I am still awed that ‘it’ works, although I now know that Nature’s ‘logistics’ is in command. Even so, it also turns out to be a worrisome problem for civilizations’ powers-that-be… that would be all of us, really.

Yep, “Out of the mouths of babes” is no empty saying! It almost seems like we get more stupid in some ways as we age. I guess that has a lot to do with our ability as adults to willfully innovate while ignorant of the constant. Alas too, any adults that  finally understand soon die, so there are few around to redirect younger fools from their ignorant ‘free will’ willful innovations. (Although thankfully, that is changing as the mean age of the population keeps rising.)

Change causes change, ripples through time.

A recent Science News article, Lopped Off, highlights just how profoundly we, as a species, generally have no clue what we are dong. Although, I guess young children and old people may have always had their intuitive doubts. Now, science is forcing more and more of us middle-age know-it-alls to worry.

Chapter 16 of the Tao Te Ching is very prescient on the unintended consequences of our clever and willful behavior. It was writing long before our innovative abilities threatened the entire planet (~500bc). Is it ironic that science both leads to technological innovations that cause the destruction, and now impels us to realize the full range of consequences of our actions. We can only hope the lag time between innovation and realization is timely enough.

Speaking of innovation,
Isn’t our species also a daring evolutionary innovation on the part of Nature? Of course, I assume it’s not a “willful innovation while ignorant of the constant” kind of thing. So, is it just Nature rolling the dice? These are very interesting times; as that old Chinese (?) curse says, “May you live in interesting times“.

All this says to me how blind we become by what we think we know. Knowledge is a two edged sword; it empowers us to overcome many obstacles, yet the arrogance of knowledge simultaneously blind-sides us. Overcoming petty obstacles creates what often turn out to be greater obstacles. Knowledge gives us a false sense of security. Despite being extremely limited, it gives the beholder the illusion that he or she truly knows. This begs the question, “How do we know what we know is truly so?” That is why, To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

We seem to assume we can find solutions that will finally result in a ‘happiness ever after’ land of milk and honey. That fantasy is certainly a hallmark in Western religion. Such wishful thinking doesn’t conform to nature’s reality; it is instead what nature intends for us to perceive (i.e., an emergent property of a bio-hoodwink). Our species can’t afford to indulge in this species-centric fantasy much longer. No worries though… “groan”… circumstance bring us to maturity!

Here now is a pithy excerpt from that article.

“We’re eliminating large predators very quickly around the world,” says wildlife biologist Michael Soulé of the Wildlands Network, who works out of Paonia, Colo. “It’s estimated that 90 percent are already gone.”

These end-of-the-line carnivores, known as “apex consumers,” can influence the lower rungs of their ecological ladders. By keeping the critters they dine on in check, the apex species affect the next rungs down, and so on. The system remains balanced as populations fluctuate in sync.

But sharks aren’t the only predators under siege. A host of carnivores perched atop food webs are being eliminated by humans, the real killing machines. Although marine species such as sharks are primarily caught for food, large terrestrial hunters (think lions, wolves and grizzlies) are often targeted for removal because they threaten humans moving into previously wild spaces.

Chapter 16 with its admonition about willfully innovating while ignorant of the constant fits this sorry situation so perfectly that submitting a comment (below) to Letters at Science News was irresistible. Low and behold, they printed it.  At last, science and religion find common ground. 

Predators inspire poetry and fear
Regarding “Lopped off” (SN: 11/5/11, p. 26): One of the Tao Te Ching’s chapters (excerpt below) is very prescient on the unintended consequences of human behavior. It was written around 500 B.C., long before our innovative abilities threatened the entire planet. It is ironic that science both leads to innovations that cause the destruction, and now allows us to realize the full range of consequences.

Woe to him who willfully innovates
While ignorant of the constant,
But should one act from knowledge of the constant
One’s action will lead to impartiality,
Impartiality to kingliness,
Kingliness to heaven,
Heaven to the way,
The way to perpetuity,
And to the end of one’s days one will meet with no danger.
Carl Abbott, Santa Cruz, Calif.

One reason is the art and yoga (work) of it. My most intriguing observations pop into my mind during headstand, while soaking in the bath, in dreams during the night. Writing them well enough to resonate with someone else is the challenge—the yoga—of it. I don’t suppose this is any different from playwrights, for instance, who dreams up scenarios and writes plays. Posting my observations is like putting on a play… way off-Broadway, of course. Okay, that makes sense, but only so long as it makes sense. Indeed, “why” must be the deepest existentialist question of all. One I’m still asking myself.

I was searching for a question mark-like graphic (?) to go with this post. I recalled the graphic I made for my first serious attempt at writing (1976). Looking it over, I see one of the main reasons I write; I am working life out on paper, so to speak. I have thought of this as mostly just ‘reinventing the wheel’ because what I discover is simply why things have been the way they have throughout time.

Anyway, it is interesting to see how much my thoughts have changed, yet not in some fundamental ways. Toward the end I started placing a (x) when I really wished to disavow the ‘dumb’ idea I had back then, with an eye to updating it.  Then I realized, what has changed over the 40 yeas is not anywhere near as important as what has remained more of less constant. Like the “thread running through the way”, what stands the test of time is worth noting. Therefore, I have left it as is, except for attempting to correct spelling.

The major change really is my flip-flop away from an advocacy of free will, and towards “mystery sameness” (a makeshift description to be sure). Still, if you are into free will, you may find the essay hits the spot,  but again, keep in mind that it comes from where I was at nearly 40 years ago when I thought “A Practical Way” was just a matter of free choice.

Curiously, son Luke said my writing back then (or at least earlier) was better than now. I can’t really believe that is so as I’ve worked so hard over the last two decades to write as well as possible. Then it occurred to me that when you can really understand clearly and easily what a writer is saying, that writing would feel like it was written well, and visa versa. The “A Practical Way…” is easy to understand, very straightforward and written with a righteousness flavor and style similar to the Bhagavad Gita of which I read daily back then.

Below is this essay’s introduction to which give the flavor of my thinking back then. If you are interested to read more, download the whole essay, “A Practical Way to Eternity“. My wife says the poems in the essay are her favorite part. At least they help lighten it up and make it more digestible.

* * * * * A Practical Way to Eternity * * * * *

I wrote some poems to give delight
While reading about my spiritual plight
You’ll probably see I’m too uptight
Well, here is the Way I make it all right
I fought and thought and wound my mind too tight
Broke the mainspring and saw the light
I wrote this essay so all of you might
Also decide it’s better to put up a fight!

INTRODUCTION
Most of us humans spend our whole lives finding fault with the “condition” of the world, marriage, government, job, life, and so on. We expect everyone to do the right thing and become annoyed when they don’t i.e. Nixon as president, communist repression, wife’s overspending, children’s misbehavior, worker incompetence, capitalist spoiling the environment, permissive society or too restrictive one, and so on. We insist on everyone doing their “best”.

However, when it comes to taking care of, improving, nourishing our own body and mind, of ridding ourselves of the imperfections in our own personality and life, then we all of a sudden become very tolerant of faults and laziness.

How can we ever honestly expect the outside world to be any different when we aren’t even willing to do our best for our own “inner world”. The “inner world” is one thing, the only thing, we really do have a chance to control and improve. Indeed, without the “inner world” what do you have? Death!! And those who care not for the “inner world” are living a “life in death”.

An improvement in your inner world improves the whole universe by a small degree, depending on the extent of improvement. Buddha improved his to a high degree and so had a big effect on the world. If we all did our best for our inner world, the outer world would take care of itself easily.

Therefore, we must cease blaming and finding fault with the “outer world” and do what we can for the “inner” one. I wrote this essay to help you and me towards this goal.

Me, age 3, actually fishing... sort of.

The fish are biting and I’m reeling ‘em in, I’m just not posting ‘em. Posting requires so much clean up to make ‘em fit for reading.

Finishing the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching was the catalyst I guess I needed to reevaluate things. I’ve wondered for a while now why I post in the first place.

I mean, the Taoist point of view has to be among the oddest and most ironic subjects to speak on. After all, he who knows does not speak, he who speaks does not know.

So I have to ask myself, if I don’t know, why reveal my ignorance? On the other hand, if I do know, why am I speaking? To be fair, that pithy “He who knows…” statement is not the whole story. On the positive side, trying to write coherently is a fascinating challenge for me, and my observations do appear to benefit a few people. Simply put, I am composing and performing ‘music’, as seen from a mysterious sameness point of view anyway. Now certainly, my ’songs’ are music to nearly no ones ears, but that is just as it should be. Meaning, a Taoist ’song’ seeks to poke through the bio-hoodwink and sing it as ‘it’ is, not as we want ‘it’ to be. Popularity would just be symptomatic of singing it off-key, Taoist-wise.

Tao Te Ching, Word for Word

I just ordered a handful of my just completed translation (see below). We’ll use it here at our monthly meeting along side D.C. Lau’s translation. I think having the nearly literal version to refer to along side D.C. Lau’s version will be helpful. I notice that all translations bear an inherent problem due to relative word meaning. Meaning, when translating the Chinese to English, one must choose one word among several related meanings. Each of these can mean something different in the mind of the beholder – translator and reader alike. On top of this tenuous situation, rest an even fuzzier one for pseudo translations (like Steven Mitchel’s for example), which are actually interpretations of authentic translations. The benefit of correlations is that the process bears none of these problems. The whole responsibility of discerning meaning lies with the bewildered mind of ‘correlator’. Maybe that accounts for its great ‘popularity’.

Next step

I will continue to reevaluate my translation over time to make it more readable when possible, yet with any luck, also more accurate. Still, that may just amount to moving the furniture around the room. Now, with that disclaimer, anyone wishing a copy can buy direct from the printer Lulu. Lulu doesn’t ship abroad, so if anyone outside the USA wants a copy we can work something out. I’d really appreciate any comments, questions and criticisms with an eye to making it better. Great perfection here we come.

Is redundancy the name of the game?

I feel like I’ve said it all before, ad nausium. Still, a constant echo seems to be useful to counteract the bio-hoodwink. Reviewing the view I see in my most balanced moments helps anchor me in my less balanced ones. From what I can tell, that is a common human practice. Forgetting what we truly want of life is all-too-easy!

Adventures of aging

I never remember any old people telling me how fascinating aging was or would be, although if they had, it probably wouldn’t have registered, i.e. one can only understand what one already knows. I seem to be having increasing difficulty remembering things. My mind is becoming blanker. That has some interesting effects; insight seems to flow like water through the void my mind is becoming. This ties into the sleep on it and blind spot issue John Clease spoke about.

On the other hand, I could just be seeing myself more as I actually am rather than the ‘genius’ I once liked to think I was. Yes, that old ‘Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty‘ issue. That offers a twist on the idea of a ’self fulfilling prophecy’. What you think is so prevents you from seeing what is actually so, which make it more like a ’self fulfilling prophecy bubble‘.

Another possibility is that I could be experiencing the beginnings of Alzheimer’s and the hole it produces in memory lead to my final days of insight before the mind’s curtain falls. Speculating is such fun, especially given how life usually turns out differently from anything we think. It is an adventure, that’s for sure!

Check One Off the Bucket List

This is chapter 81, the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching. My journey on this Taoist path began almost 50 years ago in Vietnam, as did my learning to read and write Chinese. Over the years, I have translated parts of chapters that puzzled me. This revealed a subtle problem I found in all translations: The process of translating the Chinese phrasing into another language looses some of the straightforward meaning.

About ten years ago, I decided to do what I could to remedy this problem ⁽¹⁾. To recover some of that straightforward meaning, the average (or better) student may find my translation helpful when used along side their favorite, more readable translation. If that fails, the student can always ponder the included verbatim literal Chinese to English translation.

I do feel (with humble, hesitant confidence) that this may be one of the more faithful translations ever written. Reliability, even at the expense of readability, has been my goal—a fool’s errand for anyone wishing to market their work. I suppose I had no choice really, for as this chapter says, True speech isn’t beautiful, Beautiful speech isn’t true. Therefore, maybe my translation is also one of the least readable ever written. If all true, that is balanced… what more could I want. Now, it is time to pop the champagne! Even so, I will continue assessing my choice of words and phrasing to improve these as possible.

Speaking of bucket lists, having children was the last item on my bucket list several decades ago. Living longer, the list got appended (translating the Tao Te Ching, for example). The decks look clear now, so Grimm Reaper, I’m ready whenever you are. No hurry though—take your time. I just thought of something else to do…

⁽¹⁾ A number of translations are actually interpretations of other original translations. Of original and authoritative translations, D.C. Lau’s is one of the best. Therefore, I will use a line from his chapter 73 to illustrate the problem, and my attempt to reduce it.

His translation says, Heaven hates what it hates, Who knows the reason why? Now, this isn’t that off base as it stands, until you consider it along side an issue I raise in my commentary of chapter 81 (i.e., So now, ask yourself: is there good or bad in nature? Does nature play favorites; does nature love some things more than other things?… )

I translate the phrase this way, Nature’s ruthlessness, who knows its cause. With any luck, this is more in line with the impartiality and over all balance expressed in the Tao Te Ching.

≈ Click Here for Translation & Commentary ≈

]]> http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/18/chapter-of-the-week-81/feed/ 2 http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/04/an-opiate-of-the-masses/ http://www.centertao.org/blog/2011/11/04/an-opiate-of-the-masses/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:03:04 +0000 carl http://www.centertao.org/?p=6389 Karl Marx had is wrong. It is prosperity, not religion, which is the opiate of the masses. The United States has experienced decades of surefire prosperity. Most have lived their whole lives accustomed to what is actually a historically rare era of unusual affluence.

Now, much of the population is going ‘cold turkey’, unwillingly sobering up without knowing the deeper causes for the withdrawal symptoms they now feel. I’ve found prosperity has a real dark side linked to desire and pleasure— not surprisingly. ⁽¹⁾

I spent fifteen years living abroad, from age 20 to 35. Much of this time was at the ‘grass roots’ in the developing world. I truly came of age during those years. Returning to America after all that time away enabled me to see this land with fresh eyes. I was particularly surprised to see how little people actually appreciated their abundance and easily went into debt for more—get it now, pay for it later. This get now, pay later had become a way of life here during my absence. This matched my precautionary motto, “short term pleasure, [leads to] long term pain“, (and visa versa). It appeared to me that American culture was now on the path of gluttony, with pain to follow.

Indian Givers

This term is apparently based on an American Indian form of barter where upon giving a gift he expects to receive an equivalent, or to have his gift returned (see Etymology). This reflects a straightforward sense of balance, in my view. I first noticed a profound lack of this virtue though a personal experience in Vietnam.

Me and my Crew

I went to Vietnam soon after the war began to work, save money and return to Thailand where I intended to settle down. (Oh how plans change.) Knowing Vietnamese, I was able to wrangle a job as a surveyor for an American construction firm.  Every morning I’d pack extra food from the well-provisioned base camp to share with my Vietnamese crew for lunch. We had a feast every day; times were good. Some months later, the company clamped down and banned that practice. When I told my crew the freebees were finished, they got surprisingly angry. I was dumb founded. The freebees had been a lucky windfall, so why were they reacting as though it was a ‘human right’?  The angry protests aimed at current belt tightening (Greece, Italy, USA, etc.) are recent examples of this irrational expectation. It is so much easier to receive than give up. None wishes to pay now for past prosperity. It is just so ‘unfair’, as my Vietnamese crew would say.

Chicken Come Home to Roost

Surely, I thought, some awful visitation will descend upon them.  Perhaps another Great Depression was in store for us. After a while I figured ‘the awful visitation’ that was waiting to happen, while inevitable, wasn’t just around the corner, so I stopped waiting and settled in to have a family. Then 2009 Great Recession came along. Wow, I thought, are the chickens coming home to roost? Perhaps the ‘awful visitation’ is now in progress.

Naturally, not knowing the deeper causes, like having a proper sense of awe, folks seek out scapegoats. In this case, the corporations and banks appear to fit the bill on the left, and government and taxes fit the bill on the right. Of course, the banks had a hand in the Great Recession of 2009. However, the laissez-faire government oversight was the ultimate cause, and whom can we ultimately hold responsible for the government? In the end, the people from whom the government takes its shape, especially in a democracy! More over, the fact that only half the population usually bothers to vote puts the responsibility even more in our (we the people) laps ⁽²⁾. Put simply, it is not the corporation’s fault, bank’s fault, government’s fault, taxes’ fault… it is our fault—those who vote as well as those who don’t. Of course, we will never hear that mea culpa will we? It is so much easier to ‘cast stones’.

The Opiates

There is also the fundamental ignorance of the role banks and corporations play in our lives. They are the engines of prosperity. So, ironically, these engines are the source of the drug of prosperity we crave. Do you see the problem—the conundrum? People are condemning the very thing on which they have become so dependent. The same is true for much of the scapegoat rhetoric of the ‘Tea Party’ faction. They rail against Tarp, without which world economy may well have totally collapsed. The irony here is that most banks have paid back the Tarp fund, with the government actually coming out $billions ahead (a big part of the outstanding debt lies with the governmental controlled institutions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, these two still need and will receive billions).

Again, sloppy governmental oversight made the reckless actions of Wall Street possible. After the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Congress passed laws that provided good regulation. These laws were dropped in recent times, which made the Wall Street recklessness possible. How is this any different than dropping the laws against drunk driving? Without such laws and stiff penalties, reckless drunk drivers would be much more commonplace. Indeed, woe to him who willfully innovates while ignorant of the constant,

We Are Trying To Change the World

“The corporations control the government” is a complaint I often hear. Certainly, their lobbyists have a huge hand in things. On the hand, lobbyist for labor and progressive causes push their case from the other side. I often voted for the ‘losers’, like the Libertarian and the Green parties just to send a “don’t take my vote for granted” message to the dominant class. People tell me that doing this is “throwing your vote away”. However, voting for the dominant class ‘winners’ only continues the status quo. In a democracy, ‘we’ are the Government, which makes us responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves. In my view, this is a fine example of our irrational desire to have it both ways.

All this amounts to simply waiting until symptoms develop before seriously asking “why”. We are invariably ‘a day late and a dollar short’. As is natural for all animals, we react to events. As Buddha put it in his Second Noble Truth, “The surrounding world effects sensation and begets a craving thirst that clamor for immediate satisfaction“. Our desires (thirsts) choose and we follow, and when things go wrong we cast stones at our favorite partisan scapegoat.

Likewise, I used to wish that there were ‘justice’, and always found someone to blame. I finally realized, “It’s my fault too”. I suppose that is the non-sectarian equivalent of the Christian original sin. I now find peace in seeing it as nature’s way ⁽³⁾. As chapter 34 says, The way is broad, reaching left as well as right. Any lingering distress I feel about circumstance just reflects my own lingering desire.

⁽¹⁾ Not surprising that is, if you concur with Buddha’s Second Truth, “…The desire to live for the enjoyment of self entangles us in a net of sorrows. Pleasures are the bait and the result is pain”.

⁽²⁾ Even when most people vote, democracy can still be very frustrating because up to 49% of the population is going to be unhappy with the results. For many, democracy is good especially when it goes their way. Alas, democracy may end up a lot more problematic in the future (human nature being what it is). It may turn out that democracy requires more maturity from us as a whole, the governed, than we are capable. For some sobering details, hear what Martin Wolf, Micheal Lewis, Tom Freedman have to say in this interviews, Friedman, Lewis and Schultz on the economy with Fareed Zakaria.  (Go here for Fareed’s  weekly podcast http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/fareedzakaria_audio/rss.xml )

Finally, I must reiterate my long view. The causes run so much deeper than we care to admit or consider. Recent centuries of cultural fragmentation is a natural consequence of progress: the increasing rate of change in populations, mobility, communication and wealth brought about by the harnessing of first steam in the 1800’s, then electricity and oil in the 1900’s.  In the great scheme of things, this is a very recent change; the full impact of which we have only barely begun to experience. It can take centuries for culture to adapt itself to game changing innovation.

However, the single most ‘un-natural’ and worrisome aspect of modern economy is that it is all based on continuous growth, I repeat, continuous growth. The only natural phenomenon that is based on continuous growth is cancer! The chickens will always come home to roost.

⁽³⁾ Although while I do see thinking in general and civilization in particular, as the cause for much the dilemma in which we find ourselves, I wouldn’t bane either, even if I could. Both are natural phenomenon evolving into a presumably more balance state, or winding down towards extinction. Time will tell. In the meantime, it is helps (me anyway) to be aware of the causes of current imbalance.

This short CBS news piece, The science behind pleasure-seeking (after a short ad), adds some interesting color to the process. The curious thing is, however, not all rich people do this. Warren Buffet’s life style is a good example. This report sheds light on that too, in a round about way. This report, although slanted towards the benefits of pleasure, does offer food-for-thought on why some folks pursue pleasure more than others do.

Not surprisingly, the report makes no mention of Buddha’s Second Noble Truth. What a total bummer the truth would be! Naturally, I won’t overlook this most important aspect; especially noteworthy is how the Second Truth ends: Pleasures are the bait and the result is pain. Keep Buddha’s Truths in mind as you listen to (or read the transcript below) this report. You can see, for example, how thinking plays such a large role in life for humans, and why Taoism speaks to its downside. As my favorite passage puts it, thinking that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Frankly, well-being is not connected to pleasure, per se. Although, you could say pleasure does promise us well-being. No wonder Buddha called it “bait”. So why is Warren Buffet an apparent exception to the path of ostentatious wealth that many rich people take? Wealthy people who live simple lives don’t take the bait. By the way, from a symptoms point of view, the fact that wealthy people often continue to up-the-anti, pleasure-wise proves the old cliché ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’. They are the wealthy poor! Shall we pray for them?  ;-)

Transcript

It can be as simple as a sunset, as decadent as a dessert, or as extravagant as a weekend in Paris. But we all have our own little pleasures …

“Chocolate and peanuts! … mmmmm …”
“I’m a Barbie collector. I have, like, over 100 Barbies.”
“I love Mexican food!”
“The rush of cliff jumping, when you’re up in the air, and you’re hoping the water is deep enough, and your heart is beating a thousand miles an hour, and you SPLASH!”

Professor Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University, notes that some pleasures are no less than a matter of survival.

“Pleasure is an instantaneous feeling of something good,” Dr. Berns said. “When you teach a bunch of undergraduates and teenagers like I do and I ask them to list the things that give them pleasure, sleep is always at the top of the list.

“You have kind of the basic needs, right? So you have food, sleep, and sex. Pretty much boils down to that, if you’re talking about actual pleasure,” Berns laughed.

But pleasure goes well beyond basic needs. Yale psychologist Paul Bloom says WHY we enjoy what we enjoy is very complicated.

“It seems like we just taste food, and taste wine, we respond to our visceral sensations. But actually it is surprisingly deep,” Bloom said.

So deep, in fact, that Bloom was pleased to write a book on pleasure, which he says is as much about our brains as about our experiences.

“Our pleasure is a response not just to the physical makeup of something, what it looks like or tastes like, or smells like, or feels like, but rather to our beliefs of what it really IS, what its real essence is,” Bloom said.

And boy, can we be fooled!

Bloom recalls one famous experiment with wine drinkers done by scientists at Stanford and Cal Tech …

“Half the people are told they’re drinking cheap plunk, the other half are told they’re drinking something out of $100-$150 bottle,” Bloom said. “It tastes better to them, if they THINK they’re drinking from an expensive bottle. And it turns out that if they think they’re drinking expensive wine, parts of the brain that are associated with pleasure and reward light up like a Christmas tree.”

“So if I have people over for dinner, I should add a little ‘1″ in front of the price tag, and put it on the table?” Spencer asked.

“That is the ultimate trick to making wine taste better,” Bloom said.

And it’s the sort of trick that works only on human beings.

“Both my dog and me enjoy drinking water when we’re thirsty, but I’m the one who cares about where the water came from – whether it’s bottled water, or from the tap,” Bloom said. “My dog doesn’t care.”

“You’re the one that, if we put a higher price tag on that bottle of water, you’ll enjoy it more?” suggested Spencer.

“That’s right! I might give my dog premium dog food, but the dog doesn’t care that I spent a lot of money for it.”

People, on the other hand, seem to get ENORMOUS pleasure out of spending ENORMOUS sums on some very curious things.

Was Michael Jackson’s jacket really worth $1.8 million?

Or how about President Kennedy’s tape measure, which went for almost $50,000 at auction?

Or Eric Clapton’s guitar, snapped up for just under a million bucks?

Given all that, Paul Bloom wondered what people might pay for the pleasure of owning, say, George Clooney’s sweater?

“And the answer is, a fair amount,” said Bloom. “Much more than they’d pay for MY sweater, or for a brand new sweater.”

But why? For bragging rights? Or to re-sell on eBay? Apparently not …

Bloom conducted an experiment where people were not allowed to tell people or boast about buying Clooney’s sweater, or even re-sell it, and the perceived value was reduced. “But here’s what makes the value really drop: We told another group of subjects that we thoroughly washed it before it got to them. Now the value plummets.”

“It’s not still ‘George Clooney’s sweater’?” asked Spencer.

“As my wife put it, you washed away the Clooney cooties!” Bloom laughed. “You’ve washed away the sort of essence of the person.”

“That gives them more pleasure in owning it?”

“Human beings are strange,” laughed Spencer.

“Human beings are extraordinary,” he replied.

Some pleasures are universal, like eating the mouth-watering butter-and-sugar concoctions at Magnolia Bakery in New York City – it really is pure pleasure on a plate.

But not all of life’s pleasures are so straight-forward. In fact, if you think about it, some of them are downright weird.

Take cheese.

“Cheese is spoiled milk, it smells bad,” said psychologist Paul Rozin. “But the point is that we get great pleasure out of it. And some people love the stinky cheeses. And part of the pleasure of eating them is that they really smell bad, but they’re good!”

Rozin’s studies go well beyond the pleasures of the disgusting, to the joy of the downright painful. Take hot chili peppers …

“Well, hot chili peppers are eaten by over two billion people in the world,” Rozin said. “And yet, this is an innately negative experience. Little babies don’t like it. So, the question to me was, why would anybody put in their mouth something that produces a pain signal from the mouth to the brain?”

His answer? What he calls “benign masochism” – the same human quirk that explains why we enjoy horror movies that terrify us … why we like sad songs that make us cry.

“It’s a sense of your mind over your body,” Rozin said. “Your body is saying, ‘Bad news, get out of here!’ Your mind knows, ‘I’m actually not in danger. I’m mastering this negative experience, and my mastery of it gives me pleasure.’”

But there are limits. Just ask those chili pepper people…

“What happens is the one that people like best tends to be the one that’s just below the level they can’t bear,” Rozin laughed. “In other words, they’re pushing the limit of how hot they can stand it. Similarly with roller coasters. People who love roller coasters will like the steepest and scariest one they can stand.”

Push your pleasure to that limit and – odd as it seems – odds are you’ll want more. So what’s the best strategy to maximize life’s pleasures?

Emory Professor Gregory Berns did an experiment that offers a clue: When he gave subjects alternating drops of water and juice, their brain activity showed they preferred the juice. No surprise. But when the juice came at unexpected intervals and was a surprise, they liked it even more.

His advice: Plan surprises.

“You have to take risks, I think, to really experience pleasure,” Dr. Berns said. “And there’s, you know, there’s a reason why people say the first time is always the best. The first time you experience something, whether it’s your first kiss, your first bite of sushi, whatever you like, it’s always the best, it’s always the most memorable.”

So whether it’s Clooney’s sweater … roller coasters … chili peppers … or something else entirely (”Chocolate” … “good friend, good beer” …), treasure those pleasures.

But remember: There’s always room for something new – and people keep pushing the envelope, like bungee jumping.

“Yeah, why not?” said Dr. Berns.

For more info:

“How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like” by Paul Bloom (W.W. Norton)

Dreaming the Way

Last night I dreamt I was explaining the ‘way’ to a group of people.  I was talking to someone and other people overhearing us actively started listening and asking questions. My smooth and coherent delivery felt unusually satisfying. That’s no wonder, given the way that can be spoken of is not the constant way. Of course, it was my dream so I surely knew the questions they were going to ask ahead of time…

Some years ago, a fellow did ask me to speak to an ecumenical group on Taoism. Elucidating Taoist thought to folks unfamiliar with the ‘way’ is particularly difficult to pull off in one talk, if at all. East is East and West is West is fundamental, though not in a geographical ways. Anyway, my dream here turned out so much better; they actually understood what I was saying. It was almost as pleasant as a flying or floating dream.

So, perhaps I’m subconsciously preparing for public speaking on Taoism (oh perish the thought). Still, if that is in the cards, dreaming my way there is certainly the way to go. The power of the dream to figure out the un-figure-able is amazing, and often undervalued (at least officially I suppose). My most notable practical experience of dream-solving was while working out the correlations process. Dream time was the only way I could penetrate the most confounding aspects. Maybe someday dream time will lead to a way to communicate correlations better. Ah yes… dream on! (For all I know, dream time may be the only way to really understand correlations).

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Recovering alcoholics continue to say, “I’m an alcoholic”, even as they stay on the straight and narrow moment-to-moment, day to day, year to year. Likewise, I would have to say I’m a thinker, recovering from certainty in thought moment-to-moment, day to day, year to year. (Really! I’ve sobered up a lot. You should have seen me before.)

Of course, just like alcohol, certainty is not bad by itself.  It is all about the circumstances and magnitude. Intuitive certainty that induces me to jump out of the way of an oncoming bus, or avoid food that smells ‘off’, benefits me without fail. Certainty’s affect on thought is where things go awry. Stillness and impartiality fly out the window once the emotion of certainty begins to back up thought. At that point, the blind-spot overtakes perception and difficulties multiply.

I am a little surprised that this process isn’t more widely recognized. Especially in that we have been aware of this for ages. The clearest example is probably represented by chapter 71, to know yet to think that one does not know is best; not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. Buddha’s also speaks to this. Much of his Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path addresses the role the mind plays in our lives.

Of course, I should be more surprised by my own naiveté.  There is simply no way that we can impartially evaluate anything that offers us pleasure. Pleasure is the bait, as Buddha said, and it creates a blind-spot around the source of that pleasure.  Can merely understanding that we intoxicate ourselves with thought help anyone sober up? I would guess probably not.

Just like the other ways we have to drink ourselves silly—shopping, eating, drugs, and so on—understanding is seldom sufficient. We must viscerally know, and such depth of knowing only comes through personally reaching rock bottom. Isn’t this a process, like  chapter 36 points out, if you would have a thing laid aside, you must first set it up? Only when a thing is fully set up are we ready to lay it aside ⁽¹⁾. Why should an addiction to certainty-of-belief be any different?

Alas, our addiction to certainty-of-belief is somewhat different and more challenging. There are obvious physical consequences to all other addictions: a glutton’s obesity; a shopper’s debt, a smoker’s cough, a drunkard’s hangovers. Not so with thought, other than the neurotic impulses from which we suffer. And even if we recognized our addiction to certainty-of-belief, what are we to do? Other sources of additions are external and can at least be kept out of reach, if not eliminated. Thinking is internal. I suppose that explains the popularity of psycho-pharmacology. Well, at least that is an improvement over getting a lobotomy.

So, if you are fed up with certainty-of-belief, then try out correlations as a sort of do-it-yourself virtual lobotomy. They may help detoxify your mind from the weight of its preconceptions as they did for me. Also effective, needless to say, can be delving the depths of the Tao Te Ching and the age-old ‘yogic’ practices (I mean yoga in the broadest sense: meditation, pranayama, bhakti yoga, hatha yoga, Buddhism, and so on.)

⁽¹⁾ That’s not altogether true. The power of an addiction is symptomatic of the degree of disconnection we feel. The more secure our sense of social connection, the less sway an addiction has upon us. Thus, improvements in our sense of connection must take some of the steam out of the ‘set it up in order to lay it aside’ process.

As I see it, thought (language, words and names) has left us with a unique sense of disconnection compared to other animal. That is the price we pay for the powerful advantages that thinking (imagination) affords us. I find it ironic that we attempt to reconnect via thought (belief in particular promises to reconnection with the One). I never found that actually worked. It is like building a castle of belief on the shifting sands of the void.

On the other hand, maybe that’s just me. After all, belief is really a symptom of deeper realities, not a solution. A loosening of certainty in belief just reflects changing realities and a declining need to hold on to any particular belief. Goodness, I suppose my thoughts on belief are shifting. Shifting sands indeed!

A key phrase from chapter 48 helps keep me turning back. It goes like this: “One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone “. I know that sounds silly on the face of it. Given the ‘Just Do It‘ culture in which we live, it is essential to read between the lines.

The reason ‘more is better’ drives me so much is that I have always viscerally felt that approach would give me what I need quickly. I say viscerally felt because it has been a subconscious innate drive for most of my life. Only after hitting the wall, so to speak, did I begin to examine deeply that side of my nature. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

‘More is better’ is about quantity. We have a common and innate expectation that if we do something more, we will be better off ⁽¹⁾. That means more practice, more study, more work, more money, more charity, more eating healthy, more exercise, more friends, more fame, more sex, more justice, more peace, etc. I have set up and laid aside most of these things except for more time, perhaps. Time, being such an ephemeral thing, takes a moment to moment active knowing—so far anyway. Of course, death will close the final chapter.

Another ideal has attracted attention in recent times: ‘less is more’. This 19th century proverbial phrase parallels that old (2500 BC) Chinese saying above ⁽²⁾, and rings true for many a stressed out person now-a-days.

‘Less is more’ is about quality, in my view. The most amazing thing I have found is that attention to quality in what I do is so much more effective, practically and ’spiritually’, than my gut impulses ever led me to feel. Indeed, one minute in quality equals hours in quantity. To this day, I must maintain a constant background awareness of this life truth: Less is really and truly more.

In summary: Really believing that ‘less is more’ can deliver what no amount of doing more ever can. Of course, nothing is ever that easy is it! The hitch here is having sufficient faith to influence daily actions. Experience is the key. All you need do is prove to yourself, through personal experience, that ‘less truly is more’, that quality trumps quantity.

⁽¹⁾ If we were living in the wild like other animals that drive would often turn out to be true. Thanks to civilization, we live more comfortable and secure lives than animals in the wild. However, we are a biologically still an animal, which means we have a lot more energy to spend than most civilized circumstances demand. The result: we easily overdo action by pursuing a path of ‘more is better’ in whatever activity we feel important.

⁽²⁾ This translation stays closer to the literal Chinese of chapter 48. The commentary that accompanies this considers it from a slightly different angle as well.

Do knowledge, day by day increase.
Do the way, day by day decrease.
Decreasing and decreasing,
Use until without doing.
Without doing yet not undone.

The Utility of Knowing What You Don’t Know

What an odd thing to say. Yet, I don’t know how else to say it, so here is an example: For about ten years now, son Luke and I have been fleshing out a fundamentally simpler, easier way to learn to play music by ear (especially the string instruments: guitar, fiddle, banjo and the like). The curious thing is, he has great innate music talent, while I have virtual none. So, you would think our collaboration would be mostly a one way street—he would teach me…

The odd thing is, generally speaking, talent can’t teach the untalented. Talent can only teach the talented ⁽¹⁾. Anyway, our ‘revolutionary’ project is to enable musically untalented folks to play music fluently, and in the process discover what ever hidden innate talent they have.

Do you see the conundrum here? The success we are able to have in this project is due to a synergy between him intuitively knowing what he knows, and me intuitively knowing what I don’t know. It feels mysterious, yet I expect similar synergies are commonplace and underlie much of life, yet pass unnoticed. (I notice because I’m obsessed with scrutinizing ‘the clock’ tick-tick.) That still doesn’t really explain it, does it. Well, that figures.

Oh, I also suspect that this could never have occurred earlier in my life when I thought I knew (i.e., To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.) Yep, there one or two advantages to old age that compensate for the physical decay.

⁽¹⁾ I mean talent in some specific area, not overall ‘life talent’, which is absurd and unknowable anyway. I imagine even this narrowly defined observation goes against the grain of modern educational philosophy, which I find more a matter of wishful thinking than empirical reality. Wishful thinking: a major source spring of one’s blind spot.

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