It's just a bumper sticker

Do you remember talking about treating our family members as extension of ourselves?

When we feel insecure and jealous in front of a person who is better than us in something, we bring out our parents, children, spouses and siblings who would compare favorable. That one?

In such instances, many of us are more optimistic about our family members than about ourselves. Take, for example, parents flaunting the achievements of their children. They can be much more brazen than about themselves.

I've had enough of those "My Child was the Best Student of the Year" stickers.

Same here. They seem to be unaware that it is not quite like showing off your Olympic Gold Medal to the audience. In that case, the winner and the audience are not in competition. The medal won by the athlete is also for the audience from the athlete's country. However...

The parents with stickers on their cars drive around in the area close to their house, precisely where they are very likely to be seen by their competitors.

What are their thoughts about other parents' or children's feelings, especially for those who would never win such an honor, although every parent thinks her/his children are the best?

It's beyond me...

The parents with stickers must be happy already by the fact that their child was chosen. Advertising it cannot make them happier by a big margin, unless their happiness is dependent on others' jealousy and sense of failure.

I suppose they enjoy the act of peeling off the protective paper, placing the stickers on their cars, and seeing them.

It is much easier for the winners not to be so open about their victory than for the losers to deal with their disappointment in themselves. Curtailing display of victory is a negligible price to pay, if we think how much it would make the whole community a better place to live.

In other words, placing those stickers on your car is a selfish act.

To the hilt. Talking about achieving through our close ones, non-working spouses can sometimes be more ambitious than their spouses regarding their careers. Some time ago, I attended a seminar and sat behind the spouse of the speaker. When he finished talking and took the seat next to his wife, she showered him with praises in a loud voice while others focused on the next talk.

Was she the only one saying, "Oh, it was wonderful, honey."

I didn't know that you were there!

I wasn't, but by looking at your face, I can pretty much tell how bad it was.

And she ostensibly stroke his back...

Who knows, maybe he suggested that they break up the night before and she was trying to persuade him that they shouldn't?

I always welcome wacky explanations, however unconvincing they may be.

Getting back to stickers, what about political ones?

People who agree with the message may feel good when they see it, but nothing beyond that. Others who do not agree with it may become agitated, but the stickers do not come with detailed reason as to why the car owner supports the political stance or does not give anyone an opportunity to voice disagreement.

It doesn't serve any purpose.

It's worse, in my opinion. It just upsets people on the other side.

Some of us like to provoke, and sometimes provocation is the only way to induce people to think a bit further.

Reasons are easily taken over by emotions. I see little good in provoking, unless there is enough trust. Sadly, more people put on stickers than go to political debates or meetings, which are more effective, but also more time and energy consuming.

You know, driving cars makes you act strange.

Just like the Internet. We have found ways to say to others what we cannot say to their face.

Imperfection and hope make perfect, or almost

I think I took the contribution of Condi and Colin too lightly last time.

You mean, their role in elevating the status of African-Americans?

They may not have made much visible change, but I'm sure they managed to raise hope among Americans of African heritage. And, hope is what we most rely on to keep on living.

We are willing to live, because we believe that a better future awaits us.

If we knew that things are going to worsen, we'd rather not face that future and terminate our lives right at this moment.

Or live carelessly and recklessly, since whatever we possess is going to be lost anyway.

Such behavior would create utter chaos, and that is where religions come to the rescue for some of us.

There is a wonderful place called heaven or paradise, and we are allowed to get there only if we live ethically and constructively.

I'm always amazed how clever religions are. It is very tempting to think that there is something behind all this, which some people call God, the Divine One, the Holy One, etc.

Various cultures have invented what could collectively be called religion, and the similarity in their functions suggests that its origin can be traced to the elements which are common to us all.

Bravo, it's biology, again!

I'm afraid it is.

Look at young children, for example. Most of them are not aware of religious doctrines, but full of energy to live. I suppose we have a built-in mechanism which greatly encourages us to weather the difficulties until we are capable of reproduction, and hence, aiding in the continued existence of homo sapiens.

If that is true, is there any meaning in life without reproduction?

We can still make contribution to the survival of the species in way of worker ants or bees, so to speak.

Or that aunt or uncle, who seems to have no intention of marrying and takes care of nieces and nephews...

Worker ants and bees are sterile, but colonies would collapse without them. Lacking reproductive capacity and opportunity, or past the reproduction period, we need something that would give us hope, and thus, rein us in. Not surprisingly, we tend to become more religious as we age.

Also, when we are young, we can be hopeful that we would succeed in a big way or go down in history. But as we grow older, such hopes become less and less convincing. For starters, most of us have discovered that we were not exactly child prodigies.

Not only because the time left gets incredibly shorter, but also because we accumulate increasingly many pieces of evidence to the contrary of such hopes. Even with a good dose of me-me-me spirit, believing in it yourself becomes rather absurd. We need other types of things to bring us hope, and religions are good at filling such gaps.

Why do we want to believe, in the first place, that the situation at hand is to improve?

Because the world is never perfect for any of us and the imperfection is tolerable only if we think it is on the track to be what we wish it to be.

It also makes us think that changes are possible and urges us to be innovative.

Not always, because some of us think that the changes are going to happen without any effort on our part. Anyway, in the slim chance that we acquire or attain all we ever wished for in life, you may get a destructive urge.

Why do we want to destroy the perfect state that we desired so much?

For fear of losing it when you least expect it.

Are you sure that we are as perverse as that?

Long ago, I wasn't so sure, but I was convinced when I saw "The Hairdresser's Husband" by Patrice Leconte. We may also feel disoriented or bored from not knowing what more to want.

Ah, "Le Mari de la coiffeuse." So, the morale is...

People live on or kill themselves for reasons that make little sense to others.

Hurray, you managed to be optimistic and pessimistic at the same time!

WYSIWIG, WYSIWYM, WYSIAYG

You know, the presidential election in the US...

I thought we were never going to get into politics.

We've already talked about it by referring to taxation, income equality, and so on.

Having done something sneakily makes it all right to do so in the open?

Do not seek logic, as there is hardly any in this world.

Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find.

It really sounds like one of the self-help books, not to mention very similar teachings in other religions and philosophies. There are billions of people wanting to be billionaires, but we know that only few of them are going to succeed.

In fact, none of the books says "Or your money back."

Anyway, I heard that some female voters in the US are agonizing over the issue of rewriting Hillary into Sarah.

They represent different political parties, and hence, supposedly different agenda.

Many people are voting based on the race and the gender of the presidential candidates and their running mates.

Quite a few voters checked the box for Hillary in the primary as support for a fellow woman, I heard.

Many of African origin are staunch supporters of Barack.

Isn't that natural? It perfectly fits with what you have been describing as biology. We all back someone who is biologically closer.

I also heard about people who were in a quandary because they wanted to support Barack for his underrepresented race and Hillary for her underrepresented gender.

Makes sense.

You think so? Neither Condi nor Colin had much to do with improvement of racial discrimination in the US, just as Indira and Benazir had little influence on the status of women in India and Pakistan.

The mere facts that Condi and Colin became the US Secretary of State were symbolic achievement for people of the same color. And don't forget that the rich-poor gap matters more than the men-women gap in South Asia. I also think that one knows more about her/his own race and gender.

But that doesn't mean s/he knows what is best for her/his race and gender, much less whether s/he would adopt policies that benefit the group.

Again, your biology says s/he would.

Then again, that shouldn't be the case.

Is it "let not biology dictate you," one more time?

How good is a politician if s/he favors a certain ethnic and/or gender group, just for that reason?

It is an attempt to redress the unfair inequality that exists, not to confer special advantage.

If a competent person is elected as the president, priorities would be similar, irrespective of her/his biological attributes.

Take Hurricane Katrina. The poor who need the most assistance are not getting enough of it, and they happen to be the black people. If the governor of Louisiana had been of the same background, things could have been different.

We tend to disagree on what is a fair share. In the eyes of the privileged, the underprivileged ask for more than fair, once one of them gets elected to high office. It could be lack of empathy and understanding that they see the situation in that manner, but can we say that there has been absolutely no abuse of power in such cases?

Take as much as you can while you're there, because you have missed out and may miss out again in the future...

I'm concerned about the candidates' principal labeling by race and gender. Whatever s/he does, those biological factors are taken to be the cause.

Because he is black, because she is a woman...

That line of thinking is precisely what is behind unfair treatment. If Barack takes the office and performs miserably, we would hear "never a black president again."

But it's just Barack.

If Hillary had taken the office and made a further mess of, for example, the social security system, it would be "never a female president again."

But it's just Hillary.

If someone is chosen for her/his race or gender, s/he can be rejected for that, too. In a fair world, we do not care about race or gender. They simply would not be an issue. The act of voting for a candidate who has the same biological attributes as ours---and mainly for that reason---perpetuates what we denounced to begin with.

Do you think we will ever be free of judgment based on what we see first in a person? In a split second, we usually know the race and the gender. If we don't, some of us feel uncomfortable.

I know that one. It can get as tactless as, "So, what are you?"

You once replied that you were a human being.

That's what I am! Just as we have come to treat people more or less independently of how pretty that person is, we should have the capacity to be color and gender blind.

Hmmm... Are you sure about not being affected by pretty faces?

Well, I think we try harder, at least, to treat each individual fairly.

What about voice? We are attracted to certain ones.

Any person should be judged by what s/he can do and does for the designated job, not by what s/he does after work, like singing in a jazz bar...