//With Respect to the Overall Nature of Existence//
All that exists is inherently a dipolar spectrum that is both "One" and simultaneously "All." It is "One" because everything that exists, exists relative to something else, and everything is interconnected with everything else, thus constituting an undivided whole. Because this undivided spectrum provides for infinite degree between its two opposite "poles" (has no division of 'intervals' along it), it is what is necessary for "All" things to have relative distinction from all other things. For anything to exist it must exist within a construct that provides the "contrast" necessary for any thing's attributes to be mathematically or physically definable; the dipolar spectrum in our universe provides this contrast, which in turn provides the capacity of things to have different attributes and relative relations to everything else.
So prolific and apparent is the dipolar nature of existence, a large group of people formulated the belief system called "Taoism" in which 'all is One whole' yet has internal distinctions ("Yin & Yang") simultaneously. I will provide you with several examples of Yin & Yang features of nature that you are already naturally familiar with: light vs. darkness, order vs. chaos, hot vs. cold, larger scales of space vs. smaller scales of space, past vs. future, mass vs. no mass, higher energy state vs. lower energy state, stronger gravity/acceleration vs. weaker gravity/acceleration, moving closer together vs. moving away from each other, "good" vs. "evil", life (animate) vs. death (inanimate), et cetera. Everything that exists has defining attributes, each of which lie somewhere along and within this dipolar spectrum geometry, whether the attributes being observed are being observed quantitatively (objectively) or qualitatively (subjectively; e.g. based on values and morals, or other form of personal perspective). It is important to reiterate that even though different things or areas within different space-time locations have these relative distinctions from everything else, due to the fact nothing exists separate from all else and that all things are completely interconnected through space-time, quantum probability waveform, and the continuous field of matter-energy content (a.k.a. a 'state' information waveform), there are no distinct thresholds that separate one thing or area of space-time from another; thus, "All is One" by definition. A perfect example of this whole concept is a "fractal," which is infinite in its scalability, has internal distinctions, yet is "One" mathematically-defined construct.
//With Respect to Human Life//
Forgive me if this seems obvious to some of you, but many people seem to seldom actively consider balance in their life, and, largely for this reason, happiness is elusive for them. I would argue that being happy is as dependent on having balance in your life as it is on having the basic necessities of life. Consider a few examples of the dichotomies that exist for humans in their life: time alone vs. time with friends and family, free time vs. productive time, strict parenting vs. lenient parenting, trusting others completely vs. protecting yourself by being paranoid/suspicious, taking care of others at the expense of self vs. devoting yourself to taking care of yourself so much it is at the expense of others, eating too many sweets vs. not enjoying any, explaining the world through logic and mathematics vs. grasping for meaning or purpose through subjective experiences that are beyond the power of reasoning to explain, worrying too much about appearance vs. not taking care of yourself, living up to others' expectations vs. acting solely based on what you believe is right and appropriate, being naive vs. being judgmental, living a very sheltered life vs. constantly exposing yourself to situations with high risk to the point you must struggle to stay alive, always accepting the beliefs of others vs. only valuing your own, et cetera.
I have come to instinctively recognize such dichotomies almost every day of my life for many, many years. Indeed, the duality of the human experience is so frequently apparent to me that I perceive it as being as much a 'law of nature' as gravity. A person who finds or puts themselves too far one way or the other with respect to any aspect of life defined by a dichotomous nature ultimately suffers. Achieving balance is about achieving relative harmony in your life. In the past, I personally did not have balance in my life in many areas, and I suffered continuously because of it—happiness was elusive for me because of that lack of balance and, thus, harmony.
One would think that awareness of this duality in every aspect of our lives would be enough to guide our decisions towards establishing harmony for ourselves. Yet, it is one of humanity's greatest flaws that we constantly struggle with our own selves in trying to follow the "better" path (if we are fortunate enough to recognize it) because of our instinctive impulses, other engrained behaviors, and having to balance our efforts in achieving balance in our own life with helping achieve balance within our society, which often naturally conflict with one another. We often find some excuse, some weak justification, for not taking the path we know deep down, almost subconsciously, to be more beneficial to us and/or society. Why? Is it possible that part of the reason is that we define our existence to some extent through our suffering—that we need suffering as much as happiness to feel alive? Or do we simply not always have the courage to move beyond the status quo? Unfortunately, although I have a great deal of objective knowledge and subjective experience on this topic, I have not come to a complete conclusion about such matters. Maybe the "answer" is inherently different for everyone. What's yours?
January 13, 2015
January 12, 2015
Highlights of the History of Astronomy and the Basics of Solar System Astronomy
Historical:
- The ancient Babylonians kept vast written records of astronomical data.
- Since the 7th century B.C., the Chinese kept highly accurate records of astronomical data.
- Plato and Aristotle formulated a geocentric model of the solar system describing the Earth as the center, with the sun and other planets revolving around the Earth in perfect circular orbits and the planets simultaneously having epicyclical orbits about their solar orbits to explain "retrograde motion" of the planets observed from Earth.
- In the 2nd century B.C., Hipparchus improved the geocentric model slightly, made the first (relatively) precise observations of stars, and developed the apparent magnitude scale measuring the apparent brightness of a star on a scale of 1 (brightest) to 6 (faintest).
- In the 3rd century B.C., Aristarchus was the first to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system (in which the sun is the center, and the planets revolve around the sun) but his work was largely ignored.
- Ptolemy's sophisticated and far more detailed improvement on the geocentric model was so successful that it remained the near-universally accepted model of the solar system until the Renaissance.
- During the Renaissance, Copernicus developed a detailed heliocentric model of the solar system utilizing a great deal of mathematics that successfully predicted the astronomical patterns of solar-body movements, and whose work was built upon by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler.
- Galileo, who developed the first relatively powerful telescope of the time, was the "father" of observational astronomy, and through his telescopically-collected observations discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter, that the moon had craters, the sun had "sunspots" (which he happened to correctly explain the nature of), observed that Venus (from the perspective of Earth) went through luminary phases similar to the moon, and used his observational evidence to directly support the validity of the heliocentric model.
- Later, Kepler used the couple decades of accurate solar observational data collected by Tycho Brahe and his own intellectual conceptual insights to develop his three law's of planetary motion (1. The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci, 2. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time, 3. The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit).
- Then came along Isaac Newton, who developed the "universal law of gravitation," which very precisely explained mathematically the heliocentric model movements of solar-bodies and made extremely accurate predictions for the future motions and positions of solar-bodies.
Non-Historical:
- Only approximately a maximum of 2,000 stars are visible with the naked eye.
- The Earth's average diameter is 7,918 miles.
- The solar system has a diameter of approximately 9 trillion miles.
- 1 lightyear ≈ 5.88 trillion miles.
- The radius of the observable universe is approximately 14 billion lightyears.
- The apparent encompassing sphere of the heavens about the Earth is called the "celestial sphere."
- 88 constellations are officially recognized by the IAU; that star patterns not formally considered constellations are called "asterisms."
- The apparent path of the sun across the celestial sphere is called the "ecliptic."
- Modern astronomers use a "photometer" and an apparent brightness scale that ranges from -30 to +31? (+31 was assigned to the faintest object detected by the Hubble telescope) {each increment = a ratio of 2.5 from the next increment in degree of brightness}, the Sun measures -26.75 on this scale, and the next brightest star, Sirius, measures in at -1.44.
- Astronomers use "declination" (the angular measure above or below the celestial equator) and "right ascension" (angular measure in units of "hour" {1 hour = 1.5°} relative to the "celestial meridian" (0° in longitude) to define the location of astronomical objects.
- The point directly above (90° perpendicular to the horizon at your current location) is called the 'zenith.'
- A star is said to "culminate" (reaches its highest altitude in the sky) when it is on the celestial meridian.
- The daily paths of stars around the celestial axis are called "diurnal circles."
- To find the "North Star," Polaris, you can use the 'pointer' stars, Dubhe and Merak (which are at the end of the 'bowl' of the Big Dipper).
- The stars that never 'set' below the celestial horizon in the Northern/Southern hemisphere are called "North (or) South circumpolar stars" respectively.
- The band about 16° wide around the sky centered on the 'ecliptic' is called the 'zodiac,' which ancient astrologers divided into 12 constellations, or "signs," each taken at 30° increments of longitude.
- The Earth’s geographical equator remains tilted at about 23.4-23.5° to its orbital plane about the sun.
- The 'vernal equinox,' which occurs about March 20, is the Sun’s position as it crosses the celestial equator going north and is the point on the celestial sphere chosen to be the 0h measure of right ascension.
- The 'autumnal equinox,' which occurs about September 23, is the Sun’s position as it crosses the celestial equator going south.
- During the equinoxes, day and night are equal in length.
- The 'summer solstice,' which occurs about June 21, and the 'winter solstice,' which occurs about December 21, are the most northern and most southern positions of the Sun during the year in the northern hemisphere, and that at these times we have the longest and shortest days, respectively, in the northern hemisphere.
- There are two measures of "day": the 'solar day' (measuring the time interval of Earth’s rotation using the Sun for reference) and the 'sidereal day' (measuring the time interval of Earth’s rotation using the stars for reference).
- A sidereal day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds long, requiring the use of leap-years and leap-seconds.
- The Earth’s axis of rotation shifts extremely slowly around a imaginary 'cone' in space once about every 25,800 years (which is called "precession") and is caused mainly by the tug of the gravity of the Sun and Moon on Earth’s equatorial bulge.
- The Arctic Circle and Antarctic Circle mark the southernmost and northernmost latitude, respectively, at which the sun can remain continuously above or below the horizon for 24 hours (at the June solstice and December solstice respectively).
- The Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn are the northern and southern latitudes, respectively, at which the sun reaches zenith only one time a year.
January 11, 2015
Feed the Hungry
Brothers and Sisters,
I am writing today to ask you to help me make a difference in the lives of the millions of Americans who have trouble making ends meet. I'm hoping you will help me by donating to my personal fundraising campaign to help fight hunger.
Did you know that one out of every six Americans struggles with hunger? This is a problem people of all ages and backgrounds face across the country. Hardworking people struggle to put food on the table for their families, and the government programs designed to help these individuals cannot close the gap.
I believe that the primary thing standing in the way of ending hunger right now is people's inclination to be apathetic towards issues they'd rather not think about. Even those who think about and talk about such problems as ending childhood hunger rarely take direct action to actually help address the problem.
In the words of the current Dalai Lama, "To meet the challenges of this century, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility." This universal responsibility we all share for our collective welfare requires ACTION on the part of each person, not just talk, and especially not ignoring that a particular problem exists. There is no excuse for 1 in 5 children in America to face hunger on a regular basis. We each have a social and moral obligation to ACT to resolve this unacceptable situation. Supporting this food drive is an action on your part that will have a direct impact on reducing hunger in America, the last place on Earth that should have such a problem in the first place.
That is why I've created a Virtual Food Drive for Feeding America. I'm trying to raise $100 to help Feeding America provide nutritious and much-needed food to families battling hunger. I have already donated $10 to the fundraiser. Every dollar I raise in my Virtual Food Drive will help provide 10 meals to hungry families.
Please donate to my Virtual Food Drive today and, just as importantly, spread the word about it!
http://help.feedingamerica.org/goto/wisefromwithin
Your Hungry Brothers and Sisters Thank You for Your Support,
Matthew L. Morgan
"wisefromwithin"
I am writing today to ask you to help me make a difference in the lives of the millions of Americans who have trouble making ends meet. I'm hoping you will help me by donating to my personal fundraising campaign to help fight hunger.
Did you know that one out of every six Americans struggles with hunger? This is a problem people of all ages and backgrounds face across the country. Hardworking people struggle to put food on the table for their families, and the government programs designed to help these individuals cannot close the gap.
I believe that the primary thing standing in the way of ending hunger right now is people's inclination to be apathetic towards issues they'd rather not think about. Even those who think about and talk about such problems as ending childhood hunger rarely take direct action to actually help address the problem.
In the words of the current Dalai Lama, "To meet the challenges of this century, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility." This universal responsibility we all share for our collective welfare requires ACTION on the part of each person, not just talk, and especially not ignoring that a particular problem exists. There is no excuse for 1 in 5 children in America to face hunger on a regular basis. We each have a social and moral obligation to ACT to resolve this unacceptable situation. Supporting this food drive is an action on your part that will have a direct impact on reducing hunger in America, the last place on Earth that should have such a problem in the first place.
That is why I've created a Virtual Food Drive for Feeding America. I'm trying to raise $100 to help Feeding America provide nutritious and much-needed food to families battling hunger. I have already donated $10 to the fundraiser. Every dollar I raise in my Virtual Food Drive will help provide 10 meals to hungry families.
Please donate to my Virtual Food Drive today and, just as importantly, spread the word about it!
http://help.feedingamerica.org/goto/wisefromwithin
Your Hungry Brothers and Sisters Thank You for Your Support,
Matthew L. Morgan
"wisefromwithin"
Wisdom Concerning the 'Self' (from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds)
[The following quote's are some of the ones that were compiled by Maria Popova in her article on brainpickings.org :]
Mindfulness in the Present Moment
"I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" — Henry David Thoreau ('Walking' - 1861)
"On the Shortness of Life" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – AD 65)
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it."
[…]
"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!"
[…]
"Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."
Knowing Who You Are
"There is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out."
[…]
"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that 'I myself' is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which 'confronts' an 'external' world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. 'I came into this world.' 'You must face reality.' 'The conquest of nature.'
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin." — Alan Watts ('The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' - 1966)
The 'Fixed Mindset' vs. the 'Growth Mindset'
"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
[…]
"There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." — Carol Dweck ('Mindset: The New Psychology of Success' - 2006)
Never Cease to Ask Questions and Pursue Answers About the Unknown
"By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, men establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded…
While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world." — Hannah Arendt ('The Life of the Mind' - 1978)
On 'Perfectionism'
"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
[…]
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing." — Anne Lamott ('Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life' - 1995)
On Evaluating the Validity and Usefulness of a New Idea
"The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method."
[…]
"1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result." — Carl Sagan (' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark' - 1996)
Get Lost to Find Yourself
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious. The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?"
[…]
"How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us."
[…]
"To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost." — Rebecca Solnit ('A Field Guide to Getting Lost' - 2005)
Be Like Water
"After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then — at that moment — a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might — yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature."
[…]
"Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day." — Bruce Lee ('Bruce Lee: Artist of Life' - 1999)
Making 'Good' Out of 'Evils'
"Throughout our nervous history, we have constructed pyramidic towers of evil, ofttimes in the name of good. Our greed, fear and lasciviousness have enabled us to murder our poets, who are ourselves, to castigate our priests, who are ourselves. The lists of our subversions of the good stretch from before recorded history to this moment. We drop our eyes at the mention of the bloody, torturous Inquisition. Our shoulders sag at the thoughts of African slaves lying spoon-fashion in the filthy hatches of slave-ships, and the subsequent auction blocks upon which were built great fortunes in our country. We turn our heads in bitter shame at the remembrance of Dachau and the other gas ovens, where millions of ourselves were murdered by millions of ourselves. As soon as we are reminded of our actions, more often than not we spend incredible energy trying to forget what we’ve just been reminded of."
[…]
"To show you … how out of evil there can come good, in those five years I read every book in the black school library. I read all the books I could get from the white school library. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. I memorized Shakespeare, whole plays, fifty sonnets. I memorized Edgar Allen Poe, all the poetry — never having heard it, I memorized it. I had Longfellow, I had Guy de Maupassant, I had Balzac, Rudyard Kipling — I mean, it was catholic kind of reading, and catholic kind of storing."
[…]
"Out of this evil, which was a dire kind of evil, because rape on the body of a young person more often than not introduces cynicism, and there is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case I was saved in that muteness… And I was able to draw from human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, enough to triumph myself."
[…]
"We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable." — Maya Angelou (Documentary: 'Facing Evil with Maya Angelou' - 1988)
Living by Your Own Standards (the Basis for 'Happiness')
"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people."
[…]
"Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: ‘A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.’"
[…]
"It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being." — Eleanor Roosevelt ('You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life' - 1960)
Mindfulness in the Present Moment
"I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to Society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" — Henry David Thoreau ('Walking' - 1861)
"On the Shortness of Life" by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – AD 65)
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it."
[…]
"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply — though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire… How late it is to begin really to live just when life must end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!"
[…]
"Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."
Knowing Who You Are
"There is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out."
[…]
"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that 'I myself' is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which 'confronts' an 'external' world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. 'I came into this world.' 'You must face reality.' 'The conquest of nature.'
This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin." — Alan Watts ('The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' - 1966)
The 'Fixed Mindset' vs. the 'Growth Mindset'
"Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
[…]
"There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
Do people with this mindset believe that anyone can be anything, that anyone with proper motivation or education can become Einstein or Beethoven? No, but they believe that a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training." — Carol Dweck ('Mindset: The New Psychology of Success' - 2006)
Never Cease to Ask Questions and Pursue Answers About the Unknown
"By posing the unanswerable questions of meaning, men establish themselves as question-asking beings. Behind all the cognitive questions for which men find answers, there lurk the unanswerable ones that seem entirely idle and have always been denounced as such. It is more than likely that men, if they were ever to lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions, would lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded…
While our thirst for knowledge may be unquenchable because of the immensity of the unknown, the activity itself leaves behind a growing treasure of knowledge that is retained and kept in store by every civilization as part and parcel of its world. The loss of this accumulation and of the technical expertise required to conserve and increase it inevitably spells the end of this particular world." — Hannah Arendt ('The Life of the Mind' - 1978)
On 'Perfectionism'
"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.
[…]
Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here — and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing." — Anne Lamott ('Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life' - 1995)
On Evaluating the Validity and Usefulness of a New Idea
"The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method."
[…]
"1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result." — Carl Sagan (' The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark' - 1996)
Get Lost to Find Yourself
"Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. The student made big transparent photographs of swimmers underwater and hung them from the ceiling with the light shining through them, so that to walk among them was to have the shadows of swimmers travel across your body in a space that itself came to seem aquatic and mysterious. The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration — how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?"
[…]
"How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control. To calculate on the unforeseen is perhaps exactly the paradoxical operation that life most requires of us."
[…]
"To lose yourself: a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away. In Benjamin’s terms, to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery. And one does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, a chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography. That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost." — Rebecca Solnit ('A Field Guide to Getting Lost' - 2005)
Be Like Water
"After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then — at that moment — a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might — yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature."
[…]
"Water is so fine that it is impossible to grasp a handful of it; strike it, yet it does not suffer hurt; stab it, and it is not wounded; sever it, yet it is not divided. It has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it. When heated to the state of steam it is invisible but has enough power to split the earth itself. When frozen it crystallizes into a mighty rock. First it is turbulent like Niagara Falls, and then calm like a still pond, fearful like a torrent, and refreshing like a spring on a hot summer’s day." — Bruce Lee ('Bruce Lee: Artist of Life' - 1999)
Making 'Good' Out of 'Evils'
"Throughout our nervous history, we have constructed pyramidic towers of evil, ofttimes in the name of good. Our greed, fear and lasciviousness have enabled us to murder our poets, who are ourselves, to castigate our priests, who are ourselves. The lists of our subversions of the good stretch from before recorded history to this moment. We drop our eyes at the mention of the bloody, torturous Inquisition. Our shoulders sag at the thoughts of African slaves lying spoon-fashion in the filthy hatches of slave-ships, and the subsequent auction blocks upon which were built great fortunes in our country. We turn our heads in bitter shame at the remembrance of Dachau and the other gas ovens, where millions of ourselves were murdered by millions of ourselves. As soon as we are reminded of our actions, more often than not we spend incredible energy trying to forget what we’ve just been reminded of."
[…]
"To show you … how out of evil there can come good, in those five years I read every book in the black school library. I read all the books I could get from the white school library. I memorized James Weldon Johnson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. I memorized Shakespeare, whole plays, fifty sonnets. I memorized Edgar Allen Poe, all the poetry — never having heard it, I memorized it. I had Longfellow, I had Guy de Maupassant, I had Balzac, Rudyard Kipling — I mean, it was catholic kind of reading, and catholic kind of storing."
[…]
"Out of this evil, which was a dire kind of evil, because rape on the body of a young person more often than not introduces cynicism, and there is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In my case I was saved in that muteness… And I was able to draw from human thought, human disappointments and triumphs, enough to triumph myself."
[…]
"We need the courage to create ourselves daily, to be bodacious enough to create ourselves daily — as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings. I think that the courage to confront evil and turn it by dint of will into something applicable to the development of our evolution, individually and collectively, is exciting, honorable." — Maya Angelou (Documentary: 'Facing Evil with Maya Angelou' - 1988)
Living by Your Own Standards (the Basis for 'Happiness')
"Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people."
[…]
"Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: ‘A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.’"
[…]
"It’s your life — but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being." — Eleanor Roosevelt ('You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life' - 1960)
January 10, 2015
Homosexual Equality (the Lessons of History & Clarifying the Concepts of "Marriage")
[Originally Posted 9/24/09; edited and expanded 1/10/15]
Despite being 100% heterosexual, I find choosing to support homosexuals having equality of social status, as well as rights and protections provided under the rule of law, in amazingly simple decision to reach given the constitution and lessons provided by history. I realize large social changes take time, but how can so many of us still be so blind to the lessons of the past? It wasn't so long ago in the annals of world history that the majority of men struggled vehemently to deny women equal rights to own property and participate in the voting process of democracies. Not so long ago the majority of whites in this country so passionately fought, either through force or active bigotry, to deny blacks genuinely-equal social status and legal rights. And now, our society once again finds itself socially polarized, this time on the topic of homosexual equality. Well, let us be honest with ourselves. As past generations had their social revolutions, this generation is, too, experiencing a social revolution, and I would argue success in overthrowing the current social status-quo with regards to granting homosexuals equal social status and legal rights is as every bit as inevitable as the successes hard fought for by blacks and women over the last couple hundred years.
I was told a story recently about a black man who was obliviously broadcasting his side of a cellphone conversation about homosexuals to a small crowd sitting nearby him. Needless to say, his opinion of homosexuals was passionate, egregiously unfavorable, and, quite simply, astoundingly hypocritical. Past generations of this man's family, as recently as his parents undoubtedly, poured their blood, sweet, and tears into fighting and struggling against that very same prejudicial attitude towards blacks—simply because they were "different" in some relatively benign way compared to the majority. Nevertheless, there he was, as blind to the absurdity of his irrational attitudes towards homosexuals as whites' attitudes had been towards his ancestors. It just goes to show that personal self-awareness and rational reasoning can be absent in anyone, even someone whose heritage should have made him realize what a hypocrite he was being that day.
We all must always be on guard against and actively fight against prejudice and hatred, especially within ourselves. We each harbor a degree of stereotypical thought processes in our daily lives, usually without being consciously aware of its subconscious influence on our thinking and behavior, and occasionally have what would be deemed by our own self to be 'undesirable' emotional responses to certain circumstances we encounter. To provide a relatively clear-cut example: if you were a middle- or upper-class white, who genuinely believes they do not have a racist "bone in their body" thanks to a non-racist upbringing, walking through your nice, mostly-white family suburban neighborhood at dusk and see a young African-American male heading towards you on the sidewalk wearing a hoodie that hides all but part of his face and sagging, baggy jeans, there is a really good chance you are going to have an instinctually negative emotional reaction upon first recognition of those circumstances, such as a degree of anxiety, even though your conscious belief system reminds you seconds later that you should not judge that person and their potential threat to you based on a stereotype; despite this rational reminder you may continue to feel tense until you pass him without incident. This example was constructed to maximize the understanding of the general concepts, but countless, less clear-cut real life examples exist in practically everyone's daily life in which the brain is naturally, inherently, constantly interpreting and evaluating the things in its environment at a subconscious level, using probability as its guide in prioritizing how it evaluates what things should receive what percentage of the finite resource of one's attentive awareness at that moment, and judges what the safest instinctual interpretations of the things going on in that person's environment are. Because of the way the brain automatically processes information about its environment based on probabilities, which are determined by patterns recognized in past life experiences and engrained "background information"/knowledge, stereotypes we know about, whether we consciously object to stereotyping or not, factor into how the brain instinctively reacts to its environment. To a large extent, instinctual responses are unavoidable at the moment they occur, and can only be overridden through conscious evaluation of a given situation using good reasoning. Thus, the path towards social prosperity and harmony, which benefits us all in the end, must begin with a thorough, objective self-evaluation of the quality of one's own rational and moral reasoning and knowledge-base which forms one's established worldview, belief systems, and values.
We need to recognize that marriage under the law and marriage 'under God' need not, and should not, be considered one and the same thing in this debate. I myself was legally married in a court of law to my wife almost five years before we married through the church. The argument by the majority of religious people, who improperly entwine the concepts of legal marriage with "spiritual" marriage, and, in so doing, believe that allowing such legal marriages some how sullies the 'sanctity of marriage' ("sanctity" being a term that, by definition, can only be associated with religious marriage 'under God'), that legal marriage should be prohibited for homosexuals, despite the fact that our constitution specifies the necessity of recognizing a 'separation of church and state,' is simply untenable. Measuring how sanctimonious a marriage is has everything to do with how faithful, loving, and selfless the behavior of the two partners towards one another is, and has nothing to do with what is in their underwear—in similar fashion to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s belief that a person should not be judged based on the color of their skin, but "by the content of their character." There is no doubt in my mind that there are countless homosexual couples whose behavior is far more laudable than many heterosexual couples. Let us leave the religious side of the debate to the religious establishments and stop letting conservative religious arguments unconstitutionally influence our government from obeying its own constitutionally established protections. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This constitutional amendment did not happen by accident. It was one of the most consequential and direct results of the Civil War and the overall social struggle to restore the human dignity of, and establish legal rights and protections for, blacks. It will take time but it is certain that the 14th Amendment, and the same kind of revolutionary social attitude that gave birth to it that exists today, will earn homosexuals equal social status and protection under the law across this country in the years to come.
[The prediction I made nearly five and half years ago, when I first published this post, concerning the social progress that would occur to provide for equal social status and application of law for homosexuals turned out to be correct, though the good fight against prejudice continues....]
Despite being 100% heterosexual, I find choosing to support homosexuals having equality of social status, as well as rights and protections provided under the rule of law, in amazingly simple decision to reach given the constitution and lessons provided by history. I realize large social changes take time, but how can so many of us still be so blind to the lessons of the past? It wasn't so long ago in the annals of world history that the majority of men struggled vehemently to deny women equal rights to own property and participate in the voting process of democracies. Not so long ago the majority of whites in this country so passionately fought, either through force or active bigotry, to deny blacks genuinely-equal social status and legal rights. And now, our society once again finds itself socially polarized, this time on the topic of homosexual equality. Well, let us be honest with ourselves. As past generations had their social revolutions, this generation is, too, experiencing a social revolution, and I would argue success in overthrowing the current social status-quo with regards to granting homosexuals equal social status and legal rights is as every bit as inevitable as the successes hard fought for by blacks and women over the last couple hundred years.
I was told a story recently about a black man who was obliviously broadcasting his side of a cellphone conversation about homosexuals to a small crowd sitting nearby him. Needless to say, his opinion of homosexuals was passionate, egregiously unfavorable, and, quite simply, astoundingly hypocritical. Past generations of this man's family, as recently as his parents undoubtedly, poured their blood, sweet, and tears into fighting and struggling against that very same prejudicial attitude towards blacks—simply because they were "different" in some relatively benign way compared to the majority. Nevertheless, there he was, as blind to the absurdity of his irrational attitudes towards homosexuals as whites' attitudes had been towards his ancestors. It just goes to show that personal self-awareness and rational reasoning can be absent in anyone, even someone whose heritage should have made him realize what a hypocrite he was being that day.
We all must always be on guard against and actively fight against prejudice and hatred, especially within ourselves. We each harbor a degree of stereotypical thought processes in our daily lives, usually without being consciously aware of its subconscious influence on our thinking and behavior, and occasionally have what would be deemed by our own self to be 'undesirable' emotional responses to certain circumstances we encounter. To provide a relatively clear-cut example: if you were a middle- or upper-class white, who genuinely believes they do not have a racist "bone in their body" thanks to a non-racist upbringing, walking through your nice, mostly-white family suburban neighborhood at dusk and see a young African-American male heading towards you on the sidewalk wearing a hoodie that hides all but part of his face and sagging, baggy jeans, there is a really good chance you are going to have an instinctually negative emotional reaction upon first recognition of those circumstances, such as a degree of anxiety, even though your conscious belief system reminds you seconds later that you should not judge that person and their potential threat to you based on a stereotype; despite this rational reminder you may continue to feel tense until you pass him without incident. This example was constructed to maximize the understanding of the general concepts, but countless, less clear-cut real life examples exist in practically everyone's daily life in which the brain is naturally, inherently, constantly interpreting and evaluating the things in its environment at a subconscious level, using probability as its guide in prioritizing how it evaluates what things should receive what percentage of the finite resource of one's attentive awareness at that moment, and judges what the safest instinctual interpretations of the things going on in that person's environment are. Because of the way the brain automatically processes information about its environment based on probabilities, which are determined by patterns recognized in past life experiences and engrained "background information"/knowledge, stereotypes we know about, whether we consciously object to stereotyping or not, factor into how the brain instinctively reacts to its environment. To a large extent, instinctual responses are unavoidable at the moment they occur, and can only be overridden through conscious evaluation of a given situation using good reasoning. Thus, the path towards social prosperity and harmony, which benefits us all in the end, must begin with a thorough, objective self-evaluation of the quality of one's own rational and moral reasoning and knowledge-base which forms one's established worldview, belief systems, and values.
We need to recognize that marriage under the law and marriage 'under God' need not, and should not, be considered one and the same thing in this debate. I myself was legally married in a court of law to my wife almost five years before we married through the church. The argument by the majority of religious people, who improperly entwine the concepts of legal marriage with "spiritual" marriage, and, in so doing, believe that allowing such legal marriages some how sullies the 'sanctity of marriage' ("sanctity" being a term that, by definition, can only be associated with religious marriage 'under God'), that legal marriage should be prohibited for homosexuals, despite the fact that our constitution specifies the necessity of recognizing a 'separation of church and state,' is simply untenable. Measuring how sanctimonious a marriage is has everything to do with how faithful, loving, and selfless the behavior of the two partners towards one another is, and has nothing to do with what is in their underwear—in similar fashion to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s belief that a person should not be judged based on the color of their skin, but "by the content of their character." There is no doubt in my mind that there are countless homosexual couples whose behavior is far more laudable than many heterosexual couples. Let us leave the religious side of the debate to the religious establishments and stop letting conservative religious arguments unconstitutionally influence our government from obeying its own constitutionally established protections. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This constitutional amendment did not happen by accident. It was one of the most consequential and direct results of the Civil War and the overall social struggle to restore the human dignity of, and establish legal rights and protections for, blacks. It will take time but it is certain that the 14th Amendment, and the same kind of revolutionary social attitude that gave birth to it that exists today, will earn homosexuals equal social status and protection under the law across this country in the years to come.
[The prediction I made nearly five and half years ago, when I first published this post, concerning the social progress that would occur to provide for equal social status and application of law for homosexuals turned out to be correct, though the good fight against prejudice continues....]
January 9, 2015
Gender Inequality (Response to a College Assignment)
[Originally posted: Wednesday, February 03, 2010]
My overall interpretation of "Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley" was that the primary issue creating inequality (of treatment, opportunity, and support) between the sexes in 'stereotypically male' industries is the common perception, by both sexes, of what gender role constructs are accepted and expected. Personal family experiences and other cultural influences have shaped the beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of past and current generations of men and women concerning gender roles. I found it somewhat surprising that, at least as represented by this author (despite her own gender), the majority of women are as guilty of possessing gender perceptions that propagate workplace inequality as men are.
Despite the continued prevalence of this socioeconomic inequality between the sexes, it is my opinion that the average trending, especially in the U.S. from the mid-20th century to the present, towards more socially liberal attitudes and beliefs in society is gradually eroding the prevalence of the traditional role constructs that are largely responsible for the current gender inequalities. Therefore, I find it at least relatively reasonable to believe that the pervasiveness of this problem will continue to steadily dissipate over the next few decades.
I thought it would be interesting to point out an example of work-related discrimination that is often experienced by men for similar reasons: male nurses. A typical perception is that women have a significantly higher capacity for empathy and ability to care for others to a higher interpersonal standard, and that it is not the place of men to have such an occupation. Therefore, as has been related to me from a female RN, male nurses are far more likely to have to deal with patients that mistreat or devalue them and their work, and are also likely to experience a slightly increased challenge in establishing or maintaining male-male friendships because of their occupation. Again in this case, persistent cultural role constructs have formed the personal perceptions that feed these (arguably negative) behaviors and reactions.
One particular line in "Violence Against Women" really stood out for me. "Violence therefore operates as a means to maintain and reinforce women's subordination." Clearly men who are violent towards women usually consciously or instinctively justify their behavior, at least partially, based on socially-propogated constructs of what a 'real man' is expected to be physically, psychologically, and in their interpersonal behaviors, which include an inherent perception espousing male domination and female subordination through these various socially-promoted male attributes. As the quoted sentence implies, more often than not, the reason for the violent behavior is to maintain and reinvigorate the man's self-perception of having the aforementioned qualities defined by the prevailing social expectations. Although I realize I'm treading a fine line here and do not claim women are at all directly responsible for the violence against them, I would suggest that womens' acceptance of these same gender constructs is an underlying reason for the stubborn persistence (staying-power) of individual relationships in which violence has taken place. I would argue that if abused women had been raised in a social environment in which women were taught and expected to think and behave in ways that were truly equal to men in all practical respects, those same women would be far, far more likely to end an abusive relationship promptly.
My overall interpretation of "Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley" was that the primary issue creating inequality (of treatment, opportunity, and support) between the sexes in 'stereotypically male' industries is the common perception, by both sexes, of what gender role constructs are accepted and expected. Personal family experiences and other cultural influences have shaped the beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of past and current generations of men and women concerning gender roles. I found it somewhat surprising that, at least as represented by this author (despite her own gender), the majority of women are as guilty of possessing gender perceptions that propagate workplace inequality as men are.
Despite the continued prevalence of this socioeconomic inequality between the sexes, it is my opinion that the average trending, especially in the U.S. from the mid-20th century to the present, towards more socially liberal attitudes and beliefs in society is gradually eroding the prevalence of the traditional role constructs that are largely responsible for the current gender inequalities. Therefore, I find it at least relatively reasonable to believe that the pervasiveness of this problem will continue to steadily dissipate over the next few decades.
I thought it would be interesting to point out an example of work-related discrimination that is often experienced by men for similar reasons: male nurses. A typical perception is that women have a significantly higher capacity for empathy and ability to care for others to a higher interpersonal standard, and that it is not the place of men to have such an occupation. Therefore, as has been related to me from a female RN, male nurses are far more likely to have to deal with patients that mistreat or devalue them and their work, and are also likely to experience a slightly increased challenge in establishing or maintaining male-male friendships because of their occupation. Again in this case, persistent cultural role constructs have formed the personal perceptions that feed these (arguably negative) behaviors and reactions.
One particular line in "Violence Against Women" really stood out for me. "Violence therefore operates as a means to maintain and reinforce women's subordination." Clearly men who are violent towards women usually consciously or instinctively justify their behavior, at least partially, based on socially-propogated constructs of what a 'real man' is expected to be physically, psychologically, and in their interpersonal behaviors, which include an inherent perception espousing male domination and female subordination through these various socially-promoted male attributes. As the quoted sentence implies, more often than not, the reason for the violent behavior is to maintain and reinvigorate the man's self-perception of having the aforementioned qualities defined by the prevailing social expectations. Although I realize I'm treading a fine line here and do not claim women are at all directly responsible for the violence against them, I would suggest that womens' acceptance of these same gender constructs is an underlying reason for the stubborn persistence (staying-power) of individual relationships in which violence has taken place. I would argue that if abused women had been raised in a social environment in which women were taught and expected to think and behave in ways that were truly equal to men in all practical respects, those same women would be far, far more likely to end an abusive relationship promptly.
The Right of the Individual to Keep & Bear Arms
I am a firm believer in a person's rights to self-preservation and protection from unlawful subjugation, and thus an avid supporter for the individual right to keep and bear arms in defense of self, other innocents, and one's property. As the Supreme Court has established (see District of Columbia v. Heller), the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms and is NOT a right only guaranteed to governmentally established militias. As the Supreme Court's own research concludes, this individual right was a "natural" (socially accepted and practiced) right that pre-dated the Constitution and was added to the Bill of Rights only to prohibit the government from making laws that restricted this natural right, not to declare a new right.
Many secondary sources of information (including many popular news media outlets) are ill-informed and/or biased. You would be doing yourself a disservice not to do your own research and form your own opinion. Do not be fooled by people who say gun control laws reduce crime. Criminals obviously don't give two craps about the law in the first place. Do you really think that gun laws that theoretically restrict all people, but only truly impede law-abiding citizens make us safer? By restricting law-abiding citizens' right to keep and bear arms we are making life safer and easier for criminals to conduct criminal activity.
Many secondary sources of information (including many popular news media outlets) are ill-informed and/or biased. You would be doing yourself a disservice not to do your own research and form your own opinion. Do not be fooled by people who say gun control laws reduce crime. Criminals obviously don't give two craps about the law in the first place. Do you really think that gun laws that theoretically restrict all people, but only truly impede law-abiding citizens make us safer? By restricting law-abiding citizens' right to keep and bear arms we are making life safer and easier for criminals to conduct criminal activity.
January 5, 2015
Discovery & "Form"
The following quotation, including the footnote, is taken from George Spencer Brown's, "The Laws of Form", Appendix 1:
"Discoveries of any great moment in mathematics and other disciplines, once they are discovered, are seen to be extremely simple and obvious, and make everybody, including their discoverer, appear foolish for not having discovered them before. It is all too often forgotten that the ancient symbol for the prenascence of the world* is a fool, and that foolishness, being a divine state, is not a condition to be either proud or ashamed of.
"Unfortunately, we find systems of education today which have departed so far from the plain truth, that they now teach us to be proud of what we know and ashamed of ignorance. This is doubly corrupt. It is corrupt not only because pride is in itself a mortal sin, but also because to teach pride in knowledge is to put up an effective barrier against any advance upon what is already known, since it makes one ashamed to look beyond the bonds imposed by one's ignorance.
"To any person prepared to enter with respect into the realm of his great and universal ignorance, the secrets of being will eventually unfold, and they will do so in measure according to his freedom from natural and indoctrinated shame in his respect of their revelation.
"In the face of the strong, and indeed violent, social pressures against it, few people have been prepared to take this simple and satisfying course towards sanity. And in a society where a prominent psychiatrist can advertise that given the chance, he would have treated Newton to electric shock therapy, who can blame any person for being afraid to do so?
"To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrust upon them.
"In these circumstances, the discoveries that any person is able to undertake represent the places where, in the face of induced psychosis, he has by his own faltering and unaided efforts, returned to sanity. Painfully, and even dangerously, maybe. But nonetheless returned, however furtively."
[* wer = man, ald = age, old. The world may be taken to be the manifest properties of the all, its identity with the age of man being evident through the fact that man is a primary animal with a hand ('manifest' coming from manus = hand, festus = struck). Thus the world is considerably less than the all, which includes the unmanifest, but considerably greater than 'the' universe (more correctly than any universe), which is merely the formal appearance of one of the possible manifestations which make up the world.]
Remarkable how much this sounds like something I would say, given my recent understanding of the hypostasis of "Form".
January 4, 2015
Press Release & Background Info. on My Album
First: a mass, global press release for my music album and my record label has been published to over 500+ media and industry outlets, as well as the blogger-sphere and social media which you can check out here!
Second:
[Transcript from my Kickstarter project video presentation.]
"Hello Everyone!
My name is Matthew Morgan, though I usually go by Matt, and I am a 30 year old partially-disabled army combat veteran who is currently nearing completion of my college degree. There is a major abundance of detailed information about me on my Kickstarter project page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wisefromwithin/wise-trip-eptm-album-completion) and especially my blog pages, so I won't bother covering all of that here....
On the internet and when referred to as a music producer I go by the alias "WiseFromWithin." This alias is simply a reminder to myself and others that true wisdom concerning anything (even right down to the very nature of existence itself) must be rooted and developed forth, first, from a genuine and deep understanding of 'thyself.'
I am seeking your support in investing in the completion of what is my debut album as a music producer, called Wise 'Trip' EP, which is currently in the "demo" stage. There is plenty of detail about my project on the project's pages, including where to go to listen to all of the songs, but I'll give you some background information on the concepts and meaning behind the album itself and a couple of the songs--information that you will not find anywhere else.
Both in the album's title and the 1st track's title, Destiny 'Trip,' the word "trip" has a double meaning, which is why it is in single quotes. It both means a trip, as in a journey, and also a "trip," as in a mental high that the music is intended to induce in the listener. The album concept is to explore the different, important aspects of human life through the use of music that serves as accurate metaphors for conveying those ideas in a way that is more emotionally engaging, more intuitively understandable, and more enveloping of consciousness for the listener, than could be achieved through words.
Destiny 'Trip' is a song that does not follow a standard musical song structure, as most of the songs on the album do not. Destiny 'Trip' is structured musically to be a metaphor for the human lifespan, with each of its stages represented in the proper, relative proportions. It begins with early childhood (which is the piano intro). It suddenly builds up, transitioning with a crescendo into the song section representing the phase of later childhood and adolescence.
The point in the song where there is only a duet of intertwining countermelodies, represents the transition in a person's life between adolescence and adulthood--a time when they retain their excitement for life, but, as a person, feel considerable uncertainty about who they are, what direction their life should head in, and also is the time when the person often feels alone in terms of not being able to understand their destiny through what advice others have to offer them--only they, them self, can figure all of that out use their intellectual conflict plays itself out (represented by the two countermelodies). When the rest of the music reenters, the person is a young adult, still filled with a sense of discovery and excitement about the world around them and how they are just beginning to understand how they fit in to it all.
When the song reaches the point where it modulates to a new key, speeds up, and is beginning to fill with even more energy--this represents the stage in a person's life when, who they are as a person, is stabilizing and settling into an identity the person at least partially understands. At the same time, the person finally has some degree of grasp on what meaning and purpose they want their life to have--in other words, what their destiny is; and they move forward with the next phase of their life that roughly spans between their late 20's and late 50's (the phase in one's life that begins musically at the point in the song when the "bridge" transition ends with the energetic drums entering and landing in the next section of the song).
At this point in a person's life, they are fairly confident in themselves and what they want out of life, and they also are applying--through their actions, not just their words--the values and ideals they identify with in most everything they do. The heightened energy and slight swagger of the music in this section intends to represent these ideas.
Finally, in the music (with the moderately loud atmospheric splash and instant drop in tempo), as in a person's life, a point of "old age" is reached, where everything seems to suddenly slow down while the person still retains a sense of dignity and identity that they had during the previous phase of their life. As the song ends, like the end of one's life, their is a last moment of uplifting melody--the last beats of the heart. As the person's heart, and the music, sounds its final note and their breath slips away, so too does the music, gently and brightly fading into the rest of the universe....
The piano melody that can be heard repeating throughout the song is like a spiritual "marker" that uniquely identifies that particular person's consciousness, regardless of the countless changes it goes through throughout their life. Destiny 'Trip' is, overall, positive in its portrayal of the human life, not to ignore the negative realities and experiences that exist in real life, but because the whole purpose of my music is to uplift and inspire the listener to make the most of their life in the most positively-minded way possible--in part by reminding them of the common experience all humans have in life and in death. Keeping in mind that death as a part of life for us all helps a person realize that one day, all that will remain of them is their legacy--the memories others have of them and the influences they had on the world around them during their life, which will reverberate throughout all eternity. Keeping this truth in mind motivates a person to make better, more positive choices in how they live their life and in how they interact with others and the world around them.
The last song I will explain here, to further show that every song on the album has a strong conceptual basis that drives each songs' theme and motifs, is "A Brief History of Memory." Even though this is one of the songs I wish to expand on in terms of its length, the theme and motifs, which are already represented in the song, are based on the concept of a person, who could be anyone, and probably has been all of us at some point in our lives, who is quietly reflecting back on the memories of their life history. The positive and negative emotions associated with each of those memories is heard in the harmonies of the first, quiet section of the piece. As the song transitions into the second section, the music is composed to convey the sense of wonder, mystery, and uncertainty that that same person feels as they try to make sense of how those memories relate to their life in the present and how those memories should influence the way they move forward with their life in the future.
If you would like to learn similar background information on the other songs, you can be rewarded with a 30 or 60 minute phone conversation with me (among other incentives), depending on your donation amount. Be sure to check out all of the incentives; they are all good rewards for your support, regardless of the amount you choose to donate. The truth is, even the smallest investment on your part will make a big difference and will be greatly appreciated.
I sincerely thank you for your time and careful consideration. I know there is a lot of information to digest about myself, my music, and my record label. It's up to you how deep you want to go into the details of these things, but if you choose to dig deep, you won't be disappointed--I am an "open book" as they say, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I have always been a kind, loving, considerate person who is grateful for every achievement and contribution I have been able to make to benefit my fellow human brothers and sisters. I offer you all my best wishes. ONE LOVE..."
Second:
[Transcript from my Kickstarter project video presentation.]
"Hello Everyone!
My name is Matthew Morgan, though I usually go by Matt, and I am a 30 year old partially-disabled army combat veteran who is currently nearing completion of my college degree. There is a major abundance of detailed information about me on my Kickstarter project page (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wisefromwithin/wise-trip-eptm-album-completion) and especially my blog pages, so I won't bother covering all of that here....
On the internet and when referred to as a music producer I go by the alias "WiseFromWithin." This alias is simply a reminder to myself and others that true wisdom concerning anything (even right down to the very nature of existence itself) must be rooted and developed forth, first, from a genuine and deep understanding of 'thyself.'
I am seeking your support in investing in the completion of what is my debut album as a music producer, called Wise 'Trip' EP, which is currently in the "demo" stage. There is plenty of detail about my project on the project's pages, including where to go to listen to all of the songs, but I'll give you some background information on the concepts and meaning behind the album itself and a couple of the songs--information that you will not find anywhere else.
Both in the album's title and the 1st track's title, Destiny 'Trip,' the word "trip" has a double meaning, which is why it is in single quotes. It both means a trip, as in a journey, and also a "trip," as in a mental high that the music is intended to induce in the listener. The album concept is to explore the different, important aspects of human life through the use of music that serves as accurate metaphors for conveying those ideas in a way that is more emotionally engaging, more intuitively understandable, and more enveloping of consciousness for the listener, than could be achieved through words.
Destiny 'Trip' is a song that does not follow a standard musical song structure, as most of the songs on the album do not. Destiny 'Trip' is structured musically to be a metaphor for the human lifespan, with each of its stages represented in the proper, relative proportions. It begins with early childhood (which is the piano intro). It suddenly builds up, transitioning with a crescendo into the song section representing the phase of later childhood and adolescence.
The point in the song where there is only a duet of intertwining countermelodies, represents the transition in a person's life between adolescence and adulthood--a time when they retain their excitement for life, but, as a person, feel considerable uncertainty about who they are, what direction their life should head in, and also is the time when the person often feels alone in terms of not being able to understand their destiny through what advice others have to offer them--only they, them self, can figure all of that out use their intellectual conflict plays itself out (represented by the two countermelodies). When the rest of the music reenters, the person is a young adult, still filled with a sense of discovery and excitement about the world around them and how they are just beginning to understand how they fit in to it all.
When the song reaches the point where it modulates to a new key, speeds up, and is beginning to fill with even more energy--this represents the stage in a person's life when, who they are as a person, is stabilizing and settling into an identity the person at least partially understands. At the same time, the person finally has some degree of grasp on what meaning and purpose they want their life to have--in other words, what their destiny is; and they move forward with the next phase of their life that roughly spans between their late 20's and late 50's (the phase in one's life that begins musically at the point in the song when the "bridge" transition ends with the energetic drums entering and landing in the next section of the song).
At this point in a person's life, they are fairly confident in themselves and what they want out of life, and they also are applying--through their actions, not just their words--the values and ideals they identify with in most everything they do. The heightened energy and slight swagger of the music in this section intends to represent these ideas.
Finally, in the music (with the moderately loud atmospheric splash and instant drop in tempo), as in a person's life, a point of "old age" is reached, where everything seems to suddenly slow down while the person still retains a sense of dignity and identity that they had during the previous phase of their life. As the song ends, like the end of one's life, their is a last moment of uplifting melody--the last beats of the heart. As the person's heart, and the music, sounds its final note and their breath slips away, so too does the music, gently and brightly fading into the rest of the universe....
The piano melody that can be heard repeating throughout the song is like a spiritual "marker" that uniquely identifies that particular person's consciousness, regardless of the countless changes it goes through throughout their life. Destiny 'Trip' is, overall, positive in its portrayal of the human life, not to ignore the negative realities and experiences that exist in real life, but because the whole purpose of my music is to uplift and inspire the listener to make the most of their life in the most positively-minded way possible--in part by reminding them of the common experience all humans have in life and in death. Keeping in mind that death as a part of life for us all helps a person realize that one day, all that will remain of them is their legacy--the memories others have of them and the influences they had on the world around them during their life, which will reverberate throughout all eternity. Keeping this truth in mind motivates a person to make better, more positive choices in how they live their life and in how they interact with others and the world around them.
The last song I will explain here, to further show that every song on the album has a strong conceptual basis that drives each songs' theme and motifs, is "A Brief History of Memory." Even though this is one of the songs I wish to expand on in terms of its length, the theme and motifs, which are already represented in the song, are based on the concept of a person, who could be anyone, and probably has been all of us at some point in our lives, who is quietly reflecting back on the memories of their life history. The positive and negative emotions associated with each of those memories is heard in the harmonies of the first, quiet section of the piece. As the song transitions into the second section, the music is composed to convey the sense of wonder, mystery, and uncertainty that that same person feels as they try to make sense of how those memories relate to their life in the present and how those memories should influence the way they move forward with their life in the future.
If you would like to learn similar background information on the other songs, you can be rewarded with a 30 or 60 minute phone conversation with me (among other incentives), depending on your donation amount. Be sure to check out all of the incentives; they are all good rewards for your support, regardless of the amount you choose to donate. The truth is, even the smallest investment on your part will make a big difference and will be greatly appreciated.
I sincerely thank you for your time and careful consideration. I know there is a lot of information to digest about myself, my music, and my record label. It's up to you how deep you want to go into the details of these things, but if you choose to dig deep, you won't be disappointed--I am an "open book" as they say, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I have always been a kind, loving, considerate person who is grateful for every achievement and contribution I have been able to make to benefit my fellow human brothers and sisters. I offer you all my best wishes. ONE LOVE..."
January 1, 2015
Happy New Year Everyone!
I wish everyone a wonderful 2015, filled with love, happiness, laughter, great music, positive progress, a growth in personal wisdom, good health, family unity, supportive friends, and a genuine sense of fulfillment with all that you accomplish! I love you all...
One Love,
Matt
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