As a child, I recall marveling at how everything seemed to work so well. The logistics blew my mind—even though I didn’t know that was the word for it. I also worried how the powers-that-be dealt with all the sewage and garbage my hometown produced.
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. Continue reading ‘Really, Have We No Clue?’
Some say “love” is the greatest word they know. Others say “God”. Various words have been favorites of mine over the years, but “why” is the greatest for me. So I must ask myself, why continue posting these observations? It’s certainly not for money. Is it for fame? I actually prefer anonymity. In fact, years ago when my yoga students showed hints of ‘guru worship’, I went out of my way to discourage that. Do I just need to vent? Well, there was some of that urge early on, but I’ve pretty much said all I really need to say. So why continue? Continue reading ‘Why?’
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. Continue reading ‘Gone Fishin’, Back Soon’
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. Continue reading ‘Chapter of the Week: #81′
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) Continue reading ‘Opiate of the Masses’
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of talk about what is natural or unnatural in regards to human behavior. I suppose it all depends on which part of the elephant one currently perceives. Beyond that though, I see this like layers of an onion—an emergent property situation. I’ll take a stab at sorting this out…
Humans are naturally (and usually) inclined to take the easy way, go for pleasure and avoid pain. In the wild this bio-hoodwink usually works out well. Human culture has been driven by this primary instinctive drive shared by all animals, from ants to duck to dogs to people. Consider the human highway on the left and the ant highway on the right (photo left). Both species are just trying to make life easier and more efficient. As I pointed out in Ants are Us, the similarities are striking. Continue reading ‘Naturally Unnatural, Naturally!’
We now know we are animals biologically speaking. However, do we really feel we are, or do we understand this as mostly an abstract factoid. Catching the flue for the ‘first time’ in my life may (or may not?) offer an example of the how thought can separate us from feeling our animal-ness fully.
Claiming that I caught the flue for the first time must surely be untrue, but up until now I never ‘knew’ the difference between a cold and the flue. I’ve heard of flue shots and the danger of catching flues, like the bird flue of a few years ago. However, whenever I came down with fluey symptoms I ‘knew’ I just had a cold. Do you see where I’m heading with this? Continue reading ‘Feeling Animal-ness’
I spent a lot of the day in back picking weeds. Nothing beats having enough free time to sit in the warm sun picking weeds while it is still nothing. Now and then the ducks would come close by, root around a bit looking for a tasty crawler, chatter away and then move on. It got me to wondering…
A ducks quacking is its vocal expression of emotion. Having been around them for years, I can pick out their moods: happy, excited, content, nosy, curious, afraid, hungry, anxious, kinship (they are Indian Runners, an extremely social breed).
I know there is an arrogant self involved segment of humanity that could never countenance such ‘humanizing’ of mere birds. Of course, they wouldn’t be reading this site anyway, so I won’t need to justify my view… at least so far. But wait, there’s more… Continue reading ‘Thoughts and Ducks Quacking’
The early morning light today took me back more than forty years. Light has a nostalgic effect on me like music seems to have for many people. It must be genetic for my mother was that way too. In fact, looking up into the sky can carry me back to truly primordial times, but that’s another story.
This morning the light and the early morning hazy sky brought back memories of arriving at the top of Bokor Hillstation Casino. I was told about this resort, high in the mountains and cool enough to grow strawberries, they said. This was prewar Cambodia in 1964, a time of peace and enough remaining French influence to find good French bread, albeit with a few weevils baked in(1), and flan (my favorite sweet). Now, if I could add strawberries to that I’d have me a good soul-food supper. Continue reading ‘Water, Water Everywhere, But…’
Jungle church in Malaya
Well, why not! But seriously, this is a question I have not heard asked much… if at all(1) Debates mostly focus on whose God is best, the nature of God, or does God even existence. Asking “why do we believe in God” is more of a zoological approach to this issue. That is the place to begin; after all, we are animals first.
I’ve long see the God idea as an emergent property of our social need for leadership, i.e., ‘alpha male’, the decider. All social primate groups have some individual serving this unifying role. Being a thinking ape, it is natural that we would image the existence of a super-leader in a super-home (heaven). Being social apes, it is also nature that we’d enjoy gathering to share the experience. A recent article in Science News, Connected at church, happy with life, offered some support for the why of it all. Continue reading ‘Why God?’
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