tag:world.hey.com,2005:/jeffreybaird/feedJeffrey Baird2023-02-03T14:54:43Ztag:world.hey.com,2005:World::Post/260182023-02-03T14:54:43Z2023-02-03T14:54:43ZMy Spiritual Path, So Far<div class="trix-content">
<div>Growing up, I always felt a deep connection to my Catholic faith and aspired to become a priest. I was enamored with the pageantry, ritual, and sense of community that Catholicism provided. However, as I delved deeper into my faith, I encountered some fundamental questions that weren’t adequately addressed. I sought answers from books on Catholic apologetics and leaders in my church community, the more I read and explored the stronger my doubts grew.<br><br></div><div>So, angry and embarrassed that I had believed a lie, I turned to the “New Atheist” movement. I embraced a materialist view of the world, where the only things that existed were the things we could observe. However, deeply spiritual events, such as feeling the presence of Mary and God during moments of meditative prayer, nagged in the back of my head.<br><br></div><div>I felt like something was missing. And, while in therapy for my depression, I managed to let go of a lot of my anger towards religion. Maybe those experiences with the divine didn’t need to be restricted to Roman Catholicism. Rejecting the rigid dogmatism of the church did not mean I had to reject spirituality as a pursuit.</div><div><br>I searched for something to fulfill my desire for a spiritual practice and came across the book "Why Buddhism is True." While I would eventually reject the materialist lens through which the author proposed a Buddhist practice, it opened up a new world of possibilities. I could pursue a religious practice without needing to accept premises I now considered absurd.<br><br></div><div>Reading "Why Buddhism is True" sparked a five-year journey of practicing Buddhism, first meditating alone in my room and then two years of daily practice at the Rochester Zen Center. I devoted myself to Zazen, the Zen practice of meditation, and became convinced that there was more to the world that which could be directly observed. More importantly, I discovered that the rituals and mindfulness practices of Buddhism brought me the sense of contentment and comfort that I was missing.</div><div><br>While Buddhism provided a new perspective and brought me a sense of peace, I eventually struggled with feeling like an interloper in an Eastern religion. Catholicism had played such a deep role in my childhood and young adulthood that Buddhism couldn’t provide the familiarity in my practice that I desired.</div><div><br>I never stopped my spiritual exploration and eventually I ended up in a Discord server of spiritual seekers called The Hermetic House of Life. Members there led me down the path of Western spiritual thought, starting with Plato and following that thread to the modern day. Studying the beliefs of Hermeticism (a series of philosophical texts from classical antiquity attributed to Hermes Trismegistus) and Stoicism (a Hellenistic philosophy from the 3rd century BCE), Neoplatonism (a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD), combined with the more mystical traditions of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) helped me to open my eyes to the possibilities available to me in spiritual thought. I also appreciated that I could incorporate the beliefs of Buddhism, like non-dualism and no-self, that I believed were true. Since then, I have been on a journey to build a spiritual practice and belief system that could replace the void left by the Catholic church.<br><br></div><div>At the moment, here is where my beliefs stand:<br><br></div><div>I hold a monistic view that all of existence is a manifestation of a singular, collective consciousness, which, for convenience, I will call “The One.” The One strives to understand itself through emanations of itself in the forms of conscious beings that include humans, animals, spirits (angels, gods, etc), and even the spark of consciousness contained in plants, bacteria, fungi, and (possibly) inanimate(1) objects. Each emanation acts as an observer of the Universe, bringing reality into existence through their observation.</div><div><br>The One exists as a universal consciousness and its understanding of itself is manifested through the collective beliefs and perceptions of all beings. These beliefs and perceptions give rise to supernatural beings(2), who manifest and exert real power in the material realm, and act as guides for individuals on their spiritual journeys. How this might work(3):<br><br></div><ol><li>The One, trying to understand itself, and as part of its own cognition, stimulated the elements of its own existence to generate the first organic compounds.</li><li>Each step from there, along the evolutionary path, is a further attempt for The One to attempt to grasp its own existence.</li><li>Beings who become self-aware likewise attempt to understand their own existence within The One, and when attempting communion, recognize the non-material forces The One is using to probe itself.</li><li>When a communion takes place, this non-material or incorporeal being becomes a more permanent emanation of The One.</li><li>Therefore, the Spirits exist as a bridge between us and The One. Birthed from us trying to understand our place within The One, and The One trying to understand itself.</li></ol><div><br>The ultimate goal of a spiritual practice is to directly experience The One. Merging fully with the divine fulfills both our goal to understand our place in The One and The One’s goal to understand itself. Practices such as mindfulness, meditation, self-reflection, and religious and magical rituals help cultivate awareness of the self, The One, and provide a means to commune with emanations of The One; preparing the soul for union with the divine.<br><br></div><div>I also believe that living a virtuous life is a necessary part of any spiritual practice. The causal direction of virtue, whether pursuing a spiritual practice leads to virtuous life or leading a virtuous life is a necessary precursor to a meaningful spiritual practice is difficult for me to say. I expect that it is the latter. It is difficult to have an experience of the divine if you aren’t living in harmony with The One. So, my spiritual practice is accompanied by good-faith efforts at humility, compassion, ethical behavior, emotional resilience, and wisdom. And, while I fail daily, I do get better every day and the attempt to live a more virtuous life. I believe this helps to deepen my spiritual practice. It is with this practice that I strive for a direct experience of The One.<br><br>---</div><div><br></div><ol><li>I only call them inanimate for convenience, if they do have a spark of consciousness than they are, in fact, animate.</li><li>Gods, Angels, Demons, etc.</li><li>I am not claiming that this is definitely how it works, this is just an explanation that helps me wrap my head around experiences with non-material beings.</li></ol>
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Jeffrey Bairdjeffreybaird@hey.comtag:world.hey.com,2005:World::Post/205782022-05-03T11:57:52Z2022-05-03T11:57:52ZThe end of Roe vs Wade<div class="trix-content">
<div>I grew up in a very pro-life household. As I moved to the left, abortion was the last of my political beliefs to change. Even after I considered myself firmly pro-choice, I tried to reframe my position as trying to reduce the need for abortions by increasing the availability of LARPs, providing material assistance to expecting parents, and improving sex education. <br><br>Then, Clare decided to go into OB, and I realized just how complex the issue of abortion is. People get abortions for all types of reasons. Sometimes it is economic - they can't afford to raise a child. Sometimes it is personal - they never wanted a child, and birth control failed. Sometimes they desperately wish to have a child but find out that the fetus is incompatible with life (some organ hasn't developed or a genetic abnormality which means the child would have a short, as in minutes, harrowing life). Sometimes they wanted a child, but something went wrong with the pregnancy, and now the pregnant person's life is at risk.<br><br>People who are against abortion sometimes find themselves needing an abortion for any number of reasons. When they do, they claim that their reason for getting an abortion is different. They are against the rest of abortions, where, in their mind, a cruel, heartless woman is murdering their child. The reality, of course, is that very few people use abortions as birth control. Making abortions illegal endangers everyone with a uterus. </div>
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Jeffrey Bairdjeffreybaird@hey.comtag:world.hey.com,2005:World::Post/159772021-10-01T14:18:05Z2021-10-01T14:18:05ZAbolish the Police?<div class="trix-content">
<div><strong>What I Got Wrong About Police Abolition</strong></div><div><br></div><div>If you ask my mom, one thing that made me difficult to raise was my absolute refusal to do what I was told. I feel like I was born with an innate distaste for authority figures. My most consistent political belief has been, "fuck the police."</div><div><br></div><div>Police abolition, therefore, fits my ideological instincts like a glove. But, I am now re-evaluating my position. I haven't changed my moral opposition to the police, and the police haven't done anything to improve my feelings towards them. However, I am convinced that police abolition is a political loser that will be a millstone on the neck of any political body that supports it.</div><div><br></div><div>My arguments for police abolition are still pretty solid, I think:</div><ol><li>The police <a href="https://www.safesmartliving.com/average-police-response-time/">often don't respond</a> to crime promptly.</li><li>The police have a <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/194213/crime-clearance-rate-by-type-in-the-us/">low clearance rate on all crimes</a>, even murder.</li><li>The primary mission of the institution of policing is to protect the property of the ruling class and have <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/489/189">no duty to "protect and serve."</a></li><li>The police <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1948550617711229">disproportionately abuse black and brown people.</a></li><li>Police regularly use their power to oppress and silence any opposition to them or their supporters.</li></ol><div><br></div><div>My change of heart comes from two significant changes to my political thinking. First, the general public responds emotionally and intuitively to political messaging rather than to statistics and data. You can't persuade most people by proving them wrong, especially if the data goes against their intuition. I want to have more faith in people, and I won't pretend that this doesn't enrage me, but I've accepted that I am just wrong.</div><div><br></div><div>The next change regards a focus on material conditions. On the left, there are two main camps, those who advocate for uniting around the improvement of material conditions and those who want to focus on a more identity-based idea of oppression and justice. I always thought both strategies were inseparable. However, I was missing the most crucial part of "material conditions," the feeling of safety. Except for pandemic times, all crime rates have been on a <a href="https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/crime/">steady decline for 30 years</a>. Yet, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/">Americans perceive crime as going up</a> nationally. Opponents to criminal justice reform understand this perception and happily feed it. I don't have any concrete ideas on how to oppose this force. I expect it comes from the ubiquity of national news and the death of local journalism. There will always be something awful happening somewhere with a big enough sample size, fear is a powerful emotion, and powerful emotions keep people watching the news. As long as this distortion of reality maintains its preeminence in the people's minds, radical police reform will be a non-starter politically. Above all else, people want to feel safe in their homes, and even if we are proposing solutions that would make them safer, removing or changing the police makes them <em>feel</em> less secure.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't have good answers here. I think police reform, on the whole, rarely makes any improvement to police behavior. Politically, I think the best bet would probably be to first reduce crime by focusing on poverty, housing insecurity, lead paint and lead pipes, and better support for students with learning disabilities like dyslexia. Next, work on rehabilitation and recidivism. Our prison system focuses on retribution, and the privatization of prisons messes up incentives for rehabilitating prisoners.</div><div><br></div><div>While we address the prison pipeline, hopefully, we can slowly divest the police of certain responsibilities. We could have trained mental-health responders to respond to those in crisis and have traffic enforcement handled by unarmed public safety officers. The money initially allocated to those policing efforts could be shifted into better investigative work to improve violent crime clearance rates. Another reform that may help is to increase the barriers to entry for people entering the police force requiring a four-year degree in criminal justice or legal theories and increase the amount of training needed at police academies. For communities too small to have their own police academies, the federal government could train future officers.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't know if any of those ideas would work, and I haven't given up on thinking about this problem. Unfortunately, I think I was wrong about the solution for which I've been fighting.</div>
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Jeffrey Bairdjeffreybaird@hey.comtag:world.hey.com,2005:World::Post/75052021-03-25T13:10:02Z2021-03-25T13:12:09ZSébastien Cousteau<div class="trix-content">
<div>For some people reading about other people's D&D characters is the most boring activity imaginable. If you are one of those people, please do not read any further. You have been warned 😜.<br><br>One of my (guilty?) pleasures is getting the characters I play in tabletop games drawn by an artist. I see it as a way to both support an artist whose work I appreciate and help to bring that character to life. I love to see the character I am playing, a being born from my imagination, appear on the page. My current character, Sébastien Cousteau, holds a special place in my heart.<br><br>I asked the very talented <a href="https://www.instagram.com/rheyia_art/">Julia</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rheyia_art">Fernandez</a> to bring Sébastien to life and I am thrilled with the results.<br><br> <figure class="attachment attachment--preview attachment--lightboxable attachment--jpg">
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</figure><br><br>I am a die-hard <a href="http://critrole.com">Critical Role</a> fan, and the campaign I am playing in takes place in Matt Mercer's world. And, since I started watching the Critical Role stream, I've felt drawn to the <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Cobalt_Soul">Cobalt Soul </a>monks. They are <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Exandria">Exandria's</a> librarians, literally religiously focused on making knowledge available to all. They also have a secret group of monks called "Expositors" who work to root out corruption wherever they find it. So when I joined this campaign, I knew I had to create a Cobalt Soul monk.<br><br>Sébastien Cousteau was born to Elaine Cousteau in the city of <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Emon">Emon</a> on the <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Calendar_of_Exandria">32nd day of Sydenstar 785 PD</a>. She and her husband, Jean, lived a comfortable middle-class existence. Elaine was 35, and Jean was 28.<br><br>Before Sébastien's birth, Elaine was a student at the <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Alabaster_Lyceum">Alabaster Lyceum</a>. She studied the philosophy of the Arcane and the history of the Age of Arcanum. While Elaine enjoyed the life of the academic, she felt she was missing something in her life. Then, the Lyceum hired a young furniture maker to build a new dining table for their resident hall. Despite being several years her junior, the young craftsmen charmed Elaine. <br><br>Elaine was not a woman of impulse, so her family was stunned when she showed up pregnant at her family's estate to introduce them to her new husband. Her parents welcomed Jean to the family and were thrilled to meet their first grandchild. However, the family's luck ran out. Elaine's parents both took ill not long after Sébastien was born, and neither of them recovered.<br><br>The family used the wealth they inherited from Elaine's parents to set up a small workshop in <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Westruun">Westruun</a>, where Jean built up a renowned furniture-making business. The wealthiest citizens of Exandria fought for the privilege of owning a Cousteau piece. Each wardrobe, desk, table, or chair was a unique work of art designed for the intended recipient.<br><br>When Sébastien was 14, his father discovered that his pieces were being copied and sold by the <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Clasp">Clasp</a> to wealthy <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Marquet">Marquet</a> merchants. These forgeries were harming his reputation as they were of sub-standard quality. He uncovered that his apprentice, Philipe, was recreating his designs and selling them to the Clasp. Jean confronted Philipe about his betrayal, and a struggle ensued. Philipe murdered Jean and fled to <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Wildemount">Wildemount</a>.<br><br>After Jean's murder, a heart-broken Elaine felt the urgent need to leave Emon. She accepted a <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Cobalt_Soul#The_Cobalt_Vault">Cobalt Vault</a> position in <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Vasselheim">Vasselheim</a> to continue her research into the "<a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Exandria#The_Age_of_Arcanum">Age of Arcanum.</a>" Elaine never formally joined the order, but she continued her study with their full support.<br><br>Sébastien had always been bookish, taking after his mother that way, but moving to the Cobalt Vault awakened a new passion in him. He walked the stacks every day, reading whatever he could get his hand on. After a while, he impressed several of the Cobalt Soul monks, who asked if he would like to study with the order officially. That is how, at 17, Sébastien donned the Blue of the Cobalt Soul.<br><br>He took well to martial arts training, but it was not his primary interest. Sébastien, much like his mother, was interested in history. Over the next thirty-three years, Sébastien studied the Calamity. He authored the definitive account on the battles of <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Exandria#Ghor_Dranas">Ghor Dranas</a> as well as augmenting his mother's work on the Age of Arcanum. Mother and son worked side-by-side for decades to learn everything possible about <a href="https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Exandria#The_Calamity">The Calamity.</a> <br><br>Then, at the age of 84, Elaine passed in her sleep; Sébastien was 50. Her death left him lonely and depressed. He suddenly felt an emptiness that no amount of perusing the stacks in the Cobalt Vault could cure. He sensed that he had finished his work in the library. So, Sébastien left Vasselheim and went on a walking retreat through Wildemount.<br><br>If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed the self-indulgence of sharing Sébastien with you!<br><br><br></div>
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Jeffrey Bairdjeffreybaird@hey.comtag:world.hey.com,2005:World::Post/23222021-03-05T01:32:57Z2021-03-05T17:04:57ZNo Self, No Problem<div class="trix-content">
<div>I spent years trying to understand what was wrong with my brain. Why, despite having a wonderful life, was I so miserable? I had a great job, great friends, a supportive family, and the best partner in the world. The only thing I wanted to change was me. And that made me miserable.<br><br>When I spent time with therapists examining what I wanted to change about myself, I struggled to identify what I wanted to change. I liked most of the individual things about myself, just not the collective existence.<br><br>I also felt apart from the world, just out of sync with reality. I felt there was a human experience I couldn't reach. That distance left me alone and adrift.<br><br>When I started meditating, I was desperate. Medicines and ECT kept me from suicidal ruminations, but they didn't put me at ease or generate contentment. I didn't see any immediate improvement, but I decided that I was out of other options. I kept at it. I kept at it for three years before I picked up a book on Buddhism and started to see improvement.<br><br>There are many parts of Buddhist practice that bring me joy, but only one that saved me. The concept of "No Self" rescued me from my distress. After all, if I don't exist, with whom could I be displeased? If nothing separates me from the rest of existence and non-existence, then I could not be alone. The trick, of course, was believing that I didn't exist.<br><br>Accepting that you don't exist may strain your credulity. It may not even be a concept that works for you. But for me, staring at a wall and realizing that there was no "me" to change was a liberation. What was there to worry about when there was no one to whom anything could happen?<br><br>*I took the saying of "No Self, No Problem" from Anam Thubten's book of the same name.</div>
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Jeffrey Bairdjeffreybaird@hey.com