Scary Things …

It’s Halloween as I post this blog. So first, Happy Halloween from The Humanity Project!

This is one of my favorite holidays. Always has been, just as the autumn is my favorite time of year. Even in South Florida where I live, there’s a palpable change in the fall. As I listened to some fun Halloween music this afternoon, a thought about this day occurred to me: Halloween can be viewed as a celebration that is all about fear. And making fun of fear. As both a Halloween lover and an author who often writes about the role of fear in our lives, I found this idea intriguing.

It’s easy, of course, to launch into sage theories about any subject, theories that very quickly descend into nonsense. Sometimes there is no profound meaning beneath the surface. So I’ll try to avoid waxing too philosophical here. But think about it for yourself. Doesn’t Halloween encourage us to laugh at our fears? To me, that seems at least part of what this holiday celebrates. All the childish nightmares about witches and ghosts and black cats. We drag them out, dramatize them by hanging their images in our homes and wearing costumes – and have a grand guffaw about it all. If I’m right, I think this is a very healthy thing.

Because over and over, I see that fear is perhaps the worst enemy I face. I think that I see much the same thing in the lives of people I know well and even in the world at large. I believe fear wastes our talents. I believe fear ruins relationships. I believe fear can make us sick. And I also believe that most of us are afraid much more often and more deeply than we realize. I’ve tried to explore these hidden fears within myself for the past 30 years to help overcome them. I find that it’s very easy to ignore (to “repress,” in the language of psychology) my most powerful fears. For a while. But when I do that, they soon control me in ways I wouldn’t have imagined possible until I experienced it firsthand.

For me, part of the longterm cure for fear is self-knowledge. I suspect that’s just as true for others. I think that if we want to take more responsibility for our own life, and become a healthier and saner member of society in the process, we must begin to understand how deep our fears run. And how often these fears bubble to the surface of our daily existence in one way or another, whether we’re aware of it or not. But I’ve discovered that another part of the cure for my fear just involves relaxing. I have to make myself understand that most of my worst fears are irrational and often downright silly when I really face them. If Halloween truly is about making fun of our fears, then maybe we should see it as a model for real life. If I’m afraid, I can simply laugh at my fear and move forward anyway. Which only makes me appreciate this playful, joyful holiday more than ever. -- RSK

Giving Made Easy

I’m writing an extra blog this week to let you know about something new here on our website. We think it’s an important addition … important, because we sorely need funds to keep our work going.

We’ve now added a very simple, very secure way to let you help us. If you go to our web page called, “Join the Project,” you’ll find our great new donation tool at the bottom of the page. It’s a small button with a big purpose. This “Donate” button links us directly with another excellent nonprofit group, JustGive. Their website offers tax-exempt, 501 (c) 3 organizations such as ours a quick, simple means to collect credit card donations. It’s totally safe for you to use, with a secure computer connection that protects your identity and credit card information. JustGive takes only three percent of your donation to cover their costs, and then sends us a check for the rest. That’s less than we would spend on administrative costs if we did all the work ourselves.

Their donation form is brief and easy to fill out. And you need to do that just once. After the first time, you’re registered to give us donations instantly whenever you want. You also can donate to us anonymously, if you prefer.

In fact, you can tell us as much or as little about yourself as you like when you donate to The Humanity Project. We won’t pester you for more donations. And you can give nearly any amount you like, large or small, with $5 the minimum donation. Use any major credit card. Please go there today and send us whatever you can afford. We appreciate it, and we appreciate JustGive. They’re helping us to make it easy for you to help us.

Helping Yourself ... With Knowledge

I was just thinking about ways I’ve found to help myself deal with big problems over the years. And I realized again that only two things have ever worked to get me out of a miserable place in my life. Those things are rational, realistic knowledge about myself and the world around me, followed by practical efforts to apply that knowledge.

The more I shed fuzzy, poorly thought-out ideas about myself and other people and life in general, the healthier and better balanced I seem to become. (And by “healthy,” I mean being healthy emotionally as well as physically, of course.) I have to focus energetically on what I deeply believe to be true about anything important. And for that, I must rely mostly on my own experience. That’s part of the key, for me at least. It’s important to tell the difference between beliefs I’ve somehow picked up without conscious thought, and beliefs that are based on my direct, personal experience. If I look at life with my own eyes, and trust what I’ve seen, and form my beliefs based on that information, I’m on my way to better days. Then I have to apply that knowledge through practical effort.

Sometimes I don’t know exactly how to apply what I’ve learned about myself. For me, the best way to start working at improving my life is just to, well … start working at it! I don’t mean to sound glib about that, but it’s really true. Just begin and figure it out as you put effort into making yourself a stronger, healthier, better-balanced person. In my experience, there’s really no way to anticipate all the questions and issues you’ll need to deal with until you get there. But trust yourself along the journey and don’t let go of that self-trust. Believe that you CAN figure out ways to get where you want to go in your life. And remember the wisdom of the great American writer, Henry David Thoreau: “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.”

That’s what The Humanity Project tries to help you do. To find ways to gain knowledge about yourself, about your own true beliefs and feelings, and to encourage you to apply that knowledge so you can live a more satisfying, healthier life. In turn, that makes the world better because you are an important part of this world. All of our individual lives are intimately linked. The Humanity Project believes it’s my personal responsibility, and yours, to make sure we each are a strong, fully contributing member of this interdependent world that we share. – RSK

What’s “Drama” Got To Do With Anything?

I know some of you who have found The Humanity Project website for the first time must wonder: “What’s the deal with this thing they call ‘A Human Drama’ anyway? Isn’t it just this strange, dark, weird story or something? How come that’s part of a nonprofit group that wants to help make humanity better?”

Good and fair questions. The answer, briefly, is this: Because “A Human Drama” can help you experience someone else’s successful battle to improve their life. A very intense, dramatic, exciting battle. And through that experience, you’re more likely to understand how to conquer your own demons. That fits perfectly into our mission: helping society become healthier and saner by helping individuals find ways to become healthier and saner. Changing the world, one person at a time. “A Human Drama” offers our web readers a tried and true way to learn – through a story. Art has always been used as a teaching tool. It just happens that our story is being told using an ambitiously original technique created for the Internet, which we call “a webtale,” and is also conceived as a very large-scale work. We think those are big pluses for our readers.

Right now, the story in “A Human Drama” has just begun. We recently posted the third and fourth chapters, which we call cantos out of respect for Dante’s classic work, “The Divine Comedy.” (Our story is a modern version of a trip from hell to purgatory to paradise. Dante’s journey began in a hell inside the earth. Our journey starts in a hell inside a human mind.) But please remember, there will be 100 chapters when this is all done. The work is appearing as a serial, two chapters at a time, with each new chunk of our story bringing the main character one step closer to a much better life. The story right now is, yes, dark and strange because it opens as our character suffers an intense emotional crisis, with his own worst fears and problems literally springing up all around him. Trust us, though – things will go from terrifying to better to amazingly good. He has a long ways to travel and a lot to learn but, even now, our story offers readers some encouragement and humor and inspiration along the way.

It takes time to write these poetic pieces, and more time to get them produced by our talented web designers. But I hope you’ll read through the first four cantos of “A Human Drama,” more than once ideally. You’ll begin to see where we’re taking you, I think. And as you more clearly understand our intent with this wild story, you’ll be able to sit back relax and enjoy the ride. In addition to helping you learn some things about yourself, “A Human Drama” will be a lot of fun to read as well. Please check it out. And please, tell your friends. – RSK

We’re Tax-Deductible!!

I wanted to add an extra blog this week because we have important and exciting news to tell you about. The Internal Revenue Service has officially granted our request for tax-deductible status. This means we are now a federally recognized, 501 (c) 3 organization. All donations, membership fees and other money given to The Humanity Project can be deducted from your taxes.

We began the process to earn this designation just about one year ago. We received our nonprofit group status from the state of Florida shortly after that, in November 2005. But the voluminous paperwork required for federal tax-deductible recognition took another month to complete. Since December 2005, we’ve been waiting, talking to the IRS, making changes to our organizational structure as requested and more. Understandly, and properly in our view, the IRS wants to make sure that any group that gets a 501 (c) 3 truly has the public good in mind.

We are very pleased and very proud that the federal government believes that The Humanity Project is such a group. As indeed we are. Our unique informative and encouraging features are free to anyone with a computer, and always will be.

Please – now is the time to begin giving to The Humanity Project. Every cent can be deducted from your taxes this year. We hope you will become a member for just $40 a year or send us a generous tax-deductible donation. We really need your help to continue our mission, helping to change the world one person at a time. – RSK

Fundraisers and Friends

If you’ve glanced at our home page since our last blog was posted, you’ll notice something new. First, of course, our initial attempts at adding more color. The hip gray and black look was intended to lend a sophisticated, cool air to our cutting-edge website. But we’re sensing that maybe everything in gray and black was just a bit too much – and so now, some color is coming into the design as we can afford to do so.

That issue of what we can afford brings me to the second change on our home page: our new Yellow Strawberry webpage, dedicated to the big fundraiser being held for us on November 5 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our great new friends, Yellow Strawberry Global Hair Salon, are staging this Cutathon for Humanity, a haircutting and styling event with all proceeds going to The Humanity Project. They’ve already been very generous to our group by, for example, arranging advance photos and publicity for the cutathon. Salon owner and founder, the iconic hairstylist Jesse Briggs, even has a donation container on his station at the salon and has turned over some much-needed money that was given by his terrific customers in just the first week. We thank each and every one of those donors, and Jesse, from the bottom of our hearts here at The Humanity Project.

Our work is very expensive. Our funds have been dwindling as we pay out large sums to produce new cantos of “A Human Drama,” the unique resource on our site that helps you to actually feel how someone can change their life for the better. Then there’s our podcast recording, where we pay for studio time to bring you our thoughts on issues important to your life as well as new original music each week. Website maintenance is itself expensive, as are website changes such as the new background color on our home page. My point is that in these early months, our social movement needs friends. We especially need tangible help right now, in the form of donations.

So we want you to know more about our friends at Yellow Strawberry because helping them helps us. Their stylists include Maurice Tidy, who was for many years creative director at Vidal Sassoon and has cut the hair of celebrities such as the Beatles. It’s an upscale salon, yet cuts start at $35 for men and $60 for women. On November 5, those same prices are in effect, but the money goes to our group. That means we’ll be able to keep bringing you more cantos in “A Human Drama,” and more podcasts. And more color on our website.

If you’re around this area, please support Yellow Strawberry. Their website at www.yellowstrawberry.com is linked directly on our site’s new Yellow Strawberry page. And please also come by the Cutathon for Humanity. And if you’re not in the area, consider joining our group by clicking on our website’s “Join The Project” page. Just email me expressing your interest, and I’ll give you an address where you can send in donations or membership fees by check. We need your help. Jesse Briggs, Maurice Tidy and Yellow Strawberry are already coming through for The Humanity Project. Thank you, folks! We are forever grateful!

Faith … in Humanity

As I begin to write this, I’m just back on an early Sunday morning, after a nice sweaty run-walk of the kind I include among my workout routines. Along the way I happened to notice an unusual bumper sticker on a parked pickup truck. The sticker said: “Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time.”

Haven’t we all felt that way? We try to be honest and what do we get in return? Lies and deceptions. We try to be considerate and what is our reward? Rudeness and lack of respect. Or so it seems on the surface at times.

I think there are several problems going on here. If I examine my own occasional disappointment in the human race, I see that this feeling usually comes over me when I have some broad sense of unhappiness in my own life. I’ve noticed that when someone is nice to me during such low periods, I tend to forget about it quickly. “Yeah sure, he let me pull my car into traffic. Big deal!” But if someone is rude, it’s suddenly a very big deal – and yet another indication of what a miserable world this can be. “I can’t believe he wouldn’t let me pull into traffic! People can be such idiots!” In making that judgment, I went from the specific to the general, instantly, based on an insignificant incident. Besides, chances are good that the other driver may not have even noticed me, perhaps preoccupied with his own worries.

I also find that when I’m angry at people in general, I focus narrowly on my personal perspective on the world, laboring under some assumption that this is a true picture of reality. In other words – to offer another driving example here – let’s say I see a parking spot at a mall. I head toward it just as some other driver rolls in and parks there. “Rude jerk,” I’m thinking, right? But I couldn’t see things from her perspective. Because as it turns out, her smaller car was hidden from my view and she had actually found the parking space first. It’s a very simple example to make a broader point: we get ticked off at humanity partly because we don’t try to look logically at these kinds of daily situations. Our perspective is confined to our point of view and we’re not thinking clearly enough to recognize how limited that is. If I’d thought more carefully for one instant about the parking situation, I’d have realized that the other driver might have been right.

This is not to suggest that people aren’t sometimes unfairly, needlessly rude to us, or hurtful or worse. That’s part of life. But only a small part, really. When that colors our entire perception of humanity to the point that we begin losing faith “one person at a time,” perhaps we should try some tough, critical thinking on this issue. When we do, I believe, we likely will recognize that everyone else is trying their best, just like us. And struggling with their lives, just like us too. This insight can save us a lot of anger, stress and sickness over time, I think. And it may even prevent us from slapping any silly bumper stickers on our cars. It’s actually possible to gain faith in humanity, not lose it, one person at a time. – RSK