Saturday, September 03, 2005
Why don't wishes always come true?
No, that's not meant to be the equivalent of when small children ask why they can't have everything they want, I mean why can't we say a few days, or weeks, or even months, of affirmations (I describe how to do them in my post of 1-12-04) and make anything we wish come to pass, knowing that our thoughts DO have the power to shape reality?
1) This should go without saying, but some people feel it necessary to make an issue of it; we can't do magic, or otherwise violate the laws of physics, no matter how many times we do affirmations asking for it, because you can't use the power of karma to overcome the structure of karma.
2) Some things are just too big for us to influence meaningfully; as much as we'd like to prevent natural disasters from occurring, the forces behind them are so enormous that we can't make a dent in them.
3) We can't change human nature; if you're a minority in the area you live, for example, you can't make people stop viewing you as "other" just by wishing it to be so.
4) We can't change an individual person's nature; if you're in love with someone whose sexual orientation isn't towards your gender, there's no point in trying to alter that.
5) In circumstances where many people are hoping for contradictory outcomes, it's silly to think that your extra bit of hoping will tip the balance; you can't do affirmations to control the scores of sporting events, or who wins the Miss Universe pageant, for example.
6) a) If your karma's not clean, you can't expect to have much of ANY effect... and remember that things like fear and sadness, although not "bad" in the sense of being wrongdoings, lead to negative karma. If necessary, re-build your karma through good deeds and positive thoughts/feelings before attempting to do affirmations.
b) In most circumstances, the bad karma of people closely associated with you can block you from drawing in what you want, as their negative energy surrounds you even though you didn't generate it; unless you can distance yourself from those people long enough to do the affirmations and receive what you asked for, you're unfortunately just stuck with that.
7) It's crucial to be VERY specific about what you ask for, and to be sure that it reflects EXACTLY what you want; if you want to lose 50 lbs, and just do an affirmation to lose weight, once you've lost 1 lb, or even 1 oz, your request has been fulfilled, and all that effort has been wasted.
8) It's equally important to NOT be specific as to HOW karma is to deliver what you want, as that closes off some of the pathways it could use, including maybe 1 that'll make or break your results; if you wish for wealth, don't specify that it has to be from winning the lottery, or that inheritance your great aunt has to pass along might go to a different relative, one who's less picky.
9) You have to truly focus and project your thoughts, which is the entire point of doing affirmations; you can't just have a wistful daydream about a thing every so often and expect to be significantly altering your chances of getting it.
10) You have to keep at it, even after the novelty wears off; after a few days, writing out those 15 sentences can seem like a gigantic task that you've got no time for, believe me I know, but to get even the simplest things done takes TIME, and if you don't persist you can't expect to triumph... just like with anything else.
With that said, I owe you a couple of warnings, too:
1) The saying "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" applies; before you ask for that promotion, think long and hard if all it really is is a few dollars more for working twice as many hours. Even if the thing you want doesn't have a catch, it still might not be the best thing for YOU; don't ask for a doctor for a husband if you can't handle being alone alot of the time, and rarely being the center of his thoughts when he IS with you.
2) Be very, VERY cautious about wishing for something that does harm; various belief systems warn that whatever you send out will come back to you threefold, or even TENfold, and when you're wishing harm you're virtually guaranteed to be sending out anger, hate, jealousy, resentment or other negative feelings with your thoughts, and negative feelings bring negativity into your life... so unless you possess the ability to have ice-cold detachment, it's better to handle problematic people in less metaphysical ways.
Our thoughts DO shape reality... what sort of reality are YOU creating?
1) This should go without saying, but some people feel it necessary to make an issue of it; we can't do magic, or otherwise violate the laws of physics, no matter how many times we do affirmations asking for it, because you can't use the power of karma to overcome the structure of karma.
2) Some things are just too big for us to influence meaningfully; as much as we'd like to prevent natural disasters from occurring, the forces behind them are so enormous that we can't make a dent in them.
3) We can't change human nature; if you're a minority in the area you live, for example, you can't make people stop viewing you as "other" just by wishing it to be so.
4) We can't change an individual person's nature; if you're in love with someone whose sexual orientation isn't towards your gender, there's no point in trying to alter that.
5) In circumstances where many people are hoping for contradictory outcomes, it's silly to think that your extra bit of hoping will tip the balance; you can't do affirmations to control the scores of sporting events, or who wins the Miss Universe pageant, for example.
6) a) If your karma's not clean, you can't expect to have much of ANY effect... and remember that things like fear and sadness, although not "bad" in the sense of being wrongdoings, lead to negative karma. If necessary, re-build your karma through good deeds and positive thoughts/feelings before attempting to do affirmations.
b) In most circumstances, the bad karma of people closely associated with you can block you from drawing in what you want, as their negative energy surrounds you even though you didn't generate it; unless you can distance yourself from those people long enough to do the affirmations and receive what you asked for, you're unfortunately just stuck with that.
7) It's crucial to be VERY specific about what you ask for, and to be sure that it reflects EXACTLY what you want; if you want to lose 50 lbs, and just do an affirmation to lose weight, once you've lost 1 lb, or even 1 oz, your request has been fulfilled, and all that effort has been wasted.
8) It's equally important to NOT be specific as to HOW karma is to deliver what you want, as that closes off some of the pathways it could use, including maybe 1 that'll make or break your results; if you wish for wealth, don't specify that it has to be from winning the lottery, or that inheritance your great aunt has to pass along might go to a different relative, one who's less picky.
9) You have to truly focus and project your thoughts, which is the entire point of doing affirmations; you can't just have a wistful daydream about a thing every so often and expect to be significantly altering your chances of getting it.
10) You have to keep at it, even after the novelty wears off; after a few days, writing out those 15 sentences can seem like a gigantic task that you've got no time for, believe me I know, but to get even the simplest things done takes TIME, and if you don't persist you can't expect to triumph... just like with anything else.
With that said, I owe you a couple of warnings, too:
1) The saying "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it" applies; before you ask for that promotion, think long and hard if all it really is is a few dollars more for working twice as many hours. Even if the thing you want doesn't have a catch, it still might not be the best thing for YOU; don't ask for a doctor for a husband if you can't handle being alone alot of the time, and rarely being the center of his thoughts when he IS with you.
2) Be very, VERY cautious about wishing for something that does harm; various belief systems warn that whatever you send out will come back to you threefold, or even TENfold, and when you're wishing harm you're virtually guaranteed to be sending out anger, hate, jealousy, resentment or other negative feelings with your thoughts, and negative feelings bring negativity into your life... so unless you possess the ability to have ice-cold detachment, it's better to handle problematic people in less metaphysical ways.
Our thoughts DO shape reality... what sort of reality are YOU creating?
Friday, September 02, 2005
Brown shoes and the larva
Women are supposed to love shoes, but I've never had much interest in them; part of it's that I have big feet, and most cute shoes don't look good on me, part of it's that I didn't have much $ most of my life, and didn't want to waste any on shoes that could be spent on shirts or earrings, and part of it's that I've got narrow heels, and most shoes cut into me there, making them unwearable.
I CAN wear pumps easily, even very high ones, as then the pressure is on the balls of my feet rather than on the backs of my heels, so I have some business and formal pairs that I haven't needed to wear in years, sitting in my closet in boxes. Boots are also fine, but they're a little fancy for my jeans and t-shirts, and I've found them to be insufficiently padded for me to walk more than a token amount in, although perhaps their cheapness is a factor too (I'm just not willing to buy expensive things to wear of any kind, even though I can afford them now-it seems like such a waste of $)... thinking about which made me realize something recently:
Haven't you ever wondered why ugly, clunky shoes with filthy laces to struggle with have become our official footwear? I think I finally understand why; athletic shoes have to be cushiony on all the surfaces of your feet to be usable, and, unlike most other shoes, that have hard, unpadded soles, uppers and of course that edge that digs into the back of your heel, they're COMFORTABLE, even with all the standing and walking we do on cement... all these years of having my feet hurt came from my disliking athletic shoes so much that I was wearing shoes that weren't meant to be walked around in, sigh.
I hadn't had comfortable footwear since I graduated college and started wearing "adult" shoes; when I didn't need to wear pumps anymore, I switched to boots, which looked cool but led to real pain if I had to walk far. I didn't even remember that my feet didn't feel like that when I'd worn athletic shoes, and it never occurred to me that I could do real walking without pain until, having decided that boots were a little much with my geekwear, I started looking around for new shoes, and the only pair I could find that didn't gouge my heels turned out to have such springy padding that I felt like I was walking on bubble wrap... it was a revelation. Not only were they blissful with every step, they allowed me to shop an entire mall without limping and having my feet swell up to twice their size; it was a whole new world.
A few months later, I realized that I only had that ONE pair of shoes, and that wasn't enough, so I went back to the store where I'd gotten them... and they had every single style by that brand still EXCEPT the ones that fit me. That was 5 YEARS ago, and I never found another pair to fit me until now; what I finally realized was that I needed that high, padded thing on the back of the heel, like athletic shoes have, to not have that cutting pain, but you don't often see that in any other sort of shoe... finally, a sporting goods store got some, and, although they have the minor drawback that the elastic insets in the upper let my foot lift up and out slightly when I take a certain angle of step, they're cushy and comfy, and have a bonus attribute as well.
They're BROWN.
Why does that matter? Because all my boots are black, and the 1 pair of shoes I've been wearing are black, and even the most clueless MEN know you can't just have black shoes, you need brown ones too; it was hard, but I've been able to overcome my deeply-entrenched ideas of "black goes with everything, so that's all I need" and "if they're not black they'll show every speck of dirt" enough to have brown shoes even though I don't much like that color... although probably only because it was the only color they came in, lol, and I'd have gotten them in literally ANY color just to have a 2nd pair of shoes.
And now on to the larva; I found one oozing along the wall in the hallway this evening, and was a little nervous because there's never just ONE when they show up. A couple of hours later, I was typing along, tap-tap-tap-tap (or rather, since I'm a very slow typist, more like tap... tap... tap... tap...), when suddenly, horrifyingly, it became tap-tap-tap-SQUISH. I looked down, and saw to my utter revulsion that one of the loathsome things was writhing on the key I'd just tried to hit; shrieking piercingly enough to put a car alarm to shame, I grabbed a napkin, snatched it up before it could crawl off my laptop, squashed it, and was still screaming when my husband came charging in. Horribly aware that I'd TOUCHED a larva, I began frantically scrubbing my finger on the only thing handy; my husband's shirt. He waited patiently for me to finish, agreeing with my howled declarations as to the filthiness and evil of the larva; then, following my panicked instructions, he dragged in the step-stool and checked the ceiling to see if any more of them were up there waiting to jump down on my keyboard (or my HEAD)... there weren't any, but my skin has been crawling ever since.
I swear, between the swarms of vermin and my husband's offensive emissions (don't ask), I'm going to need to get full-on hazmat gear and seal myself in... and won't it look slick with my new brown shoes?
I CAN wear pumps easily, even very high ones, as then the pressure is on the balls of my feet rather than on the backs of my heels, so I have some business and formal pairs that I haven't needed to wear in years, sitting in my closet in boxes. Boots are also fine, but they're a little fancy for my jeans and t-shirts, and I've found them to be insufficiently padded for me to walk more than a token amount in, although perhaps their cheapness is a factor too (I'm just not willing to buy expensive things to wear of any kind, even though I can afford them now-it seems like such a waste of $)... thinking about which made me realize something recently:
Haven't you ever wondered why ugly, clunky shoes with filthy laces to struggle with have become our official footwear? I think I finally understand why; athletic shoes have to be cushiony on all the surfaces of your feet to be usable, and, unlike most other shoes, that have hard, unpadded soles, uppers and of course that edge that digs into the back of your heel, they're COMFORTABLE, even with all the standing and walking we do on cement... all these years of having my feet hurt came from my disliking athletic shoes so much that I was wearing shoes that weren't meant to be walked around in, sigh.
I hadn't had comfortable footwear since I graduated college and started wearing "adult" shoes; when I didn't need to wear pumps anymore, I switched to boots, which looked cool but led to real pain if I had to walk far. I didn't even remember that my feet didn't feel like that when I'd worn athletic shoes, and it never occurred to me that I could do real walking without pain until, having decided that boots were a little much with my geekwear, I started looking around for new shoes, and the only pair I could find that didn't gouge my heels turned out to have such springy padding that I felt like I was walking on bubble wrap... it was a revelation. Not only were they blissful with every step, they allowed me to shop an entire mall without limping and having my feet swell up to twice their size; it was a whole new world.
A few months later, I realized that I only had that ONE pair of shoes, and that wasn't enough, so I went back to the store where I'd gotten them... and they had every single style by that brand still EXCEPT the ones that fit me. That was 5 YEARS ago, and I never found another pair to fit me until now; what I finally realized was that I needed that high, padded thing on the back of the heel, like athletic shoes have, to not have that cutting pain, but you don't often see that in any other sort of shoe... finally, a sporting goods store got some, and, although they have the minor drawback that the elastic insets in the upper let my foot lift up and out slightly when I take a certain angle of step, they're cushy and comfy, and have a bonus attribute as well.
They're BROWN.
Why does that matter? Because all my boots are black, and the 1 pair of shoes I've been wearing are black, and even the most clueless MEN know you can't just have black shoes, you need brown ones too; it was hard, but I've been able to overcome my deeply-entrenched ideas of "black goes with everything, so that's all I need" and "if they're not black they'll show every speck of dirt" enough to have brown shoes even though I don't much like that color... although probably only because it was the only color they came in, lol, and I'd have gotten them in literally ANY color just to have a 2nd pair of shoes.
And now on to the larva; I found one oozing along the wall in the hallway this evening, and was a little nervous because there's never just ONE when they show up. A couple of hours later, I was typing along, tap-tap-tap-tap (or rather, since I'm a very slow typist, more like tap... tap... tap... tap...), when suddenly, horrifyingly, it became tap-tap-tap-SQUISH. I looked down, and saw to my utter revulsion that one of the loathsome things was writhing on the key I'd just tried to hit; shrieking piercingly enough to put a car alarm to shame, I grabbed a napkin, snatched it up before it could crawl off my laptop, squashed it, and was still screaming when my husband came charging in. Horribly aware that I'd TOUCHED a larva, I began frantically scrubbing my finger on the only thing handy; my husband's shirt. He waited patiently for me to finish, agreeing with my howled declarations as to the filthiness and evil of the larva; then, following my panicked instructions, he dragged in the step-stool and checked the ceiling to see if any more of them were up there waiting to jump down on my keyboard (or my HEAD)... there weren't any, but my skin has been crawling ever since.
I swear, between the swarms of vermin and my husband's offensive emissions (don't ask), I'm going to need to get full-on hazmat gear and seal myself in... and won't it look slick with my new brown shoes?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Interesting spiritual ideas from an odd source
To capitalize on the remake of "The Amityville Horror," earlier this year they released a DVD set with the original movie, 2 sequels, and a bonus disc
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?BB=true&movieID=139210&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Full
which contains "a pair of documentaries produced for The History Channel on the real-life events that inspired the first film, as well as a look at the production of the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror and more"... and that's the one I got in the mail today.
I got my 1st look at the people who actually lived through the events that inspired the book and movie... well, they SAY they lived through the events, which isn't the same thing, but since they gave no indication of being dishonest, "slick" types, they did verifiably abandon their home and everything they owned when they fled (they gave the house back to the bank, and their belongings were auctioned off for a pittance), and I know from personal experience with ghosts, particularly poltergeists, that entities of various sorts exist and interact with humans, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I also saw a bewildering array of contradictory claims from several people who'd involved themselves in the case in various ways... none of which means anything, because it either happened or it didn't, and only the Lutz family knows for sure.
There was one intriguing thing revealed; the Catholic priest who had come to bless the house, Father Ralph Pecoraro, testified in court that he DID hear that deep voice saying "get out," and he also supposed felt a slap to the face... no sane person sees priests as paragons of virtue anymore, but why would he have opened himself up to ridicule and censure by giving that testimony if the incident hadn't happened?
Now here's the spiritual part; the Lutzes said something that would be illogical if they were trying to persuade people of the validity of a false story... that it was typical in that house for 1 person to experience something that no one else perceived, or for everyone to be seeing/hearing something, but not the same thing. If YOU were going to try to perpetrate a fraud about supernatural happenings, wouldn't you have everyone telling the SAME story for each incident, to add credence to it by backing each other up? One of the supposed experts in paranormal phenomena that appeared in the documentaries gave an explanation for each person having different perceptions; that these perceptions were telepathic in nature, and thus each person experienced whatever was projected at them, or nothing if they weren't being targeted. If spirits and such WERE plugging into our brains rather than creating visible and audible apparitions, that'd make them easier to understand, because they wouldn't have to be able to manipulate light and sound waves... but it wouldn't explain their ability to move things around, so they've gotta have more to them than psychic ability.
The other spiritual thing is the explanation Kathy Lutz gave for why they had those terrifying experiences when no one else who's lived in that house (yes, other people are willing to live somewhere where, at the very least, 6 people, 4 of which were children, were brutally murdered) has reported anything; she revealed that they'd gotten into transcendental meditation before moving there, and that she thought that it opened their minds to... other things. I can certainly see how this could be, although just because you can see a logical way something COULD happen doesn't mean it DID; just to be safe, though, if I ever get the urge to dabble in TM, I'm going to suppress it.
So, now I have a new facet of "the unknown" to ponder; what is the interface between humans and non-corporeal entities, how does it work, and can we "fine-tune" it? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......
http://www.blockbuster.com/catalog/DisplayMoreMovieProductDetails.action?BB=true&movieID=139210&channel=Movies&subChannel=sub#Full
which contains "a pair of documentaries produced for The History Channel on the real-life events that inspired the first film, as well as a look at the production of the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror and more"... and that's the one I got in the mail today.
I got my 1st look at the people who actually lived through the events that inspired the book and movie... well, they SAY they lived through the events, which isn't the same thing, but since they gave no indication of being dishonest, "slick" types, they did verifiably abandon their home and everything they owned when they fled (they gave the house back to the bank, and their belongings were auctioned off for a pittance), and I know from personal experience with ghosts, particularly poltergeists, that entities of various sorts exist and interact with humans, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I also saw a bewildering array of contradictory claims from several people who'd involved themselves in the case in various ways... none of which means anything, because it either happened or it didn't, and only the Lutz family knows for sure.
There was one intriguing thing revealed; the Catholic priest who had come to bless the house, Father Ralph Pecoraro, testified in court that he DID hear that deep voice saying "get out," and he also supposed felt a slap to the face... no sane person sees priests as paragons of virtue anymore, but why would he have opened himself up to ridicule and censure by giving that testimony if the incident hadn't happened?
Now here's the spiritual part; the Lutzes said something that would be illogical if they were trying to persuade people of the validity of a false story... that it was typical in that house for 1 person to experience something that no one else perceived, or for everyone to be seeing/hearing something, but not the same thing. If YOU were going to try to perpetrate a fraud about supernatural happenings, wouldn't you have everyone telling the SAME story for each incident, to add credence to it by backing each other up? One of the supposed experts in paranormal phenomena that appeared in the documentaries gave an explanation for each person having different perceptions; that these perceptions were telepathic in nature, and thus each person experienced whatever was projected at them, or nothing if they weren't being targeted. If spirits and such WERE plugging into our brains rather than creating visible and audible apparitions, that'd make them easier to understand, because they wouldn't have to be able to manipulate light and sound waves... but it wouldn't explain their ability to move things around, so they've gotta have more to them than psychic ability.
The other spiritual thing is the explanation Kathy Lutz gave for why they had those terrifying experiences when no one else who's lived in that house (yes, other people are willing to live somewhere where, at the very least, 6 people, 4 of which were children, were brutally murdered) has reported anything; she revealed that they'd gotten into transcendental meditation before moving there, and that she thought that it opened their minds to... other things. I can certainly see how this could be, although just because you can see a logical way something COULD happen doesn't mean it DID; just to be safe, though, if I ever get the urge to dabble in TM, I'm going to suppress it.
So, now I have a new facet of "the unknown" to ponder; what is the interface between humans and non-corporeal entities, how does it work, and can we "fine-tune" it? hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The effect of climate on religion
In the August 2005 issue of Discover magazine is an article called "Are the Desert People Winning?", which reveals that there's yet another unexpected thing influencing spiritual belief systems; the climate that a culture develops in. While nothing in the article even hints at the concept of "You believe in what you believe in because of the conditions of the area that your ancestors came from, not because your people just happen to have the truth," as such a thing wouldn't be appropriate in a science article, since my blog is largely dedicated to spiritual exploration I wanted to bring it up, because to get at the truth we have to be willing to separate factors that are biological, chemical, environmental, etc from those that are actually indicative of "the unknown" in action.
With that said, let's jump right in:
"A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers-the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert-are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One."
WOW!! There are so many cultures in the world, so many belief systems... and here's this basic underlying principle for why different peoples believe in one category vs another. The reason they think it works out this way is:
"This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people's business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans."
That just made my knees go weak; I love it when basic cause and effect de-mystifies things so thoroughly. Culture in general is involved in this too:
"Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy."
Human nature is a very powerful thing, and it applies to ALL humans wherever they live, so it shouldn't be surprising that similar circumstances breed similar cultural elements, but this is still amazing stuff. There are other cultural things unrelated to religion that are affected that are too interesting to leave out:
"Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it's the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won't be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion. Finally, desert cultures tend to teach their children to be modest about nudity at an earlier age than in rain forest cultures and have more severe strictures against premarital sex."
That should make people who turn their noses up at the so-called "primitive" cultures they see on TV think twice. Although there isn't any need to point out which sort of climate the ancestors of Western peoples came from, as I'm sure we've all recognized which behavior patterns are ours, here it is:
"desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one."
Pause a moment and try to imagine what our lives would be like if we were all rain forest dweller descendants instead; it boggles the mind, doesn't it? It's not likely to ever happen, though:
"Unfortunately, the rain forest mind-set appears not only less likely to spread than its desert counterpart but also less hardy when uprooted, more of a hothouse attribute."
So, what makes a culture strong and successful is all these traits we don't like the sound of? Very grim, if true; I hope that in the modern world we'll be able to find ways to be those things without all those drawbacks.
I'd like to see more articles on this topic in the future, as I think they're really onto something. In case you're wondering why it took them so long to get started with this, it's yet another case of the traditional arrogant view of white scientists of non-white peoples, especially tribal ones, keeping us from objective study and learning anything:
"Attempts to link culture with climate and ecology have an old history... Early efforts were often howlers of dead-white-male racism; every study seemed to generate irrefutable scientific proof that northern European ecosystems produced superior cultures, more advanced morals, technologies, and intellects, and better schnitzel. Much of contemporary social anthropology represents a traumatized retreat from the sins of those intellectual fathers. One solution was to resolutely avoid cultural comparisons, thereby ushering in an era wherein an anthropologist could spend an entire career documenting the puberty rite of one clan of farmers in northeastern Cameroon."
Hopefully, the pendulum is swinging back now, and we can truly delve into what makes us who we are, both spiritually and in general; in the meantime, it's up to each of us to ask ourselves, "Why do I REALLY believe what I believe?".
With that said, let's jump right in:
"A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers-the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert-are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One."
WOW!! There are so many cultures in the world, so many belief systems... and here's this basic underlying principle for why different peoples believe in one category vs another. The reason they think it works out this way is:
"This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people's business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans."
That just made my knees go weak; I love it when basic cause and effect de-mystifies things so thoroughly. Culture in general is involved in this too:
"Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy."
Human nature is a very powerful thing, and it applies to ALL humans wherever they live, so it shouldn't be surprising that similar circumstances breed similar cultural elements, but this is still amazing stuff. There are other cultural things unrelated to religion that are affected that are too interesting to leave out:
"Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it's the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won't be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female, as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion. Finally, desert cultures tend to teach their children to be modest about nudity at an earlier age than in rain forest cultures and have more severe strictures against premarital sex."
That should make people who turn their noses up at the so-called "primitive" cultures they see on TV think twice. Although there isn't any need to point out which sort of climate the ancestors of Western peoples came from, as I'm sure we've all recognized which behavior patterns are ours, here it is:
"desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one."
Pause a moment and try to imagine what our lives would be like if we were all rain forest dweller descendants instead; it boggles the mind, doesn't it? It's not likely to ever happen, though:
"Unfortunately, the rain forest mind-set appears not only less likely to spread than its desert counterpart but also less hardy when uprooted, more of a hothouse attribute."
So, what makes a culture strong and successful is all these traits we don't like the sound of? Very grim, if true; I hope that in the modern world we'll be able to find ways to be those things without all those drawbacks.
I'd like to see more articles on this topic in the future, as I think they're really onto something. In case you're wondering why it took them so long to get started with this, it's yet another case of the traditional arrogant view of white scientists of non-white peoples, especially tribal ones, keeping us from objective study and learning anything:
"Attempts to link culture with climate and ecology have an old history... Early efforts were often howlers of dead-white-male racism; every study seemed to generate irrefutable scientific proof that northern European ecosystems produced superior cultures, more advanced morals, technologies, and intellects, and better schnitzel. Much of contemporary social anthropology represents a traumatized retreat from the sins of those intellectual fathers. One solution was to resolutely avoid cultural comparisons, thereby ushering in an era wherein an anthropologist could spend an entire career documenting the puberty rite of one clan of farmers in northeastern Cameroon."
Hopefully, the pendulum is swinging back now, and we can truly delve into what makes us who we are, both spiritually and in general; in the meantime, it's up to each of us to ask ourselves, "Why do I REALLY believe what I believe?".
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
What are they THINKING?!!
Every so often, you encounter someone who possesses the astonishing ability to present people with the most outrageous situations without a qualm, as if they believe that everyone around them is so clueless that they'll never notice that something's wildly wrong; they certainly react with astonishment when called on the insanity of their pronouncements... or perhaps that reaction's just part of how they hope to manipulate their intended targets?
I encountered one of these infinite-gall situations today, when a Canadian company that I'd literally been trying all year to buy a European item that only they carried in North America from finally, FINALLY got their shipment in and were ready to be paid in full by those of us who'd reserved one by paying half the price some months ago; the manager I'd been in email contact with all this time sent the full bill, and I saw to my absolute horror that the shipping, which my extensive experience with getting eBay stuff from Canadian sellers told me should have been about $10, was over *$30*... and mind you, the item itself is $40, so the shipping nearly doubled the price. I sent an email politely suggesting that perhaps they'd made a mistake, and they haven't bothered to reply yet; if and when they do, I can only assume that they'll try to make it sound as if the 5 seconds it takes to slap an address label on the shipping box justifies the tripling of the shipping charge, and we'll be taking back our deposit and losing out on an item that, although cool, is far from being worth what they want for it... and THEY lose all the profit they could have had from us. What are they thinking, charging such a ridiculous amount for shipping that no American would buy from them?
You'd think it'd be harder for folks to pull this sort of thing face to face, but it sure doesn't seem to be; I remember back when I was in sales, and the office I'd been working out of was moved so far away that it was no longer reasonable for me to go there, and the moronic corporate policy was that if you wanted to report to a different office you had to go there and beg to be taken on, as opposed to just making a transfer automatic upon request, so I went to the closest office to talk to their manager... and she looked me right in the eye and said, "I think that what's best for you is for you to find some other company to handle your clients." I looked HER right in the eye and said, "No, what's best for me is for YOUR office of THIS company to handle my clients, rather than my having to waste time going to other companies and trying to get one of them to take me on when I'm not trained in their procedures"... you should have seen her face. She didn't have the grace to admit that I was right, just snippily altered her pronouncement to be that she'd decided I wasn't going to be in that office and that was that; if she didn't want me in her office, fine, but what was she thinking trying to make out like she was doing what was best for ME?
Probably the most astounding example of this sort of thing came when my husband and I were making the arrangements for our wedding. The folks that provide wedding services in general seem to make it a point of pride to try to push anything BUT what you ask them for on you, so there must be some sort of odd psychology going on with those who're about to be married that makes them infinitely suggestible, but one of the people we encountered in our search for a venue was in a whole other universe of trying to push ridiculous suggestions; she told us that she had a terrific room to show us, and dragged us across an entire complex, unlocked a door, and opened it with a flourish, saying "How about THIS for your wedding?"... and the room she revealed was a tiny, bare, dingy conference room. I'm not exaggerating; this woman, and it was made worse that this WAS a woman, rather than a man who might have no clue about what a wedding should be like, honestly thought she had a shot at getting us to agree to have our WEDDING in a room so unattractive that I can't imagine it being rented out for ANY purpose (and yes, I made the reality of the situation clear to her)... what was she thinking?
I'll never understand people like this, who are either utterly incapable of analyzing what a reasonable person's reaction will be to what they're doing, or don't care, because all they want to do is blither anything that comes into their heads, or see it as some sort of twisted game... all I can do is know that whatever the reasons are for the behavior, it's indicative of the doer not being a good bet to be in my life in any way.
I encountered one of these infinite-gall situations today, when a Canadian company that I'd literally been trying all year to buy a European item that only they carried in North America from finally, FINALLY got their shipment in and were ready to be paid in full by those of us who'd reserved one by paying half the price some months ago; the manager I'd been in email contact with all this time sent the full bill, and I saw to my absolute horror that the shipping, which my extensive experience with getting eBay stuff from Canadian sellers told me should have been about $10, was over *$30*... and mind you, the item itself is $40, so the shipping nearly doubled the price. I sent an email politely suggesting that perhaps they'd made a mistake, and they haven't bothered to reply yet; if and when they do, I can only assume that they'll try to make it sound as if the 5 seconds it takes to slap an address label on the shipping box justifies the tripling of the shipping charge, and we'll be taking back our deposit and losing out on an item that, although cool, is far from being worth what they want for it... and THEY lose all the profit they could have had from us. What are they thinking, charging such a ridiculous amount for shipping that no American would buy from them?
You'd think it'd be harder for folks to pull this sort of thing face to face, but it sure doesn't seem to be; I remember back when I was in sales, and the office I'd been working out of was moved so far away that it was no longer reasonable for me to go there, and the moronic corporate policy was that if you wanted to report to a different office you had to go there and beg to be taken on, as opposed to just making a transfer automatic upon request, so I went to the closest office to talk to their manager... and she looked me right in the eye and said, "I think that what's best for you is for you to find some other company to handle your clients." I looked HER right in the eye and said, "No, what's best for me is for YOUR office of THIS company to handle my clients, rather than my having to waste time going to other companies and trying to get one of them to take me on when I'm not trained in their procedures"... you should have seen her face. She didn't have the grace to admit that I was right, just snippily altered her pronouncement to be that she'd decided I wasn't going to be in that office and that was that; if she didn't want me in her office, fine, but what was she thinking trying to make out like she was doing what was best for ME?
Probably the most astounding example of this sort of thing came when my husband and I were making the arrangements for our wedding. The folks that provide wedding services in general seem to make it a point of pride to try to push anything BUT what you ask them for on you, so there must be some sort of odd psychology going on with those who're about to be married that makes them infinitely suggestible, but one of the people we encountered in our search for a venue was in a whole other universe of trying to push ridiculous suggestions; she told us that she had a terrific room to show us, and dragged us across an entire complex, unlocked a door, and opened it with a flourish, saying "How about THIS for your wedding?"... and the room she revealed was a tiny, bare, dingy conference room. I'm not exaggerating; this woman, and it was made worse that this WAS a woman, rather than a man who might have no clue about what a wedding should be like, honestly thought she had a shot at getting us to agree to have our WEDDING in a room so unattractive that I can't imagine it being rented out for ANY purpose (and yes, I made the reality of the situation clear to her)... what was she thinking?
I'll never understand people like this, who are either utterly incapable of analyzing what a reasonable person's reaction will be to what they're doing, or don't care, because all they want to do is blither anything that comes into their heads, or see it as some sort of twisted game... all I can do is know that whatever the reasons are for the behavior, it's indicative of the doer not being a good bet to be in my life in any way.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Joel Osteen's latest, and being a "prisoner of hope"
Osteen said some interesting things in tonight's sermon, as always:
He waxed poetic with "hope is called the anchor of our souls"; it might even contain a grain of truth, if my idea about positive thoughts and feelings "building" our souls is true.
A central theme, again, was that we have to know there are good days ahead, get up every morning expecting good things to happen, expecting unpleasant things in our lives to change, saying to ourselves "I know this too shall pass" when a bad thing lasts a long time... because God will fix it eventually, he'd add, but I just look at is as change being inevitable, and change for the better being overwhelmingly likely when you keep your karma clean.
He warned not to believe "never and forever lies," such as "I'll never get a promotion" and "I'll be alone forever," because "the Enemy" is the one telling you those things, and they're untrue because God can fix things for you at any time... the trick is to "enable" him to do so by your expectations. I don't know if everything is fixable, but certainly many things are, and changing your mindset is a big step in the right direction whether you think God or karma will use the change in your energy to bring you the things you want.
Osteen said, as he did last week, that you've got to stay full of hope and expectancy; the new "layer" this week is that you should look at the things that are not seen, because they are eternal, while the things that are seen are subject to change... and if a thing can change, it's not so terrible if it's bad, because you're not necessarily stuck with it, so it makes sense to have hope.
The he gave me some real food for thought; he'd already covered in past sermons how negative emotions, such as anger and fear, can cause bad things to happen, and prevent the good ones, but tonight he said that even doubt and low self esteem can keep good things from happening. On brief analysis, I'd say he's probably right; low self esteem would certainly lead to negative energy indirectly because of the countless negative thoughts and feelings that accompany it, and it's also entirely possible that a negative frame of mind produces undesirable energy as well, and doubt is often accompanied by fear/anxiety, which is intensely negative... whether uncertainty is itself a negative thing will require some more pondering to come to a conclusion about.
He sort of lost me when he started hammering at the idea of being a "prisoner of hope," because I'm unfamiliar with the term, but I looked it up and found a site with a sermon that explains it, and it's actually pretty slick, in a vaguely convoluted kinda way (the asterisks are mine):
http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/july_7_2002_sermon.html
"Prisoners of hope. These are words spoken by Zechariah this morning. It is a strange combination of words - prisoners and hope. Prison and hope seem to come from different vocabularies. Nevertheless, 'prisoners of hope' is the phrase that Zechariah uses to address the people of Jerusalem even as they witness the victorious entry of the divine king, and 'prisoners of hope' is an apt and appropriate and absolutely needful description of God's people today. We must learn what it means to be prisoners of hope.
Prison would seem to inhibit hope. A prisoner may wish he weren't in prison, but the walls and bars that surround him diminish that hope. Hope seems to presuppose a certain amount of freedom, and the lack of freedom dims that hope. I cannot hope to fly because I am a prisoner to my body. I cannot hope to retire to Hawaii because I am a prisoner to my specific economic circumstances. I cannot hope to practice surgery because I am a prisoner to limited mental and physical abilities. I cannot hope to walk into a bank and take all of its money because I am a prisoner to laws that prohibit that activity. No one is absolutely free. Everyone lives in some kind of prison, under some kinds of limitations that limit hope.
On the other hand, within the walls of prison are certain and specific freedoms. Just as prison prohibits some things, it permits others. The prison of my body may prevent me from flying, but it permits me to walk and run. The prison of my specific economic circumstances may prevent me from retiring in Hawaii, but it permits me to live in Estes Park. The prison of my unique mental and physical abilities may prevent me from being a surgeon, but it permits me to be a pastor. The prison of laws that prevent me from taking money from a bank permits me to borrow money from that bank. And even in those walled fortresses we call prisons where men and women serve time for breaking society's laws, there is freedom from want as the prisoners' physical needs are cared for and freedom of, say, thought.
In the broadest sense, then, a prison is simply a set of conditions that defines and determines one's behavior and future expectations. Prison does not take away all freedoms; it simply defines them. To say, then, that you and I as people of God are prisoners of hope is to name the condition within which our behavior and expectations are shaped and operate. ***As prisoners of hope everything we do and everything we expect are determined by hope.***
Hope, in the Bible, is fundamentally different from wish. Hope, in the Bible, is not the longing of the ten-year-old who says, 'I hope I get a bicycle for Christmas' or of the forty-year old who says, 'I hope I win the lottery.' Hope, in the Bible, is the confident expectation of good, the basis of ultimate confidence, and is always grounded in God. It is summarized in the sentence; 'My hope is in God.'"
This would appear to be a Biblical way of saying that we should fully expect good results from everything... which is just another way of saying that positive thoughts and feelings lead to positive results, which is a basic tenet of karma.
Have I ever mentioned how astonishing it is, to me and everyone who knows me, that I'm studying aspects of Christianity so closely?
Anyways, Osteen's next intriguing idea was that being a "prisoner of hope" allows God to repay you double for whatever you lost or lack, and that you have to be careful to not limit God by assuming that you'll get less, or nothing, because God can make a way for anything to happen, and will do more than you can ask or think if given the chance... and if you replace God with karma, that's pretty much what I've said about how you can make karma work for you, often in extreme and extraordinary ways, and how you have to be careful how you "project" what you want so that all the possible avenues for karma to deliver it remain open.
Another thing I've said is that karma isn't like a magic wand, wildly and instantly altering the universe to give you what you want, but has to gradually reshape reality to accommodate you, and Osteen said basically the same thing when referring to something in a person's life that's been bad for a long time and doesn't seem to be responding to prayers to God to fix it... that God's changing things behind the scenes, and then eventually it'll seem like He came out of nowhere to handle it, that it changed all of a sudden. You have to wonder why God, who unlike the engine of karma DOES supposedly have the power to act as a magic wand, would need or want to do things this gradual, "hidden" way rather than just imposing His will and moving on to other problems; it makes far more sense when I analyze how things happen the way they do when I leave out the omnipotent being who inexplicably chooses not to use his omnipotence.
It was an excellent sermon, as always... and I can't wait to dazzle my Christian friends with my understanding of this "prisoner of hope" thing.
He waxed poetic with "hope is called the anchor of our souls"; it might even contain a grain of truth, if my idea about positive thoughts and feelings "building" our souls is true.
A central theme, again, was that we have to know there are good days ahead, get up every morning expecting good things to happen, expecting unpleasant things in our lives to change, saying to ourselves "I know this too shall pass" when a bad thing lasts a long time... because God will fix it eventually, he'd add, but I just look at is as change being inevitable, and change for the better being overwhelmingly likely when you keep your karma clean.
He warned not to believe "never and forever lies," such as "I'll never get a promotion" and "I'll be alone forever," because "the Enemy" is the one telling you those things, and they're untrue because God can fix things for you at any time... the trick is to "enable" him to do so by your expectations. I don't know if everything is fixable, but certainly many things are, and changing your mindset is a big step in the right direction whether you think God or karma will use the change in your energy to bring you the things you want.
Osteen said, as he did last week, that you've got to stay full of hope and expectancy; the new "layer" this week is that you should look at the things that are not seen, because they are eternal, while the things that are seen are subject to change... and if a thing can change, it's not so terrible if it's bad, because you're not necessarily stuck with it, so it makes sense to have hope.
The he gave me some real food for thought; he'd already covered in past sermons how negative emotions, such as anger and fear, can cause bad things to happen, and prevent the good ones, but tonight he said that even doubt and low self esteem can keep good things from happening. On brief analysis, I'd say he's probably right; low self esteem would certainly lead to negative energy indirectly because of the countless negative thoughts and feelings that accompany it, and it's also entirely possible that a negative frame of mind produces undesirable energy as well, and doubt is often accompanied by fear/anxiety, which is intensely negative... whether uncertainty is itself a negative thing will require some more pondering to come to a conclusion about.
He sort of lost me when he started hammering at the idea of being a "prisoner of hope," because I'm unfamiliar with the term, but I looked it up and found a site with a sermon that explains it, and it's actually pretty slick, in a vaguely convoluted kinda way (the asterisks are mine):
http://www.smlc-elca.org/Sunday_sermons/july_7_2002_sermon.html
"Prisoners of hope. These are words spoken by Zechariah this morning. It is a strange combination of words - prisoners and hope. Prison and hope seem to come from different vocabularies. Nevertheless, 'prisoners of hope' is the phrase that Zechariah uses to address the people of Jerusalem even as they witness the victorious entry of the divine king, and 'prisoners of hope' is an apt and appropriate and absolutely needful description of God's people today. We must learn what it means to be prisoners of hope.
Prison would seem to inhibit hope. A prisoner may wish he weren't in prison, but the walls and bars that surround him diminish that hope. Hope seems to presuppose a certain amount of freedom, and the lack of freedom dims that hope. I cannot hope to fly because I am a prisoner to my body. I cannot hope to retire to Hawaii because I am a prisoner to my specific economic circumstances. I cannot hope to practice surgery because I am a prisoner to limited mental and physical abilities. I cannot hope to walk into a bank and take all of its money because I am a prisoner to laws that prohibit that activity. No one is absolutely free. Everyone lives in some kind of prison, under some kinds of limitations that limit hope.
On the other hand, within the walls of prison are certain and specific freedoms. Just as prison prohibits some things, it permits others. The prison of my body may prevent me from flying, but it permits me to walk and run. The prison of my specific economic circumstances may prevent me from retiring in Hawaii, but it permits me to live in Estes Park. The prison of my unique mental and physical abilities may prevent me from being a surgeon, but it permits me to be a pastor. The prison of laws that prevent me from taking money from a bank permits me to borrow money from that bank. And even in those walled fortresses we call prisons where men and women serve time for breaking society's laws, there is freedom from want as the prisoners' physical needs are cared for and freedom of, say, thought.
In the broadest sense, then, a prison is simply a set of conditions that defines and determines one's behavior and future expectations. Prison does not take away all freedoms; it simply defines them. To say, then, that you and I as people of God are prisoners of hope is to name the condition within which our behavior and expectations are shaped and operate. ***As prisoners of hope everything we do and everything we expect are determined by hope.***
Hope, in the Bible, is fundamentally different from wish. Hope, in the Bible, is not the longing of the ten-year-old who says, 'I hope I get a bicycle for Christmas' or of the forty-year old who says, 'I hope I win the lottery.' Hope, in the Bible, is the confident expectation of good, the basis of ultimate confidence, and is always grounded in God. It is summarized in the sentence; 'My hope is in God.'"
This would appear to be a Biblical way of saying that we should fully expect good results from everything... which is just another way of saying that positive thoughts and feelings lead to positive results, which is a basic tenet of karma.
Have I ever mentioned how astonishing it is, to me and everyone who knows me, that I'm studying aspects of Christianity so closely?
Anyways, Osteen's next intriguing idea was that being a "prisoner of hope" allows God to repay you double for whatever you lost or lack, and that you have to be careful to not limit God by assuming that you'll get less, or nothing, because God can make a way for anything to happen, and will do more than you can ask or think if given the chance... and if you replace God with karma, that's pretty much what I've said about how you can make karma work for you, often in extreme and extraordinary ways, and how you have to be careful how you "project" what you want so that all the possible avenues for karma to deliver it remain open.
Another thing I've said is that karma isn't like a magic wand, wildly and instantly altering the universe to give you what you want, but has to gradually reshape reality to accommodate you, and Osteen said basically the same thing when referring to something in a person's life that's been bad for a long time and doesn't seem to be responding to prayers to God to fix it... that God's changing things behind the scenes, and then eventually it'll seem like He came out of nowhere to handle it, that it changed all of a sudden. You have to wonder why God, who unlike the engine of karma DOES supposedly have the power to act as a magic wand, would need or want to do things this gradual, "hidden" way rather than just imposing His will and moving on to other problems; it makes far more sense when I analyze how things happen the way they do when I leave out the omnipotent being who inexplicably chooses not to use his omnipotence.
It was an excellent sermon, as always... and I can't wait to dazzle my Christian friends with my understanding of this "prisoner of hope" thing.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
"If only he'd notice..."
How many times have you heard a woman say that about her romantic partner? When a woman gets a new haircut, new shoes, new fingernail polish, whatever, she expects her man to notice as some sort of proof of devotion... which any man can tell you is just ridiculous, because men simply aren't aware of trivial stuff like that. I've seen this described as a biological thing, that the male brain has to be taking in the big picture because primitive men were in charge of spotting potential prey or predatory animals that could be anywhere in the visible landscape; women, meanwhile, according to this theory, had to be able to notice a few berries within the foliage of a bush, or the leaves of a plant with an edible tuber among the leaves of many other plants growing around it, etc, and so needed to be noticing tiny details. That all makes perfect sense; I've never heard that they studied people in current tribal cultures to see if this pattern holds true for them, or that they've got any other proof that this is anything but a slick way of explaining what our culture trains men and women to notice, though, so I don't know how much credence we can give those claims... and it doesn't really matter, because either way the reality is that straight American men tend not to notice minor elements of the appearance of things.
As the wife of a man who's worse than most in this area, I certainly get aggravated that he can't find anything without my help, even if it's sitting right out in the open, and fails to notice when he doesn't close a door all the way (despite the rats swarming just a few feet away), or that he's left perishable food out on the counter, but there's a significant upside to this, which every woman should be aware of; a man who doesn't notice stuff like the new pillows you put on the couch or that you're wearing your new earrings will ALSO not notice the things you agonize over about your appearance. You can have dark roots, stubble, or acne, you can have gained some weight, sprouted new spider veins or stretch marks, and he'll be blissfully unaware... at least, he will be until you TELL him, so quit wailing about trivial physical flaws and let him maintain the rosy airbrushed image that he sees when he looks at you.
So, ladies, if you're bemoaning that your partner didn't notice your new highlights or new jacket, ask yourself whether you REALLY want him to notice them when it means that he'd notice those new cellulite dimples on your butt and the bags under your eyes too... or if maybe you should just count your blessings.
As the wife of a man who's worse than most in this area, I certainly get aggravated that he can't find anything without my help, even if it's sitting right out in the open, and fails to notice when he doesn't close a door all the way (despite the rats swarming just a few feet away), or that he's left perishable food out on the counter, but there's a significant upside to this, which every woman should be aware of; a man who doesn't notice stuff like the new pillows you put on the couch or that you're wearing your new earrings will ALSO not notice the things you agonize over about your appearance. You can have dark roots, stubble, or acne, you can have gained some weight, sprouted new spider veins or stretch marks, and he'll be blissfully unaware... at least, he will be until you TELL him, so quit wailing about trivial physical flaws and let him maintain the rosy airbrushed image that he sees when he looks at you.
So, ladies, if you're bemoaning that your partner didn't notice your new highlights or new jacket, ask yourself whether you REALLY want him to notice them when it means that he'd notice those new cellulite dimples on your butt and the bags under your eyes too... or if maybe you should just count your blessings.
