First, I'd like to apologize to all my friends who followed my musings over the last many months. I was embarrassed to realize that I haven't posted since January. Shame on me. We should never be too busy to spend a little time with our friends. Lo siento mucho...
Many of you know that I am now spending a lot of time down in Mexico. We are still doing a lot of preliminary work on getting our northern Baja project up and running, and my last couple of trips down have involved a lot of running around the peninsula, going places that I've never been, meeting new people (some friends, some not), and getting more immersed in this new culture.
Having just wended my way through the time change in the states, I had the opportunity to do it again just yesterday here in Mexico. When you throw in my sojourn a few weeks back through Arizona, land of the eternal mavericks, I guess it's understandable that I have no frigging idea what time it is. My body is telling me that if I'm going to keep screwing with it like this, I'm gonna have to let it set the clock and I'm the one that will need to adjust accordingly. So far, so good. Can't much fight mother nature, and she manifest herself most directly through our internal clocks, metabolism, etc. She's also telling me I need to work on my abs, but that's another story...
So, last night as we were driving up to Los Barriles for dinner, I had the unique experience of almost running down a wild burro on the road. Yes, seriously. He wandered right out in front of us, stopped, looked me square in the eye, as if saying, "Come on, gringo, I dare you." If he'd known how sketchy the brakes were in the truck I was driving he might not have been quite so ballsy. As it was, I really though I was goin to bump him before I brought it to a complete halt, but I never felt a thump and he grinned over his shoulder as he sauntered off into the brush. I told my partner that I'd seen dozens of signs all over these parts warning about cattle in the road, but hadn't seen a single head actually on any of the "major" thoroughfares I've driven, although they of course wander up and down the dirt roads in the periphery of the villages like they own the place. He couldn't explain why there were no "Watch out for wild burros" signs...
So one of my joys of being here is walking the beaches, collecting shells and rocks from the sea, and just communing with nature. Tonight, as every night, the stars are brilliant and breathtaking, and it would be easy to get lost staring up at them while listening to the waves slapping rhythmically onto the shoreline. I can't make that a habit, or I'm likely to forget that I'm here primarily for work. I fear serenity might be terribly addictive...
A few thoughts that have come to me in the past few days as I take my morning strolls on the beach? Well, sure...
One is that walking on the beach for a relative novice is at the outset a scientific experiment. Mind you, my walks tend to be several miles, and walking on wet sand soon makes you keenly aware of things you wouldn't ever have cause to consider walking down a hardpack trail or along city sidewalks. You need to learn which levels of sand will bear your weight, and which will give way and leave you mired ankle deep. You need to learn what footwear, if any, is appropriate. Beach sand, like unwelcome houseguests, arrives unexpectedly and doesn't leave readily. And it's highly abrasive. If surf socks (which are great for swimming and surfing)kept the sand out to begin with, they would be ideal. Unfortunately, they let it in more slowly but NEVER give it up. Flip flops, which the natives like to wear, don't trap sand. However, they do an incredible job of flipping sand up the back of your calves with each and every step, have the attachment piece between the big and second toe which I find terribly annoying, and don't allow for a very efficient stride. In the end, bare feet are likely the best, and if you're blessed with wide feet, as we would all likely have if we'd not started binding them in shoes centuries ago, there is no question. Because in the end, when you or I, being 70 percent water, walk along the shoreline of a sea or ocean from which our ancient ancestors first emerged, we are comingled as nearly as we can be with our planet, which is amazingly, seventy percent water. Crazy, huh?
On a related but slightly different note, it occurred to me this morning, for perhaps the first time in my life, while walking along one of the most pristine shorelines in North America, that I was walking along water which was joined with every other great body of water on the planet. I gazed out at an opportune moment to spot the giant back of a whale emerging from the depths - a whale which likely had swum many of the great oceans of the earth. I shared this tale and realization with my wife this evening - that if I were inclined I could just keep walking - south to Cabo, then northward up the coast to California (the American one), on to Oregon, Washington, and all the way up to Alaska, where later ancestors (than those which first crawled up on land) wandered across the land bridge to what is now called Russia. Thoughts such as these are really not hard to come by when you're wandering alone on a ogrgeous stretch of beach - not a sign of civilization anywhere (if you ignore the tire tracks in the sand...)
Did I mention that before I headed out three young Mexicans drove down to the beach, one emerging from the truck, wandering down to a rocky parch on the shoreline, only to emerge mere moment later carrying a very attractive lobster? Even crazier, huh?
And yesterday I had a visit with a couple of German tourist ladies lounging under a palapa in front of a seaside hotel near town. One, a retired Lufthansa flight attendant, said that she wasn't much taken with this piece of Mexico - that it was too hot and dry and there was no culture - nothing to do. I just shook my head as I walked away. Nothing to do? How crazy is that? She could always go for a walk on the beach. Barefoot...
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Metaphor
I'm always taken aback when literary critics describe a long-ago work as a metaphor for this or that, when there is no evidence that the author intended it as such. On the other hand, I appreciate the fact that readers have the right to extrapolate whatever metaphor they might like from any work, or any experience, for that matter. I am myself a great fan of metaphors, and love seeking them out in everyday life.
As many of you know, I recently completed my first 100-mile bike ride, a fairly grueling accomplishment for a 53 year old, and one of which I am pretty proud. As my childhood hero Clint Eastwood, aka Harry Callahan, said in the 1973 classic, Magnum Force, "A man needs to know his limitations." As one who believes knowledge can only come through direct experience, one must do to know. I now know that my cycling limitation, on a 70 degree day with light winds on a semi-hilly course with adequate nutrition and hydration and a reliable lightweight road bike, is something above 100 miles. No, that's not a metaphor, just an empirical deduction extrapolated from direct experience...
Nonetheless, when one spends more than six hours in the saddle riding solo through the countryside, it is almost inevitable that one will experience a metaphor or two in the process. Following, then, are a few that occurred to me during this ride...
In life, we will find ourselves facing stiff headwinds at times, and favorable tailwinds at others, likewise with ascents and descents of varying intensity. What I've come to realize in my year or so of semi-serious cycling, only reinforced during this first century ride, metaphorically speaking, is that these are to be recognized for what they are, neither blessing nor curse - simply conditions. There is no point in lamenting those which are unfavorable, nor extravagantly celebrating the favorable - both will change as you just keep pedaling. And we have little choice but to keep pedaling, unless we choose to quit. I don't...
At the same time and for the same reason, I find it counterproductive to ignore the blessings which come our way. I know that there are many who will coast when they find themselves on a downhill or with a favorable tailwind. My modus operandi, on the other hand, is to continue to push, even under the most favorable of conditions. Why? Because, as mentioned earlier, conditions will change. By taking maximum advantage of favorable conditions when they exist, we place ourselves in a superior position for the time in which less favorable conditions present themselves. I believe that in the six and a half hours or so during which I was actually riding, I probably coasted for no more than three minutes. With no evidence to the contrary, I choose to believe this was a winning strategy for me.
It didn't hurt that I knew there was a definite end to this trek, which somewhat mitigates it as a metaphor for life, which we know will have an end, but with not an inking of when or where it might come...
A second metaphor was the concrete realization that stopping on an uphill is a very bad idea, regardless of the circumstance. A friend came out to meet me around the 40 mile mark, and when he spotted me he thoughtfully drove on to the next downhill, not wanting to stop me in the middle of a climb. That is a true sign of friendship! I think too often even well-meaning friends, inspired by compassion, might encourage us to take a break while in the midst of confronting some life challenge. The reality is that, once the break is over, the challenge remains to be overcome, getting started once stopped can be increasingly difficult, and for many of us it can prove impossible. In cycling, we call this "bonking," the ultimate failure. Thanks, Michael, for not bonking me...
A third metaphor surrounds the advisability of planning and preparation. Uncharacteristically for me, I actually went out and drove the course the day before. A friend had thoughtfully mapped it out for me, and while I trusted his judgment, it was totally unfamiliar territory for me, and I wanted to know in advance what I would be facing. Sometimes we have this luxury in life, although less often than we would like. As a result of having the opportunity, I was even more inclined than I might have been to get a good night's rest, get myself well hydrated, get all the calories and carbohydrates on board that I could manage, and to dress appropriately and flexibly. There is no question I could have planned and prepared more, and will for the next, but having done what I did I was able to achieve my objective, and in so doing will be better prepared to tackle the next similar challenge.
To torture this metaphor a bit, I have launched myself over the last several years on a spiritual trek which, unlike my little cycling adventure, has no clear road map, too many condition variables to enumerate, and definitely no clear end point. One of the earliest books on Buddhism I read suggested strongly that it was best to follow the well trod path others had charted before us. This advice I've left largely unheeded. Why? Because I am not at all certain I want to go where others have. I want to know how and where they've gone, because I want to be able to recognize it when I cross their paths, knowing that if I am indeed lost I can simply turn in their direction and get to a safe place.
Like most seekers, I am hard pressed to say when exactly my search began, and know that it has never been one with a fixed destination. Unlike traveling in the physical world with a fixed destination and schedule in mind, the spiritual journey, for me at least, is one in which the journey is in fact the objective - seeing all we can see, learning all we can learn, experiencing all we can experience, and hopefully growing all the while. While I suppose one could apply the same free-spirited approach to a terrestrial cycling adventure, I suspect that at some point one would have a fair chance of winding up bleached bones in a riverbed next to a rusting steed missing its rider. Not a terrible way to go, I guess, as long as there was a nice dose of blunt force trauma to ease you on your way...
Yet another observation which I suppose is somewhat metaphorical, is that of the lone rider. I did throw out a weak invitation for company, but wasn't heartbroken when nobody took me up on it. As it was the most beautiful day in months - a rare gem of an opportunity at the end of January, even in Texas, I relished the chance to challenge myself without the added pressure of pushing or pulling or being pushed or pulled. Truth is, I'm more than a bit of a loner for a lot of reasons we shan't touch upon here. I recognize it as something of a character defect, and am working on it, but it is a reality which cycling seems to reinforce. Interestingly, I'd done a short 25-mile memorial ride for a fallen comrade just the night before - the first time in my life I'd ridden with an organized group working as something of a team. There were certain aspects of it I found quite enjoyable - the teamwork, the drafting, the camaraderie. At other points, though, I was chomping at the bit to hit my own pace, which would have likely been middle of this particular pack. Truth is, I took up cycling for fitness, tend to shut the brain down or at least let it free-wheel, and let my body set the pace. No, mindfulness is probably not an apt description of me at these junctures...
In my hodge-podge personal concoction of mostly eastern philosophy, non-duality and impermanence are probably the top two components. In brief explanation, this is to say that each of us is part of a larger whole, and a larger whole still, with no meaningful line of demarcation between the individual and the universe at large. At the same time, while there is no meaningful "self," the only thing over which we have even a modicum of control is the self. Riding alone through virtually uninhabited countryside, particularly in conditions where there are no extreme conditional challenges, is one of life's experiences, like drifting silently in a canoe down a lazy river or sailing on a pleasant day on a favorable tack or hiking peacefully through a quiet forest or along a high mountain trail, when every aspect of existence from the most central core of individual self-consciousness to the infinite beyond the observable meld into an indescribable unified whole, and you feel like you are part of everything and everything is part of you. And then you suddenly realize just how badly your ass actually hurts...
Truthfully, though, I can only see this experience being enhanced by company if the company is with an individual or group with which you are so in synchronization that its presence only adds and doesn't subtract or distract in the slightest. Something to aspire to, I suppose, but we shan't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good...
Finally, this journey, like all journeys in life, began with the first downward press on the pedal, the first roll of the wheel. Could as easily have been the first step of a marathon or a cross-country hike. Roads are to be ridden, trails to be hiked, life to be lived. There is a time for contemplation and meditation, a vital past-time to which I need to devote more time and less effort. But to the degree that I intend to live life fully and completely, I will strive to remember to accept life on life's terms, to be grateful for blessings, to persevere against hardships. Perhaps some day I'll learn to be a better friend, companion, and team-mate. Until then, I'll do my best to not get in your way or run over you, and to appreciate your giving me a wide berth as you pass by me, pedaling and daydreaming on a back country road...
As a humorous aside, I noted that my random play IPod was playing a Maria Callas aria as I spun south out of Graham, Texas, a sleepy little burg northwest of Mineral Wells. It was perhaps a juxtaposition that needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. A short while later I rolled up on a convocation between a flock of turkey vultures on one side of the fence and a herd of cows on the other. The birds flew in one direction while the cows bolted in the other as I approached at moderate speed in my admittedly garish cycling outfit. Out of some 2,000 titles ranging from show tunes and Christmas carols to acid rock, "Gone Country" by Alan Jackson was playing. Yes, I laughed out loud as I rode by...
As many of you know, I recently completed my first 100-mile bike ride, a fairly grueling accomplishment for a 53 year old, and one of which I am pretty proud. As my childhood hero Clint Eastwood, aka Harry Callahan, said in the 1973 classic, Magnum Force, "A man needs to know his limitations." As one who believes knowledge can only come through direct experience, one must do to know. I now know that my cycling limitation, on a 70 degree day with light winds on a semi-hilly course with adequate nutrition and hydration and a reliable lightweight road bike, is something above 100 miles. No, that's not a metaphor, just an empirical deduction extrapolated from direct experience...
Nonetheless, when one spends more than six hours in the saddle riding solo through the countryside, it is almost inevitable that one will experience a metaphor or two in the process. Following, then, are a few that occurred to me during this ride...
In life, we will find ourselves facing stiff headwinds at times, and favorable tailwinds at others, likewise with ascents and descents of varying intensity. What I've come to realize in my year or so of semi-serious cycling, only reinforced during this first century ride, metaphorically speaking, is that these are to be recognized for what they are, neither blessing nor curse - simply conditions. There is no point in lamenting those which are unfavorable, nor extravagantly celebrating the favorable - both will change as you just keep pedaling. And we have little choice but to keep pedaling, unless we choose to quit. I don't...
At the same time and for the same reason, I find it counterproductive to ignore the blessings which come our way. I know that there are many who will coast when they find themselves on a downhill or with a favorable tailwind. My modus operandi, on the other hand, is to continue to push, even under the most favorable of conditions. Why? Because, as mentioned earlier, conditions will change. By taking maximum advantage of favorable conditions when they exist, we place ourselves in a superior position for the time in which less favorable conditions present themselves. I believe that in the six and a half hours or so during which I was actually riding, I probably coasted for no more than three minutes. With no evidence to the contrary, I choose to believe this was a winning strategy for me.
It didn't hurt that I knew there was a definite end to this trek, which somewhat mitigates it as a metaphor for life, which we know will have an end, but with not an inking of when or where it might come...
A second metaphor was the concrete realization that stopping on an uphill is a very bad idea, regardless of the circumstance. A friend came out to meet me around the 40 mile mark, and when he spotted me he thoughtfully drove on to the next downhill, not wanting to stop me in the middle of a climb. That is a true sign of friendship! I think too often even well-meaning friends, inspired by compassion, might encourage us to take a break while in the midst of confronting some life challenge. The reality is that, once the break is over, the challenge remains to be overcome, getting started once stopped can be increasingly difficult, and for many of us it can prove impossible. In cycling, we call this "bonking," the ultimate failure. Thanks, Michael, for not bonking me...
A third metaphor surrounds the advisability of planning and preparation. Uncharacteristically for me, I actually went out and drove the course the day before. A friend had thoughtfully mapped it out for me, and while I trusted his judgment, it was totally unfamiliar territory for me, and I wanted to know in advance what I would be facing. Sometimes we have this luxury in life, although less often than we would like. As a result of having the opportunity, I was even more inclined than I might have been to get a good night's rest, get myself well hydrated, get all the calories and carbohydrates on board that I could manage, and to dress appropriately and flexibly. There is no question I could have planned and prepared more, and will for the next, but having done what I did I was able to achieve my objective, and in so doing will be better prepared to tackle the next similar challenge.
To torture this metaphor a bit, I have launched myself over the last several years on a spiritual trek which, unlike my little cycling adventure, has no clear road map, too many condition variables to enumerate, and definitely no clear end point. One of the earliest books on Buddhism I read suggested strongly that it was best to follow the well trod path others had charted before us. This advice I've left largely unheeded. Why? Because I am not at all certain I want to go where others have. I want to know how and where they've gone, because I want to be able to recognize it when I cross their paths, knowing that if I am indeed lost I can simply turn in their direction and get to a safe place.
Like most seekers, I am hard pressed to say when exactly my search began, and know that it has never been one with a fixed destination. Unlike traveling in the physical world with a fixed destination and schedule in mind, the spiritual journey, for me at least, is one in which the journey is in fact the objective - seeing all we can see, learning all we can learn, experiencing all we can experience, and hopefully growing all the while. While I suppose one could apply the same free-spirited approach to a terrestrial cycling adventure, I suspect that at some point one would have a fair chance of winding up bleached bones in a riverbed next to a rusting steed missing its rider. Not a terrible way to go, I guess, as long as there was a nice dose of blunt force trauma to ease you on your way...
Yet another observation which I suppose is somewhat metaphorical, is that of the lone rider. I did throw out a weak invitation for company, but wasn't heartbroken when nobody took me up on it. As it was the most beautiful day in months - a rare gem of an opportunity at the end of January, even in Texas, I relished the chance to challenge myself without the added pressure of pushing or pulling or being pushed or pulled. Truth is, I'm more than a bit of a loner for a lot of reasons we shan't touch upon here. I recognize it as something of a character defect, and am working on it, but it is a reality which cycling seems to reinforce. Interestingly, I'd done a short 25-mile memorial ride for a fallen comrade just the night before - the first time in my life I'd ridden with an organized group working as something of a team. There were certain aspects of it I found quite enjoyable - the teamwork, the drafting, the camaraderie. At other points, though, I was chomping at the bit to hit my own pace, which would have likely been middle of this particular pack. Truth is, I took up cycling for fitness, tend to shut the brain down or at least let it free-wheel, and let my body set the pace. No, mindfulness is probably not an apt description of me at these junctures...
In my hodge-podge personal concoction of mostly eastern philosophy, non-duality and impermanence are probably the top two components. In brief explanation, this is to say that each of us is part of a larger whole, and a larger whole still, with no meaningful line of demarcation between the individual and the universe at large. At the same time, while there is no meaningful "self," the only thing over which we have even a modicum of control is the self. Riding alone through virtually uninhabited countryside, particularly in conditions where there are no extreme conditional challenges, is one of life's experiences, like drifting silently in a canoe down a lazy river or sailing on a pleasant day on a favorable tack or hiking peacefully through a quiet forest or along a high mountain trail, when every aspect of existence from the most central core of individual self-consciousness to the infinite beyond the observable meld into an indescribable unified whole, and you feel like you are part of everything and everything is part of you. And then you suddenly realize just how badly your ass actually hurts...
Truthfully, though, I can only see this experience being enhanced by company if the company is with an individual or group with which you are so in synchronization that its presence only adds and doesn't subtract or distract in the slightest. Something to aspire to, I suppose, but we shan't allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good...
Finally, this journey, like all journeys in life, began with the first downward press on the pedal, the first roll of the wheel. Could as easily have been the first step of a marathon or a cross-country hike. Roads are to be ridden, trails to be hiked, life to be lived. There is a time for contemplation and meditation, a vital past-time to which I need to devote more time and less effort. But to the degree that I intend to live life fully and completely, I will strive to remember to accept life on life's terms, to be grateful for blessings, to persevere against hardships. Perhaps some day I'll learn to be a better friend, companion, and team-mate. Until then, I'll do my best to not get in your way or run over you, and to appreciate your giving me a wide berth as you pass by me, pedaling and daydreaming on a back country road...
As a humorous aside, I noted that my random play IPod was playing a Maria Callas aria as I spun south out of Graham, Texas, a sleepy little burg northwest of Mineral Wells. It was perhaps a juxtaposition that needs to be experienced to be fully appreciated. A short while later I rolled up on a convocation between a flock of turkey vultures on one side of the fence and a herd of cows on the other. The birds flew in one direction while the cows bolted in the other as I approached at moderate speed in my admittedly garish cycling outfit. Out of some 2,000 titles ranging from show tunes and Christmas carols to acid rock, "Gone Country" by Alan Jackson was playing. Yes, I laughed out loud as I rode by...
Saturday, January 15, 2011
New Year, New Thoughts...
Yes, I've been away for a while - apologies. Like everyone else, got busy with the holidays, working my way through the career transition, and in the last several weeks dealing with the health issues of aging parental units. Things are moving along tolerably on all fronts, and I've been appropriately chastised by a few friends for falling down on my blogging, so here goes...
I will start by stating that I am in a much different place this January than I was last. I just reread my first post of 2010, and realize just how far from that place I've come. I am still not meditating, which disturbs me a little, but am in pretty much all other ways much more settled in my mental and spiritual outlook. I am in mid-transition career wise, and not a transition I ever would have imagined a year ago. I am going to be developing a piece of real estate on the Sea of Cortez in Baja Mexico for an old client - traveling back and forth with some regularity, relearning Spanish and utilizing it on a regular basis for the first time in my life. At the same time, I will be able to keep a toe in the recruiting game, handling special projects for my better clients as time and circumstances allow. So, from a career standpoint, a whole lot of new and a little bit of old. Yes, I'm pretty excited.
On the health and fitness front I have taken up cycling with something of a vengeance, continue to work out regularly and eat moderately well. I am about to add swimming to my repertoire, as I don't get enough cardio work in my routine and want to be able to go for long ocean swims without endangering myself. I am probably in the best physical shape of my adult life, which speaks less of the great place I'm in now than about the sorry state I allowed myself to fall into during my earlier working years. I am probably too much like most Americans in this respect, am glad I figured it out early enough to do something about it, and encourage any of you who are feeling a bit weary and listless and out of sorts to strongly consider adding a major dose of exercise to your regimen. I can tell you first-hand that it will improve all aspects of your life. But remember, moderation in all things...
On the recovery front, I still attend AA on my regular schedule. I'll be honest in saying I've not made significant progress in the program this year. It's true, you know, that you only get out of something what you put into it, and I've not really worked it very hard this year. I've stayed sober, which is the main objective, made and strengthened some friendships within the two groups I meet with, and am more comfortable every day admitting to myself and to others that I'm an alcoholic, can't drink like "normal" people, and will never be able to. And I'm actually pretty happy about that. I spent a lot of my life drinking like normal people and on occasion like really abnormal people. Too much of those decades is a blur, and a lot of it wasn't pretty. Not really a big sacrifice to let it go. AA is not a program with an ending - its something you keep doing if you really have the problem and you really want to beat it. So, I'm not beating myself up over not having made any great strides on this front last year. I've got another thirty or forty years to work on it, and its not like there's a finish line...
On that note, one of the things I've noticed about myself this past year is that I've really developed a good deal patience, a notion that I now realize was sorely lacking previously. I've developed patience with myself, patience with others, even patience with our screwed up political system. This isn't the same as apathy, mind you. I still care about a lot of things, and care deeply. But I also have come to recognize that I can't save the world from itself, I can't change others, and I can't change the past or even the present. I can only change the future, and for the most part even then, only for myself, in a very limited way, with the decisions I make and actions I take. That's a pretty finite target on which to focus. I reckon that's what we mean when we say, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." It's a simple, yet liberating, realization.
I suppose the biggest change has been in my marriage, which is in a far better place than it was a year ago. We went through some very dark times last spring and summer - when my wife and I both had to come to grips with what an asshole I'd been, along with other major challenges in our relationship. We were at that place too many marriages come to, and which as often as not wind up in divorce. Instead of becoming another grim statistic, we both sought individual counseling and later couples counseling, and developed a level of trust, respect, and open communication that never really existed in our almost three decades together. I don't know if its ever safe to say you're out of the woods, but I think it is safe to say that the forest umbrella is thinning significantly, we see more sunshine and blue sky than shadows these days, and we're holding hands on our journey. Its a good feeling, and one I don't want to lose again.
I'm sorry to disappoint you - know you were hoping upon my belated return for some political zealotry or religious controversy, hellfire and brimstone and whatnot. Not going to happen. I will reveal that I'm communicating with some friends on the inside to see if we can't arrange a rousing welcome party for Mr. Delay, but that's another story for another day...
I will start by stating that I am in a much different place this January than I was last. I just reread my first post of 2010, and realize just how far from that place I've come. I am still not meditating, which disturbs me a little, but am in pretty much all other ways much more settled in my mental and spiritual outlook. I am in mid-transition career wise, and not a transition I ever would have imagined a year ago. I am going to be developing a piece of real estate on the Sea of Cortez in Baja Mexico for an old client - traveling back and forth with some regularity, relearning Spanish and utilizing it on a regular basis for the first time in my life. At the same time, I will be able to keep a toe in the recruiting game, handling special projects for my better clients as time and circumstances allow. So, from a career standpoint, a whole lot of new and a little bit of old. Yes, I'm pretty excited.
On the health and fitness front I have taken up cycling with something of a vengeance, continue to work out regularly and eat moderately well. I am about to add swimming to my repertoire, as I don't get enough cardio work in my routine and want to be able to go for long ocean swims without endangering myself. I am probably in the best physical shape of my adult life, which speaks less of the great place I'm in now than about the sorry state I allowed myself to fall into during my earlier working years. I am probably too much like most Americans in this respect, am glad I figured it out early enough to do something about it, and encourage any of you who are feeling a bit weary and listless and out of sorts to strongly consider adding a major dose of exercise to your regimen. I can tell you first-hand that it will improve all aspects of your life. But remember, moderation in all things...
On the recovery front, I still attend AA on my regular schedule. I'll be honest in saying I've not made significant progress in the program this year. It's true, you know, that you only get out of something what you put into it, and I've not really worked it very hard this year. I've stayed sober, which is the main objective, made and strengthened some friendships within the two groups I meet with, and am more comfortable every day admitting to myself and to others that I'm an alcoholic, can't drink like "normal" people, and will never be able to. And I'm actually pretty happy about that. I spent a lot of my life drinking like normal people and on occasion like really abnormal people. Too much of those decades is a blur, and a lot of it wasn't pretty. Not really a big sacrifice to let it go. AA is not a program with an ending - its something you keep doing if you really have the problem and you really want to beat it. So, I'm not beating myself up over not having made any great strides on this front last year. I've got another thirty or forty years to work on it, and its not like there's a finish line...
On that note, one of the things I've noticed about myself this past year is that I've really developed a good deal patience, a notion that I now realize was sorely lacking previously. I've developed patience with myself, patience with others, even patience with our screwed up political system. This isn't the same as apathy, mind you. I still care about a lot of things, and care deeply. But I also have come to recognize that I can't save the world from itself, I can't change others, and I can't change the past or even the present. I can only change the future, and for the most part even then, only for myself, in a very limited way, with the decisions I make and actions I take. That's a pretty finite target on which to focus. I reckon that's what we mean when we say, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." It's a simple, yet liberating, realization.
I suppose the biggest change has been in my marriage, which is in a far better place than it was a year ago. We went through some very dark times last spring and summer - when my wife and I both had to come to grips with what an asshole I'd been, along with other major challenges in our relationship. We were at that place too many marriages come to, and which as often as not wind up in divorce. Instead of becoming another grim statistic, we both sought individual counseling and later couples counseling, and developed a level of trust, respect, and open communication that never really existed in our almost three decades together. I don't know if its ever safe to say you're out of the woods, but I think it is safe to say that the forest umbrella is thinning significantly, we see more sunshine and blue sky than shadows these days, and we're holding hands on our journey. Its a good feeling, and one I don't want to lose again.
I'm sorry to disappoint you - know you were hoping upon my belated return for some political zealotry or religious controversy, hellfire and brimstone and whatnot. Not going to happen. I will reveal that I'm communicating with some friends on the inside to see if we can't arrange a rousing welcome party for Mr. Delay, but that's another story for another day...
Friday, November 12, 2010
A Little Bit Crazy...
Yep, have been away a while. Sorry. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging. We deal with it. Last time I posted I was trying to get caught up at work in anticipation of a little early October jaunt to Mexico. Life has gotten plenty interesting since my return. How interesting? Nice of you to ask...
Now that the government has posted a travel advisory for U.S. citizens considering trips to Mexico, it only makes sense that I'd develop a hankering to go. In my visit last month, I enjoyed running the roads with gangsters and Federales, I've decided to make it a long term project. Really? Well, no, not really. Well, sort of. Hmmmm...
Okay, so here's the deal. I've been sitting behind a desk hunting heads with a fair amount of success for more than four years now. Prior to this, I've never sat in one place or worked for any employer other than myself for more than two years. Ever.Well, okay, I carried a weapon for Uncle Sam for three years, but we weren't sitting still in one place, believe me. So, yeah, maybe I'm a little bit stir crazy, but coping. Ya know? Then, a couple of months ago, my cell phone begins vibrating one morning...
"Hey, what are you up to these days?" greets my former client. "Still headhunting," says me. "How's that going?" says he. "Okay," says me. "Interested in looking at a project in Mexico for me?" he asks. "Tell me a little bit about it..."
So I bounced it around with the spouse, dickered terms with the client, spent a week down getting the lay of the land, determining viability, communing with my friend the sea, and convincing myself it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Didn't take a lot of convincing...
So, today was my last day as a full time headhunter. I told the bosses I'd stay on a "as time allows" straight commission basis to wrap up a few projects ongoing and help train my replacement, if they can find one. Meanwhile, I'm going full immersion into the Rosetta Stone, boning up on Mexican land law, water law, formalized graft system, political undercurrents, etc. Dealing with title companies, engineers, surveyors, Mexican government officials, lawyers, shysters and con men. Will be developing an off-the grid seaside community along one of the most beautiful beach fronts in the world, playing daily in the body of water Jacques Cousteau deemed "the world's aquarium." Am I pumped? Really? Oh, yeah...
This is going to be about as big a lifestyle transition as I've ever encountered - going from the predictable structured 5:30 to the gym, 9-6 work day, AA meetings on Friday evening and Saturday morning, Sunday bike ride... to setting my own schedule, traveling incessantly, intensive periods of 18 hour workdays followed by leisurely weeks off, finding an AA group in San Felipe (just looked it up - its there) and connecting with a whole new group of friends in recovery. Comfort zone? What comfort zone? Yikes!
But really, yes, I am pumped. And not least because this is the first one of my hair-brained adventures that I've actually cleared in advance with my family. Did I forget to mention I can be an asshole? Oh, sorry about that. Innocent slip...
But yes, the family is excited, too. We've all begun earnestly planning our escape from the increasingly rancid atmosphere of red state Texas, and perhaps Los Estados Unidos as well, as our native country does seem to be taking an ugly turn that might really be more unpleasant than we care to face at this point in our lives. Worst case scenario, we wind up fully transplanted to a seaside oasis where the sun greets us from across a sparkling sea each morning and bids us farewell in the evenings as it slips away over the adjacent purpling mountains. Best case, America doesn't fall apart, and we split time between some civilized state like Colorado during the blistering summer months, and winter at our Mexican getaway.
And in either case, I come away fluent in the Spanish language, expert in navigating the Mexican bureaucratic process, fully conversant in a culture I've lived alongside my entire life without sharing so much of its beauty, and newly versed in foreign building and living practices alien to the average American. And I'll have a whole new slew of friends with whom to fight the pull of the jugo del agave...
Bienvenido a mi vida loca!
Now that the government has posted a travel advisory for U.S. citizens considering trips to Mexico, it only makes sense that I'd develop a hankering to go. In my visit last month, I enjoyed running the roads with gangsters and Federales, I've decided to make it a long term project. Really? Well, no, not really. Well, sort of. Hmmmm...
Okay, so here's the deal. I've been sitting behind a desk hunting heads with a fair amount of success for more than four years now. Prior to this, I've never sat in one place or worked for any employer other than myself for more than two years. Ever.Well, okay, I carried a weapon for Uncle Sam for three years, but we weren't sitting still in one place, believe me. So, yeah, maybe I'm a little bit stir crazy, but coping. Ya know? Then, a couple of months ago, my cell phone begins vibrating one morning...
"Hey, what are you up to these days?" greets my former client. "Still headhunting," says me. "How's that going?" says he. "Okay," says me. "Interested in looking at a project in Mexico for me?" he asks. "Tell me a little bit about it..."
So I bounced it around with the spouse, dickered terms with the client, spent a week down getting the lay of the land, determining viability, communing with my friend the sea, and convincing myself it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Didn't take a lot of convincing...
So, today was my last day as a full time headhunter. I told the bosses I'd stay on a "as time allows" straight commission basis to wrap up a few projects ongoing and help train my replacement, if they can find one. Meanwhile, I'm going full immersion into the Rosetta Stone, boning up on Mexican land law, water law, formalized graft system, political undercurrents, etc. Dealing with title companies, engineers, surveyors, Mexican government officials, lawyers, shysters and con men. Will be developing an off-the grid seaside community along one of the most beautiful beach fronts in the world, playing daily in the body of water Jacques Cousteau deemed "the world's aquarium." Am I pumped? Really? Oh, yeah...
This is going to be about as big a lifestyle transition as I've ever encountered - going from the predictable structured 5:30 to the gym, 9-6 work day, AA meetings on Friday evening and Saturday morning, Sunday bike ride... to setting my own schedule, traveling incessantly, intensive periods of 18 hour workdays followed by leisurely weeks off, finding an AA group in San Felipe (just looked it up - its there) and connecting with a whole new group of friends in recovery. Comfort zone? What comfort zone? Yikes!
But really, yes, I am pumped. And not least because this is the first one of my hair-brained adventures that I've actually cleared in advance with my family. Did I forget to mention I can be an asshole? Oh, sorry about that. Innocent slip...
But yes, the family is excited, too. We've all begun earnestly planning our escape from the increasingly rancid atmosphere of red state Texas, and perhaps Los Estados Unidos as well, as our native country does seem to be taking an ugly turn that might really be more unpleasant than we care to face at this point in our lives. Worst case scenario, we wind up fully transplanted to a seaside oasis where the sun greets us from across a sparkling sea each morning and bids us farewell in the evenings as it slips away over the adjacent purpling mountains. Best case, America doesn't fall apart, and we split time between some civilized state like Colorado during the blistering summer months, and winter at our Mexican getaway.
And in either case, I come away fluent in the Spanish language, expert in navigating the Mexican bureaucratic process, fully conversant in a culture I've lived alongside my entire life without sharing so much of its beauty, and newly versed in foreign building and living practices alien to the average American. And I'll have a whole new slew of friends with whom to fight the pull of the jugo del agave...
Bienvenido a mi vida loca!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Three Squares and a Cot
So, for some reason I pulled The Life of Pi off the bookshelf last night and started rereading it. For most people, there would be nothing strange in that. For me, though, it’s more than a little weird. You see, I was raised in a reading household. My father, the electronic engineering wizard who could build a short-wave radio out of a Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco can, a coat hanger and a few pennies, didn’t have much use for television. Ours gave out during JFK’s funeral procession, and I think we got our next one sometime around Watergate. Dad could have fixed it – repaired others’ sets and our hi-fi and all sorts of gizmos with vacuum tubes, capacitors, resistors and whatnot – but not our television.
So we read. A lot. And I’ve never knowingly read the same book twice, with the possible exception of To Kill a Mockingbird. So my voluntarily picking up The Life of Pi is actually significant. I think. Maybe…
No, I’m not going to do a review for you here. If you can read this blog then you can get yourself over to a library or the discount book store or Amazon or wherever you get your reading materials, buy the darn thing and read it yourself. And I strongly recommend you do. I digress…
So, I’m sitting on the throne meditating this morning (figures of speech both) and reading my book, when I ran across an early passage I didn’t recall from my last go round, which was admittedly several years ago. Did I mention that I pretty much remember in a very hazy way virtually every book I’ve ever read? Well, I do. I never remember the author or the title, but if I inadvertently pick up a previously read tome – within a couple of pages I will remember not only that I read it, but generally about when, and the whole story line. I have always been that way and sometimes find it a little disconcerting. It’s funny, actually, because I am one of the most forgetful people you’d ever want to meet, and yet I seem unable to fully forget anything I’ve ever read. The wife reminds me when I pick up something I’ve already read, because she knows I value efficiency, and that I’ll be back up out of bed and returning it to the bookshelf within five minutes once I’m made the discovery myself. Crazy, huh?
Dammit, I digressed again. Sorry…
Anyhow, Pi, the main human character in the story, was the son of a zoo keeper, and he delivers a pretty thought provoking exposition on the lives of animals in the wild and in captivity, and ties it back to humans just a bit, leaving me, the reader, to carry the thought a step farther. His contention is that modern zoo critics, PETA and others, are all wrong about zoos, animal happiness, and so forth. He suggests that wild animals need, rather than want, a certain amount of territory, because it takes that much territory to provide sustenance and security. I’m not a wildlife expert by any stretch, but it makes sense to me. For instance, jungles are teaming with wildlife in great concentration, precisely because there is an abundance of food and water, the relative security that comes with adequate cover, and the unit strength achieved when a troop or pack or gaggle or whatever is sufficient in number and cohesion to create a certain acceptable level of security. As the habitat dwindles, food sources thin, and water becomes more scarce, more territory is required to fulfill these needs. At some point the sustenance becomes insufficient to allow further expansion, so the group’s size is thereby limited. Likewise, if populations grow too large and food becomes too scarce, infant mortality rises. Too much inbreeding? Ditto. Is nature cool, or what?
His point is that the individual animal, given adequate room and a comfortable environment, adequate interaction with members of its species, and ample food and water, is likely happier in a zoo than in the wild because the security concern is largely absent. As an example, he cites numerous cases of animals escaping from, and then voluntarily returning to, various zoos throughout the world and history, due to the less stressful life there. No, I’m not going to argue with you. Sounds plausible and made me think, and that’s enough for me…
So then I started extrapolating from that brief passage what, if anything, might this say about humanity and our condition and behavior. And here’s what I came up with. Modern industrialized westernized humans are like animals in a zoo. We have given up our freedom and our connection with nature in exchange for the security of the civilized common. And all of this being relatively new in evolutionary terms, some of us take to this transition better than others. I, for one, hanker for something decidedly more primitive, largely because I’ve not yet had my fill of it – barely a teaspoon if truth be told. Whenever I get in the mountains or near the ocean or next to a babbling brook - far away from anything attesting to the presence of a single other human, I feel myself sucked into it like an iron filing to a magnet. And I can’t get in deep enough and I can’t stay long enough. The same circumstance will drive other moderns to sheer panic, a trembling fear which can only be settled by the rumble of engines, the smell of diesel, the glow of street lights, the reassuring snick of a door latch catching, or the road hiss of a nearby highway.
I’m afraid I am not the zoo animal that would turn and head back to the cage, but more the fool raised in captivity who would charge off into the wilderness, never looking back. And I would no doubt be taken on my first night by a hungry animal. And I think I might be happier in my departure than I was in my previous condition. And my killer would settle in under a rocky overhang, dozing peacefully with a full stomach, and dreaming about what exactly he needs to do to be accepted into the comfortably easy life of the zoo creatures…
So we read. A lot. And I’ve never knowingly read the same book twice, with the possible exception of To Kill a Mockingbird. So my voluntarily picking up The Life of Pi is actually significant. I think. Maybe…
No, I’m not going to do a review for you here. If you can read this blog then you can get yourself over to a library or the discount book store or Amazon or wherever you get your reading materials, buy the darn thing and read it yourself. And I strongly recommend you do. I digress…
So, I’m sitting on the throne meditating this morning (figures of speech both) and reading my book, when I ran across an early passage I didn’t recall from my last go round, which was admittedly several years ago. Did I mention that I pretty much remember in a very hazy way virtually every book I’ve ever read? Well, I do. I never remember the author or the title, but if I inadvertently pick up a previously read tome – within a couple of pages I will remember not only that I read it, but generally about when, and the whole story line. I have always been that way and sometimes find it a little disconcerting. It’s funny, actually, because I am one of the most forgetful people you’d ever want to meet, and yet I seem unable to fully forget anything I’ve ever read. The wife reminds me when I pick up something I’ve already read, because she knows I value efficiency, and that I’ll be back up out of bed and returning it to the bookshelf within five minutes once I’m made the discovery myself. Crazy, huh?
Dammit, I digressed again. Sorry…
Anyhow, Pi, the main human character in the story, was the son of a zoo keeper, and he delivers a pretty thought provoking exposition on the lives of animals in the wild and in captivity, and ties it back to humans just a bit, leaving me, the reader, to carry the thought a step farther. His contention is that modern zoo critics, PETA and others, are all wrong about zoos, animal happiness, and so forth. He suggests that wild animals need, rather than want, a certain amount of territory, because it takes that much territory to provide sustenance and security. I’m not a wildlife expert by any stretch, but it makes sense to me. For instance, jungles are teaming with wildlife in great concentration, precisely because there is an abundance of food and water, the relative security that comes with adequate cover, and the unit strength achieved when a troop or pack or gaggle or whatever is sufficient in number and cohesion to create a certain acceptable level of security. As the habitat dwindles, food sources thin, and water becomes more scarce, more territory is required to fulfill these needs. At some point the sustenance becomes insufficient to allow further expansion, so the group’s size is thereby limited. Likewise, if populations grow too large and food becomes too scarce, infant mortality rises. Too much inbreeding? Ditto. Is nature cool, or what?
His point is that the individual animal, given adequate room and a comfortable environment, adequate interaction with members of its species, and ample food and water, is likely happier in a zoo than in the wild because the security concern is largely absent. As an example, he cites numerous cases of animals escaping from, and then voluntarily returning to, various zoos throughout the world and history, due to the less stressful life there. No, I’m not going to argue with you. Sounds plausible and made me think, and that’s enough for me…
So then I started extrapolating from that brief passage what, if anything, might this say about humanity and our condition and behavior. And here’s what I came up with. Modern industrialized westernized humans are like animals in a zoo. We have given up our freedom and our connection with nature in exchange for the security of the civilized common. And all of this being relatively new in evolutionary terms, some of us take to this transition better than others. I, for one, hanker for something decidedly more primitive, largely because I’ve not yet had my fill of it – barely a teaspoon if truth be told. Whenever I get in the mountains or near the ocean or next to a babbling brook - far away from anything attesting to the presence of a single other human, I feel myself sucked into it like an iron filing to a magnet. And I can’t get in deep enough and I can’t stay long enough. The same circumstance will drive other moderns to sheer panic, a trembling fear which can only be settled by the rumble of engines, the smell of diesel, the glow of street lights, the reassuring snick of a door latch catching, or the road hiss of a nearby highway.
I’m afraid I am not the zoo animal that would turn and head back to the cage, but more the fool raised in captivity who would charge off into the wilderness, never looking back. And I would no doubt be taken on my first night by a hungry animal. And I think I might be happier in my departure than I was in my previous condition. And my killer would settle in under a rocky overhang, dozing peacefully with a full stomach, and dreaming about what exactly he needs to do to be accepted into the comfortably easy life of the zoo creatures…
Saturday, September 11, 2010
In Memoriam…
Today is September 11th, the ninth anniversary of the heinous coordinated attacks on innocent Americans by radical religious fundamentalists. Like many, if not most, Americans, I am a bit more cognizant this year, owing primarily to the New York mosque controversy, and the idiotic and dangerous Quran burning threats of a megalomaniac Florida pastor.
I find myself mourning anew the loss of thousands of innocent lives of workers in the twin towers, of passengers who died the field in Pennsylvania, of the unsuspecting civilian and military personnel working in the Pentagon that fateful morning, and of so many brave rescuers who headed into instead of away from the conflagrations to assist their fallen brothers and sisters. I do make a distinction between victims and heroes, for while all were victims directly and indirectly, the real heroes were the fighting passengers on flight 93, the rescuers who charged into the infernos, and the tens of thousands of brave men and women who volunteered and who continue to volunteer to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation against an ongoing attack by a small but determined group of radicalized Muslims bent on spreading their religion by violent means.
I think what I mourn most deeply though, is the opportunity that was lost following those first days and months following the attacks, when then President Bush rallied the nation together, bolstered our spirits and soothed our troubled hearts, and held in his hand an opportunity to bind our wounds and unify Americans, and to unite America with the rest of the world. We had been knocked down off our high horse in a most traumatic fashion, which created a unique opportunity to join together with current allies and previous foes to form common cause against global terrorism, to recognize and seize upon our common interests, and to move the country and the world forward in a positive direction. At an early moment there, George W. Bush had the opportunity to go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents.
He started out well enough, vowing to identify the culprits and make them pay for their deed, and take action to ensure that we would not fall prey to such actions again. He focused rightly on Afghanistan, a failed state which offered safe harbor to Bin Laden and his followers, and began marshaling forces and a plan to deal with our attackers. But then, before we’d even launched our action in that squalid land, he squandered his opportunity horribly…
We now know that the dust and debris from the attack hadn’t yet been cleared when plans began being laid in earnest to attack Iraq, a country that the administration knew had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. As a result, the Afghanistan effort was shoddily planned and woefully under-resourced, ensuring its failure from the outset and, as a consequence, squandering the lives of more than 2,000 coalition troops so far up to the time of this writing. While our allies willingly joined us in pursuing this initial justified effort, they were being simultaneously strong-armed into pledging participation toward the Iraq invasion. In the months following our successful invasion of Afghanistan, routing of the Taliban, and predictable failure to capture or kill Bin Laden and the Al Quaeda leadership, the actions of the Bush administration began sowing rifts not only between the U.S. and Muslim nations, but between us and our non-Muslim allies as well. Less than a year and a half after the 9/11 attacks we invaded a sovereign nation without legal justification, leading a bogus international coalition strong-armed together to create a flimsy masquerade of an international effort, and as a consequence severely damaging our standing in the community of nations and splitting our own nation asunder in ways unseen since the outset of the civil war.
Instead of accepting the global outpouring of compassion and brotherhood that resulted from this dastardly and globally excoriated attack, and using the opportunity to motivate our people united in shock and mourning toward some positive end, Bush and his cohort climbed back up on the pedestal, brushed aside calls for measure and reason, swelled out their collective chest, waved the sword and bellowed out in anger and fury. They wielded our financial, military and political strength to bend the situation in their ill-conceived direction, and started a religious war that shows no sign of abating – quite the opposite. Instead of taking advantage of our unrivaled strength to lead a willing global coalition toward alleviating a great evil, they chose instead to add to it with their own criminal behavior. Instead of taking this opportunity to unite the nation toward some positive end and a brighter future, we found ourselves embroiled in increasingly violent rhetoric and political chicanery. And all the while, our brave men and women were spilling their precious blood in vain, and do so to this day.
All the while, Americans were coerced into giving up their civil liberties to an increasingly paranoid police state. Political operatives maligned ordinary citizens who were non-compliant with their outlandish plans. Rules were bent, broken and disregarded in the name of “national security,” while the actual security concerns at our borders and ports were ignored and deprived of resources which were instead being fed into an ill conceived conflict. A true national nightmare…
Conservatives and self-proclaimed “patriots” prod us with their flags and T-shirts and bumper stickers to “Never Forget.” None of us will ever forget. Not where we were. Not what we felt. Not how we huddled with our families and friends in shock and pain and suffering…
And I, for one, will never forget that this opportunity for healing and progress both at home and abroad, purchased at such a horrible price of pain and suffering and death which continues to be levied to this very moment, was squandered. I will wonder what those innocent souls of both victims and heroes whose lives were unjustly and violently taken would say about how their deaths were used to justify all the moral failures and violent deaths that have followed as a result. And I will wonder how long our nation will have to pay for President Bush’s terrible failure of leadership.
And I will mourn…
I find myself mourning anew the loss of thousands of innocent lives of workers in the twin towers, of passengers who died the field in Pennsylvania, of the unsuspecting civilian and military personnel working in the Pentagon that fateful morning, and of so many brave rescuers who headed into instead of away from the conflagrations to assist their fallen brothers and sisters. I do make a distinction between victims and heroes, for while all were victims directly and indirectly, the real heroes were the fighting passengers on flight 93, the rescuers who charged into the infernos, and the tens of thousands of brave men and women who volunteered and who continue to volunteer to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation against an ongoing attack by a small but determined group of radicalized Muslims bent on spreading their religion by violent means.
I think what I mourn most deeply though, is the opportunity that was lost following those first days and months following the attacks, when then President Bush rallied the nation together, bolstered our spirits and soothed our troubled hearts, and held in his hand an opportunity to bind our wounds and unify Americans, and to unite America with the rest of the world. We had been knocked down off our high horse in a most traumatic fashion, which created a unique opportunity to join together with current allies and previous foes to form common cause against global terrorism, to recognize and seize upon our common interests, and to move the country and the world forward in a positive direction. At an early moment there, George W. Bush had the opportunity to go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents.
He started out well enough, vowing to identify the culprits and make them pay for their deed, and take action to ensure that we would not fall prey to such actions again. He focused rightly on Afghanistan, a failed state which offered safe harbor to Bin Laden and his followers, and began marshaling forces and a plan to deal with our attackers. But then, before we’d even launched our action in that squalid land, he squandered his opportunity horribly…
We now know that the dust and debris from the attack hadn’t yet been cleared when plans began being laid in earnest to attack Iraq, a country that the administration knew had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. As a result, the Afghanistan effort was shoddily planned and woefully under-resourced, ensuring its failure from the outset and, as a consequence, squandering the lives of more than 2,000 coalition troops so far up to the time of this writing. While our allies willingly joined us in pursuing this initial justified effort, they were being simultaneously strong-armed into pledging participation toward the Iraq invasion. In the months following our successful invasion of Afghanistan, routing of the Taliban, and predictable failure to capture or kill Bin Laden and the Al Quaeda leadership, the actions of the Bush administration began sowing rifts not only between the U.S. and Muslim nations, but between us and our non-Muslim allies as well. Less than a year and a half after the 9/11 attacks we invaded a sovereign nation without legal justification, leading a bogus international coalition strong-armed together to create a flimsy masquerade of an international effort, and as a consequence severely damaging our standing in the community of nations and splitting our own nation asunder in ways unseen since the outset of the civil war.
Instead of accepting the global outpouring of compassion and brotherhood that resulted from this dastardly and globally excoriated attack, and using the opportunity to motivate our people united in shock and mourning toward some positive end, Bush and his cohort climbed back up on the pedestal, brushed aside calls for measure and reason, swelled out their collective chest, waved the sword and bellowed out in anger and fury. They wielded our financial, military and political strength to bend the situation in their ill-conceived direction, and started a religious war that shows no sign of abating – quite the opposite. Instead of taking advantage of our unrivaled strength to lead a willing global coalition toward alleviating a great evil, they chose instead to add to it with their own criminal behavior. Instead of taking this opportunity to unite the nation toward some positive end and a brighter future, we found ourselves embroiled in increasingly violent rhetoric and political chicanery. And all the while, our brave men and women were spilling their precious blood in vain, and do so to this day.
All the while, Americans were coerced into giving up their civil liberties to an increasingly paranoid police state. Political operatives maligned ordinary citizens who were non-compliant with their outlandish plans. Rules were bent, broken and disregarded in the name of “national security,” while the actual security concerns at our borders and ports were ignored and deprived of resources which were instead being fed into an ill conceived conflict. A true national nightmare…
Conservatives and self-proclaimed “patriots” prod us with their flags and T-shirts and bumper stickers to “Never Forget.” None of us will ever forget. Not where we were. Not what we felt. Not how we huddled with our families and friends in shock and pain and suffering…
And I, for one, will never forget that this opportunity for healing and progress both at home and abroad, purchased at such a horrible price of pain and suffering and death which continues to be levied to this very moment, was squandered. I will wonder what those innocent souls of both victims and heroes whose lives were unjustly and violently taken would say about how their deaths were used to justify all the moral failures and violent deaths that have followed as a result. And I will wonder how long our nation will have to pay for President Bush’s terrible failure of leadership.
And I will mourn…
Monday, September 6, 2010
What If…?
I might have mentioned at some time in the past that I have a frighteningly intelligent son. He is now 22, graduated from college and gainfully employed. And for the first time in a very long while we are having some pretty intensive intellectual discussions on topics large and small. Very gratifying, to me at least…
I noted in the course of one such exchange recently that he shows exactly the same fealty to his faith in science, as it exists currently, that the religious believers he so disdains hold toward their interpretation of God and their particular scriptures, traditions, practices, and so forth. Did I mention that he is an atheist? No? Sorry. Yes, he is one of those dogmatically certain atheists that I have a hard time elevating to a status too far above the dogmatically certain Christians or Muslims or Jews. Ok, I admit that I know no dogmatically certain Jews – perhaps being “God’s chosen people” eliminates the need for dogmatic certainty. In fact, I have developed something of a deep appreciation for Judaism, based on my interaction with many in that community. They seem quite comfortable in their uncertainty, which I find very refreshing.
I digress…
So, with my boy and I now having re-found the ability to engage in intellectual sparring sessions, I asked him to consider the possibility that science, as it exists currently, is limited to only being able to explain within its capabilities the material universe, and that these abilities might be both limited and limiting. I suggested that the total universe might be infinite, and might be comprised of many non-material aspects of which we have no awareness, nor means of comprehending. I further suggested that there might be points of interface between these hypothetical planes of existence, at which points the material world might not behave exactly as science currently believes the material world to behave. Finally, I suggested that science’s belief that the material universe is finite might in fact be nothing more than science’s finite ability currently to observe – that the universe’s purported limits might in fact only be our own.
Now I know how Galileo felt…
The genesis of this line of discussion came when I found myself pondering exactly how much we have progressed since the dawn of man. I have long and often stated that we have progressed very little, that we still focus primarily on survival and advantage, and that despite our recent advances in science, communications, travel and transport and the manipulation of so many aspects of the material universe, we seem to have no end purpose as a species. We have certainly made our lives more complex, and it has admittedly been in the course of this self-serving hubristic paean to ourselves that we’ve developed the technological capabilities that make our world today such a wonder.
So what?
We still struggle to put food on the table, shelter over our heads, and to gather certain bits of material wealth to make our lives or the lives of our children theoretically easier. We live a more complex version of the life our forbearers lived while still in caves, in other words.
Have we developed a common mission? Do we, as a species, have a communal objective? Have we a plan to somehow make our lives meaningful purposeful in any real sense? I think not. My friends the religionists see no need – they await the rapture in which they will transcend this physical realm and ascend to something bigger and better and more rewarding, and they arrogantly assume that this rapture will come in their lifetimes and in this particular corner of space.
My son the science worshiper is no better – readily admitting that in his theology there’s no reward in store in the end – that mankind will simply stay tethered to this spinning blue orb or at most this solar system until the sun goes to supernova and fries away all sustenance for life, and life itself. I personally don’t see one improvable mythology being particularly superior to the other.
But, what if there is potentially a third path? What if “God” really does have a plan, and that plan is survival. Without us getting all hung up on the unanswerable questions of whether God is or isn’t, or God’s nature or will, for the sake of conversation let’s make the allowance. There is ample evidence that nature reveres survival above all else – it is the strongest of instincts, and the imperative for evolutionary progress. As my boy put it in the course of our discourse, “the extension of life.” Disdainfully it was said, I might add. This brilliant lad, who chooses to ignore anything for which there is no evidence, seemingly refuses to ignore the most glaring evidence of all – namely, that nature reveres survival above all else.
“So what?” you ask?
So, what is the greatest inarguable and certain impediment to mankind’s survival? How about the fact that we are firmly tethered to a planet and a solar system moving inexorably toward certain destruction? Assume that we somehow dodge the asteroids that are sure to pound the planet over the eons. Assume, as I don’t, that we will manage to not immolate ourselves in some nuclear conflagration. Assume that we will avoid unleashing a plague on our species, or poisoning our atmosphere and environment beyond the point where it can sustain life, or that we will somehow get over our love of wars fought over man-made religious differences and the distribution of wealth. Assume all these things, if you like. But recognize that these unlikely accomplishments and avoidances will not change the physics of the observable material universe, and that our solar system will become in time uninhabitable by life as we know it.
These are all known impending realities. What are we doing about them?
We’re celebrating Lady Gaga and the latest in techno entertainment. We’re working to figure out how to squeeze a few extra MPG out of our planes and trains and automobiles. We’re manipulating currencies and starting wars and developing new technologies and products and practices to bend the material world we live in to our will, in a micro sense, to make our lives a little more comfortable, a bit more entertaining. Oh yes, and breeding like rabbits, as if there’s something positive in that. All the while we’re ignoring the stark reality that we’re busily remodeling and decorating an increasingly crowded residence assured of fiery destruction, and not even considering what our next stop might be, or if there might be one.
So, what should we be doing instead? How about focusing on getting off this doomed orb and out of this doomed solar system as expeditiously as possible? Now that would be a project, no? Am I suggesting that we stop trying to ease our suffering, improve our health, increase our efficiency, transform our energy models? No, of course not – these are part and parcel of survival in the shorter term. But as long as the rationale is short term and immediately self-serving, we will never achieve the greater possibilities.
What are the avoidable impediments to mankind’s survival beyond that of the earth or the solar system? I will name the first few that come to mind:
No sense of urgency – there are in fact scientists who sound the alarm regularly about the likelihood of our encountering a cataclysmic hurtling object of some sort which could set civilization as we know it back to at least the dawn of the industrial age, or perhaps annihilate us altogether. And it could happen at any time. And, as mentioned before, the lights will eventually go out of their own accord, and there is nothing we can do to change that reality.
Religion – the proselytizing religions (all in the Abrahamic tradition, interestingly) seem stubbornly unwilling to concede that they cannot prove their claims in this realm, and instead insist on marshaling armies and exhausting resources to defend and spread their beliefs in hopes that non-believers will somehow validate their own fealty to the unknowable. That this has been going on for millennia supports my contention that we’ve made little real progress since man first stood upright and figured out how to control fire.
Nationalism – petty peoples both advanced and primitive continue to expend tremendous energy and limited resources defending lines drawn on the surface of the planet by men with apparently nothing better to do, creating a basis for conflict and angst which is totally self-made. The demise of princedoms and the evolution of the nation-state is one of the societal developments which allowed for the rise of industrialism and the rather impressive advances in science and technology of the last several centuries. But our retention of the model which is now aging and causative of more negative than positive is a pronounced impediment to mankind’s continued progress.
Economics – over the centuries certain models of wealth distribution, currency exchange and trade have arisen and been refined, which again have served a valuable purpose for mankind up to this point. It is increasingly clear, however, that the competitive nature of the models which have gained ascendency now act more to retard than to facilitate human progress. There are those who laud the competitive aspects of western style capitalism as the engine of efficiency leading to technological progress, and this point I won’t argue. I will argue, however, that other motivations, such as survival of the species, could serve equally well, if man could only find a way to step beyond the artificial distinctions of race, religion, nationality, and so forth. In the end, everything that was, is or ever will be is already provided by God or the universe or whatever you wish to title the supreme force, and by perpetuating systems designed to marshal and horde these gifts to a select subset of humanity, we waste precious time and opportunity to progress and survive as a species.
Science – there are too many among us, my dear brilliant son included, who treat science as a religion, the laws of physics as their scripture, the currently provable as their theology to not be trifled with. I know there are many scientists and supporters, however, who hold a more expansive view, who appreciate the accomplishments of science to date, but who also recognize that what we know is limited to what we can at this mid-point in our development detect and measure, and who want to strive and stretch beyond the current self-imposed limitations of our understanding. It is these who would move our understanding and knowledge beyond the limitations of crass commercial viability and toward the possibility of mankind’s potentially limitless survival.
The religionists would argue that my approach is hubris, and that what I am proposing is a path to a modern day Tower of Babel. To these I would argue that it is hubris on their part to presume a knowledge of God’s will, and to assume that God intends us to rise and fall on this single wondrous blue ball we’ve been granted the honor of occupying for many eons now, a mere instant, however, in the infinite life of the infinite universe. What God/Nature has demonstrated inarguably is that its preference is toward our survival, and that, among all the species on this particular planet, man is the only one with the theoretical capability to extend our existence beyond the predictable lifetime of the planet and solar system on which and in which we came to be. Are we not compelled to do so?
In the end, the question comes down to this: Do I prefer for my progeny 1,000 generations hence to be the richest and most comfortable and best entertained humans on earth at the point the planet ceases to be able to sustain life? Or would I want them to be elsewhere, or to at least die trying?
For me, the answer is pretty simple…
I noted in the course of one such exchange recently that he shows exactly the same fealty to his faith in science, as it exists currently, that the religious believers he so disdains hold toward their interpretation of God and their particular scriptures, traditions, practices, and so forth. Did I mention that he is an atheist? No? Sorry. Yes, he is one of those dogmatically certain atheists that I have a hard time elevating to a status too far above the dogmatically certain Christians or Muslims or Jews. Ok, I admit that I know no dogmatically certain Jews – perhaps being “God’s chosen people” eliminates the need for dogmatic certainty. In fact, I have developed something of a deep appreciation for Judaism, based on my interaction with many in that community. They seem quite comfortable in their uncertainty, which I find very refreshing.
I digress…
So, with my boy and I now having re-found the ability to engage in intellectual sparring sessions, I asked him to consider the possibility that science, as it exists currently, is limited to only being able to explain within its capabilities the material universe, and that these abilities might be both limited and limiting. I suggested that the total universe might be infinite, and might be comprised of many non-material aspects of which we have no awareness, nor means of comprehending. I further suggested that there might be points of interface between these hypothetical planes of existence, at which points the material world might not behave exactly as science currently believes the material world to behave. Finally, I suggested that science’s belief that the material universe is finite might in fact be nothing more than science’s finite ability currently to observe – that the universe’s purported limits might in fact only be our own.
Now I know how Galileo felt…
The genesis of this line of discussion came when I found myself pondering exactly how much we have progressed since the dawn of man. I have long and often stated that we have progressed very little, that we still focus primarily on survival and advantage, and that despite our recent advances in science, communications, travel and transport and the manipulation of so many aspects of the material universe, we seem to have no end purpose as a species. We have certainly made our lives more complex, and it has admittedly been in the course of this self-serving hubristic paean to ourselves that we’ve developed the technological capabilities that make our world today such a wonder.
So what?
We still struggle to put food on the table, shelter over our heads, and to gather certain bits of material wealth to make our lives or the lives of our children theoretically easier. We live a more complex version of the life our forbearers lived while still in caves, in other words.
Have we developed a common mission? Do we, as a species, have a communal objective? Have we a plan to somehow make our lives meaningful purposeful in any real sense? I think not. My friends the religionists see no need – they await the rapture in which they will transcend this physical realm and ascend to something bigger and better and more rewarding, and they arrogantly assume that this rapture will come in their lifetimes and in this particular corner of space.
My son the science worshiper is no better – readily admitting that in his theology there’s no reward in store in the end – that mankind will simply stay tethered to this spinning blue orb or at most this solar system until the sun goes to supernova and fries away all sustenance for life, and life itself. I personally don’t see one improvable mythology being particularly superior to the other.
But, what if there is potentially a third path? What if “God” really does have a plan, and that plan is survival. Without us getting all hung up on the unanswerable questions of whether God is or isn’t, or God’s nature or will, for the sake of conversation let’s make the allowance. There is ample evidence that nature reveres survival above all else – it is the strongest of instincts, and the imperative for evolutionary progress. As my boy put it in the course of our discourse, “the extension of life.” Disdainfully it was said, I might add. This brilliant lad, who chooses to ignore anything for which there is no evidence, seemingly refuses to ignore the most glaring evidence of all – namely, that nature reveres survival above all else.
“So what?” you ask?
So, what is the greatest inarguable and certain impediment to mankind’s survival? How about the fact that we are firmly tethered to a planet and a solar system moving inexorably toward certain destruction? Assume that we somehow dodge the asteroids that are sure to pound the planet over the eons. Assume, as I don’t, that we will manage to not immolate ourselves in some nuclear conflagration. Assume that we will avoid unleashing a plague on our species, or poisoning our atmosphere and environment beyond the point where it can sustain life, or that we will somehow get over our love of wars fought over man-made religious differences and the distribution of wealth. Assume all these things, if you like. But recognize that these unlikely accomplishments and avoidances will not change the physics of the observable material universe, and that our solar system will become in time uninhabitable by life as we know it.
These are all known impending realities. What are we doing about them?
We’re celebrating Lady Gaga and the latest in techno entertainment. We’re working to figure out how to squeeze a few extra MPG out of our planes and trains and automobiles. We’re manipulating currencies and starting wars and developing new technologies and products and practices to bend the material world we live in to our will, in a micro sense, to make our lives a little more comfortable, a bit more entertaining. Oh yes, and breeding like rabbits, as if there’s something positive in that. All the while we’re ignoring the stark reality that we’re busily remodeling and decorating an increasingly crowded residence assured of fiery destruction, and not even considering what our next stop might be, or if there might be one.
So, what should we be doing instead? How about focusing on getting off this doomed orb and out of this doomed solar system as expeditiously as possible? Now that would be a project, no? Am I suggesting that we stop trying to ease our suffering, improve our health, increase our efficiency, transform our energy models? No, of course not – these are part and parcel of survival in the shorter term. But as long as the rationale is short term and immediately self-serving, we will never achieve the greater possibilities.
What are the avoidable impediments to mankind’s survival beyond that of the earth or the solar system? I will name the first few that come to mind:
No sense of urgency – there are in fact scientists who sound the alarm regularly about the likelihood of our encountering a cataclysmic hurtling object of some sort which could set civilization as we know it back to at least the dawn of the industrial age, or perhaps annihilate us altogether. And it could happen at any time. And, as mentioned before, the lights will eventually go out of their own accord, and there is nothing we can do to change that reality.
Religion – the proselytizing religions (all in the Abrahamic tradition, interestingly) seem stubbornly unwilling to concede that they cannot prove their claims in this realm, and instead insist on marshaling armies and exhausting resources to defend and spread their beliefs in hopes that non-believers will somehow validate their own fealty to the unknowable. That this has been going on for millennia supports my contention that we’ve made little real progress since man first stood upright and figured out how to control fire.
Nationalism – petty peoples both advanced and primitive continue to expend tremendous energy and limited resources defending lines drawn on the surface of the planet by men with apparently nothing better to do, creating a basis for conflict and angst which is totally self-made. The demise of princedoms and the evolution of the nation-state is one of the societal developments which allowed for the rise of industrialism and the rather impressive advances in science and technology of the last several centuries. But our retention of the model which is now aging and causative of more negative than positive is a pronounced impediment to mankind’s continued progress.
Economics – over the centuries certain models of wealth distribution, currency exchange and trade have arisen and been refined, which again have served a valuable purpose for mankind up to this point. It is increasingly clear, however, that the competitive nature of the models which have gained ascendency now act more to retard than to facilitate human progress. There are those who laud the competitive aspects of western style capitalism as the engine of efficiency leading to technological progress, and this point I won’t argue. I will argue, however, that other motivations, such as survival of the species, could serve equally well, if man could only find a way to step beyond the artificial distinctions of race, religion, nationality, and so forth. In the end, everything that was, is or ever will be is already provided by God or the universe or whatever you wish to title the supreme force, and by perpetuating systems designed to marshal and horde these gifts to a select subset of humanity, we waste precious time and opportunity to progress and survive as a species.
Science – there are too many among us, my dear brilliant son included, who treat science as a religion, the laws of physics as their scripture, the currently provable as their theology to not be trifled with. I know there are many scientists and supporters, however, who hold a more expansive view, who appreciate the accomplishments of science to date, but who also recognize that what we know is limited to what we can at this mid-point in our development detect and measure, and who want to strive and stretch beyond the current self-imposed limitations of our understanding. It is these who would move our understanding and knowledge beyond the limitations of crass commercial viability and toward the possibility of mankind’s potentially limitless survival.
The religionists would argue that my approach is hubris, and that what I am proposing is a path to a modern day Tower of Babel. To these I would argue that it is hubris on their part to presume a knowledge of God’s will, and to assume that God intends us to rise and fall on this single wondrous blue ball we’ve been granted the honor of occupying for many eons now, a mere instant, however, in the infinite life of the infinite universe. What God/Nature has demonstrated inarguably is that its preference is toward our survival, and that, among all the species on this particular planet, man is the only one with the theoretical capability to extend our existence beyond the predictable lifetime of the planet and solar system on which and in which we came to be. Are we not compelled to do so?
In the end, the question comes down to this: Do I prefer for my progeny 1,000 generations hence to be the richest and most comfortable and best entertained humans on earth at the point the planet ceases to be able to sustain life? Or would I want them to be elsewhere, or to at least die trying?
For me, the answer is pretty simple…
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