Mindful of What?

I have always been very much into self-development, intellectual and physical, as well as spiritual. As I have gotten older, I have turned more to intellectual development and away from other things. I still feel that is where my attention should be directed; although, I still desire spiritual and need physical. There are a number of good reasons for intellectual development; first of all there is the need to make good decisions based on a sound intellect; second is the need to keep the mind active to prevent dementia in old age. These first two reasons might be trumped by the need to make life interesting and give it meaning and purpose. I think a person can ask him or herself every day, “What should I direct my attention toward?” The answer is likely to be different each day. Maybe the answer should be, “I should pay attention to everything”; but the truth is, attention is a limited resource and it has to be controlled by setting priorities. Maybe what one should pay a lot of attention to is one’s priorities. Do you have a priority list? There are times when my priority becomes “I must sleep.” A priority list is a dynamic entity that needs to be updated constantly. …I got up and went for a nap, but I never got there. First I noticed that the telephone needed to be reconnected, then that the newspaper needed to be brought in, and a pot of coffee needed to be made. By the time all that was done I no longer felt the need to sleep. All day long things not on the priority list keep popping to the top of the list they are not even on. The business metaphor for this is, “Fires need to be extinguished.” Itches need to be scratched. Bladders need to be emptied. Limbs have fallen in the yard and need to be picked up. Energy has sagged and so one needs a cup of coffee. It is hard to pay attention to one’s priority list when these things keep coming up. I remember reading somewhere about distinguishing between “urgent” and “important.” Too many times “urgent” takes over our lives and “important” doesn’t get done. I am all for mindfulness, but what is it that we should be mindful of?

Meaning and Purpose

A thought flew into my head when I looked out the window and saw the beautiful golden light of early morning. Suddenly I wondered what wealthy and educated women who do not work do to get meaning and purpose in their lives. They seem like an unused resource in the scheme of things, rather like us retired folks.
I retired early because I became unable to work a full day. It would have been nice if I could have started working half time and drawing half Social Security; I might have continued in that vein for a number of years rather than stopping work altogether. I think the job I had moved to India and I would have lost it eventually anyway, but a gradual adjustment to my new way of life would have been easier. At least some poor person in India now has new meaning and purpose in his or her life. We used to say that to retire is to die. We could point to a large number of men who died soon after retirement because their lives lost meaning and purpose. I retired six years ago; and yet, I am still alive. I am unable to stand for any long period of time, so those retail jobs for old people, like being a greeter at Wal-Mart, are out for me. I’m not sure that would have given my life any real meaning anyway; so, I blog. It is only recently that I began to publish a blog now and then. Most of what I write won’t change the world, but it does change me. Writing introspectively helps to make me aware of the need for meaning and purpose in my life. It helps me establish mindfulness. I am working on discovering what mindfulness is and why I can benefit from it.

Liberation Makes Sense

Liberation is the key to happiness; isn’t it? Almost anything a person can say is only partially true. A certain amount of liberation is a really good thing. Too much or too little of it is not. As a retired person I should have lots of liberation. I am free to read and write here every morning, but sometimes I feel duties calling me. The car needs to be washed; a check needs to go to the bank; pruning needs to be done out in the yard; ad infinitum. Now is my time to do my own thing, but I feel a nap coming on.
In deciding to become a vegetarian years ago, I asserted my independence from social conditioning. In deciding recently to become vegan, I asserted it some more. My cardiologist told me that if I had not turned vegetarian, I might well have not survived the heart attack I had in 1991. Since I turned vegan (mostly), I have been feeling better and have quit taking my antacid medicine. I am having a longer and better life by becoming liberated from the norms of my surroundings.

Yin and Yang

I have been writing about politics again. I’d rather write about hooting owls and other sounds in the night. I’d rather study language, and dream of a better world looming out for my grandchildren and their children, ad infinitum.
Unpleasantness generally turns into something better. In the long run the disaster in New Orleans will bring about a better New Orleans. War whets the appetite for peace. Sickness pushes us toward healthy living. Sometimes poverty produces millionaires. If we look at the big picture, we can see a world becoming.
“Becoming what?” responded a voice from the audience.
The world is becoming a better place to live, and we are moving onward and upward. It is yin and yang. Unpleasantness carries with it the seed of good which will grow into something pleasant. The unpleasantness of war carries the seed of peace. The unpleasantness of hunger carries the seed of more effective food production and distribution. The unpleasantness of hate carries the seed of love and friendship. Pain carries the seed of healing. Napoleon Hill said it well in his book Think and Grow Rich, “Failure carries with it the seed of equal or greater benefit.”
“And what seed does overpopulation carry?” shouted someone in the audience.
For starters, the unpleasantness of overpopulation carries the seed of birth control.
“But birth control is sin!” shouted someone else.
The unpleasantness of overpopulation teaches us that birth control, whether you like it or not, is very necessary to maintaining and enhancing the quality of life. Much of the unpleasantness of overpopulation comes from people having more children than they can educate or give proper attention to. That leads to a whole host of social problems, thus giving us a good indication that birth control could have prevented such problems.
“You speak with the tongue of Satan!” shouted the same voice.
The unpleasantness of ignorance carries the seed of enlightenment.

Evil and Good

I have been going around all of my life being concerned about good and evil. I have asked over and over, what makes humans do evil things? Why are humans often inhumane to other humans? Why didn’t I turn this concern into some kind of career? I could have been a philosopher/writer, a policeman, a psychologist, or any of a number of things which would have been directly related to the battle between good and evil; yet, I did not. I obviously came with a desire that I was ill-equipped to handle, but that is no excuse. Anyone can become whatever he or she desires to be. It is just a matter of making the decision and working step by step toward it.
I did not name “preacher” in my above list of fighters of evil, but there were times that I thought I wanted to be a preacher; but I could not see a religion that satisfied me. I could have delivered a sermon against evil every Sunday morning, but I was put off by the dogma of the various churches. I still am; I see dogma as evil to be combated. In a different time and place I might have been successful as a preacher, but I was not born into that time and place. Was I put here to speak out against dogmatism?
Here is my sermon for today: Think! Be kind to everyone else so they will be kind to you and yours. Don’t be afraid to learn new things and to unlearn ignorance. Be responsible. And then, think some more.

God Is Not Religion

I go along with a blog I read that said, “We can have a good society in spite of religion.” Another one said, “Morality comes from religion.” And that I do NOT agree with. Morality comes from God, and God is not religion. Religion is an invention of humans who want to control other humans. It contributes more to immorality than it takes away from it. Those Muslims terrorists are real moral when it comes to sex and honesty, and that is good; but to condemn people to death because they are not honest or because they commit some sexual wrong, is more immoral than the so-called sins they are punishing for. Flying loaded airliners into occupied buildings is NOT a moral act. Acts of violence are the greatest sins.
I am a religious man of sort, much like the source of my nom de plume, Albert Einstein. That Albert had a lot of good things to say on this subject.
One book that really puts this point across is, in my opinion, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It points out how we are born knowing right from wrong, and how we are guided by Quality, the thing that tells us good from evil. There is one thing that I like from religion; it is the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Maybe some religionists should pay attention to that.

The Peace Party

I was depressed this morning. I tried watching a movie, but it didn’t help. I laid back to go to sleep and this came into my mind: “The solution is not to watch something; but rather, to do something.” Thank you Guiding Angel or whoever you are. I add this to the message I received another time, “Always have something to look forward to.”
At this point I know that I must write, but I don’t know what it is that I am going to write. Maybe I was destined to watch A Beautiful Mind this morning and see John Nash getting all depressed because he was unable to produce an original idea. I feel kind of like that. One of the reasons I write is because my mind demands it. I think I am depressed because I have a high IQ, but can’t seem to get it in gear. I want to design or produce something, hopefully something original. I want to design a new political party for the United States of America, one that takes the best from conservatism, the best from liberalism, and adds some new features of its own. I want it to be something that unites, rather than divides America. I think of it as The Third Way. One thing the new party must not do is to force religious beliefs on the people. Government must remain totally separate from religion. I would also like to see such a party that promotes peace. Maybe it should be called The Peace Party. We could promote the abolition of war, and no one would be allowed to talk about “Zero Tolerance.” We could have a policy of honesty and fairness. That would be something new.

Nurture or Punishment?

My question is this: If people don’t take the time and effort to educate themselves, do they deserve equality with those who do? Do people who do not work deserve to have as much as those who do? I mentioned education first because in America the opportunities for getting an education are many, free libraries, for an example. Public schools are free or something close to it. All children of school age are accepted at the free schools. The problem is that the uneducated don’t see the advantage of education, and will resist it. This may be the schools’ fault to some extent as education is more or less forced on the children. Who doesn’t resist anything being forced upon them?
When I entered the first grade in 1942 in Salem, Illinois, I went kicking and screaming. I kept crying and finally the teacher had to call my mother and have her come and get me. My first first grade teacher, Miss Wilson, was very nice. She was an angel. She somehow nurtured me into acceptance. All was going well until we moved.
In late 1942 or early 1943, Dad was transferred to run a lumberyard at New Madrid, Missouri, a small town famous for the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812. We moved from Heaven to Hell, and I discovered that Satan was a woman named Miss Mabel, who was my second first grade teacher. Nurturing stopped and punishment, or fear of it, became the guiding force of my education. Miss Mabel carried a paddle with holes drilled in it to make it more painful, and she never laid it down. She used it frequently on the “river rat boys.” “River rats” were those poor people who had to live in little shacks on the levee of the Mississippi River. I can’t remember them ever doing anything wrong, but apparently Miss Mabel thought so. She only whacked me once, because I was not sitting up straight in my chair. I often wonder if Miss Mabel wasn’t the cause of my early disinterest in education.