A non-neurotic nitpicking conversation
Noticing differences really aids survival… up the point of diminishing returns. Continuing along this path is counterproductive and eventually leads to anxiety of some sort. Of course, in the wild, such discernment would seldom turn as worrisome.
Civilization, in taming the wilderness, removes natural stresses that would otherwise counterbalance us, and before we know it, we’ve become neurotic nitpickers in one way or other. Continue reading ‘Balancing Difference With Similarity’
I suppose we all know that gossip and hysteria play a role in the news – any and all news. How much of the news is gossip and hysteria is the question.
Obviously, gossip and news correlate and so strictly speaking they are the same. Sure, news is supposed to be a serious attempt to get the truth, and gossip is more about passing around frivolous hearsay. But, as they say, one person’s serious is another person’s frivolous. A recent article in Science News, Making informed decisions about mammograms, sheds light.
Continue reading ‘Gossip, Hysteria, News’
Bathtub Tai Chi
I have found that multitasking is generally inefficient. My desire to do more and more (rather than less and less) deceives me into thinking I can actually accomplish more and more doing various tasks simultaneously. This make is almost impossible to be as careful at the end as at the beginning, no matter what I am doing. Well, I finally have learned my lesson. I’m not sure it is learning that accounts for my increased wisdom in this matter. More likely it is because I’m older and have less energy to run around chasing after desires as in my youth. Continue reading ‘Bathtub Tai Chi’
Chapter 65 begins with, ‘Of old those who excelled in the pursuit of the way did not use it to enlighten the people but to hoodwink them’. Initially, I thought ‘of old those‘ were people, e.g., parents, politicians, preachers. On the other hand, ‘those‘ people seem often ‘hoodwinked’ by their own hoodwink. I now consider ’of old those‘ as pointing more to Nature itself. What is more ‘of old‘ than Nature? Nature, and her co-conspirator biology, hoodwinks living things to do their living.
Fishing gives a good example of the hoodwinking process, and clues on how to avoid being hooked. We’ve all heard stories of that big old lake bass that no fisherman could hook. Isn’t that old fish, the fish who quickly ‘gets it’? Once bitten, twice shy, as they say; the fish that soon sees the bait as hoodwink learns to avoid it. The dead fish is the fish forever hopeful that its desire will be fulfilled. Continue reading ‘How the Hoodwink Hooks’
Modern hunting and gathering
It has been my habit for decades to eat nothing much until late afternoon. That goes against the standard ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ rule, especially seeing how I get up at 7am. Sure this may be a little stressful to my body, but that turns out to be a good thing. As with most everything, it isn’t the what that matters, it is the how much that ‘breaks the camels back’.
Consider this excerpt from Anti-aging: A little stress may keep cells youthful, a recent article in Science News.
“The study focused on individual cells, but for whole organisms the finding could shed light on a link between stress and life span. “A little bit of stress can actually prolong life,” says molecular biologist Richard Morimoto of Northwestern, a study coauthor. Mild stress activates the heat shock response but does not harm the cells, he adds. Continue reading ‘Hunger: A Natural Stimulant’
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