There is really not much one can say – except “what is wrong with us?”
Aaron E. Carroll: “The U.S. Is Failing in Infant Mortality, Starting at One Month Old “
“Many more babies die in the United States than you might think. In 2014, more than 23,000 infants died in their first year of life, or about six for every 1,000 born. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 other industrialized nations do better than the United States at keeping babies alive.”
We are in the Anthropocene
There is a growing voice among scientists that would like to label the current epoch as the Anthropocene distinctly following the Holocene.
The Anthropocene is defined to begin when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. Our growth is accompanied by an exploding reduction in biodiversity. We large scale destruction of habitats followed by species extinction only paralleled by the major past extinction events like the Permian extinction.
We see the dramatic changes an extinction of wild life species on land, but the catastrophic impact of over fishing in the oceans tends to go unnoticed. First you might see a reduction in the size of the fish being caught, then you stop finding particular species altogether. If you take a look at peak catches over the last decades, you can see a dramatic reduction averaging 58% – and this was from 1964 to 1992 (I could not find more recent data.) We know that the impact of the last 25 years has been even more dramatic leading to complete collapse of certain species. This is solely due to unrestrained fishing not just catching the fish we want to eat, but also destroying numerous other species of “junk fish.” And BTW, many junk fish have been promoted to primary catch to replace species now gone.
Our techniques of industrialized over fishing and brutal drag net techniques not only decimate species, but also completely destroy supporting habitats. We unbalance ecological chains further destroying local ecosytems.
But this happens under the water surface, so the vast emptiness we are creating goes unnoticed.
Now we add to this the dramatic impact of climate change, which some of still debate fumbling at the edge.
If you look at the previous extinction events, you will likely note that it always ended in the destruction of the apex species, usually in the early phases. We pride ourselves as being the apex species. Good luck to us!
Earlier today I ran across a link on one of my favorite sites. Justin Hickey write about a fascinating book Open Letters Monthly In What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins Jonathan Balcombe writes about the research of the conscious existence of our vertebrate cousins in the water. Justing Hinkley provides a thoughtful review, which I could not do justice here paraphrasing. Just read it.
I was left with my ever increasing wonder about this world we inhabit.
I firmly believe that not only our model of human consciousness is “not even wrong,” but we seem incapable of appreciating the mental existence of all the beings that share our world. There is a tremendous agree of shared awareness and emotion – the experience that drives action. And the ability to suffer is universal.
We pride ourselves the apex of creation. But we are not only blind to the suffering of our fellow humans, but we are completely insensitive to the suffering we cause in our farms, in our forrests, in our oceans.
How will our epoch be remembered? I can only think that future species able to express it will call the Anthropocene blessedly short in duration and dominated by a species that was given much promise, the ability for sensitivity and greatness, but turned out to be a brutal aberration of butchers.
I am not proud.
We have this concept that humans are rational. We are rational. We make decision and do them.
We don’t.
I am relatively mature, middle-aged. Based on life expectancy in the US (78.4 years for a male), I should have 14 years left. This is probably skewed due to averages, suicides etc.. Given my education and life style, I could expect more. One would also hope for new developments over the next years to improve the odds, especially if I can pay for them.
What do I want? I want to maximize my useful and enjoyable life. In a way, this mean, doing even better than I do now. I am healthy, but can feel the slowing down. This might be less to age than really physical shape. The best thing I can do for myself is to improve that. Lose weight, maybe. But mainly feel optimum, sleep better. The actions required are clear, I have the laundry list and setup (exercise corner in a nice spot on the deck), start exercise, change the diet after filling the fridge with the right stuff, meditate, write.
I also want to spend more of my time doing what matters to me.
All very clear.
But every day I fall into the same patterns, which is not THAT.
So how do you change it?
Here is what I am trying now, trying to find a way to enjoy the process:
The goal is to have a life that is healthy and enjoyable.
Every day is a precious gift.
| “Music is the space between the notes.” – Claude Debussy
The most interesting discoveries often come from the “spaces in between.” Our minds create a lot off illusionary models that do not really reflect reality. What we see is reflected light – energy moving in space. When we touch matter, we do not get close to the nuclei. Matter is mainly – space. Solidity is an illusion only experienced in our scale and time. And it is in between that the most interesting characteristics are born. Nuclear shells really determine the bonding characteristics of atoms, how they will combine with other atoms to form molecules. These are building blocks of the world – not the most basic building blocks, we probably still do not quite know those despite super colliders. As Feynman said, “There is a lot of room a the bottom.” Systems become more interesting as they become more complex. Molecules building more complex structures all the way to life. And life forming symbiotic nets and structures, then social structures, eco systems, planets. People are interesting and can be very creative, but they are not independent from their environment and social context, the influence of family, friends, teachers, mentors, their current culture. It is these multi faceted, changing relationships and influences that shape us and our work. The space in between… |
These people were taken from their homes and lost everything! They were never paid restitution. Is this the American way?
NPR: Very Different View of Japanese Internment. 
This morning I thought of my mother. I have done that many times – for 36 years now; every day I can think of.
When she died, I had been away from home for more than ten years. She lived in Africa, I in the US. In all that time, I saw her twice. Travel was expensive and I was not wealthy. There was no Skype, phone calls were expensive. Mail was with that thin air mail paper that few people today will remember. I did not write often. It must have hurt her.
What are the thoughts and feelings, once loved ones leave you forever?
These are very expensive lessons. When I was young, I was fearful of losing my parents. They made me feel protected. It turns out, once I was on my own they really would not and could not help me. Now I am the backstop of my family. I do not mind. The memory has taught me to cherish the task, the fundamental trust endowed in me by those, who come for help. My mother died young and in much pain. I am sure, the moment of passing was a relief. But I regret that she missed out on so many things including seven grand children. All her kids turned out ok. She loved children most of all. But passing at 48 she could never see any of her kids succeed, could never see the next generation.
We humans look for causality, we look for justice. This is useful for our simplified models that make us function in the universe.
Her death shows this model is an illusion. She deserved more.
I read about wishful thinking to overcome the end of individual existence – death – by transcending and being encoded into a powerful silicon artifact. Actually, this entry was triggered by an interesting speculation in Nautili.us – “Why Alien Life Will Be Robotic” by Martin Rees, a British cosmologist and astrophysicist, and also the Astronomer Royal. As Sting once sang in a song, I do not subscribe to this point of view.
I am not convinced of materialism, but neither do I believe that dualism is a proven thing. We simply know way to little to be certain either way. One thing I do know is that the world and everything in it is vastly more complex on both the smallest scale (as Feynman once lectured, “There is a plenty of room at the bottom”) and the largest. It is also important to move away from reductionism despite its usefulness over the last centuries and start looking at systems thinking. Everything in the world is vastly more connected than our simple models can perceive. Just today I saw news of a study that “Bacteria actually communicate like neurons in the brain.”
Alan Lightman has published a really enlightening article on Nautil.us. It gave me a brand new and wonderful perspective I really had not thought in the same way before.
“Is Life Special Just Because It’s Rare?” really highlights the premise of how small the actual fraction of living matter represents in comparison to the rest of the universe, yet how much of a miracle our ability to reflect on it truly is.
Worth a read – and there is much more on this site. I voted with my wallet some time back.
For years I have been convinced that one of the most important actions for my own development is to make a habit of writing. I write a lot of things in the course of the day that are work related, but seem to have been unable to carve out the time in the early morning for reflective and creative writing.
Today is Labor Day and we had nothing planned. I was really going to “do it” today. It is now evening. I have managed to spend the day on maintenance activities around the keyboard. Churning through thousands of mail messages that needed sorting, thinning, and archiving. Cleaning up my WordPress installation with (count it) one entry so far! Cleaning up some things in the office…
Decades ago I saw a talk by Douglas Adams, writer of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and other comedic radio plays, books, games, etc. He was famous for procrastinating and being late with his manuscript submissions. Douglas described his writing day and the painful ritual it took to finally start writing: baths, pencils that needed sharpening, checking the lightbulb in the refrigerator. It was a funny talk I never forgot.
My actions sure remind me of that behavior.
But the Site is cleaned and set up. My MacJournal is synched.
The words must flow.
Time is the master of us all. Time brings an inescapable order to our perception of reality. None can escape it.
There are some view points in physics, who define time as an illusion of human consciousness, ingrained as an artifice of our elemental model of experience. However, given the laws of entropy, time is observed to flow in only in one direction. To me, it does appear to be in the structure of our reality. But then, all of these might be subject to our limited models of perception and knowledge.
Based on our state of attention and excitation, clock time appears to be experienced at different rates. It slows in the moment of panic, accelerates in moments of enjoyment, and might disappear altogether when focused on a task. We lose time in dreamless sleep, find it disordered in dreams, but know the time, when we wake. We have the perception of personal continuity despite our altered conscious state of sleep.
As we grow older, time overall progresses more quickly. Some think, it is simply faster, since a day is so much shorter in comparison to our lifetime that it is in youth. Another thought it is simply because our days are more filled with tasks requiring attention. It is also possible, our clock neurons pace us at a different beat.
Likely, a most pressing experience is that as we get older, mortality becomes real. When I was young, I knew, I was mortal, but really felt immortal. We all did. Now, as my previous generation including my parents have passed, as friends die and even some children of friends, as we see the reaper strike closely and in random, after facing close brushes with death myself, I am imbued with certainty that my days are finite. As I should have known all along, every day is precious, the now is all we have.
To catch this fleeting time I resolve to seek a daily moment of contemplation here, to remind myself of the beauty that is and the void and uncertainty that awaits us all. Still, what a unique privilege to be alive and have lived.
… carpe diem!
