My Favourite Sweater

My favourite piece of clothing is a faux woolly jumper in a colour that has been described as everything from orange to mustard to gold. It was purchased used from a thrift store for less than $10, it's largely man made fibers, it stretches when you hang it up, and it doesn't really fit.

It is actually a replacement for a previous woolly jumper that had a slightly more golden hue. I'm not sure what happened to that sweater, I do remember wearing it in England and Wales while wandering around.

I like it so much because it suits who I am. It's not a beautiful thing, it easily rumpled. It isn't pretentious, but it certainly isn't understated. It is almost unique. It's a tough piece of clothing in that you can throw it in a corner and it doesn't change it one bit. It is ideally suited to grey and drizzle as it keeps you warm and dries easily.

In essence, what this sweater does it tells you about who I am. I think of this sweater as the sort of thing that an English college student would wear. Someone who doesn't own things but thinks about things. A person who is more comfortable in a pub than a church. Someone who hasn't joined in with what has been decided is cool, or looks good, or that the latest thing is better than what there was ten years ago.

I love it.

How to Defeat Radical Fundamentalism

It is a common aim of the US Military, of secular scientists, of the fear-obsessed American patriot, to defeat violent radical, fundamentalist Islam. I think the violent part is important because there are other religions around the world that are just as radical, just as purely entrenched in their positions but nobody really feels like defeating them. The Amish are generally used at this point.

The title of this post does not specifically mention Islam, and that's because I think that Islam is only a special case at this point in time, rather than Islam having some qualities that are particular heinous. On this point I disagree with a number of my tribe. I think if you look back in history it is easy to pick times when Christians were just as awful, when ideologue secularists were just as awful, when Hindus were just as awful, and so on. The reason for radical Islam's danger is not so much because of the religion, it is because of geo-politics.

This doesn't mean that I don't believe that the beliefs held by violent, fundamentalist Muslims aren't dangerous. I also believe that these people truly do believe what they are saying, as is very difficult for many liberal people who live in essentially a secular society. Nor do I think that there is no justification within the Islamic religion for such violent acts. The reason that I think that the problem is geo-political is because human beings can use any belief system to justify atrocity. The Japanese of World War II had managed to combine Buddhism and Shintoism into a belief system within which it was possible to commit unspeakable atrocity. Throughout most of Christian history horrible crimes were easily justified through a cursory glance through The Bible. Stalin was an Atheist supposedly changing the world to become a worker's paradise, a justification for the murder of millions.

So, we have a group of people who really believe in some religious nonsense that enables them to do horrible things. How do we stop this from continuing? One approach people try is to attempt to show them how stupid their ideas are. This is essentially the approach of the New Atheists, and there is some success in changing people's minds from a religious point of view to being more secular, but this only works for those people amenable to such approaches, and those who are amenable are not those who we are worried about. A rationalist, evidentialist approach works for young people who have been exposed to a number of ideas who are not convinced by their faith and are convinced by the efficacy of a secular society. These are people who have not completely identified with their faith. For those who have identified entirely with their faith challenging that faith with rational objections, appeals to reason etc. have been shown by Scott Atran to actually increase that faith. That's right, using reason against those with faith is considered an attack on their faith, which increases it.

Another approach has been to attempt to militarily defeat fundamentalist Islam. While the US military has had enormous success in dismantling the operating apparatus of Al-Qaeda, it simply cannot extinguish an idea through the use of force. Young people turn to radicalized terrorism through the need for a purpose, a cause, something to cling to in a world that is changing. They are more influenced by their peers than by authority or organizations. What motivates them to be radicals is rootlessness and outrages they see through the media.

It seems that direct action against radicalized fundamentalists can at best reduce the efficiency of their operations, but cannot remove the motivation to be a radicalized fundamentalist. So, it seems indirect action is a more sensible method to use. But what indirect method? Well, let us look at an example of where what we would now consider radical fundamentalism has been changed to moderate religion and secular humanism, Europe. It is about three centuries since Europe hung witches, in Britain the death penalty for Blasphemy was ended in 1676 (although you could still get three years imprisonment). The beliefs of the majority in Europe three hundred years ago were equivalent to the beliefs of radical fundamentalists in modern Islam. Clearly Christian nutjobbery has been effectively removed from Europe where the idea that killing someone for having different religious beliefs in repugnant.

How did this happen? It happened through the process whereby more knowledge was attained, spread, and this knowledge led to an improved life. Information and ideas were produced by intelligent people, discussed by those who were informed and intelligent, and then spread downward through society until the new became taken for granted. Improved economic and societal results for most people supported the worth of secular advancements and people wanted those improved conditions. Almost nobody in Europe set out to remove radical, fundamentalist Christianity, but it happened very effectively over just a couple of centuries.

The point, ironically enough, is that the way to remove radical, fundamentalist beliefs is through evolution by natural selection. A civil society based on enlightenment laws, with respect for humanity as designated through human rights outperforms radicalized fundamentalism. People living in such societies are hugely richer, more free, happier and safer. Radical fundamentalism disappeared in Europe not throughout any direct action but simply because young people at the time when they are identifying who and what they are preferred lives of increased freedom, wealth and happiness.

The method for defeating radical fundamentalism is simply to give young people a superior alternative. This superior alternative is not just money, it is freedom, self-direction, knowledge, the chance to do something worthwhile. If you are a young person in the Middle East today you are in the midst of the collapse of a traditional world, caught between the traditions in which you were raised, and the inability to compete in a global marketplace dominated by a militaristic West. What if there was a chance to compete? What if you could go to school and be the equal of anyone else? What if you could be part of the process of revitalizing and reinventing your part of the world as a better, more free society?

The defeat of radical fundamentalism has several components, the most important piece being an attitudinal change. Instead of thinking of a global threat think of radical fundamentalism as a natural problem that arises when countries go from the middle ages to modernity. It should be thought of a social problem, like poverty or disease. Those who become terrorists should, and must be, treated like criminals rather than like soldiers. In fact, they should be treated like mentally ill criminals, people to feel sorry for and rather repulsed by, rather than as an enemy. There is nothing to take the sting out of a jihadi army than for the rest of the world to feel somewhat sorry for these backward people. It is more effective to ignore radical fundamentalism than to fight it.

The second piece is the strengthening and support of moderate Islam. Once again this largely is something that would come about naturally. There are a large amount of Muslims in the world, and the vast majority of them would like a nicer tv, better education, a vote, safe streets and to get along with their neighbors. The largest proportion who think like this are the young, and there is a much larger proportion of young Muslims than young Americans. Before the invasion of Iraq, young Iranians favorite place in the world was the USA. Simply by exposure to the American culture, media, way of life young Iranians were choosing to be more like Americans. Without any interference Iranians were going to make themselves a largely secular democracy within the next two decades. This may soon happen, but interference in the area retards this process. There is no need to actively support a natural process that will give the desired result. if the West want to reduce the dangers of Islam then the best thing they can do is build Western schools, hospitals, media outlets etc. and leave the rest alone.

The final piece is to be better as a society ourselves. The more noticeably honorable, effective, peaceful, and moral the West can be, the more impressive it is as an example. The West has ideals that it has described to itself. To defeat radical fundamentalism we need to be better than it as people and as a society. If you sign a treaty you must abide by it. If you state that you believe in human rights then you must give those human rights to everyone at all times. If you want to be a shining beacon on the hill, you need to act like it. Mohandas Gandhi changed the world. He didn't do it by fighting anyone. He didn't do it by re-education. He did it by the example of his own life. As he said, "My life is my message."

Paradigm Shift(s)

I don't like the phrase "Paradigm shift" because it sounds so geeky, and so grandiose. A Paradigm shift is simply a change in your thinking which widely alters your view. A classic example is the change from belief that the Earth is the center of the Universe to it being a rather ordinary planet around a rather ordinary star around a rather ordinary galaxy. A paradigm shift from the special nature of where we are to the mundane nature of where we are.

I'm going to quote a couple of extremely familiar passages and examine them for the paradigms in which they came to be, and the differences between them.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

This is of course the Lord's Prayer, which Jesus is reputed to have taught his followers. Let us look at the paradigm within which this is formed. It starts with praise of The Lord. In the ancient world, and for most of time, societies have been controlled by one person, with complete power, who could arbitrarily ruin your life. It was very important to keep that person happy. It then hopes that the wishes of this powerful entity will be fulfilled before going onto the wishes of those making the entreaty.

The first wish is that the person gets fed. The second is to be forgiven for any mistakes or transgressions that might be made, at least as much as the person is willing to forgive. Essentially begging not to be punished for minor indiscretions. The final part is to not be led astray from what would be the right things to do, and to be free from harm.

In summary the paradigm within the Lord's prayer is of a peasant wishing not to upset the person in power, to not be arbitrarily punished, to be able to eat, and to avoid calamity. This is the paradigm of the ancient world in which power was used arbitrarily, where the views of the common person were irrelevant, and all that you might hope for was to get something to eat and to stay out of trouble.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This is of course a portion of The Declaration of Independence. The paradigm within which this piece came to be written is clearly very different from The Lord's Prayer. For a start it begins with the incredible to the ancient world assertion that it is self-evident that people are created equal and that as a result they have rights. From the paradigm of the ancient world this would be considered ludicrous. Now what are the rights? They are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the ancient world you begged to be free of evil, rather than it being assumed that you have a right to be free of evil.

Furthermore, the text goes on to say that if the government it has does not suit the needs and wishes of the people it governs, it can be removed or altered until it does. In other words, if your government does not let you be free and happy, the government should be changed. This is clearly an enormous paradigm shift in terms of governance.

So I ask, is there anybody who doesn't believe that this shift from totalitarian, authoritarianism to a collective government emphasizing the needs of those being governed has been a great and wonderful thing? I think it is self-evident that such a shift has been a good thing. However, I wish to point out that I don't this shift in governance that has been such a success has spread to other areas quite as well.

Let us take morality. Under the ancient world's system what was moral was what authority said was moral and if you disagreed you were stoned to death. In Jefferson's model morality is a system that enables people to have life, liberty and pursue happiness. Imagine a politician who has cheated on their wife. The vast majority of Americans believe that person has been morally wrong, and this because infidelity is wrong, and that because they have been taught that infidelity is wrong. The Jeffersonian model would ask whether the infidelity has altered the life, liberty or the opportunity to pursue happiness? It hasn't reduced life, or liberty, and while it may reduce the pursuit of happiness for one person it seems to increase it for others. as such, under a modern paradigm, infidelity would not be immoral. Furthermore, it would then be within the rights of people to alter morality accordingly.

Let us take medicine. The present model is that there is something called "health" and something called "illness", and that the role of medicine is to protect us from illness. It is exactly analogous to the ancient world's plea to authority. Health is being without calamity. However, how we feel is much more complicated than whether we have an illness or not. Taking the Jeffersonian model what medicine should be for is to increase life, increase liberty (capability/functionality) and increase the ability to pursue happiness. This means that health isn't merely about not being sick, it's about feeling good and being able to do a lot of things. Under this new paradigm people who are not unhappy should be seeking medical help to become more happy. Those who are not sick should be getting medical health to be fitter, stronger, more skilled with their bodies. Furthermore, if the medical community does not assist with this endeavor then the population should be within their rights to alter the system.

Sam Harris has written a book called The Moral Landscape in which he outlines the position that it is possible to determine morality through scientific study. This comes from the idea that morality is what produces the greatest amount of human flourishing, which essentially comes very close to the greatest amounts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that it is possible to determine what actions have these results. It seems to me that society as a whole is still trying to make the paradigm shift from the ancient world to a modern world. A modern world would be one in which a clear look at what makes the greatest differences in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would be the basis of the great decisions human beings make. Such a clear look would be the basis of politics, morality, medicine, economics, philosophy, art and so on. In such cases where the current situation can be seen to be improved through concrete steps it would be the right of the population of a modern world to require these steps to be taken.

Insurance.

This may well be the most boring blog post I do. The title is an excellent start in boring the pants off people (a phrase which has significant change in meaning depending on what continent you are). However, this has been a peeve of mine for a bit.

There were a couple of things that amazed me in my process of becoming an adult. One of them was that it is essentially illegal to live for free in the western world. I was shocked to find out that there is a tax on property, just for being property. If you own a place to live not only must you pay to acquire the ownership but you must continue to pay for it from then on. The amounts of this tax vary wildly from place to place (my parents place in Wales would be valued at least five times more than my present house but the tax on it is less than half the amount). If you add this tax of owning a place to live with all the laws about loitering, vagrancy, etc. then essentially in order to obey the law you must pay money. The fact that it is illegal to live without income was a shocking to me, something completely non-intuitive.

The other was finding out about insurance companies. The first portion of insurance companies is that their products are to a very large extent mandatory. If anyone has a mortgage on a house that house must be insured, you are not allowed to take that risk. If you have a business you must get liability insurance. Out of our paychecks come various required insurance costs. To drive a car you must have insurance. So the various powers that be require that if you wish to have an income and a place to live (both legal requirements in themselves) you must purchase insurance.

For a start this seems to be not a necessarily intuitive thing. The powers that be have decided that I cannot decide to take risks with regard to my own well-being. This seems to be a pretty large instance of abridging my freedom. On the other hand the insurance is not really for my own benefit, but to stop other people having to pay more money later in sheltering me, or caring for me if I'm disabled, and so on. So, as long as the benefits overall outweigh the costs, I can go along with it. A necessary evil, like the police, or taxes.

However, almost all insurance is run through for-profit agencies. The point of for-profit agencies is to make money. As an insurance company that tries to make money your motivation is to get as much money from those you cover, and then to cover them to the least extent possible. This means that what insurance is for is paying money to get coverage, and what the insurance provider is trying to do is get money without providing coverage. This means that by definition the insurer and the insured are in direct competition with each other. This means that insurance companies will try everything to not pay claims, whether through the largest amount of bureaucracy they can manage, or by legal fine print, or by delaying until people give up, or by lying. On the other hand, if they determine it will be cheaper for themselves they will pay a claim regardless of its worth and simply charge you more money, no hope for appeal.

Since insurance companies are in competition, and how you succeed is by not paying out insurance claims, insurance companies will also do everything they can to shift the blame to another party. This causes vast amounts of legal fees adding to the cost of insurance. For buyers of insurance it is to the advantage that no legal fees be added to the cost, but for companies any aggregate of legal fees less than the cost of paying out claims is a plus. The reason why no-fault state have equal or higher fees is actually because in those states medical insurers bill auto insurers, and are better at it in medical cases. So no-fault states are not actually no-fault states in the US.

The societal use of insurance is to provide protection against hard times. The company use of insurance is to take in regular income and minimize the payout in hard times. This competition makes the whole system far more expensive than necessary, and reduces the efficiency of the point o f the system.

Why is insurance not a non-profit organization? It is a government mandated program to protect society (and individuals) against unpredictable disaster. It's been shown that health care (with a similar job description) is half the cost when government run. Everyone knows that insurance companies are evil entities with no regard for their customers. Surely a single payer insurance system that has no profit motive, whose point is to serve citizens, and cannot waste legal resources on suing other entities would provide better results at a lower cost?

The Curious Nature of a Human.

The last time I talked socially with someone, that is while not conducting some sort of business, who was not my wife was in Portland just over four weeks ago, and a charming time it was. At the moment I am technically physiologically depressed. That is that my energy level is low, my motivation is low, I want lots of sleep and I don't do very much. I am in a sort of Limbo right now, I don't know where I will be living in a year and that decision has very little to do with me at all. I might be trying to get a job, or buying a house, or going to school, surrounded by friends or be this solitary.

In summary I am depressed, alone, in a place I dislike, and without any control over my future. However, I am quite far from being miserable. I am what people consider content. I find this very curious. How is it that in a situation that has these negatives I don't feel negative.

I think the first thing is that there are many positives in my situation. I love my wife, she is good to me, and she also seems surprisingly happy. As I have said before our happiness infects others, being happy is about the best thing you can do to make others happy. It may well be that all there is to a good relationship is two people being happy and caring that the other person is happy, creating a feedback loop. When this goes well there isn't a whole lot more of social interaction that a person needs.

I also don't have much to actively worry about, something quite unusual in this day and age. I think a large part of why I don't have things to worry about is because I have examined what is worth worrying about, and mostly what people worry about is a waste of time and emotional energy.

The final thing that keeps me content in such a situation is the chance to do nothing. Spiritual advisers from the East take note of what animals do when they are sick, which is nothing. Animals rest until they feel better. We humans of the Western World do not rest. With all our labor saving devices and our comforts, our efficiencies and our technology, we still spend more time than humans have every done in that most misery-inducing activity, work.

Work, when it comes down to it, is really getting up when we don't want to, going to a place we don't want to be, with people around us we don't choose, to spend more effort than we do on anything else in the fulfillment of the wishes of other people. Somehow this activity has come to be the most important part of people's lives. Most people spend more time on their work than on any other activity, more than raising children, more than on relationships. Most people prioritize their work above everything else.

Clearly an emphasis on work has some merit as it provides the money necessary to live. But I think it is also important to understand the cost.

On a day like today, where if I was working I would feel sick, hopeless, and exhausted, I am enormously grateful for my circumstances and the sacrifice that my wife makes.

Right and Wrong.

Today I watched a debate, or not really a debate as it is more of a discussion in which some people have some different views, entitled Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong? I would say the main reason I watched this is for social stimulation. This is my tribe doing what my tribe does, try to work out how to make the world better because it is interesting to do so. In the same way that some people get together once a week to play pinochle I like to be around people who think and discuss in this manner. I grew up with this at the dinner table and only through substantial time and experience have I found that this is unusual, and often disturbing and uncomfortable for people.

The people in this discussion, and in the audience, are not a selection of people at random. To a very large extent these people are self-selected to be pre-disposed towards agreement with the statement. The person most antagonistic towards the premise that science can tell us right from wrong is the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge. Such a person is unlikely to state that right and wrong has been eternally the same and given to us by God in a burning bush.

What the conversation really comes down to is what does "right" and "wrong" actually mean? The crux of the matter is whether you believe science can determine what these terms mean. I think the best analogy for morality in this regard is health, and this is brought up by Sam Harris. He says there is not a debate about whether science can determine what is the right or wrong thing to do with regard to health. It is generally accepted that science can determine what is healthy or not. I think this is an excellent point. I think there are some things that everyone can agree are good things morally, for example that the basic physical needs for health are met. I think increased health, decreased fear, decreased pain, increased peace, less stress, more compassion, these are all things that can be generally understood as being right or wrong.

A scientific determination of morality would consist of understanding what people consider good, and then determining what are the most effective ways to achieve goodness. The problem with this is that people are often mistaken about what makes them happier. Science actually does better than the intuition of humans at determining the truth. Intuition says that changes in material situation are largely responsible for happiness, when actually people's happiness is remarkably constant across a lifetime regardless of their material situation. Someone who becomes partially paralyzed is likely to live the rest of their life at a similar level of happiness to before their accident after an adjustment period.

I think what is right and wrong is going to be able to be determined scientifically as a the actions that lead to and away from an underlying biological state. I think that scientists are going to be able to identify a state within the brain that those who experience that state all describe as good. I think that a certain level of various brain chemicals and a certain level of neuron activity in certain places will be considered by those experiencing it as universally good. Further research will be able to determine which actions increase the chances of such a brain state being maintained or approximated for the largest amount of time.

The problem with this situation will probably be that the reported best state in terms of happiness and well being for humanity is not a sustainable state. I think it most likely that a brain state taking on qualities of religious and spiritual insight, the serotonin increase of smoking marijuana, and an increase in opiates in the brain would be universally thought of as a good state to be in by those experiencing it. However, stoned hari krishnas are very bad at maintaining the machinery of society that produces things like science, technology, food and other important attributes of happiness.

So, in terms of the scientific determination of right and wrong I think that it is absolutely capable of determining one version of right and wrong. This is in the same way that science has a method of determining how humans came to exist. I think in the same way that the majority of people in the USA disagree with the scientific explanation of how we came to exist I believe that most people would reject the scientific version of right or wrong. I think in the same way that people don't want to think love is the experience of a certain set of brain chemicals and neurons firing, people don't want to think of the rightness of something being determined by what proportion of chemicals it produces in people's brains.

This sort of science is really in its infancy. It is only very recently that scientists started having the tools, and in many cases the interest, to investigate happiness. I think scientific morality really comes down to how do people become and remain happy. I think science will make enormous strides in this regard over the next few decades. I think in the free market of ideas a scientific method of morality/happiness will out-compete alternative methods of determining morality, but it will take a very long time to do so.

All or Nothing Thinking.

In the recent US election a candidate named Rich Lott ran for a US House seat in northern Ohio. During the course of the campaign photographs will him wearing a Waffen SS uniform appeared. Rich Lott said that he took part in historical reenactments, and it turns out that he had done so repeatedly, and from different eras including wearing a uniform as a US World War I serviceman and a Union soldier in the Civil War. This did nothing to sway the liberal outrage that a nazi was running for office.

During the extended lead up to the passing of the health care bill, in which Obama asked directly for input from all sides, compromised on many portions of the bill, and eventually cobbled together a compromise which provided health insurance through private insurers to tens of millions more American citizens, Obama was regularly labeled from the right as a socialist, and from the left as a coward. Millions of people truly believed that this compromise bill was an attempt for a left-wing conspiracy to gather as much control as possible in order to run every aspect of Americans' lives.

During the Bush administration, after Bush had gone through the legal process to be confirmed as the winner of the 2000 election according to the rules of the election many people thought, and still do, that Bush stole the election. After declaring war with the approval of Congress, I personally knew of people who were seriously worried that Bush was the figurehead of a new world order and would find some excuse to declare martial law in the USA.

While in a debate about health care in the USA, after having mentioned that the French have a health care system that costs less money, is liked by its citizens and results in better health care I was told that if I didn't love it here I should leave.

While discussing the re-introduction of wolves to the Idaho wilderness in which a hunter went out with a group of dogs trained to go out and find bears and tree them, came across a pack of wolves which then killed several of the hunters dogs I was accused of saying that if wolves settled in a rancher's lands he should no longer be able to raise cattle. My point had been that if you take packs of dogs into the wild and have them harass predators there's a chance the predators will fight back.

These are all examples of all or nothing thinking. All or nothing thinking divides the world into groups, and these groups become mutually exclusive. If you have a characteristic, let us say that you are in favor of legal abortions, then all or nothing thinking puts you into the group "liberal" and then decides that you are also in favor of legalizing marijuana, against church-run schools, and for increased taxes. In such circumstances what is a libertarian to do? It can be very difficult and time consuming after having made a point to then go through the long process of disabusing people of all the things that they then think I must believe.

All or nothing thinking has the huge advantage of being simple. Your decisions are made for you. You can go through life confident in the correctness of your positions and the idiocy and evil nature of those in the other group. The alternative is to listen to what people actually say, to take each piece of what they say as independent ideas, to think of people as individuals. The alternative is hard work that requires real thought and leaves you very often with doubt about situations. The benefits of the alternative to all or nothing thinking is that the world becomes populated by people rather than friends and enemies.

Chapter 2.1

Old Nerwhal sat Little Mika upon his knee, much to the chagrin of Little Mika who had been far more interested in the manner by which he might torment his brother and sisters. Holding Little Mika firmly Old Nerwhal asked Little Mika in a voice like the desert wind whether Little Mika would like to hear a story?

"A story?" asked Little Mika with much suspicion, "What story?" and tried to use this as a distraction to escape the wily old bird's clutches.
"Ah, little one, this is the beginning of the most important story of all."
"The most 'portant story? Is it a good one?"
"Well, that must be for you to decide little one, but you won't ever know unless you listen to it."

Little Mika, although young, was bright enough to see the trap but also bright enough to know that if he didn't listen he would never be released to return to his main joy, the torment of his siblings. Without a word he acknowledged his acquiescence by collapsing upon himself with a discontented grunt.

"It is said that He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come was born in the village of Atvwahla just beneath the roof of the sky. From that village, when the sky was clear, it is said you could see so far up into the sky that your sight went all the way round and you could see yourself looking up at the mountain on a higher slope. He was a smiling, chubby baby who thanked his mother with every look and gurgle, and her heart melted with love for him.
But she had no husband, and so nobody in the village knew who the father was, and at that time that was thought to be a very bad thing indeed. The elders of the village came and demanded to know who the father of the child was. When His mother would not say they took the baby and, as was the custom, placed him on a hillside by the forest, for they did not know Him. His mother cried and cried, and beat upon the door to the hut where they kept her, but she could not get out.
As was the custom, on the third day they let her out, and before she took food or rest she ran with all her strength to the hillside. When she got there she saw nothing on the hillside, nothing at all. She wailed and cried, 'Where are you my little baby? Where are you?' and just as she was about to lose all hope she heard a little gurgle from the edge of the forest. She ran as fast as she could to the edge of the forest, all dappled and striped with the grass and the trees and the shadows.
'Where are you little one?' (that's right Little Mika, He was once called little one just like you) she called again and took a step further. Then she stopped, rigid, terrified, (do you know why she was terrified Little Mika? No?) she was terrified because there in the shadows was a tiger, huge and magnificent, and tigers can eat people if they choose to do so. She stopped, frozen in space, unable to move. The tiger yawned enormously, showing giant yellow fangs longer than your fingers. The tiger stretched on the ground, and there, there in the middle was a little brown baby snuggling close against the soft fur of the tigress and suckling from her teats.
Do you know how brave she was Little Mika? No? She was so brave that His mother, who we now honour at the Festival of the Spring, walked forward to take back her baby. The tigress looked at her intently, and if you have ever looked into the eyes of a tiger, Little Mika, you will know that it is not easy to move when a tiger is staring at you. As she reached for the baby the tigress sat up, but He stroked her fur, and peace came upon her, and His mother was able to take him up in her arms and walk back to the village.
As she approached the village she was frightened that the elders would take her baby away again, but as she got closer she saw the villagers run away as if in fear. As she got closer to the center of the village she saw that the men were gathering with spears and bows, and she feared for her life. But then she was startled as the huge head of the tigress, as big as all of you put together Little Mika, came up beside her and gently licked Him from head to toe.
All the men could see that this was a miracle, and so they went down on their knees as the procession of mother, baby, and tiger walked all together through the village to her little mud hut."

"What happened next? What happened next?" Cried Little Mika.

"Ah, I think I hear your mother calling us for dinner. You shall have to hear what happened next tomorrow."