In this modern day, everything we do becomes a label to be proud of. From obscure hobbies and internet fads to political allegiances, we gladly shout our opinions from the mountains — or shirts. This blunt, unapologetic hoodie helps make it clear to everyone around you that you’ve got no problem selling out to your ideals. Buy it!

There’s been a flap across the news channels, internet, and other such unreliable sources of late about a proposed tax on sodas and other sugary drinks; President Obama has stated that such is worth exploring, and some states and regions have already begun pushing advertisements for — and against — such a tax. The driving force behind the idea of this tax is the problem of obesity in America, as well as that of diabetes and a slew of other health-related issues that spring up when considering the relatively unhealthy diet of the average American. I’ve read a few things on both sides of the issue, and I think there’s good points to be made on both sides; the problem I have with the debate as it stands isn’t one of whether such items should or shouldn’t be taxed — I’ll touch on that later — it’s in the way that the information and debate is presented: as a health issue.

Now, clearly, the motivations behind wanting to reduce the number of sugary, calorie-high beverages taken in by the average American could very well be part of an overall strategy against obesity, diabetes, and all those other fun little problems that are, frankly, out of control in this country. Of course the issues are related; we recognize that through the studies we do into the effects of the chemicals we put in these things, through health warnings and public awareness efforts, through supplying healthier alternatives at schools and other public functions. But what’s really going on here, it seems to me, is that the government is looking for another way to scratch up some cash — and who can blame them? The economy is still reeling from the recent crisis, and spending is still out of control on a national level. If they were to put forth this exact same proposed tax, but rebrand it as a ‘luxury tax’ or ‘vice tax’ (see examples in alcohol and tobacco products), I’d be full-on behind it. I don’t drink many of the things that’d be effected, so a slight increase in cost on those items isn’t going to negatively impact me in such a way that there’s any reason for me not to — and I definitely consider those items to be luxury/vice items. They’re things that nobody has ever needed in the history of humanity. It’s impossible to need them.

But they’re pushing it as a health initiative — and that, my friends, sets a dangerous precedent. By calling it that, what they’re saying is, “The American populace is too stupid to know that these are bad for them, so we should take them away.” They’re claiming to know better than we do what it is that we want, or, at the very least, admitting that they feel that we should pay extra to indulge in unhealthy habits. But they’re also playing on the examples I listed above, alcohol and tobacco tax. How? Simple: both of those items, despite ever-increasing taxes, despite multitudinous efforts on the part of local, state, and federal government awareness programs, despite the threat of even higher taxes on these items … they still sell. The government is banking on the fact that Americans won’t stop buying these products just because they’re unhealthy, or more costly than they used to be. They’re generating a false public image — ‘We care about your health!’ — in order to promote a largely symbolic means to generate the cash that they’re so in need of.

I’ve got no problem with the tax, directly. I’ve got no problem with wanting to promote good health in anyone, or with the government finding new ways to line their coffers. None of that bothers me in the least; I do, however, abhor being lied to through advertisements. I hate entities who use deception and feel-good phrases to win over the public opinion despite a bald-faced attempt at fleecing the very same public who’s support they depend upon — companies, governments, or any other entity. In short, if anyone associated to the Obama administration happens across this, please, apply a luxury tax to these items. We know you need the money. I’m willing to pay my part of it. But please, for the sake of all of us who’d like to keep being your supporters, don’t lie to us about the reasons and hide behind the guise of “for the public good”. That’s downright Orwellian.

Any other thoughts on this tax?

A friend asked me recently, rhetorically he says, “Is there more to marriage than carnal relations?” This was entirely out of the blue, and really got me thinking. I’ve got some relatively firm beliefs on marriage, myself, and what it should represent, but I’m sure we all know that my idealized version of existence rarely has anything to do with the way things really are. So, I set to probing more deeply in my mind to dredge up some answers.

First and foremost, I think, it is important to separate marriage from itself. That is, that the bond between two people and the legal paperwork which represents the societal benefits and obligations should be abstracted from one another entirely; people can be married on paper without being devoted to one another, and people can be devoted to one another in the absence of paperwork. I would argue that, despite the legal classification and ability to file taxes together, paperwork-marriage is simply a gesture that is meant to represent a trust formed between two bodies who wish to, for all intents and purposes, be joined. It is a very nice gesture, but ultimately, I think, relatively unimportant. Being married on paper does not make one husband and wife, but rather, solidifies the intent to behave as such in the eyes of the State, like a public announcement of these individual’s intentions with one another. Beyond the feel-good metaphor for a joining of things, this paperwork represents a cold bureaucrat’s view of what it is to be married; the legal definition being a binary ‘Yes/No’ option wherein certain obligations and opportunities exist within the societal structure based upon that value. It removes all emotion, attempting to replace it with the calculated acuity of a hundred generations of joy-killing desk jockeys bent on ensuring the solidity and legal plausibility of the contract that is signed to represent that.

Then, of course, there is the other side; the loving devotion, the emotional side, the true “bond” that exists between two people, all legality aside. There is more here than I can readily describe, but the basic premise of it is that when two people are truly married in this sense, it means they are wholly dedicated to a lifetime together. There’s no half-in, no prenuptial agreements, no regard for what the state will or will not allow — those things are all tangential to a pair that is honestly enamored with one another, and damned be the consequences for any who would get in the way of this kind of union. Just as the paperwork-married can use their shared status to protect themselves in a legal fashion, so will those bound only by their desire defend themselves against other forms of assault, their strength together driven beyond that which either would be capable of alone.

All that said, though, I’ve still carefully dodged the task of defining marriage except to touch on two possible meanings. Without that term further defined, I can’t rightly weigh in on any benefits or expectations thereof — and that’s the real rub. I’ve been married twice now (still happily on round two), and so my viewpoint is somewhat skewed; personally, I believe that the state-run institution of marriage should be abolished. Remove the term “marriage” – one spawned from religious ceremony and tied to the moralistic ethos of the ruling elite of the day — from the books entirely, and recreate it as something new. Allow the benefits to anyone wishing to join themselves thusly in a civil union (for that, truly, is all the paperwork represents), and leave the emotional side estranged from it. Not only does the icy banality of the government forms steal the warmth of what a marriage, and a wedding, should be about, but it strives to choke out all the best parts of a true marriage by trivializing them in the media, escalating divorce rates, and general flagrant disregard for the concepts from which the tradition itself is borrowed.

Marriage today seems to be less about the idea of forming a lifelong bond, but about signing away some measure of rights so as to gain additional rights afforded those willing to take the plunge. It’s become a thing of fad, where people get married within the first few months of a relationship because “they know he’s the one” or it “just feels right” — before they even have a chance to experience living with this person, or coming face to face with the fights that are bound to come up. No marriage can exist without some conflict; people will naturally find things about each other which they find disagreeable, and wish to change — even when this is denied, it can become a festering thing which eats away at one or the other over time, until the last straw causes such a schism between the two that there is no chance for reconciliation. The popular dichotomy, though, seems to sway towards one extreme or the other — that marriage is either an unlivable hell dominated by servitude to the other partner, or that marriage is a blissful, perfect serenity which is unblemished by such foul things as disagreements or personal strife.

But it’s neither of those things; it is also both of them. So, I can only ultimately conclude that marriage, by whatever definition you may choose to apply that term, is about one thing: Compromise. It is about being willing to forego your own prejudices, about overcoming your fears or doubts, about conquering the unknown. It is about achieving a happiness unlike any you have known, and it is about a struggle against the worst of all things that can befall a person. It is about learning everything about your partner, and everything about yourself. It is selfless and greedy, reserved and lustful, satiated and voracious. It is a reconciliation of the highest emotions and the lowest, of the soul and the state, of the flesh and the mind. It’s about exploring the boundaries of logic and reason, and casting them to the breeze in an instant, indulgent and calculated. In short, it’s the best and worst of all things within the human experience.

And that’s just the first year …

I read an article yesterday about the Federal Reserve placing limits on the amount of compensation bank executives can receive from their work. It was broken into two parts, first talking about upward limits on bank executives working for companies that received TARP funds, and then upward limits on every other bank. It was an opinion piece, so I went looking for something a little more solid to write this here post on. Unfortunately, the material I’ve found has all been biased in partisan ways and I can’t seem to find anything reliable to point at that gives the numbers I saw for non-TARP bank limits. I found enough to lend credibility to the idea that the Federal Reserve is now capping how much a bank executive can make, but nothing strong enough for me to cite here.

I was upset when I read that article, thinking about how the incentive then would be for those executives to move their operations overseas, most likely to the EU. I got myself all riled up to rail against the idea here. Part of that process involves breaking things down in a way that someone who isn’t absolutely fascinated by finance and economics could understand my point. I try to ask myself questions that I would expect to be asked by readers.

In running down the consequences to this declaration by the Fed, I came up with a long list of reasons those executives would leave… but the TARP-receiving financial firms have been under these limits for some time. Many of their executives have left, yet not a single one of them cited dissatisfaction with their pay. So my entire post lost steam as all the evidence began to contradict my original thesis.

But then there was that phase of predicting questions I expect to be asked. One of those questions was “Why should we care if bank executives can’t make more than, say, $500,000 per year? I’m a poor college kid who doesn’t make two percent of that.” I started thinking about that fact instead.

How willing are we to disregard our beliefs if the group targeted by a policy that runs counter to our ideals doesn’t include us? In general, Americans believe that the government should limit its involvement in the running of private enterprise. Which side of the spectrum you’re on will determine how high that “acceptable” limit goes. Yet I know some people who identify themselves as good solid Libertarians who couldn’t give a two shakes of a rat’s tail less that the Federal Reserve is setting caps on how much bank executives can be paid.

“Why should I care, I’m not them.” It’s a common mantra all of us fall prey to at different times. After all, most of us don’t live in a world where we can comprehend being “limited” to only receiving $500,000 a year. Yet every time I hear that, I hear something else in the back of my head: “First they came for the bankers, and I did not speak out– because I was not a banker.”

Whatever your political leanings, don’t you think that, perhaps, your ideology should be applied across the board, and not only when it benefits yourself?

Happiness.

There are not many more evocative words in the English language than the above. It is simultaneously simplistic in concept and impossible to define; it is used often and sought after even moreso, from the everyday “I’m happy to see you” to the ever-elusive “I wish I was happy” on through the derisive “I hope you’re happy”. We use the very idea of it as a weapon, as a motivational tool, as a benchmark for where our lives should be as compared to where they are. We always know it’s right around the corner, and yet, so far from grasp that we sometimes wonder if we’ve ever even understood the most rudimentary elements of it. It is universal, spanning aeons, cultures, counter-cultures. Soviet-era patriotic duty. Free love. The egress to the New World, to the West, to the mall — all in pursuit of this same ideal, the same desire for completion of self, of satisfaction with existence.

Buddhism teaches that the root of all suffering is desire; that the thing which prevents our attaining that perfect happiness is, frankly, our want for that happiness, from which springs our inability to attain it simply through a driving need to have it. This reflects into material substitution — if I could have that car, I would be happy. That new job. That raise I’ve been working for. Another child to care for. We manifest desire in every aspect of our lives because it is so clear to us, at any given moment, that the missing piece to our extended temporal puzzle is within our grasp and yet ephemeral, dependent on outside factors that we cannot control; by this mechanism, we release ourselves from personal responsibility to our own feelings. We create a labyrinthine system of checks and balances within our own psyche, forging a complex web of why exactly we know that happiness should be within our reach while at the same time excusing the fact that we haven’t yet tasted it — forgetting, perhaps, that we have, and that the hunger we know is not the result of some innate voracity, but founded on the principles of our own experience.

The key to recognizing our own happiness, I think, is the separation of ‘desire’ from ‘require’. We assume that things which would help us be happy, attainable or otherwise, are necessary components to that happiness — that without them, we are incomplete, and thereby unhappy. We forego (and forget) the accomplishments we’ve amassed on the path so far, eschewing what we thought would make us happy for whatever newer, shinier version of our idealised emergence is on the horizon. With this trend set into us from an early age, with the assistance of media blitz, schoolyard one-upmanship, and a natural competitive drive, we create a system in which our happiness is, by definition, forever beyond the furthest reaches of our attempts. Through breaking ourselves of this cycle and grouping our desires into a recognized category of such, we become more aware of what we’ve done to be where we are — we are more able to appreciate what we have while still recognizing that there is still more that we may want, but do not need.

By this simple breaking of the inlaid categorization (see Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), we can establish attainable goals, separate from loftier ideals, and separate from prior victories giving us our present happiness. We begin to recognize that achieving happiness and increasing happiness are not the same thing; that we can be happy while pursuing things to make us more happy. It is not a black-and-white comparison, stark and cold, but a gradient effluence of endless satisfaction which can flow greater, flow stronger, and be none the less for its capacity to grow. As we would consider a sapling growing into a great oak over time, so can we see our own fulfillment grow and mature into something greater than it could be — but the infant tree is not made nonexistent by its youth, rather, it is rendered all the more important as a necessary component to the nearly endless potential bursting from its verdancy with each rise and fall of the seasons.

And like this tree, so too are our whims of emotion subject to tides and time and seasons. Events may wither our joy, but it is important to remember it for what it was, that when the light shines upon us again we can feel the warmth and expand upon a history of extant satisfaction. It may wither, but it need not die. Though the frost scours the leaves from its branches, the tree renews itself; it does not shrink, nor lose its capacity to remain beautiful — rather, it spawns new growth, new life from that which was culled, becoming something more than it ever had the ability to be upon the point of its brush with winter. As we feel our own emotions fall, so too should we recall that we have only greater things to attain from the lessons we learn by this crucible. So, too, may we grow with each season, that our souls may stand firm through all things which would weather us. So, too, are we able to be renewed not just to a state once known, but to heights unreachable without the apparent setbacks which brought us to where we are.

So, what is the point of this little ramble? Some might say that it is encouragement, that I am telling you to be happy. Some might say it’s a needless treatise on etheric concepts which has no real meaning. For my part, I do it simply so that someone reading it may realise that they are happier than they thought, despite all trials and tribulations.

When was the last time you faced yourself in the introspective mirror of the mind, and felt happiness?