Natural Selections

There has been a lot of talk lately about the theory of evolution and Charles Darwin's theories of natural selection. It seems that we are being made to choose between believing that it is human/animal nature to dominate vs. human/animal nature being more cooperative and niche-filling. I just want to drop my two cents on it.

First: Natural Selection states three things. 1. Organisms (bacteria, plant, animal, etc) must compete for resources in any given environment. 2. Only the most fit will receive enough of those resources to have their genes survive in their particular population. The less fit are eventually eliminated from the population through genetic drift (the tendency for the survivors to survive and procreate, dominating that population's gene pool) 3. Mutations in the genetic code aid natural selection in the elimination or the augmented fitness of an individual.

I don't believe that one organism benefits only at the loss of another. I hypothesize that the better we work together (WITHIN OUR MEANS), the more likely we are to survive.

Take, for example, the fish that swim under the shark's belly and feed off of the flesh that falls by the wayside. These fish are clearly not the most adept at attaining their own food by killing it. So, how did they come to fit this niche and not become shark food? Well, at some point the type of sharks they follow had to decide that they do more good than harm. Now, I do not know the ultimate premise behind their current role. However, it is these types of relationships that suggest that our nature is more cooperative than previously thought. I mean, why should one individual win, while others lose? Over time that organism would become very lonely if that were the case. Besides, team sports are more fun than individual ones anyway... just ask Tiger Woods. (yeah, I said it!)

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Until the next one...

Peace.

Imperial Hangover

It's Christmas time... that wonderful time of year when we go home or have people into our own, to share in each others presence -- and give lots of presents -- to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It has always been a time I enjoyed and from which I received much fulfillment. Now that I am an adult and have discovered the topics that I discuss in previous posts, I have come into some feelings of regret, or maybe it's remorse.

You see, I see now that the presents we give are just things. They really don't bring much fulfillment, if any. It was always the people that were around me that gave me the most joy. I am finding that out in earnest these days. I took a leave of absence from the social scene for a while to focus on music, but now that that is progressing at a satisfactory pace I have made an effort to get out and be more social. I am finding that I am much more happy, generally, because of those efforts. I really do love people, and that is why I write these posts so that my words may help us save ourselves from the perils of an Imperial society.

I know I speak in a pretty utopian manner about how people should live. But the truth is, even if the efforts to move toward a REAL democratic society catch fire, I will never see the fruition of what I start now. And that is fine.

Now, we have to realize that there will not be a smooth, quick transition to the Earth Community that David Korten speaks of. There will be many people who either drag their feet because they fear change, or merely have not been exposed to the truth about many things because the almighty television has been dictating their culture for so long. I call this the "Imperial hangover".

I describe this as the leftover feelings of loss or tendencies to fall back on the immature mindset and consumer-based activity that is a hallmark of every imperial society. Just today, I was reading about how Pericles (a great Athenian emperor) would make people work to justify their share of the governments conquests. They had no interest in the governments usurping of natural resources, but since they benefited from it, they were caught in the trap. After a while (and this happened many times in the beginning of our own country), there were worker and slave revolts, so Pericles set up and funded a theater of actors, poets, etc. as well as carnival-type events to entertain the masses of workers. Sound familiar?

I admit, that I still have imperial tendencies, I suffer from this "imperial hangover": like wanting a new car (which I will probably get) when I should just ride my bike everywhere... that would be a good contribution to the bettering of the environment. I also enjoy watching sports and movies on TV from time to time, but that gets less and less the more I get in the studio. I was thinking that I should buy lots of presents for my family and friends for Christmas, but I was able to take a stand there and get one gift each for my parents and my sister. I also talked to them about volunteering at a soup kitchen or other operation that would aid the people who really could use some charity. I guess I'm slowly sobering up :)

The moral here, is that we have to start the process now, by joining with people of like mind around the world and eventually reject the rule of people who have been corrupted by the power they were given to protect ordinary citizens. Who could blame them, they're only human. Although, we elevate them to positions they don't deserve (like gods) and when they fail or falter, we drag them through the mud as if we could have done any better (who are WE to judge THEM), but I digress. Even though we are drunk on imperialism now, doesn't mean we can't start the next day, slowly but surely until we recover completely.

Science v. Religion

What is the science of religion?

What I mean is, we all know that science could never be taken on from the religious method of discovery. Contrastingly, I consider the religious method to be very similar to the scientific method. I say that because, one forms a hypothesis first in both fields, but only science truly investigates the existence of an answer to the original problem that elicits a hypothesis. So the question is: can we apply the scientific method to religious belief in search of "God" and other paranormal phenomena? Because we all really just want the answer to the age old question: Who are we and why are we here?"

Lately I have been reading The Great Turning by David C. Korten. He suggests that in the future--in order for the "Great Turning" to be successful--science and religion must come together. Now, we all know that science and religion have been bitter rivals little longer than the universities of Missouri and Kansas have (remember: natural science studies didn't really hit their stride until the mid 19th century, Isaac Newton didn't even postulate his theories on gravity and motion until almost 1700 A.D.). However, would people actually want to encounter what (or who) God really is? Or do they just want to leave their teaching open to speculation and misinterpretation forever?

I think that science and religion are so closely related that one day their proximity in nature will inevitably lead to a true "search for God". Also, I know that science can postulate theories that explain the phenomena we see occurring in religious and prayerful people.

Modern quantum physics has discovered a pathway to the reasons that prayer works. You see, they have discovered that the thoughts we have inside our head emit a certain amount of energy that is quantifiable and has a clear signature. This energy is known as a beta wave; the stronger the emotion behind the thought, the more intense the beta wave. Now, others (including myself) have concluded that these beta waves are part of the energy continuum (carbon cycle, water cycle, etc) and that they interact with the world around us. THIS is something that can be formed into an experiment. I'm sure other scientists have studied this much more, well... scientifically. However, I have done my own (non-scientific) exploration into this phenomena - with surprising results.

The story goes that these beta waves attract the things we think of most - through their connection to the real world and eventually bring these thoughts to be visited upon the person having them. It is not as direct as it sounds because energy never returns in exactly the same way it was emitted.

After watching a movie called The Secret (the author I do not know), I did an experiment related to these recent findings in concordance with a contest in which I was entered. The contest was to win a BMW. So, my first step was to visualize myself driving the car. Eventually that led me to the British Motor Works website. I designed my ideal ride and would sit and visualize myself holding the steering wheel, checking the gauges and the like. After a couple weeks of this I attended the contest drawing. Needless to say, I didn't win. The guy standing directly next to me did.

I know for a fact he was the announcer's friend because they were hanging out together (very familiarly) the entire time before the reading of the name. I'm not saying the contest was rigged, but....

Anyway, what I noticed soon after that was that when I drove around town, I was almost surrounded by BMW's everywhere I went (even out of state, weird). I have no proof or data that compels one to believe my account word for word, but I did ride with a couple of people and point it out to them. They were skeptical but did notice the slight increase in BMW appearances as uncanny. The experiment was a success in my mind, because the longer it has been since starting the experiment - I see a less awe-inspiring number of beamers when I ride around. I also did this for Acura not long ago, because I thought that was the car I wanted. And although I didn't focus as long and hard, the fact that I knew how to target my thoughts did warrant a noticeable increase in the number of Acura vehicles I encountered. This gives me cause to believe that prayer works, but it is not the way that a preacher might tell you. Since I consider "God" to be the driving force that animates certain atoms and later others (conservation of mass and energy says we cannot create or destroy mass and energy, only change its form), then I guess technically I am praying to God when I focus on things I want (or don't want). The phenomenon works both ways. Say, for instance, that there is some person or situation you really DON'T want to happen. Your thoughts can also attract it, if you constantly mull it over.

In addition, the religion I was raised to believe says that "God may not be there when you want him, but he's always right on time", meaning that you don't get exactly what you want, but you do get what you deserve. This leads me to the thought that, it IS "God" that brings the fruit of prayer. God, to me, is just not some GUY (males dominate today's religious beliefs) in some far off locale directing the flow of life and everything else on this tiny planet set in some small region of the universe (multiverse?)

So, you can call me crazy, but I am the least likely person to admit to such an outlandish conclusion. And you don't have to believe me, but I suggest you pay closer attention to your thoughts and see where your life leads you. And who knows? Maybe this type of experimentation could eventually lead to "the science of religion". I don't think its necessary to find God, because I don't think we are meant to know everything (like a good friend of mine reminds me), but its the journey of discovery that is the fun and adventure of it all.

So I leave you with a phrase uttered to me by my mother many, many times over the years: Take care and be aware!

Peace.

Media vs. Journalism

There is not much else to explain that I haven't already about how we have come to this disastrous point in our [species'] time on this planet. Now I guess its time to raise some questions that I have in getting us out of this mess.

What I see as the ultimate equalizer is media.

News used to be journalism. They reported the facts in the most objective way possible (remember that impartiality and therefore objectivity is nearly impossible, just because of the way our brains work)... Stories were just that. The story of a mother who couldn't feed her children was not draped in some reporters opines about how the failing economy or some other smoke screen is responsible for her being downtrodden. Television news has clearly become the mouthpiece for the rich people who own most of the country, purchased right after the Great Depression. That brings it into the realm of media, which has no obligation to be arbitrary at all.

So, the question is: How do you change people's minds who are subjected to a constant barrage of propaganda from recognizable people that leads them further down the wrong way on a one way street? Chances are: they are feeding into the mix of sexual, emotional and other cues that cause a subsequent amplification of our consumer nature. I mean, it took me years to realize that I should always be skeptical of information that is handed to me, for which I did not ask. It is hard to think for yourself when it is so much easier to let "the box" think for you.

The thing is, that we MUST change these minds (of the masses) before its too late. There are some progressive institutions that broadcast the right messages, but they are drowned out by the pillars of the industry who don't care about the common person, they just focus on their profit margins and ratings returns.

Maybe its time to take a page out of history and start distributing newsletters that highlight the TRUE history of this country and the behind-the-scenes debauchery that is still occurring today (sorry President Obama, we know the deal) . There is not much that is more powerful than the printed (something you have to read, including a computer screen) word. I read an article in the NY Times that said a study found that when something is read by a person--no matter how ridiculous or contrary to truth--it is more likely to be noted and/or considered by the individual reading it, simply because it is in print. No wonder those crazy e-mails about Obama being the anti-Christ et al. were eaten up by middle and lower income (mainly white) people. I'm sure that there are newsletters out there, but it is up to us to get it into the hands and in front of the faces of the people who need it most. I think this could be a crucial first step in starting the grass roots movement toward what David C. Korten calls "Earth Community". Urban farming is another one which might not require so much effort for gaining support. Remember, the government has no power if no one gives it to them, if we take things into our own hands. Trust! The answer will not come from the top of the ranks. It comes from changing minds, showing them that there are other ways to live beside the American Imperial/Manifest Destiny lifestyle.

What do you think?

Peace.

Big Kids

As you know... I'm a very careful observer of EVERYTHING, especially people. Since I have been an adult for a few years now, I can kind of gauge what actions seem to be "adult-like" and those that seem more "child-like".

If you read a book called Born to Win by some psychologists whose names I cannot recall at the moment, you will see a theory that claims that each of our psyches is a combination of three ego states: The Child, The Parent and The Adult. The Child is the obvious ego state, this is when we are most curious and apt to try new things just to see what they are like simply because we feel like it. The Parent is the learned set of actions we learn, as children, from the adults in our lives... which is why most of us grow up to be our parents since they are the most abundant examples of how to be an adult. We mimic those actions because as a child we learn what these actions elicit from others and how they help (or don't help) us navigate through life. The Adult ego state is the only one that is constantly changing. The Adult ego state is the one where we take in information, run it through our memory banks for any previous experience of a similar type and then make a conscious decision to act.

The book says that we remain in one ego state more than the others, unless you are the ultimate measure of a well-adjusted person (but who REALLY is?). The more I observe adults and children (anyone under 18), the more I want to ask the question: Do we really ever grow up? Or are we just physically mature kids? We (myself included) seem to be stuck in the child ego state, reflecting the Parent ego state from time to time, but most of us just react through instinct (the combination of those egos), rather than waiting to act. I must say that I'm guilty as well. As a child, I was always into going outside and being in nature, I wanted to be a musician and I loved science (the study of nature). Today, my profession is in research science, I recently bought equipment to perform and record music, and I always look for ways to get out into the natural world (I'm currently planning a hunting trip with my Father). I react internally as my Child and Parent ego states would dictate, but my discipline as a scientist and as a former martial artist lead me to use my Adult ego state quite often. However, when I observe other adults, they seem to act like kids or kids who are mimicking what their parent did. I'm not sure if I am on to something here or I just think that many of my older counterparts are just immature, but the next time you are around your parents or some older adults, take a minute and step outside of the situation to look at how they act and react. It is said that for the most part we don't learn much (about how to survive) outside of what we learn as children (you can find sources in any Psych journal, as I did), but if that's true, we probably are just BIG KIDS.

On another note... All these people are dying from day to day. Now, I know that millions of people die everyday, but something seems different about this time and the rate of deaths... Are we really moving into a new Procession of Equinoxes (end of an age)? I think that's what the Bible story of the Exodus and subsequent establishment of Hebrews in the Middle East is implying with the deaths of all the adults older than a certain age (I think it was 40). I hope I'm wrong, because that would have implications with my own parents, and I don't think I could handle them not being around. On the other hand, I'm sure some of these so-called Piscean age folk will make it past December 21, 2012. I just hope my family is part of that group.

Have a great weekend!

Peace.

It Always Gets Worse...

This morning I was reading one of the conclusory chapters in A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.  He was speaking on the conditions in the nineties when capitalism was a runaway train continued from the eighthies.  Crime was high. I mean, I remember when it was a common occurrence for a kid or teenager to get capped for their Jordan's.  The nineties were ill in more ways than those.  However... have you looked around lately?  We have our first "minority" president.  We are slowly learning that capitalism doesn't really work so efficiently and that local community operations work best for such a large and expansive country.  More and more, people are trying to come together and learn about each other.  

Now, that is not to say that there weren't 5 shootings in St. Louis a few nights ago, or that a Hispanic guy wasn't killed in New Mexico (or Texas, I can't remember now), by some young white teenagers because they considered him a threat for their jobs.  What I am saying, is that things don't seem to be as ill between people (not for the economy), where there is a system for exposing different cultures to each other.  Look at Chicago, New York or Los Angeles (the same places children were being shot for sneakers a few years ago).  These are some of the most populated centers on the planet.  Yet the people that come here (to St. Louis), from there, say that WE are so segregated (which is true), and that THEY hang out with all different types of people in fun, social settings all the time back home.

Back to the point.  Have you ever heard that things always gets worse before they get better?  I think that is what was happening from the sixties to the nineties.  It wasn't just a struggle of the Establishment to keep its power.  It wasn't just a class battle.  It was a general changing of the guard in regard to the types of people that were being born.  Astrologists would separate them as Piscean and Aquarian children.  

Many cultures predicted the end of an age, and by this I mean what I would call a "great age", in the year 2012.  I believe the Mayans and Nostradamus actually predicted the precise date of December 20, 2012. An age (again according to astrologists) lasts about 150 years.  Each great age is an evolution of man, or at least his mind and takes much longer.  So within the greater age of Pisces, there were twelve evolutions bringing us to the next "house", of Aquarius (the water bearer).  Pisceans are characterized by passion, individualism and an effort to be the best.  Aquarians are characterized by a need to help and sustain life, and to commune with nature and people.  Apparently there have been hints at this along the way with the Pax Romana, The Renaissance period,  Enlightenment in the 1700s, and many of the American labor and civil rights movements of the early to late 1900's when more and more Aquarians were being born and many Piscean-natured people already populated the Earth. The date of December 20, 2012 actually brings us back to the beginning of a complete "great age".  Now it seems that all, or most, of the people being born are of the Aquarian evolution of the mind.  So we are seeing a push for more natural technologies, natural ways of producing food and energy and the like.  Also, if you notice the date, there will be another American election around that time.  Will we re-elect Barack Obama?  Is he the one to usher in the next age as the "leader of the free world"?  Or will we slip back into the well crafted forms of control built by the privileged and very wealthy?

Just some thoughts...  Enjoy the rest of your week.

Peace.

Duality: revisited (another free write)

Something has been on my mind lately, and a number of things have led me to want to write about it:  A shirt with a picture of W.E.B. DuBois with his concept of duality printed on it, worn by my mentoring Team leader and a facilitated discussion I helped lead this week, on LGBTQIA (that's a lot of letters!) orientation with some Edward Jones associates, students and their teachers.  I just thought about my idea about humans all being on one spectrum of the same "being".  So, just like you have really pale "white people" or really dark "black people" and all of the colors in between, we can have brains that are wired to think like the epitome of the alpha male, or the most feminine woman you can be... and everything in between.  Now that's not to say that the brain's development in any given body HAS to be in congruence with the outward appearance of that body (male/female/all other body forms).  This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Science is slowly telling us happens in gay or lesbian people as well as transgendered, bisexual or asexual people.  The main factor here is that we ALL want to be respected for who we are, the decisions we make.  These are different from and somewhat tied to our sexual preference, but they help define us way more than any one characteristic does.

That brings me to the subject of what William Edward Burghard DuBois calls: duality.  This is the idea that a black person sees himself in two ways.  He is black first (which was always clearly made known at the time) and an American at the same time.  DuBois said that these two ideas war against each other inside a person's body and that the only thing that keeps it from being "torn asunder" is the strength of the black skin in which these ideas are encased.  I say the true struggle was between self-identity and perceived identity.

I submit that these things are more basic, more elemental than that.  However, in the environment of the late 1800's and early 1900's,  it would have been hard to identify as anything but black, inferior, etc.  Now I see it as first being human, and second being a citizen.  Going forward I will use the word state, and by state I mean any part of the established capitalistic political structure that abounds around the world.  

A human is born.  A citizen is verified.  A person has a family role and is given a name.  A citizen has a economical role (usually predetermined) and receives an identification number.  That's just a couple of things, but you get the point.  When slaves were brought here, everything about their culture as humans was destroyed by chance and by design.  With that start, there is bound to be a mountain of baggage.  I contest that this is true with any culture though.  Recently, I read about some Bosnians that were relocated during the time that Russia was staging its bid in the Cold War after Viet Nam.  They couldn't speak the language and were forced to work for free or minimal wages.  Of course these people weren't traded.  The ancient Hebrews were though, and that was done by the Egyptians (people of Kemet, Egyptian is actually kind of a derogatory term invented by Greeks) and Nubians, trading to the Greeks and eventually Romans.  Can you imagine a time when blonde-haired, blue-eyed people were considered the scourge of the Earth, the red headed step children of globals society (not Jews, caucasians)? Well this was it.  

So my point is that this war, this duality comes from two warring ideas of a different kind.  You are a human first, and a citizen second.  When the state asks of you as a citizen, your human traits are supposed to go on the back burner (ex: soldiers at war).  For former slaves, the state that abuses them was asking them for yet more.  They were to serve the state in other capacities, but still kept in the slave's place mentally.

This same thing can happen to any group of people, it matters not the "race", "gender" or whatever other category we choose to invent.  So then, we must be respectful of all sorts of people, because their ancestral history probably looks a lot more like yours than you realize.  The state is the true enemy of the people, not your neighbor.  Remember, people lived for 100's of thousands of years (if not millions) without militaries and state governments, and they produced us!  So they must have been doing something right. But I digress...

Have a good weekend.

Peace

Education... of sorts

It's been a while...  How are you?  (Fine)  Just fine?  Well, I know I have been away for a little while.  Maybe some truth will make you feel better about life.

I have been pondering our (American and most Europeans) educational system lately.  The book, My Ishmael, gave me the jumping off point for these (written) ideas.  Although I have always known the following, beneath the surface.  Howard Zinn is reiterating these thoughts with his tales of the beginnings of city/county-wide education systems and their use by the new capitalists of this country.

Throughout my education, a lot of classes and subjects just seemed so arbitrary to me.  If you haven't asked the question, "Why do we need to learn this?", you probably didn't go to a public or private school in the United States.  It is becoming more and more evident to me that the reason all of these classes seem unnecessary, is because THEY ARE! 

Our education system is not designed to help you survive on your own or start a business (except for in higher education, maybe) or anything useful like that. No.  Our system teaches you to be a good little boy or girl and be quiet in class; listen to your teacher; don't talk back or act up; and above all, if you don't know the answer, don't ask a question about it... just act like you know and let the teacher keep control of the lesson.  God forbid, you learn by finding out something that is not in the text book.  There's no way the school wants that teacher to give their own opinion either.

What our system DOES do, is to get you ready to be a good little worker (AHEM!)... employee and reject anything that is not fed you by the authorities of your given institution.  The other thing it does is to keep the young folks, in an overpopulated country, out of the work force long enough so that their parents/aunts/uncles can keep their jobs/positions long enough to be duped into thinking they have enough money to support them for the rest of their natural lives.  That's why we have soooo many subjects in school that really don't relate to much that is useful (example: Algebra 2/Trigonometry, what am I using that for now?)  Before this country was overpopulated (prior to 1900, give or take a decade or two), children worked right alongside their parents, in horrible conditions.  It took many years, deaths and strikes to get the 8-hour work day and child labor laws.

However, if I were to design an educational system from the ground level, I would start by teaching students HOW TO LEARN from jump.  There is an educational philosophy just for that, called Study Technology, that I think would be perfect to teach children ages 3-5.  The system teaches you how you learn, the common barriers to proper study (how to recognize their symptoms in yourself and break through them) and literacy using phonics and graded reading books.  The next thing I would do is teach a basic curriculum, including history of the student's native country, history of the United States, basic math up to Algebra, Science (with lots of hands on experimentation, and the arts (visual media, music, etc) as well as life skills like cooking, laundry and budgeting, etc.  Then after that curriculum was met (at the pace of the student, not by grade level), the student would be given a catalogue of professions and the like.  Each of those core subjects, and their successive subjects, would be listed under the professions that require them.  Then, students would be consulted yearly as to their chosen track.  They will be asked whether they want to continue the current track or make a change.  They wouldn't graduate until they are able to perform their daily life tasks and tasks of their chosen track, with proficiency.

Now how does that grab you?  Feeling better about the future, at least?

A lot on my mind

I have broken from the didactic strategy I began with, to free-write some of the latest posts here. I think it has garnered a better reader response as well as freeing me from doing as much research. I want to break again today and who knows, it may become the main style from here on...

So, let's start with marriage because that is the most recent thing I have been thinking about. I was talking with my friend [edit] this weekend about dating and marriage. He said he would probably never get married and asked me about how things like relationships normally work in nature. I told him that the male of ANY species is designed to spread the seed, to perpetuate its (his) lineage. That started me thinking about how marriage is such a falsehood. It eventually led me to realize WHY 1 in 2 (50% is a fail in anyone's book, without a curve) marriages don't work. They are not evolutionarily viable. Any endeavor can work half of the time. I, as a scientist and you, as an informed being, should know that just because something works once doesn't mean it will ALWAYS work. I mean, how much sense does it make--from a natural standpoint-- for one man to mate with one woman for a "lifetime"? That only decreases the robustness of the gene pool. A more robust gene pool, or men mating with many women actually bolsters the insurance of survival. The more females that carry the seed, the more likely he and those women are to have viable descendants. I also read about some Indian cultures in a book called A People's History of the United States 1492-Present by Howard Zinn. He explained that the women and men in one particular culture were allowed to move in with anyone they chose. They were also free to leave that household whenever they pleased with no repercussion. That sounds like a wonderful place to me; a place with no marital pressure from society and freedom of choice with no time constraints as it pertained to male/female relationships. What do you think?

I was also thinking about a way to break away from the greater American society. Here's what I thought: buy plots of land in a central location. The land has to be arable and away from cities. I would then put a planned community there, based on basic principles of living. The only work one would have to do is toward producing food, clothing or shelter. All of the rest of your time can be dedicated to anything you like. How does that sound?

There was something else I was thinking about last week, but it's not coming to me now, so I'll end here.

"Control Issues"

People--or homo sapiens sapiens, which means wise wise human--have developed some control issues because of our "Taker" culture. I guess this is a good time to further explain the "Taker" term I have been using. In the book Ishmael, Daniel Quinn explains that we (civilized societies) are "Takers" and tribal peoples like the Alawa or the bushmen are "Leavers". What this means is that we have "Taken" the responsibility of our survival out of the hands of the gods and taken that task up for ourselves. We grow our own food in abundance, we eliminate any competition that stands in the way of our way of life and we believe that we have THE one right way to live. "Leavers" have left the responsibility of the care of Earthly beings in the gods' hands.

Back to my main idea... We as people have control issues! (Think about it) Our need to completely control our environment leads to all of the drug use, crime, mental illness (in some cases), suicide, physical abuse and other so-called dispicable behavior. This will be a hard habit to break in the future. Obviously a weaning process could be devised and begin with the next generation.

I, myself, have my own control issues. I constantly work out to control my physique, I have an affinity for planning into the future (the future is not promised, live in the moment), which as most of you know, cannot be predicted with any absolute certainty. There are other less desirable habits (to some) that I will neglect to mention in the interest of length. The point is that WE ALL DO IT! We plan that lunch with a friend for next week, or setup a movie date with our honey-bunny for the weekend. You may think this is normal. As far as we know, we are the only animal that plans out our lives from day to day. I mean, there are animals that store food for the winter or store fat to hibernate. That's not really a predictive behavior as much as it is a cycle of life for them, annually.

I am led to believe that this constant overdrive of our neural mass causes these behavioral side effect (drug use, etc). Have you ever heard the saying, "It's all in your head"? Its usually true. We make our problems (if they truly are a problem) out to be so much more they are in reality, in our heads. We need to learn to relax and enjoy the day. Seriously... stop to smell the flowers or watch a butterfly flutter. The natural wonders can bring you so much more pleasure than artificial wonders (TV, video games) ever could.

Side note: This delusion that people will become better over time is misguided. People, as in any other community, will always annoy you, want what you have, or take things they want without compensation. Trying to enforce laws that we know will be broken is backwards and contrary to the evolution of a better society. That doesn't mean the new society will be perfect. It just means that it will work AND be evolutionarily stable. If you don't believe in evolution (adaptation), say so, and I will gladly debate that point here.

Peace!

What's the business?

I'm reading the latest installment of the Daniel Quinn series related to that sage-like Gorilla, Ishmael. It's called My Ishmael. There are some really good points in this novel, but some stick out to me more than others. I want to talk about one or two ideas that really struck me so far.

In our culture of totalitarian agriculture, everything is product based. Even services are considered to be products, just ask my friends in the economic field. Food is locked up and one has to perform a certain amount of work to buy that food. There are laws against growing your own food and having animals, except for within certain limits. Fees or fines are assessed when you violate the law. Life even has a valued product, in life insurance. Furthermore, the laws we have are laws that one, if thinking rationally, would expect to be broken. Humans have been acting despicable on an individual level since the beginning of time. This is not a secret. Punishing them for things that they have been doing and always will do is absurd. Setting laws that assume people will eventually become better and more proficient at living with each other, is absurd. This only happens when a culture is allowed to evolve on its own. That idea of setting new limits on old data only works in business, with numbers, when you devise a plan for the next few quarters based on the bad performances of the past.

What I just described is a system that works very well for business. It hardly works for PEOPLE, at all. People need to earn and spend social capital. This is where true fulfillment comes from. Have you ever volunteered to help someone or mentored a child? Even if you've just had a good time with your family members or friends from time to time... you know how the energy that is being passed around invigorates you and gives you more of the will to live that already exists in you. This is the kind of society hippies tried to create in the sixties to rebel against the corporate American dream.

Hippies knew that it wasn't natural for people to get and education, get a job, retire and die. Marriage is usually included in that, but even tribal peoples have marriage ceremonies in many cases. Those people just knew that there wasn't just one way to proceed, as the people of our culture believe. Many different people, many different affinities for different lifestyles. People should be allowed to live they way they want to. When someone infringes on someone's right to be, a solution should be worked out, from that moment on. You can't make a ridiculous law and expect people to obey it. People are not numbers. They won't fit into some perfect profit-building equation. This is how business operates. That's not how we should "govern ourselves". The thing is, that you have to KNOW there is an alternative to the "Taker" way of life. If you want to break out of this prison, holler at me.

More later...

The truth about cats, dogs and humans

Normally, I present a whole bunch of information for you to ponder and question. Usually, that comes from some prepared writing that I had written down before I sat down to the Mac. Today I am going to do something different. This is mostly my opinion, to which I would like your (yeah, you reading this right now) reaction. I'm just going to freestyle my thoughts on this one...

Have you ever had one of those days where you just don't feel like participating in society. You just want to lay in bed and say F getting (or holding) a good job, having money in the bank and all that crap. I just want to go enjoy the day somewhere or enjoy some good company. I had a day like that yesterday. Most of us who have felt this way know that there is something wrong here. Everything around us is crumbling... the global economy, religious leaders involved in scandal, politicians involved in scandal (contrary to popular belief, that is not the say it is supposed to be), rising suicide rates, rising mental illness, global pollution... Well, you're right. Something is wrong here. There's nothing wrong with people. They don't need to be saved, or seek salvation. We just need to return to the community from which we were borne. The biological community. We are breaking serious biological rules and that rule breaking has even more serious consequences. Especially, our rule breaking has a dramatic effect on the planet.

I don't want to be all philosophic, because that doesn't raise solutions, that only raises more questions. So, I am going to suggest some things we could start doing to begin our much needed return to the "natural" world.

First, we need to re-evaluate why we work. Honestly, I think the only noble endeavors are in the arts (music, painting, etc) and sciences (food science and medicine included). Those are the only two professions that bring any significant value to human life here. Making money by working with money and working just to make money, these are trifling endeavors. I don't mean to step on anybody's job, there are some other skills we would need to keep, like building homes, and some other things. However, we should be growing our own food, seasonally (which isn't hard) so we can replenish the nutrients needed in the ground to continue to grow food. Then we could trade with our neighbors, like the bartering system used to work. If they don't have vegetables or livestock, then they probably have a skill they can trade, that would be useful to you.

Globally, we need to continue to develop green technology, until such time (maybe 1000's of years) as that increasing amount of energy is not necessary. We need to get behind the Obama administration and their smart power grid, solar panel and windmill fields to slow the raping of Earth's natural resources. We should bury cables underground to avoid damage to the system, thus lasting longer. I even thought about packaging snacks, etc in (biodegradable) cellulosic bags, rather than plastic. Of course, they would have somewhat shorter shelf lives, but if you're eating sustainably, that wouldn't matter anyway because you're not storing food for an inordinate amount of time. We might also be able to farm globally, by tracking the sun's path over the Earth and only farm for surplus in those ranges, which would adjust from year to year.

We could also consider spreading out our population to allow for other species to occupy the Earth too. I think that African tribal societies might provide us a good template to begin a new way of organizing, one that is evolutionarily stable.

That's a lot to digest, even if this is my shoprtest post yet. What do you all think? Do you have any ideas for moving forward?

Myths and Legends

I would say that one of my faults is that I focus too much on facts and evidence. I guess it's just force of habit (being that I am a scientist). What I have to remind myself of all the time is that I should make the best out of and enjoy this one life I have been blessed with to the fullest, and not get too bogged down in the science of life. I may live to 100, with the medical knowledge we hold these days, and still not witness a slow glimpse of what our planet will (and has) endure(d).

I think we can all agree on the point that the Earth is, at least, hundreds of millions (if not a billion or more) of years old, with the dating of dinosaur bones and other animals that lived so long ago. Millions (plural) of years!! If I did live to 100 (furthering my relationships with all of you along the way), that's still not 1 hundredth of one percent, of only ONE million years. Now, mulitply that million by a few hundred. That is a mind-boggling figure! Humans (homo habilis, leading to us homo sapiens sapiens) have only been around for about 4 or so million of those years. The shortest chapter written in the Earth's history thus far.

When I start to think about how quick my stint here really will be, I think... I had better get this right! I only have what amounts to the blink of an eye (probably a LOT quicker than that) on this planet.

Whether or not you trust my opinion, I want to provide you with some contrary evidence. This is evidence that will refute many of the lies (yes, lies) that our culture has instilled in us from birth. I'm sure some of you reading this believe that you have been lied to about something all of your life, but you just weren't quite sure what the lie was being told to cover up. I want to show you that there is one huge lie, leading to countless smaller lies to hold up the big one. And no, I'm not out to debunk religion (although, taken regularly, the dosage of my medicine may have that side effect). I don't propose to tell you to forget everything you have learned in your spiritual belief. I just want to provide insight into my, and numerous others' point of view on, what Buddhism would call, Ultimate Reality. So, let's get to a few juicy tidbits already...

First let me define the category for these next entries: mythology. Mythology, in the sense that I mean it, is defined as a set of stories, traditions or beliefs associated with a particular group or the history of an event, arising naturally or deliberately fostered. Lets address a few of the mythologies that "Mother Culture" has cultivated in our society.

1. Our (human) population can and should grow, without limit. O.K. so maybe you haven't heard this explicitly. The evidence of this myth in our culture is clearly evident. There are between 8 and 10 Billion (that's B, billion) people on the planet according to the most recent estimates. That is up from the beginning of the twentieth century, when about 1.5 to 3 billion people inhabited the Earth. Its also expected to top about 12 billion by 2025, which could cause even bigger problems than we have now. Now, that's not to say that no other animal on this planet is as abundant. For instance, ants and many insects number closer to the hundreds of billions! So do coral colonies. However, those organisms don't practice a "food-getting" technique that creates a surplus like totalitarian agriculture. They also don't consume resources like we do (as a fire devours, well, anything). Just think of how badly Somalia is being depleted of the mineral (I forget the name) that they put in the plastic of new cell phones, that makes it so much harder than previous plastics, for example. That mineral is not being replaced. I highly doubt that the phones will be recycled, and even if they were, there is no way that we could replenish the Earth's stores, like the Earth naturally would in a normal carbon cycle (if you need clarification on the carbon cycle, comment and ask). So, other members of the huge food web we play a part in have more sustainable lifestyles and therefore the Earth can sustain them better. However, sometimes when a new member joins the food web, others will become extinct. They can get out competed and "easy prey" can be hunted to extinction because their biology doesn't allow them to produce enough new individuals to keep pace with those that are eaten as prey. That is just how "evolution" moves things forward. But none of this is decided by the new member, these things were decided before that new member came around because of the limitations of species. No species is perfect (remember that for later). However, no species causes the extinction of another, purely for the intentional purpose of eradicating a competitor, except ours.

2. The Earth belongs to us (humans). If you have ever gone to church, or attend church regularly these days, you will have heard this myth. The book of Genesis even says explicitly that God gave man dominion over the "beasts of the land and sea" and the birds of the air. How can this be, if we are just as much a part of the biological community as any other member of the food web? You might argue that we are at the top of the food web. Well, you're right. That's because there are no natural predators of humans, and we can eat such a variety of other food web members because of our omnivore ancestrally-evolved diet. However, if we weren't here someone else would take our place. Accordingly, there was another occupant of that status before us. There will be another occupant when we are gone. Its kind of like when people thought that the sun revolved around the Earth and this planet was the center of the universe. When we found out it wasn't true, it was extremely hard to accept. When we found a library of evidence leading to the heliocentric conclusion, i.e. the theory of general relativity, space satellite photos, etc, it was a lot easier to grasp as a truth.

3. God made the Earth for man. Some of you might ask, how is this different from #2? Let's chop this up a bit. First, we are assuming that there was one being that created the entire universe to put one planet in one small quadrant of this vast minutiae of inflamed gas (stars), rock and energy flow for the purpose of creating one being (of millions!) that could only survive in the atmosphere of that one planet, and make that one species the ruler of all that was created otherwise. How much sense does that make? To date, no other intelligent life has been discovered. There are even planets, like Earth, that are mostly water and have land masses that protrude from those bodies of water. Those planets usually flood the land masses to an extent, but should, technically, have the same atmosphere that we enjoy. Yet, there are no humans there. At least there is no evidence of people, since we haven't been able to visit those planets (we only have satellite probe camera footage). So this means that we are all alone, right? Wrong (I believe). We haven't even begun to encounter all of the types of life that could exist in the universe. We only recently discovered that Saturn has over 200 moons (crazy, right?), so don't assume that we are the only ones in this universe, and that it was ALL "created" for us.

Finally, I want to address quite possibly the biggest myth of all. This is the one that led to the three I just discussed. That is the myth that food shortages cause famine and our style of agriculture is the only way to stop widespread hunger. The truth is rather opposite to this myth. Actually, the more food we produce, the more that production results in human famine. It works like this:

There are mice in a cage. As long as you keep the food distribution constant, the population of mice never changes. It may fluctuate between sizes, as in standard deviation. For instance, fluctuation between 110 and 90, for an average population size of 100. Since there is not enough food to support significant growth, the population stays relatively stable. If you added any more food, the population would soon grow. Since there is more food, the mice are less conservative (in the true sense of conservation) in their reproduction, and their consumption of food. If you double the food, you will get double the mice. If you then return the food distribution to its original amount, the mice will return to there original population size. This is simple biology. We are all food for something. Since we have no natural predators as humans, we only become food when we die. We are food for numerous bacteria and detritus eaters of this planet.

Now, consider the phenomenon with the mice. Since, totalitarian agriculture naturally produces a large surplus, what do you think happened to people soon after they adopted this style of food production. That's right. Our population exploded exponentially. We have come from tens of millions during ancient Rome (and still smaller before the Roman period) to about 10 billion today. That period of time is only about 2000-3000 years, which is still a blink of the Earthly eye. Consider the fact that humans existed and only remained in the tens of thousands for millions of years before the Roman empire even developed the wilderness that was Europe, not to mention the rest of the Western world. That is a staggering change, and we continue to do the same thing today. Our culture is at war with the planet. You might say that that is a harsh tone. But, say a king is going to conquer or rule something he does not already possess. What would that king have to do in order to acquire that thing. He must subdue it, usually through war. That is exactly what totalitarian agriculture does. It will cause us to destroy an entire population to produce human food, or deny other animals access to their food by building cities that destroy or restrict the habitats of the animals that were there before we came. Those are tactics of war. You can find them in the strategies of any general that has existed. They even appear, in part, in the Art of War by Sun Tzu. Check it out... Let's end here for now.

Next time I will give you some positive evidence, things that are not myths, but are also encouraging to know as beings that inhabit this planet we call home.

Peace.

An example of the Law of Limited competition being broken

Removing cats to protect birds backfires on island

By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey, Ap Environmental Writer – Tue Jan 13, 9:18 am ET

BANGKOK, Thailand – It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.

But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.

Removing the cats from Macquarie "caused environmental devastation" that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy, Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division and her colleagues wrote in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.

"Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007, there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised," Bergstrom said in a statement.

The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions — without thinking long and hard, the study said.

"The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs," Bergstrom said.

Located about halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent, Macquarie was designated a World Heritage site in 1997 as the world's only island composed entirely of oceanic crust. It is known for its wind-swept landscape, and about 3.5 million seabirds and 80,000 elephant seals arrive there each year to breed.

The cats, rabbits, rats and mice are all nonnative species to Macquarie, probably introduced in the past 100 years by passing ships. Authorities have struggled for decades to remove them.

The invader predators menaced the native seabirds, some of them threatened species. So in 1995, the Parks and Wildlife Service of Tasmania that manages Macquarie tried to undo the damage by removing most of the cats.

Several conservation groups including the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Birds Australia said the problem was not the original eradication effort itself — but that it didn't go far enough. They said the project should have taken aim at all the invasive mammals on the island at once.

"What was wrong was that the rabbits were not eradicated at the same time as the cats," University of Auckland Prof. Mick Clout, who also is a member of the Union's invasive species specialist group. "It would have been ideal if the cats and rabbits were eradicated at the same time, or the rabbits first and the cats subsequently."

Liz Wren, a spokeswoman for the Parks and Wildlife Service of Tasmania, said authorities were aware from the beginning that removing the feral cats would increase the rabbit population. But at the time, researchers argued it was worth the risk considering the damage the cats were doing to the seabird populations.

"The alternative was to accept the known and extensive impacts of cats and not do anything for fear of other unknown impacts," Wren said. "Since cats were eradicated, the grey petrel successfully bred on the island for the first time in a century and the recovery of Antarctic prions has continued since the eradication of feral cats."

Now, the parks service has a new plan to finish the job, using technology and poisons that weren't available a decade ago.

Wren said plans to eradicate both rabbits as well as rats and mice from the island will begin in 2010. Helicopters using global positioning systems will drop poisonous bait that targets all three pests. Later, teams will shoot, fumigate and trap the remaining rabbits, she said.

Some of the earlier critics are now behind this latest eradication effort, saying it should help the island's ecosystem fully recover because it would remove the last remaining invasive species.

"Without this action, there will be serious long-term consequences for the majestic seabirds which nest on the island including the four threatened albatross species, and for the health of the island ecosystem as a whole," said Dean Ingwersen, Bird Australia's threatened bird network coordinator.

"We believe that the process they are going to follow uses best practice for this type of work," Ingwersen said. "And that all possible ramifications have now been considered."

A Law with Strict Limits

So... Where did we leave off, ah... the Law of Limited Competition. This is that little overarching law of the survival of all living things on this planet. It has guaranteed or negated the survival of most every species, from the jelly fish to the diminishing polar bear. Unfortunately, this is the law OUR culture continues to violate since the conception of said culture.

You may remember that conception from my last post about the beginning of totalitarian agriculture. One of our biggest problems is that the culture of totalitarian agriculture is practiced my the majority of the developed world (East and West). The main issue though, is that our system is so far outside the capacity of resources in the food web. However, the law has allowances. It is stated here:

You (as a member of the food web) may take as much food as you like, but you may not wage war on your competition for the purpose of eliminating them, nor may you deny your competition access to its food. Totalitarian attacks this law for its don'ts specifically. Let's break this down a little with an example. Say, for example, that two types of birds feed on food sources C, D and E. Type 1 also feeds on food sources A and B. Since, sources A and B are only available part of the year, birds of Type 1 destroy the nests of bird Type 2 in and around the area they find food sources C, D and E. Eventually, birds of Type 2 die off and Type 1 no longer has any competition. This causes an explosion in the population of birds of Type 1. Because, as the law's parameters allow, the more food there is available to a species, the more that species will grow. This is exactly the case with US! Well, not us in general, but us in the sense that we follow what birds of Type 1 did, in every corner of the world and have for the past 10,000 years or so. If you don't see the correlation, just check out the article I plan to post as the example of humans not knowing what species should live, and who should die, which is the basis of our culture. It is the reason we have the confidence to think we are right and this is the right way to live.

I think I will leave off with those points. Now, we are about to get into the juicy stuff and I want to keep that separate from the facts I want to deal with. Next we will begin to break down Mother Culture in detail as a means to returning to our (Homo sapiens sapiens) rightful place in the world.

"The Fall" and Totalitarian Agriculture

There is a phenomenon in theology called "the Fall". It entails man's fall from the grace of God because he partakes of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is the mythology I want to address here as is relates to our culture of Totalitarian Agriculture.

10, 000 years ago (8,000 B.C.) a revolution began. It was a revolution of epic proportions. This is a story that has been told over and over again. It has even been chronicled in some parables of the Holy Bible. However, you won't find this story in the history books because, as some might suggest, this is when OUR history began.

This was no ordinary revolution, as we might define--a relinquishing of power by some government that has been overthrown or some previously oppressed people rising up and overtaking their oppressor neighbors--this was a revolution of the mind. Let us call it the usurping of the knowledge of good and evil from the gods (God, in the monotheistic belief). However, our understanding of this knowledge is false and has been tainted as the story (OUR history) has been handed down over the past millennia. Indeed, the actual knowledge that was "imparted" in order for this revolution to take place is false.

The knowledge of good and evil that Adam (which is translated from a Hebrew word meaning man) obtains is not that he was naked and should be clothed. The knowledge that caused, what Biblical scholars call "The Fall", is a sense that man (Adam) has been bestowed with the God-given right to decide what beings (plant or animal, including other men) should die and which shall live and the power to execute this ordinance to its full extent. Now, this statement may be a bit disconcerting, so I will explain what I mean in the context of Ishmael, the book I'm referencing for what I have stated here.

In the book, the teacher, Ishmael, tells a story about a discussion the gods have pertaining to the administration of the world. They stumble over whether to let one animal, a quail, live at the expense of the life of another animal, a fox. For instance, disallowing a fox to eat the quail would bring curses of the gods from the fox. Likewise, allowing the fox to dine on the quail, would bring curses from the quail caught in the jaws of the fox. Being of great conscience, again and again, the gods fumble over decisions of this nature since, surely, one action is good causing the other to be evil. One day, one of them recalls their creation of a tree that contains the knowledge of good and evil. They decide to eat from it and are soon presented with a lion and a deer. The first day the deer is spared, and the next, the lion is allowed to eat the deer. As soon as the deer is caught, it begins to curse the gods. The gods' reply to the deer is that they possess the proper knowledge to know what shall live and what shall die, and so they tell the deer to be at peace with its fate because they hold this knowledge. The deer then dies at peace with the decision of the gods.

You may be wondering what this has to do with anything, let alone totalitarian agriculture... Well, I'll tell you. When the totalitarian agricultural revolution began, people decided that if any animal or plant were to disturb their crop or livestock, that animal (or plant) must die in order for our food to live. Not only that, but these beings (wolves, moles, weeds, etc) must be eliminated, in total, in order for us to maintain or expand our available territory for agricultural endeavors.

Furthermore, the Caucasians who began this revolution (at least in what is now Europe and Asia minor) decided to expand South into what we would call the Fertile Crescent. But for their expansion to be complete, the Semites who lived there had to be exterminated. The Caucasians (descendants of people originating in the area near the Caucus mountains) in turn slaughtered or caused the forced migration of these people. In the story of "The Fall" this is believed to be the story portrayed by the slaying of Abel (Semites), the herder, by his brother Cain (Caucasians), the tiller of the ground.

It is all tied together by the mythology of Eve, taken from a Hebrew (Semitic) word meaning "Life". So, when Adam (man) was given to partaking of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (who shall live and who shall die), Eve (Life) was given to him abundantly, creating a population explosion and making him the father of our culture, but not many nations, which will come later.

To recap, totalitarian agriculture is a system of agriculture where, when a farm is threatened, all of those who threaten it are exterminated or have their food resources removed from the land required for the production of human food. The more food that is produced, the more humans we see. The more humans we have, the more food we need to feed them. And increasing the amount of food we need means increasing the amounts and types of beings that must be eliminated to expand food production. This system is completely and utterly at odds with a community biology law called the Law of Limited Competition, which I will explain in my next post.

Comments?

Things Fall Apart...

As you can see from previous posts, this blog is more or less about the eventual downfall of mankind and ways to turn the corner on failed attempts at community and society. You may be asking "who's failing?" WE are failing! Capitalism is failing!

In my line of work, systems work in one basically designed pattern. When these systems break down, you are aging past an existence of vigor and your systems are losing steam. On the other hand, you could have some disease that causes you to take some kind of dramatic action, from lifestyle changes to aggressive medication treatments.

Maybe you can see the correlation to our style of economy. We are obviously at a point where something needs to be done to a (capitalistic) system that is failing. But why is it failing at such a, relatively, young age? I want you to ask yourself that question, but what I really want to do here is show everyone that its not only failing, it was never considered a truly long-lasting way to lead a community.

As we go into a weekend that will end in the honoring of a great man and the dawn of a new age in U.S. governmental history, I want to start the actual emphasis of my blog with a parable told in Daniel Quinn's, The Story of B:

"It is well known," B said, "that every piece of hand-woven cloth has an element of magic in it, which is the special magic of its weaver. This magic doesn't necessarily die with the individual weaver but rather can be passed on from generation to generation and shared among families and even whole nations, so that no one who is sensitive to such things can tell in a moment whether a piece of cloth was woven in Ireland or France or Virginia or Bavaria. This is true on every planet in the universe where weaving is practiced, and it was true on the planet I'd like to tell you about right now.

"It happened on this planet that a weaver named Nixt came along who was a strange compound of genius and insanity, violence and artistry, ruthlessness and charm--and this was the magic he wove into his cloth, and those who wore garments made from it became just like the weaver. The weaver was quickly renowned, and everyone wanted clothes imbued with his magic. Wearing such clothes, artists created masterpieces, merchants got rich, leaders extended their power, soldiers triumphed in battle, and lovers left their rivals in the dust. Almost immediately it was noticed that Nixtian magic had some drawbacks. Instead of lasting for centuries, artists' masterpieces tended to disintegrate after only decades. Instead of lasting for generations, merchants' riches tended to melt away in a single lifetime. Instead of lasting for decades, leaders' power tended to ebb away in years. Instead of lasting for years, lovers' charms tended to pall in months. No one cared. Artists wanted masterpieces, merchants wanted money, leaders wanted power, and lovers wanted conquests.

"Naturally every weaver in the land wanted to weave with Nixtian magic, and Nixt himself was soon so extravagantly wealthy that he was glad to share it with them. Within a generation, every single weaver in the realm was practicing only this one kind of magic and all others had been forgotten. From swaddling clothes to shrouds, everyone in the land wore clothes woven with Nixtian magic--and, as you can easily imagine, this nation almost overnight became preeminent among the nations of the world. There wasn't a thing to stop them from taking over the entire planet, and they proceeded to do so in just a few generations, and in every land they conquered, weavers who were practicing other kinds of magic either learned Nixtian magic or they took up some other occupation.

"The spread of Nixtian magic revealed another of its drawbacks. Its exhaustive qualities seemed to increase exponentially. When twice as many masterpieces were created with Nixtian magic, they disintegrated four times as fast. When three times as many mechants were getting rich with Nixtian magic, their money melted away nine times as fast. No one liked it, of course, but artists still wanted masterpieces, merchants still wanted wealth, leaders still wanted power, and so on.

"Within a thousand years, every weaver on the planet knew only one kind of magic and all others had been forgotten. Within another thousand years, it was forgotten that any other kind of magic had ever been practiced in weaving, and people soon ceased to think of it as magic at all; it was just part of the process of weaving, and for all they knew, this had always been the case. In other words, they experienced a Great Forgetting of their own. They eventually came to view Nixtian magic as just part of weaving--just the way people of our culture came to view totalitarian agriculture as just part of being human.

"The trouble was that once every man, woman, and child on the planet was wearing clothes woven by Nixtian magic, the exhaustive power of this magic was operating at such a high level that masterpieces were lasting only weeks--and no one wanted them. Fortunes were made and routinely lost within days, and merchants lived in a state of suicidal depression. Governments and whole political systems came and went like seasons of the year, and no one even bothered to learn the names of presidents or prime ministeres. Romances and love affairs seldom lasted for more than two or three hours.

"It was at this point of total systemic burnout that some enterprising paleoanthropologists happened quite fortuitously to discover that weaving had existed long before the time of Nixt, and that people had for hundreds of thousands of years been very happy to wear clothes woven with other kinds of magic. And amazingly enough--even with out Nixtian magic--artists had still occasionally produced masterpieces, merchants had gotten rich, leaders had become powerful, and lovers had made conquests. And, more important, these achievements had, by modern standards, been durable to an almost unthinkable degree.

"Terrifically excited, these paleoanthropologists brought their discovery to the attention of their department head and asked to be released from other duties so they could study ancient weavings and possibly even rediscover the magic employed in their production. 'I guess I don't get it,' the department head said, after patiently listening to their proposals. 'Why is it important to know what weavers were doing before the age of Nixt?'"


Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. day everyone.

Peace.

Thinking out loud: a back log of previous thoughts

Yes, this is a back log of a random thought and journal entries I wrote before this blog started, but they contribute to the delineation of thoughts that led me to start the blog in the first place and so I thought they should be included here. Since this is the most recent post, I do realize the irony of it being a back log, but oh well...

January 10, 2008

Societies often flourish until a height we could call a "peak"... Then they begin to "worship" things that they have created (i.e. technology, money, etc) and ultimately just celebrating themselves. [this happened in Roman and Egyptian empires and is evident in the United States today]
This is when the degradation of the society begins [it begins to "eat" itself from the inside]... People draw into themselves and start giving less compassion for their fellow man in the holistic thought of, "helping my fellow people helps the society as a whole and therefore helps me in the long run". [the division of classes becomes greater and more apparent than in previous generations]

-I added the thoughts in brackets [] as I wrote this now, revising and rehashing the thoughts contained in the rest of the entry.


July 27, 2008


In my quest for truth, many things get factored: religious faith, organized religious practices, science, my personal faith and experiences... My conversation with *edit* today represents greater society's affinity for concrete answers. But why must everything be so concrete? The Earth is ever changing (tectonic plates), as well as the atmosphere above it. And even more so, the universe around us. I believe there is a God. It exists in our minds, in our physical environment and the physical forces that guide those mediums. I believe that no one congregation, which is just a grouping of people, has a singular answer to truth [what is actually true]. Since truth is a malleable entity [perception is reality for everyone, the orange color you see most likely does not look the same as the orange color that MY brain tells me I see], we can never know what it is. My duty lies in my faith that serving my community is the ultimate truth. I hope my lack of attendance at my father's church is not insulting my parents. However, I cannot help those will not accept help. I WILL help those that do accept it, including myself. This is why I have decided to visit different congregations in search of (other) better ways to serve my community, globally and locally.


August 28, 2008

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport, gearing up for my third annual Red and Black weekend. Reflection... Over the past week I discussed my religious beliefs (or lack thereof) with *edit*. We both agree that most likely there is no God. Over time figures have created religion as an overarching moral code by which to guide human behavior. Although these morals are evolutionarily inherent, many other guiding "prophecies" have been added to organized religion(s).

In the context of this [theory], I look at the world around me and say "Wow!" Wow, we [humans] are moving at an unsustainable pace as far as consumption of food and other natural resources. Wow! Why do men [humans] so want to rule over other humans? How did we come this far as to have almost entire continents (US, Russia, Canada) ruled by a few power hungry [people]? Are we not focused on the wrong things (technology, government, etc)? Should we not be building homes from less processed materials and eating only the food we need? Should we not put down the clicker and talk to our neighbors? They have trials and struggles too. That is how we have survived (and advanced thus far), by sharing thoughts, feelings and ideas.

I just think we need to slow down and observe how we actually fit into this Earthly situation. As humans, with brains so far removed from [evolved past] any other species that has no doubt [also] evolved, WE should take responsibility for how WE are treating the other beings (plant and animal) in the global ecosystem.

I almost do not see the need to struggle and jockey for position in "society", when we should be living off of the land, taking only what we need and no more [well, maybe a little more... even squirrels store food]. Surplus crops, grocery stores... these are [detestable] in the grand scheme of Ecology... thoughts begin to slow.

A conversation with myself

This post is somewhat eclectic in thought pattern. I promise to expound on the topics I bring up here:

A few days ago I sat at the Central West End Metro station at an active construction site, listening to the clinks and clangs of hammers and running machinery. It caused me to think about the current economic turmoil and all of President Obama's (our) plans for job creation. But, for what?! Just so people can make money? Why? Money is only worth something because we (people) SAY it is. Even when it is backed with some tangible resource (pounds sterling), that mineral is also only valued by people who made up a figure of its worth, by weight. Even with the value of money, in the United States it is usually spent on something that gives one little improvement to quality of life and is, more likely than not, something you bought to impress people, some who you may like and most of whom you probably don't like.

We go throughout our lives working so hard! I ask why we live like this. You know, I have always envied the life of a (domesticated) dog. He never has to worry about where his next meal is coming from... He can sleep most of the day... If he has a good owner, he gets to play a lot and be active... And the kicker is, he can do his business anywhere outside and his OWNER cleans it up for him. Dogs don't worry about money, nor do they try to start wars on other continents because they want the resources there (Iraqi freedom my ass!)

This example just illustrates simpler lifestyle. A lifestyle probably very similar to that of one we left in the ancient dust of so many cultures that came before ours. Our practice of what Daniel Quinn calls Totalitarian Agriculture is one that is not sustainable in any sense of the word and will ultimately lead to our demise if we continue to follow this course. I will explain a law called the law of limited competition that will explain why it's not sustatinable, later.

This is not just about global warming or cooling, or whatever is actually happening with our atmosphere. It is about the stress level that plagues the collective psyche of people of our culture. It is about the way we interact with our environment, locally and globally and more importantly how we interact with the creautres of our planet (ourselves included), flora and fauna. This is about taking care of the place (the Earth) that is taking care of you. Our robbery of the resources of this planet is an abomination. And not before God, because that is not what this is about either. I'm not even sure "God" exists, but that is a story better left for a separate post, some other time.

We need to change our minds about how we get food, first. Then maybe we can change our minds about what technology is good for, i.e., healthcare and innovation and what technology is maybe not so good for, i.e., military industrial complexes and fuel-burning transportation.

We can power our electrical grids with solar power alone, if we tried (I will explain this in more detail later as well) and its done right. We also need to replant a lot of the plant life we have devoured over the years and redevelop the thinking behind the way we define our community structure. Let's start with these ideas and see where the conversation goes. In the meantime I will suggest that all of you read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn if you are at all interested in what I am saying here. That book opened my eyes to a theory that had to do with a lot of things I already knew, but couldn't articulate as a complete set of thoughts.

Out.

Introduction of a truth seeker

So you want an introduction?

Well, I have usually been the person that people come to for advice. So I guess that makes me an authority on everything, right? Wrong. I am always in search for the right answers to life's questions. Sometimes the answers present themselves in something I read, and sometimes I just have to experience something that opens my eyes to something I could not see before. This log of my thoughts and probably some evidence (since I am a scientist!) is an attempt to enlighten some people and create conversation about making a social change... a change from the laborious lives we lead without questioning why 50 women in a sweatshop in China are needed to produce my sneakers, for example. I hope you enjoy my thoughts and ponder-worthy information. Without further ado...