Life Between Two Bookends

Life Between Two Bookends

I was born in 1940, the same time Hitler vowed to make Germany great again. He started with a massive military buildup, then vowed to teach certain groups of citizens a lesson they would never forget (well, they would once dead), then he started to invade one country after another to amass an empire for the great new Germany, then came the massive war killings and the concentration camps. Death and destruction was everywhere,—little of the planet outside the Americas  was left untouched.  I was too young to remember any of it, and was lucky enough to live in a part of untouched America. Back in those days when our nation went to war everyone sacrificed, not just soldiers. One might legitimately have called this a noble war to defend countries being invaded.

Since then I don’t think I personally have ever been called on to sacrifice anything during any of our invasions and bombings, well past 50 now, that our country carried out on foreign countries for differing reasons. 

Now 76, winding down a very comfortable and enough good luck life, there is the possibility that Trump could be our President, one who has vowed to make America Great again. He pledges to start by a massive military buildup, has vowed to teach certain groups of citizens a lesson they will never forget, he will be known as the jobs President, albeit the jobs are not likely to be living wage jobs. He will restore law and order by allowing everyone not a diagnosed looney to carrying guns around in public. He has already reduced tolerance for diversity and encouraged violence to teach certain groups a lesson via violence he has openly encouraged. It is hard to say where his first violent intolerance of diversity will start. He has never helped the less fortunate at any point in his life. His successful business model is based after the following principle: In every action between two people, someone will get the short end of the stick. Be sure the other sucker always gets the short end. And like a lot of the wealthy, he finds ways to stiff others in legal ways—through loopholes and laws put in place to make sure the wealthy have a clear path to more wealth at the expense of others. All this stealing from others to make himself even richer Trump calls being smart.  

I suppose people sometimes change but it is hard to envision Trump changing his disregard for others at all. He went through almost a half dozen campaign managers, all of whom thought they could change or control him. His speciality is lobbing personal insults toward anyone who gets in his way. He appeals to anyone angry. It doesn’t seem to matter what they are angry about; as long as they are angry about their lives, his anger fits them to a tee. They are angry, he is angry, and so he is their candidate. He actually went to an Evangelical convention of ’true believers’, gave a speech, got their endorsement, and on the way out a reporter asked him when he last went to church. Trump replied, “I am too busy with more important things to do, I have no time for church.”  Oddly enough, the least observant amongst us would never confuse the talk, or actions, of Trump with Jesus Christ. It would be hard to find a single similarity.

At any rate it seems possible that I could actually spend my whole life sandwiched in the good times between the really bad times of Hitler and Trump. The big difference is not in their temperament, but in the kind of weapons available during their respective times. Everyone, everywhere, better hang on to their hats. Should he get elected it will be a bumpy ride with rubble and mass deaths at a level hard to imagine. Between domestic riots and foreign adventures chaos will reign. A deep economic recession will be the least of our worries. Those of us my age have little to lose, no need to nit pick about in which of the next few years we will die or suffer—Trump just gets added to the medical burdens— whereas our younger citizens have so much more at stake. A huge percentage of the young are already suffering, even in this country, where depression in our younger population is at the highest level since the great Depression..  The world is way too much with us these days, what with all these gadgets driving a thoughtless busyness. Perhaps this compulsive immersion in non reality via all these electronic gadgets has made Trump a viable candidate. If life is nothing else it is always good theatre. I thank God, or anyone who will listen, that I lived in the era between Hitler and Trump. Better than winning the lottery. 

The Most Vexatious Question in Life

The Most Vexatious Question in Life

This experience called life is foredoomed from the start as death is the earthly result for all of us. Of course being a sports star is foredoomed as all athletes lose their excellent athletic talent over time. Only an idiot would insist if they can’t be a star for life, then the hell with it. Nobody gets out of this world alive, any Heaven not withstanding. Even if there is a heaven, clearly it will be nothing like this world we have lived in for such a minuscule period of evolutionary time. 

I often am grateful for the time and place I picked to live my life. Of course I didn’t pick it, but so many important unearned gifts in life have enabled me to be one of the affluent—living a life of modern comforts. Every time I ride a bus in Chicago, or a city transit train, or come in contact with those not living an affluent life, it seems a tad unfair so many things have gone my way, while for many less fortunate, life seems virtually a trap, a dead ended street to nothingburgerness.. 

Recently in the doctor’s office I was asked how I felt about my shoulder injury three months after it happened. In other words, what was my mental state with limited range of motion and the pain associated with healing process? I stated the truth:  At 76 years of age I will take the shoulder problem over a heart condition, Alzheimer’s, degenerative muscle disease, diabetes, cancer, a stroke, and so on. My doctor, who knows me quite well, said he was glad it was not my legs since I walk so far so often. He’s right, when I can’t get around with my 3-4 hrs meandering around in nature and city areas— my most valued activity—-outside writing musings, such a fate would certainly leave my mental state dangerously wounded.

The mental state which drives my terminational years is mostly just a lot of gratefulness, not personal pride or money or property, or power over others, or popularity. It is not possible, nor necessary, to be everyone’s cup of tea. In a world where diversity is reality, no one can be all things to all people. All that we can achieve, to varying degrees, is to ensure we are not the reason some one else is kept back in life, blocked from any successes in their life.That includes political votes. So if someone doesn’t really like me, that is ok, providing they cannot claim I prevented them from having a better life. That is the basis on which I judge myself in relation to others. What the hell, it seems fair enough. On the flip side, it is important not to force ourselves on others who prefer some distance, for whatever reason. All we can do is try to be right and fair as dictated by the Golden Rule.  

With all this in mind the most vexing question, at least in my small world, becomes one of why there is so much tragedy in the lives of so many? 75 million refugees across the globe, huddled like cattle, waiting for food that is about the same quality as cattle feed. I have sumptuous meals every day, these refugees never have a sumptuous meal. Daily some manage to endure, but in most cases for what? Many will just die, as unrememberable nobodies. It is not just refugee problems, but senseless violence is everywhere now, even in the wealthiest country of the world where we have 25% of all the prisoners in the world in our jails. Our urban, suburban, rural ghettoes aren’t shrinking, but growing at an exponential rate. Almost all of these unfortunate souls are out of sight for the most part (until they riot), essentially gated off from the more affluent world around them.

I have known students, like 20 years old, who have never been, except for school, more than a mile from their low quality neighborhood.  The inhabitants of such ghettoes are considered by most as the dregs of society, responsible themselves for their environment and all the tragedies which arise in such ghettoes. Maybe it was the work environment during much of my life, where I was exposed daily to students whose problems of varied sorts sensitized me to these less fortunate souls existing in such large numbers. Had I been exposed to the same environmental situations, I would have most likely been dead-ended in life. It really would be a stretch to say that I ‘earned’ my modest successes. Therein lies the most vexatious question in life. If we hardly earned so much of our successes by ourselves, nor often earned the situations in which we were raised, then all these millions suffering across our globe, why must they suffer so? At what point in life did I change from a relative arrogant self serving Trumpish person to a more philosophical and realistic appraiser of this whole thing called success?  In my case I really can’t say much of anything was handed to me outside of important things like my environment, time in history, and genetics—but I can say that it always seemed to be others who pushed me into situations on which I would have otherwise passed.  There was, to be honest, nothing very much cuddly or handsome or brilliant, or overly friendly about me. In fact, my goal, from early in life was to be a hermit. Actually, for all my life I have been part hermit.  I have always had a good size cabal of acquaintances, supporters from a distance, and endless partners in personal battles over this or that, or endless varied persons to be defended in their time of distress, but hardly anyone was what most people would term ‘tight’ with me. Many of my most trusted friends were animals and nobodies in life. It is always in the eyes: a pet can convey trust through their eyes and wounded humans can do this too. I have always been a sucker for eyes that convey hopelessness, desperation, sadness, innocence, and so on, right down the list of depressing emotional states. It bothers me to see suffering and injustices. It just does and has been an albatross around my neck most of my life. 

Here is a good point to address the obvious. I use much of my own experiences as explanations for some musing topics. I reckon it validates that perhaps I am way too introspective and self exposing of my inner thoughts via many musings. Like who the hell cares what I personally think?  Very few people have such a weird hobby as to write lengthy musings on so many topics. But I cannot express the thoughts of others based on the experiences of others for them. So, naturally, my musings are personal in nature. The best anyone can obtain from my own musings is food for thought. I do not have the remotest belief that my musings will change anything. The evolutionary process does not depend on any individual of any species to determine direction. Like I often say, ‘if Lincoln had not engineered the end of slavery in the United States, someone else would have down the road.’

I recently, by invitation, attended a  Board room meeting at the Willis Tower, where a volunteer Medical Doctor for Doctors Without Borders reported on his recent stint in Syria along with medical technicians from the Sudan and Congo. I rarely attend gatherings of most any sort but this presentation intrigued me. While it bothers me to see suffering and injustices, even a gun to my head would not give me the impetus to go to such places engulfed in danger, primitive living conditions, and round the clock medical suffering day after day. One young gal I had seen before at someone’s house a couple of years ago. She remembered me, or so she claimed, and we chatted a bit again, and she has just started Medical School at the Univ. of Wisconsin, where I myself received a PH.D. in physiology way back in the late 60’s. She is a rather pretty gal with an outgoing and pleasant disposition, the kind of person who could easily spend her life in material comfort in a safe environment and  loving family. Yet she continually returns to these forsaken areas mired in military conflict. These volunteers can only stay a limited number of months due to the extreme stress. Yet the locals are stuck in the same kind of stress decade after decade. Modern weaponry can leave nothing but rubble and death for vast areas.

I keep asking how can she do this? She is very soft spoken, cheerful, and all I can detect is that she derives contentment from helping those with the greatest needs right smack among them in their own environment. Death obviously doesn’t deter her, and she sure has seen death up close in the most devastating and hopeless ways. Donald Trump has had everything dumped into his lap since birth, and yet he is hopelessly mad at everything and everyone around him. This gal has no material wealth and is at peace and contented about her mission to help those in such dire situations, not just via monetary donations, but by helping them on their own turf at great personal risk to herself. When the call comes, she just packs up and shows up all by herself ready to join the front line of medical defense for these sorry-assed victims who just live at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

While I admire the end results of the evolutionary process governed by the laws which God Himself created, I cannot adjust to the tragedies so many humans suffer in so many ways in so many places. Less complicated species do not have the mental capacity to so fully understand death, and pain, and consequences—but humans do. I suppose no pain, no gain certainly applies to the evolutionary process, but this pain is not evenly distributed. We are not all paying an equal price for this evolutionary process even though, in the end, we all die. Death is the great leveler. “That could be me” is certainly a sense that all of us have had many times during our lives. There seems to be no comprehensible answer to this vexing question, so no matter how well things may go for me in life, that vexing question is always right there, side by side with any degree of contentedness with my own life.   

Perhaps God (however one envisions God) is not omnipotent and also has limitations. According to Walter Kaufmann, an American philosopher, it boils down to this: “is God unable to prevent suffering, and thus not omnipotent? or is he able and not willing it and thus not merciful? And is he just?”  If God won’t save innocent lives in Syria, and that gal from Doctors Without Borders will, something doesn’t seem right here. Maybe our perceptions of perfection are simply illusionary since perfection would leave no excitement to those living in such a world. Sameness is not mentally stimulating. Maybe God had a choice, let his created laws lead to an evolutionary process which is unpredictable, except advance would be interrupted with long periods of stagnation or reversals until progress once again proceeded. If this were the case, then we either have no evolutionary progress and there are no individual tragedies, or there is evolutionary progress with tragedies abounding based on circumstance, diversity, and luck—with individual pain and tragedies as all the variables sort themselves out. One thing seems clear enough—God isn’t singling out any specific humans for pain and tragedy, but lets the process itself generate the victims and the winners. All individuals have is a chance to achieve some individual contentment, based on the Golden Rule. Thus when it comes to individual justice, assistance, and progress we are dependent on each other through the Golden Rule. Through the evolutionary process, God has given humans the means to maximize contentment for the maximum number of people. Clearly He does not do it Himself thru prayer by interfering with His created laws which govern the evolutionary process.     

If I stop here it is only because I have reached a dead end. It is what it is. To the extent we have helped others along the way to achieve some contentedness in their lives, we can sop up some contentedness for ourselves. Those are happiest and most contented who have helped others along the way, especially those least fortunate. No wonder that gal from Doctors Without Borders seems so  calm and cheerful—those who do the most for the less fortunate reap rewards via a mental state the rest of us cannot hope to match. She would probably say to those like me “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”. But as I once replied to a Doctor, “How does one learn not to worry?”  Nope, no chance I am putting on my hat and coat and heading to Syria, no matter how many supportive letters might be written by others to send me there. Smile. When it comes to the Golden Rule we are not all meritoriously equal. But we all can, through concerted effort, do better with this rule and consequently achieve a greater degree of contentment for ourselves and others in life. 

A lot of our good deeds are minor but can still generate contentment for us. Sheebiejiebee, my cat, was a feral cat picked up by animal control when she was rather young. It took her a good 5 years before she accepted that I could be trusted. One remnant of her feral life is that she doesn’t like to sleep at night in the open, like on top of a bed. She prefers to open a closet door and sleep in there all night where she feels more secure. I figure that is from her feral life existence when young. She would sleep on top of some old work pants lying on the closet floor. A few days ago I finally bought her a nice soft round sleeping bed, a perfect fit for her. She absolutely loves the damn thing. And that made me contented as I still babble away to her that ‘You must be very special to have such a nice bed to sleep in.”  It doesn’t make any difference that she ignores my babble—I did a good deed and it makes me contented. The point is that there are endless opportunities via the Golden Rule to give and receive contentment. Now if I could just figure out where to bury all the bodies. Time to end this, deterioration is setting in.      

Fr the Start, How to Achieve the Best Long, Healthy, Contented Life

Fr the Start, How to Achieve the Best Long, Healthy, Contented Life

1. Choose Parents with the right genes. Failing this go to step 2

2. Choose the right country and the right historical time period in which to be raised.  If you failed to do this go to step 3.

3. Arrange to have a lot of luck in your life, this will enable you to move forward without any merit on your part.  Failing here go to step 4.

4. Be sure to choose two supportive happily married parents who have the time to focus on your needs. If you fail here go to step 5

5. Be sure your family moves around in your formative years until you have chosen the best possible neighborhood and school friends.  Failing here go to step 6

6. Be sure, during your formative years that you choose not to suffer from chronic stress. The presence of chronic stress hormones in your blood will impede optimum maturation of almost every body system, especially the brain. By the time you are like 18, chances are you will be damaged goods.  If you have chronic stress during your formative years go to step 7

7. Be sure your family environment provides you the following psychological tools to help you reduce any developmental damage from Chronic stress: 

a. Outlets for frustration. 

b. Social support

c. Predictability—When we know a task is going to be difficult in advance we can prepare for it, and mentally the body stress responses will be less.

d. Sense of Control—If you are at the top of the control ladder you have lower levels of stress hormones in your blood. If you are ‘middle management’ level in the control ladder, you have much higher levels of stress hormones in your blood. Of course, you have high demands being placed on you and your job is at stake to carry out orders and succeed with them. At the bottom of the control ladder are those who have little responsibility, low expectations, and no control. They are bored, frustrated and no light at the end of the tunnel, which can lead to depression. Sometimes we just can’t win. 

e. The perception of whether things are getting better or worse—Chronic stress will generate less concentration of stress hormones in the blood when we see light at the end of the tunnel. We feel the stress of studying hard, but we also realize we are getting closer to having a successful career so we have less response to the stress. We work on a demanding job but can feel that we are on track to be promoted to a better job position. We try hard at a sport and we can see ourselves getting better and better. 

Of course the above 5 psychological forces, which impact on just how the body will respond to a particular stress, are not straightforward. There are always a multitude of factors to keep track of here. For example, if we are simply hell bent and obsessed on getting more control and desperately needing a high degree of predictability for the stresses in our lives, we just make things worse. In this case our chronic body stress responses will be more vigorous, not less. 

 If you fail to have these tools available then go to step 8.

8. Be cute enough with a pleasant personality so that you can derive support from most anyone who crosses your path.  If you fail here try not to notice the huge hole you are now in because you keep failing to achieve the necessary prerequisites to reach the goal here—a long healthy contented life. But continue on by going to step 9,

9. Find the perfect partner to marry so that it will be a long happy stress free marriage. That perfect mate will be out there but this is tricky as this person may live thousands of miles away and you have no name or address to guide you to them. Do not marry someone with a different level of sex energy or prefers different sex acts than yourself. This will generate endless awkward moments and Freudian mental states. The odds are great that you will end up via any marriage search dependent on who is available and like you, is willing to settle for less than the perfect mate. If you fail with this step too, you are falling far behind. Go to step 10 and try to shape up, quit making all these horrible choices. 

10. Make sure your spouse adapts to your personal  changes over time, or you will need to do all the adapting to their personal changes. Things can often go amiss as time moves on so if you divorce or separate go on to step 11. If it becomes a bitter divorce this is serious damage to your future contentedness so consider ending your life before it goes irreversibly downhill. You are probably not prime grade on the dating meat market anymore, certainly less than you were at a younger age. Young, sexy, and energetic has long left the scene. Just more neuroses. Go to step 11. 

11. Married or not, don’t select a career where you are at the bottom of the ladder in terms of competency. That kind of ensures chronic stress as an adult. Go to step 12.

12. If you are good looking enough to be a gold digger, practice a facade of being happy knowing you are nothing but an acquired trophy, an attractive but essentially empty shell. Unfortunately, an empty shell remains an empty shell and only drugs or psychological gimmicks can help you pretend otherwise. Your meaningful life is over. If step 12 does not apply go to step 13.

13. Only societal safety nets can help you now. These nets simply prevent you from free fall and how far the free fall depends on the political climate at any given time. By definition you are now a welfare queen, responsible for your failure from step 1 on down to step 13. Ironically, the biggest welfare queens are the millionaires, then the affluent, and finally the poor. The amount of money spent on the poor compared to the amount of money legally grabbed by the wealthy is rather paltry. 

14. You will hear it often in life that “In America you can become anyone you want to be”. It is, after all illegal for the homeless to sleep under bridges as it is for the affluent. Still, life is hardly fair. Diversity does not allow us to be equal. But it does allow for advancement, as that best suited for the environment survives. What percentage of citizens can achieve considerable contentment in life is heavily dependent as to what extent the Golden Rule prevails throughout any society. Those who bring the most happiness to the less fortunate are the ones who reap the most contentedness for themselves. That is the kicker, and the reward for following the Golden Rule. Money past a modest level, power past a modest level, titles past a modest level, popularity past a modest level, and so on do not bring maximum contentment.  While there are exceptions and some who achieve high success in these other areas become happy campers, most are not happy campers in life. The Donald Trumps, the Kardesians, star athletes, etc. are not noted for high levels of contentment in their lives. They are invariably upset about something. Contentedness does not occur  in anyone when enough is never enough. That is called addiction, never contentment. If someone is compelled to sweep the floor 25 times a day we don’t call it contentment, but a compulsive behavior or addiction. Compulsive behavior is not pleasure. 

We need remember that ‘family values’ is not the Golden Rule unless by family one means all of ‘God’s children’. It is during the formative years that parents have special obligations to their own offspring, and for obvious reasons. As adults, every society has the responsibility to ensure that the varied communities which comprise that society are well suited to raise their offspring in a safe, healthy environment in which all children receive good education, good health care, good food to eat, decent job at decent pay opportunities for teenagers and adults. Pro life is not limited to generating babies, but really is ensuring that all babies have a chance to be raised in relatively stress free environments with assistance available for their needs, even when parental care is inadequate for any number of reasons. Then, and only then can that society claim ‘in our society a child can become whatever that child wants to be.’ Well, this is not really true, but at least it could be that ‘in our society every child has the environment in which they can best reach their potentials, whatever those potentials might be’. 

Perplexities #1

Perplexities #1

1. Evangelicals and Donald Trump

They almost seem direct opposites: Evangelicals and Donald Trump. One perceives itself as very religious, strict doctrinarians of Christian gospel. Much of their life revolves around a strong, almost impenetrable faith in their biblical beliefs. The other rarely, if ever, goes to church, is a proud womanizer, worships himself and money, and would never consider Christian scripture as the driving force in his life. The only commonality between Trump and the Evangelicals seems to be a genuine anger at current day American society.

When asked recently if he ever goes to church, Trump gave the non politically correct answer as only Trump could do: he replied “I never go to Church because I have too many other important things to do.” Earlier in the campaign Trump declared: “I could shoot someone and my supporters would stick with me”. I reckon this is not much different from the evangelicals stating: “they would never change their beliefs (which come directly from God via their faith) no matter what evidence presented against any of their beliefs. These two human factions are creatures of strong feelings—not facts, not logic, not science. 

The biggest difference is that Trump, to my knowledge, has never really done anything for the less fortunate and views them with disdain (the Trump mentality is that in every dealing between two parties, one side will always get the short end of the stick and it must, by one way or another, be the other party. The Evangelicals have little empathy with those outside their own religious beliefs, I mean how could they feel any empathy with heathens?”  The perplexity here is that I don’t think anyone would ever view Donald Trump as even vaguely reminiscent of Jesus—not in his talk, his mannerisms, his actions,  or in his empathy with the less fortunate in life. Somehow, to the evangelicals, this is a minor point, but a perplexing one.  A quote from Hitler is applicable here: “I now pray to God that he will bless in the years to come our work, our deeds, our foresight, our resolve: that the almighty may protect us from both arrogance and cowardly servility, that he may help us find the right way which he has laid down for the German people and that he may always give us courage to do the right thing and never to falter or weaken before any power or any danger. Long live Germany and the German people.”  My guess is that Hitler too had the support of the evangelicals.

2. Abortion as a Political Issue

We all have heard the arguments for and against abortion. We are not dealing with facts here, so our beliefs must be based on logic, reason, science, or faith in a a belief rooted in our inherited religion. For me, my favorite quote on the topic comes from a Catholic Nun: "I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."  (Catholic Nun)

Be all this as it may, the perplexity here on the topic is this: For all practical purposes the issue has become moot. Having an abortion for most women is as simple now as taking a pill. A doctor is not needed to generate an abortion. So we can pass a law and make abortion illegal and that will put an end to abortions.  Huh?  We made marijuana illegal and that just generated a vigorous black market with all the crime, gangs, and jailing that comes with such futile legislation. Thus, if we want to end abortions, making it illegal is a non starter these days. 

3. We need to respond to Russia’s military involvement in Syria with military measures of our own.

The reasoning goes that we have a moral obligation to innocent citizens of Syria to enter into the fray with our own military might. Bush called them ‘peace soldiers’ or ‘peace fighters’ or some such designation. The only trouble is that such military intervention in the Middle East has never brought prosperity and peaceful democracy to any of the countries over there that we invaded. Not Vietnam, not Iraq, not Afghanistan, not Lebanon—not to mention countries in Africa or South America, or for that matter, any of our urban city ghettoes via the police and political war on drugs.

Thus, on what basis do we envision any success with a military invasion in Syria?  We can enter the fray and kill hundreds of thousands of people, and make even more millions homeless. That doesn’t seem such a good deal to those millions directly affected. And of course, we sure as hell don’t want them fleeing to our country. Even I agree with that. Perhaps we should say to Russia: “Fine, you can have Syria as your political ally. What? Capitulate to the Russians? Don’t we understand the Domino theory? First of all Syria has not been our ally, we are not losing an ally. Somebody will have to rebuild the whole country—right now it is a pile of rubble. Russians, like ourselves, have their own domestic economic problems, let them spend their economic resources rebuilding Syria. Let Russia be the target of rebels within Syria who want an imperial country out of their country. If we just toss in the towel, there will be hundreds of thousands less deaths and millions less forced to flee to refugee camps outside Syria. 

The perplexity here is that we can’t solve the problem within Syria via military measures, so why make matters even worse by military intervention? Why sucker more young Americans into the military and then feed them to the wolves over in Syria. Well, we might say, “don’t send troops, just air strikes, smart bombs, and drones. With no possible good outcome and only deaths upon deaths as a result, what would be the purpose to get involve militarily? Let Russia be the one setting themselves up as the newest target for all sorts of angry religious groups in the Middle East. What does Syria have that we remotely need? In fact what does the Middle East have anymore that we really need? We are pretty much energy independent now from oil. Their religious hatred of each other is not something we can prevent. We can’t even prevent this sort of thing in our own country. Our military invasions of these Middle East nations has only made us behave more like them than they ever are made to behave more like us (as evidenced by this latest Presidential election). We have, as a nation, become more like them,  than they have ever become more like us. 

4. Why are so many of the leaders for liberal policies Catholics when the Catholic church opposes these policies?  The Kennedys, Daley, Biden, John Kerry, almost double the number of Catholics who are democrats in the Senate compared to being Republican, 2/3 of the Justices on the Supreme Court are Catholics, Pelosi, Ryan, 30% of Congress, etc. It doesn’t seem to be just the Catholic Church which has lost control over their flock, almost all, and maybe all, of the major religions in the world are suffering an increasing disconnect between church doctrines and how their members adhere to ‘outdated’ doctrines.

The Catholic church stands out here only because they have the Pope through who God interprets scripture to the flock. Protestants have no such intermediary with God and diversity of  personal opinion on these ‘hot button’ issues exists with less tension amongst their flock.  All major organized religious scriptures contain passages which are clearly out of date, and so many church members just ignore them, at first just rarely, but over time they have less tendency to blindly follow such outdated doctrines. As this happens, church attendance falls, and as church attendance falls, those still very active in the church tend to become frustrated and angry about all the ‘heathens’ out there. There are a lot of angry citizens in the United States, angry enough that they will vote for anyone who essentially would blow the whole system up. Ah, we end up back with the current Presidential election.

Anyway, the perplexity here is most evident with the Catholic Church, but it is just as true with most organized religious groups. Ethics has not disappeared, but the Church as the source of ethics is becoming less and less the source. Is this good or bad? Time will tell. Not human time so much as evolutionary Time. Alas, we Go, Time stays. 

The endless perplexities we find on our plate are simply ample evidence that human intelligence has limits, and these limits may well be our undoing as a species—like the inability to enforce responsible reproduction and thus reduce human overpopulation on this planet, or establish global livable minimum wages so workers across the globe can get their fair share of the economic pie. Presidential debates don’t even talk about the issues which are likely to cause our species to self destruct, with carnage everywhere. Maybe future Presidential debates should be held in looney bin madhouses or at least be classified as just another inane scripted ‘reality show’—worthless entertainment tripe.  We could probably predict that if the debates were on the specifics of solving the real issues facing the entire planet, a Sarah Palin yodeling contest would attract more viewers. I know, kind of sad. 

I suppose many of us can at least retain some sanity and contentment in our own lives, for now at least. But let’s not put our ears to the ground, we may well hear the footsteps of the immediate future marching ominously toward us. For my part, I hope the footsteps of aging get to me first. 

Tidbits #5

Tidbits #5

1. In the last 25 years of the World Series the team with the best season record won just 4 times. It seems for most sports, who wins the most games throughout the entire season is probably best declared the best team for the year. However, playoff games generate a lot of money and excitement . Thus we go with playoff games. 

2. http://theweek.com/speedreads/652844/jimmy-kimmel-turns-donald-trumps-tax-return-leak-defense-into-brutal-ad

3.   http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article106338627.html

       

I like deer, one of my favorite animals. When I used to feed apples to deer in a forest preserve years ago one doe would follow me around the forest preserve like a dog, as long as I went slow enough for her to ear leaves etc. along the way. They really don’t bother anyone unless overpopulated or wander into roadways. Very skittish animals. For good reason—they are prey for many other animals. Never have been able to resolve my understanding of how most animals in nature meet their end with my sadness to see them get shot or attacked and killed or get run over by a car etc. The only solace is that they, unlike us, do not comprehend the meaning of death like we do. 

4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/04/brutal-video-shows-white-officer-violently-arresting-black-man-sitting-on-his-mothers-porch/?utm_term=.82cea7e053d3

So much for ‘can’t we all just get along and work together to make life better for all of us’.

Both these officers were obviously disingenuous from the word go, and just kept searching for a way to mistreat this guy and when he didn’t bite, they mistreated him anyway. Okay they got fired, but I doubt that is enough. I now support the following rules for police—suspect engagements.

a. if a suspect does not obey an officer and stop, but runs or drives away, this is in and of itself a crime and will necessitate jail time even if the suspect is not guilty of any other crime. 

       b. If a suspect orally bad mouths a policeman that is in and of itself a crime and will necessitate jail time even if the suspect is not guilty of any other crime. Police shouldn’t have to listen to it. 

        C. If a cop orally bad mouths a suspect, that is in and of itself a crime and will necessitate jail time for the policeman.

         d. If a the suspect is doing what he/she being told then the police cannot physically attack the suspect in any way or there is jail time for the policeman.

http://wjbq.com/this-deer-loves-to-feel-the-wind-in-his-antlers-video/

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TLUgEXI9RYI?rel=0

Daydreams, Dreams, Nightmares, Situation Planning

Daydreams, Dreams, Nightmares, Situation Planning

Have not researched this topic at all so it is all off the wall. 

I have read that daydreams are fine as long as we don’t take them too seriously. It seems daydreams are just pleasant thoughts as to what would be nice if we had different abilities, personalities, and attitudes. I might day dream that the most beautiful person in the world marries me and stuns everyone. Or that I am a star athlete, etc. 

Dreams occur while we are asleep. I have no idea what they mean. Most of my dreams are more like nightmares, usually I am lost in some situation and trying to find my way out. Maybe I have pleasant dreams but they just don’t wake me up like a bad dream might. There doesn’t seem to be any sense to these nightmares. 

Daydreams interest me the most. Here we are making a conscious decision to see ourselves in a different light. I think I mostly daydream as a means to put myself to sleep seeing myself as something admirable in a way that I am not and never will be. Am pretty sure people have different daydreams depending on their real life status. I don’t think I ever daydream of being rich or powerful or brilliant. Nor do I ever daydream about being a crook of some sort, or a con artist, and that sort of illicit stuff. 

If we lie in bed and think about different outcomes in some current aspect of our life I don’t think this is daydreaming but more problem solving by trying to imagine different outcomes. Sure it may involve visualizing our winning some battle in life and everyone congratulating us, or seeing the losers pout, but things related to real life battles don’t seem should be viewed as day dreaming.

It appears the most plausible reason for sleep is that during sleep our brain cleans up accumulated clutter of some sort, much like certain programs that we may run through our computer do. The result is a more efficient faster computer. It seems also true that most people, absent a good night’s sleep, don’t feel rested and on top of things the next day. The amount of sleep and getting to sleep seem to be significant problems for a lot of people. Many of the drugs available to help us get to sleep may do so but the next day it doesn’t often feel like it was restful sleep.  And most drugs used to get us to sleep run the risk of making sleep more difficult in the long run. 

Today we are inundated with all sorts of methods to make us feel contented even if our real world has little in it to be contented about. Some of these methods are mental gimmicks and some involve drugs which affect how we feel about our lives. We have the ability now to measure just how stressed our bodies are with drug testing for the level of stress hormones in our blood, but we rarely do this, and I suspect for this reason: the cause for the chronic stress is most likely not easy to correct.  To me, this is a big mistake. When humans put their minds to it, a lot of difficult conundrums can be solved, either somewhat or completely. Right now the choice for many adults and children, suffering from chronic stress, is to engage in mental gimmicks which help them pretend they are contented with their lives or take drugs to either stimulate our pleasure centers, elevate our emotional energy level, or simply change the way we feel about our problems. When people are stupid enough to suggest the cure for drug addiction is a phrase—“Just say no”—this approaches absurdity. How do you convince someone to stop doing something which makes them feel better? For any real change we need change what there is about their life which makes them feel the pain of the way in which they are living their lives. 

But as usual I stray, and often to the same damn themes. Then again, daydreams are essentially another way to experience some pleasure from life situations which we just don’t have the inherent ability to achieve. I would guess some people daydream a lot more than others. Sometimes our daydreams change as our life changes. I used to daydream about winning particular races, but once I was good enough to win some races those daydreams ceased. 

I think love, at least when young and the pursuit of love is full steam ahead, there is a lot of daydreaming about just with whom we might have a chance to have a love/sexual relationship. Naturally, just about everything to do with love and sex is a hodgepodge of diverse feelings, the one area of most people’s lives which has the least solid footing, the least logic, and the greatest likelihood of ending up changing with times for reasons which are rarely understood with any clarity. Few love relationships are the same as in their earlier days. I doubt many people spend as much time daydreaming about their spouse as they did early in the relationship. A different kind of glue holds the relationship together, and often it does not hold together. The preacher lied when he implied God was involved in putting the marriage together. 

It seems, again with no expertise here, that sleep dreams are not all that important in terms of having a lot of relevance to our actual lives, that nightmares may or may not have some relevance but are far more likely to wake us up when they occur, that daydreams are healthy as long as they are treated in the same fashion as watching a good movie—the difference being that with a daydream we have written the script and we need remember that it is fiction. Mulling current situations in life over are simply conscious attempts to make sense out of, and plan actions involving certain aspects of our life at the time. 

Some daydreams don’t last very long. When I first was succeeding in getting Riva the horse to be my friend and was getting some notoriety for having succeeded in this respect, I would daydream about what situations would enhance my notoriety here even more. Having Riva charge at me, then leap up into the air and come screeching to a halt inches from me, raise her head and whinny as loud as she could was pure showoff on my part. When I ran she liked to chase me but Matt managed to get me to  cease doing this: “you don’t play those kind of games with a thousand pound horse” he scowled. It is probably natural for us to like to show off; after all, there are not really that many people, so talented in so many ways, where showing off gets boring. I suspect there are millions of people going through life with nary a chance to ever show off. They will have to rely on daydreaming.  

At any rate, happy daydreams.  A certain amount of pretending may protect our sanity, a mental state rather fragile in these current times.