The Creative Urge

For most of my life I've been a decidedly left-brain kind of guy. As a child, I was never much good at things like music or drawing, preferring instead to spend my time in contemplation of the mysteries of the universe. Religion was always my favorite subject, and, although I went to Fordham University with the intention of majoring in psychology, after my first philosophy class, I knew immediately that I had found my calling. No other discipline I had ever encountered hurt my brain quite so much as philosophy, and every other subject seemed quite banal in comparison.

Until the age of 40, in fact, I managed to avoid anything having to do with "artsy fartsy" activities. Travelling through Europe, I dutifully passed through all the major art museums, just to check them off my list. I wrote a few poems when I was 20, but gave that all up when I became a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Leuven. The arts just seemed far too frivolous to me when compared to the majesty of the First Science.

Then in 2001, I had my great upheaval. My entire universe seemed flat, squalid, and uninteresting. And philosophy for the first time was unable to console me. It was at that moment, when nothing else in life seemed to work for me, that the creative urge suddenly took hold of me. Together with two friends on the faculty, I had come up with an idea for a new learning community for freshmen centered around the creative experience. Our program was modeled after the innovative one at Black Mountain College, and the crazy idea we had was for the faculty to participate in the creative process along with the students. If the students had to write poetry and flash fiction, paint, and do photography, then I was determined to do exactly the same. If we were constantly encouraging the students to break free of their bourgeois sensibilities and "get freaky," then I was going to have to get freaky along with them.

In the process of helping students to develop their creative potentials, something amazing happened. I discovered that I enjoyed creating as much--and perhaps even more--than the students did. New sensibilities opened up to me that made my safe, static one-dimensional universe suddenly become vibrant with psychedelic possibilities. I wrote incredibly silly poems and did some weird nose art just to prove that I was still able to play--the most important thing in life, I've discovered, much to my own amazement.

The poetry I wrote and the paintings and photographs I produced would definitely not have won any awards (most of my work was fairly derivative and juvenile). But that wasn't the point of engaging in these activities. The point was to tap into the inner core of my being--that place from which the creative well-spring arises--and produce something that reflected my own inner life, as bizarre, silly, and inane as that might be. It didn't matter at all if no one appreciated what I was trying to do, because I was doing it completely and totally for myself.

This fall, yet another class of wide-eyed freshmen will be passing through our Creative Experience program. If they are anything like previous groups, they will bitch, moan, and complain about all the work they have to do for the program. In the end, however, I know that almost all of them will discover hidden artistic talents within themselves that they probably didn't even know existed. And I will be creating right alone side them...not because it's expected of me, but because I now understand that creating is what human beings must do in order to make sense of this crazy world of ours.

Don Hazlitt guiding me in the creative act.

Authenticity: It's Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

In the current digital age, in which people take on multiple personas depending upon whom they are interacting with on-line, there has recently been an attempt to market authenticity as the virtue of the moment (see “Authentic: Get Real”). Celebrities as diverse as Michele Bachman, Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, Ophra, and even Pope Benedict XVI have been touting the importance of presenting an image of the authentic self—our true inner selves as opposed to the fictitious ones that we often create for ourselves.

While I think that it is charming that an existential concept like authenticity is finding its way into mainstream culture, I wonder whether this recent need to be—or at least appear—authentic is all that desirable or even possible.

I’ve spent the past 25 years searching for my own authentic self in vain. Instead what I’ve discovered is that there are numerous “Mikes” that rise and fall depending upon the specific situations in which I find myself and the specific people with whom I am interacting. The discovery that there is no real me in me was at first a dispiriting proposition, especially for the younger me who was really, really into me and believed that the me I thought was me was truly the authentic me (Whew! That was a tough one to get out!).

In recent years, however, my study of Buddhism has shown me that the quest for a real or authentic self is something of a delusion. The Buddha’s central insight was that there actually is no abiding Self that exists throughout time and space at the core of the human being. Instead, what we have are thoughts, emotions, and sensations that are experienced in the moment but which don’t actually belong to any permanent or enduring Self.

My youthful quest to discover my “authentic self’ has given way, therefore, to a greater appreciation for what I would call “existential fluidity.” I came upon this concept from my six-year study of one of my personal heroes, Mr. Bob Dylan. During his 50-year career as a musician, Dylan has transformed himself so many times that it was often difficult to keep track of all his assorted mutations. There was Dylan the folk singer, Dylan the social activist, Dylan the leader of the Counter-Culture, Dylan the country singer, Dylan the family man, Dylan the evangelical, Dylan the painter, and so on. There was never any one Bob Dylan, which is probably what the recent film about him was so aptly called “I’m Not There.” Instead what you have with Dylan was a man who prided himself on his ability to evolve with time and circumstances, who tried on numerous personas to see how they fit, and to who kept challenging himself to grow as an artist and a human being through his long life. He’s still going strong at 70 and his music now is as intriguing as it was when he was 21, even if it is completely different from any sort of music he created before.

Existential fluidity. It means I don’t have to be concerned at all about “finding my authentic self,” because I recognize that I am a being in flux at all times, always evolving, always growing, and, hopefully, always maturing. I can try to resist this change by obsessing about “the real me” and being miserable as a result, or I can embrace it and allow myself to gracefully flow along with the world around me.

Existential fluidity is a liberating concept because it also means that I can’t ever be pegged by other people as this or that kind of person. When someone says to me, “Mike, you are so _______” (fill in the blank), I can respond: “I don’t know who you’re talking about. That may be the picture of me that you’ve created in your own mind, but it sure as hell ain’t me.” And no one, then, can fit you into his or her petty, constricted little boxes.

Existential fluidity also means that I don’t have to feel guilty for trying new things, taking on new projects, or embracing new experiences (however unconventional they might appear to others), because this is precisely what a being in flux does. If I’m accused of being a dabbler, or lacking serious focus, I can simply say, “Amen!” So I dabble, and in dabbling discover amazing new dimensions to my ever-evolving being. In my dabbling I become reborn, renewed, and reimagined. I can be a philosopher, a poet, a high priest, revolutionary, saint, a manic doer of deeds, or a deliciously lethargic slug. I can be all these things at different times or all these things at once...and ALL of them are the real me without being really me at all.

So let the Oprahs and Katies of the world waste their time trying to be authentic. I’d prefer to spend the little time I have left embracing my utter and complete lack of any sort authenticity…and live a much richer life as a result.

Confessions of a Eurosnob

I just read a provocative editorial in the New York Times Sunday Review by Robert Reich, that captured exactly why I wish I was living in Europe again. The editorial was entitled “The Limping Middle Class” and used some wonderful data to show how, since the late 1970s, real wages for the middle class have been declining at the same time that the very rich in this country were experiencing record earnings.

I won’t bother to summarize all of Reich’s points, because the article should be read in its entirety by any person who truly cares about the future of our country. Suffice to say, Reich believes that the growth of income inequality in the United States has been a disaster for the working classes (no surprise there). But he also maintains that the existence of such radical inequality doesn’t bode all that well for American business either, since there aren’t enough rich people in our country (or in the rest of the world) to purchase all the wonderful tinkers-toys that U.S. corporation love to produce. When the middle class stops consuming—as they are right now—the mighty engines of American capitalism must inevitably come grinding to a halt. In short, the stupid, short-sighted greed of the ruling classes has created a situation where now their own bloated wealth is going to start to be threatened. Tough luck, suckers!

Short of a revolt on the part of the working classes in this country (which is unlikely to happen) there is no easy way out of this fix. Henry Ford understood that he had to at least pay his workers enough so that they could buy his cars; the current ruling elite in this country—and their cronies in Congress—are either too stupid or too venal to grasp this simple fact. And so they squeeze the earning power of the average worker and then are surprised that this is now having a detrimental effect on our economy.

So what does all this have to do with Europe? Certainly that continent has more than its own share of economic problems. The difference is that countries like Germany and France protect their workers and ensure that they receive living wages, decent benefits, generous vacation time, and of course universal health insurance. The relative income equality in almost every European country and the well-designed safety net that these countries have in place means that average Europeans haven’t been devastated during this current economic down-turn the way their American counterparts have.

Let me use one example to illustrate the basic difference between American and European forms of capitalism. When I was in Belgium this summer, a friend of mine, who is an American married to a Belgian woman, had recently lost his job. When he went to the unemployment office in his local city, he was automatically provided with generous unemployment benefits (about 80% of his former salary for the first year) and given outplacement assistance to help him find another job. He didn’t have to worry about his health insurance, because it wasn’t connected to his job, and he also didn’t have to worry about not being able to pay for his daughter’s university education, because it was almost free. Expressing concerns that he was in the job market again at the age of 50, the woman he was dealing with at the unemployment office put things in perspective for him. “Just be glad that you’re not living in the United States,” she said. “You’d really be in trouble then.”

The six years I spent living in Belgium has given me a wonderful appreciation for the kind of well-regulated European-style capitalism that is constantly being mocked by right wing pundits and tea-party politicians in this country. Certainly, it is difficult for Europeans to earn as much as the elite do in the U.S., because of their progressive taxation system. But this means that there is also not as many people struggling to survive every day as there are in this country.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to teach a political philosophy class at Rangsit University in Thailand. The students in the class came from all over Asia, and were naturally fascinated by the United States. Many of them said that they hoped that their own countries would develop along the lines of the United States. When I asked them why they looked to the U.S. as the model for their own countries, the general sentiment was that Americans seemed to have the best lifestyles of any people on earth.

This prompted me to do a bit of research, which I proceeded to share with the class:

1) In terms of economic inequality, our own C.I.A. studies rank the United States as one of the most unequal places on earth (just above Jamaica, Uganda, and the Philippines). The places with the least income inequality, not surprisingly, were in Europe with Sweden, Hungary, and Norway leading the pack.

2) In a recent study of quality of life in major world cities, no American city even made it into the top 30. The top three cities for quality of life: Vienna, Zurich, and Geneva.

3) In terms of overall happiness, once again European countries like Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria lead the pack with the United States ranked 23.

Based upon these and other similar studies (peacefulness ranking, overall health, infant mortality rates, numbers of people incarcerated, educational outcomes, environmental quality, rate of violent crime), life in the U.S. falls well behind that of many European countries. Based upon data like this alone, I told the students in my class that, if they were looking for countries to serve as viable models of development, they might want to study Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, since, by most standards, the overall quality of life in these countries is much higher then in the U.S.

The recent economic crisis the world is experiencing is showing the fault lines in global capitalism. The question is not whether capitalism itself should be replaced by some other economic system, but which version of capitalism will ultimately prove more resiliant in a period of economic uncertainty, global instability, and resource scarcity--the very period, in other words, that we seem to be living through right now.

I'm putting my money on the European model.

Americans Elect 2012

DEFINITION: Corporatocracy – a system of government run by corporations and which exists solely to serve the needs of those corporations.

When I was much younger—and much more naïve—I bought into the popular liberal idea that the United States was essentially a democracy that had gone slightly off-track since the election of Richard Nixon. According to this line of thinking (which is often espoused by those in the Democratic Party establishment), if we could just elect a progressive to the White House, many of the problems currently facing the poor and middle class in this country could be corrected and we would once again be an example of justice and liberty for the rest of the world.

The problem with this myth—and I now believe that it is indeed a myth—is that we have had three so-called progressives in the White House since the 70s, and, if anything, the situation of the working classes in this country has deteriorated more than ever. The richest 10% of Americans now control 2/3s of the wealth in this country (see article in Mother Jones). While the “Great Recession” that hit the United States has decimated the poor and middle classes, the wealthy in this country are doing better than ever with corporate profits at all-time highs.

Three years ago, in a return to the silly idealism of my youth, I voted for Obama, assuming that anyone who had been a community organizer in his past, would work tirelessly to correct the economic imbalances inherent in our system. What I forgot is that Democrats—and this includes President Obama, I’m afraid—are as much beholden to The Corporatocracy as the Republicans are. When the economic crisis hit, Obama, like Bush, did all he could to protect banks and Wall Street, but very little at all to help the 25 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed.

So, if our two political parties are basically two branches of the same corporatist party that runs our country, what are we to do to wrest control back from the power elites? One positive solution that many are discussing is to take corporate money out of politics by having public funding of all campaigns. While I think that this idea is quite admirable, I doubt that Republicans, Democrats, or their corporate sponsors will ever support the idea, because there is too much money to be made from the current system.

Recently, however, a group called American’s Elect 2012 has proposed an idea that could potentially shake up the strangle-hold that the two parties have on American politics (see article in The Daily Beast). Their idea was to create a completely open on-line nominating system for the 2012 Presidential election. The candidate that is chosen—by the people instead of by party elites—will then supposedly run in all 50 states for President.

My Democrat friends have already told me that they think this is a terrible idea. Republicans, they maintain, will march in lock step and nominate a reactionary that they will, as usual, all rally behind. Progressives, on the other hand, will be split between those who think that Obama at least is the lesser of two evils and therefore should be supported and those silly idealists who support the third party candidate nominated by the Americans Elect process. The result will be a President Perry or Bachmann, who will cause much more harm to the working classes than any Democrat would ever do.

While I think that the dangers involved in splitting the progressive vote in the United States are worth considering, I for one am tired of always supporting the “lesser of two evils” and finding my heart broken time and again. Besides, if it is indeed true that we really only have one corporate party with two branches, then voting for any Democrat is simply voting for a perpetuation of the whole, damned corrupt system whereby a small percentage of wealthy individuals control almost every aspect of the life of this country.

So I plan to support Americans Elect and whatever candidate comes out of their—I mean our—nominating process. And, if by doing so, the Republicans win the White House, then at least progressives will have a clear enemy to fight, rather than being deceived--yet again--by a supposed friend who in the end is probably no real friend at all.

The Autocratic Temperament in Our Times

Autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East have been falling one after the other--first in Tunisia, then in Egypt, and now it appears in Lybia as well. The Arab Spring gives us hope for a world completely free of petty tyrants and vicious dictators, regardless of whether they rule over occupied Tibet or the boardrooms of Wall Street. It is this dream of a world in which the masses control their own destinies that underlies the political vision of that poet-sage and neo-beatnik from Brooklyn, Alcibiades J. Grunthaler. Here's what Grunthaler has to say about the psychological make-up of the autocrat that all but insures his or her ultimate downfall:

"The capricious autocrat is incapable of compromise even on the most insignificant of matters, because she necessarily views herself as being all-knowing and completely infallible. To admit that anyone else has the slightest amount of expertise to offer on any matter is to admit that she is something less than omnipotent. And this is one thing that the capricious autocrat can never willingly acknowledge to herself or to anyone else.

Because she and she alone knows what is best for all, she can tolerate no disagreement, no alternative perspectives, and, above all else, absolutely no dissenting viewpoints. Thus she surrounds herself with those who are temperamentally and intellectually most like herself -- yes-women who will always agree with whatever dictates flow from her divinely inspired lips -- and those eunuchs who daily sing hosannas to her eternal glory.

Because the capricious autocrat views her wisdom as divinely inspired, those who dare challenge her mandates -- no matter how erratic and destructive these mandates might be -- must be treated as infidels. And infidels must be crushed at all costs. For the mere existence of those who dissent is enough to throw into question her so-called omnipotence and shows the autocrat up for what she truly is: an insecure, intellectually barren parasite feeding off the industry and creativity of those she seeks to dominate.

Although the capricious autocrat may do considerable harm to the polis she seeks to control, in the end she must inevitably fail in her quest at total domination. She must fail, because each act of domination engenders greater and greater resentment, and resentment leads to resistance, and resistance to outright revolution. In fact, the autocrat cannot withstand the people's revolution, because she has no real power-base or support other than in her own mind. When the end of her reign comes, all of her self-proclaimed accomplishments will be swept away on the garbage heap of oblivion and her very name will become infamous with future generations.

And thus it is for all those who dare violate the sovereign will of the people...."

From Sic Semper: The Political Writing of A.J. Grunthaler

Ideas...They're, Like, Sooo 1990s

I came across an interesting editorial in the August 14th New York Times Sunday Review, entitled, "The Elusive Big Idea." The gist is that there are no more big theories, big ideas, or big visions, because we are living in a "post idea" world. In the age of Twitter and Facebook -- the so-called "Information Age" -- people are looking for small bits of titillating information, not nasty, messy, complex, abstract ideas. In short, the enlightenment is dead and buried, and with it the appreciation for man's ability to use reason to make sense of his world.

This may not mean very much to some people -- no-nothing Presidential candidates, for example -- but it should trouble those of us who care about the future of the planet. Rarely before in human history has our species been confronted by so many interconnected global problems that threaten our continued existence on Mother Earth: climate change, peak oil, a global economic meltdown, species extinction, political and religious extremism, and the prospect of Michelle Bachman as a presidential candidate, to name but a few. These issues are difficult to solve precisely because they are the result of our human and planetary interconnectedness--something that is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. The global nature of these problems also means that we either solve them together or we go down in flames together.

But to solve problems like these, you need people trained to think critically, rationally, and conceptually. We need people, in other words, who know how to do THE BIG IDEA thing. And that's something we don't have any longer. Sure, we all know everything about Lady Gaga's latest fashion escapades, but that sort of information is not going to prevent sea levels from rising and swamping countries like Bangladesh.

Now higher education has failed completely to help train a future generation of big thinkers. During the past thirty years, we've abandoned the liberal arts in favor of vocational and technical educational models that do little more than reinforce student's fixation on information over ideas. The marginalization -- or wholesale elimination -- of philosophy from most many college's requirements, in particular, means that the next generation of movers and shakers won't be provided with the intellectual tools they need to engage in the sort of rational thinking that can help solve some of our most pressing global problems.

Do I have hopes that this situation will change any time soon? Probably not. The Information Age is here to stay and with it social networking programs that are rewiring our brains for the worse. And, given the sort of people who are in charge of our education system in this country, it seems unlikely that solutions will be coming out of higher education. The only solution that I can conceive -- if, indeed, there even is a solution at this point -- is for individual human beings, alone or in small groups with other like-minded individuals, to commit themselves to lives of intellectual engagement. Here are my recommendations for those who are interested in maintaining their capacity for rational thought at a time when most human beings seem to be losing theirs:

1) Delete your Facebook and Twitter accounts and limit your cellphone use.
2) Learn how to be lazy. Spend a minimum of 1 hour a day engaged in idle day-dreaming. It sure worked like a charm for Einstein and Edison!
3) Read great works all the time (start with Homer and work your way to a Confederacy of Dunces)
3) Write something every day. Keep a journal, maintain a blog like this one, or write your own book. It doesn't matter about the quality of what you write or who appreciates it or not. Just keep writing.
4) Major in philosophy, or at least dual major in it, or at least take some classes in the subject.

If you do all this, when the Long Emergency that James Howard Kunstler prophesizes about happens, you will be in a position to offer the kind of visionary leadership that the world will sorely need. And, even if we don't have a kind of nasty planetary cataclysm, you will certainly be much better off than those sorry individuals who think that the quality of a person's life is measured by the number of their tweets.

On the Ethics of Quid Pro Quo

I disgusted a friend recently when I suggested that human beings might be better off if we adopted the moral stance of my Italian ancestors—what I call the ethics of quid pro quo. Now, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles, and my parents probably wouldn’t use that particular expression to describe their unique moral outlook on life, but that is precisely what they always advocated as the only decent form of moral behavior that a person could adopt.

Quid pro quo. You take care of me and I take care of you. I come to your assistance when you are in need and you do the same for me when I’m in trouble. I don’t ask of you anything more than I’d be willing to give and expect you to provide me with the same courtesy. There’s an exquisite harmony involved in this sort of exchange. It’s the way good friends almost automatically operate, and, when the delicate balance between the “quid” and the “quo” is maintained, both parties feel enriched, and neither is diminished morally or spiritually.

When I was growing up in Queens, my parents instilled the idea in me that we had a duty to give just as much as we have received from others—whether these others were family, friends, neighbors or members of the larger community. If a family member had us over to celebrate Thanksgiving at their house, we’d always have them to ours for Easter. If an aunt gave my sister or me a gift worth $10 for our birthdays, you can bet your bottom dollar that my cousins would receive a gift worth at least that much from my parents on their birthdays. If a neighbor was generous with food or time, you could automatically assume that my parents would make sure to take care of them in some equally beneficial way. The formula for reciprocity was never exact, but it always worked out in a way that seemed to satisfy everyone.

The reason my friend, who is an incredibly spiritual person, was horrified by this position was because he thought that the proper moral stance should be one of Christian altruism. In other words, we should give to those who are in need with no thought at all to being paid back for our efforts. My friend certainly understands the spirit that animates the Gospels—unlike those hypocrites who call themselves Christians, but whose true gospel is that of crass, unfettered Capitalism—and I respect him for his consistency. My problem with this moral position, however, is precisely that it expects little or nothing from those whom we serve. In the end, it treats the recipients of our largesse like moral inferiors who are incapable of authentic human relationships (since true relationships between individuals always involve at least some degree of reciprocity) and renders them impotent as moral beings (since they have no incentive to act on their own behalf).

Despite my reservations with Christian altruism as a moral system, it certainly is preferable to the kind of egoistic ethics that most Americans seem to practice. We’ve raised generation after generation of men and women who assume that everyone—their parents, their teachers, the State—should take care them, but that they have no obligation to care for anyone else. Americans have no problem cutting essential programs for the poor or sending Blacks and Latinos off to fight their wars, but don’t ask them to give up any of their cherished entitlements, pay a bit more in taxes for the social goods they receive, or send their own sons or daughters off to fight our absurd wars. America, by and large, has become a nation of all quo and no quid.

Restoring the proper balance in our relationships with our fellow human beings, I believe, is the first step in getting our country back on the right track. A quid pro quo approach to ethics automatically assumes that we are all equal, all in this together, and have an obligation to provide reciprocal care for one another. Naturally, there will be those in our society who, for one reason or another, cannot reciprocate for the goods that they’ve received (infants, children up to a certain age, the seriously mentally ill or physically disabled). But we can ask a bit more even of those who, on the surface of it, might seem to have less to give, and we can ask a heck-of-a-lot more from those who have been blessed with abundance.

You take care of me and I’ll take care of you. It sounds like a petty approach to life, but just imagine if everyone—you, me, members of Congress, CEOs of large corporations—tried to live according to this dictum every day. Is there really any doubt that we’d be in much better shape as a society than where we are right now?

Who the Hell is Norman L. Livergood and What Does He Want From Me?

As part of my on-going effort to streamline my web profile--for better or worse, I now have over 15 years of web resources that I've created--I recently did a search to see what came up under my name, and much to my surprise, I found a critique of a short piece I did in the 90s to introduce students to the philosophy of Socrates. It wasn't supposed to be a scholarly article, but a general overview of Socrates' thought for undergraduate students who knew absolutely nothing about the great philosopher.

The critique was written by a fellow named Norman L. Livergood, who apparently was less than smitten by what I had written:

"Mr. Russo is not particularly any worse (or better) than most academics, but his unenlightened misunderstanding of Plato is typical of scholastic 'professors.' Academic 'professors' are the modern equivalent of the charlatans Plato opposed, the sophists.

What is especially perplexing is how a scholastic so-called 'Plato expert' (self-appointed) can comprehend certain elements of Plato's philosophy and yet--in the next paragraph sometimes--totally misrepresent what Plato is saying. This kind of selective, limited understanding is particularly true of such scholars as Russo." (from: http://www.hermes-press.com/russo.htm)

I'll pass over Mr. Livergood's ad hominum attacks on me, except to point out that I certainly would never claim to be an "expert" on Plato's thought. I'm just a simple teacher of philosophy who tries to the best of his ability to make complex thought accessible to the average college student.

Concerning the content of what I wrote, the basic insight that I had expressed in the original piece would certainly be accepted as true by most well-informed Socrates scholars. Socrates' goal in cross-examining the young men of Athens undoubtedly had both a negative as well as a positive function. The negative function is obvious: it is to show the arrogant individuals with whom he is debating that they really don't know that which they profess to know. But, if this was Socrates' sole philosophical purpose, then he would have been little better than any Sophist. No, Socrates' ultimate purpose was a positive one: his method aimed at leading himself and those with who he was debating to a higher, universal truth about the right way to live.

I don't know what Mr. Livegood's own position on Socrates is because I haven't read his book (since it's only $10 I probably will check it out at some point just to see what his beef with me actually is). I would strongly encourage him, however, to cite the text version of this piece, which will be coming out in my new anthology, Ancient Wisdom for Modern Minds. I don't think that's much to ask...especially coming from a modern "Sophist" like myself

Philosophy of Mojo: Part 1

From the Writing of Alcibiades J. Grunthaler:

There are those who believe that there is an unlimited amount of mojo in the universe and therefore mojo depletion is of no concern. They could not be further from the truth.

When the Fontalis Plentitudo of Universal Mojo (FPUM) created the current reality in which we are so blessed to inhibit, he shed his own mojo reserves so that all who are able may partake of it. But the great Fontalis is by no means infinite in mojosity, and therefore the sum total of all mojo in the universe is of limited quantity.

Mojo can be measured in human beings according to the Mojo Indicator Scale (MIS), created by the illustrious philosopher, Rocco Capamezzo, who himself was bursting at the seams with mojosity. The scale ranks mojo levels from 1 (total mojo depletion) to 10 (an incarnation of the FPUM). The average male has a mojo level of approximately 3.2. Here's how certain luminaries throughout history rank on the Mojo Indicator Scale:

George Patton (warrior) - 9.9
Pablo Picasso (artist) - 9.4
Jim Morrison (aka, Mr. Mojo Risin) - 9.3
Don Hazlitt (artist) - 9.2
Theodore Roosevelt - 8.7
Bernie Sanders (politician) - 8.6
Snookie (personality) - 8.4
Hillary Clinton (politician) - 8.2
Sara Silverman (commedian) -7.4
Barak Obama (politician) - 2.1
Rush Limbaugh (entertainer) - 1.3

Now, although mojo is limited in human beings, this in no way means that mojo is static. It can be increased or diminished based onseveral factors, the most important of which is the other people with who we choose to interact. There are those individuals who can be called mojo enhancers (ME*), since interaction with such individuals almost always lead to an increase in mojo levels. Mojo enhancers are rare, and, when you find one, make him or her your dearest friend immediately. Such individuals can often be found in divey bars, drinking cheep beer during happy hour and chatting with an assortment of colorful low-lifes.

Mojo depleters (MD*), on the other hand, are fairly common. They sap your vital energy, leaving you in such a constant state of enervation and psychic enervation that true creativity becomes impossible. The petty bureaucrat, the sterile administrator, the shriveled up has-been, and the shrill know-it-all are all almost always mojo depleters. Stay far away from them, shun them like the plague...for they will be your destruction!

Alcibides J. Gruntaler. On the Philosophy of Mojo. 2 Vols.