This Is Where the Universe Will Play a Trick on You

Well, I thought myself right into a conundrum.  Just wanted to get it down before it flitted right out of my fickle head:

I don't believe in a metaphysical world... in a soul or a spirit or anything.  So, then, perhaps my "me" is my body and my mind.  I have no evidence that there is a "me" that is separate from that.  It seems like I HAVE a body and I HAVE a mind, so that there is an "I" that is doing the having.  But it isn't a soul, it is an essence.  My essence.  My self.... my ego-less self?  If I

Something to think about.

A conversation:

Me: You are right...

I don't think there is a point

but I am here, and I have this love, i guess...

It is part of randomly generated me

I look at it all

as said

randomly here

and it is so amazing

i fall in love with it to the point that it hurts

the idea that the whole thing is just pointless makes it MORE incredible

and whatever love and awe this causes me makes me feel compassion or i don't know...

it makes me want to put my love and my awe into action

so i have to find what the right action is... that is how i work, i don't know why

and in order to find the right thing to do

i have to figure it out

so i try to figure

and i try to act

i try to find a way to act in reflection of the awe that i have

Eric: i think this is where the universe will play a trick on you

me: yeah?

Eric: probably

Then what is "me?"

Well, since the last time that I have written here, I have undergone a major philosophical change.  I am rather "under the weather" at the moment, but I thought that at least putting something down would inspire me to return to it... to organize what I've been thinking over the past five months or so.

Not too long ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I am not my thoughts and feelings.  In fact, it isn't really so hard to control them.  Truly, I have a choice of how I want to think and feel, and I certainly do not have to react to stimuli.  So this was a great discovery.  I can choose and control my perspective and my attitude.  Fantastic.  This went just swimmingly until I was suddenly faced with this question:

If I can control my thoughts and feelings, what is this I that controls?

Oh boy, now I've become quite existential.  It is a little bit scary.  I've recently heard the term "positive groundlessness" to describe the discomfort of ceasing to identify one's self with one's thoughts and feelings.  If I can't ground me in what I think and feel and do, what am I?

So I started reading.  And this is what I read:

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James Rachels
Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire by Rafe Esquith
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa
The Enchiridion by Epictetus
Buddhism by Donald Mitchell
Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives and Practice, Edited by Catherine Twomey Fosnot

I've read more than that since the summer, but that seems like a decent overview.  I left out fiction, which can be just as inspiring.  I realize that these books seems sort of disparate, but they've influenced my thoughts and philosophy, which is moving toward consistency.  Here is what I'm thinking:


When I first began to talk and think about all of this, a friend of mine described the technique of choosing one's perspective.  He said to catch each moment, each happening, as if it were an egg.  Don't rush to meet it, don't aggressively catch it or it will break.  If one feels the motion of the egg, leans back and allows it to be caught gently, then it can be kept in tact.  Once I have gently caught whatever the  present moment is throwing, I have the ability to inspect it and decide what I want to do with it.

Morality is ridiculous.  Personal responsibility, being honest with one's self, is the only possible way to do what is "right."  Somewhere in my reading, I came across Kohlberg' s Stages of Moral Development.  It is different motivations that people may have for doing the "right" thing.  They are:
1.  Avoiding punshment
2.  Earning a reward
3.  Seeking approval
4.  Following the rules
5.  Empathizing
6.  Acting (making individual decisions based on a personal [global?] set of ethics)

It is some form of stage six that has my mind moving.  When I come to the above mentioned decisive moment... I have delicately caught and examined the present moment... how do I know what to do with it?  Certainly, no set of rules is going to tell me the answer.  I want to do the "right" thing.  I think that the way to do that is to simply ask myself what it is.  "What is the right thing to do?"  Generally, I can figure it out on a day to day basis.  There are big huge scary moral/ethical dilemmas that it would take some more time to figure, but on a regular basis, I know what is right.

This is sounding like I have some kind of intuitive alignment with the cosmos... I don't mean that only I know what is right, I think that most people know what is right.  It might be different than what I know... But I cannot judge another person's ethical system using mine.  As long as a person can say, "I feel that what I am doing is right.  I have no guilt, I have no second thoughts.  I am acting deliberately, and I have decided that this is the best course of action," I cannot judge their actions.

I will have to elucidate this later, as I am presently feeling quite sick.

Hope

[personal ramblings...]

...but what is this hope?  Perhaps hope is what drives us, as humans, just as much as selfishness.  Selfish hope?  Sure...  But for the best of us--the best of them?-- the selfish hope is more than just hope for one self.  People are social and need the rest of the world just to exist.  So selfish hope is the hope for everyone, if one is thoughtful.

First Thoughts on Gender

I'm not sure I am ready to delve into this one, but I figure whatever makes me least comfortable is the most potent.  Irrelevant subjects stir nothing.
Gender inequality is very old.  Did it ever make sense for efficiency's sake?  Women are the limiting factor in human reproduction.  Males have such a high capacity that it could be mistaken for limitless.  Perhaps the domination of the man, who has "unlimited" reproductive potential, over the woman, who, individually, limits reproductive efficiency, could be an efficient method.  Efficient, how?  A man has more of a stake in (and, it follows, biologically, more of a drive to) having frequent sex.  It could follow that dominating one or more females for the purpose of demanding frequent reproductive attempts would be efficient.  Not necessarily the most efficient or the "right" way to achieve efficiency, but it is a possibility.  It would seem MORE efficient for the male to roam and spread his seed as far and wide as possible, but at some point the family became a preferred way to ensure offspring reached reproductive age.  But that doesn't mean family was the most efficient:  agriculture certainly isn't.  Hunting and gathering became, perhaps, socially inefficient, the family becoming socially efficient inside of the agricultural system.

Things to research/think about:
familial evolution in relation to agriculture
find article on the efficiency of hunting/gathering in the geographic birthplace of agriculture
various familial constructs in different culture
synonyms for "efficient" (seriously)

Crime...

Resulting from a discussion with a friend on crimes we had been a victim of, I was asked to consider the general concepts of the film/story Minority Report.  That is: is crime prevention a good crime prediction technique?  Here is my initial response, which I wrote this morning:


Is crime prediction a good crime prevention technique?  If you can predict a person will be a violent offender, what do you do with them?  Like a zoo:  You lock a tiger up not because he has mauled anyone, but because he is so incredibly capable.

First, I want to consider prediction, specifically through social science.  If you come up with a set of criteria that is extremely accurate, "A man born into these circumstances that has these experiences with these genetics will, under these life conditions ________."  A giant statistical program.  If we had the statistics, we could predict the whole of everything:

The e-book of life?

I think that in the strictest sense, it is  possible (though not probable).  People would be so perfectly predictable if we knew what data to gather.  As for the right way to deal with potential, certain violence:  I ask about fairness.  I am making a possibly incorrect association between justice and fairness, but it is the only way I know to go forward, here.  What is most fair?

Fairness means that everyone gets what is best for them, but on a societal level, that breaks down. There are so many variables, and everyone is searching for their own efficient comfort.  My question is flawed.  Crime prediction is no different than crime detection when thinking of crime prevention.  It is the reaction to the crime that is the question.  What do you do with some one who has or is going to commit a violent crime?  My response is the same, but it is not practical:  Education.

What is best for the criminal and for the larger society, what will make fairness instead of search for it, is access to knowledge of how comfort can be most efficiently attained without committing a crime. Crime for comfort is inefficient because it is dangerous, though for some the benefits outweigh the risks.

This is completely confounded by those who commit voilent crime for no overt gain.  I want to know more about these people:  Are they somehow related to those who give all of themselves for the sake of what is good?  They are beyond my theory of efficient comfort because their motives are not for their gain.

Both senseless violence and senseless benevolence are a product of a loss of self, but the vacuum has been filled by different things.

More Philosophy

This is going to have to be straight philosophy for a while.  Here is what I've been thinking (mostly unedited, written over the past three days):

(in class 5/26)

So every kid in the US has to go to school that is at least somewhat guided by legislation?  There is no possibility, as a teacher, of escaping it without changing the system.  What if everyone invloved was willing to opt out?  The parents and teachers-- I'm thinking one room school house... or like the school in VT (Rushton video, find name in notes).  How does that work?  Would it be irresponsible to escape instead of revolutionize?  I feel too small-- too socialy inept and too proud to relinquish my thoughts to some one else's charisma.  I am too uncooperative-- cooperation in its least effective form is what caused the mess in the first place.  Compromise is so dangerous, but of course I don't have all the answers I need.  Collaboration without compromise.  Not many ideas giving up part of themselves, but many ideas shredding the useless until a collaborative, correct idea emerges.  The right thing to do.  The perfect system.

     Being uncomprimising does not mean I think I am right.  If I ever beleive I have it all figured out I have secured my failure.  More information is always burried and being generted.  Fluidity= every person is always being formed so the world is always morphing.  Maybe the objective reality is always changing.  A fluid objective reality.  How evasive, but maybe not?  The reality exists regardless of us.  It is what is and what is is is a clear view.  No.  The view is not what is is, the view is the subjective part.  An objective view is not possible, like the Doors of Perception.  What does he call it?  The Mind at Large?  Limited by perception and perception is limited by human needs.  If we could really percieve it all, we would die from lack of attention to personal needs.  That is too abstract-- I mean real reality I am in right now.  But how does this relate to the US education system?  I cannot refuse to cooperate with people who don't agree with my standards for collaboration.  So what?

I either opt out, revolutionize, but never compromise.

    What is behind this?  Hope?  Rather blind hope-- Even if I put my whole strength into revolution, it would surely be swallowed by beaurocracy in some stage.  So not hope, I am not particularly hopeful.  Responsibility?  More likely.  Because it is right and hope is irrelevant.  What is motivating me, though?  Why do I care to do what is right?  Why not what is good or what I want or what feels good at any given moment?  I'll only die anyway so the whole thing is irrelevant.  It makes more sense to live a purposeless, lustful, hedonistic, gluttonous life.  Why do I shy from pleasure for its own sake?  Because my brain physically must move.  I could drink through that if I tried, I guess.  Or even seek diagnosis and take prescribed psycho-pharmaceuticals, but that isn't hedonism.  It is compromise.  So one way of not compromising is giving in to all sensual yearnings, but my mind would not be satisfied.   Another way is to live with strict adherence to justice and responsibility, but I am not good at it.  I will keep practicing, but I need more reminders?  If I exercise my brain maybe I can be more comfortable with compromise.

(In park 5/28)
Opting out could be better-- It would have to be a complete opt out-- what would that look like?  It woudl look like... I don't know.  I can't do it all, I need a village.  A commune, I guess.  Is that where i want to go?  I want to live in an intentional, thoughtful, synergetic community.  I want education to be my niche. I want simplicity.  I don't want to just keep getting "educated" after this.  I don't want to fit into what is already here.  That is compromise.  Is what I want the classic utopia?  collaboration-- complete-- intellectual, economical, physical (but isn't that part of economics?)  Can this be applied to a classroom?


I am questioning my staunch pro or anti anything stances.  possibly.
New phrasing:  my best guess, based on the evidence i've gathered, is that...
... life ends at death
...there is a single, fluid, objective reality.
Reality that everything exists in.  Fuck, though, what if there isn't?  Is this insistence based in the same fear that my mother insists on Jesus Christ?  It is completely terrifying to think that I can't trust reality.


It is my best guess based on the evidence i've gathered that the external reality is stably reliable on a single set of physical laws.   The complete set of physical laws that humanity may or may not have figured out.  Certainly we have not.


What i want cannot exist in isolation, but I do not want a family:  cooperation.


There is a playground here, how silly.  Necessary only in this mess.  An approximation of really being outside.  I do not get the public beach.  It is the same, like an approximation of what a sandy shore could be like.  Designated areas to approximate the experience of being outside.  Approximation is compromise.


Government and society in their current forms are irrelevant to me-- I do not want to compromise and that is the only way to live within it so
collaboration=revolution?
collaboration=opting out?
perhaps, then, the choices shrink to 2.


-compromise v opt out and then collaborating in order to revolutionize

Jon S. argued that opting out is not a necessary first step:  "It is not compromise-- it can be like going undercover:  infiltrating the ignorant-- like a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Then you plant a little word here 'wolves are awesome'-- a little word there 'wolves give great back-rubs!'  Before you know it, they want to know where to find the wolves"
It is something to consider. 

Is the human experience, because of our brain's meta-abilities and social demands, based in varying qualities of approximations of reality?  Our bodies evolved selected for societal living which became less natural over time.  We are clever and lazy, which was certainly a selected trait.
Find food efficiently and rest often.  We follow this completely and it makes perfect sense:


find food efficeintly, rest often.


We followed this and we failed, the efficiency went too far.  Our brains are meta enough to see our mistake xxx million years later.  When did the mistake happen? Beginning of hunter-gatherer societies? Beginning of agriculture?  Hunting? Existence of rational thought? or social meetings that didn't include procreation/young care?  Oh, yes, what a certainly affecting factor.


Reproduce efficiently, rest often.


The family is an efficient system for maximum reproduction.  We outgrow our systems.  We are, as a whole, beginning to question the system at large.  Most people compromise completely and make small rebellions "I have opted in to a system I don't agree with, but at least I stand out."


I don't want to act out, I want to simplify, collaborate and revolutionize.  I don't have enough time!  I want to believe in an after life, not so that I can finish revolution, but so that I feel a stake in revolution continuing beyond my struggle for my own, personal satisfaction.


meta-global-selfishness.


If you move into a mansion and you're dying tomorrow, would you go through the trouble of unpacking your boxes?  What would you unpack?  Your bed?  would you dedicate your last day to the project of being as comfortable as possible (assume for the purpose of this metaphor that ultimate comfort for dying would be reached when everything was unpacked)?You don't have time to finish the job completely so you have to compromise how comfortable you need to be (and the time/effort it takes to achieve this) with how much time you want to spend actually being in a state that approximates comfort. sooo...

So my motivation is solved, then?  To increase my personal comfort level until i reach a point where ia m comfortable enough to compromise.

So:

-I am motivated by a search for the balance of comfort

-Humans have reached a stage in our evolution where we can see our collective error in the formation of human civilization.

      - the error is: following evolutionary instincts for efficient energy consumption (food) and procreation after the point where we were efficient enough.  Our abiltiy to think abstractly... to organize and create tools-- the ability to envision what is NOT-- put us in dissonance with the rest of existence because it can not.

Our human quest for efficiency for the sake of rest went too far.  but at what point?  

Many people are out of work and cannot eat because a few people are so efficient at getting food.  We are all very efficient, in general, at procreation.  

more people, enough (?) resources

we are too efficient and too selfish.

there are too many people

food production is too efficient

It does not matter at what point the mistake was made because it is truly too late.  People's ability to compromise is huge, and our selfishness is unshakable.  things could be saved, i think, but humanity is, as a rule, into SELF preservation.  I am not an exception.

Thoughts on Personal Philosophy

I like everything to be right, and it makes sense to me that one "right" exists for me.  It won't be the same "right" as other people's, but it is mine.  If I find my "right" I can accept or reject every piece of information and every possible action by one scale, making objective decisions on whether to incorporate these elements into my life.  Here is what is right, to me, basically off the top of my head:

- efficiency
- sustainability in a general sense.  I do not specifically mean "green."
- sufficiency as opposed to excess.  This engenders simplicity and restraint.
-thoughtfulness/purposefulness


I am a system builder, naturally.  It is a slow process, building a system that is useful in all situations, and an ever changing process as I learn and grow.
When I apply my fledgling system to food, the most efficient, sustainable, sufficient and purposeful way to obtain and eat food, it seems, is to eat whole foods made from scratch.  This might not sound particularly efficient to most people.  In fact, my father tells me that, "there is an element of convenience, you know!"  If we define efficient as "performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort,"  I find my slow, labor intensive food preparations to be efficient because I enjoy myself very much, and it does not keep me from performing any other critical activity.  In other words, waste is very low.


I have to go to work, now, but I am planning on photographing my garden later.  Perhaps I will have more to add to this at that time, as well.

Current Affairs

It has been a long while since I've posted. I haven't really shared this link with anyone, though, so I figure it is all right. I have been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of reading and a lot of active changing since I started my quest. Even the parameters of the quest have changed. I want to opt out. It has been a couple of weeks since I've eaten meat, and another week since I've eaten any preservatives. Here is where I am:

Diet

Produce

Homegrown: My garden is getting there. It is beginning to produce, but nothing edible yet. Unfortunately, as it begins to be productive, I will be moving to my parents' house. I haven't figured out yet if I can transplant anything. I will start a new garden (with a much clearer focus) as soon as possible after the move. For now, the farmer's market is where it is at.

Vegetables: Whatever is at the farmer's market is what I eat. I've tried a few things I'd never had before with really good results. Jicama, beets, daikon radishes and sweet potatoes (I had never had sweet potatoes!) have all been successfully incorporated. In fact, I've started eating sweet potatoes every day. They are really incredibly nutritious (high fiber, vitamins C and A and potassium).

Fruits: Fruit is harder. The fruits that I find currently at my local farmer's market are restricted, basically, to strawberries and oranges. I eat each of these every day, but fruits are such wonderful packages of fiber, carbs and vitamins, I'd really like more variety. So I supplement organic apples and bananas from Whole Foods. I would like to start a banana grove at my parents' house. I will be moving back there in about one month. The way I figure it, if I eat one (sometimes two) every day, my father eats one as well as he is apt to do, and my mother and brother each eat a couple every week, we are up to nearly twenty bananas a week! Clearly we could eat enough bananas to justify a tree or two, which I believe I can purchase (and get advice on) from the Crowley Nursery here is Sarasota (http://crowleynursery.net/). As far as apples, I suppose they are actually doing less for me, nutritionally, than an orange. I will have to find a more sustainably acquired fruit for variety. I have also been enjoying dried fruits I buy from a local company at my farmer's market. The man at the booth was not particularly knowledgeable about where the fruit comes from or where it is dried, so more research is necessary.

Protein

I've been getting enough protein through eating beans, nuts, milk products and eggs. When I move home I will be joining a local food buying club that enables me to get farm fresh, pastured eggs and milk once a month. Because milk goes bad rather quickly, I will attempt overbuying and then freezing. However, if this does not work, the closest health food store (less than a mile) from my parents' house sells milk from a local farm. I've also been eating protein muffins that I've made at home. The original recipe is here, my subsitutions are here. These muffins have 17g of protein and 3g of fiber. They are also high in calcium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium and vitamin C (and offer 11% of my daily iron needs. Iron is my most difficult nutrient to sustain, at the moment). I have been experimenting with different types of beans, and I have found lentils to be a really nutritious option as they are high in fiber, iron and protein. Red beans are also on my menu a lot for the same reasons.

A note on dairy: Eggs I have covered. Milk I've got covered. I began making my own yogurt using a machine. This has turned out really beautifully.

Challenges

The only things left in my diet that are processed are: bread, cottage cheese and dried fruit. There are also some ingredients in my muffins (dried milk, soy flour, apple sauce) that I would like to address. I will, until I am inspired to bake it, forgo eating bread. It isn't adding anything to my nutrition that I can't get elsewhere, but a piece of toast is a nice fiber-y addition to a vegetable laden frittata. Cottage cheese I don't feel like I can give up on because I love it and it is so good for protein and calcium. It is not that hard to make, but it will have to wait a few weeks for me to get the time to experiment with it. Again, dried fruit (not to mention dried milk) will just have to wait a few weeks. After I get my tax return, I plan on buying a food dehydrator and (perhaps) a mill for grains. I think with these two pieces of equipment I can buy all of my food in whole, fresh form.

What about the lentils and the red beans?? For now I am buying them dried and in bulk. I am not aware of any better way to obtain these products at this time. It is my last priority, and it may turn out that I will have to replace these things in my diet.

Philosophy

Why am I doing this? What is the big deal with opting out? I am trying to figure this out, myself. Right now, I can see other people's reasons for living similar lifestyles, and I can share my opinions on these possible reasons:

health- It is natural to assume that eating fresher foods will result in more nutrients and less unnatural chemicals entering the body. People who eat fresh foods will, from what I've read (press me for a citation, please, and inspire me to prove this), live longer, higher quality lives with a much lower risk for heart disease and cancer. Fantastic. I want that. However, I don't know why I want that. What does it matter if I am basically healthy or super healthy? Will it make me happier? Do I want to live longer? This is my intense anti-spiritualist atheism at work here. If I am just going to die anyway, who cares? I would like not to suffer while I am alive, though, and it seems like my risk for avoidable suffering greatly decreases with a mindful, simple, fresh diet. This isn't what I think about when I choose what I eat, though. There is something else that drives my obsession. When I turn down iced tea that came from a soda gun instead of a tea bag, it isn't because I want to avoid heart disease. Then what is it?

the man- Some people who opt out want to avoid the man. The giant food industry (including the industrial organic) is a weird, sociopathic system aimed at making money and not at providing a product that increases the health of the individual, society or the natural world. It is totally creepy. I think this is more where I stand, because when I think about where my food really comes from it totally freaks me out. I refer sometimes to the hands that touch my food, but these are not physical hands, most of the hands I mean are actually machines. I mean the metaphorical hands. The journey a french fry takes from a potato somewhere across the country that is shipped and chopped and injected with chemicals (which could have come from anywhere, geographically) and seasoned and frozen and shipped again to a supplier, and then probably a third time to a grocery store or restaraunt where it is plunged into oil that has been chemicaled and seasoned and any variety of other things before the french fry is dusted one more time with whatever is in "seasoning" and finally consumed. It is insane. I don't want any part of it. This still begs the question: why not? Why do I care? How does it affect me personally day to day if I eat the damned Frankenfry or not? I DON'T KNOW!

I don't know if I'll ever know.

Projects

So, I want to make my own everything. I suspect that this will extend into many parts of my life, but for now the focus is on food. I want to create what I eat from the most basic ingredients possible. If I can grow it, awesome. If not, let me have it whole. If I don't have the tools to process it, give it to me as pure as possible.

Here are some projects I have started:

1. Compost. I live in a studio in a house that is split into five apartments. It is small, but it basically suits my needs and I like the location. This, obviously, makes it a little harder to compost, so I do it under my sink in a big bucket (my parents have a lot of cats, so I took a couple of the tubs that the kitty litter comes in). All I really did was drill holes around the top and bottom. I put in some ripped up brown paper bags and a little dirt. Then I added the worms. Yes, I have worms in my tiny studio. On purpose. I know, gross. A few hundred Red Wigglers from a local bait shop. I put some veggie scraps down in a corner and let them get to work. The first night, a bunch of worms escaped through the holes and I almost lost it. Seriously. I am not squeemish, but they were all over my kitchen floor. So I cut up some old panty hose and covered the holes with it, and they have been contained since. This was about a week ago and... IT IS WORKING. They are eating my old veggies and pooping out dirt! Absolutely amazing. Worth the day or two I was too grossed out to eat anything in my house. And this brings me to my second project because, really, what am I supposed to do with all this dirt when I've got a whole bunch in a few months?

2. A garden. Again, living in a little studio in a very urban area makes doing this traditionally a bit difficult. Not to mention record low temperatures in Florida, lately. So I've planted some lima bean seeds in a tupperware like container. As soon as it warms up, I am going to take over the empty lot next door. Just a little patch. I plan to grow lima beans (I have low potassium and eat limas every day because they are just full of it), tomatoes, carrots and yellow squash to start out. I figure at the Strawberry Festival in a couple of months I'll buy a strawberry plant and transplant it in my garden as well.

The garden is very slow to start, so in the meantime I just buy all of my produce from local, organic sellers. Mostly, anyway. I am having trouble with bananas. I eat at least a banana a day and, wouldn't you believe it? The farmer's market in my city sells Chiquita bananas. The one where my parents live sells Dole. So my plan, this week, is to figure out why this is and if/where I can get locally grown bananas. I have also been trying to figure out my "grain" situation, but that is too much to go into at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to explain it in my next post. It will temporarily suffice to say I have plans to buy a grain mill and I don't understand why whole grain semolina is so hard to find. I will find out, though.

The Whole Scratch?

I am starting this blog, and it will be about food. Specifically about foods made from scratch with whole ingredients. It will probably be a kind of chronicle of my attempts at becoming as self sustaining as possible with food. I am in the process of setting up a little urban homestead, slowly but surely.

Hopefully I can make an entry tonight about the projects I've done recently, and ones I am planning in the near future.