Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Third Question: What is my purpose as a human being?
So, Liam and Sean, the first two questions have been answered by science in my time: We who were born in the twentieth century literally know now for the first time in history the facts that tell us precisely who we are and where we’ve come from: We are StarStuff, StarStuff that was born in the belly of a star that exploded somewhere out in space. And our StarStuff got into the region of our newly developing Sun, got to be part of Earth, went on to become part of that Chemical-to-Life process. Out of the process humanity emerged as another mask on the face of Earth Life. We never knew this story before the 20th century. Now there is, for the first time in history, a cosmic story all Earth people can share. There must be consequences arising from this fact. What are those consequences?
In a minute we’ll examine the third question: What is my purpose? But first, another aside. We are something more than just a mask on the face of Earth Life. And this is important.
Earlier I pointed out that all the hydrogen in our bodies entered existence at that first moment billions of years ago when Energy became Matter. Thus we are partially composed of the first materials ever created in the universe. I think it is important to know that don’t you? We are in our selves in a Holy Communion with the universe.
Here is another interesting fact you must not ignore. The atoms and molecules in our bodies were surely used many times over the last 2 billion years in the evolutionary process to make fish and dinosaurs and palm trees and dogs and worms and viruses and germs and elephants and anything else that emerged from Life’s forming processes. Our little bits have been used over and over again until eventually it was used by Life to make us as we are now, wearing the Mask Life gave us. And to survive we’ve been eating other of that LifeStuff ever since we were born so we could grow and reproduce.
Make no mistake, Liam and Sean, we are just like all the other life forms and to be that way we must do what life does: Life eats Life.
We’re getting closer, Liam and Sean. We’re getting closer to the truly amazing thing we are.
Let me take you another step. Life eating Life is what resurrection really is. It is the recycle process that keeps Life going and enlarging its scope and creating new forms. Recycling is the engine of evolution. And the recycling produced us, you and me, and what has happened? What is the result of our having all this basic universe StarStuff in us ...making us who and what we are? We’ve used the universe stuff for hundreds of thousands of years and by doing so we have become the Universe Aware of Itself. Got it? Think about that. Who are we? We Are the Universe Aware of Itself
When I first realized this incredible fact, I jumped off the chair. Truly. I did. The hairs on the back of my neck rose up. I yelled and woke the dog. I feel that excitement whenever I think about it! I am an expression of the universe that is aware of being an expression of the universe!
Ungelouflik!
Nobody had ever told me that awesome fact. And it is so important for all of us to realize. And here is what I mean; through this marvelous process beginning with the Big Bang the universe has produced Life on Planet Earth (maybe other places too we don’t know yet). The Life of the Universe has then gone on to produce StarStuff, LifeStuff, that can read and think and learn and come at last to understand that we -you and I! - are Universe Eyes, Universe Ears, Universe Brains!
Furthermore, these Universe Eyes, Ears, and Brains have come to realize their relationship to this universe by knowing literally that we are an aspect of the universe that makes the universe aware of itself. That is knowledge beyond and above anything I was ever taught in twelve years of religious school. It goes beyond anything I learned in the next fifty years of teaching and reading and living. I think knowing we are the universe aware of itself is the most outstanding fact a human can know about being human and as far as I know in this year 2005 nobody is teaching this awesome reality to kids in school.
Now, the third question: What is our purpose? What does it mean to be StarStuff? Here is my answer: since human beings are -together will all other living things- the children of Mother Earth, then Mother Earth and all of her children must be sacred to us.
We share our DNA, the chemistry Life uses to structure its many differing forms, with all of Earth’s children. So they are family. We cannot mistreat family. And if they are sacred we must treat them with reverence. That is our human responsibility. That is our purpose. It is what we must do while we wear the mask given us by Life. Our intentions and our actions must all center on caring, on treating all of the sacred Earth’s children with reverence. And all of our ethics will arise from that understanding, that responsibility. Religions say they are the source of ethics, and by and large they do offer ethical standards, but they are not the only source of good ethical behavior.
Our relationship to the sacred Earth is the most fundamental source of our ethical standards and behavior.
I must clarify my language. What do I mean by “sacred” and “reverence”, “holy” and “consecrate”? If you check with the Oxford English Dictionary, the most highly regarded authority for English usage, you will find that sacred can mean “Regarded with or entitled to respect or reverence similar to that which is attached to holy things.” And holy? The OED tells us that the definition of holy is “consecrated, dedicated, whole, inviolate, to be preserved whole, intact.” Consecrate means “dedicate, devote, make sacred, set apart.” And revere or reverence? What does the OED say of them? To revere is “to hold in regard with deep respect or veneration.” And reverence is “to show deep respect, treat with deference, to esteem or value highly.
I believe we must now begin to think of Earth as sacred, even holy. As never before, we must consecrate ourselves to revere our Mother Earth and its children. So we must treat both Earth and Earth’s children with reverence. And make no mistake, I deliberately choose those words which have been used for millennia to speak about the idea of a god beyond the universe. I believe it is time to focus on what is truly important to us: the Earth from which we emerged, the Earth that sustains us, the Earth to which our little bits will inevitably return to participate in the ongoing and literal recycling of the little bits that make all of Life’s forms possible. All of that is sacred fact.
If the Earth is sacred how do we show the reverence I speak of? First, remember who we are: StarStuff, one of the children of Earth wearing the mask of the human being and deeply related to all the other children of Earth: a member of Earth’s Family. Remember that we wear the Mask and that to believe we are separate from the rest of the family is a lie. An error. A mistake. An illusion that poisons us, makes us miserable, and can lead eventually to crime. The illusion of separateness is indeed the Original Sin; the sin that makes all other sinning possible.
Remembering all that how do we show reverence to the sacred Earth? We have to take care of it and its children. It is as simple as that. And how do we carry out that caring act? Must we all become members of the Red Cross or the Red Crescent? Must we all become nurses or veterinarians? No. Of course not. Caring is based on the way we use the Earth we are responsible for, the way we treat the children of Earth including our fellow human beings. Any man or woman regardless of occupation must be caring, must use the Earth in a caring and responsible way.
That is the first objective. The primary intention. To make money is a mistaken primary intention, one that leads to exploitation of Earth and its children. To become famous, to become powerful, to exploit in anyway are false and poisonous primary intentions and by even nurturing those objectives or intentions is to exploit Earth and its children; always remembering that you -we - I are those children too and exploiting any of us poisons the exploiter.
Life becomes bleak, dark, a joyless experience for the exploiter because all his energies arise from the illusion that he is separate from everything else, that he stands alone, that the only thing he needs to care for is himself. The exploiter will always be discontented. Unhappy.
In brief our primary intention must always be to revere Earth and its children and to care for them. We can do that by taking care of our home, our things, a bicycle, a car, our clothes, our friends. We need to become caring materialists remembering that matter is part of the basic Energy/Matter universe. Caring for our material things is good and helps create a habit of caring. We need to make a habit of caring because that leads to a compassionate attitude.
We have to care for ourselves first because we cannot care for Earth’s other children compassionately if we neglect ourselves. It is also true that making money or working to become the best we can become are acceptable, even necessary secondary intentions that must always be tested against that primary intention of caring. Developing our talents is also good caring. It is good and compassionate caring to help others develop their talents because talent is the way to creativity. Developing our mental capacity is good caring. Developing skills for living compassionately with others is good caring. Developing our strength is good caring. Developing our ability to defend ourselves and other of Earth’s children is good caring. And it may be that learning is the best caring of all because when we learn all we can learn we are best equipped to actively and knowledgeably care.
Why is learning the “best caring’”? Because it is through education that we become best at caring. A deep knowledge of who we are is the best way to learn how to care with compassion!
Compassion is often sneered at, looked upon with contempt by persons caught in the illusion of separateness. So, compassion is not easy to learn. We have to make the practice of compassion a habit we continue for our entire lives. We have to overcome the illusion of separateness and the selfishness the illusion encourages. And compassion is the path along which that practice takes place.
Be clear about one thing. When I speak of learning, I don’t mean learning the way it is attempted in the schools of mass public education. The objective of mass education is not to encourage you to learn -to educate you, to lead you to new possibilities- but to train you in a few skills like numbers and writing and reading so you’ll be ready to join the work force and thereby keep the corporate business financial manufacturing system rolling. No. That’s not learning.
Learning is a hunger. Learning is a joy. If school is not a joy you are not being led to new strengths, new possibilities. If you find out how to learn joyfully you will be the happiest human being you can be for the rest of your life. You will become an educated person. ...persona. Remember? ...the mask? You will educate that mask.
Education is not training in a skill. Education is a matter of leading you -by yourself or with a teacher- in ways that will more fully develop your talents and knowledge. That development is what learning is really about: the fullest development of your abilities, talents, creativity, and imagination; education is the fullest development of mind and body.
Perhaps most importantly education teaches you to think. Thinking is a skill. You have to learn to think the way you learn math or music.
My belief is that to learn is a fundamental human need as much as the need for food. And we enjoy learning as much as we enjoy eating good food. We hunger to learn unless that hunger is somehow blocked or stymied, often by poverty or the brutality of others. Some will disagree but I say to learn is a fundamental human need. So, Liam and Sean, Get loaded with knowledge.
When I was a kid I was sent to a high school that had no shop, nothing they taught required you to use your hands. Manual development was forgot. And they made a virtue of it. They said they were there to teach your mind, implying that minds are more important than bodies. That was a lie. Mind/body is not two separate things. Mind/body like Energy/Matter is One.
So it was a false idea to say we’ll teach your mind. First of all, it was a Catholic school and their purpose was to condition us to the Catholic Teaching, to condition us to accept that Teaching, not to develop our thought processes. Think about that. How many Catholic universities are great universities like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Utrecht, Stanford, Chicago, Penn? How about Notre Dame? Catholic U in Washington? You tell me. Schools like Notre Dame and Bob Jones University are more like seminaries designed to create true believers not challenging thinkers. True believers. Faith without challenge, unthinking faith instead of a faith in free thinking.
To become truly free you must learn to think freely and have confidence in your ability to think, come to conclusions and then evaluate those conclusions.
The fact is the Catholic school I attended didn’t offer shop because they didn’t have the money to offer shop. That was not satisfactory because it discounted a natural path of learning: the development of our physical talents. If their purpose was to educate, to open me to learning, they failed. It didn’t happen mentally or physically. When I left that school I was in no way ready to begin the great adventure of learning. They even gave me scholarships to go to two Catholic colleges in Philadelphia. I didn’t go because on some level I knew I was not ready to learn especially at Catholic colleges. Instead, I worked for awhile and then joined the army where I met men who opened my mind to literature, to history, to art. Only then did I begin to feel an excitement I never felt before. Learning became exciting. Fun.
So Liam and Sean, I was beginning at last to learn! And I have never stopped. I was so hungry to learn that I did the four year college course in 2½ years. I gobbled it up. And I hope that kind of excitement for learning happens to you. I don’t care if it’s college or a trade. Either way learn all you can learn. Your father didn’t go to a university but he is a fine craftsman and student of 3 or 4 languages. He’s a model of what a craftsman can do.
So what do you learn? What learning path do you follow? A very great and wise man, Joseph Campbell, a man I knew, said that we should all “follow our bliss.” And he was right. It sometimes feels like a risky thing to do but he was absolutely right. Along the way of bliss there is lots more we can learn too. We can learn about all the manifestations -the different forms - of Energy/Matter. Energy exhibits different forms from unbelievably small vibrating strings (maybe) to electrons to protons to galaxies to you and me. And you don’t have to be a physicist unless that’s your bliss. You can learn about every form Life takes and you don’t have to be a biologist unless that’s your bliss. Learn about all the ways matter forms. Learn about planets, stars, and galaxies. Learn how gravity connects all that together in one vast many layered all inter-related fabric in which there is never nothing because Energy/Matter is All.
Learn about designing. Painting. Carpentering. Working with stone. It’s fun to read about architecture but you don’t have to be an architect unless that’s your bliss. Same for writing, easel painting, sculpture, music, poetry, theatre, the silver screen. The world is yours! You can dig it. Love it! Fill yourself with it and fill it with yourself. And by all means take a risk.
Most of all, regardless of anything else, learn about relationships between human beings, between people and all the other children of Mother Earth’s Life process. Learn how to make relationships survive and flourish. That requires skill. So learn how to take care of Earth and her children, all of whom are our cousins. No matter what your bliss is, develop masterful skills in this area of relationships. Learn how to get along with people in a skillful way. When people don’t know how to relate their blundering leads to the bad things that happen in people’s lives.
Your grandmother, Mimi, is the most skillful relator I’ve ever known. Learn from her. I did. Your Mom did. Mimi is/was known across America for her relational skills. Her work was so important she was featured in Who’s Who of American Women. And I think it is important to note that Mimi didn’t try to become famous. She just followed her bliss, had a great time, and made all the money she wanted to make. Today? Today your grandmother is one of the happiest most caring women alive. She lives everyday with a reverence for Life. And that reverence motivates all of her objectives.
I think I’ve answered the three great human questions. If you have any questions please feel free to add a “comment”. Any comment!
And I have one more essay to add to this. I won’t say any more now. You’ll just have to read Part Four.
In a minute we’ll examine the third question: What is my purpose? But first, another aside. We are something more than just a mask on the face of Earth Life. And this is important.
Earlier I pointed out that all the hydrogen in our bodies entered existence at that first moment billions of years ago when Energy became Matter. Thus we are partially composed of the first materials ever created in the universe. I think it is important to know that don’t you? We are in our selves in a Holy Communion with the universe.
Here is another interesting fact you must not ignore. The atoms and molecules in our bodies were surely used many times over the last 2 billion years in the evolutionary process to make fish and dinosaurs and palm trees and dogs and worms and viruses and germs and elephants and anything else that emerged from Life’s forming processes. Our little bits have been used over and over again until eventually it was used by Life to make us as we are now, wearing the Mask Life gave us. And to survive we’ve been eating other of that LifeStuff ever since we were born so we could grow and reproduce.
Make no mistake, Liam and Sean, we are just like all the other life forms and to be that way we must do what life does: Life eats Life. We’re getting closer, Liam and Sean. We’re getting closer to the truly amazing thing we are.
Let me take you another step. Life eating Life is what resurrection really is. It is the recycle process that keeps Life going and enlarging its scope and creating new forms. Recycling is the engine of evolution. And the recycling produced us, you and me, and what has happened? What is the result of our having all this basic universe StarStuff in us ...making us who and what we are? We’ve used the universe stuff for hundreds of thousands of years and by doing so we have become the Universe Aware of Itself. Got it? Think about that. Who are we? We Are the Universe Aware of Itself
When I first realized this incredible fact, I jumped off the chair. Truly. I did. The hairs on the back of my neck rose up. I yelled and woke the dog. I feel that excitement whenever I think about it! I am an expression of the universe that is aware of being an expression of the universe!
Ungelouflik!
Nobody had ever told me that awesome fact. And it is so important for all of us to realize. And here is what I mean; through this marvelous process beginning with the Big Bang the universe has produced Life on Planet Earth (maybe other places too we don’t know yet). The Life of the Universe has then gone on to produce StarStuff, LifeStuff, that can read and think and learn and come at last to understand that we -you and I! - are Universe Eyes, Universe Ears, Universe Brains!
Furthermore, these Universe Eyes, Ears, and Brains have come to realize their relationship to this universe by knowing literally that we are an aspect of the universe that makes the universe aware of itself. That is knowledge beyond and above anything I was ever taught in twelve years of religious school. It goes beyond anything I learned in the next fifty years of teaching and reading and living. I think knowing we are the universe aware of itself is the most outstanding fact a human can know about being human and as far as I know in this year 2005 nobody is teaching this awesome reality to kids in school.
Now, the third question: What is our purpose? What does it mean to be StarStuff? Here is my answer: since human beings are -together will all other living things- the children of Mother Earth, then Mother Earth and all of her children must be sacred to us.
We share our DNA, the chemistry Life uses to structure its many differing forms, with all of Earth’s children. So they are family. We cannot mistreat family. And if they are sacred we must treat them with reverence. That is our human responsibility. That is our purpose. It is what we must do while we wear the mask given us by Life. Our intentions and our actions must all center on caring, on treating all of the sacred Earth’s children with reverence. And all of our ethics will arise from that understanding, that responsibility. Religions say they are the source of ethics, and by and large they do offer ethical standards, but they are not the only source of good ethical behavior.
Our relationship to the sacred Earth is the most fundamental source of our ethical standards and behavior.
I must clarify my language. What do I mean by “sacred” and “reverence”, “holy” and “consecrate”? If you check with the Oxford English Dictionary, the most highly regarded authority for English usage, you will find that sacred can mean “Regarded with or entitled to respect or reverence similar to that which is attached to holy things.” And holy? The OED tells us that the definition of holy is “consecrated, dedicated, whole, inviolate, to be preserved whole, intact.” Consecrate means “dedicate, devote, make sacred, set apart.” And revere or reverence? What does the OED say of them? To revere is “to hold in regard with deep respect or veneration.” And reverence is “to show deep respect, treat with deference, to esteem or value highly.
I believe we must now begin to think of Earth as sacred, even holy. As never before, we must consecrate ourselves to revere our Mother Earth and its children. So we must treat both Earth and Earth’s children with reverence. And make no mistake, I deliberately choose those words which have been used for millennia to speak about the idea of a god beyond the universe. I believe it is time to focus on what is truly important to us: the Earth from which we emerged, the Earth that sustains us, the Earth to which our little bits will inevitably return to participate in the ongoing and literal recycling of the little bits that make all of Life’s forms possible. All of that is sacred fact.
If the Earth is sacred how do we show the reverence I speak of? First, remember who we are: StarStuff, one of the children of Earth wearing the mask of the human being and deeply related to all the other children of Earth: a member of Earth’s Family. Remember that we wear the Mask and that to believe we are separate from the rest of the family is a lie. An error. A mistake. An illusion that poisons us, makes us miserable, and can lead eventually to crime. The illusion of separateness is indeed the Original Sin; the sin that makes all other sinning possible.
Remembering all that how do we show reverence to the sacred Earth? We have to take care of it and its children. It is as simple as that. And how do we carry out that caring act? Must we all become members of the Red Cross or the Red Crescent? Must we all become nurses or veterinarians? No. Of course not. Caring is based on the way we use the Earth we are responsible for, the way we treat the children of Earth including our fellow human beings. Any man or woman regardless of occupation must be caring, must use the Earth in a caring and responsible way.
That is the first objective. The primary intention. To make money is a mistaken primary intention, one that leads to exploitation of Earth and its children. To become famous, to become powerful, to exploit in anyway are false and poisonous primary intentions and by even nurturing those objectives or intentions is to exploit Earth and its children; always remembering that you -we - I are those children too and exploiting any of us poisons the exploiter.
Life becomes bleak, dark, a joyless experience for the exploiter because all his energies arise from the illusion that he is separate from everything else, that he stands alone, that the only thing he needs to care for is himself. The exploiter will always be discontented. Unhappy.
In brief our primary intention must always be to revere Earth and its children and to care for them. We can do that by taking care of our home, our things, a bicycle, a car, our clothes, our friends. We need to become caring materialists remembering that matter is part of the basic Energy/Matter universe. Caring for our material things is good and helps create a habit of caring. We need to make a habit of caring because that leads to a compassionate attitude.
We have to care for ourselves first because we cannot care for Earth’s other children compassionately if we neglect ourselves. It is also true that making money or working to become the best we can become are acceptable, even necessary secondary intentions that must always be tested against that primary intention of caring. Developing our talents is also good caring. It is good and compassionate caring to help others develop their talents because talent is the way to creativity. Developing our mental capacity is good caring. Developing skills for living compassionately with others is good caring. Developing our strength is good caring. Developing our ability to defend ourselves and other of Earth’s children is good caring. And it may be that learning is the best caring of all because when we learn all we can learn we are best equipped to actively and knowledgeably care.
Why is learning the “best caring’”? Because it is through education that we become best at caring. A deep knowledge of who we are is the best way to learn how to care with compassion!
Compassion is often sneered at, looked upon with contempt by persons caught in the illusion of separateness. So, compassion is not easy to learn. We have to make the practice of compassion a habit we continue for our entire lives. We have to overcome the illusion of separateness and the selfishness the illusion encourages. And compassion is the path along which that practice takes place.
Be clear about one thing. When I speak of learning, I don’t mean learning the way it is attempted in the schools of mass public education. The objective of mass education is not to encourage you to learn -to educate you, to lead you to new possibilities- but to train you in a few skills like numbers and writing and reading so you’ll be ready to join the work force and thereby keep the corporate business financial manufacturing system rolling. No. That’s not learning.
Learning is a hunger. Learning is a joy. If school is not a joy you are not being led to new strengths, new possibilities. If you find out how to learn joyfully you will be the happiest human being you can be for the rest of your life. You will become an educated person. ...persona. Remember? ...the mask? You will educate that mask.
Education is not training in a skill. Education is a matter of leading you -by yourself or with a teacher- in ways that will more fully develop your talents and knowledge. That development is what learning is really about: the fullest development of your abilities, talents, creativity, and imagination; education is the fullest development of mind and body.
Perhaps most importantly education teaches you to think. Thinking is a skill. You have to learn to think the way you learn math or music.
My belief is that to learn is a fundamental human need as much as the need for food. And we enjoy learning as much as we enjoy eating good food. We hunger to learn unless that hunger is somehow blocked or stymied, often by poverty or the brutality of others. Some will disagree but I say to learn is a fundamental human need. So, Liam and Sean, Get loaded with knowledge.
When I was a kid I was sent to a high school that had no shop, nothing they taught required you to use your hands. Manual development was forgot. And they made a virtue of it. They said they were there to teach your mind, implying that minds are more important than bodies. That was a lie. Mind/body is not two separate things. Mind/body like Energy/Matter is One.
So it was a false idea to say we’ll teach your mind. First of all, it was a Catholic school and their purpose was to condition us to the Catholic Teaching, to condition us to accept that Teaching, not to develop our thought processes. Think about that. How many Catholic universities are great universities like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Utrecht, Stanford, Chicago, Penn? How about Notre Dame? Catholic U in Washington? You tell me. Schools like Notre Dame and Bob Jones University are more like seminaries designed to create true believers not challenging thinkers. True believers. Faith without challenge, unthinking faith instead of a faith in free thinking.
To become truly free you must learn to think freely and have confidence in your ability to think, come to conclusions and then evaluate those conclusions.
The fact is the Catholic school I attended didn’t offer shop because they didn’t have the money to offer shop. That was not satisfactory because it discounted a natural path of learning: the development of our physical talents. If their purpose was to educate, to open me to learning, they failed. It didn’t happen mentally or physically. When I left that school I was in no way ready to begin the great adventure of learning. They even gave me scholarships to go to two Catholic colleges in Philadelphia. I didn’t go because on some level I knew I was not ready to learn especially at Catholic colleges. Instead, I worked for awhile and then joined the army where I met men who opened my mind to literature, to history, to art. Only then did I begin to feel an excitement I never felt before. Learning became exciting. Fun.
So Liam and Sean, I was beginning at last to learn! And I have never stopped. I was so hungry to learn that I did the four year college course in 2½ years. I gobbled it up. And I hope that kind of excitement for learning happens to you. I don’t care if it’s college or a trade. Either way learn all you can learn. Your father didn’t go to a university but he is a fine craftsman and student of 3 or 4 languages. He’s a model of what a craftsman can do.
So what do you learn? What learning path do you follow? A very great and wise man, Joseph Campbell, a man I knew, said that we should all “follow our bliss.” And he was right. It sometimes feels like a risky thing to do but he was absolutely right. Along the way of bliss there is lots more we can learn too. We can learn about all the manifestations -the different forms - of Energy/Matter. Energy exhibits different forms from unbelievably small vibrating strings (maybe) to electrons to protons to galaxies to you and me. And you don’t have to be a physicist unless that’s your bliss. You can learn about every form Life takes and you don’t have to be a biologist unless that’s your bliss. Learn about all the ways matter forms. Learn about planets, stars, and galaxies. Learn how gravity connects all that together in one vast many layered all inter-related fabric in which there is never nothing because Energy/Matter is All.
Learn about designing. Painting. Carpentering. Working with stone. It’s fun to read about architecture but you don’t have to be an architect unless that’s your bliss. Same for writing, easel painting, sculpture, music, poetry, theatre, the silver screen. The world is yours! You can dig it. Love it! Fill yourself with it and fill it with yourself. And by all means take a risk.
Most of all, regardless of anything else, learn about relationships between human beings, between people and all the other children of Mother Earth’s Life process. Learn how to make relationships survive and flourish. That requires skill. So learn how to take care of Earth and her children, all of whom are our cousins. No matter what your bliss is, develop masterful skills in this area of relationships. Learn how to get along with people in a skillful way. When people don’t know how to relate their blundering leads to the bad things that happen in people’s lives.
Your grandmother, Mimi, is the most skillful relator I’ve ever known. Learn from her. I did. Your Mom did. Mimi is/was known across America for her relational skills. Her work was so important she was featured in Who’s Who of American Women. And I think it is important to note that Mimi didn’t try to become famous. She just followed her bliss, had a great time, and made all the money she wanted to make. Today? Today your grandmother is one of the happiest most caring women alive. She lives everyday with a reverence for Life. And that reverence motivates all of her objectives.
I think I’ve answered the three great human questions. If you have any questions please feel free to add a “comment”. Any comment!
And I have one more essay to add to this. I won’t say any more now. You’ll just have to read Part Four.
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Thinking about Wally Aware of “The Universe Aware of Itself”
1. “I think knowing we are the universe aware of itself is the most outstanding fact a human can know about being human….”
2. “When I first realized this incredible fact, I jumped off the chair. Truly I did. The hairs on my neck rose up. I yelled and woke the dog…”
[ Two quotations from “Third Question: What is my purpose as a human being?”, Wally Weet, December 28, 2005.]
These are extraordinary statements. The first is the credo of The Story of StarStuff, either an encompassing philosophy or a new religion. Wally talks about sacred things and religion as a reconnecting. For the purposes of discussion, I will think of it operationally as a religion. Then, given that, you might regard the second item as the description of a religious experience.
You could also possibly interpret the second item as analogous to Archimedes running naked from the public baths toward home, shouting “I have found it.” This, after realizing how to use the bouyancy of objects immersed in water to make precision density measurements and, thus, how to determine if the king’s new crown was pure gold or an alloy of gold “adulterated” with silver. (The life of the maker of the crown hung in the balance on this matter, I’m quite sure.) In the case of Archimedes, he was not pursuing the solution to a deep philosophical or religious conundrum, but, rather, he was deeply immersed, so to speak, in looking for the solution to a practical research problem, in order to fulfill a research contract from the king (in the parlance of modern times). As it turned out, after this “Eureka moment” he then made some new and profound fundamental discoveries within the science of hydrostatics, which he seems, thereby, to have founded. It seems to me that this was not the nature of Wally’s experience. Perhaps Wally's experience was more akin to the experience of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus, i.e., a religious experience, albeit of a different variety.
I still cannot come to grips with Item No. 1. Is this the answer to the injunction on the portal of the temple at Delphi: "Know thyself”? This assertion is too grand for me to even think about. It requires parsing at a level which must be done at length, so I must pass on.
An important question about Item No. 2 is: “How old were you, Wally, when this incident occurred?” Was it as a child or as an adult?
I have had two trivial, but startling insights as a child, which were not religious experiences at all, but were insights about unseen aspects of the universe. (They were not noisy enough to wake up the dog, however.) Had I been a genius of the magnitude of Einstein or Newton, or even a nanoscale version thereof, these incidents could have led me toward the second law of thermodynamics in the first instance and, in the second instance, toward an awareness that the medium through which sound travels and that through which light travels are very different things. (It’s just as well, as these things had already been discovered long ago.)
What were these trivial insights? Both incidents came about in the small Tennessee town of Fayetteville in the late 1940s. In that time and place, it was both safe and necessary for a small boy to travel about all over town on foot. I walked to and from the Robert E. Lee Elementary School every day, even when it rained, and I walked to and from my friends’ houses. This gave ample opportunity to contemplate, or rather, you might more accurately say to daydream, and to dote on the injustice of not having been given a ride in the car by one of my parents (fat chance of that). When I was in the second or third grade, so about 7 or 8 years old, while walking home from school, I began to wonder about my shoes. Even if you take care of them, the soles wear out, holes appear, and you must get the shoemaker to put new ones on. However, after each trip to and from school, I could see absolutely no difference in the appearance of the soles. I don't’ remember if I thought about trying to measure their thickness after a trip to and from school, but it would have been apparent that the “thickness resolution of a measurement with a common ruler”, as I now would describe it could not possible reveal a difference. I do remember coming to the conclusion that the soles had to be made of tiny pieces, Newton thought of them as “corpuscles”, and that every step resulted in some of them coming off on the sidewalk. They were too small and too few to see on the sidewalk, but undeniably, after many trips to and fro, the soles were observably thinner and then a hole eventually appeared. It never occurred to me to count the number of trips required to produce an observable effect, so I was not a child prodigy, only a child with time to think, or daydream, walking back and forth to school. So, how could I have discovered the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Well, it did occur to me, and I recall it vividly, that no matter how carefully I walked, those little bits of sole came off and they did not reattach to the sole, even though I could step right on them again: the process was irreversible. The disorder of the universe had increased and always increased. My shoes never got newer, they only got older. The experience helped to make me a pessimist?…a realist?…an anti-idealist? Who knows?
The second experience occurred while walking home down a hill from my friend’s house, where we had been flying (more accurately, crashing) model airplanes that we had built, so I must have been 9 or 10 years old. I walked over a hill toward home, and crossing the top of the hill, looked down upon, a couple of hundred yards away, boys playing baseball in the playing field of the Robert E. Lee Elementary School. I stopped to see who was playing and, just then, the batter hit a fly ball into the outfield. The sound did not reach me until I had seen the ball reach the outfield. I had never noticed such a thing before. I thought I had imagined it and watched for quite a while until the same thing had happened a couple of times more, and I was satisfied that, as curious as it was, that was just the way the world worked. I then knew that seeing and hearing the bat hit the ball involved different means of traveling of sound and sight from the batter to me, and I never forgot it. However, I never pursued it either or asked anyone to explain it. Alas, I was not a prodigy, just an ordinary boy interested in how things worked, but not single-minded enough to pursue it, just to file it away in the memory until something came along to explain it, and of course, in due time, it did.
So, I never had a profound religious experience or a great awareness of the universe, aware of itself or not, even in later life. I have had many experiences of awe and tremendous admiration, but not at the universe: always at man-made things. Some examples (not in chronological order) include: Bach’s music; the way ancient buildings were constructed; the reading and understanding two of the 1905 papers of Einstein (while pursuing an assigned independent study of analytical dynamics in graduate school); the realization (upon taking my first college course in calculus) that mathematics was not only understandable but very enjoyable; the first hearing, in the flesh, of a top-class orchestra playing serious music (the Philadelphia orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, in the old Academy of Music); the first reading of “The Theory of the Properties of Metals and Alloys” by Mott and Jones and then realizing how solid-state theorists thought.
Thus, on and on in the same vein, during college and slightly beyond. The influence of the Presbyterian religion, absorbed with my mother’s milk, so to speak, slowly faded away and became irrelevant. Admiration for how mankind had figured out so much about how the great machinery worked and had survived in the face of a hostile universe became the awe inspiring things. Later, when I knew much more, came the realization that civilization is very fragile indeed and its survival is not guaranteed, that idealists, as well as fundamentalists, can destroy it all if they are not careful. I still do not know how to think about the universe in the grand sense, other than as a fascinating, enormous machine: interesting, but irrelevant compared to things and machines closer to home.
So, Wally, when did you realize that we are the universe aware of itself?
DOW
1. “I think knowing we are the universe aware of itself is the most outstanding fact a human can know about being human….”
2. “When I first realized this incredible fact, I jumped off the chair. Truly I did. The hairs on my neck rose up. I yelled and woke the dog…”
[ Two quotations from “Third Question: What is my purpose as a human being?”, Wally Weet, December 28, 2005.]
These are extraordinary statements. The first is the credo of The Story of StarStuff, either an encompassing philosophy or a new religion. Wally talks about sacred things and religion as a reconnecting. For the purposes of discussion, I will think of it operationally as a religion. Then, given that, you might regard the second item as the description of a religious experience.
You could also possibly interpret the second item as analogous to Archimedes running naked from the public baths toward home, shouting “I have found it.” This, after realizing how to use the bouyancy of objects immersed in water to make precision density measurements and, thus, how to determine if the king’s new crown was pure gold or an alloy of gold “adulterated” with silver. (The life of the maker of the crown hung in the balance on this matter, I’m quite sure.) In the case of Archimedes, he was not pursuing the solution to a deep philosophical or religious conundrum, but, rather, he was deeply immersed, so to speak, in looking for the solution to a practical research problem, in order to fulfill a research contract from the king (in the parlance of modern times). As it turned out, after this “Eureka moment” he then made some new and profound fundamental discoveries within the science of hydrostatics, which he seems, thereby, to have founded. It seems to me that this was not the nature of Wally’s experience. Perhaps Wally's experience was more akin to the experience of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus, i.e., a religious experience, albeit of a different variety.
I still cannot come to grips with Item No. 1. Is this the answer to the injunction on the portal of the temple at Delphi: "Know thyself”? This assertion is too grand for me to even think about. It requires parsing at a level which must be done at length, so I must pass on.
An important question about Item No. 2 is: “How old were you, Wally, when this incident occurred?” Was it as a child or as an adult?
I have had two trivial, but startling insights as a child, which were not religious experiences at all, but were insights about unseen aspects of the universe. (They were not noisy enough to wake up the dog, however.) Had I been a genius of the magnitude of Einstein or Newton, or even a nanoscale version thereof, these incidents could have led me toward the second law of thermodynamics in the first instance and, in the second instance, toward an awareness that the medium through which sound travels and that through which light travels are very different things. (It’s just as well, as these things had already been discovered long ago.)
What were these trivial insights? Both incidents came about in the small Tennessee town of Fayetteville in the late 1940s. In that time and place, it was both safe and necessary for a small boy to travel about all over town on foot. I walked to and from the Robert E. Lee Elementary School every day, even when it rained, and I walked to and from my friends’ houses. This gave ample opportunity to contemplate, or rather, you might more accurately say to daydream, and to dote on the injustice of not having been given a ride in the car by one of my parents (fat chance of that). When I was in the second or third grade, so about 7 or 8 years old, while walking home from school, I began to wonder about my shoes. Even if you take care of them, the soles wear out, holes appear, and you must get the shoemaker to put new ones on. However, after each trip to and from school, I could see absolutely no difference in the appearance of the soles. I don't’ remember if I thought about trying to measure their thickness after a trip to and from school, but it would have been apparent that the “thickness resolution of a measurement with a common ruler”, as I now would describe it could not possible reveal a difference. I do remember coming to the conclusion that the soles had to be made of tiny pieces, Newton thought of them as “corpuscles”, and that every step resulted in some of them coming off on the sidewalk. They were too small and too few to see on the sidewalk, but undeniably, after many trips to and fro, the soles were observably thinner and then a hole eventually appeared. It never occurred to me to count the number of trips required to produce an observable effect, so I was not a child prodigy, only a child with time to think, or daydream, walking back and forth to school. So, how could I have discovered the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Well, it did occur to me, and I recall it vividly, that no matter how carefully I walked, those little bits of sole came off and they did not reattach to the sole, even though I could step right on them again: the process was irreversible. The disorder of the universe had increased and always increased. My shoes never got newer, they only got older. The experience helped to make me a pessimist?…a realist?…an anti-idealist? Who knows?
The second experience occurred while walking home down a hill from my friend’s house, where we had been flying (more accurately, crashing) model airplanes that we had built, so I must have been 9 or 10 years old. I walked over a hill toward home, and crossing the top of the hill, looked down upon, a couple of hundred yards away, boys playing baseball in the playing field of the Robert E. Lee Elementary School. I stopped to see who was playing and, just then, the batter hit a fly ball into the outfield. The sound did not reach me until I had seen the ball reach the outfield. I had never noticed such a thing before. I thought I had imagined it and watched for quite a while until the same thing had happened a couple of times more, and I was satisfied that, as curious as it was, that was just the way the world worked. I then knew that seeing and hearing the bat hit the ball involved different means of traveling of sound and sight from the batter to me, and I never forgot it. However, I never pursued it either or asked anyone to explain it. Alas, I was not a prodigy, just an ordinary boy interested in how things worked, but not single-minded enough to pursue it, just to file it away in the memory until something came along to explain it, and of course, in due time, it did.
So, I never had a profound religious experience or a great awareness of the universe, aware of itself or not, even in later life. I have had many experiences of awe and tremendous admiration, but not at the universe: always at man-made things. Some examples (not in chronological order) include: Bach’s music; the way ancient buildings were constructed; the reading and understanding two of the 1905 papers of Einstein (while pursuing an assigned independent study of analytical dynamics in graduate school); the realization (upon taking my first college course in calculus) that mathematics was not only understandable but very enjoyable; the first hearing, in the flesh, of a top-class orchestra playing serious music (the Philadelphia orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, in the old Academy of Music); the first reading of “The Theory of the Properties of Metals and Alloys” by Mott and Jones and then realizing how solid-state theorists thought.
Thus, on and on in the same vein, during college and slightly beyond. The influence of the Presbyterian religion, absorbed with my mother’s milk, so to speak, slowly faded away and became irrelevant. Admiration for how mankind had figured out so much about how the great machinery worked and had survived in the face of a hostile universe became the awe inspiring things. Later, when I knew much more, came the realization that civilization is very fragile indeed and its survival is not guaranteed, that idealists, as well as fundamentalists, can destroy it all if they are not careful. I still do not know how to think about the universe in the grand sense, other than as a fascinating, enormous machine: interesting, but irrelevant compared to things and machines closer to home.
So, Wally, when did you realize that we are the universe aware of itself?
DOW
# posted by 
: 7:58 PM
: 7:58 PM
Wally on Education [re: Question #3, “What is my purpose as a human being?”]
I am rather troubled by some of your assertions about education. It seems that you are steering your grandchildren toward a liberal arts education and away from what you would call “training” for some profession. You could be steering them toward the life of a “consumer”, rather than a producer. [You probably would say that you are steering them to a life as a “creator” not a cog in the machine.] If they follow your advice too narrowly, it may foreclose careers in science and engineering, medicine, music, business and many other things that require some periods of the arduous and often tedious learning of skills in order to become a creator, after, however, the mastery of many difficult skills. In these periods, learning can be hard and not especially joyous at the moment, but in the long run, the vistas opened by skills in mathematical technique, scientific reasoning, experimental skills, facility in musical notation and instrumental techniques and so on are well worth the seemingly endless, but actually brief, postponing of gratification. As you say, life-long learning is a good habit to create, nay, an essential habit for a full life. Steering people away from “schools of mass public education” in your phrase, and by implication away from the colleges of engineering and applied science and business at university or away from music conservatories is not a good thing, in my opinion. Also your implication that preparation for life in a profession that may take them into the worlds of business, industry, and commerce is a bad choice, not true education, is bad advice in my opinion. All this has a whiff of the classical Greeks of the upper class sort abjuring useful work in favor of philosophy, of the education of the upper classes in 18th century (and, alas, beyond) Britain and France in the classics as the only suitable preparation for life and scorning scientific and technological pursuits. The Greeks thought such pursuits were fit only for slaves, the British and French aristocrats thought they were only fit for the lower orders. If the “corporate business financial manufacturing system”, as you call it, does not “roll”, then your grandchildren will surely be living in a non-functional society and, eventually, in terrible conditions. Do not, even by implication and indirection, teach your grandchildren that life in the world of affairs, except perhaps as a politician, is to be scorned. Do not teach them to regard life in professions or other callings that are not in the creative arts or the academic world is a second-rate life. In my life, which, although it has been in the academic world for the most part, has brought me in contact with many people in world of commerce and industry, doing engineering or development or management or sales. Many, maybe even most, of them were leading full lives, aware of the arts and letters, seemingly happy, probably more so than your average denizen of the ivory tower. Most of them regarded their pursuits as creative in nature. “Following your bliss” in some of these paths may, however require some hard preparation and delayed gratification, so these are not always the most natural and popular choices by young people. Please take care not to prejudice your grandchildren against a life, not in the stars, but in the making of a workable world and in the leading of a full life in doing so.
DOW
I am rather troubled by some of your assertions about education. It seems that you are steering your grandchildren toward a liberal arts education and away from what you would call “training” for some profession. You could be steering them toward the life of a “consumer”, rather than a producer. [You probably would say that you are steering them to a life as a “creator” not a cog in the machine.] If they follow your advice too narrowly, it may foreclose careers in science and engineering, medicine, music, business and many other things that require some periods of the arduous and often tedious learning of skills in order to become a creator, after, however, the mastery of many difficult skills. In these periods, learning can be hard and not especially joyous at the moment, but in the long run, the vistas opened by skills in mathematical technique, scientific reasoning, experimental skills, facility in musical notation and instrumental techniques and so on are well worth the seemingly endless, but actually brief, postponing of gratification. As you say, life-long learning is a good habit to create, nay, an essential habit for a full life. Steering people away from “schools of mass public education” in your phrase, and by implication away from the colleges of engineering and applied science and business at university or away from music conservatories is not a good thing, in my opinion. Also your implication that preparation for life in a profession that may take them into the worlds of business, industry, and commerce is a bad choice, not true education, is bad advice in my opinion. All this has a whiff of the classical Greeks of the upper class sort abjuring useful work in favor of philosophy, of the education of the upper classes in 18th century (and, alas, beyond) Britain and France in the classics as the only suitable preparation for life and scorning scientific and technological pursuits. The Greeks thought such pursuits were fit only for slaves, the British and French aristocrats thought they were only fit for the lower orders. If the “corporate business financial manufacturing system”, as you call it, does not “roll”, then your grandchildren will surely be living in a non-functional society and, eventually, in terrible conditions. Do not, even by implication and indirection, teach your grandchildren that life in the world of affairs, except perhaps as a politician, is to be scorned. Do not teach them to regard life in professions or other callings that are not in the creative arts or the academic world is a second-rate life. In my life, which, although it has been in the academic world for the most part, has brought me in contact with many people in world of commerce and industry, doing engineering or development or management or sales. Many, maybe even most, of them were leading full lives, aware of the arts and letters, seemingly happy, probably more so than your average denizen of the ivory tower. Most of them regarded their pursuits as creative in nature. “Following your bliss” in some of these paths may, however require some hard preparation and delayed gratification, so these are not always the most natural and popular choices by young people. Please take care not to prejudice your grandchildren against a life, not in the stars, but in the making of a workable world and in the leading of a full life in doing so.
DOW
# posted by : 11:46 AM
: 11:46 AM
Dear Dow,
I think I cover -in the abstract- all of your objections. In brief, I'm saying develop your abilities, all of them. No argument there, I hope.
I say why one should develop all abilities and I say this in the context of the ethos I am trying to present, the ethos out of which I forsee (or hope for) the development of a new planetary ethics developing in the next couple of centuries. You may disagree with such an outcome. If so, ok. Your right. Who the hell wants to put any bets on prophecy anyway....
I go on to say an ethos of caring for earth and its children -caring- is best developed through learning. Such a reason for learning -caring- may not be a worthy reason from your pov, but it is from mine. Caring for ourselves, for others and all the rest of Earth's children might seem a "soft" stance from Ayn Rand's perspective. It is not from mine. It is a hell of a lot harder to do than anything else and is usually treated with mild contempt (because, I think, compassion requires courage). c'est la vie. Contempt for compassion is an artifact of the culture we are immersed in. Hopefully better attitudes will develop when everyone learns who they really are and how we are all deeply connected. Connection and its implications, DOW, is what this post is all about.
Second, herein, I think I've not been clear. Mea culpa. The "mass public education" I'm talking about is Kindergarten through 12th grade, and especially the last 6 years. Why? Because the objective of "mass public education" since the 1850's is to train people for industry. And that is fine and necessary in the first six years. Train the kid successfully, tho. Train him/her to read, write, and do math with skill because these are the foundational skills without which any later attempts at schooling will fail. All other "subjects" ought be used to further the development of those three skills.
The problem in the last six years is associated with the fundamental objective: to train for the industrial society. By the time the kid is 12 or 13 you have to do something better than trying to download information into him/her! S/he isn't old enough, doesn't know him/herself deep inside why any of the stupid downloading is important to him/her. (Atypical kids aside.) This is when they get distracted, bored, angry, alienated, and fall into the hands of disreputable people who prey on them. It is when they turn against the adult world they've essentially been taken out of.
This period has almost nothing to do with the concerns expressed in your comments,DOW. Better we should make them apprentices when they turn 13 than warehouse them in public schools with 2500 other alienated kids and teachers who are frustrated or burned out if idealistic and competent, and a menace to the learning process when they are incompetent.
Schooling of this kind has nothing to do with education in the sense of helping them discover their talents ("following their bliss"?) and leading them thru the first phases of developing those talents and learning what the next step in said development must be: where to go next, what to do next, who to work with next! This ever unstated objective of MassPublicEtc -training for industry- is the reason why public school studies in the arts -you cited the importance of musical training- on the secondary level are so often cut. It is the reason so many math and science teachers on the secondary level are unprepared for their responsibilities.
We are terribly confused about our objectives for children in the period of adolescence because of our unconsidered, unarticulated need to keep training them for industry. They are at the point where they need something else. (See Dennis Littky's book. His model works.)
So, Yes, I see I must clarify. I must clarify that I am in no way referring to post high school education in that essay. (by the way, I've never heard of the public university system in America called "mass public education" either. That description belongs exclusively to the public school systems paid for with tax dollars and run locally. ...until the Bush years.)
Be clear, Please. I have no problem at all with technical schools, with conservatories, with MDs, MFAs and MBSs (I'm not sure about Harvard MBAs) with PhD training (which I subjected myself to). And I have no trouble at all with schools like Swarthmore, Haverford, and the ilk where learning the traditions of the culture come before learning the craft; excellent venues for students who are still learning who they are and what gifts they might have in them to develop.
I think the best training at the post high school level only comes when an individual, a young person, has been led to realize his/her own talents and craves for the training needed to develop said talents.
I think the objective of secondary schools ought be to bring kids to the point where they crave training in their own chosen field. But we ain't gonna do that as long as we think having them become cashiers at WalMart is the purpose of schools.
Moreover, I make it a point not to drive, push, sway my children or grandchildren into any arbitrary path. Never. Ask 'em. Wanna play a horn? Go for it. Go all the way. Go to the best schools, to the best players, give your life to it. Wanna dance? Ditto. Ditto wood working, house painting, nursing, art, auto mechanics, engineering, and godhelpus, science. Whatever the talent happens to be go through the hard part in the best training venue and become the best you can be.
I will also stick by my assertion that to develop one's talents in this way ought be the goal of learning not to make money, get rich, or even -and I think this is important to learn- not to be the first or best of anything (which can lead to attachment and painful consequences), rather to become the best you can become.
I have to say one more thing, the banging I got from you gave me a headache. I don't think I deserve it for being less than clear. And I have to say I think I got the banging because you were projecting your thunder and lightning from your own front porch therby obscuring what I was trying to say around back in the alley where all the cultural trash has built up.
I think what you call implications of mine were inferences -unfair inferences- of yours. Take a look. There is nothing in my post in anyway suggestive of whiffs of the 18th ce or of the exclusivity of the humanities (which, I think are in terrible trouble these days having largely lost their objective and their bearings in this culture thus I'd probably urge my offspring to develop their talents with something other than academic philosophy, literary studies, and even social studies except history).
I think I cover -in the abstract- all of your objections. In brief, I'm saying develop your abilities, all of them. No argument there, I hope.
I say why one should develop all abilities and I say this in the context of the ethos I am trying to present, the ethos out of which I forsee (or hope for) the development of a new planetary ethics developing in the next couple of centuries. You may disagree with such an outcome. If so, ok. Your right. Who the hell wants to put any bets on prophecy anyway....
I go on to say an ethos of caring for earth and its children -caring- is best developed through learning. Such a reason for learning -caring- may not be a worthy reason from your pov, but it is from mine. Caring for ourselves, for others and all the rest of Earth's children might seem a "soft" stance from Ayn Rand's perspective. It is not from mine. It is a hell of a lot harder to do than anything else and is usually treated with mild contempt (because, I think, compassion requires courage). c'est la vie. Contempt for compassion is an artifact of the culture we are immersed in. Hopefully better attitudes will develop when everyone learns who they really are and how we are all deeply connected. Connection and its implications, DOW, is what this post is all about.
Second, herein, I think I've not been clear. Mea culpa. The "mass public education" I'm talking about is Kindergarten through 12th grade, and especially the last 6 years. Why? Because the objective of "mass public education" since the 1850's is to train people for industry. And that is fine and necessary in the first six years. Train the kid successfully, tho. Train him/her to read, write, and do math with skill because these are the foundational skills without which any later attempts at schooling will fail. All other "subjects" ought be used to further the development of those three skills.
The problem in the last six years is associated with the fundamental objective: to train for the industrial society. By the time the kid is 12 or 13 you have to do something better than trying to download information into him/her! S/he isn't old enough, doesn't know him/herself deep inside why any of the stupid downloading is important to him/her. (Atypical kids aside.) This is when they get distracted, bored, angry, alienated, and fall into the hands of disreputable people who prey on them. It is when they turn against the adult world they've essentially been taken out of.
This period has almost nothing to do with the concerns expressed in your comments,DOW. Better we should make them apprentices when they turn 13 than warehouse them in public schools with 2500 other alienated kids and teachers who are frustrated or burned out if idealistic and competent, and a menace to the learning process when they are incompetent.
Schooling of this kind has nothing to do with education in the sense of helping them discover their talents ("following their bliss"?) and leading them thru the first phases of developing those talents and learning what the next step in said development must be: where to go next, what to do next, who to work with next! This ever unstated objective of MassPublicEtc -training for industry- is the reason why public school studies in the arts -you cited the importance of musical training- on the secondary level are so often cut. It is the reason so many math and science teachers on the secondary level are unprepared for their responsibilities.
We are terribly confused about our objectives for children in the period of adolescence because of our unconsidered, unarticulated need to keep training them for industry. They are at the point where they need something else. (See Dennis Littky's book. His model works.)
So, Yes, I see I must clarify. I must clarify that I am in no way referring to post high school education in that essay. (by the way, I've never heard of the public university system in America called "mass public education" either. That description belongs exclusively to the public school systems paid for with tax dollars and run locally. ...until the Bush years.)
Be clear, Please. I have no problem at all with technical schools, with conservatories, with MDs, MFAs and MBSs (I'm not sure about Harvard MBAs) with PhD training (which I subjected myself to). And I have no trouble at all with schools like Swarthmore, Haverford, and the ilk where learning the traditions of the culture come before learning the craft; excellent venues for students who are still learning who they are and what gifts they might have in them to develop.
I think the best training at the post high school level only comes when an individual, a young person, has been led to realize his/her own talents and craves for the training needed to develop said talents.
I think the objective of secondary schools ought be to bring kids to the point where they crave training in their own chosen field. But we ain't gonna do that as long as we think having them become cashiers at WalMart is the purpose of schools.
Moreover, I make it a point not to drive, push, sway my children or grandchildren into any arbitrary path. Never. Ask 'em. Wanna play a horn? Go for it. Go all the way. Go to the best schools, to the best players, give your life to it. Wanna dance? Ditto. Ditto wood working, house painting, nursing, art, auto mechanics, engineering, and godhelpus, science. Whatever the talent happens to be go through the hard part in the best training venue and become the best you can be.
I will also stick by my assertion that to develop one's talents in this way ought be the goal of learning not to make money, get rich, or even -and I think this is important to learn- not to be the first or best of anything (which can lead to attachment and painful consequences), rather to become the best you can become.
I have to say one more thing, the banging I got from you gave me a headache. I don't think I deserve it for being less than clear. And I have to say I think I got the banging because you were projecting your thunder and lightning from your own front porch therby obscuring what I was trying to say around back in the alley where all the cultural trash has built up.
I think what you call implications of mine were inferences -unfair inferences- of yours. Take a look. There is nothing in my post in anyway suggestive of whiffs of the 18th ce or of the exclusivity of the humanities (which, I think are in terrible trouble these days having largely lost their objective and their bearings in this culture thus I'd probably urge my offspring to develop their talents with something other than academic philosophy, literary studies, and even social studies except history).
More on “What is my purpose as a human being?”
Dear Wally,
It was most certainly not my intention to give you a headache by banging you around the ears, metaphorically of course. It was merely a plea to you not to close your grandchildrens’ minds to certain kinds of careers and lives because of your antagonism to what you call industrial society. It was most certainly not my intention to denigrate compassion; I don’t recall even mentioning compassion. So, mea culpa, if that was how you read it.
I don’t pretend to know much about secondary school education, even in the old US of A, but my observation of Ward Melville High School in Stony Brook, NY and of Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, CA does not resonate with your accusation that the objective of the secondary schools is “to train for the industrial society” and “having them become cashiers at WalMart”. Getting the little dears into Harvard seems to be a more believable objective. However, it seems to you that the public education system is failing. It seems that way to me, too. Probably we have different reasons, but clearly something is not right. You write of “our unarticulated need to keep training them for industry.” Perhaps, their objectives are not so sinister as all that. Perhaps the secondary schools are trying, ineptly no doubt, to help prepare the little dears to live in the real world with all its warts, while at the same time trying to implant all the right social attitudes and to get them to ace the SAT’s at the same time. It is not surprising that they aren’t doing so well.
Well, all I know is that we, the human society, need bright young people who both want to and are able to effectively make a workable and sustainable world which contains 10 billion people, too little water, too little fuel, and on and on. Compassion may be a necessary, but it is certainly not a sufficient condition for this to happen. Knowledge of our origins and our place in the world is a necessary but not sufficient condition, too. That is my only point.
I understand that you are trying to propagate a new ethos for the planet and to instill this in your grandchildren. I say bravo to that. We just have some disagreements about the nature of man and society, but our goals aren’t that different.
DOW
Dear Wally,
It was most certainly not my intention to give you a headache by banging you around the ears, metaphorically of course. It was merely a plea to you not to close your grandchildrens’ minds to certain kinds of careers and lives because of your antagonism to what you call industrial society. It was most certainly not my intention to denigrate compassion; I don’t recall even mentioning compassion. So, mea culpa, if that was how you read it.
I don’t pretend to know much about secondary school education, even in the old US of A, but my observation of Ward Melville High School in Stony Brook, NY and of Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, CA does not resonate with your accusation that the objective of the secondary schools is “to train for the industrial society” and “having them become cashiers at WalMart”. Getting the little dears into Harvard seems to be a more believable objective. However, it seems to you that the public education system is failing. It seems that way to me, too. Probably we have different reasons, but clearly something is not right. You write of “our unarticulated need to keep training them for industry.” Perhaps, their objectives are not so sinister as all that. Perhaps the secondary schools are trying, ineptly no doubt, to help prepare the little dears to live in the real world with all its warts, while at the same time trying to implant all the right social attitudes and to get them to ace the SAT’s at the same time. It is not surprising that they aren’t doing so well.
Well, all I know is that we, the human society, need bright young people who both want to and are able to effectively make a workable and sustainable world which contains 10 billion people, too little water, too little fuel, and on and on. Compassion may be a necessary, but it is certainly not a sufficient condition for this to happen. Knowledge of our origins and our place in the world is a necessary but not sufficient condition, too. That is my only point.
I understand that you are trying to propagate a new ethos for the planet and to instill this in your grandchildren. I say bravo to that. We just have some disagreements about the nature of man and society, but our goals aren’t that different.
DOW
# posted by : 8:44 PM
: 8:44 PM
Is “The Story of StarStuff” and its Ethos a Necessary Condition for a Livable Earth?
Dear Wally,
This is not an attempt to bring on a headache on your part by beating you about the ears, but I would like to get your take on the following.
In your comment above, you write about “the ethos out of which I foresee (or hope for) the development of a new planetary ethics developing in the next couple of centuries.” This ethos could result in a livable and sustainable, although crowded, world. However, my question is “Is it your view that the adoption of this ethos by most of the world’s peoples a necessary condition for obtaining a livable, sustainable world?”
What if you cannot persuade the religious to give up their religions? Suppose that there are still sizable fractions of the world’s population that are Judeo-Christian believers, Muslims, Hindus, and so on, as well as Buddhists. What if the majority of the world still has what you call an “industrial culture”? Would this make the task impossible? Below, I wish to quote some passages from Thomas Hughes” book, “Human-Built World: How to think about technology and culture,” The University of Chicago Press (2004). I would like to hear what you think about them.
“A sixteenth-century German physician, alchemist, and chemist, Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus, also [in addition to Benedictine and Cistercian monks, John Scotus Erigena in the 9th century Carolingian court, and Hugo of St. Victor in 12th century Paris among other Christians] stressed that the mechanical arts make possible godlike creativity. His version of the second creation theme has God leaving nature unfinished and its essential usefulness concealed in dross, thus providing a creative challenge for humans. According to Paracelsus, before the Fall and ouster from Eden, humans did not need the mechanical arts, and they did not have to work in order to transform the landscape. After the fall, their circumstances changed and became like ours today. Even tough a merciful God allowed the angels to impart their knowledge of the mechanical arts to Adam and Eve, they could only survive through work, discovery, and invention. Humans, henceforth, would eat their bread in the sweat of their brow as they engaged in a second creation. In the wilderness into which they were thrust, God had concealed the secrets of natural forces and the materials that humans needed. These they had to ferret out by reason and craft.” {Hughes, op.cit. p.23)
However, in the process of the 2nd creation, there have consequently been “dramatic instances of Americans desecrating the environment rather than creating a machine in the garden and a pastoral landscape. There are countless other examples. We can ask, to what extent should this misadventure be ascribed to Americans’ belief that God has charged them to transform the wilderness, to use technology and their creativity to master and to sudue nature for their own materialistic ends? According to the Genesis creation story, all of physical creation was intended to serve human purpose. Should the fouling of the environment be attributed to a Judeo-Christian injunction?
An eminent historian, Lynn White, Jr. in “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis (1967), has argued eloquently that the story of creation in the book of Genesis persuaded—and still persuades many—believing Americans that God has given them dominion over nature. So empowered, Americans have laid waste to nature in their haste to transform resources into consumer goods. As a result, Judeo-Christianity, according to White, bears a huge burden of guilt. We will continue, he insists, to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Judeo-Christian domination axiom.
Yet, as we have seen,[in earlier examples discussed by Hughes], many Americans considered their errand in the wilderness to be a means to recover the Edenic state. Eden was a garden, not a factory site for the production of goods. Use the mechanical arts, yes, but for the recovery of a gardenlike environment, is a persistent Judeo-Christian message from the Middle ages through the nineteenth century. White casts religiously conditioned tcchnology in a negative role. On the other hand, using technology to recover the Edenic state is a message entirely appropriate for our ecologically concerned times.….[there are numerous examples of ways] in which many early-twentieth-century Americans tried to transform technology into a benevolent machine for production that would sustain both political and economic democracy..” {Hughes, op.cit., pp. 42-43}
So, Wally, what’s your take on the possibility that other kinds of ethos, including those arising from the Judeo-Christian ethos, might also succeed in saving our bacon, or is the wide-spread adoption of the ethos derived from “The Story of StarStuff” our only hope, i.e. is it a necessary condition? This is not a rhetorical or trick question, but a request for further amplification.
Forging ever onward,
Hephaestus
Dear Wally,
This is not an attempt to bring on a headache on your part by beating you about the ears, but I would like to get your take on the following.
In your comment above, you write about “the ethos out of which I foresee (or hope for) the development of a new planetary ethics developing in the next couple of centuries.” This ethos could result in a livable and sustainable, although crowded, world. However, my question is “Is it your view that the adoption of this ethos by most of the world’s peoples a necessary condition for obtaining a livable, sustainable world?”
What if you cannot persuade the religious to give up their religions? Suppose that there are still sizable fractions of the world’s population that are Judeo-Christian believers, Muslims, Hindus, and so on, as well as Buddhists. What if the majority of the world still has what you call an “industrial culture”? Would this make the task impossible? Below, I wish to quote some passages from Thomas Hughes” book, “Human-Built World: How to think about technology and culture,” The University of Chicago Press (2004). I would like to hear what you think about them.
“A sixteenth-century German physician, alchemist, and chemist, Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, or Paracelsus, also [in addition to Benedictine and Cistercian monks, John Scotus Erigena in the 9th century Carolingian court, and Hugo of St. Victor in 12th century Paris among other Christians] stressed that the mechanical arts make possible godlike creativity. His version of the second creation theme has God leaving nature unfinished and its essential usefulness concealed in dross, thus providing a creative challenge for humans. According to Paracelsus, before the Fall and ouster from Eden, humans did not need the mechanical arts, and they did not have to work in order to transform the landscape. After the fall, their circumstances changed and became like ours today. Even tough a merciful God allowed the angels to impart their knowledge of the mechanical arts to Adam and Eve, they could only survive through work, discovery, and invention. Humans, henceforth, would eat their bread in the sweat of their brow as they engaged in a second creation. In the wilderness into which they were thrust, God had concealed the secrets of natural forces and the materials that humans needed. These they had to ferret out by reason and craft.” {Hughes, op.cit. p.23)
However, in the process of the 2nd creation, there have consequently been “dramatic instances of Americans desecrating the environment rather than creating a machine in the garden and a pastoral landscape. There are countless other examples. We can ask, to what extent should this misadventure be ascribed to Americans’ belief that God has charged them to transform the wilderness, to use technology and their creativity to master and to sudue nature for their own materialistic ends? According to the Genesis creation story, all of physical creation was intended to serve human purpose. Should the fouling of the environment be attributed to a Judeo-Christian injunction?
An eminent historian, Lynn White, Jr. in “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis (1967), has argued eloquently that the story of creation in the book of Genesis persuaded—and still persuades many—believing Americans that God has given them dominion over nature. So empowered, Americans have laid waste to nature in their haste to transform resources into consumer goods. As a result, Judeo-Christianity, according to White, bears a huge burden of guilt. We will continue, he insists, to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Judeo-Christian domination axiom.
Yet, as we have seen,[in earlier examples discussed by Hughes], many Americans considered their errand in the wilderness to be a means to recover the Edenic state. Eden was a garden, not a factory site for the production of goods. Use the mechanical arts, yes, but for the recovery of a gardenlike environment, is a persistent Judeo-Christian message from the Middle ages through the nineteenth century. White casts religiously conditioned tcchnology in a negative role. On the other hand, using technology to recover the Edenic state is a message entirely appropriate for our ecologically concerned times.….[there are numerous examples of ways] in which many early-twentieth-century Americans tried to transform technology into a benevolent machine for production that would sustain both political and economic democracy..” {Hughes, op.cit., pp. 42-43}
So, Wally, what’s your take on the possibility that other kinds of ethos, including those arising from the Judeo-Christian ethos, might also succeed in saving our bacon, or is the wide-spread adoption of the ethos derived from “The Story of StarStuff” our only hope, i.e. is it a necessary condition? This is not a rhetorical or trick question, but a request for further amplification.
Forging ever onward,
Hephaestus
# posted by : 9:38 PM
: 9:38 PM
A Few Thoughts of Hephaestus on Some Strengths and Weaknesses of the Story of StarStuff (SoS): A Referee’s Report to the Editors of the Journal of Applied Cosmology and Origins.
A Caution: Please do not infer anything important from the ratio of the number (or length) of listed strengths to the number (or length) of weaknesses. This can be misleading.
A Caveat: The weaknesses listed are merely the opinions of one person based on a probably faulty reading of an incomplete text. They are meant as constructive suggestions, in the spirit of a sympathetic referee for the Journal of Applied Physics who is rejecting for publication a submitted manuscript in its present form but wishes the author to submit a revised version taking account of the enumerated criticisms.
Strengths
SoS accounts accurately for the current knowledge of the natural history of the known universe.
SoS accounts accurately for the current knowledge of the origin of species and the descent of man.
SoS aims to provide a coherent and cohesive account of who we are, where we are, and what we ought to do to survive.
SoS prescribes an ethos (E-SoS) that is consistent with the first two items above and which includes some of the known characteristics of homo sapiens.
SoS the scope and potential for poetry and art to be deployed in its service.
SoS encourages science, both physical and social, and technology.
SoS encourages the humanities and the liberal arts.
SoS is consistent with the characteristics and practices of some existing religions philosophies.
SoS has an optimistic view of the prospects of mankind if they can only adopt the correct ethos, E-SoS.
The author (referred to below as The Prophet) is an imaginative and clear thinker and writer, so that reading the present version The Story of StarStuff is not like, say, the experience of plowing through Hegel. A fuller version, recommended below, is likely to be very readable and persuasive, too.
Weaknesses
The diagnosis of the causes of the sorry state of the planet, as explicated in the published version of SoS, seem to be (they are sprinkled throughout the narrative and through so-far unpublished e-mails, not yet collected in a systematic account and published): an incorrect understanding by most of mankind of our origins and nature propagated by the revealed religions of the world and by a fatally flawed educational system, “fundamentalisms”, greed and aggression, and corporate capitalism.
SoS does not, as written, account for some aspects of what is “known” (as far as the subject allows) of human psychology, some problematic innate features of the instinct for survival: extreme competitiveness (side-by-side with cooperativeness and apparently altruistic behavior in small enough groups), aggressiveness, especially by young males, primal urges to secure enough of the goods of the world to support the small group or the family in the desired manner, leading to greed in its extreme state. Given the primacy of evolution in SoS, it would be receptive to the notion that these attributes of homo sapiens arise from innate brain structure and chemistry developed over millions of years of evolution in a hostile world and with murderously competitive fellow creatures. This aspect of SoS needs to be discussed more fully because it has serious implications for its ethos and its promotion in the world.
SoS attributes the undesirable aspects of human behavior, e.g. greed and aggression, to the acceptance of “incorrect” stories of the origins of the universe and of human kind, e.g. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, among other religions and any philosophy which incorporates a dualistic “solution” of the mind/body problem or which gives homo sapiens a priveleged position. I would enter into evidence one datum opposed to this: The practices and behavior of the Amish and other “Pennsylvania Dutch” sects appear to follow very much the practices and behavior urged in SoS. These sects are definitely based in religion and a fundamentalist version, to boot.
Conveys an impression that the knowledge agreed upon by those untainted by the faulty origins stories is both more complete and more unanimous than many might find to be the case.
To have the desired salutory effects on the prospects for the survival of civilization and perhaps the human race, the ethos prescribed by SoS must be adopted by the majority of the human race. This “ethos” (E-SoS) is admittedly not fully spelled out and very important aspects of its ethical basis and its political foundations are, as yet, unpublished. In its incomplete form, it is not apparent how the evangelists of SoS will be able to persuade the religious faithful of the world to abandon their faith and adopt E-SoS in its place, other than through the time-honored (or –dishonored) method of conversion by the sword.
In its current and incomplete published form E-SoS implies that its path follows naturally from the “agreed upon facts” of SoS; this writer is not persuaded. A fuller version of the “Ethics” and the “Politics” of SoS may eliminate this apparent weakness.
The adoption of E-SoS would require fundamental and drastic changes in the political and economic systems of the world. For example, to this reader E-SoS appears very intolerant of the free practice of religion, as it is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, for example. The trend of current economic practice across the world is toward more-or-less free trade and corporate capitalism. To this reader, the threat drastically curtailed freedoms might accompany the adoption E-SoS. The Prophet of E-SoS might well say that is indeed what is wrong with the world and drastic changes are needed to prevent catastrophe. It is thus highly desirable that the Prophet explain more fully how these drastic changes, i.e. the Captitalist-to-E-SoS Transition, might possibly take place in a non-chaotic fashion and would result in a political system favoring the value of individuals, if that is so desired.
“Referee’s Recommendation:” The referee recognizes that the present version of SoS was written for the grandchildren of the Prophet and that it is an excellent exposition of his vision of the universe and mankind for that purpose. However, and laudably, the Prophet also has grander designs and a passion to save mankind from its appointment with catastrophe. Thus, the Prophet is strongly encouraged to write a full account of SoS and E-SoS written for adults, including those likely to be unreceptive, and to publish it as widely as possible. A possible scenario which might appeal to the Prophet to publish it segmentally in Wally Weet’s blog and then collect it for submission to a commercial publisher.
A Caution: Please do not infer anything important from the ratio of the number (or length) of listed strengths to the number (or length) of weaknesses. This can be misleading.
A Caveat: The weaknesses listed are merely the opinions of one person based on a probably faulty reading of an incomplete text. They are meant as constructive suggestions, in the spirit of a sympathetic referee for the Journal of Applied Physics who is rejecting for publication a submitted manuscript in its present form but wishes the author to submit a revised version taking account of the enumerated criticisms.
Strengths
SoS accounts accurately for the current knowledge of the natural history of the known universe.
SoS accounts accurately for the current knowledge of the origin of species and the descent of man.
SoS aims to provide a coherent and cohesive account of who we are, where we are, and what we ought to do to survive.
SoS prescribes an ethos (E-SoS) that is consistent with the first two items above and which includes some of the known characteristics of homo sapiens.
SoS the scope and potential for poetry and art to be deployed in its service.
SoS encourages science, both physical and social, and technology.
SoS encourages the humanities and the liberal arts.
SoS is consistent with the characteristics and practices of some existing religions philosophies.
SoS has an optimistic view of the prospects of mankind if they can only adopt the correct ethos, E-SoS.
The author (referred to below as The Prophet) is an imaginative and clear thinker and writer, so that reading the present version The Story of StarStuff is not like, say, the experience of plowing through Hegel. A fuller version, recommended below, is likely to be very readable and persuasive, too.
Weaknesses
The diagnosis of the causes of the sorry state of the planet, as explicated in the published version of SoS, seem to be (they are sprinkled throughout the narrative and through so-far unpublished e-mails, not yet collected in a systematic account and published): an incorrect understanding by most of mankind of our origins and nature propagated by the revealed religions of the world and by a fatally flawed educational system, “fundamentalisms”, greed and aggression, and corporate capitalism.
SoS does not, as written, account for some aspects of what is “known” (as far as the subject allows) of human psychology, some problematic innate features of the instinct for survival: extreme competitiveness (side-by-side with cooperativeness and apparently altruistic behavior in small enough groups), aggressiveness, especially by young males, primal urges to secure enough of the goods of the world to support the small group or the family in the desired manner, leading to greed in its extreme state. Given the primacy of evolution in SoS, it would be receptive to the notion that these attributes of homo sapiens arise from innate brain structure and chemistry developed over millions of years of evolution in a hostile world and with murderously competitive fellow creatures. This aspect of SoS needs to be discussed more fully because it has serious implications for its ethos and its promotion in the world.
SoS attributes the undesirable aspects of human behavior, e.g. greed and aggression, to the acceptance of “incorrect” stories of the origins of the universe and of human kind, e.g. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, among other religions and any philosophy which incorporates a dualistic “solution” of the mind/body problem or which gives homo sapiens a priveleged position. I would enter into evidence one datum opposed to this: The practices and behavior of the Amish and other “Pennsylvania Dutch” sects appear to follow very much the practices and behavior urged in SoS. These sects are definitely based in religion and a fundamentalist version, to boot.
Conveys an impression that the knowledge agreed upon by those untainted by the faulty origins stories is both more complete and more unanimous than many might find to be the case.
To have the desired salutory effects on the prospects for the survival of civilization and perhaps the human race, the ethos prescribed by SoS must be adopted by the majority of the human race. This “ethos” (E-SoS) is admittedly not fully spelled out and very important aspects of its ethical basis and its political foundations are, as yet, unpublished. In its incomplete form, it is not apparent how the evangelists of SoS will be able to persuade the religious faithful of the world to abandon their faith and adopt E-SoS in its place, other than through the time-honored (or –dishonored) method of conversion by the sword.
In its current and incomplete published form E-SoS implies that its path follows naturally from the “agreed upon facts” of SoS; this writer is not persuaded. A fuller version of the “Ethics” and the “Politics” of SoS may eliminate this apparent weakness.
The adoption of E-SoS would require fundamental and drastic changes in the political and economic systems of the world. For example, to this reader E-SoS appears very intolerant of the free practice of religion, as it is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, for example. The trend of current economic practice across the world is toward more-or-less free trade and corporate capitalism. To this reader, the threat drastically curtailed freedoms might accompany the adoption E-SoS. The Prophet of E-SoS might well say that is indeed what is wrong with the world and drastic changes are needed to prevent catastrophe. It is thus highly desirable that the Prophet explain more fully how these drastic changes, i.e. the Captitalist-to-E-SoS Transition, might possibly take place in a non-chaotic fashion and would result in a political system favoring the value of individuals, if that is so desired.
“Referee’s Recommendation:” The referee recognizes that the present version of SoS was written for the grandchildren of the Prophet and that it is an excellent exposition of his vision of the universe and mankind for that purpose. However, and laudably, the Prophet also has grander designs and a passion to save mankind from its appointment with catastrophe. Thus, the Prophet is strongly encouraged to write a full account of SoS and E-SoS written for adults, including those likely to be unreceptive, and to publish it as widely as possible. A possible scenario which might appeal to the Prophet to publish it segmentally in Wally Weet’s blog and then collect it for submission to a commercial publisher.
# posted by : 10:46 AM
: 10:46 AM
I have pretty much read everything Wally, Hephaestus, and Pylos have written lately. It is admirable and ultimately printable for a larger audience, with some paring down and editing.
First, I take my marching orders from Aristotle, not Plato. Descended from Aristotle is Ayn Rand. Sometime I will say more about all that. But for now, I was reading a bit of Mark Twain, a boy from my home state up there in Hannibal. I identified with Huck as a kid and did all I could to adventure.
It seems to me that Twain wrote from a Platonic, and beyond that, a grandiose and narcissistic point of view, when he said, "There is no God and there is no universe;...there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination and that insane Thought."
His wife and daughter had just died. Around 1909. And he died in 1910. That might account for such a bleakblack outlook at the time. (his birth and death coinciding with the coming of Haley's Comet each time, I attribute to a charming and dramatic coincidence)
An earlier quote on writing I like much better, and I have it pasted in one of my journals somewhere:
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
My best to all you earnest philosophers out there,
Mighty Aphrodite (or from now on, MA to you)
First, I take my marching orders from Aristotle, not Plato. Descended from Aristotle is Ayn Rand. Sometime I will say more about all that. But for now, I was reading a bit of Mark Twain, a boy from my home state up there in Hannibal. I identified with Huck as a kid and did all I could to adventure.
It seems to me that Twain wrote from a Platonic, and beyond that, a grandiose and narcissistic point of view, when he said, "There is no God and there is no universe;...there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination and that insane Thought."
His wife and daughter had just died. Around 1909. And he died in 1910. That might account for such a bleakblack outlook at the time. (his birth and death coinciding with the coming of Haley's Comet each time, I attribute to a charming and dramatic coincidence)
An earlier quote on writing I like much better, and I have it pasted in one of my journals somewhere:
"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
My best to all you earnest philosophers out there,
Mighty Aphrodite (or from now on, MA to you)
# posted by : 12:14 PM
: 12:14 PM
Dear Wally,
Having been reading these past weeks the Story of StarStuff and the assorted comments thereon, I do believe that it qualifies for a nomination for the 2005 Alfred Doolittle Award for Practical Philosopy in the Utopian Vision category.
Sincerely yours,
Henry Higgins
Professor of Philology and Practical Linguistics
Post a Comment
Having been reading these past weeks the Story of StarStuff and the assorted comments thereon, I do believe that it qualifies for a nomination for the 2005 Alfred Doolittle Award for Practical Philosopy in the Utopian Vision category.
Sincerely yours,
Henry Higgins
Professor of Philology and Practical Linguistics
# posted by : 11:39 AM
: 11:39 AM << Home
