Maps and Keys

I have just finished reading three of five books written by author, philosopher, neuroscientist, Sam Harris.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004)
Letter to a Christian Nation (2006)
The Moral Landscape: How Science Cn Determine Human Values (2010)

I read them in the order he wrote them and have yet to read "Lying" or "Free Will", the last two book he has written thus far, but plan to get to them soon.

I suggest reading his books.  The idea of honesty comes to my mind.  Or maybe dishonesty, with regards to our own, with our selves and those around us.  Fear also comes to mind as well as just plain laziness.  This fear and laziness that each of us clutch on to in order to avoid thinking for ourselves and making real and honest observations and assessments of our situation in this world, in this life.

I gathered that Harris would have us decide our morals, rules for society and laws by way of reasoning out what is best for attaining, and what is, human well being.  I am all for it, but I would go a step further.  In a step that might be dismissed as just a matter of semantics I would say that we need to base our values, morality, and governance upon what is best for attaining the well being of the "living community", or of all things, if you don't want to include the planet as part of the living community.

I perceive that much of the suffering and struggle and strife that is beset upon us and the rest of the world is the tendency to separate out humanity from the rest of the living community, as if our well being alone could be achieved without the well being of the very community that supports us.

Much of religious belief says that the world was put here, by God, for the benefit of man, or at least, for man's usefulness.  This idea, or at least our interpretation and implementation of that idea, has set upon us most of our troubled situation.  Wether we are defining the minerals of the earth or other human beings and animals, as being for our usefulness, we are subjugating all of the world to human needs and cravings, and weakness, all in isolation, and justifying the destruction of the very relationships that support us.  We do this with a divine justification.

Even as Harris points out the liabilities in basing our morality, and thus governance, on religious principal and dogma, he has led us into an equal but different trap of creating our value structure from a point of human well being that removes the human being from the physical world in which it exists, from all the life that makes that world and our existence possible, and good.

I am well aware that most religious doctrine would have us devalue the physical world, and value only the spiritual world, that we have yet to know in any way, shape, or form.  The conflict this creates in us, between us and the rest of the living world and amongst each other is what we are facing as the source for our very destruction of our race, at best, and the end of what is known life at worst.

We look out now, with this amazing state of technology that we are in, and see into other time.  Even with such range of vision we have found little if any signs of anything that we would call life.  We, this planet, this community of living organisms is unique as far as we can see.  Yet, for the sake of greed, and sloth we corrupt and destroy and extinguish life and relationships around us at a rate and level that is simultaneously impressive and horrific and stupid.

We each do this, every day of our lives, many times over each day.  We can observe that rivers flood and drowned fields and that fires burn forests, that animals of the forests, jungles, oceans kill and eat other animals of the forest, jungles, and oceans, but if we look honestly at ourselves, what we are doing is not at all comparable.  We use this as evidence that we are different from the rest of the living community and to reinforce our belief in a divine plan for salvation.  But what we are looking for salvation from is what we are making of ourselves and our world.  It is a self manifesting destiny and an ignorant and stupid choice of situations.

We could go back to hunter gatherer lifestyles and turn our backs to industry and technology and wait while the systems that support us regain some balance and health.  We could do away with possession of lands and monetary systems and live more as the rest of the living community lives.  Actually, we probably couldn't, and why would we?  But, we can pick a more reasonable path.  A path of honesty about what we know, and what we don't.  A path that allows for what we need to be really happy, not just occupied with the pursuit of supposed happiness while never actually attaining it.

I think that a path to real well being can't begin with anything less than the perspective that our well being is completely dependent on the well being of the rest of the living community.  If the world, the earth, the animals and plants that are our food and sustenance, the water that is unique to this planet, the climate that allows all of this to flourish, if all of this is not in a state of well being first, then we are going to find if very hard, if not impossible to attain well being for ourselves as individuals, and as a species.  This perspective leads us to understand the need for well being that goes beyond the individual, the family, the neighborhood, the town, the state, the country, the species and opens our minds to the need for compassion towards all life and being.

Having said all that, I am grateful to Sam Harris for his work and articulation of thought and highly recommend his books and lectures/debates that I have found on Youtube.

More Maps! "I Am"

It's is still in the DVD player.  I had to write this to tell you about it.

I Am
     A movie from Tom Shadyac, 2011

In one movie what has seemed to me like influence from many different directions, saying similar things, all converge, literally right on the screen.

John Francis, the author activists who took a vow of silence and abstention from motorized transportation, FOR 18 YEARS, and walked across the country, wrote 2 books, got his PhD....
Daniel Quinn, who I have just recently read and blogged about.  Then there are the more historical persons who's ideas and messages have driven me to not settle, not quit, not give up hope, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr.,   and the younger new scientist and thinkers who are at a unique place in our history to be able to collect this thought and information and fearlessly add it up to something different, unconventional, a shift from popular thought and action.


What is wrong with the world?  I am.

But, when we realize this we are on our way to being able to say:

What is right about the world?  I am.

I wish you love

Maps

On this path to find the reasonable, the more balanced and sensible way in my life, I have been helped, maybe even guided along by the lessons of so many others, who I believe, were on the same journey.  I have a son.  He is a young man now 20 years old.  I was able to teach him little as he grew from a child because I did not raise him.  I would like to start what I believe will be a re-occuring entry that lists the sources I have read and watched that I believe to be very important and inspirational, and educational, and even enjoyable.
     I will start with this entry and with what I am now reading, but I will make entries in the future that will actually be about thoughts I have encountered in the past, before I got the idea to list them here.  I list them here so that my son, as well as anyone else, can find these thoughts and ideas and inspirations too.  Enjoy, learn, contemplate.  We all need guides and so many minds better than mine with wills stronger than mine have asked, researched, mused and put down articulately so much.

Right now I am reading:

The Practice of the Wild, by Gary Snyder
     originally published by North Point Press, 1990
     I have just finished reading Good, Wild, Sacred, page 84 and think this is very worth reading.  Gary Snyder is someone who is better just to read than to try and have explained.  Important, brave, human and compassionate work.

One of the best things I read a few years ago was:

The Art of the Common Place, The Agrarian Essays of  Wendell Berry
     Counter Point Press, 2002
     Wendell Berry is a wonderfully talented writer, both in fiction and non fiction essay.  I have read most of his books and will return to them often.

A few weeks ago I read two books from one author, back to back.

Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

The Story of B, Daniel Quinn
     Bantam Books, 1996
These two books are related, maybe best called part of a series.  They have had a very strong affect on my perspective of the religion, the living community, our culture and the future of our species, all species.  In many ways the ideas put forth in these books has put agriculture up as an ill, or a vice of man, which is so contrary to how reading Wendell Berry makes me feel about it.  I believe the key is that there are vastly different types of agriculture, despite the conventional view.  I have finished reading these books and found myself in a very different relationship with the rest of our culture and society.  Not for the weak of heart or mind, it will challenge you.

I just watched these DVD's:

Being in the World, a film by Tao Ruspoli
     Alive Mind media, 2011
     Being in The World movie trailer - YouTube
Heidegger's philosophy in our lives as artists, & as humans.

Surviving Progress, a film by Mathieu Roy & Harold Crooks
     Cinemaginaire, 2011
Surviving Progress - Official® Trailer [HD] - YouTube
What is progress, what is truly beneficial to us verses what we believe these things to be and how we act.

   So, for my son and for all others who dare to step off the tarmac of the interstates and onto and into the trails that wander thru the woods, fields, deserts, and mountains, twisting around rocks streams and trees, rather than blasting thru or paving over them, here are some maps to help you find your way, to help you understand what and where you are, to give you insight as to where it is you might want to be headed and where it is you may actually be able to go.  Happy reading, happy travels.

Sandy

Sandy

As I walked around the property, again, to see what else I could do to secure the place against the probable strong winds, heavy rain and falling trees, I heard voices down the way.  From up on the rock ridge on the north side of my place I could see my neighbors family all out around their pond.  They were duck hunting, but not with guns, it looked like they had a big fishing net, maybe a towel, and a few kids with flailing arms.  They keep about 5 or 6 white ducks with orange beaks in their pond and they seemed to be gathering up the ducks to put them in the coop, with the chickens, hopefully out of harms way, before the storm hit.  I also noticed that the pond was a few feet lower.  He must of taken out the boards to the spill way to lower the level to prevent flooding, should heavy rains come.

Later, I got a call from another neighbor.  He wanted to let me know that he wasn't going off to any of his jobs, he's in construction, and that he'd be staying put during the storm.  He let me know that if I needed anything, he was there.  He had plenty of gas for the generators, so if I needed some he had extra.  He sounded quite unhappy about the weather that was coming and a bit worried about how it might knock down trees and cause all kinds of damage.  He had been here thru hurricane Floyd and that was a mess.

It seemed like most folks around here were taking the threat of the hurricane seriously, and I was glad, because I was sure taking it seriously.

My morning routine is to check headlines of the new search engine, Google news, see what people are interested in, then my email, then the current earthquake activity around the globe.  I like to see what's shaken, how hard and when.  The news outlets don't talk much about the earthquakes unless they create a bit of damage.  I've gotten to feel as though there are some patterns, or reflections I call them, from larger quakes that happen in the days following.  Don't know that it is useful data, at this point, but it might be eventually.

Next I turn to the weather.  I routinely check not one, but four weather sites every morning, as well as looking out my door and looking at the sky, and sniffing the air.  The 4 different weather sites have slightly different reads of the models and data that are available, and they have 4 very different ways of presenting the data.  They all use graphics and numbers that are close to the same thing, but they present it very differently.  One is just plain facts, no drama, that's NOAA.  NOAA is pretty accurate, but not always as explanatory and sometimes not as early in the forecast.

Of course there is TWC, The Weather Channel, and they are very good to, but very sensational, lots of graphics and hype and the whole feeling of the site is a bit tedious.

Then there is AccuWeather, and they are somewhere between NOAA and TWC.  The guys at Accuweather keep blogs that are very educating, both about weather and about how geeky weather guys are, though the last part is probably unintentional.  The guys here are really good, and they aren't afraid to put out there opinions early, and they are usually pretty accurate.

The fourth site is Weather Underground, who sadly, have just been bought up by TWC.  I say sadly because I appreciate the independent analysis and freedom to put out statements with out the larger corporation figuring liability and how to present a uniform front.  The heads of this site seem like real scientist and researchers and educators.  I respect their opinions and that they are the ones who provide easy access to weather imagery of the entire planet, not just North America.  The weather on the planet is all related and they present it that way.

A week before Sandy hit New Jersey and rearranged the barrier island map, the computer models were saying this could happen.  The braver or more brazen weather forecasters were saying it was going to happen.

When I look at the weather maps I always favor the worst case scenarios and plan for that.  It is easy to plan for the best case scenarios and be right most of the time and go on as if nothing happened.  It is just as easy in my opinion to choose the worst, be wrong and go on living.  It is kind of hard to choose the best case scenario, be wrong, and go on living, sometimes it is even impossible.

One could say that by making my choices I am missing out on life and that I might be running around scared.  My attitude is the same one I had when I was climbing 2000 vertical feet on a rock wall, or sailing single handed in heavy weather or skiing in the mountains or riding a motorcycle across and up and down the country.  I don't think this attitude kept me from having a good time or living my life, and in fact, I think it allowed me to live it more fully.  I think it allowed me to be prepared for much of the things that would go wrong and otherwise end my fun.

We had a 50 foot tall tree on the place that was uphill of the garage/shop and I had been worrying over it coming down and crushing the place of one of the vehicles.  I wanted to take it down but hadn't because it is a sassafras tree and they can be so weak as to make them risky to climb.  Well Sandy took it down for me and it did hit the garage but only glancing.  It didn't really do any damage, but to the gutter.  I am glad that I moved the mast to the boat, the tree would have crushed it.

We put fuel in the vehicles on the weekend before the storm and that is now paying off because people have panicked and there is a rush for fuel.

I guess I could divide up people into two categories, those who prepare and those who don't.  The people who live out here on the edge of the park, in the woods are maybe a bit more independent and plan to have to take care of themselves, while it seems that the folks who live one on top of each other or in crowded neighborhoods are more dependent on public services and the flow of electrons, or petrol, or money from the atm and the flow of information on the internet.

I count on the flow of the water, the flow of the jet stream and the winds it brings.  I count on the flow of things from high to low as the affects of gravity work on them, and the flow of the tide from low to high as the moon pulls on the sea.

Given the choice of $5 or an apple, most of us would choose the $5, but for different reasons.  Most people would figure with $5 they could buy an apple and have money left over.  That is probably true, as long as there is enough food of some sort around, but if not, $5 may not buy an apple and a $5 bill isn't very much to eat.  The reason I'd choose the $5 over the apple is because I have access to apples, they grow in my yard, and I have access to a lot of food already.  I also know that I can walk outside or into the woods and find more food to eat.  I have a harder time getting $5 these days, but then again, I don't need for much money when I have access to food, and water, and I know how to get more, with out money.

the chant to rebuild started before the water has even receded.  These castles made of sand can be rebuilt, and probably will be, and they will probably be pulled down again by the sea, or fire, or shaken down, like all things will.  But these homes and lives that we built around these places might be better built elsewhere, or at least more reasonably.

Quiet Mind

There is a peace that comes with being on a boat, single handing it.  More so when the ice in the water, and the cold in the air has driven off most of the other boats.  The pendants and halyards and sheets are frozen and stiff.  The water is like the glass of a mirror, but is not still as the tide goes out to meet the ocean.  Bits of ice drift past us.

December on the Hudson river, just before the freeze up.

Some of us are children of Autumn.  The sweet sadness that happens during this transition time is what is most familiar to us.  Memories of the warmth and abundance of the time just past, mix with imaginings of pushing back at the cold and grey of the time yet to come, mix together like coffee bitter yet warm, like whiskey soothing yet strong and bracing, like bread, like sex, like this human life.

There are those that prefer Florida, or Phoenix, or LA with their consistency, their sunshine, their warmth, but those places, for me, avoid the every changing nature of our situation, the aging, the dying and then the rebirth and renewal that seems constantly upon me here.

The dance of Spring is measured by the quiet of winter, the cold air of Autumn reminds of the hot winds of Summer.  It all just keeps happening over and over year after year after century after century, millennium upon millennium.  We are just a moment.

The realization of how brief and in some ways insignificant we are in the greater scheme of life, makes my life all the more appreciated and removes the stress that can be consuming about my own little problems.  They just don't mean that much in the bigger picture and to me, my insignificance is a relief. It is also a reason to make my life a celebration, an expression of gratitude, a compliment to all life, and to cause as little suffering, for all life, mine included.

This is peace, this is quiet, this is a gift.

On time and money, again

I have just read "The story of B" by Daniel Quinn.  I don't think I have ever read anything before and had the same kind of reaction.  How could I?

We have roamed the planet for millions of years, but only in the last couple hundred has the need for an energy source other than the sun, the rivers, the wind, the plants and animals not been enough.  All of those energy sources can go on and on and support each other.

The idea that after this life we will become enlightened, or go to heaven, or achieve some sort of salvation, has allowed for our entire culture to turn it's back on our current means of existence and survival, with out concern for the consequence of immediate gratification.

Evolution?  Drop out entire population into a time machine, take us back 50 years and see how we do.  then go back 100 and see how we do.  then go back 200, then 400, then 800, then 1600, and see how we do.  By the idea of evolution, the further we go back, the greater we should be in each situation.  We should have evolved into something Greater, a higher being.  Isn't this what we are taught, that the world, the universe is made for us and we are the being that is created in the image of God.  Aren't we led to believe that with each passing era, and with greater knowledge we have grown towards our ultimate version of ourselves?

Drop us back 800 years and most of us would be dead or suffering in very short order.  Think about what it would be like with no Drugstore, no fast food, no grocery.  How would we cope without our cellphones with out cars, with out industry?   Have we evolved or become more dependent?  Are the two opposites, or at odds with each other?

If we have been walking the planet for millions of years, as is the conventional idea, then we got on well enough, for a long time, most of that time, with other than what we deem the absolute necessities of survival today.

The idea put forth at the beginning of this blog was to find some reasonable way of existing and going forward, given all that I know and all that I learn along the journey.  There is no reality or reason to thinking about trying to living now, as humans lived 1000 years ago, or 100,000 years ago.  But there is I believe reason and logic to living differently than we live now, in a manner that reflects the knowledge of what we have come from, how the rest of the living community lives, and the direction the current path of living has us set on.

For how we live upon this planet, we are to many.  For as many as we, are we kill or subjugate other life to readily.  For the intelligent beings we fancy ourselves to be we fail to see the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life and life systems.  For all our concern for our own welfare, we fail to see our own responsibility in the creation of our own suffering, not just our own self destruction as a species, but as individuals.

When my own death is accepted, understood as the way things will be, then life, all life, becomes the most appreciated, magical, perpetual and beautiful thing.  It is a very simple and obvious realization, that once found can not easily be lost.

The 800 lb. Gorilla in the room!

Where does an 800 lb. gorilla sleep?  Anywhere he wants to!
Something so powerful that it can do what it wants to, it is unstoppable.   Gravity, is like that.  We can't get around it.   So too, are the laws that govern the way life works, the way lives interrelate to each other, the way species survive.  The human story, our story, is subject to a law that is unstoppable, unchangeable and the way we live in defiance of that law will prove, is now proving this out.  If we continue to live as though all of creation is about, and for, just us, just our desires, the law that governs all living things will have it's affect.

The Law of Limited Competition is: “You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete, but you may not wage war.”

I have just had another of those occurrences, when I read a book and find in it, the articulation of many of the thoughts that I had been mulling over and wishing I could share with others in a way that would be interesting to them.
The book "ISHMAEL" by Daniel Quinn, is a book that should be read by all of us.  One does not have to agree with or even enjoy it, but the ideas within are ones that we should all be conscious of, at least, for a moment in our lives.  There has never been a moment in human history more appropriate for considering these ideas.  Human future, will be directly affected by our consideration of these ideas now.  Consider reading this book.