Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Friends vs followers
People often tell me things like "It must be SO wonderful to be so smart/funny/fearless/etc," unaware that their tone has more than a little envy in it... as if being the focus of attention were something to ENVY, instead of a pain in the butt and a thankless duty.
Does that not make sense? Do you wish that YOU were the sort of person who effortlessly attracted an appreciative audience, or that people would want to hang around with and look up to, or did you wish that as a kid? If so, prepare to be disillusioned, because there's NOTHING that any sane person would want about being the "center" of a group.
Yes, yes, it's nice to see that people think you're cool at a social gathering (for about 5 minutes, unless you're supremely shallow or naive)... but if you pause, or, heaven forbid, stumble, in your standup routine, impassioned monologue, or whatever, people will turn on a dime and ***poof***, they're gone, leaving you wondering how you could have thought they were so friendly, and why you bothered to exert the effort for them. This is a watered-down version of the dynamic every famous person experiences; people that are being entertained by you might act really friendly, but they do NOT want to be your friends... they want a one-way transfer of energy and enjoyment from you to them. Does that sound like something YOU would want? Me neither; years ago, I wised up and stopped being the floor show for people other than trusted friends.
It's not just attentive strangers you have watch out for if you're the gregarious and amusing sort; the REAL "danger" is sycophants, those fake, 2-faced, born-to-be-follower types who'll come out of the woodwork to gather around a "leader," basking in reflected glory, accepting the steady stream of love, support and assistance that comes from a leader (and it takes ALOT of time and effort to provide all of that, trust me), enjoying the ready-made social group and party atmosphere that the leader provides, and claiming eternal friendship... but, unlike with actual friendship, the follower doesn't give anything back, or even act as if they see the leader as a human being with needs and feelings (to which they should show sensitivity), one to whom they owe much and should be able to be counted on to reciprocate to at least once in a while. In other words, the one who's the center of attention, the center of the group, has the "honor" of making all the effort for everyone and getting nothing in return... how good does THAT sound to you?
Wait, it gets better: Any time the leader has a setback in their life, the sycophants will be sniggering and crowing about it behind their back... and sometimes to their face.... AND, if, or should I say WHEN, the leader does something to displease a sycophant, such as not being a doormat for them where bad behavior is concerned, the sycophant will turn on the leader like a rabid dog; the first clue the leader gets about this is usually snippy commentary about how "controlling" they are (you know, for being the one who makes all the effort for the others, which they've always been happy to lay back and accept, and even DEMAND), how they "expect people to kiss their feet," and other distortions of the dynamic of exactly whose idea the foot-kissy behavior WAS, and how the leader is overbearing, bossy, blah blah blah (never realizing how bad THEY would look if the person they followed like lapdogs really WAS all those terrible things)... and suddenly, the person who has exerted all of the effort, not to mention all of the caring, in the "relationship" suddenly finds themselves with, at best, someone who stalks off leaving bad feelings behind, or, at worst, an actual enemy.
What on Earth is behind this twisted behavior? I've heard that the Chinese character for gratitude is the same as the one for resentment... and that the character for admiration is the same as the one for resentment... probably NEITHER is true, but the point behind the belief that they ARE is one of the ugliest aspects of human nature; people, particularly weak and/or follower types, DO resent those that they see as "having superior qualities," because they feel lessened by comparison, and those who are able to give, because they HAVE something to give, while they see themselves as only being able to take.
The last time, both in the sense of most recent and, hopefully, in the sense of the final time in my life, that I got sucked in by this sort of thing is with the "psycho bitch" whose online destruction by the members of the forum she spent her life on I've chronicled several times on this blog; much as it pains me, I've learned that I have to bring somewhat of an accountant mentality to new relationships, and consciously measure whether what I'm getting back from each person is approximating what I'm giving them... followers are too lazy to give anything (which is of course part of why they're followers to begin with-being a leader, or even an independent, takes alot of work), but a FRIEND will automatically give back as fast as they receive.
If you're the "leader" of YOUR social group, take an honest look at the give-to-get ratio between you and each of your friends, and see if they really ARE all friends (which they may well be-NOT all followers are sycophants, thank goodness), or if any of them are just followers who are waiting to turn against you and flounce off to a new leader. If you're NOT the leader, look at your relationship with the one who is, and ask yourself if you're treating them as a friend... or if that admiration/gratitude/resentment thing is going on. And finally, if you've envied those that others flock to follow... I hope you've seen how lucky you are NOT to be one of them.
Does that not make sense? Do you wish that YOU were the sort of person who effortlessly attracted an appreciative audience, or that people would want to hang around with and look up to, or did you wish that as a kid? If so, prepare to be disillusioned, because there's NOTHING that any sane person would want about being the "center" of a group.
Yes, yes, it's nice to see that people think you're cool at a social gathering (for about 5 minutes, unless you're supremely shallow or naive)... but if you pause, or, heaven forbid, stumble, in your standup routine, impassioned monologue, or whatever, people will turn on a dime and ***poof***, they're gone, leaving you wondering how you could have thought they were so friendly, and why you bothered to exert the effort for them. This is a watered-down version of the dynamic every famous person experiences; people that are being entertained by you might act really friendly, but they do NOT want to be your friends... they want a one-way transfer of energy and enjoyment from you to them. Does that sound like something YOU would want? Me neither; years ago, I wised up and stopped being the floor show for people other than trusted friends.
It's not just attentive strangers you have watch out for if you're the gregarious and amusing sort; the REAL "danger" is sycophants, those fake, 2-faced, born-to-be-follower types who'll come out of the woodwork to gather around a "leader," basking in reflected glory, accepting the steady stream of love, support and assistance that comes from a leader (and it takes ALOT of time and effort to provide all of that, trust me), enjoying the ready-made social group and party atmosphere that the leader provides, and claiming eternal friendship... but, unlike with actual friendship, the follower doesn't give anything back, or even act as if they see the leader as a human being with needs and feelings (to which they should show sensitivity), one to whom they owe much and should be able to be counted on to reciprocate to at least once in a while. In other words, the one who's the center of attention, the center of the group, has the "honor" of making all the effort for everyone and getting nothing in return... how good does THAT sound to you?
Wait, it gets better: Any time the leader has a setback in their life, the sycophants will be sniggering and crowing about it behind their back... and sometimes to their face.... AND, if, or should I say WHEN, the leader does something to displease a sycophant, such as not being a doormat for them where bad behavior is concerned, the sycophant will turn on the leader like a rabid dog; the first clue the leader gets about this is usually snippy commentary about how "controlling" they are (you know, for being the one who makes all the effort for the others, which they've always been happy to lay back and accept, and even DEMAND), how they "expect people to kiss their feet," and other distortions of the dynamic of exactly whose idea the foot-kissy behavior WAS, and how the leader is overbearing, bossy, blah blah blah (never realizing how bad THEY would look if the person they followed like lapdogs really WAS all those terrible things)... and suddenly, the person who has exerted all of the effort, not to mention all of the caring, in the "relationship" suddenly finds themselves with, at best, someone who stalks off leaving bad feelings behind, or, at worst, an actual enemy.
What on Earth is behind this twisted behavior? I've heard that the Chinese character for gratitude is the same as the one for resentment... and that the character for admiration is the same as the one for resentment... probably NEITHER is true, but the point behind the belief that they ARE is one of the ugliest aspects of human nature; people, particularly weak and/or follower types, DO resent those that they see as "having superior qualities," because they feel lessened by comparison, and those who are able to give, because they HAVE something to give, while they see themselves as only being able to take.
The last time, both in the sense of most recent and, hopefully, in the sense of the final time in my life, that I got sucked in by this sort of thing is with the "psycho bitch" whose online destruction by the members of the forum she spent her life on I've chronicled several times on this blog; much as it pains me, I've learned that I have to bring somewhat of an accountant mentality to new relationships, and consciously measure whether what I'm getting back from each person is approximating what I'm giving them... followers are too lazy to give anything (which is of course part of why they're followers to begin with-being a leader, or even an independent, takes alot of work), but a FRIEND will automatically give back as fast as they receive.
If you're the "leader" of YOUR social group, take an honest look at the give-to-get ratio between you and each of your friends, and see if they really ARE all friends (which they may well be-NOT all followers are sycophants, thank goodness), or if any of them are just followers who are waiting to turn against you and flounce off to a new leader. If you're NOT the leader, look at your relationship with the one who is, and ask yourself if you're treating them as a friend... or if that admiration/gratitude/resentment thing is going on. And finally, if you've envied those that others flock to follow... I hope you've seen how lucky you are NOT to be one of them.
Monday, September 13, 2004
My feminine intuition applies to physics
I've said since I first heard about dark energy that it was nothing but an invention by the eggheads to try to make up for the errors in the math that went with their theories-heck, I just posted about it a couple of days ago. Today, I read in an article in the September issue of "Discover" written by the man who COINED the term "dark energy," professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology Michael Turner:
"Perhaps the most radical idea, and the one I am pursuing now, is that there's no dark energy at all. (Remember, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) Instead, our incomplete understanding of gravity is at fault, and when we understand it better, we'll no longer need to invoke dark energy."
YES!!!!!!!! I can't tell you how satisfying it is to me to see the guy who invented the theory admitting that it's "fake," and to see that my intuitive grasp of the situation was RIGHT.
Since he made the point about "foolish consistency," I decided to try to think about this issue from the opposite side; what if there IS energy in the universe that's creating the effects that are making the equations come out wrong, but has thus far evaded detection? What could that energy be? What energy is there that I know of that science hasn't found yet? It finally, very belatedly, occurred to me that KARMA could be the "dark energy" that exerts a repulsive (as opposed to attractive) gravitational force that causes cosmic acceleration.
!!!!!!!!!!!! How could I have missed that possible connection all this time?
No, I still don't think that anything "hidden" is responsible for what the astrophysicists are observing, but it's mindblowing to me to see that I hadn't even considered the possibility of the role karma might be playing if it turned out that they were RIGHT about dark energy; I'm grateful to Professor Turner, both for admitting that he was wrong and for prodding me about the need to look at EVERY possibility in my search for the truth, even those that seem IMpossible to me.
"Perhaps the most radical idea, and the one I am pursuing now, is that there's no dark energy at all. (Remember, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) Instead, our incomplete understanding of gravity is at fault, and when we understand it better, we'll no longer need to invoke dark energy."
YES!!!!!!!! I can't tell you how satisfying it is to me to see the guy who invented the theory admitting that it's "fake," and to see that my intuitive grasp of the situation was RIGHT.
Since he made the point about "foolish consistency," I decided to try to think about this issue from the opposite side; what if there IS energy in the universe that's creating the effects that are making the equations come out wrong, but has thus far evaded detection? What could that energy be? What energy is there that I know of that science hasn't found yet? It finally, very belatedly, occurred to me that KARMA could be the "dark energy" that exerts a repulsive (as opposed to attractive) gravitational force that causes cosmic acceleration.
!!!!!!!!!!!! How could I have missed that possible connection all this time?
No, I still don't think that anything "hidden" is responsible for what the astrophysicists are observing, but it's mindblowing to me to see that I hadn't even considered the possibility of the role karma might be playing if it turned out that they were RIGHT about dark energy; I'm grateful to Professor Turner, both for admitting that he was wrong and for prodding me about the need to look at EVERY possibility in my search for the truth, even those that seem IMpossible to me.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Some thoughts about 9-11
So much has been said about 9-11, at so much length, in so much detail, and with such extreme adjectives, that it's hard to grieve, in a way, because every grief-filled thought seems repetitive and derivative, whether in my head or written down.... still, I tried:
Part of what makes America great is our ability to care deeply about others, even total strangers. Did you know that the charitable giving that's standard for Americans is unheard of in some countries? And that the flood of well-wishes, gifts and $ that anyone whose hard-luck story makes the news gets is likewise unimaginable in many places? In America, even an ANIMAL that gets into the news will get $ and offers of adoption-that's how eager Americans are to get emotionally involved and give of themselves.
Our collective agony at the deaths of so many innocents at the hands of agents of evil is thus perfectly understandable, but it's not just that they died, but that they didn't die fighting, for their lives, for their loved ones, or for a cause... that their deaths were so utterly senseless. The loved ones of military personnel who die in action can have the comfort of knowing that their dearly departed died for something they believed in, but the innocents who died as the result of skulking, cowardly evil didn't get the chance to fight, or the choice to try to combat the enemy, so what comfort can THEIR loved ones find?
How many of those who died forgot to kiss a loved one good-bye that day, or had loved ones who forgot to kiss THEM? How many of them had people they loved that they never expressed that love to, or vice versa? How many of them had had fights with loved ones that they hadn't resolved, and now never CAN resolve? How many of them had loved ones that they hadn't contacted in far too long?
On the positive side, out of our grief at the tragedy of 9-11 came many good things, such as the surges in blood donations, charitable giving, volunteering, and patriotism... and, the biggest of all, and the best tribute to the fallen-the explosion of people contacting loved ones that had slipped out of their lives, telling them how they felt, and welcoming them back into their lives. I hope that the many who lost pieces of their hearts on 9-11 can take at least a little bit of comfort in that.
Part of what makes America great is our ability to care deeply about others, even total strangers. Did you know that the charitable giving that's standard for Americans is unheard of in some countries? And that the flood of well-wishes, gifts and $ that anyone whose hard-luck story makes the news gets is likewise unimaginable in many places? In America, even an ANIMAL that gets into the news will get $ and offers of adoption-that's how eager Americans are to get emotionally involved and give of themselves.
Our collective agony at the deaths of so many innocents at the hands of agents of evil is thus perfectly understandable, but it's not just that they died, but that they didn't die fighting, for their lives, for their loved ones, or for a cause... that their deaths were so utterly senseless. The loved ones of military personnel who die in action can have the comfort of knowing that their dearly departed died for something they believed in, but the innocents who died as the result of skulking, cowardly evil didn't get the chance to fight, or the choice to try to combat the enemy, so what comfort can THEIR loved ones find?
How many of those who died forgot to kiss a loved one good-bye that day, or had loved ones who forgot to kiss THEM? How many of them had people they loved that they never expressed that love to, or vice versa? How many of them had had fights with loved ones that they hadn't resolved, and now never CAN resolve? How many of them had loved ones that they hadn't contacted in far too long?
On the positive side, out of our grief at the tragedy of 9-11 came many good things, such as the surges in blood donations, charitable giving, volunteering, and patriotism... and, the biggest of all, and the best tribute to the fallen-the explosion of people contacting loved ones that had slipped out of their lives, telling them how they felt, and welcoming them back into their lives. I hope that the many who lost pieces of their hearts on 9-11 can take at least a little bit of comfort in that.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Superstring theory and karma
I've had a great affection for superstring theory (aka string theory aka M-theory) from the moment I first read about it; it's a stunning model of how our universe came to be and how the omniverse could be laid out (I posted about that facet of it on 2-4), it does NOT require the existence of mysterious "dark energy" and "dark matter" (aka phlogiston and ether if you ask ME, see my post of 1-3), it would explain pretty much everything, it would allow for multiple universes... it nearly brings tears to my eyes because it's so beautiful and would change everything if it were proven to be accurate. I'd KILL to be one of the handful of people on the planet with sufficient understanding of theoretical physics and mega-math to actually analyze this theory... or at least to be able to get together with some of these guys and get them to try to explain as much as I CAN understand, AND to suggest to them that they study a little metaphysics to get more ideas as to what should be included in the analysis (ie all aspects of karma).
I see the energy of karma as making up the structure of reality, meaning both the physical AND the things we can't see, like thoughts, feelings, psychic phenomena, souls, spirits; using Occam's Razor, it's always seemed like all of these unknowns (the nature of the energy that all matter is made of has yet to be described, making IT also an unknown) should be made of ONE thing, such that we only have ONE unknown, "what is the energy of karma," rather than a bunch of unknowns.
Superstring theory has gone me one better; according to some eye-opening info about it that shows up twice in the September Discover, they're hoping to prove that EVERYTHING, including every kind of energy/force, is made up of the same thing. This is PHYSICISTS saying this, folks, not a METAphysicist. To quote:
"According to string theory, the fundamental constituents of the physical world are not pointlike particles but infinitesimal one-dimensional loops, or strings. All the particles and forces in the universe arise from these strings vibrating at different frequencies."
and:
"Superstring theory, now often called M-theory, looks like the most promising approach to marrying quantum mechanics and gravity while unifying all the forces of nature at the same time. Like general relativity, M-theory is bold: It knits together the strands of physics by describing all particles and forces as fantastically small strings of energy vibrating in 10 spatial dimensions and one dimension of time."
If they show superstring theory to be correct, that would be scientific proof that I've been RIGHT all along, that everything I've always said is made of the same "stuff" IS; the fact that everything ELSE in the universe(s) would ALSO be made of the same "stuff" thrills me no end, as it's the logical extension of my theories, but one that I'd never have dared to contemplate myself.
Even if you deny the existence of any of "the unknowns," you're being left with no way to deny that, as I've said over and over, reality is NOTHING like we think it is. Space, time, matter, energy... none of it works the way we were taught in school, the way our senses tell us, the way science of even a few years ago claimed. Is it such a big leap to go from that to embracing things like synchronicity and karma?
I see the energy of karma as making up the structure of reality, meaning both the physical AND the things we can't see, like thoughts, feelings, psychic phenomena, souls, spirits; using Occam's Razor, it's always seemed like all of these unknowns (the nature of the energy that all matter is made of has yet to be described, making IT also an unknown) should be made of ONE thing, such that we only have ONE unknown, "what is the energy of karma," rather than a bunch of unknowns.
Superstring theory has gone me one better; according to some eye-opening info about it that shows up twice in the September Discover, they're hoping to prove that EVERYTHING, including every kind of energy/force, is made up of the same thing. This is PHYSICISTS saying this, folks, not a METAphysicist. To quote:
"According to string theory, the fundamental constituents of the physical world are not pointlike particles but infinitesimal one-dimensional loops, or strings. All the particles and forces in the universe arise from these strings vibrating at different frequencies."
and:
"Superstring theory, now often called M-theory, looks like the most promising approach to marrying quantum mechanics and gravity while unifying all the forces of nature at the same time. Like general relativity, M-theory is bold: It knits together the strands of physics by describing all particles and forces as fantastically small strings of energy vibrating in 10 spatial dimensions and one dimension of time."
If they show superstring theory to be correct, that would be scientific proof that I've been RIGHT all along, that everything I've always said is made of the same "stuff" IS; the fact that everything ELSE in the universe(s) would ALSO be made of the same "stuff" thrills me no end, as it's the logical extension of my theories, but one that I'd never have dared to contemplate myself.
Even if you deny the existence of any of "the unknowns," you're being left with no way to deny that, as I've said over and over, reality is NOTHING like we think it is. Space, time, matter, energy... none of it works the way we were taught in school, the way our senses tell us, the way science of even a few years ago claimed. Is it such a big leap to go from that to embracing things like synchronicity and karma?
Friday, September 10, 2004
Intermittent reinforcement
If they give a rat a lever it can push to get a food pellet, it'll push whenever it wants a food pellet. If they give a rat a lever it can push that will SOMETIMES give it a food pellet, it will push the lever CONSTANTLY, will become virtually obsessed with pushing it.
HUH?!!
It's counter-intuitive, isn't it? You'd think that the rat stuck with the "sometimes lever" would ignore it in disgust, or only push it if he were REALLY hungry, because the reward to effort ratio is so poor, wouldn't you? That's not the way rat psychology works, though... or human psychology, either, sadly. Something that we only get some of the time in response to our efforts becomes vastly more desirable to us than it should based on its actual value; it's similar to the equally odd psychological reality that when access to something is restricted, whether by limited quantity, high price, or a velvet rope across the door, its desirability to most people skyrockets, even though the actual objective value of the thing hasn't changed.
Intermittent reinforcement is every bit as powerful in humans as it is in rats, and is the reason that the rotten people of the world will be pursued so intensively as romantic partners, and valued so highly as friends, as long as they SOMETIMES do something nice... when people SHOULD be turning from them in contempt as not worth the effort. It's also the reason that people who are nice all the time are NOT pursued intensively as romantic partners, or valued as highly as friends, or as people, as they should be given their records.
If you've ever wondered why people will hang out with "friends" who rarely seem to even be nice to them, or become virtually obsessed with romantic partners who don't treat them well aside from the occasional impressive gestures, this is what's behind it... sucks, doesn't it? If I had a dime for every time I've had to say something along the lines of, "I don't care if he got you a rose for no reason, he's been treating you like dirt every moment for 6 months," or "But WHY is she your friend when she takes from you constantly and can't be bothered to give anything back more than twice a year?", I could pay off my mortgage.
If there's any way to get other people to wise up about this when they're in the middle of it, I have yet to find it; I'm hoping that by warning people, I can help at least a few fend it off. On the less virtuous side... if, like me, you were raised to be "nice" and do everything for everyone, do the right and best thing all the time, you'll find that people will treat you BETTER if you "slack off" and treat them less "perfectly." Contrary species, aren't we?
HUH?!!
It's counter-intuitive, isn't it? You'd think that the rat stuck with the "sometimes lever" would ignore it in disgust, or only push it if he were REALLY hungry, because the reward to effort ratio is so poor, wouldn't you? That's not the way rat psychology works, though... or human psychology, either, sadly. Something that we only get some of the time in response to our efforts becomes vastly more desirable to us than it should based on its actual value; it's similar to the equally odd psychological reality that when access to something is restricted, whether by limited quantity, high price, or a velvet rope across the door, its desirability to most people skyrockets, even though the actual objective value of the thing hasn't changed.
Intermittent reinforcement is every bit as powerful in humans as it is in rats, and is the reason that the rotten people of the world will be pursued so intensively as romantic partners, and valued so highly as friends, as long as they SOMETIMES do something nice... when people SHOULD be turning from them in contempt as not worth the effort. It's also the reason that people who are nice all the time are NOT pursued intensively as romantic partners, or valued as highly as friends, or as people, as they should be given their records.
If you've ever wondered why people will hang out with "friends" who rarely seem to even be nice to them, or become virtually obsessed with romantic partners who don't treat them well aside from the occasional impressive gestures, this is what's behind it... sucks, doesn't it? If I had a dime for every time I've had to say something along the lines of, "I don't care if he got you a rose for no reason, he's been treating you like dirt every moment for 6 months," or "But WHY is she your friend when she takes from you constantly and can't be bothered to give anything back more than twice a year?", I could pay off my mortgage.
If there's any way to get other people to wise up about this when they're in the middle of it, I have yet to find it; I'm hoping that by warning people, I can help at least a few fend it off. On the less virtuous side... if, like me, you were raised to be "nice" and do everything for everyone, do the right and best thing all the time, you'll find that people will treat you BETTER if you "slack off" and treat them less "perfectly." Contrary species, aren't we?
Thursday, September 09, 2004
General relativity
Yes, I'm still wading through the articles on Einstein in the September 2004 issue of "Discover"; the one by theoretical physicist Lee Smolin gives the best explanation of general relativity that I've ever seen... and shows me that my own view of the universe as the engine of karma, in which everything is part of a radiating web of connections, with everything that happens becoming part of everything that follows, and time not working the way we've been taught, fits perfectly with what Einstein envisioned (the asterisks are mine):
"All previous theories said that space and time have a fixed structure and that it is this structure that gives rise to the properties of things in the world, by giving every object a place and every event a time. In the transition from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein and special relativity, that structure changed, but in each case the structure is absolute. We and everything we observe live in a set space-time, with fixed and unchanging properties. That is the stage on which we play, but nothing we do or could do affects the structure of space and time themselves.
General relativity is not about adding to those structures. It is not even about substituting those structures for a list of possible new structures. It rejects the whole idea that space and time are fixed at all. Instead, in general relativity ***the properties of space and time evolve dynamically, in interaction with everything they contain.*** Furthermore, the essence of space and time now is just a set of relationships between events that take place in the history of the world. It is sufficient, it turns out, to speak only of two kinds of relationships: how events are related to each other causally (the order in which they unfold) and how many events are contained within a given interval of time, measured by a standard clock (how quickly they unfold relative to each other).
Thus, in general relativity there is no fixed framework, no stage on which the world plays itself out. ***There is only an evolving network of relationships, making up the history of space, time, and matter.*** All the previous theories described space and time as fixed backgrounds on which things happen. The implication of general relativity is that there is no background."
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH...... :-)
"All previous theories said that space and time have a fixed structure and that it is this structure that gives rise to the properties of things in the world, by giving every object a place and every event a time. In the transition from Aristotle to Newton to Einstein and special relativity, that structure changed, but in each case the structure is absolute. We and everything we observe live in a set space-time, with fixed and unchanging properties. That is the stage on which we play, but nothing we do or could do affects the structure of space and time themselves.
General relativity is not about adding to those structures. It is not even about substituting those structures for a list of possible new structures. It rejects the whole idea that space and time are fixed at all. Instead, in general relativity ***the properties of space and time evolve dynamically, in interaction with everything they contain.*** Furthermore, the essence of space and time now is just a set of relationships between events that take place in the history of the world. It is sufficient, it turns out, to speak only of two kinds of relationships: how events are related to each other causally (the order in which they unfold) and how many events are contained within a given interval of time, measured by a standard clock (how quickly they unfold relative to each other).
Thus, in general relativity there is no fixed framework, no stage on which the world plays itself out. ***There is only an evolving network of relationships, making up the history of space, time, and matter.*** All the previous theories described space and time as fixed backgrounds on which things happen. The implication of general relativity is that there is no background."
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH...... :-)
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Genius=insanity?
This idea first occurred to me in high school, when it dawned on me that every "great man" we studied had either gone overtly crazy, committed suicide, died from alcohol or drugs, or married a teenaged cousin and later died alone in poverty in a garret... not a single one of them had the ability to deal with life, or function in the world. Coincidence?
When you inject nitrous oxide into a car's engine, it greatly improves its performance... but you can't keep pumping it in forever, because it messes the engine up. Is whatever it is that causes genius doing something similar to the brain? What IS genius after all but a hopped-up mode of mental functioning, one that allows the mind to make intellectual leaps, think around corners, and imagine things that have never before existed... and that never gives it a moment's peace, a moment to just cruise in neutral? How many times have you heard a writer say that they "have to" write, or an artist say they "have to" paint, etc; a compulsion like that is by itself proof of skating at the edge of sanity, of a mind that doesn't work in the "normal" way... and that's about as mentally healthy as geniuses get.
I wrote about genius in detail in my post of 2-28, and normally wouldn't revisit the topic, but today, in the September issue of "Discover," I read that Einstein's 2nd son, Eduard, was not only brilliant, as one would expect, but also schizophrenic, and spent a great deal of time institutionalized after his first breakdown at the age of 20. Schizophrenia is genetic; the genes for it are recessive, naturally, which is how it gets perpetuated despite it generally manifesting itself early enough in life to prevent procreation... and that means that the man who was arguably the greatest genius who ever lived carried a recessive gene for a form of insanity. (The multiple articles on him in the magazine show that he was QUITE eccentric, especially by the standards of that period in history-no surprise there.)
Is there a continuum from normal to genius to insanity, one in which the far end has a slippery slope down which all too many "greats" end up sliding? Do the genes for mental instability/illness act like a sort of nitrous oxide to the brain, making it super-charged, able to perform spectacular feats of creativity and insight... but also taking a toll, making it compulsive, or "eccentric"... or worse?
When you inject nitrous oxide into a car's engine, it greatly improves its performance... but you can't keep pumping it in forever, because it messes the engine up. Is whatever it is that causes genius doing something similar to the brain? What IS genius after all but a hopped-up mode of mental functioning, one that allows the mind to make intellectual leaps, think around corners, and imagine things that have never before existed... and that never gives it a moment's peace, a moment to just cruise in neutral? How many times have you heard a writer say that they "have to" write, or an artist say they "have to" paint, etc; a compulsion like that is by itself proof of skating at the edge of sanity, of a mind that doesn't work in the "normal" way... and that's about as mentally healthy as geniuses get.
I wrote about genius in detail in my post of 2-28, and normally wouldn't revisit the topic, but today, in the September issue of "Discover," I read that Einstein's 2nd son, Eduard, was not only brilliant, as one would expect, but also schizophrenic, and spent a great deal of time institutionalized after his first breakdown at the age of 20. Schizophrenia is genetic; the genes for it are recessive, naturally, which is how it gets perpetuated despite it generally manifesting itself early enough in life to prevent procreation... and that means that the man who was arguably the greatest genius who ever lived carried a recessive gene for a form of insanity. (The multiple articles on him in the magazine show that he was QUITE eccentric, especially by the standards of that period in history-no surprise there.)
Is there a continuum from normal to genius to insanity, one in which the far end has a slippery slope down which all too many "greats" end up sliding? Do the genes for mental instability/illness act like a sort of nitrous oxide to the brain, making it super-charged, able to perform spectacular feats of creativity and insight... but also taking a toll, making it compulsive, or "eccentric"... or worse?
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Voodoo and DNA
My most deeply religious friend called me and announced that, thanks to her discussions with ME, she's been thinking about various aspects of the unknown and how they might be explained... and had come to the conclusion that there might be something to voodoo, because the common requirement for things like hair or fingernail clippings, which contain DNA, for the spells could mean that voodoo IS actually allowing the practitioners to focus energy of some sort at, or against, people. I don't know which made me prouder, that this Christian woman was contemplating things that were previously unimaginable to her, or that she came up with something new that a case can actually be made for.
Yes, I know, voodoo seems outrageous to Western eyes, but that's not a reason to discount it out of hand; after all, OUR religions have some pretty wild trappings too, when you think about it. Let's pick on Catholicism, since that's what MY family's religion is; you can't beat Catholic religious leaders in the goofy-hat department, the incense that gets waved around seems a tad pagan, and it doesn't get more extreme than their ritual cannibalism (Catholics believe themselves to actually be eating the body of Christ when they receive communion)... and don't get me started on the abuse of children by the priests. What has voodoo got to shock us with compared to all that, really... dead chickens and such? No comparison.
Voodoo, like any other belief system, is a way for people to feel like they have some sort of say with the powers that control the world, and thus some sort of control over their own lives; they also believe they can affect other people via this system, and they certainly have an impressive record of being able to do so... and NOT all of it can be attributed to coincidence or being able to psyche out their enemies, although obviously much of it CAN. Much of what they do, the prayers and rituals, are common to most cultures; they're just ways of organizing and focusing thoughts, which are energy, and therefore capable of doing "work"... if you have sufficient mental discipline. (It's like learning to juggle an egg, a running chainsaw and a bowling ball all at the same time; nearly anyone COULD learn to do it, but few are willing to do what it takes TO learn it.)
Most items used in rituals are just props to allow us to tune out the mundane world and tune in to our inner eye, so to speak, and you could easily argue that having discarded bits of a person's body to use in the casting of spells is nothing more than that... OR, the DNA they contain COULD be physically assisting or directing the flow of energy onto the intended victim. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....
Yes, I know, voodoo seems outrageous to Western eyes, but that's not a reason to discount it out of hand; after all, OUR religions have some pretty wild trappings too, when you think about it. Let's pick on Catholicism, since that's what MY family's religion is; you can't beat Catholic religious leaders in the goofy-hat department, the incense that gets waved around seems a tad pagan, and it doesn't get more extreme than their ritual cannibalism (Catholics believe themselves to actually be eating the body of Christ when they receive communion)... and don't get me started on the abuse of children by the priests. What has voodoo got to shock us with compared to all that, really... dead chickens and such? No comparison.
Voodoo, like any other belief system, is a way for people to feel like they have some sort of say with the powers that control the world, and thus some sort of control over their own lives; they also believe they can affect other people via this system, and they certainly have an impressive record of being able to do so... and NOT all of it can be attributed to coincidence or being able to psyche out their enemies, although obviously much of it CAN. Much of what they do, the prayers and rituals, are common to most cultures; they're just ways of organizing and focusing thoughts, which are energy, and therefore capable of doing "work"... if you have sufficient mental discipline. (It's like learning to juggle an egg, a running chainsaw and a bowling ball all at the same time; nearly anyone COULD learn to do it, but few are willing to do what it takes TO learn it.)
Most items used in rituals are just props to allow us to tune out the mundane world and tune in to our inner eye, so to speak, and you could easily argue that having discarded bits of a person's body to use in the casting of spells is nothing more than that... OR, the DNA they contain COULD be physically assisting or directing the flow of energy onto the intended victim. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....
Monday, September 06, 2004
Your thoughts shape the world
Did you ever think that the opposite of faith is... FEAR? This was part of the message in Joel Osteen's sermon today; that when you have faith, God comes and gives you all the wonderful things he has lined up for you, and that when you have fear, "the enemy" (Satan) comes and brings you the very things you've been worrying about. He said that by the very act of fearing, you create an opening through which "the enemy" can enter your life and do you ill... there's that karmic idea of your thoughts creating openings for "stuff" to fall into your life through again, as well as the idea that the "beings of power" can't take action for or against you unless your mind is focused a certain way (which *I* would of course see as the positive or negative nature of your mind causing corresponding things to happen directly, but the end result is the same).
Osteen made the repeated point throughout his sermon about not fearing, about not letting any fearful thoughts or ideas be in your head, about being careful about what you meditate on (aka think about alot), about disciplining your mind so that you never have any visions in it of bad things happening... because if you DON'T exercise this sort of control, you'll cause those things you fear the most to actually happen.
He described a man he knew who'd obsessed that his young and perfectly healthy wife might die and leave him alone; within a few years, she contracted a rare form of cancer and died. On the positive side, he told of a woman he knew who had spent her entire life sure that she'd have great trouble conceiving, as all the woman in her family had, and she in fact didn't conceive... UNTIL he convinced her that she had to replace the fearful thoughts with positive ones, after which she got pregnant within a few months. What was really fascinating about these stories wasn't the cause and effect he showed between repeated thoughts and strong feelings and what happens to us, which isn't new to ME, but that he outlined all of this with virtually no mention of God... I say that not to question his faith, which I have no reason to do, but to make the point once again that he seems to be talking as much about what he perceives about how the universe works (karma) as about what it says in the Bible.
He also says that, in addition to disciplining your mind to seal out all fearful thoughts, you need to visualize the positive events that you want in your life, such as a successful business or a new baby, actually SEE them in your mind over and over; anyone who's read anything about visualization techniques will find this quite familiar. Visualization, affirmations, meditation, prayer... all ways to repeatedly focus your mind on your goals, all ways that you CAN in fact influence how your life turns out.
The idea that you have to discipline your mind to keep ALL fearful thoughts out, because any "bad" thought in your mind can bring bad things into your life, may sound extreme... but I think Osteen's dead-on. More and more in recent months, when thoughts of things that could go wrong have crept into my mind, I've been reacting with "no, don't even think that," which hadn't been my pattern before, but has seemed more and more necessary the deeper I've gotten into the workings of karma and seen how what I think feeds into what happens in my life.
The universe truly doesn't work the way we were taught, with powerful forces outside of our control moving us around like chess pieces; yes, there ARE forces at work all around us, but we're far from powerLESS ourselves... our minds have so much power to affect what happens in our lives that even the most exaggerated-sounding comments I make are understatements. Try it and see.
Osteen made the repeated point throughout his sermon about not fearing, about not letting any fearful thoughts or ideas be in your head, about being careful about what you meditate on (aka think about alot), about disciplining your mind so that you never have any visions in it of bad things happening... because if you DON'T exercise this sort of control, you'll cause those things you fear the most to actually happen.
He described a man he knew who'd obsessed that his young and perfectly healthy wife might die and leave him alone; within a few years, she contracted a rare form of cancer and died. On the positive side, he told of a woman he knew who had spent her entire life sure that she'd have great trouble conceiving, as all the woman in her family had, and she in fact didn't conceive... UNTIL he convinced her that she had to replace the fearful thoughts with positive ones, after which she got pregnant within a few months. What was really fascinating about these stories wasn't the cause and effect he showed between repeated thoughts and strong feelings and what happens to us, which isn't new to ME, but that he outlined all of this with virtually no mention of God... I say that not to question his faith, which I have no reason to do, but to make the point once again that he seems to be talking as much about what he perceives about how the universe works (karma) as about what it says in the Bible.
He also says that, in addition to disciplining your mind to seal out all fearful thoughts, you need to visualize the positive events that you want in your life, such as a successful business or a new baby, actually SEE them in your mind over and over; anyone who's read anything about visualization techniques will find this quite familiar. Visualization, affirmations, meditation, prayer... all ways to repeatedly focus your mind on your goals, all ways that you CAN in fact influence how your life turns out.
The idea that you have to discipline your mind to keep ALL fearful thoughts out, because any "bad" thought in your mind can bring bad things into your life, may sound extreme... but I think Osteen's dead-on. More and more in recent months, when thoughts of things that could go wrong have crept into my mind, I've been reacting with "no, don't even think that," which hadn't been my pattern before, but has seemed more and more necessary the deeper I've gotten into the workings of karma and seen how what I think feeds into what happens in my life.
The universe truly doesn't work the way we were taught, with powerful forces outside of our control moving us around like chess pieces; yes, there ARE forces at work all around us, but we're far from powerLESS ourselves... our minds have so much power to affect what happens in our lives that even the most exaggerated-sounding comments I make are understatements. Try it and see.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Does your opinion count more than 10,000 opinions?
Unless your ego is the largest in the history of humankind, you thought "of course not" when you read the title, but if I asked you the question in a different way, there's a good chance you'd answer differently; if I told you that a survey was done and 10,000 people had a certain opinion/feeling/habit that was contrary to YOUR opinion/etc, you'd most likely fire right back with something along the lines of "no, that's not right/true, *I* don't think/feel/do that"... and with that statement, you'd dismiss what 10,000 people said because your own experience is different, which boils down to counting your own opinion (or that of anyone you know well enough to be sure of what THEY would say) as "more than" the opinions of 10,000, or 100,000, or a MILLION people.
If you're absolutely positive that you've never done any such thing, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're male; one of the glaring differences between the genders is that women tend to see the experiences of themselves and those they know as being somehow more significant than the experiences of literally ANY # of other people. I can't tell you how many times I've had intelligent, educated, sophisticated women not only respond to statistics I've given them this way, but, after I've pointed out to them the utter ridiculousness of putting the experiences of one person over those of thousands, reply with a perfect imitation of a 5-year-old's tone "well, I don't care, I just care about what my brother says" (or whoever).
Ladies, if hearing about this makes you feel defensive, be aware that men HATE when you do this, and that this is one of the things men point to as "proof" that women are illogical, irrational, etc; if you want the men in your life to respect you, you need to behave in a respect-worthy manner, which means, in this instance, accepting that one person's opinion only counts as ONE, even if that person is YOU.
If you're a woman and, like me, are in the minority of women who do NOT do this, you've probably been told many times that you "think like a man"; if you ever wondered what men mean when they say that, this should shed a little light.
If you're male and think this way... unless your male friends think the same way, it'll be self-correcting, so I won't comment. ;-)
If you're male and have always been disgusted when women do this, and plain don't understand it... I empathize, as it drives ME crazy, too, and don't have any insight to offer, because I've never done it. All I can suggest is that, next time you want to take your woman to task for her "illogical thinking," keep in mind that YOU probably consider baseball scores to be more worthy of being committed to memory than your anniversary, or watching a football game to be more important than playing with your kids, or keeping up with the WWF to be more important than calling your mother... and your woman, silly creature that she is, thinks that THOSE things are illogical-so you're even.
If you're absolutely positive that you've never done any such thing, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're male; one of the glaring differences between the genders is that women tend to see the experiences of themselves and those they know as being somehow more significant than the experiences of literally ANY # of other people. I can't tell you how many times I've had intelligent, educated, sophisticated women not only respond to statistics I've given them this way, but, after I've pointed out to them the utter ridiculousness of putting the experiences of one person over those of thousands, reply with a perfect imitation of a 5-year-old's tone "well, I don't care, I just care about what my brother says" (or whoever).
Ladies, if hearing about this makes you feel defensive, be aware that men HATE when you do this, and that this is one of the things men point to as "proof" that women are illogical, irrational, etc; if you want the men in your life to respect you, you need to behave in a respect-worthy manner, which means, in this instance, accepting that one person's opinion only counts as ONE, even if that person is YOU.
If you're a woman and, like me, are in the minority of women who do NOT do this, you've probably been told many times that you "think like a man"; if you ever wondered what men mean when they say that, this should shed a little light.
If you're male and think this way... unless your male friends think the same way, it'll be self-correcting, so I won't comment. ;-)
If you're male and have always been disgusted when women do this, and plain don't understand it... I empathize, as it drives ME crazy, too, and don't have any insight to offer, because I've never done it. All I can suggest is that, next time you want to take your woman to task for her "illogical thinking," keep in mind that YOU probably consider baseball scores to be more worthy of being committed to memory than your anniversary, or watching a football game to be more important than playing with your kids, or keeping up with the WWF to be more important than calling your mother... and your woman, silly creature that she is, thinks that THOSE things are illogical-so you're even.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Human sexuality is more complicated than we think
Normally, I delete all the pornographic emails that show up in my inbox (well, except for the ones from friends, lol), but I was feeling a little wild on a Friday night, and I actually went and looked at one of the websites... and I think the sex researchers need to start from square 1 again, because there's stuff out there that I've never even HEARD of.
I'm not talking about the sexual positions that have never actually been achieved by a couple having unassisted, genuine sex, although I did have to wonder who exactly finds that sort of contortionism erotic... I mean the staggering number of fetishes that have apparently always existed in the minds of FAR more people than the supposed experts realize.
The statistics I've read place fetishism in the single digits; 6% is the most common # I've seen.... and that just CAN'T be right, given the sheer volume of fetish sites dedicated to every "perversion" you've never heard of (I use the quotes because I don't think we know enough about sexuality and the workings of the brain to be sure about where to draw the line between "normal" and "abnormal"). When you think about it, it's not too surprising that the #'s would be so far off for something considered socially unacceptable, since the only way they have of gathering data on it is by ASKING people, who might be too ashamed to admit to it in person, and in too deep of denial to admit to it even in an anonymous survey; it's unfortunate, though, because if every fetishist of every kind "came out" about it, it might well turn out that fetishism is so common that there'd be no stigma attached to it, and people would have one less thing to feel guilty about.
Do you think that I'm exaggerating, that a handful of guys who love feet and stockings and such can't add up to much? The # of people who love those 2 things alone is astounding, but they're honestly just the tip of the iceberg: There are fetishes for raingear, swimming caps, smoking, tickling, robots, statues, noses, eyeballs, diapers, fur, being vomited on, being hit with PIES... stuff that the most strenuous mental effort can't figure out how they could have EVER become the focus of sexual feelings. These odd and often elaborate sexual paths must reveal something really important about how our minds work; sadly, while scientists remain afraid to ask for grants for sexual studies that can't be justified as being of immediate medical concern, that something will remain a mystery.
In most households, it wouldn't be the woman looking at this sort of thing-it would be the man surfing around the fringes of "extreme porn" in trembling secrecy. In MY marriage, though, I'm by far the less squeamish one (except where bugs and spiders are concerned), and when I find graphic sexual images, I get a bonus; I can see how many times I can call my husband in to look at what's on the screen and get grossed out before he wises up and refuses to come look any more.
He's a VERY slow learner. :-)
I'm not talking about the sexual positions that have never actually been achieved by a couple having unassisted, genuine sex, although I did have to wonder who exactly finds that sort of contortionism erotic... I mean the staggering number of fetishes that have apparently always existed in the minds of FAR more people than the supposed experts realize.
The statistics I've read place fetishism in the single digits; 6% is the most common # I've seen.... and that just CAN'T be right, given the sheer volume of fetish sites dedicated to every "perversion" you've never heard of (I use the quotes because I don't think we know enough about sexuality and the workings of the brain to be sure about where to draw the line between "normal" and "abnormal"). When you think about it, it's not too surprising that the #'s would be so far off for something considered socially unacceptable, since the only way they have of gathering data on it is by ASKING people, who might be too ashamed to admit to it in person, and in too deep of denial to admit to it even in an anonymous survey; it's unfortunate, though, because if every fetishist of every kind "came out" about it, it might well turn out that fetishism is so common that there'd be no stigma attached to it, and people would have one less thing to feel guilty about.
Do you think that I'm exaggerating, that a handful of guys who love feet and stockings and such can't add up to much? The # of people who love those 2 things alone is astounding, but they're honestly just the tip of the iceberg: There are fetishes for raingear, swimming caps, smoking, tickling, robots, statues, noses, eyeballs, diapers, fur, being vomited on, being hit with PIES... stuff that the most strenuous mental effort can't figure out how they could have EVER become the focus of sexual feelings. These odd and often elaborate sexual paths must reveal something really important about how our minds work; sadly, while scientists remain afraid to ask for grants for sexual studies that can't be justified as being of immediate medical concern, that something will remain a mystery.
In most households, it wouldn't be the woman looking at this sort of thing-it would be the man surfing around the fringes of "extreme porn" in trembling secrecy. In MY marriage, though, I'm by far the less squeamish one (except where bugs and spiders are concerned), and when I find graphic sexual images, I get a bonus; I can see how many times I can call my husband in to look at what's on the screen and get grossed out before he wises up and refuses to come look any more.
He's a VERY slow learner. :-)
Friday, September 03, 2004
What makes a man a "real man"?
There are probably as many answers to this one as there are people, but here's my take on it:
A real man has feelings, and isn't afraid to express them... and yes, that includes crying if he's sad.
A real man has the sort of masculinity that can't be threatened, and therefore can wear pink, be friends with gay people, and eat fat-free cookies ... even when his friends are watching.
A real man works for what he gets; he doesn't steal or cheat for gain, nor is he willing to live off of the labors of others.
A real man can be beaten at a game, out-performed at work, or disagreed with without getting nasty about it.
A real man's word is his bond.
A real man doesn't see feminism as an excuse to not be a gentleman.
A real man isn't a bully; he's kind to women, children, the elderly, pets, waitresses, his employees.... anyone he has power over or might be able to dominate if he wanted to.
A real man sees his romantic partner as his equal, not as his maid, mommy, child, slave or punching bag.
A real man takes care of his children, and focuses his time, $, and emotional energy on them and their welfare, no matter what his relationship is with their mother.
A real man is tall, muscular and powerful. You'd BETTER be shocked at that one, because it's a big load of bull; real men come in EVERY shape and size... and the surest sign of a real WOMAN is that she can see that.
A real man has feelings, and isn't afraid to express them... and yes, that includes crying if he's sad.
A real man has the sort of masculinity that can't be threatened, and therefore can wear pink, be friends with gay people, and eat fat-free cookies ... even when his friends are watching.
A real man works for what he gets; he doesn't steal or cheat for gain, nor is he willing to live off of the labors of others.
A real man can be beaten at a game, out-performed at work, or disagreed with without getting nasty about it.
A real man's word is his bond.
A real man doesn't see feminism as an excuse to not be a gentleman.
A real man isn't a bully; he's kind to women, children, the elderly, pets, waitresses, his employees.... anyone he has power over or might be able to dominate if he wanted to.
A real man sees his romantic partner as his equal, not as his maid, mommy, child, slave or punching bag.
A real man takes care of his children, and focuses his time, $, and emotional energy on them and their welfare, no matter what his relationship is with their mother.
A real man is tall, muscular and powerful. You'd BETTER be shocked at that one, because it's a big load of bull; real men come in EVERY shape and size... and the surest sign of a real WOMAN is that she can see that.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
The "nuclear" debate
Do you pronounce it "noo-kyoo-lar" or "noo-klee-ar"? Don't be too quick to answer; you know which way is the RIGHT way to pronounce it, but do you, or anyone you know, actually pronounce it that way?
I was puzzled when a big deal started being made about Bush saying "noo-kyoo-lar"; *I* say it that way, and so does everyone I know... it's the way MOST people say it, aside from newscasters. I said as much to my husband at the time the hooraw started, and he claimed that HE didn't say it that way; he was wrong about that, of course, and every time he's said the word since, I've taken great glee in pointing out that he DID, in fact, say it that way. He also tried to deny that most people say it that way, but every time it's been used in a non-news program we were watching... you guessed it, lol.
Have you ever wondered WHY this mis-pronunciation is so common? I started thinking about it, and was coming up blank, so I did some looking around, and ended up here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nuclear
and found this (with the phonetics altered because the special characters they used wouldn't copy):
"Usage Note: The pronunciation (noo-kyoo-lar), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (klee-ar), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (kyoo-lar), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular."
And that's why the mispronunciation is so common; it made perfect sense AFTER I read it. Now, if I could only figure out why most people pronounce "restaurant" as "rest-rahnt" instead of the proper way, "res-tah-rahnt"... ;-)
I was puzzled when a big deal started being made about Bush saying "noo-kyoo-lar"; *I* say it that way, and so does everyone I know... it's the way MOST people say it, aside from newscasters. I said as much to my husband at the time the hooraw started, and he claimed that HE didn't say it that way; he was wrong about that, of course, and every time he's said the word since, I've taken great glee in pointing out that he DID, in fact, say it that way. He also tried to deny that most people say it that way, but every time it's been used in a non-news program we were watching... you guessed it, lol.
Have you ever wondered WHY this mis-pronunciation is so common? I started thinking about it, and was coming up blank, so I did some looking around, and ended up here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nuclear
and found this (with the phonetics altered because the special characters they used wouldn't copy):
"Usage Note: The pronunciation (noo-kyoo-lar), which is generally considered incorrect, is an example of how a familiar phonological pattern can influence an unfamiliar one. The usual pronunciation of the final two syllables of this word is (klee-ar), but this sequence of sounds is rare in English. Much more common is the similar sequence (kyoo-lar), which occurs in words like particular, circular, spectacular, and in many scientific words like molecular, ocular, and vascular."
And that's why the mispronunciation is so common; it made perfect sense AFTER I read it. Now, if I could only figure out why most people pronounce "restaurant" as "rest-rahnt" instead of the proper way, "res-tah-rahnt"... ;-)
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Karma works FAST
In my post of this past Saturday, I bemoaned the fact that my husband had switched to referring to one of our recently-arrested, drug-dealer neighbors as a "nice guy" because the lowlife had said a few polite sentences to him; no matter what aspects of the neighbor's illegal behaviors I reminded him about, he kept on "yeah, but"-ing me and clearly NOT accepting the thoroughly criminal, evil nature of the man. Sunday, the very next day, this "nice guy" neighbor broke into my husband's car and stole over $1000 worth of equipment... and that's NOT a typo.
Karma, as I said in the title, works FAST.
My husband learned the lessons he obviously needed to, about the neighbor, about the nature of evil and how to judge it, and about the validity of my endless lectures to him about the importance of NOT leaving valuables laying out in plain view in a car that's being parked in the driveway or on the street, and not leaving the window cracked (yes, the window was down several inches to facilitate the theft) which he had previously pooh-poohed as "worrying about nothing"... that's alot of heavy-duty lessons all at once; karma is quite efficient.
He was so embarrassed to have been proven so overwhelmingly wrong about so many things, and at such a high cost, that he didn't even tell me it had happened until the cops came to the neighbors' house AGAIN, this evening, and other neighbors were gathering to talk about it, all of whom, it turns out, HAD been told about the theft as part of trying to find out if anyone had witnessed the event (when they say the wife is always the last to know, this isn't what I thought they meant). He actually thought he had a shot at permanently concealing the theft, and thus the stupidity of his choices and judgment, from me; there's another valuable lesson for him.
He's still denying the most valuable lesson here, though; the one about the workings of karma. He's been leaving equipment in plain view in his car for the entire time I've known him, and for all the months those crooks have lived next to us, but it wasn't until he started denying their evil that they helped themselves to his stuff... if that's not synchronicity in action, I don't know what is.
Karma, as I said in the title, works FAST.
My husband learned the lessons he obviously needed to, about the neighbor, about the nature of evil and how to judge it, and about the validity of my endless lectures to him about the importance of NOT leaving valuables laying out in plain view in a car that's being parked in the driveway or on the street, and not leaving the window cracked (yes, the window was down several inches to facilitate the theft) which he had previously pooh-poohed as "worrying about nothing"... that's alot of heavy-duty lessons all at once; karma is quite efficient.
He was so embarrassed to have been proven so overwhelmingly wrong about so many things, and at such a high cost, that he didn't even tell me it had happened until the cops came to the neighbors' house AGAIN, this evening, and other neighbors were gathering to talk about it, all of whom, it turns out, HAD been told about the theft as part of trying to find out if anyone had witnessed the event (when they say the wife is always the last to know, this isn't what I thought they meant). He actually thought he had a shot at permanently concealing the theft, and thus the stupidity of his choices and judgment, from me; there's another valuable lesson for him.
He's still denying the most valuable lesson here, though; the one about the workings of karma. He's been leaving equipment in plain view in his car for the entire time I've known him, and for all the months those crooks have lived next to us, but it wasn't until he started denying their evil that they helped themselves to his stuff... if that's not synchronicity in action, I don't know what is.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Cell phones
When did it become necessary for every human being from grammar school to the grave to have a cell phone?
When did we become so convinced of our own importance that we figured we had to be reachable every single minute of the day?
When did we become so impatient that we can't wait until we get home to pass along our thoughts to our friends?
When did we become so detached from life that we feel we always have to be talking nonstop rather than paying attention to what's going on around us and DOING things?
When did we become so stupid that we talked on the phones in our cars to the point where the accident rate went shooting up, making it necessary to pass laws to prevent it?
When did we become so rude that we intrude our trivial business into other people's meals at restaurants, into people's thoughts while they're standing in line with us, and right in the faces of people we're supposed to be interacting with in person, even at important functions and during dates, without noticing or caring about the dismay we're causing those around us?
When did our culture become so permeated by cell phones that you have to have one to be considered "normal"?
People are STUNNED to discover that *I* don't have a cell phone, and bombard me with questions designed to ferret out the reason for this deviant behavior; with my standard bluntness, I tell them that because I'm neither a doctor on call nor the parent of a minor child, there's never any need for me to be instantly reachable, and therefore no reason to waste $ on a cell phone... and they look at me like I must have just escaped from an insane asylum, lol.
What do you suppose people will say if I get a BlackBerry:
http://www.blackberry.com/products/blackberry7700/blackberry7730.shtml
with a cell connection (so I can place bids on eBay when I'm out of the house) and never use it as a phone, hehehehehe?
When did we become so convinced of our own importance that we figured we had to be reachable every single minute of the day?
When did we become so impatient that we can't wait until we get home to pass along our thoughts to our friends?
When did we become so detached from life that we feel we always have to be talking nonstop rather than paying attention to what's going on around us and DOING things?
When did we become so stupid that we talked on the phones in our cars to the point where the accident rate went shooting up, making it necessary to pass laws to prevent it?
When did we become so rude that we intrude our trivial business into other people's meals at restaurants, into people's thoughts while they're standing in line with us, and right in the faces of people we're supposed to be interacting with in person, even at important functions and during dates, without noticing or caring about the dismay we're causing those around us?
When did our culture become so permeated by cell phones that you have to have one to be considered "normal"?
People are STUNNED to discover that *I* don't have a cell phone, and bombard me with questions designed to ferret out the reason for this deviant behavior; with my standard bluntness, I tell them that because I'm neither a doctor on call nor the parent of a minor child, there's never any need for me to be instantly reachable, and therefore no reason to waste $ on a cell phone... and they look at me like I must have just escaped from an insane asylum, lol.
What do you suppose people will say if I get a BlackBerry:
http://www.blackberry.com/products/blackberry7700/blackberry7730.shtml
with a cell connection (so I can place bids on eBay when I'm out of the house) and never use it as a phone, hehehehehe?
Monday, August 30, 2004
Karmic inertia
A couple of days ago, I was talking to a friend who's heavily into karma (and religion, too), and we were speculating as to the reason for one of the oddest aspects of karma; when you try to make a big life change, it "responds" as if there was in fact a STRUCTURE to it, where your path is dug into a "rut," and you have to struggle to get out of it, just like you would from a gorge with steep, slippery sides that you'd been walking along and decided you wanted to climb out of... as if there were inertia involved, as there is with objects in motion.
What causes this? One thought I had is: Because precognition exists, we know that the future exists, in some form and to some extent; it exists as an extension of what exists now, and it might "resist" having to change form because you're changing something.
Another idea I had was: Karma is very consistent about tossing tests at us when we've learned a major life lesson, which I've always thought of as a way of making sure we've actually made the internal change necessary to implement what we've learned... but what if it's actually an example of karmic inertia trying to keep us from making the change by tempting us to fall back into our old patterns?
I got on this train of thought because of something Joel Osteen said today; non-coincidentally, right after I started thinking more deeply about how a surge of problems comes up when people try to change, he preached about how, when you try to change, "the enemy" (aka Satan) gets involved and tries his hardest to turn you from your new path and make you stay in your old rut. Once again, he comes from a Christian perspective and sees the exact same non-intuitive thing I see via my studies of karma... and his timing is eerie. (Just because I have a strong belief in synchronicity doesn't mean that it doesn't still give me chills.)
He managed to get another karmic truism into his half-hour sermon; he pointed out, correctly, that what you keep thinking about gets DRAWN into your life, and yes, he used that EXACT word... and how many times have *I* said that?
I told my friend about Osteen, and told her to tape it tonight (she goes to bed early); I'm going to have to call her and see if she remembered, and has watched it... and see what SHE says about the content and timing of his message, coming from her perspective of being a believer in karma AND a Christian. Stay tuned.
What causes this? One thought I had is: Because precognition exists, we know that the future exists, in some form and to some extent; it exists as an extension of what exists now, and it might "resist" having to change form because you're changing something.
Another idea I had was: Karma is very consistent about tossing tests at us when we've learned a major life lesson, which I've always thought of as a way of making sure we've actually made the internal change necessary to implement what we've learned... but what if it's actually an example of karmic inertia trying to keep us from making the change by tempting us to fall back into our old patterns?
I got on this train of thought because of something Joel Osteen said today; non-coincidentally, right after I started thinking more deeply about how a surge of problems comes up when people try to change, he preached about how, when you try to change, "the enemy" (aka Satan) gets involved and tries his hardest to turn you from your new path and make you stay in your old rut. Once again, he comes from a Christian perspective and sees the exact same non-intuitive thing I see via my studies of karma... and his timing is eerie. (Just because I have a strong belief in synchronicity doesn't mean that it doesn't still give me chills.)
He managed to get another karmic truism into his half-hour sermon; he pointed out, correctly, that what you keep thinking about gets DRAWN into your life, and yes, he used that EXACT word... and how many times have *I* said that?
I told my friend about Osteen, and told her to tape it tonight (she goes to bed early); I'm going to have to call her and see if she remembered, and has watched it... and see what SHE says about the content and timing of his message, coming from her perspective of being a believer in karma AND a Christian. Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Is all porn bad?
There are all sorts of things we can point to that are bad about porn: Child porn is abuse of the innocent. Some of the more extreme varieties, such as those featuring animals and corpses, cater to, and encourage interest in, socially unacceptable behavior. Porn creates unrealistic ideas of what human bodies and sexual encounters are actually like, and leads to the objectification of the models/actors (usually seen as being women, but those who say that have no idea how much gay men's porn there is), and by extension of their entire gender, which can be devastating to young people who have little or no real life experience to use for comparison. And on and on; we've all heard the reasons that porn is "bad," and an excellent case is made by those reasons... but does that mean that all porn really IS bad, for all people under all circumstances?
I'm getting at something, can you tell? I can't count the # of times I've read about, or been told about, a situation that goes like; a woman gets home early, or gets up in the middle of the night, and finds her man, um, holding a magazine, or their mouse, in one hand, so to speak, and freaks out because he's not only choking the proverbial chicken, but is doing so while looking at sexual imagery... she sees it as somehow being the equivalent of him cheating on her. What follows is usually a hysterical demand that the man throw out all his magazines and/or delete his porn files and bookmarks, which the humiliated man agrees to. What follows THAT is the man employing an increased level of secrecy in order to resume this perfectly harmless activity that he's been doing his entire life and will continue to do until the day he dies.
Yes, that's right, ladies; HARMLESS. Masturbation is an integral part of maleness; male infants even do it in the womb. While women do it too, obviously, they often see it as something to do only when they don't HAVE a man, and then tend not to use porn; that doesn't make it the "right" way to do it, though, and in fact it's totally normal for men to do it even when they're coupled up, and totally normal for them to look at sexual imagery when they do it... they're biologically programmed to want, and NEED, to look, and to want to keep seeing NEW images.
I'm not saying that it's not right for a woman to be concerned if what her man is looking at is something truly sick; we just need to grit our teeth and accept that the standard nudie pics, and depictions of the same sexual acts we all participate in, are NOT sick, and not causing any harm unless the guy's refusing real sex to focus on porn... and let's face it, THAT doesn't happen too often, lol.
So, while there's inarguably plenty of porn that IS bad, and porn should certainly be kept away from kids, we as women need to lose the excessively PC attitude that's it's ALL bad, and let men look in peace... or, even better, we should stop being squeamish and take a look at pics of some of the mega-hotties working in the gay porn industry (don't bother with straight porn, trust me) , and find out what all the fuss is about. If your man catches you at it, you can just blame me. ;-)
I'm getting at something, can you tell? I can't count the # of times I've read about, or been told about, a situation that goes like; a woman gets home early, or gets up in the middle of the night, and finds her man, um, holding a magazine, or their mouse, in one hand, so to speak, and freaks out because he's not only choking the proverbial chicken, but is doing so while looking at sexual imagery... she sees it as somehow being the equivalent of him cheating on her. What follows is usually a hysterical demand that the man throw out all his magazines and/or delete his porn files and bookmarks, which the humiliated man agrees to. What follows THAT is the man employing an increased level of secrecy in order to resume this perfectly harmless activity that he's been doing his entire life and will continue to do until the day he dies.
Yes, that's right, ladies; HARMLESS. Masturbation is an integral part of maleness; male infants even do it in the womb. While women do it too, obviously, they often see it as something to do only when they don't HAVE a man, and then tend not to use porn; that doesn't make it the "right" way to do it, though, and in fact it's totally normal for men to do it even when they're coupled up, and totally normal for them to look at sexual imagery when they do it... they're biologically programmed to want, and NEED, to look, and to want to keep seeing NEW images.
I'm not saying that it's not right for a woman to be concerned if what her man is looking at is something truly sick; we just need to grit our teeth and accept that the standard nudie pics, and depictions of the same sexual acts we all participate in, are NOT sick, and not causing any harm unless the guy's refusing real sex to focus on porn... and let's face it, THAT doesn't happen too often, lol.
So, while there's inarguably plenty of porn that IS bad, and porn should certainly be kept away from kids, we as women need to lose the excessively PC attitude that's it's ALL bad, and let men look in peace... or, even better, we should stop being squeamish and take a look at pics of some of the mega-hotties working in the gay porn industry (don't bother with straight porn, trust me) , and find out what all the fuss is about. If your man catches you at it, you can just blame me. ;-)
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Must we make it so EASY for the evil to be evil?
(Let me preface the following rant by saying that when I say "evil," I'm NOT referring to accidents, honest mistakes, things done mindlessly while drunk or angry, etc... I'm talking about EVIL, aka deliberate ugly, hurtful behavior by people who are ugly where it counts-on the inside.)
Sometimes it feels like I've spent half my life warning people that once they see a "friend" engaging in evil behavior they need to realize that an evil person is no one's friend, and cut them loose before they become the next target... and the other half of my life saying "I told you so" to people when they got shredded by the evil types they refused to kick to the curb.
Have you ever consciously realized how LITTLE it takes for most people to shrug off bad behavior and pretend it didn't matter, as if it shouldn't be part of the info used to judge the worth of the wrongdoer? Most times, the evil one doesn't even have to make any effort; just the passage of a few weeks, or even DAYS, is enough for people to act as if the evil evaporated and somehow doesn't count any more.
An evil person doesn't have to wait around for memories to fade if they'd rather not, though; all they have to do is utter a few pleasantries, and everyone within earshot acts as if it cancels out the wrongdoing. An example that took place today perfectly illustrates this, and was, as you may have guessed, the inspiration for this rant:
We have a house in our otherwise lovely neighborhood that has drug dealers living in it. I didn't find out until a flood of cop cars showed up a couple of weeks ago, and my husband instantly knew which house they were going to (he'd apparently seen numerous suspicious things over there, and had even been offered the chance to purchase drugs from them, and hadn't bothered to tell me); 2 men were taken from the house in handcuffs. The cops showed up again yesterday, but no one was home; I don't imagine that they were there to deliver doughnuts, and that fact that they spent a long time talking to a couple of kids, and even took them along to the dealers' house, made us wonder if the latest thing from the scumbags was that they tried to deal to 10 year olds. We were just SEETHING with revulsion for these despicable creatures... until one of them came to our door and asked my husband for a cup of milk, after which my husband was suddenly saying how NICE the lowlife was, and I was reminding him that this is a DRUG DEALER, and he was shrugging and shuffling his feet and saying "Yeah, but..." about an individual who was likely trying to get grammar school kids to do drugs.... and... and... and it's lucky that he got me that DVD yesterday, because I would cheerfully have STRANGLED him otherwise.
What does it take, folks? What does it take to make one single person on this Earth grasp that a person who does evil is an EVIL PERSON, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives, and that no matter how much time has passed since their last evil act, it is NOT canceled out, and that it doesn't matter HOW nice they were to you, or continue to be to you, that does NOT mean that you should enable them to continue on their evil way by providing them with friendship and support, much less offer your butt as their next target to kick... won't anyone reject an evil person even to save themselves?!!
Repeat after me: When I recognize that someone I know has done evil, I will reject them and kick them out of my life, thus saving myself a great deal of future grief and striking a blow against the wrongdoers of the world.
If you don't absorb the above philosophy, you'll live to regret it... and karma will send you someone to say "I told you so."
Sometimes it feels like I've spent half my life warning people that once they see a "friend" engaging in evil behavior they need to realize that an evil person is no one's friend, and cut them loose before they become the next target... and the other half of my life saying "I told you so" to people when they got shredded by the evil types they refused to kick to the curb.
Have you ever consciously realized how LITTLE it takes for most people to shrug off bad behavior and pretend it didn't matter, as if it shouldn't be part of the info used to judge the worth of the wrongdoer? Most times, the evil one doesn't even have to make any effort; just the passage of a few weeks, or even DAYS, is enough for people to act as if the evil evaporated and somehow doesn't count any more.
An evil person doesn't have to wait around for memories to fade if they'd rather not, though; all they have to do is utter a few pleasantries, and everyone within earshot acts as if it cancels out the wrongdoing. An example that took place today perfectly illustrates this, and was, as you may have guessed, the inspiration for this rant:
We have a house in our otherwise lovely neighborhood that has drug dealers living in it. I didn't find out until a flood of cop cars showed up a couple of weeks ago, and my husband instantly knew which house they were going to (he'd apparently seen numerous suspicious things over there, and had even been offered the chance to purchase drugs from them, and hadn't bothered to tell me); 2 men were taken from the house in handcuffs. The cops showed up again yesterday, but no one was home; I don't imagine that they were there to deliver doughnuts, and that fact that they spent a long time talking to a couple of kids, and even took them along to the dealers' house, made us wonder if the latest thing from the scumbags was that they tried to deal to 10 year olds. We were just SEETHING with revulsion for these despicable creatures... until one of them came to our door and asked my husband for a cup of milk, after which my husband was suddenly saying how NICE the lowlife was, and I was reminding him that this is a DRUG DEALER, and he was shrugging and shuffling his feet and saying "Yeah, but..." about an individual who was likely trying to get grammar school kids to do drugs.... and... and... and it's lucky that he got me that DVD yesterday, because I would cheerfully have STRANGLED him otherwise.
What does it take, folks? What does it take to make one single person on this Earth grasp that a person who does evil is an EVIL PERSON, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives, and that no matter how much time has passed since their last evil act, it is NOT canceled out, and that it doesn't matter HOW nice they were to you, or continue to be to you, that does NOT mean that you should enable them to continue on their evil way by providing them with friendship and support, much less offer your butt as their next target to kick... won't anyone reject an evil person even to save themselves?!!
Repeat after me: When I recognize that someone I know has done evil, I will reject them and kick them out of my life, thus saving myself a great deal of future grief and striking a blow against the wrongdoers of the world.
If you don't absorb the above philosophy, you'll live to regret it... and karma will send you someone to say "I told you so."
Friday, August 27, 2004
You know it's love when...
While at Blockbuster a couple of weeks ago, my husband spotted DVD's for the first 2 seasons of Showtime's rave-reviewed series, "Queer as Folk"; since nearly everyone we know, straight as well as gay, has told us how wonderful it is, he brought home the first DVD for us to see... and we got hooked. HOOKED. We've been getting the DVD's one by one, watching a couple of episodes per night, until last night, when, as it turned out, there was only ONE episode to see, as that DVD was the last one for the first season and had only 3 episodes. I was a little bummed when I found out that we had only one to watch last night instead of 2; when we watched the episode, and they had the sweetest, most romantic scene, followed by a MAJOR cliffhanger, I was REALLY bummed to not have the next DVD. When my husband came home at dinnertime today and announced that they didn't have the next one at our Blockbuster, I was CRAZED.
My husband tried calling around to see which Blockbusters in our county might have the DVD; surreally, they have no way to check and see what they have in stock. They suggested he use their website to get the info, but it turns out that the system has been disabled-it looks like you can do a search, but you can't.
I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd been watching the series in the normal way on Showtime, and would have had to wait MONTHS for the next episode; luckily, I didn't have to wait that long. I didn't even have to wait until tomorrow. My husband went back out, and spent THREE HOURS going from one Blockbuster to another until, just before midnight, he triumphantly returned with the first DVD for season 2.
If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Next time he leaves his dirty socks on the kitchen counter, I won't march down to his study and hold them over his nose. :-)
My husband tried calling around to see which Blockbusters in our county might have the DVD; surreally, they have no way to check and see what they have in stock. They suggested he use their website to get the info, but it turns out that the system has been disabled-it looks like you can do a search, but you can't.
I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd been watching the series in the normal way on Showtime, and would have had to wait MONTHS for the next episode; luckily, I didn't have to wait that long. I didn't even have to wait until tomorrow. My husband went back out, and spent THREE HOURS going from one Blockbuster to another until, just before midnight, he triumphantly returned with the first DVD for season 2.
If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Next time he leaves his dirty socks on the kitchen counter, I won't march down to his study and hold them over his nose. :-)
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Do souls/spirits/ghosts have feelings?
I've always assumed they did, but only, as I realized today, because that's the traditional view, NOT because I've actually encountered evidence that indicates that... and that doesn't cut it when one is trying to make an honest intellectual analysis. To try to sort this out, I started with what I DID know for sure:
I've seen, heard and interacted with them, so I know they exist.
Based on those interactions, I know they have intelligence. Actually, I've never seen a ghost solving calculus problems, so I don't know for sure that spirits maintain their FULL intellect (that's an interesting point for another day), but they're not brainless blobs of energy by any means.
Since they often seek out loved ones, as I've also experienced, that means they have memory; there's no guarantee that they have FULL memory, though, and I think a case could be made that they might only remember things they felt strongly about in life.
OK, so what about feelings? Their "coming back" to contact loved ones COULD be seen as evidence of them feeling love (among other possible explanations, such as a sense of duty or an inability to accept being dead)... but love may NOT be an emotion. Science has shown that ROMANTIC love is not an emotion; I posted about that here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_01_25_omniverse_archive.html#107553561466350536
But, are OTHER kinds of love emotions? We see all these sorts of love as facets of the same emotion, but, with one facet shown to not BE an emotion, what does that say about the other facets, that they're not emotions either, or just that romantic "love" needs to be called something else because it's nothing like "real love"?
And... that's as far as I can take this line of reasoning until more studies are done on love that answer those questions one way or another, or until I have an experience with a spirit that demonstrates some other emotion.
I sure hope that my next revelation about souls is a little more encouraging...
I've seen, heard and interacted with them, so I know they exist.
Based on those interactions, I know they have intelligence. Actually, I've never seen a ghost solving calculus problems, so I don't know for sure that spirits maintain their FULL intellect (that's an interesting point for another day), but they're not brainless blobs of energy by any means.
Since they often seek out loved ones, as I've also experienced, that means they have memory; there's no guarantee that they have FULL memory, though, and I think a case could be made that they might only remember things they felt strongly about in life.
OK, so what about feelings? Their "coming back" to contact loved ones COULD be seen as evidence of them feeling love (among other possible explanations, such as a sense of duty or an inability to accept being dead)... but love may NOT be an emotion. Science has shown that ROMANTIC love is not an emotion; I posted about that here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_01_25_omniverse_archive.html#107553561466350536
But, are OTHER kinds of love emotions? We see all these sorts of love as facets of the same emotion, but, with one facet shown to not BE an emotion, what does that say about the other facets, that they're not emotions either, or just that romantic "love" needs to be called something else because it's nothing like "real love"?
And... that's as far as I can take this line of reasoning until more studies are done on love that answer those questions one way or another, or until I have an experience with a spirit that demonstrates some other emotion.
I sure hope that my next revelation about souls is a little more encouraging...
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Have we lost all standards of judgment?
Have you seen Bravo's somewhat sadistic show "Things I Hate About You"? The premise is that a couple competes to prove which of them is harder to live with... and they show no restraint as to what they show from their hidden camera footage. What freaks me out about it isn't that people do weird and gross things, since as a married woman I've become used to seeing that sort of stuff, but the way the judges react to the various "wrongdoings."
On tonight's episode, the husband was caught on tape repeatedly picking his nose and wiping his finger on his clothes, the couch, the duvet, and his WIFE... and he was NOT the one who was picked as the one that was harder to live with. The judges downplayed the husband's behavior, which to most women would merit the death penalty, and instead went on and on about how the wife was, GASP, talking alot on her cell phone and not admitting to him how much clothing she bought... like almost every other woman in America. On what PLANET is shopping and chatting a bigger deal than someone picking their nose and wiping it everywhere EXCEPT on a tissue?!!
Further footage showed the husband being aggressively nasty, but that got shrugged aside while the judges focused on how the wife, who'd lost a huge amount of weight with a stringent diet, would only eat salads, chicken and tuna. Eating a healthy and low-calorie diet, now THERE'S a big crime, especially compared to the husband cursing and being abusive. {rolls eyes}
In another episode, one of the partners refused to EVER look at a receipt, and just handed over whatever amount of $ he was asked for; his boyfriend staged a demonstration showing that in just a few transactions, he could be cheated out of over $100 and not even notice... and that's NOT a typo. The judges pooh-poohed that, and instead made an issue of how the other man's clipping of coupons made him the essence of evil (???!!!). The first man was also shown to snore so loudly that neighbors were calling and asking that the noise be stopped, but that was made out to not be a big deal... but the fact that the 2nd man was putting the knickknacks back in place after the cleaning lady had wiped the surfaces was agreed to be a sign that he was virtually a menace to society.
What really horrifies me is that this show isn't unique in the opinions it reveals on different sorts of behaviors; this tendency to downplay and make excuses for the most extreme and disgraceful behaviors, while bashing behaviors that are at worst trivial foibles, shows up all over the place. Have we as a culture lost our frigging MINDS?!! This ties right into my post of July 10th, about how we've come to have disdain for virtue and attraction to bad behavior; when they have a show where the wildly worse-behaved person is always judged as NOT the harder person to live with, what other conclusion can we come to?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
On tonight's episode, the husband was caught on tape repeatedly picking his nose and wiping his finger on his clothes, the couch, the duvet, and his WIFE... and he was NOT the one who was picked as the one that was harder to live with. The judges downplayed the husband's behavior, which to most women would merit the death penalty, and instead went on and on about how the wife was, GASP, talking alot on her cell phone and not admitting to him how much clothing she bought... like almost every other woman in America. On what PLANET is shopping and chatting a bigger deal than someone picking their nose and wiping it everywhere EXCEPT on a tissue?!!
Further footage showed the husband being aggressively nasty, but that got shrugged aside while the judges focused on how the wife, who'd lost a huge amount of weight with a stringent diet, would only eat salads, chicken and tuna. Eating a healthy and low-calorie diet, now THERE'S a big crime, especially compared to the husband cursing and being abusive. {rolls eyes}
In another episode, one of the partners refused to EVER look at a receipt, and just handed over whatever amount of $ he was asked for; his boyfriend staged a demonstration showing that in just a few transactions, he could be cheated out of over $100 and not even notice... and that's NOT a typo. The judges pooh-poohed that, and instead made an issue of how the other man's clipping of coupons made him the essence of evil (???!!!). The first man was also shown to snore so loudly that neighbors were calling and asking that the noise be stopped, but that was made out to not be a big deal... but the fact that the 2nd man was putting the knickknacks back in place after the cleaning lady had wiped the surfaces was agreed to be a sign that he was virtually a menace to society.
What really horrifies me is that this show isn't unique in the opinions it reveals on different sorts of behaviors; this tendency to downplay and make excuses for the most extreme and disgraceful behaviors, while bashing behaviors that are at worst trivial foibles, shows up all over the place. Have we as a culture lost our frigging MINDS?!! This ties right into my post of July 10th, about how we've come to have disdain for virtue and attraction to bad behavior; when they have a show where the wildly worse-behaved person is always judged as NOT the harder person to live with, what other conclusion can we come to?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
The coin of destiny
Did you ever see that episode of "Mad About You" where everyone becomes convinced that they have a quarter that's giving perfect advice on every topic? It's a goofy episode, as most of them are, but it brings up a good point; why have people in every culture, intelligent and educated people throughout human history, and through to the present day, believed that inanimate objects of various sorts were able to do "supernatural" things such as predict the future, protect from harm, CAUSE harm, etc?
Once again, we have to ask ourselves; is EVERYBODY crazy, or is there something actually going on here?
At first glance, it seems that there couldn't POSSIBLY be anything "magical" about coins, cards, amulets, chicken bones, or any of the other countless things that have been used in every culture to supposedly allow us greater knowledge of, and/or control over, what goes on in our lives. Then again, it seems equally ridiculous that particles would be able to pop in and out of existence, be in two places at once, or act as if they can "think"... but they DO, as quantum physicists have proven conclusively.
Human beings have a deep, abiding need to receive verification from some "greater force" than themselves that what they want to do is correct, that they can be safe from harm, that their enemies will suffer, and so forth; this is the driving force behind things like kids running to their parents or teachers to gain their approval for everything and people praying to whatever deity they worship for essentially the same purpose. Why would someone want to believe that mere OBJECTS have this sort of authority? Think about it; with an object of "power," you get the dual benefit of having assistance from a "higher plane" AND the ability to exercise control over the very source of said assistance... that could be hard to resist, don't you think? When the secret knowledge was coming from bones YOU cast (or whatever), it makes it look like you are an important part of the process. It makes you wonder how often authority figures within a tribe who supposedly used a method like this for the benefit of all were in fact just making up their own minds how they wanted things to be and then claiming that the cracks in the turtle shell (I'm not making that one up, lol) were saying exactly that.
The big question remains; IS there actually ANY non-zero paranormal assistive, predictive or destructive power to any object? My best guess would be what some believers in psychometry claim; that we can use objects to focus our own innate psychic abilities, and thus get greater use of them than we otherwise would. As with so many other things in life, a big part of being able to do it is BELIEVING that you can, and, sadly enough, we humans seem to find it far easier to believe in tarot cards or sheep entrails than in ourselves.
Once again, we have to ask ourselves; is EVERYBODY crazy, or is there something actually going on here?
At first glance, it seems that there couldn't POSSIBLY be anything "magical" about coins, cards, amulets, chicken bones, or any of the other countless things that have been used in every culture to supposedly allow us greater knowledge of, and/or control over, what goes on in our lives. Then again, it seems equally ridiculous that particles would be able to pop in and out of existence, be in two places at once, or act as if they can "think"... but they DO, as quantum physicists have proven conclusively.
Human beings have a deep, abiding need to receive verification from some "greater force" than themselves that what they want to do is correct, that they can be safe from harm, that their enemies will suffer, and so forth; this is the driving force behind things like kids running to their parents or teachers to gain their approval for everything and people praying to whatever deity they worship for essentially the same purpose. Why would someone want to believe that mere OBJECTS have this sort of authority? Think about it; with an object of "power," you get the dual benefit of having assistance from a "higher plane" AND the ability to exercise control over the very source of said assistance... that could be hard to resist, don't you think? When the secret knowledge was coming from bones YOU cast (or whatever), it makes it look like you are an important part of the process. It makes you wonder how often authority figures within a tribe who supposedly used a method like this for the benefit of all were in fact just making up their own minds how they wanted things to be and then claiming that the cracks in the turtle shell (I'm not making that one up, lol) were saying exactly that.
The big question remains; IS there actually ANY non-zero paranormal assistive, predictive or destructive power to any object? My best guess would be what some believers in psychometry claim; that we can use objects to focus our own innate psychic abilities, and thus get greater use of them than we otherwise would. As with so many other things in life, a big part of being able to do it is BELIEVING that you can, and, sadly enough, we humans seem to find it far easier to believe in tarot cards or sheep entrails than in ourselves.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Karma, ahhhhhhhhh
Those of you who are regulars here will recall the adventures of "the psycho bitch," a nasty piece of work who had terrorized a forum for many months, for which karma had repaid her with an onslaught of abuse from her former friends the likes of which I've never seen. Well, in response to my request yesterday for a reminder of the wonders of karma, a new chapter of this epic happened today.
The obsessive twit tried posting on the forum under yet another identity, and one of the admins pegged that ID as coming from the same service provider in the same state as the psycho; in response, the psycho sent the owner of the forum an email, expressing outrage at being "investigated," and denying being the psycho, with a slew of demented excuses for why that particular company was shown as being her provider. This would have been amusing in itself, but the part that made us all scream with laughter was that the psycho, proving that all evil is at its base STUPID, had created this email account with her REAL NAME, which showed up in the email the forum owner received!!!!!!!!
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!
As an added benefit, I got to give an "I told you so" to all the friends who were patting me on the head, metaphorically speaking, and assuring me that the psycho had been fully and permanently handled, in contradiction of MY assertion that, based on my experience with online evil, she was going to keep trying to get back into the forum "society."
And... not coincidentally, a friend with no connection to all this called me earlier in the day today, and we discussed the nature of evil, how stupid evil is, and how we can predict what an evil person would do... and yes, I used the psycho bitch as an example.
AND... While I was reading what had happened on that forum, the news came on and told about how the painting "The Scream" had been stolen; when I came back into the family room and changed the channel, there was a sitcom on, with a print of that same painting showing on a teenager's wall.
I asked for synchronicities, and I got 'em, along with the boost I needed. It's wonderful... and a little scary.
The obsessive twit tried posting on the forum under yet another identity, and one of the admins pegged that ID as coming from the same service provider in the same state as the psycho; in response, the psycho sent the owner of the forum an email, expressing outrage at being "investigated," and denying being the psycho, with a slew of demented excuses for why that particular company was shown as being her provider. This would have been amusing in itself, but the part that made us all scream with laughter was that the psycho, proving that all evil is at its base STUPID, had created this email account with her REAL NAME, which showed up in the email the forum owner received!!!!!!!!
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!
As an added benefit, I got to give an "I told you so" to all the friends who were patting me on the head, metaphorically speaking, and assuring me that the psycho had been fully and permanently handled, in contradiction of MY assertion that, based on my experience with online evil, she was going to keep trying to get back into the forum "society."
And... not coincidentally, a friend with no connection to all this called me earlier in the day today, and we discussed the nature of evil, how stupid evil is, and how we can predict what an evil person would do... and yes, I used the psycho bitch as an example.
AND... While I was reading what had happened on that forum, the news came on and told about how the painting "The Scream" had been stolen; when I came back into the family room and changed the channel, there was a sitcom on, with a print of that same painting showing on a teenager's wall.
I asked for synchronicities, and I got 'em, along with the boost I needed. It's wonderful... and a little scary.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Is the soul what we think it is?
One of the basic principles of my theory of karma is that thoughts, feelings, and souls/spirits are all made of the same energy; I haven't given much more thought to what that might tell me about the nature of the soul until today, but now I'm making up for lost time.
One of the biggest epiphanies I've ever had about how the universe works came from reading about how, in nature, for any complex system, you can look at the things it's made of, and see precursors for all of the properties of that system; an example is how, for the "roar of the crowd," you can look at each individual part of the crowd and find a little piece of the noise. Because nature won't give you something for nothing, or from nothing, it always has to be this way; therefore, thought and feeling can NOT come from matter that has no precursor of thought or feeling, and therefore matter must HAVE some inkling of thought and feeling to it... and this is the idea behind animism. I wrote about this at length here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_omniverse_archive.html#107950874313535090
I didn't take the next step of reasoning until today; the soul is also a complex system, and thus the same rule applies... and so everything must have some hint of SOUL in it, too. Since souls are made of the exact same energy as thoughts and feelings, this should have been obvious, but it was so mindboggling for me to recognize that animism was true to the extent the article I read about it said that my brain just couldn't extrapolate from it until today.
This really weirds me out, because, although quantum physics shows us that subatomic particles seem to act as if they can "think," and thus there's some science-backed reason to believe in the omnipresence of thought, SOULS are a whole different matter... or are they?
ARE THEY?!!
And this leads me to my 2nd epiphany of the day; I've said all along that the soul forms from the energy of our thoughts and feelings... but WHY do we have to believe that that collected energy becomes a whole new thing that has to be called by a different name? We "grow" a soul the way we grow hair and nails, and we don't consider hair or nails to be some new and different thing separate from our bodies, so why should it be different for the soul? Instead of saying that souls are made from thoughts and feelings, or from the same energy, wouldn't it be more proper to say that a soul IS the collected energy of our thought and feelings, and NOT some different, mystical entity? This explanation is logical, consistent, and satisfies Occam's Razor, as it's the simplest way to look at it, but... it's going to take time for me to REALLY accept this, because it's so radical.
And because part of me WANTS to believe that I have this glorious, magical thing called a soul, rather than something that's the energy equivalent of... fingernails. Hopefully, I'll have a dazzling bit of synchronicity in the next day or 2 to remind me of how amazing the overall engine of karma is...
One of the biggest epiphanies I've ever had about how the universe works came from reading about how, in nature, for any complex system, you can look at the things it's made of, and see precursors for all of the properties of that system; an example is how, for the "roar of the crowd," you can look at each individual part of the crowd and find a little piece of the noise. Because nature won't give you something for nothing, or from nothing, it always has to be this way; therefore, thought and feeling can NOT come from matter that has no precursor of thought or feeling, and therefore matter must HAVE some inkling of thought and feeling to it... and this is the idea behind animism. I wrote about this at length here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_omniverse_archive.html#107950874313535090
I didn't take the next step of reasoning until today; the soul is also a complex system, and thus the same rule applies... and so everything must have some hint of SOUL in it, too. Since souls are made of the exact same energy as thoughts and feelings, this should have been obvious, but it was so mindboggling for me to recognize that animism was true to the extent the article I read about it said that my brain just couldn't extrapolate from it until today.
This really weirds me out, because, although quantum physics shows us that subatomic particles seem to act as if they can "think," and thus there's some science-backed reason to believe in the omnipresence of thought, SOULS are a whole different matter... or are they?
ARE THEY?!!
And this leads me to my 2nd epiphany of the day; I've said all along that the soul forms from the energy of our thoughts and feelings... but WHY do we have to believe that that collected energy becomes a whole new thing that has to be called by a different name? We "grow" a soul the way we grow hair and nails, and we don't consider hair or nails to be some new and different thing separate from our bodies, so why should it be different for the soul? Instead of saying that souls are made from thoughts and feelings, or from the same energy, wouldn't it be more proper to say that a soul IS the collected energy of our thought and feelings, and NOT some different, mystical entity? This explanation is logical, consistent, and satisfies Occam's Razor, as it's the simplest way to look at it, but... it's going to take time for me to REALLY accept this, because it's so radical.
And because part of me WANTS to believe that I have this glorious, magical thing called a soul, rather than something that's the energy equivalent of... fingernails. Hopefully, I'll have a dazzling bit of synchronicity in the next day or 2 to remind me of how amazing the overall engine of karma is...
Saturday, August 21, 2004
How much do you love?
What does it mean to you to love someone? Does it mean that you hang around as long as it feels good, or that you're willing to make a real effort for them? How much effort? Are you willing to sacrifice for them? How big of a sacrifice?
It used to be that if a person fell on hard times, they could count on the entire community to help them out; these days, many people can't even count on their best friends to so much as stick around, much less do anything for them. What would YOU do for a friend in need? Let them move in with you? Put your life on hold to help them sort things out? Tell your significant other that you have to cool things off for a while so that you can help your friend?
It used to be that we'd make ANY effort for a family member in need; these days, it's all too common for "inconvenient" family members to get put in nursing homes, or institutions, or just plain abandoned... and that includes romantic partners. When people ask me how to know if what they feel about their girlfriend or boyfriend is sufficient for them to get married and be together forever, I reply; ask yourself, "If this person was in an accident that left them horribly crippled and disfigured, what would I do?" and if the answer is anything other than an immediate, "I'd take care of them and try to give them the best life possible," you either don't love them enough, or are too immature to marry... or are just so "modern" that you think that "in sickness and in health" means YOUR sickness only. {sigh}
The most astonishing example of love that I've seen in a long time, or perhaps EVER, was in a show on the National Geographic channel; a man in the Philippines had the joy of his wife giving birth shattered when complications set in and it looked like he might lose both of them. He did the only thing he could think of; he prayed, and told God that if He would save his wife and baby, he would show his gratitude by undergoing an unbelievable ordeal... he would have himself crucified. CRUCIFIED. Can you think of anything more selfless? How about this; he agreed to be crucified FIFTEEN TIMES. His wife and baby DID survive, and a few days later, he got started on making good on his promise; first, he walked the 15 miles to his church, beating himself with bamboo the entire way. The next day, he was crucified for the first time. The program showed the 12th time he was doing all this, and showed him being crucified... and this was the real thing, nails through the hands and all. When it was over, they showed him looking strong and serene, with his arm around the daughter that he was enduring unimaginable suffering to insure the life of... now THAT'S love.
How about you? What would YOU endure for a loved one? How much do you love?
It used to be that if a person fell on hard times, they could count on the entire community to help them out; these days, many people can't even count on their best friends to so much as stick around, much less do anything for them. What would YOU do for a friend in need? Let them move in with you? Put your life on hold to help them sort things out? Tell your significant other that you have to cool things off for a while so that you can help your friend?
It used to be that we'd make ANY effort for a family member in need; these days, it's all too common for "inconvenient" family members to get put in nursing homes, or institutions, or just plain abandoned... and that includes romantic partners. When people ask me how to know if what they feel about their girlfriend or boyfriend is sufficient for them to get married and be together forever, I reply; ask yourself, "If this person was in an accident that left them horribly crippled and disfigured, what would I do?" and if the answer is anything other than an immediate, "I'd take care of them and try to give them the best life possible," you either don't love them enough, or are too immature to marry... or are just so "modern" that you think that "in sickness and in health" means YOUR sickness only. {sigh}
The most astonishing example of love that I've seen in a long time, or perhaps EVER, was in a show on the National Geographic channel; a man in the Philippines had the joy of his wife giving birth shattered when complications set in and it looked like he might lose both of them. He did the only thing he could think of; he prayed, and told God that if He would save his wife and baby, he would show his gratitude by undergoing an unbelievable ordeal... he would have himself crucified. CRUCIFIED. Can you think of anything more selfless? How about this; he agreed to be crucified FIFTEEN TIMES. His wife and baby DID survive, and a few days later, he got started on making good on his promise; first, he walked the 15 miles to his church, beating himself with bamboo the entire way. The next day, he was crucified for the first time. The program showed the 12th time he was doing all this, and showed him being crucified... and this was the real thing, nails through the hands and all. When it was over, they showed him looking strong and serene, with his arm around the daughter that he was enduring unimaginable suffering to insure the life of... now THAT'S love.
How about you? What would YOU endure for a loved one? How much do you love?
Friday, August 20, 2004
I need a REAL spiritual vocabulary
It can be terribly difficult, not to mention frustrating, for me to try to explain my spirituality to people, even those who are highly intelligent and with a broad base of knowledge, because there are no words no describe... well, MOST of the concepts involved, much less the details. I end up using the word "karma" to describe many aspects of my beliefs, AND my overall belief system, which is really too much to ask of the word (and probably confusing to new readers to this blog who don't know what I mean).
I'd like to be able to tell people what I believe without spouting an essay, but it just can't be done; there's no word or phrase that encompasses the entire "tapestry of karma" that I see when I view "the unknown." I'm not alone in this dilemma, of course, since there are plenty of other people who embrace metaphysical concepts to one extent or another, with or without traditional religion being mixed in; I'm betting that a few of you, my readers, have this problem too.
In my attempts to make clear my beliefs in a discussion today, a few terms were discussed that may be useful to some of the mystics out there; for those of you who see God as being behind what I call karma (several of my dearest friends are in this zone), we have:
Pantheism:
1. the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God's personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.
2. any religious belief or philosophical doctrine that identifies God with the universe
Panentheism:
1. The belief that the universe is a part of God and that Nature is thus an aspect of divinity.
2. The doctrine that God is within all creation, but the universe is not part of God, rather God is the animating force behind the universe.. Unlike pantheism, it does not say that the universe is synonymous with God; it maintains that there is more to God than the material universe. In panentheism God maintains a transcendent character, and is viewed as both the creator and the original source of universal morality.
If you see karma as sort of "magical" (rather than as an unmysterious force of nature as *I* see it), this one might help:
Immanence:
In metaphysics, the presence within the natural world of a spiritual or cosmic principle, especially of the Deity. It is contrasted with transcendence. The immanence of God in the world is the basic feature of pantheism.
I hope that by passing these terms along, I'll be creating a "karmic slot" (there's another concept that needs a word, grrrr) into which someone else will pass along some new terms that DO describe at least some segments of my worldview.
Even with people who have developed very similar belief systems, it can be hard to have a fruitful discussion, because we all use different names for everything; for example, a lovely man that I have an ongoing email exchange with tends towards melodrama, and referred to a household where negative energy was being generated as being "full of darkness," as if someone were about to die, or as if there were some great evil there... of course, from HIS perspective, saying "negative energy" fails to get across the correct "feel" and nature of the energy. If we had "official" words for these things, we'd be more accurate and less "creative."
Jung saw the connection between quantum physics and synchronicity, but he didn't give a name to it; I sincerely hope that the next time someone prominent sees a significant chunk of the workings of karma, they'll give it a NAME.
I'd like to be able to tell people what I believe without spouting an essay, but it just can't be done; there's no word or phrase that encompasses the entire "tapestry of karma" that I see when I view "the unknown." I'm not alone in this dilemma, of course, since there are plenty of other people who embrace metaphysical concepts to one extent or another, with or without traditional religion being mixed in; I'm betting that a few of you, my readers, have this problem too.
In my attempts to make clear my beliefs in a discussion today, a few terms were discussed that may be useful to some of the mystics out there; for those of you who see God as being behind what I call karma (several of my dearest friends are in this zone), we have:
Pantheism:
1. the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God's personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.
2. any religious belief or philosophical doctrine that identifies God with the universe
Panentheism:
1. The belief that the universe is a part of God and that Nature is thus an aspect of divinity.
2. The doctrine that God is within all creation, but the universe is not part of God, rather God is the animating force behind the universe.. Unlike pantheism, it does not say that the universe is synonymous with God; it maintains that there is more to God than the material universe. In panentheism God maintains a transcendent character, and is viewed as both the creator and the original source of universal morality.
If you see karma as sort of "magical" (rather than as an unmysterious force of nature as *I* see it), this one might help:
Immanence:
In metaphysics, the presence within the natural world of a spiritual or cosmic principle, especially of the Deity. It is contrasted with transcendence. The immanence of God in the world is the basic feature of pantheism.
I hope that by passing these terms along, I'll be creating a "karmic slot" (there's another concept that needs a word, grrrr) into which someone else will pass along some new terms that DO describe at least some segments of my worldview.
Even with people who have developed very similar belief systems, it can be hard to have a fruitful discussion, because we all use different names for everything; for example, a lovely man that I have an ongoing email exchange with tends towards melodrama, and referred to a household where negative energy was being generated as being "full of darkness," as if someone were about to die, or as if there were some great evil there... of course, from HIS perspective, saying "negative energy" fails to get across the correct "feel" and nature of the energy. If we had "official" words for these things, we'd be more accurate and less "creative."
Jung saw the connection between quantum physics and synchronicity, but he didn't give a name to it; I sincerely hope that the next time someone prominent sees a significant chunk of the workings of karma, they'll give it a NAME.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
The wisdom of "primitive" societies
Why do I refer to tribal societies as "primitive," in quotes like that? Because there are all sorts of ways to be primitive other than in terms of the only way we as a society look at, technology, such as culture, societal cohesion, and spirituality, and in those ways these societies are NOT primitive-WE ARE.
I saw some cool programs on the National Geographic channel today that showed various "tests of faith" and "rites of passage," most of which were in less-developed cultures; they were usually scary to American eyes, because they involved so much pain and risk. Watching this made me wonder; why is it that EVERY such culture, in every country on every continent, developed these sorts of rituals?
There has to be a reason for these traditions to be so consistently formed and maintained; there has to be a benefit to those tribes from going through such suffering. Part of it is that these ceremonies contribute greatly to the bonding between members; the hazing and rituals common in fraternities is a pale echo of this. When the life of any member of the tribe might depend on the actions of any other member, and the best interests of the tribe depend on everyone working together, that bonding is of infinite value. Another benefit is that it toughens them up and makes them more able to handle the many hardships that their lives will entail. Another is that pain and suffering lead to an enhanced feeling of spirituality, which is a great help in enduring a difficult life. A final benefit is one you don't hear much about; natural selection.
Surprised to hear that term applied to humans? We ARE animals, and, despite what the environmentalists say, we ARE a part of nature, so why would it NOT apply to us? A person who lacks the strength, courage, or other abilities necessary to get through the rituals won't be able to marry, and so won't be able to breed and pass on their "inferior" genes... and thus the gene pool of the tribe is strengthened. When, as is often the case, open wounds are the result of the "tests," with the "victim" being in unsanitary conditions with no medical care, any whose bodies can't deal with infection quickly and easily won't survive... and, again, the gene pool is strengthened.
Why do we, with our morbid fear of death, aging, illness, injury, pain, and even discomfort, feel so superior to the "savages" we see on educational programs enduring grisly-looking tortures for the good of their tribes? We're physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually weak compared to them; our wealth and technology have made us soft. From that perspective, the so-called modern primitives, who endure extensive body modification to feel part of something bigger, and to feel a deeper spirituality, seem pretty smart.
On a certain level, I envy them.
I saw some cool programs on the National Geographic channel today that showed various "tests of faith" and "rites of passage," most of which were in less-developed cultures; they were usually scary to American eyes, because they involved so much pain and risk. Watching this made me wonder; why is it that EVERY such culture, in every country on every continent, developed these sorts of rituals?
There has to be a reason for these traditions to be so consistently formed and maintained; there has to be a benefit to those tribes from going through such suffering. Part of it is that these ceremonies contribute greatly to the bonding between members; the hazing and rituals common in fraternities is a pale echo of this. When the life of any member of the tribe might depend on the actions of any other member, and the best interests of the tribe depend on everyone working together, that bonding is of infinite value. Another benefit is that it toughens them up and makes them more able to handle the many hardships that their lives will entail. Another is that pain and suffering lead to an enhanced feeling of spirituality, which is a great help in enduring a difficult life. A final benefit is one you don't hear much about; natural selection.
Surprised to hear that term applied to humans? We ARE animals, and, despite what the environmentalists say, we ARE a part of nature, so why would it NOT apply to us? A person who lacks the strength, courage, or other abilities necessary to get through the rituals won't be able to marry, and so won't be able to breed and pass on their "inferior" genes... and thus the gene pool of the tribe is strengthened. When, as is often the case, open wounds are the result of the "tests," with the "victim" being in unsanitary conditions with no medical care, any whose bodies can't deal with infection quickly and easily won't survive... and, again, the gene pool is strengthened.
Why do we, with our morbid fear of death, aging, illness, injury, pain, and even discomfort, feel so superior to the "savages" we see on educational programs enduring grisly-looking tortures for the good of their tribes? We're physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually weak compared to them; our wealth and technology have made us soft. From that perspective, the so-called modern primitives, who endure extensive body modification to feel part of something bigger, and to feel a deeper spirituality, seem pretty smart.
On a certain level, I envy them.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Is $ the root of all evil?
Since much of crime arises from poverty, it seems more like the LACK of $ is the root of all evil, doesn't it?
Do you see many rich people committing crimes? If you ignore victimless crimes like taking drugs and paying for sex, all that's really left is the small % of the wealthy who do things like insider trading; $ makes people want to buy flashy cars and art, not do evil things.
Crimes come from people wanting more "stuff" than they can afford, and not caring what they do to get it.... or from mental illness (most sex crimes are included in this category)... or from hate (hence the term "hate crimes")... or from things like drunkenness, anger, or the combo thereof ("crimes of passion"); not all of these things are evil, but evil acts, criminal or not, come from some of these sources.
At the most basic level, evil acts come from people who are themselves evil (to varying degrees, of course), or sick, or both; thus, the root of all, or at least most, evil, is lodged in the brain, in the areas that, if messed up, lead to the lack of empathy, and thus sociopathy, that is found in many criminals, and the craziness that explains most of the rest of crime.
It's been popular for many years now to blame every aspect of a person's life and environment for their evil acts, and for centuries the devil or demonic possession or some similar thing got blamed, but the cold hard reality is that evil can be traced to a genetic defect in the brain; it's not the melodramatic thing that society tells us it is, or should be, and it's therefore admittedly anti-climactic to realize this, but there it is.
So; don't hate the evil ones... PITY them. They no more asked for their evil than a rabid dog asked for the rabies. If you can grasp this, and believe it, and feel accordingly, you'll eliminate a great deal of negative energy, and therefore a great deal of bad karma, from your life.
Do you see many rich people committing crimes? If you ignore victimless crimes like taking drugs and paying for sex, all that's really left is the small % of the wealthy who do things like insider trading; $ makes people want to buy flashy cars and art, not do evil things.
Crimes come from people wanting more "stuff" than they can afford, and not caring what they do to get it.... or from mental illness (most sex crimes are included in this category)... or from hate (hence the term "hate crimes")... or from things like drunkenness, anger, or the combo thereof ("crimes of passion"); not all of these things are evil, but evil acts, criminal or not, come from some of these sources.
At the most basic level, evil acts come from people who are themselves evil (to varying degrees, of course), or sick, or both; thus, the root of all, or at least most, evil, is lodged in the brain, in the areas that, if messed up, lead to the lack of empathy, and thus sociopathy, that is found in many criminals, and the craziness that explains most of the rest of crime.
It's been popular for many years now to blame every aspect of a person's life and environment for their evil acts, and for centuries the devil or demonic possession or some similar thing got blamed, but the cold hard reality is that evil can be traced to a genetic defect in the brain; it's not the melodramatic thing that society tells us it is, or should be, and it's therefore admittedly anti-climactic to realize this, but there it is.
So; don't hate the evil ones... PITY them. They no more asked for their evil than a rabid dog asked for the rabies. If you can grasp this, and believe it, and feel accordingly, you'll eliminate a great deal of negative energy, and therefore a great deal of bad karma, from your life.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Odds and ends of synchronicity
After what I wrote last night, I thought about how I should fill my most religious friend in on it and get her perspective; I had a call waiting on my machine from her when I woke up today.
I called my mother this afternoon, and she yelped that she'd just been coming down the stairs to call ME when the phone rang.
My husband and I went out to dinner, and shared a dessert; as we got down to the very end, I pushed the last chunk towards him, and commented that it was like that scene from "Lady and the Tramp"; later in the evening, we watched a rented DVD (one we'd never seen before), and a couple in it made a show of acting out that exact scene (and yes, they DID specify that it was from that movie).
The restaurant we went to is the sort of place where dinner for 2 is over $100. When we got there, the staff was talking about a couple that had reservations that would bring them there soon; the male half had arranged for champagne to be brought to the table, as he was going to propose. They were all saying that they hoped things didn't end up like the last time they'd had a proposal, a couple of days before, when the woman had declined (which they'd been amazed that anyone would do when taken out for such an expensive dinner). When the couple came, we kept an eye on them, hoping to see the proposal; we lingered after we finished eating, looking out for the romantic moment. No luck; she turned him down, and off they went. The waiter who verified what had happened for us added that the previous couple with the aborted engagement had been sitting at that same booth, and that they were going to have to stop putting "proposal couples" there.
My husband and I had originally been booked for that booth, but I'd asked to be put somewhere else.
I discussed this with him later, suggesting that there might have been some bad karma about that booth, and he said "Maybe you DID sense something." How undeniable do the workings of karma have to be to make even my non-believer husband start to wonder? :-O
I called my mother this afternoon, and she yelped that she'd just been coming down the stairs to call ME when the phone rang.
My husband and I went out to dinner, and shared a dessert; as we got down to the very end, I pushed the last chunk towards him, and commented that it was like that scene from "Lady and the Tramp"; later in the evening, we watched a rented DVD (one we'd never seen before), and a couple in it made a show of acting out that exact scene (and yes, they DID specify that it was from that movie).
The restaurant we went to is the sort of place where dinner for 2 is over $100. When we got there, the staff was talking about a couple that had reservations that would bring them there soon; the male half had arranged for champagne to be brought to the table, as he was going to propose. They were all saying that they hoped things didn't end up like the last time they'd had a proposal, a couple of days before, when the woman had declined (which they'd been amazed that anyone would do when taken out for such an expensive dinner). When the couple came, we kept an eye on them, hoping to see the proposal; we lingered after we finished eating, looking out for the romantic moment. No luck; she turned him down, and off they went. The waiter who verified what had happened for us added that the previous couple with the aborted engagement had been sitting at that same booth, and that they were going to have to stop putting "proposal couples" there.
My husband and I had originally been booked for that booth, but I'd asked to be put somewhere else.
I discussed this with him later, suggesting that there might have been some bad karma about that booth, and he said "Maybe you DID sense something." How undeniable do the workings of karma have to be to make even my non-believer husband start to wonder? :-O
Monday, August 16, 2004
Beauty for ashes
I watched Joel Osteen today (and I've got my husband hooked on him too, to his dismay, lol), and I saw with absolutely screaming clarity that he MUST have at least a subconscious grasp of karma... so much so that he's varying somewhat from Christian doctrine in describing how things work. This is NOT meant as an insult to him or his degree or variety of faith; rather, I think it praiseworthy and courageous of him to call it as he sees it, and VERY sharp of him to "see it" in the first place.
What I'm referring to is today's sermon, which focused on "before you can get the good things in life, you have to let go of all the bad feelings you have about the bad things that have happened to you." On the surface, it just sounds a little New Age-y, but there's more to it; he probably said 20 times in a 30 minute sermon that God CAN'T give you all the good things He's got waiting for you unless and until you give up those bad feelings. See the contradiction with traditional Christian doctrine? God's supposed to be omnipotent, isn't He? So, what one would expect to be said in reference to an all-powerful deity would be that he would REFUSE to take action for you unless you did what he wanted, not that he CAN'T take action unless YOU make it possible for Him... so what does it mean that Osteen kept saying CAN'T?
The idea that radiating negative energy prevents positive things from getting to you in general is pure karma, NOT Christianity; God is supposed to come help you out when you're in pain, not decline to help, much less be unable to help. Osteen drove the point home even deeper with a real-life example, as he generally does; he referred to a woman who'd had some really bad breaks, and was feeling terrible because of it, and said that being around her he could feel the "poison" radiating from her... and the concept that not just "bad" emotions like hate and jealousy create negative energy, but hurt and fear and such also, is one of the biggest realizations I've had about karma this year.
Once again, I'm dazzled to see someone from a Christian perspective seeing the same truths about karma that I do, especially the counter-intuitive truth about ALL negative emotions blocking good from reaching you, keeping you in a rut of bad things happening, even when you're a VICTIM... no one else that I've encountered has independently seen that one. I wonder what he's going to have to say that I have NOT thought of yet....
What I'm referring to is today's sermon, which focused on "before you can get the good things in life, you have to let go of all the bad feelings you have about the bad things that have happened to you." On the surface, it just sounds a little New Age-y, but there's more to it; he probably said 20 times in a 30 minute sermon that God CAN'T give you all the good things He's got waiting for you unless and until you give up those bad feelings. See the contradiction with traditional Christian doctrine? God's supposed to be omnipotent, isn't He? So, what one would expect to be said in reference to an all-powerful deity would be that he would REFUSE to take action for you unless you did what he wanted, not that he CAN'T take action unless YOU make it possible for Him... so what does it mean that Osteen kept saying CAN'T?
The idea that radiating negative energy prevents positive things from getting to you in general is pure karma, NOT Christianity; God is supposed to come help you out when you're in pain, not decline to help, much less be unable to help. Osteen drove the point home even deeper with a real-life example, as he generally does; he referred to a woman who'd had some really bad breaks, and was feeling terrible because of it, and said that being around her he could feel the "poison" radiating from her... and the concept that not just "bad" emotions like hate and jealousy create negative energy, but hurt and fear and such also, is one of the biggest realizations I've had about karma this year.
Once again, I'm dazzled to see someone from a Christian perspective seeing the same truths about karma that I do, especially the counter-intuitive truth about ALL negative emotions blocking good from reaching you, keeping you in a rut of bad things happening, even when you're a VICTIM... no one else that I've encountered has independently seen that one. I wonder what he's going to have to say that I have NOT thought of yet....
Sunday, August 15, 2004
What would the ideal lover be like?
Different for everyone, yes, I know, but let's think about it for a minute. Not about what's ideal in a PARTNER, but what would be ideal in a person you'd only sleep with a few times, or even just ONCE, and that would be the entire "relationship." What qualities would a person have to have to make sex with them the wildest you've ever have?
Did some famous person pop into your mind? Celebrities are an arrogant and self-absorbed bunch... not likely to be good lovers, one would suspect. Still, the excitement of being with a person like that might be enough... but wouldn't it be more satisfying to be able to do the things you've always fantasized about, rather than just doing whatever the famous person likes to do?
That's a good start; someone who'd either like to do all the weird stuff we don't want to freak out our long-term partners with, or is at least open to doing ANYTHING without having an agenda of their own to want to talk us into. Someone with no inhibitions, who was accepting rather than judgmental, who'd want to have a good time, and make sure the person with them had a good time, and who wouldn't get weirded out from having done a few kinky things and act like a jerk and spoil it. Creativity would be good, too; you never know when someone else might have thought of a few interesting things that haven't occurred to us yet.
The right sexual mindset isn't enough, of course; I think that rigorous hygiene and a lifelong dedication to safe sex would be essential, too. I'm not focused on age, but a "dirty old man" wouldn't do it for me, and someone too young would be just as creepy, in a way... although a guy young enough to still have some muscle tone and a dimple-free butt would be good, as long as he was old enough to have a reasonably hairy chest.
And now we're edging into looks; while I'm normally banging the drum for IGNORING looks, for a one-nighter or fast fling I think you might as well go with someone who taps into your biological programming to go for hotties. So, what sort of person do you find supremely sexy, in a purely physical sense? I like a guy with a butt about so big (imagine me holding my hands out about a foot apart), with either tousled blonde hair and a boyish face, or dramatic goth looks... and did I mention the hairy chest?
Ok, time for me to go do a little... more in-depth imagining. ;-)
Did some famous person pop into your mind? Celebrities are an arrogant and self-absorbed bunch... not likely to be good lovers, one would suspect. Still, the excitement of being with a person like that might be enough... but wouldn't it be more satisfying to be able to do the things you've always fantasized about, rather than just doing whatever the famous person likes to do?
That's a good start; someone who'd either like to do all the weird stuff we don't want to freak out our long-term partners with, or is at least open to doing ANYTHING without having an agenda of their own to want to talk us into. Someone with no inhibitions, who was accepting rather than judgmental, who'd want to have a good time, and make sure the person with them had a good time, and who wouldn't get weirded out from having done a few kinky things and act like a jerk and spoil it. Creativity would be good, too; you never know when someone else might have thought of a few interesting things that haven't occurred to us yet.
The right sexual mindset isn't enough, of course; I think that rigorous hygiene and a lifelong dedication to safe sex would be essential, too. I'm not focused on age, but a "dirty old man" wouldn't do it for me, and someone too young would be just as creepy, in a way... although a guy young enough to still have some muscle tone and a dimple-free butt would be good, as long as he was old enough to have a reasonably hairy chest.
And now we're edging into looks; while I'm normally banging the drum for IGNORING looks, for a one-nighter or fast fling I think you might as well go with someone who taps into your biological programming to go for hotties. So, what sort of person do you find supremely sexy, in a purely physical sense? I like a guy with a butt about so big (imagine me holding my hands out about a foot apart), with either tousled blonde hair and a boyish face, or dramatic goth looks... and did I mention the hairy chest?
Ok, time for me to go do a little... more in-depth imagining. ;-)
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