I first read the phrase Monkey Mind in a column by Herb Caen, the late celebrated columnist for the S.F. Chronicle. His first sentence was ... Monkey mind, leaping from limb to limbo. He then went on to fill a whole column with leaps of thought that were truly acrobatic. Stream of consciousness is a great thing for an artist to possess. Monkey mind is a Buddhist idea of a person who can't stop his mind from going on its merry way, a restless, preoccupied person. It is the exact opposite of the ideal of a quiet mind.
The phrase enters my consciousness now because I watched a documentary about Jane Goodall, the chimp behavior expert and activist. I must declare that chimps are not monkeys. They are in the family of great apes, which includes the gorilla, the orangutan, the bonobo and man. The great apes are just a stone's throw away from us genetically. And watching the chimps easily makes one feel related. Are humans really the smartest of the bunch? This is not such a facetious question. We are, without a doubt, the most accomplished and have the most complex brains. But what do we do with our complex brains?
This idea occurred to me the other day when friends were engaging in idle chatter and I was noticing that it made me tense. It took a few hours of contemplation to figure out why. It turned out to be a justice issue. Here was someone saying nothing intelligent, cementing the idea in my head that she wasn't very intelligent overall, and yet I happened to know that she was thriving in her life - she had a good marriage, had plenty of money, supportive parents, a life she apparently enjoyed. And here I am making very little money, living a forced frugal life, renting instead of owning, not able to afford new shoes, but using my old shoes which were second-hand when I bought them, wearing second-hand clothes not because they're stylish, but because that's all I can afford. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person. I value intelligence in others. Yet I am by no means thriving. I'm happy, but I don't have the kind of life that affords me a lot of choices.
So who is the intelligent one, really? We don't really value intelligence in our society any more. I feel as if I have become a master candle maker in an age of electric light.
And then there are the gorillas. Gorillas are monstrously strong, but they are vegetarians. I've been thinking lately that they might be a good model animal for the U.S. military. They don't have a very large territory and don't stray far on a typical day. They don't need to kill to survive. They hold their great strength in reserve in case they are attacked by a leopard, which is their only known possible enemy. And even then, the silverback male will put on a display of power before ever engaging, with the idea of scaring the possible predator away. They live a life of peace and ease. If that is not intelligence, what is?
Very few humans live such lives. Our lives are full of monkey mind.
Let me tell you another instance of monkeys in my consciousness. I am a songwriter and musician. I've been doing this for over 30 years. But my job is to buy art supplies, to check invoices to make sure we got what we ordered at the right price, to place new orders, to sell more art supplies. All day long I'm supposed to do this, and all day long there is Muzak playing in the supposed background. Sometimes there are good songs by classic artists. Sometimes there are terribly painfully bad songs which no one in their right mind would ever ask to hear.
But say I were not a music expert. Say I was a monkey expert. Say I'd been studying monkeys all my life. I knew everything there was to know about monkeys. I was an expert on monkey behavior. And the one day, someone unleashes a truckload of monkeys into the store. The monkeys are breaking things and biting people's ankles and scratching at their eyes. Some of them apparently have fleas. I know exactly how to handle these monkeys, how to make them behave - even how to rid them of fleas. But my job has nothing to do with monkeys. I'm supposed to ignore the monkeys and pretend they aren't even there. I'm supposed to go on checking my invoices while what I'd rather be doing is attending to the monkeys. It makes a job seem very mundane when there are monkeys about. Can you imagine Jane Goodall in the wild with the chimps trying to check an invoice? This is how out of place I feel at my job.
And yet the chimps live in large social groups, and have all they need. They are not perfect - they do kill, even their own kind and they do wage wars. But it seems the farther you go away from the human brain, the "happier" the animal becomes. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe monkey mind is the wrong phrase. Maybe monkeys don't do much thinking at all. Maybe they are like Zen masters who simply exist. Maybe it is the human's curse to have developed such a brain as ours, that worries and dreads and plots and schemes and is jealous and insecure and afraid and angry. Maybe Man Mind is the problem. I'll settle for Monkey Mind any day.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Truth and the Mind
Just finished reading an article about a severely burned Iraq veteran who found pain relief from a virtual reality game called "Snow World" in which he shot penguins and snowmen and mammoths with snowballs. Brain scans of the area called the pain matrix showed much less activity while he was playing. He rated his own pain a 6 out of 10 while on other days it had been 9's an 10's constantly. The hell that the pain caused him was alleviated by giving the mind something else to focus on.
Our brains are equipped with chemicals which regulate our physical feelings as well as emotional states. I'm no brain expert, but am moderately aware of things called endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Certain drugs, like opioids, affect the production of these chemicals and alleviate pain and promote feelings of well-being. I've heard that endorphins are three times as powerful as morphine. So our brains are equipped to manage pain, but unfortunately, most of us do not know how to manage our brains. If we did, pain would be a trivial message that something was wrong with our body that needs attention, and that's all.
Last year I had a weird, severe back injury while tying a shoe! Fear was my first emotion, because I had gone through years of back pain when I was younger that I now feel was tied in to my depressive/manic states. This time around, my bipolar disorder had been under control for about ten years with meds and therapy. The pain reached down through my nerves to the entire right side of my leg, feeling like a knitting needle were being jabbed into my joints. The trigger for the injury may have been a bulged disc pressing on the nerve that ran down that leg, but the pain, though severe, now did not affect my sense of well-being.
Like in the virtual reality game, I found a way to minimalize the pain using the power of distraction. Instead of focusing on the leg that hurt, I tried intensely concentrating on how good my other leg felt. Amazingly, the more I focused on the good leg, the less pain I felt. This told me that I was controlling the way my brain was processing its chemicals. I was able to produce endorphins enough to fill my body with a sense of well-being.
Lately, I think I've gotten better at producing these sensations at will. I have a sense of being high and my body feels wonderful. I feel lighter and a little less connected to what Eckhardt Tolle calls "the pain body." I also feel anchored to the present, and any baggage of all that I have been through in my life disappears. It is an amazing feeling. It doesn't last forever - life somehow always intrudes eventually, but it's a great skill to learn.
Meditation quiets the mind. When the mind is quiet, everything is perfect. In the present moment, everything is perfect. It is only the fear and anxiety of our expectations which are based on our past experience that take us out of the present moment. Some people say, you can't just meditate all your life, but they don't realize that you can quiet your mind during any activity. You don't have to be in a lotus posture, you don't have to close your eyes, you don't have to focus on your breathing. These are all things that might help you get there - they let you take control of your brain chemicals - but they are not the only way. If you are fully in the present, no matter what you are doing, you become the experience. You are no longer a person doing something, you are the entire world as your mind understands it. You exist in harmony with all of creation. Sounds nice, right?
You can be there right now. When we look for it, like the Tao, we will never find it. As soon as you stop trying to attain, you attain. You are the Buddha right now - you just have to stop trying to be the Buddha. But this is like the old story of the master saying that to attain enlightenment, you must not think of an elephant. The student then, of course, can only think of what he is trying not to think of. Stop seeking, and be the Buddha.
So the truth of reality is not what the mind tells us. Like in Plato's allegory of the caves, we only see shadows of reality and make our best guesses as to what it is. We are limited by our five senses. Reality is what we see, touch, hear, smell and taste. Could it be that there are other qualities of reality that we don't have the sense organs to perceive? Bats understand spatial reality by echolocation. Insects, birds and tropical fish see ultraviolet patterns that we can't see. Suppose we could sense magnetism, or density, or see gamma rays or electrical fields. There must be so many other aspects of reality that we cannot even measure.
So what is the truth? When your mind stops perceiving with its senses, it feels like truth. Truth is acceptance of all that is. Not judging, not comparing, not reacting, just accepting. Our brains are amazing machines that are built for judging, comparing and reacting, so that the organism of the body can successfully continue and help life on Earth continue. But we can control our brains, instead of our brains controlling us. We have the power to quiet our brains any time we want. And in doing so, we can experience the truth.
Our brains are equipped with chemicals which regulate our physical feelings as well as emotional states. I'm no brain expert, but am moderately aware of things called endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Certain drugs, like opioids, affect the production of these chemicals and alleviate pain and promote feelings of well-being. I've heard that endorphins are three times as powerful as morphine. So our brains are equipped to manage pain, but unfortunately, most of us do not know how to manage our brains. If we did, pain would be a trivial message that something was wrong with our body that needs attention, and that's all.
Last year I had a weird, severe back injury while tying a shoe! Fear was my first emotion, because I had gone through years of back pain when I was younger that I now feel was tied in to my depressive/manic states. This time around, my bipolar disorder had been under control for about ten years with meds and therapy. The pain reached down through my nerves to the entire right side of my leg, feeling like a knitting needle were being jabbed into my joints. The trigger for the injury may have been a bulged disc pressing on the nerve that ran down that leg, but the pain, though severe, now did not affect my sense of well-being.
Like in the virtual reality game, I found a way to minimalize the pain using the power of distraction. Instead of focusing on the leg that hurt, I tried intensely concentrating on how good my other leg felt. Amazingly, the more I focused on the good leg, the less pain I felt. This told me that I was controlling the way my brain was processing its chemicals. I was able to produce endorphins enough to fill my body with a sense of well-being.
Lately, I think I've gotten better at producing these sensations at will. I have a sense of being high and my body feels wonderful. I feel lighter and a little less connected to what Eckhardt Tolle calls "the pain body." I also feel anchored to the present, and any baggage of all that I have been through in my life disappears. It is an amazing feeling. It doesn't last forever - life somehow always intrudes eventually, but it's a great skill to learn.
Meditation quiets the mind. When the mind is quiet, everything is perfect. In the present moment, everything is perfect. It is only the fear and anxiety of our expectations which are based on our past experience that take us out of the present moment. Some people say, you can't just meditate all your life, but they don't realize that you can quiet your mind during any activity. You don't have to be in a lotus posture, you don't have to close your eyes, you don't have to focus on your breathing. These are all things that might help you get there - they let you take control of your brain chemicals - but they are not the only way. If you are fully in the present, no matter what you are doing, you become the experience. You are no longer a person doing something, you are the entire world as your mind understands it. You exist in harmony with all of creation. Sounds nice, right?
You can be there right now. When we look for it, like the Tao, we will never find it. As soon as you stop trying to attain, you attain. You are the Buddha right now - you just have to stop trying to be the Buddha. But this is like the old story of the master saying that to attain enlightenment, you must not think of an elephant. The student then, of course, can only think of what he is trying not to think of. Stop seeking, and be the Buddha.
So the truth of reality is not what the mind tells us. Like in Plato's allegory of the caves, we only see shadows of reality and make our best guesses as to what it is. We are limited by our five senses. Reality is what we see, touch, hear, smell and taste. Could it be that there are other qualities of reality that we don't have the sense organs to perceive? Bats understand spatial reality by echolocation. Insects, birds and tropical fish see ultraviolet patterns that we can't see. Suppose we could sense magnetism, or density, or see gamma rays or electrical fields. There must be so many other aspects of reality that we cannot even measure.
So what is the truth? When your mind stops perceiving with its senses, it feels like truth. Truth is acceptance of all that is. Not judging, not comparing, not reacting, just accepting. Our brains are amazing machines that are built for judging, comparing and reacting, so that the organism of the body can successfully continue and help life on Earth continue. But we can control our brains, instead of our brains controlling us. We have the power to quiet our brains any time we want. And in doing so, we can experience the truth.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
The Big Idea
I've always been a dreamer. Does that mean I'm not a doer? Not necessarily. Sometimes my dreams are grand, the kind that will change everything. Sometimes my dreams are modest, the kind that will change me. I suppose I've fulfilled many of my dreams. I'm an artist, a writer, a composer, a musician. But it's always the things I am not yet that drive me.
I've never been motivated by money, but lately I've found myself dreaming of having some. So several schemes are popping into my head to that end. I don't see my paintings as ever achieving star status - they'll probably just sell sparsely throughout my life, and that's a nice thing.
Just that there are some of my paintings out in the world makes me feel as if I am more engaged with other people's lives. There are those that are living with my paintings every day. They might never give them a thought, but they color the atmosphere a certain way. I'm in bedrooms where people make love. I'm in living rooms where people meet friends. I'm in offices where business deals are made.
But that is not about money. Lately, I've had the idea of helping other artists sell their paintings online. I know so many young artists who make small work, show it at coffee house galleries and occasionally sell a small work for a few dollars. This is the modest kind of purchase that anyone can make. It's not about the elite coming into a gallery with a checkbook and buying a painting by reputation. It's about the connection between makers of art and lovers of art. It's a small, humble kind of thing - not intellectual. It's outside of the ART WORLD, which has all gone kind of crazy. I want the outsiders who still do quality work to get their work into people's homes. There is no current system for this. I want to create one. An online gallery (I've registered he domain name galleryschmallery.com) that would sell work for no more than a few hundred dollars and even offer work for $25 and $50. I want to reach the kind of people who would never set foot in a gallery and when they want art for their home or for a gift, they end up buying cheap reproductions or posters. I want them to know that they can afford original artwork made by people who care about their art, and are not trying to be superstars.
I probably won't make much money at this, at least not at first. Who knows if this will catch on. But it will be a service that I am glad to offer my fellow up and coming artists. It feels important to me. It's a dream. But it's one I'm going to realize.
Some artists dream of being in galleries, having people actively selling their work which increases with value as it sells and their reputation grows. But what a gallery wants is a product they can rely on, someone who has a "mature" style, which is their way of saying someone who does pretty much the same thing over and over. That might sell paintings, but it doesn't help an artist's soul grow. Art is about introspection. It's about finding out who you are in the world and how you relate to life and then making that realization manifest. That is what a mature artist does. It's a skill that some people can practice with just a few strokes, while others do it with obsessive realism. But the mature artist is fully present in his work. It is imbued with his spirit. Making a picture can be easy and can be learned. But making it art takes a degree of self-actualization. The more an artist understands himself, the more powerful his art.
Most of my own output would not be on galleryschmallery.com. I would be very discerning about what I sold. Beauty doesn't seem to matter in the art world anymore, and there are many, many very ugly works that have great success. We shouldn't have to live with ugliness. Beauty is different for everyone, but there are universal truths that can't be denied. When someone is passionate about beauty, it shows in their art. Young artists are taught to avoid beauty, the idea being that if it pleases the eye, it cannot convey the greater idea. The idea is king in the art world today. One day, people will go to a gallery just to hear artists talk about the work they would make if they had any skill. There are artists who almost do this now. Artists who I won't name because I don't want to dignify their work by talking about it, but who just come up with ideas and then have other people make the work. This drives me bananas. Make the damn work yourself or don't call yourself an artist.
I'm getting off track. The kind of artist I want to feature is intimately involved with the making of the work. They are in the work. And they want to get back the energy they put into their work in the form of money. Sure, they have put a lifetime's energy into each piece, but it's better to get paid a little at a time than to wait for that big payday that comes with being an art superstar. I want to be a successful online winebar, coffeehouse, or bar, those places which show art, but are not in the business of selling art. Not a lot of art sells at these places, and you only get to see a small show each month. My site would enable you to visit hundreds of these places at the click of a mouse and to find just that little piece of art that moves you just so.
Maybe someday this would be a successful business and I could actually make a living from the small commission I would take (10% as opposed to a gallery's 50%). Then I could pursue other dreams of teaching college art, being a successful recording artist and songwriter, having a successful career as a published novelist. I find that if I put my dreams into words instead of just letting them play in my head, they tend more often to become realities. There's always room for more dreams.
I've never been motivated by money, but lately I've found myself dreaming of having some. So several schemes are popping into my head to that end. I don't see my paintings as ever achieving star status - they'll probably just sell sparsely throughout my life, and that's a nice thing.
Just that there are some of my paintings out in the world makes me feel as if I am more engaged with other people's lives. There are those that are living with my paintings every day. They might never give them a thought, but they color the atmosphere a certain way. I'm in bedrooms where people make love. I'm in living rooms where people meet friends. I'm in offices where business deals are made.
But that is not about money. Lately, I've had the idea of helping other artists sell their paintings online. I know so many young artists who make small work, show it at coffee house galleries and occasionally sell a small work for a few dollars. This is the modest kind of purchase that anyone can make. It's not about the elite coming into a gallery with a checkbook and buying a painting by reputation. It's about the connection between makers of art and lovers of art. It's a small, humble kind of thing - not intellectual. It's outside of the ART WORLD, which has all gone kind of crazy. I want the outsiders who still do quality work to get their work into people's homes. There is no current system for this. I want to create one. An online gallery (I've registered he domain name galleryschmallery.com) that would sell work for no more than a few hundred dollars and even offer work for $25 and $50. I want to reach the kind of people who would never set foot in a gallery and when they want art for their home or for a gift, they end up buying cheap reproductions or posters. I want them to know that they can afford original artwork made by people who care about their art, and are not trying to be superstars.
I probably won't make much money at this, at least not at first. Who knows if this will catch on. But it will be a service that I am glad to offer my fellow up and coming artists. It feels important to me. It's a dream. But it's one I'm going to realize.
Some artists dream of being in galleries, having people actively selling their work which increases with value as it sells and their reputation grows. But what a gallery wants is a product they can rely on, someone who has a "mature" style, which is their way of saying someone who does pretty much the same thing over and over. That might sell paintings, but it doesn't help an artist's soul grow. Art is about introspection. It's about finding out who you are in the world and how you relate to life and then making that realization manifest. That is what a mature artist does. It's a skill that some people can practice with just a few strokes, while others do it with obsessive realism. But the mature artist is fully present in his work. It is imbued with his spirit. Making a picture can be easy and can be learned. But making it art takes a degree of self-actualization. The more an artist understands himself, the more powerful his art.
Most of my own output would not be on galleryschmallery.com. I would be very discerning about what I sold. Beauty doesn't seem to matter in the art world anymore, and there are many, many very ugly works that have great success. We shouldn't have to live with ugliness. Beauty is different for everyone, but there are universal truths that can't be denied. When someone is passionate about beauty, it shows in their art. Young artists are taught to avoid beauty, the idea being that if it pleases the eye, it cannot convey the greater idea. The idea is king in the art world today. One day, people will go to a gallery just to hear artists talk about the work they would make if they had any skill. There are artists who almost do this now. Artists who I won't name because I don't want to dignify their work by talking about it, but who just come up with ideas and then have other people make the work. This drives me bananas. Make the damn work yourself or don't call yourself an artist.
I'm getting off track. The kind of artist I want to feature is intimately involved with the making of the work. They are in the work. And they want to get back the energy they put into their work in the form of money. Sure, they have put a lifetime's energy into each piece, but it's better to get paid a little at a time than to wait for that big payday that comes with being an art superstar. I want to be a successful online winebar, coffeehouse, or bar, those places which show art, but are not in the business of selling art. Not a lot of art sells at these places, and you only get to see a small show each month. My site would enable you to visit hundreds of these places at the click of a mouse and to find just that little piece of art that moves you just so.
Maybe someday this would be a successful business and I could actually make a living from the small commission I would take (10% as opposed to a gallery's 50%). Then I could pursue other dreams of teaching college art, being a successful recording artist and songwriter, having a successful career as a published novelist. I find that if I put my dreams into words instead of just letting them play in my head, they tend more often to become realities. There's always room for more dreams.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Thoughts on Dying
Bill is dead. It was a sudden onset of brain cancer which was only detected a week ago. I barely knew him - he was the husband of a woman I worked with, and he would stop by the office occasionally to say hi, or bring her something. He had a long life and a mercifully short illness.
I don't feel sadness at his death - I've thought a lot about death in the last few years. My dad is going to be 87 in March and my mom will be 82. I don't know how I'll react when the time actually comes, but I know it could happen at any time. I like to think I'm at peace with the idea. Accepting death is key to living peacefully. Even accepting my own mortality, and knowing that I could also die at any moment, for any number of reasons. I am ready. We tend not to think about death in our culture and so when it happens, we are usually not ready. If we are told we have a terminal illness, the rug is often pulled out from under us and it is then that we fully know that we are alive. And then, for some people, it is often too late to do all the things we wanted to do.
I don't want to do anything but have a deep connection with life, which I feel I have. I want to live as a loving person, which I feel I do. Every day is happier and more profound than the last for me. If I were told I was going to die soon, I would not be altered internally.
Dying is a state in which I will never be as long as I am conscious. I feel you are either 100% alive or 100% dead. I choose to remain 100% alive until I'm 100% dead. There is no dying.
I had a great aunt, whose name escapes me, who I was told was dying once when I was young. She turned out to hang around for quite a while. My joke got to be, "Is Great Aunt so-and-so still dying?" I would ask my mother this occasionally, and she would respond, a little miffed, "Yes, she is." I don't intend to die like that. I intend only to live. If I am irretrievably unconscious, then you can say I'm dying, because that's not really living. But other than that, I will never "die."
Death is also on my mind because of two stories - one of which I'm reading and one of which I'm writing. The one I'm reading is called "Life Work" by poet Don Hall, and is not so much a story, but a meditation on life as a writer, one who finds out he has cancer right in the middle of writing this very book. He thinks there is a good possibility that he will die, which adds a literary suspense, but having read the forward, I know that he did not die, but has lived for ten years after the publication of this book. It turns out that after publishing the book it is his young wife who gets cancer and dies at 47.
Any of us can go at any time. Our lives are the equivalent of a raindrop which falls quickly only to join the great water cycle again. I'm not saying I believe in reincarnation - I don't - but it's a nice belief. That we are part of something greater. That God is the storm.
The book I'm working on currently is called "The Cure," and deals with a group of terminal cancer patients who are cured by an experimental process just as humanity is wiped out by a plague that affects a supplemental element called lunarium, which people have been taking for centuries after its discovery on the moon because it promotes emotional well-being. They are spared because they are lunarium-free. They go from thinking they are going to die eminently to wondering about how to go about the rest of their lives, as others, who thought they would live forever, die all around them.
I think that we all need to meditate on our own mortality. Once you truly accept it, your life will begin.
I don't feel sadness at his death - I've thought a lot about death in the last few years. My dad is going to be 87 in March and my mom will be 82. I don't know how I'll react when the time actually comes, but I know it could happen at any time. I like to think I'm at peace with the idea. Accepting death is key to living peacefully. Even accepting my own mortality, and knowing that I could also die at any moment, for any number of reasons. I am ready. We tend not to think about death in our culture and so when it happens, we are usually not ready. If we are told we have a terminal illness, the rug is often pulled out from under us and it is then that we fully know that we are alive. And then, for some people, it is often too late to do all the things we wanted to do.
I don't want to do anything but have a deep connection with life, which I feel I have. I want to live as a loving person, which I feel I do. Every day is happier and more profound than the last for me. If I were told I was going to die soon, I would not be altered internally.
Dying is a state in which I will never be as long as I am conscious. I feel you are either 100% alive or 100% dead. I choose to remain 100% alive until I'm 100% dead. There is no dying.
I had a great aunt, whose name escapes me, who I was told was dying once when I was young. She turned out to hang around for quite a while. My joke got to be, "Is Great Aunt so-and-so still dying?" I would ask my mother this occasionally, and she would respond, a little miffed, "Yes, she is." I don't intend to die like that. I intend only to live. If I am irretrievably unconscious, then you can say I'm dying, because that's not really living. But other than that, I will never "die."
Death is also on my mind because of two stories - one of which I'm reading and one of which I'm writing. The one I'm reading is called "Life Work" by poet Don Hall, and is not so much a story, but a meditation on life as a writer, one who finds out he has cancer right in the middle of writing this very book. He thinks there is a good possibility that he will die, which adds a literary suspense, but having read the forward, I know that he did not die, but has lived for ten years after the publication of this book. It turns out that after publishing the book it is his young wife who gets cancer and dies at 47.
Any of us can go at any time. Our lives are the equivalent of a raindrop which falls quickly only to join the great water cycle again. I'm not saying I believe in reincarnation - I don't - but it's a nice belief. That we are part of something greater. That God is the storm.
The book I'm working on currently is called "The Cure," and deals with a group of terminal cancer patients who are cured by an experimental process just as humanity is wiped out by a plague that affects a supplemental element called lunarium, which people have been taking for centuries after its discovery on the moon because it promotes emotional well-being. They are spared because they are lunarium-free. They go from thinking they are going to die eminently to wondering about how to go about the rest of their lives, as others, who thought they would live forever, die all around them.
I think that we all need to meditate on our own mortality. Once you truly accept it, your life will begin.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Some Thoughts on Money
Money is a funny subject to me. It's rarely on my mind, and I rarely have any to speak of. But lately, it has been on my mind because I've been trying to raise it for a musical project of mine which is the pinnacle of my life's creative output. If I had money, any at all, I would just pay for the reproduction of this CD and that would be that. And many of my moneyed friends may be wondering why I don't just do that. But I live paycheck to paycheck - no savings, no investments. I live quite happily, mind you. Money, it is true, does not buy happiness - but the rest of that axiom should say it doesn't preclude it either. In fact, money and happiness are independent of one another. There are happy rich and happy poor. There are unhappy rich and poor as well. I feel the most pity for the unhappy rich. The unhappy poor may still have hope.
Someone once told me to think of money as energy - you produce a product or do a service in which you expend energy - you get energy back in the form of money. The energy expended by a CEO probably does not equal the money she or he gets back. And the energy expended by a teacher certainly does far exceed the money he or she gets back. The universe is not interested in fairness. Apparently, neither is society. I make about $27,000 a year. I know there is some kind of taboo about saying this publicly, but I've never been afraid of the truth, and that's the truth. I have no idea how much my friends or family make, but one friend to whom I disclosed my salary acted embarrassed for me. Somehow, I get by - somehow we all do. I feel like there are those who make $80,000 a year who probably still think there just getting by.
I know that if I were making that kind of money, I would be a much more philanthropic person. That seems like a fortune to me. I couldn't spend all that money, and I don't believe in saving for a rainy day. I believe in helping others. Of course, if I had kids I would think differently. Everything might go towards their care, education and well-being. But as it is, I don't have to think about where my money goes. I don't have much say in the matter. I owe $70,000 in student loans, but thanks to income-based repayment I pay a low monthly payment and should have it paid off when I'm about 140 years old. Then there's the usual rent, utilities, groceries, gas, and the like. That eats up the rest. So every paycheck I start out at about zero.
I do occasionally sell a painting, but for the 35 years of energy I put into them, I should be asking an awful lot more for them. Sometimes I sell a piece which I'm not that attached to, though, and the energy exchange feels more equal. But it sometimes seems absurd that big name artists can ask hundreds of thousands of dollars for a wall decoration. Ultimately, that's what a painting is. But it's also a storehouse of the artist's energy and if the buyer can appreciate that energy, then that is indeed worth a lot of money. When I sell a piece and I feel the buyer appreciates my life's energy invested in it, it's almost beyond price. It's as if they're adopting a part of me. I get to live at their house and be with them through all their life's events. How can you put a value on that?
I've been paid for music many times where I've had such a good time that I feel I should be the one paying. And then there are those times where I've played to a bar full of chatty, inebriated people who couldn't care less that I'm pouring my heart into each and every song. My full energy and the energy of all my experience is then wasted and I feel like you could not pay me enough. I want an even exchange. I want to sing my life to people and I want them to take it in as if I were giving a dissertation or a testimonial. I don't need money if people really get what I'm doing.Some of my favorite performances have been sitting around campfires. But if I'm entertaining them on a more superficial level, then yeah, give me some energy back in the form of money.
I'm playing a gig next Saturday for no money. But it's going to be all my own music. Every note and word will be me talking personally to the audience, which will be peppered with friends and co-workers. I'm looking forward to it more than any gig I've ever played for just that reason. Sometimes playing for money you can feel like a prostitute. Same with selling paintings. But this will be music for the love of music. I'm hoping to do more gigs like this in the coming year. I'm ready to profess my music, not just mimic other people's songs. It goes beyond the sound, and into an area that is very personal. I know there will be people there who will not pay attention - it is a cafe, after all, and there will be people who barely notice what I'm doing. But if there's one person who gets it - one person who meets me in the field of my mind, then they will be rewarded with a lifetime's worth of energy, because that is what I put into my songs. I'll have CD's for sale for the price of a tip, but that won't be the real payment.
My energy is not stored in my money. I give money very little power. My energy is stored in my creativity and I intend to be generous with the energy I have. If only people would recognize that energy I would give it so freely. I am a rich man.
Someone once told me to think of money as energy - you produce a product or do a service in which you expend energy - you get energy back in the form of money. The energy expended by a CEO probably does not equal the money she or he gets back. And the energy expended by a teacher certainly does far exceed the money he or she gets back. The universe is not interested in fairness. Apparently, neither is society. I make about $27,000 a year. I know there is some kind of taboo about saying this publicly, but I've never been afraid of the truth, and that's the truth. I have no idea how much my friends or family make, but one friend to whom I disclosed my salary acted embarrassed for me. Somehow, I get by - somehow we all do. I feel like there are those who make $80,000 a year who probably still think there just getting by.
I know that if I were making that kind of money, I would be a much more philanthropic person. That seems like a fortune to me. I couldn't spend all that money, and I don't believe in saving for a rainy day. I believe in helping others. Of course, if I had kids I would think differently. Everything might go towards their care, education and well-being. But as it is, I don't have to think about where my money goes. I don't have much say in the matter. I owe $70,000 in student loans, but thanks to income-based repayment I pay a low monthly payment and should have it paid off when I'm about 140 years old. Then there's the usual rent, utilities, groceries, gas, and the like. That eats up the rest. So every paycheck I start out at about zero.
I do occasionally sell a painting, but for the 35 years of energy I put into them, I should be asking an awful lot more for them. Sometimes I sell a piece which I'm not that attached to, though, and the energy exchange feels more equal. But it sometimes seems absurd that big name artists can ask hundreds of thousands of dollars for a wall decoration. Ultimately, that's what a painting is. But it's also a storehouse of the artist's energy and if the buyer can appreciate that energy, then that is indeed worth a lot of money. When I sell a piece and I feel the buyer appreciates my life's energy invested in it, it's almost beyond price. It's as if they're adopting a part of me. I get to live at their house and be with them through all their life's events. How can you put a value on that?
I've been paid for music many times where I've had such a good time that I feel I should be the one paying. And then there are those times where I've played to a bar full of chatty, inebriated people who couldn't care less that I'm pouring my heart into each and every song. My full energy and the energy of all my experience is then wasted and I feel like you could not pay me enough. I want an even exchange. I want to sing my life to people and I want them to take it in as if I were giving a dissertation or a testimonial. I don't need money if people really get what I'm doing.Some of my favorite performances have been sitting around campfires. But if I'm entertaining them on a more superficial level, then yeah, give me some energy back in the form of money.
I'm playing a gig next Saturday for no money. But it's going to be all my own music. Every note and word will be me talking personally to the audience, which will be peppered with friends and co-workers. I'm looking forward to it more than any gig I've ever played for just that reason. Sometimes playing for money you can feel like a prostitute. Same with selling paintings. But this will be music for the love of music. I'm hoping to do more gigs like this in the coming year. I'm ready to profess my music, not just mimic other people's songs. It goes beyond the sound, and into an area that is very personal. I know there will be people there who will not pay attention - it is a cafe, after all, and there will be people who barely notice what I'm doing. But if there's one person who gets it - one person who meets me in the field of my mind, then they will be rewarded with a lifetime's worth of energy, because that is what I put into my songs. I'll have CD's for sale for the price of a tip, but that won't be the real payment.
My energy is not stored in my money. I give money very little power. My energy is stored in my creativity and I intend to be generous with the energy I have. If only people would recognize that energy I would give it so freely. I am a rich man.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
My New Religion
Now, I know that saying I have a new religion sounds either flippant, (like I'm now going to worship the Moon God, Zordoz, and get a tax exemption) or scary (like Oh no! Here comes Tom again spouting religious drivel about being saved). But It's not like that. I've actually had a sincere revelation about my place in the universe, and what else is religion for, if not that?
There are unexplainable things in life - things that science cannot answer. This leaves us feeling afraid, so we have developed various systems (religions) for helping us understand these things. The main unexplainable things are: Where did the universe come from? Why did life originate? What is consciousness? Is there an immortal soul? Is there a God? And if there is, what is our relationship to God? Just about everything else we can deal with, but these things require religion. Religion requires faith and faith is not rational. I've thought of calling my new religion "Rationalism," but the word is already used in philosophy. But it will do for now, as long as we capitalize it.
My new religion requires faith in only one thing: that there is a meta-power that is unknowable, incomprehensible and beyond the scope of human understanding. For simplicity's sake, we'll call it God, and refer to it as a "He," though God has no human attributes such as gender. Gleaning from the evidence of world history, God also does not have the human attributes of love, knowledge, jealousy, anger, want, need, or pride. God just is. We were not made in His image. We evolved from a microorganism. It is easier for most people to understand God if they humanize Him. But God cannot be explained or understood.
If it can be said that God wants anything, then by the evidence, we must say that God wants life to continue. It is programmed inside every living organism to continue. So if we want to do God's "will," then we must act in ways that are in accordance with life continuing. There is no evidence that God wants anything more than this. But we have no obligation to make life continue, and no obligation to complete our own natural lives.
So If we are to continue with our own individual lives and the life of the human species, we must find ways to make it tolerable at least, happy at best. Happiness is attainable. We all have different brains which were formed by different genetic expressions combined with different life experiences. Most people's brains don't work optimally and as a result, most people are not as happy as they could be. Even when our brains are working well, there's much room for improvement. In Rationalism, the mind, spirit, and soul are all the same and are inextricably linked to the body and only exist so long as the body is alive. We strive to make our brains work better and to keep our bodies healthy.
The soul is not immortal and there is no afterlife. There is no fear of eternal punishment and no eternal reward, so our actions are entirely life-based. We are not required by God to love, to take care of one another, or to act morally or justly. But we do want these things as they help life to continue and deepen our mind, enriching our experience and connecting us with others, which connects us with God. All our actions are of our own volition, and God does not guide us. Our aim is to be in harmony with God.
We have found that love is an evolutionary strategy that the human animal has come up with to ensure the health and continuation of the species. Love is a relatively modern construct, though the urge to take care of one another is ancient. We see love as the prime directive, and love includes accepting everyone with whatever beliefs help them to love. We patently reject war for any reason, but understand the innate need for self-defense. We reject capital punishment for any reason. We think that even the sickest minds can be changed. Recent science has shown that the brain has plasticity, and though things get hard-wired into us and we react without "thinking," our brains, and our minds can change. We think jails ought to be places, not merely of penance, as in the word, "penitentiary," and not merely of confinement, but as places of therapy and reconditioning. The goal of jail ought to be to find a place in society for those whose minds can be changed. There may be some whose minds cannot be changed enough, and for them, confinement should continue.
There is no hierarchy in Rationalism. Everyone is holy and everything is sacred. Everything contains the essence of God. Everyone who accepts Rationalism is a priest. The role of a priest is to actively love in every aspect of daily living and to deepen our experience of life and the experience of others by learning about our own minds and sharing with the minds of others. There are no rituals or rites. We see these as superstition, which is not necessary. We encourage the meeting of minds, and any time two or more minds come together to share, God is in that place. We respect the religious traditions of others, in so much as the core of all religions is love. But we see all other religions as containing elements of superstition. Rationalism rejects superstition.
We recognize and revere such personages as the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and any others who have been geniuses in the field of love. We see them as being attuned to the meta-power, which they all interpreted in different ways. Islam says that a prophet is sent for his own particular din, and as such, they accepted that Jesus, Moses, Abraham and the other prophets were sent for different people and that Muhammad was sent for the Arabs. We revere teachers of any kind.
There are no sacraments per se, but we consider eating and sex to be sacred, as they have to do with life continuing. Eating and sex merely for pleasure is encouraged, though not always sacramental. Sex is not merely for procreation and can be enjoyed in any form between consenting adults. While our bodies may be ready for sex at puberty, we recognize that our minds aren't always ready, and therefore we adhere to the legal age of consent, even though some minds are not even ready well into their years.
We are Pro Choice, recognizing that not every sperm cell has to become a baby. A woman who is pregnant is a whole being, and can have any part of her being removed for any reason. An abortion is better than an unwanted child. There is only one soul involved - the soul of the woman. While she is pregnant, the baby is a part of her body.
There are no "shalts" and shall nots" in Rationalism. Love is the only practice. We have total free will. If we choose not to love, that is our business. But we recognize love as a good and supreme force for change and for fostering the furtherance of life.
This, for the most part, is my profession of faith. And an outline of how I intend to live. I'm not asking for converts, but if you share these sentiments, I'd love to know. Or, if you just want to start a conversation which will broaden each of our minds, I'm all ears. Life is empty without communication.
There are unexplainable things in life - things that science cannot answer. This leaves us feeling afraid, so we have developed various systems (religions) for helping us understand these things. The main unexplainable things are: Where did the universe come from? Why did life originate? What is consciousness? Is there an immortal soul? Is there a God? And if there is, what is our relationship to God? Just about everything else we can deal with, but these things require religion. Religion requires faith and faith is not rational. I've thought of calling my new religion "Rationalism," but the word is already used in philosophy. But it will do for now, as long as we capitalize it.
My new religion requires faith in only one thing: that there is a meta-power that is unknowable, incomprehensible and beyond the scope of human understanding. For simplicity's sake, we'll call it God, and refer to it as a "He," though God has no human attributes such as gender. Gleaning from the evidence of world history, God also does not have the human attributes of love, knowledge, jealousy, anger, want, need, or pride. God just is. We were not made in His image. We evolved from a microorganism. It is easier for most people to understand God if they humanize Him. But God cannot be explained or understood.
If it can be said that God wants anything, then by the evidence, we must say that God wants life to continue. It is programmed inside every living organism to continue. So if we want to do God's "will," then we must act in ways that are in accordance with life continuing. There is no evidence that God wants anything more than this. But we have no obligation to make life continue, and no obligation to complete our own natural lives.
So If we are to continue with our own individual lives and the life of the human species, we must find ways to make it tolerable at least, happy at best. Happiness is attainable. We all have different brains which were formed by different genetic expressions combined with different life experiences. Most people's brains don't work optimally and as a result, most people are not as happy as they could be. Even when our brains are working well, there's much room for improvement. In Rationalism, the mind, spirit, and soul are all the same and are inextricably linked to the body and only exist so long as the body is alive. We strive to make our brains work better and to keep our bodies healthy.
The soul is not immortal and there is no afterlife. There is no fear of eternal punishment and no eternal reward, so our actions are entirely life-based. We are not required by God to love, to take care of one another, or to act morally or justly. But we do want these things as they help life to continue and deepen our mind, enriching our experience and connecting us with others, which connects us with God. All our actions are of our own volition, and God does not guide us. Our aim is to be in harmony with God.
We have found that love is an evolutionary strategy that the human animal has come up with to ensure the health and continuation of the species. Love is a relatively modern construct, though the urge to take care of one another is ancient. We see love as the prime directive, and love includes accepting everyone with whatever beliefs help them to love. We patently reject war for any reason, but understand the innate need for self-defense. We reject capital punishment for any reason. We think that even the sickest minds can be changed. Recent science has shown that the brain has plasticity, and though things get hard-wired into us and we react without "thinking," our brains, and our minds can change. We think jails ought to be places, not merely of penance, as in the word, "penitentiary," and not merely of confinement, but as places of therapy and reconditioning. The goal of jail ought to be to find a place in society for those whose minds can be changed. There may be some whose minds cannot be changed enough, and for them, confinement should continue.
There is no hierarchy in Rationalism. Everyone is holy and everything is sacred. Everything contains the essence of God. Everyone who accepts Rationalism is a priest. The role of a priest is to actively love in every aspect of daily living and to deepen our experience of life and the experience of others by learning about our own minds and sharing with the minds of others. There are no rituals or rites. We see these as superstition, which is not necessary. We encourage the meeting of minds, and any time two or more minds come together to share, God is in that place. We respect the religious traditions of others, in so much as the core of all religions is love. But we see all other religions as containing elements of superstition. Rationalism rejects superstition.
We recognize and revere such personages as the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and any others who have been geniuses in the field of love. We see them as being attuned to the meta-power, which they all interpreted in different ways. Islam says that a prophet is sent for his own particular din, and as such, they accepted that Jesus, Moses, Abraham and the other prophets were sent for different people and that Muhammad was sent for the Arabs. We revere teachers of any kind.
There are no sacraments per se, but we consider eating and sex to be sacred, as they have to do with life continuing. Eating and sex merely for pleasure is encouraged, though not always sacramental. Sex is not merely for procreation and can be enjoyed in any form between consenting adults. While our bodies may be ready for sex at puberty, we recognize that our minds aren't always ready, and therefore we adhere to the legal age of consent, even though some minds are not even ready well into their years.
We are Pro Choice, recognizing that not every sperm cell has to become a baby. A woman who is pregnant is a whole being, and can have any part of her being removed for any reason. An abortion is better than an unwanted child. There is only one soul involved - the soul of the woman. While she is pregnant, the baby is a part of her body.
There are no "shalts" and shall nots" in Rationalism. Love is the only practice. We have total free will. If we choose not to love, that is our business. But we recognize love as a good and supreme force for change and for fostering the furtherance of life.
This, for the most part, is my profession of faith. And an outline of how I intend to live. I'm not asking for converts, but if you share these sentiments, I'd love to know. Or, if you just want to start a conversation which will broaden each of our minds, I'm all ears. Life is empty without communication.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The Black Death of 1348
Cheery topic, I know. But ever since examining that catastrophic year in a graduate history class years ago, I have realized how much the Great Mortality, as many contemporaries called it, changed the western world forever.
First the facts. It's impossible to say how many people died of Bubonic Plague in 1348 and the three successive years it spread over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but estimates are that from 75 to 200 million people died. If we take the high number and extrapolate for today's 7 billion population, that would be like 2.8 Billion people dying over the course of four years. That's almost nine times the population of the entire U.S. So the obvious result is that all of a sudden, there were a lot less people around, especially in big cities. The plague is thought to have originated in China and come by way of the Silk Road to India, Arabia, North Africa, and Europe via Mediterranean ships.
But there were so many other consequences besides a cull on the population. First of all, attitudes towards life changed. Before, life was seen as being just the preparation for eternal life in heaven. If we had to suffer a little, so what? As long as we would get our eternal reward, it was worth it. Only the highest born and the clergy could read, so minds were a little bit closed. These were the Dark Ages, after all. But no one needed to read - they were born on a lord's land and grew up working the land. There was no need to ever move, and in fact, in the feudal system, it was illegal. You were pretty much stuck where you were born.
But then, suddenly, there were people dying all around for no apparent reason. They had no real idea of how disease spread, so many chalked it up to God's anger. Many thought it was how the world would end. (Just think, if it had killed everyone in the known world, a new era of history would have begun with the primitives of the Americas and Australia. They might have one day evolved civilizations of their own which might have sent boats across the ocean to discover Europe). So people began to live for today. They were freer in their thought and actions.
With everyone dying, it seemed like God had abandoned them. So why be good? If you were just going to die anyway, what was the point of doing anything for the future? Why bother to work the land? There would be no more harvests, and no more planting. Many people adopted very casual attitudes towards life. They began to work less, and as they died, the land and the animals (the backbone of their economy) suffered too. The lords weren't about to work their own land, nor could they. So survivors, who sometimes felt like they were in God's good graces, started to hire themselves out, demanding much more money and getting it. The lords had no choice. Capitalism had begun.
And with shortages of people came shortages of supplies. So barter became more popular. If I had chickens and you had wheat, we could make some kind of a deal that the lord wouldn't be party to. Free enterprise sprang up. Before, the feudal manor produced everything one needed. After, you had to get things where you could. With barter came marketplaces, which eventually turned into towns and then cities. The lords became less important and less powerful. People started to take their fates into their own hands. People started to become individuals. Of course, there were individuals before, but common people never thought beyond the walls of their manor.
If it weren't for the Black Death, the feudal system might never have ended, or would at least have been seriously delayed. The industrial age might never have needed to happen. The Enlightenment might never have come. No Renaissance. No Age of Reason. Our growth as a civilization would have been seriously stunted. No Magna Carta, no Rights of Man, No American Revolution. A European History without the Black Death would have been a much more peaceful affair. Eventually the peasants would revolt, as in the Peasant Rebellion of 1381 (I think) but they would be driven back, there leaders hanged. And life would continue. When the population got big enough and the peasants outnumbered the aristocrats by a significant enough margin, then the tables might turn. In Russia, it took until 1917.
So the Black Death was a good thing in the long run. Or was it? That depends on if you like the way things turned out. But one thing for sure, things would be very different if it had never happened.
First the facts. It's impossible to say how many people died of Bubonic Plague in 1348 and the three successive years it spread over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but estimates are that from 75 to 200 million people died. If we take the high number and extrapolate for today's 7 billion population, that would be like 2.8 Billion people dying over the course of four years. That's almost nine times the population of the entire U.S. So the obvious result is that all of a sudden, there were a lot less people around, especially in big cities. The plague is thought to have originated in China and come by way of the Silk Road to India, Arabia, North Africa, and Europe via Mediterranean ships.
But there were so many other consequences besides a cull on the population. First of all, attitudes towards life changed. Before, life was seen as being just the preparation for eternal life in heaven. If we had to suffer a little, so what? As long as we would get our eternal reward, it was worth it. Only the highest born and the clergy could read, so minds were a little bit closed. These were the Dark Ages, after all. But no one needed to read - they were born on a lord's land and grew up working the land. There was no need to ever move, and in fact, in the feudal system, it was illegal. You were pretty much stuck where you were born.
But then, suddenly, there were people dying all around for no apparent reason. They had no real idea of how disease spread, so many chalked it up to God's anger. Many thought it was how the world would end. (Just think, if it had killed everyone in the known world, a new era of history would have begun with the primitives of the Americas and Australia. They might have one day evolved civilizations of their own which might have sent boats across the ocean to discover Europe). So people began to live for today. They were freer in their thought and actions.
With everyone dying, it seemed like God had abandoned them. So why be good? If you were just going to die anyway, what was the point of doing anything for the future? Why bother to work the land? There would be no more harvests, and no more planting. Many people adopted very casual attitudes towards life. They began to work less, and as they died, the land and the animals (the backbone of their economy) suffered too. The lords weren't about to work their own land, nor could they. So survivors, who sometimes felt like they were in God's good graces, started to hire themselves out, demanding much more money and getting it. The lords had no choice. Capitalism had begun.
And with shortages of people came shortages of supplies. So barter became more popular. If I had chickens and you had wheat, we could make some kind of a deal that the lord wouldn't be party to. Free enterprise sprang up. Before, the feudal manor produced everything one needed. After, you had to get things where you could. With barter came marketplaces, which eventually turned into towns and then cities. The lords became less important and less powerful. People started to take their fates into their own hands. People started to become individuals. Of course, there were individuals before, but common people never thought beyond the walls of their manor.
If it weren't for the Black Death, the feudal system might never have ended, or would at least have been seriously delayed. The industrial age might never have needed to happen. The Enlightenment might never have come. No Renaissance. No Age of Reason. Our growth as a civilization would have been seriously stunted. No Magna Carta, no Rights of Man, No American Revolution. A European History without the Black Death would have been a much more peaceful affair. Eventually the peasants would revolt, as in the Peasant Rebellion of 1381 (I think) but they would be driven back, there leaders hanged. And life would continue. When the population got big enough and the peasants outnumbered the aristocrats by a significant enough margin, then the tables might turn. In Russia, it took until 1917.
So the Black Death was a good thing in the long run. Or was it? That depends on if you like the way things turned out. But one thing for sure, things would be very different if it had never happened.
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