New Year

I claim to love living in the Northeast because of the seasons, but the more likely truth is because I grew up here. I do like natural markers of time, such as a noticeable solstice to indicate when winter begins, and the cold weather affecting my usual walks and yard work .

This year has been snowier and much colder than recently. Flu season is immense, and has affected me in spite of vaccination. I sit housebound, almost happily, and rejoice that I live in an era of abundant energy and goods .

I usually enter December wrapping nostalgia around the previous 11 months. At my age if I do not take care the entire past blends into a golden glow, and I quickly forget recent highlights. I accomplish my memory scrapbook with internet cleanups, visits, all the holiday chores and rituals .

And then – January. Looking forward, and during winter but spring is in view. New season tasks popping up already – taxes, travel plans, medical appointments. And a few items – not quite strong nor large enough to be considered resolutions – having to do with lifestyle, hobby, and happiness .

At the moment, however, I look out at snow, cough frequently, and too often say to myself “maybe tomorrow”. I guess concentrating on enjoying each changeable moment is also one of the benefits of very noticeable seasons .

Big Eyes

“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach” is an admonition to would-be gluttons surveying a feast. Maybe children eyeing mounds of candy, maybe revelers drinking champagne, maybe elder vacationers at a cruise ship buffet .

The implication is that short-term hedonism and overindulgence will lead to eventual pain and misery. All of us know that this is true in daily life, although unfortunately it is quite easy to ignore common sense .

Ultra-powerful magnates now suffer the same illness. They believe they can do anything of which they conceive. And no matter what visions their eyes view at the moment, their imagination conjures more. More. Bigger, longer, stronger. Candy without end .

I suspect indigestion will follow. Unfortunately, the ultra-powerful can affect us all. The present may be lean as they gobble their resources, but it is entirely possible civilization could collapse in the aftermath .

Most of those industrial paragons are macho males. One wonders if they ever had mothers who warned them about their “big eyes”. Too bad .

They are having their monstrous feast. The rest of us can only fretfully wait for the inevitable outcomes, and the nasty cleanups to follow .

Golden Goose

Traditional children’s fables often contain valuable nuggets of adult lifestyle philosophy. They were, when created, a form of pedagogic knowledge to teach alongside the somewhat confusing and stern biblical narratives .

The story of the golden goose is easy enough to understand, whether in short form or embroidered. Its overt message is basically not to mess with a good thing, especially one you don’t understand. Its deeper implication is to avoid letting short-term greed destroy long-term bounty .

Perhaps “golden goose” should be a required course for MBAs and venture capitalists. They all seem hell-bent on mashing our current culture – which most of us believe is (or at least was) pretty good – so that they can extract the underlying value of anything in which they have invested, or destroy anything in the way of their economic triumph .

Like the man who killed the golden goose, their blind greed may be threatening everyone’s prosperity and happiness. Some folks admit we are not quite sure how everything works, but at least for a while it has been working .

I’m hardly against progress. It’s just that I’m not sure smashing traditions or killing culture is the right way to achieve it.

Dreamtime

Sometime in late adolescence I read about the “dreamtime” of Australian Aborigines. Back then, it was presented as an irresponsible immersion in the moment, without regard for the past nor plans for the future. And, from the standpoint of what was still a highly puritan culture, a primitive decadence, hedonistically doing nothing to become better .

Now, as an advancing senior, I find myself also in a perpetual dreamtime. Not particularly hedonistic, but pleasant enough. The past becomes foggier each day, and the future is hardly worth thinking about. But this moment, now, is as wonderful as I wish.

Of course my original perception of ” dreamtime” was wrong. Like all human activities, it was a useful adaptation to a tough environment. More survival than hedonism. And fully sane, given the conditions .

My own dreamtime has a few aspects of that, and although my conditions are more paradisical than harsh, I inhabit the land of cockaigne, where pigs run around pre-cooked with forks stuck in them. Yet each day, even more importantly what I do each moment, is ever more precious. What I did – well, what of it? What will I will do? Forget about it .

No complaints, here at the water hole .

Evangelical

I accept that what is called the “religious impulse” is an important component of human mental sanity. It is good to understand that in terms of our senses and logic, the universe is ineffable, unknowable, and awesome. In the face of that frightening immensity, we find comfort in unsupportable (by reason) beliefs of faith .

All well and good. Each of us should happily adapt and go about our lives. Even discuss our inner convictions with others. Perhaps form common bonds, or at least a wider set of meditations .

What I can’t stand is evangelicals. Of any stripe – religious, political, nationalist, whatever. People who must convert you to the truth only they know. Who pretend to converse when all they are interested in is stomping out your “wrong” understanding. “Open dialogue” that is nothing but preaching .

If something is truly ineffable and can only be “known by faith”, there is sinister hubris in claiming any vision is the only true one. Perhaps I can make a case logically that going along with what everyone else in the culture believes is a better way of life than lonely fighting and rejection. But not because any of the beliefs are cosmically “true”.

Fervent evangelicals who prefer what is evil to me must be ignored if possible, eliminated if not. I also have a right to my irrational convictions if I do not force them on you or your life .

Simply Wrong

Can anything be “simply wrong?” We live in a complex society, full of relative judgments. “In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking”, but no more .

Almost nothing seems to lie beyond the pale. Apologists and psychopaths can make the most heinous acts seem logical and correct. The gods have vanished, and the visions of gods that remain for the credulous are increasingly mean, exclusive, and bloodthirsty .

Rationally, I would claim that Western civilization is built on the ideal of the worth of each individual person. It becomes, therefore, “simply wrong” to hurt another human being .

That leaves three escape clauses, unfortunately.

The first is how we define “hurt”. Almost anything can be claimed as being for someone’s “own good”. And everyone, and every tribe, will define hurt and severity of hurt differently .

The second, truly evil, path is to merely claim a given human or tribe is not really individual at all. Either born as animals, or having forfeited human inclusion. Then we can do with them as we will .

And, of course, our own often imaginary projected visions that “I had to do it to them before they did it to me.”

And so, in these strange times, even simple becomes complex, and wrong turns into a puff of smoke.

Democracy

Anyone who has ever served on a committee of a dozen or more people knows pure democracy does not work. It’s why we choose leaders, more or less representative, somewhat expert, to take on the roles of leadership. The only real check in a democracy is the periodic elections, if actually free and fair .

But what do we mean by “representative?” The founders had clear ideas. In the US, the House would be composed of men from the mob, the Senate of men from the elite, and the president a paragon selected by the elite. We have come to decide that all positions should be filled by persons from the mob, chosen by the mob. We naively believed that in a well educated free society the mob would actually become the elite.

When I was schooled in civics back in the 50’s public school, “representative” meant something like a person who shares my views and judgment – emphasis on judgment – and acts more or less as I would if I were in that position. Lately, however, it has come to mean a rigid avatar, a cartoon image of what I think I want, who always votes as I think I should (not, mind you, as I really do because – hey! – life is too complicated, and time is short) .

Like the founders, I do not trust the mob – or rather the mob mentality – even my own. But with instant communications, mob rule is here to stay as long as civilization can handle it .

Dystopia

Historic philosophic religions tended to be of only two types. Either things had always been and always would be the same, or the world has once been much better than it is now. Sometimes there would be an apocalyptic cycle, when all would begin again .

Like many human thoughts, these were based on natural observation. The sun comes up every day. People live, decay, die – as does all life. Such can easily be extrapolated to cosmic visions .

Some of the “golden age” believers went further and extrapolated decline into horrors and dystopia. Some preached that we could hold it back for a while with moral reform. And there was always an audience to listen to how bad things could be, maybe because that made the present more endurable .

Now we seem to be in a golden age of dystopian predictions. Following a brief reversion to “progress”, civilization has returned to the old attitudes. The only question is which of the dueling dystopias will happen. Novelists all assume that we are in the golden age, and the future looks bleak indeed .

But the plain fact remains that life mostly goes on, dreamtime as always, one day after another, endlessly the same, eternally different. The certainty of individual mortal journey is, after all, always bleak .

Basic Work

Let’s define “work” as any individual activity that helps a society. Then it is possible to tier the various “entitlements” of wealth that various actions bring .

The first level is staying out of trouble and respecting the norms of the civilization which you occupy. That should, in a modern “abundance” culture, give you access to free, unhassled, minimum food, clothing, shelter, emergency medical aid, and opportunity. The basic food can be nothing but fortified bread and water, clothing second hand, shelter a warm room with a roof, medical treatment for trauma, and opportunity an internet connection .

A higher level would up some of these rewards in return for community service. Hours of watching playgrounds, working at common stores, and so forth – things that simply require normal common sense and human interaction .

Only after that is “work” as we now recognize it. The chance to earn luxury and a better lifestyle than others, including high level medical. And that “work” should be taxed at a transactional rate of 50%, to support everything else .

Would people still work? I think so. Supply and demand would still apply. And, in fact, such a scheme is not that much different than what goes on in the idealized “nuclear family” which everyone claims to appreciate .

Done Before

“Everything’s been done before” Louis Armstrong laments in an old song. A refrain often heard about ambition not long ago. Then the song slyly adds “when I’m with you, I just want to do, what’s been done before .”

There is confusion today. In terms of being human, it more or less remains true that not only has everything been done before, but it is being done right now by hundreds or even millions of others. How can anyone possibly be unique? We remain anonymous molecules in the sea. Only a fortunate few can escape .

The second part is even more challenging, because in many ways we can never do what’s been done before. The habits and societies of our ancestors are gone forever. We hardly recognize the social patterns of mere decades past. We may cheer, we may regret, but we cannot recreate.

Historians lecture it’s been that way for a while now, since maybe the Renaissance, for sure during the industrial revolution. Okay, change is normal. But the accelerating asymptotic rate of change is worrisome, possibly destructive .

Can civilization survive? Many dystopian writers and filmmakers say no. Of course, the collapse of active civilizations has also – too often – been done before .