The 問題, as I see it.

In a drastic turn for this once dead and now revived (does that make it a zombie?) blog, I won't even mention a thing about Japan. I will throw in Japanese words, though, so get google set in the next tab. It seems my readership has died off, so now is the perfect time to write something a little more controversial.

The Problem with Problems.

The problem with problems is this: too many people rely on messages and morals as opposed to methods. I am thinking mostly of two areas: psychological problems and the way some religions tell us how we should live our lives. So, for example, if I am having a psychic problem, say I procrastinate too much, I think far too many people will stick with the message "I shouldn't be so lazy/I should get motivated/etc. etc. etc." that they repeat to themselves over and over, thinking it will somehow change them. Guess what, it won't. It frustrates me so much when I hear a friend or family member who is having a problem say "well, that's something I have to work on," and leave it at that. You don't know how to "work on it." Saying "I'm going to work on it" and not having a method is the equivalent of saying "I'll build a house" without the architectural plans. In order to fix things, you must have a method. And not just any method, but a psychologically approved (this means it went through rigorous meta-analysis) method. Without that, at best you will be less efficient in fixing your problem, at worst, you will make it even worse.

*Let me specify here that when I write about people who say "that's something I'll work on," I mean people who actually have identified a problem and truly want to work on it.

This concept is also extremely frustrating in the arena of religion and how it tells you to live your life. Obey the 10 commandments, listen to the stories of the apostles, do what Jesus/Muhammad would do. I am not making the argument that there aren't good messages in the stories of the bible. Some of the stories provide great narratives for an ideal of how one should live their life. BUT, again, it is providing you with a message, not a method. Be good. Don't covet thy neighbor's wife. Do this, do that, be this way, not that way. How? HOW? Us humans have this incredible amount of variation. I like pickles, Bill doesn't. Mary likes men, John likes women and men, Matt is into furry fandom. Putting aside the tangled mess of "what is it to be good?" and "what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' (which religions try, to varying degrees, to codify)," the method, the HOW, the "in what ways can I 'walk a mile in my neighbor's shoes (i.e. how can I be a compassionate human being)?'" is totally absent. In the best case scenario, people don't put much belief into religion and aren't affected by it. In the worst case scenario, people who strongly believe in their religion are doomed to never live up to the message, then "sinning," which leads to depression and/or more fervent, extremist beliefs.

I would like to take exception to Buddhism right now, because, from what I've read so far, it provides you with both a good message (extremely good, in my opinion), and methodS. There are many other religions I haven't researched or know much about, that may also fit into this category.

It seems that the main crux of my argument is this: From the message (religious texts, morals handed down by parents, etc.) alone we are unable to truly live a good life or solve a problem. We, by and large, do not have the capacity to spontaneously take the message and turn it into a good method.

*As you are reading this, oh cynical viewer hoping to catch the hyperbolic and extreme, keep in mind the following assumptions I used when writing this. 1) There are always exceptions. I am writing about a majority (X>50%) of the time. 2) Obviously people are able to live satisfying, healthy lives without needing specific methods to solve their problems. But, for those with any sort of problems in the 現在, the most efficient and least-harmful way to solve these problems is with a meta-analytically tested method. Furthermore, there is a distinction between living your life, and living your life in an optimal way for yourself and those around you (which, the author humbly thinks, is with compassion in the psychological/Buddhist sense of the word [both definitions are very close to one another]).