On Running

Running is one for the great equalizers amongst the sports. You don't need money to run, you don't even need shoes. Marathons have been won by people in bare feet with not special gear or expensive training instruction. Running is like soccer, there is no cost barrier to running.

And this is a very good thing, because running is one of the oldest tools known to mankind. A runner trained for distance can cover distances that startle modern people raised with cars and used to thinking of feet as slow. Running was used a hunting tool before spears and bows, with distance runners literally running animals into heatstroke induced death. Running is the oldest form of self defense on the planet. Running is a powerful tool that the vast majority of people can advantage of without anything more than our own two feet.
And yet so few of us can run well anymore.

Scientists are beginning to look into the theory that running may be what made us human, by allowing us access to meat that could feed our hungry brain. Early human species could run properly- they weren't built for it. Just maybe, running is what made us human. And now most of us don't run.

Does that mean most of us have forgotten what it means to be human?

The Lorax

I have a place in my heart for Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax". I have be to careful when I read it, because I am known to get very sad reading it. I was very skeptical of the movie adaptation and horrified at the car commercials that declared themselves "Truffula tree approved". Nonetheless, I allowed myself to be convinced to attend the movie with my wife and her best friend.

I was shocked, and I was amazed, and deeply moved by the sincerity and integrity this bright and immensely funny cartoon managed to maintain in its 88 minutes.

The show managed several very important things. First, it made you empathize for the tragic central figure "The Once-ler". It made the character sympathetic, while still making him responsible for the stories central tragedy. Second, it did not turn the Lorax into an active figure. Although the movie did add a certain amount of comic shenanigans for Danny Devito, but this was used to heighten the punch of tragic sequences by providing a certain amount of mood whiplash and giving the tearjerker moments some camouflage to hide behind. And third, it didn't tone down the message for public consumption- although it did provide a modest happy ending.

What surprised me was how angry the film felt. I could feel the film maker's outrage flaring behind the day glow landscape and outrageous characters and costumes. There was fire in this creation and I can honestly say that I didn't expect it.

This film has generated much outrage from the conservative quarter. And that to is a good sign. I like movie that cause conservatives to recoil in horror and scream propaganda and sacrilege. And when a children's movie that is so touching and powerful to get that reaction, I get a shiver- and a desire to buy tickets to this movie for all the small children that I know.

Occupy

The Occupy movement seems to have bubbled up like built up swamp gas and erupted in chaotic and ill timed blasts here and there to great shock, but little lasting effect. I have yet to be truly impressed by the Occupy movement. I sympathize with them, but they are too laden with drugs and ulterior motives from too many groups trying to use and manipulate them for me to side with them. 

That said, I do think that the Occupy movement is driven by a genuine populist revolutionary discontent. I do feel that this is a sign of the times so to speak. The people, especially the young people, are looking at the status quo and saying "No. This does not work. I will not support this thing any longer." And I think that this is a necessary thing. I do not think that this is a good thing or a bad thing, but necessary is not always good or bad.

When I read that we must send money and food aid to West Africa, because the rainy season does not allow for a long enough growing season to produce enough food to feed the population, I am struck by our stupidity. If the landbase cannot support the population, then any food relief will simply make the crisis worse next time. And this is the way. Grow until the system cracks from the strain, and then expand to new territory to use that new resource base to feed further growth.

This has worked for centuries and has allowed our elites to live very well. But we have run out of places to expand into. We are running out of resources to tap. The toxins produced by our lifestyle are piling up.

We can only live in defiance of biological law for so long until the court of Mother Nature renders judgement upon us. The mildly stupid Superhero 'the Tick' once noted that "Gravity is a harsh mistress."

Well, so is biology. The laws that govern population growth are the same for llamas and otters and ticks and liver flukes and humans, to paraphrase Daniel Quinn. We are not special, we are the same decaying matter as everything else, to paraphrase Chuck Palaniuck.

People like the Occupy movement are becoming, more or less, aware of the problems inherent in our system. It does work. It can't work. And whether we like it or not, sooner or later it is going to fail. Like West Africa, famine is inevitable. Because even if we stave disaster off this year, we are not living within biological limits, and eventually we must pay the Piper.

The War Language

Tribal societies frequently engage in warfare that is dramatically different than modern warfare. This tribal or endemic warfare is highly ritualized and almost playful or sport-like. Fatalities are rare and injuries are significantly less common. These ritualized wars serve the purpose of allowing warriors to show their courage and allowing tribes to sort out minor disagreements without major loss of life. But Tribal societies do also engage in true warfare when necessary. 

Such conflict inevitably puts huge stresses on warriors, and tribal cultures have discovered that there are several factors that help reduce trauma from war. First, social sanction from the tribe helps warriors cope with their actions in war time. Second, purification rituals which ceremonially cleanse the warrior of their sins. Third, transformation into a warrior state that can be left behind through another transformation at the end of war time.

Having a separate language for warriors in war time, such as the 'clipped speech' of the (admittedly fictional) Klingon Military allows for a dramatic transformation on the part of the warrior. According to the Sapir-Wharf Hypothosis, what we are able think about and how we are able to think at all is mediated by the language in which we speak and think. By giving warriors a different language to communicate in, we create a different culture and with luck a different persona for the warrior to wear on the battlefield. With luck this persona will be one that can then be put aside when the battle is over.
 
There are other parts of this, such as purification rituals and transformation rituals and public support for warriors and their actions. And all of these are important. War is a traumatizing and demoralizing event. War can break warriors by the boatload, even for those who come safe home. And having that different language creates break between peace and war, warrior and enemy, and warrior and civilian.

What does it mean to immerse rather than transcend?

Answer:

Modern religion and pop psychology loves to talk about enlightenment and trascending the everyday. The idea is typically visualized as a meditating figure floating into the heavens. The idea of heaven as being above the earth stems from the mythology of many modern religions which casts the earth as an unworthy place that people should escape. Buddhists consider it an illusion that causes suffering, and attempt to see through it. Christians and most Abrahamic religions see the earth as a sinful place that acts as a test of faith. In both cases, the earth is not where humans were meant to be. Earth is bad, the good stuff comes after you die.

Freepathers feel that this mythology, which casts the earth as an intrinsically sinful place where one is meant to suffer while one waits for entrance into the perfect heaven above, is dangerous to life on earth and ecosystem itself given humankind's ability to affect the ecosystem. People who think the world is meant to be suffering do not think things are strange when the ecosystem is so damaged that everything depending upon it suffers from said damage. People who think the earth is a sinful place, may see less reason to avoiding damaging things- just as one would not see a problem in kicking the fence of a crack house. People who see the earth as a waiting room for heaven, are not likely to see a pressing need to keep the earth in working order far into the future.

Freepathers therefore look in the opposite direction. Rather than idealizing the heaven image, freepathers look for understanding and epiphany in the moist black wormy earth below them. While Christians hope to ascend to heaven on the wings of angels, Freepaths prefer the metaphors of sinking roots deep into the land. Learning more through a deeper connection, one that also strengthens the land itself.

Should be Afraid of the Possibility of God? A Question of Sim City

We now have computers advanced enough to run simulations where people go about their lives in virtual worlds, and those people seem to make their own choices based upon the rules built into the simulation. 

 

If we could communicate with these virtual people, how likely is it that they would be aware of their status as program sub-routines with no autonomy not mediated by their underlying program code?

How likely is it that these VR people would reject the truth, because their code tells them they are autonomous?

How likely is it that they would see us as God, if we were able to explain our own relationship to them?

How likely is it that they would create a religion based around attempting to understand our motives and actions towards them?

Now stop, and look up and ask yourself this: If this is true of us, if we are the Virtual Persons who only think they have free will, how likely is it that being we call God is a cosmic twelve year old boy playing a higher dimensional version of Sim City?

And how many times have you sent the Godzilla monster rampaging across your own Sim City just because it looks cool to watch the cities burn?

What is the Solstice and Equinox? How are they useful?

Answer:

The Winter Solstice generally marks the end of the lunisolar year. The Winter solstice occurs on the shortest day of the year. The Summer Solstice by contrast occurs on the longest day of the year and is generally used to mark the midpoint in the year. The Equinoxes, spring and autumn, are the two days of the year when the day and the night are of equal length.

The solstices and equinoxes are powerful time keeping devices for the year, and have been used for centuries are markers for when to plant (the Spring Equinox), and when to harvest (the Autumn Equinox). The Summer Solstice marks the midway point in the fertile part of the year, while the Winter Solstice marks the midway point across the dark and cold parts of the year.

Winter Solstice is generally a celebratory time, used to mark the turning point of winter and to bring light to a cold and dark time of the year. Likewise the Spring Equinox is generally used to celebrate the arrival of spring, and the Autumn Equinox is used to celebrate the good harvest.

Celebrating and following these year markers helps to tie a Freepather back into the natural rhythms of the land.