Hate

What a strong word that is yet it seems that hate is driving so much of what is wrong in our world - a world teetering on the brink of disaster. 

In the spirit of this blog, I would like to examine what it is that has gone wrong... to find the "other hand" of this terrible problem. 

Surely it isn't wrong to dislike a lot of things that are going on around us these days. There is an awful lot to dislike - hate even. But as my mother told our son when he said "I hate raisins", my mom said You should say "I don't care for raisins". In the spirit of my mother's observation, I would like to suggest that we encourage everyone to be clear about what it is we "hate". 

Nobody can look into another person's mind. We don't know their history - the things that drive them to be the person they are. When they act in a certain way it would seem to be obvious that they believe they are acting in a rational way, given what they know, and what their life has brought them to believe. As we used to say, "God doesn't make junk."

When one person does something we hate we might 'call them out' about it. We might even think we hate that person but, remembering my mom's suggestion, it isn't about the raisins. It is about the taste of those raisins. That is what we don't care for. 

When a whole nation does something we hate, do we have to hate its population? By extension, do we have to act in hate to those who used to live in that nation or who pray in the same way as people whose nation did something we hate. In fact, what sense does it make to act in a hateful way to people we don't even know? 

This isn't a theoretical discussion. So many lives have been lost, not just in war, but in acts of retribution. Yet the people who die are almost never the people whose actions a person should hate. People die because gunmen and bombers hate anyone who looks like or prays like those who acted in a way they hate. 

What I don't know is how we can stop doing something I really do hate: pigeonholing people based on what we think we know about people like them. 

Just so we all know, I am not naive. I know that hate makes money for a small number of people of great influence. Never-the-less, we are the ones who react to what those few are selling. We allow what those few do or say to manipulate our emotions. We don't have to let that happen. 

I would love to know what can be done to spread the message: we, all of us, must stop this cycle of hate in order to save our world. There are much more important things that need to be done instead. 

Yes, of course, I am preaching to the choir here, but we have to start somewhere. Hate the acts done if you must but, better still, let's end hate in ourselves and, if we can, encourage others to do the same.

Are Coincidences Real?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

On the weekend, I happened upon a story about the actor Anthony Hopkins that seemed too good to be true. Before getting too interested, I fact-checked - far too many good-news stories are simply click-bait. In my search, that same story about Anthony Hopkins appeared in Paul Broks "long read" from The Guardian in April 2023.  Broks' article has that and several other examples of coincidences that also seem too good to be true. 

Be they premonitions, or serendipitous occurrences, coincidences happen to everyone. Some people pay more attention to them than others. When coincidences happen, how we react says a lot about our attitude to life. 

My own attitude toward life and, in particular, coincidences borders on apophenia, "erroneous perception of patterns where none exist",  While, I suppose, such a belief can be a problem for some I have lived, quite successfully, with this for a very long time. In fact, my post A Deeper Self from 2016 includes what I wrote in 1988 on this very subject. 

Rocket Science Update - It's About Time!

Six and a half years ago (isn't time amazing - oh, definitely), the post Harder Than Rocket Science? appeared here. In an attempt to understand how the universe and everything works (42 might still be the answer), I made reference to Quantum Mechanics and, in particular, the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

This summer, a new idea has added an extra layer of understanding and might just be the path to a unified theory of everything. Published in April of this year, a paper titled Three-Dimensional Time: A Mathematical Framework for Fundamental Physics suggests that time might be the primary fabric of the universe, with mass and energy being manifestations of time's structure. 

For a short summary of this somewhat radical idea, read this article from the Geophysical Institute where the author, Gunther Kletetschka, works. 

Like other useful theories of everything, this theory has testable predictions, so stay tuned as it is either confirmed or refuted. 

In the future, Kletetschka's name might be as well-known as Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck, Rutherford, Schrödinger, and the many, many others who have contributed to our understanding of how the universe works, deep down.  

You Are Your Data - And That Can Hurt You

I definitely prefer to think about issues of freedoms, politics, and finances as little as possible. However paranoid and scary this sounds, ignoring the issues and realities of the world is starting to become life-threatening. 

It is likely a lot too late for me to try to pretend I'm someone other that the person I have revealed here and other places on the internet. If the black car rolls up in front of the house to take me away, I don't expect to have any defence. Even though I know better, to the outside world I am my opinions and beliefs. 

A few years ago, I created a post here about being careful with your data. This morning another TED talk popped up. The situation has recently changed, and data is being gathered and used in more nefarious ways. Be careful everyone.  

A Pep-talk from Aadi

"It isn't your time. I didn't expect you to ever just visit me! Tell me, dear one, why are you here?"

It had been years since the last time I had been with Aadi, the spirit who had guided me so much along my way toward wholeness. I knew that she didn't live in any particular time. In point of fact, Aadi didn't live in time at all, but in all time, or better put, she lived in no time. But in at least one way, she seemed to be, like me, bound to an existence where bodies and their senses matter, in spite of the way she moved through time and space freely. 

I said out loud, "Aadi, I don't know what you mean by 'It isn't your time'. I've been thinking about you and how you helped me in the past. Is there something we haven't talked about that I need to know right now?"

"You are surrounded and concerned about events that are like a drama that gets more and more tragic. My dear humans, all of you, all of us, are temporarily bound to this world of senses and events, with all of its drama," 

Aadi communicated this (she didn't talk, but I could hear her) and there was such great sadness in that thought. I had to know what else there could be besides worlds of senses and events, and knowing this thought she continued ...

"but you already know that beyond all senses, beyond emotion, desire, loneliness, there is another experience that transcends them all. Because you are human, you have given it a name, love, but you experience it as so much more than any word can convey. You are surrounded by it, always, beyond what you call time. I was expecting that our next encounter would mean you were filled up with that love, prepared to pass beyond the illusion that is this world."

I had always wondered about the nature of the timeless quality that Aadi had which I couldn't experience. Could it be that being bound up by my ego, and my desperate need to use my senses and label things, is what is holding me back from some further transformation that I need? Suddenly the story of Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus, came to mind. Aadi didn't need me to say it. 

"Yes that story of Thomas has been used to bind us more tightly to this world, hasn't it?"

I must have seemed puzzled, so she continued. 

"It is part of our long journey. Along that path we think various things about what is beyond life. We imagine salvation, a reward that we get, like money, for worshipping gods or doing deeds. Then we believe that salvation is what we get when we give up things like sex. Belief in things like sin or violence binds us tighter and tighter to the world, doesn't it? There have been so many stops along the way. Eventually we even doubt that there is anything more than this cycle of living and dying. The story of Doubting Thomas is about the need to find salvation first-hand, in the physical world. That need makes us turn away from an ineffable love that is beyond the physical. Our deepest beliefs either tie us to the world or release us from it."

'Hearing' Aadi say that puzzled me at first but in the context of what she had told me already, that what is true and eternal doesn't live in the physical but in love, I knew that in order to accept what is true and good in the spirit requires much more than actions or faith. It requires that we accept something far simpler than this complex, but temporary, reality that we live in. Thomas might have been wanting more than just evidence of death and resurrection. Perhaps he was hoping to find a way to understand what more there was beyond a broken and painful body. Perhaps the truth about Thomas' doubtful nature was more about experiencing some sort of eternal love. Sadly, religions and histories tend to be mostly about those who create them and write them down. 

"You don't experience existence without time because we are here to learn and grow beyond time and everything else in this ego-centred world. Blessed are all who know love now because they have touched, seen, and, finally, accepted that there is so much more than sensation attached to what seem like actions. When it is your time, you will be prepared to abandon what you call ego. When all that is left is the thing you call love, it will be your time."

I felt overwhelmed and joyful at the same time. 

"Oh, my dear, you are so close. Stay longer. There is more to learn." 

In my mind, I thought how frustrating it must be trying to tell beings, who rely on senses and language, about a reality that cannot be felt or seen. Immediately I heard her voice in my head:

"Think of waking up after a bad dream. Remember the relief of knowing that none of that dream was really true or important - just a dream. It will be your time when you come to me, feeling that way about all of your adventures in the body, but rather than being relieved because it was bad, you accept that all of it was purposeful. It will be your time when you feel nothing but love for all of those versions of yourself, just as I do." 

Being Manipulated

When I was a teenager, a relative whose opinion I respected declared that too many people only have ideas that are put in their head by others. Of course telling me this might simply have been his way of encouraging me to think for myself. 

That relative was fond of good conversation. He would never have suggested that anyone who was part of the gathering should be forced to accept another's ideas. We were expected to listen respectfully before being given a chance to reply with our own thoughts on that subject. This implied that we were expected to have our own thoughts. We were also expected to be able to defend what we thought with facts. 

The art of conversation has changed over the years. The chances for long conversations seem to have become rare. The closest thing for me is a long-distance chat 'online' with a good friend most evenings. But even then, we aren't expected to devote ourselves totally to the chat. 

My relative could never have imagined the internet. He based his judgement on observing people simply regurgitating what they had heard on the news broadcast, or in a newspaper, rather than synthesizing those bits of information into something original. He felt a mindlessness was creeping into our world, in the same way that protesters chant at rallies. 

I bring this up now because it seems more difficult to get information that isn't loaded with bias and judgement. When I pay attention to media, (anti)social or otherwise, it feels less like information and more like manipulation. It isn't even subtle anymore. 

Let's have a discussion. Or at least, have a think, then come to your own conclusions.

Here are three videos at different levels on the topic of manipulation in the modern age.

If you are concerned about the effects of the social media echo chamber, this video might be one to pass along to a school-aged family member:

For someone a bit older, this youth TED talk:

and for the adults in the room, how social media drives extremism.  

Question Things

As a life-long fixer and teacher, I feel that, if I do nothing to try to help the world understand a danger we face, it will haunt me. 

What danger, you say? 

As Brian Klaas wrote in his book Fluke

".... the printing press, newspapers, radio transmission, and TV broadcasts all expanded the number of people who could consume information. The internet is fundamentally different. It's a revolution that has, for the first time in history, created an explosion in who can create widely disseminated information. It's a fundamental shift: from few-to-many communication to many-to-many communication. Ideas, even false ones, spur action, and billions are now being exposed to new ideas at a rate greater than has ever before existed."*

While the internet changed everything, artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating the change. At one time seeing is believing was a good rule. That is no longer true with AI and its ability to create false video and soundtrack. We have the choice to either check the source or risk being mislead. 

I don't know how, but somehow we as a society must sell a new fundamental knowing to ourselves and our children: 

    Truth and reality can only be found in first-hand experiences, and more, that experience cannot be coming through some electronic device. If we read it on our computer, or see it on a screen it could be, likely has been made up, edited, or severely altered by somebody or something. 

George Carlin said: 

"[It’s] not important to get children to read. Children who wanna read are gonna read. Kids who want to learn to read [are] going to learn to read. [It’s] much more important to teach children to QUESTION what they read.

Children should be taught to question everything. To question everything they read, everything they hear. Children should be taught to question authority. Parents never teach their children to question authority because parents are authority figures themselves, and they don’t want to undermine their own bullshit inside the household. So they stroke the kid and the kid strokes them, and they all stroke each other ..."**

Question what you read or see online or in the media. We can change the future, but only if we take time to question things.

*p.103 FLUKE - CHANCE, CHAOS, AND WHY EVERYTHING WE DO MATTERS; Brian Klaas, Scribner, 2024

** It's Bad for Ya (2008)
https://georgecarlin.net/discog/itsbadforya.html