful.”

The only place that really touched on the question I was thinking of was the ever-excellent 37signals blog.  To quote their quote:

Meaningful work is work that is autonomous. Work that is complex, that occupies your mind. And work where there is a relationship between effort and reward — for everything you put in, you get something out…

This actually injects a touch of humour into the material from the management blogs, because if we go back and look at the history of management, the trend since at least Wealth of Nations has been to ever more rigorously remove these elements from all jobs.  In that masterful bit of work, Adam Smith described how to take the incredibly rewarding job of making pins and make it twenty times as productive by making it one twentieth as interesting: instead of making entire pins, workers would make pin heads, or pin shafts, or they’d sharpen the pins, or they’d attach the heads to the shafts.  In the years following that, management developed into a “scientific discipline,” eventually hitting Taylorism where people were deliberately confused with machines.  Since this is giving me flashbacks of a wonderful Sociology class, and since it’s directly relevant, I’d suggest reading Harry Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degredation of Work in the Twentieth Century, if you haven’t and are interested in the history of jobs getting shittier.

That practice continues to this day, with performance reviews purely in terms of work units per time period, with workflows broken down to the tiniest tasks, and even “knowledge workers” reduced to doing short, repetitive tasks.  Interestingly, the job of management—extracting as much as you can from the people under you without getting caught breaking the law—hasn’t changed much at all, and they still get to do this rewarding task from beginning to end without any division whatsoever.

This really leaves me no closer to an idea of what would constitute meaningful or satisfying work, but at least it was interesting to think about why it’s so hard to find.