A letter to some friends (and the rest of humanity):
Some of you know parts of this story; some of you know most of it; some of you would probably want to know it. Instead of saying the same thing several times, or have it get corrupted through the grapevine, I'm sending it out to all of you once.
Yes, I know by evoking the film and play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum I'm evoking humor even though I say in the subject line it's not that humorous. But to borrow and modify Socrates: "Life without humor is not worth living." I promise it has a happy (so far) ending.
So: Last Thursday I went to the doctor's office about pain in my left leg I'd been experiencing since that Sunday. It'd gotten progressive worse till by the time of the appointment I was in a lot of pain from simply walking. She sent me to an imaging center to have an ultrasound taken. There I was diagnosed as having a large blood clot. The doctor called in a prescription for blood thinners; I picked them up, and went home. Saturday, with the leg pain a little worse, I started experiencing mild chest pain. It was very mild, but I knew that that was a symptom that part of the clot had migrated to my lungs. I went to the ER where I was hospitalized and was put on a more aggressive blood-thinning regimen. They discharged me today. I'm relatively fine. Chest pain is gone and leg feels much better. I'll be on blood-thinners for possibly a year, maybe even longer since I have a history of blood clotting; I had a blood clot once before about ten years ago.
Blood clots are serious. They can kill. But they are also easily preventable. In the grand scheme of things having blood that likes to clot is NO BIG DEAL. There are vast numbers of people who suffer from afflictions--physical, mental, economic, social, political--much greater than the afflictions I have ever suffered. Thank you all for the well wishes you've given me--whether personally or in your hearts--but honestly, truly, wish wellness more for those far less fortunate than I.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Scarlet "A"
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits adultery and is forced to live in shame in the outskirts of puritanical Boston. As part of her punishment she must wear a scarlet "A" on her chest at all times to remind everyone that she committed adultery. Eventually she becomes a somewhat respectable seamstress as time goes on, while her husband and lover die from their unpunished sins of jealousy and adultery, respectively. It is a morality tale, to be sure, and a Christian one at that, meant to showcase the principles of forgiveness and forbearance. But who is this God who is meant to forgive? Does he even exist?
Most probably not. And if he does, I don't want to worship him. For he is a jealous god, he even says so in the bible. A god who would condemn me simply for not worshipping him is not a good god. He shares much with Hester Prynne's husband. And adultery? Yes, he will forgive as long as you believe and worship him. He puts that above rape and murder and an uncounted number of other heinous things people commit against each other. He's like a little kid that wants you to swear to be his bestest friend in the whole world, or else... God is, in short, a major prick who doesn't even exist.
Yet, over two billion people believe in him? Why? Can so many people suffer from, as Richard Dawkins calls it, The God Delusion? Some, certainly yes. But I believe many do it out of habit and community. One thing religious groups have that non-religious groups don't have is a sense of community. Churches are great places to meet people and hang out. In fact, I heard recently that according to a study, community is the number one reason people go to church.
Where are atheists supposed to hang out? I firmly believe that we're a greater part of the population than most think. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I don't want to believe that in the 21st century most people on Earth passionately believe in some magical fairy(ies), 'cause that's all god(s) are. But again, religions have community. I know atheists are notoriously resistant to organizing. Some fear that some sort of atheistic religion may develop. Others feel that religion (or lack thereof) is not part of their lives, so just let them be. Well, for the latter group, especially in the United States, religious fundamentalists are making it very much a part of our lives. For the former, you're just going to have to be wary of that sort of thing; theoretically you have a greater chance of avoiding blind faith dogma than the religious zealot. There is a third group I'll get to a little later.
The religious right are a vocal group and a voting constituency. And I suspect they drag much of the moderate Christians, the holiday Christians, and the community Christians along with them. Those people who haven't really thought about The God Question but call themselves Christian or religious stand at the voting booth and vote for the fundie Republican because they think they agree with that candidate. But chances are, if those Christians get their way, America will resemble the puritan Boston of Hawthorne's novel much more closely than a moderate Christian would care to want. Perhaps in this hypothetical Dystopia, the scarlet "A" will stand for "Atheist."
Except, the atheists have already beaten them to the punch. The Out Campaign--inspired by the gay community--encourages atheists to "out" themselves. One way to out yourself is to put a scarlet "A" on your website like the one at the top of this page. It's unobtrusive. It's an identifying mark to those who know what it means. To those who don't know what it means, they'll either not care, or perhaps they'll look it up and maybe learn something. And best of all, it's ironic.
Above, I did not include one group of atheists who don't organize: the "closeted" atheists, those who fear losing their job or social/family repercussions if they come out as an atheist. That's why I think those who are able to say they are atheists should do so unambiguously, unequivocally. We need to show the world we are not some tiny minority. We need to change society so that those that fear loss of their lifestyle will someday no longer fear.
Though I strongly disagree with the religiosity of Hawthorne's novel, I agree with a lot of its themes. One is that it's no fun living a lie. Hester Prynne's lover, who confesses only as he's dying, knows that all too well. Whether someone is gay, atheist, or something else outside the social mainstream but engages in harmless activity, that person closeted also knows all too well the pain of living a lie. We need to show our numbers. But most of all, we need to be more understanding, more open, more kind to each other.
Most probably not. And if he does, I don't want to worship him. For he is a jealous god, he even says so in the bible. A god who would condemn me simply for not worshipping him is not a good god. He shares much with Hester Prynne's husband. And adultery? Yes, he will forgive as long as you believe and worship him. He puts that above rape and murder and an uncounted number of other heinous things people commit against each other. He's like a little kid that wants you to swear to be his bestest friend in the whole world, or else... God is, in short, a major prick who doesn't even exist.
Yet, over two billion people believe in him? Why? Can so many people suffer from, as Richard Dawkins calls it, The God Delusion? Some, certainly yes. But I believe many do it out of habit and community. One thing religious groups have that non-religious groups don't have is a sense of community. Churches are great places to meet people and hang out. In fact, I heard recently that according to a study, community is the number one reason people go to church.
Where are atheists supposed to hang out? I firmly believe that we're a greater part of the population than most think. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I don't want to believe that in the 21st century most people on Earth passionately believe in some magical fairy(ies), 'cause that's all god(s) are. But again, religions have community. I know atheists are notoriously resistant to organizing. Some fear that some sort of atheistic religion may develop. Others feel that religion (or lack thereof) is not part of their lives, so just let them be. Well, for the latter group, especially in the United States, religious fundamentalists are making it very much a part of our lives. For the former, you're just going to have to be wary of that sort of thing; theoretically you have a greater chance of avoiding blind faith dogma than the religious zealot. There is a third group I'll get to a little later.
The religious right are a vocal group and a voting constituency. And I suspect they drag much of the moderate Christians, the holiday Christians, and the community Christians along with them. Those people who haven't really thought about The God Question but call themselves Christian or religious stand at the voting booth and vote for the fundie Republican because they think they agree with that candidate. But chances are, if those Christians get their way, America will resemble the puritan Boston of Hawthorne's novel much more closely than a moderate Christian would care to want. Perhaps in this hypothetical Dystopia, the scarlet "A" will stand for "Atheist."
Except, the atheists have already beaten them to the punch. The Out Campaign--inspired by the gay community--encourages atheists to "out" themselves. One way to out yourself is to put a scarlet "A" on your website like the one at the top of this page. It's unobtrusive. It's an identifying mark to those who know what it means. To those who don't know what it means, they'll either not care, or perhaps they'll look it up and maybe learn something. And best of all, it's ironic.
Above, I did not include one group of atheists who don't organize: the "closeted" atheists, those who fear losing their job or social/family repercussions if they come out as an atheist. That's why I think those who are able to say they are atheists should do so unambiguously, unequivocally. We need to show the world we are not some tiny minority. We need to change society so that those that fear loss of their lifestyle will someday no longer fear.
Though I strongly disagree with the religiosity of Hawthorne's novel, I agree with a lot of its themes. One is that it's no fun living a lie. Hester Prynne's lover, who confesses only as he's dying, knows that all too well. Whether someone is gay, atheist, or something else outside the social mainstream but engages in harmless activity, that person closeted also knows all too well the pain of living a lie. We need to show our numbers. But most of all, we need to be more understanding, more open, more kind to each other.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
NaNoWriMo is for the Birds
In an earlier post I implied that someday I would decry our culture's obsession with "less is more." Specifically, I implied that the 140 character streams in Twitter was not enough info. This is not that essay. Though I still feel that way for a lot of things, Twitter (and small packages in general) do have their uses.
A few days ago I finished a novel. I wrote in about a month. It was for a challenge called National Novel Writing Mouth (NaNoWriMo for short), held annually in the month of November. Sounds like an impossible challenge, until you consider two things: 1) If you break it down to a daily amount, it's not that many words (1,667) and 2) It's a short novel (50,000 words). In an industry that considers 80,000 to be the lower limit, 50K sounds too short. And many continue their novels into December to beef it up into publishable range. But not I; I went 2,068 words over the 50K finish line and I reached the story's natural end. And I'm not going to beef it up. Why? Because I know of a publisher that'd be willing to see it as a 50K novel. So there's at least one, and probably more, willing to accept short novel submissions. And I think, indirectly, that Twitter has something to do with that.
This publisher is mostly an epublisher. Their clientele is comfortable reading their books on a screen instead of on a page. And many are comfortable with Twitter. They get their information in bits and flashes; they don't want to waste their time on that chapter about belly lint as metaphor for oppressive capitalism. And while this cultural ADHD has its problems (that alluded to future essay), it also boils everything down to just the essentials. There's something to be said about crystallizing communication down to the basics--a sort of right speech principle. Then, after we're done reading the short novel, we can go about doing something else in this short life. I think the Internet and sites like Twitter are helping lead the way. I don't think it'll be a bad thing in the future to see less 200K monsters out there and more 50K lean novels.
Below is a list of Tweets related to writing my novel. I didn't update my word count everyday (the days I didn't will be obvious). It was an interesting experience to give short, pertinent, themed, updates; the information Twitter is good for (not telling the world what you had for breakfast). So, in reverse order from newest to oldest, are the tweets:
A few days ago I finished a novel. I wrote in about a month. It was for a challenge called National Novel Writing Mouth (NaNoWriMo for short), held annually in the month of November. Sounds like an impossible challenge, until you consider two things: 1) If you break it down to a daily amount, it's not that many words (1,667) and 2) It's a short novel (50,000 words). In an industry that considers 80,000 to be the lower limit, 50K sounds too short. And many continue their novels into December to beef it up into publishable range. But not I; I went 2,068 words over the 50K finish line and I reached the story's natural end. And I'm not going to beef it up. Why? Because I know of a publisher that'd be willing to see it as a 50K novel. So there's at least one, and probably more, willing to accept short novel submissions. And I think, indirectly, that Twitter has something to do with that.
This publisher is mostly an epublisher. Their clientele is comfortable reading their books on a screen instead of on a page. And many are comfortable with Twitter. They get their information in bits and flashes; they don't want to waste their time on that chapter about belly lint as metaphor for oppressive capitalism. And while this cultural ADHD has its problems (that alluded to future essay), it also boils everything down to just the essentials. There's something to be said about crystallizing communication down to the basics--a sort of right speech principle. Then, after we're done reading the short novel, we can go about doing something else in this short life. I think the Internet and sites like Twitter are helping lead the way. I don't think it'll be a bad thing in the future to see less 200K monsters out there and more 50K lean novels.
Below is a list of Tweets related to writing my novel. I didn't update my word count everyday (the days I didn't will be obvious). It was an interesting experience to give short, pertinent, themed, updates; the information Twitter is good for (not telling the world what you had for breakfast). So, in reverse order from newest to oldest, are the tweets:
246 pages. 52068 words. 1st draft of novel is DONE!!!! Now to editor, where he'll hate it. Or maybe he'll say,"Sean, I'm so stoked for you."
2 Dec
I won! (Though I'm not done w/ novel) Winning word count: 50035. I think another 1 or 2K and it'll be finished. To bed now. #nanowrimo#nano
30 Nov
48161 words for day 29. I'm at a 24 hour coffee shop/bookstore till I get to 50k. #nanowrimo #nano
30 Nov
2 days to go. I think I settled on a title. I might try to do a final word push tomorrow to finish it. D28. 46678 words. #nanowrimo #nano
29 Nov
2 scenes (I think) away from the end! And I'm all caught up. Day 27. 45303 words. #nanowrimo #nano
28 Nov
My story's officially a novel by sfwa standards (40K+ words) woohoo! Tomorrow I do a 26 hour write-in. D26, 41115 words#nanowrimo #nano
27 Nov
Too full of turkey to get to 40K today, but just barely. 2 days till another overnight write-in. Day 25. 39703 words. #nanowrimo #nano
26 Nov
Got my 1667 word count in. Good considering I had story to critique. Hopefully be @ 40K by end of Turkey Day. D24, 37673 wrds.#nanowrimo
25 Nov
Spent the day w/ Boulder Wrimos @ Atlas & Dark Horse. 2600 words written. Thanks @nicolejleboeuf 4 organizing. D23, 36013 wrds. #nanowrimo
24 Nov
The Denver Broncos suck again, which is good 'cause I had more time to write. Day 22. 33415 words. #DenverBroncos #nanowrimo#nano
23 Nov
24 hour write-in a success!Wrote about 7000 words.Think next time I'll get a bed instead of sleeping on hardwood.D21, 32031 words.#nanowrimo
21 Nov
4888 words today. Most productive day so far, by far. Hope I can continue the steam tomorrow. Day 20. 30017 total words.#nanowrimo #nano
20 Nov
Today I battled dragons, so didn't have any time to write. Interesting factoids about dragons: they metabolize platinum (hence their love of precious metals). Actually, they use it to catalyze the reaction that produces fire. And they use their hydrogen bladders as both a fuel source and to help them fly. So a good strategy--if you are a dragon slayer--is to piss a dragon off so much that she'll burn up all her (male dragons are flightless and cannot breath fire, and usually get roasted to death when they mate) hydrogen and thus cannot easily fly on her puny wings. Then it's just a matter of walking up and shooting her with a dragon pistol. Of course, the trick is not to get any casualties while doing all this. #entirely,totally,absolutely100%without-a-doubtdon'tevenneedtoaskyourgrandmotheroryourgrandfatheroryourfatherormotheroranybrothersandsistersorcousinfrankwhojoinedtheteapartybecausehethoughthe'dhaveawesomegaysex,nanowrimoupdate
20 Nov (Or something like that)
Zero more words today. But I did get 2nd place in a spelling bee. Can you spell "procrastination?" Day 18. 25129 words. #nanowrimo
19 Nov
Very unproductive day. 97 more words. Yes, you read that correctly. day 17. 25129 words total. #nanowrimo
18 Nov
1/2-way done! Sure I'm a day late, but I'm looking at at 24 hour write-in this weekend, so it's all good. Day 16. 25032 words.#nanowrimo
17 Nov
Day 15. 21382 words. But not done for the night. The Muse is up and the Sandman's nowhere is sight. #nanowrimo
16 Nov
Nighty-night Twitterverse. Now have written over 100 pages. 21382 words. Day 14. #nanowrimo
15 Nov
Casting for my novel: Simon Baker, Lady Gaga, and Samuel L. Jackson. Day 13. 19529 words. #nanowrimo
13 Nov
Gotta stop going to write-ins where every1's talking. Like going to a meditation session where every1's talking.Day 12.16721 wrds#nanowrimo
12 Nov
Minor character meant to be a red herring & comic relief has turned out to be quite important. Day 11. 16054 words #nanowrimo
12 Nov
Still behind on 10th day. Tomorrow weather's supposed to be bad, so play catch up, I hope. 14358 words. #nanowrimo
11 Nov
I must've gotten abducted by aliens on November 10. No Twitter updates. Nothing. I think it must be aliens. I think I wrote that day but I just didn't tweet about it. The alien anal probe must've been too irritating for me to concentrate on Tweeter updates. Or maybe I had a conversation with God that day. Or Zeus. Or Harry Potter. Something magical, not rational, 'cause, really, any unexplained phenomena must have a magical origin. Otherwise, why would you need God? #philosophicalranttoolongtofitinatweet
10 Nov
Not very productive day. Began to weave a neglected subplot thru-out the story. 8th day. 12040 total words. #nanowrimo
9 Nov
My characters are doing some weird shit. I'll figure them out, I hope. 7th day. 11674 words. #nanowrimo
7 Nov
Zero, zilch, nada, naught, nihil, null, non, nothing, empty set, less than 1 more words today.But not behind.woohoo!Still @ 10046#nanowrimo
6 Nov
Saw no ghosts (or Stephen King characters) @ Stanley Hotel write-in. Very productive 5th day. One day ahead now. 10046 words#nanowrimo
5 Nov
Nighty-night for fourth day. Tomorrow I write in the Stanley Hotel. All work and no play makes... 7174 words. #nanowrimo
5 Nov
Not as productive 3rd day. But hit my target almost on bullseye. 5001 words. #nanowrimo
3 Nov
Fiction better than reality. 3874 words. #election2010 #nanowrimo
2 Nov
1926 words. Done for 1st day. #nanowrimo
1 Nov
I'm nanowrimoing! #nanowrimo
1 Nov
Sunday, October 17, 2010
On Writing Likable Characters
A woman lies face down on the floor of an abandoned visitors' center. She's slit her wrist, but not enough to kill her. Enough, she hopes, that her captor thinks she's dead. Her captor returns to the center, unlocking the door and sees her lying on the floor. He bends over her and she moves, hitting him in the head and bolts for the door. She runs into the wilderness, a swampy, semi-tropical forest with her captor chasing her from behind. After trampling through some trees and underbrush she comes to a road where she flags down a car. The car is full of teenagers and she believes they want her for sex. So she backs off from the road. This gives her captor time to grab and pull her into the camouflage of the forest. Are we disappointed that she lost this battle? No. 'Cause the captor is none other than Dexter Morgan, a forensic blood-spatter scientist by day, a serial killer by night, and we the audience have been rooting for him for five seasons.
Common advise among writing circles is that the protagonist must be likable. She may have flaws, but at the end of the day, we want her to win. Ergo, we must like her. Right? Wrong. Take Dexter, for example. From the beginning we are invited into his world, his thoughts, his warped sense of justice. If he has redeeming qualities, it's maybe that he (usually) only kills the bad guys. So he's a vigilante, appealing to the "dark passenger" in each of us of wishing the bad guys get their just deserves not with courts or law, but with the blind force of rage. But his victims are usually guilty. Sometimes new evidence comes to light that shows the victim's innocence. Sometimes someone gets too close and he must kill them to protect his secret. In season 2 Dexter framed a man for his own murders. The man was guilty only of being an asshole. Dexter probably would've killed the man but Dexter's mistress did it for him. As thanks, Dexter murdered her to protect his secret hobby. Through the thick and thin of it all the audience roots for Dexter. Maybe we can empathize with him because his traumatic childhood made him who he is. But if Dexter were real and I knew who he was, I'd stay as far away from him as possible. And I'd turn him into the cops. In real life, I would want the cops to win. In fiction, I'll root for him all the time. Likable he is not.
So why does Dexter have a following? It has five seasons and several rewards and nominations. But it violates this "rule" that the main character must be likable. Melanie Tem, a well published author I know, said that the key to the protagonist is that she or he is interesting. Dexter is definitely that. We watch because he is complex and nuanced. He reveals our dark nature and--through him--we revel in it. In a way he's cathartic. He forces us to examine where our sympathies and empathies lie. He's certainly a fine definition of an antihero. As there were antiheroes before, there will be antiheroes after, always proving the rule of likable characters wrong. We like antiheroes not because we like them, but because they force us to examine ourselves.
Common advise among writing circles is that the protagonist must be likable. She may have flaws, but at the end of the day, we want her to win. Ergo, we must like her. Right? Wrong. Take Dexter, for example. From the beginning we are invited into his world, his thoughts, his warped sense of justice. If he has redeeming qualities, it's maybe that he (usually) only kills the bad guys. So he's a vigilante, appealing to the "dark passenger" in each of us of wishing the bad guys get their just deserves not with courts or law, but with the blind force of rage. But his victims are usually guilty. Sometimes new evidence comes to light that shows the victim's innocence. Sometimes someone gets too close and he must kill them to protect his secret. In season 2 Dexter framed a man for his own murders. The man was guilty only of being an asshole. Dexter probably would've killed the man but Dexter's mistress did it for him. As thanks, Dexter murdered her to protect his secret hobby. Through the thick and thin of it all the audience roots for Dexter. Maybe we can empathize with him because his traumatic childhood made him who he is. But if Dexter were real and I knew who he was, I'd stay as far away from him as possible. And I'd turn him into the cops. In real life, I would want the cops to win. In fiction, I'll root for him all the time. Likable he is not.
So why does Dexter have a following? It has five seasons and several rewards and nominations. But it violates this "rule" that the main character must be likable. Melanie Tem, a well published author I know, said that the key to the protagonist is that she or he is interesting. Dexter is definitely that. We watch because he is complex and nuanced. He reveals our dark nature and--through him--we revel in it. In a way he's cathartic. He forces us to examine where our sympathies and empathies lie. He's certainly a fine definition of an antihero. As there were antiheroes before, there will be antiheroes after, always proving the rule of likable characters wrong. We like antiheroes not because we like them, but because they force us to examine ourselves.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Our Addiction to Space and Going Against Our Hard-Wiring
The next time you're stuck in rush-hour traffic, look at the cars around you. How many have only one person in them? Are you the only occupant in your car? How often do you have someone ride with you? Of the cars around you, how many are designed to seat only one or two people? The answers are semi-rhetorical but few people stop to think about it. Most of the time you and everyone else who drives on a regular basis drive only yourself in a car designed to seat at least four people. Think of the space and energy wasted hauling around tons of plastic and metal and empty space. Now consider this: as urban areas grow, cities are forced to expand their highway systems to accommodate more traffic (which temporarily causes the situation to worsen). More traffic because of more people? No. Most of that expansion is for hauling around more empty space. Sure, more lanes mean more cars on the freeway, but most of the space is taken up by empty passenger seats. Where are all these cars going to anyway? To homes in suburbia, to empty, spacious homes. So why is this a problem? Because there's nearly seven billion of us on the planet.
We humans are somewhat territorial; we value our space. And we get pissed if someone violates it. In a lot of causes, it's illegal. Someone breaking into your house? That's a space violation. Picking up a hitchhiker? Many don't do it because they say it's dangerous, but I suspect that the real reason is that it's a space violation: "I enjoy sitting in my empty car." It's an almost unconscious fact, like a hard wiring, perhaps even on the genetic level: we humans need our space. That's why the environmental movement is all about recycling and driving electric vehicles and reducing our carbon footprint. But it's rarely about reducing our actual footprint, reducing the space our civilization takes up. Few ever say, "Live in the city where you can actually walk or ride (bike, bus, or subway) to work. If you need to, get a one or two person electric vehicle with just enough space to put groceries in."
No, one usually thinks the opposite: a home in the woods, with passive and active solar energy, maybe a wind turbine, and maybe even a small farm to "live of the land." And the transportation? Maybe an electric car's the way to go in this "environmental" home, but it probably sits at least four. What if this home is far from town (because, after all, this home is "environmental" and needs to commune with nature), say twenty miles. That's a forty mile commute, pushing the range upper-limits on some electric cars. OK, fine, make it a hybrid. But what about winters? The city isn't going to make that neighborhood a priority (those pesky "unenvironmental" city-dwellers have priority). What about a small Jeep to navigate the snow? But if the snow is high, a small Jeep isn't going to cut it. Better get something a little heavier. A pickup, maybe, with a plow attachment, to get rid of the snow. But you need to take the kids to soccer practice, so make it an extended cab. But they don't like to be crowded--they always fight over that--so make it a four-door extended cab. Lots of room for growing girls and boys. Oooo! You know what? You could take the neighbor's kids to soccer practice too. Carpooling sometimes, now that's "environmental!" Better make it a large SUV, you don't need the pickup bed anyway. By the way, I don't mean to be disparaging you and your choices. If you're a stranger reading this, I obviously never met you. So when I say "you," I often mean the generic "you." It just sounds better than using "one" to refer to a generic person. OK, now back to the rant.
So you totally threw out your transportation environmentalism out the window. But you're living off the grid--on renewable energy--and communing with nature. But how much space you take up? Don't just include the actual footprint of the house, but also the road that goes to your house. Is the road that goes to your house only for you, or is it shared? If it's shared, what's its traffic density? What's the traffic density of all the roads you use to go to all the places you go to? Say you took your house and made it an apartment unit. Same size, but now it's part of a larger building instead of a stand-alone structure. Say it's a two story house and now you've moved it into a twenty story apartment building. What's its footprint? It's taking up the same amount of space as in the woods, so it's the same, right? Wrong. It's at least ten times smaller because it's shared space by ten other two-story apartment units. Now I know ground space is saved by building up, not out. But resources are still saved. Heat escaping the "roof" of your apartment home becomes heat for the apartment above you. Whereas, in the woods, it's lost to the environment, even with super-good insulation (no insulation is perfect). And, remember, when I said at least ten-times less a footprint? Well, you no longer have your own road, you have a shared road by a lot of people. More shared resources. More environmental. Not the sarcastic "environmental," but truly environmental. That forty-mile commute in that giant SUV? Well, ideally work now will be within walking or riding (bike, bus, or subway) distance. And the streets are plowed!--because a million people demanding clear streets carry a lot more weight than the ten living in the woods. And if you need to, you can buy that one or two seat electric vehicle (not the four-seater) to run errands. Your kids and the neighbor's kids can walk or take the bus.
Obviously, I have a lot of issues with the current environmental movement. I think wasted space and lack of shared resources is of paramount importance. Of course, the reason we got to this point is because--to put it bluntly--we fuck too much. Sex just feels good, and despite birth control, we have the fundamental Darwinian urge to reproduce. Study-after-study has shown that people derive much satisfaction from raising children even though those same people also say it's hard work and sometimes more stressful than their jobs. So what should we do? We need to first acknowledge that our hard-wiring is working against us; we need to be less territorial, less horny, and less desiring to propagate the species.
Much of what I've said I've taken from other sources. I think the genesis came when I read an article arguing how New York is one of the most environmental cities, and how living in the woods is not. Much of what I said above is simply paraphrasing that article. I've tried to find that article to cite, but unfortunately I could not. So sue me; this ain't no academic treatise. The actor Nathan Fillion posted on twitter info on a car company he and actor Jon Huertas had found. That car company Arcimoto Motors will make small three-wheeled two passenger electric cars. The actors flew out to the company's headquarters in Eugene, OR and became unpaid celebrity endorsers, which gave the company publicity and spurred R&D contributions from fans of Nathan Fillion (and crashed the Arcimoto website). Finding this company spurred me to write this blog post. I can cite them as a source: www.arcimoto.com.
From their website:
Of course, this is an advertisement to get you to buy their car (or to put down a $500 deposit to reserve your car when they start production). But the point of showing this is to showing that there is some noise out there that's an alternative to the "environmental" cabin in the woods. It's a start.
And it's a start for me as well. I don't live the ideal outlined above: living in a high-rise apartment complex, driving a tiny electric vehicle when I need to, and paying more for my electricity to support the cost of my power company's wind-power farm. In fact, I think it's somewhat scary. I wrote a sci-fi novel fragment once where everyone lived in a super-dense city known as an archology (essentially a city within one building--talk about shared resources). The city was so dense that for most people, the closest thing to a home was a bed they would get for eight hours. The beds were stacked one-atop-another on a huge wall. A person would climb a ladder to get to their bed at the beginning of their sleep shift, sleep for eight hours, and then wake up and leave, only to have someone else sleep for the next eight hours. Three sleep shifts a day, every day. Because the beds were never unoccupied, a saying in that society developed to indicate the hyper-sharing of resources: "Box beds never get cold." The novel was not intended to portray that society as Utopian. In fact, just the opposite. So yes, the idea of being stacked into box beds is not appealing to me. My hard-wiring doesn't like it. But I think I can overcome it. We need to. Otherwise we and the environment are screwed.
We humans are somewhat territorial; we value our space. And we get pissed if someone violates it. In a lot of causes, it's illegal. Someone breaking into your house? That's a space violation. Picking up a hitchhiker? Many don't do it because they say it's dangerous, but I suspect that the real reason is that it's a space violation: "I enjoy sitting in my empty car." It's an almost unconscious fact, like a hard wiring, perhaps even on the genetic level: we humans need our space. That's why the environmental movement is all about recycling and driving electric vehicles and reducing our carbon footprint. But it's rarely about reducing our actual footprint, reducing the space our civilization takes up. Few ever say, "Live in the city where you can actually walk or ride (bike, bus, or subway) to work. If you need to, get a one or two person electric vehicle with just enough space to put groceries in."
No, one usually thinks the opposite: a home in the woods, with passive and active solar energy, maybe a wind turbine, and maybe even a small farm to "live of the land." And the transportation? Maybe an electric car's the way to go in this "environmental" home, but it probably sits at least four. What if this home is far from town (because, after all, this home is "environmental" and needs to commune with nature), say twenty miles. That's a forty mile commute, pushing the range upper-limits on some electric cars. OK, fine, make it a hybrid. But what about winters? The city isn't going to make that neighborhood a priority (those pesky "unenvironmental" city-dwellers have priority). What about a small Jeep to navigate the snow? But if the snow is high, a small Jeep isn't going to cut it. Better get something a little heavier. A pickup, maybe, with a plow attachment, to get rid of the snow. But you need to take the kids to soccer practice, so make it an extended cab. But they don't like to be crowded--they always fight over that--so make it a four-door extended cab. Lots of room for growing girls and boys. Oooo! You know what? You could take the neighbor's kids to soccer practice too. Carpooling sometimes, now that's "environmental!" Better make it a large SUV, you don't need the pickup bed anyway. By the way, I don't mean to be disparaging you and your choices. If you're a stranger reading this, I obviously never met you. So when I say "you," I often mean the generic "you." It just sounds better than using "one" to refer to a generic person. OK, now back to the rant.
So you totally threw out your transportation environmentalism out the window. But you're living off the grid--on renewable energy--and communing with nature. But how much space you take up? Don't just include the actual footprint of the house, but also the road that goes to your house. Is the road that goes to your house only for you, or is it shared? If it's shared, what's its traffic density? What's the traffic density of all the roads you use to go to all the places you go to? Say you took your house and made it an apartment unit. Same size, but now it's part of a larger building instead of a stand-alone structure. Say it's a two story house and now you've moved it into a twenty story apartment building. What's its footprint? It's taking up the same amount of space as in the woods, so it's the same, right? Wrong. It's at least ten times smaller because it's shared space by ten other two-story apartment units. Now I know ground space is saved by building up, not out. But resources are still saved. Heat escaping the "roof" of your apartment home becomes heat for the apartment above you. Whereas, in the woods, it's lost to the environment, even with super-good insulation (no insulation is perfect). And, remember, when I said at least ten-times less a footprint? Well, you no longer have your own road, you have a shared road by a lot of people. More shared resources. More environmental. Not the sarcastic "environmental," but truly environmental. That forty-mile commute in that giant SUV? Well, ideally work now will be within walking or riding (bike, bus, or subway) distance. And the streets are plowed!--because a million people demanding clear streets carry a lot more weight than the ten living in the woods. And if you need to, you can buy that one or two seat electric vehicle (not the four-seater) to run errands. Your kids and the neighbor's kids can walk or take the bus.
Obviously, I have a lot of issues with the current environmental movement. I think wasted space and lack of shared resources is of paramount importance. Of course, the reason we got to this point is because--to put it bluntly--we fuck too much. Sex just feels good, and despite birth control, we have the fundamental Darwinian urge to reproduce. Study-after-study has shown that people derive much satisfaction from raising children even though those same people also say it's hard work and sometimes more stressful than their jobs. So what should we do? We need to first acknowledge that our hard-wiring is working against us; we need to be less territorial, less horny, and less desiring to propagate the species.
Much of what I've said I've taken from other sources. I think the genesis came when I read an article arguing how New York is one of the most environmental cities, and how living in the woods is not. Much of what I said above is simply paraphrasing that article. I've tried to find that article to cite, but unfortunately I could not. So sue me; this ain't no academic treatise. The actor Nathan Fillion posted on twitter info on a car company he and actor Jon Huertas had found. That car company Arcimoto Motors will make small three-wheeled two passenger electric cars. The actors flew out to the company's headquarters in Eugene, OR and became unpaid celebrity endorsers, which gave the company publicity and spurred R&D contributions from fans of Nathan Fillion (and crashed the Arcimoto website). Finding this company spurred me to write this blog post. I can cite them as a source: www.arcimoto.com.
From their website:
Stand on any busy street corner and watch the cars go by. What you typically see is a single person driving upwards of 5,000 lbs. of steel. Ask those folks where they’re going and it’s usually a 5-mile trip to the store, or their 10-mile morning commute. Tack on fuel and maintenance costs for that vehicle, and the expense in wasted resources and energy adds up quick for an individual, let alone the multiplicative effect across the whole of society.
Why haul around thousands of pounds of steel and many cubic feet of unneeded space for daily commutes, a trip to the grocery store, or visiting grandma across town? Drive something that fits. Drive the Pulse[their model they will be selling].
Of course, this is an advertisement to get you to buy their car (or to put down a $500 deposit to reserve your car when they start production). But the point of showing this is to showing that there is some noise out there that's an alternative to the "environmental" cabin in the woods. It's a start.
And it's a start for me as well. I don't live the ideal outlined above: living in a high-rise apartment complex, driving a tiny electric vehicle when I need to, and paying more for my electricity to support the cost of my power company's wind-power farm. In fact, I think it's somewhat scary. I wrote a sci-fi novel fragment once where everyone lived in a super-dense city known as an archology (essentially a city within one building--talk about shared resources). The city was so dense that for most people, the closest thing to a home was a bed they would get for eight hours. The beds were stacked one-atop-another on a huge wall. A person would climb a ladder to get to their bed at the beginning of their sleep shift, sleep for eight hours, and then wake up and leave, only to have someone else sleep for the next eight hours. Three sleep shifts a day, every day. Because the beds were never unoccupied, a saying in that society developed to indicate the hyper-sharing of resources: "Box beds never get cold." The novel was not intended to portray that society as Utopian. In fact, just the opposite. So yes, the idea of being stacked into box beds is not appealing to me. My hard-wiring doesn't like it. But I think I can overcome it. We need to. Otherwise we and the environment are screwed.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
All in Flux
Everything dies. Everything is born. One cannot exist without the other, for death implies that at one time that thing was new and fresh, recently born. We can imagine an immortal being who never dies. But is she really immortal? Would she be the same person at one thousand years old that she was at one hundred? As adults we have memories of childhood and we think we were once that being. But most of our cells would be entirely different. Sure, we can say that we must share billions or perhaps trillions of brain cells. Otherwise, we wouldn't have those childhood memories. But even then, could we really say those are the same neurons? We can look at a particular neuron we think must be the same. That neuron has been exchanging matter and energy since its own birth. The best we could say is that that neuron is a copy of the childhood neuron. In fact, it must be that. If it were the same, it would be changeless, frozen in time, permanent. And since its job is to interact with the universe, everything else would have to be permanent. There would be no such thing as time and no such thing as the impermanent activities and emotions we call our lives. In order to exist (at least in the way we can conceive it), things must die. We must die.
On Saturday, July 31 2010 my dad passed away. It was a long, slow decline to the point when he stopped breathing. But it's still hard. We all want to believe that we and our loved ones will somehow cheat death. It's somewhat selfish of us to want our loved ones to hang around and suffer for a year or two or more so we don't feel the grief of death. And it's self-deceiving to believe that after death there's a magical place full of bliss (or one full of pain). Or to believe we will somehow be reborn into another person. Those are silly childish notions. But after our physical bodies die, we will be reborn, in a manner of speaking. My father lives on through my brother and I, and through my mom. He touched us, through his words and actions he changed us. By doing that, there's a little bit of him in us. If I ever have kids, there will be a little bit of my father in them, and in their kids and in their kids' kids... Even if my brother and I never have kids, my father influenced others besides immediate family members. There's something like only six or seven degrees of separation between any two people in the world. So some Chinese rice farmer who's never met my father or was ever remotely aware of him was changed by him. My father lives on in that rice farmer and in every other human being on the planet. His cremated ashes will help fertilize a plant or feed a fish. In the vast, distant future after the sun has swallowed the Earth and has blown itself apart, my father's ashes will help fuel a star. As the astronomer Carl Sagan said, "We are all made of star-stuff." Conversely, star-stuff is made of us. Or, as my father said, "We are made of atoms. The configurations change, but it's still just atoms." Everything's cycle of birth and death is dependent upon everything else, a very large interlocking web of causality throughout the universe. Yes, my dad died last Saturday. But so too a whole universe of possibility was reborn.
On Saturday, July 31 2010 my dad passed away. It was a long, slow decline to the point when he stopped breathing. But it's still hard. We all want to believe that we and our loved ones will somehow cheat death. It's somewhat selfish of us to want our loved ones to hang around and suffer for a year or two or more so we don't feel the grief of death. And it's self-deceiving to believe that after death there's a magical place full of bliss (or one full of pain). Or to believe we will somehow be reborn into another person. Those are silly childish notions. But after our physical bodies die, we will be reborn, in a manner of speaking. My father lives on through my brother and I, and through my mom. He touched us, through his words and actions he changed us. By doing that, there's a little bit of him in us. If I ever have kids, there will be a little bit of my father in them, and in their kids and in their kids' kids... Even if my brother and I never have kids, my father influenced others besides immediate family members. There's something like only six or seven degrees of separation between any two people in the world. So some Chinese rice farmer who's never met my father or was ever remotely aware of him was changed by him. My father lives on in that rice farmer and in every other human being on the planet. His cremated ashes will help fertilize a plant or feed a fish. In the vast, distant future after the sun has swallowed the Earth and has blown itself apart, my father's ashes will help fuel a star. As the astronomer Carl Sagan said, "We are all made of star-stuff." Conversely, star-stuff is made of us. Or, as my father said, "We are made of atoms. The configurations change, but it's still just atoms." Everything's cycle of birth and death is dependent upon everything else, a very large interlocking web of causality throughout the universe. Yes, my dad died last Saturday. But so too a whole universe of possibility was reborn.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
On Vampires, Werewolves, and Woman's Rights
So the movie Eclipse is out, and I'm sure it'll break box office records. Millions of girls and women are going to see it over-and-over again, living in the romantic fantasy life of vampires and werewolves. I used to say that I didn't get the appeal of vampires but now, unfortunately, I do. Or at least I think I'm starting to get it. It's unfortunate because--if I'm right--it's a sad commentary on modern society. I've been told that what the vampire represents is a strong, protecting figure. Someone somewhat chivalrous, a man's man for a woman's woman, who knows how to treat a lady right. When I heard this, I said (in my head) a giant "WTF?!" Of course, I shouldn't have been that surprised. Romance as a genre seems to be rife with such notions. We've all seen it on the covers of so many Romance novels: a strong shirtless man with sweaty pectorals protecting an attractive, diminutive woman in a light, airy dress. In most Romances, the shirtless guys aren't werewolves. Take away the undead beings and the bare-chested shapeshifters and the Twilight Saga becomes just another Romance novel.
Why is all this unfortunate? Because if the male is strong and protective, does that mean that the female is weak and fragile? In Romances, it seems it often does. (A quick digression: I have never read, nor do I intend to read, any Romance, whether vampire or not. If that disqualifies me from commenting on my general perception of Romances, then so be it. I'm willing to hear alternative perspectives on Romances.) Chivalry is an archaic concept borne out of an age when women were considered property expected to pop out as many children as possible and run a household while their men were out either farming or fighting or fucking the town prostitute. How romantic! I understand that "chivalry" is often meant "to treat women with kindness and love." You should do that with anyone anyway, not just women with whom men are romantically attracted to. But modern "chivalry" still includes the implication that women are subservient. One of the main criticisms I've head about Twilight is that Bella is so timid and Edward is overbearing and overprotective. While there are some women who think it nice to be some sort of prize or trophy wife, there are many who do not. I worry that--with the success of the Twilight books--too many will think like the former and not enough like the later. And that is truly unfortunate.
Why is all this unfortunate? Because if the male is strong and protective, does that mean that the female is weak and fragile? In Romances, it seems it often does. (A quick digression: I have never read, nor do I intend to read, any Romance, whether vampire or not. If that disqualifies me from commenting on my general perception of Romances, then so be it. I'm willing to hear alternative perspectives on Romances.) Chivalry is an archaic concept borne out of an age when women were considered property expected to pop out as many children as possible and run a household while their men were out either farming or fighting or fucking the town prostitute. How romantic! I understand that "chivalry" is often meant "to treat women with kindness and love." You should do that with anyone anyway, not just women with whom men are romantically attracted to. But modern "chivalry" still includes the implication that women are subservient. One of the main criticisms I've head about Twilight is that Bella is so timid and Edward is overbearing and overprotective. While there are some women who think it nice to be some sort of prize or trophy wife, there are many who do not. I worry that--with the success of the Twilight books--too many will think like the former and not enough like the later. And that is truly unfortunate.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
My Muse
I have this idea for a collection of stories with a frame story inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights. The main character of the frame story is a writer on a date with a woman. One of the things that attracts the woman to him is the fact that he's a writer. She wants him to tell her a story. He agrees, with one condition: he leaves out the ending. If she wants to know how it ends, she has to agree to go on another date, at which time he finishes one story and tells her another without an ending. And so forth... Their love grows and the stories relate in some way to their relationship. Right now I generally know how the frame story progresses but I don't know any of the stories he tells her. My Muse, at the moment, is silent. I don't know why; this is Her story because the frame story is somewhat of a metaphor for my relationship with Her.
If you've never really written or done anything especially creative, you may not get it. The creative process often does feel like some external agent is telling you what to do. And often you feel like a slave to it. Like this essay. I had an idea to write it and so now I'm compelled to write it. Of course, modern science disdains the idea of muses or daemons or geniuses or whatever you want to call them. It's simply electro-chemical reactions in the brain. But is this idea of an external agent too quaint for our modern age? Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, thinks not:
If your life is just so rushed that you simply can't carve out enough time to watch an eighteen minute TED talk, then the summary in brief. A "genius" (as she calls it) takes responsibility away from the writer. The writer no longer has to feel as pressured to create THE NEXT GREATER THING. A writer could even have fun with it, as she relates Tom Waits telling his muse he's stuck in traffic. While I like the idea, my Muse is telling me to disagree somewhat.
Rationally, muses or geniuses don't make sense. And I'm not sure if perpetuating a myth solves the problem of the writer's (or any creator's) torment. It's something that comes with the territory. Right now, the most I've made from a story is $25. There's a fear that I've already hit my peak. I know a guy who got paid professional rates for a story. That was a year ago and I know he wonders the same thing. I know a well published author who just had her play produced in her small hometown. "But," she's said, "despite my hometown really liking it, it's just a small hometown. Who cares?" Yes, playing the schizophrenic game that little fairy geniuses exist does shift the blame: "Well, it's my Muses' fault I peaked so early!" But I fear it may also be a crutch. Elizabeth Gilbert says that she'll do her part, she'll show up even if her genius doesn't. Again, it seems like a crutch. Yet, paradoxically, I do like the idea of an external agent guiding a creator.
It means the creator doesn't have an ego; he's just following directions. He's not writing for himself, but for the world. And if you think about it, a creator cannot take total credit for anything he creates. The world imposes the ideas that may become a novel or a painting or whatever: a snippet of conversation, the way a car looks, the smell of rain after a storm... This blog entry started because of a conversation I had with a larger writers' group about why we write. The Elizabeth Gilbert talk I found in my aimless searchings on the web. Perhaps the causes and conditions were ripe so that I was able to serendipitously find that talk. Or, more poetically, maybe my Muse told me where to look. Maybe my idea of genius is a little more mystical than Gilbert's.
I don't think the problem of the tortured creator is because we've switched from "having a genius" to "being a genius." I'm sure there were tortured creators when people truly believed in muses and daemons and geniuses. The problem, I think, is that creating something is a bit of an ego boost. Personally, even with my limited success, I feel good that I'm published. I've done something that few people have. But it becomes a competition with myself, with my own ego. It's healthy to step away and reflect that where I am now as a writer is due to so many other factors throughout my life. And upon that reflection, the competition among self and other evaporates. I write just because. It's not a childish answer; it's just what my Muse told me to do.
So what is my Muse? I can tell you Her name. I can even give you a physical description. But seriously, that's just a character in a story collection I may never write. What She really is, is the world, the universe, everything, especially in how it relates to my creativity. She's always awake (even and especially in my dreams), always there. And when I don't feel like writing, yes, that's Her fault too. I'm just a tiny speck in Her massive cosmos. It's not metaphysics. It's poetic expression (Her fault). And it is humbling.
If you've never really written or done anything especially creative, you may not get it. The creative process often does feel like some external agent is telling you what to do. And often you feel like a slave to it. Like this essay. I had an idea to write it and so now I'm compelled to write it. Of course, modern science disdains the idea of muses or daemons or geniuses or whatever you want to call them. It's simply electro-chemical reactions in the brain. But is this idea of an external agent too quaint for our modern age? Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, thinks not:
If your life is just so rushed that you simply can't carve out enough time to watch an eighteen minute TED talk, then the summary in brief. A "genius" (as she calls it) takes responsibility away from the writer. The writer no longer has to feel as pressured to create THE NEXT GREATER THING. A writer could even have fun with it, as she relates Tom Waits telling his muse he's stuck in traffic. While I like the idea, my Muse is telling me to disagree somewhat.
Rationally, muses or geniuses don't make sense. And I'm not sure if perpetuating a myth solves the problem of the writer's (or any creator's) torment. It's something that comes with the territory. Right now, the most I've made from a story is $25. There's a fear that I've already hit my peak. I know a guy who got paid professional rates for a story. That was a year ago and I know he wonders the same thing. I know a well published author who just had her play produced in her small hometown. "But," she's said, "despite my hometown really liking it, it's just a small hometown. Who cares?" Yes, playing the schizophrenic game that little fairy geniuses exist does shift the blame: "Well, it's my Muses' fault I peaked so early!" But I fear it may also be a crutch. Elizabeth Gilbert says that she'll do her part, she'll show up even if her genius doesn't. Again, it seems like a crutch. Yet, paradoxically, I do like the idea of an external agent guiding a creator.
It means the creator doesn't have an ego; he's just following directions. He's not writing for himself, but for the world. And if you think about it, a creator cannot take total credit for anything he creates. The world imposes the ideas that may become a novel or a painting or whatever: a snippet of conversation, the way a car looks, the smell of rain after a storm... This blog entry started because of a conversation I had with a larger writers' group about why we write. The Elizabeth Gilbert talk I found in my aimless searchings on the web. Perhaps the causes and conditions were ripe so that I was able to serendipitously find that talk. Or, more poetically, maybe my Muse told me where to look. Maybe my idea of genius is a little more mystical than Gilbert's.
I don't think the problem of the tortured creator is because we've switched from "having a genius" to "being a genius." I'm sure there were tortured creators when people truly believed in muses and daemons and geniuses. The problem, I think, is that creating something is a bit of an ego boost. Personally, even with my limited success, I feel good that I'm published. I've done something that few people have. But it becomes a competition with myself, with my own ego. It's healthy to step away and reflect that where I am now as a writer is due to so many other factors throughout my life. And upon that reflection, the competition among self and other evaporates. I write just because. It's not a childish answer; it's just what my Muse told me to do.
So what is my Muse? I can tell you Her name. I can even give you a physical description. But seriously, that's just a character in a story collection I may never write. What She really is, is the world, the universe, everything, especially in how it relates to my creativity. She's always awake (even and especially in my dreams), always there. And when I don't feel like writing, yes, that's Her fault too. I'm just a tiny speck in Her massive cosmos. It's not metaphysics. It's poetic expression (Her fault). And it is humbling.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Why Buddhism is a Science
Anatman
It was Easter Sunday. I wasn't at any Easter dinner or picnic or whatnot. Christianity isn't my religion; why should I celebrate it? My family is a sort-of holiday Christian--the kind that doesn't believe in God--so we were going to have Easter dinner on Monday instead. But I had another obligation--I had a Buddhist class. On the day where Christians celebrate the supposed resurrection of their man-god, the class went over, in part, the Buddhist concept of anatman. In Sanskrit, atman means soul or self and an a or an before often means its negation. So anatman means selflessness or soullessness. "Wait a minute!" you might say. "Don't Buddhists believe in reincarnation?" Not really. We (or at least I) believe there is no transmigration of souls. How could we, if we do not believe in a soul? There is rebirth as a metaphor of getting wrapped up in the cyclic existence of suffering. And the Buddha's teachings tell us to stop the suffering, stop the cyclic existence, stop the "rebirth." Yes, I know there are thirteen Dalai Lamas but how many popes are there? I do have conflict with this. I don't quite believe it when I'm told that the Dalai Lama is just an office like the pope or the President. It seems like much more than that. There's also The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which describes in detail your transition from one life to the next. How does that fit into no reincarnation, no transmigration of souls? I don't know. It seems like Buddhism tries to hedge its bets, sometimes towards the "maybe, possibly, reincarnation really does exist." But what I am sure about is that this whole anatman philosophy is not something that was made up recently, something to accomodate the Western mind, a sort of "Westernized" Buddhism. It's ancient; it's in the original so-called Pali Cannon (there it's anatta, but same word, different language). Nor would Buddhism need to Westernize itself, at least not with respect to anatman.
We live in a very irrational society. Easter is about as irrational as it gets. You have a resurrecting man-god and a rabbit that lays either chocolate or colored eggs. True, the rabbit is a lie kids only believe, but we set kids up from an early age to be duped by the irrational. As adults, in addition to the "mainstream" religions, some people believe we're descended from aliens chained to a volcano (Scientology). Some seriously follow their horoscopes, go in for their tarot card readings, see their acupuncturist or chiropractor for what ails them, and avoid vaccinations but instead try unproven herbal remedies. I'll admit, I've tried some of that so-called New Age stuff (I'm a Buddhist, after all) but I try to be rational about it. I try to ask: does it work? And if it doesn't, I stop doing it. Regardless of whether it's Mainstream or New Age, belief systems are often irrational. So do I think a doctrine that we do not have a soul is a Western tradition, and thus, Buddhism needed to adopt it for us Westerns? Hell no. I think most Westerns, especially of the religious persuasion, believe they have a soul. Death is a very scary thing. Perhaps the scariest. Wouldn't it be cool if we lived on and on and on and.... It's perhaps not surprising that reincarnation persists among Buddhists, even though the Buddha refused to answer what happens after we die.
There are some who choose to think a little more rationally. The skeptics, the humanists, the freethinkers, the brights (an actual term for a rational thinker). I consider myself among this crowd. When it pertains to religion, we are often labeled "atheist" (there's that negation" a", like in anatman). We would be the ones most likely to believe in a soulless existence, we would be the ones who would embrace the philosophy of anatman. Yet, we don't seem to be the ones flocking to Buddhism. I know this is totally unscientific--based entirely upon my own experience--but this is the impression I get: rational secularists don't make up too significant a portion of Buddhist practitioners. In fact, I often feel alone, like I am between two worlds that don't really like each other. In the secular world, there are people who disdain anything that calls itself "religious" as being irrational. In the spiritual world, science is distrusted, the creator of the atom bomb and pollution. Things like vaccines or renewable energy conveniently are forgotten. There is another science the spiritualists forget, which I will get to very shortly.
Why should secularists follow Buddhism? Buddhism, after all, is a "religion." And at least to me, it's a greater insult to be called "religious" than it is to be called derogatory word. I will touch only briefly later on as to what defines the word "religion," and if Buddhism fits that category. What I will go into in detail, however, is to say this: we should follow Buddhism because it is a science.
Why Buddhism is a Science
I came to Buddhism via science. Several years ago, while still in college, I had one of the worst summers of my life. I was living with my parents, commuting to Boulder to a peanuts-paying job, and trying to learn Ancient Greek. A grown man living with his parents, well, that's never fun. I commuted to Boulder in a car on its last legs. And why would I try to learn Ancient Greek? Because my latest "dream" was to become a Classics professor. Why? Well, that has a much greater back-story, but for the purposes of this blog essay, I'll just say that was just "the latest great idea." And learning Greek wasn't going too well. So after such a rotten summer I resolved that when I got back to classes in that fall, I'd check out the psychological intern counseling services my student fees cover. Now, I wasn't a big fan of psychology in general--there seems to be something a bit off kilter in a profession whose founder talked about "Oedipus Complexes" and "penis envy." But I like to think I can keep an open mind, so I tried it out. My first sessions made me think that I wish I hadn't. When the intern told me that my problems aren't really a problem, that nothing's wrong with me, I wanted to ask for my money back. Just cut out that portion of my student fees and give me a refund for this crap. Toward the end of our sessions, I did soften up and I asked him what kind of "ism" he was peddling. "Buddhism," he told me. I hardened. I wasn't about to go to a religion. But the organization that he referred me to was secular enough that it didn't feel too religious. Over time, I was forced to acknowledge that Buddhism was indeed helpful in my life. Despite the label of being a religion, Buddhism I had to conclude was a science.
It is important to say what exactly is meant by "science." It is NOT the body of knowledge that science produces, like nuclear weapons and pollution. What it IS, is anything that follows the scientific method. In modern terms the scientific method is the process of collecting data to form (or reinforce) a hypothesis. The hypothesis is again tested and retested by various means. If the hypothesis is sound enough, it is often called a theory. And if that theory passes full muster, we eventually call it fact (though a "fact" can sometimes still be overturned by further evidence). That's the modern definition of the scientific method. But there are others with a similar meaning but formulated differently. One such definition comes from an Ancient Indian text. Paraphrased, it says: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." A full translated version of this Indic text can be found here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html
Notice who this is by? Yes, it is purported to have been said by the Buddha. If you read the translator's note, you will notice that he too believes the Kalama Sutta is much more than figuring out right from wrong. He believes that "any view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice." Sounds very much like the scientific method to me. And remember, this was totally independent of the Greek thinkers to the West from where we get our modern notions of science. And actually, the Ancient Greeks--as far as I could find--never said anything this strong about the scientific method. The West had to wait for people like William of Ockam and Francis Bacon--about 2000 years after the Buddha--to state anything like the scientific method explicitly. But is this really the scientific method? After all, though I think it strongly implies it, this Kalama Sutta never states a "repeat" clause that is central to the scientific method. It never states that you should retest until you get something workable. For that, I think it's helpful to examine the Buddha's life.
The man we call the "Buddha" was born a royal prince named Siddhartha Gautama. For the first 29 years of his life he lived lavishly, with all the excesses his small kingdom could allow. It is said that his father isolated his son with this lifestyle in part because he feared his son might become a wise teacher. This was part of a prophecy that was made when Siddhartha was born. This "prophecy story" may have been added later on to make the Buddha's life more mystical. Or it could have a root in something many a father fears: the son doesn't grow up to be a part of his "family business." Despite his father's isolation, Siddhartha did manage to wander beyond the palace walls. He saw poverty. He saw old age. And sickness. And death. Clearly, those he saw suffered. And, as the prince reflected, so did he. Despite all his excesses, it was never enough to make him truly happy. There was still a wanting, a dissatisfaction. So he formed what a scientist calls a axiom: "Suffering exists." It is self-evident, an a priori argument, a big "Duh!" Now, maybe there's someone out there who disagrees with this. Maybe there is someone out there who wouldn't suffer if they literally shot themselves in the foot or watch their dearest beloved die a violent death right before their eyes. So if you are that person and you don't feel a wanting, a dissatisfaction, a yearning for the world to be different from the way it is, then you are either 1) enlightened, or 2) a philosophical nuisance. If you're 1), then you probably know everything else I'm going to write and can clearly see this is just the ramblings of my ego. If you're 2), you can stop reading now. Buddhism is a practical philosophy, not an armchair one. So while you can sit around debating whether suffering really does exist, the rest of us will agree that often we find ourselves in situations we really don't want to be in; that is Buddhism's definition of suffering. The axiom: "Suffering exists," is known today as The First Noble Truth. And the definition of suffering as a wanting or dissatisfaction is known as The Second Noble Truth. He probably didn't know the definition or cause of suffering yet; that would come later. But he knew that something was not quite right and he sought out a way to end that feeling, at least in himself.
While young Siddhartha saw old age, sickness, and death, he also saw a mendicant. There was a measure of peace in that person Siddhartha wanted. So the prince decided to leave royalty, leave his wife and kid (yes, he wasn't the best of role models at that age), and become a beggar. He was basically a rebellious youth, defying his father. He sought out teachers to alleviate his suffering. He tried at least three different groups--as the texts say--and came up still wanting, still suffering. There's that retesting part of science. Each school offered their own hypothesis, but each didn't pass upon examination. Siddhartha still suffered. So, dejected and malnourished (he'd been starving himself trying to achieve enlightenment), he sat under a fig tree and eventually found a system that worked. Siddhartha had become a Buddha, an enlightened one. And he did it by applying the scientific method.
What did Siddhartha--henceforth in his life known as the Buddha--find under that fig tree? He found that if we stopped the wanting, the craving of things other than what they are, suffering would cease. Again, that wanting is known as the Second Noble Truth. And the Cessation is known as the Third Noble truth, which is also known as nirvana. So nirvana is not a place like heaven, but a state of mind. And the path for getting to nirvana? That is the Fourth Noble Truth.
The Buddha's philosophy may seem obvious, like a sort of greeting card philosophy. That is part of its strength, I think. A good science uncovers the obvious by looking at the evidence in a new light. Charles Darwin did it with biology. Isaac Newton did it with Physics. And though "Stop Craving!" may seem obvious, it is not easy. Otherwise, we'd all be Buddhas. So the Buddha provided a roadmap. This goes beyond some pithy saying you'd find on a Hallmark card. And though you can find echoes of Buddhism in other philosophies (independent verification is another mark of a science), none of them plumb the depths of how to end suffering the way Buddhism does.
Enough on the crash course on the Buddha and Buddhism. Now I would like to discuss language and the power it has on how we perceive the world. When I was a kid, there were nine planets. One of the earliest memories I have was memorizing all of them, before I knew my alphabet, I think. Yes, I'm an astronomy geek like that. Then, in 2006, we lost one: Pluto was no longer a planet. The Death Star didn't blow it up or anything; the International Astronomical Union had determined that Pluto shared some of the characteristics of the other eight planets, but not all. What does this have to do with Buddhism? It's meant to illustrate the importance of definitions. If you're an astronomer and you're writing about planetary formation, prior to 2006, you'd have to account for Pluto. Now, post 2006, you can describe planetary formation and treat the formation of Pluto separately. Similarly, if you're a Buddhist and you're trying to describe Buddhism as something other than a religion, you have to describe in much detail why it is something other than a religion. I personally do not like the "religion" label for Buddhism. But I don't have the power to make that change. There will probably never be an International Religious Union to set the definition of a religion and not include Buddhism as part of that definition. Both Pluto and Buddhism attained their labels because of historical circumstances. In Pluto's case, Clyde Tombaugh was looking for a planet beyond Neptune and found Pluto in the process. Therefore, Pluto was named a planet. When we in the West began interacting with people in the East, we had to call the system of the teachings of the Buddha, so we called it a religion. (Quick note: the terms "West" and "East" are also historical definitions that make no literal sense on a spherical planet.) So, while I have to live with Buddhism as religion, I think it's helpful to ask what Buddhism calls itself.
Buddhism is a dharma, which is a Sanskrit word which means "teaching." Combine "Buddha" with "dharma" and you get the compound word, Buddhadharma. That's what Buddhism calls itself, the Buddhadharma, the teachings of the Buddha. Going back to just the word dharma alone, it can also mean "phenomena," or even "truth." Dharma seems to share much the same functionality as the Greek word logos, which is usually translated as "word." But it too sometimes means "truth." Thus, in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word..." doesn't make much sense to me in modern English. Logos is where we get the suffix "logy" as in "biology" or "geology."
"Wait a minute, Sean!" you may be saying. "I know where this is going. You're going to say that Buddhism is a 'logy' like other sciences and therefore must be a science. What about Scientology and astrology. Aren't you saying that they're sciences too?" No, I'm not. And I'm not saying Buddhism is a science if it were "Buddhology." What I am saying is that "study of the Buddha" or "teachings of the Buddha" has different connotations than "religion of the Buddha." Words are important. People who dislike anything labeled a religion will have a difficult time getting through the door simply because Buddhism is labeled such.
Is Buddhism a religion at all, then? It has no god or gods. It should have no blind faith, no dogma (that's the whole point of this essay!). Yes, it has many rituals, but a birthday party is a ritual. Is "birthday party" a religion? I think not. So, as Pluto shares many characteristics with the planets, Buddhism shares many characteristics with other religions. Some of those characteristics are rather irksome to me. As I've said before, there is the whole reincarnation issue. There are other things, such as how Buddhism seems to become the replacement religion for many, with new dogmas replacing old. There are chants I've said during retreats about historical events I know little to nothing about. Yet, I get the impression of: "you say these, because they are a part of your religion." Or else what? The Buddha is going to sit judgment upon me and make me a dung beetle in the next life?
I could go on and on, but this essay is already verbose, for a blog entry. Railing against how the Internet is forcing us to communicate in 140 character bits is a subject for another time. What I've said here is nothing new; the debate over what exactly is Buddhism is an old one. But it seems the debate always ends as just an interesting tidbit. No one--as far as I'm aware--has ever developed a "Scientific Buddhist" community. Yes, it is redundant, like calling a clear sky blue. But, just as you say "clear blue sky" to emphasize its blueness, a "Scientific Buddhist" community would emphasize Buddhism's scientific outlook. I don't know how such a community would come about. Often I've had the thought that that would be my contribution to Buddhism. Maybe this essay is a beginning. Maybe it's just another interesting tidbit among interesting tidbits. I really do think the skeptics and scientifically minded are an untapped demographic. But many never consider Buddhism because of its "religion" label. If only targeted marketing could find a way to get to them. It's not proselytizing. I'm not trying to save their soul. It doesn't exist anyway. But--to borrow religious language--I think a Scientific Buddhist would be a very devout follower. And such a community would set Buddhism in a new light, a consciously rational light. That would be a very great thing.
I hope that--regardless of how many or how few read it--this essay will contribute something toward a greater sanity in our world. Thanks for reading.
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."
--Anonymous, but often attributed to Albert Einstein
It was Easter Sunday. I wasn't at any Easter dinner or picnic or whatnot. Christianity isn't my religion; why should I celebrate it? My family is a sort-of holiday Christian--the kind that doesn't believe in God--so we were going to have Easter dinner on Monday instead. But I had another obligation--I had a Buddhist class. On the day where Christians celebrate the supposed resurrection of their man-god, the class went over, in part, the Buddhist concept of anatman. In Sanskrit, atman means soul or self and an a or an before often means its negation. So anatman means selflessness or soullessness. "Wait a minute!" you might say. "Don't Buddhists believe in reincarnation?" Not really. We (or at least I) believe there is no transmigration of souls. How could we, if we do not believe in a soul? There is rebirth as a metaphor of getting wrapped up in the cyclic existence of suffering. And the Buddha's teachings tell us to stop the suffering, stop the cyclic existence, stop the "rebirth." Yes, I know there are thirteen Dalai Lamas but how many popes are there? I do have conflict with this. I don't quite believe it when I'm told that the Dalai Lama is just an office like the pope or the President. It seems like much more than that. There's also The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which describes in detail your transition from one life to the next. How does that fit into no reincarnation, no transmigration of souls? I don't know. It seems like Buddhism tries to hedge its bets, sometimes towards the "maybe, possibly, reincarnation really does exist." But what I am sure about is that this whole anatman philosophy is not something that was made up recently, something to accomodate the Western mind, a sort of "Westernized" Buddhism. It's ancient; it's in the original so-called Pali Cannon (there it's anatta, but same word, different language). Nor would Buddhism need to Westernize itself, at least not with respect to anatman.
We live in a very irrational society. Easter is about as irrational as it gets. You have a resurrecting man-god and a rabbit that lays either chocolate or colored eggs. True, the rabbit is a lie kids only believe, but we set kids up from an early age to be duped by the irrational. As adults, in addition to the "mainstream" religions, some people believe we're descended from aliens chained to a volcano (Scientology). Some seriously follow their horoscopes, go in for their tarot card readings, see their acupuncturist or chiropractor for what ails them, and avoid vaccinations but instead try unproven herbal remedies. I'll admit, I've tried some of that so-called New Age stuff (I'm a Buddhist, after all) but I try to be rational about it. I try to ask: does it work? And if it doesn't, I stop doing it. Regardless of whether it's Mainstream or New Age, belief systems are often irrational. So do I think a doctrine that we do not have a soul is a Western tradition, and thus, Buddhism needed to adopt it for us Westerns? Hell no. I think most Westerns, especially of the religious persuasion, believe they have a soul. Death is a very scary thing. Perhaps the scariest. Wouldn't it be cool if we lived on and on and on and.... It's perhaps not surprising that reincarnation persists among Buddhists, even though the Buddha refused to answer what happens after we die.
There are some who choose to think a little more rationally. The skeptics, the humanists, the freethinkers, the brights (an actual term for a rational thinker). I consider myself among this crowd. When it pertains to religion, we are often labeled "atheist" (there's that negation" a", like in anatman). We would be the ones most likely to believe in a soulless existence, we would be the ones who would embrace the philosophy of anatman. Yet, we don't seem to be the ones flocking to Buddhism. I know this is totally unscientific--based entirely upon my own experience--but this is the impression I get: rational secularists don't make up too significant a portion of Buddhist practitioners. In fact, I often feel alone, like I am between two worlds that don't really like each other. In the secular world, there are people who disdain anything that calls itself "religious" as being irrational. In the spiritual world, science is distrusted, the creator of the atom bomb and pollution. Things like vaccines or renewable energy conveniently are forgotten. There is another science the spiritualists forget, which I will get to very shortly.
Why should secularists follow Buddhism? Buddhism, after all, is a "religion." And at least to me, it's a greater insult to be called "religious" than it is to be called derogatory word. I will touch only briefly later on as to what defines the word "religion," and if Buddhism fits that category. What I will go into in detail, however, is to say this: we should follow Buddhism because it is a science.
Why Buddhism is a Science
I came to Buddhism via science. Several years ago, while still in college, I had one of the worst summers of my life. I was living with my parents, commuting to Boulder to a peanuts-paying job, and trying to learn Ancient Greek. A grown man living with his parents, well, that's never fun. I commuted to Boulder in a car on its last legs. And why would I try to learn Ancient Greek? Because my latest "dream" was to become a Classics professor. Why? Well, that has a much greater back-story, but for the purposes of this blog essay, I'll just say that was just "the latest great idea." And learning Greek wasn't going too well. So after such a rotten summer I resolved that when I got back to classes in that fall, I'd check out the psychological intern counseling services my student fees cover. Now, I wasn't a big fan of psychology in general--there seems to be something a bit off kilter in a profession whose founder talked about "Oedipus Complexes" and "penis envy." But I like to think I can keep an open mind, so I tried it out. My first sessions made me think that I wish I hadn't. When the intern told me that my problems aren't really a problem, that nothing's wrong with me, I wanted to ask for my money back. Just cut out that portion of my student fees and give me a refund for this crap. Toward the end of our sessions, I did soften up and I asked him what kind of "ism" he was peddling. "Buddhism," he told me. I hardened. I wasn't about to go to a religion. But the organization that he referred me to was secular enough that it didn't feel too religious. Over time, I was forced to acknowledge that Buddhism was indeed helpful in my life. Despite the label of being a religion, Buddhism I had to conclude was a science.
It is important to say what exactly is meant by "science." It is NOT the body of knowledge that science produces, like nuclear weapons and pollution. What it IS, is anything that follows the scientific method. In modern terms the scientific method is the process of collecting data to form (or reinforce) a hypothesis. The hypothesis is again tested and retested by various means. If the hypothesis is sound enough, it is often called a theory. And if that theory passes full muster, we eventually call it fact (though a "fact" can sometimes still be overturned by further evidence). That's the modern definition of the scientific method. But there are others with a similar meaning but formulated differently. One such definition comes from an Ancient Indian text. Paraphrased, it says: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." A full translated version of this Indic text can be found here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html
Notice who this is by? Yes, it is purported to have been said by the Buddha. If you read the translator's note, you will notice that he too believes the Kalama Sutta is much more than figuring out right from wrong. He believes that "any view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice." Sounds very much like the scientific method to me. And remember, this was totally independent of the Greek thinkers to the West from where we get our modern notions of science. And actually, the Ancient Greeks--as far as I could find--never said anything this strong about the scientific method. The West had to wait for people like William of Ockam and Francis Bacon--about 2000 years after the Buddha--to state anything like the scientific method explicitly. But is this really the scientific method? After all, though I think it strongly implies it, this Kalama Sutta never states a "repeat" clause that is central to the scientific method. It never states that you should retest until you get something workable. For that, I think it's helpful to examine the Buddha's life.
The man we call the "Buddha" was born a royal prince named Siddhartha Gautama. For the first 29 years of his life he lived lavishly, with all the excesses his small kingdom could allow. It is said that his father isolated his son with this lifestyle in part because he feared his son might become a wise teacher. This was part of a prophecy that was made when Siddhartha was born. This "prophecy story" may have been added later on to make the Buddha's life more mystical. Or it could have a root in something many a father fears: the son doesn't grow up to be a part of his "family business." Despite his father's isolation, Siddhartha did manage to wander beyond the palace walls. He saw poverty. He saw old age. And sickness. And death. Clearly, those he saw suffered. And, as the prince reflected, so did he. Despite all his excesses, it was never enough to make him truly happy. There was still a wanting, a dissatisfaction. So he formed what a scientist calls a axiom: "Suffering exists." It is self-evident, an a priori argument, a big "Duh!" Now, maybe there's someone out there who disagrees with this. Maybe there is someone out there who wouldn't suffer if they literally shot themselves in the foot or watch their dearest beloved die a violent death right before their eyes. So if you are that person and you don't feel a wanting, a dissatisfaction, a yearning for the world to be different from the way it is, then you are either 1) enlightened, or 2) a philosophical nuisance. If you're 1), then you probably know everything else I'm going to write and can clearly see this is just the ramblings of my ego. If you're 2), you can stop reading now. Buddhism is a practical philosophy, not an armchair one. So while you can sit around debating whether suffering really does exist, the rest of us will agree that often we find ourselves in situations we really don't want to be in; that is Buddhism's definition of suffering. The axiom: "Suffering exists," is known today as The First Noble Truth. And the definition of suffering as a wanting or dissatisfaction is known as The Second Noble Truth. He probably didn't know the definition or cause of suffering yet; that would come later. But he knew that something was not quite right and he sought out a way to end that feeling, at least in himself.
While young Siddhartha saw old age, sickness, and death, he also saw a mendicant. There was a measure of peace in that person Siddhartha wanted. So the prince decided to leave royalty, leave his wife and kid (yes, he wasn't the best of role models at that age), and become a beggar. He was basically a rebellious youth, defying his father. He sought out teachers to alleviate his suffering. He tried at least three different groups--as the texts say--and came up still wanting, still suffering. There's that retesting part of science. Each school offered their own hypothesis, but each didn't pass upon examination. Siddhartha still suffered. So, dejected and malnourished (he'd been starving himself trying to achieve enlightenment), he sat under a fig tree and eventually found a system that worked. Siddhartha had become a Buddha, an enlightened one. And he did it by applying the scientific method.
What did Siddhartha--henceforth in his life known as the Buddha--find under that fig tree? He found that if we stopped the wanting, the craving of things other than what they are, suffering would cease. Again, that wanting is known as the Second Noble Truth. And the Cessation is known as the Third Noble truth, which is also known as nirvana. So nirvana is not a place like heaven, but a state of mind. And the path for getting to nirvana? That is the Fourth Noble Truth.
The Buddha's philosophy may seem obvious, like a sort of greeting card philosophy. That is part of its strength, I think. A good science uncovers the obvious by looking at the evidence in a new light. Charles Darwin did it with biology. Isaac Newton did it with Physics. And though "Stop Craving!" may seem obvious, it is not easy. Otherwise, we'd all be Buddhas. So the Buddha provided a roadmap. This goes beyond some pithy saying you'd find on a Hallmark card. And though you can find echoes of Buddhism in other philosophies (independent verification is another mark of a science), none of them plumb the depths of how to end suffering the way Buddhism does.
Enough on the crash course on the Buddha and Buddhism. Now I would like to discuss language and the power it has on how we perceive the world. When I was a kid, there were nine planets. One of the earliest memories I have was memorizing all of them, before I knew my alphabet, I think. Yes, I'm an astronomy geek like that. Then, in 2006, we lost one: Pluto was no longer a planet. The Death Star didn't blow it up or anything; the International Astronomical Union had determined that Pluto shared some of the characteristics of the other eight planets, but not all. What does this have to do with Buddhism? It's meant to illustrate the importance of definitions. If you're an astronomer and you're writing about planetary formation, prior to 2006, you'd have to account for Pluto. Now, post 2006, you can describe planetary formation and treat the formation of Pluto separately. Similarly, if you're a Buddhist and you're trying to describe Buddhism as something other than a religion, you have to describe in much detail why it is something other than a religion. I personally do not like the "religion" label for Buddhism. But I don't have the power to make that change. There will probably never be an International Religious Union to set the definition of a religion and not include Buddhism as part of that definition. Both Pluto and Buddhism attained their labels because of historical circumstances. In Pluto's case, Clyde Tombaugh was looking for a planet beyond Neptune and found Pluto in the process. Therefore, Pluto was named a planet. When we in the West began interacting with people in the East, we had to call the system of the teachings of the Buddha, so we called it a religion. (Quick note: the terms "West" and "East" are also historical definitions that make no literal sense on a spherical planet.) So, while I have to live with Buddhism as religion, I think it's helpful to ask what Buddhism calls itself.
Buddhism is a dharma, which is a Sanskrit word which means "teaching." Combine "Buddha" with "dharma" and you get the compound word, Buddhadharma. That's what Buddhism calls itself, the Buddhadharma, the teachings of the Buddha. Going back to just the word dharma alone, it can also mean "phenomena," or even "truth." Dharma seems to share much the same functionality as the Greek word logos, which is usually translated as "word." But it too sometimes means "truth." Thus, in John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word..." doesn't make much sense to me in modern English. Logos is where we get the suffix "logy" as in "biology" or "geology."
"Wait a minute, Sean!" you may be saying. "I know where this is going. You're going to say that Buddhism is a 'logy' like other sciences and therefore must be a science. What about Scientology and astrology. Aren't you saying that they're sciences too?" No, I'm not. And I'm not saying Buddhism is a science if it were "Buddhology." What I am saying is that "study of the Buddha" or "teachings of the Buddha" has different connotations than "religion of the Buddha." Words are important. People who dislike anything labeled a religion will have a difficult time getting through the door simply because Buddhism is labeled such.
Is Buddhism a religion at all, then? It has no god or gods. It should have no blind faith, no dogma (that's the whole point of this essay!). Yes, it has many rituals, but a birthday party is a ritual. Is "birthday party" a religion? I think not. So, as Pluto shares many characteristics with the planets, Buddhism shares many characteristics with other religions. Some of those characteristics are rather irksome to me. As I've said before, there is the whole reincarnation issue. There are other things, such as how Buddhism seems to become the replacement religion for many, with new dogmas replacing old. There are chants I've said during retreats about historical events I know little to nothing about. Yet, I get the impression of: "you say these, because they are a part of your religion." Or else what? The Buddha is going to sit judgment upon me and make me a dung beetle in the next life?
I could go on and on, but this essay is already verbose, for a blog entry. Railing against how the Internet is forcing us to communicate in 140 character bits is a subject for another time. What I've said here is nothing new; the debate over what exactly is Buddhism is an old one. But it seems the debate always ends as just an interesting tidbit. No one--as far as I'm aware--has ever developed a "Scientific Buddhist" community. Yes, it is redundant, like calling a clear sky blue. But, just as you say "clear blue sky" to emphasize its blueness, a "Scientific Buddhist" community would emphasize Buddhism's scientific outlook. I don't know how such a community would come about. Often I've had the thought that that would be my contribution to Buddhism. Maybe this essay is a beginning. Maybe it's just another interesting tidbit among interesting tidbits. I really do think the skeptics and scientifically minded are an untapped demographic. But many never consider Buddhism because of its "religion" label. If only targeted marketing could find a way to get to them. It's not proselytizing. I'm not trying to save their soul. It doesn't exist anyway. But--to borrow religious language--I think a Scientific Buddhist would be a very devout follower. And such a community would set Buddhism in a new light, a consciously rational light. That would be a very great thing.
I hope that--regardless of how many or how few read it--this essay will contribute something toward a greater sanity in our world. Thanks for reading.
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."
--Anonymous, but often attributed to Albert Einstein
Friday, April 30, 2010
Combating Writer's Expanse
You've seen it countless times in the movies: a writer sits at his desk, staring at a blank screen (or paper in the days of the typewriter), not able to write. The implication is that he has no clue what to write, his mind's a blank slate. But, being a writer, I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem is that he has too much on his mind. He's asking himself, "Do I write the story about the mutant sapient turkeys or the one about the half-insane time traveler or...." And before you feminists get offended because I used "he" for the generalized pronoun, I will say that "he" is a projection of me, so I could've used "I." Those two ideas I mentioned earlier, they are actual stories in development from my fertile mind. But a fertile mind can still be a type of writer's block. To distinguish this type from the more "traditional" tabula rasa writer's block, I will call it "writer's expanse."
You see, we writers are a curious bunch; we can see a story in almost anything. You may see burning your tongue on hot coffee as an everyday annoyance; I may see the beginning of a four-part epic. We are trained that way, to avoid that dreaded tabula rasa. How? By writing to a prompt. "Write something about..." It focuses the mind. But the drawback is that everything becomes a prompt. Well, how do you combat that? The poison is also the cure: you write to the prompt. But you have to focus on just that prompt. You have to forget about that Idea you had when you were driving to work the other day. Focus. Easier said than done.
Publishers can help. They want to sell product to targeted readers. No one wants to produce something that includes both Historical Romance and Space Opera because the intersection of those two readerships is too small. So books and magazines are categorized in genres and themes. The writer is forced to write to a prompt. I wrote a story for thefirstline.com, which supplies the first sentence of the story and the writer comes up with the rest. I actually didn't get published there, but I changed the first line and it got published elsewhere. Still, that first sentence was the motivation I needed to write the story.
How does a writer combat writer's expanse when a publisher doesn't provide a prompt and a deadline? I'm still working on that. One way is by brute force. Those two stories I mentioned in the first paragraph, they came from prompts. One I think is near publishable. It helped that the prompts came from a writer's group because I had to show up the next meeting with at least a semi-completed manuscript. It got the ball rolling. I often promise myself not to start something before I finish something else. But that doesn't always work. I'm writing this blog entry in part because I don't want to revise another story I'm working on. I've tried the brute force method using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where a writer must write at least 50,000 words in a month. It forces the unnecessary tasks like writing blog entries out of the picture. But even without NaNoWriMo, I'm getting better. I just have to remember that writer's expanse is also a good thing. Because all the stories I have on the table right now--regardless of stage completed--came from writer's prompts.
You see, we writers are a curious bunch; we can see a story in almost anything. You may see burning your tongue on hot coffee as an everyday annoyance; I may see the beginning of a four-part epic. We are trained that way, to avoid that dreaded tabula rasa. How? By writing to a prompt. "Write something about..." It focuses the mind. But the drawback is that everything becomes a prompt. Well, how do you combat that? The poison is also the cure: you write to the prompt. But you have to focus on just that prompt. You have to forget about that Idea you had when you were driving to work the other day. Focus. Easier said than done.
Publishers can help. They want to sell product to targeted readers. No one wants to produce something that includes both Historical Romance and Space Opera because the intersection of those two readerships is too small. So books and magazines are categorized in genres and themes. The writer is forced to write to a prompt. I wrote a story for thefirstline.com, which supplies the first sentence of the story and the writer comes up with the rest. I actually didn't get published there, but I changed the first line and it got published elsewhere. Still, that first sentence was the motivation I needed to write the story.
How does a writer combat writer's expanse when a publisher doesn't provide a prompt and a deadline? I'm still working on that. One way is by brute force. Those two stories I mentioned in the first paragraph, they came from prompts. One I think is near publishable. It helped that the prompts came from a writer's group because I had to show up the next meeting with at least a semi-completed manuscript. It got the ball rolling. I often promise myself not to start something before I finish something else. But that doesn't always work. I'm writing this blog entry in part because I don't want to revise another story I'm working on. I've tried the brute force method using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where a writer must write at least 50,000 words in a month. It forces the unnecessary tasks like writing blog entries out of the picture. But even without NaNoWriMo, I'm getting better. I just have to remember that writer's expanse is also a good thing. Because all the stories I have on the table right now--regardless of stage completed--came from writer's prompts.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
On "Profiling"
Much has been said recently about Arizona's new anti-immigration law and the word "profiling" has come into the public's consciousness. But what is this "profiling?" Last night, on The Rachel Maddow show, Maddow argued against the Arizona law and racial profiling. She profiled (couldn't resist the pun) some proponents of the new Arizona law. Among those was Scott McInnis, who is running for governor in my home state Colorado under the Republican ticket. She showed a clip of him in 2001 when he was a Congressman talking about profiling. I believed she mischaracterized what profiling is, so I wrote a letter. That letter follows below:
Tonight, she again implied what Scott McInnis said in 2001 referred to discriminatory racial profiling. Oh well. I admit, I could be wrong. Perhaps in the parlance of law enforcement, "profiling" is never used anymore. Perhaps an FBI Profiler is never called a "Profiler." Perhaps an individual whose actions and appearance are suspicious is no longer being "profiled." But that's technical language. For the rest of us, "profiling" includes a much broader definition. And I don't think I'm being pedantic about this. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but in general, profiling is not. I'd hate the day would come where the pendulum swings too far the other way. I'd hate for the day to come where cops would be afraid to arrest or act on something that looked suspicious because they might be accused of "profiling." Maybe, in certain cases, that day is already here.
To be absolutely clear again, being stopped simply for being Hispanic or Black or Asian or whatever is discrimination and illegal. But IF that information adds to a greater profile, it should ABSOLUTELY be used. It is a shame the media cannot use more precise language when describing racial profiling.
Dear Dr. Maddow,
On your show you played a clip of Representative Scott McInnis saying in 2001: "Once we begin to use ethnic profiling as a component, one of several components to build a profile, I think it is very legitimate."
Now, what he said is entirely correct and legitimate, from a law enforcement perspective. There is a difference between general law enforcement profiling and the more narrowly defined racial or ethnic profiling. The former builds a description of a possible suspect using several factors, one of which may be race, as Scott McInnis said. The latter, racial profiling, is just one of the factors that may be used to build a greater profile. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but, again, that is not what McInnis said, as you implied. He clearly said it is "one of several components." He may have said something more damning, but that clip isn't it.
In the interest of disclosing all my biases and short-comings, I am a Coloradan, and a registered Democrat. I doubt I would vote for Mr. McInnis, but what he said in that clip I agree with. I am not a member of the law enforcement community. What I know about profiling comes from society-at-large. It seems obvious to me that profiling must be used in law enforcement in order to narrow down suspects. But racial profiling used alone is indeed discriminatory.
Thanks,
Sean
Tonight, she again implied what Scott McInnis said in 2001 referred to discriminatory racial profiling. Oh well. I admit, I could be wrong. Perhaps in the parlance of law enforcement, "profiling" is never used anymore. Perhaps an FBI Profiler is never called a "Profiler." Perhaps an individual whose actions and appearance are suspicious is no longer being "profiled." But that's technical language. For the rest of us, "profiling" includes a much broader definition. And I don't think I'm being pedantic about this. Yes, using racial profiling alone is discriminatory, but in general, profiling is not. I'd hate the day would come where the pendulum swings too far the other way. I'd hate for the day to come where cops would be afraid to arrest or act on something that looked suspicious because they might be accused of "profiling." Maybe, in certain cases, that day is already here.
To be absolutely clear again, being stopped simply for being Hispanic or Black or Asian or whatever is discrimination and illegal. But IF that information adds to a greater profile, it should ABSOLUTELY be used. It is a shame the media cannot use more precise language when describing racial profiling.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
A Meta-Brain Storm
A neuron doesn’t do much thinking. It passes electro-chemical potentials from one synaptic gap to another. It is almost impossible to imagine how a neuron is conscious of itself. Yet, it must be conscious of itself in some very basic fashion because if you network about a 100 billion of them you get a different kind of consciousness: you get a human mind. What happens when you network several billion human minds together? You can call it a meta-mind. No, this is NOT science fiction. We may not be connected to each other the way neurons are connected to each other. And as it’s impossible to imagine how a neuron is conscious, it’s also nearly impossible to imagine how civilization’s meta-mind is conscious. So, you may ask, this is a fun little thought-game, but why do I care? The answer: the connections between humans are becoming stronger, the metaphorical “synaptic gap” between each other shorter.
I found this realization through what one might call a meta-brain storm. Like an individual’s brainstorm, disparate and random pieces of info come together (neurons from all over the brain fire) to create something new. A friend (thanks, Stace) posts a blog link about networks. Curious, I read it. I like it. I really like it. Someone said something that makes sense, about things that have been rattling in my head for years—she just brought it into coherence. That “she” is Venessa Miemis and this is the blog entry:
http://emergentbydesign.com/2010/03/16/an-idea-worth-spreading-the-future-is-networks/
I strongly encourage you to check it out. The sci-fi imagery is mine but I owe her a huge debt for getting me here. Besides, you may have to read it in order to make more sense of what I’m talking about; I’m not going to regurgitate too much of what she says.
In an earlier post (http://bit.ly/dyfAAE) I talked about how the Internet is bringing us together in unusual ways. That was only the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just connecting us, it’s changing us in interesting ways. Our society is becoming more globally conscious, the meta-mind more awake. Yeah, maybe someday we’ll all download our consciousnesses into a supercomputer and solve all the world’s problems overnight. But the meta-mind exists now and each passing day it strengthens as our technology progresses. I don’t know what the future holds—it’s impossible to predict the outcome of a brainstorm—but if we approach it with compassion and understanding, we can make the world an awesome place.
I found this realization through what one might call a meta-brain storm. Like an individual’s brainstorm, disparate and random pieces of info come together (neurons from all over the brain fire) to create something new. A friend (thanks, Stace) posts a blog link about networks. Curious, I read it. I like it. I really like it. Someone said something that makes sense, about things that have been rattling in my head for years—she just brought it into coherence. That “she” is Venessa Miemis and this is the blog entry:
http://emergentbydesign.com/2010/03/16/an-idea-worth-spreading-the-future-is-networks/
I strongly encourage you to check it out. The sci-fi imagery is mine but I owe her a huge debt for getting me here. Besides, you may have to read it in order to make more sense of what I’m talking about; I’m not going to regurgitate too much of what she says.
In an earlier post (http://bit.ly/dyfAAE) I talked about how the Internet is bringing us together in unusual ways. That was only the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just connecting us, it’s changing us in interesting ways. Our society is becoming more globally conscious, the meta-mind more awake. Yeah, maybe someday we’ll all download our consciousnesses into a supercomputer and solve all the world’s problems overnight. But the meta-mind exists now and each passing day it strengthens as our technology progresses. I don’t know what the future holds—it’s impossible to predict the outcome of a brainstorm—but if we approach it with compassion and understanding, we can make the world an awesome place.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Goodbye to the Jungle
My printer was in the midst of a jungle. I had to rescue it. I was tired of living in my own place and not being able to use my own stuff. So one night (which would be morning to most people; I work graveyards) I went into the jungle and I rescued my printer so I could print out a story for critiquing. Mind you, the jungle created was not my own (unusual, but true); the jungle of boxes and bags was created by the woman who had taken residence in my living room. “Why would you allow someone to live in your living room?” you might ask. Because she hadn’t worked in over a month and didn’t have the money to pay the rent anywhere. So yes, I felt sorry for her. Yes, I didn’t want her out in the streets. There’s a word for that: empathy.
Empathy is an oft-used word that gets thrown around a lot. At my work it means, “Say the proper phrase so that the customer will be happy and therefore get off the phone faster.” It’s often used interchangeably with sympathy. Etymologically, they mean essentially the same thing but in modern English sympathy is more about what you say and empathy is more about what you feel. Empathy is about putting yourself in another’s shoes. So I asked myself, “Would I want to be strapped for cash and perhaps living homeless?” No. So I took her in.
Most people thought I was crazy; they wouldn’t even think of doing it. The woman and I were in no way romantically involved. In fact, we didn’t really get along that well. “So why the hell did you take her in, Sean?” Again, empathy. I'm not saying I'm perfect, that I'm always empathetic. I definitely did have my reservations. But I try. “I’d never do something like that!” they told me. And that is part of the problem.
We live in a very selfish society. Most of the time, we’re thinking, “What’s in it for me?” Maybe a few times of the year we’re not selfish, like around Christmas, like it’s some sort of seasonal fad. (What about the other eleven months of the year?!) I must admit that I am often like that. I'd thought several times during her stayover that maybe I was a pushover, the proto-typical example of “a nice guy finishing last.” I spun paranoia about her grifting money from me, or worse. And I personally think she wasn’t as honest as she should’ve been about her situation. Yet, the grifting fantasy (or anything else) did not come to pass. She and her jungle left with our very imperfect friendship dinged a little more. And, though I hardly “live” in it anymore, I now have my living room back. I am glad.
This whole experience was capped when I attended a Buddhist class Sunday afternoon. The class was, fittingly, about generosity. In Buddhist terms, the act of generosity helps the giver as well as the receiver. (Actually, if you want to go deeper, “giver” and “receiver” are merely conventional labels for impermanent entities; what’s really going on is a shift toward a more compassionate society.) I like this. I’m helping out myself. My mom--one of the most selfless, compassionate people I know--asked me, “Did you learn your lesson?” Yes, Mom, I did, though not in the why you might think. Would I do it again? Absolutely, even though the experience caused headaches. However, I’ve laid down some personal ground rules to protect my interests and my sanity.
I will leave with this parting thought: the jungle. Author Upton Sinclair used it as a metaphor for the horrors of the meatpacking industry. The rock band Guns N’ Roses used it to refer to Los Angeles. I use it here to indicate the clutter one creates from her possessions. But to the millions of plants and animals who live there, the jungle is home, their abode, and for many, they couldn’t live in any other place. We don’t like the jungle because we’re big, clumsy apes who evolved in the African savanna. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: “There is no difference between non-enlightenment and enlightenment.” It means that enlightenment is always within reach; that even the most horrible, unenlightening situation can be truly, literally, enlightening. Her stay with me was not horrible, but neither was it a picnic. In her jungle I became just a little bit more empathetic. There is no difference between no-jungle and jungle.
Empathy is an oft-used word that gets thrown around a lot. At my work it means, “Say the proper phrase so that the customer will be happy and therefore get off the phone faster.” It’s often used interchangeably with sympathy. Etymologically, they mean essentially the same thing but in modern English sympathy is more about what you say and empathy is more about what you feel. Empathy is about putting yourself in another’s shoes. So I asked myself, “Would I want to be strapped for cash and perhaps living homeless?” No. So I took her in.
Most people thought I was crazy; they wouldn’t even think of doing it. The woman and I were in no way romantically involved. In fact, we didn’t really get along that well. “So why the hell did you take her in, Sean?” Again, empathy. I'm not saying I'm perfect, that I'm always empathetic. I definitely did have my reservations. But I try. “I’d never do something like that!” they told me. And that is part of the problem.
We live in a very selfish society. Most of the time, we’re thinking, “What’s in it for me?” Maybe a few times of the year we’re not selfish, like around Christmas, like it’s some sort of seasonal fad. (What about the other eleven months of the year?!) I must admit that I am often like that. I'd thought several times during her stayover that maybe I was a pushover, the proto-typical example of “a nice guy finishing last.” I spun paranoia about her grifting money from me, or worse. And I personally think she wasn’t as honest as she should’ve been about her situation. Yet, the grifting fantasy (or anything else) did not come to pass. She and her jungle left with our very imperfect friendship dinged a little more. And, though I hardly “live” in it anymore, I now have my living room back. I am glad.
This whole experience was capped when I attended a Buddhist class Sunday afternoon. The class was, fittingly, about generosity. In Buddhist terms, the act of generosity helps the giver as well as the receiver. (Actually, if you want to go deeper, “giver” and “receiver” are merely conventional labels for impermanent entities; what’s really going on is a shift toward a more compassionate society.) I like this. I’m helping out myself. My mom--one of the most selfless, compassionate people I know--asked me, “Did you learn your lesson?” Yes, Mom, I did, though not in the why you might think. Would I do it again? Absolutely, even though the experience caused headaches. However, I’ve laid down some personal ground rules to protect my interests and my sanity.
I will leave with this parting thought: the jungle. Author Upton Sinclair used it as a metaphor for the horrors of the meatpacking industry. The rock band Guns N’ Roses used it to refer to Los Angeles. I use it here to indicate the clutter one creates from her possessions. But to the millions of plants and animals who live there, the jungle is home, their abode, and for many, they couldn’t live in any other place. We don’t like the jungle because we’re big, clumsy apes who evolved in the African savanna. There is a Buddhist saying that goes: “There is no difference between non-enlightenment and enlightenment.” It means that enlightenment is always within reach; that even the most horrible, unenlightening situation can be truly, literally, enlightening. Her stay with me was not horrible, but neither was it a picnic. In her jungle I became just a little bit more empathetic. There is no difference between no-jungle and jungle.
Friday, February 12, 2010
On the Internets
Much has been said about how computers and the Internet have driven us away from each other. How we have become little islands obsessing over the mundanity of a tweet or a facebook update. True, it can be an obsession and a distraction from “real” life. Just like anything else. But it also can be just the opposite: uniting us in ways we never thought possible.
Amidst all the hyped-up ads in this year’s Super Bowl was the Google commercial. It tells a story through the main character’s Google searches. He decides to study abroad in France, where he meets a French girl. He needs to impress her (with Google filling in the gaps in his knowledge) and they fall in love. A long-distance relationship follows, and then he moves to Paris, where they have a kid. You can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxyVpSUw6Kg
The protagonist could do all this, the commercial implies, because he used Google. He could’ve, of course, used Bing or Yahoo or any number of search engines. Beyond the implied message that Google is the best search engine is the greater message: the Internet does connect people. Would Google’s protagonist have done all the things he did without the Internet? Perhaps. Would it have been easier, or even as easy? Most definitely not. And if he had not had access to such vast amounts of info, would he have made the decisions he made? Perhaps not. How would the story go in the pre-Internet days? Perhaps he noticed a posting for study abroad on a bulletin board. Then he would fill out the application, send it through snail-mail, and wait 4-6 weeks to get an acceptance. Once in France, trying to impress the French woman, he stammers, trying to find things to say with his limited French knowledge. Perhaps she thinks it’s endearing and they fall in love. He flies back, setting up the long-distance relationship. But how does he easily find postings for jobs in France?... Well, you get the idea. The point is that the chain of events could break down along any one of those points and our pre-Internet hero would wind up marrying someone else. To which you might say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” To which I would say, “You’re absolutely right.” Enough about a cheesy romantic Super Bowl ad…
Take me, for example. I am a shy person. I used to be a pathologically shy person. The idea of me talking to a stranger used to frighten me the way most people might be frightened when confronting a large wild predator. But the Internet has helped to soften that shyness a lot. I regularly attend groups I find on the Internet. They go by various names depending on my various interests (which are evolving because I love to surf the web) but they all have one thing in common: I go because I am uncomfortable; I go to tame that wild predator that’s shyness. In addition, the Internet was partially responsible for me finding my current job. Though far from ideal, the job requires I take calls from customers, often angry, with little-to-none downtime between calls. I used to have to script out what I was going to say if I had to call somewhere. And sometimes it’d take days, even weeks before I got the courage to call. Of course, the customer service representative never followed the script I meticulously planned out.
So while the bloviators scream that the Internet is pushing the world away, I know for a fact it has allowed me to connect more fully with the world. For that, I am ever grateful. Maybe I’ll go to Paris…
Amidst all the hyped-up ads in this year’s Super Bowl was the Google commercial. It tells a story through the main character’s Google searches. He decides to study abroad in France, where he meets a French girl. He needs to impress her (with Google filling in the gaps in his knowledge) and they fall in love. A long-distance relationship follows, and then he moves to Paris, where they have a kid. You can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxyVpSUw6Kg
The protagonist could do all this, the commercial implies, because he used Google. He could’ve, of course, used Bing or Yahoo or any number of search engines. Beyond the implied message that Google is the best search engine is the greater message: the Internet does connect people. Would Google’s protagonist have done all the things he did without the Internet? Perhaps. Would it have been easier, or even as easy? Most definitely not. And if he had not had access to such vast amounts of info, would he have made the decisions he made? Perhaps not. How would the story go in the pre-Internet days? Perhaps he noticed a posting for study abroad on a bulletin board. Then he would fill out the application, send it through snail-mail, and wait 4-6 weeks to get an acceptance. Once in France, trying to impress the French woman, he stammers, trying to find things to say with his limited French knowledge. Perhaps she thinks it’s endearing and they fall in love. He flies back, setting up the long-distance relationship. But how does he easily find postings for jobs in France?... Well, you get the idea. The point is that the chain of events could break down along any one of those points and our pre-Internet hero would wind up marrying someone else. To which you might say, “So what? What’s wrong with that?” To which I would say, “You’re absolutely right.” Enough about a cheesy romantic Super Bowl ad…
Take me, for example. I am a shy person. I used to be a pathologically shy person. The idea of me talking to a stranger used to frighten me the way most people might be frightened when confronting a large wild predator. But the Internet has helped to soften that shyness a lot. I regularly attend groups I find on the Internet. They go by various names depending on my various interests (which are evolving because I love to surf the web) but they all have one thing in common: I go because I am uncomfortable; I go to tame that wild predator that’s shyness. In addition, the Internet was partially responsible for me finding my current job. Though far from ideal, the job requires I take calls from customers, often angry, with little-to-none downtime between calls. I used to have to script out what I was going to say if I had to call somewhere. And sometimes it’d take days, even weeks before I got the courage to call. Of course, the customer service representative never followed the script I meticulously planned out.
So while the bloviators scream that the Internet is pushing the world away, I know for a fact it has allowed me to connect more fully with the world. For that, I am ever grateful. Maybe I’ll go to Paris…
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Worst Persons in the World
Back in the midst of the George W. Bush Administration liberals had few news sources which would try to shine a light on the corruption of that presidency. “Mainstream” media refused to sully their hands and Fox News would’ve proclaimed Bush the Second Coming if he had changed his name. But we had Keith Olbermann. He did “The Nexus of Politics and Terror,” his Special Comments called for Bush to resign, he liberalized MSNBC to become the progressive answer to Fox News. And then…the administration changed. And then…I realized something. Perhaps I had changed. Perhaps he had changed. But it seemed he was spewing as much hatred as those he feels are his enemies.
A case in point: the Haitian Earthquake. Much has been said about Pat Robertson’s and Rush Limbaugh’s comments on the tragedy. Robertson said the Haitians had made a deal with the devil and Limbaugh believed Obama would use it as a political ploy. Olbermann admonished them in one of his “Quick Comments:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM&feature=player_embedded
But he went a step further. He said, “Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. “ Really?! So if Rush and Pat were buried in the rubble, struggling just to breath, they are not worth saving? But a Haitian thug also buried, also struggling to breath, is worth saving? I am not saying that the thug is not worth saving while Rush and Pat are. I am saying that they all are. True, Pat Robertson is a disgusting excuse for a human being, and Limbaugh is not much better. And our hypothetical Haitian thug I wouldn’t want to meet. Yet all three deserve compassion. Whatever happened to “turn the other cheek,” not separating self from other? We are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers, even if we do not agree with them. How does it go? “Hate the sin but love the sinner?” Robertson or Limbaugh do not get that. And neither does Olbermann.
Another term for liberal is progressive. Perhaps a euphemism for the “L” word, but sometimes I like the progressive term better. Progressives move forward, always with the implication of toward a better world. And the opposite of progressive is not conservative; it’s regressive. Regressives would have us moving backward, toward a more savage and brutal world, where we were always fighting. No one would willingly call themselves a regressive, but their philosophy would be the natural opposite to progressive. Sometimes I think 100% of Washington is regressive, like that old joke: “What’s the opposite of progress? Congress!” And a lot of media is regressive. Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Keith Olbermann are regressives.
A case in point: the Haitian Earthquake. Much has been said about Pat Robertson’s and Rush Limbaugh’s comments on the tragedy. Robertson said the Haitians had made a deal with the devil and Limbaugh believed Obama would use it as a political ploy. Olbermann admonished them in one of his “Quick Comments:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PEaWUduCM&feature=player_embedded
But he went a step further. He said, “Mr. Robertson, Mr. Limbaugh, your lives are not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. “ Really?! So if Rush and Pat were buried in the rubble, struggling just to breath, they are not worth saving? But a Haitian thug also buried, also struggling to breath, is worth saving? I am not saying that the thug is not worth saving while Rush and Pat are. I am saying that they all are. True, Pat Robertson is a disgusting excuse for a human being, and Limbaugh is not much better. And our hypothetical Haitian thug I wouldn’t want to meet. Yet all three deserve compassion. Whatever happened to “turn the other cheek,” not separating self from other? We are our brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers, even if we do not agree with them. How does it go? “Hate the sin but love the sinner?” Robertson or Limbaugh do not get that. And neither does Olbermann.
Another term for liberal is progressive. Perhaps a euphemism for the “L” word, but sometimes I like the progressive term better. Progressives move forward, always with the implication of toward a better world. And the opposite of progressive is not conservative; it’s regressive. Regressives would have us moving backward, toward a more savage and brutal world, where we were always fighting. No one would willingly call themselves a regressive, but their philosophy would be the natural opposite to progressive. Sometimes I think 100% of Washington is regressive, like that old joke: “What’s the opposite of progress? Congress!” And a lot of media is regressive. Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Keith Olbermann are regressives.
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