growing up is hard to do

Matthew 5:43-48

The Message (MSG)

^43-47"You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

⁴⁸"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

ethical dilemma

I have an ethical dilemma which will sound at first terrible, then like not a big deal, then really truly horrible again as I walk through my explanation of it.

Terrible: I am all about taking things that don't belong to me.

But, not actually a big deal: What I mean to say is that I compulsively grab extra napkins, utensils, packs of sugar, samples, pencils, mints - anything I can get for no cost. It's kind of bad, but everyone does it to some extent...and after all, those sugar packets at Wawa are there for the customer, right? Is there a line between acceptable and unacceptable consumption of free products? My behavior certainly isn't extreme enough to catch the attention of an employee. Also, as a utility-maximizing individual I obviously don't want to spend money on that which is freely available to me, as I could easily use it on other items which I would enjoy having.

I have two problems with this which make it really, truly horrible:

1. If I have learned anything from high school and college, it's that Garrett Hardin is probably the most influential article-namer ever and that ecology somehow relates to every subject there is. People love talking about the "Tragedy of the Commons" - the idea that people exploit a limited resource (land...or plastic...or sugar) because they don't own it and don't get to a) reap the benefits of leftovers or b) observe just how much is being consumed. Knowing this, I experience a lot of cognitive dissonance because I know that everyone faces the same incentives as I do and only education can get people to stop over-consuming, barring a total restructuring of free giveaways (eg keeping napkins behind the counter and making people ask for them). So that's the purely cognitive reason I feel bad.
2. I don't think that I'm just a physical being who exists for a while and then ceases to exist. I think humans have a responsibility to maintain their health, help those around them and work to leave their environment better than it was when they found it. We have thoughts and emotions for a reason and we have guilty consciences for a purpose - because there's something that we ought to do and we feel bad when we don't. Collectively, we're the stewards of this planet - so my little part, whether it's recycling or just not wasting material that doesn't (or does...) belong to me, is kind of a big deal. How can I hold others to this standard if I myself don't show that I value it through my actions?

So would it solve my problem if I just paid for these things? Wouldn't that also be wasteful? Shouldn't I stop using sugar in my coffee altogether if I'm really worried about waste?

Yes and no. No, because sugar can and should be enjoyed if it's properly obtained. Paying for it gives more information to grocery stores or other providers and helps markets determine the actual demand and the price that it should sell at in order to be sold in sustainable amounts. I'm not sure if it matters whether Wawa buys it or I do - but Wawa isn't making a profit from it so we can assume that I would probably have a higher willingness to pay, since I actually care whether I get it or not. If everyone just bought their own sugar (I don't think this shift would have a large effect), then perhaps the prices on all goods at Wawa would fall to better reflect their operating costs and this could reduce inefficiency. Similarly sugar prices could rise just a little bit when sold straight to consumers which would probably benefit everyone.

But yes, I should pay for these things, because I could significantly cut back on my waste if I suddenly had an incentive not to use plastic bags for my groceries or not to get a plastic fork at a restaurant - because suddenly, I wouldn't be willing to take them. I have bags and forks at home! So being forced to pay for these things would probably be good all around. [Let me clarify: I'm not saying free mints are a bad thing and that they ruin the market for after-dinner mints. But there are clearly some products which are available for free which don't need to be used at all (grocery store bags, for example) and there are some products which could be consumed at more reasonable levels if they had a cost attached to them (like sugar packets or online movies or what have you).]

Is this blog post going to significantly affect any markets or the well-being of the planet? Definitely not. Will it alter my behavior? Maybe. I can't estimate the magnitude of effects these actions have, but I can say that I'll be living a more fulfilling life by honoring God and thinking a minute about how to honor both his creation and his commands of stewardship.

head vs. heart

I'm going to continue to quote lyrics to make my points for me. See Death Cab for Cutie's Crooked Teeth:

I'm a war of head versus heart,

and it's always this way.

My head is weak, my heart always speaks

before I know what it will say.

I love this song. I used to think that this directly applied to me, like Ben Gibbard was singing to my soul. I enjoy being a very rational person but of course I have emotions and sometimes I felt like I was just following those instead of my logic. I felt like there were two opposing sides to me: Spock and Kirk, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Economics and English, and probably most significantly: student and Christian.

But religion isn't all about emotions just like it isn't all about singing songs or making cookies. The real struggle is between the natural self and the supernatural - my nature is to act based on a combination of my changing mood and my logic (which is essentially focused on maximizing utility). That is a terrible natural state to be in! My mood can go haywire at the mention of one word and my logic is really dumb considering the fact that I value my personal utility/comfort/health/pleasure like 10 times higher than anyone else's utility. If I stop listening to my natural self and start listening to something that's more wise than my wisdom and more understanding than my limited scope of emotions - then that's when we're getting somewhere. I'm not just talking about the goodness of my heart, because let's face it, that's pretty self-centered. I'm talking about the Holy Spirit.

When I start listening to him I start making really good decisions because I stop caring about appearing consistent or perfect to other people and I don't have to debate which side of me I should give more weight to. Obviously I still use reasoning and I let compassion motivate me but I should never have to decide between a "rational choice" and an "emotional choice," listening to my head OR to my heart. God can use both of them to show me what to do and in the end they shouldn't have to conflict - listening to the Spirit might not lead me to something that I want to do but it will always lead me to something that I know both in my head AND in my heart is good because it aligns with the nature of God - which is pure goodness.

If you're curious - this is what made me start thinking about this:

1 Corinthians 2:10b-16

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. ¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.