Is the Universe Indifferent, Part 2

Early yesterday morning, I was driving down a ramp running past this church heading towards the highway.  A deer came bounding across the highway ahead of me.  I was still going slow and able to stop (and luckily the guy behind me stopped too). I know this happens all the time in New Jersey, but it had never happened to me here.

If in my delusional subjectivity , I believed the universe was sending me a message, it would be this:  You can live in two worlds: the forest and the city, and occasionally the creative natural part of you can leap up and STOP TRAFFIC, if you have to.

Or maybe the message from the universe is simply, "Lil, like this friggin' deer, you are LOST.  Figure out where home is and where you can be safe and go there."

Jewish philosopher, Richard Rubenstein wrote:  "We stand in a cold, silent, unfeeling cosmos unaided by any purposeful power beyond our own resources."  I'm inclined to agree, but the universe gives us so much, so much.  

It's fun to imagine it is a sentient, engaged universe sending me mysteries to unravel. What messages do you get from the universe?

What Should I Believe? (Part 4)

Subtitle:  Do You Believe in the Supernatural?

I tend to believe that the stars and planets have as much influence on my life as the entrails of goats.  Of course it's fun to imagine that our horoscopic sign, the year we were born, or our Myers-Briggs type can tell us something new and interesting about ourselves.

It's equally fun to do a Tarot reading for a friend.  Based on my knowledge of symbolism, I can suggest a path for my friend to follow, a path that one could say arises from the chosen cards.  In fact, my own desires for the other person's future and my intuition about their current life propel the interpretation as much as the pictures in the cards.  Both the Hanged Man and the Devil speak with one mouth:  mine.

In truth, I abandoned mysticism long ago.  My paranormal experiences continue to wait for a scientific explanation.  I can also live with the absence of explanation.  I don't need to understand everything.  Given the human brain's current capacity, there will always be mysteries.  Maybe the Global Brain can eventually solve them.

Even though I do not believe in horoscopes at all, my newspaper's horoscope column seemed to know that I was fond of questions.  Here's what it had to say about my birthday last August:

"If today is your birthday, the answers you get depend on the questions you choose to ask, so ask only those that are positive and uplifting over the coming year.  How can you change your life for the better?  How can you change the world for the better?  The answers will come."

The answers usually depend on the questions, birthday or not.  "How can I change my life for the better?" will lead your thoughts into a more productive place than "Why am I such a loser?"  The book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, by Merilee Adams discusses how to use questions to improve our lives.  I don't know whether my birthday horoscope came from the stars or from the self-help shelf of a bookstore - maybe both.

Do you believe in invisible or supernatural forces?  Do you need to explain the unexplainable?

What Should I Believe? (Part 3)

Subtitle:  Should I Believe What I Read on the Internet?

Of course not.  This shouldn't even be a question.  We even make up our own memories. 

Yet if we find a compelling fiction that many people want to be true, it will be repeated over and over again.

I once read online that 80% of Americans think goals are a good idea, but fewer than 4% of that group have goals and write them down.  I will soon be doing a workshop called Goalsetting: The Dark Side, so I went in search of that statistic.

I didn't find it, but I did find this:

"According to a study conducted by Dave Kohl, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech, 

• 80 percent of Americans say they don’t have goals.
• Another 16 percent do have goals, but they don’t write them down.
• Less than 4 percent write down their goals, and 
• Less than 1 percent review them regularly.  This small percentage of Americans earn nine times more, over the course of their lifetimes, than those who don’t set goals."

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2011/04/06/reflections-compulsive-goal-setter

I found reference to this study over and over again.  However, I couldn't find the actual study anywhere.  I did find Dave Kohl and wrote him last last night:

Dear Dr. Kohl,

As I’m sure you know, a David Kohl from Virginia Tech is all over the internet regarding some research into goalsetting.  The articles all say that David Kohl conducted a goalsetting study with remarkable findings.  I did find several speeches by you to agricultural groups in which you mention the importance of setting goals, but I can’t find the study anywhere.  Does such a study exist?

To the credit of his office, they wrote me back this morning:

Lil,

Thanks for your e-mail. The goal-setting research is based primarily on anecdotal evidence gathered over the years. Some of the points have been attributed to a Yale study that has been widely quoted by many, but which we found recently cannot be confirmed by Yale.

Dr. Kohl's office gave me this link to Yale.  Here is the information there:

Question & Answer

Question:

Where can I find the Yale study from 1953 about goal-setting?

Answer:

It has been determined that no "goals study" of the Class of 1953 actually occurred. In recent years, we have received a number of requests for information on a reported study based on a survey administered to the Class of 1953 in their senior year and a follow-up study conducted ten years later. This study has been described as how one's goals at graduation related to success and annual incomes achieved during the period. The secretary of the Class of 1953, who had served in that capacity for many years, did not know of the study, nor did any of the fellow class members he questioned. In addition, a number of Yale administrators were consulted and the records of various offices were examined in an effort to document the reported study. There was no relevant record, nor did anyone recall the purported study of the Class of 1953, or any other class.

So we are left with "anecdotal evidence gathered over the years."  People who think goals are a good idea love the statistics.  I do. 

Dr. Kohl -- whose own office denied the reliability of the statistics -- loves those statistics and continues to repeat the results of the "study."  A blogger attended Dr. Kohl's lecture  at a New Century Farmer conference on July 10, 2012 (Note: exactly one year ago today) and wrote this:

"Then, he [David Kohl] talked about the importance of setting goals. He said that 80 percent of all people have no goals, 16 percent have mental goals (those that are not written down), and the remaining 4 percent have goals that are written down. The 16 percent who have mental goals will encounter profits three times higher than those without goals. The elite 4 percent with goals written down will make nine times more than those without goals. He encouraged us all to set our own goals in order to become successful."

Goal-setting leads to $$.  Maybe it does -- and wouldn't it be nice to think so.  It makes it easier to blame the victims of systemic inequality.

Have You Been Blessed Lately?

I was recently at a birthday party for my childhood friend, Nancy.  When she was 30,  she was snagged by religion.  It probably saved her life.  She became an evangelical singer.  All her friends are evangelicals, and every single person at this party, except me, was an evangelical.
My friend, the birthday girl, asked everyone to stand up one at a time and introduce themselves to the group.  One woman said this, "I first met Nancy when she was singing at the Christian Fellowship event at the Marquis Gardens Banquet Hall.  It was so God.  People were overcome with the spirit and fainting.  The waiters were wondering if they should call an ambulance.  One guy must have had an angel on his shoulder.  He was swaying and dancing with the spirit - his eyes closed -- and somehow didn't trip over any of the bodies."

I came out as an atheist to the people at my table.
"Being an atheist must be so hard," one said.
"Why?"
"Because you have no one to pray to."
I nodded sadly.

A few days earlier I was in a woman's washroom at the Charlotte, NC, airport. This washroom had a large jolly greeter with a very loud voice: "GOOD AFTERNOON, WELCOME TO CHARLOTTE.  HAVE A GOD-BLESSING DAY. GOD BLESS, BE SAFE GIRLS, GOD BLESS, GOD BLESS, GOD BLESS, LADIES ONCE AGAIN, GOD BLESS.  GOD BLESS, GOD BLESS, GOD BLESS GIRLS, HAVE A GOD-BLESSING DAY."  I'm not really sure what else she did besides bless people or perhaps watch their luggage while they went in a cubicle (where I hid from her booming voice and scribbled down her words verbatim).  As I was leaving, I noticed her tip jar and stuffed in a dollar. She then blessed me a few more times. Clearly this godly marketing tool was working.

Maybe I'm becoming more tolerant.  One Sunday morning some years ago, I was on a bus travelling from Hamilton to Toronto, normally a 50-minute trip.  A woman stood up at the front of the bus and began preaching, entreating us to repent and accept Jesus.  I yelled, "Driver, can we have some quiet."  The bus driver asked the woman to sit down, but she kept preaching, mentioning also that the unrepentant woman (me) would surely face God's wrath.  The driver pulled off the highway to a police station.

The officers came on board and escorted the woman off.  I hope she had a God-blessing day.  This added at least 20 minutes to our trip and I had to face the wrath of the other passengers.  The bus driver said that she preached on the bus every week.  Sometimes passengers slept through it.  Sometimes they resented being a captive audience.  In those cases, he turned her over to the police.

What would you do?  Sit back and repent or loudly protest?

Do I Need a Near-Death Experience to Become Bold and Grateful?

You don't need a near-death experience to become grateful, but it helps.  If the first one doesn't take, you might need two.  

In September, 2008, the spousal unit, Ron, ate some bad cheese at a resort in Quebec and developed a near-fatal case of listeria-meningitis.  Luckily, he was saved by massive amounts of antibiotics.  The doctors told me that if I had taken him to the hospital the night before, they probably would have sent him home.  If I had waited any longer, it would have been too late.

Ron was in the hospital for 10 days and came home wearing a portable antibiotic infusion pump for another 10 days.  For that period and the two weeks following, he was intensely conscious of his surroundings and grateful for his survival.  Every outing into the neighbourhood was wondrous:  colours were vivid and sparkling and people, plants, animals were all miracles of creation.

Then the wonder and gratefulness fell away with the autumn leaves and the winter of stress and anxiety returned.

Meanwhile, a post-recovery brain scan revealed a benign meningioma.  By March 2012, the meningioma had to be removed.  Ron seemed to recover quickly from the surgery, but two months later he had a setback and his condition became increasingly worse.  By September, he could barely function.  MRI evidence suggests his temporal lobe, left amygdala, and hypothalamus might have been "tickled" during the delicate surgery.  This might have affected his sleep, mood, memory, and motivation.

In December 2012, Ron began to recover.  This was accompanied by a new boldness and gratefulness, and it seems to be sticking.

Today we cycled out at 6:30 a.m. to watch the sunrise.  Ron adopted the persona of an Italian in the Tour de France and greets everyone with "Buongiorno."

"Buongiorno," he said to a lithe, long-haired jogger.  She smiled and said "good-day" back.

"I wish I had known this when I was 20," he said.

"Known how to be bold?" I asked.

"Yes, and grateful.  I was definitely not grateful when I was 20."

Do you need a near-death experience (or two) to remember to be grateful?

What Is the Difference Between You and a Fundamentalist?

Subtitle:  What Do You Know for Certain?

                     "The only truth you can point to is the ever-changing truth
                      of your own experience." - said by the Marquis de Sade in 
                     Peter Weiss's play Marat/Sade

William R recently asked me "What are you certain about?"  After many attempts to answer, I came up with a set of idiosyncratic certainties, for example

#5.  I'm certain about some of my preferences.  For example, in a restaurant, I like to sit in a booth and I like food items to come in baskets.  I like walking and cycling.

I didn't get very far before having to qualify my feelings of certainty:

#6.  I'm not certain of it, but I do prefer to think that human compassion, creativity, and ingenuity are the only things that might redeem us.  I'm certain that I'd rather say "I prefer to think..." to saying "I'm certain" about anything.

William gave me his own list of certainties and I could see that both of us were only certain of things within our own control/experience and neither of us were particularly certain about the world beyond our fingertips.  Will the sun "rise" tomorrow?  Probably, but we were not totally certain.

I asked a physicist friend of mine the same question.  His first answer was that he was certain of nothing, but he later corrected himself saying that he was certain of things in proportion to the evidence available.

On the other hand, a Fundamentalist of any stripe, is certain about quite a lot of things.  Absolutely certain.

On a recent visit to Vancouver, I met with my friend Joe.  He told me that pretty soon he will be getting his Rapture Kit in the mail from his three aunts in the US.  Joe met his aunts for the first time at his father's funeral.  All three aunts were wearing Sarah Palin wristwatches.

What's in your Rapture Kit?" I ventured.

"A lot of stuff." Joe said.  "It's for the whole family.  It comes in a box about as big as a carry-on suitcase.  It includes about six feet of industrial strength rope, three Bibles, a bag of salt, and a passive-aggressive letter."  Joe recited the letter from memory:  "We're sorry you chose not to accept eternal life with Jesus.  There will be rough times ahead as the Rapture is approaching.  The Saved will be vaporized.  Everyone else will suffer on earth for seven years.  If you're lucky, you will survive this period and get to know Jesus and be saved.  But even if you're killed by Satan or his followers, we will still see you in heaven provided you repent and accept Jesus as your saviour.  We are praying for you."

They seem pretty certain about a lot of things.  Are you?

It's Thanksgiving - Am I Grateful?

It is Thanksgiving here in Canada.  I wrote this article of Thanksgiving Day reflections in 1998.  It is mostly still true today.

I'm thankful for being born in Canada in the latter half of the 20th century.  Because of this luck of my birth, I don't worry about being arrested, detained, and murdered solely because of my race or religion.  In Canada, we have a sense of connectedness -- we are all Canadians regardless of where we originate.  I am mindful that in other countries people live in fear of genocidal slaughter from their neighbours.

I'm thankful for being born in Canada in the latter half of the 20th century.  Had I been born even 10 years earlier my career, relationship, and reproductive choices would have been more narrow.  If I had been born 30 years earlier, I may have been discouraged from getting an education.  My friend's mother had to return a university scholarship because, in the 1940s, her family believed it would be wasted on a woman.

I'm very thankful for being born in a time when women are recognized as legal caregivers for their children.  I had a bicycle accident in 1960.  I was eight years old and living in Montreal.  My mother took me to the Emergency Department of a nearby hospital, but the doctors would not stitch up my bleeding and swollen lips until we could get my father's permission.  We sat in the waiting room for four hours until my father was located and could come to the hospital to sign the forms.  Any mother would rage at the senselessness of this.  Now, I can make choices, own property, and give consent in issues affecting myself and my child.  Nonetheless, I see no women in any of the trade apprenticeship courses that I teach.  I see that shelters are still full of women, but board rooms are not.

As a working person, I'm thankful for being born in Canada in the latter half of the 20th century.  I'm grateful to the workers who protested inequality and injustice, who fought the six-day, 60-hour work week, who fought for healthy and safe workplaces --  often against the police who were sent to break strikes.  Every worker in Canada has benefitted from the struggle and sacrifice of the early union members.  I'm aware that these struggles are not over.

I'm grateful for the connectivity made possible by modern technology, technology that did not exist until recently.  Through the almost-free Hamilton-Wentworth Community Network, I am able to connect to the Internet and have the wisdom of millions of people available to me.  They provide answers to questions simply out of their interest, generosity, and desire to make contact with others.  My friend, Sheila, lives on an island on the coast of  British Columbia.  Along with many other injuries, her spousal unit suffered vocal chord damage in a motorcycle accident.  He could only talk in a quiet, raspy voice.  This was affecting his confidence and self-esteem.  Sheila found a vocal chord web site in California and posted a message describing the problem.  The next day she received a phone call from a man in San Francisco telling her that a doctor in Vancouver had a new method of repairing the vocal chord injuries which she had described.  She was able to contact the doctor and schedule an appointment within 24 hours of posting her initial inquiry.

I'm thankful that I can experience this feeling of connectedness here in Canada in the closing years of this century.  At the bottom of my e-mail messages, I include a quote from Mitchell Kapur of the Electronic Freedom Foundation.  He says, "Unless the awareness of interconnectedness can stir compassion, it is of little use."  I hope our connectedness will help move humanity away from the hatred and prejudice of earlier times, and closer to compassion for one another.

What Hand Have I Been Dealt?

My dear friend C, who likes to make lists, added this to his list of beliefs:

"I’m not very fond of the saying, “You have to play the hand you’re dealt.” I believe that many of the most interesting people are those who have not played the hands they were dealt.  Personally, in my own life, I try not to be limited by the cards I was dealt at birth."

But, C, what are the cards you were dealt?  You may have been dealt controlling, hostile parents or no parents at all.  You may have begun with deprivations of all sorts, four fingers instead of five; but obviously your hand included the ability, imagination, and courage to see beyond the initial unfolding of your life.  That too is part of your hand.

Let's take the card game, bridge, for example.  In bridge you are dealt 13 cards.  Every round, another 13.  Sometimes it's all aces and faces.  Sometimes none.  You have to play the hand you are dealt.  (And, by the way, in duplicate bridge, you can even play a bleak pointless hand extraordinarily well and win the game!)

Unlike bridge, a life might offer more choices and the immediately available options change with every decision you make and every fork in every road.  The hand we are dealt makes it possible to choose Fork A or Fork U and to even go back if we don't like the view.  We might feel we're all out of cards, when out of the blue, we see another card hiding under a bush.

Of course not everyone has a bush available.  I agree with C of course, but I'm just not sure the metaphor holds up.  What do you think?  Should I delete this blog?

How Do You Observe Passover?

At the Passover seder, we meet to celebrate the freeing of the Jews from slavery to the Egyptians.  We read, discuss, sing, and perform rituals as set out in the Haggadah, a book assembled by The Rabbis between 170 and 300 CE.

Near the beginning of the seder, we find the passage beginning Ha Lachma.  We point to a plate of matzah and read:

This is the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt.  All who are hungry, let them come and eat.  All who are needy, let them come and celebrate the Passover with us.  Now we are slaves; next year may we be free.  Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel.

For many years, we focussed on the line, “Now we are slaves; next year may we be free.”  Each person would discuss the way he or she is still a slave, or whether they are more free this year than last.

At one point, we switched from slavery to “Now we are here; next year may we be in the land of Israel.”  Each person would consider what it means to be here now.  We asked, "Where or what is your promised land?"

At Passover, we must get rid of chametz, which is bread and other foods containing yeast.  The chametz can also symbolize anything in our personality that is puffed up or arrogant.  One year we asked,  “What is the chametz in your life?  How can you get rid of it?"  The next year we asked, "Have you got rid of last year's chametz?"  Year after year our conversations deepen as we become closer to one another.

This year, I mentioned to my mother that it might be interesting to consider "All who are hungry, let them come and eat."  I was thinking about our willingness or unwillingness to be charitable, but my mother said, "Yes!  Let's ask, 'What are you hungry for?'"

There is much to be hungry for.  Some of the guests will say, "Food!  Let's eat now!"  (We tend to go on for hours before the festive meal is served.)  Others will think about the oceans of complaints and restless longings for love, connection, and understanding.  We may talk about our hunger, but a little later we sing "Dayanu" which serves as a reminder to appreciate what we have.

I might retreat to my original interest in discussing charity.  I found this quote from 19th century rabbi, Yisrael Salanter.  He said,  "We must prioritize spiritual matters over our material desires, but other people’s material needs are our spiritual concerns."

Passover is also a time for me to remember to stop thinking about other people's flaws and develop more compassion and resourcefulness.

          "In depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."  - Albert Camus

Will the "Truth" Set You "Free"?

I just read a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1978.  It was published in Playboy, April, 1988.  The story is called "The Bitter Truth."

Two men, Zeinvel and Shmerl, are close friends.  Zeinel frequents brothels; Shmerl does not.  Due to war the two men are separated.  After the war, they meet by chance and are joyfully reunited.  Zeinvel is a broken man, but Shmerl has prospered and has a wife and business in another town.  When Zeinvel meets Shmerl's wife, he recognizes her as a former prostitute.  He has a chance to stay with Shmerl and his family, find a wife, and live a happy and prosperous life; but he believes he is unable to keep his knowledge of Shmerl's wife a secret.  Also, he cannot bear to witness the deception into which his friend had fallen.  Before leaving, he asks Shmerl over and over again:

"Imagine that you were given a choice to know the truth and suffer or to remain deceived and be happy; which would you choose?"

Schmerl refuses to answer, saying it was a silly question and there is no point paying attention to gossip.

This question seems relevant today.  But today, the choice isn't so binary.  We are quite capable of "knowing" the truth and still remaining deceived and happy.

Kurasawa said, "To be an artist, one must not avert one's eyes."  Perhaps to continue to live with optimism, we have to be selective about what we are willing to see.  Or do we?

James Garfield, the 20th US president said, "The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."

What Should I Believe? (Part 2)

My friend C. continues to add to his "What I Believe" list.  There are at least 92 items on it.  Here is one of my favourites:  "It is not the water’s fault for failing to mix with the oil, nor is it the oil’s fault for failing to mix with the water. They just don’t mix."

I recently opened one of my notebooks from the 1990s and, in the back under the heading Lessons Learned, I found some of my beliefs, including

1. Sometimes the antidote is to stop taking the poison.
2. Since people often marry their lovers, be careful who you sleep with.
3. Expect from people approximately what they can deliver (but treat them the way you want them to behave).
4. Avoid arguments during meals - it's bad for digestion.

At the bottom of the list was this one:

"Think about what you throw on in the morning - you might end up wearing it all day." 

I don't remember what led to me learning that lesson -- but it sounds bad.

Is the Universe Indifferent? Part 1

Is the universe indifferent, or does it participate benevolently or malevolently in our lives?  I've asked this question already in a variety of ways (see July 29, August 11, August 30 posts).  I've encountered many people who received messages from the universe that changed their lives.  My mother, for example.  After ten years of widowhood, my mother received a proposal of marriage from Berko Devor.  She was deeply conflicted about remarrying and what that would mean to her life.  Walking home from the synagogue one Shabbat morning, she was turning the question of marriage over and over in her head.  She looked up and saw D E V O spray painted in giant letters on a wall.  DEVO must stand for Devor.  Clearly it was a message from God.  They were married soon after and had a wonderful relationship.

Was it a coincidence that the month my mother was wondering about marriage, the punk-rock band, Devo, released their album Freedom of Choice?  - or an intervention?

What is Optimism?

I had an argument yesterday about this question.  My friend equated optimism with idiocy.  To him, optimism was synonymous with Pollyanna-ism:  "A belittling and often insulting term for believing in a good world where everything works out for the best all the time" (http://www.urbandictionary.com/).  I see his point, but that's not what optimism means to me.  Perhaps both optimism and pessimism have active and passive forms:

Passive optimist:  You don't have to do anything because generosity and kindness will somehow triumph.

Passive pessimist:  You don't have to do anything because incompetence, stupidity, and selfishness will always triumph.

Active optimist:  You look for alternatives, other ways of seeing, explaining, and solving problems.  Choose your battles.  Tackle problems one at a time.  Even when things do not improve, your passionate actions might inspire others, and you probably have more fun.

Active pessimist:  Be indignant.  Complain and whine about incompetence, stupidity, and selfishness.  You can see a better way - that's why you're so frustrated.  But although you tend to see the worst in everything, sometimes your indignation causes you to try to try to change the world (but never yourself).

Passive or active, pessimists are a pain to be around.  They don't even get along with each other.  Oh dear.  I seem to be terribly pessimistic in my opinion of pessimists.  Let me change that.  Maybe just as winter helps us appreciate summer, we need the cold, dark pessimists to appreciate sunny optimists. 

Why Do I Believe What I Believe?

When asked to explain his success, Arno Penzias, 1978 Nobel Prize winner for physics, said "Change starts with the individual.  So the first thing I do each morning is ask myself, 'Why do I strongly believe what I believe?'  Constantly examine your own assumptions."    from "The Art of Powerful Questions" (see www.theworldcafe.com toolkit) 

We choose our beliefs (e.g. love is better than anger, hope is better than fear), but can we always logically justify why we believe it?  Everything we believe has a source - our upbringing, education, or culture form the categories through which we process our experiences.  To even answer that question, we are subject to assumptions contained in the language of our inquiry.  Assumptions within assumptions, mirrors within mirrors.

No wonder many people need to find some firm footing in a pre-existing belief system or they would feel like Alice falling through the rabbit hole.

Why Do They Apologize for Mourning?

Many people grieving Jack Layton online (especially in the first few days on the Globe and CBC websites) began with "I didn't vote for him, but" or "I don't agree with his politics, but" and other similar statements.  What's with the disclaimers?

I suppose there are many reasons for the need to modify our feelings and statements by first apologizing for them.  My most generous interpretation is that those apologizing for grieving are surprised at the depth of their own feelings -- given their past non-support for Jack Layton or the NDP.  The disclaimers also seem defensive and self-protective (glossing over an underlying fear).  Yes, I respect the goodness of Jack -- but I don't want you to see me as a socialist.

It is so hard for humans to hold contrary beliefs at the same time.  Their brains hurt when they think something like this:

• Jack Layton was a good man, but
• Socialists are bad, but
• Jack was a socialist, therefore
• Jack was bad - except that he was good.

When faced with opposites, people experience a kind of cognitive dissonance or bad music in the brain.  The disclaimer helps them live with the two opposing thoughts -- but prevents them from examining the underlying assumptions.

What Is the Meaning of Life?

Being alive is a miracle, a mystery, and a gift.  I can't say I think about the meaning of life at all anymore, yet my friend M. says that's the question she thinks about most often.

I stopped wondering about the meaning of life after reading these lines from Joseph Campbell:  "I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive."

The moment I read that quote, I decided that I would try to deepen my students' experiences of being alive.  I left the meaning question to others.

Joseph Campbell continues - People are looking for the experience of being alive so that "our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about."

My favourite quote on this question, though, comes from the wonderful writer and therapist, Rachel Naomi Remen:

"We are all here for a single purpose:  to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better.  We can do this through losing as well as through winning, by having and by not having, by succeeding or by failing.  All we need to do is to show up openhearted for class"

Is There Something BIG and IMPORTANT Going On that We Know Nothing About?

Today's question, "Do you think there is something big and important going on that we know nothing about?" was one of the original 13 questions that I would ask my university English students.  Their answers included,

• "I'm not that paranoid."
• "If it was important, my mother would tell me." ... and
• "The people campaigning to remove fluoridation from the water supply are being instructed by their Martian overlords who control them through the fillings in their teeth."

On the course that year was Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End in which humans evolve to unite with a large cosmic cloud of consciousness (the overmind). Timothy Leary also speculated on this idea suggesting that there was a manifest destiny of the DNA.

I think that there are many many things going affecting our lives every day, but since they are things we know nothing about, I cannot say more.  What do you think?

What Am I (And I Alone) Responsible For?

I woke up this morning with this question on my mind:  What am I responsible for?
Isn't that one of the bigger questions we each face in our lives?  If we ask it at all.
I immediately started reading commentary on Genesis 4:9 ("Am I my brother's keeper?"), but decided to look elsewhere for a first answer.  I'm certain of two things:
1.  I'm responsible to do things that I say I will do.
2.  If I bring life into the world, I'm responsible for cherishing it. [Explaining the meaning of "cherish" would take many more words.]

What are my responsibilities as a citizen of a nation-state?  as a worker who is paid to do a job?  as a member of a family?  as a breather of air in the biosphere?
What are my responsibilities to myself as a lifeform?

What Should I Believe?

In Doug Coupland's book Generation A (2009), one of the characters gets a phone call:

Father:  "It's time we had a talk."
Zoë:  "What is it, Father?"
Father:  "It's simple, really.  You need to know that your mother and I don't believe in anything."

and later he says, "Ideology is for people who don't trust their own experiences and perceptions of the world" (pp. 165-166).

This is reminiscent of a line from Marat/Sade, by Peter Weiss.  In the play, the infamous Marquis de Sade says, "The only truth we can point to is the ever changing truth of our own experience."  In other words, truth is a moment-to-moment negotiation.

The trouble with experiences and perceptions being equated with "truth" is that perceptions are often immediately interpreted and the interpretation is remembered and believed, rather than the direct experience  -- brain research shows that even when a part of the brain is poked to elicit a feeling, the research subject creates a non-poking cause for the feeling (See http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/17/health/behavior-mind-fills-the-need-to-explain.html).

In his song "God," John Lennon discounts all the things people normally believe in including magic, the Bible, Jesus, Gita, Elvis, and the Beatles.  He says, "I just believe in me, Yoko and me."

But what should we believe in?  More on this soon.

Besides Gravity, What Invisible Forces Affect Your Life?

Back when I was an English teacher, I'd often give classes my cosmic questionnaire.  The questions introduced them to the themes that came up in poetry.  The invisible forces question also differentiated the Believers from the non-Believers.  The most common answer was "fate."  Recently, an all-night Shavuoth study session dealt with this question:  "Is the divine active in your life?"  Answers ranged from "Of course, it's obvious," to this quote from Jewish philosopher, Richard Rubenstein:  "We stand in a cold, silent, unfeeling cosmos unaided by any purposeful power beyond our own resources." 

Ahhh -- the cold silent, unfeeling, indifferent cosmos.  Is that where we stand - unaided by any power beyond our own resources?
I'd say, yes mostly, but I also think that our own resources are extensive, untapped, and mysterious and include resources for togetherness, cooperation, mercy, justice, and revelation.