How does one articulate a particular position on life itself? Its purpose, its meaning, its particulars and how one should live? Each person should ask themselves this question and try to formulate some kind of understanding with the ultimate goal of determining how life should be lived. The only way I can effectively mold these concepts is to break them into segments that support a whole - in other words - try to achieve a logical format to articulate an approach and understanding to these questions.
The problem with such a question is that it is not always a simple straightforward answer. So many walks of life and activities are considered only in isolation or as a part of a limited connection to thinking existentially that one has to be focused, dedicated and honest about trying to find connections. To be sure, there has been, currently is and probably will be no shortage of people who are willing to show you a particular path, give you advice or even take over your life for you. Sometimes it is all to easy to fall into one of these approaches and just let go with the current to see if something better pops up. The much more daunting path is to stare into the unknown, rebel against convention and let the mind examine whatever passes its way with its own proverbial eyes. Again, thinking on ones own is not as easy as it seems simply because of the culturally and societal ingrained training we have. My belief, however, is that it is worth all the effort and all the consequences that arise as a result of trying to understand the world and my place in it.
At this point, I will switch to the first person to reconstruct my thoughts and conduct a statement with myself
I was once asked by an MD, "who made you." The question hit me out of the blue because he was a pain doctor seeing me as a referral for back pain. I had already been made to wait four hours in the waiting room with only one or two other people there and I had not slept much that night before. My honest and straightforward response was that I was the byproduct of sexual reproduction with the successful merger of DNA and once born a product of genetics and environment. I also explained that I had for some years been attempting to understand humankind's place in the cosmological order of things through comparative religions, evolutionary anthropology, history and other disciplines. Apparently this caused some considerable consternation with the MD who proceeded to pontificate over what I didn't say - any reference to God or other religious implications in my creation. From that point on I was lectured about how I had no belief system, didn't raise my children correctly because I did not attend church regularly, was wasting my life as an educated man by working in a cemetery as a grounds keeper, and had no wisdom and furthermore had no business asking deep philosophical questions. He further stated that I was way off his scale in terms of his ability to understand people. To make matters worse, he stated that the physician who referred me had no belief system either, another woman PhD psychologist I mentioned was a "man hater", a rheumatologist I had consulted and company doctor I had seen he sarcastically couldn't believe were still being allowed to practice medicine. He spent less than 20 minutes of the next hour actually discussing the medical history and symptoms of my back. This was not the productive physician-patient relationship I particularly cared for and did not go back.
Why this anecdote? Because it raises an interesting illustration about knowledge. This man was trying to tell me that I had no business asking deep philosophical questions yet his own approach to the world was strewn with judgments, flawed logical arguments (which I will discuss later) and fundamental disrespect for other human beings. This was not the first time I'd encountered someone with at title, skill and ability to influence people on credentials alone and who used it in a non-constructive way. The experience simply re-enforced my belief that I had chosen the correct path for understanding.
So, why all the fuss over the ramblings of a closet therapist who is more interested in some variation of counseling than medicine? How am I reinforced in my belief on my own path to understanding the world around me? At some point, I believe that most human beings are confronted with questions of mortality, the common place that all human beings go and none return. With understanding the mortality of human life, comes a larger question of what to do with the time I have while alive. Throughout most of history, belief systems of some kind or another have arisen to answer these questions and for most people the mythic descriptions and human institutions are enough to keep going and get through the day, the months, the years until death. Thinking is hard. Thinking about large patterns through human thought and history is not the easiest thing in the world to do and for most people, having to think is not particularly pleasant. What happens, then, when someone isn't satisfied with the standard answer and the world doesn't seem right in the way it is being handled. What happens when we ask thought provoking questions and challenge the norm? Usually people either smile and admire your thoughtfulness or find it it irritating that you have disturbed their ordered mindset with thoughts beyond what they care to think about and suddenly are compelled to do; it is something like asking someone if they turned off the stove after leaving the house, they are henceforth never quite sure. Understanding deeper questions and entertaining variations of ideas inevitably leads to challenging the status quo. Once dearly held beliefs assumed to be inviolate are called into question and history has generally found an apt word for such thinkers...heretics. So, in the first stage of understanding the world around you, understanding that thinking for yourself and voicing your ideas for thought may put you in the camp of the heretic and you find your list of allies grows thin.
The second stage for understanding the world around you involves determining how you will go about as an inquiere or inquisitor. It is a daunting task in trying to decide where and how to start first but I have come to believe that most of these searches take like minded people to the same place. I cannot remember a time when I did not question and probe. But I have discovered over time that there are good reliable methods to learning. For me the searching worked most effectively when I began to question the tenants of religions along with evolutionary anthropology and history. They are all studies in human behavior with different objectives in their respective disciplines. But I have two additional tools that I use in my searching for understanding, the use of logic and empirical data. I will be the first to admit that I can't stand, and for that matter understand, symbolic logic. I dropped out of this class in college and need something more concrete. Symbolic logic is very much akin to mathematics and such abstractions quickly overwhelm my ability to sort through them. Determining genetic patterns through boxes of fa and FF to see what offspring combinations can occur are about as good as it gets. Logic in argument construction, however, I can follow and discovered, to my delight, are ones that can usually identify. There is a long series of logical fallacies that help to sort through bogus arguments and flawed positions. Indeed, the afore mentioned physician used no less than two during his lecture to me - argumentum ad populum and reducto ad Hitlerum. The other tool, empirical data, tends to hinge more on the scientific realm since the evidence gathered can be tested and have independent review among other attributes. I find it somewhat an irony (properly using the term) that a physician whose medical education and practice are based largely on empirical data, observation and probability regards my use of those very tools as somehow not valid.
My chief obstruction in the search for understanding is the principle of special knowledge so often affiliated with divine intervention. Special knowledge that is beyond scrutiny or review and generally given to only one or a very few individuals by a god or gods. The pages of history are choked full of people with special knowledge who have demonstrated over and over again that their knowledge usually benefits them handsomely and is detrimental to the majority of others and often centers on control of wealth, obsession with sexual matters and military might.
That being said, I feel it is important to acknowledge that there are subjects that logic and empirical data are simply not designed to tackle. Matters of the heart, esoteric studies, ghosts, gods and the like don't conform to any known system of empirical analysis. In these wildly popular and often emotionally based something else has to be used. The conflict can become obvious. Individuals of immense stature and understanding such as Gandhi, Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the Dali Lama, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Mier , Billy Graham, and Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong all have or have had very different approaches to what systems of knowledge and understanding are valid (or at least relevant) to their method of working through life. These individuals are among notable examples of people who represent very specific ways of thinking and rely on knowledge that comes from very different sources. Since this personal statement is not a comparison and contrast of knowledge based system and their respective usefulness, suffice to say that the names are meant to illustrate the wide gap that can exist.
The fundamental conflict over knowledge and its validity to human beings is often muddled in passionate rhetoric and anecdotes. The discussions hardly start on equal footing and come fully equipped with preconceived notions, untouchable tenants of belief and a formula for inflexibility that leaves both sides crippled from the start. With lighting speed, a discussion descends into arguments over ideas and systems that really don't connect to one another at all or if they do, no effort is being made to look beyond the obvious. I would advance that anyone discussing subjects of any discipline must and I repeat MUST agree on the terms and definitions on the subject and its particulars. This is understandably time consuming and not good for impatient individuals. But then I believe much of the fine art of dialogue has been lost long ago and replaced with impatience for lowest common denominator packaged answers. This gets back to my original belief that individuals have to think continually and carefully over time with open minds and flexibility to fully examine everything and become self aware through pure disciplined mental effort.
In what would seem to be a prima facie contradiction on my last sentence, I have a particular problem with the concept of divine or special knowledge. I don't have a problem in concept but rather in the lack of convincing evidence that human beings are the ones who are privy to such things. Becoming self aware is quite distinct from suggesting that another entity in some way revealed information to someone that leads to a prescription of governance. Regrettably, in our species desire to be unique we have a long history (in a short cosmological time frame) of a tragic wreck of the planet and the abuse of our own kind; the deplorable lupus est homino homini. But, I likewise do not shut the door on the unknown. Instead, when someone asks do you believe in ghosts, I merely respond I don't know, I've never seen one, it is an exciting thought but perhaps beyond the capacity of humans to capture in a reliable way for analysis. After all, if a ghost represents one person's entity, one person is no basis for any scientific study let alone predictability. So with these initial tools I can feel confident about my exploration. There are other considerations too. I HAVE to listen with an open mind all the time, listen more than talk. I need to observe the world around me for things that connect or have echoes of other things that don't on the surface appear related and most importantly, listen to the conclusions I make based on working through the exploration and having the honesty to accept things that are different than what I might have otherwise thought would be the case. This last point is a key one, intellectual honesty and integrity. For indeed, history has shown repeatedly that the human understanding of the world is anything but fixed. Instead it is a long torturous journey from power base and belief to new awareness. For obvious examples, one only has to look at simple subjects such as the medical humoral theory, existence of the microbial world, discovery of both inner and outer space as incomprehensibly complex and expansive systems, and the changes from demons possessing people to bona fide mental disorders.
Now that I have my tools, I have to learn to quiet my mind. To try and still the quiet maelstrom around me all the time and listen for the subtle language. This is a tricky path. There was a time when the world was a quieter place. Life was simple, hard, brutal, and often short. The daily activities of existence, however, generally appear to have allowed people the opportunity to be more in tune with the world around them. Hunters do this when trying to blend into the landscape. If one is alone, trying to blend in and listen for prey, then it is critical to be silent, to listen to observe and be attentive to all that is around you. At this point the faintest sounds become perceptible and understanding of how modern life is hectic, noisy, hopelessly cluttered and stimulating ought to become apparent. Monks began to understand this through isolation and meditation. This is the sort of stripping away needed to initially perceive the difference between what is flooding your senses and what quiet focus can be. In short, a progressive effort to learn to tune out the world and observe the smallest things, smallest sounds, and so many other stimulants often overlooked. I found that once I left the insane world of the modern workplace, my work at the cemetery provided me with exactly that kind of self reflective opportunity. I could work in a park all day long doing hard physical work to beautify the grounds. I rarely had to deal with many people, but it was the rare interaction that enabled me to be more effective when required to do so. Working among the dead is far from creepy. Cleaning a public restroom in Walmart is creepy. In working with the grounds, I was given the opportunity to look for symmetry, beauty, peace of mind, and what being alive or dead meant. I miss that job more than any other I've ever had and am also missed by the cemetery because I was effective. From this 15 month stint of work, I was able to develop a calm that allowed me to meet most situations with ease and the ability to screen out the world and listen for the quiet.
The patterns that begin to emerge were quite startling but at the same time, my discernment of patterns were largely dependent upon my self education of many disciplines. I would be remiss if I did not make an adequate connection. So thus far, in order to determine how one should live, I've suggested having the willingness to search, equipping yourself with appropriate intellectual tools and skills to learn and retain flexibility and integrity with what is discovered, and the need to quiet ones mind. These tools alone are very potent mechanisms to learn and be at peace but the more I have learned about how interconnected all things are the more exciting and peaceful I have become. Most pointedly, very little in the way of expense or resources are required to obtain them. So from here, what specific disciplines or subjects have guided my thinking and conclusions? Each person can gravitate towards disciplines to garner insight but in the following I will briefly develop each one and attempt to tie its relevance to my overall theme of trying to create a definitive statement of understanding of life and how to find it.
An excellent place to start was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. There is a certain keen insight in his writings that rings true. There are numerous valuable observations made by the Emperor's musings but Book 7 has the following: "Do not look around thee to discover other men's ruling principles, but look straight to this, to what nature leads thee, both the universal nature through the things which happen to thee, and thy own nature through the acts which must be done by thee. But every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among irrational things the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another " This was made notable in popular culture in a quote by Sir Anthony Hopkins portraying Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In that quote, it was greatly simplified for public consumption by the question of, "Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?" This simple statement serves as a potent lens for seeing past many layers of camouflage. This statement alone was a revolutionary key for me in understanding all behavior of living things. Instead of getting tangled up in the myriad of particulars that are distractions, one can peer into the root causes of behavior.
In a rather quick-time fashion, if you make a habit of dissecting the actions of others in all activities of life, patterns become very apparent. It is simple really, and many have already mastered the task but perhaps without knowing the full impact. On the most basic level a baby cries because it is hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, etc. These are basic fundamentals expressed by an infant in the only language it has crying - but with subtle variations a parent comes to identify to determine the need. Human behaviors have fundamental needs that don't change over time but do manifest differently and sometimes with a paradoxical twists. Attempting to identify the basic needs underlying all behavior demonstrates that all organisms still have the common feature of responding for basic fundamental reasons.
Evolutionary anthropology. It is a bit wordy to be sure but the study of human behavior is fundamental. What patterns can be found in how humans behave? What motivators, what recurrent themes can be found over time? Evolutionary anthropology is one excellent source to discover answers to some of these questions. In looking over this topic, I have several excellent sources of reading that I have drawn understanding and been able to expand my comprehensive thinking. Indeed, these works enabled me to connect patterns that I otherwise might have missed. In brief,
Germs Guns & Steel by Jared Diamond: the advance of human societies were determined by several key factors which I poorly recite here as including the notion of a society's progress in a given area being heavily influenced by the resources available. These resources include arable land, raw materials, animals that can be domesticated, progress to specialization and development of technologies, the long term adaptation of zoological disease that once introduced elsewhere cause a naive immune system to be unable to cope and the eventual conflux of acquired skill and technology to outpace others. Given the stark development difference between the heart of Paupa New Guinnea and Western Europe up to the 1950's when Westerners finally realized the interior was occupied this difference service as an interesting contrast to how isolation in a given environment develops over the Milena. The society in Paupa New Guinnea was quite functional in its way and had a symbiotic relationship with the land, flora and fauna. Westerners, however, despite the development of submarines, ionic propulsion and atom bombs could hardly declare that a more functional and harmonious state existed outside the island. There is an argument about environmental determinism that I don't know enough about that is a contra to Diamond's works but in a big picture, it holds plausibility.
Collapse, by Jared Diamond: Key interpretations a society survives or fails based on several criterion that include: a) deforestation and habitat destruction b) soil problems (salinization, erosion and soil fertility loss) c) water management problems d) over hunting e) over fishing f) effects of introduced species on native flora and fauna g) population growth h) increased per capita impact of people and these are further augmented by four new factors i) human caused climate change j)buildup of toxins in the environment k) energy shortages full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity. There are the additional factors of destruction brought on by war and economic collapse as Carthage and the USSR demonstrate.
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, It has been a while since I've read this but the lessons I have drawn ring true. As a reflection of the animal kingdom we act in much the same way. Social orders of any kind appear to have a particular obsession with reproductive rights and the passing of genes, accumulation of wealth, establishment of force and exercise of power. There is certainly room to argue that amoeba don't obsess over the accumulation of wealth, but there are plenty of other examples to better illustrate the point ranging from ants and bees to lions and wolf packs. Humans simply make things more interesting in the variety and creativity in which these attributes are demonstrated. It takes some flexible thinking to begin to perceive how this is true. Look at the Sultans who had numerous wives and enforced castration for eunuchs, or an obsession of familial linage for nobility and identity. The Catholic Church had prohibitions on intra-family marriages from the desire to keep asset transfers down. This certainly isn't the only reason but a potent one. How many religious institutions are obsessed with sexual behavior and reproductive rights? Power is ephemeral and cannot be held in ones hand. Take Himmler, for example, he was feared in Germany, but when in captivity he had no presence or aura of power about him. In order for power to work, the acquisition of wealth to buy behavior or buy force via military or mercenary force needs to take place. These lines become blurred over time and the very thin veneer of civilization covers these basic human activities over. Strip the veneer away and humans fall back to old habits. Ask yourself why conflict exists at all? Human societies want a secure place for food, water, development and growth. When a society is threatened by another group that has lost or out stripped its resource base, war starts. Cloak it however you like it - religion, arable land, fishing rights, lebensraum but the intent is there our group is better and therefore we are taking it to survive. The examples of this idea are too numerous to illustrate but there is one key factor to differentiate us from all other species - we continue to remain out of sync with the rest of the world in that we consume more than we need, displace anything that gets in our way, and don't live in a symbiotic relationship with Earth's other inhabitants.
Sex Time and Power by Leonard Shlain: This was an excellent analysis of how certain human concepts came to be based on on very fundamental ideas. In a nutshell - the homo sapien is the only known species that is known to have a sense of deep time. By this I mean past present and anticipated time frames. We are also the only species that is aware of our own eventual demise as we cannot see into the future but know of our eventuality. The concept of deep time, theorized by Dr. Shlain, began with the menses that women have on a regular cycle that happens to coincide with the lunar movements. On this basis, the human brain had developed to the point of being capable of making these observations of time and to anticipate forward events and develop an awareness of time and place. Homosapiens are also unique in that the female is the only species in all the animal kingdom to suffer blood loss. This blood loss while variable in quantity is nevertheless an acute decrease in hemoglobin that prompts the female to seek replenishment and the obvious source, red meat. For females, childbearing represented a singular grave threat in terms of blood loss that required replenishment. Beyond this, caring for the offspring required more time than was available to resupply food. Males, by contrast, are hardwired for sex and by their nature disinclined to monogamy because of the drive to pass on as much dna as possible. The fundamental bargain reached between men and women - sex for meat. Even today, one could see this pattern in providing meals on a data. Over time, relationships and social norms would have been established to prevent fighting. Dr. Shlain also makes the observation that the human species tends to work best and most efficiently in a tribal setting. His observation of how our species has transformed from a competing member of the animal kingdom to a total parasite is disheartening but I believe absolutely true. This nutshell observation can't begin to summarize the work
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Drs. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan: This is worth reading simply because it demonstrates that human beings vary only in degrees from their cousins in the animal kingdom and that other species are not bereft of emotion, language, expression and awareness. To me it is a grounding of the human ego and a wake up call to realize that all species do not exist for our use simply because the are dumb brutes. If anything, human beings have the benefit of incredible creativity both in love and expression along with malice and cruelty. Drs. Sagan and Druyan don't say it but I'll add that humans have the dubious distinction of stupidity. Animals avoid things that are poisonous or destructive to themselves or their habitat; humans know better and do it anyway.
Parasitology. Even on the smallest scale our world is unequivocally and inevitably shaped. This one is a hard pill for people to swallow, I suspect, because the scope is so small and unobserved that to embrace the concept of something tiny affecting the course of human behavior and history becomes dumbfounding. An excellent work in this area is Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer. I challenge anyone to read it and not come away with a new found sense of wonder and humility at how the world works and how foolish we are in our own pretensions. It would be too much of an injustice to the work to try and summarize the body of meticulous study contained within but I can give an example. There is a certain parasite that lives within an ant but cannot complete its reproductive cycle unless it is eaten by a predator that comes out at night. The parasite hijacks the ant's behavior to go stand out on a leaf all night long to get eaten thus enabling the parasite to enter the gut of the predator. If it hasn't been eaten by dawn, the parasite releases the ant to go back inside where it won't get roasted by the sun. It will repeat the same process. This example is reflected in higher orders of animals and indeed even observable in humans with such organisms like toxoplasmodium. There is a under appreciated symbiotic relationship between the parasite and the immune system that has evolved over eons and that has shaped the lives of all organisms. The author also has shown that disrupting that relationship with eradication has also led to scenarios where disorders such as Crone's disease are present until the parasite normally found in the gut in non-industrialized countries returns, the disease's conditions disappear. This is a tremendous oversimplification of years of research but the examples are plentiful and continue to point to the unmistakable conclusion that we are a species inexorably liked with our world. Admittedly, this is also one book. But this one book contains studies that are unique not not exactly the sort that people are rushing out of graduate school to conduct. The invitation to learn more is there. On a separate and more philosophical note, having ones mind hijacked by a micro-organism that lodges itself in the behavior center of the brain at the very minimum raises fundamental questions of free will.
History, Philosophy, Cosmology: There are too many sources to list but some of the key sources I've come across that are worth reading are as follows: The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin (I have yet to read his other two volumes), This Demon Haunted World and A Pale Blue Dot by Dr. Carl Sagan,
So given these sources of insight, and tools to understand the world, where do you go? What do you conclude? Too few people, I have a hunch, even bother to try tying the various disciplines together. I have, however, continued to try and feel I am the better and more content for it. Thus far, I've managed to work out a loose but incomplete formula. I deliberately say incomplete because it is a constant work in progress. No reasonable door is shut and as if it were a contradiction, I even enjoy the pursuit of special knowledge from all sources since it is both fascinating and entertaining. The beauty of the methods and sources I've outlined above is that they are open for all to use, all to test, and all to embrace or criticize. Special knowledge, let alone repressive cultural contexts hostile to equality, freedom of thought, expression, or action generally are not so inclined.
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So now we come to interpretation. Now that the preparation of the mind is underway and tools to help examine that which is perceived for what it really is or is not, we come to the most complex and unanswerable questions of all. Those questions are how and in what ways will your discoveries affect you? That is the magic of understanding and one that must ultimately be decided by you. It is changeable, it is contextual but at the same time transcendent above any human conceit, creation or institution. The discoveries one can make can completely dismantle any social or cultural device and leave you feeling insignificant and without any hope; In my estimation these discoveries should do precisely that. By contrast, to move through this initial realization and beyond will create a sense of liberty or freedom not understood before this point and even more difficult to explain to someone else.
It falls to individual experience in these intellectual travels to fill in the gaps. Only a truly honest understanding of your own discoveries. So in continuation of that same realization and sentiment, I will relate my experience as it has thus far transpired so that you can begin to get a sense of how my thinking has evolved over time.
If one takes the position, as I do, that special knowledge delivered to individuals is unreliable and more of a human invention or conceit, then a different view has to be used. Since we, as a species, rely on empirical data to accomplish many objectives, it falls to our understanding of this proven discipline to gather the most strength. Consider what it will mean to disregard this methodology: Do you not trust the bridge you cross to hold your weight, did not that same methodology and process establish what would work and what would fail? Did not those same processes determine that a submarine could sustain a crew on the bottom of the sea for 6 months and rise to destroy half the world? Did not those same processes calculate with exact precision the distance and interface of a 5 year two billion mile journey for a space probe, Spacedust, to intercept a 3 mile across comet? Consider also the complexities involved with molecular and genetic engineering or any other disclipline that we have come to rely on successfully. These were not given by phenomenon but by observation, testing, retesting until a workable solution was found.
Given the continued use of such techniques, there is a certain reliability that may be assumed until proven otherwise. Using these same methods, calculations can also be obtained regarding the consumption on hydrogen to helium and the exhaustible supply of the sun that keeps Earth alive in the void. Given that it is finite, the sun will inevitably exhaust its fuel, expand and collapse leaving a charred lump of rock that was the earth. At some point, the matter in this solar system will be pass into some other form such as the collision of the galaxy Andromeda, get swallowed up in a passing black hole, or perhaps pulverized and reborn in a supernovae. The gold on earth is a testament to that history since only in temperatures approaching a supernova do gold atoms form. This is a testament to the continued cycle of death and rebirth in the universe that has transpired before and shall continue. Step back to your own memory for a moment. How many people can you name that lived 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000 years ago? If you are like me, the list grows short very quickly. Human history is pitifully short and our collective, let alone individual, memory is infinitesimally small. Billions have lived and died on Earth and yet we know only a tiny history of any one period or individual. Our memory is so scant and our methods of knowledge preservation so poor that we and our creations are not designed to last. How then, with the billions of years left to come will our individual histories, names, deeds or misdeeds be remembered? When the sun dies, Earth dies, when Earth dies, if we are still around which is doubtful we shall be as if we never existed. What then to do with this realization?
If we are doomed to total oblivion, which all the data indicates that should be the case, then we are fooling ourselves with inane brutal human conceits and institutions. What we do, short, medium or long term has no relevance to anything whatsoever. The pursuit of fame, the pursuit of wealth, power, all are fleeting and ultimately to nothing. Just visit an old cemetery and see how many people with huge markers that were big players in their day you can recognize or what they did. The implications of this are both eye opening, disheartening and also inspiring. It means ultimately, we can do what we want and live with the assurance that our deeds though lauded or punished will be erased with time. Indeed, how many murderers or rapists can you name using the same criterion I started with? Even fewer I surmise. So does this mean that someone runs amok and rapes, burns, steals, and kills? No, this knowledge doesn't changes that potential at all for even with religion and in the name of religion or nationalism or profit have we continued to do just fine in those same atrocities. What does it mean then? To me, it simply means liberation. By this I mean the idea that one has to sacrifice themselves year after year to work harder and harder for a cause not of your own simply because you were raised to do so is not only futile but utter stupidity. To embrace servile living and debasement as a human to satisfy the whims or perceived precepts of some culture or custom is utter nonsense. Having to work yourself to death to have many things, or possessions is an empty pursuit because the more that you have the more that is required to keep them useful or protected and this means further and further work for purpose that is purely a mirage of importance. At this point, I feel compelled to show a further explanation and correlation of my methodology to the ultimate purpose of humankind. I won't state the conclusion first because it is more instructive to build the case.
Humans, as a species are creatures of diversified development over the course of eons. From the simplest microbe to the most complex organism there are many similarities: carbon based, have to have water, have to produce to survive as a species. The particular structure of any given organism is brought together by coded instruction that vary from one degree to another but all use the same tool - DNA. So far the commonalities are good: water requirement, carbon based, replication and DNA. Given the incredible diversity of life, careful observation shows particular adaptations to environments. A very simple concept to be sure, if one has no fur in the arctic you will not last very long. So anything that has no fur dies leaving only the fur based. With almost every species it appears that there is no conscious thought in how these adaptations occur, nor is there direct influence over them. Individual organism live and die, species come and go and the ones that can make the required environmental changes or biochemical changes have the best chance to live. This simple concept remains totally repugnant to some individuals but then the alternative theories that I will not utter here rely on special knowledge which I have established is unreliable and un-reviewable for usefulness.
As changes have occurred over time, there is no question that pressures from environmental factors have pushed species to change, relocate or die. There appear, however, to be other factors at work that also push change but at a different rate. Since most mutations that occur are generally not helpful but harmful, no lasting change comes from those alternative expressions of DNA. One only has to look at the tragic photos of the Chernobyl disaster and horrifying developmental problems to bitterly prove that point. The changes can be caused by Cosmic Rays or other forms of radioactive particulates that bombard the DNA into altering its normal pattern, again Chernobyl provides adequate macabre evidence to that effect. Carcinogens in the environment do somewhat the same thing but I am unaware of any mutations that have occurred by carcinogens that have led to anything but negative consequences. Yet every once in a great while a mutation results in something beneficial. If that species has a mutation that is useful and especially useful in a changing environment, then the mutation stands a better chance of perpetuating that DNA sequence. The term for this sudden change is rather a mouthful, punctuated equilibrium as is its more poky opposite phyletic gradualism. In short, change to a species happening relatively quickly versus gradually. The complexity of how these changes occur both in causation and clear workable evidence is rather difficult as I perceive but the principle is easy enough to understand. As a further blow to anyone embracing divine mechanisms, an often over looked fact are the billions of lives of species that are wasted in failed mutations, failed adaptations, extinctions, and disruptions. Nature isn't kind, its aimless and life deals with what it is dealt or it dies. Progress isn't always forward either. Adaptations can force changes back to previously eliminated traits based on circumstances. This march of life in a linear ever forward direction has anything but a systematic direction. It could be argued, in fact that life survives in spite of the conditions thrown at it rather than moving in a progressive manner.
How does this possibly relate to anything I've discussed previously? Be patient, as I said, I am building a case. Enter the lowly microbe and small parasite. Parasitism is a absolutely fascinating field. I have only had a small taste of it but the work is so compelling as to add it to the formula I'm using. Detailed evidence from research demonstrates the profound effect parasites have on their hosts. This very field of study in a way challenges the entire human concept of free will. Each observable organism has parasites and apparently parasites have parasites. It is no mystery that a parasite needs its host to live since without it it will die or fail to achieve its efforts to reproduce. The organism's immune system does not sit idly by, but begins an arms race of sorts with measure countermeasure to achieve some form of symbiotic relationship. Part of the changes that parasites apparently help motivate was sexual reproduction. By using sexual reproduction, the host could remain one step ahead of the parasite by mixing the genetic code. Sometimes the parasite gets the upper hand and other times the host will. In some cases, the parasite must jump species to fulfill its reproductive cycle and thus must find a way to accomplish this herculean task. Studies of ants, crabs, rats, and wasps show an astonishing array of changes caused by the parasites. The parasites in these studies directly seized control of the central nervous system and redirected the actions of the host to favor its mission even to the detriment of the host. Male crabs, were altered to act as females, ants went out nightly to be eaten but returned to the hive to not be roasted by the sun, rats lost their fear of cats or scent of cats so they could in turn be eaten. This would allow the parasite to complete its mission and be reborn in the gut of the cat. This same process of mind control was show also to be present in humans. Toxoplasmodium, in this case, directly settled in the central nervous system and affected the behavior of both men and women in demonstrable ways. The details of these studies are better described in the book I mentioned by Zimmer. But the conclusion is clear, there is a biological basis for demonstrating that human beings, like other species, are influenced in profound ways by the tiny things of the world. These small parasites have had a vastly under appreciated impact on human development and human belief in the exercise of free will. We are, therefore, inextricably linked to other species on the planet and have a shared origin, development and future. Many functions of the parasites that the human immune system have grown accustomed to have been removed by modern medicines but there have been negative consequences too. By removing the parasites, the balance in the human machine is upset and other disorders rose. This understanding again, shows the power of the relationship but is better left to Zimmer to describe. So at a minimum, our purpose, is to provide safe harbor to other species we can't see or appreciate the impact on our development.
Since modern humans only emerged around 200,000 years ago in the fossil record and only has produced recorded history within the last 5,000 years, we have a serious problem with perspective. Our meager lives have been incredibly short for most of that time and ranged generally to the 30-40 year mark. Given the lack of trans-generational knowledge being held by individuals who live for hundreds or thousands of years, and the pathetically temporal nature of any recorded artifacts we have no real sense of the passage of time or how that time relates to us. This lack of perspective adulterates general thinking to limit most activity within the confines of ones lifetime. To compensate for this lack of comprehensive review, we develop institutions and conceits to fill the gaps. But how did we perceive the need for a sense of time, forward or backward thinking at all? Enter now Leonard Schlain, who convincingly offers a theory that has credibility. In establishing the unique characteristics of human beings as a species, he notes that only human females bleed once a month. No other species is so afflicted. These cycles women have happen to occur in synchronous fashion with the lunar phases. Given that humans, at some point, were perceptive enough to understand the patterns, they were able to begin predicting time and developing a sense of past time or deep time. This deep time allow the observer to understand the past and present but not the future. Understanding the passage of time and an awareness that time ends for individuals created a sense of unease, especially with men who did not have reproductive capacity. Thus, early peoples and those of today remain in the same predicament of not being able to see into the future. We create, instead, the belief systems and related institutions to try and fill that gap of understanding and obtain some reassurance that we are not forgotten to history. This awareness of deep time is quite exclusive among humans. A second part of the theory in the establishment of society is the exchange of red meat to replace blood loss for sex. It is a very interesting correlation since there is a proven pattern of women seeking more red meat after their cycle. And the carry over modern custom of taking a woman to diner and the prospect of a sexual encounter.
To move beyond this, however, understanding how we are different than other species should be further understood. This has been an age old question, " what makes human beings unique from all forms of life." As a reflection of the desire to see in the unknown future and be preserved, it follows that the human ego cannot conceive of itself as nothing more than another brute walking and grazing. We, as a species, have always had to feel superior, special and in some way unique so as to further the belief that there is something beyond the blackness death obscures. Many attributes have been proclaimed and Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Anne Druyan delve into this quite effectively showing the various observed and recorded behaviors of species versus our own. Indeed, many of the attributes we find significant are echoed in other creatures such as face to face or oral sex by certain species of monkeys, language acquisition by dolphins, memory and anger of cape buffalo against specific individuals, systemic rape by Baboons, and memory understanding of certain concepts and associations by Chimpanzees such as wanting freedom and pointing out particular representational associated objects. Many of the species examined showed human behaviors including problem solving and even tool usage in the higher orders of animals. The more one examines the evidence, the more realization there is of similarity rather than difference. I am convinced that the only real difference between humans and other species is that of degree. Our problem solving and creativity capacity expanded faster than any other species. I conclude that factors the factors responsible may have originated either with mutation or the slower adaptive processes but moved in a way that enabled problem solving to increase the right diet to enable cerebral function to increase. At some point the brain's development had to have achieved a threshold of ability to spark exponential growth, understanding and curiosity. Perhaps the other most unique feature of human beings other than deep time and self awareness is that of creativity. No other species shows the depth of love and expression that we do, the incredible varieties of symbolic language and meaning that run with the emotional states. Regrettably, this creativity has also demonstrated its dark cousin in the form of cruelty, malice brutality and destruction, often for pleasure or its own sake. I believe that Schlain has a very valid observation when he notes that humans function better in a tribe where smaller scales can lead to better inclusion and safeguards for all members. The instincts for primeval survival do not serve us well in the modern age since those same volatile emotions can have global consequences. Likewise, the same human conceits of uniqueness have played a significant part in transmogrifying our species to a parasitic relationship where their is no benefit returned to the Earth and all other species are being squeezed out.
How then did we grow to be such an aggressive symbiont? This is where the evolutionary anthropologists lend a hand. There are various theories and propositions, but I find a great deal of credibility to a couple of authors. Matt Ridley and Jared Diamond present plausible cases for development. Ridley proposes the interesting and compelling idea associated with the Red Queen effect. This proposition states, in short, that you have to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place. This idea certainly holds credibility with me since one only has to remember my point about working ones self to death to begin to see the very real manifestation of the idea. Society and its components relentlessly advocate that their particular brand of idea, goods, services, and what one is supposed to want and need. Few if any of these wants and needs are stagnant and directly threaten the concept of contentment. Thus, the pressure to conform, to want, to need, leads to even greater and greater pressure to work more, faster and harder for objectives that make no sense at all. As the cost of the wants and needs rises, the required time and effort is directly affected and the addiction is so deeply hooked that individuals don't realize the Red Queen at work. That is one reason I find it comical to hear people put off plans of what they want to do until they are established in life and financially secure. Only when one is willing to strip away and examine what will truly bring contentment does the whole proposition of pressure to work and want become utterly absurd on its face. Is it any wonder then that the wealthy nations have some of the most unhappy people?
This is more of a downstream effect and is not the thrust of Ridley's idea that merges into my overall argument. What Ridley proposes are more fundamental motivators that human beings have in their activities. I know that I am not doing justice to his ideas and it is well worth the read to see for yourself, but lets drag poor Marcus Aurelius back in for a moment and remember the idea I mentioned before as so eloquently put by Dr. Hannibal Lecter, "Of each individual thing ask what is it in itself; what is its nature." Using this appropriate standard, turn back to our species, that, like all other species has fundamental behaviors that underlie its activities. What is the nature of human beings? Note, this question is not about purpose but nature and these are two very different questions; the question of purpose is esoteric the question of nature is observable. The nature of human beings is to reproduce and pass on dna to succeeding generations. In this respect we are no different than other species. Given the extraordinary capacity of creativity and problem solving, complex institutions have arisen as a consequence and would appear to be a mixture of creations to complete this objective. Ants and bees have complex networks that allow only a few of the species to propagate and others to work until they die. Wolves have a pack mentality with hierarchy and only the alpha male breeds. The nature of the pack revolves around activities to continue the orderly continuation of a genetic line. Humans are no different than pack animals except that they are capable of rising above such survival modes of thinking. It is a sad testament, however, that too many examples abound of individual and collective behavior that far exceeds mere survival and descends into the unnatural realm of wanton cruelty, violence for its own sake, cruelty for gratification and even genocide. Nowhere on Earth is the the predatory concept more starkly demonstrated than the principle of homo homini lupus. One only has to read over the diaries and testaments of war to understand how quickly we revert to an animalistic instinct in the chaotic conditions of war and other uncontrolled events. Here is an example of an Austrian officer in the first world war who I think points this out rather well in his observations of trench life,
"It is extraordinary how quickly suggestions of luxury, culture, refinement, in fact all the gentler aspects of life, which one had considered to be an integral part of ones life are quickly forgotten, and more than that, not even missed. Centuries drop from one and one becomes a primeval man, nearing the cave-dweller in an incredibly short time. For twenty -one days I went without taking off my clothes, sleeping on wet grass or in mud, or in the swamps, wherever need be, and with nothing but my cape to cover m. Nothing disturbs one. One night, while sleeping, we were drenched to the skin by torrential rains. We never stirred, but waited for the sun to dry us out again. Many things considered necessities of civilization simply drop out of existence. A toothbrush was not imaginable. We ate instinctively, when we had food, with our hands. If we had stopped to think of it at all, we should have thought it ludicrous to use knife and fork.
We were all looking like shaggy, lean wolves, from the necessity of subsisting on next to nothing. I remember having gone for more than three days at a time without any food whatsoever, and many time we had to lick the dew from the grass for want of water. A certain fierceness arises in you, an absolute indifference to anything the world holds except your duty of fighting. You are eating a crust of bread, and a man is shot dead in the trench next to you. You look calmly at him for a moment, and then go on eating your bread. Why not? There is nothing to be done. In the end you talk of your own death with as little excitement as you would a luncheon engagement. There is nothing left in your mind except the fact that hordes of men to whom you belong are fighting other hordes, and your side must win."(excerpt from "Four Weeks in the Trenches, by Fritz Kreizler)
Early institutions revolved around a tribe mentality and the tribe would function together to live and produce off spring, if they did not, they died. Other tribes would war for better land, resources and women to perpetuate their line of DNA. One may not look at going to war as a reason to perpetuate DNA but then if there were no threats to ones ability to perpetuate life, there would be no need for war. In the animal kingdom, new alpha males immediately kill the you offspring of the previous alpha to destroy any lines that are not his. He has no vested interest in another genetic line and instinctively knows to protect his lineage. In Humans, the rate of homicide of children from step fathers is vastly higher than natural parents. In warfare, the practice was kill all the men, enslave the women leaving no genetic competition. This of course changed somewhat when the conqueror realized that some of the vanquished had skills that could promote his own chances of success. In the animal kingdom, put a group of males in with one female and one will emerge to kill off the other males; humans frequently mimic this pattern.
The institutions that arose simultaneously with human beings served numerous functions but fundamentally would seem to have the underlying purpose of protecting the genetic line of any one self defining group. Specialties of medicine, food, arms, textiles all have the basic fundamental supportive role but a great deal of life of their own. More importantly, the role of religious institutions seems unnaturally obsessed with the sexual practices of people. Is it really a healthy belief to think that there is a supernatural being with a pencil and paper taking names of every sexual thought and action? It seems to me more reasonable and likely that religious institutions, and by no small coincidence governed by males, are fundamentally devising codes, laws, mores, to control the genetic lines. I doubt seriously that this is a conscious effort except by individuals who run Cults who usually reserve all sexual access to the women for themselves. Cannon Laws in Europe during the middle ages began to zero in on dynastic marriages as a means to prevent hegemony from secular sources by virtue of closely knit estates and political alliances. That kind of threat is easy to understand when looking at ecclesiastical power and its desire to retain control. Contiguous with this argument is the need for any group to establish the ability to defend itself and exert force and pressure on its members to perpetuate this basic objective of preservation. Again, when looking from the outside it is easier to perceive the underlying pattern rather than believe these are all conscious decisions. Military and Economic power are the surest way to accomplish any of these goals. Muscle and money can coerce, bribe, convince, goad, lure, and threaten most people into compliance or gently move them along. If you look at these three pinnacles - passing dna, preserving particular groups of DNA and institutions to support those objectives, the realization that many human activities over time and in the present support this in principle. It is a macro and a micro concept. Families have an interest in seeing to themselves as do nations. Divorce is instituted when the family line is disrupted and wars are fought over need of resources or those who would threaten to take anothers. I advance that Ridley has a very solid argument here that fits into the previous review of human behaviors and other species' behaviors. The only difference being that of degree.
Jerard Diamond, offers further insight through his analysis. While it is not a universally accepted proposition, I have not found one that is more compelling. I won't dwell on this as much since it goes into the more particular patterns of societal evolution. In principle how societies flourished at different rates, why, and the consequences of unequalled development. Arguments over Euro centrism, Geographical Determinism and others are too cumbersome for this statement but worth the effort to understand. This anthropological view helps redefine and erase many of the egocentric beliefs humans have created upon one another and explains more fully how progress and its consequences occurred. A second work by Diamond, goes even further by understanding the reasons societies fail. This is worth understanding from a purpose and nature perspective since it shows what happens when the perpetuation of the species upsets the natural balance and can lead to a total collapse. For the nature and survival of any species, this should be fairly important to understand and appreciate. If feel it important enough to highlight the cornerstones of his theory in this discussion. In essence, he outlines the following criterion for why societies collapse. It is interesting to note what happens when the animal kingdom gets out of sync with nature. But here - the focus is on homo sapiens.
Diamond lists eight factors which have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:
Deforestation and habitat destruction
Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
Water management problems
Over hunting
Overfishing
Effects of introduced species on native species
Population growth
Increased per-capita impact of people
Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies:
Human-caused climate change
Buildup of toxins in the environment
Energy shortages
Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity
The root problem in all but one of Diamond's factors leading to collapse is overpopulation relative to the practicable (as opposed to the ideal theoretical) carrying capacity of the environment. The one factor not related to overpopulation is the harmful effect of accidentally or intentionally introducing nonnative species to a region.
Diamond also states that "it would be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example, and the destruction of Carthage by Rome in 146 BC is an ancient one. It's obviously true that military or economic factors alone may suffice - I cite this from Wikapedia since the essence of the theory is fairly well condensed in the above citation. Notwithstanding anyone's opinion of Wikapedia, I have read the book and know its content so am comfortable using this source.
So we come to the point when we ask ourselves what are we? What is our purpose - if any exists at all. What are we to make of ourselves and each other and how do we endeavor to find happiness and meaning in a life that, quite frankly, isn't fair but neither is it partial. Each person must, in their own way, answer these questions. For those who put their trust entirely in the concept of the supernatural, special knowledge and unknowable and unchallengeable entities or concepts, this discussion is a waste of time for you. You should have, by reason of your convictions, have dismissed it out of hand at the first paragraph. For those fully bent only on empirical knowledge and science, this isn't good enough because I still leave the door open for the unknown. I do not pronounce judgement on that which is unknown. The mystical is demystified through science and understanding, but the borders of science and understanding are not stagnant. Therefore it is prudent, I think, to leave the door open but rely on the most verifiable information available.
What would my conclusions be on the world and my place in it? I still don't know, but I know what those conclusions are not. This is the point where I try and formulate what I perceive and believe to be true of the world as I know it and experience it.
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I have always felt somewhat different. I think. I think a great deal in fact and listen with very attentive ears. I also have suffered depression all my life and will take medicine for it for the rest of my days. I remember being depressed as a small child, grammar school, high school, college and beyond. While sitting in class my sophomore year in high school, I could not see a vision for myself past age 22. Nothing has changed about this and it is as if the camera of foresight in my head simply no longer works. I went to church regularly and religiously, participated in its events, earned Eagle Scout, and was a kind, outgoing thoughtful individual. I figured I'd graduate from college with a degree and a job would open up with some company and progress would would take care of the rest. I obtained a degree in English Literature under that assumption that I needed the degree and so went with what I could produce decent grades. I don't even read literature for the most part, preferring science, evolutionary anthropology, military history, general history, and some philosophy instead. When I realized that my assumption about working was totally false I had no idea what to do. I still don't. I tried to be a Marine Corps officer and washed out, tried to be an attorney and washed out, tried to get a MA in History and didn't finish, banking, insurance, retail, art school, teaching credentials and other ideal jobs but they never worked. I only have a long history of discounted labor as I have gotten older in dead end jobs that I'm bitterly reminded at every turn is not befitting of someone with my background and education. Even after US Naval Reserves and Army Guard service no identity ever stayed and 34 plus jobs later those fundamental questions about what I want to do or what I saw myself doing are no further along than they were 23 years ago.
Along the way somewhere my mind became unhinged and depression finally was the catalyst to start shifting my thinking away from what I was supposed to be or wanted to be to perhaps more fundamental questions such as who am I and what is the point? Depression only partly opened the door to this but the discovery or rediscovery of ADD (since it was apparently known that I had it early as a child but refused to take medicine) helped to bridge some gaps in understanding why my performance was submarginal. By the time this was understood however, I had already train wrecked every career I'd tried with a scant few exceptions. During the post depression crisis I revisited many assumptions about the world and my beliefs that had been molded thus far. I changed from Presbyterian to Episcopalian and from Episcopalian to agnostic where I remain to this day. The more I searched and questioned, the more disaffected and unsatisfied I have become. So after giving myself license to question everything I knew, it naturally followed, that the trickle down effect would be profound. I began to realize that one cannot be intellectually or spiritually honest by walling off a part of you because it might expose something you hold to be sacred as misguided. So all the curtains were thrown back and shutters flung wide for light of reason and understanding to pour in.
Each area of life I examined was a part begging to be understood and put into a greater whole. The more history I read, the more I perceived various patterns of human behavior with both predictable and consistent results. Trusting in the validity of science in the same respect we trust crossing a bridge, flying in an aircraft or installing a pacemaker, the great mysteries of the world seemed to evaporate and the human frailties of fear, misogyny, greed, and control became apparent. While I knew that science had its limits and was not perfect, it was honest enough to allow scrutiny by anyone and not wall off any assumptions based on fear of what might be discovered or revealed. That is not to say, of course, that scientists don't have their petty arguments and sacrosanct beliefs, but as a whole it allows any challenge to be put forth. This process has continued for some years now with no let up in discovery or understanding and the additional application of logic and reasoning to discuss these matters in terms that are understood in a general sense.
Religious tenets lose their steam almost immediately since concepts such as moral relativism, contextual understanding, and many other tools are such a dire threat to control of the doctrines established. No church needs money to survive, it is equally absurd to believe that some great entity is sitting on a throne with a notepad taking names and dates of peoples sexual appetites or activities - yet these two focus points - money and sex - are frequently the most viciously controlled. It makes no sense at all to embrace this and yet it makes perfect sense to understand why religious institutions would have a vested interest in controlling those activities. These, however, are simply human institutions ingrained from birth to influence to the core how humans are to behave with one another and to spiritual matters. To a large extent, these institutions have been more than successful and the alternative is not always easy or pleasant. When one strips away the comfort of a benevolent or vengeful god and the human condition, nature and perhaps purpose is laid bare, the mind is lost. This follows into the realm of existentialism which is a meaningless void in its understanding of the human purpose. Despite being further depressed by this understanding, I was cheered somewhat by existentialist authors like Albert Camus in his poem about Sysiphus and how one finds joy in understanding that everything is absurd on its face and to simply make the best of it as one goes along. More directly phrased,
According to Camus, suicide was a sign that one lacked the strength to face "nothing." Life is an adventure without final meaning, but still worth experiencing. Since there is nothing else, life should be lived to its fullest and derive meaning from human existence. For Camus, people were what gave life meaning. However, in the moments following the realization that one will, one's descendants will die... in fact, earth will die, one senses a deep anxiety. And, as an atheist, Camus doubted meaning beyond this life. "Living the absurd… means a total lack of hope (which is not the same as despair), a permanent reflection (which is not the same as renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which is not the same as juvenile anxiety)." For Camus, Sisyphus is the ultimate absurd hero. He was sentenced for the crime of loving life too much; he defied the gods and fought death. The gods thought they found a perfect form of torture for Sisyphus. He would constantly hope for success, that the stone would remain at the top of the mountain. This, the gods thought, would forever frustrate him. Yet, defying the gods again, Sisyphus is without hope. He abandons any illusion that he might succeed at the assigned task. Once he does this, Camus considers him a hero. Sisyphus begins to view his ability to do the task again and again -- to endure the punishment -- a form of victory. "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. We have to imagine Sisyphus happy."(AmyL.Chaves http://www.amychaves.bizland.com/articles/on_albert_camus.htm
Citing chunks of others who write is not really my purpose, but some writers have coined the ideas better than I could and so I freely use their analysis to illustrate my feelings or points. In all such examples, however, I will give the author their due respect and recognition.
I perhaps had the greatest understanding of nature and purpose from an unlikely job, a groundskeeper in a cemetery. This job I loved more than any other I have ever done. I asked for no management, I asked for no pay other than what was offered, I gave everything I had to give and despite what I thought was rewarded tenfold for it. I was able to work hard and be alone. I worked as much as I want, and apparently outshined others near me. To me it was working in a park of great beauty that I got to tend every day. I became valuable to management and they allowed me the flexibility to what I wanted to get things done. I was able to work with my hands, was asked to draft policy and implement it, was given my own business cards, etc. They basically created a job for me and it brought no more money and I desired no more. I had to hammer out my relationship with the other grounds keepers who were all black and not used to seeing educated white boy working on their turf. Gradually, they understood I was no threat to them and was, by contrast, able to help them immensely. They were some of the most genuine and hardworking men I've been privileged to work with. I sorely miss my work there and am missed on top. But while I was there I had time to focus on mortality and memory, how many graves were forgotten, how many were unmarked and unremembered, how many names of people once prominent now faded into relative obscurity and were not visited. Occasionally, I was touched by the marker of a child and would put flowers there in sadness for the loss that must have been felt. I helped widows and survivors and calmed them down. I realized I had the skill to touch people and move them but it was only because it was uncorrupted by any desire to obtain favor, gain, or other objective other than just soothing pain. My depression there remained firmly in check. It was in some senses a convalescence and highly irrelevant to the overall point of my statement here but it shows how much I was able to think in peace.
This time was spent thinking things out and I was having to wrestle with the existential questions of meaning and purpose and how to find happiness. I wondered how atheists found happiness and understood that the mass population refusing to renounce fantasies brought alive the concept of ignorance is bliss. I finally happened upon the novel idea that one had to choose to believe despite knowing everything else and this seemed to be confirmed by a priest I met in Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, the more I try the less honest that idea becomes since it invites the unchecked notion of fantasy as one's guiding principle. If such were the case, then I might as well embrace the Lord of the Rings as my fantasy or any other fiction I might read or concoct. So to this day, the esoteric side of this process remains empty with the assumption that it is there for me to put whatever I want because it makes no real difference. On the self validating side of my thinking, however, a different sort of metal was forged.
I gradually realized that given what I understood to be the current nature of the world and human beings that I could be answerable to no one. By understanding the conventions of human beings, their biochemical origins, their commonalities and overlaps with all things living on this planet, I realized that I could remain apart from the micro and macro manipulation that took place. Since nothing truly mattered in the end, and all knowledge, memory and evidence of our species would be utterly destroyed in the end, I could laugh at anyone's mission of urgency, pedantic everyday emergencies. I knew that the power to manipulate through threatening to fire, punish, humiliate, ostracise, goad, reward were ultimately simple puppet strings that enabled others to control and influence my mind and will to enrich theirs. So the absurdity of everything became crystal clear. Insanity might be deemed a term for those out of touch with reality and unable to function within society. Self awareness might very well qualify for that definition. I do not accept the reality that is put before me because it is all a grand illusion of vain pursuits and self enriching endeavors. I think there are some who break free but they keep quiet. To me, insanity is working all my life for stupid ends only to enrich someone else and then end up empty and disappointed by the pointless work, unnecessary chasing of gain, titles, status, and deluded belief that somehow all the effort and work is something that was lasting. Return again, I urge you, to my point about old cemetery markers and who remembers these important people long dead? No work by human hands will likely last beyond 100,000 years. By far, the bulk of everything made by humans that record anything and everything we have done will be gone much sooner than that, more on the order of 500 years. Don't believe me? Finally someone put together a very well researched presentation on this very subject. Alan Wiseman's, World Without Humans in both written, audio and visual media might change your mind. I did write to him and present to possible alternatives for preservation of knowledge and he was kind enough to return my letter and run the ideas past his engineers. My ideas were simple - tablets with any knowledge you choose engraved on solid gold. Gold is, of course utterly incorruptible and if entombed in a geographically stable and geologically quiet location it is possible that such knowledge could last millions of years. Another idea was that of laser engraved crystal shapes with knowledge inside. This idea came to me when I saw the photography novelties at grocery stores where the image is created within the crystal. Assuming that similar stable environs were provided, this might mirror gold in its endurance.
But these novel discussions aside, I realized that suddenly was liberated in almost every sense of the word. I looked and still look at people differently. I realized that I could deal death in an instant to anyone and it wouldn't matter...ultimately. I only had to look coldly in someones eyes and almost silently communicate that I wasn't to be trifled with and that their doom was only as far as my fingers. The same is true for me, I knew that I could have death dealt to me at any instant and to not fear it. Thus, a new sense of balance formed, not malicious, not hateful but no fear. This lack of fear is personal and does not translate to being cold hearted. Despite my awareness of ultimate futility and human frailties, such sentiments do not encourage anger or violence but instead urge peace, calm and reflection. It does not mean I could care less about people, to the contrary - I care too much and am devoted to family notwithstanding my own inner depressive unhappiness. I feel more deeply than ever before and am more enraged at injustices inflicted upon the weak and helpless. I can see and feel more of life now that I have been able to partly tear down the veils of absurdity from my eyes. I notice more clearly patterns in nature and with all living systems that speak to harmony and balance rather than disorder. This is a source of wonder and comfort. This is hidden from people blinded by everyday concerns, constant pressure, and unending background noise from activity. To my mind, this state of mind is where real learning can begin, real pursuit of understanding and peace can start to grow. That is ultimately calming and one of the reasons I love art so much. It is a discipline tool to try and harness that balance and also teach the world how idiotic most things are. So I reach out to anyone who wants to feel free but can't tell them for sure I feel happiness but it seems fundamentally I should have the right to find it.
Part of me has developed a razors edge in sniffing out bogus, illogical or deceptive situations, statements and people. In reducing human emotions to their most basic motivations, primal motivations, the ability to see beyond the complex facades that all people construct. Sales personnel, politicians and con artists do this everyday but from a twisted perspective. Their motive is to try not only to peg the underlying emotion but to manipulate it in such a way as to deprive you of your judgement and reason by redirecting your thoughts or, if necessary, create a need where there is none. Fear is one of the oldest behaviors that has governed human behavior from the instictive reactions for survival to the awareness of self and existence and threats to them. Fear is infectious, easily instilled and can be radicalized into a juggernaut of destruction. Abusers of women and children excel in this. Using tools of intimidation, threats of violence, violence, shame, isolation, inadequacy, and even religious doctrine all weaken and break the mind. If one loses this fear, however, of death and destruction, then the individual becomes confused, frustrated and increasingly desparate to reassert control. So much of human behavior is clearly defined by psychology and biology that the more one searches for patterns in these areas the more clearly sophisticated responses to primal needs can be determined. This goes further, however, in finding echoes in nature. Criminal psychological profiling to some degree relies on these tools to try and understand the needs of the perpetrator. Criminal Interrogation focuses on the weaknesses and needs of the human mind to extract information through the same tools. These tools aside, the focus for me is on the larger picture of how human beings and their fellow living organisms on earth fit into a pattern of basic need and response that echoes over and over in varying degrees of complexity and an increasingly interconnected coexistence.
It is also true that in understanding these overlapping patterns and quickly identifying behaviors and needs among individuals that finding a mode of communication can become easier. I have discovered that skill in writing, use of honesty, openness, use of personal experience, emotive language and helping decipher someone's inability to articulate their needs in words, a relationship can be quickly established, and trust that is not normally given be forthcoming. It suggests there is the potential to help individuals in a very unique way but also underscores the tremendous danger of abuse that either currently exists or can done by using this sort of understanding. When I write, I find strength in words, and have developed the skill to capture emotion in a variety of ways and expressed through endless varieties of combinations to help resonate with the person. The idea is not simply to wow someone with writing but to reach them in a way that bypasses the defenses and says that I mean no harm and open myself to you in any way you find necessary to build trust. From there, the hope and effort has been to zero in on what has caused them to search. I want to know what pain they have to help them work through it. This is not closet therapy but rather simply understanding their perspective of what bothers them, articulating that for complete understanding, re-examining what the fears and concerns are and striving to vanquish the nonsense that has been hammered into them and liberate the mind that has been imprisoned and locked away. For some, the locking away is severe and the abuse extreme, but the common language is suffering and depression. I ask for nothing and expect nothing. Instead we work on various things together as they like, to draw out the life and zeal for living we all need. This renewal of self esteem revives much of what is essential of the human spirit, affection, nurturing, kindness, gentleness and even erotic writing. Success with this validates my hope to ease the burden of my fellow man and gives hope to someone else.
If someone's ability to believe in themselves is rekindled, then they become very powerful. I still struggle with this and have not found a way to keep depression in check. My medicines still hold it back but they continue to weaken and eventually may not be able to stop the increasing regression of sadness. The depression and sadness of others I've worked with have their roots in oppressive relationships and some with chronic disorders. We've bonded in ways unique to most and stronger than most. But it is uplifting because I have to remain constant to the hope to enable them to follow their own path. As a friend, I rejoice in their happiness, mourn with their grief and sadness, and do whatever I can to ease the pain that constantly flows. The love of fellow human beings in a giving state enables great things, but it musn't be clouded by selfish ends but a constant reminder that the hope is to liberate the mind and spirit to make their own choices and follow their own dreams. In early American history, the coined phrases were famous ones, "Live free or die" and "Don't tread on me" more properly translated as "nemo me impune lacessit" which means No one shall provoke me with impunity. The phrase every person trying to liberate their mind or spirit either in searching or escaping oppression should be the same phrase used by the tyrant Stalin. In many ways it is appropriate to use the order of a tyrant to fight another tyrant, Niye Shaga Khazad which is the phonetic pronunciation of the Russian order, "Not one Step Backwards."
Seeking enlightenment and understanding may be the only way the human species can survive. The natural world has checks and balances that maintain order even if sometimes with overkill. Humans continue to defy the checks of war, disease, stupidity and life expectancy and have continued to expand and consume without restraint. In finding enlightenment, other goals in life generally become silly and pointless endeavors. I think,however, that part of the duty of one seeking to understand both himself and the world in general is to liberate those trying to be free and bitterly contest oppression in ways that fit one's skills and abilities. This means every human institution is suspect because they all have and continue to engage in abuse. This means not idly by when others are hurting, and offering what one can with materiale or words or even embraces is the thing that should be done. This also means equipping someone for a clandestine war of resistence to liberate from oppression be it full blown war or bad relationship.
While ultimately things we do may be of no consequence, the effort to care for one's fellow human is a worthy goal. Caring for offspring to enable them to focus on a journey of self reflection is worthy. What is needed to get to that journey's end, however, is not always the right approach. The distractions of pride, materialism, power, status, and fundmental emotions unmet all continue to cloud and block progress. I am forced also to concened another point that I haven't reconciled in my own search for understanding. True enlightement would likely mean the absence of anger, malice and violence. This becomes difficult when the transparent and growing threat of influences that directly oppose this come into focus. Religious oppression is particularly pernicious in its poisoning of the developing mind and beating down of the uninfected mind. This has to be fought tooth and nail every step. But how does one deal with the problem of war? It is easy enough for one to say I would die for this belief, cause or person. That individual choice is simple enough. The more complex question comes in from a different approach. Are your principles of enlightement and liberating those who would struggle to be free such that you could say, "These are beliefs that I would kill for?" It is hard to reconcile such a stark contrast especially given the reality of ultimate insignificance, but in the short term it would appear that to enable progress to enlightenment for individuals to proceed, the threats have to be removed.
**undeveloped section -
yet even knowing all these things, one cannot escape the personified haunts of the mind. Everyone who suffers depression in whatever form sees them and knows them. The specters of sadness, pain, grief, isolation and despair. They are not malevolent, not hateful, but quite to the contrary the very image of soothing. I don't feel anything but a soft feminine voice that has a sad but understanding tone that caresses and reassures. This gentle feeling is so soothing and comforting that it overpowers everything. That is one reason I think that depressives can be more gentle, kind and understanding than most. They feel pain, sense anguish and want to help those hurting just like they desire to be helped.
The problem with such a question is that it is not always a simple straightforward answer. So many walks of life and activities are considered only in isolation or as a part of a limited connection to thinking existentially that one has to be focused, dedicated and honest about trying to find connections. To be sure, there has been, currently is and probably will be no shortage of people who are willing to show you a particular path, give you advice or even take over your life for you. Sometimes it is all to easy to fall into one of these approaches and just let go with the current to see if something better pops up. The much more daunting path is to stare into the unknown, rebel against convention and let the mind examine whatever passes its way with its own proverbial eyes. Again, thinking on ones own is not as easy as it seems simply because of the culturally and societal ingrained training we have. My belief, however, is that it is worth all the effort and all the consequences that arise as a result of trying to understand the world and my place in it.
At this point, I will switch to the first person to reconstruct my thoughts and conduct a statement with myself
I was once asked by an MD, "who made you." The question hit me out of the blue because he was a pain doctor seeing me as a referral for back pain. I had already been made to wait four hours in the waiting room with only one or two other people there and I had not slept much that night before. My honest and straightforward response was that I was the byproduct of sexual reproduction with the successful merger of DNA and once born a product of genetics and environment. I also explained that I had for some years been attempting to understand humankind's place in the cosmological order of things through comparative religions, evolutionary anthropology, history and other disciplines. Apparently this caused some considerable consternation with the MD who proceeded to pontificate over what I didn't say - any reference to God or other religious implications in my creation. From that point on I was lectured about how I had no belief system, didn't raise my children correctly because I did not attend church regularly, was wasting my life as an educated man by working in a cemetery as a grounds keeper, and had no wisdom and furthermore had no business asking deep philosophical questions. He further stated that I was way off his scale in terms of his ability to understand people. To make matters worse, he stated that the physician who referred me had no belief system either, another woman PhD psychologist I mentioned was a "man hater", a rheumatologist I had consulted and company doctor I had seen he sarcastically couldn't believe were still being allowed to practice medicine. He spent less than 20 minutes of the next hour actually discussing the medical history and symptoms of my back. This was not the productive physician-patient relationship I particularly cared for and did not go back.
Why this anecdote? Because it raises an interesting illustration about knowledge. This man was trying to tell me that I had no business asking deep philosophical questions yet his own approach to the world was strewn with judgments, flawed logical arguments (which I will discuss later) and fundamental disrespect for other human beings. This was not the first time I'd encountered someone with at title, skill and ability to influence people on credentials alone and who used it in a non-constructive way. The experience simply re-enforced my belief that I had chosen the correct path for understanding.
So, why all the fuss over the ramblings of a closet therapist who is more interested in some variation of counseling than medicine? How am I reinforced in my belief on my own path to understanding the world around me? At some point, I believe that most human beings are confronted with questions of mortality, the common place that all human beings go and none return. With understanding the mortality of human life, comes a larger question of what to do with the time I have while alive. Throughout most of history, belief systems of some kind or another have arisen to answer these questions and for most people the mythic descriptions and human institutions are enough to keep going and get through the day, the months, the years until death. Thinking is hard. Thinking about large patterns through human thought and history is not the easiest thing in the world to do and for most people, having to think is not particularly pleasant. What happens, then, when someone isn't satisfied with the standard answer and the world doesn't seem right in the way it is being handled. What happens when we ask thought provoking questions and challenge the norm? Usually people either smile and admire your thoughtfulness or find it it irritating that you have disturbed their ordered mindset with thoughts beyond what they care to think about and suddenly are compelled to do; it is something like asking someone if they turned off the stove after leaving the house, they are henceforth never quite sure. Understanding deeper questions and entertaining variations of ideas inevitably leads to challenging the status quo. Once dearly held beliefs assumed to be inviolate are called into question and history has generally found an apt word for such thinkers...heretics. So, in the first stage of understanding the world around you, understanding that thinking for yourself and voicing your ideas for thought may put you in the camp of the heretic and you find your list of allies grows thin.
The second stage for understanding the world around you involves determining how you will go about as an inquiere or inquisitor. It is a daunting task in trying to decide where and how to start first but I have come to believe that most of these searches take like minded people to the same place. I cannot remember a time when I did not question and probe. But I have discovered over time that there are good reliable methods to learning. For me the searching worked most effectively when I began to question the tenants of religions along with evolutionary anthropology and history. They are all studies in human behavior with different objectives in their respective disciplines. But I have two additional tools that I use in my searching for understanding, the use of logic and empirical data. I will be the first to admit that I can't stand, and for that matter understand, symbolic logic. I dropped out of this class in college and need something more concrete. Symbolic logic is very much akin to mathematics and such abstractions quickly overwhelm my ability to sort through them. Determining genetic patterns through boxes of fa and FF to see what offspring combinations can occur are about as good as it gets. Logic in argument construction, however, I can follow and discovered, to my delight, are ones that can usually identify. There is a long series of logical fallacies that help to sort through bogus arguments and flawed positions. Indeed, the afore mentioned physician used no less than two during his lecture to me - argumentum ad populum and reducto ad Hitlerum. The other tool, empirical data, tends to hinge more on the scientific realm since the evidence gathered can be tested and have independent review among other attributes. I find it somewhat an irony (properly using the term) that a physician whose medical education and practice are based largely on empirical data, observation and probability regards my use of those very tools as somehow not valid.
My chief obstruction in the search for understanding is the principle of special knowledge so often affiliated with divine intervention. Special knowledge that is beyond scrutiny or review and generally given to only one or a very few individuals by a god or gods. The pages of history are choked full of people with special knowledge who have demonstrated over and over again that their knowledge usually benefits them handsomely and is detrimental to the majority of others and often centers on control of wealth, obsession with sexual matters and military might.
That being said, I feel it is important to acknowledge that there are subjects that logic and empirical data are simply not designed to tackle. Matters of the heart, esoteric studies, ghosts, gods and the like don't conform to any known system of empirical analysis. In these wildly popular and often emotionally based something else has to be used. The conflict can become obvious. Individuals of immense stature and understanding such as Gandhi, Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, the Dali Lama, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Mier , Billy Graham, and Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong all have or have had very different approaches to what systems of knowledge and understanding are valid (or at least relevant) to their method of working through life. These individuals are among notable examples of people who represent very specific ways of thinking and rely on knowledge that comes from very different sources. Since this personal statement is not a comparison and contrast of knowledge based system and their respective usefulness, suffice to say that the names are meant to illustrate the wide gap that can exist.
The fundamental conflict over knowledge and its validity to human beings is often muddled in passionate rhetoric and anecdotes. The discussions hardly start on equal footing and come fully equipped with preconceived notions, untouchable tenants of belief and a formula for inflexibility that leaves both sides crippled from the start. With lighting speed, a discussion descends into arguments over ideas and systems that really don't connect to one another at all or if they do, no effort is being made to look beyond the obvious. I would advance that anyone discussing subjects of any discipline must and I repeat MUST agree on the terms and definitions on the subject and its particulars. This is understandably time consuming and not good for impatient individuals. But then I believe much of the fine art of dialogue has been lost long ago and replaced with impatience for lowest common denominator packaged answers. This gets back to my original belief that individuals have to think continually and carefully over time with open minds and flexibility to fully examine everything and become self aware through pure disciplined mental effort.
In what would seem to be a prima facie contradiction on my last sentence, I have a particular problem with the concept of divine or special knowledge. I don't have a problem in concept but rather in the lack of convincing evidence that human beings are the ones who are privy to such things. Becoming self aware is quite distinct from suggesting that another entity in some way revealed information to someone that leads to a prescription of governance. Regrettably, in our species desire to be unique we have a long history (in a short cosmological time frame) of a tragic wreck of the planet and the abuse of our own kind; the deplorable lupus est homino homini. But, I likewise do not shut the door on the unknown. Instead, when someone asks do you believe in ghosts, I merely respond I don't know, I've never seen one, it is an exciting thought but perhaps beyond the capacity of humans to capture in a reliable way for analysis. After all, if a ghost represents one person's entity, one person is no basis for any scientific study let alone predictability. So with these initial tools I can feel confident about my exploration. There are other considerations too. I HAVE to listen with an open mind all the time, listen more than talk. I need to observe the world around me for things that connect or have echoes of other things that don't on the surface appear related and most importantly, listen to the conclusions I make based on working through the exploration and having the honesty to accept things that are different than what I might have otherwise thought would be the case. This last point is a key one, intellectual honesty and integrity. For indeed, history has shown repeatedly that the human understanding of the world is anything but fixed. Instead it is a long torturous journey from power base and belief to new awareness. For obvious examples, one only has to look at simple subjects such as the medical humoral theory, existence of the microbial world, discovery of both inner and outer space as incomprehensibly complex and expansive systems, and the changes from demons possessing people to bona fide mental disorders.
Now that I have my tools, I have to learn to quiet my mind. To try and still the quiet maelstrom around me all the time and listen for the subtle language. This is a tricky path. There was a time when the world was a quieter place. Life was simple, hard, brutal, and often short. The daily activities of existence, however, generally appear to have allowed people the opportunity to be more in tune with the world around them. Hunters do this when trying to blend into the landscape. If one is alone, trying to blend in and listen for prey, then it is critical to be silent, to listen to observe and be attentive to all that is around you. At this point the faintest sounds become perceptible and understanding of how modern life is hectic, noisy, hopelessly cluttered and stimulating ought to become apparent. Monks began to understand this through isolation and meditation. This is the sort of stripping away needed to initially perceive the difference between what is flooding your senses and what quiet focus can be. In short, a progressive effort to learn to tune out the world and observe the smallest things, smallest sounds, and so many other stimulants often overlooked. I found that once I left the insane world of the modern workplace, my work at the cemetery provided me with exactly that kind of self reflective opportunity. I could work in a park all day long doing hard physical work to beautify the grounds. I rarely had to deal with many people, but it was the rare interaction that enabled me to be more effective when required to do so. Working among the dead is far from creepy. Cleaning a public restroom in Walmart is creepy. In working with the grounds, I was given the opportunity to look for symmetry, beauty, peace of mind, and what being alive or dead meant. I miss that job more than any other I've ever had and am also missed by the cemetery because I was effective. From this 15 month stint of work, I was able to develop a calm that allowed me to meet most situations with ease and the ability to screen out the world and listen for the quiet.
The patterns that begin to emerge were quite startling but at the same time, my discernment of patterns were largely dependent upon my self education of many disciplines. I would be remiss if I did not make an adequate connection. So thus far, in order to determine how one should live, I've suggested having the willingness to search, equipping yourself with appropriate intellectual tools and skills to learn and retain flexibility and integrity with what is discovered, and the need to quiet ones mind. These tools alone are very potent mechanisms to learn and be at peace but the more I have learned about how interconnected all things are the more exciting and peaceful I have become. Most pointedly, very little in the way of expense or resources are required to obtain them. So from here, what specific disciplines or subjects have guided my thinking and conclusions? Each person can gravitate towards disciplines to garner insight but in the following I will briefly develop each one and attempt to tie its relevance to my overall theme of trying to create a definitive statement of understanding of life and how to find it.
An excellent place to start was Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. There is a certain keen insight in his writings that rings true. There are numerous valuable observations made by the Emperor's musings but Book 7 has the following: "Do not look around thee to discover other men's ruling principles, but look straight to this, to what nature leads thee, both the universal nature through the things which happen to thee, and thy own nature through the acts which must be done by thee. But every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution; and all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among irrational things the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another " This was made notable in popular culture in a quote by Sir Anthony Hopkins portraying Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In that quote, it was greatly simplified for public consumption by the question of, "Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?" This simple statement serves as a potent lens for seeing past many layers of camouflage. This statement alone was a revolutionary key for me in understanding all behavior of living things. Instead of getting tangled up in the myriad of particulars that are distractions, one can peer into the root causes of behavior.
In a rather quick-time fashion, if you make a habit of dissecting the actions of others in all activities of life, patterns become very apparent. It is simple really, and many have already mastered the task but perhaps without knowing the full impact. On the most basic level a baby cries because it is hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable, uncomfortable, etc. These are basic fundamentals expressed by an infant in the only language it has crying - but with subtle variations a parent comes to identify to determine the need. Human behaviors have fundamental needs that don't change over time but do manifest differently and sometimes with a paradoxical twists. Attempting to identify the basic needs underlying all behavior demonstrates that all organisms still have the common feature of responding for basic fundamental reasons.
Evolutionary anthropology. It is a bit wordy to be sure but the study of human behavior is fundamental. What patterns can be found in how humans behave? What motivators, what recurrent themes can be found over time? Evolutionary anthropology is one excellent source to discover answers to some of these questions. In looking over this topic, I have several excellent sources of reading that I have drawn understanding and been able to expand my comprehensive thinking. Indeed, these works enabled me to connect patterns that I otherwise might have missed. In brief,
Germs Guns & Steel by Jared Diamond: the advance of human societies were determined by several key factors which I poorly recite here as including the notion of a society's progress in a given area being heavily influenced by the resources available. These resources include arable land, raw materials, animals that can be domesticated, progress to specialization and development of technologies, the long term adaptation of zoological disease that once introduced elsewhere cause a naive immune system to be unable to cope and the eventual conflux of acquired skill and technology to outpace others. Given the stark development difference between the heart of Paupa New Guinnea and Western Europe up to the 1950's when Westerners finally realized the interior was occupied this difference service as an interesting contrast to how isolation in a given environment develops over the Milena. The society in Paupa New Guinnea was quite functional in its way and had a symbiotic relationship with the land, flora and fauna. Westerners, however, despite the development of submarines, ionic propulsion and atom bombs could hardly declare that a more functional and harmonious state existed outside the island. There is an argument about environmental determinism that I don't know enough about that is a contra to Diamond's works but in a big picture, it holds plausibility.
Collapse, by Jared Diamond: Key interpretations a society survives or fails based on several criterion that include: a) deforestation and habitat destruction b) soil problems (salinization, erosion and soil fertility loss) c) water management problems d) over hunting e) over fishing f) effects of introduced species on native flora and fauna g) population growth h) increased per capita impact of people and these are further augmented by four new factors i) human caused climate change j)buildup of toxins in the environment k) energy shortages full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity. There are the additional factors of destruction brought on by war and economic collapse as Carthage and the USSR demonstrate.
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley, It has been a while since I've read this but the lessons I have drawn ring true. As a reflection of the animal kingdom we act in much the same way. Social orders of any kind appear to have a particular obsession with reproductive rights and the passing of genes, accumulation of wealth, establishment of force and exercise of power. There is certainly room to argue that amoeba don't obsess over the accumulation of wealth, but there are plenty of other examples to better illustrate the point ranging from ants and bees to lions and wolf packs. Humans simply make things more interesting in the variety and creativity in which these attributes are demonstrated. It takes some flexible thinking to begin to perceive how this is true. Look at the Sultans who had numerous wives and enforced castration for eunuchs, or an obsession of familial linage for nobility and identity. The Catholic Church had prohibitions on intra-family marriages from the desire to keep asset transfers down. This certainly isn't the only reason but a potent one. How many religious institutions are obsessed with sexual behavior and reproductive rights? Power is ephemeral and cannot be held in ones hand. Take Himmler, for example, he was feared in Germany, but when in captivity he had no presence or aura of power about him. In order for power to work, the acquisition of wealth to buy behavior or buy force via military or mercenary force needs to take place. These lines become blurred over time and the very thin veneer of civilization covers these basic human activities over. Strip the veneer away and humans fall back to old habits. Ask yourself why conflict exists at all? Human societies want a secure place for food, water, development and growth. When a society is threatened by another group that has lost or out stripped its resource base, war starts. Cloak it however you like it - religion, arable land, fishing rights, lebensraum but the intent is there our group is better and therefore we are taking it to survive. The examples of this idea are too numerous to illustrate but there is one key factor to differentiate us from all other species - we continue to remain out of sync with the rest of the world in that we consume more than we need, displace anything that gets in our way, and don't live in a symbiotic relationship with Earth's other inhabitants.
Sex Time and Power by Leonard Shlain: This was an excellent analysis of how certain human concepts came to be based on on very fundamental ideas. In a nutshell - the homo sapien is the only known species that is known to have a sense of deep time. By this I mean past present and anticipated time frames. We are also the only species that is aware of our own eventual demise as we cannot see into the future but know of our eventuality. The concept of deep time, theorized by Dr. Shlain, began with the menses that women have on a regular cycle that happens to coincide with the lunar movements. On this basis, the human brain had developed to the point of being capable of making these observations of time and to anticipate forward events and develop an awareness of time and place. Homosapiens are also unique in that the female is the only species in all the animal kingdom to suffer blood loss. This blood loss while variable in quantity is nevertheless an acute decrease in hemoglobin that prompts the female to seek replenishment and the obvious source, red meat. For females, childbearing represented a singular grave threat in terms of blood loss that required replenishment. Beyond this, caring for the offspring required more time than was available to resupply food. Males, by contrast, are hardwired for sex and by their nature disinclined to monogamy because of the drive to pass on as much dna as possible. The fundamental bargain reached between men and women - sex for meat. Even today, one could see this pattern in providing meals on a data. Over time, relationships and social norms would have been established to prevent fighting. Dr. Shlain also makes the observation that the human species tends to work best and most efficiently in a tribal setting. His observation of how our species has transformed from a competing member of the animal kingdom to a total parasite is disheartening but I believe absolutely true. This nutshell observation can't begin to summarize the work
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Drs. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan: This is worth reading simply because it demonstrates that human beings vary only in degrees from their cousins in the animal kingdom and that other species are not bereft of emotion, language, expression and awareness. To me it is a grounding of the human ego and a wake up call to realize that all species do not exist for our use simply because the are dumb brutes. If anything, human beings have the benefit of incredible creativity both in love and expression along with malice and cruelty. Drs. Sagan and Druyan don't say it but I'll add that humans have the dubious distinction of stupidity. Animals avoid things that are poisonous or destructive to themselves or their habitat; humans know better and do it anyway.
Parasitology. Even on the smallest scale our world is unequivocally and inevitably shaped. This one is a hard pill for people to swallow, I suspect, because the scope is so small and unobserved that to embrace the concept of something tiny affecting the course of human behavior and history becomes dumbfounding. An excellent work in this area is Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer. I challenge anyone to read it and not come away with a new found sense of wonder and humility at how the world works and how foolish we are in our own pretensions. It would be too much of an injustice to the work to try and summarize the body of meticulous study contained within but I can give an example. There is a certain parasite that lives within an ant but cannot complete its reproductive cycle unless it is eaten by a predator that comes out at night. The parasite hijacks the ant's behavior to go stand out on a leaf all night long to get eaten thus enabling the parasite to enter the gut of the predator. If it hasn't been eaten by dawn, the parasite releases the ant to go back inside where it won't get roasted by the sun. It will repeat the same process. This example is reflected in higher orders of animals and indeed even observable in humans with such organisms like toxoplasmodium. There is a under appreciated symbiotic relationship between the parasite and the immune system that has evolved over eons and that has shaped the lives of all organisms. The author also has shown that disrupting that relationship with eradication has also led to scenarios where disorders such as Crone's disease are present until the parasite normally found in the gut in non-industrialized countries returns, the disease's conditions disappear. This is a tremendous oversimplification of years of research but the examples are plentiful and continue to point to the unmistakable conclusion that we are a species inexorably liked with our world. Admittedly, this is also one book. But this one book contains studies that are unique not not exactly the sort that people are rushing out of graduate school to conduct. The invitation to learn more is there. On a separate and more philosophical note, having ones mind hijacked by a micro-organism that lodges itself in the behavior center of the brain at the very minimum raises fundamental questions of free will.
History, Philosophy, Cosmology: There are too many sources to list but some of the key sources I've come across that are worth reading are as follows: The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin (I have yet to read his other two volumes), This Demon Haunted World and A Pale Blue Dot by Dr. Carl Sagan,
So given these sources of insight, and tools to understand the world, where do you go? What do you conclude? Too few people, I have a hunch, even bother to try tying the various disciplines together. I have, however, continued to try and feel I am the better and more content for it. Thus far, I've managed to work out a loose but incomplete formula. I deliberately say incomplete because it is a constant work in progress. No reasonable door is shut and as if it were a contradiction, I even enjoy the pursuit of special knowledge from all sources since it is both fascinating and entertaining. The beauty of the methods and sources I've outlined above is that they are open for all to use, all to test, and all to embrace or criticize. Special knowledge, let alone repressive cultural contexts hostile to equality, freedom of thought, expression, or action generally are not so inclined.
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So now we come to interpretation. Now that the preparation of the mind is underway and tools to help examine that which is perceived for what it really is or is not, we come to the most complex and unanswerable questions of all. Those questions are how and in what ways will your discoveries affect you? That is the magic of understanding and one that must ultimately be decided by you. It is changeable, it is contextual but at the same time transcendent above any human conceit, creation or institution. The discoveries one can make can completely dismantle any social or cultural device and leave you feeling insignificant and without any hope; In my estimation these discoveries should do precisely that. By contrast, to move through this initial realization and beyond will create a sense of liberty or freedom not understood before this point and even more difficult to explain to someone else.
It falls to individual experience in these intellectual travels to fill in the gaps. Only a truly honest understanding of your own discoveries. So in continuation of that same realization and sentiment, I will relate my experience as it has thus far transpired so that you can begin to get a sense of how my thinking has evolved over time.
If one takes the position, as I do, that special knowledge delivered to individuals is unreliable and more of a human invention or conceit, then a different view has to be used. Since we, as a species, rely on empirical data to accomplish many objectives, it falls to our understanding of this proven discipline to gather the most strength. Consider what it will mean to disregard this methodology: Do you not trust the bridge you cross to hold your weight, did not that same methodology and process establish what would work and what would fail? Did not those same processes determine that a submarine could sustain a crew on the bottom of the sea for 6 months and rise to destroy half the world? Did not those same processes calculate with exact precision the distance and interface of a 5 year two billion mile journey for a space probe, Spacedust, to intercept a 3 mile across comet? Consider also the complexities involved with molecular and genetic engineering or any other disclipline that we have come to rely on successfully. These were not given by phenomenon but by observation, testing, retesting until a workable solution was found.
Given the continued use of such techniques, there is a certain reliability that may be assumed until proven otherwise. Using these same methods, calculations can also be obtained regarding the consumption on hydrogen to helium and the exhaustible supply of the sun that keeps Earth alive in the void. Given that it is finite, the sun will inevitably exhaust its fuel, expand and collapse leaving a charred lump of rock that was the earth. At some point, the matter in this solar system will be pass into some other form such as the collision of the galaxy Andromeda, get swallowed up in a passing black hole, or perhaps pulverized and reborn in a supernovae. The gold on earth is a testament to that history since only in temperatures approaching a supernova do gold atoms form. This is a testament to the continued cycle of death and rebirth in the universe that has transpired before and shall continue. Step back to your own memory for a moment. How many people can you name that lived 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000 years ago? If you are like me, the list grows short very quickly. Human history is pitifully short and our collective, let alone individual, memory is infinitesimally small. Billions have lived and died on Earth and yet we know only a tiny history of any one period or individual. Our memory is so scant and our methods of knowledge preservation so poor that we and our creations are not designed to last. How then, with the billions of years left to come will our individual histories, names, deeds or misdeeds be remembered? When the sun dies, Earth dies, when Earth dies, if we are still around which is doubtful we shall be as if we never existed. What then to do with this realization?
If we are doomed to total oblivion, which all the data indicates that should be the case, then we are fooling ourselves with inane brutal human conceits and institutions. What we do, short, medium or long term has no relevance to anything whatsoever. The pursuit of fame, the pursuit of wealth, power, all are fleeting and ultimately to nothing. Just visit an old cemetery and see how many people with huge markers that were big players in their day you can recognize or what they did. The implications of this are both eye opening, disheartening and also inspiring. It means ultimately, we can do what we want and live with the assurance that our deeds though lauded or punished will be erased with time. Indeed, how many murderers or rapists can you name using the same criterion I started with? Even fewer I surmise. So does this mean that someone runs amok and rapes, burns, steals, and kills? No, this knowledge doesn't changes that potential at all for even with religion and in the name of religion or nationalism or profit have we continued to do just fine in those same atrocities. What does it mean then? To me, it simply means liberation. By this I mean the idea that one has to sacrifice themselves year after year to work harder and harder for a cause not of your own simply because you were raised to do so is not only futile but utter stupidity. To embrace servile living and debasement as a human to satisfy the whims or perceived precepts of some culture or custom is utter nonsense. Having to work yourself to death to have many things, or possessions is an empty pursuit because the more that you have the more that is required to keep them useful or protected and this means further and further work for purpose that is purely a mirage of importance. At this point, I feel compelled to show a further explanation and correlation of my methodology to the ultimate purpose of humankind. I won't state the conclusion first because it is more instructive to build the case.
Humans, as a species are creatures of diversified development over the course of eons. From the simplest microbe to the most complex organism there are many similarities: carbon based, have to have water, have to produce to survive as a species. The particular structure of any given organism is brought together by coded instruction that vary from one degree to another but all use the same tool - DNA. So far the commonalities are good: water requirement, carbon based, replication and DNA. Given the incredible diversity of life, careful observation shows particular adaptations to environments. A very simple concept to be sure, if one has no fur in the arctic you will not last very long. So anything that has no fur dies leaving only the fur based. With almost every species it appears that there is no conscious thought in how these adaptations occur, nor is there direct influence over them. Individual organism live and die, species come and go and the ones that can make the required environmental changes or biochemical changes have the best chance to live. This simple concept remains totally repugnant to some individuals but then the alternative theories that I will not utter here rely on special knowledge which I have established is unreliable and un-reviewable for usefulness.
As changes have occurred over time, there is no question that pressures from environmental factors have pushed species to change, relocate or die. There appear, however, to be other factors at work that also push change but at a different rate. Since most mutations that occur are generally not helpful but harmful, no lasting change comes from those alternative expressions of DNA. One only has to look at the tragic photos of the Chernobyl disaster and horrifying developmental problems to bitterly prove that point. The changes can be caused by Cosmic Rays or other forms of radioactive particulates that bombard the DNA into altering its normal pattern, again Chernobyl provides adequate macabre evidence to that effect. Carcinogens in the environment do somewhat the same thing but I am unaware of any mutations that have occurred by carcinogens that have led to anything but negative consequences. Yet every once in a great while a mutation results in something beneficial. If that species has a mutation that is useful and especially useful in a changing environment, then the mutation stands a better chance of perpetuating that DNA sequence. The term for this sudden change is rather a mouthful, punctuated equilibrium as is its more poky opposite phyletic gradualism. In short, change to a species happening relatively quickly versus gradually. The complexity of how these changes occur both in causation and clear workable evidence is rather difficult as I perceive but the principle is easy enough to understand. As a further blow to anyone embracing divine mechanisms, an often over looked fact are the billions of lives of species that are wasted in failed mutations, failed adaptations, extinctions, and disruptions. Nature isn't kind, its aimless and life deals with what it is dealt or it dies. Progress isn't always forward either. Adaptations can force changes back to previously eliminated traits based on circumstances. This march of life in a linear ever forward direction has anything but a systematic direction. It could be argued, in fact that life survives in spite of the conditions thrown at it rather than moving in a progressive manner.
How does this possibly relate to anything I've discussed previously? Be patient, as I said, I am building a case. Enter the lowly microbe and small parasite. Parasitism is a absolutely fascinating field. I have only had a small taste of it but the work is so compelling as to add it to the formula I'm using. Detailed evidence from research demonstrates the profound effect parasites have on their hosts. This very field of study in a way challenges the entire human concept of free will. Each observable organism has parasites and apparently parasites have parasites. It is no mystery that a parasite needs its host to live since without it it will die or fail to achieve its efforts to reproduce. The organism's immune system does not sit idly by, but begins an arms race of sorts with measure countermeasure to achieve some form of symbiotic relationship. Part of the changes that parasites apparently help motivate was sexual reproduction. By using sexual reproduction, the host could remain one step ahead of the parasite by mixing the genetic code. Sometimes the parasite gets the upper hand and other times the host will. In some cases, the parasite must jump species to fulfill its reproductive cycle and thus must find a way to accomplish this herculean task. Studies of ants, crabs, rats, and wasps show an astonishing array of changes caused by the parasites. The parasites in these studies directly seized control of the central nervous system and redirected the actions of the host to favor its mission even to the detriment of the host. Male crabs, were altered to act as females, ants went out nightly to be eaten but returned to the hive to not be roasted by the sun, rats lost their fear of cats or scent of cats so they could in turn be eaten. This would allow the parasite to complete its mission and be reborn in the gut of the cat. This same process of mind control was show also to be present in humans. Toxoplasmodium, in this case, directly settled in the central nervous system and affected the behavior of both men and women in demonstrable ways. The details of these studies are better described in the book I mentioned by Zimmer. But the conclusion is clear, there is a biological basis for demonstrating that human beings, like other species, are influenced in profound ways by the tiny things of the world. These small parasites have had a vastly under appreciated impact on human development and human belief in the exercise of free will. We are, therefore, inextricably linked to other species on the planet and have a shared origin, development and future. Many functions of the parasites that the human immune system have grown accustomed to have been removed by modern medicines but there have been negative consequences too. By removing the parasites, the balance in the human machine is upset and other disorders rose. This understanding again, shows the power of the relationship but is better left to Zimmer to describe. So at a minimum, our purpose, is to provide safe harbor to other species we can't see or appreciate the impact on our development.
Since modern humans only emerged around 200,000 years ago in the fossil record and only has produced recorded history within the last 5,000 years, we have a serious problem with perspective. Our meager lives have been incredibly short for most of that time and ranged generally to the 30-40 year mark. Given the lack of trans-generational knowledge being held by individuals who live for hundreds or thousands of years, and the pathetically temporal nature of any recorded artifacts we have no real sense of the passage of time or how that time relates to us. This lack of perspective adulterates general thinking to limit most activity within the confines of ones lifetime. To compensate for this lack of comprehensive review, we develop institutions and conceits to fill the gaps. But how did we perceive the need for a sense of time, forward or backward thinking at all? Enter now Leonard Schlain, who convincingly offers a theory that has credibility. In establishing the unique characteristics of human beings as a species, he notes that only human females bleed once a month. No other species is so afflicted. These cycles women have happen to occur in synchronous fashion with the lunar phases. Given that humans, at some point, were perceptive enough to understand the patterns, they were able to begin predicting time and developing a sense of past time or deep time. This deep time allow the observer to understand the past and present but not the future. Understanding the passage of time and an awareness that time ends for individuals created a sense of unease, especially with men who did not have reproductive capacity. Thus, early peoples and those of today remain in the same predicament of not being able to see into the future. We create, instead, the belief systems and related institutions to try and fill that gap of understanding and obtain some reassurance that we are not forgotten to history. This awareness of deep time is quite exclusive among humans. A second part of the theory in the establishment of society is the exchange of red meat to replace blood loss for sex. It is a very interesting correlation since there is a proven pattern of women seeking more red meat after their cycle. And the carry over modern custom of taking a woman to diner and the prospect of a sexual encounter.
To move beyond this, however, understanding how we are different than other species should be further understood. This has been an age old question, " what makes human beings unique from all forms of life." As a reflection of the desire to see in the unknown future and be preserved, it follows that the human ego cannot conceive of itself as nothing more than another brute walking and grazing. We, as a species, have always had to feel superior, special and in some way unique so as to further the belief that there is something beyond the blackness death obscures. Many attributes have been proclaimed and Dr. Carl Sagan and Dr. Anne Druyan delve into this quite effectively showing the various observed and recorded behaviors of species versus our own. Indeed, many of the attributes we find significant are echoed in other creatures such as face to face or oral sex by certain species of monkeys, language acquisition by dolphins, memory and anger of cape buffalo against specific individuals, systemic rape by Baboons, and memory understanding of certain concepts and associations by Chimpanzees such as wanting freedom and pointing out particular representational associated objects. Many of the species examined showed human behaviors including problem solving and even tool usage in the higher orders of animals. The more one examines the evidence, the more realization there is of similarity rather than difference. I am convinced that the only real difference between humans and other species is that of degree. Our problem solving and creativity capacity expanded faster than any other species. I conclude that factors the factors responsible may have originated either with mutation or the slower adaptive processes but moved in a way that enabled problem solving to increase the right diet to enable cerebral function to increase. At some point the brain's development had to have achieved a threshold of ability to spark exponential growth, understanding and curiosity. Perhaps the other most unique feature of human beings other than deep time and self awareness is that of creativity. No other species shows the depth of love and expression that we do, the incredible varieties of symbolic language and meaning that run with the emotional states. Regrettably, this creativity has also demonstrated its dark cousin in the form of cruelty, malice brutality and destruction, often for pleasure or its own sake. I believe that Schlain has a very valid observation when he notes that humans function better in a tribe where smaller scales can lead to better inclusion and safeguards for all members. The instincts for primeval survival do not serve us well in the modern age since those same volatile emotions can have global consequences. Likewise, the same human conceits of uniqueness have played a significant part in transmogrifying our species to a parasitic relationship where their is no benefit returned to the Earth and all other species are being squeezed out.
How then did we grow to be such an aggressive symbiont? This is where the evolutionary anthropologists lend a hand. There are various theories and propositions, but I find a great deal of credibility to a couple of authors. Matt Ridley and Jared Diamond present plausible cases for development. Ridley proposes the interesting and compelling idea associated with the Red Queen effect. This proposition states, in short, that you have to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place. This idea certainly holds credibility with me since one only has to remember my point about working ones self to death to begin to see the very real manifestation of the idea. Society and its components relentlessly advocate that their particular brand of idea, goods, services, and what one is supposed to want and need. Few if any of these wants and needs are stagnant and directly threaten the concept of contentment. Thus, the pressure to conform, to want, to need, leads to even greater and greater pressure to work more, faster and harder for objectives that make no sense at all. As the cost of the wants and needs rises, the required time and effort is directly affected and the addiction is so deeply hooked that individuals don't realize the Red Queen at work. That is one reason I find it comical to hear people put off plans of what they want to do until they are established in life and financially secure. Only when one is willing to strip away and examine what will truly bring contentment does the whole proposition of pressure to work and want become utterly absurd on its face. Is it any wonder then that the wealthy nations have some of the most unhappy people?
This is more of a downstream effect and is not the thrust of Ridley's idea that merges into my overall argument. What Ridley proposes are more fundamental motivators that human beings have in their activities. I know that I am not doing justice to his ideas and it is well worth the read to see for yourself, but lets drag poor Marcus Aurelius back in for a moment and remember the idea I mentioned before as so eloquently put by Dr. Hannibal Lecter, "Of each individual thing ask what is it in itself; what is its nature." Using this appropriate standard, turn back to our species, that, like all other species has fundamental behaviors that underlie its activities. What is the nature of human beings? Note, this question is not about purpose but nature and these are two very different questions; the question of purpose is esoteric the question of nature is observable. The nature of human beings is to reproduce and pass on dna to succeeding generations. In this respect we are no different than other species. Given the extraordinary capacity of creativity and problem solving, complex institutions have arisen as a consequence and would appear to be a mixture of creations to complete this objective. Ants and bees have complex networks that allow only a few of the species to propagate and others to work until they die. Wolves have a pack mentality with hierarchy and only the alpha male breeds. The nature of the pack revolves around activities to continue the orderly continuation of a genetic line. Humans are no different than pack animals except that they are capable of rising above such survival modes of thinking. It is a sad testament, however, that too many examples abound of individual and collective behavior that far exceeds mere survival and descends into the unnatural realm of wanton cruelty, violence for its own sake, cruelty for gratification and even genocide. Nowhere on Earth is the the predatory concept more starkly demonstrated than the principle of homo homini lupus. One only has to read over the diaries and testaments of war to understand how quickly we revert to an animalistic instinct in the chaotic conditions of war and other uncontrolled events. Here is an example of an Austrian officer in the first world war who I think points this out rather well in his observations of trench life,
"It is extraordinary how quickly suggestions of luxury, culture, refinement, in fact all the gentler aspects of life, which one had considered to be an integral part of ones life are quickly forgotten, and more than that, not even missed. Centuries drop from one and one becomes a primeval man, nearing the cave-dweller in an incredibly short time. For twenty -one days I went without taking off my clothes, sleeping on wet grass or in mud, or in the swamps, wherever need be, and with nothing but my cape to cover m. Nothing disturbs one. One night, while sleeping, we were drenched to the skin by torrential rains. We never stirred, but waited for the sun to dry us out again. Many things considered necessities of civilization simply drop out of existence. A toothbrush was not imaginable. We ate instinctively, when we had food, with our hands. If we had stopped to think of it at all, we should have thought it ludicrous to use knife and fork.
We were all looking like shaggy, lean wolves, from the necessity of subsisting on next to nothing. I remember having gone for more than three days at a time without any food whatsoever, and many time we had to lick the dew from the grass for want of water. A certain fierceness arises in you, an absolute indifference to anything the world holds except your duty of fighting. You are eating a crust of bread, and a man is shot dead in the trench next to you. You look calmly at him for a moment, and then go on eating your bread. Why not? There is nothing to be done. In the end you talk of your own death with as little excitement as you would a luncheon engagement. There is nothing left in your mind except the fact that hordes of men to whom you belong are fighting other hordes, and your side must win."(excerpt from "Four Weeks in the Trenches, by Fritz Kreizler)
Early institutions revolved around a tribe mentality and the tribe would function together to live and produce off spring, if they did not, they died. Other tribes would war for better land, resources and women to perpetuate their line of DNA. One may not look at going to war as a reason to perpetuate DNA but then if there were no threats to ones ability to perpetuate life, there would be no need for war. In the animal kingdom, new alpha males immediately kill the you offspring of the previous alpha to destroy any lines that are not his. He has no vested interest in another genetic line and instinctively knows to protect his lineage. In Humans, the rate of homicide of children from step fathers is vastly higher than natural parents. In warfare, the practice was kill all the men, enslave the women leaving no genetic competition. This of course changed somewhat when the conqueror realized that some of the vanquished had skills that could promote his own chances of success. In the animal kingdom, put a group of males in with one female and one will emerge to kill off the other males; humans frequently mimic this pattern.
The institutions that arose simultaneously with human beings served numerous functions but fundamentally would seem to have the underlying purpose of protecting the genetic line of any one self defining group. Specialties of medicine, food, arms, textiles all have the basic fundamental supportive role but a great deal of life of their own. More importantly, the role of religious institutions seems unnaturally obsessed with the sexual practices of people. Is it really a healthy belief to think that there is a supernatural being with a pencil and paper taking names of every sexual thought and action? It seems to me more reasonable and likely that religious institutions, and by no small coincidence governed by males, are fundamentally devising codes, laws, mores, to control the genetic lines. I doubt seriously that this is a conscious effort except by individuals who run Cults who usually reserve all sexual access to the women for themselves. Cannon Laws in Europe during the middle ages began to zero in on dynastic marriages as a means to prevent hegemony from secular sources by virtue of closely knit estates and political alliances. That kind of threat is easy to understand when looking at ecclesiastical power and its desire to retain control. Contiguous with this argument is the need for any group to establish the ability to defend itself and exert force and pressure on its members to perpetuate this basic objective of preservation. Again, when looking from the outside it is easier to perceive the underlying pattern rather than believe these are all conscious decisions. Military and Economic power are the surest way to accomplish any of these goals. Muscle and money can coerce, bribe, convince, goad, lure, and threaten most people into compliance or gently move them along. If you look at these three pinnacles - passing dna, preserving particular groups of DNA and institutions to support those objectives, the realization that many human activities over time and in the present support this in principle. It is a macro and a micro concept. Families have an interest in seeing to themselves as do nations. Divorce is instituted when the family line is disrupted and wars are fought over need of resources or those who would threaten to take anothers. I advance that Ridley has a very solid argument here that fits into the previous review of human behaviors and other species' behaviors. The only difference being that of degree.
Jerard Diamond, offers further insight through his analysis. While it is not a universally accepted proposition, I have not found one that is more compelling. I won't dwell on this as much since it goes into the more particular patterns of societal evolution. In principle how societies flourished at different rates, why, and the consequences of unequalled development. Arguments over Euro centrism, Geographical Determinism and others are too cumbersome for this statement but worth the effort to understand. This anthropological view helps redefine and erase many of the egocentric beliefs humans have created upon one another and explains more fully how progress and its consequences occurred. A second work by Diamond, goes even further by understanding the reasons societies fail. This is worth understanding from a purpose and nature perspective since it shows what happens when the perpetuation of the species upsets the natural balance and can lead to a total collapse. For the nature and survival of any species, this should be fairly important to understand and appreciate. If feel it important enough to highlight the cornerstones of his theory in this discussion. In essence, he outlines the following criterion for why societies collapse. It is interesting to note what happens when the animal kingdom gets out of sync with nature. But here - the focus is on homo sapiens.
Diamond lists eight factors which have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:
Deforestation and habitat destruction
Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
Water management problems
Over hunting
Overfishing
Effects of introduced species on native species
Population growth
Increased per-capita impact of people
Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies:
Human-caused climate change
Buildup of toxins in the environment
Energy shortages
Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity
The root problem in all but one of Diamond's factors leading to collapse is overpopulation relative to the practicable (as opposed to the ideal theoretical) carrying capacity of the environment. The one factor not related to overpopulation is the harmful effect of accidentally or intentionally introducing nonnative species to a region.
Diamond also states that "it would be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example, and the destruction of Carthage by Rome in 146 BC is an ancient one. It's obviously true that military or economic factors alone may suffice - I cite this from Wikapedia since the essence of the theory is fairly well condensed in the above citation. Notwithstanding anyone's opinion of Wikapedia, I have read the book and know its content so am comfortable using this source.
So we come to the point when we ask ourselves what are we? What is our purpose - if any exists at all. What are we to make of ourselves and each other and how do we endeavor to find happiness and meaning in a life that, quite frankly, isn't fair but neither is it partial. Each person must, in their own way, answer these questions. For those who put their trust entirely in the concept of the supernatural, special knowledge and unknowable and unchallengeable entities or concepts, this discussion is a waste of time for you. You should have, by reason of your convictions, have dismissed it out of hand at the first paragraph. For those fully bent only on empirical knowledge and science, this isn't good enough because I still leave the door open for the unknown. I do not pronounce judgement on that which is unknown. The mystical is demystified through science and understanding, but the borders of science and understanding are not stagnant. Therefore it is prudent, I think, to leave the door open but rely on the most verifiable information available.
What would my conclusions be on the world and my place in it? I still don't know, but I know what those conclusions are not. This is the point where I try and formulate what I perceive and believe to be true of the world as I know it and experience it.
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I have always felt somewhat different. I think. I think a great deal in fact and listen with very attentive ears. I also have suffered depression all my life and will take medicine for it for the rest of my days. I remember being depressed as a small child, grammar school, high school, college and beyond. While sitting in class my sophomore year in high school, I could not see a vision for myself past age 22. Nothing has changed about this and it is as if the camera of foresight in my head simply no longer works. I went to church regularly and religiously, participated in its events, earned Eagle Scout, and was a kind, outgoing thoughtful individual. I figured I'd graduate from college with a degree and a job would open up with some company and progress would would take care of the rest. I obtained a degree in English Literature under that assumption that I needed the degree and so went with what I could produce decent grades. I don't even read literature for the most part, preferring science, evolutionary anthropology, military history, general history, and some philosophy instead. When I realized that my assumption about working was totally false I had no idea what to do. I still don't. I tried to be a Marine Corps officer and washed out, tried to be an attorney and washed out, tried to get a MA in History and didn't finish, banking, insurance, retail, art school, teaching credentials and other ideal jobs but they never worked. I only have a long history of discounted labor as I have gotten older in dead end jobs that I'm bitterly reminded at every turn is not befitting of someone with my background and education. Even after US Naval Reserves and Army Guard service no identity ever stayed and 34 plus jobs later those fundamental questions about what I want to do or what I saw myself doing are no further along than they were 23 years ago.
Along the way somewhere my mind became unhinged and depression finally was the catalyst to start shifting my thinking away from what I was supposed to be or wanted to be to perhaps more fundamental questions such as who am I and what is the point? Depression only partly opened the door to this but the discovery or rediscovery of ADD (since it was apparently known that I had it early as a child but refused to take medicine) helped to bridge some gaps in understanding why my performance was submarginal. By the time this was understood however, I had already train wrecked every career I'd tried with a scant few exceptions. During the post depression crisis I revisited many assumptions about the world and my beliefs that had been molded thus far. I changed from Presbyterian to Episcopalian and from Episcopalian to agnostic where I remain to this day. The more I searched and questioned, the more disaffected and unsatisfied I have become. So after giving myself license to question everything I knew, it naturally followed, that the trickle down effect would be profound. I began to realize that one cannot be intellectually or spiritually honest by walling off a part of you because it might expose something you hold to be sacred as misguided. So all the curtains were thrown back and shutters flung wide for light of reason and understanding to pour in.
Each area of life I examined was a part begging to be understood and put into a greater whole. The more history I read, the more I perceived various patterns of human behavior with both predictable and consistent results. Trusting in the validity of science in the same respect we trust crossing a bridge, flying in an aircraft or installing a pacemaker, the great mysteries of the world seemed to evaporate and the human frailties of fear, misogyny, greed, and control became apparent. While I knew that science had its limits and was not perfect, it was honest enough to allow scrutiny by anyone and not wall off any assumptions based on fear of what might be discovered or revealed. That is not to say, of course, that scientists don't have their petty arguments and sacrosanct beliefs, but as a whole it allows any challenge to be put forth. This process has continued for some years now with no let up in discovery or understanding and the additional application of logic and reasoning to discuss these matters in terms that are understood in a general sense.
Religious tenets lose their steam almost immediately since concepts such as moral relativism, contextual understanding, and many other tools are such a dire threat to control of the doctrines established. No church needs money to survive, it is equally absurd to believe that some great entity is sitting on a throne with a notepad taking names and dates of peoples sexual appetites or activities - yet these two focus points - money and sex - are frequently the most viciously controlled. It makes no sense at all to embrace this and yet it makes perfect sense to understand why religious institutions would have a vested interest in controlling those activities. These, however, are simply human institutions ingrained from birth to influence to the core how humans are to behave with one another and to spiritual matters. To a large extent, these institutions have been more than successful and the alternative is not always easy or pleasant. When one strips away the comfort of a benevolent or vengeful god and the human condition, nature and perhaps purpose is laid bare, the mind is lost. This follows into the realm of existentialism which is a meaningless void in its understanding of the human purpose. Despite being further depressed by this understanding, I was cheered somewhat by existentialist authors like Albert Camus in his poem about Sysiphus and how one finds joy in understanding that everything is absurd on its face and to simply make the best of it as one goes along. More directly phrased,
According to Camus, suicide was a sign that one lacked the strength to face "nothing." Life is an adventure without final meaning, but still worth experiencing. Since there is nothing else, life should be lived to its fullest and derive meaning from human existence. For Camus, people were what gave life meaning. However, in the moments following the realization that one will, one's descendants will die... in fact, earth will die, one senses a deep anxiety. And, as an atheist, Camus doubted meaning beyond this life. "Living the absurd… means a total lack of hope (which is not the same as despair), a permanent reflection (which is not the same as renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which is not the same as juvenile anxiety)." For Camus, Sisyphus is the ultimate absurd hero. He was sentenced for the crime of loving life too much; he defied the gods and fought death. The gods thought they found a perfect form of torture for Sisyphus. He would constantly hope for success, that the stone would remain at the top of the mountain. This, the gods thought, would forever frustrate him. Yet, defying the gods again, Sisyphus is without hope. He abandons any illusion that he might succeed at the assigned task. Once he does this, Camus considers him a hero. Sisyphus begins to view his ability to do the task again and again -- to endure the punishment -- a form of victory. "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. We have to imagine Sisyphus happy."(AmyL.Chaves http://www.amychaves.bizland.com/articles/on_albert_camus.htm
Citing chunks of others who write is not really my purpose, but some writers have coined the ideas better than I could and so I freely use their analysis to illustrate my feelings or points. In all such examples, however, I will give the author their due respect and recognition.
I perhaps had the greatest understanding of nature and purpose from an unlikely job, a groundskeeper in a cemetery. This job I loved more than any other I have ever done. I asked for no management, I asked for no pay other than what was offered, I gave everything I had to give and despite what I thought was rewarded tenfold for it. I was able to work hard and be alone. I worked as much as I want, and apparently outshined others near me. To me it was working in a park of great beauty that I got to tend every day. I became valuable to management and they allowed me the flexibility to what I wanted to get things done. I was able to work with my hands, was asked to draft policy and implement it, was given my own business cards, etc. They basically created a job for me and it brought no more money and I desired no more. I had to hammer out my relationship with the other grounds keepers who were all black and not used to seeing educated white boy working on their turf. Gradually, they understood I was no threat to them and was, by contrast, able to help them immensely. They were some of the most genuine and hardworking men I've been privileged to work with. I sorely miss my work there and am missed on top. But while I was there I had time to focus on mortality and memory, how many graves were forgotten, how many were unmarked and unremembered, how many names of people once prominent now faded into relative obscurity and were not visited. Occasionally, I was touched by the marker of a child and would put flowers there in sadness for the loss that must have been felt. I helped widows and survivors and calmed them down. I realized I had the skill to touch people and move them but it was only because it was uncorrupted by any desire to obtain favor, gain, or other objective other than just soothing pain. My depression there remained firmly in check. It was in some senses a convalescence and highly irrelevant to the overall point of my statement here but it shows how much I was able to think in peace.
This time was spent thinking things out and I was having to wrestle with the existential questions of meaning and purpose and how to find happiness. I wondered how atheists found happiness and understood that the mass population refusing to renounce fantasies brought alive the concept of ignorance is bliss. I finally happened upon the novel idea that one had to choose to believe despite knowing everything else and this seemed to be confirmed by a priest I met in Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, the more I try the less honest that idea becomes since it invites the unchecked notion of fantasy as one's guiding principle. If such were the case, then I might as well embrace the Lord of the Rings as my fantasy or any other fiction I might read or concoct. So to this day, the esoteric side of this process remains empty with the assumption that it is there for me to put whatever I want because it makes no real difference. On the self validating side of my thinking, however, a different sort of metal was forged.
I gradually realized that given what I understood to be the current nature of the world and human beings that I could be answerable to no one. By understanding the conventions of human beings, their biochemical origins, their commonalities and overlaps with all things living on this planet, I realized that I could remain apart from the micro and macro manipulation that took place. Since nothing truly mattered in the end, and all knowledge, memory and evidence of our species would be utterly destroyed in the end, I could laugh at anyone's mission of urgency, pedantic everyday emergencies. I knew that the power to manipulate through threatening to fire, punish, humiliate, ostracise, goad, reward were ultimately simple puppet strings that enabled others to control and influence my mind and will to enrich theirs. So the absurdity of everything became crystal clear. Insanity might be deemed a term for those out of touch with reality and unable to function within society. Self awareness might very well qualify for that definition. I do not accept the reality that is put before me because it is all a grand illusion of vain pursuits and self enriching endeavors. I think there are some who break free but they keep quiet. To me, insanity is working all my life for stupid ends only to enrich someone else and then end up empty and disappointed by the pointless work, unnecessary chasing of gain, titles, status, and deluded belief that somehow all the effort and work is something that was lasting. Return again, I urge you, to my point about old cemetery markers and who remembers these important people long dead? No work by human hands will likely last beyond 100,000 years. By far, the bulk of everything made by humans that record anything and everything we have done will be gone much sooner than that, more on the order of 500 years. Don't believe me? Finally someone put together a very well researched presentation on this very subject. Alan Wiseman's, World Without Humans in both written, audio and visual media might change your mind. I did write to him and present to possible alternatives for preservation of knowledge and he was kind enough to return my letter and run the ideas past his engineers. My ideas were simple - tablets with any knowledge you choose engraved on solid gold. Gold is, of course utterly incorruptible and if entombed in a geographically stable and geologically quiet location it is possible that such knowledge could last millions of years. Another idea was that of laser engraved crystal shapes with knowledge inside. This idea came to me when I saw the photography novelties at grocery stores where the image is created within the crystal. Assuming that similar stable environs were provided, this might mirror gold in its endurance.
But these novel discussions aside, I realized that suddenly was liberated in almost every sense of the word. I looked and still look at people differently. I realized that I could deal death in an instant to anyone and it wouldn't matter...ultimately. I only had to look coldly in someones eyes and almost silently communicate that I wasn't to be trifled with and that their doom was only as far as my fingers. The same is true for me, I knew that I could have death dealt to me at any instant and to not fear it. Thus, a new sense of balance formed, not malicious, not hateful but no fear. This lack of fear is personal and does not translate to being cold hearted. Despite my awareness of ultimate futility and human frailties, such sentiments do not encourage anger or violence but instead urge peace, calm and reflection. It does not mean I could care less about people, to the contrary - I care too much and am devoted to family notwithstanding my own inner depressive unhappiness. I feel more deeply than ever before and am more enraged at injustices inflicted upon the weak and helpless. I can see and feel more of life now that I have been able to partly tear down the veils of absurdity from my eyes. I notice more clearly patterns in nature and with all living systems that speak to harmony and balance rather than disorder. This is a source of wonder and comfort. This is hidden from people blinded by everyday concerns, constant pressure, and unending background noise from activity. To my mind, this state of mind is where real learning can begin, real pursuit of understanding and peace can start to grow. That is ultimately calming and one of the reasons I love art so much. It is a discipline tool to try and harness that balance and also teach the world how idiotic most things are. So I reach out to anyone who wants to feel free but can't tell them for sure I feel happiness but it seems fundamentally I should have the right to find it.
Part of me has developed a razors edge in sniffing out bogus, illogical or deceptive situations, statements and people. In reducing human emotions to their most basic motivations, primal motivations, the ability to see beyond the complex facades that all people construct. Sales personnel, politicians and con artists do this everyday but from a twisted perspective. Their motive is to try not only to peg the underlying emotion but to manipulate it in such a way as to deprive you of your judgement and reason by redirecting your thoughts or, if necessary, create a need where there is none. Fear is one of the oldest behaviors that has governed human behavior from the instictive reactions for survival to the awareness of self and existence and threats to them. Fear is infectious, easily instilled and can be radicalized into a juggernaut of destruction. Abusers of women and children excel in this. Using tools of intimidation, threats of violence, violence, shame, isolation, inadequacy, and even religious doctrine all weaken and break the mind. If one loses this fear, however, of death and destruction, then the individual becomes confused, frustrated and increasingly desparate to reassert control. So much of human behavior is clearly defined by psychology and biology that the more one searches for patterns in these areas the more clearly sophisticated responses to primal needs can be determined. This goes further, however, in finding echoes in nature. Criminal psychological profiling to some degree relies on these tools to try and understand the needs of the perpetrator. Criminal Interrogation focuses on the weaknesses and needs of the human mind to extract information through the same tools. These tools aside, the focus for me is on the larger picture of how human beings and their fellow living organisms on earth fit into a pattern of basic need and response that echoes over and over in varying degrees of complexity and an increasingly interconnected coexistence.
It is also true that in understanding these overlapping patterns and quickly identifying behaviors and needs among individuals that finding a mode of communication can become easier. I have discovered that skill in writing, use of honesty, openness, use of personal experience, emotive language and helping decipher someone's inability to articulate their needs in words, a relationship can be quickly established, and trust that is not normally given be forthcoming. It suggests there is the potential to help individuals in a very unique way but also underscores the tremendous danger of abuse that either currently exists or can done by using this sort of understanding. When I write, I find strength in words, and have developed the skill to capture emotion in a variety of ways and expressed through endless varieties of combinations to help resonate with the person. The idea is not simply to wow someone with writing but to reach them in a way that bypasses the defenses and says that I mean no harm and open myself to you in any way you find necessary to build trust. From there, the hope and effort has been to zero in on what has caused them to search. I want to know what pain they have to help them work through it. This is not closet therapy but rather simply understanding their perspective of what bothers them, articulating that for complete understanding, re-examining what the fears and concerns are and striving to vanquish the nonsense that has been hammered into them and liberate the mind that has been imprisoned and locked away. For some, the locking away is severe and the abuse extreme, but the common language is suffering and depression. I ask for nothing and expect nothing. Instead we work on various things together as they like, to draw out the life and zeal for living we all need. This renewal of self esteem revives much of what is essential of the human spirit, affection, nurturing, kindness, gentleness and even erotic writing. Success with this validates my hope to ease the burden of my fellow man and gives hope to someone else.
If someone's ability to believe in themselves is rekindled, then they become very powerful. I still struggle with this and have not found a way to keep depression in check. My medicines still hold it back but they continue to weaken and eventually may not be able to stop the increasing regression of sadness. The depression and sadness of others I've worked with have their roots in oppressive relationships and some with chronic disorders. We've bonded in ways unique to most and stronger than most. But it is uplifting because I have to remain constant to the hope to enable them to follow their own path. As a friend, I rejoice in their happiness, mourn with their grief and sadness, and do whatever I can to ease the pain that constantly flows. The love of fellow human beings in a giving state enables great things, but it musn't be clouded by selfish ends but a constant reminder that the hope is to liberate the mind and spirit to make their own choices and follow their own dreams. In early American history, the coined phrases were famous ones, "Live free or die" and "Don't tread on me" more properly translated as "nemo me impune lacessit" which means No one shall provoke me with impunity. The phrase every person trying to liberate their mind or spirit either in searching or escaping oppression should be the same phrase used by the tyrant Stalin. In many ways it is appropriate to use the order of a tyrant to fight another tyrant, Niye Shaga Khazad which is the phonetic pronunciation of the Russian order, "Not one Step Backwards."
Seeking enlightenment and understanding may be the only way the human species can survive. The natural world has checks and balances that maintain order even if sometimes with overkill. Humans continue to defy the checks of war, disease, stupidity and life expectancy and have continued to expand and consume without restraint. In finding enlightenment, other goals in life generally become silly and pointless endeavors. I think,however, that part of the duty of one seeking to understand both himself and the world in general is to liberate those trying to be free and bitterly contest oppression in ways that fit one's skills and abilities. This means every human institution is suspect because they all have and continue to engage in abuse. This means not idly by when others are hurting, and offering what one can with materiale or words or even embraces is the thing that should be done. This also means equipping someone for a clandestine war of resistence to liberate from oppression be it full blown war or bad relationship.
While ultimately things we do may be of no consequence, the effort to care for one's fellow human is a worthy goal. Caring for offspring to enable them to focus on a journey of self reflection is worthy. What is needed to get to that journey's end, however, is not always the right approach. The distractions of pride, materialism, power, status, and fundmental emotions unmet all continue to cloud and block progress. I am forced also to concened another point that I haven't reconciled in my own search for understanding. True enlightement would likely mean the absence of anger, malice and violence. This becomes difficult when the transparent and growing threat of influences that directly oppose this come into focus. Religious oppression is particularly pernicious in its poisoning of the developing mind and beating down of the uninfected mind. This has to be fought tooth and nail every step. But how does one deal with the problem of war? It is easy enough for one to say I would die for this belief, cause or person. That individual choice is simple enough. The more complex question comes in from a different approach. Are your principles of enlightement and liberating those who would struggle to be free such that you could say, "These are beliefs that I would kill for?" It is hard to reconcile such a stark contrast especially given the reality of ultimate insignificance, but in the short term it would appear that to enable progress to enlightenment for individuals to proceed, the threats have to be removed.
**undeveloped section -
yet even knowing all these things, one cannot escape the personified haunts of the mind. Everyone who suffers depression in whatever form sees them and knows them. The specters of sadness, pain, grief, isolation and despair. They are not malevolent, not hateful, but quite to the contrary the very image of soothing. I don't feel anything but a soft feminine voice that has a sad but understanding tone that caresses and reassures. This gentle feeling is so soothing and comforting that it overpowers everything. That is one reason I think that depressives can be more gentle, kind and understanding than most. They feel pain, sense anguish and want to help those hurting just like they desire to be helped.
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