A new Harris Poll on religious belief in the USA has just been published. It asks a good number of general questions about belief and some specifics, particularly with regard to Christianity. It's an interesting, easy-to-read article about perhaps the most important cultural aspect in the USA.
I wrote a little post on religious trends, essentially saying that religion is moving from hierarchical systems to individual belief, that it has been doing so for some time, and that the fastest growing section was what I called "Spiritual but not religious" which I consider very useful nonsense.
This Harris poll is the most up-to-date, concrete evidence of what is happening with religious belief in the USA and it has the added advantage of showing the change in percentages over a ten year period so that we can extrapolate trends.
The summary of the report can be that basically people are getting less religious. There are more Atheists, more people uncertain about the existence of God, less certainty over what God wants, a reduction in those who believe God acts on Earth. The USA is becoming less religious.
That the USA is becoming less religious isn't a surprise to me the surprise to me is the rate of change, and what seems to be an increasing rate. In eight years the percentage of respondents who reported that they believed in God dropped by eight percentage points. The number of Atheists (certain there is no God) more than doubled in ten years, from four to nine percent of the population. These are huge demographic changes. Interestingly the only group that expressed a belief in God that grew was the ones who said they were "somewhat certain there is a God", which would be the people I would peg in the spiritual but not religious area.
The reason that I think there will be an increase in the rate of the increase in disbelief is largely based on demographics, younger people believe at a substantially lower rate than older people. The drops in rates of belief get larger between each age group, so the difference in rates of belief between 25 year olds and 40 year olds is greater than the difference between 40 year olds and 55 year olds.
Don't get me wrong, the USA is still a very religious country in comparison to other industrialized nations with two thirds of young people still believing in God (in some manner). There is still one third of the population who think the Bible is entirely the Word of God. About two thirds still believe in some form of magic (miracles, the soul, witchcraft etc..)
There are two ideas that I really want to get across. The first is that if the change in belief happens over the next decade at the same rate as the last decade then the numbers of people in the USA who think there isn't, or probably isn't, a god will be about fifty percent, the same number as think that there is a god. The second is that according to this poll less than one third of Americans think God controls what happens on the Earth.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Curmudgeon Progress
In my long term quest to become a curmudgeon worth talking to there are certain milestones hat signal progress. I have just realized that I have already passed one of these milestones.
The milestone in question is the classic, "things didn't cost as much in my day!"
It is impossible for anyone who wishes to enjoy life to constantly update the full repertoire of our knowledge of pricing, and so we tend to develop a rough guide. Most of us know that a gallon of milk is closer to $5 than $15, but few of us know how much it is to the dime. It is extremely hard to change one's understanding of the price of goods in the gaps between actually purchasing the goods. As I have said before, the environment in which humans largely evolved was, in comparison with today, extremely static The value of a tool was simply the value of that tool for someone's entire (probably short) life. The increase in the price of items is not something that is naturally understood by most people.
Prices go up, and they go up almost constantly, and actually quite consistently since about 1970. This doesn't mean that everyone keeps getting poorer (actually, over the forty year period I mentioned above it's slightly the other way) because income increases as well. What it all comes down to is the terrifying subtlety of compound interest. You barely notice a 3% change in prices year-to-year, but you multiply that 3% over a while and the change is huge. Prices double about every twenty years. For me, twenty years ago was 1993, and that's when I really started working properly and taking care of myself entirely. That is the point where my basic understanding of prices started.
I have just noticed that I find almost everything shockingly expensive. $7 for a Big Mac Meal? I remember when it passed the $3 mark (when I actually ate them). $50 jeans? I remember when Gap jeans were cool AND cost $30. I go grocery shopping, and while I understand that I am shopping for two, and I buy nicer things than when I worked on a direct care workers wage, I still spend more than four times as much each visit. While I have thought of myself as rich, after all our income is such a bigger number than we have had before, it still seems that we should be getting further than we are.
What I am now trying to do is recalibrate all of my price and wage intuitions with updated information, simply based on a rough 20 year/double amount basis. I am not sure that will make me feel substantially less rich, but it will remove a fair amount of my frustration at what things cost.
My first full time job paid me $16,400 a year. Now that would be about $30,000. I was not well off but I could afford a used car, an apartment, food, and um cheap beer for entertainment. At the time $30,000 would have been easy-street. So, I have to understand that $20,000 a year is poor (for the USA), and $100,000 is not obscenely wealthy but rather upper-middle class. The most money I ever made was $30,000, roughly ten years ago. That would have been the equivalent of $23,000 in 1993 and $40,000 today. That was a really good wage for social work, about twice the official poverty line.
The upshot of all of this is that either everything costs twice as much as it should, or my wife makes half as much as I thought.
The milestone in question is the classic, "things didn't cost as much in my day!"
It is impossible for anyone who wishes to enjoy life to constantly update the full repertoire of our knowledge of pricing, and so we tend to develop a rough guide. Most of us know that a gallon of milk is closer to $5 than $15, but few of us know how much it is to the dime. It is extremely hard to change one's understanding of the price of goods in the gaps between actually purchasing the goods. As I have said before, the environment in which humans largely evolved was, in comparison with today, extremely static The value of a tool was simply the value of that tool for someone's entire (probably short) life. The increase in the price of items is not something that is naturally understood by most people.
Prices go up, and they go up almost constantly, and actually quite consistently since about 1970. This doesn't mean that everyone keeps getting poorer (actually, over the forty year period I mentioned above it's slightly the other way) because income increases as well. What it all comes down to is the terrifying subtlety of compound interest. You barely notice a 3% change in prices year-to-year, but you multiply that 3% over a while and the change is huge. Prices double about every twenty years. For me, twenty years ago was 1993, and that's when I really started working properly and taking care of myself entirely. That is the point where my basic understanding of prices started.
I have just noticed that I find almost everything shockingly expensive. $7 for a Big Mac Meal? I remember when it passed the $3 mark (when I actually ate them). $50 jeans? I remember when Gap jeans were cool AND cost $30. I go grocery shopping, and while I understand that I am shopping for two, and I buy nicer things than when I worked on a direct care workers wage, I still spend more than four times as much each visit. While I have thought of myself as rich, after all our income is such a bigger number than we have had before, it still seems that we should be getting further than we are.
What I am now trying to do is recalibrate all of my price and wage intuitions with updated information, simply based on a rough 20 year/double amount basis. I am not sure that will make me feel substantially less rich, but it will remove a fair amount of my frustration at what things cost.
My first full time job paid me $16,400 a year. Now that would be about $30,000. I was not well off but I could afford a used car, an apartment, food, and um cheap beer for entertainment. At the time $30,000 would have been easy-street. So, I have to understand that $20,000 a year is poor (for the USA), and $100,000 is not obscenely wealthy but rather upper-middle class. The most money I ever made was $30,000, roughly ten years ago. That would have been the equivalent of $23,000 in 1993 and $40,000 today. That was a really good wage for social work, about twice the official poverty line.
The upshot of all of this is that either everything costs twice as much as it should, or my wife makes half as much as I thought.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Comparisons
I am not someone who knee-jerks a requirement for two sides to every story. Sometimes there is a story and some people who are idiotically yelling in the face of facts. To a large extent this is what cable news shows are. Sometimes things are very complicated and you can only tell parts of the story in any given setting, like history, or psychology. However, there are times when adding the other part of the story is useful.
It has seemingly come to the attention of many people that there are some very, very rich people. These people are so rich that they can't even spend all their money. A person with the relatively tiny income of $1;000,000 a year has to spend more than $2,500 a day just to not break even. Given a life expectancy of 100 years someone with one tenth of a billion dollars would have to find ways to spend that $2,500 every day for their entire life or get even richer. At last count, there are 442 people at least ten times richer than that in the USA. There are people so rich that it is almost impossible for them not to get more rich.
Furthermore, these very rich people have power based on this money and can use that power to change the system so that it is easier for them to make more money. You know what? They do that. As a result these super-rich have been getting super-richier, particularly since Reagan.
Meanwhile, the income of your regular Janets has largely stagnated and so the gap between the very rich and the poor has grown larger. Janet thinks this unfair and has furrowed her brow and is considering whether, maybe, if this keeps up, she might do something about it. Maybe she'll write a blog post about it, or share outrage with her facebook friends. Meanwhile Janet's weird cousin is building a bunker and stashing an enormous horde of weaponry, but that's a different story.
OK, some people being so rich they can't even spend their money and others being so poor they need help to eat is a bad situation that should be fixed. Pretty much everyone I know thinks this is basically true and is outraged about the situation.
On the other hand...
In Rwanda the GDP per person (nominal) is $730 a year. Now, because there are some richer people in Rwanda, most people there will have fewer resources than that. 90% of Rwandans are subsistence farmers. 25% of Rwandans don't have a clean water supply. I think/hope you get the picture.
We have got to the point where there are three groups. The nefarious super-rich, us, the deeply poor. We seem to spend most of our time concentrating our attention, outrage, frustration, etc. on the differences between us and the super-rich. I ask you, which is really the biggest difference, the one between us and the super-rich or between us and the super-poor? I hope you got that one right.
In my opinion the inequality that exists in the world is more about us and the really poor than between we rich people and people who really are very rich indeed. When was the last time you heard about how unfair that was? When was the last time you thought about that? Have you thought that what would be really important in politics would be some redistribution of wealth from the USA to Rwanda. For some perspective, the GDP of Rwanda is about three times the US National Parks budget.
The next part that we (and I certainly include myself) tend to do is come up with a whole list of reasons, excuses, and distractions to stop ourselves from sending three quarters of our money to Rwanda. None of us are going to do it, let's be honest about that. But isn't this what the super-rich do as well? The sponging under-class of lazy layabouts throwing away their money on drugs meme is pretty much just that.
I am not saying that there isn't a huge, unnecessary, unfair inequality of wealth in the USA and that this hurts people every day. I am not saying that you are an evil person unless you give away all of your money. For Christ's sake we aren't Jesus! Matthew 19:21. I am just saying that we should spend at least as much of our time looking down as looking up.
In fact, looking down tells us for what we should be grateful. Noticing the things that should make us grateful makes us happier. It also can lead us to give to those less fortunate, and giving makes us more happy.
It has seemingly come to the attention of many people that there are some very, very rich people. These people are so rich that they can't even spend all their money. A person with the relatively tiny income of $1;000,000 a year has to spend more than $2,500 a day just to not break even. Given a life expectancy of 100 years someone with one tenth of a billion dollars would have to find ways to spend that $2,500 every day for their entire life or get even richer. At last count, there are 442 people at least ten times richer than that in the USA. There are people so rich that it is almost impossible for them not to get more rich.
Furthermore, these very rich people have power based on this money and can use that power to change the system so that it is easier for them to make more money. You know what? They do that. As a result these super-rich have been getting super-richier, particularly since Reagan.
Meanwhile, the income of your regular Janets has largely stagnated and so the gap between the very rich and the poor has grown larger. Janet thinks this unfair and has furrowed her brow and is considering whether, maybe, if this keeps up, she might do something about it. Maybe she'll write a blog post about it, or share outrage with her facebook friends. Meanwhile Janet's weird cousin is building a bunker and stashing an enormous horde of weaponry, but that's a different story.
OK, some people being so rich they can't even spend their money and others being so poor they need help to eat is a bad situation that should be fixed. Pretty much everyone I know thinks this is basically true and is outraged about the situation.
On the other hand...
In Rwanda the GDP per person (nominal) is $730 a year. Now, because there are some richer people in Rwanda, most people there will have fewer resources than that. 90% of Rwandans are subsistence farmers. 25% of Rwandans don't have a clean water supply. I think/hope you get the picture.
We have got to the point where there are three groups. The nefarious super-rich, us, the deeply poor. We seem to spend most of our time concentrating our attention, outrage, frustration, etc. on the differences between us and the super-rich. I ask you, which is really the biggest difference, the one between us and the super-rich or between us and the super-poor? I hope you got that one right.
In my opinion the inequality that exists in the world is more about us and the really poor than between we rich people and people who really are very rich indeed. When was the last time you heard about how unfair that was? When was the last time you thought about that? Have you thought that what would be really important in politics would be some redistribution of wealth from the USA to Rwanda. For some perspective, the GDP of Rwanda is about three times the US National Parks budget.
The next part that we (and I certainly include myself) tend to do is come up with a whole list of reasons, excuses, and distractions to stop ourselves from sending three quarters of our money to Rwanda. None of us are going to do it, let's be honest about that. But isn't this what the super-rich do as well? The sponging under-class of lazy layabouts throwing away their money on drugs meme is pretty much just that.
I am not saying that there isn't a huge, unnecessary, unfair inequality of wealth in the USA and that this hurts people every day. I am not saying that you are an evil person unless you give away all of your money. For Christ's sake we aren't Jesus! Matthew 19:21. I am just saying that we should spend at least as much of our time looking down as looking up.
In fact, looking down tells us for what we should be grateful. Noticing the things that should make us grateful makes us happier. It also can lead us to give to those less fortunate, and giving makes us more happy.
Chapter 15
It had been sunny and dry at some time in the past. Although that was probably today it seemed like an eternity. The rain had reached a level of malevolence to which words like, "poured" and "fell" no longer were relevant. Then there was the mud. The mud clutched, and grabbed at boots like a horde of starving beggars. In the lashing rain and the thick mud falls were inevitable, and upon arising the men would discover that the mud was stuck to them like plaster, and as time went on the mud insinuated itself through each cranny and crevice of clothing.
Heavy, wet, cloying, stinking, foul, slow, gritty, dark misery.
Ughrit was not happy. The Inn was apparently always, "just a little further." Ughrit had finished with, "just a little further" and was now more interested in "dry and extremely violent." He wrenched his vast boot out of the mud and splashed it shortly ahead, lightning flashed. A titanic boom filled the heavens. Ughrit slipped and fell face-first into the mire.
"Bugger fuck damn stupid prick fart onion-eating motherpoking rotten shit shit shit ass!"
"A light!" came a call, "up on that hill I saw lantern light."
All thoughts of swift, sloppy homicide left the exhausted mind of Ughrit and he desperately clambered to his feet, fell, writhed on the ground, swore, got to his feet again, swore some more, trudged a few yards, slipped, gathered himself, felt a stream of something organic slip into his armpit, trudged, slipped, pulled a muscle in his lower back, swore..........
Some long, long time later Ughrit stood before a door. A door from which the sound of merriment flowed. A golden glow of lantern light spilled out through a couple of windows. When the lightning lit up the world there was a sense of some vast, shambling structure behind the door, but more than that it was impossible to tell. The crew was dragging themselves along behind him, sometimes quite literally. Ughrit took out his massive axe, threw open the door and stepped in. Another titanic lightning flash seared the eyes of everyone outside, momentarily blinding the straggling trail of brigands.
Within The Addled Prophet all eyes turned to the doorway. There stood a massive figure, all in black, back-lit by the sky's fury, and emphasized by a huge, deep crash and rumble. Ughrit stepped through the doorway into warmth, light, and dryness. He was tired and miserable, but he was here to do something. He started to raise his axe when a weird looking man exclaimed, "Oh! You poor man, out there in this miserable weather. Landlord, do you think we might find this gentleman some hot water and some towels."
Ughrit was ushered to a chair near the fire in the inevitable manner brought on by considerate bustling. Ughrit could not have imagined fighting against the well-meaning little man at that moment. he sat down, leant back on his chair and simply absorbed the warmth of the fire. An unfamiliar lassitude came over his limbs and his mind slowed and relaxed. He realized that he was in a nice, little pub surrounded by people who welcomed him. A pint was pressed into his hand and he realized that this was his dream. Just this simple little moment was his dream.
The rest of the crew blundered in, singly or in pairs. While they lackadaisically brandished weapons, and yelled some uninspired battle cries, cut off suddenly, within moments they were welcomed, and brought to the fire. After a while their weapons started forming a haphazard pile in a corner, they had rare smiles on their faces, and soon some of them found themselves actually saying, "Thank you!"
Perhaps an hour later the tall and slender figure of Akhbar crawled over the doorstep. Akhbar was not an athlete. He expected blood, smashed furniture, possibly sobbing. He heard cheering, and then applause? Applause? Pushing himself up on to his knees he scanned the room and found Ughrit and the crew intermixed with what seemed to be happy patrons. Akhbar began to feel a deep sense of peace, an acceptance of his situation, a welcoming. Fearing that this could only be a magical trap set to capture or kill Ughrit and his men, Akhbar fled out into the night, desperate to get himself away from the peace, the warmth, the welcome.
Heavy, wet, cloying, stinking, foul, slow, gritty, dark misery.
Ughrit was not happy. The Inn was apparently always, "just a little further." Ughrit had finished with, "just a little further" and was now more interested in "dry and extremely violent." He wrenched his vast boot out of the mud and splashed it shortly ahead, lightning flashed. A titanic boom filled the heavens. Ughrit slipped and fell face-first into the mire.
"Bugger fuck damn stupid prick fart onion-eating motherpoking rotten shit shit shit ass!"
"A light!" came a call, "up on that hill I saw lantern light."
All thoughts of swift, sloppy homicide left the exhausted mind of Ughrit and he desperately clambered to his feet, fell, writhed on the ground, swore, got to his feet again, swore some more, trudged a few yards, slipped, gathered himself, felt a stream of something organic slip into his armpit, trudged, slipped, pulled a muscle in his lower back, swore..........
Some long, long time later Ughrit stood before a door. A door from which the sound of merriment flowed. A golden glow of lantern light spilled out through a couple of windows. When the lightning lit up the world there was a sense of some vast, shambling structure behind the door, but more than that it was impossible to tell. The crew was dragging themselves along behind him, sometimes quite literally. Ughrit took out his massive axe, threw open the door and stepped in. Another titanic lightning flash seared the eyes of everyone outside, momentarily blinding the straggling trail of brigands.
Within The Addled Prophet all eyes turned to the doorway. There stood a massive figure, all in black, back-lit by the sky's fury, and emphasized by a huge, deep crash and rumble. Ughrit stepped through the doorway into warmth, light, and dryness. He was tired and miserable, but he was here to do something. He started to raise his axe when a weird looking man exclaimed, "Oh! You poor man, out there in this miserable weather. Landlord, do you think we might find this gentleman some hot water and some towels."
Ughrit was ushered to a chair near the fire in the inevitable manner brought on by considerate bustling. Ughrit could not have imagined fighting against the well-meaning little man at that moment. he sat down, leant back on his chair and simply absorbed the warmth of the fire. An unfamiliar lassitude came over his limbs and his mind slowed and relaxed. He realized that he was in a nice, little pub surrounded by people who welcomed him. A pint was pressed into his hand and he realized that this was his dream. Just this simple little moment was his dream.
The rest of the crew blundered in, singly or in pairs. While they lackadaisically brandished weapons, and yelled some uninspired battle cries, cut off suddenly, within moments they were welcomed, and brought to the fire. After a while their weapons started forming a haphazard pile in a corner, they had rare smiles on their faces, and soon some of them found themselves actually saying, "Thank you!"
Perhaps an hour later the tall and slender figure of Akhbar crawled over the doorstep. Akhbar was not an athlete. He expected blood, smashed furniture, possibly sobbing. He heard cheering, and then applause? Applause? Pushing himself up on to his knees he scanned the room and found Ughrit and the crew intermixed with what seemed to be happy patrons. Akhbar began to feel a deep sense of peace, an acceptance of his situation, a welcoming. Fearing that this could only be a magical trap set to capture or kill Ughrit and his men, Akhbar fled out into the night, desperate to get himself away from the peace, the warmth, the welcome.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Just Some Stuff
I'll start with an update to The Latest in that the brand name pills appear to be working. After the first couple of days there have been no symptoms over nearly a month, a longer period than leading up to this change. Still, the whole thing is unpredictable, nobody really knows why the disease happens, how it works, or why some drugs seem to help. Who knows what things may come?
We went on holiday to Cahuita in Costa Rica, our favorite place to be. This wasn't a risky decision, we had been there before and loved it, but we hadn't gone somewhere together with the sole purpose being to have a nice time. Previously we had been seeing family, or friends, or a side effect of a business trip, so we hadn't gone on a proper holiday in several years. My only concern is that we had previously left the darkness of winter in the north for the warm sun of the tropics, while this time we were leaving from essentially the same weather to where we were arriving.
It was simply delightful. So beautiful, so calm, so friendly. We had our honeymoon suite, a wooden room with corrugated iron roof and a tiled bathroom, and a balcony with a view over the bay. We saw amazing natural sights, from a lion fish on a coral reef to pelicans diving for fish, to a sloth ten feet away, to the herding of bait fish into a ball by tarpon, and more and more and more....
The driving was a different matter.
Finally, someone who I had known, someone who was in a band with me for a few months, someone I would see very intermittently, who I was friends with on facebook, blew his brains out. As soon as I heard he was dead suicide was my first thought. Over the last year he had got married and divorced, he had apologized to people in general for his behavior, he suffered from bad migraines. He worked for the TSA and was one of the people furloughed during the government shutdown and was pawning his stuff to pay his mortgage. I imagine him that last night, worried about losing his house, unable to sleep from the pain of a migraine, depressed and alone, where there was no hope he could find. He had always been kind to me.
Perhaps I'm just not someone for weeping about death. Perhaps I have been around enough tragedy. Perhaps I have reached somewhere secure enough that sad things can happen and I can accept them. This is the second person I have known to kill themselves in the last three years and I take it as a new fact of life and keep going, although just as with everything, I think about it.
We went on holiday to Cahuita in Costa Rica, our favorite place to be. This wasn't a risky decision, we had been there before and loved it, but we hadn't gone somewhere together with the sole purpose being to have a nice time. Previously we had been seeing family, or friends, or a side effect of a business trip, so we hadn't gone on a proper holiday in several years. My only concern is that we had previously left the darkness of winter in the north for the warm sun of the tropics, while this time we were leaving from essentially the same weather to where we were arriving.
It was simply delightful. So beautiful, so calm, so friendly. We had our honeymoon suite, a wooden room with corrugated iron roof and a tiled bathroom, and a balcony with a view over the bay. We saw amazing natural sights, from a lion fish on a coral reef to pelicans diving for fish, to a sloth ten feet away, to the herding of bait fish into a ball by tarpon, and more and more and more....
The driving was a different matter.
Finally, someone who I had known, someone who was in a band with me for a few months, someone I would see very intermittently, who I was friends with on facebook, blew his brains out. As soon as I heard he was dead suicide was my first thought. Over the last year he had got married and divorced, he had apologized to people in general for his behavior, he suffered from bad migraines. He worked for the TSA and was one of the people furloughed during the government shutdown and was pawning his stuff to pay his mortgage. I imagine him that last night, worried about losing his house, unable to sleep from the pain of a migraine, depressed and alone, where there was no hope he could find. He had always been kind to me.
Perhaps I'm just not someone for weeping about death. Perhaps I have been around enough tragedy. Perhaps I have reached somewhere secure enough that sad things can happen and I can accept them. This is the second person I have known to kill themselves in the last three years and I take it as a new fact of life and keep going, although just as with everything, I think about it.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Blog Post Titles Considered, But Not Used.
The consequences of success in social work.
A taste of suicidal ideation.
The vulnerabilities of isolation.
The inevitable social consequences of asymmetrical power in relationships.
Useless cry for help.
Wasting away in.......
Plan B, a possibility?
You never miss your water 'til your well runs dry.
Short fiction on dying in the mud.
Chapter whatever number after the last one.
The Baroque Cycle: recommended.
Getting better at reggae, sloooowwwwlllyyy.
Conversations in bars about being an atheist.
I, Invalid?
Crazy, fight or embrace?
A taste of suicidal ideation.
The vulnerabilities of isolation.
The inevitable social consequences of asymmetrical power in relationships.
Useless cry for help.
Wasting away in.......
Plan B, a possibility?
You never miss your water 'til your well runs dry.
Short fiction on dying in the mud.
Chapter whatever number after the last one.
The Baroque Cycle: recommended.
Getting better at reggae, sloooowwwwlllyyy.
Conversations in bars about being an atheist.
I, Invalid?
Crazy, fight or embrace?
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wellness
Do you remember the feeling that you get after a sickness when you first realize that you are well? Perhaps your experience differs from mine, but for me it is a really wonderful experience. I notice things to a very large extent based on how they differ from the things around them. When contrasted with sickness simply not being sick is great.
I feel a pervasive good feeling, a pleasure in my own body's ability to walk, or see. This pervasive good feeling extends to my senses, so that the world around me appears more beautiful. The pervasive good feeling extends into my attitude because it is based on my experience right now, and a good feeling about right now removes anxiety.
Buddhists talk about the natural state of people being ego-less bliss, achievable through years of dedicated practice. It seems to me that the second part of the previous sentence defeats the claim of the first, but it may well be that the natural state of humanity is something akin to bliss, and that the Buddhists are right that the goal is recognition of our situation rather than a change in it.
What would be a natural state? I'll assume that we can get passed the absolutely true objection that everything is natural and so the question is foolish. However, we can derive some meaning from the question and answer. A natural state is one that has not been affected by humankind, which makes the question doubly problematic, but let us assume that the natural state of humankind is one unaffected by other people. Another definition of "natural" is being in keeping with the environment around us.
The natural state of humanity would therefore be one of a person fitting with the environment they are in without thinking one way or another about other people, stresses,plans, hopes etc.. I would say part of fitting in with the environment is an absence of extra descriptors of the experience, e.g. hunger, cold/hot, and sick. The natural state is wellness, in accord with the environment in which we are, unconcerned about the cares of the world. This is as Taoist as it gets, which is why I'm a big fan of Taoism.
This may seem to be a stupendous feat, achieving a natural state of unconcerned mindfulness, but is only difficult because we habituate ourselves to non-natural states. The achievement of the natural state requires, as the name would suggest, the doing of nothing. The hardest part of doing not-doing (a favorite term of Taoism, which seems mysterious until you get how simple and direct it is) is doing not-thinking. A method that works for some people is to notice what their brain is thinking (I hope my children are happy in school), label that thought (a worry), and then let that thought drift away.
On this blog I spend much of my time, too much of my time, concerning myself with problems and worries. That's alright with me because only saints shouldn't worry less and I am a long way away from being a saint. Still, I think I give somewhat of the wrong impression as a result. Today I felt well and it was, is, wonderful. Today I looked at sunshine glinting on the water without a thought for being anywhere else. I felt a very quiet, calm sense of bliss. I realized, without words, that it is a wonderful thing to be alive.
Such moments are difficult to describe in any way other than very prosaically, such as above, and tend to be repetitive. I was somewhere when I noticed something and realized that life is good. As a result I talk much more about external problems and worries than is actually representative of my life. Most days I have at least one moment similar to the one I have described and I do try to have more. All it takes is noticing, which becomes easier if you practice, but much easier if your natural state is made constantly apparent by experiencing non-natural states. It is easier to notice how great it is to be well when you have just been sick.
I would say that the great secret of life is finding our wellness, getting to the place where we notice what we are, where we are. It is no coincidence that so many spiritual teachers implore us to, "wake up!"
We evolved to be essentially hunter-gatherers in a relatively simple environment. Such a life was greatly subject to the sudden calamity of death and disease, but it also led to long nights of restful sleep, little work, a focus on a time scale of days rather than years, and much less stimulus than at present. Why do people on vacation go to a beautiful, quiet place, where you can get food and drink without effort, sleep whenever you want for as long as you want, and try to get away from their worries? Because we want to get back to the best parts of our natural selves and we don't know how to do that at home.
I have some hope that as a global society we will move back towards greater recognition of our natural selves as various forces align themselves in this direction. The medical profession is slowly managing to shift from the goal of "health" to "wellbeing" where the experience of the patient is more important than whether all the bits work perfectly. Psychology has rather recently become quite excited about studying happiness. There are the first sprouts of moral and political systems being designed around maximizing happiness. The future of employment is that fewer and fewer people will work, and yet we will still get richer. As we learn that hard work, stress, lack of sleep, etc. cause both ill health and unhappiness, and we learn that meditation, relaxation, sleep, etc. promote both health and happiness, and societal systems move towards a happiness-based system from economic-based systems, and most people will not be able to productively work much, I see a movement towards the natural state of humanity without the lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
I feel a pervasive good feeling, a pleasure in my own body's ability to walk, or see. This pervasive good feeling extends to my senses, so that the world around me appears more beautiful. The pervasive good feeling extends into my attitude because it is based on my experience right now, and a good feeling about right now removes anxiety.
Buddhists talk about the natural state of people being ego-less bliss, achievable through years of dedicated practice. It seems to me that the second part of the previous sentence defeats the claim of the first, but it may well be that the natural state of humanity is something akin to bliss, and that the Buddhists are right that the goal is recognition of our situation rather than a change in it.
What would be a natural state? I'll assume that we can get passed the absolutely true objection that everything is natural and so the question is foolish. However, we can derive some meaning from the question and answer. A natural state is one that has not been affected by humankind, which makes the question doubly problematic, but let us assume that the natural state of humankind is one unaffected by other people. Another definition of "natural" is being in keeping with the environment around us.
The natural state of humanity would therefore be one of a person fitting with the environment they are in without thinking one way or another about other people, stresses,plans, hopes etc.. I would say part of fitting in with the environment is an absence of extra descriptors of the experience, e.g. hunger, cold/hot, and sick. The natural state is wellness, in accord with the environment in which we are, unconcerned about the cares of the world. This is as Taoist as it gets, which is why I'm a big fan of Taoism.
This may seem to be a stupendous feat, achieving a natural state of unconcerned mindfulness, but is only difficult because we habituate ourselves to non-natural states. The achievement of the natural state requires, as the name would suggest, the doing of nothing. The hardest part of doing not-doing (a favorite term of Taoism, which seems mysterious until you get how simple and direct it is) is doing not-thinking. A method that works for some people is to notice what their brain is thinking (I hope my children are happy in school), label that thought (a worry), and then let that thought drift away.
On this blog I spend much of my time, too much of my time, concerning myself with problems and worries. That's alright with me because only saints shouldn't worry less and I am a long way away from being a saint. Still, I think I give somewhat of the wrong impression as a result. Today I felt well and it was, is, wonderful. Today I looked at sunshine glinting on the water without a thought for being anywhere else. I felt a very quiet, calm sense of bliss. I realized, without words, that it is a wonderful thing to be alive.
Such moments are difficult to describe in any way other than very prosaically, such as above, and tend to be repetitive. I was somewhere when I noticed something and realized that life is good. As a result I talk much more about external problems and worries than is actually representative of my life. Most days I have at least one moment similar to the one I have described and I do try to have more. All it takes is noticing, which becomes easier if you practice, but much easier if your natural state is made constantly apparent by experiencing non-natural states. It is easier to notice how great it is to be well when you have just been sick.
I would say that the great secret of life is finding our wellness, getting to the place where we notice what we are, where we are. It is no coincidence that so many spiritual teachers implore us to, "wake up!"
We evolved to be essentially hunter-gatherers in a relatively simple environment. Such a life was greatly subject to the sudden calamity of death and disease, but it also led to long nights of restful sleep, little work, a focus on a time scale of days rather than years, and much less stimulus than at present. Why do people on vacation go to a beautiful, quiet place, where you can get food and drink without effort, sleep whenever you want for as long as you want, and try to get away from their worries? Because we want to get back to the best parts of our natural selves and we don't know how to do that at home.
I have some hope that as a global society we will move back towards greater recognition of our natural selves as various forces align themselves in this direction. The medical profession is slowly managing to shift from the goal of "health" to "wellbeing" where the experience of the patient is more important than whether all the bits work perfectly. Psychology has rather recently become quite excited about studying happiness. There are the first sprouts of moral and political systems being designed around maximizing happiness. The future of employment is that fewer and fewer people will work, and yet we will still get richer. As we learn that hard work, stress, lack of sleep, etc. cause both ill health and unhappiness, and we learn that meditation, relaxation, sleep, etc. promote both health and happiness, and societal systems move towards a happiness-based system from economic-based systems, and most people will not be able to productively work much, I see a movement towards the natural state of humanity without the lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
The Latest
I haven't been posting much recently, a possible reason may become apparent a little further down, but big deals maybe happening and someone may be interested. I'll start with what I think is the biggest deal although it may well not be what most would consider the most important.
It seems that my "magic blue pills" are no longer magic. For the last two months I have been ill on over half the days. The last couple of days I have been truly exhausted. Saturday night my hands were writhing trying to keep myself under control from the energy. The cycling between different states has been the fastest in my life, although I have had far more severe experiences in the past. It used to be that I didn't really know who I would be the next week or day, now I don't know who I will be between the morning and evening.
There are several possibly reasons:
The first possibility is that the pills have changed. This is a generic drug and while it has worked for me in the past some generics don't work for me, and industry quality assurance is very poor. Fortunately we have different insurance and are fortunate to have enough money to pay the co-pay (down from $150 to $35) for the brand name version. So my psychiatrist and I have agreed to try this approach first.
The second possibility is that my disease has simply progressed to the point where the pills cannot entirely cope. Since my disease was worsening (after all that's why I got help) this seems quite reasonable. The psychiatrist's suggestion would then be to try another mood stabilizer in addition to what I am taking now. I am extremely wary of this having seen people slowly but surely poisoned by the side effects of their medications, some of which would be considered. I absolutely despise the idea of a choice between unpredictable misery and poisoning myself. Someone with rapid cycling bipolar disorder who hates all of the possible choices they can make is an extremely, extremely bad situation.
The third possibility is that this is simply a particularly bad time for me, something that might happen every few years for the rest of my life. I have coped with much, much worse than this in the past and can cope with such periods happening once in a while.
In summary; I am going insane again and I find this quite alarming.
The other part is quite different. My darling wife has been offered, and has accepted, a new job in a different company, doing quite different things. It amounts to an enormous promotion, from an extremely advanced level of keyboard monkey to the director of an entire department of seventeen people. I am very proud of her for her courage to take this great leap, very proud of her for knowing she can do it, and most proud of her for negotiating a better compensation package. This is the sort of feminism I really like, a woman taking risks, being confident in herself, and believing that she is worth as much as any man. In the business world meekness is punished. My love has come a long way, what a woman!
Now for my selfish bit. This means we will be staying in Houston, I expect for at least three years, bringing our time here to a minimum of eight years. Or using a different scale, about 1/10th of my life. We will be moving closer to the city, closer to this new job. The area looks much more promising than where we are now, but it is still Houston and I hate it here. I hate the pounding heat in the summer (although October through March is lovely). I hate the willful ignorance, the lack of caring, the machismo, the certainty, the superficiality, the lack of creativity. I am probably, on average, happier than I was in Portland but that has nothing whatsoever to do with where I live.
It seems that my "magic blue pills" are no longer magic. For the last two months I have been ill on over half the days. The last couple of days I have been truly exhausted. Saturday night my hands were writhing trying to keep myself under control from the energy. The cycling between different states has been the fastest in my life, although I have had far more severe experiences in the past. It used to be that I didn't really know who I would be the next week or day, now I don't know who I will be between the morning and evening.
There are several possibly reasons:
The first possibility is that the pills have changed. This is a generic drug and while it has worked for me in the past some generics don't work for me, and industry quality assurance is very poor. Fortunately we have different insurance and are fortunate to have enough money to pay the co-pay (down from $150 to $35) for the brand name version. So my psychiatrist and I have agreed to try this approach first.
The second possibility is that my disease has simply progressed to the point where the pills cannot entirely cope. Since my disease was worsening (after all that's why I got help) this seems quite reasonable. The psychiatrist's suggestion would then be to try another mood stabilizer in addition to what I am taking now. I am extremely wary of this having seen people slowly but surely poisoned by the side effects of their medications, some of which would be considered. I absolutely despise the idea of a choice between unpredictable misery and poisoning myself. Someone with rapid cycling bipolar disorder who hates all of the possible choices they can make is an extremely, extremely bad situation.
The third possibility is that this is simply a particularly bad time for me, something that might happen every few years for the rest of my life. I have coped with much, much worse than this in the past and can cope with such periods happening once in a while.
In summary; I am going insane again and I find this quite alarming.
The other part is quite different. My darling wife has been offered, and has accepted, a new job in a different company, doing quite different things. It amounts to an enormous promotion, from an extremely advanced level of keyboard monkey to the director of an entire department of seventeen people. I am very proud of her for her courage to take this great leap, very proud of her for knowing she can do it, and most proud of her for negotiating a better compensation package. This is the sort of feminism I really like, a woman taking risks, being confident in herself, and believing that she is worth as much as any man. In the business world meekness is punished. My love has come a long way, what a woman!
Now for my selfish bit. This means we will be staying in Houston, I expect for at least three years, bringing our time here to a minimum of eight years. Or using a different scale, about 1/10th of my life. We will be moving closer to the city, closer to this new job. The area looks much more promising than where we are now, but it is still Houston and I hate it here. I hate the pounding heat in the summer (although October through March is lovely). I hate the willful ignorance, the lack of caring, the machismo, the certainty, the superficiality, the lack of creativity. I am probably, on average, happier than I was in Portland but that has nothing whatsoever to do with where I live.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Decisions
We all make decisions all the time. They vary from the insignificant to the vital, and from the easy to the difficult.
On the scale of significance the only thing I really wish to say is that I believe that human beings essentially have a (largely) fixed scale of significance. That is that the most important things you ever deal with feel as significant as the most important thing that a subsistence farmer in Africa encounters. Suddenly put yourself in the shoes of a subsistence farmer and then all of your previous worries will suddenly seem insignificant, but until that happens the hot water tank leak seems horrendous. Mostly things don't matter as much as we think they do.
On the scale of difficulty I think there is an interesting effect whereby decisions become easier at each end of a perceived scale of difficulty. I'll try and explain.
The simplest decisions have very few components (a rock, a head and an arm for bashing one with the other) and very few outcomes (head bashing or no head bashing) and a substantial difference between the outcomes (ouch! or not.) It is a very simple decision as to whether to hit yourself in the head with a rock.
The most complicated decisions have very many components (career advancement, personal satisfaction, a good view, how friends and family feel about it, will I ever see Paris?) and usually these components are conglomerates of other, simpler components. More complicated decisions will also have smaller differences in outcomes so that each individual component may be enough to swing the balance from one side to the other.
Generally we conflate the complication of a decision with the difficulty of making the decision, but I think that is a mistake at the highest levels of complexity. What I think is that at a certain point a decision becomes complicated enough that the outcome of our decisions is so unpredictable that it passes beyond an" event horizon" in that we simply cannot make a rational judgment on a decision. There is a reason why in science there if the concept of "statistically significant" and that is that below a certain threshold you cannot make any reasonable judgments.
You are going to have a party in late May in a week's time. You could have a barbecue outside in the lovely spring air, or a cosy event inside. If the weather is nice then an outside event would be much nicer, if the weather is awful then inside would be much nicer. Do you plan for the event to be inside or outside? The thing is that you simply don't have the information necessary to make the right decision, you cannot predict the weather reliably a week in advance. Sometimes you just have to guess, and guessing is easy.
So, let us take a very complicated decision that I think is actually easy to make. Let us say you are an 18 year old about to go off to college. You can go to an expensive school with a good reputation and study economics, which you have never studied before, or go to an easier, more relaxed school and study psychology for the first time. As an 18 year old, who has never lived away from home or studied any of these subjects, the choice is extremely complex and the consequences seem to be large. This seems like a difficult decision. However, the amount of information available to predict the outcomes of either choice is so low compared to the difference between the decisions that tossing a coin and going with the result is a completely rational way to proceed.
When I decided to leave Michigan for Oregon there is not one chance that I could have predicted meeting someone who asked me to play music in a band, or that a girlfriend would dump me at a convenient time for me to fall in love with my wife. I left Michigan because I had few ties there (and I had fewer in Oregon) and I was sick of the weather. I hadn't even thought of what turned out to be extremely important consequences of a decision made for entirely different purposes.
People don't like this. People don't like unpredictability, or the idea that a vast amount of our experiences just happen to us. Humans like to understand, plan, and control their lives. When the situation is complicated and unpredictable we want to simplify and predict. The cognitive dissonance between the reality of a situation beyond our understanding or prediction, and our view as the controllers of our own fate is what I think makes big decisions so painful.
When a decision seems really hard to make the truth is that at the point where you can make a decision which choice you make doesn't matter, that is that you cannot make a bad decision. This may seem weird, after all the wrong decision can have all sorts of terrible consequences, but that's not my point. Someone asks you to guess which way up a tossed coin will land. Guess right and you get $10;000,000. Guess wrong and you get fifty lashes with the cat o' nine tails. The consequences are enormous, but you cannot make a bad decision guessing heads or tails. The decision is not hard, just pick heads or tails. Worrying about what decision you should make is a waste of effort.
One of the things about Americans is that they/we really like doing something. Americans don't believe in the idea that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Take Syria right now. What a horrible situation, a chaotic maelstrom of hatred and violence. Any sane person wants the situation to be improved but not one person can legitimately say that they now what the outcome of almost any action would be. It may well be, and I believe it is, that anything the USA does will simply make things worse. That doing anything makes things worse s a more common condition that people think.
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are that you'll cut your hand.
Tao Te Ching Chapter 74
On the scale of significance the only thing I really wish to say is that I believe that human beings essentially have a (largely) fixed scale of significance. That is that the most important things you ever deal with feel as significant as the most important thing that a subsistence farmer in Africa encounters. Suddenly put yourself in the shoes of a subsistence farmer and then all of your previous worries will suddenly seem insignificant, but until that happens the hot water tank leak seems horrendous. Mostly things don't matter as much as we think they do.
On the scale of difficulty I think there is an interesting effect whereby decisions become easier at each end of a perceived scale of difficulty. I'll try and explain.
The simplest decisions have very few components (a rock, a head and an arm for bashing one with the other) and very few outcomes (head bashing or no head bashing) and a substantial difference between the outcomes (ouch! or not.) It is a very simple decision as to whether to hit yourself in the head with a rock.
The most complicated decisions have very many components (career advancement, personal satisfaction, a good view, how friends and family feel about it, will I ever see Paris?) and usually these components are conglomerates of other, simpler components. More complicated decisions will also have smaller differences in outcomes so that each individual component may be enough to swing the balance from one side to the other.
Generally we conflate the complication of a decision with the difficulty of making the decision, but I think that is a mistake at the highest levels of complexity. What I think is that at a certain point a decision becomes complicated enough that the outcome of our decisions is so unpredictable that it passes beyond an" event horizon" in that we simply cannot make a rational judgment on a decision. There is a reason why in science there if the concept of "statistically significant" and that is that below a certain threshold you cannot make any reasonable judgments.
You are going to have a party in late May in a week's time. You could have a barbecue outside in the lovely spring air, or a cosy event inside. If the weather is nice then an outside event would be much nicer, if the weather is awful then inside would be much nicer. Do you plan for the event to be inside or outside? The thing is that you simply don't have the information necessary to make the right decision, you cannot predict the weather reliably a week in advance. Sometimes you just have to guess, and guessing is easy.
So, let us take a very complicated decision that I think is actually easy to make. Let us say you are an 18 year old about to go off to college. You can go to an expensive school with a good reputation and study economics, which you have never studied before, or go to an easier, more relaxed school and study psychology for the first time. As an 18 year old, who has never lived away from home or studied any of these subjects, the choice is extremely complex and the consequences seem to be large. This seems like a difficult decision. However, the amount of information available to predict the outcomes of either choice is so low compared to the difference between the decisions that tossing a coin and going with the result is a completely rational way to proceed.
When I decided to leave Michigan for Oregon there is not one chance that I could have predicted meeting someone who asked me to play music in a band, or that a girlfriend would dump me at a convenient time for me to fall in love with my wife. I left Michigan because I had few ties there (and I had fewer in Oregon) and I was sick of the weather. I hadn't even thought of what turned out to be extremely important consequences of a decision made for entirely different purposes.
People don't like this. People don't like unpredictability, or the idea that a vast amount of our experiences just happen to us. Humans like to understand, plan, and control their lives. When the situation is complicated and unpredictable we want to simplify and predict. The cognitive dissonance between the reality of a situation beyond our understanding or prediction, and our view as the controllers of our own fate is what I think makes big decisions so painful.
When a decision seems really hard to make the truth is that at the point where you can make a decision which choice you make doesn't matter, that is that you cannot make a bad decision. This may seem weird, after all the wrong decision can have all sorts of terrible consequences, but that's not my point. Someone asks you to guess which way up a tossed coin will land. Guess right and you get $10;000,000. Guess wrong and you get fifty lashes with the cat o' nine tails. The consequences are enormous, but you cannot make a bad decision guessing heads or tails. The decision is not hard, just pick heads or tails. Worrying about what decision you should make is a waste of effort.
One of the things about Americans is that they/we really like doing something. Americans don't believe in the idea that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. Take Syria right now. What a horrible situation, a chaotic maelstrom of hatred and violence. Any sane person wants the situation to be improved but not one person can legitimately say that they now what the outcome of almost any action would be. It may well be, and I believe it is, that anything the USA does will simply make things worse. That doing anything makes things worse s a more common condition that people think.
If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.
Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are that you'll cut your hand.
Tao Te Ching Chapter 74
Thursday, August 8, 2013
The Wounded Animal, Crawling Forward
The title of this post refers to a metaphor I have used with regard to the state of things in the USA. While there are systemic problems (the wounds) in the USA (the animal) the beast is still moving forward. People tend to focus on the wounds and forget that the animal is still moving. There is outcry that the animal isn't "over there" but forget that it is moving at all.
It is important that people concentrate on the wounds so that they can be healed and the animal can move forward further and faster knowing that the animal is moving brings the increased happiness that optimism brings, and also the encouragement that wounds CAN be healed.
In that light I bring to your attention a momentous movement barely noticed in the media, the highest prosecutor in the land essentially saying the War on Drugs is at least somewhat of a failure and that there is a serious problem with how much we put people in jail. This might actually make a difference because this is perhaps the only area in Congress where the right and left edges of US politics agree.
From the article - "The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old," Holder said. "There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There's been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color."
Some of the items are changes Holder can make on his own, such as directing U.S. attorneys not to prosecute certain kinds of low-level drug crimes, or spending money to send more defendants into treatment instead of prison. Almost half of the 219,000 people currently in federal prison are serving time on drug charges.
.. the Justice Department explicitly pointed to state reform efforts in a letter to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in July. The old system, wrote official Jonathan Wroblewski, is being replaced with the idea that budgets are "finite," prison is a power that should be "exercised sparingly and only as necessary," and that "reducing reoffending and promoting effective reentry are core goals."
Such changes would be positively transformative in the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. It is also something that many would have considered politically inconceivable a decade ago.
It is important that people concentrate on the wounds so that they can be healed and the animal can move forward further and faster knowing that the animal is moving brings the increased happiness that optimism brings, and also the encouragement that wounds CAN be healed.
In that light I bring to your attention a momentous movement barely noticed in the media, the highest prosecutor in the land essentially saying the War on Drugs is at least somewhat of a failure and that there is a serious problem with how much we put people in jail. This might actually make a difference because this is perhaps the only area in Congress where the right and left edges of US politics agree.
From the article - "The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old," Holder said. "There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There's been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color."
Some of the items are changes Holder can make on his own, such as directing U.S. attorneys not to prosecute certain kinds of low-level drug crimes, or spending money to send more defendants into treatment instead of prison. Almost half of the 219,000 people currently in federal prison are serving time on drug charges.
.. the Justice Department explicitly pointed to state reform efforts in a letter to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in July. The old system, wrote official Jonathan Wroblewski, is being replaced with the idea that budgets are "finite," prison is a power that should be "exercised sparingly and only as necessary," and that "reducing reoffending and promoting effective reentry are core goals."
Such changes would be positively transformative in the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. It is also something that many would have considered politically inconceivable a decade ago.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Chapter 14
The sky had been an infinite circle of blue just a brief time ago. Then titanic clouds had billowed into the blue, a brilliant white, then darkening as they approached. As Alyami ducked his head below the door lintel a cataclysmic boom shook the heavens and the earth. As he closed the heavy, wooden door behind him fat droplets began to furiously pummel the dust outside.
With the eye of a wearied professional Alyami surveyed the tavern, taking in the quality of the furnishings, the quality of the clientele (as determined by the quality of their clothing), and the atmosphere of the room. The furnishings were solid and unremarkable, the clientele remarkably diverse, and the atmosphere started with hushed murmurings, quieted momentarily as people looked up from their refreshment and friends to see the newcomer, and then rose somewhat at the sight of a man with a musical instrument. There are few inns that do not welcome a minstrel.
The landlord sidled up to Alyami and spoke in a voice attempting discretion but trained to roar over loud crowds, "Welcome to The Addled Prophet sir, I wonder if you would be playing tonight?"
"My thanks. I will play but I beg for a short time to wash the dirt from my throat and to fill my belly."
"Of course, of course. If sir would take the table by yonder window," with a short nod of the head to indicate that the present occupier of that table should shift it, "I shall be along with beer and victuals, terms as per usual."
With great relief Alyami ambled over to the table indicated, smiling and nodding to the patrons he passed, for goodwill is half the battle for a musician, laid his pack gently down, and collapsed into his chair.
The pounding rain mesmerized Alyami so that he was startled by the thump of a plate and mug by his elbow. Alyami thanked the boy and leaned over his plate, inhaling the rich aromas of this foreign land, the powerful yeastness of course ground bread, the mouth watering richness of farm raised beef, the wet clothes smell of boiled root vegetable. Alyami had a sudden sharp pang, an almost lustful need for the tart sweetness of fruit picked from a jungle tree.
Within an island of peace Alyami ate, stolidly, professionally. Life on the road gave an appreciation for the value of a large meal, the next one was an unpredictable distance away. The raging storm outside meant the inside was particularly cosy, when a sunny spring day might have meant the tavern was musty and close. A gentle peace came upon him. He was safe, fed, warm and about to do what he loved most, play. He thanked the serving boy who came to take away his plate, agreed to another pint on the house (as per the usual terms), reached for his instrument bag and withdrew his beloved rabab.
As Alyami tuned the rabab the patrons reorganized themselves, moving closer and turning chairs around to face him. A palpable feeling of anticipation ran through the crowd, eliciting smiles and grins. Once satisfied with the rabab Alyami shook out his hands, straightened his back and struck a bright, cheerful chord. At that precise instant the door opened, thunder boomed and a small man in outlandish dress was outlined in the doorway, a small smile on his face as if he had picked up on a subtle joke.
With the eye of a wearied professional Alyami surveyed the tavern, taking in the quality of the furnishings, the quality of the clientele (as determined by the quality of their clothing), and the atmosphere of the room. The furnishings were solid and unremarkable, the clientele remarkably diverse, and the atmosphere started with hushed murmurings, quieted momentarily as people looked up from their refreshment and friends to see the newcomer, and then rose somewhat at the sight of a man with a musical instrument. There are few inns that do not welcome a minstrel.
The landlord sidled up to Alyami and spoke in a voice attempting discretion but trained to roar over loud crowds, "Welcome to The Addled Prophet sir, I wonder if you would be playing tonight?"
"My thanks. I will play but I beg for a short time to wash the dirt from my throat and to fill my belly."
"Of course, of course. If sir would take the table by yonder window," with a short nod of the head to indicate that the present occupier of that table should shift it, "I shall be along with beer and victuals, terms as per usual."
With great relief Alyami ambled over to the table indicated, smiling and nodding to the patrons he passed, for goodwill is half the battle for a musician, laid his pack gently down, and collapsed into his chair.
The pounding rain mesmerized Alyami so that he was startled by the thump of a plate and mug by his elbow. Alyami thanked the boy and leaned over his plate, inhaling the rich aromas of this foreign land, the powerful yeastness of course ground bread, the mouth watering richness of farm raised beef, the wet clothes smell of boiled root vegetable. Alyami had a sudden sharp pang, an almost lustful need for the tart sweetness of fruit picked from a jungle tree.
Within an island of peace Alyami ate, stolidly, professionally. Life on the road gave an appreciation for the value of a large meal, the next one was an unpredictable distance away. The raging storm outside meant the inside was particularly cosy, when a sunny spring day might have meant the tavern was musty and close. A gentle peace came upon him. He was safe, fed, warm and about to do what he loved most, play. He thanked the serving boy who came to take away his plate, agreed to another pint on the house (as per the usual terms), reached for his instrument bag and withdrew his beloved rabab.
As Alyami tuned the rabab the patrons reorganized themselves, moving closer and turning chairs around to face him. A palpable feeling of anticipation ran through the crowd, eliciting smiles and grins. Once satisfied with the rabab Alyami shook out his hands, straightened his back and struck a bright, cheerful chord. At that precise instant the door opened, thunder boomed and a small man in outlandish dress was outlined in the doorway, a small smile on his face as if he had picked up on a subtle joke.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Chapter 13
The next day we tried to remove that unpleasant experience from our heads, brushed ourselves off and continued on our tour. In the summer the river plain can become quite hot and steamy, a morning mist over the river burning off early in the morning. At this point the river puts our own Lianka to shame in terms of its sheer breadth, if not in charming beauty. Bridges are simply not practicable and so a ferry is needed to cross.
Following our itinerary we realized after a brief perusal of our precious map that at some point it would be necessary to cross the river in order to see the great sights of Peirout. Without knowing the possibilities of ferries further up the river we decided to see about crossing the river from the rather ramshackle wooden pier at the riverside. Miriam expressed some trepidation about trusting ourselves to the locals but she is a tough old bird, determined to experience life. Still, we made sure to go out of our way to avoid the part of town that we had unfortunately visited the night before.
At the pier we discovered that there was no official ferry but also that the local fisherman would be willing to ferry us cross the river for a fee. We had unfortunately arrived too late for most of the fishermen, but a handsome lad was willing to row us across for a fee of six Dakra, a number reached after some haggling.
Dear reader, if you plan to travel I must recommend that you force yourself to learn to haggle. While our custom is that it is a slight to the honesty of a craftsman to think that he might not be setting out the lowest price he is willing to take for the item, this is decidedly not the custom everywhere else I have visited. After a while this activity can be quite enjoyable, rather like playing a game of cards, or telling a good story and will usually save the astonishing figure of half what you would pay by simply accepting the first price offered. To be brief, I believe that the back and forth between the quality of the boat, the prospects of other fishermen returning and the omnipresent starving grandmother, had an excellent result in that I found the cost quite cheap and yet the sparkle in the eyes of the youth upon payment led me to belief he was similarly satisfied.
My pleasure in the cost was deepened by the extraordinary effort it required to cross. While the youth's gaze was somewhat uncomfortably fixed upon Miriam, he amiably explained that the width of the river and its strong flow meant that to cross required one to point the prow a full mile upstream from the intended destination.
Upon arrival the youth wished us much luck, climbed out of the boat and immediately entered a very disheveled establishment that I believed to be a tavern. There we were standing alone upon a dock in a strange town. This is the essence of travel, the slight frisson of fear, and the excitement of curiosity. We took a deep breath and walked forward into the town.
Blessings, in the main, lives up to its charming name. Apparently Blessings had been a confluence of trading routes for centuries and therefore developed a greater wealth than he surrounding towns. The effects of this were obvious, with the buildings built of stout wood, or river stone. Some of the architecture was quite striking, with stone carved beasts staring out from the eaves of roofs. As I have mentioned before, a traveler's first priority upon arriving in a new place must be accommodation. We quickly found a clean inn that suited our needs very well. While more expensive than our recent experiences, it was also cleaner and more comfortable. Sometimes one needs to rest in comfort to restore one's energy and curiosity.
While Blessings is a pretty place, arranged in little squares and shaded by a type of fruit tree known as a "mango", what you must see is the shrine to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come. Shortly after He descended from the mountains he walked through this town, named Asheba at the time, and transformed it. The story goes that Asheba was a town twisted in hatred, divided by powerful clans whose symbols are the creatures that still remain on the eaves. He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come simply came to this spot, sat down and put out his begging bowl. The Presence of His Peace spread throughout the town and foes quickly became friends and hatred became kindness. The town was renamed Blessings in memory, and as a symbol of the new harmony all the clans donated money towards the shrine so that they could all remember the peace and their responsibility to maintain it.
It is indeed a charming story to which I do little justice here, and the truth of it seems incontrovertible when strolling along under the gentle shade of the mango trees. Almost by accident we came out into Shrine Square. One's first reaction is to the majesty of the enormous mango tree that towers over the buildings. Then one notices that beneath this magnificent tree are statues carved from white marble. They depict He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come smiling and talking to local people while charmingly a small child is carefully placing a flower in His begging bowl. The whole scene is distinct in its informality, the genius of the piece being the everyday realism of the figures, lifelike in size and manner, yet carved out of beautiful, gleaming marble. I will never forget the joy of actually walking among those listening to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come as He set out on his mission.
Oh to see His Blessing in such a beautiful way means that to me, seeing Blessings was indeed a blessing.
Following our itinerary we realized after a brief perusal of our precious map that at some point it would be necessary to cross the river in order to see the great sights of Peirout. Without knowing the possibilities of ferries further up the river we decided to see about crossing the river from the rather ramshackle wooden pier at the riverside. Miriam expressed some trepidation about trusting ourselves to the locals but she is a tough old bird, determined to experience life. Still, we made sure to go out of our way to avoid the part of town that we had unfortunately visited the night before.
At the pier we discovered that there was no official ferry but also that the local fisherman would be willing to ferry us cross the river for a fee. We had unfortunately arrived too late for most of the fishermen, but a handsome lad was willing to row us across for a fee of six Dakra, a number reached after some haggling.
Dear reader, if you plan to travel I must recommend that you force yourself to learn to haggle. While our custom is that it is a slight to the honesty of a craftsman to think that he might not be setting out the lowest price he is willing to take for the item, this is decidedly not the custom everywhere else I have visited. After a while this activity can be quite enjoyable, rather like playing a game of cards, or telling a good story and will usually save the astonishing figure of half what you would pay by simply accepting the first price offered. To be brief, I believe that the back and forth between the quality of the boat, the prospects of other fishermen returning and the omnipresent starving grandmother, had an excellent result in that I found the cost quite cheap and yet the sparkle in the eyes of the youth upon payment led me to belief he was similarly satisfied.
My pleasure in the cost was deepened by the extraordinary effort it required to cross. While the youth's gaze was somewhat uncomfortably fixed upon Miriam, he amiably explained that the width of the river and its strong flow meant that to cross required one to point the prow a full mile upstream from the intended destination.
Upon arrival the youth wished us much luck, climbed out of the boat and immediately entered a very disheveled establishment that I believed to be a tavern. There we were standing alone upon a dock in a strange town. This is the essence of travel, the slight frisson of fear, and the excitement of curiosity. We took a deep breath and walked forward into the town.
Blessings, in the main, lives up to its charming name. Apparently Blessings had been a confluence of trading routes for centuries and therefore developed a greater wealth than he surrounding towns. The effects of this were obvious, with the buildings built of stout wood, or river stone. Some of the architecture was quite striking, with stone carved beasts staring out from the eaves of roofs. As I have mentioned before, a traveler's first priority upon arriving in a new place must be accommodation. We quickly found a clean inn that suited our needs very well. While more expensive than our recent experiences, it was also cleaner and more comfortable. Sometimes one needs to rest in comfort to restore one's energy and curiosity.
While Blessings is a pretty place, arranged in little squares and shaded by a type of fruit tree known as a "mango", what you must see is the shrine to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come. Shortly after He descended from the mountains he walked through this town, named Asheba at the time, and transformed it. The story goes that Asheba was a town twisted in hatred, divided by powerful clans whose symbols are the creatures that still remain on the eaves. He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come simply came to this spot, sat down and put out his begging bowl. The Presence of His Peace spread throughout the town and foes quickly became friends and hatred became kindness. The town was renamed Blessings in memory, and as a symbol of the new harmony all the clans donated money towards the shrine so that they could all remember the peace and their responsibility to maintain it.
It is indeed a charming story to which I do little justice here, and the truth of it seems incontrovertible when strolling along under the gentle shade of the mango trees. Almost by accident we came out into Shrine Square. One's first reaction is to the majesty of the enormous mango tree that towers over the buildings. Then one notices that beneath this magnificent tree are statues carved from white marble. They depict He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come smiling and talking to local people while charmingly a small child is carefully placing a flower in His begging bowl. The whole scene is distinct in its informality, the genius of the piece being the everyday realism of the figures, lifelike in size and manner, yet carved out of beautiful, gleaming marble. I will never forget the joy of actually walking among those listening to He Who From Whom Our Blessings Come as He set out on his mission.
Oh to see His Blessing in such a beautiful way means that to me, seeing Blessings was indeed a blessing.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Something new to do.
I think I'm going to buy an electric guitar and learn how to play reggae music.
Other than the cultural omnipresence of rock 'n' roll there are two genres of music that have consistently held my attention over the years, Irish folk music and reggae. Irish music takes me to an idealized version of home, all rambles in the countryside and jolly pubs. Reggae takes me away to sun bathed palm trees and a hammock, with a complete lack of hurry.
I've given the Irish music a solid try and I would say it has been success, but I am stagnating. Essentially what I do is play the same thirty songs that I have learned, and even the ones I cannot properly play I don't practice enough to really improve. This is OK, in the genre my best instrument is my voice, and I have found that once you know a song you can go months without playing it and generally do just fine when you come back to it. At some point it seems likely that I will play an Irish ban again.
So, on to reggae. The internet is a wonderful thing, you can get free lessons on almost everything and I have had a peak at some of them. As with many things it seems remarkably simple with basically three ingredients, but it will be a challenge to learn (which is probably what I need). Ingredient one is the ability to play barre chords, the ones where your index finger covers all the strings, the type of chord (major,minor etc.) comes from the shape of the other fingers, and the pitch comes from moving that shape up and down the neck. Ingredient two is the ability to pull off the strings with the left hand quickly, but not enough to take your fingers off the strings completely. The third is the ability to keep the rhythm while playing only on the backbeat.
I can play some barre chords on an acoustic guitar so I should manage this area relatively quickly (although some of the chords used are pretty weird). I have been trying the pull off thing with my acoustic guitar, and can basically do it, and an acoustic guitar is more difficult for this. The tricky thing is going be the last bit.
I'm a white guy from Europe. I keep time on the one and the three. ONE two THREE four. Black guys from Africa keep time on the two and the four, the backbeat. one TWO three FOUR. The melody is the same in both cases but the emphasis in the rhythm is different. Incidentally, this is a big part of why rock/blues/country music is popular, it has both rhythms, white rhythm on the big bass drum (BOOM) and black rhythm on the snare drum (THWACK). The beat of rock is BOOM THWACK BOOM THWACK.
Reggae is a very stripped down version of the African beat, the guitar (and sometimes keyboard) keeping the rhythm by just playing a chord on that beat, and the pull-off technique keeps that chord very short. This is very different than the almost constant strumming common in most European music.
So, all I have to do is go, "chucka chucka chucka chucka" nice and slowly and sing over the top. It's just that for the first month or two each "chucka" will seem to be in exactly the wrong place.
One of my whimsical dreams has been to form a band that combines reggae and Irish folk, either by putting that reggae backbeat on Irish tunes, or by simply playing one set of Irish music and then everyone changes outfits and instruments and plays a reggae set.
Other than the cultural omnipresence of rock 'n' roll there are two genres of music that have consistently held my attention over the years, Irish folk music and reggae. Irish music takes me to an idealized version of home, all rambles in the countryside and jolly pubs. Reggae takes me away to sun bathed palm trees and a hammock, with a complete lack of hurry.
I've given the Irish music a solid try and I would say it has been success, but I am stagnating. Essentially what I do is play the same thirty songs that I have learned, and even the ones I cannot properly play I don't practice enough to really improve. This is OK, in the genre my best instrument is my voice, and I have found that once you know a song you can go months without playing it and generally do just fine when you come back to it. At some point it seems likely that I will play an Irish ban again.
So, on to reggae. The internet is a wonderful thing, you can get free lessons on almost everything and I have had a peak at some of them. As with many things it seems remarkably simple with basically three ingredients, but it will be a challenge to learn (which is probably what I need). Ingredient one is the ability to play barre chords, the ones where your index finger covers all the strings, the type of chord (major,minor etc.) comes from the shape of the other fingers, and the pitch comes from moving that shape up and down the neck. Ingredient two is the ability to pull off the strings with the left hand quickly, but not enough to take your fingers off the strings completely. The third is the ability to keep the rhythm while playing only on the backbeat.
I can play some barre chords on an acoustic guitar so I should manage this area relatively quickly (although some of the chords used are pretty weird). I have been trying the pull off thing with my acoustic guitar, and can basically do it, and an acoustic guitar is more difficult for this. The tricky thing is going be the last bit.
I'm a white guy from Europe. I keep time on the one and the three. ONE two THREE four. Black guys from Africa keep time on the two and the four, the backbeat. one TWO three FOUR. The melody is the same in both cases but the emphasis in the rhythm is different. Incidentally, this is a big part of why rock/blues/country music is popular, it has both rhythms, white rhythm on the big bass drum (BOOM) and black rhythm on the snare drum (THWACK). The beat of rock is BOOM THWACK BOOM THWACK.
Reggae is a very stripped down version of the African beat, the guitar (and sometimes keyboard) keeping the rhythm by just playing a chord on that beat, and the pull-off technique keeps that chord very short. This is very different than the almost constant strumming common in most European music.
So, all I have to do is go, "chucka chucka chucka chucka" nice and slowly and sing over the top. It's just that for the first month or two each "chucka" will seem to be in exactly the wrong place.
One of my whimsical dreams has been to form a band that combines reggae and Irish folk, either by putting that reggae backbeat on Irish tunes, or by simply playing one set of Irish music and then everyone changes outfits and instruments and plays a reggae set.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Trapped and Powerless
I am trapped and powerless to do anything about it. I live in a place I dislike in many ways, spending almost all of my time alone. Now, I have a means of leaving, I could either simply leave my wife, or file for divorce and get the money from the house and head off somewhere else. If I don't want to leave my wife then I have no ability to move.
When people are powerless they are treated as such, as if they are inferior. After all, what can they do about it? Since I have no power my opinion matters less, I am less respected. The only way my position can change is if someone else decides to change it.
I am a menial servant and there is nothing I can do about it.
Still, it is dramatically better than my last job, it's just everything else that is worse.
When people are powerless they are treated as such, as if they are inferior. After all, what can they do about it? Since I have no power my opinion matters less, I am less respected. The only way my position can change is if someone else decides to change it.
I am a menial servant and there is nothing I can do about it.
Still, it is dramatically better than my last job, it's just everything else that is worse.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
The Place That I Called Home
The grass was green in the battering wind, the clouds raced 'cross the sky. The world was alive to anyone's eye in the place that I called home.
The owl gave his cry in the deepening gloom, the stars were as sharp as a knife. The smell of the woodsmoke moved over the frost in the place that I called home.
I walked by myself down the footpaths and byways, never feeling alone. For thousands of years they've walked there beside me, in the place that I called home.
A pint of real cider and a great, roaring fire always takes me away. Back to the place that there's no real leaving, the place that I called home.
The owl gave his cry in the deepening gloom, the stars were as sharp as a knife. The smell of the woodsmoke moved over the frost in the place that I called home.
I walked by myself down the footpaths and byways, never feeling alone. For thousands of years they've walked there beside me, in the place that I called home.
A pint of real cider and a great, roaring fire always takes me away. Back to the place that there's no real leaving, the place that I called home.
Visions of Motivations
I often hear people surprised and disappointed at the manner in which groups of people behave, that these groups of people should behave differently. It is very rare that I disagree with the sentiment, at any level you want to look at humanity, from individual to species, there's a whole bunch of stuff we should be doing differently. However, I do feel that I am less surprised about much of the behavior.
What do I actually mean? A few examples are business executives putting profit above the welfare of their employees, or police harassment/racism/brutality, or politicians putting being elected above anything else. A moral person by almost any measure should put the well being of other people above the difference between being rich and being very rich. The job of the police should be protecting people rather than harming people. Politicians are there to actually get things done rather than to be able to stay there.
None of these problems surprise me, not so much because I am so jaded by their recurrence, but because of how I think about motivations. When deciding what to do for a career a young person creates a picture for themselves of various jobs and then imagines themselves in that role and determines how that would feel.
When thinking of being a businessman it would be usual to think of a rich man in a suit who is looked up to for their power, who have people rushing to attend to their needs, and someone who wins competitions. The sort of people who derive pleasure from that image will try to become business executives. People motivated by wealth, power, being served by others, and competition are essentially by definition not motivated by the distribution of wealth and power for a more egalitarian existence.
When thinking of a policeman most people would think of him chasing down and capturing a bad guy, someone breaking the rules. A policeman is someone imbued with the power from authority to physically restrain and intimidate certain people. If you are motivated by being the physical symbol of official power then you will try to find ways to express that power against those who are not a part of that official power. In these imaginings I think we can all agree that the bad guys are rarely well off white women.
When thinking of politicians what image comes to mind? Is it something other than the applause and adulation of a crowd towards a person delivering an impassioned speech? Does the actual content of the speech matter much to that image? If you are motivated by an impassioned crowd then you will try to find ways to produce an impassioned crowd, which is exactly what politicians do.
All of these examples are painted with a broad brush. There are ethical businessmen, dedicated to producing a useful, quality product while providing a real living for their employees. There are policemen who are motivated mostly by helping and supporting a community. There are politicians primarily motivated by policy for whom getting elected is a prerequisite rather than the primary goal. It is also true that almost all of the people in these professions would deny that their primary motivations fall along these lines. Still, I think there's a lot to this stuff.
People in different areas of life are there to a very large extent because they have chosen to be there, and people choose things because of their inherent motivations. If you can start with what motivates people to do certain things rather than starting from what people should do then you will get a better understanding of what to expect from people, and be less upset all of the time when they do that instead of what they are supposed to be doing. Spies are always going to try and get the maximum amount of information possible, your privacy is the thing their motivation wants to remove, and your safety is their justification to get what they want.
Is this a paen to cynical acceptance? Perhaps a bit. However, I do think that trying to work out why people do things is better than simply being outraged that they do and demanding something different. If you want to fix things then you have to understand what is broken first.
If you wish to produce more socially conscious businesspeople then you need to alter the image of a successful businessperson somehow, I have suggested that the best way to do this is to make philanthropy the gaudiest, most coveted sign of true wealth and prestige.
If you want government to work better then you need to get people more interested in governing than being elected, which requires disconnecting campaigning from governing. At some point it seems likely to me that somewhere politicians will become seen as an unnecessary middle-man between the electorate (who now have the ability to vote for things 24/7/365) and lobbyists/special interest groups. I expect that the result of such an occurrence would be a new found respect for representative democracy.
I don't know how to stop cops from getting their jollies from intimidating people, something that has been quite evident in every single interaction with the police I have had (and usually I have been on the "cop's side.")
What do I actually mean? A few examples are business executives putting profit above the welfare of their employees, or police harassment/racism/brutality, or politicians putting being elected above anything else. A moral person by almost any measure should put the well being of other people above the difference between being rich and being very rich. The job of the police should be protecting people rather than harming people. Politicians are there to actually get things done rather than to be able to stay there.
None of these problems surprise me, not so much because I am so jaded by their recurrence, but because of how I think about motivations. When deciding what to do for a career a young person creates a picture for themselves of various jobs and then imagines themselves in that role and determines how that would feel.
When thinking of being a businessman it would be usual to think of a rich man in a suit who is looked up to for their power, who have people rushing to attend to their needs, and someone who wins competitions. The sort of people who derive pleasure from that image will try to become business executives. People motivated by wealth, power, being served by others, and competition are essentially by definition not motivated by the distribution of wealth and power for a more egalitarian existence.
When thinking of a policeman most people would think of him chasing down and capturing a bad guy, someone breaking the rules. A policeman is someone imbued with the power from authority to physically restrain and intimidate certain people. If you are motivated by being the physical symbol of official power then you will try to find ways to express that power against those who are not a part of that official power. In these imaginings I think we can all agree that the bad guys are rarely well off white women.
When thinking of politicians what image comes to mind? Is it something other than the applause and adulation of a crowd towards a person delivering an impassioned speech? Does the actual content of the speech matter much to that image? If you are motivated by an impassioned crowd then you will try to find ways to produce an impassioned crowd, which is exactly what politicians do.
All of these examples are painted with a broad brush. There are ethical businessmen, dedicated to producing a useful, quality product while providing a real living for their employees. There are policemen who are motivated mostly by helping and supporting a community. There are politicians primarily motivated by policy for whom getting elected is a prerequisite rather than the primary goal. It is also true that almost all of the people in these professions would deny that their primary motivations fall along these lines. Still, I think there's a lot to this stuff.
People in different areas of life are there to a very large extent because they have chosen to be there, and people choose things because of their inherent motivations. If you can start with what motivates people to do certain things rather than starting from what people should do then you will get a better understanding of what to expect from people, and be less upset all of the time when they do that instead of what they are supposed to be doing. Spies are always going to try and get the maximum amount of information possible, your privacy is the thing their motivation wants to remove, and your safety is their justification to get what they want.
Is this a paen to cynical acceptance? Perhaps a bit. However, I do think that trying to work out why people do things is better than simply being outraged that they do and demanding something different. If you want to fix things then you have to understand what is broken first.
If you wish to produce more socially conscious businesspeople then you need to alter the image of a successful businessperson somehow, I have suggested that the best way to do this is to make philanthropy the gaudiest, most coveted sign of true wealth and prestige.
If you want government to work better then you need to get people more interested in governing than being elected, which requires disconnecting campaigning from governing. At some point it seems likely to me that somewhere politicians will become seen as an unnecessary middle-man between the electorate (who now have the ability to vote for things 24/7/365) and lobbyists/special interest groups. I expect that the result of such an occurrence would be a new found respect for representative democracy.
I don't know how to stop cops from getting their jollies from intimidating people, something that has been quite evident in every single interaction with the police I have had (and usually I have been on the "cop's side.")
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Hugs
Recently I attended a 95th birthday and family reunion for the relatives on my wife's mothers side of the family. In that family I would be/am considered to be part of that family, which seems deeply weird to me. What I consider my family now consists of six people, myself, siblings and parents. For me to consider someone a family member there must be a shared existence over a prolonged time from an early age. Most of the people at the event I have spent less than a weekend with.
However, I received many, many hugs. Now, I want to start off with what hugging meant in the country that I grew up in. Until I left the UK in 1988 I had not been hugged by anyone in probably a decade. In the England I grew up in hugging is such an intimate emotional act that it only happens with people in relationships or involving small children. As with any other intimate emotional act, when it happens with someone you are not intimate with emotionally it can feel strange, disturbing, and invasive. Just imagine that someone you have just met gently strokes the hair off your face. The way I was raised this is the same as hugging.
Studies on personal space say that Americans (in general)) actually have a larger personal space than Britons (although I remember a study from college in which this was true apart from directly in front of the face,perhaps I remember that incorrectly.) However, personal space depends enormously on the category in which you place the other person. The personal space between mother and baby is zero. The personal space between family members is bigger, and then bigger for friends and then largest with people you don't really know. I stared off with a larger personal space then usual, and I have a smaller category of friends.
When I first came to the States I found myself being hugged a lot. At the time it seemed like all the time. I remember meeting people for the first time and immediately being hugged. Within the whirlwind of a new culture this was probably the second most intense thing, after meeting several people a day who would immediately interview me about my life. Since then I have probably been hugged by non-family members hundreds of times. Contrast hundreds of times with zero times. By the way, it is extremely difficult to think of some way to prevent someone hugging you in a polite way. Hugging is an expression of intimacy, and if you refuse a hug then you are simply saying that you are less emotionally involved, and care less for that person than they expected. I have never managed it.
Now, I don't want to suggest that I still feel major confusion and discomfort when getting hugged, it has happened so much that I am used to it. However, it still feels a little weird and I get nothing from it (except from my wife). I hug other people because it seems to make them feel happy, connected, and warm. The people at the event were trying to convey that I was part of the family, included and I think that a very nice gesture indeed. However, the event is a one-sided transaction, for me hugging is a minor uncomfortable event that I do out of politeness. I take it in the same way I take a cashier saying, God bless you." It doesn't mean the same thing to them a it does to me, but it is meant well and so I won't do anything to stop it. Kindness is to b encouraged.
A this point I am imagining all the people I have hugged who read this are somewhat horrified as to what they have been doing to me. I don't want that at all. You have been expressing friendship and affection, good for you. I also don't want you to stop, it doesn't do me any harm and y'all seem to like it. Just think of it like going to Italy and doing the kissing of cheeks, personally weird, weird to the other person if you don't, but you are in Italy and when in Rome.....
However, I received many, many hugs. Now, I want to start off with what hugging meant in the country that I grew up in. Until I left the UK in 1988 I had not been hugged by anyone in probably a decade. In the England I grew up in hugging is such an intimate emotional act that it only happens with people in relationships or involving small children. As with any other intimate emotional act, when it happens with someone you are not intimate with emotionally it can feel strange, disturbing, and invasive. Just imagine that someone you have just met gently strokes the hair off your face. The way I was raised this is the same as hugging.
Studies on personal space say that Americans (in general)) actually have a larger personal space than Britons (although I remember a study from college in which this was true apart from directly in front of the face,perhaps I remember that incorrectly.) However, personal space depends enormously on the category in which you place the other person. The personal space between mother and baby is zero. The personal space between family members is bigger, and then bigger for friends and then largest with people you don't really know. I stared off with a larger personal space then usual, and I have a smaller category of friends.
When I first came to the States I found myself being hugged a lot. At the time it seemed like all the time. I remember meeting people for the first time and immediately being hugged. Within the whirlwind of a new culture this was probably the second most intense thing, after meeting several people a day who would immediately interview me about my life. Since then I have probably been hugged by non-family members hundreds of times. Contrast hundreds of times with zero times. By the way, it is extremely difficult to think of some way to prevent someone hugging you in a polite way. Hugging is an expression of intimacy, and if you refuse a hug then you are simply saying that you are less emotionally involved, and care less for that person than they expected. I have never managed it.
Now, I don't want to suggest that I still feel major confusion and discomfort when getting hugged, it has happened so much that I am used to it. However, it still feels a little weird and I get nothing from it (except from my wife). I hug other people because it seems to make them feel happy, connected, and warm. The people at the event were trying to convey that I was part of the family, included and I think that a very nice gesture indeed. However, the event is a one-sided transaction, for me hugging is a minor uncomfortable event that I do out of politeness. I take it in the same way I take a cashier saying, God bless you." It doesn't mean the same thing to them a it does to me, but it is meant well and so I won't do anything to stop it. Kindness is to b encouraged.
A this point I am imagining all the people I have hugged who read this are somewhat horrified as to what they have been doing to me. I don't want that at all. You have been expressing friendship and affection, good for you. I also don't want you to stop, it doesn't do me any harm and y'all seem to like it. Just think of it like going to Italy and doing the kissing of cheeks, personally weird, weird to the other person if you don't, but you are in Italy and when in Rome.....
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Intelligence Services in Collecting Data Shock
In international news is the report of a guy who leaked classified information that shows the intelligence community getting vast amounts of data about internet and cell phone use from the major internet companies. As I understand it, and I haven't spent a huge amount of time looking into it, the NSA gets metadata looking for suspicious patterns (like someone calling Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia) and THEN getting a warrant to explore individual use. This has caused a huge outcry about privacy, the US government is accused of investigating people without cause or warrant.
Point 1. Metadata isn't privacy related. Collecting information about the number of drivers who cross the border isn't an invasion of privacy and finding suspicious behavior (i.e. a large number of Colombian nationals going back and forward across the border) should lead to a criminal investigation.
Point 2. Investigation of an individual's private record still requires a warrant (although a warrant from a secret court).
Point 3. Point 1 and 2 are irrelevant because if you believe the US government intelligence community wouldn't gather all of this evidence anyway, regardless of its legality, I applaud your naivety. After all the US government murders and tortures people I still remember clearly that within 24 hours of 9/11/2001 the NSA reporting on specifics from the cell phone conversations of the hijackers.
Point 4. My personal belief about the morality of whistle blowing is that if the leaker has a reasonable belief that a crime was being committed then they should be free from prosecution. otherwise they should be prosecuted.
This whole thing is of little interest to me beyond this. The scandal is overblown, they would do it anyway, and there are much worse things going on that are right out there in public with less outcry.
Point 1. Metadata isn't privacy related. Collecting information about the number of drivers who cross the border isn't an invasion of privacy and finding suspicious behavior (i.e. a large number of Colombian nationals going back and forward across the border) should lead to a criminal investigation.
Point 2. Investigation of an individual's private record still requires a warrant (although a warrant from a secret court).
Point 3. Point 1 and 2 are irrelevant because if you believe the US government intelligence community wouldn't gather all of this evidence anyway, regardless of its legality, I applaud your naivety. After all the US government murders and tortures people I still remember clearly that within 24 hours of 9/11/2001 the NSA reporting on specifics from the cell phone conversations of the hijackers.
Point 4. My personal belief about the morality of whistle blowing is that if the leaker has a reasonable belief that a crime was being committed then they should be free from prosecution. otherwise they should be prosecuted.
This whole thing is of little interest to me beyond this. The scandal is overblown, they would do it anyway, and there are much worse things going on that are right out there in public with less outcry.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Enough
"Enough" is one of my favorite concepts and I think it hugely under-utilized. "Enough" is an easy concept in certain situations, such as eating enough to be healthy, but more complicated in other situations, such as trying hard enough.
In the simple cases I think it comes down to a tipping point, to little food and you will be unhealthy, too much food and you will be unhealthy, enough food is the Goldilocks zone in the middle. Other tipping points can be where usefulness stops. If you want to have a successful career in business then at some point further schooling in business has no real effect other than to delay your start in business.
Then there come situations in which what is enough becomes murky. What is enough money? What is enough love? What is good enough?
In the United states the poverty line, the basic definition of not enough, runs at about $23,000 a year for a family of four. In a descending list of median household incomes by country the first country to have a number below that of the US poverty line is Italy, in 19th place. According to the US government, slightly more than half of all Italians don't have enough money. According to the Italians, 16% of their population lives below the poverty line. What is enough money?
If you, as I do, think that money is for providing happiness, then enough money is the amount of money needed to produce happiness over which money makes no difference, or at least less difference than putting resources into anther area of your life. The biggest jump in happiness quite reasonably happens when you go from not having your basic needs met, to having them met. Sick, homeless, hungry frightened people are much less happy than well, housed, fed, safe people. Does this mean that having your basic needs met is enough money? Yes if you are a Buddhist, o if you are a regular person.
Happiness has been correlated with income, but only to a point. In the US any correlation between happiness and money stops somewhere around $100,000. Is this enough money? Well, after a certain point what seems to matter with happiness and income is whether you make a similar or different amount to your neighbors. If you make $50,000 and your neighbor makes $60,000 you will probably be less happy than a person who makes $50,000 whose neighbors make $40,000. So, enough money is pretty much a bit more than getting your basic needs met and around the same amount as the people around you, which is why Costa Rica is one of the happier places in the world.
What is enough love? Somewhere between not feeling that you are missing something and needing a little breathing room?
What is being a good enough person?
Why am I even talking about this concept? I am sure that I have said all of this before. I am talking about "enough" because of an interesting piece of information I found out today. The happiest country in the world is Australia, or Denmark, or Costa Rica. It depends on which measure you use. If you just ask people if they are happy then Denmark wins. If you factor in a bunch of economic indicators then Australia wins. If you add in environmental factors then Costa Rica wins. The idea seems to be prevalent that having enough to be happy isn't enough to be happy, It is inconceivable to many that Bhutan could be a happier place than Australia, just look how poor they are!
"Enough" will matter more in the long run. As technology increasingly replaces people then our present cultural and economic model of the necessity of a full time job in a house will no longer be feasible. Eventually the number of jobs at which humans outperform machines will be substantially less than half of the population. Unemployment will become the norm rather than a crisis. With most people having no kids at home and no job, "enough" becomes a far more important concept than "more."
An economy based on providing enough for everyone is not a growing economy, it doesn't need to be. It is only very recently that there has been enough money for people some areas, and the twentieth century was ideologically largely about a battle between different methods of making more money, and capitalism won. However, in a few years there are going to be large areas of the globe with enough money, and not much for people to usefully do. Such a position is incompatible with a capitalist system. At some point in the future, and much closer than I think people realize, there will have to be a mainstream change in how we view society, something moving from money, work, competition to satisfaction, happiness, community.
At some point "enough" will have to be recognized as actually enough. This is a good thing. If right now you are here, right now, and you recognize that you have enough, it is actually quite hard not to be happy......enough.
In the simple cases I think it comes down to a tipping point, to little food and you will be unhealthy, too much food and you will be unhealthy, enough food is the Goldilocks zone in the middle. Other tipping points can be where usefulness stops. If you want to have a successful career in business then at some point further schooling in business has no real effect other than to delay your start in business.
Then there come situations in which what is enough becomes murky. What is enough money? What is enough love? What is good enough?
In the United states the poverty line, the basic definition of not enough, runs at about $23,000 a year for a family of four. In a descending list of median household incomes by country the first country to have a number below that of the US poverty line is Italy, in 19th place. According to the US government, slightly more than half of all Italians don't have enough money. According to the Italians, 16% of their population lives below the poverty line. What is enough money?
If you, as I do, think that money is for providing happiness, then enough money is the amount of money needed to produce happiness over which money makes no difference, or at least less difference than putting resources into anther area of your life. The biggest jump in happiness quite reasonably happens when you go from not having your basic needs met, to having them met. Sick, homeless, hungry frightened people are much less happy than well, housed, fed, safe people. Does this mean that having your basic needs met is enough money? Yes if you are a Buddhist, o if you are a regular person.
Happiness has been correlated with income, but only to a point. In the US any correlation between happiness and money stops somewhere around $100,000. Is this enough money? Well, after a certain point what seems to matter with happiness and income is whether you make a similar or different amount to your neighbors. If you make $50,000 and your neighbor makes $60,000 you will probably be less happy than a person who makes $50,000 whose neighbors make $40,000. So, enough money is pretty much a bit more than getting your basic needs met and around the same amount as the people around you, which is why Costa Rica is one of the happier places in the world.
What is enough love? Somewhere between not feeling that you are missing something and needing a little breathing room?
What is being a good enough person?
Why am I even talking about this concept? I am sure that I have said all of this before. I am talking about "enough" because of an interesting piece of information I found out today. The happiest country in the world is Australia, or Denmark, or Costa Rica. It depends on which measure you use. If you just ask people if they are happy then Denmark wins. If you factor in a bunch of economic indicators then Australia wins. If you add in environmental factors then Costa Rica wins. The idea seems to be prevalent that having enough to be happy isn't enough to be happy, It is inconceivable to many that Bhutan could be a happier place than Australia, just look how poor they are!
"Enough" will matter more in the long run. As technology increasingly replaces people then our present cultural and economic model of the necessity of a full time job in a house will no longer be feasible. Eventually the number of jobs at which humans outperform machines will be substantially less than half of the population. Unemployment will become the norm rather than a crisis. With most people having no kids at home and no job, "enough" becomes a far more important concept than "more."
An economy based on providing enough for everyone is not a growing economy, it doesn't need to be. It is only very recently that there has been enough money for people some areas, and the twentieth century was ideologically largely about a battle between different methods of making more money, and capitalism won. However, in a few years there are going to be large areas of the globe with enough money, and not much for people to usefully do. Such a position is incompatible with a capitalist system. At some point in the future, and much closer than I think people realize, there will have to be a mainstream change in how we view society, something moving from money, work, competition to satisfaction, happiness, community.
At some point "enough" will have to be recognized as actually enough. This is a good thing. If right now you are here, right now, and you recognize that you have enough, it is actually quite hard not to be happy......enough.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Outrage, Offense, Insult, and Disagreement
It seems to me as though people of the present time are extremely good at getting outraged. I'm not saying that there aren't things to be outraged about, the idea that my country tortures people is one, but I'm saying that people are really good at finding things to be outraged about and then really going for it.
Here are a couple of examples from the world of sport. The first is the outrage that came as a response to a cyclist, Peter Sagan, pinching the bottom of one of the "hostesses/models/podium girls who are traditionally present at the presentation of the winner's trophy (at least in men's races).
The second is just from today's news in which the golfer Sergio Garcia, who does not get along with somewhat black golfer Tiger Woods, said,“We will have him ’round every night. We’ll serve fried chicken.”
Outrage ensued in both of these cases. The bottom pinch was equated with sexual assault and the "rape culture." The "fried chicken" comment was taken to be racist. In both cases the perpetrator apologized profusely.
Now, I understand where the outrage is coming from, sexual assault and racist insults are awful. You can't go around grabbing women, and you can't use race to insult people, but is that actually what happened?
The models (actually usually called podium girls) on the podium are there for a purpose. That purpose is the same purpose as the rest of the ceremony, the receiving of flowers, a trophy, and cash. to the victor go the spoils and the models represent sexual rewards for the strongest man. If you want there to be something unpleasantly sexist, that treats women as sexual objects rather than real people, the ceremony has plenty of that already. His pinching of a bottom doesn't change the whole tenor of the situation. I would categorize his actions as naughty, a bit impolite, shouldn't do it repeatedly, should be forgotten by tomorrow. The best response was from a female pro-cyclist, and for me the main problem about the whole thing is that male races have podium girls but female races don't have podium boys, neither or both people.
As for fried chicken, does anyone really think Sergio Garcia (a Spaniard) was subtly inserting a racist slur familiar largely to Americans who bizarrely connect black people with fried chicken? Or perhaps he simply said the first thing to eat that came into his head? My position is that he probably made a mistake, possibly a mistake that he could only have realized afterwards. I think Tiger Woods' position, "The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate" to be silly.
That's a long time to spend on those two situations, but then that's kind of the point. Serious outrage, international news over a bit of naughtiness and a poor dinner suggestion. This stuff is everywhere. Outrage that makers of GMO food don't want to have to label their food as GMO even though it has been determined to be equivalent (i.e. same ingredients) to non-GMO by the government. Atheists insulted by religious people thinking that without religion there are no morals. Offended that you aren't impressed by the political views of a particular geographical region.
Has it always been this way? Has it simply been that before the internet information was so homogenous that all the the things people might be offended about where happening elsewhere? Are people actively seeking things to get upset about, training themselves to be constantly outraged? A good half of my facebook are links to pages devoted to being outraged about things. Is it constant cable news, short attention spans, the certainty of ones own correctness, the assumption of the equivalency of views, that are all creating an outrage background?
For me, people say and do stupid things all of the time. This week I will say something naughty. I will also say something jokingly that could be construed as deeply racist/sexist/evil if you wanted to. This week people will say stupid things that if I took personally would be truly insulting (in the most important cultural work in the USA, the Bible, it says that I deserve to be tortured forever because I am as immoral as it is possible to be, i.e. an Atheist). Someone who doesn't know what they are talking about will say that I don't know what I am talking about. I just don't have the energy or inclination to get that upset, that much.
Here are a couple of examples from the world of sport. The first is the outrage that came as a response to a cyclist, Peter Sagan, pinching the bottom of one of the "hostesses/models/podium girls who are traditionally present at the presentation of the winner's trophy (at least in men's races).
Outrage ensued in both of these cases. The bottom pinch was equated with sexual assault and the "rape culture." The "fried chicken" comment was taken to be racist. In both cases the perpetrator apologized profusely.
Now, I understand where the outrage is coming from, sexual assault and racist insults are awful. You can't go around grabbing women, and you can't use race to insult people, but is that actually what happened?
The models (actually usually called podium girls) on the podium are there for a purpose. That purpose is the same purpose as the rest of the ceremony, the receiving of flowers, a trophy, and cash. to the victor go the spoils and the models represent sexual rewards for the strongest man. If you want there to be something unpleasantly sexist, that treats women as sexual objects rather than real people, the ceremony has plenty of that already. His pinching of a bottom doesn't change the whole tenor of the situation. I would categorize his actions as naughty, a bit impolite, shouldn't do it repeatedly, should be forgotten by tomorrow. The best response was from a female pro-cyclist, and for me the main problem about the whole thing is that male races have podium girls but female races don't have podium boys, neither or both people.
As for fried chicken, does anyone really think Sergio Garcia (a Spaniard) was subtly inserting a racist slur familiar largely to Americans who bizarrely connect black people with fried chicken? Or perhaps he simply said the first thing to eat that came into his head? My position is that he probably made a mistake, possibly a mistake that he could only have realized afterwards. I think Tiger Woods' position, "The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate" to be silly.
That's a long time to spend on those two situations, but then that's kind of the point. Serious outrage, international news over a bit of naughtiness and a poor dinner suggestion. This stuff is everywhere. Outrage that makers of GMO food don't want to have to label their food as GMO even though it has been determined to be equivalent (i.e. same ingredients) to non-GMO by the government. Atheists insulted by religious people thinking that without religion there are no morals. Offended that you aren't impressed by the political views of a particular geographical region.
Has it always been this way? Has it simply been that before the internet information was so homogenous that all the the things people might be offended about where happening elsewhere? Are people actively seeking things to get upset about, training themselves to be constantly outraged? A good half of my facebook are links to pages devoted to being outraged about things. Is it constant cable news, short attention spans, the certainty of ones own correctness, the assumption of the equivalency of views, that are all creating an outrage background?
For me, people say and do stupid things all of the time. This week I will say something naughty. I will also say something jokingly that could be construed as deeply racist/sexist/evil if you wanted to. This week people will say stupid things that if I took personally would be truly insulting (in the most important cultural work in the USA, the Bible, it says that I deserve to be tortured forever because I am as immoral as it is possible to be, i.e. an Atheist). Someone who doesn't know what they are talking about will say that I don't know what I am talking about. I just don't have the energy or inclination to get that upset, that much.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
What Brains Are For
What do you think brains are for? Or, more accurately, what is the main thing that brains do?
I would imagine that the most common answer to the question is that brains are for thinking. When we think of brains we generally think of our own brains, and we think of our own brains as things that do thinking. Daniel Wolpert advances an excellent hypothesis in the talk below. His hypothesis is that brains are for adaptable movement.
A brain is not necessary for a species to survive, plants don't have brains. However, everything that produces complex, adaptable movement (most animals) has a brain. Without a brain it becomes extraordinarily difficult for a anything to react to the environment, and you can (almost) only react to environment through movement. The great example he gives in the talk are sea squirts, which at some time in their lives swim around until they find a place to anchor themselves and never leave. The first thing they do after anchoring themselves is digest their own brains. They aren't going to move around anymore and so don't need a brain.
You may think that while this may be true for "primitive" animals, our brains are special in that we spend most of our time thinking abstract thoughts, imagining the future. Even if you think that abstract thought largely doesn't result in some change in the ability to move, i.e. interact with the environment, I would like to put forward Wolpert's observation that the best computers in the world are now better than the best humans at chess and Jeopardy, while it is an entire post-graduate computing project to open a particular bottle of water, filled with a particular amount of water, and pour that water into a particular glass in a particular position. If you change any of the parameters for pouring the water it is a new post-graduate project.
In terms of some complicated intellectual problems computers are better than humans. No computer in the world comes close to the computing ability of a three year old in moving around in their environment. Moving around adaptably is much, much harder than being a grand master at chess.
I would imagine that the most common answer to the question is that brains are for thinking. When we think of brains we generally think of our own brains, and we think of our own brains as things that do thinking. Daniel Wolpert advances an excellent hypothesis in the talk below. His hypothesis is that brains are for adaptable movement.
A brain is not necessary for a species to survive, plants don't have brains. However, everything that produces complex, adaptable movement (most animals) has a brain. Without a brain it becomes extraordinarily difficult for a anything to react to the environment, and you can (almost) only react to environment through movement. The great example he gives in the talk are sea squirts, which at some time in their lives swim around until they find a place to anchor themselves and never leave. The first thing they do after anchoring themselves is digest their own brains. They aren't going to move around anymore and so don't need a brain.
You may think that while this may be true for "primitive" animals, our brains are special in that we spend most of our time thinking abstract thoughts, imagining the future. Even if you think that abstract thought largely doesn't result in some change in the ability to move, i.e. interact with the environment, I would like to put forward Wolpert's observation that the best computers in the world are now better than the best humans at chess and Jeopardy, while it is an entire post-graduate computing project to open a particular bottle of water, filled with a particular amount of water, and pour that water into a particular glass in a particular position. If you change any of the parameters for pouring the water it is a new post-graduate project.
In terms of some complicated intellectual problems computers are better than humans. No computer in the world comes close to the computing ability of a three year old in moving around in their environment. Moving around adaptably is much, much harder than being a grand master at chess.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Islam Doesn't Cause Terrorism.
I am a bit of a New Atheist and so I think pointing out the delusional stupidity of religion is not only a right, but somewhat of a duty. I don't mean picketing churches or mosques and yelling abuse, I just mean that any time religion comes up in conversation, putting forth the position of Atheism (which is that religion is a stupid delusion) is of the same worth as Christians spreading the word of Jesus.
However, the New Atheists came into being because of the 9/11/2001 attack and there change in perception from religion just being wrong, to religion being dangerous, and specifically Islam. Sam Harris has specifically said that the beliefs of Islam cause people to be terrorists. I think this is not only wrong, but also stupidly delusional, Atheists can do that too.
The first point is the idea that "Islamic" terrorism is some sort of special threat, when it just isn't. In 2010 around 1,375 people died from terrorist attacks worldwide. Your chance of dying from a terrorist attack in 2010 was about 0.000025. This is simply not something worth worrying about.
The second point is that Islam doesn't make people become terrorists, just do the math. There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, if we ascribe one death per terrorist and assume all of them are Muslim, then 0.00009% of Muslims are terrorists. This means that at least 99.99991% of Muslims aren't terrorists. If very, very, very, very nearly all Muslims aren't terrorists then Islam doesn't cause terrorism.
Now, there are certainly parts of the Qu'ran that can be used as justification to do almost anything to anybody. Islam is a set of beliefs and morals from a deeply unenlightened time, everywhere else at the time was also a brutal, discriminative, unfair, violent place. Read the Old Testament for something at least as unpleasant. These justifications are used by terrorists, but justification does not mean causation.
Almost no religious people around the world actually stick to the precise words in their religious text. Even so called "Christian Fundamentalists" or "Orthodox Jews" don't kill people for adultery, even though it is right there in the Bible (Leviticus 20:10). Religious people don't just follow their religious texts, they start with cultural norms and then find text to back that up.
Now, compare the threat of Islam over the last few decades to the threat of capitalism, politics, or nationalism. How many people have died in order for people to make more money? How many people have died due to totalitarian governments? How many people have died over their identification with one country or another? These dwarf those from Islam.
People can find all sorts of ways to justify their desire to kill people. Islam seems a remarkably infrequent justification for killing people, let alone causing people to kill others. Islam doesn't cause terrorism, and if you think it does you are as stupidly delusional as those who think there is an all-powerful being in the sky who cares whether you have a ceremony or not before having sex.
However, the New Atheists came into being because of the 9/11/2001 attack and there change in perception from religion just being wrong, to religion being dangerous, and specifically Islam. Sam Harris has specifically said that the beliefs of Islam cause people to be terrorists. I think this is not only wrong, but also stupidly delusional, Atheists can do that too.
The first point is the idea that "Islamic" terrorism is some sort of special threat, when it just isn't. In 2010 around 1,375 people died from terrorist attacks worldwide. Your chance of dying from a terrorist attack in 2010 was about 0.000025. This is simply not something worth worrying about.
The second point is that Islam doesn't make people become terrorists, just do the math. There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, if we ascribe one death per terrorist and assume all of them are Muslim, then 0.00009% of Muslims are terrorists. This means that at least 99.99991% of Muslims aren't terrorists. If very, very, very, very nearly all Muslims aren't terrorists then Islam doesn't cause terrorism.
Now, there are certainly parts of the Qu'ran that can be used as justification to do almost anything to anybody. Islam is a set of beliefs and morals from a deeply unenlightened time, everywhere else at the time was also a brutal, discriminative, unfair, violent place. Read the Old Testament for something at least as unpleasant. These justifications are used by terrorists, but justification does not mean causation.
Almost no religious people around the world actually stick to the precise words in their religious text. Even so called "Christian Fundamentalists" or "Orthodox Jews" don't kill people for adultery, even though it is right there in the Bible (Leviticus 20:10). Religious people don't just follow their religious texts, they start with cultural norms and then find text to back that up.
Now, compare the threat of Islam over the last few decades to the threat of capitalism, politics, or nationalism. How many people have died in order for people to make more money? How many people have died due to totalitarian governments? How many people have died over their identification with one country or another? These dwarf those from Islam.
People can find all sorts of ways to justify their desire to kill people. Islam seems a remarkably infrequent justification for killing people, let alone causing people to kill others. Islam doesn't cause terrorism, and if you think it does you are as stupidly delusional as those who think there is an all-powerful being in the sky who cares whether you have a ceremony or not before having sex.
It's Not Words, It's The Thing
I am someone who likes dictionaries and the definition of words. I don't mean that I derive intrinsic pleasure from the definition of words, I just like everyone to know what they are talking about. A great example of why this matters is a conversation (which led to the end of any conversation ever again) about socialism.
A man stopped at a traffic light had a bumper sticker that said, "Stop Obama's Socialism" and the writer thought it ironic that he approved of the socialism of traffic lights. My position was that the dictionary definition of "socialism" is what socialism meant. I also pointed out that government produced traffic lights aren't socialism and the guy wasn't suggesting it was, and that the take over of companies such as General Motors actually was socialism. He became very angry, said that the meaning of words change, and that I was deliberately playing games to upset people. He was upset because I objected to him making up a new definition of socialism that was not used by anyone else in the scenario.
The meanings of words do change, and that seems a shame to me, but inevitable. It is inevitable because people don't know what the word does mean and a mistaken version is used to such an extent that it becomes the common meaning. However, I am in favor of sticking with the dictionary definition(s) as much as possible, pretty much until the dictionary changes itself, so that people can talk about the same subject, something sadly lacking in modern discourse.
However, the things that words are describing don't change, even when the words change. The Chinese and English words for "dog" are entirely different and yet have the exact same meaning. It's the words that change, not the thing.
What brought me to thinking about this is the path of words used to describe a thing that people can use as being an insult. The specific thing that raised this idea in me recently is the effort people are making to get people to stop using the word, "retard" as those who are/have/with (fill in blank) are insulted by its use as a slur. Here's the thing, no matter what the word is, it still means people with substantially lower intelligence than other people. When criticizing someone's intelligence, equating them with a label for those with lower intelligence is naturally going to occur.
While working in social work I became very familiar with the process of trying to remove stigma and insult from labeling words by using new ones. While I was working the accepted nomenclature for someone with permanently lower intelligence than others changed three times, from mentally retarded, to developmentally disabled, to developmentally delayed. You may notice that that all the words used suggest that this lower intelligence is temporary, something to overcome, rather than the permanent situation it actually is. in this case the meanings of "retarded" and "delayed" have been changed.
If you go back further the terms, 'feeble minded", "moron" and "idiot" were also used. You may be surprised that the original meaning for the word, "moron" meant someone "deficient in judgment or sense." The word, "idiot" came from a word for "layman, an ignorant or uneducated person." I fail to see how these terms were more offensive than "developmentally disabled"
All of these terms mean the same thing, and at the beginning none of these words were intended as a slight or insult. Today, if you call someone a "moron" or an "idiot" they will be automatically insulted. There has been a long series of words, created with good intention to label some people as having substantially lower intelligence than the general public, which have become insults. They have become insults because people are insulted when you say they are not intelligent, and I don't know how to fix that, or even if we should.
You may be interested in what term I used when working in social work. I always found that the technical terms for a person with lower intelligence that was most useful and precise were words such as, "Buck" or "Raynelle," you know, the names of people. Sometimes I used the words "clients" because I was essentially working for them.
There have been similar changes in terms for race, from negro, to negre, to nigger, to colored, to black, to African-American (which doesn't include the non-black Americans from Africa) and hopefully (in my opinion) back to black again. All of these mean basically the same thing but have changed because each word meant a black person, and the almost universal opinion (among non-blacks) were that black people were inferior*. The reason why I am hopeful for the return of the use of "black" is that it is simple, descriptive, and is completely equivalent to "white" and the reversal of the direction of terms seems to mean that being black is no longer generally thought of as being insulting.
I must admit to being entirely baffled by the whole hispanic, latino, Mexican, central American thing. It can't really be a racial thing because those in central and southern America are made up of every race this side of Asia. It can't even be a language thing because you can have English as your primary language and still be latino.
Words can hurt, but they hurt because of their meaning. Changing the word for the meaning does essentially no good. If we want to reduce insults to people the path is through changing how we view the meanings. There is nothing inherently wrong with calling someone "retarded" or "negro" if we don't feel there is something wrong with being "retarded" or "negro." If after half an hour with someone you still think of them as "developmentally delayed" or "African-American" rather than "Bill" or "Nancy" then the problem isn't the word, the problem is you.
A man stopped at a traffic light had a bumper sticker that said, "Stop Obama's Socialism" and the writer thought it ironic that he approved of the socialism of traffic lights. My position was that the dictionary definition of "socialism" is what socialism meant. I also pointed out that government produced traffic lights aren't socialism and the guy wasn't suggesting it was, and that the take over of companies such as General Motors actually was socialism. He became very angry, said that the meaning of words change, and that I was deliberately playing games to upset people. He was upset because I objected to him making up a new definition of socialism that was not used by anyone else in the scenario.
The meanings of words do change, and that seems a shame to me, but inevitable. It is inevitable because people don't know what the word does mean and a mistaken version is used to such an extent that it becomes the common meaning. However, I am in favor of sticking with the dictionary definition(s) as much as possible, pretty much until the dictionary changes itself, so that people can talk about the same subject, something sadly lacking in modern discourse.
However, the things that words are describing don't change, even when the words change. The Chinese and English words for "dog" are entirely different and yet have the exact same meaning. It's the words that change, not the thing.
What brought me to thinking about this is the path of words used to describe a thing that people can use as being an insult. The specific thing that raised this idea in me recently is the effort people are making to get people to stop using the word, "retard" as those who are/have/with (fill in blank) are insulted by its use as a slur. Here's the thing, no matter what the word is, it still means people with substantially lower intelligence than other people. When criticizing someone's intelligence, equating them with a label for those with lower intelligence is naturally going to occur.
While working in social work I became very familiar with the process of trying to remove stigma and insult from labeling words by using new ones. While I was working the accepted nomenclature for someone with permanently lower intelligence than others changed three times, from mentally retarded, to developmentally disabled, to developmentally delayed. You may notice that that all the words used suggest that this lower intelligence is temporary, something to overcome, rather than the permanent situation it actually is. in this case the meanings of "retarded" and "delayed" have been changed.
If you go back further the terms, 'feeble minded", "moron" and "idiot" were also used. You may be surprised that the original meaning for the word, "moron" meant someone "deficient in judgment or sense." The word, "idiot" came from a word for "layman, an ignorant or uneducated person." I fail to see how these terms were more offensive than "developmentally disabled"
All of these terms mean the same thing, and at the beginning none of these words were intended as a slight or insult. Today, if you call someone a "moron" or an "idiot" they will be automatically insulted. There has been a long series of words, created with good intention to label some people as having substantially lower intelligence than the general public, which have become insults. They have become insults because people are insulted when you say they are not intelligent, and I don't know how to fix that, or even if we should.
You may be interested in what term I used when working in social work. I always found that the technical terms for a person with lower intelligence that was most useful and precise were words such as, "Buck" or "Raynelle," you know, the names of people. Sometimes I used the words "clients" because I was essentially working for them.
There have been similar changes in terms for race, from negro, to negre, to nigger, to colored, to black, to African-American (which doesn't include the non-black Americans from Africa) and hopefully (in my opinion) back to black again. All of these mean basically the same thing but have changed because each word meant a black person, and the almost universal opinion (among non-blacks) were that black people were inferior*. The reason why I am hopeful for the return of the use of "black" is that it is simple, descriptive, and is completely equivalent to "white" and the reversal of the direction of terms seems to mean that being black is no longer generally thought of as being insulting.
I must admit to being entirely baffled by the whole hispanic, latino, Mexican, central American thing. It can't really be a racial thing because those in central and southern America are made up of every race this side of Asia. It can't even be a language thing because you can have English as your primary language and still be latino.
Words can hurt, but they hurt because of their meaning. Changing the word for the meaning does essentially no good. If we want to reduce insults to people the path is through changing how we view the meanings. There is nothing inherently wrong with calling someone "retarded" or "negro" if we don't feel there is something wrong with being "retarded" or "negro." If after half an hour with someone you still think of them as "developmentally delayed" or "African-American" rather than "Bill" or "Nancy" then the problem isn't the word, the problem is you.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Chapter 12
When the road on which Alyami was walking left the trees Alyami knew that his wandering was over, for a little while. The trees framed a sweet valley through which a small, lazy river wound. The trees had the first signs of the oncoming autumn, rosy tips on the leaves that reached furthest towards the sun. Well tended fields of wheat were interspersed with fallow meadows or grazing cattle. The road led down through these trees to a stone bridge, clearly once the site of a ford, the center of a small but prosperous village. There were nearly as many houses of field stone and brick as those of wood, their clay tiles bright in the sunlight.
Alyami plucked a thick-bladed grass stem and blew through his hands a buzz to accompany the cicadas up in the trees. It was a warm day, a day for slow movements and smiles. He was dusty and tired. Tired not only from the walk, but tired of moving on from place to place, from face to face. He wanted to stay long enough to become familiar with a place, to know more of people than a name, for the first time since he had left his home.
Just by the bridge stood an inn. It wasn't grand, but it was well made, clean and cosy. It was late afternoon when Alyami entered the inn, looked around and approved. A person could sit in a corner through an afternoon without wondering whether they were overstaying their welcome. A slightly portly woman, cheeks red around a smiling face, ceased her bustling and welcomed him. She noted the sweat-streaked dust on his face and gave him directions to the water barrel just outside the door and said he could wash while she got him some food and the drink of his choice. He asked what she recommended for a fine day such as this. She looked him over, evaluating him as a merchant must, and said that she would make him a mixed plate of the fruits of the village. A chicken leg, fresh bread, root vegetables, an apple, washed down with cider made from the pears of her sister's farm.
Alyami stepped out and found the dipper in the water barrel. He took a long drink of the warm, but pure, water. A breathe and then another long drink. He poured water over his hands and head, shaking the droplets into the air. Overhead a squirrel rhythmically chattered its indignation at his very existence. The water cooled, cleaned and invigorated him, a transition from traveling to resting. Plans and worries dropped away from him and he felt a calm happiness move through him.
As he ate his simple but delicious meal one of the old men who seem to sprout like mushrooms at the bar struck up a conversation, noticing his instrument and kindly interrogating him on his past, his present, and what were his future plans within their village. He was a wandering entertainer? Would he play tonight? Was he passing on through or was he staying awhile? Alyami smiled and talked between mouthfuls, for a man who moves from place to place becomes intimately familiar with such talk, for while a stranger is always new, being a stranger can become ordinary and commonplace. While his answers were the same as always, he played for his keep, would play if people wished, and he didn't know how long he would stay, it all seemed a little different this time.
As the afternoon turned into evening the inn began to fill. Alyami was charmed to see that the inn was not a private place, not reserved for men trying to escape their lives, but rather a place where mothers and fathers laughed while their children got charmingly underfoot amongst the patrons. Alyami sat quietly, with a slight smile on his face as he absorbed the atmosphere, finding what in him matched what was in them. The joyfully harried innkeeper stopped briefly in her rushing, looked Alyami in the eye and arched a questioning brow. He nodded, took out his rabab and quietly started playing the tuning song, his head bent over the instrument like a father over his newborn daughter. then he began to play.
He played the village and the inn. Tunes of work in the sunshine. Songs of innocent love. The calls of the birds in the trees, and the lowing of cattle. Bawdy songs of the virility of spring and joyful songs of abundant harvest. He then slowed, and quieted his playing, taking them down with him into the long months of dark and quiet that was winter. Then his song changed as he added little pieces of his travels, weaving his memory of other places into the contemplation of winter. He gave them the chattering of monkeys, the wild prayers of the desert, the lap of the waves upon a beach. He took them on a journey, interlacing the music of other nations through the fabric of their lives. Finally he gave them the song of the monsoon in the shelter of his banyan tree, and stopped with tears in his eyes.
While he had played the girl/women of the village had been drawn to him, as is the case with musicians and young ladies everywhere. While the boy/men looked on in displeasure at the girl/women trying to pluck up the courage to walk over to the minstrel, a woman of an age to be well married came over to Alyami.
"I am Ailsa, who are you?"
"I am Alyami, and this is who I am."
"You miss your home."
"I do."
"I miss mine too."
"Where are you from?"
"I am from this village, born and raised."
"Then how do you miss your home?"
"My home left when my love went from me. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"
"I do not, nor for tomorrow, or next week."
"Then come with me and I will give you a home and you can be my home, at least for a while."
"I would like that very much Ailsa."
They left hand-in-hand and through the autumn and winter he lived with her, played his music, exchanged whispered secrets with the children, and chopped wood when absolutely necessary. He had a place, and she had a family, and it was good. Good and easy. When the spring came, and his fingers started to fidget she was the one who told him that he must head on into the wide world for she did not want him to be someone he was not for her. They loved each other in their way, for the time they could, and parted well. He left replenished with the fruit of love, friendship and a home to which he might return. She stayed with a warm memory, and a new home, born from the new love growing within her.
Alyami plucked a thick-bladed grass stem and blew through his hands a buzz to accompany the cicadas up in the trees. It was a warm day, a day for slow movements and smiles. He was dusty and tired. Tired not only from the walk, but tired of moving on from place to place, from face to face. He wanted to stay long enough to become familiar with a place, to know more of people than a name, for the first time since he had left his home.
Just by the bridge stood an inn. It wasn't grand, but it was well made, clean and cosy. It was late afternoon when Alyami entered the inn, looked around and approved. A person could sit in a corner through an afternoon without wondering whether they were overstaying their welcome. A slightly portly woman, cheeks red around a smiling face, ceased her bustling and welcomed him. She noted the sweat-streaked dust on his face and gave him directions to the water barrel just outside the door and said he could wash while she got him some food and the drink of his choice. He asked what she recommended for a fine day such as this. She looked him over, evaluating him as a merchant must, and said that she would make him a mixed plate of the fruits of the village. A chicken leg, fresh bread, root vegetables, an apple, washed down with cider made from the pears of her sister's farm.
Alyami stepped out and found the dipper in the water barrel. He took a long drink of the warm, but pure, water. A breathe and then another long drink. He poured water over his hands and head, shaking the droplets into the air. Overhead a squirrel rhythmically chattered its indignation at his very existence. The water cooled, cleaned and invigorated him, a transition from traveling to resting. Plans and worries dropped away from him and he felt a calm happiness move through him.
As he ate his simple but delicious meal one of the old men who seem to sprout like mushrooms at the bar struck up a conversation, noticing his instrument and kindly interrogating him on his past, his present, and what were his future plans within their village. He was a wandering entertainer? Would he play tonight? Was he passing on through or was he staying awhile? Alyami smiled and talked between mouthfuls, for a man who moves from place to place becomes intimately familiar with such talk, for while a stranger is always new, being a stranger can become ordinary and commonplace. While his answers were the same as always, he played for his keep, would play if people wished, and he didn't know how long he would stay, it all seemed a little different this time.
As the afternoon turned into evening the inn began to fill. Alyami was charmed to see that the inn was not a private place, not reserved for men trying to escape their lives, but rather a place where mothers and fathers laughed while their children got charmingly underfoot amongst the patrons. Alyami sat quietly, with a slight smile on his face as he absorbed the atmosphere, finding what in him matched what was in them. The joyfully harried innkeeper stopped briefly in her rushing, looked Alyami in the eye and arched a questioning brow. He nodded, took out his rabab and quietly started playing the tuning song, his head bent over the instrument like a father over his newborn daughter. then he began to play.
He played the village and the inn. Tunes of work in the sunshine. Songs of innocent love. The calls of the birds in the trees, and the lowing of cattle. Bawdy songs of the virility of spring and joyful songs of abundant harvest. He then slowed, and quieted his playing, taking them down with him into the long months of dark and quiet that was winter. Then his song changed as he added little pieces of his travels, weaving his memory of other places into the contemplation of winter. He gave them the chattering of monkeys, the wild prayers of the desert, the lap of the waves upon a beach. He took them on a journey, interlacing the music of other nations through the fabric of their lives. Finally he gave them the song of the monsoon in the shelter of his banyan tree, and stopped with tears in his eyes.
While he had played the girl/women of the village had been drawn to him, as is the case with musicians and young ladies everywhere. While the boy/men looked on in displeasure at the girl/women trying to pluck up the courage to walk over to the minstrel, a woman of an age to be well married came over to Alyami.
"I am Ailsa, who are you?"
"I am Alyami, and this is who I am."
"You miss your home."
"I do."
"I miss mine too."
"Where are you from?"
"I am from this village, born and raised."
"Then how do you miss your home?"
"My home left when my love went from me. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"
"I do not, nor for tomorrow, or next week."
"Then come with me and I will give you a home and you can be my home, at least for a while."
"I would like that very much Ailsa."
They left hand-in-hand and through the autumn and winter he lived with her, played his music, exchanged whispered secrets with the children, and chopped wood when absolutely necessary. He had a place, and she had a family, and it was good. Good and easy. When the spring came, and his fingers started to fidget she was the one who told him that he must head on into the wide world for she did not want him to be someone he was not for her. They loved each other in their way, for the time they could, and parted well. He left replenished with the fruit of love, friendship and a home to which he might return. She stayed with a warm memory, and a new home, born from the new love growing within her.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Social Escape Velocity
"Escape velocity" is a term invented by my darling wife that means the necessary amount of distancing oneself from an environment in order to not return to that environment. She originally came up with the term as an observation of her peers in high school leaving her small, rural home town.
In an environment people develop ties, family, work, friends, education, employment and the breaking or reducing of these ties, in that place, takes effort. This effort is part of what I talked about in my post Psychic Activation Energy. When you want to move to a different place you need to put extra effort into organizing where you will live, how to survive and how to get a social life. it is almost always easier simply to stay where you are doing what you have been doing.
Please forgive the wobbly physics in this bit. Now, think of the ties in an environment as gravity and the effort of moving as the fuel in a rocket. A rocket blasting off into space needs enough fuel to achieve escape velocity, the speed necessary for the rocket to escape the gravity of Earth and fly off into space. I believe escape velocity for Earth is seven miles per second and if at any time an object achieves that speed directly away from the Earth it will go into space.
For some people the ties at home are not that strong, the urge to leave is high, and the resources available for leaving are high. These people have a lot of fuel and are able to get enough momentum in their leaving that they move to somewhere else, settle down there and don't feel the need to return. Some people have strong ties to their home environment, aren't eager to leave, and/or don't have the resources to do so anyway. These people don't have the necessary fuel to achieve escape velocity and leave.
Now, the number of people who blast off from Earth in this metaphor used to be pretty low but has increased with increased wealth, transportation, and variety of jobs. If you grow up on a dairy farm you probably are more likely to leave the dairy farm at some point in your life. However, even for those who blast off a good number don't achieve escape velocity and fall back to their original environment.
My wife and I have achieved escape velocity. Neither of us live in, or wish to live in, the environments in which we grew up. Our ties to those places are pretty small. We may come to visit once in a while, but we have an alien spacecraft when we need to leave. Both of our mothers did not achieve escape velocity, my mother when moving to the USA and my wife's mother when leaving for college (or after, I'm not an expert in her history). My father has lived in the USA, would prefer to live in Pasadena, CA, but lives in the UK. He has not achieved escape velocity, and for the best reason ever, he loves his wife.
I think the best example of the effects of social gravity that I know are the members of a group of men just out of high school who moved from Spokane, WA to Portland, OR. I knew these gentlemen because over half of them joined the band Sam's Cross that I formed in Portland. For people in Spokane, Portland is one of the two "big cities" that those from that good sized, but isolated, town that young people go to when wanting to move out and see the world. Within a couple of years half of them were in Portland, flourishing in their art, employed. they had achieved escape velocity. The other half were back in Spokane and had impregnated some lucky woman. They had returned to Earth, and with less available fuel than they had before.
It may seem that I am condemning those without the fuel to achieve escape velocity. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have more admiration for those who have gone to other places, experienced other things, met different people. I think if you haven't really traveled (and I don't mean cruises, or the next state, or an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas) you have a fundamental flaw in your understanding of the world, you simply aren't capable of understanding the world in a visceral way. however, I have no problem whatsoever with people preferring one place to another, and if that place is their original home then that is fine. However, I think of Justin, a talented musician with a great engine of energy who at twenty years of age gave up on the rest of the world to live a mile away from where he grew up, living with someone he knew in high school, and it makes me a little sad.
In an environment people develop ties, family, work, friends, education, employment and the breaking or reducing of these ties, in that place, takes effort. This effort is part of what I talked about in my post Psychic Activation Energy. When you want to move to a different place you need to put extra effort into organizing where you will live, how to survive and how to get a social life. it is almost always easier simply to stay where you are doing what you have been doing.
Please forgive the wobbly physics in this bit. Now, think of the ties in an environment as gravity and the effort of moving as the fuel in a rocket. A rocket blasting off into space needs enough fuel to achieve escape velocity, the speed necessary for the rocket to escape the gravity of Earth and fly off into space. I believe escape velocity for Earth is seven miles per second and if at any time an object achieves that speed directly away from the Earth it will go into space.
For some people the ties at home are not that strong, the urge to leave is high, and the resources available for leaving are high. These people have a lot of fuel and are able to get enough momentum in their leaving that they move to somewhere else, settle down there and don't feel the need to return. Some people have strong ties to their home environment, aren't eager to leave, and/or don't have the resources to do so anyway. These people don't have the necessary fuel to achieve escape velocity and leave.
Now, the number of people who blast off from Earth in this metaphor used to be pretty low but has increased with increased wealth, transportation, and variety of jobs. If you grow up on a dairy farm you probably are more likely to leave the dairy farm at some point in your life. However, even for those who blast off a good number don't achieve escape velocity and fall back to their original environment.
My wife and I have achieved escape velocity. Neither of us live in, or wish to live in, the environments in which we grew up. Our ties to those places are pretty small. We may come to visit once in a while, but we have an alien spacecraft when we need to leave. Both of our mothers did not achieve escape velocity, my mother when moving to the USA and my wife's mother when leaving for college (or after, I'm not an expert in her history). My father has lived in the USA, would prefer to live in Pasadena, CA, but lives in the UK. He has not achieved escape velocity, and for the best reason ever, he loves his wife.
I think the best example of the effects of social gravity that I know are the members of a group of men just out of high school who moved from Spokane, WA to Portland, OR. I knew these gentlemen because over half of them joined the band Sam's Cross that I formed in Portland. For people in Spokane, Portland is one of the two "big cities" that those from that good sized, but isolated, town that young people go to when wanting to move out and see the world. Within a couple of years half of them were in Portland, flourishing in their art, employed. they had achieved escape velocity. The other half were back in Spokane and had impregnated some lucky woman. They had returned to Earth, and with less available fuel than they had before.
It may seem that I am condemning those without the fuel to achieve escape velocity. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have more admiration for those who have gone to other places, experienced other things, met different people. I think if you haven't really traveled (and I don't mean cruises, or the next state, or an all-inclusive resort in the Bahamas) you have a fundamental flaw in your understanding of the world, you simply aren't capable of understanding the world in a visceral way. however, I have no problem whatsoever with people preferring one place to another, and if that place is their original home then that is fine. However, I think of Justin, a talented musician with a great engine of energy who at twenty years of age gave up on the rest of the world to live a mile away from where he grew up, living with someone he knew in high school, and it makes me a little sad.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Chapter 11
"Where is he?" she shrieked, 'where is my baby?"
"I am sure he's alright, my daughter, you know how mischievous he can be. I wouldn't be surprised to find him listening behind the hut right now. He's probably laughing at you right now."
"Nerwhal! How can you say such things? My baby is gone, what did I do to drive him away?"
"I'll go look for him daughter" sighed Old Nerwhal creaking to his feet and leaving the hut. He knew there was no use in trying to calm her down, she listened about as well as her son.
Old Nerwhal went out into the cool night and stood for a moment to decide what to do. There was a sliver of moon visible in the sky, so he could see a little ways around him. However, he knew that a mischievous boy under the trees would be invisible, so he decided not to blunder into the darkness. He was an old man and didn't need to break an ankle scurrying after that little bastard. So, the village first.
He stopped by each of the homes of his neighbors, greeting them with courtesy and asking after Little Mika. Their sympathetic looks and shaking of heads confirmed to him that he wasn't in the village and he was indeed a thoroughly unpleasant child. Old Nerwhal's irritation was growing. Where to next?
The village was built on a ledge overlooking a deep valley, one of the very few flat areas in these mountains. A path led up into the wooded hunting grounds above, and a path led down. The path down took a long, circuitous route through trees, meadows, villages, into the valley and thence out into the rest of the world. Up, or down? Old Nerwhal tried to stretch his mind back over the decades, back to when he was a thoroughly unpleasant child. What would he have done? Excitement and rebellion meant down. Walking down was easier than up. Down it was.
Old Nerwhal trudged down along the path, something he didn't like to do at the best of times with his creaking joints. Old Nerwhal had seen enough of what there was to be seen and decided that a flat piece of ground with a nice view was entirely adequate for his needs. It had probably been a full finger of a day since Little Mika had disappeared. How far would he be able to go? Too far for Old Nerwhal's liking.
Just after the third time when Old Nerwhal had asked himself whether he had gone far enough yet he came across a small shape sitting on a fallen tree branch. It sniffled to itself, somehow managing to make the sniffles sound angry and outraged at the injustice of it all.
"Hello Little Mika, what are you doing?" asked Old Nerwhal in his most patient voice.
"I'm going 'way from mountains."
"I see. Why are you doing that?"
"Like in the story. You told me he went down 'cause nothing to do in the village."
"Ah, the story about He From Whom Our Blessings Come when He descended from the mountains to spread the Truth of Peace. I told you that two days ago, didn't I? Hmmmm. So, are you trying to be like Him?" Old Nerwhal was now actually quite interested. This meant that there were two developments that he had doubted would ever come to pass, Little Mika actually listened to his stories, and it was possible that he might actually try to be like Him.
"No. Him is like Mika. Nothing to do in the village. Everyone hates me. Going down mountain." Mika radiated indignation.
"Ah, I see now. You don't like it in the village and are going to go down from the mountains like in the story. Well, that happens to quite a lot of people from our village. After a while they want to see something different, there is no shame in that. However, Little Mika there are some differences from the story. He From Whom Our Blessings Come left in his fifteenth summer, while we hope you will see your fifth. He packed some food, and some clothes, and his walking staff because it is a very long journey. He said goodbye to the village and his mother, asking her to bless him. He knew where he was going and he had a holy mission. he didn't just run off in the middle of the night." Old Nerwhal was trying, but he could tell that Little Mika didn't want to listen. He desperately didn't want to drag the boy all that way uphill. "You know what you need to do this properly Little Mika?
"No."
"Planning is what you need. If you want to leave the village then you need to properly plan. On my big legs it takes three days to walk down the mountain and I get hungry in a morning. It might rain and I get so cold in the rain without a proper coat. I don't know the right way out of the mountains, and it makes me scared and angry when I get lost. If I was going down from the mountains I would leave in the day with all of the stuff I need. How about we go back up to the village and get a good night sleep and tomorrow we will work on our plan?"
"You promise I can go?" asked Little Mika with hardly a shred of trust. Little Mika was a smart enough boy to know that adults tried to trick boys all the time.
"Little Mika, I promise you with everything in my heart that if we can plan for you to be just like He From Whom Our Blessings Flow it will be the greatest day of my life to watch you walk down from the mountain" Old Nerwhal said this with the utmost fervor. "Come on, let's go back, for now."
Little Mika reached up and took Old Nerwhal's hand and together they slowly walked back up the mountain.
"I am sure he's alright, my daughter, you know how mischievous he can be. I wouldn't be surprised to find him listening behind the hut right now. He's probably laughing at you right now."
"Nerwhal! How can you say such things? My baby is gone, what did I do to drive him away?"
"I'll go look for him daughter" sighed Old Nerwhal creaking to his feet and leaving the hut. He knew there was no use in trying to calm her down, she listened about as well as her son.
Old Nerwhal went out into the cool night and stood for a moment to decide what to do. There was a sliver of moon visible in the sky, so he could see a little ways around him. However, he knew that a mischievous boy under the trees would be invisible, so he decided not to blunder into the darkness. He was an old man and didn't need to break an ankle scurrying after that little bastard. So, the village first.
He stopped by each of the homes of his neighbors, greeting them with courtesy and asking after Little Mika. Their sympathetic looks and shaking of heads confirmed to him that he wasn't in the village and he was indeed a thoroughly unpleasant child. Old Nerwhal's irritation was growing. Where to next?
The village was built on a ledge overlooking a deep valley, one of the very few flat areas in these mountains. A path led up into the wooded hunting grounds above, and a path led down. The path down took a long, circuitous route through trees, meadows, villages, into the valley and thence out into the rest of the world. Up, or down? Old Nerwhal tried to stretch his mind back over the decades, back to when he was a thoroughly unpleasant child. What would he have done? Excitement and rebellion meant down. Walking down was easier than up. Down it was.
Old Nerwhal trudged down along the path, something he didn't like to do at the best of times with his creaking joints. Old Nerwhal had seen enough of what there was to be seen and decided that a flat piece of ground with a nice view was entirely adequate for his needs. It had probably been a full finger of a day since Little Mika had disappeared. How far would he be able to go? Too far for Old Nerwhal's liking.
Just after the third time when Old Nerwhal had asked himself whether he had gone far enough yet he came across a small shape sitting on a fallen tree branch. It sniffled to itself, somehow managing to make the sniffles sound angry and outraged at the injustice of it all.
"Hello Little Mika, what are you doing?" asked Old Nerwhal in his most patient voice.
"I'm going 'way from mountains."
"I see. Why are you doing that?"
"Like in the story. You told me he went down 'cause nothing to do in the village."
"Ah, the story about He From Whom Our Blessings Come when He descended from the mountains to spread the Truth of Peace. I told you that two days ago, didn't I? Hmmmm. So, are you trying to be like Him?" Old Nerwhal was now actually quite interested. This meant that there were two developments that he had doubted would ever come to pass, Little Mika actually listened to his stories, and it was possible that he might actually try to be like Him.
"No. Him is like Mika. Nothing to do in the village. Everyone hates me. Going down mountain." Mika radiated indignation.
"Ah, I see now. You don't like it in the village and are going to go down from the mountains like in the story. Well, that happens to quite a lot of people from our village. After a while they want to see something different, there is no shame in that. However, Little Mika there are some differences from the story. He From Whom Our Blessings Come left in his fifteenth summer, while we hope you will see your fifth. He packed some food, and some clothes, and his walking staff because it is a very long journey. He said goodbye to the village and his mother, asking her to bless him. He knew where he was going and he had a holy mission. he didn't just run off in the middle of the night." Old Nerwhal was trying, but he could tell that Little Mika didn't want to listen. He desperately didn't want to drag the boy all that way uphill. "You know what you need to do this properly Little Mika?
"No."
"Planning is what you need. If you want to leave the village then you need to properly plan. On my big legs it takes three days to walk down the mountain and I get hungry in a morning. It might rain and I get so cold in the rain without a proper coat. I don't know the right way out of the mountains, and it makes me scared and angry when I get lost. If I was going down from the mountains I would leave in the day with all of the stuff I need. How about we go back up to the village and get a good night sleep and tomorrow we will work on our plan?"
"You promise I can go?" asked Little Mika with hardly a shred of trust. Little Mika was a smart enough boy to know that adults tried to trick boys all the time.
"Little Mika, I promise you with everything in my heart that if we can plan for you to be just like He From Whom Our Blessings Flow it will be the greatest day of my life to watch you walk down from the mountain" Old Nerwhal said this with the utmost fervor. "Come on, let's go back, for now."
Little Mika reached up and took Old Nerwhal's hand and together they slowly walked back up the mountain.
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