Weekly Tidbits #2

Weekly Tidbits #2

This needs to get better organized. Will work on it. Too many loose ends lying around here which I have lost track of. 

1. When Sen. Lisa Murkowski arrived to work on Tuesday after the weekend's snowfall, she might have thought she arrived in a future bereft of glass ceilings. As Murkowski took stock of the Senate floor, the Republican senator from Alaska noticed that every single person who showed up to work was a woman. 

"As we convene this morning, you look around the chamber, the presiding officer is female," Murkowski said, addressing the floor. "All of our parliamentarians are female. Our floor managers are female. All of our pages are female." 

Wow. A bad snowstorm and only the women made it to work?  Times have changed. 

2. Trump: “I could shoot someone and not lose”

He is probably right and that’s the sad part of it. The mentality of his supporters is much like the mentality of the OJ jury. The jury hated the Los Angeles police (with good reason) and since the police wanted OJ convicted the jury refused to do so. Take that!

Trump supporters hate most groups not the mirror image of their own cabal. These ‘other’ groups of people need to be taught a lesson. Trump promises to do just that. If he just makes sure to shoot someone in any of these other groups, he will get his base support by a landslide. The ‘wild west’ and everyone for himself is back in vogue. 

The fatal flaw in the Trump mentality is this: All groups today have the power to be effective terrorists. They don’t need to meet in certain places to plan; they don’t have to form a uniformed army; most Trumpites have little to lose. They are very angry, frustrated, anti social, and are controlled by feelings, not facts or principles, or any tolerance of diversity. Everybody is becoming increasingly armed with guns. The whole planet is becoming a mirror image of Baghdad— a powder keg just waiting to be set off. It will be a bloodbath, and just like when Hussein was finally caught, the carnage will have been completed, thugs will rule the street. There will be few, if any, places left to run to. 

The major causative problem for all this is human overpopulation. Perhaps the overpopulation solution will be simply for everyone to start shooting others in some sort of insane chaotic ‘last man standing’ mentality. 

How things will play out is beyond anything but guesses. That’s the thing when chaos reigns, predictability goes out the window. Those who die first may well be the luckier ones. 

3.  http://news.yahoo.com/video/mcdonalds-manager-shot-death-los-062542461.html

That this guy was killed is no longer noteworthy. Americans kill more Americans by far than ISIS kills Americans, or Afghanistans, or Muslims, or Commies, etc. But this 29 year old American lived in one of those nondescript American ghettoes for which our society takes little responsibility. They are pretty much gated off almost a separate country within a country. What is striking here is that he worked three jobs to support his family—a manager at McDonald’s, clerked in a liquor store, and worked at a Tax Assistance business. There was a time when machines made life easier for Americans—not today. Logic might dictate that with machines doing so much of the work humans used to do, we could get by with a 30 hr work week.  And what is progressive about people having to work 3 jobs just to support a family when 60 years ago a person working in any of those three jobs made enough money to modestly support a family?  If a low wage earner now has to work three jobs to minimally support a family, how can there ever be enough jobs for everyone? Of course there aren’t, and with work hard to find, slave wages become the norm. Seniors are protected by cost of living wages. Low end workers have no such cost of living increases. Had there been a minimum wage cost of living increase every year since 1955, the minimum wage today would be around $21/hr. How will we break this cycle? The majority of citizens have little empathy with low wage workers. It’s not malicious as much as ‘out of sight, out of mind’. And we all demand bargains. The best bargains, of course, come off of slave labor. All this is legal just at is legal for Donald Trump to declare bankruptcy four times, retain the wealth accrued by investors in his various real estate ventures, and just do it all over again to bilk more money out of others. And it is all legal.  We are simply suffocating from all the serious global problems bearing down on us from all directions. Me worry?  Hell no, I am 75, too near the finish line to be much affected by the track path to the finish being pulled out from under younger competitors. Still, I see it all clear enough and it is sad. Yup, sad—simply put. 

Lincoln and Contemporary Blacks—an Uneasy Puzzling Relationship

Lincoln and Contemporary Blacks—an Uneasy Puzzling Relationship

More people pay a visit to the varied Lincoln historical sites than any other American figure. More books have been written about Lincoln than any other person in world history outside of Christ. Yet, blacks do not flock to these sites, nor buy their share of the books. Since Lincoln is best known as the emancipator of slaves, this may seem strange—almost ungrateful since he was assassinated precisely over this issue. Maybe it is odd that Martin Luther King, who is black, has his own national holiday for his efforts on Civil Rights for blacks, while Lincoln, who is white, has no such personal holiday for his efforts to end slavery. It seems less amazing to find the effort to help others similar to ourselves admirable, than to help those different from ourselves. Just a side point here. 

So why are contemporary blacks so cautious about embracing Lincoln?  The blacks who lived at the same time of Lincoln certainly showed no such caution. They didn’t doubt at all who played the major role in getting them out from under the yoke of slavery.  Some modern day black historians often play down the role Lincoln played in freeing the slaves, insisting he just wanted to save the Union, not end slavery. 

Slavery is a unique situation, one in which a whole segment of society loses all dignity and rights that others have. To ensure black slaves, who were a significant percentage of persons in our country at the time, had no chance to organize a successful revolt, they were kept illiterate, unskilled, and needed passes to even venture off the plantation on which they lived. Having no means of communication with each other, and knowing virtually nothing about the world outside their own plantation, blacks were truly powerless. Their plight was nothing like women trying to get the right to vote, gays trying to get the right to marry, workers getting the right to unionize, etc. Most groups gain rights and privileges pretty much on their own, and the leaders are from the group itself. 

Slaves were trapped, for the reasons listed above—they could not save themselves. It had nothing to do with any deficiency of genetics and everything to do with their unique situation, especially being illiterate and the inability to communicate with blacks outside their own plantation.  Given all this, it is hardly surprising that modern day blacks do not find that situation uplifting, but something they would rather leave behind. What could be more depressing than to relive the depravity of it all?  As individuals many of us have things in our personal past which we have left behind, and are not interested in dwelling on anymore——period. So too have most blacks—slavery is distant enough in time now for them to have little desire to dwell on it. Even more to the point—whites were the ones responsible for black slavery, so it is asking a bit much for a white to be the hero in ending slavery. I suppose it might be reasoned by blacks as to why it took so long for slavery to end? It took hundreds of years for whites to end slavery, so there is often little wiggle room for gratitude to Lincoln or not suspect Lincoln really didn’t want to do it, but was forced to do it.

So let’s look at Lincoln’s personal role in ending slavery We will rely here on what Lincoln said, when he said it, and the circumstances in which he said it.  For a start Lincoln had little personal experiences with black people. They were not part of his life growing up. His family never owned slaves, he never owned slaves. So whatever his views, they were not formulated through close interaction with blacks. We’ll start back in 1841, 19 years before the Civil War started.

"In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border."  Letter to Joshua F. Speed (August 24, 1855), p. 320. This trip was 19 years before the Civil War. 

Lincoln always sought reason and logic to formulate his viewpoint on most anything. His feelings followed reason and logic, not preceded. Lincoln believed “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital…..Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” (1861)  16 years before the Civil War Lincoln stated: “Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal right of men, as I have, in part, stated them: ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government.  Possibly so, said we; and by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious.  We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better, and happier together. (1854). 

Thus, Lincoln had already used reason and logic to formulate a strong opinion on labor and rights. He then applied his general principles already formulated to the question of black rights. “If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B——why may not B snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?  You say A is white and B is black. It is color then—the lighter having the right to enslave the darker?  Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly?  You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, you say, it is a question of interest; and, if you make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well.  And if he an make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.” (1854)

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." (1858)

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."  (1858)

"I do not wish to be misunderstood upon this subject of slavery in this country. I suppose it may long exist, and perhaps the best way for it to come to an end peaceably is for it to exist for a length of time. But I say that the spread and strengthening and perpetuation of it is an entirely different proposition. There we should in every way resist it as a wrong, treating it as a wrong, with the fixed idea that it must and will come to an end." (1859)

"This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave." (1859)

All of these statements were made by Lincoln before the Civil War. 

Lincoln did not enter the Civil War to free the slaves. The reason is simple enough. He had no authority, by the Constitution, to free the slaves. Slavery, where it existed, was protected by the Constitution. Lincoln got back into politics when he did because the South was trying to get the government to permit slavery in newly acquired territories. Lincoln understood the Constitution protected it where it now existed. His belief was that if it were prevented from spreading it would eventually disappear as an inefficient system of productivity.  He repeated this at various times before he was elected as illustrated below. Remember, the Civil War started in 1860.

"We think slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the territories, where our votes will reach it." (1860)

"In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time." (1858)

When the Civil War started, both sides believed it would be a short lived war. It lasted over 4 years, and the blood shed was higher per capita than any war before or since then. The South gave it all they had as they saw slavery the target, either immediately, or down the road (preventing it from existing in newly acquired territories or states). The citizens of the North fought the war to prevent the south seceding from the union. While most citizens of the north felt slavery was wrong, not that many were ever willing to fight a war to put blacks citizens on an equal bases with whites. Now let’s see how Lincoln felt about the way government works. “The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good.  Almost every thing, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgement of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.  On this principle the president, his friends, and world generally, act on most subjects”. (1848)

Harriet Beecher Stowe nailed an important observation about Lincoln. “Lincoln is a strong man, but his strength is of a peculiar kind: it is not aggressive so much as passive, and among passive things, it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable. It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibly bound to carry its great end; and probably by no other kind of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely thus far during the tossing and tempests which beset her way.”

It need be remembered that no strict abolitionist could ever have been elected to any major political post in the North. It is true that some abolitionists saw things regarding blacks which were ethically correct and logical right down the line. Their understanding of blacks would meet current standards today. Some black historians see the abolitionists as the heroes, not Lincoln. This is absurd. If Lincoln had been a strict abolitionist, he would never have been nominated for President or been able to get elected. Without being elected, Lincoln could never have engineered the abolition of slavery. 

It also need be remembered, and this something Lincoln knew well—he had to have people on the side of the war, not just the minority abolitionists. The only thing most everyone in the north were in common agreement on was perpetuation of the Union. His manipulation of the various factions in the north was brilliant. He bent just enough in enough directions to keep everyone focused on perpetuating the union. 

Lincoln admonished two leading abolitionists in his office: “The position in which I am placed brings me different kinds of people, and it appears to me that the great masses of this country care comparatively little about the Negro and are anxious only for military successes.  We shall need all the antislavery feeling in the country and more.  You can go home and try to bring the people to your views, and you may say anything you like about me, if that will help. Don’t spare me! When the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty, though it cost my life. And, gentlemen, lives will be lost.” (1862)

For any modern black historian to play down Lincoln’s role in the abolition of slavery, he would have to successfully refute Lincoln’s appraisal of popular opinion, and deny, ‘that when the hour comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I will be willing to do my duty, though it cost my life.” Lincoln said many times that he would ‘move only so fast as the people are with me’. Had he expressed himself as certain black historians insist he should have, the support for the war would have evaporated and at the very least the South would have been back in the union with slavery intact. In his last speech before being assassinated, Lincoln was already talking about giving at least some blacks the right to vote. Lincoln understood human nature, especially when it comes to prejudicial matters of long standing. These black historians would have Lincoln be perfectly right on every issue of race, and if Lincoln had, he would not have been the one to actually engineer the abolition of slavery. Lincoln understood justice, especially matters of universal justice. As mentioned,  Lincoln did not have a long history of association with blacks. He used his position as President to move cautiously on ending slavery. He was not prepared to move on a lot of other social issues regarding blacks—a case of we must learn to walk before we can run. On the social aspects he had to educate himself step by step. Blacks, he was told, could not be well educated, they were inferior. But he made it his business to talk to those blacks who were educated and those whites whose opinion he trusted about their educational abilities. Blacks, he was told, would be terrible soldiers, totally incapable of being good soldiers. But he gingerly put blacks in the army, although to placate those who were against it, he paid them less, at least at first. People like Frederick Douglass were furious. Lincoln told Douglass he was putting blacks in the army against public opinion, but he wanted the blacks to prove themselves in battle, and then the time would come to adjust pay. He noted that Douglas was a very educated person. Lincoln noticed that blacks were good soldiers when allowed to fight. He concluded that the general principles he had always expounded on regarding freedom and rights clearly applied to the black population. He knew the kind of prejudice that was out there and feared once let loose with freedom the white population would do whatever they could to keep negroes ‘down of the farm’. These concerns were great enough that he at first supported deportation back to Africa, but after meeting with educated blacks in this country he changed his mind—if blacks were willing to fight through all the prejudice he would not be the one to deny them this opportunity. To attempt to distort this into a notion that Lincoln simply wanted to get rid of blacks is disingenuous.

One thing is for sure. If Lincoln were really a ‘phony’ and not really wanting slavery to end, the blacks back then would have surely detected this. Blacks who lived back then knew fully well that John Brown wasn’t going to be able to free them, Frederick Douglass wasn’t going to be able to free them, the radical Republicans weren’t going to be able to free them——no, Lincoln was their only realistic hope. And every time there was movement, Lincoln came down on the right side. Lincoln always kept important matters close to his vest. He was basically educating the public throughout the Civil War. At the start of the war, Lincoln assured people he was just trying to save the Union, not fight for the end of slavery in the original states. Before that Lincoln, faced with political suicide, fudged on just how equal blacks were. It was 1858, two years before the Civil War and during the debate between Douglass and Lincoln that Lincoln made the statement which Black historians love to quote as proof Lincoln had no respect for blacks. “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races — that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. “

Lincoln came to the debates prepared to define slavery as a moral evil. Douglas kept insisting that Lincoln’s real goal was to make blacks the equals of whites. To focus the debate back on slavery, Lincoln offered the above statement. He had never spoke on the issues in the above paragraph, so he technically had never spoke in favor of any of the above.  According to Herndon, his law partner for 25 years, "He was the most secretive- reticent - shut-mouthed man that ever lived."  This personal characteristic paid many dividends in his political career. Had Lincoln ever expressed an opinion on all the issues about blacks other than slavery, his political career would have gone no where. It was Lincoln’s way of granting Douglass all these spurious situations. Lincoln knew that it must start with the end of slavery and all the rest would come, in due time. The pure abolitionists wanted all of it settled right then and there. It must be remembered that back in 1958 Lincoln had little interaction with blacks. He had no experience to start debating whether there were physical or mental differences, whether interracial marriage should be legal. He was simply convinced that freedom is deserved by all people, that those who labor should be able to benefit from what they have labored to produce. Douglas was trying to get Lincoln’s candidacy buried right then and there, but Lincoln deftly steered the debate back to his goal of ridding the country of slavery. 

Later in the war, when Lincoln put blacks in the army and had issued the Proclamation to free all slaves in seceded states, he wrote back to a soldier who angrily protested that he was not fighting any war to free the negroes: “You say you will not fight to free negroes.  Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time, then, for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.”

The Emancipation proclamation has been declared a fraud by some black historians because the only blacks it freed were those in the seceding states where Lincoln had no control. Ending slavery everywhere required a Constitutional Amendment. Lincoln could only use his ‘War Powers’ to free slaves in the rebelling states. But everyone knew that it meant at the end of the war slavery would be formally abolished. People everywhere stayed up until midnight to see if Lincoln would really sign it—all blacks and whites understood the importance of the Proclamation, even if some black historians hundreds of years after the fact wish to interpret it as a sham. If certain modern black historians see Lincoln as either against or merely a token player in ending slavery, it did not seem to be the case with the blacks who lived in that period. A full third of the U.S. population either viewed his casket or stood alongside the train tracks when the train carrying Lincoln’s body passed on its way back to Springfield for burial. Keep in mind how difficult it was to travel back then, yet one third of American citizens managed to pay their respects. The lines passing his casket were estimated to be 10,000 per hour.  While blacks were often put in the back of any procession, their numbers were astounding. Keep in mind that most blacks had the least wear-with-all to get anywhere. Back in those days people didn’t travel and stay in motels. They had to camp out. Blacks came in droves to stand at attention with tears in their eyes when the train passed. They knew as little about Lincoln personally as Lincoln did of them, but when push came to shove during the long four years, Lincoln never let them down. They knew he was the only horse in the race with a chance for the impossible victory for their cause.

Most groups who do do battle and die in the process of winning the battle are members of the group doing the battle. They are, of course, historical heroes to all in the group they represented. The slaves were trapped, for reasons mentioned at the start of this musing, and it was going to take a miracle white leader to beat the odds. The importance of Lincoln to blacks is best determined by those blacks who lived in that era, not some black historian far down the road who uses a license to manipulate the reality back then. Fredrick Douglass was a highly self educated black who met with, and kept pushing Lincoln throughout the war. Bitterly critical of Lincoln early on in the war, Douglass, like virtually all the blacks back then, came to understand the humanity and genius of Lincoln. Below are excerpts from a speech he made dedicating a statue of Lincoln:

 “The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed………. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States……His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined…….Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war……In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us.” 

Can we imagine certain of these modern day black historians, placed in a large auditorium of blacks from that era, trying to convince these blacks that Lincoln was some sort of imposter, some part of him was their enemy? I doubt such a historian would ever get out of the auditorium alive. Lincoln was the whole ballgame back then and the blacks knew it. There were endless booby traps all over the playing field, they watched Lincoln dart this way, then that way, and at every point along the way Lincoln kept darting toward the goal line until at last, near one December deadline, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which finalized that Lincoln was ready to officially declare the war was indeed going to solve the slavery question. Only Lincoln had the wisdom and political manipulative abilities to have created a public environment in which slavery could finally be abolished.  

When we wonder why current day blacks don’t talk more about Lincoln or visit the Civil War sites and museums, we need only understand human nature. A lot of soldiers come back from a war and seldom wish to talk about it. If someone is raised in a dysfunctional family they are not likely to be too interested in rehashing that past life. Lincoln himself would understand. When it came to human nature Lincoln was a genius. 

Part 3—Connecting the Dots ( “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE)

Part 3 Connecting the Dots

Following are some insightful quotations which relate to this musing in obvious or subtle ways.

Relevant Attestations:

“Stupidity does not consist in being without ideas. Such stupidity would be the sweet, blissful stupidity of animals, molluscs and the gods. Human stupidity consists in having lots of ideas, but stupid ones.” Henry de Monthelant (French novelist) 

“I am arguing that science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want---and therefore, what other people should do and should want in order to live the best lives possible.” Sam Harris (neuroscientist)

“Not all that tempts your wand’ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glitters, gold.” Thomas Gray (British Poet) 

“When a small child....I thought success spelled happiness. I was wrong. Happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away.” Anna Pavlova (Russian Ballet dancer) 

“The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life.” Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist) 

“The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.” Lucretius (Roman Poet) 

“Look at one of your industrious fellows for a moment. He sows hurry and reaps indigestion; he puts a vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return....I do not care how much or how well he works, this fellow is an evil feature in other people’s lives. They would be happier if he were dead...He poisons life at the well-head.” Robert Louis Stevenson (British essayist, novelist, poet). 

“Wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, and wants more.” C. C. Colton (English Cleric and Writer) 

“Strip away the clothes and polish, and many of today’s white collar outlaws are just as amoral and unrepentant as ‘wilding’ ghetto kids. Their business ethic is the legal principle ‘innocent until proven guilty’. Do whatever it takes to boost profits and make millions and protect your plunder, because, no matter how damnable your behavior, you’ve done nothing wrong until you’re caught and convicted. And then, of course, it’s not really your fault, it’s the fault of the ‘system’, it’s the fault of society, it’s the fault of the economy, it’s the fault of overzealous prosecutors, it’s the fault of loosely written laws and poorly policed regulations that made wrong-doing too tempting to resist. Art Carey (American editor and author) 

“In our complex, modern world....large private fortunes can easily be extracted by clever folks through imaginative zero sum or negative-sum games. You may become engineers, physicians, or product entrepreneurs who earn your income as a reward for contributing to the welfare and prosperity of society as a whole....On the other hand, you may join the ever-growing corps of income redistributors---tax experts, legal experts, regulatory experts, financial wizards, lobbyists, legislators, and so on---who use so much of their time and intellect not to create net social value added, but merely to redistribute toward themselves and their clients claims to the useful production of others.” Uwe E. Reinhardt (Princeton Economist) 

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” Unknown 

“I am richer than E. H. Harriman, I have all the money I want and he hasn’t.” John Muir (American Naturalist) 

“Success has made failures of many men.” Cindy Adams (American gossip columnist and writer) 

“A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.” Unknown 

“The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.” Francoise Sagan (French playwright and novelist) 

“He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.” Benjamin Franklin (American author, printer, politician, scientist) 

“What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. This is the whole Law, the rest is commentary.” Hillel (Jewish rabbi, teacher) 

“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist) 

“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?” George Eliot (English novelist) 

“Hard to dislike a chap who likes you, isn’t it? Well, there’s your peace plan.” Unknown 

“Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.” Nietzsche (German philosopher, poet) 

“Be not simply good, be good for something.” Henry David Thoreau (American author and naturalist) 

“I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” Stephen Grellet (French Quaker missionary) 

“The lives of the rich vary from rotten frivolity to rotten vice.” Theodore Roosevelt (American President) 

“Treat everybody with politeness, even those who are rude to you. You show courtesy to others not because they are gentlemen, but because you are.” Unknown 

“A good person loves people and uses things, while a bad person loves things and uses people.” Sydney Harris (Essayist and Drama Critic) 

“Care is not weakness. Care to us is the very essence, the greatest demonstration of strength. That’s what makes us democratic socialists. That’s what makes us so categorically different from them. We believe that strength without care is savage, and brutal, and selfish. It’s the strength of the jungle. We believe that strength, with care, is compassion; the practical action that is needed to help people lift themselves to their full stature, their full potential. The strength to care. Not the strength of the jungle but the strength of humanity.” Neil Kinnock. (Welsh politician) 

“Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.” Jane Addams (Founder of Hull House in Chicago, sociologist) 

“Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits---the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.” Teddy Roosevelt. (American President) 

“The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life that man is the best representative of each of us who seeks to do good to each by doing good to all; in other words, whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class and promote merely that class’s selfish interests, but to represent all true and honest men of all sections and all classes and work for their interests by working for our common country.” Teddy Roosevelt. (American President) 

“We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them.” Teddy Roosevelt (American President) 

“Serving God is doing Good to Man, but praying is thought an easier service, and therefore more generally chosen.” Benjamin Franklin (American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor) 

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil---hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars---must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” Martin Luther King (American civil rights leader) 

“I have had no real gratification or enjoyment of any sort more than my neighbor on the next block who is worth only a half million.” William Henry Vanderbilt (U.S. railway chief) 

“The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch- goddess SUCCESS. That---with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word “success”---is our national disease.” William James (American psychologist, philosopher) 

“No nation can last, which has made a mob of itself, however generous at heart. It must discipline it’s passions, and direct them or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion-whips. Above all, a nation cannot last in a money-making job; it cannot with impunity,--it cannot with existence---go on despising literature, despising science, despising nature, despising compassion, and concentrating its soul on Pence.” John Ruskin (British writer). 

“In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.” H.W. Beecher (American clergyman, abolitionist) 

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” John F. Kennedy. (American President) 

“Enough’s as good as a feast.” Scottish Proverb 

“In the history of mankind many republics have risen, have flourished for a less or greater time, and then have fallen because their citizens lost the power of governing themselves and thereby of governing their state; and in no way has this loss of power been so often and so clearly shown as in the tendency to turn the government into a government primarily for the benefit of one class instead of a government for the benefit of the people as a whole.” Teddy Roosevelt (American President) 

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” Lenny Bruce (Jewish American comedian and social critic) 

“I think religion is often very different from spirituality. Religion is often about rules and people trying to control our lives who are actually very unspiritual.....God can be found anywhere, and in fact, everywhere. And you don’t necessarily need a religious dogma to get you to spirituality.” Darren Aronosfsky (American film director) 

“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” Bernard Berenson (American art historian) 

“Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.” W.H. Auden (English/ American poet) 

“Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.” Rene Dubos (American microbiologist) 

“If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.” Gene Roddenberry (American TV screen writer and producer) 

“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.” William Sloane Coffin Jr. (American clergyman and Peace Activist) 

“Difference is the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity. John Hume (Irish politician) 

“Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
Who finds himself, loses his misery.” Matthew Arnold (British poet and critic) 

“We would rather be ruined than changed 

We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment 

And let our illusions die.” Wystan Hugh Auden (British born American poet) 

“Associate with the noblest people you can find; read the best books; live with the mighty. But learn to be happy alone. Rely upon your own energies, and so not wait for, or depend on other people.” Thomas Davidson (Scottish-American philosopher) 

“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots; the other wings.” Hodding Carter (American journalist and author) 

“I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.” Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist) 

“I often compulsively pursue happiness no matter how bad it makes me feel” Unknown 

“Cocaine isn’t habit forming. I should know - I’ve been using it for years.” Tallulah Bankhead (American actress) 

“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken .” Samuel Johnson (English author) 

“The time will come when humans can do almost everything with the technology and still one thing remains impossible, releasing addiction to technology.” Toba Beta (Indonesian author) 

“Sexual addiction is the fastest growing addiction in the United States. It’s based in part on the fact that obtaining sexual literature, pornography, is so convenient today. It’s more readily available. It is there at the click of a finger.” David Bird (British bridge writer) 

Part 2—Connecting the Dots ( “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE)

Part 2—Connecting the Dots ( “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE)

As a physiologist I feel compelled to expand a bit on the physiology here, at least to a reasonable depth. We need keep in mind that our brain is basically a chemical computer. There is electronic activity in neurons, but neurons communicate with each other, and other organs, via chemicals called neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can stimulate, inhibit, block neurotransmitter production, block neurotransmitter re-uptake, or potentiate a response to a given neurotransmitter. Since there are millions of neurons involved it gets rather complicated. The object here will be to only go in depth enough to make some basic sense of what is going on here. The three areas of the brain which are the major players here are the Pleasure Center, the Prefrontal lobe of the cerebral Cortex (inhibits inappropriate behavior) and the Ventral Tegmental Area in the Brain stem (creates craving).

Activation of the pleasure center gives us pleasure.  However, over-stimulation of the pleasure center triggers cells in the pleasure center to produce molecules called CREB molecules, which then trigger the production of dynorphin which inhibits stimulation of the pleasure center (nucleus accumbens). Thus it now takes more stimuli to activate the pleasure center. This is to say the pleasure center is building up tolerance to any stimuli.  Many drugs of abuse also stimulate the pleasure center and do so with greater intensity than non drug stimuli. So when the pleasure center builds up tolerance as described, then a person must take more of the drug to get the same amount of pleasure. BUT, the normal activities in our lives which produce pleasure now become less effective since the pleasure center has developed tolerance. This means the drug becomes even more important as the way to stimulate the pleasure center, and the usual activities in life, which produce pleasure, lose ground. 

From here it all goes downward even more. When pleasure comes from unexpected sources, like taking a recreational drug, the ventral tegmental area in the brain stem is activated. These neurons release dopamine. Increased dopamine levels are found in all addictions, no matter what the addiction is. Unlike the pleasure center, the ventral tegmental area becomes sensitized to the stimulation in question, not desensitized. So now more dopamine will be produced. It is the level of dopamine in the brain which produces the craving for some substance or some activity. Craving is not liking. Ironically, since the pleasure center has become desensitized to the drug, we end up liking the drug less while at the same time our craving for the drug rises even more. Not good.

To top off all of this, many, or all, of the recreational drugs of abuse are essentially toxic to the prefrontal lobe and produce functional and/or structural changes in the prefrontal cortex. Since the prefrontal cortex acts to inhibit inappropriate behavior, there is less inhibition of such behavior. Inappropriate behavior is often exhibited when under heavy drug levels or any other addiction. 

The overall message here is this: be careful about overstimulating the pleasure center. Enough pleasure is really enough. Too much pleasure too often kicks off all the sequences above. 

What can we deduce from this musing?:

1. Be careful about overstimulating our pleasure center with activities, or drugs, which will do nothing to improve our quality of life (our contentment levels). 

2. We need understand that craving something is different from liking something. 

3. Don’t give yourself every ‘best’ thing at once and hope your parents didn’t do this for you. We get the most contentment from more slowly achieving desired things or outcomes. When someone is like 22 years of age and inherits a lot of money, chances are, strangely enough, that this inheritance will significantly limit the level of contentment achievable in life. When you are 22 and one way or another quickly attain many ‘best’ things in life, what is there for an encore? It just might turn out to be drugs, sex, titles, power—all of which develop dopamine induced craving. Donald Trump is probably a good example of dopamine induced cravings. He has little sense of reality and a whole lot of craving for wealth, power, titles, control, and so on, on and on. Maybe he is Hitler all over again. It is probably not possible to have a thoughtful discussion with him on anything. Dopamine, not reason, is driving everything he says or does. 

4. No society should allow any cabal of citizens to exist gated off away from access to good schools, good health care, good opportunities for work, decent pay for good work, a safe neighborhood, adequate vacation time, adequate pensions, and so on. The more any society blocks personal progress for any of it’s citizens the more certainty that society will end up dealing with drug abuse, crimes, inappropriate behaviors, addictions to electronic gadget amusements, overeating, irresponsible reproduction, and of course, overactive rage centers. Our overall societal situation in America right now is seething with anger and lack of level playing fields. Individually, we all need learn when enough is enough, and—while recognizing our responsibilities to our offspring in their formative years, we play with everyone’s future when we do not collectively, through government of some sort, enforce the golden rule as the basis for ethics in our society.  In the end any ‘family values’ that protects the future for our offspring is a “family values” which includes all members of our species and is governed by the Golden Rule. Our special feelings for our offspring need a broader perspective than the immediate needs of adult offspring. 

We are only beginning to tie Central Nervous System function to ‘enough is enough’, to the road to personal contentment, and to the proper role of ethics in the human species. Ethics, as an inherited trait, is relatively new in the evolutionary process. That it is rudimentary and imperfect right now is evident enough. While I personally would not give much hope for the immediate future, setbacks in the evolutionary process are not new to the process.

For years we have depended on anecdotal cautions about how we live our lives which had no solid physiological basis. Statements like “don’t get too much in life too soon”, or “don’t spend so much time doing ‘this or that’.” And we would often retort: “Why not? It’s not hurting anything, and it gives me pleasure.” I mean like, why would we want to deny anyone some pleasure? Now that we understand much more about how the body actually deals with pleasure, we find some of these cautions have a real scientific basis. 

What is being suggested in this musing, based on the physiology involved, is that we learn, preferably in our formative years, that some pleasures are more important to us, in the long run, than others. Some pleasures lead to contentment, other pleasures lead to compulsive behaviors, and compulsive behaviors cannot lead to contentment—just an uncontrollable addictive and destructive pattern of behavior. How destructive?  It varies from mild to severe to personal tragedies of various ilk. Furthermore, some people are more genetically susceptible to compulsive behaviors than others. On top of that, environmental circumstances push many people to the kind of pleasures which just help them get mental relief from stress or provide mental highs through drugs or electronic gadgets.

So what kind of pleasures lead to personal contentment as opposed to simply blind alley compulsive behaviors? The broadest categories here are understanding things about ourselves, others diverse from ourselves, our own bodies, how gadgets work, family relationships, developing skills which enable us to gain economic independence, helping others in times of need, learning how to live a healthful life, the right amount of sexual satisfaction, and so on. These are examples, and not a complete list. 

It is important to realize that contentment cannot be given to us, we have to earn it ourselves. Sometimes, in an attempt to make someone happy we give them money or titles or power or whatever —but for them to get any real contentment they have to earn these things themselves.  And that is the reason parents really do need to let go after their offspring become adults. For example, if a parent would like an offspring to eventually take over the family company, don’t make that expected at all—letting it be an assumed eventuality is a huge mistake. Let them go out and prove themselves elsewhere, and when they have done that, only then bring them into your own business. Are there exceptions? I suppose there are but it then becomes a gamble, plain and simple. And that gamble could be the end of the family business. Your son or daughter may have been used to living in an affluent neighborhood in an expensive house. Now, at the start of their productive years, they are living in a studio apartment somewhere and it breaks your heart. Should you spring for a downpayment on a nice house or co-sign for a loan etc?. What for?  For sure they would like that, BUT now you have reduced their motivation to earn their own money for that goal, and they may begin to use drugs, sex, partying,  computer games, face book, etc as additional pleasures to an already comfortable life.  The more handed to us at a younger age the more likely it is that we, being young and full of energy, will gravitate to the kind of pleasures high risk for compulsive behaviors. If parents do right they don’t become the enabler by simply handing them a ‘good life’ unearned, leaving them free to chase after those pleasures which can lead to compulsive behaviors.  

The lives of the young and affluent (family affluence) have different risks compared to those children born into a ghetto. If these ghetto kids do not have good schools, good health care, safe communities, and job opportunities we have exponentially raised the likelihood their life pursuits will end up chasing drugs, crime, sex, computer games, face book, cell phone conversations and so on— for pleasure, or relief of frustration, none of which is going to lead them to any personal contentment. 

There ought to be mandatory courses in high school about life choices and their consequences. Young people need to understand what kind of pleasures can lead to personal contentment and what kind of pleasures can become compulsive behaviors with no contentment. On top of that, every high school student needs to understand fully what is meant by “enough is enough”. When ‘enough is enough’ is understood, there is nothing wrong with money, titles, sex, food, internet games, cell phone communication, gambling, drinking, marijuana, buying things, fictional movies, and so on. These are perks, meaningful perks which can get out of control and make personal contentment elusive or minimal. There is a big difference between a perk and a daily dependent artificial stimulation of our pleasure center.

To become excessive about any of the above is to jeopardize the real meaningful aspects of our lives. And as we understand from the science explained earlier in this musing, all of these things can become real cravings even though we actually are liking them less. When craving takes over (the ventral tegmental area) and if the pre frontal lobe becomes functionally damaged, no amount of the compulsive behavior in question will bring satisfaction and often is accompanied by inappropriate behaviors. Then our world begins to unravel in a most embarrassing and tragic way. People who have ‘everything’ (too fast or unearned) may behave like they have no genuine contentment, and those with nothing have given up, have nothing to lose, and all they have are compulsive behaviors which give them temporary illusionary relief. Then, for these poor souls, our society often tells them: “just give up these temporary illusionary reliefs or we will put you in jail”. They are already in “jail” and were so, in many cases, throughout their entire formative years.

How best to wrap this up? The future for our offspring, which the best of parents state is very important to them, is really dependent on to what extent the Golden Rule is the ethical basis for that society. It is the evolutionary process which is the important aspect of evolutionary Time. It is not any individuals of any species, let alone the individuals of our own family, who register any significant importance. The laws which govern the evolutionary process were created by God, Whom we may know exists from all the presents which surround us in nature—but we can know nothing of substance about God. Why we can’t even comprehend how something could come from nothing, which of course must have been possible back in the beginning of Time, if there was a beginning.

 We are constantly told our national security depends on events in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on—and on and on until we end up invading one country after another till finally, these last decades, we have been at perpetual war—declared or not declared. Well, from all of the above in this musing we can understand that letting millions of children across our country have inferior schools (including inferior teachers), inferior health care, unsafe communities in which to live ((right smack in the middle of our War on Drugs), inferior job opportunities (often no job opportunities), inferior wages, and any other things which deny them a level playing field in life——all of these things are a real threat to our national security. It doesn’t stop with kids——when 43% of our citizens don’t earn enough to qualify to pay federal income taxes, then we have a sick prognosis for the future, just as we do when 2-5% of our citizens own 90% of our wealth. Such a society is going to implode in the short run, not the long run, and when it does the “have not’s”, with nothing to lose, are going to reap vengeance on the “Have’s”, with everything to lose and no way to protect their material bounty. I suppose we could say here that unless we can make the playing fields more level for all citizens of a society, then the long term future is not just potentially bleak, but history teaches us it is always bleak.  We need to do the best we can as parents so that our offspring, after their formative years, are best prepared to succeed on level playing fields, and if, for varied reasons, they simply don’t have what it takes to succeed on their own, then the responsibility falls on the more successful in society—collectively through government—to provide assistance so that the less fortunate too can achieve some personal contentment in life. In reality, life at it’s best, is not fair, but at it’s best, a just society can always be merciful. Thus, even with the best parenting, some offspring may not flourish for genetic, environmental, lack of good luck, health issues, accidents, etc. but the neat thing, when The Golden Rule is the basis for ethics, is that these unfortunate offspring are protected collectively by the more fortunate. The parents did the best they could. Sometimes that is not good enough. But the responsibility for help past the formative years falls on everyone collectively. Some times the parents did a terrible job. That is why, during the formative years, such children may need level playing fields to succeed. 

Having run out of angles to tie all things together here, I will close with what is my all-time favorite passage, although I can’t seem to find who really originated it. 

“There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of behaving towards other men and your fellow creatures, towards all living things, towards the whole earth and the sky and the sun that is based on love, on compassion, on respect, on cherishing everything there is around you because it is wonderful, unique, it’s natural and good and it evolved that way by itself, it’s got to be cherished and if we think like that, and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness, we can all feel the sun and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with appreciation.” 

This philosophy, coupled with the Golden Rule, generates the best atmosphere to maximize the contentment level for the maximum number of people.  The notion that God created the laws which govern the evolutionary process, and then nullifies these laws on behalf of any single member of any species to protect them, or any ‘sect’ of them, from misfortune—is a tad absurd—except, of course, in football games when prayer circles are very effective. Sure they are. Maybe God is like a good parent who feels sad when unfortunate things happen to any of his ‘creations’. 

In an evolutionary process not driven by ‘good’ vs ‘evil’ or ‘God’ vs the ‘Devil’, but by advantages vs disadvantages, just now much contentment can be achieved by the disadvantaged least fortunate in our own species is determined by the extent to which the society lives by the Golden Rule. For example, there is no reason why any person needs to starve to death so long as the more fortunate collectively see to it they don’t starve. There is no reason the less fortunate need die from inadequate health care so long as the more fortunate collectively, via the Golden Rule and some form of government, share their excess good fortune to ensure all citizens get good health care. God, after all is said and done, has indeed provided us with the means to minimize misfortune and maximize contentment. But it is our duty, collectively, to maximize content for the greatest number of people. It is like when a child complains their room is a mess, and a parent says “well, then go clean it up.” When we complain that our nation or world or community is a mess, then praying for God to clean it up is fruitless. We, collectively, need to clean it up. Whether we do it ourselves, or rely on the evolutionary process to clean it up, evolution eventually moves forward, like it has for billions of years now. Finally, once again, ad nausea—nothing in this musing matters much if the human species cannot effectuate what we already know: overpopulation is disastrous for any species—no exception. We have already overpopulated the globe, and if we can’t find a way to enforce responsible human reproduction on a global scale, then Mother Nature will do it for us, no matter how much chaos required for such an evolutionary correction.  Don’t forget, “WE go, TIME stays.”  That’s the reality.

End of Part 2  The next part contains some insightful quotations which relate to these topics. 

Football as theatre. What makes a game one of the better ones in history?

Football as theatre. What makes a game one of the better ones in history?

“The Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals played what could go down as one of the better NFL playoff games in recent memory.” So stated one internet media columnist. 

This got me wondering. What does he mean by better?  And the answer explains why younger fans get a lot more excited about football games than older fans, with some notable exceptions. Football is the most popular fan sport by far. And they only play sixteen games a season not counting the playoffs. 

Football is a very complicated sport requiring a variety of skills and a variety of totally different positions. It has a nice pace to it and by it’s nature fans tend to develop very strong opinions during the game as to what should be done. The term ‘better’ above has little to do with football competency per se. I don’t recall all the scoring during the game but I do remember one pass was a ‘hail mary’ pass, another touchdown was scored by the ball being deflected away from the intended receiver and some guy yards away finds the ball coming down in his hands. Another play included a receiver catching a long pass in down in the red zone, an amazing catch, but there was a penalty way back down the field on someone so the catch was negated. The receiver—the best one the team had—-was injured in the play and removed from the game. 

I mention the stuff above, not that stuff like this is unusual in football (it is not), but endless ‘surprises’—things that cannot be coached against, happen throughout a football game: bad calls, missed calls, player injuries, bad weather. Plus, the best team is expected to fumble less, miss tackles less, drop the ball less, create penalties less, block well, etc. However, how damaging any of the latter are depends on exactly at what point in the game the error happens. Some mistakes are harmless, others mistakes lose the game. But this unpredictable-ness is exactly what makes football so exciting. Pro football games are so unpredictable that those ‘experts’, who predict which teams will win each week, are only right about 65% of the time. 

In other words the media writer means the game was one of the most exciting games to watch, not that flawless football was being executed during the game. Of course this is ok, I mean who would want to watch a football game if the most talented team always wins?  For many people, a three hour football game is going to be the most exciting three hours of their week, with the gas peddle floored for a full range of emotions.  It is a way to get such charged emotions with no personal risk. Our lives will be the same after, as it was before the game. It’s the same reason we like a good movie or exhilarating rides at an amusement park. With football it is a three hour “Wee…..Oh no!……Yes, yes!…..Oh, for Christ’s sake!……unbelievable!…….etc.”  We don’t watch the game because we know who will win based on the talent (at least with teams remotely close in talent) but precisely because we really don’t know who will win (especially in the playoffs). There is such a hodgepodge of factors percolating the entire game that more often than not it comes crashing down the last 5 minutes of a game with enough pauses in the action for us to work up a maximum emotional state. Then, just like on a roller coast we take the plunge and just like that, somebody wins and somebody loses while not a thing changes about the reality of our lives. 

But a funny thing happens as most people get older. At an older age we have been on the rollercoaster enough. We seek milder forms of excitement; in fact contentment is more important than jacked up excitement. We begin to watch the game more as pure theatre instead of committed insistence as to who will win or any stubborn claim about who is the better team. We play the lottery (not I), not because it is a rational thing to do, but purely because a miracle has to descend on someone or a handful of someones.  In general, most older people begin to resent having their emotions driven to extremes, especially in matters of no real importance to them. We begin to realize we have zero control of all the unpredictable things that can happen in a football game. To some extent, resentment sets in that our emotional state is being manipulated and yanked around for three hours. We tend to mellow out when older, become less and less directly involved in our environment, of whatever nature it might be. When a crowd is together watching a game, it is the younger crowd that makes the most noise, takes the game the most seriously, ready to be pushed to an amazing high or a crushing defeat. I probably was one of the worst fans to the point of being obnoxious: “Reid, would you like mashed potatoes or a sweet potato?” “Shut up mother, I am trying to watch the game”.Then later, “Why can’t you keep quiet during the game? I can’t focus on all the nonsense you try to talk about.”  I never listen to the pregame babble or the call in radio shows that go on for hours before and after a game. It really is inane. It really is over the top. The same ‘expert’ who was so sure who would win the game before the game started, will pick the wrong team, and then, after the game, come back and just as forcefully and adamantly explain why the game was won by the very team which he earlier said would, for sure, lose. That’s quite a feat, to be the expert, win or lose. 

So when a media expert claims a certain game was one of the better games in history we can be sure that really means there were more unexpected plays, more disputed plays, more unbelievable plays, more ups and downs throughout the game, etc. Some of the better movies we watch are better because we didn’t ‘expect’ so many things to happen that did, or the movie to end as it did, or our feelings played with so effectively.  

In the end, when the game is over, absolutely nothing of any meaning happened. Our lives haven’t changed, reality returns. It is back, too often, to the ‘rat race’ and lives, too often, of quiet desperation. Life, for most, is not so unbearable as to be suicidal, but it is stressful and we really do have to struggle to get a respectable amount of contentment in our lives. Real life, in many respects, is just like football—essentially unpredictable. We mostly continue to watch football and we continue to live our lives. It is really hard to predict when, in life, we may score a touchdown. The excited joy doesn’t last all that long and tomorrow in life, it will be another contest, another effort, another slew of unpredictable hurdles or events, and so it goes until, as with all theatre, the curtain comes down.  

(Part 1 of 3) “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE. (Part 1 of 3)

(The Best and Most Philosophicohistorical) “Enough is Enough”, “Family Values”, “The Golden Rule”, Contentment——The FUTURE. (Part 1 of 3)

It has taken me some time to connect the dots which place all of the above as a philosophical package. To elaborate the interrelationship most clearly we need exam all of these terms in the order listed above, then connect these observations with a physiological basis for them. The latter was not really available until recently. 

If we ever wish to maximize our individual contentment in life we need to learn just how important ‘enough is enough’ as a concept really is. In a nutshell—if we cannot do this, and instead follow the “more is better” concept, then we become doomed to compulsive behaviors of varied sorts, and compulsive behavior cannot, by virtual definition, lead to contentment. While all of this is a complicated process within the central nervous system, the gist of it all can be simplified—-at least I will attempt to do so in this long musing. It is so long that I have subdivided it into 3 parts so each part can be read in separate readings. After wading through a third of some of my musings, “enough is enough”. So this musing will be more palatable and better understood if tackled over 3 parts on different days. 

Basically, we all have within our brain: pleasure centers, anger/rage/pain centers, craving centers, and appropriate behavior centers.  For the best outcome, we need activate the pleasure center without activating the craving center, or inhibiting the appropriate behavior center. And, of course, we try to avoid stimulating the anger/rage/pain centers. That is, we need to stimulate the pleasure center in ways which do not come with a lot of downsides.  

Unfortunately, we are all greedy, and if something stimulates our pleasure center, we seek it over and over again. Most of the pleasurable things in life which really matter do not come in rapid fire but more slowly over time. We gradually achieve academic or athletic success, our career most often proceeds over a period of time, we build strong bonds with someone over a period of time, we achieve family rewards over a period of time. IF all goes well, we manage to stimulate our pleasure center with things that really matter over a period of time, and only then are we most likely to end up with considerable contentment in our lives. Sounds simple. It is not. 

“If all goes well”,  that is a big IF since we often find ways to stimulate the pleasure center of our brain with things of little matter—via drugs, and a whole slew of self serving immediate pleasures such gambling, sex, eating, acquisition of money and things, TV, rooting for Sport teams, acquiring titles, power, shopping, video games, electronic game devices of all sorts, and so on. Anything pleasurable can become addictive. Addiction leads to compulsive behaviors and boom, just like that we have gone down the path which cannot lead to contentment, just compulsive behaviors. All that glitters is not gold.

The key here is to control any activities of lesser importance to our lives which will over stimulate the pleasure center repeatedly and too often. There may be a lot of truth to the saying that it is best to not get all you want in life too soon or too easy. Of course there are probably exceptions. I taught college kids most of my life. Kids that were pampered, overprotected, and given endless material things all their lives were, more often than not, not very contented kids. More is better did not turn out too well for them.  

At this point we need remember that all of us are unique, diverse sort of chaps, and so much of what is being written in this musing has to be manipulated to fit a person’s unique genetics. Those who learn early in life when enough is enough have a good start in life. My dad made sure I didn’t have more or better ‘things’ than my neighborhood friends. He also made sure, after I became 18, that any further progress on the accumulation of ‘things’ was going to be on my own. He wasn’t going to loan me a lot of money or co-sign ventures, or be up in my face about endless matters. If I wanted his advice I had to come to him. It was never until much later in life that I understood how lucky I was for his behavior back then. Love doesn’t always, I now surmise, mean making things easy for offspring or never cutting the financial strings. Exceptions probably exist. 

Okay, we have survived the formative years—to continue our topic here—we are on our own (really on our own), and most individuals will soon enough, but hopefully not too soon enough, have a family to manage. Parenting, at least it seems to me, is about as tough and risky an adventure as imaginable.  It really is a roll of the dice. What parenting rarely is, however, is for any kids to be mirror physical images of a parent, and even more rare, mirror personalities of parents. If any one approaches parenthood with the idea that they will be creating little replicas of themselves they are delusional on this point. That is not the way evolution works. There is only one of us, and no need, from any evolutionary standpoint, for any particular individual to keep on producing the same ole, same ole. Diversity is a key to the evolutionary process and our offspring certainly meet that criteria. There are plenty of people out there who are closer to us personality-wise than our offspring will ever be. I used to tire of people saying to me: “Are you really Bud James’ son?” Most of the time it wasn’t even meant as a put down, just puzzlement. 

Nevertheless, our offspring are the closest we can come to ‘creating’ something that only we could have created—if I can use the term created loosely. Just the amount of time and effort alone with parenting creates strong bonding—sometimes. The nature and strength of the bonding will be all over the place. There is no clear cut assembly line method in the formative years for raising children. Those who think there is, are in for a lot of rude awakenings. Every child is different, every parent is different, and the best way to parent a particular child has to be worked out. It’s a crap shoot in many respects. Some kids stick to parents like glue and other kids, more like me, are more aloof, and frankly—less lovable. But a good parent gulps down some patience and loves a less lovable child anyway. You might even be stuck sometimes having to raise an ‘idiot’.  Talk about placing blind bets—hell football and horse racing are more predictable and they are unpredictable.

If ‘family values’ is restricted to mean an ethical obligation to give a priority effort to raise your kids properly, then ‘family values’ is an obligatory ethical value and a primary focus. Period. Given the nature of parenting, wrapped with so many variables, failures will not be uncommon. Placing the blame is pointless. If the ball takes a bad sperm/egg bounce, what is the point of blaming the player or the coach? The best of parents have no control over bad bounces. And we all know the worst of kids sometimes come from good parents and the best of adults sometimes come from poor parenting. Talk about a complicated endeavor, and we for sure have one with this parenting thing.

The point is that family values has it’s place. BUT, written large and in bold print, when it comes to adult populations the GOLDEN RULE takes precedence. That is to say, no matter how strong the bond between a parent and their adult offspring, these offspring are no more valuable to the society as a whole than anyone else’s offspring. This concept is tricky and often misunderstood. Once grown, your offspring are no longer your own personal responsibility, they become ‘community’ responsibility. Look at it this way: when a parent says they want the very best for their kids, including a good future, this is an honest and understandable feeling. HOWEVER, for your offspring down the road to have a good future, the Golden Rule has to be applicable to everyone in that community or nation—and applicable to all citizens. 

Family values, taken to the extreme with adult offspring, ensures society will implode in the future, and when it does, everyone’s offspring pay the piper. The Golden Rule prevents conflict, “family values’ promotes conflict. Sectarian Religious fervor promotes conflict, the Golden Rule promotes peace. Family values is required during the formative years, the Golden Rule supersedes and is required our entire lifespan. What does this really mean?

For a start it means we must not use family values to sequester the wealth of a nation into the hands of genetic cabals. When this begins to happen the distribution of wealth gets way out of line, and a society could end up like ours in America today where 2-5% of the people own 90% of the wealth. In the most practical sense, Family Values is imperative to ensure the best possible formative years for children in a society, while the Golden Rule, which does not favor genetically related adults, is needed to protect that society for the future. In other words when family values is used to benefit genetically related adults as a means to sequester wealth along genetic lines, the future of the entire society is doomed. Thus, in the long run, no one really protects their offspring by leaving their excess wealth upon death to their offspring, unless their offspring are clearly among the least fortunate financially in society. To word it differently, because our offspring are more important to us than others for quite natural reasons, we are obligated to protect the future economic stability of a nation, or things implode and the very outcome we wanted to avoid for our offspring becomes inevitable. 

The choice, collectively, is clear. We can participate in the natural desire to give our excess wealth to our adult offspring, to help them in the short run, OR we can follow the Golden Rule and, through taxation, give our excess wealth to the less fortunate so that a healthy society exists in the future for our offspring. Of course this doesn’t work as a voluntary sort of decision. Wealthy people like Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates may well follow the Golden Rule when it comes to their distribution of excess wealth, but most people will not voluntarily pump their excess wealth, which they earned, back into the society from which it was acquired, but instead give their excess wealth as unearned wealth to offspring. That is why back in the days of Eisenhower the tax rate on the very wealthy was 90% and the inheritance taxes such that excess wealth could not be passed on to offspring. If this sounds outrageous from an emotional attachment to offspring standpoint, it must be remembered that back in the days of Eisenhower, the wealthy continued to have ‘enough-is-enough’ wealth and all economic levels of society were kept afloat by this Golden Rule distribution of excess wealth. The Golden Rule is the only principle which keeps a healthy, prosperous, peaceful society with leveled playing fields for all segments of a society. 

We didn’t get to our current situation, in terms of wealth distribution, overnight. It took a good 50 years for us to get to the point where 2-5% of our citizens own 90% 0f our wealth, where 43% of our citizens don’t even earn enough money to qualify to pay federal income taxes, where there is 60% unemployment in some of our worst ghettoes, where globally 70% of people have no permanent job, and so on. We managed to pretend, for decades now, that our ever growing numbers of ghettoes were not our collective responsibility. We gated them off, and left millions and millions of children with poor schools, poor health care, drove businesses out of their communities with a war on drugs, left these communities unsafe for children or adults, left families living behind barred doors and windows, with children having no safe places to play, or have a ‘civilized’ society in which to pass their formative years. Then, when the products of these environments, which really were the collective responsibility of everyone in society, emerge from their formative years, we are infuriated by their behaviors. Well, we simply took our ‘family values’ too far, failed too often to understand when enough was enough for us personally, and allowed ourselves to acquire compulsive behaviors which neither helped ourselves attain contentment, or allowed the less fortunate to have a level playing field on which to compete as children or adults.  

  With this overview in place we can go back and expand a bit on a few key points. We could expand it a lot, but then the musing becomes excessively long (it will anyway). We stated that we need be sure our pleasure centers are not being overstimulated too often, too long, by matters not important to achieving contentment with our lives. What are these major matters, which we need stay focused on?  It certainly includes good health, good education, a safe environment, a decent salary, healthy family relationships, enough skills to obtain a decent job, good friends, plus an understanding/appreciation of the evolutionary process of which we are a part, and some personal space to function as our own unique personality. While this is surely not a complete list, it illustrates the point. Other sources of pleasure are not sinful or have no place in life, but are sources of pleasure that need to be practiced via the ‘enough is enough’ principle. None of us will ever completely succeed here, but with effort, we can keep it all within reasonable bounds. 

Of course humans have a genetically endowed ethical nature: this is essentially the Golden Rule and a major distinguishing feature of our species. Nobody anywhere argues that the Golden Rule is not an ethical principle.  Others do matter—all others, and our goal should always be to treat all others as we would have them treat us. To the extent I can ascertain, anyone who lives their life according to the Golden Rule would earn a place in any kind of Heaven envisioned by all the major sectarian religious groups. So the question begs, what purpose do all these rival sectarian religious groups serve? Most all the conflicts today across the globe are religious or ethnic or cultural in nature. The more people who learn to appreciate diversity, the greater the peace, and prosperity for the most is achieved, and personal contentment is maximized for the greatest number of people. 

Self control is a wonderful achievement. It pays many dividends. When I retired I established a charitable gift fund in which I give grants to charitable causes of my choosing. Surprisingly, it grew to become the basis upon which I kept any tendencies for compulsive behaviors over trivial activities under control. I find myself constantly saying “I could do this, like take a cruise somewhere for a week for $5000, but would this pleasure be worth letting 2000 kids go without proper vaccines to protect them from otherwise incurable disease? I was a kid once and caught a lot of diseases which good health care prevented me from dying. So I invariably feel better helping those 2000 kids get to adults than I personally would feel gawking at people and structures for a week. I could eat in fancy restaurants all the time, but I have the time in retirement to cook and learn to cook the kind of food I like as sumptuous as it is cooked in a restaurant, and thus I cook a lot at home and give that money saved to my charitable fund so that some refugees, with virtually nothing, might have a chance to survive to have a better life some day. Often, late a night, when most are asleep and there is a deafening serenity as far as I can see from the 11th floor of my condo, I just know for certain when enough wealth is enough for me, and feel good that my more-than-enough enables others to survive. On a yearly basis I spend much more on the less fortunate, or to protect this wonderful environment on our globe, than I ever spend on myself. By my age that sort of thing (my FANAFI Fund) is a meaningful pleasure. I reckon most other sorts of pleasures during my life have come my way, and ‘enough is enough’. 

So many diverse people helped me not only survive in life, but achieve some successes in life, that I know what came around should go around. I suppose, if others had not helped me prosper in life I would understand even better how much help is needed from others. With no longer any titles or institution behind me, I can do little personally for the less fortunate, but my charitable fund empowers me to help others and the environment with any excess bounty built up in my life. If we live long enough, and end up with more than enough, then we can never do enough for those in need—to repay our personal good luck. At some point in my life I began to realize the long list of virtual strangers who saw fit to help, defend, or elevate me in life. Most were never really properly thanked. Most are dead now, or scattered with the wind. If all we ever have to cover our back is family, this is really not much of an army. Perhaps my father was a genius of some sort, even if accidentally. After 18 he made it quite clear that I was on my own, to behave and do things in ways which will generate help from others along the way. No more depending on mama and papa.  I get some flack over no longer accepting personal gifts or giving personal gifts. But it just seems so useless to be exchanging gifts between individuals who don’t need any gifts. It is simply inane and too much like I will give you a gift worth X dollars this week and next week you give me a gift worth X dollars. Sometimes on the same day at the same moment people will exchange tit for tat gift values. To top it off, most of the time neither person got a gift they really need or even want. Giving gifts is a great idea and is good for personal contentment to give gifts, but always give gifts to those who really need a gift, not to those who don’t. If you are a good friend to someone and they don’t need a gift, just give them your friendship; give your excess wealth to those who do need help. If we raise our kids successfully they don’t need any more gifts, let alone dump all our excess wealth on them when we die. We live so long most of the time today that what is the point of leaving a small fortune to our kids who are probably nearing retirement?  Unless one is already age retarded, retirement is a chance to get out of the rat race, seek peace of mind, not battle away for personal attention, titles, win meaningless battles, outwit anyone, pile up more things higher and higher, or demand others amuse us. Yes sir, enough is enough. Just follow the Golden rule and help the least fortunate get to that point. They won’t thank us any more than we ever properly thanked so many non relatives who helped us. 

Part 2 to follow:  The Physiology Behind All This