Titanic Post

From my vantage point as a temporary vehicle of life, it looks as though our visit here is a spark of light situated between two eternal darknesses. The spark of light being constantly dimmed by the likely prospects of wars, hunger, disease, and certain death.

Born into this life seemingly predisposed to rational thought, hope, and love, I wonder what the point is. We have invented religions to give us hope for when the coming darkness catches up with us and for which we prayerfully kill non-believers. We invented science to help us repair the damage done by religions and are accelerating our planet’s inability to sustain our life. Yeah, I know they gave us Teflonâ„¢. Lawyers also gave us the â„¢ to make themselves more secure. None of this is really living.

When we are thinking about the afterlife or thinking about how to make our life more secure through chemistry and science we are not living now, but in the future. Thinking about living and actually experiencing life are mutually exclusive. If you think about music you can’t, at the same time, experience it. If you are analyzing the texture of a sunset, you are not enjoying it. If I write about life, I am not experiencing it. This is the price we pay for analyzing everything and looking for security in the future instead of living in the moment and really experiencing life as it happens.

There is no security. We could die in the next second and there is nothing we could have done to prevent it. It is false security offered by religions which offer a back door to the hereafter and by science which, along with industry, is profitably accelerating the demise of our planet. We have books and holy people all professing to know the nature of God. Science professes to know the nature of nature.

Both disciplines suffer from hubris and self-delusion and our best plans can go down the toilet in an instant without our ever having enjoyed the pleasure of the moment. On the other hand, Jane Wagner once said: The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.

After the game, the king and the pawn both go into the same box.

~ Italian saying

The death of twelve miners and one serious injury in West Virginia coal mine accident is but another reminder of our temporary presence on this planet. I was struck by a note written just before one of the miners died, saying that he was ready to die. The note’s tone was that of peaceful resignation. Other news stories stressed that death was a constant presence with the miners and their families, if not the mine owners. What struck me was the implied dignity and serenity in the face of death—in stark contrast to most American’s fear of death and dying.

Motorcyclist have a similar, although unspoken, closeness with death. Anytime a rider gets off his ride at speed there is an excellent chance of a fatality or serious injury. Because this possibility does go mostly unspoken, I’m not sure that it is universally accepted in the consciousness of riders that we could be killed at any time when we are on the road. I know that we all relish the excitement of riding which comes in part from the inherent danger, but if the possibility of death is accepted, I think it is pushed so far into the edge of the realm that it couldn’t be considered in the consciousness. Some are so bent on security that they are insecure. Others fear death.

Nietzsche said: The greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously!

Miners live with death and without fear—one can hope that their lives are full.

Christmas and New Years have past into the past leaving me as usual with an empty space in my chest. Christmas day I spent with my ex-wife, our daughter and her friend along with her daughter. It was nice. New Years I was alone. Normally I don’t mind being alone, in fact I enjoy it most of the time. This must then be the leftovers from childhood or some other time when I had covered all traces, so’s I wouldn’t be tempted to deal with it later.

You know how it is, when you see something so beautiful it makes your heart ache. Or, you get a whiff of air that smells good, or you see a raven banking against the sky and it calls to you as it soars off into the distance. These are moments of great intensity and you probably feel compelled to share them with someone. At least I do. These ‘peak experiences’ seem more intense when shared. Knowing with whom you would like to share, but not being able to, gives the chest an even more intense, sweet, and slightly painful sensation. It is an odd combination, but one that sharpens all the senses.

New Years Eve, I sat on the deck watching the mountains glow in the setting sun, drinking a glass of cheap Spanish bubbly, wishing that I was not alone and knowing who I wanted there with me, realizing that if you know who you want to share these things with, you also know who you are in love with. I remembered my resolution to not worry about things I can’t change and to accept and to appreciate what is. I also remembered Mama Ruby’s old saying: “Two things money can’t buy are home grown tomatoes and true love. I have no idea how that fits in here.

I am deeply saddened by the execution of Tookie Williams—a man who may or may not have been guilty of killing four people. After the California Supreme Court and Governor Schwartzenegger (the Terminator) denied Williams clemency, he was put to death last night by the State of California.

I didn’t know Williams and don’t really want to have known him. The question of guilty or not is also irrelevant to me. My point is, He was executed in all our names, not only for the victim’s families, but also for the citizens of California, the United States, and all of humanity. I feel diminished as a human being having someone killed in my name. It would suffice to keep bad people in prison until, if ever, they could be release back into society. All the death penalty accomplishes is to satisfy our most vulgar demands for revenge and to keep us acclimated and accomplices to violence. When the criminal is black, as was Tookie, it also allows us to feel privileged and to know that we are not like “them.”

In reality the only way any government can exist is to have power over its citizens. The supreme courts, governors, and state powers of the world find it necessary to occasionally sacrifice a human to remind us of our place.

Most of the world’s major religions and non-materialist philosophies have ways for us to re-link to the essence of the universe, or the creator, if you will. Simplified, they tell us to live in the ‘here and now’ and things will get better. And if they don’t get better, it won’t bother us so much.

Not too long ago, on a hike in the foothills, my hiking companion mentioned how difficult it is to live in the here and now with all the distractions and demands on our time. I replied that it might help to lose the ego, whereby she rightly asked “How do you lose that?” My background is in sociology and experimental psychology. I am also an ordained fake minister. In other words, I have my own ego problems, and I don’t really know. However, I have seen clues here and there.

I do know that we somehow as children get separated from each other and from nature and most of us then never reconnect. We become important as individuals and lose sight of our community and commonalities. I believe its because almost everything we do has its goal somewhere in the future. The rare exceptions to our living in the future are listening to music and sex. As small children, we are told to be good so that we won’t burn in hell when we die. We then go to school with the goal of being able to get a job and earn money so that we will have a comfortable future. We save money for a rainy day, we buy insurance in a wager with the insurance company against our best wishes and interest that we will die “before our time.” We bet that our house will go up in flames along with all our possessions. I am not saying that we shouldn’t take prudent precautions. Maybe something will happen, maybe it won’t. Its really too early to tell, isn’t it? Meantime the ‘here and now’ is gone forever never to be reclaimed.

We strive to make our lives safe and predictable. Our leaders go so far as to devise vast homeland securities with huge armies to back them up, thereby removing some of our freedoms while not making us one iota more secure. Security is in reality an illusion. No amount of preparation can make us secure.

We should also realize that we are free to make mistakes, free to waste time, and free to die. We should have faith in ourselves, in life, and in others in this instant and in this place. If we don’t, we are doomed to live in the ‘there and then.’

Normally its a good idea after a first date to take time and reflect on what you are experiencing, if you like your date, and to get an idea of whether or not your date likes you. However, after that first ride, I felt confident enough to take the V-Strom out the very next day to see if the elation would persist.

After moving the windshield to the second position, and throwing the Rev-Pak bags over the saddle, I was ready to go. I decided not to re-fuel, because I only had about a hundred miles on the first tank of gas. Also, I decided not to take my camera, because I wasn’t convinced that my Wolfman tank-bag would stay put. So, there are no pictures. (more…)