Tax Write Off

So I don't get it. Tax write off. Ok, Actually, I do get it. So, lets have a little tax 101. Class is in session:

Its like this: A company sells a product. They get revenue. They then spend some money to make more money. The difference between the 2, thats profit, and its what gets taxed. So, everything... Everything.... EVERYTHING is a write off, because its a business expense. Very few things *aren't* business expenses. Basically, you have to work pretty hard at spending company money on personal stuff for it not to be a write off. And you know what, in those cases, its called.... Embezzlement. So, its not really about taxes at all, its about being ethical with money that is only *partly* yours because most business owners answer to either stockholders, or a board, or your customers, or at the least, they you answer to future you(who by the way, we all owe something to... hmmm there's another blog post right there, )

What is tricky is that corporations get taxed twice in a way: The corp gets taxed on its profit. And then the money that gets distributed to employees gets taxed as well. So, if your a smart corporation, you jiggle things a little to minimize the corp's profit and pass it on to employees as salary, everybody's happy. Or, you can be a little bit more elitist. You can have the company make a big profit, the company gets taxed, but the stock price goes up, and the stockholders and senior management sell their stock and then pay only the capital gains tax (which is lower than personal income tax) . Aha! you say, the capital gains tax, now wasn't that lowered by Bush and Cronie Co. Yes! It was the one smart thing he did in office. Because when you sell $30 Million in stock, you don't put it in the bank to earn 2% interest. You put it back in the stock market, so the capital gains tax decrease actually encourages strong investing. Which, is probably more important to the economy than oil prices, unemployment, and interest rates combined.

We all together now? Ok, so here is the lesson: the "tax write off" as most people use the term is an entity that doesn't exist. Its based on the belief that corporations and businessmen get away with breaking the rules because the rules are written for them. This of course, is entirely incorrect. Corporations and businessmen get away with breaking the rules because they have enough money to convince the right people that the rules don't apply to them. Which, in retrospect is not really much of a distinction.


Ok, I was wrong. This post was a waste of time. I think I'll just write it off.

Childlike Faith

Infants are cute. Many people can't resist touching them, holding them, and cooing at them. Their accomplishments are widely celebrated (frequently on Blogger); accomplishments such as rolling over, saying simple words, and waving. Pretty hard for a 35 year old to compete with. No one pays much attention to our common motor and verbal abilities.

That is how it should be and it would indicate some sad tragedy if it were any different. After all we've realized that saying, "daddy" is nothing compared to being one, or loving one, or mourning one. Life as a 35 year old is more complex, difficult, challenging, and beautiful then life at 3 months though some of the challenge and much of the beauty comes from being around those newborns.

I've been thinking about this as I reflect on recent messages (implicit and explicit) that I've heard at church. Messages that I interpret as questioning why all Christians can't be more like new Christians. You know the ones who are all fired up for their faith; who eagerly share it with their scores of non-Christian friends; who can't get enough Christian reading material; who in short seem so full of life. These people are contrasted with seasoned (old?) Christians who hang out with their Christian friends; who rarely speak of faith outside of worship services; who seem to be just limping along.

It seems to be that perhaps asking a veteran Christian to take on the attributes of a new Christian is similar to asking a 35 year old to act like an infant. Or put another way that our Christian life gets more complex, difficult, challenging, and (we trust) more beautiful the longer we are Christians. Making the gushing enthusiasm of the recent convert as rare in the seasoned believer as cuddly, wide-eyed cuteness of infants in older adults.

Why would this be so? Possibly because the transformations that take place at conversion while often the most dramatic changes in the life of the believer may also be the simplest to make. While it may be difficult to change sinful habits, we can at least identify sin in the external habits and take obvious if hard steps to change. God in His grace often enables this to happen (though perhaps not as often or quickly as we'd like to think). But once the obvious areas of the sinful lifestyle are more or less dealt with we discover the more difficult truth that our very nature is sinful. That changing behavior is not sufficient to deal with sin, instead we must regularly (daily? hourly?...) die to ourselves and submit to God. That the Spirit is not simply filling a void in our lives, but actually wants to transform our minds and make us into an entirely new creation.

We admire the infants gleeful shouts of "mama" and "dada" but we know that in time they will learn that some parents abandon their children, others abuse them, and most do their best to love their children despite their own imperfections. A relationship to any mother or father is a complex thing. I would suggest that a relationship with a heavenly Father also proves to be a complex thing making it much more difficult for the experienced Christian to speak glibly about that relationship (though perhaps they may learn to retain a sense of glee).

I think we also discover on our pilgrimage that the message of the Kingdom involves more then converting individuals (though that is involved) but also requires working to transform systems of darkness and injustice. That the Spirit is ultimately at work to transform the world itself into a new creation. This require difficult and serious work but work that we are uniquely gifted and called too. Work that when undertaken brings deep joy. However this work is difficult to do alone and God has generously provided other believers to work along side of us to encourage and prod us to keep up the task. Ultimately I believe this work to create Kingdom communities and to combat injustice in the world are significant witnesses to the world of the hope we have in Christ.

So what do we make of the new believers? Should we scoff at their naivete? I think we are right to celebrate their enthusiasm and admire the progress they make from darkness to light. Their desire to share their new found faith is natural and should also be encouraged. But I don't think we should idealize this time in the life of faith as the goal just as we celebrate the new life in the cute infant but recognize her goal is to progress beyond infancy. In faith, as in parenting, I think we need to be especially mindful of the often painful adolescent period that usually precedes maturity.

Isaiah 40:31 says: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Philip Yancey wrote that he first thought the order (fly, run, walk) was backwards but later concluded that the progression (digression?) actually describes the life of faith for many. They begin soaring to great heights but finish just trying to keep walking. (I think this was in What's so Amazing About Grace). I always thought that was curious.

Zen and the art of denying what I find uncomfortable

I've been speaking a little bit over the last few weeks with a friend of mine who is a Zen Buddhist. I really respect how well he thinks things out. I've also been really impressed with some of the concepts that are core to his belief system. Here are my thoughts about these ideas.

Be totally present in the current moment. If I am at work, be at work. Don't be thinking about running, or sailing, or dinner, or whatever. If I'm at home, be at home, don't be consumed by expectation of things that are coming down the line, or anxious about situations in life outside my control.

A technique to help being present in the moment is stillness. This is a little different from the idea behind meditation, but goes hand and hand. It can be hard to not be anxious as we go from one sphere of our lives to another, but pausing during the transitions can be very effective.

Now, this just brushes the surface of our conversations, but I've already got to rant about a couple of things.

First, there is a real problem to me adopting these ideas for myself as I have. Its not justifiable to say, well, if it works for you, than its true for you. A tendency towards relative truth or relative goodness that comes from that approach. Further, if there is some truth in this, than so be it, it can't be denied by wishful thinking or dismissal. I think that we are called to seek truth regardless of the consequences. Sizzler Salad Bar Religion: Picking and choosing things from a religion that suit me, and leaving the things that are uncomfortable. I can't think of a better way to avoid TRUTH.

Second, lets talk about the opposite approach. Taking everything that I've learned from my friend and immediately trying to fit it into my own belief system, squeezing a square peg into a round hole. Can I really grow if I'm immediately dismissing ideas that don't fit easily within my own world view?

It is dishonorable to have a conversation with a person about religion with the sole purpose of teaching them my own dogma. If I desire to share what TRUTH I have gleaned with a person (which I do! I am, after all, an evangelical Christian. ), than it is hypocritcal of me not to listen to them in return and truly consider what they have to say.

Let me describe the problem anecdotally. I was relating some of the ideas above with another friend of mine and he responded by saying: 'yes, but even though he has the apperance of deep thought, its not truly meaningful because it isn't based on scripture' What! Excuse Me! I wanted to punch him. How could I dismiss a person who is really struggling to find the truth by saying that he doesn't have any real and valid deep reasoning because his belief system is different from own.

Three things that once happened

Part 1
Once upon a time, in the misty and distant past, I was a college student. One year while living in the dorms someone or other hired a hypnotist to come do a show in one of the dorm meeting rooms. I don't remember many details of the show, but certain elements stand out in my memory clear as glass. Somehow or another, I got selected along with 5-10 other people to go up on stage. I don't remember exactly what this fellow's system was; I think he mostly just told us to close our eyes and relax. In those days it took very little prompting for me to do just that.

There exist, no doubt, in this wide world different 'flavors' of the hypnotism experience, but in mine I remained lucid the entire time. It was something like a game of 'simon says'. He would say - "you are going up in an elevator" - and I/we would imagine going up in an elevator. He would say "you are flying in an airplane", and we would lean over to look out the window, seeing only the floor. It was a game of make-believe. Yet! Yet, it was more than just a game of charades. Some part of my mind or body DID respond to these experiences as though they were real. He said "it's getting very cold in here" and I shivered. Shivering is not something you can really do intentionally. (is it?) He said "it's getting very hot in here", and (I think) I started to sweat.

But the hypnotist's cord is wrapped very lightly around the subject. I was frequently though not constantly aware that I was sitting in front of a large audience who were laughing. I knew I was playing along (and felt a little guilty, thinking I was faking it). I had to make a choice to stick with the 'game'. I percieved that hypnosis is an illusion you need to put some effort into believing. At the very least, you need to stave off doubt. Once you grasp the absurdity of what you are doing, you can't just hop right in without a little bit of coaching.

Anyway, back in the last century, that's what it was like to be hypnotized


Part PI/2
An interlude (and apologies for telling you something you probably already know) the way your eyes are physically constructed, the center of your vision is pretty poor at picking out minor differences in luminosity. If you go out at night, you'll often see stars in your peripheral vision that fade from sight when you try to look at them directly. Really it is just the way your eyes are built, but I can't help but think of those stars as malicious little bastards. No doubt they are up to no good, just out of sight.


Part 2
When I was a child I believed in God because the alternative was too horrifying. By the time I had advanced to some indeterminate age between youth and my (yet-to-arrive) adulthood I had worked out a fairly decent defense for my faith. It involved rules of evidence, otherwise-inexplicable historical facts and a touch of the transcendant. That system of thought formed itself in an organic, piece by piece manner. I'd have a crisis of faith one month, read a lot, and after some time I would find that the emotional aspects of the crisis were gone. Some bits of what I had read stuck with me. After many cycles of this I had absorbed a lot of assertions, arguments and suppositions that formed this informal framework or foundation on which my faith rested.

Ironically enough, this "system of rational thought" operated best at the subconscious level. Its preferred mode of operation was to work like a low dose of penicillin, keeping the doubt at bay before it could flare up. When I would actually think through any of the individual ideas, they were rather flimsy and insubstantial. But doubt is usually a broad, diffuse force, and against such blows my spiderweb held firm.

I had a bad couple of years. It was probably the worst part of my life, and during that time a lot of once-certainties were undermined. The crisis was not originally about God, but more about my own identity and place in the world. But God got caught up in it all the same. Or, to be specific, my beliefs about God did. In a time of uncertainty you look for something firm to grasp a hold of. One by one I'd turn to each of these reasons and supports for help. I was losing hold of God and needed something to could make him grasp-able by my mind. One by one these reasons would wink out under my directed gaze. They fell individually with such force that when I looked away from them, they had lost their subtle power to encourage.

Some truths are hard to deny, others are hard to hold on to. I'm not sure which is the case here, but I'm rooting for the latter.

A question for the philosopher studying warrant... In some systems of belief (I am including scientific theories here), each tenet of the system can be seen as making sense both individually and as an integral component of the entire system. In others, each tenet is individually weak, and it is only when woven together with its brethern that the system makes sense. In this model, each of the individual beliefs in a sense covers the weaknesses of the others. ... Is one of these systems inherently more worthy of belief? Is there such a thing as 'emergent warrant'?


Part e
Another interlude. When I play the better sort of video game I dodge bullets. Literally (in a sense). I lean about at the keyboard. I'm not sure if it helps in the game, but I'd be reluctant to just sit stock still. This is sort of the evil twin of the star thing. When looking at stars, it is your indirect faculties that percieve things more clearly than your intentional ones. When dodging bullets in a video game, your irrational self is convinced of a state of affairs which (while entertaining for spouses) is quite off the mark.


Part 3
Once upon a time I went to Las Vegas. I stayed in a hotel that was patterned off of a stylized and idealized Venice. It was surprisingly beautiful. To my miserably uneducated eyes, the statues and murals were every bit as well done as what you might see in a second-rate Italian museum or cathedral (which is still saying something). ((( This raises a question about sculpture for one thing - if an *exact* replica of Michelangelo's David is artistically less valuable than the original - where exactly is that surplus value carried? Is the original's marble somehow chemically different? Is there some spiritual element attached somehow to the original? If the two were put in a bag and shaken up so that no one could tell them apart - would the original's value be destroyed? )))

At any rate, the centerpiece of the hotel was this indoor... mall. The ceiling was roughly two stories tall and painted to look like the sky at sunset. The walls were decorated to look like Ventian streets. There was even a canal carved in the floor in which replica gondoleers paddled replica gondolas filled with authentic overweight americans. In the larger spaces the long walls of the 'piazzas' were ever so slightly curved, making them look longer than they really were. Other than the canal, which had pool-blue water, the illusion was masterful. The first time I walked into the area I was genuinely puzzled why the sun was setting. Like most people, I generally prefer ugly authenticity to beautiful artifice. But somehow, inexplicably, the illusion worked. I won't say I believed I was IN venice per se, but in some subtle way I was willing to believe I was outside, and that there was something behind all those second-story italian shutters.

I was in LV for a work conference, but made plenty of excuses to walk through the streets of las-venice. I can't put my finger on what made it appealing - partly it was admiration for the illusion and partly it was participation in the illusion.

After a few walks something in my head started to rebel. I noticed imperfections in the illusion like the modern gates leading to the docks where the gondolas landed and vents painted over with wispy clouds. I made a choice somewhere in this time. I made a choice to push out those inconvenient facts and inhale more deeply the illusion. It was as if one part of my mind was trying to protect another part of my mind.

One night my coworker and I sat down at an 'outside cafe' in the ... mall (there really is no other more accurate word for it). In Pseudo-Venice. It was great, I was sitting outside at sunset drinking wine and talking philosophy with this guy. The sky was really nice - just enough clouds to catch the color of the setting sun. I probably had pasta, and some kind of wine that's a mix of other wines (I never knew such a beast existed). By the end of dinner I hated the place. It was too unsettling - this place that never changes. You know the fear about heaven getting boring? - this place put some stock in that fear.

After that, las vegas was totally ruined for me. It wasn't just that one area, it is really the fault of the entire town - the enormous waste of energy, the lies about money and fun and respect and sex. The whole place is predicated on these lies that are individually absolutely absurd on their face. But they are also so compelling that we visitor willingly sell ourselves to them. People going to the casino know the odds are against them yet, if honest, expect to win. The hotels rip out the asthetic beauty of world architecture from context and plop it down into a desert, as though the only thing worthwhile of something like the Trebbia fountain is the color of it's fountains at night.

I went to LV expecting to be disgusted. I was impressed for the first several days - the illusions were obvious, but I had to concede they were expertly done. In the end, my dislike of LV was essentially confirmed. I can handle being lied to - that's a fair fight. But LV asks us to lie to ourselves. It looks to start a civil war between the part of us that dodges videogame bullets and the part of us that fills out a tax form. And if the city ever catches you at war with yourself, it starts chewing on you.


Part N+1
Slogans seduce

Preference

I've been scooting about India for the last two weeks visiting my wife who is nearing completion of a year working here. We took a trip out to the country, which was great. But this trip, including our excursion has brought into focus something that I've been dwelling a lot on over the last 6 months.

I have too much Preference. With a capital P. What do I mean by that? Preference is the overarching desire to have things my way. I enjoy a bleu cheese burger, exactly so, from Moody's, I like to have a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich from Charilie's. I want to make sure I get the bulkhead seat on the window side on the 24 hour flight(s) home from India. None of these things seem so bad, but there is a really nefarious side to them.

The problem with having a preference on everything is that it reveals a really strong level of expecatation. The problem, in turn, with expecatation is that it keeps us from enjoying things outside of the level of expectation. Further, it limits the possibilty of finding out something new that we enjoy.

Take my flight home. I have travelled enough times now that I know the best way to get exactly the seat I want. When I get that seat, I'm slightly more comfortable on the trip home. However, if I don't get it, I'm disproportionately aware of my discomfort in some other, more cramped seat.

This whole problem is slightly more exasperated by this fact.... I always get my way. Say what! You do? Yes, I do. I don't have kids, I'm the CEO of my own business, I have enough resources and drive to get the things I want. Pretty much ALL THE TIME! This might sound pompous, but I think some of my closest friends would agree that even though they have fun doing things with me, we pretty much always do the things I want. I also have a high level of contentment. Part of why I get what I want a lot is that I really don't want all that much most of the time, and when I do, its within my means.

Which is what makes this concept of Preference so annoying. Its trivial! I'm content with the big things in my life, so what do I care if the burger is a little more well done than I like. So what if I am a little uncomfortable for a few hours. If I didn't dwell on these things, they wouldn't even be an issue.