Love Really IS the Answer

 

About 2000 years ago, there was a guy who pointed out how nice it would be if we all just loved each other. Fast forward 2000 years and many people who still worship that guy are hating on about half the population of our own country. What's up with that?

There is so much hate on both sides of the political divide and the problem is so simple: most of us are behaving like sheep. We're allowing the people we look to for social guidance to lead us apart. They want us apart because that separation gives them power. But we shouldn't live to serve them. We should live to serve all the rest of us! 

How can we best serve each other? Let's start with love! My brother has a little saying at the bottom of his emails:

"Every time you encounter another human being, believe that they love you, and you will treat them as if they do..."

Maybe it runs in the family, but I believe that if everyone lived by this practice, we could easily get past our real differences. I say "real" differences because, as someone who actually appreciates an open dialog with people who don't share my views, I know just how close together we all are. Those that are managing to control many of us with their rhetoric would have you believe that people that don't share your views are evil. However, if you actually talk with them using an open heart and mind, you discover that the differences are tiny.

As a result of approaching life this way, I have accumulated friends, people I love, who don't share many of my ideas of how to make a better world. Here's what I've learned: like me, they want a better world for everyone. To me, this seems like a great starting point on which to build. I'm not a politician or a social engineer, but when I have conversations with my friends about the problems we face in the world, we come up with all types of ideas for solutions that we both agree would be good.

Most of these ideas start with tearing down the power centers that would like to keep us from having these conversations. For the people that would manipulate us, these conversations are the most dangerous thing. Personally, I like the idea of being dangerous to them. Some people talk about "the swamp" in Washington. The political mouthpieces would like you to believe the swamp is only in that other evil side -- it's ALL the swamp. "We, the people" will need to drain it. It starts with a few people with different views pretending to love each other. Practice makes perfect. I know it's hard after everything they told you, but why not start today anyway? Let's see what happens!

Dear Christians: This is a Test!

 

You have assumed that Trump is an instrument of God. After all, he has promised reversal of abortion rights and a return to law and order. In fact, he promises a lot of things that good Christians support and by all accounts he has done his best to deliver.

First, he flaunted his misogynistic behavior and you overlooked it because he was doing God's work. Then, he denigrated the military and you overlooked that too. Maybe you were troubled by the obvious lying, but he's a politician -- they all do that!

Now, he's taken a drug derived from unborn babies to save his own skin and you again tell yourself that he's doing God's work. He must have a plan. What if this is God's test? With each new revelation, Donald Trump shows us that he cares not about God's commandments. So, keep supporting him and maybe you will be able to join him in Hell someday.

The Preacher

I’ve never been “religious,” but I’ve always been spiritual. It’s the dogma that bothers me. Religions, like other structured institutions, are designed to control the masses. Maybe this is a cynical view, but I don’t give a shit because my opinion is not controlled by any of them.

Here’s the annoying thing: I preach all the time. I can’t help it. Because I see things differently than people who are programmed by their favorite organization, I feel the need to spout off about my beliefs. It’s terrible, I know. And, entirely hypocritical. I’ve just never been good at keeping my thoughts entirely to myself. I could justify it as some deep-seated need to be helpful, but who am I kidding? I’m not going to change the world.

So, I preach on. This blog has given me an outlet for some of my preaching, but my poor friends and family probably get the brunt of it. I guess I don’t really mind if people buy into my point of view or not. What I’m really after is for people to try to step away from the dogma that has been systematically programmed into their thinking over what has usually been a very long time. From my experience, this is an almost hopeless cause.

Still I preach on. Like I said, I can’t help myself. I’m reminded of the beginning of the book Life of Pi. The hero became a member of the three major religions, one after the other. In the end, he quit them all. By experiencing the similarities and differences between the religions, he was able to separate the dogma for the true spirituality that each had to offer. In the end, one doesn’t really need an organization for true spirituality.

Krishnamurti, one of the greatest spiritual teachers of modern times, distinguished between teaching and preaching. The difference is subtle. Preaching is a much more coercive affair. That may not be the intention of the preacher, but it is the nature of the act. Teaching is about a journey of self discovery. I suppose that whereas preaching focuses primarily on the message, teaching focuses primarily on the learner.

My pledge is to try to do less preaching and more teaching. To that end, my writing should have more facts and questions and fewer conclusions. Blogs tend towards preaching because the whole point is to publish your beliefs and experiences. I won’t be able to leave those things out completely, but maybe I can be more self-aware.

Needle in a Haystack

Lately, I’ve been writing a daily blog post every weekday. Today is a Sunday and I was reflecting on my vast readership. I haven’t broken 20 views per day yet and I can’t say for certain that some of those views aren’t me. Have you ever wondered how many pages of content are generated every day on the Internet? It staggers the imagination. Anyone with a smartphone can create a post now.

I have family members (who probably make up about 80% of my readers who aren’t me) that use Reddit and Facebook along with other “feeds.” These services stream random content to you. In some cases, you can filter content be topic categories, but I’ve messed with some of these and even within a category it just seems like the material is...well...random.

How does anyone get above the noise? I seems like the stuff that goes viral is trivial nonsense. Gangnam Style. Really? WTF? I try to write about big ideas or at least small worthy ideas. You know, stuff we should all be concerned with. Things that will affect our future or help us understand who we are.

I guess that stuff is just too heavy for the masses. It’s disappointing. It also helps explain why Donald Trump actually has a chance of becoming president of the United States. If the Gangnam dude wasn’t from South Korea, maybe he’d have a shot too. It breaks my heart. We face serious issues and most people think the whole social system is a joke. They’re probably right, but whose fault is that?.

I’m still looking for the Internet equivalent of shouting in the public square. It seems that the public square on the Internet is about one square inch amidst a million square miles. Maybe I wouldn’t even care if my blog didn’t go viral. I just wish something more profound than Lindsay Lohan’s new extracurricular vomiting exploits would get the nod. Hey, I like Lindsay Lohan’s acting. I think she’s talented, but who cares if she can’t control her drug intake?

I have a good friend who is a deeply religious Christian. We had an interesting discussion in which he concluded that God has put us here on Earth to parrish. We seem to be making good progress in that direction, but I just can’t believe that. I keep hoping. Maybe if my blog went viral, I’d feel better about it. Maybe I’d feel better if we weren’t considering a president whose campaign rhetoric consists of statements like “we’re going to be doing stuff about those things.” I’d say “god help us” right about here, but if my friend is right, that’s not the sort of help I’m looking for.

Ground

Religion is an important part of many people’s lives. I could carry on with some diatribe about the evils of religion, but you’ve heard all that before. I’d rather talk about the essence of all religion. At the heart of any serious religion is:

1. Truth
2. Justice
3. Peace
4. Love
5. Tradition

I would contend that it is that fifth element that causes most of the ruckus. If you strip that off, you’ve got a nice looking package. If someone came to my door offering to sell me a world where everyone was honest, moral and wanted peace and justice for his or her Earthly cohabitants; I’d spend everything I had to get it. But, alas, that ain’t gonna happen anytime too soon. On the other hand…you never know…stranger things have happened. Why, just tonight I saw what I would estimate to be 80 mph winds – blowing the rain so hard that it seemed to atomize it at one point.

That wind reminded me why religion exists in the first place. We all feel in our hearts, there is something greater. For most of human existence, the “something greater” was unknowable. However, as mankind evolves, we grow ever closer to unlocking all the secrets of our multiverse (thanks Michio). Enlightened spiritual paths have encouraged the interconnection of science and “spiritual” belief. For, if spirituality is a name we give to the great unknown, then it only stands to reason that the more we know, the less there will be to “believe in.”

This does not mean that we will eventually eliminate spirituality because we have inherited the capabilities or humankind’s early representations of “god.” Oops! There it is. It took me three paragraphs and a list to get to…it…er…him…er…. Nobody ever accused me of being too succinct (except maybe my poor wife when she catches me in a grumpy mood). Yes, this blog is ultimately about god. Since god is god so god does not have an appropriate pronoun for god, then god will just have to be god all the time, rather than wrestling with inappropriate pronouns. Fortunately, I am going to stop saying god over and over again and start blathering on about what the underlying essence of the universal meaning of god.

Just as we broke down the base components of all religions (with the possible exception of #5), we should be able to breakdown the components of god. Hmmm! Tricky. Well, I can only think of two that strike me as somewhat universal (at least widespread): Immortality and omnipotence. Now, these are two ideas that lend themselves very nicely to science.

Immortality is simply the mastery of time. Once a civilization achieves this level, growing old and being terminated by an event in a single point in the endless streams of time becomes a thing of the past. Krishnamurti knew that there was a core of reality that he called “ground” because there is nothing lower level. It is in…er…at…dang! There’s a preposition problem now. I guess it’s an occupational hazard when you talk about fundamental shit (now there’s a good universal pronoun). But, I continue to digress… Ground is where everything comes together – that which connects everything in the multiverse. We’re talking the convergence point of all space and time and any other shit we don’t know anything about yet, but will find out about later.

Omnipotence is all about power and energy. Michio Kaku talks about the multiverse in his book, Hyperspace. He also discusses the significance of using individual power consumption as a consistent measure of the technological evolution of an intelligent species from anywhere in the multiverse. The underlying principle is that as a species evolves, its per capita consumption of energy increases dramatically. Even in our own time, if you compared the average daily individual power consumption of a wealthy person with that of a poor person in a poverty stricken area of the world, the difference would be dramatic (Google it – you’ll see I’m right). Imagine the power we will wield in 1000 years. How about 10000 years? It’s easy to presume that, as our understanding of the way everything works expands, so will our ability to harness ever expanding power sources. Today, we can tap small sources of energy or we tap a small percentage of large energy sources. If we don’t kill ourselves (or get blown off the planet by some geothermal cataclysm), we will someday be able to harness 100% of the energy from a whole star – individually! Now THAT’S some juice!

If you could harness that much power, you’d be able to reassert matter and energy to form any combination of…uh…stuff you wanted. And, if you lived on the ground, you would harness 100% of the power of the multiverse. You’d be god. By then, you’d know it, too. Science and spirituality converge! We’ll probably fuck it all up somewhere along the way. Oh, well – maybe I should just keep the faith.

Buddhist's Lament

New Years Day is typically a day of reflection and anticipation.  Since this blog is about looking back on history and projecting our future, this would seem like to perfect opportunity take apart some element of the day’s events in that context.  But, being the contrarian that I am, I choose to talk about “now.”

The Buddhists have a saying: “be here now.”  It speaks to the moment in which we live our lives – “this” moment.  Sometimes, I find myself realizing that it is only “now,” which I can truly control.  Even during the seemingly mundane tasks of life, small decisions are made that can have great impact.

For example, I was chopping an onion once and I was balancing it on the cutting board so that I could make nice round slices.  As I cut off more slices, it became more unstable, but I was in a hurry.  The onion finally slipped and I also sliced a chunk of my fingertip nearly off.  I taped it back on and it eventually healed with only minor permanent nerve damage.  It was a small, momentary decision, yet it has become a permanent part of my future.

One of the things that I love most about being a musician is within the context of the structure of the song being played; there are infinite variations of rhythm and harmonic structure.  Each moment is a decision.  Because of this, it forces me into a state of concentration in the moment that is not unlike Buddhist meditation (or any meditation for that matter).

Meditation is simply the act of focusing on “now.”  When you are sitting quietly with your eyes closed in a quiet place, thoughts can only take you in one of two places – the past or the future.  Reflection on an empty moment doesn’t require thought.  Westerners believe that a moment devoid of thought is a waste.  They are wrong.  Everything must have balance.  To have great pleasure, we must know great pain.  To be fully alive, we must know death.  So, it only stands to reason that to truly appreciate thought, we must know the absence of thought.  Yet, many westerners go through their whole lives never experience even two minutes of absolute mental silence. 

I know this because I meditate from time to time and I know that it takes a significant amount of practice to be able to vanquish all thought for even a full minute.  Buddhist monks and others trained in the practice of meditation can clear their minds for hours.  Imagine it.  I know is sounds like nothingness, but it is not.  It is an inward journey.  It takes you to a place you’ve never been.

If you could go to another universe where the laws of physics are completely different, would you consider that the adventure of a lifetime?  If so, then your chariot awaits – and it won’t cost you a dime.  Ironically, instead of being in the moment, most people spend their whole lives dwelling on the past and the future trying to find the things that are easily found “now.”  Love and joy!  Have a happy new year.

Osama bin Laden Has a Laptop - How Ironic

As the story goes, Osama bin Laden is hiding out in a cave somewhere with his laptop computer.  I doubt it.  The cave is a public relations gimmick.  More likely, he has all the amenities of home: indoor plumbing, temperature control, electricity.  I mean, look who he's fighting.  You can't beat the United States with AK-47s.  You need intelligence.  You need the Internet.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that a Russian software developer unwittingly helped Shiite fighters to gain access to video feeds from U.S. unmanned flights (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html).  When your enemy is using technology, you must learn how to fight against it.  That means you will need to understand it and find ways to defeat the advantages it provides.

Here's the irony: the fundamentalists are fighting against modernity.  In other words, they fighting for a world that doesn't contain the very tools that they must use to defeat their enemy.  Well, welcome to the vortex.  There's no escape.  They're fighting a losing battle.

At the core of the fundamentalist battle is to hold onto a strictly patriarchal society in the face of increasing gender equality.  Put more succinctly, fundamentalists want to keep their women barefoot and in the kitchen.  Good luck with that. The cats are out of bag.  Ever tried to herd cats?  Fundamentalists want to go back to a simpler time when men were men and women were women.  Men made all the decisions for society and women raised families and cared for their husbands.  For most societies on the planet, that is but one choice of many.  Choice is freedom and everybody wants it.  Even fundamentalist women.  They may choose the traditional ways, but they'd like the opportunity to choose nonetheless.

So, our enemies fight on.  And, in the process, they become more like us every day.  One of these days, both sides will wake up and neither will remember what they were fighting about.  Maybe then we could talk of peace.  Unfortunately, memories last a long time and the urge to kill is still in our blood.