Tell me a story…

Tell me a story, said the girl. What story? More important how can you see me?

She sighed with the look where the word obtuse is used to describe intelligence, then with some patience she continued:

Tell me a story where there are black and whites and no grays.

Tell me a story where a heart is open and always rewarded.

A story where nothing bad ever happens and mistakes are solved, and pain is not there.

Where the “bad” ones always lose and vanish on a undefined oblivion.

Tell me a story with no darkness.

A story where the protagonist will always be loved.

Tell me a story where there always is sun in the face and brings laughter

If you can’t then tell me a story where it is dark and monsters abound.

Tell me a story where power and darkness go hand in hand and there is nothing but pain.

So now you know, tell me a story that is not real.

Because if you try to tell me a real story, you will say that a heart can be broken and mended

That tears and laughter intertwine.

Where all is gray, and you have to decide in an ambiguous world.

A story where the “bad”ones sometimes stay.

A story where beyond all reason hope stays.

Where beauty can be found in darkness.

Where darkness is found in beauty.

A story where day follows the night again and again and again.

Where sometimes the sun and the rain provide laughter and quietness, life and dead, joy and sadness.

That sometimes you need to scream and others breath.

And that story can only be mine, so it is not yet written, it is not your story to tell, but you can walk, sit, run with me to witness it.

If I stop telling it, remind me of the other stories, the unreal ones, so I do not become one.

I promise it will be better than any story you can think.

I agreed.

Reflection on a little Buddhist ritual...

In Buddhism when a person dies, people turn their back during the funeral to the person. The belief is that on its way to a higher plane, the soul sees as horrors its mistakes or things that tie it back to their previous life and panics. While it tries to escape these horrors or chains, it jumps to the same plane or on a lower one.

I take that a second aspect if the ritual is to let go for ones sake, if I hold to the person I am also holding to my sadness, anger and lack of comprehension to what happened a see through my eyes. I am actually forging the horrors and chains that will tie me up. The consequence is also that then we lose sight of our life and the life around us. So for our own well being, you need to do it.

It is the living creating the chains inside their mind. We are the one who decide to hold to a memory or emotion and try to keep it in an idealized past, a still picture in the chaos of a world of individuals and changing tides.

You can honor the memory of the person but without any sort of judgment, which translates into memories of the actions of the person and its consequences, not the interpretation of the will and judgement; that allows to keep on living, moving forward. So in the end the goal is to thin our chains and although I do not know if Buddhists are correct, I hope to see you all in the next plane, to have a good chat and laugh.

Hope...

Can you give hope? Given the season it is a topic in the air. From what I can see the answer is No. If we look to the story of Pandora (who was framned I am sure), after all the ills in the world left all was left in the box was Hope.

Pandora held to the box or hope, still it was only significant as long as she held it. She could drop it or give it out, making it a very nice box (although no descriptions actually exist), so worthless. It is only valuable or usefull as long as she helds to it.

So hope seems to be more of a personal/individual state of mind, therefore you can find it in places (like a concentration camp) where against all reason it is there. You have to "buy" its premise.

What you can do is help enable it, removing stress on someone so they can deal with the ugly aspects of life. Religions serve that purpose in part, you put your faith in something external that will fix things. It is also not dependant on a religion, it is again a personal belief, based on irrational conclusions that keeps you alive, its source may be deep into our reptilian brain, then we put a nice coat of rationality to explain it.

Yet it all goes back to the individual, as long as you hold the box, you can believe you will be fine.

So despite all, it is always good to keep that box. Thank you Pandora for keeping it safe.

What we are and the empty space between us…

I am fascinated by the idea of matter, its construction and interaction. When I press my finger against a table all that happens is that the electromagnetic bonds between the atoms of the table are far more aligned that the ones in my fingertip, they repel the fields created by the atoms in my molecules.

They are strong enough not just to avoid my finger passing between them, pushing the particles as I do with air. They are so “solid”, that the surface created by my bonds, flexes.

This in turn sends a series of electromagnetic echoes into the molecules of my brain that are not just aligned to assemble a cell, but are also capable of re-alignment to create a memory of the phenomenon.

They are also constructed in a way that allows me express conscience of the event. The funny thing is that the space between these particles is huge in relation to their size, maybe some of it filled with dark matter. Then we have the interaction of energy fields across a distance between really small particles and yet powerful enough for the ones in my brain to be able to express the sensation, to be able to “see” this text as I type it on a screen, my limited senses, perceive as a continuous surface.

From an older blog...

god and other entities...

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 12:41pm

There is a series on NPR called “This I Believe” where people from different sides of life write down their ideas and thoughts, one I heard some time ago was from Pen Jilette, the magician-comedian, and i was surprised on how deep his train of thought was.

The essay (attached below from http://www.thisibelieve.org) talks about why he does to believe in God.

I consider myself more of on the Agnostic Theism side of life (I have decided to believe there is a god although I cannot prove it), which pares really well with my firm belief in rational humanism.
I refuse to believe in “the God”, more than anything because I do not think an all powerful, omniscient and omnipresent entity actually can be defined in anthropological terms as many religions do. I rather call it “What Is”. It cannot have or express human emotions or needs, considering it is not human and has no needs (see the omni’s list). This puts me somewhere between Islam and Judaism.

I believe, if the omnipresent part is true, that then in reality we are all part of It, actually everything is a part of It. Now, in a Universe where everything has its counterpart, then the dark side, evil, the Devil etc is defined as “What is Not”. Hell is the absence of being.

This definition allows a couple of things like free will, you move between both sides, your choice where you go; also explains why the entity is not intervening directly in human affairs as a separate being (putting me close to Deism); It allows to explain the tenants of Christianity like the holy trinity, Jesus as the son of God, the need for him to die, etc., which puts me close to the Catholic Church.

I also like the part of no intervention because, as the essay points out, I am good to others because I truly believe it is the best (notice not the right) thing to do. I value Ethics over morality. Anyway I really liked the essay, I share many of its views and this puts back into Humanism.

So anyway, here is the essay:

There is No God

As heard on NPR’s Morning Edition, November 21, 2005.

I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy—you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Penn Jillette is the taller, louder half of the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller. He is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. Penn has co-authored three best-selling books and is executive producer of the documentary film, “The Aristocrats.”

Independently produced for NPR by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein and Viki Merrick. Photo by Nubar Alexanian.

The American Tradition

A few weeks ago, I saw an exchange between Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Bill O'Reilly about what are the "traditional American values". As you may be be aware, I tend to favor the progressive side of the conversation.

The point from BO'R was that America is a faithful and moral society, where Bible inspired morality, family and capitalism as an expression of self-reliancew are the norm. The funny thing about this view is that it has never been real.

It seems the image many people have in their head s is a consequence of the 1950's propaganda efforts that the American government initiated to "sell" America in the third world. Part of a global image campaign (remember the Cold War?). This image was sold in part via TV shows, which extended well beyond the original effort and went all the way into the Reagan era (80's). A world where a perfect family with deep christian values, where the American Dream always delivered came to us via the magic screen. Think sitcoms.

On the other hand, JS made the point that the real "American Value" was that of being a progressive society. A society where through time individual freedom, equality, anti-slavery, desegregation, women's rights, etc. were always being adopted into the society. Therefore Gay Marriage is the next step into this progression (which I support).

Interesting to see that many of those progressions were not adopted or driven by the society at large (the masses, as in the culturally challenged majority), they were driven by fringe groups and through the judicial system, at least on the beginning.

So it turns out, that it is the "activist judges", derided by the Conservative movement, are the ones who keep this country aligned or true with its core values.

The right to die initiative and other topics...

Here in Washington, there is right now an  initiative in the upcoming ballot to allow terminally ill patients to request for a prescription that will end their lives (they have to administer the drugs themselves).  

This week was "Life week" at the Catholic church. The pro-life argument expanded over this initiative and it was as expected, the main topic on the sermon last Sunday.

On going to church, I see the time as a structured time for reflection/meditation more than anything, I also see the benefit of my daughters seeing a community that in many occasions does the right thing in providing services and support for people in need. Of all the different religions and churches/temples I have seen, catholics (specially Jesuits) can be a reasonable crowd.

Now, my problem is that I honestly do not believe in the need of all the rites and ceremony involved, and more often than not, I end up having a silent discussion with the priest on the sermon, which although it is stimulating intellectually, it kills the quiet meditation time idea. 

So, going back to the initiative idea, I can see why the church opposes it and I understand where their arguments come form. Still I do not oppose it. Opposing it, means to me that I am telling someone who hopes their next breath is their last and curse their last one was not, that I know better. Even I am not you or in your situation I know what is best for you. Not because I am doing the right thing for you, but because by doing so I prove that my beliefs are right. 

I take away the options from you.

I think that is my issue with the whole thing. Taking your options away. It is not that you did the right thing, it is that you have no option but to do what I think is right. So forget about all that rhetoric around free will. 

Free will means that I make a decision based on my needs and knowledge, and in many cases my fears. But that is not allowed. If you are anti-abortion you can claim that you need to remove the free will of the woman expecting because the fetus cannot defend itself. But I see the problem a little different. 

I believe that abortion is not the first option a woman takes, but the last (and yes, I know you can always find an example that proves this wrong, but  it is the exception not the rule). I see that my efforts, and I hope others is to make sure that there are other options. This defines me as a pro-life pro-choicer, or some other word game like that.

More often than not, a single mother is guaranteed a life of poverty. Why not provide support services for them (job and education)? Why not provide comprehensive sexual education, so there is no pregnancy in the first place? 

But I know, it is easier to preach compassion than to act, abstinence only is expected, where being a single mother is still a stigma and you can show violence but never sex, when poverty is seen as a character flaw, all this is a very tough sale. 

So there you have the paradox created, you want people to make the right choice, without giving them the tools to make them and by pretty much giving them a single option, so there is really not choice.