The social qualities present during our ancestral hunter-gatherer era (1) just happen to parallel the core spiritual qualities that the world’s religions promote. That’s no coincidence. Indeed, those innate qualities of harmony we now seek are the very ones we lost when we left the old way for the alluring material benefits and security civilization […]
Continue reading…worry
What Climate Catastrophy?
In the mid 1980’s science was pointing to a looming climate catastrophe. I stressed over this for a few years, but finally felt “Que Sera, Sera”. Now, 30+ years later, it is happening just as the science predicted. The scientist’s main concern was for how the destabilizing effects of the ensuing climate extremes would influence […]
Continue reading…Fear & Need Born in Nothing
Fear and need are the primal life forces underlying many of my observations. I know this basis often raises more questions than it answers, so clarification is in order. Not that I haven’t tried before… see Fear is the Bottom Line, p.139 and What are the roots of thought? p.602. Well, third time’s a charm, […]
Continue reading…Cultivating Character
I find some people in Taoist circles have passionate ideals about cultivating character. Seen from a symptoms point of view, passion arises from fear—the mother of need. The visceral fear arising from feeling one has little control over life drives a need to do something… like cultivate character. Chapter 54 has the only reference relating […]
Continue reading…Cultivating Ego
Google [Rats Experience Feelings of Regret] for research discovering that when a rat realizes it made a mistake, its body and brain show signs of regret (1). Research like this challenges the beliefs of human exceptionalism that we’ve been cultivating to support humanity’s “illusion of self” collective ego. Sure, we are different from rats, but […]
Continue reading…Of Mountains, Molehills and the Supernatural
I’ve noticed how we humans appear to have a nearly universal sense of the supernatural. Now, I know devotees of science and atheists might dispute that, at least as far as universal applies to them. They’ll claim they don’t believe in the supernatural. Fair enough, so let me rephrase this… The supernatural sense is essentially […]
Continue reading…Stupidly Intelligent
UPDATE 2023: The instinct of fear is an emergent property of entropy, and the universal driving force that motivates all living things, from virus on up, to survive. Obviously, fear influences our every thought and action. This is also the driving force behind all the harmful actions of humanity. Artificial intelligence is devoid of this […]
Continue reading…Feeding the Worry Gene
Have you noticed how there is always something wrong? No matter how ideal circumstances are, something will go awry shortly. All this may be obvious, I suppose. What is less obvious is how the perception and experience of good fortune and misfortune are complimentary. As chapter 58 puts it, Misfortune, yet of good fortune its […]
Continue reading…Breathe Into It
It helps me to regard language as the smoke that arises out of emotion’s fire. You could say words are the cognitive reflections of human emotions. As such, they’re more fantasy than reality. For example, you can understand a volcano with words metaphorically, symbolically, abstractly, but you cannot truly know it through words. You can […]
Continue reading…Placebo Effect
Google [Treating Depression: Is there a placebo effect? – CBS News] for an interview with Irving Kirsch, a scientist at the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School. Kirsch, who’s been studying placebos for 36 years, says “sugar pills” can work miracles. He has found that the drugs used to treat depression for most people […]
Continue reading…Two Paths
There are two main approaches to life. The most common one is striving to conform to your culture’s ideals of how to live. This typically amounts to expecting yourself and others to conform to your culture’s code of ethics… religious, political, and what not. I call this approach ‘small conformity’. Chapter 65 hints at the […]
Continue reading…Fear Rules
The 2011 disasters in Japan triggered much anxiety among some people in America. This is curious considering how far removed we are from that experience. Thinking easily exaggerates (or minimizes) reality and makes matters feel even worse than they actually are, or vice versa. Media only adds to this by feeding our fears and needs. […]
Continue reading…Balancing Difference With Similarity
Noticing differences greatly assists survival… up to the point of diminishing returns, especially for a thinking animal like us. Even so, the naïve acceptance of difference as a true portrayal of reality would not have been a problem for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, given their truly down to earth circumstances. Conversely, our naive acceptance of difference […]
Continue reading…The Worry Gene
Have you noticed how something always seems to be wrong no matter how right things appear initially? There is an apparently endless supply of issues to fret over. After we resolve our pressing life and death issues, you’d think we could relax and appreciate that victory. Alas, no sooner is one problem solved than we […]
Continue reading…