Saturday, March 26, 2005
Vacations
Where did the idea of vacations come from? In our most primitive days, we couldn't even have a day off from the desperately important task of finding food. When we got a little more advanced, we might have been able to store enough food that we could visit friends and family who lived in other areas, but that wasn't exactly a vacation in the modern sense. Fast-forward a big chunk of years, and the well-to-do would be able to tour Europe or the Orient, but they'd be gone for MONTHS, and saw it as part of living the good life, not as a vacation per se, and of course those without serious $ couldn't even imagine taking those sorts of trips. Somehow, we got from that point to where all but the poorest of us want and EXPECT to be able to take at least occasional vacations, by which we generally mean leaving our city or town and going somewhere else for other than a family get-together... but HOW did we get to this point? I haven't a clue.
I myself have NEVER been on a vacation. My family of origin was inordinately cheap, and even trips to see family were extremely rare; I hated travelling so much on the rare times I did it that it never occurred to me to do it when I was old enough and had my own $. My husband and I live life at a dead run, and can barely contemplate getting it together to go out for a couple of hours for things like birthday dinners, much less taking time off to do something, even if we made local plans to avoid having to travel; as a result, we've never gone anywhere except for family duty visits, and that's done with now that the last loved one we were going to see has died.
I can understand busy people wanting to just hang around the house and do nothing for a week or 2 (although it's never possible to actually do NOTHING unless you have servants), but to use your available time off to pack a minute % of your stuff, travel, stay in hotel rooms, and march around doing activities in another place... WHY? I have a beautiful home, lots of nice stuff, a comfortable bed, and a thousand times more things I want to read, watch, listen to and study than I'll ever get to; in my wildest dreams, I could never imagine wanting to abandon all of that to "go on vacation."
Is that the secret? People go on vacation because there aren't enough things they love to do to keep them busy and emotionally satisfied, and/or because they have too much stuff they'd rather get away from? I can see needing a break when your job or daily life aren't happy-making, or to reconnect as a couple when you've got kids, or to give your body a rest if you do hard physical labor, or to go somewhere beautiful if you find where you live to be ugly... but, if none of that applies, would you still want or "need" to have vacations? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......
I myself have NEVER been on a vacation. My family of origin was inordinately cheap, and even trips to see family were extremely rare; I hated travelling so much on the rare times I did it that it never occurred to me to do it when I was old enough and had my own $. My husband and I live life at a dead run, and can barely contemplate getting it together to go out for a couple of hours for things like birthday dinners, much less taking time off to do something, even if we made local plans to avoid having to travel; as a result, we've never gone anywhere except for family duty visits, and that's done with now that the last loved one we were going to see has died.
I can understand busy people wanting to just hang around the house and do nothing for a week or 2 (although it's never possible to actually do NOTHING unless you have servants), but to use your available time off to pack a minute % of your stuff, travel, stay in hotel rooms, and march around doing activities in another place... WHY? I have a beautiful home, lots of nice stuff, a comfortable bed, and a thousand times more things I want to read, watch, listen to and study than I'll ever get to; in my wildest dreams, I could never imagine wanting to abandon all of that to "go on vacation."
Is that the secret? People go on vacation because there aren't enough things they love to do to keep them busy and emotionally satisfied, and/or because they have too much stuff they'd rather get away from? I can see needing a break when your job or daily life aren't happy-making, or to reconnect as a couple when you've got kids, or to give your body a rest if you do hard physical labor, or to go somewhere beautiful if you find where you live to be ugly... but, if none of that applies, would you still want or "need" to have vacations? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm......
Friday, March 25, 2005
A message from my mailman
I've had a slew of outgoing mail go awry in the past couple of months, including, naturally, the only 2 bills for which they do NOT send out "reminder bills," because they make big $ from late fees; the mortgage and homeowners association (they both excused the late fees since I have perfect payment records, luckily, but it was still upsetting). Since I got within a whisker of getting a 30 day overdue notice, which would have wrecked my credit history, I figured it was time to take some action; because I'm one of those fortunate few that has a really good mailman, I made sure I was here one day at the time I knew he'd be coming, and told him what had been going on. Naturally, there's nothing he could do about it directly, and he's made it clear that the powers that be at the post office honestly don't CARE as long as a small enough % of mail fails to be delivered that they don't get in trouble, but he DID have some helpful hints:
1) The scanners that read the addresses on the mail don't work all that well, so, unless you can print VERY clearly (forget about using cursive unless you LIKE your mail to vanish), type the addresses on the envelopes, or print out mailing labels.
2) Be sure to use the full 9-digit zip code if you can, it DOES help.
3) There's a flood of mail going out on the first of the month, since so many people send out their bills then, so try to NOT send anything out at that time, as the higher volume of mail having to be processed for the day makes for way more mistakes with the scanning and barcoding machinery.
4) Monday is the worst day of the week to send mail, again for volume reasons, so try to avoid sending anything out on that day if you can.
5) Sign up for online banking, and pay every possible bill that way. No, that's NOT a joke, as terrifying as that is; my mailcarrier believes the post office's track record to be so scary that HE does all his bill-paying online, and recommends that everyone else do the same!! :-O
As you might imagine, I've decided to following all of these tips; I'm nervous about what disasters could befall me if I try to deal with $ online, but I've still signed up for online banking, and am sorting out which bills can be paid that way. I deeply resent that I'm going to have to be monitoring my checking account from now on to make sure that whichever bills still have to be mailed actually arrive at their intended destinations; now that I know that mail is going astray, what else can I do? I also resent that I have to muck around with all these websites to get $ to those companies that DO take online payments, especially since I'm betting that if they're no longer sending printed bills that makes it easier for them to screw up... no paper, no proof.
Why is it that the richest, most powerful nation in the world no longer has a postal system that can be trusted to get people's bill payments where they need to go, not even in a large, affluent city like mine? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
1) The scanners that read the addresses on the mail don't work all that well, so, unless you can print VERY clearly (forget about using cursive unless you LIKE your mail to vanish), type the addresses on the envelopes, or print out mailing labels.
2) Be sure to use the full 9-digit zip code if you can, it DOES help.
3) There's a flood of mail going out on the first of the month, since so many people send out their bills then, so try to NOT send anything out at that time, as the higher volume of mail having to be processed for the day makes for way more mistakes with the scanning and barcoding machinery.
4) Monday is the worst day of the week to send mail, again for volume reasons, so try to avoid sending anything out on that day if you can.
5) Sign up for online banking, and pay every possible bill that way. No, that's NOT a joke, as terrifying as that is; my mailcarrier believes the post office's track record to be so scary that HE does all his bill-paying online, and recommends that everyone else do the same!! :-O
As you might imagine, I've decided to following all of these tips; I'm nervous about what disasters could befall me if I try to deal with $ online, but I've still signed up for online banking, and am sorting out which bills can be paid that way. I deeply resent that I'm going to have to be monitoring my checking account from now on to make sure that whichever bills still have to be mailed actually arrive at their intended destinations; now that I know that mail is going astray, what else can I do? I also resent that I have to muck around with all these websites to get $ to those companies that DO take online payments, especially since I'm betting that if they're no longer sending printed bills that makes it easier for them to screw up... no paper, no proof.
Why is it that the richest, most powerful nation in the world no longer has a postal system that can be trusted to get people's bill payments where they need to go, not even in a large, affluent city like mine? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Thursday, March 24, 2005
A sad psychic incident
A much-anticipated DVD came in the mail today, and my husband and I had agreed to get caught up with enough tasks that we could watch it together this evening. When the time came, I told him that I was going to run to the restroom and then we'd get started; I was coming back down the hall, all ready to start watching... and I found myself detouring into the computer room and dialing a friend's #, with the semi-formed thought that I hadn't talked to her in a while, and I should find out how her cat, who's had cancer for about a year and a half and has had trouble keeping enough weight on all that time, was doing. Here's how it went:
Friend: Hello?
Me: Hi, it's me.
Friend: OH MY GOD!! You really ARE psychic!!
Me: Why, what happened?
Friend: I just this minute told my husband that I wasn't going to be able to handle calling you tonight.
Me: Uh-oh...
Friend: No, I'm glad you called, because you deserve to know; I had to have Kitty put to sleep today.
{exchange of grief-related commentary omitted}
Friend: We're going to get a cement cat statue and put it out in the yard...
Me: {thinking that the statue should have a lizard tail stuck to the mouth}
Friend: ... near the tree where she used to catch lizards, and eat their tails.
Me: I was just thinking that the statue should have a lizard tail stuck to its mouth!!
Friend: Why am I not surprised?
{protracted discussion of Kitty omitted}
Friend: You KNEW, didn't you? How do you always know?
Me: I've always been extra-psychic where you're concerned, for whatever reason... I'm sorry to have called at a time when you weren't ready, though.
Friend: I can't really explain it, but you and Kitty had a special relationship, so I just couldn't call you yet, but it's good that you called ME and took the decision out of my hands, because I needed to talk to you.
Me: That's ok, then; I know you'll need to talk alot about Kitty over the next few weeks, so now that you've told me, you feel free to call me whenever you need to talk, even if it's the middle of the night... I understand how you felt about her.
There'll be many, MANY calls during the grieving period for Kitty; my friend had had her for 2 decades, and that cat was like her child. During this time, I'll freak her out several times by calling her just as she's about to call me; I've been able to do this with overwhelming consistency since we met in college. I've also been able to predict the future to her in detail, including nearly word-for-word conversations she'd have with people... and she's just ONE of the folks I have this sort of history with.
People are quick to call things like this coincidences, even when it's utterly ridiculous to do so, such as in reference to elaborate precognitive episodes, but there's GOT to be a point beyond which you can no longer say, "Yeah, so you've done this 100/1000/10,000 times, that doesn't mean they weren't all coincidences"... right? When someone asks me how I can believe I have psychic abilities, I give them a lengthy list of incidents, and then ask, "How can I NOT?"
Friend: Hello?
Me: Hi, it's me.
Friend: OH MY GOD!! You really ARE psychic!!
Me: Why, what happened?
Friend: I just this minute told my husband that I wasn't going to be able to handle calling you tonight.
Me: Uh-oh...
Friend: No, I'm glad you called, because you deserve to know; I had to have Kitty put to sleep today.
{exchange of grief-related commentary omitted}
Friend: We're going to get a cement cat statue and put it out in the yard...
Me: {thinking that the statue should have a lizard tail stuck to the mouth}
Friend: ... near the tree where she used to catch lizards, and eat their tails.
Me: I was just thinking that the statue should have a lizard tail stuck to its mouth!!
Friend: Why am I not surprised?
{protracted discussion of Kitty omitted}
Friend: You KNEW, didn't you? How do you always know?
Me: I've always been extra-psychic where you're concerned, for whatever reason... I'm sorry to have called at a time when you weren't ready, though.
Friend: I can't really explain it, but you and Kitty had a special relationship, so I just couldn't call you yet, but it's good that you called ME and took the decision out of my hands, because I needed to talk to you.
Me: That's ok, then; I know you'll need to talk alot about Kitty over the next few weeks, so now that you've told me, you feel free to call me whenever you need to talk, even if it's the middle of the night... I understand how you felt about her.
There'll be many, MANY calls during the grieving period for Kitty; my friend had had her for 2 decades, and that cat was like her child. During this time, I'll freak her out several times by calling her just as she's about to call me; I've been able to do this with overwhelming consistency since we met in college. I've also been able to predict the future to her in detail, including nearly word-for-word conversations she'd have with people... and she's just ONE of the folks I have this sort of history with.
People are quick to call things like this coincidences, even when it's utterly ridiculous to do so, such as in reference to elaborate precognitive episodes, but there's GOT to be a point beyond which you can no longer say, "Yeah, so you've done this 100/1000/10,000 times, that doesn't mean they weren't all coincidences"... right? When someone asks me how I can believe I have psychic abilities, I give them a lengthy list of incidents, and then ask, "How can I NOT?"
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Normally, I don't watch any of the shows on PBS that feature someone standing around and talking, but tonight, for reasons that would be beyond me if I didn't understand about the workings of karma, I felt the odd urge to put on a 4 HOUR program featuring this guy I'd never heard of, who, based on the description in the TV guide, sounded like one of those goofy motivational speakers... but I somehow knew he wasn't one of those.
The central concept of his ideas about how the universe works is "a field of energy that we connect to," which he calls "intention," and which, based on his description, I'D call "karma"... yet another example of people from different backgrounds coming up with the exact same ideas as I have, and just calling them different names.
His major points included things like how what you think creates your world, how if you ask for things they'll come to you, how if you focus on something it'll be drawn into your life, and therefore if you dwell on the negatives that's what you'll receive, and if you focus on how things are they'll stay that way, how you can make things happen by visualizing and otherwise focusing on them... all common themes on my blog.
Sounding very much like Joel Osteen talking about God, he talked about the infinite bounty of "the source," as he generally referred to the energy field that powers everything (karma, in other words), and how there was no end to all you could have if you'd just ASK for it and believe you were going to get it... and here we are, back at my first spiritual epiphany of the year (gotten from the movie "Magnificent Obsession"), that, as long as you're doing and being good (Dyer makes a repeated point about the importance of doing good deeds and of being kind to people, aka creating good karma), if you BELIEVE that good things will happen to you, everything you want and need will essentially fall into your lap, even things that seem miraculous... and all you have to do is go with the flow and collect it all. He even made reference to that most-favored phrase of new age-y Christians and the recovery community, "Let go and let God," the idea being that you don't have to hammer away at things, you can just plug into the greater power and it'll all come to you; I've delved into this idea a few times, and, although it goes against the grain of my Puritan work ethic, it DOES seem to actually work for those who do it, whether it be in a deliberate way, by asking for God (or who/whatever) to handle things, or indirectly, by drifting through life assuming that everything will be handled for you... which is my husband's way, and it's always worked well for him, even BEFORE he had ME to take care of him.
Dyer's well worth checking out, should you see his name on your TV schedule; his marathon show is going to be on PBS late at night a couple of times over the next few days, and I'll probably tape it and re-watch it to see what more I can get from it... there's a limit to how much I can absorb in one session, especially a 4-hour one, and he has alot of interesting stuff to say. He's also a great example of how to effectively talk about this sort of thing, because, again sounding like Osteen, he uses humor, personal anecdotes, and appeals to our caring nature to keep his audience riveted and emotionally connected; he actually had everyone in TEARS at one point, when he recounted the true story of a learning-disabled boy, and how his presence allowed a group of "normal" boys to become better people than they probably ever had before. You can read the story here
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/godsperfection.htm
and I chose to use a URL from a site dedicated to debunking exactly this sort of thing so that you can see that it IS a true story (unless the rabbi who vouches for it is lying, which is obviously unlikely). There's more to this story than just the tear-jerking element, so do read it even if you're not the sentimental type; the lesson it gives is that those who seem at first glance to have less going for them than the rest of us in fact have something MORE than we do... the ability to bring out the best in us, to teach us the value of kindness over such lesser goals as winning a game, and to remind us of how much joy we should feel about the things we take for granted.
And that brings us to another of Dyer's big themes; if you want to have a happy life, make a point of telling yourself over and over, "I want to feel good." Does it work? I'll let you know.
The central concept of his ideas about how the universe works is "a field of energy that we connect to," which he calls "intention," and which, based on his description, I'D call "karma"... yet another example of people from different backgrounds coming up with the exact same ideas as I have, and just calling them different names.
His major points included things like how what you think creates your world, how if you ask for things they'll come to you, how if you focus on something it'll be drawn into your life, and therefore if you dwell on the negatives that's what you'll receive, and if you focus on how things are they'll stay that way, how you can make things happen by visualizing and otherwise focusing on them... all common themes on my blog.
Sounding very much like Joel Osteen talking about God, he talked about the infinite bounty of "the source," as he generally referred to the energy field that powers everything (karma, in other words), and how there was no end to all you could have if you'd just ASK for it and believe you were going to get it... and here we are, back at my first spiritual epiphany of the year (gotten from the movie "Magnificent Obsession"), that, as long as you're doing and being good (Dyer makes a repeated point about the importance of doing good deeds and of being kind to people, aka creating good karma), if you BELIEVE that good things will happen to you, everything you want and need will essentially fall into your lap, even things that seem miraculous... and all you have to do is go with the flow and collect it all. He even made reference to that most-favored phrase of new age-y Christians and the recovery community, "Let go and let God," the idea being that you don't have to hammer away at things, you can just plug into the greater power and it'll all come to you; I've delved into this idea a few times, and, although it goes against the grain of my Puritan work ethic, it DOES seem to actually work for those who do it, whether it be in a deliberate way, by asking for God (or who/whatever) to handle things, or indirectly, by drifting through life assuming that everything will be handled for you... which is my husband's way, and it's always worked well for him, even BEFORE he had ME to take care of him.
Dyer's well worth checking out, should you see his name on your TV schedule; his marathon show is going to be on PBS late at night a couple of times over the next few days, and I'll probably tape it and re-watch it to see what more I can get from it... there's a limit to how much I can absorb in one session, especially a 4-hour one, and he has alot of interesting stuff to say. He's also a great example of how to effectively talk about this sort of thing, because, again sounding like Osteen, he uses humor, personal anecdotes, and appeals to our caring nature to keep his audience riveted and emotionally connected; he actually had everyone in TEARS at one point, when he recounted the true story of a learning-disabled boy, and how his presence allowed a group of "normal" boys to become better people than they probably ever had before. You can read the story here
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/godsperfection.htm
and I chose to use a URL from a site dedicated to debunking exactly this sort of thing so that you can see that it IS a true story (unless the rabbi who vouches for it is lying, which is obviously unlikely). There's more to this story than just the tear-jerking element, so do read it even if you're not the sentimental type; the lesson it gives is that those who seem at first glance to have less going for them than the rest of us in fact have something MORE than we do... the ability to bring out the best in us, to teach us the value of kindness over such lesser goals as winning a game, and to remind us of how much joy we should feel about the things we take for granted.
And that brings us to another of Dyer's big themes; if you want to have a happy life, make a point of telling yourself over and over, "I want to feel good." Does it work? I'll let you know.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Love beyond words
On 8-21-04, I blogged about the most astonishing example of love I'd ever encountered; a man in the Philippines promised God that he'd be crucified 15 times if God would save the life of his baby daughter, and, as the girl WAS saved, he's been enduring crucifixion every year since then. I didn't expect to EVER see anything to top that, but my friend Rhyncus, whose wonderful blog is here
http://rhyncus.blogspot.com/
posted the URL to the following story:
"Woman ends life to donate eyes to blind sons
A 37-year-old mother, dejected at being unable to locate eye donors for her two blind sons, ended her life so that her eyes could be given to them.
Tamilselvi was found hanging at her residence in Kodungaiyur in north Chennai on Saturday. The police rushed to the spot and recovered the body, which was later sent for post-mortem.
Tamilselvi had got herself registered with an eye bank in Chennai and had stated her wish to donate her eyes to her sons, who are studying in a school for the visually-impaired in the city.
The eye bank authorities removed her eyes as per her instructions. They will conduct the operations on her sons soon."
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/20eye.htm
Are you as overwhelmed as I am at the amount of love, and the degree of willingness to sacrifice, it's possible for a human being to have? We hear so much about the evil that people do to each other that I wanted to share this story illustrating the finest qualities of humanity.
I read somewhere about an episode of one of those medical-drama shows that had a father committing suicide in order to be an organ donor for his daughter; since this real-life version happened in India, the writers of that episode will probably never hear about it, but imagine the chills it'd give them if they DID.
I also read a child-related story today that was mindboggling in a totally different way:
"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school... the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs."
You can read the rest of the story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050318/ap_on_re_us/child_arrested
I'd really like to know whose idea it was to call the POLICE to deal with a kindergartner, wouldn't you? Even more, I'd like to know whose idea it was to ARREST a child that young, and finally what pitiful specimen of humanity bound that little girl hand and foot, as if she were a serial killer rather than a tiny child. What a DISGRACE!! I can only imagine how thrilled the citizens of Florida must be to know that their tax dollars are paying for school officials who are incapable of handling a tantruming 5-year-old, and ARE capable of such atrociously bad judgment, not to mention paying for police officers who feel it necessary to treat a child who still needs to stand on a stool to brush her teeth like a dangerous criminal.
What an extraordinary species we are...
http://rhyncus.blogspot.com/
posted the URL to the following story:
"Woman ends life to donate eyes to blind sons
A 37-year-old mother, dejected at being unable to locate eye donors for her two blind sons, ended her life so that her eyes could be given to them.
Tamilselvi was found hanging at her residence in Kodungaiyur in north Chennai on Saturday. The police rushed to the spot and recovered the body, which was later sent for post-mortem.
Tamilselvi had got herself registered with an eye bank in Chennai and had stated her wish to donate her eyes to her sons, who are studying in a school for the visually-impaired in the city.
The eye bank authorities removed her eyes as per her instructions. They will conduct the operations on her sons soon."
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/20eye.htm
Are you as overwhelmed as I am at the amount of love, and the degree of willingness to sacrifice, it's possible for a human being to have? We hear so much about the evil that people do to each other that I wanted to share this story illustrating the finest qualities of humanity.
I read somewhere about an episode of one of those medical-drama shows that had a father committing suicide in order to be an organ donor for his daughter; since this real-life version happened in India, the writers of that episode will probably never hear about it, but imagine the chills it'd give them if they DID.
I also read a child-related story today that was mindboggling in a totally different way:
"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school... the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs."
You can read the rest of the story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050318/ap_on_re_us/child_arrested
I'd really like to know whose idea it was to call the POLICE to deal with a kindergartner, wouldn't you? Even more, I'd like to know whose idea it was to ARREST a child that young, and finally what pitiful specimen of humanity bound that little girl hand and foot, as if she were a serial killer rather than a tiny child. What a DISGRACE!! I can only imagine how thrilled the citizens of Florida must be to know that their tax dollars are paying for school officials who are incapable of handling a tantruming 5-year-old, and ARE capable of such atrociously bad judgment, not to mention paying for police officers who feel it necessary to treat a child who still needs to stand on a stool to brush her teeth like a dangerous criminal.
What an extraordinary species we are...
Monday, March 21, 2005
The amazing Moken
On "60 Minutes" tonight, there was a story about "the sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea," aka the Moken, a people who've "lived for hundreds of years on the islands off the coast of Thailand and Burma," of whom it's said, "of all the peoples of the world, [they are] among the least touched by modern civilization"... which is FAR better than saying "primitive," the word usually given to non-white peoples who haven't adopted a lifestyle based on technology (I always put primitive in quotes in this context, because in many ways, such as with social cohesion and spirituality, they're FAR from primitive). Although the focus of the story, which you can read here
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681558.shtml
is how the Moken, who are exquisitely attuned to the sea, didn't lose ANYONE in the tsunami, despite the fact that they "live precisely where the tsunami hit hardest," what blew me away were the too-few comments made about their language... a language like none other, as befits a culture like none other.
For example, they have no word for "when"; stop and think how much of your existence hinges on WHEN things will happen, WHEN you need to do things... and try to imagine life without all that. The Moken have nothing like our concept of time, in fact they have no concept of time at all; extend your previous imagining to encompass an existence with NO looking at the clock or the calendar, no thought at all about the passing of time, or what will happen in the future. As a result of their timelessness, the Moken don't know how old they are... as compared to Americans, who're OBSESSED with age, what we're old enough to do, too old to do, age differences, and reaching "round # ages" like 30 and 40. Can you imagine THAT?
Another astonishing word they don't have is "want"; I don't know if it's even POSSIBLE for an American to imagine never wanting anything, never expressing wanting anything, not even grasping the concept of wanting what one doesn't have. As a tangent to that, the Moken have no concept of, and no desire for, wealth, and no wish to accumulate things; they're nomadic, so that makes sense, but to the minds of people dedicated as a culture to accumulating as much as possible, and who worship wealth, this is just mindboggling.
Last, but far from least; they have no word for "worry." How long do YOU ever go without worrying about something? Your health, your weight, your kids, your job, that funny noise your car is making, your credit card debt, the amount of hair coming off in your brush... we worry about countless things, large and small, every day. What would it be like to NEVER worry?
Imagine living somewhere where time is meaningless, where you want for nothing, don't care about wealth or possessions, and you never have to worry... where does that sound like? Heaven. I'm not saying that metaphorically; it sounds like an excellent description of the Christian idea of heaven. If the Moken wore white robes and played harps, it'd be just about dead-on... other than their living on boats or in huts instead of on clouds, etc.
To someone like me, who's CRUSHED by the mad racing of time, the constraints of time, who worries as much as 10 normal people do, and who's driven by wants for things I may never reach (as the elements of "The Truth" aren't exactly being auctioned on eBay), their culture seems like a dream, their mindset like the purest bliss. There was no mention of their spirituality on the show, but I did a little research; my best guess was that, like so many cultures that are deeply in tune with nature, their belief system would be some form of animism, and I was RIGHT. Some people turn their noses up at spiritual beliefs that don't include sacred books and houses of worship, but my view is that the Moken, who have no written language and live on their boats at sea most of the year, have a deeper understanding of the spiritual realm than most arrogant, "civilized" white people could ever dream of.
As passionate as I am about the pursuit of spirituality, in this instance the thing that's overwhelmed me isn't my accurate intuition about what the Moken people might believe, but the idea of going through life without wanting, without worrying about time, and in fact never worrying at all... wow...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681558.shtml
is how the Moken, who are exquisitely attuned to the sea, didn't lose ANYONE in the tsunami, despite the fact that they "live precisely where the tsunami hit hardest," what blew me away were the too-few comments made about their language... a language like none other, as befits a culture like none other.
For example, they have no word for "when"; stop and think how much of your existence hinges on WHEN things will happen, WHEN you need to do things... and try to imagine life without all that. The Moken have nothing like our concept of time, in fact they have no concept of time at all; extend your previous imagining to encompass an existence with NO looking at the clock or the calendar, no thought at all about the passing of time, or what will happen in the future. As a result of their timelessness, the Moken don't know how old they are... as compared to Americans, who're OBSESSED with age, what we're old enough to do, too old to do, age differences, and reaching "round # ages" like 30 and 40. Can you imagine THAT?
Another astonishing word they don't have is "want"; I don't know if it's even POSSIBLE for an American to imagine never wanting anything, never expressing wanting anything, not even grasping the concept of wanting what one doesn't have. As a tangent to that, the Moken have no concept of, and no desire for, wealth, and no wish to accumulate things; they're nomadic, so that makes sense, but to the minds of people dedicated as a culture to accumulating as much as possible, and who worship wealth, this is just mindboggling.
Last, but far from least; they have no word for "worry." How long do YOU ever go without worrying about something? Your health, your weight, your kids, your job, that funny noise your car is making, your credit card debt, the amount of hair coming off in your brush... we worry about countless things, large and small, every day. What would it be like to NEVER worry?
Imagine living somewhere where time is meaningless, where you want for nothing, don't care about wealth or possessions, and you never have to worry... where does that sound like? Heaven. I'm not saying that metaphorically; it sounds like an excellent description of the Christian idea of heaven. If the Moken wore white robes and played harps, it'd be just about dead-on... other than their living on boats or in huts instead of on clouds, etc.
To someone like me, who's CRUSHED by the mad racing of time, the constraints of time, who worries as much as 10 normal people do, and who's driven by wants for things I may never reach (as the elements of "The Truth" aren't exactly being auctioned on eBay), their culture seems like a dream, their mindset like the purest bliss. There was no mention of their spirituality on the show, but I did a little research; my best guess was that, like so many cultures that are deeply in tune with nature, their belief system would be some form of animism, and I was RIGHT. Some people turn their noses up at spiritual beliefs that don't include sacred books and houses of worship, but my view is that the Moken, who have no written language and live on their boats at sea most of the year, have a deeper understanding of the spiritual realm than most arrogant, "civilized" white people could ever dream of.
As passionate as I am about the pursuit of spirituality, in this instance the thing that's overwhelmed me isn't my accurate intuition about what the Moken people might believe, but the idea of going through life without wanting, without worrying about time, and in fact never worrying at all... wow...
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Ask your doctor
Yeah, right.
You know what I'm talking about; you see an ad for some sort of medication, and they say something like, "Ask your doctor if Brand X is right for you." There are some problems with this:
1) Unless you're one of the rare few who still pays a doctor directly for their services, you've got about as much chance of getting them to take time out from their frenzied schedule to advise you on which brand of aspirin to use as you do of getting them to write legibly when they're filling out a prescription for the meds on which your life might depend... none whatsoever.
2) If it's a new drug or brand, whether prescription or OTC, the likelihood is that your doctor doesn't know a damned thing about it; they're all SUPPOSED to keep up with their reading about new medical breakthroughs, procedural as well as chemical, but the scary reality is that few of them do. Frankly, they don't know much about ANY sorts of meds that have come out since they graduated med school, and all too often are vague on the details even of the ones they WERE taught... especially with psych meds.
3) Unless you have some sort of special health concerns, what do you think your doctor COULD have to say to you that would be meaningful, assuming you could somehow get an answer out of them and they actually knew something about the med in question? There's not going to be any reason why you CAN'T take the med, and it'd be a ridiculous waste of your time to sit on hold for half an hour to hear them say, "Yeah, feel free to take Brand X aspirin for your headache." In the case of prescription meds, again, if you have no health issues that affect what you can take, you can take ANY med for your condition; whether your doctor gives you that med or a different one will be based on...
4) The doctor's whim; sadly, this is what the vast majority of prescription choices are based on. They give you whichever med they're most familiar with, even if there are a dozen newer and better ones, or the med from whichever drug company sent them the coolest goodies recently, or whatever med their buddies mentioned on the golf course most recently... a doctor who even knows what all the choices are, much less analyzes them to come up with the best choice for their patients, is as rare as one with a penmanship award. (As a side issue, if the doctor's working through an HMO, they usually have contractual limits on which meds they can prescribe, but that's a whole other rant.)
5) Here's the big one; even if your doctor has an encyclopedic knowledge of all meds, what good does that do you? In many cases, all of the available meds are about equally as good, so there's no real reason to prefer one over another, and, even in those cases when certain meds ARE better for some people than other meds might be, with the standard exception of if you've got special health concerns, there's no way for the doctor to KNOW which med will be best for YOU. How could they? It's not like they're running genetic studies or anything on you, and even if they DID, what would that tell them? One of the grimmest aspects of Western medicine, especially for psych patients, is that there's simply no way to tell in advance how a given med will interact with a given person's system; all the doctor can do, if they're not just making a knee-jerk prescription of the med they're most familiar with, is give a blind guess... so what do you gain by asking them if Brand X is best for you?
If you're pregnant or nursing, do please be fanatical about finding out exactly what meds to take, and the same goes for if you have any remotely significant health problem, but other than that, take whatever OTC med you can get the best price for, and do some research on your own on any prescription meds you might have to take, so that you can make an informed request; taking responsibility for your own health care is every bit as important as anything your doctor will ever do for you.
You know what I'm talking about; you see an ad for some sort of medication, and they say something like, "Ask your doctor if Brand X is right for you." There are some problems with this:
1) Unless you're one of the rare few who still pays a doctor directly for their services, you've got about as much chance of getting them to take time out from their frenzied schedule to advise you on which brand of aspirin to use as you do of getting them to write legibly when they're filling out a prescription for the meds on which your life might depend... none whatsoever.
2) If it's a new drug or brand, whether prescription or OTC, the likelihood is that your doctor doesn't know a damned thing about it; they're all SUPPOSED to keep up with their reading about new medical breakthroughs, procedural as well as chemical, but the scary reality is that few of them do. Frankly, they don't know much about ANY sorts of meds that have come out since they graduated med school, and all too often are vague on the details even of the ones they WERE taught... especially with psych meds.
3) Unless you have some sort of special health concerns, what do you think your doctor COULD have to say to you that would be meaningful, assuming you could somehow get an answer out of them and they actually knew something about the med in question? There's not going to be any reason why you CAN'T take the med, and it'd be a ridiculous waste of your time to sit on hold for half an hour to hear them say, "Yeah, feel free to take Brand X aspirin for your headache." In the case of prescription meds, again, if you have no health issues that affect what you can take, you can take ANY med for your condition; whether your doctor gives you that med or a different one will be based on...
4) The doctor's whim; sadly, this is what the vast majority of prescription choices are based on. They give you whichever med they're most familiar with, even if there are a dozen newer and better ones, or the med from whichever drug company sent them the coolest goodies recently, or whatever med their buddies mentioned on the golf course most recently... a doctor who even knows what all the choices are, much less analyzes them to come up with the best choice for their patients, is as rare as one with a penmanship award. (As a side issue, if the doctor's working through an HMO, they usually have contractual limits on which meds they can prescribe, but that's a whole other rant.)
5) Here's the big one; even if your doctor has an encyclopedic knowledge of all meds, what good does that do you? In many cases, all of the available meds are about equally as good, so there's no real reason to prefer one over another, and, even in those cases when certain meds ARE better for some people than other meds might be, with the standard exception of if you've got special health concerns, there's no way for the doctor to KNOW which med will be best for YOU. How could they? It's not like they're running genetic studies or anything on you, and even if they DID, what would that tell them? One of the grimmest aspects of Western medicine, especially for psych patients, is that there's simply no way to tell in advance how a given med will interact with a given person's system; all the doctor can do, if they're not just making a knee-jerk prescription of the med they're most familiar with, is give a blind guess... so what do you gain by asking them if Brand X is best for you?
If you're pregnant or nursing, do please be fanatical about finding out exactly what meds to take, and the same goes for if you have any remotely significant health problem, but other than that, take whatever OTC med you can get the best price for, and do some research on your own on any prescription meds you might have to take, so that you can make an informed request; taking responsibility for your own health care is every bit as important as anything your doctor will ever do for you.
