Humanity vs the robots

No, I'm not speaking of some cheesy sci-fi B movie. I'm speaking of what it means to be human.
Normally I wax Theologic, but today I fear my tone will be more philosophical than anything else.
What does it mean to be human? Are we, as Aquinas defines us, the "rational animal?" Are we simply the most intellectually developed biological system? Are we evolution's greatest accomplishment?
We erect monuments and towers. We write books. We have history. All of these things I have noted before. And as I have noted, this denotes that there is more to us than the systems of organs and bones.
Psychology, which many accept as a branch of Philosophy, has long tried to unlock the real mystery behind that one organ which denotes us as superior to our animal cousins, the brain. While there are several schools of psychology, some of which are highly controversial and others which are more concretely scientific, there are a few which strike me for their approach to the human mind.
Gestalt theory, which comes from the German word for "whole" believes that 1+1 does not equal 2 but equals 3. There's a heavy emphasis that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, the human mind is so much more than neurons firing impulses and neurotransmitters relaying signals. Their approach is to examine the person as a whole and prescribe treatment that emphasizes a holistic approach. A human then, is not simply a rung on the ladder of evolution nor is it a mass of biological material. A human is a human, and the definition of that is more than one can easily grasp.
Then comes my personal favorite psychological school. The humanists. Carl Rogers is often cited as the founder of this particular school. His theory of human sanity and the human mind was a system of needs. He believed that we must fulfill a certain set of needs, such as basic survival needs, before we can move on to more advanced needs, such as emotional needs. Eventually, when we have fulfilled all of our needs, we will find ourselves self-actualized. His list of self-actualized people reads like a list of "Who's Who in Philanthropy." To Rogers, self-actualization was the pinnacle of what it means to be human.
I take a lot of stock in the Rogerian system. However, it must be noted that many of the people on his list, such as Mother Teresa, were on that list despite not fulfilling some of their more "primitive" needs.
So it is that I have come to understand humanity as taking a two-course route through life. There are those who, as Rogers suggested, go through life seeking to fulfill some basic needs. These people often get caught up in some basic desire. They seek money, a survival asset at minimum. But they do it to excess. They become misers. There are also those who seek love too greatly. And rather than finding love they find cheap company and no sense of security. There are those who seek seek recognition and spend their lives working for the approval of others.
Most all of us are guilty of these things in some way or another. We all want to be able to feel like our needs are fulfilled. We do not want to feel as if we're lacking something. Worse yet, we don't want to feel deprived of something we need.
Then there are those who go straight for self-actualization. Some of these people are self-sacrificing. Others are simply philanthropists. Their needs are not as important for them to fulfill. They seek, rather, to fulfill the needs of others. These people are the ones who truly make the world go round. Their love and generosity are the warm fires by which all of humanity either stands or perishes in the cold.
Thus we come to another topic. The idea of human happiness and how it relates to the human person. Humans, at worst, are emotional, reckless, feckless, beasts which have the added disadvantage of questioning their purpose in the universe. It can be truly easy to be lost in the sea of humanity, wondering how to find happiness or to fulfill our destinies.
Those who genuinely seek to be happy and make others happy, seem to me to be true humans. They seek to fulfill their telos as humans. They seek to rise above the mechanical, simple biological functions passed on by millions of years of evolutionary instinct. They love more deeply, and they live more fully. These are the fortunate few who love life with a fulness that others who seek simply to survive lack.
Then there are the robots. These are the people simply trying to fulfill a basic need. Their evolutionary programming dictates what they do with their lives. They live by the pleasure principle. These people are like machines that have a basic programming that they seek neither to exceed nor to leave unaccomplished. They store money like squirrels for the winter. They mate like rabbits in the Spring. They preen and pout like peacoks in mating season.
How then are we different from the rest of the animal kingdom if we do not at least look at our direction? Socrates stated that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Have we examined our lives? Are we striving to fulfill biologic instincts or are we rising to our place among the heavens? Have we simply made our lives more convenient or have we truly contributed to this world?

Sacrificio

The idea of sacrifice has been laying heavy on my mind. Literally, sacrifice comes from Latin. Sacer, the root whereby we get words like sacred, sacrilege and sacrimonious, means holy. The ficio part is actually dervied from facio, or to make. Thus, to sacrifice is to make something holy.
This is particularly important in noting where we come to understand sacrifice as we do today. We described the ancient blood offerings of the Israelites as sacrifices because they were actions made, often times quite literally, to sanctify themselves. However, our understand and lexicon began to focus on the idea of giving something up, ie a newborn lamb, calf, or dove.
Fast forward many thousands of years. Now we connect sacrifice not to sanctifying, but to giving up something. However, we still retain the connection that sacrifice has a purpose. Thus we can say, "I have sacrificed a lot of family time to secure their financial future," though we have, in all reality, made nothing holy thereby.
Sacrifice, in the sense of abstaining from something for a greater purpose, has been a great factor in religions around the world for ages. Monks of all faiths and orders give up having families and social interactions in order to sanctify themselves. Certain carnal acts are generally given up to achieve a higher sense of holiness. Certain foods are banned in some cultures, certain rites are practiced in others and certain dress styles are embraced as well. Nowhere can you find a religion that doesn't ask for some kind of abstemious practice and yet is revered as a truly gratifying and respectable faith.
As Christians we have many examples to look at for how to sacrifice. We have the martyrs of days of old, especially those who lived during the reigns of Domitian and Diocletian, wherein Christians were legally persecuted and life and death hung by confessing Christ or not. We also have great saints to admire. St Francis of Assisi abandoned a wealthy life to embrace the mendicant lifestyle. St Augustine abandoned the sensual lifestyle he had embraced to follow Christ. St Paul went from being a respected scholar among the Jewish community with the added advantage of being a Roman citizen to losing his life for his conversion.
Even those who are not saints have provided examples for us. Thomas Merton left the luxurious and leisurely life of being a recent Columbia University graduate in New York to living in a small monastery in the heart of rural Kentucky. Mother Teresa left her family in Albania to help the poor in Calcutta India. Others, whom I feel that I've exhausted in their praises, also make this list.
These men and women were often times called upon to give all that they had for God. Not only did they "give away all that they had to the poor" but, in many cases, even gave their lives to God. Often times this is what we are asked to give. Sometimes we are not. Sometimes we are blessed with great fortune, ample opportunities and a luxurious lifestyle with little to no heartache.
However, I think it is important to be prepared to sacrifice. Bonhoeffer says that we must climb up on the cross of Christ, but perhaps it is more important that we be prepared to endure the sacrifices rather than giving up all that we have.
I have been reminded recently of the mysteriousness of God's movements. Often times God blesses us beyond what we think we deserve, and often times inflicts hardships on us that we think unfair. However, we do not know to what purpose we have been given the allotments that we have. Perhaps we are meant to be an example to people. Perhaps we are meant to encourage and directly impact someone's life. Perhaps our trials are merely to make ourselves stronger. To second guess God's purpose and goals would be to presume we are greater than God is.
And perhaps the greatest thing I have learned about sacrifice recently is that while self-sacrifice is often times a great blessing for those it benefits, we must also be mindful of ourselves. If we are too busy serving others to notice our own failings, we have failed as servants. As the Gospel says, if there is a problem in our own lives, we must seek to rid ourselves of those before we help others with their own (this is paraphrased, I realize). Self-sacrifice that prevents us from providing more service to others is, perhaps, also a form of disobedience and another example of not doing the best we can for the Kingdom. Yes, we must endeavor to build up others and build up the kingdom, but we are told not to run more than we have strength.

Last Day in Il Inferno.

Today will be the last full day I will spend in Vernal. It's already half over. In the forefront of my mind I'm thinking constant thoughts of "Il hamdu l'illah!" (I'm on my parents' computer otherwise that would be in Arabic).
Honestly, though, living in Vernal gives me a lot of perspective. I know that many students coming back to Notre Dame this fall will complain about South Bend's lack of size, while I have only positive things to say about it. People from New York, Chicago and Los Angeles will all find the lack of diversity frustrating, while I will find the difference between the Vernal and South Bend to be refreshing.
I have also been wondering if my time living here will serve some greater purpose. Will the interaction with a people who are intellectually stunted and politically reactionary enable me to better interact with people who would normally be detestable to me? Will living in a town where the climate ranges from nearly a hundred in the summer to negative twenty in the winter make me grateful for any slightly more temperate region? Will being from a town that subsists by sucking the oil from the land as a tick sucks blood make me more aware of environmental problems?
I have also thought that perhaps this town is good for my soul. Living in unpleasant circumstances seems to purify and refine souls. Dorothy Day lived with the poor. Mother Theresa lived with the outcast. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned. Simone Weil lived with the laborers and refugees. Monastics live in inconvenient settings. Hermits isolate themselves and Priests sometimes live alone in rectories. All these things help to cleanse the soul.
So I am also reminded of a silent retreat I went on over a year ago. It was conducted not in the Buddhist fashion, but rather in the Ignatian style. The silence could be overwhelming at times, and with no school work, or trips to do things, one had to learn how to be more comfortable with himself. I grew a lot spiritually over those five days.
I think Vernal has been similar for me. I have been confronted with what is uncomfortable for me. I have been a stranger in a strange land. Due to this, I feel that I have had to be more assured of my own thoughts and beliefs than ever before. I have felt isolated and alone, but I have emerged from it triumphant.
But lest I sound too proud, I must also admit that I have learned much from the people here. And one of the most important things I have learned has been to see people as people.
So I leave this town and move onto other things. What has happened here this summer will be a guiding influence for much of my life. What I have learned both academically and experientially will help me in life. And perhaps I will be a better person for what I have experienced.
I remember in high school a quote we had to memorize about attitude. The final thought of it was that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. While the whole percentage thing might not be true, what I can say from personal observation is that while we have little control of individual events in our lives, we do control our reactions to them and whether or not we will be affected by them.
On a more humorous note, I have also been hoping that my time here in Vernal will allow me to get out of a few hundred years of purgatory.

Mercy

"Master, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you naked and clothe you, imprisoned and did visit you, sick and did administer to you? And in that day the master shall say, 'Inasmuch as you did it to the least among you, you did it to me." (Matt 25:38-40)
The Corporal Works of Mercy are these: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned and bury the dead. As Christians we should work to carry these seven things out.
The ironic thing about our faith is this: we place more emphasis on the ten commandments than anything else that we should. The ten can be found within the two great commandments: Love God above all and love our neighbor as ourselves. In following these, things such as "Thou shalt not kill" become obvious. So instead of the emphasis on what we must not do, perhaps the seven Corporal Works should tell us what we should do.
We have a great many figures in our history to tell us how to live a merciful life. St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Therese of Lesieux. The Dominicans and the Franciscans were Mendicants who took on the life of the poor. In the twentieth century, Dorothy Day and Mother Theresa administered to the poor and wretched of the earth for all to see. And above all, we have Jesus himself whose entire life was a great act of mercy for the entire earth to see.
Even with the great works of those who came before, we have work to do still. There are still those who are poor and wretched. There are still the sick and diseased. There are those whose lives were miserable and their deaths are more so.
Perhaps we, who are generally speaking better off than we need to be, should impart our substance. The young man, whom Bonhoeffer likens to us, who was asked to give all of his stuff up to follow Jesus wasn't asked to destroy it, but to give it to the poor. We live in such a wealthy place, and most of us are priveleged to have enough.
However, when working with the poor, it is important to note, as Dorothy Day states, that it is not the most rewarding or the most enjoyable work. It is demeaning, disgusting and difficult. Yes, it is a job that will be rewarded in heaven, but it is not a job for the fainthearted.
But perhaps there are others in the world who deserve our attention as well. What of those who are persecuted simply because they were born differently? Do we act indifferent as we see on the news struggles for simple human rights? Do we walk by with our noses in the air, or worse, do we shun those who are standing for human dignity? Do we politely take the leaflets they hand us and trash them as soon as we find a garbage can?
Mercy. This is a fundamental Christian attribute, and a fundamental Christian challenge. We are to live merciful lives. We are to forgive, to give aid, to bless and to lift our brother up to where we are. We cannot afford to live lives of anger, hatred, or malice. And we cannot afford to declare justice and chance as the ruler of the universe.
I believe it was Aquinas who pointed out that if every man demanded what he thought was fair recompense, there would be no fair recompense. For every man is afforded injustices by those who don't know that they're committing injustice. There is not enough in the world to all be given "what's ours." Thus, we need to be forgiving and giving. We need to take as much or less than what we need. We need to give more than we think is necessary. And we must be ready to "suffer all things for [Christ's] name sake."
It is a hard thing to ask people to be selfless. It is hard because we know ourselves how difficult it is to do. But mercy should be our mantra. Mercy is often the action expressed by our love. If love is our life, then mercy is our duty. So let us be merciful. Let us do to others what we do for ourselves. Let us show our Christianity by our action and our mercy.