Don’t Hear Anything Bad About This One

While I do not know that I necessarily ascribe to the “Messenger” aspect of the Baha’i Faith, its “oneness of religions”  stance is appealing.   Bahai’i core principles:

Oneness of humanity and dignity of every human being

Freedom from prejudice

Equality of women and men

Spiritual solution to economic problems

Commitment to education and the search for truth

Harmony of faith, reason, and science

Highest moral standards

Improve the material, social, and spiritual life of each community

One of their proverbs stood out for me:

“Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner.”

I sure fail at that one now and then and need to do better!

Bother That

Does it bother no one that we prosecuted and jailed—at hard labor—Japanese for waterboarding?  That we apparently courtmartialed an American soldier in Vietnam for doing it?  And yet today we say when we did it last decade “it wasn’t torture,” or “it was justified,” or “well, maybe it wasn’t exactly right, but we certainly aren’t going to prosecute anyone for it.”

As conscience dims, a dark state fills the void.

Something we should remember whenever our desire for “safety” and “security” from possible terror attacks tempt us to give up who and what we truly are and should be.  Isn’t it better that hundreds, maybe thousands, of people POSSIBLY be put in danger rather than all of us lose our collective American soul?

Vacuousa a la Roma

The ethical decline of selfish “elites,” and the spiritual vacuousness of the West in general, and the US in particular, are demonstrated in how many non-elites are willing to join anything with a sense of surety, even if that surety comes with a violent and regressive nature, as with the Islamic State group.  If that surety is also trying to overthrow the often corrupt and often self-serving Western and Western-supported order, it finds even more attraction.  Those willing to join have morphed from Middle-Eastern related people to people of all kinds.  Will this cause the West, and especially the US, to look at itself?  Unlikely.  What is more likely is that the West will merely escape into more diversion, denial, and blind reaction.  A foundational crisis—already in motion from environmental and other factors—could be in the offing, and failing to meet that crisis would signal the decline and fall, however slowly or quickly, of Western civilization.  Ironically, just as much of the world wants so many elements of that civilization. 

Rather like Rome less than 2000 years ago.

The Richness of Our Knowledge and The Impoverishment Of Our Actions

It is hard to see how we could be more utter failures about poverty than we are.  We KNOW what to do about it, we HAVE the resources, we UNDERSTAND the second and third order effects of poverty, we COMPREHEND WELL that reducing poverty actually REDUCES overpopulation.

And yet we throw up our hands every year.

Or attach some ridiculous precondition on any real effort.

We could not be much farther away from Jesus’s words and actions.

The privileged should have to trade places for a week with the markedly unprivileged.  Much would change. MUCH.

See It

“The Act of Killing”

Contending In The Mortal Playground

Power has an addictive or consuming allure to those whose relationships—past and present—are starved, twisted, or dysfunctional.  And the diseased nature(s) of what those relationships (or lack of relationships) have done often determines how maniacal or damaging the pursuit of power is.

Mother Example

My mother died Friday.

I was flying back from a work trip and arrived at her side 45 minutes after she died.

Yes, I know, there’s no sense in anguishing over that.  Things of this mortal life, and mortal life itself, should not be excessively focused on.  And lots of people’s mothers die every day, one could tell oneself.  But those reminders do little good, for all pain is personal, not comparative.

   

Because she was MY mother, and I will miss her terribly every day, and wonder if I could have been a better son.

 

She was a brave woman as she struggled to preserve dignity during her increasingly debilitating, frightening, and suffocating disease.  I watched her take the news of her death sentence last year with a stoicism that would have made a Buddhist monk proud.

She chose to remain at home throughout the ordeal.  Yes, it required hospice, some out-of-pocket caregiving services, and us, her family, for the last several weeks to make that work.  And yes, my mother still fretted, worried, and stressed about things at times.  But resource-wise, she used little.  Apart from oxygen, some morphine, and some sleeping pills, she did not cost “the system” very much.

I never asked her to do that.  As far as I know, she didn’t even know the viewpoint I’ve expressed here and on the Professor and Housewife page about how the elderly in America get a grossly disproportionate share of the resources compared to the resource-deprived young.

Knowing her, she might not have even bothered with cataract and glaucoma surgery a while back if she’d known her timeline more exactly.

She was much like her husband during his similarly degenerative disease progression, and maybe she saw how things should go because of that, because she herself was front and center in that caregiving until the very end.  There could be irony, even bitter irony, in that, but there could also be the example of dignity in the end and to the end.

My mother was in many respects a simple woman, and always much kinder to me than I ever deserved.  But then again, she was kind to most everyone.  Two hours before she died, she thanked, through gasping breaths, the hospice nurse who had come to take her vitals.

Yes, she and my dad had faults.  But the examples of their lives, and the goodness of their characters, meant far more to me than their faults.

 

I hope I can live my own life to be worthy of you, Joe and Darlene.

A Drugged Conversation

Apologies for missing a week!

With much talk about some states legalizing marijuana, and the Obama administration’s declaration that they will not press federal enforcement against possession of small amounts in those states, the topic of general legalization of many of the presently illegal substances comes up.  Talk about how it would free up our prison systems and courts from dealing with non-violent “offenders” who aren’t really criminals.  How it would take away money and reason for existence for many violent criminals and criminal organizations. How it could return both money and tax revenue to society.  And so forth.  All good possible benefits.  Yet let us not wear blinders.

Legalizing drugs will not solve things without our addressing the root causes which are driving demand.  And those root causes are directly related to the disconnected, non-communal society we have made, and the assumptions and paradigms of our culture that stresses, frustrates, alienates, isolates, depresses, and leaves no place for far too many.  

Better

What should become part and parcel of our character, and first and foremost on our minds? Simply this: To make it a better world for more of us than for fewer of us.

The Spirit of Irony

An ironic thing: Religion should help spirituality, but often enough, it instead gets in the way.

Getting To Know "Them"

I say to those who rail against the “deadbeats” and “takers” and “moochers” and “dependency-heads”: How many do you PERSONALLY know?  And how well do you know them?  Do you know their story? 

Because it’s easy to be against something in the abstract.  Be specific.  And about more than just a few glaring cases.  One can’t single out a few and imply a mass problem, while ignoring the scraping many who want dignity and the chance for a livable wage in exchange for their hard work.

We rarely get to know those who we condemn.

A Noble Character in Fantasy Fiction With Instruction For Us

“Guilt resembles a sword with two edges.  On the one hand it cuts for justice, imposing practical morality upon those who fear it.  Guilt, the consequence of conscience, is what separates the goodly persons from the evil.  Given a situation that promises gain, most drow can kill another, kin or otherwise, and walk away carrying no emotional burden at all.  The drow assassin might fear retribution but will shed no tears for his victim.  To humans—and to surface elves, and to all of the other goodly races—the suffering imposed by conscience will usually far outweigh any external threats.” Drizzt Do’Urden, pp. 63-64 of Sojourn.

A Roar A What?

The shootings have people fixated on this incident, which is tragic, but not in a major way.  Hundreds of thousands didn’t die, not even thousands or even hundreds.  More happens each day, both directly and indirectly, to affect far more people, and far more significantly.  But let’s look at this incident anyway:

1.     Who was the perpetrator?  Another loner white young male.  What does that say about our society?  That maybe we’ve lost our connection to each other and our affection for and responsibility to the greater society?  That maybe we can’t distinguish illusion and diversion from reality?  That too many feel powerless, that their lives are put upon or have no meaning?  That our very culture (and its vacuousness or exploitive nature) spurs mental illness—violent mental illness—too often?

2.     The proponents of, and those against, gun control, line up and start spouting.  What if the very premise of their argument is off?  Lots of societies (Finland, Sweden, Britain, etc.) have few to no guns, and have few problems of mass murder.  Others have a lot of guns, and also few problems.  An example of the latter is Switzerland, which is not a homogenous society, but has a “well-regulated militia.”  Switzerland’s pretty safe. 

3.     Handguns deserve separate consideration.  Since handguns have little to no function outside of offensive or defensive use against humans (and only secondarily in warfare behind assault rifles, etc.), societies with profusions of them tend to be more violent than others.

4.     As we become less trusting of each other, as we know each other less, as we find less in common, we have become what Vance Packard warned us about in his 1970 book, A Nation of Strangers.   A nation whose inhabitants lock themselves behind their doors often.  More gated communities.  More worrisome overprotection, which isolates even further.  We have become hyper-individualistic and increasingly non-communal.  This is likely reflected in opinion polls about handgun control.  Around 70% favored such  measures 40 years ago.  Barely 25% do today.  Fear and distrust, that.  We are a disconnected and afraid society.

5.     Still, is it an “epidemic” of mass murder violence?  Not statistically, not by a long shot (yes, another pun), and the chance of it happening to you or yours is really, really small.  But it does contribute to more fear, more suspicion of fellow citizens.  And the more focus on it, the more it is sensationalized, the greater chance some copycat will be moved to action.  And the rule of terrorist-type impact is to try to outdo one’s predecessors.

6.     Would more armed people have prevented it?  Unlikely.  The loners are usually ready to die, for starters.  More importantly, since they get to fire the opening salvo (where most casualties usually happen), that’s not going to be prevented outright.  Especially if sophisticated tactics (like the tear gas employed) are used.   And while the shooter MIGHT have been shot down by other armed members, does that really make you all feel safer?  What if it becomes a crossfire situation?  Even if you’re armed, being in a crossfire sucks, and can be even more deadly.  And how exactly are first responders (police) going to sort out “the bad guy(s)” when they arrive?  In general, having a population armed while “in public” creates more problems than it solves.  For example, misunderstandings, misperceptions about actions or movements, etc. can trigger (pun intended again) a violent reaction to…nothing.  More people would get hurt or killed with dozens or hundreds of these “misunderstandings” in a year than in 20 years of mass murders like what occurred in Aurora.

Everyone wants a simple answer, to “fix it.”  There aren’t any for this.  We have to, in this, as for many things, come to the realization that life is better when low risk is assumed, rather than extreme efforts to mitigate that low risk.

But the bigger issue is, what kind of society do we have and are perpetuating?  Correcting that will do more to secure us than anything.  It is also the hardest road.  The result will be worth it though.  However, it does takes more courage and determination than just buying more guns.  

REMEMBER

Given what today is, the message is all on the Professor and Housewife side of this blog...

Absolutely Speaking

“I am done.”

“We are through, forever.”

“My biological father made his choice to not be a part of my life.  I don’t care about him anymore.”

“I’ll never be like that again.”

Oh, humans, and their funny words.  Spoken into the ether, into the universe, into eternity. 

The ether, the universe, and eternity all laugh back.

When it comes to relationships, nothing is so certain as uncertainty.  In fact, what becomes unusual is when someone actually fulfills, to the letter, what they say.

Because:

You probably aren’t done.  You might be momentarily frustrated, furious, hurt, or something else, but when you calm down, you’ll likely be back in (sometimes illogically or even incredibly) for another round.

Forever is so long your puny and time-bound consciousness can’t even adequately conceive it.  But it seems to make you feel better to thunder about finality, although disinterested observers probably only think it makes you look silly.

Of course you care about your father.  No matter how bad or absent he has been, he’s your father.   You would forgive him a thousand times for a chance at acceptance, at connection, at love.

Those who issue guarantees about the future spit in the wind, and often set themselves up to be liars. But we seem to have a desire for ourselves of the fortitude of futuristic pronouncements, and so the solitary, biological, limited-senses, mortal unit presumes to pronounce what he or she cannot even see, let alone have certainty of power to determine!

Ever get the feeling that otherworldly beings might somewhere be chuckling endlessly at us? :)

The Ancients

The ancient philosophers took a great deal more opportunities to truly THINK than we usually do.  Consider, in this political season of hyperbole but without further comment, this quote from Aristotle’s Ethics, on what people should do in their behavior and their thinking “in order to become happy or to avoid unhappiness, the principal emphasis being placed on the cultivation of the virtues, both moral and intellectual, although other goods are also recognized as necessary for happiness, such as wealth, health, friends, and a just society in which to live.”

Our challenge is to holistically see and value all the parts of what he said, and not just pick out pieces.

We Are Not Regenerating

As the readers of the P&H joint blog know, I returned from a two week vacation relatively recently, the first in too many years (a long story for a prof). Sure, I got bits of time in those years—a few days here, a few days there—but not a vacation, and I certainly don’t count “working vacations” (if work is involved, it’s not a real vacation). Frederick Taylor, for all his probable damage to the soul of work (or, in his defense, at least the perversion of his techniques by others), did determine that 14 days/2 weeks off (he is generally credited with scientifically establishing the basis for the 2-week American vacation) was necessary to return a modern, industrial-age worker to the same effectiveness and efficiency he had when he began to work.

But this frenetic American culture, and one tied in electronically at nearly all times, doesn’t get that. People “can’t afford” to be gone from the workplace that long—think of the work that will pile up, not to mention the emails, etc., as well as the workplace politics that will work against in the absence, plus, if you can be gone that long, they will think they can do without you, and they will—permanently. So people end up getting away in driblets of 3-7 days at most. It isn’t enough. If 7 or even 10 days had been enough, Taylor would have determined it, for he didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for workers.

And so we don’t rest and recuperate, and we don’t regenerate. We plow forward in semi-panicky exhaustion, and we burn our adrenal systems out (even a small amount of stress effectively continual will do enormous damage, and we usually have far more than a small amount), let alone the damage we do to the rest of our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and relational health.

And all this doesn’t even include the stress outside the workplace. We need the time off. ALL of it. In a row. But we don’t get it. Some of this we do to ourselves. Much of the rest, the culture does to us. And part of that culture is the exploitative nature of work—exploitative commoditized-labor companies and organizations that is the reality in far too many instances.

My Finnish friends were right—American workplace culture is not sustainable to the human spirit, and killing quality of real life around the world, because with globalization, everyone has to compete.

Disorganized Religion

Anne Rice, the famous author of the wildly popular “Interview With A Vampire,” and other novels, says she is done with Christianity. "For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out," she said on her Facebook page this week. “I remain committed to Christ as always, but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else."

Her comments reminded me a bit of Edward Gibbon’s comments on the nature of early Christians, which has been romanticized by many, but who held (at least in the latter stages of the Roman Empire) many of the same qualities that Rice cites above.

With Christianity as organized religion facing stiff challenges from, among other things, materialism, time-mania, entertainment obsession, jadedness, disconnection, and apathy, not to mention questions about Biblical accuracy/applicability and a surging Islam, what is its likely future? Will its central tenets of the written example of Jesus remain, and the rest be modified or even discarded? Will it transform into something the present day would not recognize? Will it itself resurge? What is its likely progression through history? And what of the central monotheistic nature and connectedness of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which to an alien from another world would seem like one religion with 3 main divisions and many sub-divisions?

I’m not sure which, if any, of those questions can be addressed and in what fashion. They are just my musings for today! :)