What is the truth? For now, forget about philosophical definitions and arguments.
I'm speaking colloquially. Truth is what you have learned and experienced to be true. Communicating truth involves an active consideration and avoidance of deception or attempt to influence others by partiality or omission. Truth is "the whole truth".
No doubt that truth is useful. It bolsters scientific knowledge and discovery. Truth generates trust. It can be comforting (or discomforting).
My question is: is truth necessary? I think anyone could think of hundreds of times where the truth seemed hurtful, complicated, or disadvantageous. Everyone lies. The world goes on. Absolute, constant truth is not necessary. I have been thinking that the world would be a very strange place if everyone's primary and highest value was to tell the truth.
First of all, there would be no poker games. Perhaps not a great loss for many.
Secondly, everyone who could survive the truth might develop an hardened self-concept, comfortable and inured to the truth. Imagine a homely women asking someone in a dress shop how she looks in the dress she has selected. The clerk responds, "You look pale and misshapen in the dress.Try another color. Your pockmarks clash with the dress's pattern. Try a larger size, your big ass and gut show."
Thirdly, what would happen in the world of politics? I think I would need a book to describe an honest government, but in a nutshell it would be different, strange and wonderful.
I'm stopping the counting. I don't know how many more examples are necessary to make the point, but I'd certainly like to add how different religion would be. Truth is the death of religion. Not end of belief, but certainly the end of organized religion which requires members to lie about their beliefs, or most certainly refrain from questioning them. Which religions are true? Certainly those religions with conflicting dogmata must expose several which cannot be true, by logic alone. Would any religion buy stock in Truth?
Imagine leaving a religious service one morning when the woman who sat in front of you asks how you liked the service. You reply, "It was about the same as usual, very boring, I don't know why I come any more. I almost left in the middle because your noxious body odor was making me sick."
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
What is privacy? how to have it.
Privacy seems to be of utmost importance to some people. What is private in a person's life ?
Private things are feelings and acts that are solitary and not shared with or expressed to other individuals. Being private means separating that private part of your life from others usually because you don't want intrusion into your affairs or you don't feel the necessity of discussing or worse defending your decisions and behaviors. I believe that having privacy means having a buffer, a safe zone, a comfortable retreat in your life. In those respects, everyone not only deserves his or her privacy, but should feel that others' privacy is just as sacrosanct.
Whatever are your intentions about privacy, however, most of us act in public. We work with others, are seen by others, talk with others, and are members of networked communities that have many facts about our lives. It is almost impossible to be totally private in our society.
If you truly wish to have secrets, if you truly wish a part of your life to be private, part of what you must do is sequester yourself. You can't let others know about your secrets or your plans.
A little privacy is a healthy thing. If you don't want others to know something about you, don't tell ANYONE. Don't expect most of your life to be private, unless you are well off and wish to be a recluse.
Private things are feelings and acts that are solitary and not shared with or expressed to other individuals. Being private means separating that private part of your life from others usually because you don't want intrusion into your affairs or you don't feel the necessity of discussing or worse defending your decisions and behaviors. I believe that having privacy means having a buffer, a safe zone, a comfortable retreat in your life. In those respects, everyone not only deserves his or her privacy, but should feel that others' privacy is just as sacrosanct.
Whatever are your intentions about privacy, however, most of us act in public. We work with others, are seen by others, talk with others, and are members of networked communities that have many facts about our lives. It is almost impossible to be totally private in our society.
If you truly wish to have secrets, if you truly wish a part of your life to be private, part of what you must do is sequester yourself. You can't let others know about your secrets or your plans.
A little privacy is a healthy thing. If you don't want others to know something about you, don't tell ANYONE. Don't expect most of your life to be private, unless you are well off and wish to be a recluse.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Fooling Oneself
Each of us was raised with a set of values. Some came from our parents, some from our community, some we adopted from a myriad of experiences. Many of these values seem to be reflexive ones. They are so ingrained and inculcated that we can iterate them instantly in any situation. Ex: Don't point your finger, that's rude.
I feel however, that many of our values need to reexamined as we go through life. In my case, I'm 64. I have discovered that some of my values are simply rhetoric and not my feelings about an issue. Specifically, I have thought much about charity, gifts, and kindness.
I thought it was imperitive that a person said "thank you" when I gave a gift or a kind deed. Certainly my parents drummed it into my head to always thanks others for gifts or kindness.
I drum it into my children's heads and my grandchildren's heads. I think saying thank you is a very important way of showing gratitude and acknowledgement when someone does something kind for you. I always try to say thanks. I value that highly, but that is not my issue.
My issue is: do I demand of those receiving gifts or kindnesses from me to thank me? I found myself reinforcing the idea that if someone failed to thank me, they were unworthy of my gifts or kindness and that I would be thinking much harder before they were recipients of my deeds the next time. Then I thought about the whole idea of giving. My value of the thank you was reflexive - I insisted upon a "here's a gift for you - thank you very much" connection. It is as if I need something back when I give. I'm not sure that is true.
I have concluded that anonymous giving is the essence of giving. Someone values helping others. They help without the thanks directed at them. I'm not sure I'm totally at that level yet, but I am sure that giving to others who need my help makes me feel good all in itself. Some how I still have a way of discriminating my charitable deeds, but when I give, I don't expect anything back from the recipient. I give myself a warm feeling and that's what it's about for me.
There are many others things I must reconsider. This was a start.
I feel however, that many of our values need to reexamined as we go through life. In my case, I'm 64. I have discovered that some of my values are simply rhetoric and not my feelings about an issue. Specifically, I have thought much about charity, gifts, and kindness.
I thought it was imperitive that a person said "thank you" when I gave a gift or a kind deed. Certainly my parents drummed it into my head to always thanks others for gifts or kindness.
I drum it into my children's heads and my grandchildren's heads. I think saying thank you is a very important way of showing gratitude and acknowledgement when someone does something kind for you. I always try to say thanks. I value that highly, but that is not my issue.
My issue is: do I demand of those receiving gifts or kindnesses from me to thank me? I found myself reinforcing the idea that if someone failed to thank me, they were unworthy of my gifts or kindness and that I would be thinking much harder before they were recipients of my deeds the next time. Then I thought about the whole idea of giving. My value of the thank you was reflexive - I insisted upon a "here's a gift for you - thank you very much" connection. It is as if I need something back when I give. I'm not sure that is true.
I have concluded that anonymous giving is the essence of giving. Someone values helping others. They help without the thanks directed at them. I'm not sure I'm totally at that level yet, but I am sure that giving to others who need my help makes me feel good all in itself. Some how I still have a way of discriminating my charitable deeds, but when I give, I don't expect anything back from the recipient. I give myself a warm feeling and that's what it's about for me.
There are many others things I must reconsider. This was a start.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Centered
Being centered seems to be important physically, emotionally , and mentally. Being centered is hard to describe, but it involves self awareness, calmness, relaxation, stability, free flow of energies, and integration into the entire scheme of man and nature. There is no instruction manual for any of this, but it has been taught by masters of the arts of yoga, meditation and various forms of self-defense. The road is described as simple, but it is very long.
We westerners have little history of devoting years to develop skills. We want everything in one weekend seminar. I include myself in the group of impatienza, but I am starting on the path knowing that it is long.
My goal is self-discipline, inner peace, stability and flexibility and a greater outflow of charity.
Join me by starting on your path to the center.
We westerners have little history of devoting years to develop skills. We want everything in one weekend seminar. I include myself in the group of impatienza, but I am starting on the path knowing that it is long.
My goal is self-discipline, inner peace, stability and flexibility and a greater outflow of charity.
Join me by starting on your path to the center.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Road again
I have been traveling across the west to visit my brother and a friend in Colorado. The visits have been wonderful. I really need that physical presence with friends and family to renew our relationships. Phone and email are okay, but not sufficient.
The ride was peaceful and entertaining. A different landscape at every turn. Most were beautiful. Of everything I've seen so far, mother nature has done a better job than man.
The ride was peaceful and entertaining. A different landscape at every turn. Most were beautiful. Of everything I've seen so far, mother nature has done a better job than man.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Accidents do happen
Anyone who has read any of my blogs has probably guessed by now that I don't just believe things without evidence. This goes for religion as well. Anyone who is religious simply has to have some faith in veritable litany of obfuscations and acquiesce to truths that have absolutely no counterpart in real life. Much less evidence.
It is by accident that anyone is born into a family and thereby into its religion. This has nothing to do with religious belief. There are no Christ genes, or Allah genes, or Buddha genes. It is accidental that one is raised a Christian, one a Jew, one a Muslim, one a Buddhist. A culture surrounds that family and gives structure and support to those who grow up in that family and that culture.
Religions are inculcated alongside the surrounding culture. Acquiring that religion is an accident of birth. It is as accidental as having educated parents, or rich ones or poor ones or handsome ones .
Religion requires belief in things unseen, unheard, and unable to be tested or disproved.
The world is and has been plagued by people who do not believe in accidents of birth. People who somehow believe that they have the rights to impose their religious beliefs on others regardless of the others' cultural community. They believe something is true on faith and faith alone without looking for and demanding one iota of logical substantiation in the surrounding world.
So I say to the religious of the world, regardless of what you believe - or need to believe or think you might believe about your God or Creator or Master of the Universe -
Keep it in your mind. Keep it in your heart. Let it give you great peace and comfort. Be aware that for most of you these beliefs are an accident of birth. Don't expect others, even your neighbors to believe what you do without question. Don't expect others to even understand what it is you believe.
Without a church or synagogue or mosque or temple, what would you believe?
These institutions and sects thereof do not unify their religion, they divide it. They seek to solidify and seal a set of unique beliefs amongst its members that its members would never in a million years come up with themselves just by believing in a higher being.
Being a member of an established religious group is not the act of most critical, thinking people, it is keeping the bathwater with the baby. It is buying into the culture of acceptance for simply belonging to the Faith.
How would you be thinking today about religion, if your parents were Jewish not Muslim or Buddhist not Christian. Your religious beliefs - just an accident.
It is by accident that anyone is born into a family and thereby into its religion. This has nothing to do with religious belief. There are no Christ genes, or Allah genes, or Buddha genes. It is accidental that one is raised a Christian, one a Jew, one a Muslim, one a Buddhist. A culture surrounds that family and gives structure and support to those who grow up in that family and that culture.
Religions are inculcated alongside the surrounding culture. Acquiring that religion is an accident of birth. It is as accidental as having educated parents, or rich ones or poor ones or handsome ones .
Religion requires belief in things unseen, unheard, and unable to be tested or disproved.
The world is and has been plagued by people who do not believe in accidents of birth. People who somehow believe that they have the rights to impose their religious beliefs on others regardless of the others' cultural community. They believe something is true on faith and faith alone without looking for and demanding one iota of logical substantiation in the surrounding world.
So I say to the religious of the world, regardless of what you believe - or need to believe or think you might believe about your God or Creator or Master of the Universe -
Keep it in your mind. Keep it in your heart. Let it give you great peace and comfort. Be aware that for most of you these beliefs are an accident of birth. Don't expect others, even your neighbors to believe what you do without question. Don't expect others to even understand what it is you believe.
Without a church or synagogue or mosque or temple, what would you believe?
These institutions and sects thereof do not unify their religion, they divide it. They seek to solidify and seal a set of unique beliefs amongst its members that its members would never in a million years come up with themselves just by believing in a higher being.
Being a member of an established religious group is not the act of most critical, thinking people, it is keeping the bathwater with the baby. It is buying into the culture of acceptance for simply belonging to the Faith.
How would you be thinking today about religion, if your parents were Jewish not Muslim or Buddhist not Christian. Your religious beliefs - just an accident.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
More Music Please
The simplest song can have the most powerful effect on my mood and well being.
I cannot in any way define a way to reproduce that effect with a new and different song.
The same song performed by a different artist might fall flat. Change the key.... no that's not right. Change the arrangement, the orchestration. Something is missing - no gut reaction.
I am still in awe of the complexity of music - given a relatively few notes to work with. Timing, duration, sequence, note, timbre.
Try to compose a song that has yourself swooning! I have done it in my dreams - I love dreaming. I am a magical musician. Asleep.
I cannot in any way define a way to reproduce that effect with a new and different song.
The same song performed by a different artist might fall flat. Change the key.... no that's not right. Change the arrangement, the orchestration. Something is missing - no gut reaction.
I am still in awe of the complexity of music - given a relatively few notes to work with. Timing, duration, sequence, note, timbre.
Try to compose a song that has yourself swooning! I have done it in my dreams - I love dreaming. I am a magical musician. Asleep.
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