Be Good. Be Nice.

There is no avoiding the juvenile, simplistic words available to express the maxims I want to follow. I want to be a good person, and I want to be a nice person. When an acquaintance is asked about me I want the first adjective they describe me with to be "good" (Although I wouldn't argue with fun or smart or some such thing. "Nice" though seems like a cop out on the part of my describer.)

But being good seems tough. It is about being selfless and going out of one's way for family, friends, neighbors, and really all people everywhere. But of course you also have to care for the environment and animals everywhere.

And it wouldn't really do to be someone fighting for justice, peace and alternative fuels if you were a disrespectful, stuck-up jerk: so one should be nice too.

But how good should a person be? Is trying a little bit with everything enough? Is devoting oneself to one goal enough? From the media here's what I think is expected of me (from the broad list above):

For friends and family:
cook, drive, call, and write when needed
visit when possible
listen, listen, listen

Neighbors:
meet one's actual neighbors
donate time and money to charities that make a difference serving the poor, homeless, and disaster afflicted
stay informed about local affairs
participate in local politics
care about the schools and education

All people:
donate time and money to charities that make a difference serving the poor, homeless, and disaster afflicted possibly including joining the Peace Corps or something like it
stay informed on national and international affairs
work tirelessly to change American politics to be a positive force in the world
support only those corporations that treat people around the world with respect and that only work with governments that treat their citizens with respect
learn other languages and meet people from other cultures

The environment:
recycle
reduce energy consumption generally and stop driving a car just for me on fossil fuels
only support corporations that protect the environment
give time and money to charities working to preserve or restore the environment
buy local produce

Animals:
give money and time to protect animals' habitats
adopt abandoned pets
become a vegan
if not a vegan, buy local and/or organic meats etc.

And apparently I am just too selfish to do all this. And maybe even worse, I haven't gone down the path of any of these prescriptions very far because I don't want to go about anything half-assed. One has to think that better is better than nothing on one's way to being good.

Yet at some point, things have to be so bad that they require extreme action. If a friend or family member were so ill that I should take time off to help them, could I?
If my neighbors are being evicted because of subprime lending shouldn't I take a stand? When the US is prosecuting an unjust war, trampling constitutional rights, and abandoning the poor for the sake of the wealthy, shouldn't some change be made to one's day-to-day life to effect a change? If the Burmese can stand up, can't we? Or will take another 25 years for things to reach a boiling point?

And if things are not yet at such a point, can you still work for the American economic machine all day and "be good" by night? And how much time or money are expected from you as a poor graduate student?

I know that I can often be too academic about these things, dragging my feet to overthink when action is what is called for. Is the idea of going on strike, as posited by Garret Keizer in the most recent Harper's an idea that needs to be debated or deconstructed, or simply adopted?

The question of goodness is one that dogs my short- and long-term plans. I have been given so many advantages in my life that I feel obligated to to give of myself. I just haven't figured out what I want to give myself to.

Why have I succumbed to blogging fever?

With a lot of hard work and a lot of luck, I hope to have my Ph.D. in Physics in about a year -- which means that I have about a year to figure out what direction to steer myself in for the next phase of my life. ( Is it too literary to say chapter, and will only physicists and chemists understand my reluctance to use phase, and thus reference my phase transition?) Since I have always found it much more pleasant to fret over the more distant future instead of my immediate present, I have put a lot of time into thinking about what kind of life I want to lead and what type of person I want to be. And these are thoughts that need to be engaged, argued over and contemplated. Unfortunately, they are also not things that come up often in conversation over a few beers/or if they do, my drinking companions do not seem prepared to invest these discussions with the importance I want them to have.

The Assumptions

There is such a thing as a good person, and there is such a thing as success. But there are really multiple definitions of these things, and we have to figure out them out for ourselves..... and yet they are not entirely subjective. It is worth treating life like what we do matters. I am almost tempted to read Alan Alda's book on these same questions that has been touted on NPR for the last week.

Beyond the Depths

Now while I attempt to puzzle out, for lack of a better phrase, the meaning of life, there will be alot of inanity along the way. This blog will also be my chance to discuss all the New York Times articles I could ever want to discuss (and protect my co-workers from their constant mention), discuss politics, arts and literature, and just maybe, a little bit of physics.