The ticking time bomb

My father has often narrated an incident that happened years ago when he was visiting with his niece.  It was approaching dinner time and his niece suggested that he eat.  Especially because of the old tradition, my father wanted to dine with the niece's husband.

The in-law asked my father to go ahead.  My father was barely done with dinner when the in-law sat down to eat.

This would come across as strange to anybody.  So, of course, my father remarked about it and wondered why the in-law didn't join him at the table.

I will give you the time to read this for you to come up with your explanation.

It turned out that the in-law would eat only at the designated time.  He wouldn't advance it by even a couple of minutes.

While that person's behavior might be extreme, the reality is that we are all conditioned by the clock.  A strange Pavlovian behavior modification that compels us to get up by a certain time, eat at a certain hour, work at designated times, ... instead of eating when hungry, going to bed when we are tired, ...

What if we had no structure that coordinated all our clocks?  Of course humans have marked the passing of time.  But, the clock that we look at is a modern construct.  Clocks across the world being coordinated is even more recent.  Like with everything else that we humans have created for ourselves, we don't pause to consider our relationship with the clock that we invented:

[Kevin] Birth is one of a growing chorus of philosophers, social scientists, authors and artists who, for various reasons, are arguing that we need to urgently reassess our relationship with the clock. The clock, they say, does not measure time; it produces it. “Coordinated time is a mathematical construct, not the measure of a specific phenomenon,” Birth wrote in his book “Objects of Time.” That mathematical construct has been shaped over centuries by science, yes, but also power, religion, capitalism and colonialism. The clock is extremely useful as a social tool that helps us coordinate ourselves around the things we care about, but it is also deeply politically charged. And like anything political, it benefits some, marginalizes others and blinds us from a true understanding of what is really going on. 

So, what is really going on?

The more we synchronize ourselves with the time in clocks, the more we fall out of sync with our own bodies and the world around us. Borrowing a term from the environmentalist Bill McKibben, Michelle Bastian, a senior lecturer at Edinburgh University and editor of the academic journal Time & Society, has argued that clocks have made us “fatally confused” about the nature of time.

The confusion shows up in daily and long-term behaviors.  Ordering young ones to bed, for instance, when it is still light outside during these long summer days is as odd as waking up teenagers at six on cold and dark winter mornings so that they can get to school at eight!  We fall out of sync with our own bodies and the world around us.  Our construct of time through the clock also warps our understanding of long-term issues like the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and climate change.

"For thousands of years, most human societies have accepted and moved in harmony with the irregular rhythms of nature, using the sun, moon and stars to understand the passage of time."  Nature has rhythms, yes, but is not bound by the seconds of the clocks that we use.  While we debate about the "daylight time" versus "standard time" of the clock, it has no effect on the flora and the fauna around us, which is why farmers operate on a different schedule from us urban dwellers.  Cows have to be milked not when the daylight savings clock-time says they have to be milked!

We live in a strange world in which we even have meetings in which people across the world participate, which means that some of the participants are interrupting their sleep and dinner and sex and whatever in order to be at the meetings.  And then we wonder why we have physical and health problems!

There's no going back to a way of life without clocks that are coordinated.  There's no possibility of operating with a local measure of the passing of time that depends on the movement of the sun and the moon, and our minds and bodies responding to the local stimuli.  But, we should certainly assess our own relationship with the clock that controls us.

Subdue the earth? No!

In graduate school, a classmate remarked that his Jewish family would watch out for Jewish names in the news, whether it was good or bad.  I told him that I found doing something similar--watching out for Indian names.  And, if it was a Tamil name, then it was even more exciting.

Of course, sometimes the names pop up in unfortunate circumstances (like here or here.)  But, and thankfully, those are rare.

The cherry on top of awesome news was undoubtedly getting a dosai connoisseur as the Vice President ;)

It is human, after all, to applaud "our people."  An applause that does not have any baggage of superiority of inferiority.

It was that same graduate school excitement that I felt when I read the name of the lead author of a UK government report on the economics of biodiversity: Sir Partha Dasgupta.

My man!

All I read was the Headline Messages.  I love it.

The report notes this: "The Review develops the economics of biodiversity on the understanding that we – and our economies – are ‘embedded’ within Nature, not external to it."

We are embedded within Nature, not external to it.

The fact that we even need to be reminded about this fundamental aspect of life!

Back in graduate school, one of the discussions was the framework that the Judeo-Christian religions offered in contrast to many others around the world.  In the Judeo-Christian approach, god made man in his image and likeness. Then:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In the Judeo-Christian framework, god rules over man, who rules over nature.

That relationship is very different from what the faith in the old country told me.  Whether it was Native Americans or people in India or elsewhere, nature was worshiped.  There wasn't a sense of everything on earth as humans to take any which way it pleased them.

Sir Partha Dasgupta reminds us that we are embedded in Nature.  We don't rule over it.  We are so much intertwined with nature that "Dasgupta said assigning absolute monetary values to nature would be meaningless because life would simply cease to exist if it was destroyed."

Dasgupta's report notes:

[Relying] on institutions alone to curb our excesses will not be enough. The discipline to draw on Nature sustainably must, ultimately, be provided by us as individuals. But societal change – particularly growing urbanisation – has meant that many people have grown distant from Nature. Interventions to enable people to understand and connect with Nature would not only improve our health and well-being, but also help empower citizens to make informed choices and demand the change that is needed

Read the 10-pager.  Spread the word.  Be good to Nature.

He stirred his Velvet Head

During fair(er) weather months, at one of our favorite beaches, we spot the bobbing seals riding the waves close enough to the shores.  Sometimes, with their heads alone visible, they look like the ends of periscopes sticking out of submarines.  Which is when we wonder whether they are watching us, when we are watching them.

As we walk along the waters, they seem to follow along in parallel.

I don't need to know if they are really watching us humans.  The science of the animal behavior interests me little.  The idea that they are watching and playing with us from a distance makes us happy.  It is charming.

It is like what Emily Dickinson wrote in "A Bird, came down the Walk."

A Bird, came down the Walk - 

He did not know I saw -

He bit an Angle Worm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw, 

 

And then, he drank a Dew

From a convenient Grass -

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass -

 

He glanced with rapid eyes,

That hurried all abroad -

They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,

He stirred his Velvet Head. - 

 

Like one in danger, Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers, 

And rowed him softer Home -

 

Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam,

Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,

Leap, plashless as they swim. 

Do the religious worship nature?

One of my students has begun her project work on the disconnect between humans and the natural world.  "This disconnect from nature conflicts with human’s quality of life, physical health, psychological well-being, food sources, drinking water, our awareness of the natural world, and many more factors," she writes.

I am glad that younger people are thinking about these issues.  But then this is Oregon, and it is a rare Oregonian who is not in tune with nature.  I hope that kids and youth all over the world are thinking about these, so that they can undo the mess that we older folks have created for them.

The following is a slightly edited post from a few months ago:
********************

The undergraduate years gave me the time and space for me to figure out how I viewed many aspects of life, including religion.  Like a pendulum that violently swings, suggesting instability and the entire structure falling apart, the violence within was also reflected in my words and action.  In retrospect, I am immensely glad, and relieved, that I did not suffer a breakdown.

The internal tensions related to religion and the various daily practicalities of life resulted from the years of brainwashing.  I had yet to start any serious reading and thinking about how screwed up other religions might be.  Graduate school provided me that opportunity too.

While I did not take courses on religions, many of the books and articles that I read, and the lectures that I listened to, gave me insights.  One of those was about the relationship between god, nature, and humans.

In the traditional approaches in the various strands of Hindu faith, there is plenty of nature worship.  Mountains are sacred as are rivers and trees.  And, of course, even killing the damn roaches troubled the really faithful ones.  But, apparently not so in the Judaeo-Christian framework.  Why?  The Bible said so:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God rules over man, who rules over nature.  A relationship that is very different from what the faith in the old country told me.

Of course, just because people say they are religious does not mean they truly mean it. Many devout brahmins, for instance, devour meat.  And there are nature-worshiping hippies among Christians.  But, the broad framework suggests that the faithful might look at nature differently because their views stem from what their religions brainwashed them.

Do evangelical Christians in the US then put into practice a view that man rules over nature?  And, therefore, do they think differently from many of us who are worried about environmental crises and climate change in particular?

The following excerpt should settle that, it seems:

Here, for example, is what a church youth minister had to say about environmental care: “If we have the opportunity we should help take care of this planet that we’ve been given. Having said that, I also believe that the value of human life is higher than the value of a whale, or a species of monkey.”
It’s not that evangelicals don’t care about the environment. It’s that they care about people more.

Of course, the people that evangelicals care about don't live in shitholes--but, that is a post for another day!

Meera Subramanian worked on a series to find the middle ground in these environment discussions.  In one, she talked to a bunch of students at the Harvard of the evangelicals--Wheaton College.

While many evangelicals are preoccupied with the long-term state of human souls and the protection of the unborn, Diego and the other students I met at Wheaton are also considering other eternal implications and a broader definition of pro-life. They are concerned about the lifespan of climate pollutants that will last in the atmosphere for thousands of years, and about the lives of the poor and weak who are being disproportionately harmed by the effects of those greenhouse gases. 

But, as much as I found the world a challenging place back when I was a teenager, these students also are in a tough spot:

It can be tough to be an evangelical who cares about climate change, Chelsey said, "because the environmental activists don't trust you and the evangelicals hate you." Or they could hate you

If only we could engage in serious and sincere discussions all over the world on the relationship between humans and the natural world that envelops us.  If only!

Every day is Earth Day

It is Earth Week!

I worry about the natural environment, the living and the non-living, to qualify as an tree-hugging nutcase according to some. But, because I am not ideologically fully in the environment camp, there are others who view me with suspicion that I am one of those right-wing guys.  As always, I don't belong to any party.

The following is an edited post from April 19, 2015.
*****************************************

My neighbor has always made fun of me, whenever he finds me sweeping away the cobwebs around my home.  "You don't have to do it if you spray the chemicals I use" he reminds me and jokes that I am one of those who doesn't want to kill even spiders.

Which is true.  I don't want to kill spiders or ants or anything unless they directly interfere with my life.  I don't want to see ants in my kitchen, but I don't care if they are having a party on the sidewalk outside my home.  I don't like to see spiders or flies or gnats inside my home.  When I do see them inside, well, I do kill them.  But I feel bad for them.  I feel guilty when I crush those tiny critters. Sometimes I even apologize to them, as if that makes any difference to the ant!

I care for, and worry about, the natural environment--the living and inanimate--because of a deep conviction that the cosmos is not merely about us humans and our own comfortable material existence.  My sincere belief that there is nothing for me after this life ends does not mean that I am going to trash this place while I am here.

Source

This being the Earth Day time, my various news feeds feature writings on many aspects of our existence on this glorious pale blue dot.  In one, the author reflects on a part of his life in which he was an animal experimenter:

First, I had to learn how to shock a pigeon. A graduate student demonstrated how one person held the pigeon upside down while the other plucked out the feathers in back of its legs, cut two lengths of stiff stainless steel wire from a spool and pushed them through the skin and under the pelvic bones. The wires were then soldered to a harness placed on the pigeon’s back. The harness contained a plug that would be connected to a source of electric shock during experiments. No anesthetic or sedative was used.
One day, while programming an experiment, I accidentally touched the electrodes and got a jolting shock that numbed my entire arm. I was amazed that, according to my professor, the shock level was the correct one to use for pigeons. I told myself that pigeons must not feel pain as much as I did

We tell ourselves all kinds of things in order to keep doing those things over and over.  

I was told that everyone had to take a turn killing the pigeons after the experiments were finished. A graduate student showed me how to dump a couple of dozen birds into a clear plastic garbage bag, then pour a splash of chloroform on them and tie the bag shut. I remember the first and only time I did the killing

I would imagine that except a minority, most of us would get messed up beyond repair if we conducted experiments on animals.  Especially if we did that more than once.  I would think we would forever be haunted by the images and the sounds.  

As I look back on this nearly 50 years later, I am astonished that the daily grind of depriving, shocking and killing these animals did not move me to leave my job. My rationalization is that I was a student and young worker in institutions of higher learning, programmed to receive the wisdom of academia. I was studying how the science that supposedly advanced our civilization was done. Speaking of his infamous experiments in which human subjects followed orders thinking they were giving extremely painful shocks to other humans, the Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram said, “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.” I think that describes me pretty well.

Even when I kill ants and spiders that come into my home, I make sure I kill them as fast as I can.  I don't want those critters to suffer.  Yet, experiments on animals is nothing but watching them suffer.  If from those experiments we derive some life-extending benefits to humans, are our additional years worth all that suffering we put the animals to?

I sat with a small notepad writing the alien’s speech as my thoughts drifted back to my days in punishment research. The words flowed in almost final form as I drew on my own rationalizations for my acts of animal torture. Tears welled up in my eyes as I wrote: “We now recognize that you, too, are a sacred life-form. We deeply regret what we have done. We ask forgiveness. We are sorry.”

I don't ever get trapped into the Earth Day rhetoric of "save the planet."  As George Carlin joked, the planet knows how to take care of itself.  The planet will easily shake us humans off--a volcanic eruption alone can knock us out.  A virus can easily knock us out and put us in our place.  It is not "save the planet" mantra.

Instead, it is the every day life (and death) issues, starting from how we treat the rivers and the mountains, the ants and the elephants, and fellow humans, ... that Earth Day should be about.  And for those, we need to think of every single day as Earth Day.

We miss these during these awful shelter-in-place days :( 

Searching for meaning behind the coronavirus? Don't!

"We are meaning-haunted creatures."

A remarkably well-phrased sentence, which I quoted in this post about a year ago.  In a less philosophical manner, and in a way that would easily appeal to students, I have often remarked in classes that we want narratives that seem to explain whatever it is that we are curious about, or even afraid of.  We have narratives that explain how the universe came about, how life was created, what happens after we die, and anything that puzzles us.

We are now in a pandemic moment.  The meaning-haunted creatures we are, well, we wonder whether there is a larger purpose behind the coronavirus.  Why is this happening, and why now?

A few days ago, an old friend forwarded me an email that had plenty to think about for "those of you trying to make sense of why nature is putting us through the current pandemic."  I disagreed with the premise in that original email; to me, there is no purpose behind this pandemic, nor is nature trying to teach us anything.  I wrote to him:

Viruses, for instance, have always terrorized humans, even when we lived a lot more respectfully of nature.  Even when we absolutely worshiped nature.   All over the world, for hundreds of years, people were afraid of the small pox, and prayed to every god and saint and mysterious forces.  Modern science eradicated small pox.  There is the HIV virus. Dengue. ... the list of deadly virsues is long, to which COVID-19 is the latest addition.

Nature is.  The cosmos is. The virus is.  They exist.  That is it.  There is no grand reason.  As this NY Times essay puts it, the current pandemic has no purpose either.

But then we are meaning-haunted creatures.  Which is why:

Many religious people see something benevolent in nature, or at least see purpose dimly grasped in the interworking of biology. But there’s something even deeper than religious optimism. There is a broader conception of nature — shared by monotheists, polytheists, Indigenous animists, and now politicians and policymakers. It is the mythopoetic view of nature. It is the universal instinct to find (or project) a plot in nature. A mythopoetic paradigm or perspective sees the world primarily as a dramatic story of competing personal intentions, rather than a system of objective, impersonal laws. It’s a prescientific worldview, but it is also alive and well in the contemporary mind.

If only we accepted and operationalized something that is fundamental: "Nature doesn’t care about you."  But, we mostly don't.  "Against the frightening neutrality of nature, we humans marshal the powerful imagination."  And from that imagination we construct meanings.

It is all part of a Darwinian natural selection, and the struggle to continue to live.  Whether it is bacteria or viruses or spiders or fish or elephants or humans, it is a struggle to survive against the odds.  Going extinct is not wired into us, but adapting to survive is.  We humans also adapt and survive and fight one battle after another.  We Homo Sapiens have made it thus far because of remarkable brains that have made many things possible.  It has been a phenomenal run thus far.

As a naturalist, I resist the theological version of human exceptionalism, but as a philosopher, I’m inclined to recognize that nothing has intrinsic value until we humans imagine it so. Since we cannot find our species’ value objectively by looking at the neutral laws of nature, then we must just assert it. And simply affirm that the universe is more remarkable with us in it.

Nature does not care about us humans.  We humans--not tRump or the Republicans or the Chinese--want to be here, and we humans will make every effort to defeat the damn coronavirus and anything else that comes our way!

Teach Your Children "Palate Training"

In yesterday's post on childhood obesity, my formula for addressing that began with "It is about the overall health.  Eat your veggies. ..."

But, what if kids don't want to eat the veggies?

To me, this is impossible to imagine.  As a kid, I ate every vegetable that my mother and all the women in the extended family cooked. There wasn't a vegetable and its prep that I did not like.

I tell ya, if all kids are like how I was as a child, then the mothers of this world won't have a single problem ever ;)

The New Yorker--the magazine that published my short letter, yay!!!--has an informative and thoughtful essay on baby food and kids not taking to veggies.  It is a must-read (though it might be behind a paywall.)

I loved this there:

[Saskia] Sorrosa has a simpler goal. She wants her children to eat the way she ate as a child. “In Ecuador, we had whatever the adults were having—it was just puréed and given to babies,” she said. “I learned to eat spicy young.” On weekends, friends and neighbors would descend on her parents’ farm for buffets of ceviche and sancocho soup (a beef broth with mashed plantains and lime juice), braised goat stew and shrimp in peanut sauce. All of which found its way into Sorrosa’s mouth as she hung from her mother’s hip.

That's how I remember life in India.  Adults would offer just a tad of whatever they were eating.  And, of course, they would also praise the kid for eating it--reinforcing the good behavior.  There was no concept of making something different for children because they didn't like something.  According to grandmothers, our job was to eat what was in our plates and clean it up.  My life in India was no different from Sorrosa's childhood in Ecuador--without the ceviche and sancocho and ... ;)

“Self-weaned” infants, who dispense with purées and just gnaw on their parents’ food, tend to be slimmer and healthier than those raised on baby food. But only if their parents eat healthy meals themselves.

There is your important link to the discussions on childhood obesity too.

The author wraps up the essay by contrasting the American finickiness with how a Congolese immigrant mother in Portland (Maine) was preparing food for her baby.

Rachel’s lenga-lenga was like no baby food I’d ever seen. It was full of onions and garlic and bitter green pepper. It had mashed eggplant and leeks that could give a baby gas. It was salty from the bouillon—the rest of the family would be eating it, too—and far from sweet. By the time it was done cooking, it was a thick green porridge, pungent with smoked fish and sulfurous plants. It made kale look like Christmas candy. And yet, when Rachel brought a bowl of it over to Soraya on the couch, she bounced up and down and clapped her hands.

Roaches, monkeys, and man

The undergraduate years gave me the time and space for me to figure out how I viewed many aspects of life, including religion.  Like a pendulum that violently swings, suggesting instability and the entire structure falling apart, the violence within was also reflected in my words and action.  In retrospect, it is so clear that I could have either had a complete and total mental breakdown or I could have achieved clarity on how to move forward.  I am immensely glad, and relieved, that I did not suffer a breakdown.

All that was from thinking about what I had known from the years of brainwashing.  I had yet to start any serious reading and thinking about how screwed up other religions might be.  Graduate school provided me that opportunity too.

While I did not take courses on religions, many of the books and articles that I read, and the lectures that I listened to, gave me insights.  One of those was about the relationship between god, nature, and man.

In the traditional approaches in the various strands of Hindu faith, there is plenty of nature worship.  Mountains are sacred as are rivers and trees.  And, of course, even killing the damn roaches troubled the really faithful ones.  But, apparently not so in the Judaeo-Christian framework.  Why?  The Bible said so:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God rules over man, who rules over nature.  A relationship that is very different from what the faith in the old country told me.

Of course, just because people say they are religious does not mean they truly mean it. Many devout brahmins, for instance, devour meat.  And there are nature-worshiping hippies among Christians.  But, the broad framework suggests that the faithful might look at nature differently because their views stem from what their religions instructed them.

Do evangelical Christians in the US then put into practice a view that man rules over nature?  And, therefore, do they think differently from many of us who are worried about environmental crises and climate change in particular?

The following excerpt should settle that, it seems:

Here, for example, is what a church youth minister had to say about environmental care: “If we have the opportunity we should help take care of this planet that we’ve been given. Having said that, I also believe that the value of human life is higher than the value of a whale, or a species of monkey.”
It’s not that evangelicals don’t care about the environment. It’s that they care about people more.

Of course, the people that evangelicals care about don't live in shitholes--but, that is a post for another day!

Meera Subramanian worked on a series to find the middle ground in these environment discussions.  In one, she talked to a bunch of students at the Harvard of the evangelicals--Wheaton College.

While many evangelicals are preoccupied with the long-term state of human souls and the protection of the unborn, Diego and the other students I met at Wheaton are also considering other eternal implications and a broader definition of pro-life. They are concerned about the lifespan of climate pollutants that will last in the atmosphere for thousands of years, and about the lives of the poor and weak who are being disproportionately harmed by the effects of those greenhouse gases. 

But, as much as I found the world a challenging place back when I was a teenager, these students also are in a tough spot:

It can be tough to be an evangelical who cares about climate change, Chelsey said, "because the environmental activists don't trust you and the evangelicals hate you." Or they could hate you

If only we could engage in serious and sincere discussions all over the world on the relationship between humans and the natural world that envelops us.  If only!

Do monkeys take long showers?

Here at home, I usually take long showers. Because I can. We live in an area of abundance of water.  So rich in water that we know that it is only a matter of time before we get climate-change refugees 'streaming' into our state from the east and south.

But, when traveling, especially in India, it is always a quick "bath," as they say in the old country.  My father is always surprised at my quick turnaround.  This past trip too it happened.  "You are already done?," he asked me. I told him that Uncle RM, who was known for his "காக்கா குளியல்" (to mean that he had very, very quick baths) remarked that the less we bathe the better it is.

Bathing less is better.  Sounds contrarian, right?  But then he was a contrarian.

Anyway, I continued with my father my explanation of some ways in which RM was right.  Bathing, with or without soaping ourselves, dries up the skin.  I then quoted my doctor's advice, that most of the water and soap should be only for a few specific parts of the body.  You know well what they are, correct?

As it always happens, I didn't get no respect ;)

Think about it.  We humans are animals.  How often do you see other mammals taking leisurely baths?  Most would rather not go anywhere near water other than to drink it.

I don't mean to suggest that we stop showering.  Hell no.  But, if we start from that point of departure that the largest organ--the skin--needs to be treated with care, then we will think about showers also very differently.

There’s no hard and fast rule for this although dermatologists agree that as a society, we shower too often.
Many of us douche daily, however, if you’re not doing anything too strenuous, you can shower every other day, not smell offensive and ensure your skin retains those vital oils that too much washing depletes.

Perhaps I now have your attention.  How about washing clothes then?  Changing the linen?  How frequent should these activities be?

Aha, got you thinking, eh!

I tell ya, even the underwear you can rethink:

While the thought of reusing your undergarments for days on end might make some people shudder, an underwear line from Danish company, Organic Basics, has certainly grabbed our attention. The company claims that you don’t have to wash a pair for weeks as its products kill bacteria and odours, leaving you feeling fresh and clean.

For once, an ad that doesn't use female models but only objectifies men, eh ;)  What is with the tattoos though?

Yes, there is a reason for this post--it is getting hot here.

Source

We are under a heat advisory!

The heat makes me sweat. Don't worry--I will shower!

The thief left it behind

The thief, left it behind:
The moon
at the window.

Every single day is a humbling experience that I don't know anything.  How could one possibly know it all anyway.  But, the fact that we couldn't possibly know it all should mean that every one of us should be humble to the core, and yet we are not!

I came across that verse in this essay, in which the author provides the backstory to it:

According to traditional lore, the Japanese Zen master and poet Ryokan Taigu, who lived from 1758 to 1831, was a happy hermit. He trained in a monastery for 10 years, then rejected conventional religion. He went on to live a simple life, meditating, writing poetry, occasionally drinking sake with rural farmers, and sharing his modest meals with the birds and beasts.
He didn’t have much to steal. But one night, a thief came to Ryokan’s spare mountain hut looking for treasure. The criminal found nothing of value and was disappointed, which saddened the Zen master. It’s said that the poet pressed his clothes—or his blanket, depending on which account you read—upon the thief, saying, “You’ve come such a long way to see me, please accept this gift.”
The stunned thief took the poet’s clothing. But he didn’t take anything that mattered to the Zen master, who reportedly spent the rest of the evening naked, gazing at the moon in the sky—a jewel that no one could steal, yet everyone can enjoy. Ryokan was still a bit sad, as he hadn’t been able to give the thief this most valuable of treasures. In his diary, the Zen master penned a now-famous poem

Picture in your mind a naked Zen monk running after the burglar to give him the cushion that he forgot!

The story is told by Zen teachers to remind students that most people are attached to things that don’t really matter, while missing the marvels that abound in the natural world.

Indeed!

A couple of night ago, we looked up at the crescent of the moon, and almost right next to it was the ultra-shiny Venus.  We marveled at the sight.

The thief left it behind!

The following evening, Venus had moved farther away, and the moon was more puffed up too.

The thrill of an unusual natural event like a lunar eclipse only highlights the fact that we ignore the everyday wonders that surround us all the time. We spend our days and nights staring at screens, and don’t gaze up at the sky nearly enough. That means we’re missing out on great riches that are available to everyone, but appreciated by only a few.

There are great riches everywhere.  I often blog about these.  Good to also have this Zen story and verse in my back-pocket.

Source

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

After more than two decades, all of us--except my brother--went to the town where we had spent a good chunk of our lives.  A town that makes us recall nothing but good times, even though the ending was not what we would have scripted.

Of course, we went to the old home.  One of the many things that struck me was how green the entire compound was.  Immensely more than when we were there.  It was almost a private enchanted forest.

In the forests and the Savannah where we humans spent most of our lives before we invented agriculture and quickly became urban (and urbane too?!)  At a gut-level, it has always appealed to me that we should maintain those links to the old home--the wilderness.  But, the wuss that I am, I don't wish to be far away from the material comforts of our modern existence.  The nice bed. Indoor toilet. Shower. Hot food.  But, it is good to get away on a regular basis.

That I have been doing regularly. And now I have more reasons to keep up the practice:

Several theories have been proposed as to why spending time in forests might provide health benefits. Some have suggested that chemicals emitted from trees, so-called phytoncides, have a physiological effect on our stress levels. Others suggest that forest sounds — birds chirping, rustling leaves — have a physiologically calming effect. Yet evidence to support these theories is limited.

The "limited" does not discourage me because that is how science operates.  It takes a number of studies and under highly controlled conditions before researchers can confidently make their claims.  But, seriously, who among us thinks that “forest bathing” will not do us good?

“I usually encourage participants to sit or lie down on the forest ground and listen to the sounds,” [Dr. Hiroko Ochiai, a surgeon based at Tokyo Medical Center] says. “The hypersonic natural world can be soothing, and things are always moving even while we are still. It can be very calming.” 

Therein lies an important aspect of this nature treatment: It is about the mindfulness.  

I have encountered mountain bikers, for instance, along the nature trails.  They aren't listening to the "hypersonic natural world" because they are too focused on their movement.  Be still they cannot.  When we walk, however, we stop whenever we want. We look at the moss. The strange knots on trees. We feel the ground under the shoes. We hear the whistling sounds of the gentle breeze. The woodpecker. And, yes, the mosquitoes too.  

Unfortunately, in our modern existence, a significant number of humans have virtually no access to forests and lakes and rivers and oceans.  Most of us are trapped in concrete jungles with asphalt trails, and we wonder why we are stressed and unhappy, even as we spend all our times looking at tiny blue screens!

So, back to the scientific evidence:

The science is still lacking to prove it. But there is some evidence — as well as good old common sense — to suggest that spending time in nature is good for both the mind and body, whether done as a group or alone. It may be something we all need more of. 

Indeed!

The implicit brutality of male sexuality

Years ago, an older friend who was married to an European, remarked about an aspect of the male-female relationship that did not exist in my old country nor in the adopted one.  "Harmless flirtation" at parties and at places of work is very European, he said.  Of course, the European flirtation that he referred to was in the married context, where people are in committed relationships.

Having been raised in a culture where girls and boys, and women and men, lived socially separate lives, and as one curious about how different societies around the world dealt with issues like this, I found all these to be fascinating.  In the old country, women even in my grandmother's generation rarely talked with men, which then did not even crack open the possibility of harmless flirtation.  

In enforcing such a separation between the male and the female, one of the metaphors in the Tamil culture was about fire and cotton--these need to be kept far away from each other because otherwise the cotton will get burnt.  Females being the cotton here, of course.  It was to protect women from the fire and fury that men are.

Vice President mike pence practices such a separation between men and women.  He has proudly noted how he doesn’t eat alone with any woman other than his wife.  While it might seem like a great idea, it is another version of la majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.  Why?  Because, in practice it means like this:

One reason women stall professionally, research shows, is that people have a tendency to hire, promote and mentor people like themselves. When men avoid solo interactions with women — a catch-up lunch or late night finishing a project — it puts women at a disadvantage.

So, isn't a better approach to empower women?  Give them agency?

Masha Gessen notes:

In the current American conversation, women are increasingly treated as children: defenseless, incapable of consent, always on the verge of being victimized. This should give us pause. Being infantilized has never worked out well for women.

In this post-weinstein era, I hope we don't swing to the other extreme and strictly enforce the gender separation that continues to exist in many parts of the world.

Instead, I want something else: Serious and sincere conversations on how to deal with the biological wiring in men, and how nurture can address that aspect of nature.  But then, nobody listens to what I have to say!

Out of Eden

Typically, any new administrator who meets with us will at some point ask us what the difference is between geology and geography.  And we point out to them that geographers look at human environment interactions.

Makes sense, right?  It is not merely about humans and what we do.  It is not merely about the environment.  But, about that intersection.  Which means, well, pretty much everything.  (Therefore, to some, it can also mean it is about nothing.)

Now, what if that natural environment that is close to home--not far away like in the Arctic--is changing for the worse?  Like the paving over of wetlands, or seemingly permanently smoke-filled skies because of the cement factory in town, or ... you get the drift, right?

It is also easy to imagine that plenty of people get distressed over the destruction of that natural environment.  If only there is a word for that condition, you say?

While you won’t find it in the Oxford English Dictionary, philosopher Glenn Albrecht once coined one such word while working at the University of Newcastle in Australia. 'Solastalgia’ – a portmanteau of the words ‘solace’ and ‘nostalgia’ – is used not just in academia but more widely, in clinical psychology and health policy in Australia, as well as by US researchers looking into the effects of wildfires in California.
It describes the feeling of distress associated with environmental change close to your home, explains Albrecht.

The last two weeks here in Oregon made me feeling uneasy.  Forest fires all around the state were blowing smoke and fine particulate matter into the valley.  The blue sky and white clouds, and the hours outside, were gone.  The sun rose as an orange ball, and throughout the day its light was yellow and orange.  Sunsets were eerily spectacular.  People didn't stir out, and those that did wore masks to filter the air that they were breathing.  I couldn't even enjoy the simplest pleasure of walking up to the river, leave alone walking my favorite five-mile loop by it.

One day, I simply gave up.  It was a crappy day.

Turns out that I was down with solastalgia.

The symptoms include an underlying sense of loss, a vague sensation of being torn from the earth, a general out-of-placeness, homelessness without leaving home. ... Solastalgia is the unease we inflict on ourselves as we create a world we don’t want to inhabit, a world stripped of nature.

I am not even an environmental nut-case and I find that I suffer from mild solastalgia.

At least the deterioration in the natural condition around me was temporary.  After a few bad days, the high pressure system let go of its choke-hold.  The wind direction changed.  The temperature dropped.  The blue sky returned.  I said hi to the river.

But, what if the damage to the natural environment near our homes is permanent?  How does one recover from that?

 “Solastalgia,” Albrecht wrote, “is the pain or sickness caused by the loss of, or inability to derive solace from, the present state of one’s home environment. Solastalgia exists when there is recognition that the beloved place in which one resides is under assault.” The type of assault may vary. The force of the assault may vary. The loss and unease that follows in the wake of the assault do not.
Glenn Albrecht chose “solasta” as a new root word for two reasons. “Solasta” contains the sense both of “solace” and “desolation.”

Desolation is a serious condition, I would think.

The idea of solastalgia came out of a stripped landscape, that of the Australian droughts of the early oughts. They provided direct evidence of the mental health consequences of climate change. The effects were most acute among indigenous groups, scientists who confront climate change directly, and farmers whose land has been destroyed.

Understandable, given that indigenous groups and farmers spend every single day with the natural environment in ways that we city slickers cannot even imagine.

Solastalgia, the researchers concluded, appeared to “give clear expression, both philosophically and empirically, to the environmental dimension of human distress.”

Yes, empirically too.

Solastalgia is the latest human affliction, and like the other human afflictions before it, it calls out for a cure.

If you want, read that piece to find out how the market offers a "cure."  If you are like me, you will be even more depressed at that cure!

We atheists, too, are awestruck by this universe. So what?

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I caught a wonderful break that the weather gave us and headed to the coast.  It was a sunny 60-degree-plus with nothing more than a light, caressing wind.  Looking at the vast ocean while at the foot of the old lighthouse, I--an atheist--and she--a believer, of sorts--were both equally awestruck by it all.  The trees were also awesome, and so were the hills.  I imagined that it will be one awesome paradise when the rhododendrons are in bloom.

Yes, it is with design that I used "awe" that many times in the previous sentences.  For one, it is true that I am simply awed by everything around me.  I don't even have to venture far away from home for such a feeling.  The river that is close by and I see everyday. The young lambs that have been only recently birthed, and the older sheep too. Blue sky with puffy white clouds. A toddler's laughter. A dog's wagging tail. And more.

I am awestruck all the time.

But, I don't have to see god's hand or face in any of these.

We atheists, too, are blown away by all these.  Just because we don't see any creator behind all these, and just because we theorize that these resulted from the randomness that the universe is, doesn't mean that we are not awestruck.  I would, in fact, think that we go about exploring and understanding only because we are so much awestruck.

I have blogged before about Richard Feynman's wonderfully profound observations on "the pleasure of finding things out."  As he noted, "the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts."

In the latest issue of the Scientific American, Michael Shermer has more to say on "the soft bigotry of those who cannot conceive of how someone can be in awe without believing in supernatural sources of wonder."  I like how he brings that word "bigotry" into it, because it is such a strongly prejudiced view of atheists that makes people imagine the craziest things about us.

Shermer writes that in the context of a research that showed that feeling the emotion of awe "elicits uncertainty and a subsequent desire to resolve that feeling by explaining events in terms of purpose-driven causal agents."  That awe, therefore, leads the believers to believe that there was a causal agent, or more, behind those. "[In] the moment of awe, some of the fear and trembling can be mitigated by perceiving an author's hand in the experience."

And that is where we atheists take on a different interpretation to all those "awe" moments. As Shermer writes:

Instead of fear and trembling, we feel wonder and gratitude in discovering that the author's hand is nature's laws and nothing more, but also nothing less.

Aaaaaawww! That is one heck of a well-crafted thought and sentence.

"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"

In the high school biology class, during one of the lab sessions, we transferred our blood drops to a glass slide, and viewed that with a microscope.  Even though the textbook and the biology teacher (was Gladstone his name?) had prepped me for it, I was blown away that the liquid blood was not some simple solution but there was all kinds of things happening there.  There is more than meets the eye, indeed!

I was reminded of that experience when I read this essay on how discovering the microscopic world led humans into yet another frontier to which humans had never gone before.  Explorations of the micro-biology kind.

When it came to studying the human reproductive system, after reading the textbook with a sense of being a science explorer combined with all the teenage angst and desires, there were certainly plenty of moments when I wondered if the sperm really looked anything at all like the tadpoles in the pond.  I suppose it would have been one crazy biology lab if any classmate had attempted to check that out; thankfully, nobody did, and we believed the textbook instead.

It is that kind of curiosity to constantly peek behind the curtains which has led us to where we are now.

In previous ages, natural philosophers had attributed the causes of processes to invisible, occult forces and emanations — vague and insensible agencies. The new mechanistic philosophers of the 17th century argued that nature worked like a machine, filled with levers, hooks, mills, pins and other familiar devices too small to be seen. As Hooke put it: ‘Those effects of Bodies, which have been commonly attributed to Qualities, and those confess’d to be occult, are perform’d by the small Machines of Nature.’
He never quite found them — what the microscope revealed was more often unintelligible in these terms. But there was no shortage of other marvels.

Yes, marvels. A never ending stream of marvels.

A typical complaint is that the more we systematically analyze the world around us, the less everything is charming.  That we reduce the wonders of nature to their material components, and then we decipher the components of those components.

It simply isn't so.

The fact that such inquiries enabled humans to walk around on the moon has not made the sight of a full moon any less poetic--it has only increased our desire to go check out the moon for ourselves, as much as we pricked our fingers and examined that blood under the microscope.  Critically analyzing a play or a musical performance makes us appreciate the nuances and adds to our enjoyment.

But then, I am not saying anything new.  The phenomenal polymath physicist, Richard Feynman, articulated it for all of us while talking about the beauty of a flower:

I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

Yes, the marvels we discover adds considerably to appreciating and enjoying this world.  If only people would invest a lot more time and energy to understanding science than we currently do.

As Feynman noted in this context of a lack of interest in scientific knowledge:

we should teach them wonders and that the purpose of knowledge is to appreciate wonders even more. And that the knowledge is just to put into correct framework the wonder that nature is.

Ah, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" ...

From the BBC Interview for Horizon 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/archive/feynman/)
Animated by Fraser Davidson (www.sweetcrude.tv).

Are CFLs a dim bulb approach to saving nature?

In this blog, and in my classes, I refer to arguments and analysis that Bjorn Lomborg offers.  With students, I typically present an environmental issue, and by discussing it they soon realize the tradeoffs that are needed.  It is always a rewarding moment for me when I see that metaphorical light bulb click on in a few of them, at least.

Light bulbs are what Lomborg tackles this time around--the government mandate that bans the use of  incandescent bulbs in favor of the compact fluorescent ones.  Lomborg, who has often argued for R&D investments that could lead us towards less carbon in our consumptive behaviors, reminds us, yet again, that:

The solution should be to focus on improving the technology—making the lights safer, brighter, warm up faster, and save more energy, so that more people will replace more of their lights. ...

Governments talk far too much about setting a relatively high carbon tax on emissions while focusing far too little on ensuring a meaningful increase in research and development to bring about necessary breakthroughs.

Limiting access to the "wrong" light bulbs or patio heaters is, ultimately, not the right path. We will only solve global warming by ensuring that alternative technologies are better than our current options. Then people the world over will choose to use them.

A mere mandate does no good.  Well, other than to get people all worked up.

With the exception of a few crazies who question the very climate change (and Lomborg is not one of them) most of us recognize the urgency to change the way we live on this lonely planet.

Some do get carried away to extremes--like those who want to restore nature to its pristine conditions and, sometimes, even represent humans as the worst living creature ever.  To these, Ron Bailey, while reviewing Emma Marris' new book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, reminds us that the pristine nature is a myth.

“Nature is almost everywhere. But wherever it is, there is one thing nature is not: pristine,” writes science journalist Emma Marris in her engaging new book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. She adds, “We must temper our romantic notion of untrammeled wilderness and find room next to it for the more nuanced notion of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden, tended by us.” Marris’ message will discomfort both environmental activists and most ecologists who are in thrall to the damaging cult of pristine wilderness and the false ideology of the balance of nature. But it should encourage and inspire the rest of us.

I am reminded of a graduate course I took years ago, in which we were required to read a book, whose author/title completely escapes me.  The bottom line in that book was simple: everything will be great if only there were no humans.  The professor seemed so committed to this idea as well that, and being a highly self-conscious guy during those years, I opted not to challenge him.

Bailey wraps up the book review:

One hopes that readers will take to heart Marris’ chief insight about conservation: “There is no one best goal.” She bravely and correctly concludes, “We’ve forever altered the Earth, and so now we cannot abandon it to a random fate. It is our duty to manage it. Luckily, it can be a pleasant, even joyful task if we embrace it in the right spirit. Let the rambunctious gardening begin.”

Yes, a rambunctious gardening, with light from bulbs that we willingly purchase because they are wonderfully efficient and pleasing and do not trigger headaches.

Russia's Katrina. Pakistan's Katrina.

And yet, the politicians don't care. Which is what happens in societies that are not quite democratic.
First, the unfolding crisis in Pakistan--massive flooding.  How massive?  About 14 million people affected.

Twelve million are affected in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces, while a further two million are affected in Sindh.
In Indian-administered Kashmir, at least 113 people died in mudslides.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that a charity connected to a group with alleged al-Qaeda links has been providing flood relief.
Flooding has submerged whole villages in the past week, killing at least 1,600 people, according to the UN.
And the worst floods to hit the region in 80 years could get worse, as it is only midway through monsoon season.

The number of affected will rise a lot more.  A couple of days ago, when this started. BBC reported that a million people were affected. Then it became three, then four, then eleven, and now up to fourteen million.
In a truly democratic society, the country's top leaders will be compelled to show up at the affected areas.  Pakistan's president, Zardari, is in the UK.  And this was after the British prime minister openly dissing Pakistan, while on a state visit to neighboring India!

Meanwhile, Russia is on fire.  At least, it seems that way, and apparently smoke from there has even drifted all the way to here in Oregon!  Over at the New Yorker, Julia Ioffe writes:

This ongoing disaster should be Putin’s Katrina, but instead the vast majority sees him as a benevolent father who can magically help them

Why does she say so?  Read on:

Villagers received no fire warnings. When the fires started approaching, some had trouble reaching the local authorities. Others begged for buses to help evacuate their villages, were told to fend for themselves. Fire trucks didn’t come, either, and then their homes, made of wood, were gone in minutes. The forestry minister, meanwhile, is on his August vacation, and has no plans to cut it short.

The government’s response has been a disaster, and the people are blaming their local officials—but not the very top. When a mob of irate women descended on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, they weren’t mad at him; they were demanding that he, as one woman put it, “string [local officials] up by the balls.”

Boy, this Vlad "the impaler" Putin has quite a hold on Russia, it seems.  But, you think maybe it is not fair to include Putin in the list of officials who need to be strung by their cojones!  Not so fast:

In 2006, then-President Putin, in consultation with the Russian timber industry, “reformed” forestry regulations, eliminating positions for rangers, making each of the remaining ones responsible for more territory, increasing paperwork so they spent hardly any time outdoors monitoring the forests—and, on the off chance that they did spot a small fire while on patrol, making it a punishable offense (a misuse of state funds) to put it out. The organization charged with extinguishing fires was the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which responded speedily and capably to the Moscow Metro bombings in March, but a 2005 reform instituted by Putin left regional emergency outfits severely underfunded.

So, what is going for this former KGB officer?  Ioffe explains:

Except for the minority who read news in papers or online, Russians would never know that shoddy, nonsensical, industry-friendly deregulation was responsible for this natural disaster as much as the weather. Instead, the vast majority get their news from television, which has been broadcasting pictures of Putin, sleeves rolled up, touring the destruction. In a particularly fine touch, the main Russian television channel broadcast a “phone call” from Putin, ostensibly on his cell phone in the middle of a pristine birch grove, to President Dmitry Medvedev, back in his ornate Kremlin office. The message was clear: Putin was in charge, and this reassured the people who had lost homes to the fires he helped cause. “Putin said they’ll build us all new houses, so it will probably happen,” one villager told the Independent.

Well, I hope the millions in Pakistan and Russia are able to get over the rain and fire with as little damage as possible to life and property.  And, after things settle down, I hope they boot out all the dirty, rotten scoundrels.  And then we will do the same here in America!  All those people claiming cojones, better watch out ...

"The hurling habit dies hard" :)

Or, as one commenter has described it,

Wham, Bam, thank you Ma'am! 

BBC has blocked access to that clip, which includes footage after the victorious male meets the female.  The following clip stops with the male and female shaking hands, er, legs :)