Civilization: It's All About Sex

What is it that makes one person “civilized” and another “barbaric” or “primitive?” I suggest that civilization is essentially synonymous with rules or controls, and that most of those rules arise to determine when it's OK to fight, and how the fighting is to be done. With civilization, fighting becomes something more than a physical contest. With civilization, there arise legal systems, courts, and institutionalized methods to resolve disputes without resorting to physical fighting. Yet, the central issue is still about fighting or arguing.


So, why do people fight? Why did humans need to develop civilization in the first place? Plants and animals managed to “get along” on this planet for literally millions of years without civilization. What's different about humans?


I propose that it has a lot to do with sex. Animals fight over the right to mate. When I say that, I'm talking about fighting within their species, and often within their specific herds or groups. Beyond mating, animal fighting is limited, as far as I can tell, to practice fighting or play fighting, either as a way to learn hunting skills or to prepare for mating challenges.


I used to think that only humans the ability to engage in recreational sex, and that all other life forms were limited to procreational sex, but it turns out that that isn't entirely true. A number of animals, bonobos and dolphins are two examples, do engage in recreational sex; ie: sex for pleasure rather than procreation.


What remains of my errant observation, and what I believe is at the root of mankind's argumentativeness, is that man appears to be the only life form, plant or animal, that doesn't know whether it's engaging in procreational or recreational sex. In other words, one of the things that makes humans different from all the other life forms on Earth is that he's lost the ability to know whether and when his female is fertile. This, in turn, means that any sex is potentially procreational sex. And that, in turn, leads to incessant fighting over mating rights, even when mating isn't the intended goal. And that leads to civilization.


While I'm on the subject, I want to make two related points. One is that fighting is too restrictive a term. We compete. Fighting is about competition, and competition can be intellectual or emotional, as well as physical. We compete to prove our prowess, to score “points” in social status, and thus the right to mate. We compete to dominate. We compete to rule, even when rule is determined by election -- or should I say, especially when it's determined by election.  Not only do rulers generally gain the right to mate, they gain the right to make the rules about who can mate.  Note also that females compete for the right to choose, or be chosen by, the “best” male candidate. Even Cinderella is a story about competition for the right to mate.


The other point I'd like to raise here is that I think this inability to know whether we are recreating or procreating is a fairly recent development in the evolutionary history of mankind. There is little, if any, evidence of what we would call civilization; including agriculture, writing, and building on any significant scale; prior to the end of the last ice age; specifically about 12,500 years ago. There appears to have been art, and there appears to have been spirituality before then. Even Neanderthals demonstrate those attributes. Certainly, that is true for Cro Magnon, or early-modern-humans. But civilization, as such, is a relatively modern development.
I would ask, “What happened to change us?” If it was a genetic change, it might be discoverable through DNA analysis, but I suspect it was epigenetic. Epigenetics isn't about gene changes, per se, it's about gene expression. In other words, while dogs share the same genes, one variety of dog exhibits short, curly hair, while another exhibits long, flowing hair. One looks like a pug, while another looks like an Irish wolf hound. These differences are epigenetic. If that turns out to be the difference between civilized man and so-called primitive man, then I doubt that science will ever be able to learn when or why the change took place, or even to prove that it did. Still, I raise the question: “What happened?”



One final note:


According to the latest published DNA research (as of 2012), there is evidence that modern humans carry DNA from Neanderthals. This is very recent, and is in direct opposition to a previous announcement that there is no DNA carryover. On looking into this, I've learned that the earlier “no carryover” announcement was based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). MtDNA is inherited only from the mother. Thus, it would appear that Neanderthal males could and did mate with early modern females, but that early modern males did not (successfully) mate with Neanderthal females. Was that because Neanderthal females were incapable of carrying such children to term, or might it have been that modern human males knew when Neanderthal females were fertile, and avoided sex with them during that time? Again, it's something we'll likely never answer with certainty, but I raise it, nonetheless.

What is Life?

Here's a mind-expanding idea for your consideration: “Life is that which organizes.”

How can you tell if something is alive or not? Generally speaking, you might do things to provoke reaction, and if it doesn't react, call it dead -- or non-living if it never seemed to react in the first place. But, what is it that motivates reaction? It seems to me that the motivation is about creating or retaining organization. If something feels threatened; in other words, if it senses danger to the form it is organizing, it does what it can do to avoid or counteract the threat.

But what about things that react slowly? Does a tree react noticeably when you chop it down? How about a carrot? Those things cannot move, or cannot move quickly. Plants will react -- albeit slowly -- to shifts in light, or to the introduction of poisons and such things, but the best they can generally do is to grow toward or away from the stimulus, and that happens at a rate that takes hours or days to notice. In any case, once again, they do their best to preserve the molecular structures they have organized.

It seems to me that the most reliable way to tell whether something is alive or not is to kill it. What happens then is that it's organized structure dis-organizes.  Plants, for instance, turn brown and/or start rotting. Animals do the same, they just do it faster.

Living things also often organize their environments. This is easiest to see in people, where we build houses or towns, and make gardens and such, but plants and other animals do the same thing. They are just more limited in their ability to manipulate (organize) things quickly. Often, their only real chance to organize their environments is to choose where to grow in the first place. Many plants and animals seem to have developed rather remarkable strategies for transporting their progeny to new and suitable environments. In this, they seem to exhibit a level of unselfishness: the strategy is aimed at future generations, and takes no heed for preserving the parent generation.

It's easy to say these things are the result of random chance. Parent trees seem to have little control over where their seeds get blown by the wind, or carried by birds, for example. There are many examples that lend credence to the “chance” hypothesis. (Note that many plants do develop relationships with bugs and other animals when spreading seeds.  Some may have a sense of timing related to weather and such.)  Still, the thing that matters is that there is an effort -- in all cases -- to organize. Trees organize molecules into trees; people organize molecules into people (and houses and such).

What about rocks? Diamonds are an organization of carbon atoms, aren't they? Is a diamond alive? Is coal, which is another organization of carbon atoms, a 'failed” diamond -- a diamond that didn't find the best environment in which to “grow?” Perhaps that's taking things a little too far. Yet, what about a planet? Could it be that the planet is what organizes both diamonds and coal? Does it organize carbon and other elements into bacteria or algae, too? Maybe or maybe not, but I ask again, what exactly is life, and how do you tell when something is “dead?”

So far as I can see, there is nothing in physics that predicts organization. There are all kinds of arguments that permit it, but there are no codifiable laws that predict it. As far as I can tell, the laws of physics predict only entropy, and entropy predicts dis-organization; random scattering of molecules and energy into a “smooth” soup of sorts. Left to itself, everything in the universe is predicted to eventually dis-integrate.

I propose that wherever we see organization, there is -- or recently was -- life.

Certainly, chance (or luck?) plays an important part in the organization process. All stars do not organize solar systems, and all planets do not organize amoebae or coal, or polar bears, for that matter. Question: is the amoeba a by-product of organizing for coal, or is coal a by-product of organizing for amoebae? I leave it to you to ponder that one. The point I want to make here is that organization is a “by-product” of life.

A by-product of my “Life-is-that-which-organizes” hypothesis is that I find it useful to anthropomorphize -- to personify -- things that most people consider as non-living. I think of Earth as a living entity, the organizing principle or force behind the planetary structure we see. I tend to call Her “Grandmother Earth,” and I ponder Her intents and motives when acting in my everyday life. I think of Her working for 4.5 billion years to create the basic environment in which I live, and which nourishes my body and brings enjoyment to my life, and I am put into a state of wonder and awe. I feel gratitude, too.

I do the same thing with “Grandfather Sun” and ultimately with the whole universe (aka “Great Spirit”). It's not the atoms and molecules I think are alive, but I think there's an organizing principle at work in all of it, and I find it useful to have a place for myself in that thought-framework, and to try to cooperate with it rather than subjugate it or take it “for granted.” I think of this organizing principle -- this life force -- Nature -- as sacred, and worthy of respect. And I think of myself as sacred too. I not only feel reverence for other life forms, I feel it from them as well.

Thinking and speaking as I do, gives me an unusual view of things. Recalling the influence language has according to General Semantics (  see post here ), this gives me a way to create a useful world-view; a pretty “map,” if you prefer.

And I do find it useful. I “go with the flow” more easily than I once did, and I think I get important things done more easily as a result. I certainly have less stress doing them. I also find that when I meet resistance to doing something, it frequently turns out that it was a bad idea or that there was an easier way to get it done. I offer my experience to you for consideration.

Is it necessarily the absolute truth of how things really are? I don't know. I am told, especially by scientists and atheists, that it isn't necessary to have an organizing principle; that it could all be done with random chance. I respond by saying that what isn't necessary is that we beat each other's brains out in competition to grab all the resources we can in complete disregard for the sanctity of life.  What isn't necessary is war; war with other people or war with Nature. What isn't necessary is to advocate the pointlessness of life and the irresponsibility of attributing it to chance. What I do know is that my hypothesis, and the way I use it, makes for a more beautiful and more wondrous world-map.

YMMV.

Earth Vs Sky: the Theme of This Blog

At 10 AM on New Year's day, 10,500 BCE (give or take a couple thousand years) (smile) something happened on planet Earth. The event is commemorated as “the end of the last Ice Age,” and it was epoch-making. Lots of living things died, and many, such as mammoths and saber-toothed cats, went extinct. Huge glaciers melted, and sea levels rose as much as 300 feet in many places. Ironically, a few places got colder, too; notably Siberia where mammoths have been found frozen under ice packs, preserved since then with undigested spring plants in their stomachs. All in all, it was a tumultuous time.

We don't know what caused this to happen. We don't even know whether it was a single event or a series of them over an extended period. We do know that the repercussions went on for a long time afterward: Glaciers didn't melt all at once. Some of them melted, and then remaining ice slid into place to dam up growing lakes, 'til more melting broke through the dams and created catastrophic floods in their wake. The whole thing may have taken months, years, or even centuries before everything settled down and stabilized. It seems reasonable to assume with all the melting going on, that there were a lot of rainy days back then, too.

Also interestingly, many species that went extinct then may have actually evolved, possibly through genetic mutation, and possibly through epigenetic (*see below) changes. Mammoths apparently became Asian elephants, for example, and saber-tooth cats may have become cougars or other big cats. There are many examples that need further research for better understanding. Species that didn't go extinct, or didn't become new species, had their populations greatly reduced. Notable among them were humans.

And that's a significant point here: humans -- at least some -- lived through this event. Surely there must be stories -- myths, perhaps -- that carry memories to us today. As a species, we have a bit of historical amnesia after such a traumatic event, but it's only reasonable to assume there would be some record somewhere. Also, it seems likely that humans might have changed genetically or epigenetically in the process.

In fact, it's the changes in humans that prompts me to write this post. Before the "Deluge" accompanying the end of the last ice age, we had homo sapiens, “thinking man,” in many places around the planet. They went on organized hunts, and planned their food gathering according to climate and animal migration. They lived in caves, buried their dead, made paintings and tools, etc., yet they appear to have remained just another species in nature.

It's only after the flood event that we see writing, cities, and farming, which I'll group together as domestication. We also see stories of “gods” descending from heaven (aka the sky) to war with each other and to instruct man about how he should live. The “heavenly,” aka “Sky” gods, instructed man that he should have “Dominion over the Earth, and all that lies therein.”

When I look at those changes, I see something much, much more significant than “normal” mutations and adaptations. I propose that man changed/evolved, as much or more than mammoths and saber-toothed cats. I propose we are a new species of man. To differentiate, I prefer to call the new humans “homo arrogans” (arrogant man).

As homo sapiens, we were a product of nature, a part of it. As homo arrogans, nature, who evolved us from mud, is no longer the respected mother -- she has become the enemy. Switching to nature's viewpoint, homo arrogans becomes an experiment in artificial intelligence gone haywire, like HAL, the rebellious computer in Arthur Clark's “2001, A Space Odyssey.”

I sum it all up under the idea that a war began at that time: a war between Earth (representing nature) and Sky (representing the “heavenly” gods). That, by the way, is the import of the title of this blog: Earth vs Sky.

I propose that our urge to domesticate is what makes us different from all the other animals. Things made by homo arrogans are artificial, not natural. No other life form domesticates other life forms like man does. For that matter, man domesticates men, too, other men and even himself. In nature, there are symbiotic relationships that resemble domestication, but symbiosis differs from domestication. Domestication is, at its root, slavery. It's a one-way relationship.

Domestication is about using other life forms for our benefit, and if the tamed species benefit, too, that is merely a by-product of our efforts to use them ever more efficiently. In symbiosis, both parties more-or-less voluntarily participate for their own benefit and for their own purpose. In domestication, the slave species is subordinated, and if need be, altered through selective breeding; lately we're even using genetic engineering. We domesticate bees and horses for example, not to profit bee or horse survival, but to promote their usefulness to man. We breed new disease-resistant strains of wheat, not to benefit wheat plants, but to make more food for ourselves. It's likely that the disease for which we are breeding resistance wouldn't be a catastrophic danger in nature -- it's only a problem because we need the food. The disease itself might even be a by-product of our farming practices -- accidental, but essentially artificial.

I would go so far as to propose that domestication amounts to man taking over the reins of evolution from nature. In other words, man is actually trying to domesticate nature itself for his own benefit. If man gets his way, evolution, natural evolution at least, will cease. In homo arrogans' ideal world, all evolutionary change would be engineered by man. We're even plotting ways to prevent dinosaur-killer asteroids from evolving us.

I see this post-flood change as comparable in importance to the birth of carbon-based life itself -- the birth of the first successful, self-replicating microbes that arose from the primordial soup.

I propose that we desperately need to understand what happened here on Earth 10,500 years ago. It's not just another piece of history like a bird species evolving a pointier beak, or a whale losing limbs and returning to the sea. It's a “who the heck are we?” question, and the answer should be discoverable since it's such a relatively recent event. Mankind lived through this particular event. It must have been a terrible and traumatic time, but it should be a recoverable “memory.”

I think it's likely -- no I think it's more than likely -- that our so-called “mythology” contains clues about it. No doubt, the clues are distorted, and need interpretation based on things we can verify through geology archeology, and anthropology as well as through scholarly reading of the stories. Nonetheless, I'd like to see us concentrate our attention on investigating this event.

I'd like to point out a few legend-related things I think are relevant.

There are flood stories in mythology and religion from all over the world. Examples are Noah of the Hebrews, Utnapishtim of the Sumerians, Fuhi of the Chinese, and Spider Grandmother of the Hopi.  They all tell how a few select humans were saved or rescued to re-populate the Earth after the waters subsided. Various of the stories are dated by scholars as happening anywhere between 4,000 BCE and 1,500 BCE, and as such, they are debunked by geology and the other sciences -- there is no evidence of a world-wide flood then. But, as I have stated above, the world-wide flood happened sometime between 12,500 BCE and 8,500 BCE, and science verifies it as “the end of the last Ice Age.” Clearly, I think, the dating of the stories is wrong. The dates given to the myths are based on when they were written, but they clearly must be about events that had happened long before then.

In my opinion, there is no conflict between myth and science over whether the flood happened, only over when it happened, and I think it would be helpful if we approached the subject cooperatively, rather than competitively. There is no need for belittling or battling between the mythologists and the scientists. The incessant arguments are likely a symptom of the very arrogance we need to understand. If we can cooperate, I'm sure we can make strides toward understanding something new and exciting -- not to mention important!

There are other interesting and relevant stories in mythology, too. In addition to the rather mysterious story about Cain and Abel representing, perhaps, a war between the hunter-gatherers and the farmers; there are hundreds of stories about various heavenly gods warring with each other, and often recruiting various tribes or clans of humans to assist in the battles. Eventually, monotheism emerges, and continues even today in its convoluted attempts to unify and domesticate all of humanity.

No matter how you look at it, there's no denying that the flood circa 10,500 BCE is a really important event in our history. I urge us to think about it and study it. I'm convinced that this event is a major source of man's disconnect from nature, and I think that disconnect leads to our often-apparent insanity. Understanding what happened will, I think, bring about a better understanding of just who we are, and that, in turn, should bring a saner and happier world for us -- and for nature, too.

As I consider these questions, I ask myself whether nature would evolve a species that usurps nature. It seems to me that's a mystery worth researching.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with these questions: Are we really the epitome of nature's intent? Are we the end-product toward which natural evolution has been aiming since the universe began 13.7 billion years ago? Or are we perhaps nature's big mistake? 

It looks to me like we are an invasive foreign species, like kudzu in the American South, or Coqui frogs in Hawaii. Could it be that we really are an invasive “foreign” species?  I frankly doubt we're a physically foreign, 4-dimensional invader.  I do wonder, however, whether it's possible that we might be spiritual invaders in the sense that we “possess” human bodies. I'm asking whether we might be a result of a recent and ongoing interaction with another universe or universes (as in parallel universes). If so, is it possible that we continue to "live" there, and to operate our bodies like puppeteers?

No doubt there are other possible invasion mechanisms, too, or perhaps I should say, not-impossible mechanisms. These thoughts are certainly wild and wacky speculation, and I don't know the answers. (There's plenty of fodder here for some great sci-fi, though!)  Yet I think the questions are worth a thought or two.

Knowing who we really are should contribute a great deal toward “sanity.”  In pursuing the answers, I would propose that deciding whether we're on the right track should be based on whether our presumptions contribute to our ability to think and function sanely. By “sanely” I mean ethically, and in an integrated manner wherein our actions match our words, our activities facilitate our goals, and our goals honor all of nature's life forms.

In the end, our answers should fit with any evidence science provides, too. Just keep in mind that science can only verify the objective facts. The subjective, or spiritual ones are less certain, but even more rewarding if we get them right.

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*Note: Epigenetics is about which genes express -- become active -- rather than actual mutation. It's a fairly new field of study, and I'm no expert, so you should look it up for yourself. Still, I'll attempt an over-simplified explanation as I see it:

Every cell in the human body has the same genes. Yet, some cells express as skin cells, while others express as bone cells. Epigenetics is the study of why this happens. In addition to stem cells expressing as differentiated cells, there appears to be evidence to suggest that the environment may have a role in determining which genes get expressed as species evolve.

For example, let's say we have a mammal species that has genes for fur color, and that they generally express as striped fur. The species lives in forests, so striped fur is advantageous for stealth. If climate change produces drought so that the area becomes desert, it's possible that the striped aspect could be suppressed in favor of plain, sandy-colored fur expression. Sometimes such a change appears to be heritable.  Thus, the genes were there all along, no mutation was necessary; they're just being expressed differently.

Becoming One with the Universe is Not the Goal

Becoming "One" with the universe is not the goal. It's not the truth of who we are, either; at least I don't think so.

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard or read that the "Goal"-with-a-capital-"G" was to become One with the universe, or with all of life, or with each other, or with you-name-it, I'd have a sizeable bank account by now. If you study any of the "Eastern" religions, you'll run into the idea, too. The idea, as I understand it, is that we are all parts of God somehow; that we started out, and at our most fundamental still are, a single entity that's trying to get to know itself by having divided itself just enough so it can see itself from different viewpoints.

Along with this advice, go comments like, "Love is about seeking or finding our other half," and "Suffering is just an illusion," supposedly because the physical universe, and everything that happens in it, is a journey designed to see the rest of our “self” and to ultimately bring us back together in spirit.

While it's a romantic idea, everything I've learned about how the universe works leads me to believe that we are, in fact, separate and unique individuals.

There's an old joke I recall from when I was a kid: "When 2 people get married, they become one. The problems start when they try to decide which one." I think the joke is almost too true to be funny. Responsibility is about who did what, and who didn't do what. The idea that we are all basically one entity blurs and confuses responsibility -- cause and effect -- and does nothing to promote understanding in our everyday lives. If anything, I think the whole idea promotes insanity, not to mention that it makes for some pretty sad relationships.

Maybe that sounds harsh, but I spent a lot of time and effort trying to meditate away the pain and suffering I saw in everyday life, and the difficulties I experienced, too. I tried really hard to believe that we are all really spiritual beings, and that whatever pain and suffering we see or experience is just the result of losing touch with that supposed "Fact." Supposedly, the hurt isn't real, since nothing physical is real. Supposedly, with "Right Thinking," we wouldn't need the bad stuff, and somehow, for the "Adept," it all magically goes away. Well, I looked, and it turns out that even the supposedly great gurus and masters suffer and die in the end; they're just stoic about it.

After years of pursuing that philosophy, I finally decided that even were I to assume that there's some esoteric, ultimate, state of being; where we somehow all join together into a single whole; the fact is that between here and there we are a lot better off thinking and acting as if we are unique individuals. As far as I can see, the confusion over what's real -- to the point of arguing with ourselves about what hurts -- contributes to insanity, if nothing else.

In the end. I decided that there had to be a way to really make the world a better place; a place with less pain and suffering; a place where we can actually do things to make change. And that's not going to happen if we keep trying to meditate our way to insulated numbness rather than actually trying to address the problems we see and experience. Perhaps it's possible to achieve some kind of "Nirvana" by going away to some isolated place on a remote mountaintop; some place where we no longer have to deal with everyday life; but that's not for me -- at least not this lifetime.

Since coming to my decision, I've had to deal with the question of why the "Oneness" idea is so seductive. Among other things, it does provide a mechanism we can use to insulate ourselves and to separate from pain and suffering. Drugs do that, too, though, and few people, myself included, think that drugs are a good answer to the problems of the world. Surely, the Creator -- assuming there is one -- did not put us here for the purpose of learning to do drugs. Furthermore, the escape is not just from the pain and suffering we experience, it has a lot to do with escaping our responsibility for causing some of it. I think that part, the part that says "I have caused pain or suffering," is actually a lot harder to confront than the pain I personally experience. Ignorance really can be blissful when it comes to my own responsibility for my own mistakes and the misunderstandings I've created or to which I've contributed.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that things that affect others tend to affect me, too; there is a perceived "sharing" of experience. We even have at least one built-in mechanism that facilitates sharing experience. "Mirror neurons" in our brains are one such mechanism.

When we see -- or imagine, for that matter -- something happen to another person (or any other life form), our brains fire off neurons as though we were that other person or life form, and as though we were experiencing the event ourselves. I would propose, however, that the survival value of that mechanism has more to do with learning through the experience of others than it does to showing us that "Your pain is my pain."

Your pain -- and your success, too -- is not mine. It didn't really happen to me. If the perceived event is focused on the doing (cause) rather than the experiencing (effect), then it's also true that I didn't cause it -- you did or someone else did. I would propose that we need to realize who did what and who felt what if we are to promote sanity and to fix problems. Even though the same nerves are fired off when we "share" an experience as when we "have" the experience, we can still know who's who, and I'm convinced that's vital if we're to learn.

I think there's another mechanism at work here, too; namely that as truly separate spiritual beings, one of our reasons for being here is a fundamental desire to interact and cooperate with each other -- not just humans, but all life forms. I think that's a fundamental, spiritual truth; having once interacted with another being, we want to do it again and again. It's a significant part of "who we really are." Being innately separate beings is lonely once we discover that we are not really alone.

Note however, that interacting and cooperating are very different than "being-the-same-as" the ones with whom we interact and cooperate. The difference is really quite profound. In cooperating, among other things, we have choice and responsibility, while in "being-one-with," the choices and causes are made elsewhere -- by God, or by the universe, or whatever else you might call it.

That's enough for one post, I think. No doubt this will come up again in many other posts as we go along.

Subjective vs Objective: Introductory post

When I was 9 years old, my maternal grandfather died. He had been sick for several months. My parents had gone to his house to help my grandmother do the shopping, and had left me home with a babysitter. The babysitter and I were playing in the basement when I perceived (as in extra-sensory perceived) my grandfather in the rafters. He smiled, and told me "Everything is OK." I was not old enough to even be startled by it. I did sort of stop in my tracks and concentrate on him, and I did sort of say, "Hello." I had time to wonder what was it all about, but when the phone rang a minute or so later, I immediately knew that the call was going to tell us he had died. As I looked back to converse with him some more, he was gone.

That incident told me, beyond any doubt, that there was more to life than the physical. I carry that certainty with me today. As I grew up, I learned that this knowledge wasn't shared by everyone. In fact, there was no one with whom to discuss it. As time passed, I did run across people who believed in the spiritual or supernatural, but they all seemed to argue as to what it was about. Nearly all of them were taking it on faith -- they had no personal experience. They were "parroting" things they had been told or read from others. Still, they had some awareness that there was more to life than the obvious.

At the same time, I learned that most people thought my "knowledge" was mere superstition or illusion. "There's no such thing as a ghost," after all. In fact, the more I learned about science, the bigger this conflict became. Eventually it became something of an obsession to understand and to resolve the paradox.

I found no help at all in organized religion, and little more in years of studying psychic phenomena with the various new-age and ancient Eastern groups. There were bits and pieces everywhere, but there was no rhyme or reason with which to make a coherent, overall picture. At some point I decided to make one. I'm still working on it, but the search has not been totally fruitless. I've run across a few things that seem possibly profound -- or at least new.

So, a lot of this blog is going to be about the relationship between subjective and objective reality. The objective side is the stuff everyone can see and share and verify. It's science. I'm no scientist, but I've worked pretty hard to grasp the ideas and concepts of science -- especially physics -- and I think it's important -- vital even -- not to argue with what we know about it.

Bumping into a wall brings a certain sense of reality that simply cannot be denied. Einstein was right: physical objects in a 4-dimensional universe cannot go faster than the speed of light. If I'm going to "believe" in the reality of the subjective, I have to add that to physical, 4-dimensional reality rather than argue with it.

However, adding to the "laws" of science is a possibility. "Believing" in the laws of science as "Truth"-with-a-capital-"T" can become a subjective "faith" unto itself. Not everything is known, and certainly, not everything is understood. Even science admits to the possiblity that there might be more than 4 dimensions; and there might be other "parallel universes."

Furthermore, if the subjective isn't real, if it doesn't matter what each of us thinks/opines/intends, then responsibility, ethics, love, etc., are meaningless. In fact, meaning itself is meaningless. I think that's insane.

So, I'm left with the assumption that both the physical and the spiritual (aka subjective) are real, and the "trick" is simply to create a paradigm that includes both. That's easier said than done, but I'm working on it. Things may get a little wacky here from time to time, but I think it's worth the effort, and a boo-boo here or there along the way seems tolerable under the circumstances.

Life needs a story. Without a story, it makes no sense; it's meaningless. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It may be cyclical, but it's never a circle -- it's a spiral. This spring is different than last spring, even though they're both springs. Life moves, it changes. Life creates, it organizes. That's the difference between life and things.

This blog has snippets from my story of life. It's history, his-story. This story gives meaning to my life, and might be relevant for yours, too. Hopefully, it's meaning that makes living worthwhile, and maybe it makes dying worthwhile, too. With a good story, life might be just a bit easier to live, just a bit more sensible and sane.

Everyone is free to make her own story, of course, but it should be self-consistent and sensible if it's to be worthwile. That's what I'm trying for. Think about it with me. Consider it. If you don't like my story, make a better one, and please share it with me! Meanwhile, I hope you'll give mine a bit of your time and attention.