Just thinking

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Change My Life

We're formed and changed by our experiences. More than any other factor, the things we live through are the building blocks of personality, character, values, temperament ... good or bad, easy or hard, and the people we're with, we're formed by it all.

Much of what we experience, especially early in life, is not our choice. Where we're born, the family in which we're raised, the early schools we attend; all are formative, and much of who we are in our early youth is beyond our control.

Then, life choices add to the mix, and we have the opportunity to shape who we are and to be changed at the very foundation. Experiences we choose, opportunities we accept, they each contribute to who we are on the inside.

The video here from Brazil is a striking illustration of how it works.

For an out-of-the-box look at the impact of experience, take a look at these four college guys that went to Guatemala for a couple of months to live on a dollar a day...

(click on the picture for the Youtube video episodes, or you can see the movie on Netflix)

If you've watched the movie (or all the episodes), you'll note that the experience has changed you a bit, changed your perspective, and inspired you to adjust your life, perhaps. It's a good influence, but it will wear off in a couple of days ... unless you reinforce it in yourself by the things you do next.

Note the possibility of becoming different by choice of experience. We're not changed by words, ours or anyone else's. We're changed by doing. That's the way it works.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

E-War

Food aid is the only thing keeping tens of thousands of people alive in
South Sudan. Since the civil war broke out in December, 2013, around
10,000 people have died and almost two million have been displaced
by the violence. Frustrated, the U.S. may expand sanctions against
Sudanese officials who are dragging out the peace process.

South Sudan had existed as a country for just two years before it
succumbed to civil war. The fight is between President Salva
Kiir and his biggest political rival and former deputy Riek
Machar, but civilians have taken most of the damage.
According to the UN, both sides have engaged in
extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances,
rape, other forms of sexual violence, and
attacks on hospitals.

From helpful history sites, here's a chronological listing of people trying to subjugate others. Each conflict was occasioned by a powerful few manipulating the many with a consequential flow of wealth to those who hold the the upper hand. It's economic warfare ... E-War.

Warfare needs a redefinition perhaps, it we're going to understand the causes and the goals of war initiators.

Despite claims of ideological motivation, the structural elements of such large-scale conflict appears to be built exclusively on the bottom line, on wealth to be gained by conquest. In many, there is an ethically justifiable position for defenders in the conflict even though all sides emphatically claim the moral high ground. For the people involved, they generally believe what they are told by their leaders, that their cause is noble, just, and necessary.

Empires rise or fall, territory is gained or lost, maps are redrawn.

Much like Wall Street and the financial industry today, such conflicts have historically been based on power, wealth, and the taking of resources at the expense of others.

Three Centuries of War (and Economics)
Each a conquest for wealth and power

2000

2003: Sudanese Genocide
2013: South Sudan Civil War
2015: Wall Street War Against the World (continuous since the 19th century) Although publicly traded securities appeared around 1790, the predatory practices like we see today emerged later, around 1845. Following the establishment of the telegraph, the brokerage industry took the place of fair practice in the marketplace. Deregulation of the finance sector beginning in the 70's unleashed market practices and mega-corporations. Banks are now bigger than countries, and the wealth of the world flows to the richest, only. Economic warfare gives us the accelerating GAP between the rich and everyone else. In the world.

If you're curious, trace the historical flow of wealth and the continually widening gap between the rich and poor. The best visible indicator, it persists across countries, centuries, and empires. It is the very heart of warfare and oppression. And it's the centerpiece of today's business culture.

Figured out which side you're on yet?

Recommended resource for a human

perspective: http://livingonone.org/

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Wasted words? Why?

See the NIH article Unconscious Knowledge: A Survey
See the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Institute article from Nature Neuroscience

Words are often wasted. 'Why' is a bit of a biological surprise.

Shaping a teenager's mind is done by lecturing; true? No. Well, maybe, but perhaps not the way we might hope.

The decisions a teen makes about their own life are not made based on words and arguments. True? Yes.

Note in the illustration where decisions are made and note where language is processed; not as closely connected as you'd expect, right? When are decisions made? Compared to the tedious deliberations of the neocortex that move slowly through mountains of information, decisions can arrive quickly; in some cases, almost instantaneously, from the non-verbal multipath analysis of the limbic arena. The science is imprecise, but the basic concept is generally agreed and validated.

Decisions most often follow the gut response based on the individual's current set of values and evaluations. Discussions, arguments, and lectures may contribute; words can explain and perhaps clarify values, but that's not how the values themselves are formed.

Curious where a kid gets their values? They learn by the examples they're given, by what they see and experience. Words may explain and clarify what it all means, but the values themselves are learned. And, as we grow older, we can refine our values by choice of experience.

From recent studies, we find that the brain is

continually being formed throughout our lives,

not just during the early years.

How does the brain work?

Neocortex (the outer dome) - all the rational and analytical thought, and language.

Limbic brain (the core) - all of our feelings like trust and loyalty, and no language ... and it is where most of our decisions are made. Right there, in a realm without words, our decisions are made.

Decisions are the centerpiece of progress or the lack of it, of course. Interestingly, all of us are being similarly formed, and it is a continuous process until our life's end.

While the neocortex might be the repository of language and information, the components of the limbic system are where memories are established and retrieved for reference. Faces and first impressions are handled here as well. Trust and evaluation of trustworthiness occur here triggering decisions about making or avoiding relationships.

Words offered along the way are evaluated and judged for consistency with the non-verbal cues. If they match up, they may clarify things. If it's a power play and the gut response doesn't concur, the response is an increased tension and eventual conflict, the non-productive kind.

Words can inspire us. They can provoke us to appreciate something good, particularly if the speaker includes stories to illustrate. The stories give the hearer opportunity to envision themselves in the context offered. It's an appeal to existing values, perhaps.

So the next time you find yourself lecturing your teen, don't bother. You might try relating by coming alongside and negotiating on the basis of values (principles held, good conscience choices, and virtue). You'll perhaps have a better chance of making the connection needed.

Thinking about it, we can see why just listening to sermons isn't likely to change anyone's heart and soul and mind. Encountering God himself, on the other hand, is a life-changing, and value-forming experience. ... fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Deadly Things

There’s a passage in CS Lewis’s The Great Divorce where one of the ghosts offers up the red lizard of lust that sits constantly on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. The ghost begs an angel to kill the lizard, although the lizard assures the ghost that his death will mean the death of them both. The lizard dies, and both ghost and lizard are transformed. The ghost becomes a man – a glorious risen spirit – and the lizard is transformed into a stallion, full of beauty and power.

“Do ye understand all this, my Son?” said the Teacher.

“I don’t know about all, Sir,” said I. “Am I right in thinking the Lizard really turned into the Horse?”

“Aye. But it was killed first. Ye’ll not forget that part of the story?”

“I’ll try not to, Sir. But does it mean that everything – everything – that is in us can go on to the Mountains?”

“Nothing, not even the best and noblest, can go on as it now is. Nothing, not even what is lowest and most bestial, will not be raised again if it submits to death. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Flesh and blood cannot come to the Mountains. Not because they are too rank, but because they are too weak. What is a Lizard compared with a stallion? Lust is a poor, weak, whimpering whispering thing compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.”

“But am I to tell them at home that this man’s sensuality proved less of an obstacle than that poor woman’s love for her son? For that was, at any rate, an excess of love.” [The narrator had just observed a ghost begging for the son she had idolised, and for whom she had neglected all other relationships.]

” Ye’ll tell them no such thing,” he replied sternly. “Excess of love, did ye say? There was no excess, there was defect. She loved her son too little, not too much. If she had loved him more there’d be no difficulty. I do not know how her affair will end. But it may well be that at this moment she’s demanding to have him down with her in Hell. That kind is sometimes perfectly ready to plunge the soul they say they love in endless misery if only they can still in some fashion possess it. No, no. Ye must draw another lesson. Ye must ask, if the risen body even of appetite is as grand a horse as ye saw, what would the risen body of maternal love or friendship be?”

There's a needed balance in understanding religious rules. Political and nonsensical issues aside, some things the rules mention aren't simply disqualifiers on judgement day. Just because you did this or that, you're not some poor, unfortunate person who in the end didn't get the right boxes checked. The rules point to things that are in and of themselves deadly now. Like sticking your hand in the fire, doing so will burn you. Like living a life of selfishness will dehumanize you, or like living at the porn trough will cripple you in love and relationships. Life can be hellish long before the end. Some things are just deadly.

In the end, I suspect, there are just two kinds of people. Those who live, saying to their creator, "thy will be done," and those to whom the creator at the end must say, "thy will be done."

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Whose History?

The 'possessions' of the European powers c. 1790.

Portuguese, French, Spanish, English, Dutch,

Danish, and Turkish claimed regions.

Africa in the millenia leading up to the colonial era.

A largely uncivilized and sparsely inhabited continent available for the taking - that was the thinking that made colonial conquest seem right, I suppose.

In 1910, the coloring shows the possessions of the
European powers. Independent states are uncolored.
Only Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and a few other areas remain
independent in 1910.

The first European explorers knew nothing of the civilizations and cultures of Africa that preceded their own by more than a thousand years.

Africans had established nations and trade, economies and relationships. Towns along the Niger River had collaborated for the common good for more than 1600 years before the first European arrived. It wasn't eden, but neither was it empty.

Conquest and colonization followed along with the imposition of political boundaries by western rule. The Atlantic slave trade, as inhumane as it was, was not the worst of what Europe brought.

Artificial boundaries separated tribes, 'divide and conquer' by arbitrary segregation that pitted one against another. Service was indentured, in-country servitude reduced local people to the status of slave labor, and the high mortality rate of such an existence introduced the requirement to replenish the work force from the surrounding regions. Population declines resulted across the continent as the demand for male slaves increased. The horror of the trans-Atlantic slave trade was equaled by the local repression within the African 'possessions', the colonies.

The demographic impact on the continent was crippling. Population growth stagnated while Europe boomed. The export of so many people was a disaster that left Africa permanently disadvantaged compared to other parts of the world. The colonial focus on low-cost manual labor and resource extraction meant that Africa did not participate in the industrial revolution that launched developing economies elsewhere which largely explains the continent's current lagging behind and poverty.

The results persist today

Most colonial governments were not rich. The European colonial powers were not willing to fund the governing of their colonies in Africa fully. Each colony was responsible for raising most of the revenue (money) needed to fund the operations of colonial rule. Wealth flowed from the colonies to Europe. No matter how rich in resources a colony was, the government lacked the income and revenue necessary to develop a government system able to go beyond maintaining law and order. This meant that colonial governments were not able to provide basic infrastructure, such as roads and communication networks, nor were they able to provide basic social services such as education, healthcare, and housing. The results persist today.

The results, unfortunately, do indeed persist today.
The streets of my favorite west African locale, 2012.

The legacy of it all? Maulana Karenga explains, "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among people of today." He cites that it constituted the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility.

Africa isn't the only venue for the quest for land and rule and wealth, of course. The Americas are yet another story of similar conquest and the death of millions at the hands of those who would advance themselves at the expense of another. Today, Wall Street is headquarters for the same quest. Is there a lesson here that can be learned? Can we actually make a difference?

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Poison Politics

We've reached the greatest degree of polarization in our nation in a hundred and fifty years.

Republicans and democrats with help from the media have divided us and disassembled our common values, common goals, and our national identity.

LEFT vs. RIGHT WING. Did you know that the political Left and Right positions are defined by their view on equality?

The political left favors social equality while the political right defends the social hierarchy and economic inequality.

LIBERAL vs. CONSERVATIVE.
Did you know that Liberalism is founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberals generally support ideas such as democratic elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property. Conservativism supports retaining traditional social institutions and cultural norms from recent history.

Liberals led the movements to abolish slavery, to end discrimination, and to create an equal opportunity nation. Conservatives resisted them all. Liberals also make the case for abortion, for the redefinition of marriage, and for the welfare state. Conservatives are pro-life, traditional marriage, and support a reduced deficit with reduced federal spending.

Republicans vs. Democrats vs. People of Faith
Today the Republican and Democratic parties are not merely uncomfortable, imperfect homes for people of faith; they are prisons that artificially divide us and prevent us from coming together as a community to advance the common good. ~Archbishop Charles Chaput

... ... ... Read more here »

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