Life Lesson....

One thing is clear to me, you can't know everything you'd like to know. You can't do everything you'd like to do. You can't read everything you'd like to read. You must hold onto some things and let go of others. Learning to make that choice is one of the big lessons of this life. Real Life Preacher

Today was a big reminder of how delicate our lives are. Our friend Lisa Baird was killed in a freak accident. No matter how well we guard our lives, there are things which can take them that we can't anticipate. I am left deeply saddened. We can all take note of the precious things in our lives and appreciate the time we have with our friends and family.

Finding a balance point...

I was reading on the NPR website and found a few essays that echoed my experience. One of them contained the "50% Theory". It has been observed that we easily cling to that which supports our own beliefs so I don't want to make that error here, but without straying too far into positivism I can see how one can remain optimistic with a creed like this one yet remain sufficiently pragmatic so one can meet adversity realistically.

He wrote:

I believe in the 50-percent theory. Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they are worse. I believe life is a pendulum swing. It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future. Steve Porter

Understanding what normal is! I can say that I still don't know what normal is. I can say that it is very different from what is was even a few years ago and radically different from what it was in my youth. That difference is in large part due to my education, or lack thereof, than anything else. The view of the world and my place in it put restrictions on my thinking so that I excluded many truths. Many truths have been revealed for the first time in recent years. As time goes on, you get a clearer picture of what "is" and see ever more clearly how ignorant we are. The best lesson isn't finding the right answers for what we once knew to be true and now realize we were hopelessly wrong. The best knowledge comes from seeing how we were fooled or self-deluded and learning logical steps to keep our minds on the right path to knowledge. It is better to have no answer than to have a false one or an answer that can't be supported by fact. We all should have a skeptical side and cultivate a scientific discipline with respect to everything.

But the non-rational part of our lives where we love and hope and feel and dream shouldn't be destroyed by the vagaries of life. Despair isn't a terminal slope, it is a sine wave. It rises and falls. Something to be endured like a rainstorm. And when sadness gives way to joy, regard it for the precious, temporary condition it is. It too will rise and fall. We might ask ourselves, "How bad does this get?" when facing some grim future. Even those balance points aren't static. There remains a hope that indeed things will cycle around to better times, and back to worse, and better...until our end. And to complicate this, not all life aspects are on the same rhythm. That may be the best balancing act of all. Finding a way to keep all the cycles from bottoming at the same time. It seems like it would help to have lots of objects in the air if you are to be a juggler in life's circus.

Happiness...

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them. There will be no “hard fall” when things turn bad and he is confronted with adversity. He does not sink into depression, since his happiness rests on a solid foundation.

I was looking over a book by a Frenchman who translates for the Dali Lama. And I suspect he knows no more about how to make me happy than my shoe. I think I can glean a little from the approach he suggests. It may be easy enough to make a list of all the things that disrupt my own happiness. Then make another that gives me happiness. Next I can divide these things into categories of action. Things I do, things done to me, where, when... and so on. Then ultimately look deeply at all of them to learn where control lies. I think they are right about clinging to these things. WE got no control! It almost reminds me of people believing in rabbit's feet or lucky hats. It might be somewhere near superstition. The idea that we have control over these things. Or that things are controllable. It sounds like an excellent chance to ask better questions, relax, and let go for a while.

My soul was sinking...far from the peaceful shore...

"And the devil will drag you under With a soul so heavy you'd never float. Sit down...Sit down....Sit down you're rockin' the boat."

It is tragic when your cherished beliefs are dashed. Don't think it can't happen to you. We all carry some pet delusion with us at all times. And I think if we really saw ourselves for what we are, we'd be too depressed to function. My studies have taken me to the realm of the Cosmos. It is daunting to come to realize how big it all is. I've been lost in the awe of a clear starry night since I was a boy. But that view of the night sky is made up of stars which are, at most, about 250 light years away. Even then, the stars that are visible are mostly very luminous large stars that are many times brighter and larger than our sun. When you take it to the limit, we find our observed universe is something on the order of 30 to 60 billion light years across. In all that there are 100 billion x 100 billion stars. We ARE tiny beyond any measure we can imagine. It would appear that there is no one behind a curtain. All the components are present to suggest things just came about. Improbable things became reality because of the size and scale of it. The most unlikely of events becomes a certainty when you consider the dimensions of the cosmos. So that's the reason we exist, but it isn't very satisfying. It leaves one in a cold and impersonal universe where there is no divine will or guide. Just the struggle of our adaptability against time and chance. Every adaptation's value is measured against survival. Individual survival being the ultimate value and group survival (reproduction) the next.

A celebration of life...

Have you ever been told how the seasons mirror the stages of life? That Autumn is like middle to old age and Winter is like death? As I was riding yesterday, it occurred to me that this isn't really a very good comparison. We were riding down a tree-lined country road with the beautiful hues of Fall all around while leaves were showering down coloring the air and road with yellows, oranges, and reds. It didn't seem like the end of anything to me. It seemed more like a celebration. Imagine all of nature celebrating another successful year of living. A year in which those trees grew and produced fruit. They survived! So now they array themselves most colorfully and rain down the beautiful leaves like confetti. Its a celebration! Then following all this display, they rest and await the warmth of the Spring to burst forth in another cycle of growth. The bare limbs and trunks we see in Winter and associate with death isn't death at all.

Pale blue dot...

To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. Carl Sagan

I don't have to look very far to find something that reminds me how small we are in the scale of things. I think that dwelling on such things was one way I kept myself in a perpetual state of melancholy. That was my desire when I was a teen. I loved to marinate in misery. It let me keep some of my impulses to laughter or merriment in check. I smile even now about those days. My hero was "Mr. Spock". I strove to be a distant, controlled being like him. With it I was fooling myself about how well I was handling all the grief and pain that comes with growing up. Also, it affirmed my own feelings of worthlessness. I had a poor self image in many ways and deluded myself about my strengths. It is miserable being a kid. Now I don't see my insignificance as a problem. It is actually comforting. It tells me not to expect too much of myself. It tells me to pay attention to life and all its details because of its rarity. And my lifetime, in the scale of the cosmos, is an extremely short lived event.

Life flashes

It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.
Terry Pratchett

Pratchett reminds me of Douglas Adams. They seem to have the same kind of humor. They take a familiar phrase and rework the obvious to make you see it again for the first time. It is so true about it being a flash. Our lifetimes rush by and are over so quickly. Perspective wise, as youths we feel immortal. By middle age, we sense the impending end. That awareness comes like the first cool morning of Autumn. As we enter our old age, either we become immersed in the fading twilight or approach the inevitable with a happy abandon. I want to be the latter. If I have the good luck to retain my stamina in those years, I see myself traveling, biking, hiking, and generally enjoying my physical self. If I keep my mind sharp, I will continue to learn and read all I can. What comes next? I expect it is something like the time before we became aware. The universe has unfolded over some 14 billion years in which I awakened 50 years ago. While the atoms that constitute me were hurtled through the expansion of the cosmos there was no "me." Finally they all found their way to organize in a pattern that was myself and while that lasts, "I am". And after they have disorganized and gone their separate ways perhaps to disperse across the galaxy and to never find one another again, I will be beyond any harm.

Shores of the cosmic ocean...

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Fred Hoyle (1915 - 2001)

Amazing to think that I am much closer to 'space' than I am to Florida! Sagan talked about how we "stand on the shores of the cosmic ocean" and look outward. It really hits home when you look at it like this. We live at the bottom of a gravity well thank goodness! That gravity, weak as it may be, is enough to keep that tenuous atmosphere over our heads. That atmosphere is our protection from cosmic rays and solar radiation. It shields from small meteors. Its constituents are what we breathe. I think we look upward toward the planets, the sun, and the myriad stars and envision the gulf of distance between them without understanding just how little separates us from its vacuum. Sobering thought that all the pollution we pump out has a relatively small volume to dissipate in. I've spent many a summer night lying in my driveway as a teen just staring up at the stars for no other purpose than to admire their beauty. It gave me a feeling of awe like nothing else. I remember spending time lying in the grass at the old house in Oldfield just staring at the fluffy white clouds that glided across the sky. Occasionally the view would be broken by a propeller plane that would drone slowly across the horizon. I think that is why many folks are fascinated with weather. We realize that all of it is a part of ourselves and we a part of it. There is nothing in our world that we can stand apart from.

Happiness...

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

If I were to attempt to explain Hemmingway's position I would conclude that 'knowledge' of the workings of the world reveals to us what a dangerous place we live in. Anything from the tiny virus to crashing meteors may loom ominously over our lives. Science tells of myriad ways we may face global extinction. The daily news brings story after story of inhumanity, war, or intolerance to our doorstep. We consume a steady diet of fear from our news sources. Our consumer based society spares no expense telling us how many ways we miss the mark from not having the right look or the right clothes or the latest car or the most frenetic vacation. Although this quotation originated in the 60's, it seems especially true nowadays. The media and advertisers have had 40 years to refine their techniques and know very well how to get at our insecurities and vices. I realize now that I spent a lot of time unhappy over many of my adult years with moments of happiness interspersed. It is more surprising that I am happy now. If I have experienced a sudden decline in intelligence, it was worth it. The past few years have been unhappy ones. There was much I expected from the kids. Actually, I only expected them to seize the opportunity in much the same way I and their Mother did. Take advantage of the college experience and move forward into life with options. They haven't. The expectation of their success and the plans I had based on that path left me lost and bewildered. The length of time I foresaw it would take to go from a child/parent relationship to a your children as your friends relationship swelled farther into the future. It was/is a great sadness. But in the midst of that I Bev found a way to spend time together. It has been a blessing. Those moments when we are off together on vacation or hiking or riding the bike renew the happiness of living. These simple activities have been a saving grace to me. But I think the ability to appreciate them had to be relearned. My expectations had to be aligned with the current reality. I read a suggestion that we "live in the moment". What exactly is that? For me it was slowing down and drinking in those times when everything seems right or beautiful. It mean't putting down what I was doing and observing. It mean't taking what we are given and making the most of it. It still takes effort. My goal is to allow myself to be in the moment effortlessly.

Humor

The secret source of humor itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. Mark Twain

What is humorous about sorrow? Every function in the human organism has its opposite. Imagine that each of us find many stimuli to be sorrow producing. It follows that other compensatory emotions may proceed from other stimuli. So in a sense the stimuli produce sorrow and in turn the sorrow becomes a stimuli that evokes humor which in turn is a stimulus. So it may simply be compensatory mechanisms no different from the synaptic releases that regulate blood pressure or respiration. The sophistication of the nuances of mind and thought create new thought from the constant arranging and rearranging of pieces of memory. This gives no solace and reduces the experience of joy/sorrow simply a dance of molecules between synapses.

On a conscious level, our humor in the face of sorrow may simply be our recognition that we are in fact the cause of our suffering. Despite our best efforts we have a hard time getting things right. Have you ever made a mess of something and realized simultaneously that you knew better? No matter how smart we seem to be, no matter how much planning or fail-safe prevention we put into our works, we still screw things up! So often we are the source of our pain and, in a moment of genius, we realize our shortcomings and are amused. Our ability to spot these shortcomings in others is much more acute.

Imagine....

I discovered this web site in my musings...

.... http://www.godisimaginary.com/

It raises an interesting difficulty of faith and belief. There isn't a single shred of verifiable evidence for the existence of God or any god! That is pretty much what I had determined a long time ago. There isn't a splinter of the cross, a fingernail or hair of Jesus', or a nail from the ark, or anything else which we can hang our belief on. The bible is written in such a way as to look like a hodge-podge of historical writings drawn up in ancient literary traditions that forego literal translation. Anything to do with the Christ must be taken completely on faith. Otherwise it wouldn't be a belief, it would be knowing. And knowing is what most modern educated people want. We are aware of being duped into countless things which waste our energy and interest. All logic and science would point to there being no reason to believe in God. He either doesn't participate in the world, doesn't exist, or participates in such a way as to remain completely elusive. And with all those morons on televison confidently thumping out what they want their flocks to believe, it isn't any wonder that people would be skeptical. But it isn't skepticism that captures the most of them. Although there are vast number of people professing a belief in God or gods, that belief is blunted. You can see it in their everyday dealings. You couldn't tell if they believed or not from their actions.

So I think the truth is that for the vast majority of people god IS imaginary because they dream up their own version that fits their own everyday lives. It is reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart's character in Harvey. He believes he has these conversations with a giant rabbit and that the rabbit can do all these amazing things. As elusive a god seems to be, that is about the only thing one can do unless he were to reveal himself directly to the world. That wouldn't be very hard to do but he hasn't. So while one group imagines god to be goodness and light another imagines war and intolerance. None seem to be capable of agreeing.

To live forever...

They tell us that the universe began with a rapid expansion about 14 billion years ago. That carbon didn't become widely available till about 8 billion years ago. Our own solar system formed about 4 billion years ago. It really came as a shock to many that the universe as we know it had a beginning. Now it appears that it will also have an end. Although the parts of it are flying apart faster and faster, the individual elements will get wider and wider apart until the last star burns out and all falls into darkness and cold. I don't know why I would worry about it. My life will end within another 50 or so orbits around the sun. Maybe a lot fewer.

When I was reading some quotes from Carl Sagan, I ran across a photo he had made from Voyager looking back at a tiny speck in a dark sky. It was earth from 14 billion miles away. He commented on how every idea, person, dream, anything experienced by humankind had occurred on that tiny speck of dust. It was humbling. In the midst of all that nothingness, our significance fades. In the great distances between the stars, limited to the speed of light, it would take eternity to travel in it. And the trip would be excruciating boredom. Someone once said the universe was made from nothing, and the nothing shows through. To live and travel in that empty place....eternal life just wouldn't be all it cracked up to.

Sometimes when I speculate on the meaning of my life, I can't begin to comprehend the question. Other times it seems as simple as finding some joy, some comfort, and some pleasure in the day, then settling down for a long sleep. The thought that some particles of my being will ultimately be scattered amongst the incalculable distances of the Cosmos gives me solace. There will be no monument to my life in any of that, but something of me will endure.