Rian Nejar's Blog, page 19

Animal Worship…Oh, How Uncivilized!

Watching “Seven Years in Tibet” with my preteen daughter, I could see that she was enjoying learning about far eastern cultures. We could not avoid laughing at the humor sewn inseparably into the tapestry of the complex story – where the representative of the west protests, unsuccessfully suppressing his mirth, that he could not hope to save all the earthworms dug up in the course of the cinema theater construction he was commissioned to do. In dramatic style, that predicament was made more ludicrous in the movie with an observation that the simple people of that land – Tibet – believed earthworms could have been humans in a past life, mothers especially. And solved with a sweeping, positive request: “You are a clever man. Please find a way to save them all.” I explained to my daughter that this depiction dramatized an innate respect for all life that is an inseparable aspect of such cultures.

Another explanation had occurred to me…that such beliefs may prove true universally. But clouding a child’s mind with the thought that human bodies are recycled by worms, earthworms especially, when occupied in pushing up daisies, didn’t seem the right thing to do.

Nevertheless, this question pops up every now and then. The term ‘Animal Worship’ is sometimes employed pejoratively in discussions of our natural love for animals…perhaps in an overreaching attempt to assert opinion or win an argument. Yet, respect for animals is innate everywhere. For instance, an excerpt from the Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version, says: “We send thanks to all the animals of the world. They have much to teach us people…” It is encouraging to note that this is an adornment on pages of the American passport, though it may not yet have penetrated the individual American consciousness.

It is also interesting, and humbling, that ‘native’ cultures develop a great admiration, and respect, for all life. Scientifically, it is a simple matter to realize that without plants, without the tiniest of organisms (the phytoplankton, and bacteria) that inhabit the planet, life cannot be…more specifically, without the bacteria that live in all our guts, we cannot be.

A brief excerpt from Humbling and Humility – where I’ve dwelt at length on love and learning from other beings…

Sid did not clarify why cobras were employed to symbolize acts of extreme violence by men. A common reptile in India, the cobra is worshiped by simple folks in the land I come from, as are many other living things for qualities admirable to humans. A book written after the O J Simpson double murder case and its aftermath, by two psychologists, When Men Batter Women, reviewed in the New York Times in 1998, may have a lot to do with this rather unfair characterization. In that arguably opportunistic book, psychologists portrayed male behavior in dark extremes, employing these animals, and our revulsion to some of their behaviors, for dramatic effect.

So that makes all men batterers, Sid? If they are aggressive, clamp down hard, and won’t let go, they are then pit bulls, and if they are unemotional, and strike with great speed, cobras in the grass? You mean us men in your counseling class, surely, for we’d been duly deemed, one and all, violent or prone to violence with our domestic partners by the state. Yet the statistical fact of half of all murdered women harmed by their domestic partners was indeed frightening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/17/science/battered-women-face-pit-bulls-and-cobras.html

A Physical Basis for Spirituality

What is ‘Spirituality?’ I think it could be an integrating, conflict resolving function, localized in the Parietal Region of our brains. This is alluded to indirectly in Humbling and Humility…of the poverty of an intellect that has but one perspective, and of the higher value of “peace-making.”

With a multitude of perspectives, broader mental vision, comes natural discord. Here, simplistic win-lose competition cannot be the way to achieve an optimum, for as professor John Nash of Princeton points out, from his insight into game theory, the optimum is not when each individual entity works toward maximal self-benefit, but when they work toward individual and collective self-benefit. I’d bet that nature encoded this into our brains eons before someone (Nash, and perhaps very many others in the past who did not put it mathematically) came to see it. Between many perspectives, and instincts/impulses, therefore, and to include them all in some equitable algorithm, an arbitration function could have developed in the parietal region (I have no way of knowing this at present) that is associated with “spiritual” experiences.

Such holistic arbitration, seemingly set apart from ideas and drives that may not be in accord, and taking into consideration many or all such mental forces, could therefore appear (psychologically) to be above these other mental activities. Making peace between divergent directions, including emotional reactions and compulsions, it would seem to be a higher function, above instincts and rational thought, and therefore may be perceived to be above physical, material, and mental considerations. Hence a sense of something not-quite-oneself integrating and resolving demands of many other acknowledged aspects of oneself. Yet it is but a part of oneself playing a most necessary, steadying, peace-making role.

When developed to the highest form, discordant considerations become less troubling, and one perhaps attains a high measure of equanimity. One is more detached, less engaged in life and living, the balance of good and evil, and – flippantly – on one’s way out of a fully lived life. :-)

As to the association of spiritual experiences with emotions, I can see some ways in which this could come about: tears of joy (relief at elimination of fear of pain, perhaps, or an inverse reaction to balance out an excess of one emotion), a sense of bliss (equanimity permitting a clear focus upon simple joys), and peace (emotional indifference to pain and pleasure)… But I think emotions, and thoughts leading to emotions, are more closely tied to physical and material aspects. Spirituality is more of harmony amongst emotions and physical impulses.

Consider the evidence. It is most often through extremes of physical, mental, and emotional conditions that humans are seen to develop spirituality. These stresses compel the brain (and collections of brains, a family, a clan, community) to adapt to such conditions with new cognitive and contemplative capabilities, or to reach for spirituality…

Judge, Jury, Executioner: Licensed To Kill?

Is not the anguish of mothers everywhere, who bear the unimaginable tragedy of their children gunned down or subjected to inhumane subjugation, and then suffer the unconscionable insult of a system that claims “insufficient evidence” as the reason for not holding perpetrators accountable, sufficient indictment of a so-called ‘Justice system?’

What does the good in people hope for, expect, require? Isn’t it only that those with authority to inflict harm also demonstrate humility and responsibility, and be held accountable for their harmful actions? In a system that prides itself on ‘checks and balances,’ how can it be that law enforcement personnel, charged with protecting and serving communities, individually assume roles of judge, jury, and executioner, and do so with impunity? What can a mother hope for, after suffering the murder of her child? And what can a society expect, if the good in people is often trampled by apathetic systems?

A brief segment from “Humbling and Humility“

But did you know, Priyavani, that the state that arrested you also arrests other residents and US citizens, guns pointed menacingly, sometimes with choke holds, quick take downs, and blows to the head and back? And that they do so with fabricated and exaggerated details of resistance by those being arrested: “Why are you resisting arrest? Why are you reaching for my gun?” Or that police officers may arbitrarily choose to use their batons, tasers, or guns, harmfully and with impunity, to procure the submission they demand?

Or, that in a state down south, you could be arrested if you were a jaywalking girl and pulled your arm away from a policeman who may grab you to detain you for his ticketing purposes? That southern state has the distinction of employing law enforcement personnel who claim it should be a relief that while a cop may commit sexual assault on duty elsewhere, as it happened in Detroit, MI, they only touch people on the arm in their locale.

Do you also know that some here, arrested or incarcerated, are subjected to body cavity searches, where they not only have to strip, but squat, naked, in front of others, and cough? All you need to do is watch a recent Hollywood dramatization of true events, Fruitvale Station, to see what I describe as common practice in arrests here.

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Lucy, from “Humbling and Humility”

A Feral Family Member

And so, Lucy, her parental duties in life complete, moved in with us. After a few scratches she inflicted on us at first, she learned on her own to keep her claws retracted when swiping at us, if we ventured too close, and eventually learned not to swipe at us at all. She soon selected a few favorite lounging locations, explored the beds and little enclosures my daughter arranged for her, and chose the kids’ bunk bed’s upper bed as her own.

She also learned to do her excretion outside, and to ask us to open doors for her, and climb our apple tree in the backyard to get onto our balcony. I fixed a cat door section to the balcony’s sliding glass door, and she learned, with much coaching and coaxing in this instance, to push through the magnetic flap to get in or out.

But most of all, she learned to be a companion to my daughter, who often declared, at times of stress or anguish, that Lucy was her only friend in the world. In her evident affection for us, and in caring for her too, Lucy greatly comforted my children. As is the Ragdoll‘s nature, she followed us on walks in the neighborhood, and would run after my son when he’d run back to his mother’s after dinner with me. But she always did come back home, as did my children, if only to see her.

• • •

From “Humbling and Humility“

Space, Time, and Gravity

It is common nowadays to say space, time, gravity, mass, energy – all that we consider components with which we ‘construct’ or model our reality – are interlinked inextricably, none being entirely independent of the other.

Time, as a late good friend would say, is simply a measure of motion…and thus is not an independent dimension. But since motion is finite, dependent upon mass and energy, and observable, so is time – it is linked to the other aspects and reflects changes in state. Observations of time are evidently relative (as Einstein hypothesized with amazing insight) and time and space are related simply by a constant – the speed of light – which is another measure of how soon the presence of any aspect (such as mass or energy) can be detected. Gravity is another manifestation of such presence as well, and shares the same ‘speed’ as light…and when mass is speeding along, time (or any measurement of it) changes relatively so as to remain consistent. Or when gravity changes, so does time.

When mass is present, we hypothesize a force, of gravitational attraction; such insight is attributed to another scientific giant, Newton. Yet, no physical explanation was ever convincingly (or conclusively) attached to gravity…what it it that attracts any matter to any other? Or is it something else? Einstein therefore was fond of saying “Objects are not in space, they are spatially extended.” And he called gravity not a force, but a curvature of spacetime (coined as a single word) that varied according to variations in other aspects interacting. Therefore, an apple falls into the gravity ‘well’ directly, vertically, while a speeding bullet traces a long parabolic path. And hence he hypothesized that speeding light must bend too – which we have indeed verified in eclipses and gravitational lensing. But that would also imply that gravity may bend, perhaps, and demonstrate wave-like characteristics…yet this aspect remains unclear, unverified. Nevertheless, it is clear that mass affects what we think of as ‘space’ around it. So does energy, for mass and energy are also inter-convertible through the square of the spacetime constant.

I observed a curious thing today as I cut a small plastic bag enclosing some spicy flour. As I inserted the triangular cut portion into the empty bag, to recycle the plastic, the small bit jumped back out of the opening and stuck to my hand. The few electrostatic charges on the triangular piece, induced by the cut and handling, were far stronger than gravity. You can see this after brushing hair with a plastic comb and observe little pieces of paper jumping up to the comb if you wave the comb above them. Electrostatic forces are evidently many orders of magnitude greater than gravity. Magnetic forces too are similarly far stronger – magnetic levitation is a reality. It is perhaps a reasonable assumption, therefore, as in the Hollywood movie – Interstellar – out recently, that we will overcome the problem of gravity soon…

Philae landing expected any moment

Excited about a first for us all – a robot landing on a moving comet to study its properties intimately. Amazing accomplishment so far – rendezvous with the comet, detection of organic matter (methane, ethanol, etc.), and successful launch of the lander…a signal from touchdown is expected within the next hour!

ESA live feed – Rosetta/Philae mission

Hit The Road, Jack…

If melancholy thoughts occupy your mind, an old Ray Charles favorite is a sure fire remedy… “Hit the road, Jack!” The chorus of firm voices cannot be denied…they “won’t come back no more.”

It’s hard to be humble…

An old favorite, this country song never fails to bring a smile… ‘O Lord it’s hard to be humble‘ by Mac Davis. A twist to the song tweeted under #humility a few days ago:

Don’t need–a Lord–to be humble,

When you’re whupped in every way…

All it takes–is the State–to jumble

A family, a life, in a day!

Here’s the original (1980) – enjoy!

Fragility and beauty of all life – teaching non-violence

How do we teach our children to be non-violent? How do we ensure that they never resort to violence when resolving conflict? I think we begin by showing them the beauty and fragility of all life. By demonstrating, through examples they can emulate, that respect for life, for all life, readily alters our priorities and actions. That protecting life is our greatest responsibility as sentient living beings…how can anyone hurt a being whose beauty and perfection can be readily seen and admired? Especially when life in all its aspects animates such a being?

Smashwords interview

Visit my Smashwords interview. Humbling and Humility is distributed globally through Smashwords, and is also made available for sale at this e-book publishing site.

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