Summertime Writing

Summertime, and the living is easy - but staying indoors to write/work is becoming increasingly horrible. I want to be outside playing in the hills, gardening, on a road trip to the beach..... anything that doesn't include being indoors.

You Owe It To Yourself

Being alive means exercising conscious awareness – not waiting to die, but living life for the sake of the journey – being in the moment to learn, love, and pursue happiness as a reason for being here. And by 'happiness' I am referring to the quality of a whole human life including well-being, joy, and yes, the lessons learned from pain, without which there would be little appreciation of the good.

The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia, but not in the "joy" sense as it is normally meant in modern times. Eudaimonia more accurately translates as flourishing or thriving; as suggested in Aristotle's description of happiness as "living well". Not that joy has no place in the scheme of happiness, hopefully there would be many instances of joy in a life lived in the pursuit of happiness.

Conversely, a doctrine that supports self-immolation (self-sacrifice) for the "greater good" is an immoral proponent of self-loathing, fear, and hatred. Anything purporting the renunciation of your own happiness as a an ethical value is a negation of real morality.

Happiness is the foundation on which joy, without penalty, or guilt may be achieved. "A joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real." ~ Ayn Rand.

The pursuit of happiness is something that you owe yourself, indeed, it is your highest moral purpose, because your ultimate and final responsibility on this planet is to your own life.

My Pet Bear

I confronted a bear in my 'front yard'. I heard noises from the open window, so I went out on the porch with a flashlight – I growled at the darkness like I always do to scare away stray dogs, raccoon, whatever, but it was all quiet. So I thought it might be teenagers or some other form of human prowler so I said to the darkness “Ok next time I come out with a shotgun.” Still all quiet. I gave the yard another sweep with the flashlight and just as I was about to turn and go back inside, the flashlight reflected the green glow of an animal’s eyes from the darkness near the corner of the garage. I moved the light back over to the eyes, and then noticed that all the blackness surrounding the glowing eyes was the form of the biggest black bear I had ever seen.

He stopped paying attention to me and went back to the goody bag that he had apparently retrieved my trash can ready for the morning pickup (or was ready). I watched in total awe for a minute or two – he was a magnificent looking animal. I say "he" because I am familiar with the relative sizes reached my adult male and female black bears, and this one could easily have weighed five hundred or so pounds. I’ve seen a few black bear in my day, even had a Yellowstone Park beggar lean up against my car hoping for a morsel.  But I have never seen one this big.

After some deliberation I decided that I should run him off since it could become quite a nuisance having the trash scattered around on a regular basis.  I growled, barked, and yelled to no avail.  The bear just kept eating and tearing up the trash bag. Then I was overcome with apparent temporary insanity and the wild notion that I could make a "pet" out of him - not in the classic sense, but perhaps feed him on a regular basis if he so chose to return. So I dashed back into the house and grabbed a fillet of Salmon from the fridge, went back outside, down the stairs, and started toward the bear. I held the fish out in front of me so he could smell it and maybe take an interest.  He stopped ripping the bag apart as I came within twenty feet or so.  He held a steady gaze into the flashlight.

Realizing the "dear in headlights" phenomena was likely in effect (despite his being a bear), I turned the light toward myself so that he could see me and make a decision. On realizing the situation he bolted toward the nearest tree and he jumped on the tree as though intending to climb it, but his weight proved too great for tree bark to support, but he held on as he slid downward leaving deep grooves in the innocent tree, and gave a mighty warning growl before reaching the ground. The magnitude of volume and obvious intent behind this growl brought me back to my senses and I threw the fish over near the trash bag he had been into, and made a hasty retreat back to the front porch. The bear lumbered off into the bushes. He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry so I went on back into the house hoping he would return to eat the fish in peace. It was an expensive piece of salmon and I hated to think it might go to waste in the belly of some other unworthy critter. Later I went out for a look and the salmon was gone.

My pet bear made one more visit some days later to destroy my bird feeder. I can't keep house plants alive. I don't know what made me think I could have a pet.

~

Seeing Past Recovery

For twenty years, or thereabouts, I have been working on freeing myself of the emotional baggage collected over the years (particularly from a childhood) that kept me motivated to remain "medicated" by alcohol and other sundry drug addictions. And though I no longer habitually partake of such substances I still consider myself to be on a path of recovery. This journey of healing has been paramount in unlocking my creative energies. So as I relinquish burdens that I am no longer willing to carry, my life more appropriately becomes about seeking happiness. Thus, and currently my life journey is guided by healing, loving myself, family and friends (chosen family), fulfilling my desire for new knowledge, seeing the beauty that abounds, and creating my truth through writing or whatever expression that moves through me.

Alas,  my mind has been conditioned to take beauty for granted, or not see it at all. So it is important to me to become aware of, and set aside my conditioning in order to hear and see more clearly. Unfortunately I often miss what is right in front of me. Familiar emotions and sensations so often pass unnoticed or are labeled and judged in a way that moves me past them with little or no real awareness.  My mind quickly labels what it perceives as good or bad and I respond with unconscious and automatic judgments – one of the more tenacious aspects of conditioning from which I am trying to recover.

At long last, there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, and it is not my death. It is an existence illuminated by living a full life - conscious, aware, healed.

~

The Right To Defend

There are several reasons one may have for owning firearms... sport, hunting, collecting, but the two most critical are defense against personal injury, and defense against tyranny. A firearm is the best tool available to protect one's own, and/or the lives of family members. Even though a civilized society has laws against the use of physical force between members of its constituency, law enforcement officials are not capable of protecting you from criminals. The police collect evidence pertaining to a crime and arrest and formally accuse people who are suspected of committing an offense. However, if someone wants to kill or steal from you, then you must protect yourself since the police are not available for prevention.

Of course the hope is that we never have to use deadly force to defend ourselves. But that hope should not foolishly include being unprepared to do so. Fortunately for citizens of the United States, the authors of the constitution and Bill of Rights knew that; "An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny." The second amendment also states that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. Unfortunately there is currently a growing constituency in favor of dissolving the right to own firearms. Revocation of the right would disarm law abiding citizens leaving weapons in the hands of law enforcement officials, the military, and criminals.

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity ... will respect the less important and arbitrary ones ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." — Thomas Jefferson

As Mr. Jefferson points out, gun control laws make it harder for law-abiding citizens seeking to protect themselves. Criminals already obtain weapons through illegal channels consequently they are unaffected by current, or additional gun control laws. Gun control is not the solution to ending random killing.

As it is, government already holds a monopoly of sorts on the legal use of physical force. From the government position, it must hold such a monopoly as the restraining element of the use of force by its constituency against each other, and against the government itself.  For that reason alone, government must be rigidly defined and controlled by the people.

According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured, as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if they used other means of resistance.[1]

"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
 --Thomas Jefferson

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty."
 -- Thomas Jefferson

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
 -- Thomas Paine

"Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its
 rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government"
 -- Thomas Jefferson

1. G. Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research," Law and Contemporary Problems 49, no. 1. (Winter 1986.): 35-62.

~

Agnostic Atheist

No, agnosticism is not atheism lite. Like theism, atheism is a belief. Agnosticism is a logical proposition. To expedite discourse on these concepts I first offer these generally agreed upon definitions:

Theism: 1. Belief in the existence of a God or gods, especially belief in a personified God entity as creator. 

Atheism: 1. Belief that there is no God. 2. Disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings. 

Agnosticism: 1. The doctrine that certainty about truth is unattainable without proof, and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge. 2. A doctrine affirming that there can be no proof either that god exists or that god does not exist.

The most notable and relevant difference between these definitions is that two of them (theism and atheism) describe suppositions based on an unknown, both of which represent a departure from critical thinking and enter the realm of believing in something based on feeling, whereas agnosticism describes a neutral conclusion about knowledge based on a lack of evidence. Knowledge (information gained by proof) is a separate issue from a belief in something for the want of it.

The term 'agnosticism' is predominately used to claim abstinence from siding with the belief or non-belief in the existence of a God or gods. But by definition, agnosticism enjoys a broader meaning. Agnosticism is rooted in logic; a position that does not permit a claim of something unknowable or predicated by negative proof. Both theism and atheism claim to have knowledge based on a negative proof (also known as a faulty inference), which constitutes a logical absurdity. To the agnostic, all such proposals, are equally untenable. Consequently, agnosticism is not a withdrawal from participation, but rather a position of non-participation because there is nothing to contend.

True agnosticism includes no opinion about the existence, or non-existence of God or gods. As an adjective, 'agnostic' can be used with theism or atheism. One might believe in gods without claiming absolute knowledge of their existence, a position which could be described as agnostic theism. Conversely one might disbelieve in gods without claiming absolute knowledge of their non-existence, which could be described as agnostic atheism.

For years I called myself a true agnostic with no emotional investment in the belief or disbelief in the existence of God - most likely my religiously fraught childhood instilled in me at least some modicum of belief that there may be a god  presiding over my possible continuance beyond the duration of my biological form; a god that may very well deny extended existence to non-believers, yet show leniency toward those who simply claimed not to know what cannot be known. However, brainwashing in youth dissipates with intellectual maturation, and the notion that persistence after death might be presided over by some deity, is recognized for the fairy tale that it is. This concession is an implicit acceptance of atheism - a disbelief derived from nothing more substantial than the same disbelief I have in the existence of Santa Claus - it seems unreasonable. Nevertheless, holding that something is unreasonable without proven data to support the conclusion still constitutes a belief not held in evidence, and consequently represents a departure from pure logic of which, I confess my guilt. However, I qualify my departure from pure logic to an atheistic belief with the 'agnostic' adjective. I don't believe there is or ever was a god (atheist), but withhold judgment about proving this belief (agnostic) since such a thing cannot be verified. My use of the agnostic adjective with my atheist belief does not redeem my departure from pure logic on this matter, but it does qualify and explain my refusal to engage in a discussion about the consequences and/or rewards of being naughty or nice.

~

Ego

The abundance and proliferation of "ego" nay-sayers has always surprised and caused me to shake my head in disbelief. First: it should be clear that I reject the commonly accepted misunderstanding of ‘ego’ that is ubiquitous in our society – that promoting one’s ego is somehow pathological, or the contention "having an ego" represents some kind of spiritual malady. I have never understood, and completely reject this little piece of stupidity, obviously not founded on any system of reason or rational thinking.  Second: there is no source within us, which is without ego since the self is the ego.  Borrowing from Merriam-Webster's definition:

Ego -- 1: the self, especially as contrasted with another self or the world

So basically your ego is who you are. And personally, I am not interested in depreciating who I am.
Do the anti-egoist support their absurd contention because the ego by nature is NOT self-sacrificing or self-immolating (which for some insane reason are considered virtuous behaviors in our society)? People denounce ego and wonder about the amoral condition of society at large – what a pity. What else could there be in a society that promotes self-loathing – and make no mistake about it, denouncing the ego is an unequivocal promotion of self-loathing by simple virtue of the meaning of the word ego.

The natural condition of ego is not self-sacrificing, self-immolating or any other such form of self-depreciation. The ego by nature is self-promoting, not self-depreciating. The natural inclination of ego is toward self-esteem and pride, not shame. The ego and its natural extension – pride is about believing in yourself and your abilities. Feeling pride in your abilities and accomplishments is the recognition of your own self-worth.  Pride and ego are all about recognizing self-worth through the realization that you are capable of producing value and consequently capable of sustaining your own life. How can this be considered bad in any way? The amoral faction who consider pride to be a sin are the proponents of fear, hate, and discrimination that plague society.

Rewire America.

~