Where have all the young men gone ...?

To be out and about on a pleasant evening is a pleasure all by itself.  There was no way I was going to waste an unusually awesome spring evening.

I picked up the copy of the New Yorker, which I planned to read while sitting in the car and overlooking the cityscape.  Water bottle, cellphone, and wallet. The garage door was opening as I realized that I hadn't had dinner yet.

I drove up to the Taco Bell and waited behind a Pontiac Trans Am with its distinctive growl.  After I placed my order, the voice through the box said "2.97 at the window."

We have to wonder how healthy the food will be when I am able to buy three items off the menu for 99 cents each.  The Pink Lady apple that I picked up at the grocery store the other day was about 75 cents.  For one apple.  And here I am getting a dinner for $2.97?

I reached Skinner Butte.  It was a busy, happening place.  I wasn't the only one with the bright idea to enjoy the twilight from up there.  And was I happy to slide into a parking spot in between a monstrous pickup truck and a sedan.  Within a few minutes after, the place was packed with no parking space at all.

I finished the food with an enormous sense of guilt.  As if I were doing cocaine in a public park.

More and more people were streaming in.  Perhaps they had even hiked up the butte.  It seemed like the entire town was up there.

The strangest thing was this: there were very few men.  And, even among the few men that we were, it didn't seem like there were more than a couple of young men.

The overwhelming majority were young women.  Young women in groups of threes and fours and fives and sixes.  And they were all loud.  Loudly having fun. Yelling and screaming in delight.

The monstrous pickup had a sole occupant.  A non-white, like me.  Out of his vehicle came the sounds of country music.  But, that was drowned out by the loud pop music from the sedan, in which the three young women and the only guy were sitting and singing (in their atrocious voices) and waving their arms away to the beat of music that even I knew.

I stepped out to take in the air and the festive environment, and to admire the city lights against the slowly darkening sky.

Life is wonderful, indeed.  The wonders come in different colors, sounds, shapes.  That day, it was the gorgeous spring evening, spent on a butte overlooking the city, with a whole bunch of pumped-up people.

Very few men, however.  And that was strange.

When I was younger, back in India, very few young women were out in the public.  We young men had to compete against each other to get their attention. What a contrast to that was this experience.  Perhaps this particular evening was unusual.  But, given that this is a college town, and with colleges increasingly dominated by females, it is quite likely that it was not all that unusual.

As I walked around, I was impressed with the society in which I live where young women could feel so free. Atop one car were three young women chatting away.  Sitting on the top of a large SUV were a bunch of young women.  Another group of women at the observation deck taking turns posing for photos.  Against all the horror stories of women and girls being raped and beaten up when in the public space, to see young women having such fun was reassuring that the world is quite ok, really.

The breeze picked up and the flag fluttered.  The land of the free it certainly was that evening at Skinner Butte.

If I were a rich man ...

As a starving graduate student--ok, "starving" is an exaggeration--every once in a while I played the lottery.  I typically bought a quickpick lotto ticket for a dollar--this was back in California.  It was always a disappointment that I never had even two numbers that matched with the winning ones.  I comforted myself with "unlucky with money, but lucky in love."

And then I won.

Five dollars!

And those five dollars is all I have won all my life in playing the lottery.  I was excited that I finally won something.  So elated I was, I immediately spent it all on, yep, five lottery tickets.  And, yep, no more wins.

The "starving" graduate student!

As life picked up, it seemed like I had gotten to be lucky with love and with money.

But ... it then became a stereotypical country music song that I live: dog died, wife gone, and no money :)

Of course, "no money" is one heck of an exaggeration.

What I earn now will place me in the global top one percent.  Yep, I am one of those awful one-percent.

But, I don't feel like I am in that kind of an economic stratosphere because I don't get to see the more than six and a half billion whose lives are nowhere even close to my level of material affluence.  I can, however, and pretty much on a daily basis, see those who are even more affluent.

But, I am almost always content and happy.  One student, "D," who every once in a while pokes his head into my office, comments variations of "we shouldn't pay you because you look happy all the time."  "D" is not wrong at all; I am sure my contentment shows.

Is there a relationship at all between material affluence and contentment and happiness?  I would think that the longest stretch of not at ease within were during the days--years actually--from the final phase of high school until I came to the US.  That was one long stretch of about seven years.  But, it wasn't because I was penniless and thrown into the gutters.  It was simply because of angst within.  The wonderful food that my mother cooked or the pleasing music or anything else were comforting, yes, but that angst triggered unhappiness was always there.

It is not without reason, I suppose, that we mouth that old wisdom that happiness comes from within.  It is true, dammit.  Money certainly helps, but I guess money is neither a necessary condition, nor a sufficient condition, to make one happy.  Could I be happier with a tad more money?  You betcha!  But, do I do anything at all with a goal of increasing my material affluence?  Hell no. My life isn't about making more money for myself.

My interest in economic development, which led me to graduate school, meant that I read up about this happiness aspect of economic development as well.  A mere maximization of the GDP didn't appeal to me as the be all and end all of how to think about poverty in the developing countries.  After all, I had seen plenty of poor in India who seemed to be having fun in life.  They seemed happy from what I observed.  Many with money seemed nowhere that happy from what I observed.

One of the articles I read was by Richard Easterlin.  Interestingly enough, Easterlin was on the faculty at USC at that time, and two graduate students from India, who were friends of mine, were working with him on their doctoral dissertations.  Anyway, the article was about the "Easterlin Paradox"--happiness across countries did not seem to relate to per capita incomes.  Simply put, more money doesn't mean more happiness.

That paradox, as one can imagine, appealed to me right away.  It was consistent with my own life experiences, though I hadn't had all that experience when I was barely 25!  It made intuitive sense that money alone does not get happiness.

But, I would think that if one is literally starving for food because of poverty, then money could bring in immense relief and happiness. One could then theoretically argue that as we climb up those economic levels then the happiness brought in by the additional dollar is not as much as the happiness brought in by the first dollar.

Ronald Bailey writes in Reason that, well, I am wrong--more money is more happiness:

Two economists at the University of Michigan, Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, reject the Easterlin Paradox. Their new article, published in the May American Economic Review—argues that more money does buy more happiness. As evidence, the two compare happiness measures between rich and poor countries and between rich and poor people within countries.

After discussing the research findings, Bailey winds down to this:

There is no income threshold when it comes to procuring more of this kind of happiness. It is certainly wonderful and valuable to enjoy the moment, but real and lasting pleasure comes from a life well-lived. More money can’t guarantee a satisfying life, but research shows that it sure does help.

My point exactly.  Money is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for happiness.  But, having money does help.

Bombs and missiles are ok in Syria, but gas is not ok? WTF!

Last night, even as my eyes were half-closing, and with my right arm tiring quickly holding the New Yorker thanks to the tennis-elbow issue that I am dealing with, I simply had to, had to, finish reading the absolutely depressing narrative on the people in Aleppo burying their dead.

If it was depressing to read, I cannot imagine how awful it was for the reporter to be there.  And even more awful for the Syrians who live in Aleppo.  And way more awful for those whose friends and family are dead. What a terrible situation there!

The entire essay is bloody depressing.  Within that insanity, one of the most insane was this: there is a bridge that divides the rebel area from the regime's.  People use it even as there is fighting all around because, well, they have to keep going with their lives.  And then this happens:

In several places, to evade government snipers, you must run.  Nearly every day, the snipers kill people--but, if you reach the bridge, chances are that the soldiers on the other side will let you in.
The snipers shoot commuters in order to bait rebel fighters and would-be rescuers.  Often, it is women and children who are shot. 

Even Catch-22 didn't include such levels of insanity.

It is now more than two years of fighting.  The UN has registered and processed more than 1.2 million refugees.  As one can imagine, a lot more are internally displaced.

So, when all these are happening, why should the use of gases be some kind of a red line that Assad's government cannot cross?  The 1.2 million refugees don't matter? The 75,000 dead is within our tolerance limits?  The regime's use of aircraft and missiles against its own people is normal?

This artificial notion of gas used against Syrians as some kind of a barometer on whether or not we should act is just bizarre.  Stupid, actually!

It is a long corridor of geopolitical instability from Kashmir all the way to the Mediterranean.  We need to draw a red line around the thousands of miles of this corridor.  And there isn't enough red ink for that!

All I can do in such contexts is rely on the old masters; here is Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms

"There is nothing as bad as war. ... When people realize how bad it is they cannot do anything to stop it because they go crazy.  There are some people who never realize. There are people who are afraid of their officers. It is with them the war is made"

"I know it is bad but we must finish it."

"It doesn't finish.  There is no finish to a war."

"Yes there is."

Passini shook his head.

"War is not won by victory. ... We think. We read. We are not peasants.  We are mechanics.  But even the peasants know better than to believe in a war.  Everybody hates this war."