The Rich Coast

After an eventful departure from San Juan del Sur, I find myself sitting on a beautiful balcony overlooking the pacific. I might add that this is a private view that I really shouldn’t be able to afford, but I should also note that we have had a good stroke of luck since we have crossed the border. The actual crossing itself was a real bitch, you understand of course. Nobody likes to walk with a 40 pound pack hundreds of meters in swallz and swass inducing heat only to wait in line for hours to have the ever elusive, much sought after, yet as Barnes noted, overrated stamp in the passport. We are not in the business of stamp collecting, however, we are in the business of crossing borders, which I suppose makes us stamp collectors whether we like it or not. This (obviously) has nothing to do with my current view so let me continue.

After (crushing) drinking a tall boy each, Barnes, old iron paws and myself have a quick fat kid session on some delicious coconut crackers and a crumbly yet scrumptious can of Pringles originals. This comes to a total of $10 which totally shocks me after having come through Nicaragua, the land of great surf, annoying taxi drivers (is this a reoccurring theme throughout the world?) and cheap everything. But wonder of wonders I saw a goose laying a golden egg and snatched it up with the pair of needle nose pliers I had hanging around my neck for such purposes as this (and tightening the lug nuts on the undercarriage of my imaginary dog sled). As is turns out I was day dreaming.

What I actually saw was a free ride in the form of our two American friends we had surfed with the previous day. Lets call them smoky and shades. Smoky was driving, shades was fiddling with the ipod and cursing a lot. Not in a profane way, more in the way that people who work on construction sites are prone to talking like. “So where are you guys from? Fucking Vancouver, fuck. I’ve always wanted to go there, big fucking dream of mine. Fucking good surf huh?” and so on and so forth. Smoky was (of course) chain smoking the way that cops did in any movie made pre 1998. In addition he was testing the limits of the handling on his recently purchased Kia pickup as we were sitting in the back, holding on for dear life and also thanking our lucky stars (the goose) for this golden egg. They took us all the way to Liberia where we missed our bus in favour of a whopper from BK. Another fat kid session.

Upon arrival to Tamarindo via the worst bus ride I’ve ever had, not because the actual ride was bad or the bus, it was actually a nice enough bus and only a 2.5 hour trip. It was terrible because the bus driver was incredibly incompetent, missed 4 turns and spent about as much time in reverse as in drive. Essentially I wanted to knock him out (or worse) and commandeer the vehicle just so the poor passengers could make it home for dinner, or the latest episode of the Mexican soap starring the Spanish equivalent of the young and the restless.

So, Tamarindo. Nice enough town, kinda resorty/touristy, but we are tourists and probably would be in the resorts if we were not so poor. Once again lady luck blew me a kiss, this one by the name of Steely Dan. Steely built and rents a 4 suite structure with a pool and fountain on the highest hill in the town, about a 5 minute walk from the beach with a million dollar view. He also charges $10 a night and is a huge beauty. He gave us tips like, do whatever you want…at your own risk (of course), or sometimes I see topless women at that end of the beach, or make sure you put hydrogen peroxide in your ears after you swim near the river, don’t want an ear infection. In general he’s a really great guy. And that is how I ended up watching the sun set over the pacific in all its glory while enjoying the fresh and salty breeze with the romantic companionship of hungry and smelly.

The Long Road through Purgatory

When doing this sort of organic, fly by the seat of your pants traveling you really need to have a full time team of videographers in order to catch all of the mundane events which in themselves make up the great adventure that I have embarked upon.

By saying that we have been through purgatory is really an understatement. It is difficult to know where to begin (as many would find it so) when the obstacles that have been overcome in the past 72 hours have been both many and formidable. Barnes and I have about 10 days until we have to collect Henderson from the Managua airport and begin our journey within a journey, so upon the recommendations of several people at the hostel in Managua we decided to spend our time in the Corn islands in the Caribbean Sea but still belonging to Nicaragua. Now that we have arrived and are literally in tropical paradise, as far as I can tell, the trip has been worth it. However, there have been many trials or our traveling relationship in this first short time.

Leaving Managua itself was a mission since we decided to walk across the city to the bus stop which turned out to be a hell of a lot farther than we anticipated looking and the small map that fit neatly into a pocket. Well that would have been if Brett had ever handled a map before but it appeared that he hadn’t and so he ripped the shit out of it within the first 10 minutes.

So after walking the length of the city and stopping for a DELICIOUS lunch at one of the cities 4 markets we finally got to the bus station as it was getting dark. If I may digress I should note that while I will eat many things (because I am a major fat kid at heart), I am pretty particular in the way my food is prepared. So generally eating food out of warming trays in poorly lit markets near closing time is not ideal for me, especially when everyone back home says, don’t eat the food , don’t drink the water, don’t smile at anyone they might rob you. Well that is of course a wad of bullshit. You have to eat the food because not only is it the only food available but it is so damn good you would be crazy not to, also the water is necessary to drink because as living organisms we need to drink the water, and smiling just polite. Living with the fear mentality of something going wrong is just not a place that I want to be in whether it is back home or on the road in Nicaragua. So I’ve been eating and drinking whatever is put in front of me and the only time I’ve complained is when Brett bought a completely crushed banana and bade me to enjoy it, and also the time he cut an orange on the lobster traps then gave it to me, but that is another story all together.

After yet another broken Spanish conversation we induced that the bus was leaving at 21:00 sharp and we had better be there or wait until tomorrow. Well as it turns out, despite what you may have been led to believe from the MasterCard commercials on TV around world cup time, for everything else there is CASH! Not MasterCard. In fact there are many places outside of the “first world” where MC and VISA are not accepted. This bus station was one of those joints. Logically we needed to find a bank machine at 6pm that was not only open but accepted our cards, which turned out to be a trying task. As it would happen, lady luck was smiling down upon us from above that dusky and smoggy sky. So we ended up on a bus that would be probably the most uncomfortable seating either of us had ever encountered in the civilized world. The only worse seating I could image would be no seating at all for 11 hours. However, it was not 11 hours that we needed the seats for because as soon as we were sufficiently into the Nicaraguan jungle, which is RIDDLED WITH JAGUARS, and encountered a hill of sorts, the bus died. Le bus el muerte…si. so in the dead of night in the middle of the jungle we pile out of the bus and after a brief march down the highway we lie down and wait for help.

This is not exactly a situation you want to find yourself in if you are in dire need or any sort of help. And I mean any sort. Let’s say you are encountering a case of appendicitis, or perhaps you are giving birth, maybe your arch nemesis Eduardo Degas Cristobel Sanchez has arrived. Any of the previous things happen to you and you are experiencing that alone (except for the other 49 people on the bus) in the jungle. Well we took our time enjoying life and listening to the crazy insects that must have been at least 2 feet long to make that kind of noise for two hours while the backup bus came. But what a perfect storm that turned out to be! The new bus was PIMP. That means the nicest bus you’ve ever seen…in Nicaragua.

By the time we arrives in Bluefield’s it was after a 6am arrival in Rama and a 2 hour panga ride down the river in what appeared to be a life and death struggle between the driver and the multitude of logs, deadheads and other assortments of floating dangers. The driver was clearly a pro because we did that whole ride “hammer down” as fast as the 200 horses would take us.

Bluefields may be described as having a seedy underbelly in lonely planet but the first thing you see when you get there off the panga is the seediest part which kind of makes you want to store your gear ASAP and take a shower. We decided to stay in El Bluff instead which turned out to be a great time. There we stayed in a hotel that was run in the daytime by George. George is almost 80, has many grandchildren due to the plethora of children he sired around the Caribbean and other parts of the world when he spent 17 years working on freighters. He has been all over the world several times. Here we also met up with some other gringos on the road to the Promised Land. Juan-Lu, Anna, Dana and Katie. Together with them we secured a ride with a lobster fisherman from Honduras who was making the trip to Big Corn the following morning.

Brett and I then slept in our tent on the beach for the first time in what was most assuredly my worst camping experience ever. We were a three course meal for the several million sand flies that inhabit the beach and since we had not brought down and insect repellent we were like fish in a barrel. The tent kept them out but since they were so small and vicious, many of them came into the tent on us as we scrambled for safety.

However, the boat ride that was free made up for the previous night’s disaster as we were treated to an excellent fried chicken lunch and a lot of fun with the crew which included one armed push up competitions and reshooting the Nivea commercial with Johnson & Johnson’s liquid dish soap – WORKS FOR ME!

Little Corn island was worth the entire ordeal and then some. We were (not surprisingly) astonished at the natural beauty of the place. To say that a picture is worth a thousand words while being clique is sometimes, but not always, right. If it were in this case I would have just bought 10 postcards and enjoyed the visual essay, but there is no way that a picture can describe this island. I just read a great line in Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance which speaks about ruining the prairies as soon as you put a border around them whether it is a windshield or a photograph. That is similar to trying to describe a tropical paradise if you’ve never felt 30C water that is so clear that you can forget its tangible, perfect palms lining the white sand and a climate that dictates not only the weather but the way that the people here live. Most of the little island is supplied with Pan de coco by a lady that must have baked at least 230,010 loaves of bread in her lifetime. The recipe to this bread is not written down anywhere. The wooden table she made the bread on was so permeated with the delicious ingredients that you could probably throw it in the oven at 375F for 30 minutes then eat it with a little butter.

There is nothing like going out in a 6 foot canoe with a local and catching 13 tropical reef fish then having his wife cook them for you for dinner the next two days for free. Cracking open coconuts when you feel thirsty and drinking $1 beers that are so ice cold the condensation that instantly forms on them could turn the Mojave into an oasis.

In actuality, the fishing trip was the best fishing experience I’ve ever had (but it was also nearly the biggest disaster of the trip to date.) as it happens Brett has zero balance, which may or may not be fact but he was sitting behind me and since I couldn’t see him I assumed that is was him who caused every tremor in the miniscule boat that was on the perpetual verge of capsizing. The truth of the matter is that we were probably 507 lbs over the capacity of that watercraft and I happen to get very into the fishing experience and thus probably caused 85-93% of the tipsiness but I still blamed it on Barnes.

Another interesting thing about Nicaragua is that the ruling class here is not a political party, its crabs. This is the situation. The situation is this: we are in crab planet. The crabs run everything here from the power that they shut off several hours a day to keep the people on their toes and to remind them of the natural balance of power. They control the water, they have the beaches and if you try to do anything about it they will mess you up. I picked one up and he stabbed his needle sharp razor claw right into my hand and carved that shit up like butter. After screaming bloody murder and heinous curses at the sky I did the only thing a blue blooded Canadian would do, I curb stopped that little punta and ended his pathetic garbage eating life. After that it was a state of unmitigated warfare between us and the crabs. They ended up in our bags in the cabana, in the shower, the bathroom, and then on my plate because when pushed too far Brett and I snapped. We went ape shit on the biggest bastards we could find and ended up with 13 behemoths in a burlap sack.

Now I’m not naturally violent but I will eat you (literally) if you push me too far, and Lord knows I love to eat. So we ripped the claws with off those little pricks, crushed their bodies in our powerful hands and after a thorough cleaning cooked up the second best crab feast I’ve ever had with coconut milk that we machete hacked out of some, ya that’s right, coconuts.

 

Diving was an incredible experience. Would have loved to have Mark or Sasha with me (or both) but Esta la vida and my instructor Josh was a really rad guy from Bristol and I’m now an official member of the PADI community. If you ever want to talk dive culture I’m there for you. That’s all I have to say about that.

 

We were in agreement that the ride to get to corn island was (almost) the worst this either of us have ever done. The (actual) worst was when we sanded the bottom of Gerry Heys sailboat and looked like the smurfs for the next 3 weeks and took 3 years off our life expectancy in the course of an afternoon. SO, it was no big deal to pony up for the $106 flight back to Managua to meet up with the biggest, hungriest man I know who has (oddly) small hands and feet. He’s (like) a Carney but he doesn’t smell like cabbages.

The flight was only 1 hour compared to 3 days of backpackers hell and maybe (but not) the best decision I have ever made.

By now it is the 11^th and I’ve coincidentally been gone for 11 days. It was so good to see Mark get off the plane and to have the three musketeers back together again. We went from Managua straight to Grenada that evening and got there around 9pm. After a quick check into the Bearded Monkey we were due for the biggest night we have ever had together in Nicaragua…ever. It was Jeans Night and by all standards things were going to escalate fast. Needless to say, they did. We met up with our Kiwi friends Adam and Shane and proceeded to have what has become a typical Jeans Night. No one died or got arrested and that is all that I’m really legally (or otherwise) obligated to say.

Grenada is actually a really cool colonial town from the days of Spanish domination. The homes and all the buildings really are large with 20 foot ceilings and open to the air quad courtyards in the centre. Very cool.

One of the next day/nights was spent at a hostel on laguna de Apollo called the monkey hut. There were no monkeys. But that was of little to no consequence. Yes I am a nature enthusiast. The location this hostel was in felt like the set from Brendan Fraser’s newest (terrible) movie based on the Vern classic Journey to the centre of the earth. The reason I saw it in the first place was because it is a 3D movie and Claire really wanted to see it, I have better taste than that (to be fair it was ok entertainment, but I’d never admit that publicly). Being in that crater felt like there was nothing else in the world beyond that ridge. This is not a metaphor. It was just wild to look across the lake to where the horizon should be but there is a perfectly uniform ridge then empty sky. If you never left that crater one could honestly believe that, well I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore, back to the story.

From there we ended up here which is (obviously) where I am now. That is San Juan del Sur. San Juan is a wicked surf town on the Southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Here I have spent the last three days experiencing rain fall that would have made Noah pull out the blue prints for the Ark II. While God promised that he would never cover the earth in a flood again he said nor implied nothing that prevented the next closest thing. Which is (of course) the Nicaraguan rainy season. Apparently all of Central America – particularly Nicaragua, Honduras, and Belize, but also including Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico and whoever else (El Salvador, thank you Paul) – is experiencing what in the state of Texas would be classified as an Orange alert terrorist attack from Thor and whoever the god of rain is. Vancouver is a particularly rainy spot but if we had rain like this there would be no roads left and all the slope eyes in Richmond would be making Michael Phelps look like he was wearing water wings. And the Chinese can’t even doggy paddle!

We stayed one night at a Playa who’s name sounds like Madras (but was Maderas), but I think that’s in India. We swam there and body surfed because the onshore wind was making surf conditions the aquatic equivalent of the kind of poop you take that leaves you completely unsatisfied. Because even though you are baking a salmon, you feel like it came too fast through the tract and didn’t have time to solidify into something respectful to be proud of and just leaves you with a mess.  The waves are big enough to surf, at least 6 foot faces but they crashed was too fast to make it worthwhile.

Celebrities in the city

Upon arriving to Mexico city I was greeted with a “nice hat Noble” from the one and only Brett “Chad Barnes” Logan, which was not only a great surprise but also long overdue reunion of two kindred spirits. And when I say that term kindred I mean it not in the way that they use it in Anne of Green gables…well actually in the very same way, but I want to make sure that there is a distinct difference between the two references. Because the type of spirit that B$ and I share is not at all suitable for the type of audience that Anne attracts. We are raw, uncensored and often absurdly spontaneous. Which leads me into the perfect segue for what I wanted to write about in the first place.

Landing in Nicaragua was like landing in the jungle. The tarmac was short and there were no discernable buildings on anything more substantial that corrugated steel boxes and lean-tos. After clearing customs easier than coming home to Canada we caught a taxi to the hostel. Food was the first order of business after changing to adapt to the 30C weather with humidity levels that only the tropics can boast. Brett and I decided that a walkabout was in order even though thunder had been kneading the skies above us for the past few hours. The clouds were becoming thicker and more ominous but we were not deterred in the slightest from our goal of exploring the city. After doing a shop and finishing s six pack we were ready to hit the street which was an interesting process in itself. The directions we received to a supposed Laguna in the middle of the city were shoddy at best, yet spirits could not be dampened.

 After forgetting the directions after the first turn we decided to head only up and base every turn onto a new street on the incline. Needless to say, we did not find the Laguna but did get caught in the wildest tropical storm I’ve been in since Nam. Well under normal circumstances this is where the proverbial shit may have hit the metaphorical fan but we were dressed for the occasion, which is to say that we were free ballin’ due to the humidity and wearing light footwear.

The next sequence of actions made us the biggest, whitest celebrities in Nicaragua. We took of our shirts and enjoyed the torrential downpour like a bunch of Africans in the Sahara. The momentary novelty turned into full-time river wading and made us the Nicaraguan equivalent of Victoria Secret runway models; we were the most watched people on the streets and two lanky tall gringos rolled on as buckets fell on us until heaven tired of bailing out the sinking skies.

Bed

Sleeping in a bed is decidedly far better than not. There are many other places that not could be referring to, but in this case I am referring to the cement at Harbour Green Park in Coal Harbour Vancouver. The why, is a rather convoluted tale of revelry and bittersweet goodbye’s. The who is of course Salvatore P. The when is last Thursday night? And the how is by foot and possibly other methods of transporting oneself but really I’m just as in the dark about this one as you are.

When I finally did track down Sal – which of course is not his real name but that is another reason to write this blog – I was overcome with mirth as I had been the entire walk down Jervis and Pendrell to Delaney’s on Denman and I laughed out loud. What else was there to do? Looking like a fashionable homeless person with a bonsai garden attached rudimentarily to his back with a piece of ABC chewing gum, I simply let my head roll back under the weight of the previous nights nourishment – if you can call it that – and let out a deep belly laugh that said I am truly at peace with the world and quite exasperated as I sought for the mental key to unlock this latest of self inflicted Sudoku puzzles. Alas the answer has yet to be found, as have a few personal affects. But after a quick B&E with the help of the local painters, a rescue mission to Buster’s impound lot, a shot of gastrolyte, and a Daniel and a few high fives, everything seemed ready to return to normal. Perhaps everything had remained normal and I had been in a bizarre time warp dimension with Sal for the past 12 hours. Judging from the appearance of my derelict white v-neck the next day post wash – decidedly not.

RVYC

I am tempted to start my book here. There is no specific reason why, rather there have been a number of events in my life of late that have caused me to want to write…HARD. These events have been unconnected except for the single uniting factor, which is that they happened to me. Let me begin.

Last Wednesday I undertook that I sincerely hope will become a regular occurrence for me. After finishing work early I showered and donned the maroon polo shirt that I had purchased for this exact occasion.  I was determined to go sailing and learn the ropes (literally) before the world wide Daniel tour began in September. Wednesday s at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, there are races and I had prepared myself in two ways: one was the afore mentioned polo shirt that Brett would have made sure I knew how poor of a purchase he thought it was had it not been for this exact purpose; and two was the acquisition of a six pack the night before which I had on ice. A more experienced sailor, of which there are many since I had none, told me that it takes one of three things to get on a sail boat: experience, boobs, or beer. Going O for 2 I had no choice but to stock up on the elixir of life.
                Walking down the wharf at the Royal Van I was experiencing an array of emotions that I had not felt in years. It was the uncomfortable feeling of being truly nervous. I think the last time I felt like that was my first kiss or maybe even sooner. Never before can I recall the dread of not being picked. I did have what seemed to be the essentials for sailing. A fit body, a pulse, common sense above average if I may be so bold, and a case of beer, yet there was this deep upwelling of nervous emotion that forced me to fight to keep composure.
                Just as I was about to dash for a boat and stow myself on board I heard a whistle that caught my attention. It was not the kind of cat call I am used to getting from 40-something single mom’s when I wear my Turkish made Speedo on the beach. This was the “your attention is needed” kind of whistle. As I scanned for the source my eyes came across the most welcome sight I have ever seen – a friendly gesture that I was needed to help crew the boat. The walk down seemed like one of the longest of my life as the crew doubtlessly eyed me up possibly reconsidering why they had chosen a jack-knob wearing a maroon polo to help them glide to victory. However, once I arrived on the scene the crew turned out to be helpful, friendly, and quite knowledgeable about sailing. That first race I was rail bait and hoisted the spinnaker with all my gusto when the time came at each leg. My sailing knowledge increased moderately, but I received a passing grade in the form of a return invite and overcame the first major obstacle in completing a significant leg of the journey by boat – myself.

What more Can I say?

There are some things that I would love the general public to know about me, but of course they are not nor ever will be steady readers of my blog, the truth is that I am writing for myself and family. Then sometimes I think why don’t I just tell them and save everyone the agony of reading fine print on an off coloured background? The reason of course is that on some level, even though I don’t actually want this, I am seeking immortality, or maybe better put: the ability to have my memories made incorruptable and everclear (a new word not the band). This is the (see also: my) main reason for writing a blog, that and the simple satisfaction that we humans get out of writing. If you have ever written something other than a school paper that you were being forced into you would realize that writing is an incredible outlet for the intellect of what we can often and sometimes regularly, not express in words for some reason or another. And with that brief interlude, I will very shortly relate some of my most recent adventures.

 

-JN

4 day weekends

There is nothing better than taking a four day weekend when the rest of civilization - or at least the part that is employed 9 to 5 - is not. I’m on day two. I sincerely believe that Vancouver is the most incredible place to live in the world that I have seen so far. I don’t care about other cities having better night life or shopping, I’m talking about living not consuming. Vancouver has unparalleled natural beauty and I cannot get over the air quality. Ottawa was nice and crisp but here it is so fresh. There is something  magical about springtime, flowering trees and the sun casting slightly elongated rays on the earth as it climbs ever Northward seeking its annual zenith. I’m not entirely sure if I used that word properly.

There is so much to write about. I fell like I’m in a different hemisphere in Vancouver, its called the Pacific Northwest, and we are not like our compatriots in the East, that much is certain, but I’m sure it has to do more with the warm Pacific currents than the geographical distance between us and Ontario, much less Quebec. Anyway, it matters not. I’m home. That feels good to say (in my head), and the planning can begin for what will become the greatest adventure of my life. Of course life is an adventure but this is going to be a unique experience that will undoubtedly leave me very changed.  

This four day weekend is for planning, finishing, starting, painting, brewing coffee, and eating Daniels. The Daniel count is at 1. The coffee count is at 5. CIP count is 3. Its windy and there are white caps in English Bay, they are so beautiful and feral because they are foreign in our calm inlet. I’m going to go finish my undergrad on the beach, it is only fitting for the paper that will be done by the time I return.

Welcome to the next chapter: a summer in vancity.

-JN

Do yourself a favor and take 5

go to this link and watch the rest…

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=229454

The Lost (“who is my brother?”)

I got yelled at by a homeless man today. Not this man, a man without such an explanative sign. He sits in front of the library on Metcalfe almost everyday. A little piece of cardboard is his seat and he sits cross legged, apparently quite comfortably for hours a day. I make a point of making eye contact with homeless people. They are people after all and they are usually looking at you, trying to make eye contact. I don’t want to pretend that they are not there. I have a minor/moderate moral dilemma every time I walk by someone who is on the street begging for money because I want to help them and I want to know why they are there, but I’m somewhat attached to the money I have in my pocket, if there is any at all; I usually stick to plastic. I have compassion for homeless people because I’m sure that most of them don’t really want to be begging for money. So I said “hi” to this guy on my way home from the office in passing and he gets all riled up and tells me where to go and to stop pretending I’m being nice, I don’t ever give him money. To which I replied that I have no money on me. He shouts that I would probably not give him anything even if I had a large change purse in my pocket and I walked home slightly indignant. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING FOR YOURSELF SITTING ON THE STREET ALL DAY BEGGING! I felt like shouting back at him. Here’s the memo I would like to leave him if he had someplace I could send it to.

Memo re: homeless activity                                                        

To: overweight homeless man

From: J. Noble

Subject: recent outburst

Do you think you are the only homeless person in Ottawa? Do you think that because I walked by you I do not give money to homeless people. I gave a $5 note to a homeless man the other day. Is it right to say that all he wanted was a handout and without giving money I could in no way show kindness? Since kindness is the word he chose to use I felt taken aback because saying hi to a stranger is, if not kind, at least friendly. Do homeless people only want money and reject the offer of dignity, humanity, compassion, and respect that other people not begging on the street get? I wanted to shout. “GET OFF YOUR ASS AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE ECONOMY!” I would bet that the man is in better financial footing than I am. If I give away money, it’s not even my money! It belongs to the government. I am just giving away borrowed money that I have to give back, to the tune of 40 large!  How is he going to make a good return on the seed money I give him? I know this is not the way Christ went about his ministry, and I didn’t yell at the man because I have no idea what he is going through that day to make him so foul or why he is on the street – that said, misfortune is no excuse for the maltreatment of one’s fellow human beings and I was offended that this man, seeing me in a nice suit and overcoat looking successful, would judge me by my “successful” appearance and demand that somehow I give of my bounty to him a soul neglected by society and relegated to life on the street. I wonder why he sits there day after day. His legs must work unless he has someone pick him up day after day, but that would have to be a very large person. Either way, maybe he should learn the harmonica or some manners if he wants to receive charity in the future. Or maybe I should exercise some of the grace that has been shown me and live in light of the Gospel in our pluralist society.

The Problem of Morals

Excerpts from Religion and the Modern Mind by W. T. Stace and J. Noble

I shall first discuss the problem of free will, for it is certain that if there is no free will there can be no morality. Morality is concerned with what men ought and out not to do. But if man has no freedom to choose what he will do, if whatever he does is done under compulsion, then it does not make sense to tell him that he ought not to have done what he did and that he ought to do something different. All moral precepts would in such case be meaningless. Also if he acts always under compulsion, how can he be held morally responsible for his actions? How can he, for example, be punished for what he could not help doing?……there is no reason to doubt that these causes of free acts were in turn caused by prior conditions, and that these were again the results of causes, and so on back indefinitely into the past…Acts freely done are those whose immediate causes are psychological states in the agent. Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the agent……It is a delusion that predictability and free will are incompatible. This agrees with common sense. For if, knowing your character, I predict that you will act honourably, no one would say when you do act honourably, that this shows you did not do so of your own free will.     

Since free will is a condition of moral responsibility, we must be sure that our theory of free will gives a sufficient basis for it.  It is not just to punish a man for what he cannot help doing…But that determinism is incompatible with moral responsibility is as much a delusion as that it is incompatible with free will. You do not excuse a man for doing a wrong act because, knowing his character, you felt certain beforehand that he would do it. Nor do you deprive a man of reward or prize because, knowing his goodness or his capabilities, you felt certain beforehand that he would win it…           

…Thus we see that moral responsibility is not only consistent with determinism (that all actions are a result of previous choices/actions/experiences), but requires it. The assumption on which punishment is based is that human behaviour is causally determined. If pain could not be a cause of truth telling there would be no justification at all for punishing lies…This is in itself a strong argument against the common view of philosophers that free will means being undetermined by causes…           

 In earlier ages morality was seen as grounded in religion…its most naive form is the belief that what is right or wrong is simply determined by the will of God…The popular concept of God is in them (absolute idealism) replaced by the metaphysical absolute. But this Absolute is, like God, the source of moral and other values. The one thing common to all forms of a religious basis of morals is the belief that the distinction between moral good and evil is in some way rooted in the concept of the world as a moral order….Moral values and laws are necessarily objective in the sense in which I have used that word in this book. A value, on our definition, is objective if it is independent of any human ideas, feelings, or opinions. The will of God is independent of any human psychology. So is the world-purpose,  if we assume that such a purpose exists…There can be only one truth about what is good or evil, just as there can be only one truth about the shape of the earth at a particular time…(unfortunately) The metaphysical Absolute – that thin abstraction substituted for God by a few intellectuals – never had any hold on men’s minds. Therefore is became no longer possible to define morality in terms of divine or cosmic purpose (which was be believe that what is good and evil is only that which serves human purposes)…this was at once to jump from objectivism or subjectivism, from the belief that the world is a moral order to the belief that it is not. This was the step which the modern mind took. ..and this is to say, not merely that men’s opinions about right and wrong will differ (i.e. slavery in roman times and today)…the collapse of moral theory, though perhaps not of moral practice, seems to follow.  Yet there are objective standards of proper living. Stace uses the example that a man should not jump off the empire state building. This holds true for both Americans and Frenchmen; it would be absurd to say otherwise. It is good to eat food and drink water, or put out a fire when it starts in your house. All these things we can agree on, but these are rules of conduct not moral truths. “Only the general rules are universal and non-relative.”  Can we know the meaning of happiness? Philosophers and moralists would say that we do not. However, many have tried to explain the meaning or way to achieve happiness. J. S. Mill the Utilitarianist say that it was doing actions that would produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people.  The secular hedonist tries to create happiness for others so that he may benefit in return. The secular humanist will try to achieve happiness for others because he believes that it is simply good for people to be happy. The selfish life is not the happy life. “Love, unselfishness, justice, honesty, the keeping of faith, are universally conditions which will increase human happiness. Hatred, selfishness, injustice, dishonesty, faithlessness, are universally conditions which increase human misery.            

To say these things is not to suggest an “absolute” standard of morals. That “there are no absolutes nowadays” is one of those unintelligent parrot-cries which are commonly mistaken for thought.”  From the standpoint of time, the world is not a moral order, but that from the standpoint of the eternal it is amoral order. Both truths have an equal right to our acceptance because we live in both orders…In the long and tragic struggle of life on this planet form lower to higher forms; in the terrible sufferings of mankind reaching upward to grasp at nobler ways of living, constantly falling backward, yet as constantly striving higher; in the vague aspirations of men for immortality, for a more blessed mode of existence, for God, for a life which shall be not merely animal but also divine; in all this can be seen, not merely the futile, because ultimately purposeless, efforts for survival or pleasure by an animated piece of clay, but an influx into the darkness of such a life of a light which has its source in that which is eternal.  

Oh Stace, so thoughtful, so profound, so close.  -  J Noble.