Cormac versus Drunvalo: thoughts on the future

            It is always interesting to start a book that you have preconceived notions about.  Interesting to see how it conforms to your prejudices.  More interestingly still to see how it diverges, becomes its own work: it winds down its narrative path and carves into concrete, mapping over your pre-impressions.

            As in fiction, in life.  Besides having a sweet name, Drunvalo Melchizedek also has a wild take on the world, albeit one that I am only glancingly familiar with.  He has been interviewed for many an alt podcast and has his own Q & A series.  His take on things draws from historical antecedents and can be loosely (maybe comprehensively) characterized as New Age. 

            In the episode of his Q & A show hyperlinked above Drunvalo discusses his views of a forthcoming, um, well, change in the world.  Yes, it is related to the Mayan calendar.  Listening to his conception of change put me in mind of another recent view of the end of the world, namely that provided by one Cormac McCarthy.

            Although books are generally better than the movie, the recent re-creation of Cormac’s The Road does nearly complete justice to the text.  The story and feel are the same in both but would still urge someone to read the novel over seeing the film: McCarthy’s prose is unparalleled.  Poetic.  Evocative of (his hero) Melville and of the Bible.  Read Blood Meridian.  Read Suttree.  The Road approaches these previous works in quality and provides a grim background in front of which he presents his bleak tale.

            For the sake of comparison, let’s even the playing field.  What if Drunvalo’s ideas where fictional.  What if Cormac’s The Road willingly being prophetic?  What types of tales are they?  Which is more enjoyable?  In which real or fictional incarnation? 

            An end of light (Drunvalo) versus an end in nuclear winter-dark (The Road)?  This is not quite a fair comparison – not all will go unscathed in Drunvalo’s vision.  Indeed, significant numbers may meet their end.  Have to say it is a little discomfiting to hear this laid out by Drunvalo (I think it is as fun to type his name as it is to say it).  A sort of new age-elect will be the ones to make it through.

            The Road delivers equal opportunity destruction.  I suppose I am making this assumption, but believe it right – this future is a godless realm, no faith to protect anyone.  Compared to the fiction of Stephen King’s The Stand, The Road has no metaphysical elements except for contemplation of the timeless (unanswerable) question as to how it is man is capable of such acts.  So far it hasn’t happened – environmental degradation notwithstanding.  (Long-term environmental problems have a chronic character that unfortunately slips by unseen in front of man’s acute-problem-only-seeing eyes.  In my opinion.)

            In the end, The Road is fiction – it does not seek to claim prescience, only tell a story.  Drunvalo, though, does grant his listeners a mapped future.  There will be much travail, he is sorry to report, but there will also be unimaginable transcendence.  Comparing the two, the fiction is grim and the revealed-to-Drunvalo truth is beautiful.  Does my reality have to make me happy and does my fiction have to make me sad?  In order to fact check: guess we have to wait till the future to see which is right.

The flesh you so fancifully fry - a note on food

            Recently changed up the way I eat – another experiment testament to these protean times: using food perhaps as a way to find a mooring?  Seems like folks today try diets like trying on clothes, new fads that people try then discard.  We can already date a photo by what people are wearing in it – so too with food?  (Just speaking of clothes, I swear people in the eighties look as though they are from a far different time than even people you see in pictures or films from the fifties or sixties or even seventies. Could this happen today?  If it did it wouldn’t be the same.)

            Food is undoubtedly important.  What interests about the range of diets available is that there is presumably a best way to eat.  That is what all the lifestyle diets out there are trying to achieve.  A way to eat to achieve optimal health for the duration of your life and also to perform and work at exceptional levels.  I feel like my recent dietary shuffle is because of these aims.  Fear of death?  Is that something lurking in the background when we make such decisions?  On the surface I say/think that my choice is for the former reasons.

            To disclaim though: everyone is different so there are probably multiple smart ways to eat.  I mean some people constitutionally can’t eat some things.  Others choose not eat certain things based on ethical decisions.  Any time you enter the realm of morality, though, you encounter uneven terrain and concealing fogs.  Re: meat: saying you shouldn’t eat animal flesh because it is wrong is one thing while saying you shouldn’t eat it because it is unhealthy is a beast of another pelt.  I think these two ideas get a little conflated.  On the moral side: good, I respect that choice/have experimented with it myself.  If you don’t partake of meat because you think it is murder (bless this man! (eighties, again . . .)) then you have thought about it, placed yourself in the hooves or what have you of others.  Regardless of religious non-affiliation or whatever compassion is virtuous.

            The other side of this meat topic is where the murkiness lies.  That you shouldn’t eat it because it is unhealthy runs firstly into the problem, previously stated, that we are all physiologically different.  If it is true that different people respond differently to different food then there can’t be one ultimate diet.  This is Platonism at its finest and it attempts to steamroll uniqueness.  Destroying uniqueness in the name of a higher order is usually the job of institutionalized faith.  Saying one diet is the best appeals to capital-T Truth.  Unfortunately this truth lies well within the murky domain of morality, with its obfuscatory mists and mirage-like substance.

            So that is the grain of salt (literally, and Himalayan at that) I take as I explore gastronomic alternatives.  Despite critiquing what Plato thought I still think an unexamined life is not worth living.  I also think it is easy to go through life without examining what we eat.  Oh no, what if I try different ways of eating but don’t find the way that  is best for me?  Worth it to try.

Ancient mid-afternoons (2)

            Fun to think about but, as my last post discussed, we are the latest of a long line of people, the ever-rolling tide of humanity, encroaching and retreating, swirling in eddies, cresting and cresting and cresting. . .  Certain books, guess they are usually sci-fi, take on the ideas of what it was like.  And some look to the future, A Scientific Romance being a terrific example.  Riddley Walker, Fiskadoro are other (really good) forward-looking books.  It is a trip to think of the world 10 years from now and such a thought experiment is relatively easy compared to thinking about the world (with us still in it) a hundred years down the road.  Raise the stakes and think about 1,000 years in the future. 

            Looking forward and back – behind us: do we live with links to the past?  Older generations have their mores and particular zeitgeist and these are slowly changed by the up-and-coming generation’s own way of doing things.  Then the oldest generation dies off and the next younger one becomes the wise old folk.  It is hard to imagine life in the 1950s and soon it will only be guesswork cuz the people that actually did live then won’t be around.  And that is just fifty year ago.  What about 100 years ago?  These are historical times that we have records of so we dreamers at least have a blueprint to work with.  The future is different.

            A hundred years hence.  We can extrapolate from what we have today.  We can look at trends that we are part of today and try and project these into the future.  But we do not have a blueprint such as history provides us for reflections past.  In the future lays uncharted waters.  A hundred years could see us living as we do today.  Or the world – how people relate, how people live, where we live – could be radically different.  I was going to say unimaginably different but I think whatever the future holds it will be an iteration similar to something in the past.  (I guess this is a judgment against transhumanism.)

            Think of the future as an entity or a presence, something looming.  It is real.  Should I say it will be real?  For some reason it feels right to say simply that it is real.  It’s gonna happen.  Inexorable.  The far out thought is thinking of a million years in the future.  Tough to make that a concern today but what will things be like then?

Ancient mid-afternoons

It is interesting to think of the land that we traverse – drive, walk, run, bike, fly across – as an ancient land.  I do this once in a while but try and do it more – like make myself – because of the perspective it lends.  (Caveat: this is not necessarily an impetus for moral reflection.)  Most iterations of this thought experiment wonder about, I’ll go ahead and say it, what the terrain and the world would have been like when natives lived here, like before Europeans.  It’s fun.  Maybe edifying.  (And may help put things in perspective re: current issues re: environment, etc., but not going to talk about that here.)  Living out west seems to afford many opportunities for this but it can be done anywhere.  Think of back east: now as then more lush, more habitation: much to imagine.  But out here the fantasies become sparer: natives did live more in stereotypical ways – seasonal nomadism?  A harsher place out here than in a southeast forest/temperate setting.

And to compare local past-conditions to other, more distant, past conditions – a big part of my game.  Think of living here compared to living elsewhere 15 centuries ago.  A native living in a semi-permanent locale along the Snake River, say compared to a city dweller in Meso-America.  Take it a step further, of course, and compare these existences with that of a European.  Compare commoners – here or there – with royalty – here or there. 

Similarities may be teased out in letting thoughts wander down these paths.  People are people and this is as true today as it was a millennia and a half ago – our lots in life are cast, the decision between two people to bring forth another life made: here we are experiencing the world that we are thrown into.  Is it fun to think about other ways of life because this life ain’t so bad?  I think that has something to do with it.

Take a walk down an ancient trail – in the west just walk near water: rivers and lakes are places that have drawn people, whether ancient or new.  And think about what they experienced, what they thought.  On the very same ground, at the very same spot.  I make myself mute the ideas that natives long ago were more concerned with finding sustenance.  To hopefully not too radically extrapolate: those in the past had complex motivations for things.  They paid attention to bigger pictures whether tribal alliances or personal alliances.  There were metropolitan areas and backwaters then, sure.  But regardless whether city or plain there were Caesars and Joe Schmoes.  Different proclivities, different talents. 

            Considering people in the past to be as many dimensioned as we are makes the world a more exciting place to be.  I’m seeking a connection here and I think I am justified in doing so.  Behind great historical trends are people with personal needs and desires.  Considered from the other way: personal needs ultimately fuel/allow great trends.  No matter whether then or now, whether here or there.

This allotment of time

            We only have so much time on this earth – cherish every moment – live every moment to its fullest.  You’ve all heard these maxims, words of wisdom or admonishments: it seems like riding high on a crest we agree in acknowledgement of these pearls.  In a trough we are chastised by these words and realize that in not seeing life as a gift we are great squanderers. 

            Recently listened to a revealing interview with Graham Hancock conducted by Andrew Gough for New Dawn magazine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8flurTqFJgY) in which the topic of living life rightly arose.  I greatly admire Graham’s work and am impressed with his independence of thought and also the breadth of his work.  The interview was quite personal, especially compared to recent Q&As and just served to make Mr. Hancock a more interesting character.  This on the heels of his somewhat recently published novel and the groundbreaking work of synthesis that is his book Supernatural.

            Anyway, in the interview Graham said that lessons learned via his ongoing pilgrim’s path have taught him to (and I’m paraphrasing) appreciate life but also to understand that our actions now may have effects years down the road.  Many years down the road.  What better way to emphasize the importance of our handful of moments in this life than to link them to times past and future.  I like this idea as it speaks of interconnectedness and oneness but also of responsibility.  Graham’s insight was spurred by interaction with what is perhaps another realm that was achieved by his personal seeking and also by herbal means from an indigenous South American peoples’ tradition.  The seven generation rule is native wisdom to the north as well.  These teachings maybe are all we really need to know.

            As I while away time playing smart phone games I can at least take pause and think about right living.  Perhaps pause the game of sling-shotting fowl and then set the game down and stop playing.  Thanks Graham for doing what you do!

Growth and its discontents

Perhaps riding the wave of growth is what allows me to write this blog.  I use a computer and post the blog online, things made possible by innovation and work.  Niches are filled and entrepreneurs meet market demands.  Evermore consumers are born needing goods for maintaining life and status demands.  It seems that if growth stopped then the way of life I have grown accustomed to would also stop.

And I’m not the only one: a subdivision of economics looks at economic contraction.  Some call for purposefully instituted contraction.  Some writers, such as Chris Hedges, blame growth for the state of the world: worth the short read - http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/growth_is_the_problem_20120910/.

Hedges’ article explores the idea that continued growth is required to continue living the way we do now.  The idea that continual growth is good  must come with an asterisk: we would need to find another planet to continue growing.  Part of this asterisk, corollary to the new planet idea, is that new technologies will grant us the energy resources to clean up our mess and continue living happily and green/sustainably (just one planet though!).

Some might say that there is no problem – the various factors that led to the late twenty-aughts economic woes was due to an uncomfortable hunk of gristle caught in our civilization’s gullet.  It will pass and growth will continue to buoy us materially and spiritually.  Honestly, taking renewable energy options out of the picture (just relying on what we got, like known reserves) we have 30-plus years easily.

If you don’t think we have any problems right now (just need to complete the swallow on this hunk of gristle) then great!  Living in the now is called accepting the status quo and it has been/is currently proving to be a successful way of negotiating the world.  We wouldn’t even be worried about the future if it wasn’t for science and learning.  Also at fault for this future-mindedness is morality which gains insight from science and learning.  Get rid of morality and a concern for future generations and its all good, right?

Quite facetious.  But just thinking that our way of life is awesome does not address the future and the way that we live should have the future in mind.  It is an aesthetic; it is up to one’s predilections.  But it beats living blindly.  It beats the de facto worship of the status quo – that is easy because it is something you do without having to consciously do anything.

This blog post title could be “Food for thought” though I’m embarrassed to even have thought about titling it that

           Recently watched Man vs. Food Boise-edition.  It had been awhile – actually watched a few episodes when it came out drawn mostly by host Adam Richman’s shtick: engaging, funny.  But got sick of it, just as Adam occasionally does by consuming prodigious amounts of rich food.  This last time (the Boise episode but may as well be any episode for what it matters) I was amazed by the casual attitude the people in the show had towards over-eating.  Richman exploits this, being instantly buddy-buddy with any restaurant-goer simply by overtly condoning their behavior.  He’s not the only one, there being many shows like this.  Plus any all-you-can-eat commercial implicitly or explicitly pats over-eaters on their expansive backs as well.  Really any commercial for whatever hamburger that approaches 1000 calories is condoning gluttony

            It was this word – gluttony – that I was put in mind of.  A Christian idea.  Also in many situations in the past, in the Christian epoch, food intake was characterized by (relative, for sure) scarcity.  So take the term gluttony with simply a single grain of salt – I’m not motivated by Christian concern.  It is just gross.  What does it say about a people that they take part in a behavior that is so unnecessary and then revel in it?             

            I wanted to write about how a world formerly dominated by concern for the seven deadly sins (at least since the fourth century from what Wikipedia tells me) has made a shift to the gluttonous world of today.  However, I want to say that if a country in the past reached our level of affluence they, per capita, would have been as chubby as we, regardless of religious proscriptions.  Is that right?  This makes it seem like delving into food history is necessary which suddenly is as unappetizing as watching someone cram mounds of starch and fat into their mouth.

            Our relation to food does say things about Americans.  It doesn’t matter if it signals a dislocation from past mores.  A people with such abundance at their disposal.  We have developed a sick relationship with food and the attitude is that we are expressing ourselves.  Fair enough.  The libertarian creed of one person’s freedom ending where his fist meets the nose of another is not particularly compromised by others’ over-consumption.  That is how they want to spend their money.  But, what if – considering the big picture – people’s food consumption had some relation to environmental degradation that affected us all?  If it does then the libertarian creed ethic might be violated.  I’ve hears such a link being argued successfully.  Won’t say anymore here.  How about: would a violation of one’s aesthetic sense be the same as being punched in the nose – insofar as libertarian ethics is concerned?  No.  Will have to continue suffering such shows and the ubiquitous commercials.