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.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
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.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Dissolution
Having looked at the definition of "dissolute" it may not be the right word. Still, I have a vision in my head of what the process of dissolution is for a person and I'm going to go with that until a more apt word appears to me.
Dissolution to me is a picture of a person, (actually just a man, how sexist) withdrawing from the strictures of society and simply doing what they want, which is largely the seeking of pleasure. In my picture of this the man is slovenly, probably somewhat intoxicated, not doing very much at all.
This picture can be a rather sad and ugly sight. A man disillusioned with his life and giving up out of a sense of futility. Pleasure is a method of escaping rather than a good to be found. There is a sense of shame, a loss of dignity, a self-disgust like a chronic illness.
There is also a romantic picture, the free spirit that really looks into what matters. Instead of pride, diligence, power, prestige, wealth assimilation he chooses freedom, pleasure, beauty, love. The romantic vision is of someone who truly lives as though each moment is his last moment. In this moment I could look at the trees in the wind, slowly getting drunk, or I could wash my filthy shirt. Given those two choices, washing the shirt is a ridiculous idea.
What is the difference between these two states? It is pretty much down to how the dissolute man views himself. Does he feel like the romantic figure or the chronically ill figure? There are some causes that lead to one position or the other, it is much easier to be the romantic figure when coming from a wealthy and stress-free life than from the trauma of poverty, betrayal and trauma, but the end result is largely the difference.
I feel dissolute. The idea of taking pride in appearance, diligence, conformity, and so on seems silly to me. While I am certain that life is improving for people, I don't think this is happening because the norms of society are particularly sensible. I am largely withdrawn from society and value what I want to do over other people's opinion of me. I don't do very much, I am certainly slovenly, I am often somewhat intoxicated (although not now) and almost every day I sit outside watching a palm tree rustling in the wind.
Then I think that perhaps I am simply rationalizing my laziness and lack of resilience. Am I in this position because others have taken pity on me? I came into my present position upon the urging of my wife, when I was miserable and ill. My family and friends have been supportive, but isn't that what someone would do for someone who was generally thought of as understandably unable to take care of themselves? Do I live my present life because of my lack of ability and my disillusionment with our world? Am I a permanently broken, a rather sad figure, supported by kind people? If so, how would I ever know?
What is the difference between these two states? It is my attitude towards the situation. My aesthetic is crumbling empire. The gentleman who goes native*. The dreamer of the dreams who lives in the world of beauty, art, and now. The man who finds the disgust of other people rather silly, for they really think their petty thoughts matter. the man for whom it truly is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, even if that love only lasts ten minutes. When people ask me what I truly want from life, it is this with some good friends.
If I have what I want then why don't I embrace it and dive right in, free of foolish things like guilt, boredom, hope for different things? The truth is that much of the time I do. Yet we all carry around with us the architecture of our society, no matter how crumbled and broken the remnant that might be. I believe that not only is happiness the greatest good, but that people deserve it. More, I think those that can be happy have a duty to be happy for if happiness is the greatest good it is a moral obligation to work towards the highest good. For there to be happiness people must be happy.
I want to wallow in my dissolution, affirm the pleasures of body and mind. I want to feel good, serene, happy, peaceful. I wish to "work" at this without shame or question. I believe this is right for me, an almost spiritual practice, a path of affirmation of what I like in life, what I find beautiful. I don't want to be afraid, retreating from life, drinking myself into oblivion to escape the world, and I don't think I do. My "task" is to chip away at the remnants of societal architecture I carry with me, by which I don't mean removing myself from social norms when interacting with people, but rather judging myself simply by my own principles.
At a minimum the only real harm I might be doing is to myself and my wife, and she tells me I am good for her, and why should I not trust that? Finding my own way to happiness without harm, how could that be a problem for a right-minded person? All I need to do is believe that to the core of my being.
Dissolution to me is a picture of a person, (actually just a man, how sexist) withdrawing from the strictures of society and simply doing what they want, which is largely the seeking of pleasure. In my picture of this the man is slovenly, probably somewhat intoxicated, not doing very much at all.
This picture can be a rather sad and ugly sight. A man disillusioned with his life and giving up out of a sense of futility. Pleasure is a method of escaping rather than a good to be found. There is a sense of shame, a loss of dignity, a self-disgust like a chronic illness.
There is also a romantic picture, the free spirit that really looks into what matters. Instead of pride, diligence, power, prestige, wealth assimilation he chooses freedom, pleasure, beauty, love. The romantic vision is of someone who truly lives as though each moment is his last moment. In this moment I could look at the trees in the wind, slowly getting drunk, or I could wash my filthy shirt. Given those two choices, washing the shirt is a ridiculous idea.
What is the difference between these two states? It is pretty much down to how the dissolute man views himself. Does he feel like the romantic figure or the chronically ill figure? There are some causes that lead to one position or the other, it is much easier to be the romantic figure when coming from a wealthy and stress-free life than from the trauma of poverty, betrayal and trauma, but the end result is largely the difference.
I feel dissolute. The idea of taking pride in appearance, diligence, conformity, and so on seems silly to me. While I am certain that life is improving for people, I don't think this is happening because the norms of society are particularly sensible. I am largely withdrawn from society and value what I want to do over other people's opinion of me. I don't do very much, I am certainly slovenly, I am often somewhat intoxicated (although not now) and almost every day I sit outside watching a palm tree rustling in the wind.
Then I think that perhaps I am simply rationalizing my laziness and lack of resilience. Am I in this position because others have taken pity on me? I came into my present position upon the urging of my wife, when I was miserable and ill. My family and friends have been supportive, but isn't that what someone would do for someone who was generally thought of as understandably unable to take care of themselves? Do I live my present life because of my lack of ability and my disillusionment with our world? Am I a permanently broken, a rather sad figure, supported by kind people? If so, how would I ever know?
What is the difference between these two states? It is my attitude towards the situation. My aesthetic is crumbling empire. The gentleman who goes native*. The dreamer of the dreams who lives in the world of beauty, art, and now. The man who finds the disgust of other people rather silly, for they really think their petty thoughts matter. the man for whom it truly is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, even if that love only lasts ten minutes. When people ask me what I truly want from life, it is this with some good friends.
If I have what I want then why don't I embrace it and dive right in, free of foolish things like guilt, boredom, hope for different things? The truth is that much of the time I do. Yet we all carry around with us the architecture of our society, no matter how crumbled and broken the remnant that might be. I believe that not only is happiness the greatest good, but that people deserve it. More, I think those that can be happy have a duty to be happy for if happiness is the greatest good it is a moral obligation to work towards the highest good. For there to be happiness people must be happy.
I want to wallow in my dissolution, affirm the pleasures of body and mind. I want to feel good, serene, happy, peaceful. I wish to "work" at this without shame or question. I believe this is right for me, an almost spiritual practice, a path of affirmation of what I like in life, what I find beautiful. I don't want to be afraid, retreating from life, drinking myself into oblivion to escape the world, and I don't think I do. My "task" is to chip away at the remnants of societal architecture I carry with me, by which I don't mean removing myself from social norms when interacting with people, but rather judging myself simply by my own principles.
At a minimum the only real harm I might be doing is to myself and my wife, and she tells me I am good for her, and why should I not trust that? Finding my own way to happiness without harm, how could that be a problem for a right-minded person? All I need to do is believe that to the core of my being.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Update
Yes, update. It's all of five hours since the last post about me feeling really depressed. About an hour after that I started doing chores, then more chores, then more than I usually do in three days.
I started feeling better, which progressed through OK, onto pretty good, until now I feel that life is a splendid, beautiful thing. i have tons of energy and there are muscles on either side of my face that are getting worn out from me smiling/grinning. It is quite hard for me right now to really imagine being depressed. This is called, "hypomania."
So, I have gone from depression to near mania in an afternoon, the only environmental thing that changed is that someone came to fix the pool, which is nice but not world altering. This change is called "hyper-rapid cycling" and is very uncommon among those with bipolar disorder.
This is still something for me to be concerned about, but right now - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
I started feeling better, which progressed through OK, onto pretty good, until now I feel that life is a splendid, beautiful thing. i have tons of energy and there are muscles on either side of my face that are getting worn out from me smiling/grinning. It is quite hard for me right now to really imagine being depressed. This is called, "hypomania."
So, I have gone from depression to near mania in an afternoon, the only environmental thing that changed is that someone came to fix the pool, which is nice but not world altering. This change is called "hyper-rapid cycling" and is very uncommon among those with bipolar disorder.
This is still something for me to be concerned about, but right now - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
Depressed Today
This will be a crappy post to read.
For the first time in nearly two years I am very depressed. I keep having to blow my nose because of the crying. I feel like I am a useless parasite who is incapable of achieving the easiest things in life. No thoughts of suicide, yay!
I have been trying to get someone to come fix another thing with the pool, (almost certainly my fault in the first place) but they didn't call me to set up a time on the correct day, the technician was rude to me when I called, set me up for the most inconvenient time (end of the day) and then didn't show up. I've tried twice today to get any response from the company but they won't call.
My pharmacy was supposed to call me when they refill my prescription (I have unusual pills) but didn't.
In the comment section below an interesting talk about redefining how we think about mental illness I was arguing with someone about whether medications actually work for mental illness. Their position was that mental illness was based on how we are brought up and our environment, so changing lifestyle can fix it. They have some data backing this up and so I wonder if they are right. If they are right it means to me right now that I am depressed because of how I choose to live. It's my fault.
I am, of course, terrified that this means the medication that was working so well for me has stopped working and so I am doomed to spend the rest of my life living as I was before the medication.
I am writing this post that isn't fun because I don't want to be secretive about my mental illness, there is no reason to be ashamed and talking about it helps, even a tiny bit, to make things easier for people like me. I am also writing this so that the people who know my wife can give her some extra support at this time. She is the only person who can really help me by showing that she cares, and in the same way that happiness spreads, misery does too. I know from personal experience that trying to help mentally ill people is hard work emotionally, it takes a toll. So please be nice to my wife while I can't give her what she deserves.
I will update people when I feel better, which I expect should happen by the end of this week.
For the first time in nearly two years I am very depressed. I keep having to blow my nose because of the crying. I feel like I am a useless parasite who is incapable of achieving the easiest things in life. No thoughts of suicide, yay!
I have been trying to get someone to come fix another thing with the pool, (almost certainly my fault in the first place) but they didn't call me to set up a time on the correct day, the technician was rude to me when I called, set me up for the most inconvenient time (end of the day) and then didn't show up. I've tried twice today to get any response from the company but they won't call.
My pharmacy was supposed to call me when they refill my prescription (I have unusual pills) but didn't.
In the comment section below an interesting talk about redefining how we think about mental illness I was arguing with someone about whether medications actually work for mental illness. Their position was that mental illness was based on how we are brought up and our environment, so changing lifestyle can fix it. They have some data backing this up and so I wonder if they are right. If they are right it means to me right now that I am depressed because of how I choose to live. It's my fault.
I am, of course, terrified that this means the medication that was working so well for me has stopped working and so I am doomed to spend the rest of my life living as I was before the medication.
I am writing this post that isn't fun because I don't want to be secretive about my mental illness, there is no reason to be ashamed and talking about it helps, even a tiny bit, to make things easier for people like me. I am also writing this so that the people who know my wife can give her some extra support at this time. She is the only person who can really help me by showing that she cares, and in the same way that happiness spreads, misery does too. I know from personal experience that trying to help mentally ill people is hard work emotionally, it takes a toll. So please be nice to my wife while I can't give her what she deserves.
I will update people when I feel better, which I expect should happen by the end of this week.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The Stress of Modern Life
It is a common thought that life today is more stressful than it used to be, that the rushing around to get everything done to meet the requirements put on us by our culture have made the modern world particularly stressful.
I agree that pressure to perform efficiently and effectively is stressful. I agree that living up to the often unreasonable standards of modern society (such as the standard for female beauty in the eyes of females being a photo-shopped anorexic) causes stress. I agree that the constant input of stimuli keeps us at a heightened level of awareness, which is more stressful, and also removes the opportunity to calm down and rest, which is great for reducing stress.
On the other hand, what are really stressful things? I would suggest that the threat of violence, or actual violence is intensely stressful. I would suggest that hunger or disease are extremely stressful things. I would suggest that living without shelter is extremely stressful.
It used to be that people were poorer, more exposed to disease and hunger, and that the services for the mentally ill or destitute were far worse. The amount of work people did was at a minimum the same. People got more sleep and less stimulation, but it seems unlikely that people in previous generations were less judgmental than they are today.
Poor people all over the world really wish to become part of this modern, "stressful" culture in order to get away from their simpler, less frantic lives.
There could certainly be improvements in our modern culture to reduce our stress, sleeping longer, working less, emphasizing happiness and compassion over material possessions, walking instead of driving, etc.. I think it would be more than great if these changes happened, and I think in the future we will slowly drift in that direction. The modern world particularly stressful? No way.
I agree that pressure to perform efficiently and effectively is stressful. I agree that living up to the often unreasonable standards of modern society (such as the standard for female beauty in the eyes of females being a photo-shopped anorexic) causes stress. I agree that the constant input of stimuli keeps us at a heightened level of awareness, which is more stressful, and also removes the opportunity to calm down and rest, which is great for reducing stress.
On the other hand, what are really stressful things? I would suggest that the threat of violence, or actual violence is intensely stressful. I would suggest that hunger or disease are extremely stressful things. I would suggest that living without shelter is extremely stressful.
It used to be that people were poorer, more exposed to disease and hunger, and that the services for the mentally ill or destitute were far worse. The amount of work people did was at a minimum the same. People got more sleep and less stimulation, but it seems unlikely that people in previous generations were less judgmental than they are today.
Poor people all over the world really wish to become part of this modern, "stressful" culture in order to get away from their simpler, less frantic lives.
There could certainly be improvements in our modern culture to reduce our stress, sleeping longer, working less, emphasizing happiness and compassion over material possessions, walking instead of driving, etc.. I think it would be more than great if these changes happened, and I think in the future we will slowly drift in that direction. The modern world particularly stressful? No way.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Monsanto and Me
I have been seeing a fair amount of news, and lots of outrage about the massive agri-business company Monsanto. The outrage seems to be based on Monsanto being probably the largest company in the world producing and selling Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). For the very few readers who don't know what this means, it means changing some of the genes in a particular animal or plant to achieve a particular effect. These effects can range from attempts to increase yield to producing insecticide.
The pro-GMO position is that GMO's improve the quality of the organism in some way, leading to greater yields, reduced herbicide and pesticide use, etc.. The anti-GMO position is that GMO's have health risks associated with them (toxic, carcinogenic, allergenic), that there are unknown risks of contamination within the environment, that biodiversity is reduced through monoculture (vast areas with only one crop), and that GMO companies are shady dealers buying influence within their own regulatory organization (the Food and Drug Administration in the USA) creating farmer dependence on their products, and aggressively suing people.
My beginning position on this whole thing was that giant multinational companies are generally shady, trying to avoid regulation, lobbying governments, putting money over safety, etc.. Monsanto's record on environmental health is bad, but that was when they were largely a chemical company rather than the modern agriculture intellectual property approach. This doesn't mean I think that Monsanity suddenly got morality, just that Monsanto isn't contaminating places with Agent Orange and PCB's anymore because they don't make them.
On the other hand I think that most grassroot efforts on safety are woefully ignorant about science and that simple, outright claims are taken as gospel. The clearest example of this ignorance is the whole issue with irradiated food, a process that improves food safety at lower cost and with less damage to the product than freezing. Being against the irradiation of food means you simply don't know how radiation works and aren't willing to find out, but there are enough ignorant, lazy people that there are no irradiated foods in your store. There are all sorts of sites declaiming the danger of irradiated foods.
So I thought that GMO's are not inherently bad, but there could conceivably be problems, and Monsanto would almost certainly hush things up to be able to make money. There are a lot of psychopaths in big business. There are some things I knew already, such as genetic modification has been going on for something like 10,000 years through breeding. That cross pollination in plants (a worry of GMO's) happens all the time in natural plants, and that most of the food w eat has GMO's in it and we aren't dropping dead right and left. My starting position was that GMO's are almost certainly an overall good for humanity as long as they are properly regulated.
So, what did I do? I looked stuff up. There are links throughout this post to some of the things I looked up (but not all). For a start I went to the competing web sites and noticed that pro-GMO people linked to such places as the US Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization which generally had clear links to the science. Anti-GMO people linked to smaller, less official web sites that made claims but almost never showed the evidence for them. When I did research the specific claims the scientific data came from the defenders rather than the attackers.
I would say the arguments against GMO safety had a couple of basic, starting positions; GMO's are specifically harmful, we don't know enough about GMO effects yet.
The most common basic error in the harm claim is the "they fed it to rats and they died of horrible stuff. They sure did, but they fed it to rats in massive, massive doses, enormously higher than any person would ever ingest no matter how crazy they might be. You feed a person five pounds of sugar a day and they will die but nobody eats five pounds of sugar a day. The second basic error is that since GMO's have been introduced allergies and cancer rates have increased and so GMO's cause allergies and cancer. Correlation is not the same as causation and allergy rates and cancer rates were increasing before GMO's were introduced.
We don't know what the effects of GMO's might be over the course of decades and some previous technology introductions have certainly caused harm despite being thought safe initially, but we can make some predictions. DNA produces proteins, and if you know the properties of those proteins you can make a really good guess over what will happen. People have been doing this with less information for thousands of years, cross two sorts of apple and you will create a new organism, but one that only produces the proteins already found in apples. You might worry about introductions of pesticides within the DNA of plants, but these proteins already exist within plants and farmers generally spray their crops with pesticides anyway (in Monsanto's case it is Round-Up in both cases of GMO and spray), it is reasonable to think the GMO pesticide within plant DNA reduces contamination of the environment. Farmers already try to produce mono-cultures in their fields, often with non-native species, so the only difference I see here is that GMO's are new introductions within a species rather than transported other species or varieties.
The big thing here is that these questions should be dealt with by a regulatory organization, in the USA it is the Department of Agriculture which has a method of testing new food for safety involving scientific examination. Monsanto cannot introduce a new form of food without it passing the clearance of the US government. In a perfect world this should solve the problem, the people with the most expertise and the most to lose test for safety and then only approve safe food. We seem to be fine with this when eating at restaurants even though people do die each year from food poisoning. This isn't a perfect world and we know that unsafe things have been approved before and that companies will lobby, produce "scientific studies" that meet their own agenda, and try to remove regulations controlling their business.
This is where the politics comes in. The politics for me started when the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, a non-budget item in a budget law was added with most members of Congress passing the bill without reading this portion. The claims were that the law freed Monsanto from lawsuits so that they could put anything out there without fear of any consequences. This was frankly bullshit as could be seen by anyone spending five minutes to read the law. What the law actually did is require the Department of Agriculture to allow Monsanto and others to continue to produce previously approved GMO's while Monsanto was being sued. The claims of anti-GMO activists in this area were either lies, or ill-informed.
However, there is a real problem with the regulatory process. There are serious problem in that a number of previous Monsanto employees then went to work at the FDA, and vice versa. This has been called the "Amazing Revolving Door." This is common in governments, just look at the connection of Merrill Lynch and anything to do with economics in the White House. This is a clear conflict of interest, particularly in a health and safety situation, that simply shouldn't happen. It will continue to happen everywhere in government.
In summary, there isn't actually any data that says GMO's are bad for you. No-one has ever died because their food was genetically altered. However, the regulatory organization is compromised by its direct connections to those it should be regulating. Those howling against Monsanto generally don't know what they are talking about while Monsanto has an excellent PR Department. When it comes down to it the real reason for objection to GMO's is that the idea seems icky, mad frankenstein stuff. My objection to Monsanto is the same as my objection to multinational companies in general, they have far too much power within the agencies that are supposed to regulate them.
I will continue to eat GMO's without worrying about my health.
The pro-GMO position is that GMO's improve the quality of the organism in some way, leading to greater yields, reduced herbicide and pesticide use, etc.. The anti-GMO position is that GMO's have health risks associated with them (toxic, carcinogenic, allergenic), that there are unknown risks of contamination within the environment, that biodiversity is reduced through monoculture (vast areas with only one crop), and that GMO companies are shady dealers buying influence within their own regulatory organization (the Food and Drug Administration in the USA) creating farmer dependence on their products, and aggressively suing people.
My beginning position on this whole thing was that giant multinational companies are generally shady, trying to avoid regulation, lobbying governments, putting money over safety, etc.. Monsanto's record on environmental health is bad, but that was when they were largely a chemical company rather than the modern agriculture intellectual property approach. This doesn't mean I think that Monsanity suddenly got morality, just that Monsanto isn't contaminating places with Agent Orange and PCB's anymore because they don't make them.
On the other hand I think that most grassroot efforts on safety are woefully ignorant about science and that simple, outright claims are taken as gospel. The clearest example of this ignorance is the whole issue with irradiated food, a process that improves food safety at lower cost and with less damage to the product than freezing. Being against the irradiation of food means you simply don't know how radiation works and aren't willing to find out, but there are enough ignorant, lazy people that there are no irradiated foods in your store. There are all sorts of sites declaiming the danger of irradiated foods.
So I thought that GMO's are not inherently bad, but there could conceivably be problems, and Monsanto would almost certainly hush things up to be able to make money. There are a lot of psychopaths in big business. There are some things I knew already, such as genetic modification has been going on for something like 10,000 years through breeding. That cross pollination in plants (a worry of GMO's) happens all the time in natural plants, and that most of the food w eat has GMO's in it and we aren't dropping dead right and left. My starting position was that GMO's are almost certainly an overall good for humanity as long as they are properly regulated.
So, what did I do? I looked stuff up. There are links throughout this post to some of the things I looked up (but not all). For a start I went to the competing web sites and noticed that pro-GMO people linked to such places as the US Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization which generally had clear links to the science. Anti-GMO people linked to smaller, less official web sites that made claims but almost never showed the evidence for them. When I did research the specific claims the scientific data came from the defenders rather than the attackers.
I would say the arguments against GMO safety had a couple of basic, starting positions; GMO's are specifically harmful, we don't know enough about GMO effects yet.
The most common basic error in the harm claim is the "they fed it to rats and they died of horrible stuff. They sure did, but they fed it to rats in massive, massive doses, enormously higher than any person would ever ingest no matter how crazy they might be. You feed a person five pounds of sugar a day and they will die but nobody eats five pounds of sugar a day. The second basic error is that since GMO's have been introduced allergies and cancer rates have increased and so GMO's cause allergies and cancer. Correlation is not the same as causation and allergy rates and cancer rates were increasing before GMO's were introduced.
We don't know what the effects of GMO's might be over the course of decades and some previous technology introductions have certainly caused harm despite being thought safe initially, but we can make some predictions. DNA produces proteins, and if you know the properties of those proteins you can make a really good guess over what will happen. People have been doing this with less information for thousands of years, cross two sorts of apple and you will create a new organism, but one that only produces the proteins already found in apples. You might worry about introductions of pesticides within the DNA of plants, but these proteins already exist within plants and farmers generally spray their crops with pesticides anyway (in Monsanto's case it is Round-Up in both cases of GMO and spray), it is reasonable to think the GMO pesticide within plant DNA reduces contamination of the environment. Farmers already try to produce mono-cultures in their fields, often with non-native species, so the only difference I see here is that GMO's are new introductions within a species rather than transported other species or varieties.
The big thing here is that these questions should be dealt with by a regulatory organization, in the USA it is the Department of Agriculture which has a method of testing new food for safety involving scientific examination. Monsanto cannot introduce a new form of food without it passing the clearance of the US government. In a perfect world this should solve the problem, the people with the most expertise and the most to lose test for safety and then only approve safe food. We seem to be fine with this when eating at restaurants even though people do die each year from food poisoning. This isn't a perfect world and we know that unsafe things have been approved before and that companies will lobby, produce "scientific studies" that meet their own agenda, and try to remove regulations controlling their business.
This is where the politics comes in. The politics for me started when the so-called Monsanto Protection Act, a non-budget item in a budget law was added with most members of Congress passing the bill without reading this portion. The claims were that the law freed Monsanto from lawsuits so that they could put anything out there without fear of any consequences. This was frankly bullshit as could be seen by anyone spending five minutes to read the law. What the law actually did is require the Department of Agriculture to allow Monsanto and others to continue to produce previously approved GMO's while Monsanto was being sued. The claims of anti-GMO activists in this area were either lies, or ill-informed.
However, there is a real problem with the regulatory process. There are serious problem in that a number of previous Monsanto employees then went to work at the FDA, and vice versa. This has been called the "Amazing Revolving Door." This is common in governments, just look at the connection of Merrill Lynch and anything to do with economics in the White House. This is a clear conflict of interest, particularly in a health and safety situation, that simply shouldn't happen. It will continue to happen everywhere in government.
In summary, there isn't actually any data that says GMO's are bad for you. No-one has ever died because their food was genetically altered. However, the regulatory organization is compromised by its direct connections to those it should be regulating. Those howling against Monsanto generally don't know what they are talking about while Monsanto has an excellent PR Department. When it comes down to it the real reason for objection to GMO's is that the idea seems icky, mad frankenstein stuff. My objection to Monsanto is the same as my objection to multinational companies in general, they have far too much power within the agencies that are supposed to regulate them.
I will continue to eat GMO's without worrying about my health.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Explanation for Apathy
It happens to me sometimes that I become pretty much apathetic about things. I just can't see the value of very much. Why clean the house when you will just have to do it again soon? Why learn Spanish when there is no prospect of needing to speak Spanish? Why practice music when there is no prospect of performing in front of people? Why write blog posts when there is no sign that anyone cares? Why learn about things that you will never use?
The answer to these questions would be that there is an intrinsic value to these activities, the doing of them is reward enough. Well, what happens when you don't feel that much has intrinsic value? Today the thing that had the most intrinsic value for me was sitting in a park looking at leaves in the sunshine. When I am being apathetic being productive has less value for me than not being productive. My main motivation at this point for doing things is to avoid the displeasure of other people.
This apathy has been bothering me. For a start there is little more that is despised more in my culture than apathy. If you don't wish to be productive you are a bad person. I don't want to be thought of as a bad person, even if I and everyone I care about, says to not care about what other people think of me. The second reason I have been bothered by all of this is that I didn't understand the reason for this apathy, but I had an epiphany today. The reason for this was the video below, which is mostly about how people feel at work, and how much challenge and meaning matter. It's about twenty minutes long and should be shown to any supervisor if they care about productivity and the environment of their employees.
Dan Ariely: What Makes Us Feel Good About Work
Basically we really care about the meaning of our work, that we accomplish something. If you work on something that is simply tossed aside then it really upsets you, even if you enjoyed working on it. If you work hard on something you think the end product is a better product than if you didn't work hard. This is one reason why parents post a billion pictures each of their babies, parenting is hard work, the result of that hard work are constant little achievements (the first steps etc.), and therefore parents think their child is so much more interesting and wonderful than the child of anyone else.
How does this explain my apathy? Well, nothing I am going to do seems to have a worthwhile end, see above. Why am I more apathetic now than in the recent past? It's because pretty much whatever happens in the next year or so, we will be moving to a different environment. Nothing really matters in this environment because it will end soon, and so the prospects of achieving anything meaningful here approach zero.
Now that I understand more fully this completely normal facet of humanity, that people don't work hard for things that have little purpose at the end, my apathy makes sense to me. It also allows me to worry less about what I am doing.
One of the things that produces a sense of meaning with this blog is the feedback in comments (whether in person or on the blog) as otherwise I have no idea if anyone is really reading other than by accident. While I take a certain pride in what I write that isn't significantly more than the pride I would have in thinking about the subject. Any evidence at all that anyone has been convinced by anything I have ever said here would be the acme of purpose. Well, maybe that will happen some day.
The answer to these questions would be that there is an intrinsic value to these activities, the doing of them is reward enough. Well, what happens when you don't feel that much has intrinsic value? Today the thing that had the most intrinsic value for me was sitting in a park looking at leaves in the sunshine. When I am being apathetic being productive has less value for me than not being productive. My main motivation at this point for doing things is to avoid the displeasure of other people.
This apathy has been bothering me. For a start there is little more that is despised more in my culture than apathy. If you don't wish to be productive you are a bad person. I don't want to be thought of as a bad person, even if I and everyone I care about, says to not care about what other people think of me. The second reason I have been bothered by all of this is that I didn't understand the reason for this apathy, but I had an epiphany today. The reason for this was the video below, which is mostly about how people feel at work, and how much challenge and meaning matter. It's about twenty minutes long and should be shown to any supervisor if they care about productivity and the environment of their employees.
Dan Ariely: What Makes Us Feel Good About Work
Basically we really care about the meaning of our work, that we accomplish something. If you work on something that is simply tossed aside then it really upsets you, even if you enjoyed working on it. If you work hard on something you think the end product is a better product than if you didn't work hard. This is one reason why parents post a billion pictures each of their babies, parenting is hard work, the result of that hard work are constant little achievements (the first steps etc.), and therefore parents think their child is so much more interesting and wonderful than the child of anyone else.
How does this explain my apathy? Well, nothing I am going to do seems to have a worthwhile end, see above. Why am I more apathetic now than in the recent past? It's because pretty much whatever happens in the next year or so, we will be moving to a different environment. Nothing really matters in this environment because it will end soon, and so the prospects of achieving anything meaningful here approach zero.
Now that I understand more fully this completely normal facet of humanity, that people don't work hard for things that have little purpose at the end, my apathy makes sense to me. It also allows me to worry less about what I am doing.
One of the things that produces a sense of meaning with this blog is the feedback in comments (whether in person or on the blog) as otherwise I have no idea if anyone is really reading other than by accident. While I take a certain pride in what I write that isn't significantly more than the pride I would have in thinking about the subject. Any evidence at all that anyone has been convinced by anything I have ever said here would be the acme of purpose. Well, maybe that will happen some day.
Fat People Are Normal
Being fat is unhealthy, means you are less attractive, often despised by society, certainly treated more poorly at work, and contributes to depression. All of these result in most fat people experiencing the iconic American condition, low self-esteem. Taking no other factors into account it is better to not be fat.
However, we are human beings who evolved in Africa tens of thousands of years ago in a very different environment. Some of the things we needed were very rare, sugars, salt, fats. You may ask about fats, but animals that need to run away from predators have low fat content, far lower than domesticated animals that have been bred over thousands of years. As a result of the scarcity of these rare foods humans (or actually many mammals far predating humans) developed a mechanism for preferring these foods over others, namely taste. Sugar, salt, and fat are tastier than pretty much anything else to pretty much all humans.
The basic desires of humans for fat, sugar, and salt has not changed much since those times, but our ability to produce them has dramatically changed, they are ubiquitous and cheap. The natural preference of humans and the availability of fat, sugar, and salt means that the natural state of the modern human is to eat lots of fat, sugar, and salt. It's just how we are put together.
Why aren't all rich humans fat? There is a contrary preference in humans, that being attraction. Like all animals human beings have preferences for mates with qualities that can be passed on to offspring that will help them to survive. In the circumstances of our evolution being athletic, and therefore not fat, could be a life or death attribute. This is somewhat offset by fat being necessary to survive periods without food, which is why rail thin people are not as attractive as slightly meatier people. For those who think this is not true and that fashion models are the epitome of attractive simply look at which women men look at in the media, and it isn't skinny.
So we have two competing natural human urges, the personal urge to eat lots of fat, salt, and sugar whenever available, and the desire of other people for mates who are not fat. In the modern world, in order to be attractive you must deny yourself another urge, and that urge is internal. In order to be fat in the modern world you must deny yourself the urge to be attractive, and that urge is external.
Now, which is more "normal," denying an internal drive or an external drive? At the minimum the internal drive is equally normal, and I would say more normal. This pretty much explains the explosion of obesity everywhere that people can afford to be obese. It is more natural as a human to be fat than not. It's actually kind of weird to be skinny, it requires daily denial of the most basic desire of the human body.
However, we are human beings who evolved in Africa tens of thousands of years ago in a very different environment. Some of the things we needed were very rare, sugars, salt, fats. You may ask about fats, but animals that need to run away from predators have low fat content, far lower than domesticated animals that have been bred over thousands of years. As a result of the scarcity of these rare foods humans (or actually many mammals far predating humans) developed a mechanism for preferring these foods over others, namely taste. Sugar, salt, and fat are tastier than pretty much anything else to pretty much all humans.
The basic desires of humans for fat, sugar, and salt has not changed much since those times, but our ability to produce them has dramatically changed, they are ubiquitous and cheap. The natural preference of humans and the availability of fat, sugar, and salt means that the natural state of the modern human is to eat lots of fat, sugar, and salt. It's just how we are put together.
Why aren't all rich humans fat? There is a contrary preference in humans, that being attraction. Like all animals human beings have preferences for mates with qualities that can be passed on to offspring that will help them to survive. In the circumstances of our evolution being athletic, and therefore not fat, could be a life or death attribute. This is somewhat offset by fat being necessary to survive periods without food, which is why rail thin people are not as attractive as slightly meatier people. For those who think this is not true and that fashion models are the epitome of attractive simply look at which women men look at in the media, and it isn't skinny.
So we have two competing natural human urges, the personal urge to eat lots of fat, salt, and sugar whenever available, and the desire of other people for mates who are not fat. In the modern world, in order to be attractive you must deny yourself another urge, and that urge is internal. In order to be fat in the modern world you must deny yourself the urge to be attractive, and that urge is external.
Now, which is more "normal," denying an internal drive or an external drive? At the minimum the internal drive is equally normal, and I would say more normal. This pretty much explains the explosion of obesity everywhere that people can afford to be obese. It is more natural as a human to be fat than not. It's actually kind of weird to be skinny, it requires daily denial of the most basic desire of the human body.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Necessary Awful People?
Margaret Thatcher just died. There has therefore been a series of examinations of her record/legacy. I was there in England for all but her last two years as Prime Minister but that was from ages 9-18, hardly the most politically astute portion of my life. However, I'm going to give my impression.
Just to watch and hear Maggie Thatcher gave me an immediate and strong impression that she was a deeply awful person. Strident, entirely certain, aggressive, uncaring, condescending. A more shrill Dick Cheney. Should we judge someone on such criteria? Tone and body language are things we automatically use to make decisions about people, and humans are really good at it. If I had never known who she was, or what she did, I would have viscerally disliked her immediately.
The little I know of Thatcher's policies consisted largely of crushing the powerful trade unions and privatizing huge swathes of British industry and services. She cut taxes and reduced services. There is a reason why she and Reagan were such good buddies, they believed in the same theory that private capitalism outperforms government activity everywhere (except the military) and money trickles down. The results were a windfall for the wealthy and suffering for the poor, there are still whole cities in Northern England destroyed by her policies; no jobs, no prospects, hopelessness.
On the other hand, Britain when she came to power was an absolute shambles. Industry was being outperformed by other countries. To a very large extent it was the same problem that nearly brought down the US automobile companies, poor products produced by a company that had to negotiate with a powerful union that demanded compensation for its members at a rate that was not sustainable in the long run. To a very large extent Britain was a socialist country, and socialist industries lose to capitalist companies in the competition of international trade. There is a reason that punk rock came into being at this time, the pervasive feeling was of inevitable decline.
I think the best summary of Thatcher's rule is that adjusted Gross Domestic Product rose by 30%, and measures of inequality rose by the same amount. The UK became a wealthier, more competitive economy but almost all of those benefits went to people who were already well off.
When thinking of the success or failure of an enterprise I don't like to compare it with what should have been done alone. I like to compare it with what is the most likely alternative. The alternative to Thatcher was the Labour Party, at the time a political party run by unions. The Labour party would not have broken the unions, not have privatized government services, not have reduced taxes. I think the results would probably have been a continuation of the slow decline of the UK economy and a much more equitable distribution of less money. Less for most against more for only some. When it comes down to it, I think Margaret Thatcher was better for Britain in the long term than the alternative at the time.
How I think things should have gone: reorganization and privatization of large industries slowly, carefully, and in collaboration with the unions; investments in education, technology, and deprived areas, all paid for by maintaining income tax rates at their high levels and debt to produce growth; Thatcher was awful, but this is true for almost all governments at all times.
Thatcher was an awful, borderline evil person with contempt for the poor and appreciation for the rich. She caused division in the country and enormous hardship for millions. She also broke apart an economy that wasn't competitive and replaced it with one that kinda was. She removed socialism as a viable political force in the UK, and socialism doesn't work (in highly industrialized, wealthy nations.)
I hated Thatcher and felt a little frisson of joy upon hearing that she was dead. On the other hand I think she might have been a necessary, awful person.
Just to watch and hear Maggie Thatcher gave me an immediate and strong impression that she was a deeply awful person. Strident, entirely certain, aggressive, uncaring, condescending. A more shrill Dick Cheney. Should we judge someone on such criteria? Tone and body language are things we automatically use to make decisions about people, and humans are really good at it. If I had never known who she was, or what she did, I would have viscerally disliked her immediately.
The little I know of Thatcher's policies consisted largely of crushing the powerful trade unions and privatizing huge swathes of British industry and services. She cut taxes and reduced services. There is a reason why she and Reagan were such good buddies, they believed in the same theory that private capitalism outperforms government activity everywhere (except the military) and money trickles down. The results were a windfall for the wealthy and suffering for the poor, there are still whole cities in Northern England destroyed by her policies; no jobs, no prospects, hopelessness.
On the other hand, Britain when she came to power was an absolute shambles. Industry was being outperformed by other countries. To a very large extent it was the same problem that nearly brought down the US automobile companies, poor products produced by a company that had to negotiate with a powerful union that demanded compensation for its members at a rate that was not sustainable in the long run. To a very large extent Britain was a socialist country, and socialist industries lose to capitalist companies in the competition of international trade. There is a reason that punk rock came into being at this time, the pervasive feeling was of inevitable decline.
I think the best summary of Thatcher's rule is that adjusted Gross Domestic Product rose by 30%, and measures of inequality rose by the same amount. The UK became a wealthier, more competitive economy but almost all of those benefits went to people who were already well off.
When thinking of the success or failure of an enterprise I don't like to compare it with what should have been done alone. I like to compare it with what is the most likely alternative. The alternative to Thatcher was the Labour Party, at the time a political party run by unions. The Labour party would not have broken the unions, not have privatized government services, not have reduced taxes. I think the results would probably have been a continuation of the slow decline of the UK economy and a much more equitable distribution of less money. Less for most against more for only some. When it comes down to it, I think Margaret Thatcher was better for Britain in the long term than the alternative at the time.
How I think things should have gone: reorganization and privatization of large industries slowly, carefully, and in collaboration with the unions; investments in education, technology, and deprived areas, all paid for by maintaining income tax rates at their high levels and debt to produce growth; Thatcher was awful, but this is true for almost all governments at all times.
Thatcher was an awful, borderline evil person with contempt for the poor and appreciation for the rich. She caused division in the country and enormous hardship for millions. She also broke apart an economy that wasn't competitive and replaced it with one that kinda was. She removed socialism as a viable political force in the UK, and socialism doesn't work (in highly industrialized, wealthy nations.)
I hated Thatcher and felt a little frisson of joy upon hearing that she was dead. On the other hand I think she might have been a necessary, awful person.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Am I a Hypocrite?
I am fighting against being grumpy today, trying to stop a general feeling of things being unsatisfactory but without much that can be done about it. This happens when my attention wanders to the area of what to do, and realizes that what there is to do are the same things that there were to do for the last eighteen months. I can't practically do anything about that and therefore feeling bad about it is useless. Still, not thinking about something that infuses your every moment is tricky.
Here comes the question in the title of this post, "Am I a hypocrite?" What I mean is whether all of this stuff I write down is something I do, or just write about? Do I do what I say? When I find myself in the mental situation that I am in now do I meditate, shrink my time frame, look to do good things for other people, cultivate optimism, judge based on harm/happiness rather than societal rules, etc.?
I'll start off by saying that of course I am a hypocrite to an extent, just like pretty much anyone else. Everyone I have ever met bends the truth, tells themselves little stories, judges others to a different standard than themselves, and so on. I don't have a working, daily schedule in which I work at my happiness. I repeatedly talk about the proven worth of meditation, but don't meditate frequently. I don't regularly schedule giving and caring moments. I can dwell on useless unpleasant moments from the past, and while I dislike it I often view myself from the point of view of the general public. So, I am not living the life that I apparently advocate to any great extent.
On the other hand, I have spent quite a lot of time studying the subject of happiness, and have identified things that can help. I use these things on an ongoing basis to help myself be happier. The very fact that I am writing this blog and examining whether I am doing what I can to not be grumpy today means that I am applying this knowledge. I am working to end the negative self-talk loop. I am working to remove guilt whose source is an imagined general public, which disapproves of me. I will try to meditate today, although I probably won't do it well, it is called meditation practice for a reason, and I am out of practice.
The things that I have said in this blog I actually do believe. From time to time I go back through previous posts and have been struck by the consistency of my beliefs. The suggestions and insights that I put forward I really do believe help with happiness, and I have used them myself to be happier. It's just that I am an imperfect person, prone to procrastination and laziness, wary of schedules, and reluctant to do things because "I should."
I think my recent apathy is a combination of such a long period of sameness leading up to now and the oncoming period of big changes as we move from here. Stuck between the mundanity of the past and the hope of a brilliant future is precisely the position that we need to get out of to be happy. I am living now, not in the bit between the past and the future.
I feel better now. I truly hope you have a wonderful day.
Here comes the question in the title of this post, "Am I a hypocrite?" What I mean is whether all of this stuff I write down is something I do, or just write about? Do I do what I say? When I find myself in the mental situation that I am in now do I meditate, shrink my time frame, look to do good things for other people, cultivate optimism, judge based on harm/happiness rather than societal rules, etc.?
I'll start off by saying that of course I am a hypocrite to an extent, just like pretty much anyone else. Everyone I have ever met bends the truth, tells themselves little stories, judges others to a different standard than themselves, and so on. I don't have a working, daily schedule in which I work at my happiness. I repeatedly talk about the proven worth of meditation, but don't meditate frequently. I don't regularly schedule giving and caring moments. I can dwell on useless unpleasant moments from the past, and while I dislike it I often view myself from the point of view of the general public. So, I am not living the life that I apparently advocate to any great extent.
On the other hand, I have spent quite a lot of time studying the subject of happiness, and have identified things that can help. I use these things on an ongoing basis to help myself be happier. The very fact that I am writing this blog and examining whether I am doing what I can to not be grumpy today means that I am applying this knowledge. I am working to end the negative self-talk loop. I am working to remove guilt whose source is an imagined general public, which disapproves of me. I will try to meditate today, although I probably won't do it well, it is called meditation practice for a reason, and I am out of practice.
The things that I have said in this blog I actually do believe. From time to time I go back through previous posts and have been struck by the consistency of my beliefs. The suggestions and insights that I put forward I really do believe help with happiness, and I have used them myself to be happier. It's just that I am an imperfect person, prone to procrastination and laziness, wary of schedules, and reluctant to do things because "I should."
I think my recent apathy is a combination of such a long period of sameness leading up to now and the oncoming period of big changes as we move from here. Stuck between the mundanity of the past and the hope of a brilliant future is precisely the position that we need to get out of to be happy. I am living now, not in the bit between the past and the future.
I feel better now. I truly hope you have a wonderful day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)