1/17/15
Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey (EWR)
Well my travelling for 2015 has Officially begun, and none too
soon. Before I ring in 2016 in Hong
Kong, my travels will take me all over the Caribbean, to Mexico a few times, to
Sweden and Finland, to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks with my mother (where I will say
“Mainland US Complete”), to my brother’s wedding in Oregon, to Cuba hopefully,
to Africa for the first time, to either Egypt or Iraq (depending on which is
safer), and to China. It will be an
amazing year of travel, and it starts right now with this trip to Belize.
It’s a simple trip, but it’s a necessary
one. Belize is the closest country reachable
by road that I have not visited. I will,
of course, be flying, not driving. It
also has a very a necessary WHS if I want to continue on my goal of visiting
every North American WHS before I’m 30.
Technically, I could do this whole trip with all three pictures. My first Official meal this afternoon, the
WHS tomorrow, and Parliament on Monday.
I will, of course, be taking a lot more than three pictures.
It is the second picture I want to
discuss. The WHS is the Belize Barrier
Reef. It’s not a building or a forest
where I can just drive to, light up a cigar, take a selfie, and have a sip of
water. No, this will be far more
complicated. I have to take a boat out
to the reef for starters. Then, I have
to actually get in the water. Now, that’s
only half the battle. Taking a picture
of me in the Caribbean by the reef would be no different than any other picture
I could take in the Caribbean. No, I
actually have to take a picture of me underwater with the reef in the
background. Okay, but how do I get my
Official cigar and water bottle picture underwater with the reef in the
background? I can’t smoke a cigar
underwater, can I? No, of course not. I’ll actually need two pictures. I’ll need the Official cigar and water bottle
picture either with my head above water or in the boat. We might even be docking on an island. That would make things much easier.
What about that underwater
picture? For that, I need a waterproof
camera. Fortunately, my phone is
water-resistant, my new phone. My old
phone was, as well, but a crucial piece had broken off that sacrificed the
integrity of the water-resistance. Well,
if I hadn’t lost my phone three weeks ago, I’d be in a precarious situation in
re: the underwater photo. Everything
happens for a reason, they say.
Personally, I think it’s a lot of BS.
No, everything doesn’t happen for a reason. You can’t even say that every cloud has a
silver lining. Yes, you can find a
silver lining of most clouds, but not all.
Yes, you can point to the good that comes out of the bad, but that does
not mean it happens for a reason.
I do
not believe in teleology in nature. If
my reader does not know what that means, I encourage him or her to read some
Aristotle. In short, it means that
everything does not happen for a reason, that there is no overarching fate
controlling our universe, that, well, Han Solo said it best. “Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy
to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one
all-powerful Force controlling everything.
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny.”
For that I turn
to the most significant event in my personal life since I returned from my
trip. My readers probably all know what
I mean, so I don’t need to repeat it. I
have gone into enough details about my thoughts and feelings, so there is need
to bring that up, nor will I dredge her name or words through a public blog (a
courtesy that she did not extend to her ex when he broke up with her).
Reader, imagine that sitting next to me on
this flight is the perfect woman.
Someone who meets my every criteria of perfection, whatever definitions
we choose to use, smart, funny, beautiful, some moral/philosophical values,
great chemistry, etc. Suppose that we
hit it off. Now, if I were still in a
relationship, that would be the end of it, a fun conversation for the
flight. Now that I’m single, I would
have my options open and would be free to pursue that relationship.
Okay, so continuing down this hypothetical,
further imagine that we spend time together on the trip, that we start dating
when we get back to New York, that we get married, that we have a perfect life
together. I would be happy, yes. I would say how lucky the timing is. (Cue Ben Kenobi, “In my experience, there is
no such thing as luck.”) All the
positive things that I would say, I would find it patently ridiculous to say
that the reason my previous relationship ended was for that one to begin. “Life is not a song.” No, it doesn’t have convenient plots twists
or scripted moments.
I would it just as
ridiculous for someone to say that the reason that the apple fell on Sir Isaac
Newtown’s famous head was so that he would finish his theory gravity. No, maybe he finished his theory of gravity
because of the apple, but that is an Efficient Cause, not a Final Cause. My group is now boarding, so I will close,
but I will definitely continue on this topic throughout the trip.
Aboard UA 1657, En route EWR-BZE
Okay, so to continue on this thread, this claim that “everything
happens for a reason,” we must further explore what is meant by it. I have previously written about Aristotle’s
four types of causes: material, formal, efficient, final. The material and formal causes, which identify
the substance, are irrelevant to this discussion. It is the efficient and final causes on which
I need to focus.
The apple fell because
of gravity. That is the efficient
cause. The relationship ended because,
well, it doesn’t matter, but I could point to a dozen efficient causes. I lost my cell phone because I was
careless. That is the efficient
cause. Every single effect has an efficient
cause. That is a tautology. Even Hume cannot dispute that, and he
relegates that to a relation of ideas, an analytic truth that can be known a
priori. Kant goes one step further when
he claims that every event has a cause.
The apple, the breakup, the cell phone, they all have an efficient
cause, but that is a synthetic truth. As
Hume would say, it is a matter of fact, not a relation of ideas, something that
cannot be known a priori. Kant says that
we can know certain synthetic truths a priori, though only pertaining to the
appearance of things, not the things in and of themselves.
Alright, enough about transcendental
idealism. I do not think I will get much
argument from my reader if I claim that every event has an efficient
cause. When someone says, “Everything
happens for a reason,” they do not mean “every event has a cause.” They are referring to final causes. When I previously explored final causes, I
believe I was en route to Tokyo, and I discussed how all that matters in life
is what makes you happy. I discussed
“irrational happiness.” I’ll paste in
what I previously wrote:
“By the time I got home, hours after she left, it finally hit me, a
thought that I had not quite been able to articulate. If something makes you happy, but it makes
you happy for an irrational reason, why should you not pursue it? Happiness, not rationality, is the Final Cause
of our existence. Is it possible to have
irrational happiness, or is that a contradiction? It is such a simple question on the surface,
but it is probably the deepest question I have ever asked. It only works from a rationalist
perspective. Someone who does not demand
the highest rational thought of themselves will quickly answer that love or
happiness or emotions cannot always be explained. I reject that answer, and I could only accept
an answer that was based purely on the position that all emotions can be
rationally explained, except for happiness, since happiness is a result of said
emotions.”
I learned my lesson. I pursued
that irrational happiness. Two names
were mentioned that evening at the bar when I discussed irrational happiness. One just broke my heart. The other is practically my best friend right
now, the person whom I text most, the person who gives me all of my movie
recommendations, the person whose name can make me smile every time I see it
pop up on my phone, the person who, with one short text, can brighten the
darkest of moods. More relevant to this
entry, she is the person who, when I told her about the breakup, said that
“everything happens for a reason.”
She
is someone whom I love very dearly, someone who has been my friend for almost
three years, someone whom I respect. I
was not about to reply that I thought it was BS. Instead, I thought about it, grateful for a
friend who said all the right things at the exact right time. She most certainly did not mean that the relationship
ended because of one of the dozen efficient causes that I could pick. No, she meant it in a more teleological
manner. She was implying that there was
some final cause at play. She meant that
I would find someone who was better suited for me, and the process that led to
that future relationship would be the “reason” for the breakup, just as one
might argue that the apple fell so that Newton could finish his theory of
gravity or the reason I lost my phone was so that I could get the new one with the
water-resistance restored for this trip.
These teleological arguments are great, but they suppose one thing. They suppose that there exists a force in
this universe that cannot be explained by the laws of physics. It was my problem with allowing for
libertarian free will. In order to
suppose that we have free will, I could see no way of doing it without positing
the existence of a supernatural deity.
In the end, I came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter, but I liked
the quote from Schopenhauer best. “We
are free to do as desire, but we are not free to will what we desire.”
That said, if I believe that a) free will is not
possible, and b) that no supernatural deity exists, how could I possibly argue
for teleology in nature? How could I
possibly argue that “everything happens for a reason,” beyond what efficient
causes exist. We do not understand
quantum physics and chaos theory well enough to say what may or may not be
truly determined. It is quite possible
that this illusion we call consciousness is nothing more than quantum decisions
occurring in our brain. That the
illusion of free will is simply the neural equivalent of the position of an
electron in an atom. However, just
because we cannot explain all of this does not mean that it is necessarily
controlled by a supernatural deity. It
does not mean “everything happens for a reason.”
Okay, well, this is a Travelogue, and Day 1
of the trip is well underway. After my
movie last night, Raymond came over for some beers and cigars. Not wanting to go back to Brooklyn in the
middle of the night, he crashed on my floor.
I had set an alarm for possibly the first time in months. I didn’t need the alarm. I woke up naturally. I took my shower and got dressed, wearing my
grey Brooks Brothers suit, my blue Persian suit being retired. This suit is not in great shape, so I think I
will probably get a new suit soon. He
left while I was finishing packing, and I caught a taxi to the airport. It is always ridiculously expensive to take a
taxi to Newark, and it was why I hate flying out of Newark. The taxi was even more expensive than when I
took one to Newark from Brooklyn on Thanksgiving. Coming back it is much cheaper, not sure
why.
While I was in the taxi, tried to
solve a bit of a problem. Yes, my phone
is waterproof, but it also heavier than water and will sink to the bottom of
the sea if I let go of it. How would I
solve that problem? Well, my camera has
a strap, and I figured that I could use that strap with the phone’s case. I tried it.
Success. We soon got to the
airport and went through security with no problem. I sat down by the gate to write the first
half of this entry. I got on the plane
and passed almost as soon as we were airborne.
The flight was almost empty, and I planned to find an empty row to sleep
better, but it was like 10 AM Belize time when I woke up, so there was no
point. I was thirsty, hungry, and in
need of coffee.
I pressed my call light. They invited me to come to the back. I really wanted to try the new egg scramble
thing, but they were sold out. All they
had was a ham and cheese sandwich, which already had the mustard on it, and the
snack boxes. Neither of which was an
ideal choice, but I opted for a snack box.
While I considered all of this, they were waiting for me to make my
decision, and I felt like I was in the hot seat. I took my time and opted for one of the snack
boxes. I also got my coffee and my
water. After I was done, I proceeded to
write this entry, which I will now close, as we were almost landing. I will continue on this idea of final causes
throughout the trip, but, for now, I reject the idea that “everything happens
for a reason” as anything other than a tautology applying to efficient causes.
Belize City, Belize
“God brought you here to me,” announced my self-appointed guide for
the next three days. No, it was not
god. It was not fate. It was not destiny. It was a long series of coincidences from the
good headwind we had to the line I chose at immigration to the fact that duty-free
was sold out of cigars. That was what
brought me to him. They were not sold
out of cigars so that I would be assigned to his car. I wound up in his car because they were sold
out of cigars.
Likewise I did not go to
the Tony’s that night in 2012 so that I would make a new friend. I made a new friend because I was there. I was there because I wanted Amanda
Seyfreid’s autograph. She was there
because she wanted to take a picture with Amanda Seyfreid. When she did, I photobombed the picture
because it amused me. Almost three years
later, we’re still good friends. To say
that it was fate or destiny is, in my mind, an abdication of responsibility for
the negative things in your life. That
seems ironic given my earlier statement that I don’t believe free will is
possible.
To solve this, I once more refer my
reader to Kant. Nature is determined
(subject to whatever quantum variations might exist), but that is only for
things in and of themselves. When it
comes to morality, we must assume that free will is possible. However, that only applies to the appearance
of things. We have free will, but it is
determined which option we will choose (subject to quantum variations). That may be a hard egg to swallow, but what
is saying is that just because we were determined to make the choices we did,
we still made those choices, and we must be held accountable for our
choices. To assign any bit of that
responsibility to fate is, I believe, a way of attempting to shirk
responsibility for our actions.
I lost
the phone because of my carelessness.
There is no way around that. To
try and say that it’s for the best is to shirk responsibility for my
carelessness, and that is something I refuse to do. I can point to specific things in the
relationship that I could have done better, but that was not why it ended. However, if the relationship had ended
because I did something wrong, and, a week later, I found someone else, someone
more suitable to me, I would not say that I made the mistakes in the
relationship so that I could find someone better. To do so would be to attempt to escape the
consequences of my actions. No, that is not the view of morality I choose
to accept.
The final cause of my
presence at the Tony’s was to get my Blu-ray cover signed. The Blu-ray is collecting dust in some box on
my floor. The person I met there makes
my phone chirp and brings a smile to my face a dozen times a day. To say that “everything happens for a reason”
is a nice way of finding the good in the bad, but it is simply not true. There are no final causes in nature, so I
reject any attempt to say that the reason something bad happened in your life
was so that some good thing could replace it.
I did not say that to my guide today.
I just smiled and laughed. After
I landed, I was shocked by one thing. It
was a small airport, but it was filled with jumbo jets, all American carriers:
Delta, United, and American. I walked
towards immigration, waited on line a bit, checked duty-free, found out they
were sold out of cigars and did not expect to get any before I flew home, and
got a taxi. I was assigned to the
taxi. I didn’t choose it. I told him my plan for the weekend, and he
insisted he would take me everywhere I needed to go. He knew all my hotels, the restaurants, the
souvenir shops, everything. That was
when he gave me the quote that opened the entry. He would pick me up at the boat place
tomorrow, take me to my hotel in Belmopan, and then bring me back Monday
morning. Perfect.
I checked into my hotel, and I was surprised
how massive the room was. I took my suit
off and prepared to change into civilian clothes. I took off my shoes, but, wait, no flip
flops. Fuck! I forgot to pack them. Oh, well.
I kept my socks on and put my shoes back on after I was in shorts. I went up to the balcony with my laptop,
enjoyed the view, lit up a Cohiba, and proceeded to write this entry, which I
will now close so that I can head towards the restaurants and souvenir shops to
enjoy my time in the city.
“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are.” That is probably the defining quote from the
Harry Potter series. A further
implication of that quote is that through choice we can escape our destiny, but
I have said that I believe in neither destiny nor free will. Isn’t this some kind of contradiction? No, of course not. To continue on my earlier point, we are free
to make our own choices, and we must be held accountable for our actions. The reason is that we have the appearance of
free will, so that is how we must be judged.
I refuse to believe in any kind of value system that shirking the
effects of our choices in exchange for allowing that destiny controls the
outcomes of events. In order to say,
“Everything happens for a reason,” you must also say, “It was not my
fault. I do not take responsibility for
my actions.” But what then does that
even mean? It means that the reason
something happened, such as a lost phone, was something other than my own carelessness. It means that some other force was at
play. It means that the apple fell in
front of Newton because of some force other than gravity. I don’t believe that, and Newton certainly
did not believe that.
My reader is, of course, welcome to his or her own beliefs, but I encourage my reader not to abdicate his our own thoughts and judgments in favor of clichés. If you wish to believe in something, make
sure it is because you truly believe it, not because your parents, your church,
or society told you it’s true.
Alright,
back to the adventures. I was about to
head into town when I closed. I had no
idea what my plan was for the afternoon.
I believe it was around 2:30 PM, which meant I had three hours before
sunset. I packed three cigars and was on
my way. The first place I stopped was
where the water taxis were. In fact,
that was the main area of the city that was open today. With no ship in port, the “tourism village”
was closed. Anna’s Lunch Box was well
reviewed on Tripadvisor, so that’s where I stopped for lunch.
I asked if I could have a cigar outside, and
she brought me an ashtray. I ordered
rice and beans, the national dish, along with fried chicken and a Belikin, the
local beer. I lit up a Flor del Antilles
to go with it. The meal was delicious
and the service exceptional. When she brought
me the check, I assumed it was in American dollars. The price too outrageously low to be in
Belizean dollars. I was wrong. She said it was in Belizean dollars. I gave her a tip of almost 100%, and she
assumed that it was for her being honest about the price. No, it was because the service was great, and
tipping 20% of that small check would have felt very chintzy. She said that she could get me some
Cohibas. I did not trust her ability to
find real Cubans in this tourist area. I
was right. All the cigars were clearly
fakes. They were bad fakes, but that
didn’t stop the hordes of tourists from buying them.
I got my keychain and my flag pin, and I
still had plenty of cigar left, so I headed towards the boat company where I
would be doing my tour tomorrow. I got
there after they had closed, and to continue along the road would have brought
me to a bad neighborhood. I had seen all
of the city I cared to see, so I headed back to the tourist area to finish my
cigar. I got two more beers, one to
drink then, one that I’m drinking now, and headed back to my hotel, finishing
both the cigar and beer en route.
It was
4 PM, I had just eaten, and there was nothing left for me to do in town. What did I do? I’m sure the readers of my entries from Antarctica
will know exactly what I did. I took a
nap. It was 9 PM when I woke up. I could practically hear L---’s voice in my
head, chiding me, “You stay up all night with your friend, in your apartment,
drinking and smoking, and then, when you get to this beautiful country, you
sleep all day. I don’t get you, Steven.” As I heard her voice in my head, I smiled, just the same as I did in Antarctica.
I
was on my own this trip (“I’m alone, but I’m alone and freeeeee!”), so I did
not have to justify my actions to anyone.
This trip is about me. It is the
first trip I have truly just thought about me in eight months. All the trips I took while I was dating left
me preoccupied about my relationship.
The trips I took over the summer were with friends or family. Japan in May was the last time I was truly on
my own, so it is fitting that I am revisiting the themes that I mentioned in
that entry. It is even more fitting how
much my relationships have evolved with the two girls I mentioned to my Ryan
and Dan at the bar that night.
I am very
happy with my life right now, happier than I have been in six weeks, since Thanksgiving. I will enjoy this trip far more than I did my
trip to India. That I know for
sure. It is not because this is a more
enjoyable trip. It is because I am in a
better place in my life than I was six weeks ago. “Everything happens for a reason.” No, the relationship did not end so that I
could enjoy this trip without worrying about anything. To the contrary, I am able to enjoy this trip
because I don’t have to worry about anything, and that is true because the
relationship is over.
Enough about
that. I need to close out this
entry. I threw my shorts back on, and
got a taxi to the Celebrity Restaurant.
I ordered coconut shrimp and coconut fish, along with another beer. I thought that I was getting an appetizer and
an entrée. It was really two entrees,
and I couldn’t finish it. That did not,
however, stop me from getting coconut pie for dessert. I was stuffed. When I got back to the hotel, I rubbed out
the tobacco for my 2008 Christmas pipe, which I last smoked after that fateful
night of playing charades in the Drake. I
grabbed my stuff and headed up to the balcony, where I lit up the pipe and
proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish it
and get some sleep. Oh, and some fun
news. There will be a nationwide power
outage between 7 AM and noon tomorrow.
