Dr. Forbush Thinks

In the end Man vs. Nature is the ultimate conflict that we all end up losing. This is because nature is the environment that we all live in. Nature encompasses everything we know. Other men, society, and ourselves can all be reduced to nature itself because all of these are products of nature. In literature when we explore one of these so-called non-nature conflicts we are only peeling off one subgroup of conflict in order to examine it more closely.

Man is always in a battle against nature. This was obvious in ancient civilizations when every danger lie just outside the campfire circle. But, even today the diseases that we fight - be they bacterial, viral or even cancerous - they come from nature in various ways to damage our bodies and age them little by little. Even oxygen and the sun age our bodies little by little. Nature eats away at us every day and no matter how we fight it - we will ultimately loose that final conflict.

We don’t like to think about this fact of life. But, every once in a while death comes a little closer than we might like. Yesterday was one of those days for me.

Yesterday I took on nature by choice. Like I did last year I chose to swim from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to San Francisco. The famous island lies about 1.25 miles north of San Francisco in the cold bay waters normally between 55 and 63 degrees Fahrenheit. In these waters hypothermia is a real threat, but swimming hard for less than an hour will generate enough heat for most people to counter this problem. I survived this swim last year with some major chills and shivering, but nothing life threatening. I can normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes - 30 minutes would be a lazy pace. So, I wasn’t very worried about this swim at all.

But, nature doesn’t always cooperate.

About 650 people joined me on a one-way cruise out to Alcatraz. I had no fear, because I had done this before. But, looking back on this short trip out to the island there was some foreshadowing. I began to talk to some of the experienced swimmers. Last year I worried about everything, where to site, how to pace myself. This year I made the sophomore mistake of throwing worry to the wind. Of course most of the swimmers wore wetsuits. I didn’t wear one last year, why would I need one this year?

I met a few guys who also chose to swim “naked” as they call it. Two of them worked out every day swimming in the Aquatic Park. Another guy told me that this was his twentieth crossing. I asked him if there was anything that he had learned from all of his experience. He told me, that the most important thing was that every crossing was different. And that sentiment is still bouncing around in my head today.

As we traveled across the bay, the boat was being tossed around. Someone noted that there were whitecaps on the waves. And, another guy said, “This is going to be challenging.” I began to wonder what he meant by challenging.

Last year it took me 40 minutes to swim this short distance, mainly because I needed to occasionally stop and look around. I was also slow off the boat, which I believe added to my official swim time. This year I was quick to get toward the front of the line. I wanted to get started. Why wait? I jumped into the water, pushing the button on my watch in order to get the perfect boat to beach time.

I swam ahead away from the boat, following the crowd of swimmers that had jumped before me. Like most swimmers, freestyle means front crawl, the easiest and most efficient swimming stroke. I saw the swimmers in front of me and I kept up with them as we began to swim for the shore. Then a large wave hit me. I got my breath, but the wave slammed me into the water hard. I stopped for a second, picked my head up, and swam a few strokes of breaststroke. With my head above the water I could see the waves coming, but of course my progress was much slower. I put my head back in the water and continued on with my front crawl. I was hit by waves again and again. I was slammed into the water again and again. This was different from anything I had experienced before. Then a wave hit me in the face and I sucked in water. I coughed and gagged. I picked my head up and once again began breast stroking toward the shore.
Well, I tried to swim front crawl a few more times, but the waves were killing me. One well-placed wave just might drown me. The safest thing to do had to be breaststroke, but I didn’t do just regular breaststroke, I swam breaststroke with my head up. This was slow and steady, but at least I wouldn’t be drowned by those stupid waves. This was obviously “real” open water swimming. I saw other swimmers around me. One person had their hand up signaling a boat. The boat was a few feet away. They had told us if we needed any help that we should signal the boats that would be along the course.

The waves must have been about three feet high. This might not seem like much, but it was just enough to get you high enough that I could survey the swimmers around me. I felt better knowing that there were other swimmers around me. Last year I felt like I was alone in the sea. I couldn’t see anyone around me until I got pretty close to the finish line. This year I could see heads bobbing all around me. I felt pretty good that I wasn’t alone. But, people were passing me as I did breaststroke, and somehow these people were able to swim front crawl in all of these waves. I imagined that I must be like a runner that grew up in Kansas running quite well on all the flat roads that run around the cornfields. Suddenly I was placed in the Rocky Mountains and told to run a 10K. I’d be dying on every up hill, and trying to slow myself down on every downhill. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for this swim.

I stubbornly pushed myself forward. Breaststroke wasn’t fast, but the swim wasn’t only about winning a race. There wasn’t much chance that I was actually going to win the race. This was Man against Nature now, and I was going to win this battle. This swim started out an idea that I would beat my time from last year. And, this time I was going to run after the swim was over. The race was actually to swim from Alcatraz, then run seven miles over the Golden Gate Bridge and back again. It certainly didn’t sound impossible when I started, but it sure was taking me a long time to get to the beach.

Nature, being what it is, isn’t about just one thing. Nature in the traditional sense is about aggressive wild animals, storms, lightening, volcanoes, mountains and more. And, nature in my case wasn’t just about nauseating waves. It was also about the cold water. Putting two things together, the lack of a wetsuit and the much slower pace that I was making due to the waves I was beginning to take quite some time to make this crossing. Occasionally I would panic a bit and begin to push myself a little harder. This was not necessarily the best strategy. I was already doing my best to fight the waves, did I really need to fight the exhaustion. Wait a minute, swimming at the pace I was with my head up avoiding the waves was already exhausting me. The extra time that this swim was taking was already exhausting me. And, the cold water was exhausting me.

I was thinking to myself that I was certainly in better shape this year than I was last year. What would have happened if I had to battle these same waves last year? This could have been worse. Maybe I should have worn a wetsuit? It would have been my insurance policy, giving me the margin that would have made the difference. I was certainly getting colder and my hands and feet were beginning to tingle. I could see the shore that I was aiming for, but it sure seemed to be a long way off. I struggled and pushed myself but it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress. I even tried to swim front crawl again. But, in my tired condition, even the smaller waves near the shore took their toll on me. With about 300 yards to go I finally realized that I should have been swimming sidestroke instead of breaststroke. I got a nice strong scissors kick going, and I started to pass the person swimming next to me. I felt like I was making some progress again. But I was already in a state of hypothermia.

I got out of the water and I ran to the place that I was supposed to change into my running gear. My wife met me there, and she was crying. I had taken an hour and twenty minutes to make this crossing. It took me 40 minutes last year. The difference was the waves, but my wife had seen an ambulance drive up, and she thought the worst. Even after seeing that I was OK, she was still upset, because someone wasn’t. In fact, a 51 year old woman who was swimming this same race had died. They found her floating in the bay and they didn’t know what had happened to her.

I don’t know any other way to explain how I felt after that swim, except that I had “fog brain.” I couldn’t think clearly. I knew that I was supposed to run seven miles, but didn’t know if I could. I probably needed some fluids, but I didn’t feel thirsty. My wife was trying to help me, but nothing seemed to make any sense. I had hoped that by running I would generate some heat and all of this would correct itself. At least that was the plan. I put my shoes and socks on and my wife and I started running. We ran slowly, but I was beginning to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. My fog brain wasn’t going away and I was going into shock. I knew that this was bad, and my wife knew that it was bad. We turned around as we realized that this was just not worth the risk. The race was for fun. I could have run back and drink something and tried again. But, I knew that that would just be stupid. I was sad and dejected. Nature had won this one, but I had lived to fight another day. The fight goes on, even though we all really know that nature will win in the end. We just don’t know when.

I have been extremely busy the last few days. And, last week I was on vacation, which meant that I dropped everything in order to do twice as much this week. At least, that’s how it feels as this week is beginning to come to an end. Busy in the current American culture means that we have our time completely occupied from waking in the morning until sleeping in the evening. However, all of those activities are still subject to a “priority check.” I mean, I am actually busy all the time without regard for what else is demanding of my time and attention. Even while I was on vacation I was busy. It was just that I found the time to place self interest above my employer’s interest in my time. While I was on vacation I was able to occupy my time from the time I woke up until the time I went to sleep. The only difference was the priority of the things I found to occupy my time and attention.

So, what I was trying to say was that I was busy with priorities other than writing for the last few weeks. While I was on vacation I left my laptop at home, in order to insure that I focused on life experience. One important thing to remember as a writer is to have some life experience in order to write about life experience. It could become too easy to create situations artificially in order to live a scripted experience in order to write about it. Of course I know that the bloggers that I know would never do that. However, I have heard stories that these people do exist.

While I drive my number one priority is to pay attention to the road and traffic around me. But, my next priority is to listen to the radio and learn what the community is saying. While I was listening to the radio I heard a couple of interesting stories about food and religion that oddly enough seem to intersect in a strange way.

The food stories tended to be about how American’s have so much food that the food producers have invented ways to make people buy their cheap food. They make sugar and sweeteners out of corn (high fructose corn syrup) at one forth the cost of other sweeteners. America produces more than 4000 calories of food per person per day, and we only need 2000 or less for a healthy diet. The producers however would like us to buy that extra 2000 calories as well.

Well, the food industry has no self interest in limiting America’s consumption of food. The free market demands reward for consumption. But, massive consumption of food is not in the best interest of society, mainly because of health issues. Market forces may create efficient economics, but unfortunately the assumption is that society wins if every person has more. Market forces have no limits, and if everyone has more than they need, then there is no way to protect society from over-consumption.

If we look at the health side of the equation, maybe there is a way that market forces could regulate the ills of society. Over-consumption of food results in obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes to name a few issues. Over-consumption of food results in more business for the health industry. The health industry sells more drugs and procedures to aid in lowering cholesterol, controlling blood sugar, and reducing weight. The bigger the over-consumption problem, the more money the health industry pulls down. And, in addition to the official health industry there are many people who profit from this issue by selling diet books, and alternative medicines. And, the information in these diet books is recycled back into the food market in order to sell more food.

The conclusion is that everyone knows that they should eat less and healthier food, and exercise more. But, from all of the marketing in our society all we see is buy more unhealthy food because it will make us happy. The health industry tells us that we can’t possible succeed in this futile effort, so we need to buy drugs and diet aids to help us overcome our shortcomings as humans.

Well, oddly enough, some religions offer similar messages. Religions seem to be divided into two broad groups. All religions tend to claim to have some insight into the big picture and offer us understanding of our purpose here on Earth. One group claims to have exclusive authority and demand that everyone needs to adhere to those beliefs in order to find the answers. The other group believes that there are universal values such as love and compassion that are needed to obtain these answers and are willing to accept a wide variety of religions that share these common values.

These two groups tend to have different approaches in the religious market place. The first group believes that the same marketing strategy offered by the food producers is the key. More of my religion is good less of other religions is good. Glitzy marketing campaigns and propaganda are the key to building the world in this vision. Telling people to buy religious books, icons, and philosophies are the key to making one religion dominant and therefore the winning religion.

The second group is different than the first group in that the final outcome is a world where certain religious values are the goals. If religions preach about love and compassion then a world with more love and compassion will result. It doesn’t matter if Jesus, Mohammed or Buddha tell us the importance of this love and compassion. The benefit of more love and compassion benefits society, even if it doesn’t benefit one particular religion. And, that is how these two things, food and religion, are so similar.

If we leave religion to market forces, then the religion that advertises the most becomes the more dominate religion. It doesn’t matter much about how much love and compassion they intend to inject into our society. So, this massive marketing of religion hurts the quality of the religion that we are offered. Similarly, if we leave food to the market forces, then the more food we consume the better the food producers make out. It doesn’t matter whether maximum food consumption is good for our society. Maximum food consumption hurts our society through it cost in our health care system. And, it even hurts our society in the quality of the food we get.

Quality was once believed to be driven by market forces. But, as Bill Gates showed us, marketing can overcome defects in quality. And, the food industry is no exception. Cherries, apples, tomatoes, and strawberries have all been bread to be massively produced without regard for flavor. The consumer had little choice in this evolution, because of the cost differences of massively produced varieties as compared to the flavorful but delicate varieties. So, what is the real quality we look for in food? Is it the flavor, or the convenience? What do we lose in this market driven model?

Similarly, the quality in religion has been replaced with the ability to have quick answers without contemplation. There are Bibles with answers to commonly asked questions written in alternate colored text. Does this enhance the religious experience, or does it take the work of contemplation out of the equation? Do these religions give us the values in the end, or do they give us a list of rules that are derived from someone’s values that were created long ago in the context of a different world? What do we lose in this conversion?

So, in the end the way our food has evolved and the way our religions have evolved we are losing the essence, purpose, flavor, meaning and details that make our experiences special.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

First off, I don’t care to gamble. Actually I do like to gamble in certain ways, take risks and expect returns on those risks. But, Las Vegas style risks are high, and the odds for a payout are low, so it doesn’t make much sense to risk my hard earned money on something that has very little chance of offering a return. In fact, if I really cared about making money I would buy stock in companies like Wynn, Bally’s, Harrah’s and the like, because the return on investment is more likely to be positive on that side of the table.

I’ve been told by a number of people that Las Vegas isn’t only about gambling. It’s about entertainment! There are so many things to do up and down the strip that you can go to Vegas and not gamble at all. It didn’t seem likely to me, but I had been to Vegas a couple of years ago and didn’t gamble. So, I knew that a gambling free Las Vegas vacation was possible.

Last time I was in Las Vegas I brought the kids. My daughter was dancing in a dance competition that occupied a large portion of our time. The extent of our time on the “Strip” consisted of driving up and down the strip, going to see a show, and walking around a casino or two. We didn’t really “do” Vegas.

This time was different. My wife and I left the kids at home and we ventured off on our first childless vacation since our oldest was born. Our vacation wasn’t about destination, it was about re-connection. It didn’t really matter where we went; it mattered that we went together and to share the experience no matter what else happened.

We decided to take an offer from a time-share company who would put us up for a week on the “Strip.” A free hotel no matter where it was located was all that we needed. We had never listened to a time-share spiel, so we even looked at that as an experience to share and talk about. The point of the vacation was not about “location,” it was about “destination.” How bad could listening to a two-hour spiel be? We had the rest of the time to ourselves.

Well, we arrived in Vegas Monday evening and realized that the trip might not be as easy as we had imagined. The first floor of our Hotel was a smoke fill dungeon of a casino. The smell of cigarette smoke filled every nook and cranny of this hotel making life miserable at first. The smell brought back memories of times when smoke filled many more aspects of my life. But, since California had made cigarette smoke illegal in so many locations, it was rare for me to even smell it at all for years at a time. My wife had it even worse than I did. Her sinus cavities had swollen shut and she had a massive headache that drugs couldn’t cure. Monday night was miserable as we tried to sleep with the smoke from seven floors down making its way up into our non-smoking room.

The next morning we couldn’t wait to get out of the room. We thought that we might benefit from a little run down the Las Vegas Strip. We figured that the distance from Circus Circus down to Mandalay Bay was about four miles. So, an early morning run of eight miles seemed to be a good way to get the day started.

At about 6:15 AM the strip was a different place than the night before. Most of the people outside at this time of the morning were fellow joggers and a few people looking for a breakfast buffet. A run up and down the strip is an excellent way to see it for the first time, in person and up close. Running early in the morning also enables you to miss the crowds in the streets that block your way later in the day or even late at night.

As we started our run we quickly saw that jogging the Las Vegas Strip was a quite popular thing to do. We passed quite a few people, as quite a few people passed us. Joggers of all sorts came toward us a well. We easily saw over a hundred, and surely there were many more running on the street that we didn’t see. As I saw all of these joggers running the Las Vegas Strip I started to think about Las Vegas in a different way.

What is Las Vegas all about? It is more than gambling, even though gambling has given Las Vegas its power and influence in American culture. But it is a mirror to American culture. But, that mirror isn’t flat. A curved mirror focuses the light, and Las Vegas is a curved mirror that focuses American culture.

There are two questions that I’d like to try to answer here. The first is how does Las Vegas focus American Culture? And, the second is why does Las Vegas focus American culture? The how and the why questions actually tell us a little about American culture itself, and more.

When you run or even walk down the Las Vegas strip you see every aspect of American culture that you can imagine. Actually, “culture” might be modified by the adjective “popular.” The strip contains every aspect of American popular culture. The appeal is to the masses, exaggeration abounds and truth is hard to find. And, it is impossible to find a bookstore or other form of culture that might be associated with something other than popular American culture. Las Vegas mirrors the world as Americans believe that it is, not as it is in reality.

One example of what I am describing is seen at the Venetian. In St. Marks square in Venice, Venezia Santa Lucia in Italian, there is a famous clock. By American culture the clock is strange, because it is a 24-hour clock instead of a 12 hour clock. The clock is reproduced at the Venetian is numbered with twenty four roman numerals, like it’s cousin in Venice. But, the hands on the clock assume the imaginary 12 hours of traditional American clocks. American culture has forced a false reality on the reproduction of this clock. Why? I can only assume that it is because Las Vegas is about encouraging American fantasy, rather than teaching reality to those who would like to learn about other cultures.

The reality of Las Vegas is that it is created for Americans to see the world the way that they believe that the world is. American’s love the circus, and Circus Circus focuses on the activities and entertainment found at a circus. Americans love New York City, and New York, New York focuses on what America culture assumes what New York City is like. American popular culture views Paris, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and Venice in a distorted way in which the Paris, Luxor, Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian Casinos do.

Las Vegas is what happens when capitalism rules without a check on its power. People want to see it, then Las Vegas offers it for the masses to view the way that the masses expect to see it. This is because the masses are willing to spend their money in places that represent what the masses expect to see. People are attracted to the casinos by what they expect to see. Americans want to see a fake replica of the Eiffel Tower, the Paris offers it to the masses. The people expect the people in Paris to be aloof, speak with French accents and charge a lot of money for French type food, then the Paris once again fits the bill. And, all up and down the Las Vegas Strip it is the same.

How did Las Vegas get trapped into this facade of a world reflection that Americans want to see? I would guess that it must have to do with what attracts people. Obviously sex, food and money attract people. Comfort and familiarity also attract people. And, if you own a casino they are the elements one must use to attract the largest number of people to their casino as opposed to every other casino on the strip. So, the Las Vegas business mantra is “give the people what they want and take their money in return.”

The only thing that Las Vegas doesn’t give people is money. But, instead of keeping money out of the equation, Las Vegas offers the chance, the hope, and the possibility that you might win some free money. The truth is that the casinos exist because the casinos take much more money than they give away. So, the casinos take money off of the free give away table and offer hope instead. That is what gambling is all about.

So, in an effort to offer everything else and in order to take the money of the masses Las Vegas has learned to appeal to the sense of expectation, comfort and familiarity. But not all people know what they should want or desire. And, that doesn’t matter, because Las Vegas tells everyone what he or she should want and expect. It is an enormous feedback loop that tells everyone what American popular culture believes is the most important thing today.

So, by capitalizing on popularity Las Vegas attracts people who are attracted to what the culture has proclaimed to be popular. And, as we know, marketing has jumped in front of this line in order to both proclaim what is popular, then they do everything in their power to convince us that they are right. And, Las Vegas is the center of the universe in the grand scheme of things.

But, as I ran down the Las Vegas strip I began to wonder again. If Las Vegas uses all of this marketing, declamation and appeal to our basic desires, how do all the joggers fit in? No one in Las Vegas is going to claim to insight these people to run up and down the strip. The joggers don’t bring money to the casinos when they probably don’t even have money on them while they are running.

I believe that there is one additional aspect to Las Vegas. That is the addictive nature of gambling. Most people have addictive behaviors. Some people are more compulsive and have more natural tendency toward addictions. Gamble in Las Vegas is the ultimate goal for a person with a gambling addiction. But having one addictive behavior means that one is also likely to have an addictive personality. And, it is clear that all those smokers in the casino of my hotel had another addiction. And, the percentage of smoking gamblers in that casino was much higher than what I perceive to be the national average of smokers among the general population. And, I began to think about other addictions. And, I couldn’t believe how many obese people that there were riding their little scooters up and down the strip, and how obese people moving slowly along the strip.

So, Las Vegas is American pop culture in a nutshell. This is initialized by the casinos use of whatever they can to attract the mainstream popular masses to the city, so that they can take as much of their money as they can. The addicted gamblers come back again and again and bring their addictive behaviors with them. And the people attracted to the pop icons bring some of their own habits and popular culture with them, and the addictive behaviors fill the open space, like smoking, over eating, and even jogging.

All I can say after all that is my Las Vegas Vacation was certainly a learning experience.







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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I have been thinking about the general concept of “values” since the moral majority and the religious right brought the issue of values from religion into politics. The word “values” is a catch all word that describes something that the can be nebulously described as “a good thing we can all agree on.” But, what a society or culture finds value in is not a clear and uniform idea that should be allowed to be thrown around unquestioned.

In fact, even the ideas that we might be able to produce off the top of our heads which embody the grand examples of “values” turn out not to be so cut and dry when we think of them in detail. We all value quite a number of things, but the priority in which we value them turns out to be even more important than the fact that we value them. We value our lives and we value our children’s lives. But, what priority do we put on those two values when we are asked to choose between the two?

If we examine the current political bifurcation the religious right will tell us that the issue is in the culture wars. The culture wars are about “values.” And, the religious right will tell us that one important value is life. The religious right proceeds to focus on the issue of abortion, as the center of the war on life as a value.

But, the truth of the matter is life is not the issue. The argument is not about whether one side of the argument values life, and the other side of the argument does not value life. No, everyone and their dog values life. In fact, many people on the left may be found who value life above and beyond many of those on the right. There are vegetarians on the left who value all animal life. There are anti-war protestors that value the lives of our military and the lives of the enemy that they are shooting at. The real truth is that life is not a debatable issue, we all value life in general. The real question turns out to be - who’s life do we value more than whom else’s life?

Similarly, on the left there are people who worry about our environment. The environment is valued by these people. But, if one was to ask the question - Do you think that we should preserve our environment? - we wouldn’t find many people who would answer no to that question. The environment provides us with the resources that we need to live at all. But, many people find it easy to put a price on the environment. Cheap energy and cheap labor saving devices and cheap entertainment are the price we pay, and many people believe that the price is worth the cost.

The issue of “values” is not really about what we value, but it is about the priority of our values. And, we will never change each other’s minds if we continue to argue about who’s values are important and who’s values are unimportant. Instead we need to discuss and order our priorities.

In a way, this is what we do when we make the laws. We make exceptions for some, which in effect gives these people higher priority. We rule in the case of people’s right effecting other people’s rights and the ruling gives us the priority of the law, and the priority of those values.

For example, when the law determines that the right to walk around naked outside is overruled by the right of someone not to inadvertently see someone walk around naked outside we value lack of nudity over free expression. Our societal values are reflected in our laws.

The reality of the situation is that many of the priorities that the previous generations have written into our laws no longer reflect our current priorities. We no longer have a higher priority on virginity than the well being of our sisters and nieces. We still value waiting until the time is right. But, we no longer think that a woman should be stoned to death for being raped. We now value the woman’s life above her virginity.

The priority of our values is an old question that was being asked by the holy man of ancient history. Perhaps this is why Jesus was sure to proclaim the love of God above all other laws. Jesus was already sorting the values by priority. He said love of God was number 1, and love of your neighbor was number two. Of course we aren’t all Christian nor do we all believe in any particular God at all. So, it is quite obvious that our culture can not have the same priority of values as Jesus told us too.
Thing about values is that we can have values that we all agree upon and we can also have individual values that we can place in our personal order. And, as long as our personal values don’t conflict with the values of society, then we will get along just fine. But, when we change our personal priorities with the societal priorities, then we are in trouble. We can change the value of the priorities that are not written in law, but we can not change the laws unless we go through the law making process.

An easy example of this is the priority we place on work. In some societies it is believed that work is something that needs to be done for society to function properly. In some societies, if you make it to work and put in some time, then you will be paid for what you do, but life is more important than work in general. If a worker were to wake up at noon eat lunch and make it to work by 2:00 PM they would be treated differently in the two societies. That worker might likely find himself fired if he lived in society one, while it could be just a regular work day in society two. When a worker from society two moves to society one, he is bound to take his personal priority system and discover the harsh reality of the new society.

The point that I am trying to make with this post is that the priority of our values is the key to making our society function. But, most of us never discuss this important aspect of our culture. Perhaps this lack of discussion is due to our assumption that we all share similar orders of priority in our values. Perhaps the lack of discussion is due to the complex nature of this task. Perhaps we never really think about the order of our own priorities in enough detail. Or, perhaps we just hijack someone else’s priority list and we don’t bother to consider any other priority, because our personal feelings, wants and desires are filled into the blank slate when we feel the urge. The priority of our values have been given to us through many different and most likely random channels. We understand the priority of our values from our parents, our teachers, our leaders and our preachers. But we also set the priorities of our values from our experience, our friends and our desires. Very few of us ever take the time and effort to compare different values and debate their priorities.

Maybe if we as a community began to discuss our priorities of our values and justify our ordering we could come to a consensus on were these priorities lie within our society. Maybe if we justify our positions we could learn where stumbling blocks and problems block the way. Maybe if we could get the major values defined and ordered we could understand where other priorities should be placed and our perspective would be increased.

Just to get the ball rolling I’ll offer my first stab at this:

1) The survival of our planet.

We all live on this planet, and if it were gone, or destroyed we would not have any place else to live.

2) The survival of life.

Life needs the planet, the planet can evolve life again.

3) The survival of our society.

I would like to use society in a global term, which would include all of the nations of the world. I would sacrifice the survival of our society to allow the planet to survive, because maybe society could once again evolve, but only if the planet still existed.

4) The security of our local region.

The priority of our local region of the planet is more important than the survival of a region that my friends, relatives, family and neighbors don’t occupy. I would sacrifice someone else’s region to save the entire society or planet if I needed to make a choice. The security of other regions often results in security of our own region.

5) The survival of our regional local life - People, plants and animals.

We need life to grow the food we eat, to form the society.

6) The survival of agriculture.

How else could we sustain our society?

7) The survival of my personal culture
8) The survival of other cultures

Go ahead, fill in the blanks, there are lots of them….





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Our experiences effect us in profound ways. Sometimes we don’t see the effect for quite some time. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. experienced the horror of the fire bombing of the German city of Dresden during World War II. Some have argued that this fire bombing was worse than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All of these events left questions in the minds of those who witnessed them. The questions have varied, but they center around how man can hate so much to kill and destroy so much without thinking of the death and destruction that was actually caused. Justification wasn’t really the question, because the people who were effected were not the people who made the choices for which the hatred was directed. The complexity of the situation was truly felt by Vonnegut who had witnessed this horror, but the intricate details he wrote describing it communicated that horror to the wider world. But the wider world had been too euphoric in their victory over evil to understand what they had done. Vonnegut continued to ask if evil had been used to defeat evil. And, he continued to ask it in different ways as he questioned things that we all took for granted or “granite,” the stone structure we use to base our cultural beliefs on.

Slaughterhouse Five was the book that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. used to show us most directly what he thought and felt about this incident. I wasn't forced to read Slaughterhouse Five in High School, I freely chose to read it. I don't think that it was my first Vonnegut book. I believe that was "Welcome to the Monkey House," which was a collection of his short stories. But after reading that I sought and read everything that he wrote. Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle were certainly my High School favorites, although I liked the twisted ending in Slaughterhouse Five.

When I heard that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. had died I knew that I would need to write about his influence on me. When I went out on the web this morning I was struck by how many people were out in cyberspace doing the same thing. He would have smiled at the effect that he has surely had on so many people. Maybe some of his ideas have seeped into our culture like a virus infecting our planet. But, somehow I know that that viral infection is a positive transformative disease. And, maybe that whole concept comes indirectly from some of his insight.

While I was reading Cat’s Cradle my English Teacher saw the book I was carrying and asked to borrow it. I gave it to her a few days later after I had finished it wondering what her reaction to it might be. I had disagreed with her insight into a couple of novels that she had taught up to that point. So, this was my first literary confrontation with an adult “expert” and I was ready to defend my personal taste. And, when she returned the book her only notable remark was that it was anti-science. Of course I had to disagree with her.

But, as I thought about what she had said I realized that anti-science was actually almost right. But, it really wasn’t anti-science but it was against the use of science for warfare. Some people do equate science and the use of that knowledge for less noble developments. Using science to destroy life, or using science to save lives doesn’t really implicate science, but the people who use the information learned from science. Unfortunately, as a young teenage reader I was unable to put that into words the way that I would have liked to. So, instead of saying something like that, I responded with, “Oh really, I didn’t think so.”

I really hate it when that happens, and it still bothers me to this day 30 years later. So, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was indirectly responsible for me wanting or needing to communicate better.

These books and stories have effected me over the years. The little concept of ice-nine in Cat’s Cradle pops into my brain at odd times. Ice-nine is a hypothetical crystalline form of water that freezes above room temperature. I small crystal of ice-nine when placed in water acts as a crystal “seed” causing the water molecules to align themselves in a way that all the water around the crystal would become crystalline as well. The obvious advantage of ice-nine is that the military could turn swamps into hard solid ground. Hence the ability of the military to turn a quagmire like Vietnam into a parade down Main Street USA. Of course the short sighted view of the military advantage eclipses the far reaching consequences of oceans, lakes and rivers freezing all over the world. People would need to develop a whole industry of water mining and melting to provide for the entire planet, not to mention all the lower forms of life that would die of thirst because they couldn’t know that they needed to raise the temperature of the water to drink it.

I think of this when I think of crystal “seeds,” or potential damage from new technology, or even when the stock market rises on the prospect of short term gains over long term health of company. This little allegory is about planning and thinking as well as the cute story that it tells. The cute story just helps one remember the more important lesson of thinking before you act. And so, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was responsible for pushing me to look at the consequences of our actions just a little bit more.

But, maybe Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s ideas were a little bit like the crystal ice-nine seeds that were planted in the world. The way that those who have read and reflected on what Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote has been effected by those ideas. The little molecules of thought in our brains have been rearranged and crystallized into something a little more solid. He has shown us in the immediate sense what should matter to us in order to make the big picture make sense. At least I know that his writing has effected my thoughts in that way.




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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

On March 31, 2004 the world was shocked as they witnessed images of four burned bodies hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. We were told that these men were American contractors hired to secure food deliveries. The interesting thing was that the families of these men were actually told a different story. They were told that they were hired as a special military detailed to protect Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Somebody wasn’t getting the story straight.

These four bodies were being used to rally support for the American effort in Iraq. The supporters of the war used the images to vilify the enemy and to call anyone who questioned the war as unpatriotic. The truth is that these men wouldn’t have even been in harms way if the administration had relied on American soldiers rather than military mercenaries to carry out their missions.

It turns out that the United States has about 150,000 American military in Iraq. But, we also have almost 100,000 American “contractors” in Iraq as well. And, the most aggressive of these contractors are from a company called Blackwater. The men that were hanging on that bridge back in 2004 were contractors from this company.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill has a new book out called “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” In this book he illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding this company. He tells us how Erik Prince, a radical right-wing Christian multimillionaire controls 20,000 troops, a military base and a fleet of 20 aircraft, but most people have never heard of his organization. Even after the macabre hanging on the bridge in 2004, people still don’t know that those men worked for Blackwater. Or, if they did, they didn’t know that those men were actually highly trained military men. Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, Wesley Batalona, Michael Teague and Stephen "Scott" Helvenston were in Iraq and they were soldiers, not contractors.

Stephen "Scott" Helvenston was not only a Navy Seal, he was a Navy Seal trainer. Michael Teague was a decorated 12-year Army veteran who had served in Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada and with a Special Operations helicopter unit nicknamed "Night Stalkers.” Jerry Zovko spoke Arabic and several other languages well enough to chat with the staff in the small hotel where he lived. Wesley Batalona was also an ex-military man an Army Ranger with experience in Panama and the first Gulf War. The point is that these four men had more military experience than many of the soldiers occupying the country at the time. So, to call them contractors actually made them sound more like innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs of the terrorists who hate everything American including these poor guys who could never have provoked anyone by merely guarding the food supply to the Iraqis. At least that is what the press reports tended to imply.

But, in Jeremy Scahill’s book we see another side of this company: Blackwater. It turns out that Blackwater isn’t under the military code of conduct. The company argues that private contractors shouldn’t be subject to military laws, because they are a private contracting firm. They are actually paid through the state department, and other government departments instead of the Pentagon which stands to bolster their argument. But, they act like a roving band of mercenaries with only Erik Prince to answer to.

It turns out that the four men on the bridge had signed quite extensive contracts relieving Blackwater of almost any responsibility in the case of their deaths. But, the four families have gathered their forces anyway in order to sue Blackwater in Civil Court. It turns out that the detailed contract these men signed with Blackwater detailed how the men should be protected on their mission as well. At first Blackwater didn’t worry much about that detail, because Blackwater claimed that the details of the incident would be a military secret that could put the American forces in harms way. So, the fact that the Blackwater employees were traveling in two jeeps without the aid of a rear gunner was kept from the families for nearly two years. This action actually should void the contract and the families of these men are taking the case to court.

But the case may not be a slam-dunk just yet. Did you ever wonder what Kenneth Star is doing these days? You know, the prosecutor who spent nearly five years investigating the Clinton’s real estate dealings and only was able to catch Bill Clinton lying about an affair with an intern at the White House. Well, he is working as a lawyer defending Blackwater from these poor families who have lost the ones they love through the negligence of Blackwater. (It is interesting how he always find himself on the side of evil in these matters.)

It turns out that Blackwater is sparing no expense to defend its right to be above the law. They claim that they don’t need to obey the military code of conduct because they are a private firm. They also claim that they shouldn’t be prosecuted in a criminal court, because they deal with military secrets that could put our troops in jeopardy. They also claim that they can not be prosecuted for any of the actions that they have taken in Iraq under the Iraqi courts, because they are Americans. In fact they seem to have an excuse for almost every possible way they that they could be held accountable for their crimes.

Crimes!? Yes, Crimes. There are many reports in Iraq detailing the antics of the “Blackwater Guys.” They see themselves as above the law. They have reportedly shot at people first, then ask the questions later. Is this the way that America should be building relations with the Iraqis, or others in the Middle East.

Yes, Blackwater isn’t just in Iraq. In fact, they go to the places where the US hasn’t athorized troop deployment yet. Blackwater can go to these places because they are a private company. And, a private company can go wherever they please. Talk about loopholes. Blackwater has found the right combination of circumstances that they have made war a profitable enterprise once again. And the soldiers aren’t the ones getting all that cash. Blackwater charges $950 per day per soldier to the US government, and they pay the majority of their mercenaries $350 per day. The rest of that money seems to go into overhead or Erik Prince’s pocket. We don’t know for sure because that detail is a secret that might jeopardize the safety of the troops in the field, or maybe Erik Prince from his mercenary soldiers.

If you want to know more about Blackwater, then maybe you should read the book. Or, you could listen to Jeremy Scahill interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. The podcast and audio are in the archives at npr.org.














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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

When we think about the though police, we think of some future society in George Orwell’s 1984 where Winston Smith is actually arrested by the thought police that can actually read the minds of public and search for illegal thoughts. The government determines which thoughts are allowed and which thoughts are not allowed.

Currently our world is not so clever as to invent a thought reading device. Some people however are able to identify what others may be thinking. They are able to infer their likely thoughts based on their demographics. This is how elections are so very predictable that candidates need to change their public opinions in order to win over a fraction of those who are unaware of a candidate’s past thoughts.

If we look at a large group of people with a similar background and we offer them a selection of two candidates with extremely different opinions we can certainly predict the outcome of the election in advance. If we offer the same two candidates to a completely different group of people the opposite outcome could be very likely. In a democracy we certainly hope that this is the case, because that is how we believe the system should behave.

Now, if we turn the tables and carefully craft a candidates that says what we know that the electorate wants to hear then we stand a high chance of electing any candidate that is willing to read the speech. It doesn’t really matter what the candidate believes. It is what he is willing to say that can get him elected. And, that is the state of politics today.

Many people have much time and energy invested in this strategy of containment of political power. Many regions of our country have been determined to lean one way or the other, and there is fear that some number of people might change their thinking and be swayed to vote differently. Those who fear a change in thinking would like to control the thoughts of those that live around them. Politicians who have invested their careers into thinking in one particular way would like to maintain a base of supporters who continue to think the same way. Supporters of a candidate that is making laws in favor of them would also like to maintain a solid base of people that continue to think the same way. So, the question becomes - How can we get people to continue to think the same way?

Well, a real life thought police isn’t going to happen very soon, because our ability to read thoughts is only at a very infant stage. So, we resort to other forms of thought control. Peer pressure is probably the first form of control that comes to mind. We all want our friends to agree with us. Because, if our friends didn’t agree with us we would feel obligated to argue with them, and arguments might lead to conflict that might damage our friendship. So, we feel obligated to agree with our friends when we can and save the fights for the really important issues. If a friend likes a political candidate and we don’t have an opinion we might find ourselves supporting the candidate in an effort to prevent an argument.

This type of peer pressure may be extended to acquaintances and neighbors as well. A neighbor who knocks on the door and offers information on a candidate that they support might influence a person who does not have an opinion on a certain candidate.

Peer networks may also use single “frightening” issues to influence how people think that they should think. A “frightening” issue may become a handle for an entire political agenda. The Religious Right may want to change civil laws into religious laws, but the general public wouldn’t allow that to happen outright. But, if the majority of the public dislikes homosexuals, then gay marriage could be the issue that allows the religious right to grab onto a larger segment of society. A candidate running on gay marriage as political issue might be elected with a cohort of similar religious animals and pass a religious law banning divorce for anyone because Jesus told us how bad it is. Or, perhaps they could ban sex outside of marriage, or wearing bikinis in public. Or, perhaps they could even pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of alcohol. Who knows where it would end?

People who have an ideology support their opinions on a set of supporting evidence. Sometimes the evidence that they use comes under fire. Sometimes the evidence itself is merely an opinion supported by only faith that the opinion is correct. Sometimes the arguments can not be supported by any logic at all. How do ideologies like this maintain support?

The older people who support a particular idea will eventually die. Younger people are always being born into the group, and the ideology of the group depends on converting the children to the ideology. This happens in religions all the time. Parents take their children to church, temple or meeting week after week and they hear the same stories year after year. Before they know it the children believe the stories before they can support the stories with reality based logic. If the story tells us that Hercules held the world on his shoulders while Atlas took a break, then the children will know and believe the story until reality bring it into question. When space science shows us that the world is a sphere floating in space the children ask the question: Where does Atlas stand? They won’t ask if Atlas is a real being, they already know that he is. They just want to know where he could stand.

Obviously the ideology that requires the largest “contortions of reason” in order to “believe” in the ideology requires the most defense. And, with that being said it is obvious that children need to learn the “facts” early, and avoid anything contrary to the “facts” until the ideology is hardened like cement. This is where the parents must become the thought police of their children. Parents actually have the power to create the thoughts in their children’s heads. At this point parents can either create thinking questioning children, or accepting faithful unquestioning children. Or, at least many parents believe that they can.

To be fair, this type of indoctrination is by no means restricted to religions. If we think about family history, we all know that there are stories that tell us the injustices suffered in our families. Sometimes these injustices lead to family feuds in which hatred in passed to future generations. Family feuds are extended into national or cultural feuds in some cultures. “Remember the Alamo,” has been passed future generations and remembered to provoke hatred at the future generations of Mexicans. When children are told about this defeat they are instilled with hatred and some are even provoked to feelings seeking revenge. Of course children don’t only react to the story, but they also react to the feelings that their storytellers evoke when telling the story. Stories of the burning of Atlanta evoke emotions of hatred toward the soldiers that burned that large swath of land. But those who burned that land are no longer alive to pay for that deed. Do Atlantans praise this action as an action that shortened that war, or do they hate the Northerners who inherited the responsibility of that action? The answer lies in who tells the story, and how it is told. Children are taught how they should feel from the stories they are told, long before the time when they can weigh all the evidence.

This may explain the seemingly crazy reactions of parents to the history lessons taught in school. History can never take into account of every person’s perspective. It is almost impossible to imagine every injustice that has been perpetuated throughout history. Young men have often been forced into battle to fight for ideas that they didn’t believe in. People have been forced into slavery and conditions that border on slavery. People throughout history have been cheated out of property and forced into tragic conditions. If you personally suffered these tragedies, then it is easy to understand the pain and suffering. If you are a family member from a family with a member who has personally suffered, then it is easy to feel empathy for that person. And, if a member of you local regional culture, ethic culture or national heritage, then you have heard the stories and you are sympathetic for your extended family. And, similarly people outside of this circle get much less sympathy. People with the agenda of passing down the hatred from generation to generation want each generation to feel extreme empathy for their own people and less or no empathy for those outside the circle. Regardless of the truth, the emotional feelings of empathy for one culture over the other is an agenda of some people. The cultural thought police form the young minds of children to pass these feelings to future generations.

And the thought police don’t want you to know this.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

I am of Scots decent. My family has been in this country since 1654; maybe longer because I don’t every ancestor 12 generations or more back 350 years. Over these past 350 years my family has lost the taste for haggis and the urge to toss the caber. In a strange twist of history my ancient ancestor was born after the time when the old style philabeg (predecessor of the kilt) had been banned by the government and before the new style kilt was invented in 1725. My ancestor from Scotland who was captured and brought to the “New World” against his will and sold as an indentured servant had only ever worn pants. It is quite strange to think of the idea of a Scottish Highland games that glorifies the kilt, but had never been part of my Scottish family’s heritage.

Actually there are quite a few ironies and distortions in our relationship between our ethnic heritage and our ethnic culture.

Did that last sentence sound strange to anyone? I am saying that ethnic heritage and ethnic culture are two different things. This is because people no longer live in the same small village for their entire life. More people travel than they used to. And, more people especially in America move around and live in different places. This mobile culture “overwrites” our “hometown” culture. And, when we leave a particular place our memory of that place becomes frozen in our minds as the way that place “IS.” But, the reality is that the place continues to evolve after we leave that place. And, the new place that we find ourselves a part of begins to change because of the ideas that we bring to it.

When we go to another country we take our “American” ideas with us. But those “American” ideas might be a mixture of 1970s Chicago, 1980s rural Texas and 1990s rural California experience plus everything we “know” from TV about America. And when the German who meets you learns about “America” he will form an idea about America that isn’t the same as if she had met a person who has a 1970s New York, 1980s LA and 1990s Seattle experience of America. In fact, it might make sense to talk about a “personal” culture at some point.

But, underlying these experiences of American life that give us an American culture we also have an ethnic culture that is passed down through our family by means of ethnic tradition. But when you live close to people from many different backgrounds it is likely that you will pick up bits and pieces of the cultures that surround you. We see this all the time in regard to food and drink. We eat Mexican, Chinese and Japanese food all the time. We serve bagels, falafel, pita pockets, hummus, coffee and tea that all came from other places and other cultures. We absorb new words and descriptions when we hear our neighbors use them. We wear clothes and shoes that we see our neighbors wear. Culture flows, it isn’t stagnant. But our mind freezes what we see today and we call that American culture. Maybe that is why many of us don’t like change. We have learned to like the culture that we have, because it gives us comfort, but as the culture changes as it always will we find ourselves looking for that old culture that we once knew so well.

My grandmother came to the United States in the early 1900s. She was following her father who was looking for a better life. He first travel to Leadville, Colorado where he went to work in the lead mines. After a short while he learned that the lead mines in Colorado were dangerous. They were dangerous because the owners of the mines owned the town and they knew that the workers didn’t have enough money to just pick up everyone in the family and move to a better place very easily. But my great grandfather was all alone and he didn’t have to pick up the family and move. He just needed to move himself, and so he did. He went to the coalmines in Pennsylvania and worked there, where he found that competition had forced the mines to be safer, although not completely safe.

When my grandmother and her family finally reached Pennsylvania they brought the culture of the “old” country with them. They made friends with others from their country and they attempted to save the traditions that they could. Some of their holidays fell on workdays in Pennsylvania, so they found that they couldn’t celebrate them in the same way. They found that those who wore the latest fashion quickly ridiculed them for wearing their native dress.

With all of this talk about culture, maybe we should define it to make sure that we understand what we mean by culture. And, what it comes down to is that culture is the same as values. What we value is a function of our experience and tradition. When the religious right talks about values they are talking about culture. And, the issue is that some people desire a common culture where everyone understands the standard values of the whole. The problem is that there is no such thing as a common uniform culture in a world where everyone is mobile. People bring their values with them as they move around the world and they leave their values with the people that they have contact with.

There are three broad categories of values: utilitarian, moral and existential. Utilitarian values are the foods and material things that we value. We might say that Americans value hamburgers as utilitarian value. We rank our favorite foods as a country and we determine what we value as the best foods as a culture. If we had a more uniform culture we might be able to have an “American” Restaurant where everyone would agree that “American” food was served there. Maybe it would be called Applebee’s or Marie Calendar’s. It is quite obvious that American food really isn’t a very strong utilitarian value. With so many different ethnic foods brought to the American dinner table our culture is extremely diverse.

Moral values are what we view as a culture to be right and wrong. The Christian right is correct when they say that our moral values are largely based on a Judeo-Christian ethic. This is because people with a Judeo-Christian heritage founded the Untied States and they brought those values with them. But, just because they passed those values down to us does not mean that those are the best moral values that exist. Many cultures have explored moral questions and those cultures have discovered different answers to those questions. Philosophers and theologians have explored the questions of ethics and morals and public discussion on these issues would be a good way to approach the problems we have with moral values. The main problem with our current understanding of morals is that they are based in many different religions, and many people find it difficult to question their personal religion. Therefore many issues such as gay marriage or abortion have little room for debate. There are too many people out there with an absolute view on the issues. If too many people have an absolute view on a religious issue they will not be persuaded by argument, and they will not accept the decision by the majority. If a minority feels strongly about a moral issue that they regard as an absolute, they may resort to violence and believe that they are justified by a higher power.

Even more important than moral values are existential values. These are the values that we have about our purpose as a species, society, culture, family or person. These questions are so important that we are afraid to think about them. We often teach our children to find their purpose through their religion, prayer, meditation or spiritual ritual. Since most of us have little confidence in what our purpose truly is we often defer the question to someone older and wiser, which also have no idea. And, sometimes we just “know” what we are meant to do. Currently, however our country is not united behind any specific purpose. We have determined earlier that we are “not the world’s policeman.” We have also determined that we should “spread democracy throughout the Middle East, starting in Iraq.” But what should our purpose as a country be? With the country being run by a group that believe that we are in the “End Times” predicted by the Bible purpose is not weighing on their minds. And, if we do not have a purpose articulated to the people, then the next crisis will make us ripe for the extremists to take another shot at grabbing for power, like the Bush administration did after 9/11/2001. Next time it might not turn out as well.

The point that I am trying to make with this post is that America is a land of diversity. The diversity is “good” in that it gives us plenty of choices when it comes to culture. Naturally as we experience different cultures we take what we value from them when we can. We take foods and art and ideas. We also take moral and ethical ideas as well when we see that they make more sense or solve social problems. But, with so much diversity we lose a sense of communal culture where we know what everyone else likes and believes. This makes things more difficult, because we need to communicate more to find out what our neighbor thinks. And, when we don’t have a defined purpose as a country, which is most often communicated through the culture, we could find ourselves vulnerable to extremists who could tell us what we should do in time of the next crisis. People will respond more easily if they do not have a clear picture of our purpose. This is a dangerous place for our country to be.

The solution is to discuss these things before we have our next crisis, so that we will be on the same page as a country and not be vulnerable to some crazy lunatic in the next crisis.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Reflection

Greed is a reflection of someone who fears that they don’t have enough money. If you think about a person who seems to have everything that anyone could want, you will undoubtedly think of greed. A person amasses a huge fortune because of many reasons, and among them is greed. We can think of Scrooge from the Dickens story A Christmas Carol. His focus was no longer on the purpose of his company but instead on making money at all cost of human suffering. Putting money above human need is the traditional definition of greed. And, the most obvious reason that someone would put money over other people’s needs is because of a fear of not having one’s own needs met.

Not long ago I wrote about fear and its relationship to our motivations. We react out of fear when we don’t think through the logic of the situation. Fear is a natural reflexive emotional reaction to the unknown. In the case of greed, we don’t know if we are going to have enough money in the future so we strive to make more money and save more money and spend less money in order to protect ourselves from the unknown future.

On the other hand, gluttony is another form of greed. Gluttonous people fear that they will not be able to eat the food that they love, so they eat more of it. A person in this state of mind suffers an even more exaggerated problem when they try to cut high calorie foods from their diet. This is because they are accustomed to eating particular foods, and they have formed a habit of eating them. There is comfort in eating what one is familiar with, and when someone denies themselves from a particular treat the mind begins to fear that it will never have this treat again. Over time the fear grows larger the long that the fear remains unsatisfied. Ones mind is quite imaginative, and that imagination makes the fear grow, until the person ravaged by fear finally caves in and eats the treat to allay the fear and receive the comfort sought.

The odd thing is that gluttony is the greed of food and also the fear of starvation. But, a very similar but exactly the opposite problem is anorexia nervosa. In this case narcissism has gotten out of control because of the fear of obesity. People suffering this affliction begins to fear that they will not measure up to the social or cultural standards. They fear that not measuring up will result in an isolated existence where people will shun them for their appearance. As a result a sufferer will do anything to reduce weight and even starve themselves. The fear becomes so large that all other fears are minimized. Obviously a person suffering from anorexia nervosa fears being fat above the fear of not having their favorite treat. In fact they fear being fat beyond the fear of death in some cases. It is quite curious how these two extremely opposite fears can play such havoc with people.

And, in this sense I was beginning to think about my personal health. As I have written many times before I have been a bit more health conscious over the last few years. I have increased my exercising and decreased my calorie intake. I have lost 50 pounds and I am currently maintaining my weight. And, this is where the fear comes in.

I have been very rigid about my workout schedule. In fact, any of my previous attempts to control my weight have generally failed because of the randomness of my commitment. So, I had been working out every morning for about one hour. This workout generally burns about 800 calories, based on my treadmill work. I assume that swimming with about the same effort for the same amount of time would result in the same number of calories burned. Therefore, I have been burning 4800 additional calories per week on average for a couple of years now. But, in September things changed. The last two years I had continued working out for an hour each day, and my wife would drive the second car to the health club and work out about 15 minutes less in order to get home to make sure the kids were ready for school on time. This year I thought that the 15 minutes wasn’t so important, so I decided to go with my wife, leave with my wife and work out 15 minutes less. Therefore I could help getting the kids ready for school.

The weird thing about this is that I know that I don’t need to burn as many calories now that I am not trying to loose any weight. But, I have an irrational fear that I may not be doing enough. If I am burning 75% of what I was burning which means that I am now burning 3600 calories per week on average. Rational thoughts that float through my mind keep telling me not to worry about it. But the irrational thoughts come back occasionally and tell me that I should be doing another 1200 calories worth of work per week. Maybe I should run an extra hour and a half on Sundays. Or maybe I should run an extra half hour every other day at lunch time. But, I know that I am doing enough the way that it is. The battle of fears continues in my mind.

Even when you know that it is there fear can make you do irrational things. I guess that’s why laws work so well. People know that it is against the law to steal things, so for the most part people don’t take each other’s stuff, even if they see it sitting on the side of a building. Only a small number of people actually do break into people’s home and steal stuff. These are obviously the people who are not subject to the same fears as most people. These are the people who don’t fear being arrested or going to jail. People who don’t fear traffic tickets will disregard the traffic laws. People who fear the retaliation of local gangs will break the laws to avoid the more fearful prospects. Whatever the fears are, it is difficult to control our reactions to them.


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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


Cross Posted @ Bring It On, tblog, Blogger and BlogSpirit



Fear, Psychology

I’ve written about expectations before. I don’t remember when or in which post I told this story, but I believe that I have told it before. I may have written about it trying to make another point, but the story tells how and why I began to think about expectations.

When I was an undergraduate I was in love with a woman, a student at the school. I was attracted to her bright cheerful outlook on life. Nothing seemed to phase her. She wasn’t a brainless cheerleader; she was a bright young woman with tremendous insight into life. She told me things about the world that I hadn’t even imagined. She recommended books that I read and learned quite a bit. I read about an Indian Yogi and a book on human psychology. Some of the ideas went against my preconceived view of the world, but these ideas always got me thinking.

The problem with our relationship was rooted in our disagreement about how we saw the world. We both seemed to be naïve about how our relationship should develop. She seemed to be looking for some mystical connection that she felt didn’t exist. I felt a strong mystical connection and I expected our relationship to deepen. So I began to create in my mind the way things should play out. And, since we talked a lot we continuously talked about the problem with our relationship. And, finally after some long period of discussion she told me this: “You just have too many expectations.”

At that moment I hadn’t even thought about my expectations. Obviously, I had many expectations, but I just hadn’t thought about them as expectations. In fact, since they were expectations I just expected them to be the way my world was. Yes, I did have expectations. I expected that I would finish college, learn what I needed to know to get a job in some science-related way. I expected that I would meet a girl, fall in love and have a wonderful life. I expected that I would continue to explore and discover the world with travel as well as observation. I expected that all these things would help me live the wonderful life that I expected to have.

But, the next statement that I heard from her changed the way I thought about everything. It was a simple observation that both enlightened and baffled me. She said, “If you don’t have any expectations then you will never be disappointed.”

Reread that sentence again and think about that. It is certainly true. If you don’t expect to pass a test, then how could you be disappointed with failure? If you don’t expect to graduate from school, then how could you be disappointed with not graduating? If you don’t expect a happy life, then how could anything disappoint you? If you don’t expect anyone to fall in love with you, then how could you be disappointed with no one falling in love with you?

Suddenly, the whole picture came into focus. This giddy young woman was a bubbling spring of happiness because she had no expectations. She was on a karma stream. She did nice things for people without expectations, and she was rewarded without expecting it. I began to ask myself if my problems were only problems because of my expectations instead of my lack of luck or skill.

Well, this idea is not a Western idea. In America we believe in setting goals, planning and accomplishing those goals. We set goals with expectations in mind; particularly we expect to reach our goals. We plan our actions based on the expectation that each step will be accomplished. And, we become disappointed when we don’t reach our goals. We can argue that this cycle of goal orientation is what made America strong, and we can argue that this cycle of goal orientation is at the root of the stress in so many Americans today.

It is clear that all of us can not live in the extreme version of this life with absolutely no expectations and still have the society in which we live in. Maybe the society that we would have instead would be a little bit more laid back and a lot less technical. Maybe a Hippie Commune would approach life in this way. But, the question that would bother most of us is: “Where does motivation come from if we have no expectations?” Why would someone choose to excel in anything that they do without the motivation to excel? The woman that I was dating was certainly motivated, but it wasn’t from her own expectations.

In fact, as our relationship gradually withered I discovered that she did have very few personal expectations, but instead she had a multitude of parental expectations to satisfy. She was free to live in a world believing that she wasn’t disappointed because she never expected to satisfy her personal expectations. But I became aware that my relationship with her wasn’t part of her parental expectations for her. And, even though it took me some time to realize this when I finally did I was already in another relationship and it really didn’t matter. I no longer had any expectations that the relationship would work out. And, I wasn’t disappointed. It was an ironic ending to a doomed relationship anyway.





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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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Relationships, Love, Culture