Marriage and the Moral Landscape

Capturing human behavior

JOE: Good afternoon, Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good afternoon, Joe. How goes the fray?
JOE: Fortunately not too frazzled. Yesterday I finished Graff’s book, What is Marriage For as well as Timothy Taylor’s The Prehistory of Sex.
CALLIOPE: Sounds ambitious. What were the results of your perusal?
JOE: I found a great deal of useful information in the first book  and took copious notes. The second was quite interesting but not as relevant to my topic.
CALLIOPE: And today?
JOE: This morning I participated in a fundraising walk for the National Alliance on Mental Illness which does work very close to my professional and personal interests. The rest of the day, after some lawn mowing, was devoted to Sam Harris’s The Moral Landscape.
CALLIOPE: What delicacies have you discovered there.
JOE: Not so much delicacies and very important questions such as where our morality comes from and where it is headed. So far I have been reading about the implications of the standoff between religious conservatives and secular liberals. The thrust of this book appears so far geared to what science can teach us about our values and where they are taking us.
CALLIOPE: Sounds pretty heavy?
JOE: No question. It is quite a dense book. Although it does not focus specifically on marriage, it covers quite a bit of groundwork which should be helpful with my book.
CALLIOPE: Great. I can’t wait to see where all this takes you.
JOE: Neither can I but I am looking forward to the journey. P.S. I said I would give you a chance to see my newsletter, Untangling Marriage, Politics and Religion. It is available to muses as well as mortals for free at www.eepurl.com/mSt-P where you can try out my Sliding Otter Newsletter and continue for free if you like.

Navigating Life now available at Smashwords

Navigating Life now available from Smashwords.com.

Navigating Life Cover

Navigating Life: Commonsense Wisdom for the Voyage is now available in ebook format for all reading platforms at Smashwords.com at the new price of $2.99.

We expect and hope for the best from or national and world leaders. What are we willing to contribute toward the world’s well-being through our own lives? How can we make the best of our lives for our benefit and for that of others on their own life voyages? How do we handle the difficult situations which arise?

Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage provides quotes, ninety-four reflections and four hundred fifty-five life lab lessons to keep you focused on what is important in life. You will come to better understand your life in a spiritual and humane context. Discover practical suggestions for finding your way on the sea of life while improving cooperation with your fellow travelers. The reflections represent a practical approach to spirituality, defined as “Awakening to the goodness and joy for which we are created.”

Sample or order my ebook,  Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage, available in all ebook reading formats for $2.99 at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/211692.

Sliding Otter News

Agree To Live a Life of Happiness

Listen to the intent behind the words and you will understand the real message.

~Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz~

       In their book, The Fifth Agreement, Miguel and Jose Ruiz chronicle the many labels others apply to us throughout our lives. We learn to accept these labels as defining who we are. Through the fifth agreement (Be skeptical but learn to listen) we learn to challenge others’ stories or dreams about who we are. We relearn how to just be ourselves as we were at birth. Instead of living up to others’ expectations or trying to disprove them, we can be who we are and stop being concerned about how others label us.

Babies don’t worry about what others think of them or feel guilty about not living up to their own or others expectations. They are just themselves. They don’t judge anyone, especially themselves. Maybe that is why being in their presence gives us such a sense of peace. Thanks again, James. Now we can have the serenity to be artists, painting the picture of our lives without the constraints of someone else’s idea of us.

We can challenge everything we are taught to believe about ourselves. We can rid ourselves of destructive labels and concentrate on being joyful within ourselves and considerate of others as they make the best of their lives.

In addition to the fifth agreement we can cleanse ourselves of troubling patterns by being impeccable with our word, not taking anything personally, not making assumptions and always doing our best. This approach is not a religion but incorporates many of the best approaches of the world’s religious beliefs and traditions. It comes from the Toltecs, wise people from early Mayan times.

I consider people who bring light to our lives to be angels. Miguel and Jose Ruiz consider us all to be angels. The word angel means messenger. We send messages to each other through the way we live our lives. How we conduct our lives can improve the world by our input or make it a more difficult place in which to live. The choice is ours. We can start by choosing between internalizing all the destructive labels others apply to us or shedding them and returning to a life where we pay no mind to labels and live at peace with ourselves and others.

Taking this radical path is not easy. We are used to all our negative emotions: anger, jealousy, revenge, feeling superior, feeling inferior and many others. Being at peace might seem boring to some. But changing our inner world is the first step toward influencing others to abandon the chains which they have accepted. We can leave our baggage behind if we choose to and find simpler ways to exist. In the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor, “I am what I am and that’s all I am.”

Life Lab Lessons

• Which role model do you choose, Scrooge or a baby?
• Do you dare leave your baggage behind?
• What would your life be without your baggage?
• Imagine your life as an art project.
• Don’t think about it. Try it.

 

Sliding Otter News 12/31/2011

Christmas Travels of James and the Magi

 

Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind.

~Mary Ellen Chase~

The Christmas season celebrating the birth of the Baby Jesus continues. The Magi traveling through the desert by camel always fascinated me most about the Christmas story. According to one gospel account, wise men caught wind of Jesus’ impending birth and made their way to Bethlehem. They brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Their arrival from the East has been celebrated as the Epiphany when Jesus was made known to the world and traditionally observed on January 6, also my birthday.

For me, Christmas brings with it time to reflect on my life so far, on the events of the first Christmas and the Magi arriving in Bethlehem on my birthday. This year I thought of all the times I attended midnight Mass and the crackle in the air amid the pine trees punctuated the quiet. Peaceful midnight hour. I don’t remember being a baby but I do recall all the times babies took center stage at Christmas.

Something new took place in our family around Christmas time this year. A baby, James, traveled with his parents from the East, specifically Abu Dhabi, to Western New York to meet his relatives. He arrived by jet, not camel. Typical of most babies he did not do much, but then he didn’t have to. He cuddled in the arms of those who immediately loved him. Previously they had seen him only in pictures or through the electronic miracle of Skype. His bright, inquisitive eyes explored each person, immediately captivating them with his presence. He smiled his unique smile. He grabbed and nuzzled anything shiny which came into his grasp. He never said anything profound. He never said anything at all. Yet he brought something special to each room he entered and quickly became the center of attention, drawing all eyes to himself.

Any concerns or issues I brought with me into the room vanished immediately, no longer important. Nothing else mattered for the moment. I had a sense that everyone else’s experience matched mine. James radiated pure peace, innocence and delight as only a baby can do.

Babies bring a fresh perspective to each new experience. They have nothing to compare it with and delight in everything happening around them. They never have a chance to become bored since everything takes place for the first time for them. Everything is new, even their own toes. They haven’t learned to like or dislike anything yet. Each experience opens a new frontier.

Babies don’t know very much about life, at least not yet. But they have no worries, cares or problems. They approach each moment with eyes wide open and eager to learn about whatever takes place around them. Maybe we can take some of their peaceful presence with us and try looking at life the way they do.

Life Lab Lessons

• Spend some time with a baby.
• Leave behind you concerns, fears and regrets.
• Look at life the way a baby does.
• Remember what that feels like.
• Try it later when you feel overwhelmed.

Sliding Otter News: Choosing Wisdom for our Survival

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

~Immanuel Kant~

Vandas in Barbados

I just finished Michio Kaku’s book, Physics of the Future. I feared he might glorify technology to the exclusion of anything human. Near the end of his book, he predicts that technology might eventually take over most of our mundane tasks. What will remain for us to do? He concludes that our task will be to develop a sense of wisdom, often lost in our fascination with new gadgets.

He says, “Without wisdom and insight, we are left to drift aimlessly and without purpose, with an empty, hollow feeling after the novelty of unlimited information wears off.” I have been writing for ten years about commonsense wisdom. This has been the theme of most everything I have written.

I have enjoyed comments by my readers saying that my writing resonates with them and helps them focus on what is important in their lives. Still, I wonder whether my efforts and those of my readers will be flattened by the steamroller of technology and computers.

Then I realize that technology and computers are only tools. Infatuation or even worship of our tools does not give our lives a purpose. Our tools make it easier for us to do things, but what do we want and need to do?

Isaac Asimov said, “The saddest aspect of society now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” We can put men on the moon and probe distant galaxies but we can’t figure out how to stop killing each other with endless wars. It seems that things have become worse since Asimov’s observation.

Thinkers throughout the ages have tried to make sense of life and find a purpose for our existence. Religious and philosophical thinkers have pondered the meaning of life for many centuries. Yet we seem to still wander aimlessly as a society with no clear direction. It has been said that wisdom comes with age. Yet I have seen older people go to their graves still scratching their heads, wondering what it is all about.

Why is wisdom, so hard to come by and what must we do to find it? First we must shut our mouths and listen. None of us has the corner on wisdom or the final answer within ourselves. We must know each others’ struggles and dreams and find a way to forge ahead together. It sounds almost impossible, but could it be harder than sending people to the moon and back?

We could destroy ourselves with our technology and almost did in the age of nuclear weapons. We scoff at the effect of our “progress” on the environment on which we depend for survival. We could still slowly poison ourselves for the sake of short term financial gain. What if wisdom became our priority?We could join hands and lives in shared wisdom while exploring our future possibilities. What do you choose?

Life Lab Lessons

• Close your mouth and listen to others around you.

• What can they teach you about life?

• Try to understand others.

• Be patient with them.

• Practice ways to compromise.

How We Learn and Why It Matters

Sliding Otter News

 

September 25, 2010

 

Volume 2, Issue 22

 

How We Learn and Why It Matters

 

Columbus Circle Crowd

 

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone’s knowing how to bring about

a better condition of things than existed earlier. ~John Dewey

 

Recently I read a news story about the pros and cons of separate schools for girls and boys. Girls tend to be more thoughtful. They also learn language skills more quickly. Boys tend to be more active and physical and develop sensory skills more quickly.

Such an approach holds that in separate schools teachers can address their students’ preferred ways of learning. Boys and girls will compete less since they will be learning in ways which are more natural for them. They should also feel better about themselves in a classroom where they can study in their own fashion and might learn more as well.

If students were in school just to learn facts, this approach might be worth considering. But is learning is just about facts? Perhaps more important than what we know at graduation is what we have learned about those different from us and how to understand, communicate and compromise with people we might find odd at first.

Those suggesting the change maintain that boys and girls have different types of brains. Psychologists have debated for decades about whether variations in ways of thinking and acting are based on biology or environment.

Studies by the psychologist Richard Nesbitt found that Japanese mothers talk to their babies mostly in terms of interactions while American and French mothers focus more on nouns. Further studies by Nesbitt and his colleagues found that when asked to look at a picture, American graduate students concentrate on the main subject while East Asian graduate students concentrate more on the background.

The researchers thought that the explanation for this lay in cultural differences. They viewed Americans as more intrigued with independence while Asians are more attuned to the complex social relationships entwined in their way of life.

Groups of people differ from each other in many ways. These differences often make it hard for us to understand each other’s thinking and actions in ordinary circumstances. How much more difficult is it when we start addressing tightly held values? We tend to quickly brand those who differ from us as misinformed, stupid or stubborn.

Scientists were mocked and persecuted when they first suggested that the earth orbited the sun. Modern artists drew scorn when they tried to paint their subjects from several points of view at the same time such as the Cubists did.

Sometimes we get stuck in our routines, plodding along in the same way we always did whether or not we are making progress. Talking only to those who think as we do keeps us from seeing new possibilities. Perhaps those who think differently from us can more easily see solutions to problems which perplex us. If we had the chance to meet them we could benefit from seeing our problems in a new perspective.

Life Lab Lessons

• Do you talk only with those who agree with you?
• Do you avoid people with different opinions?
• On what do you base your opinions?
• Stretch yourself a little.
• Try considering other points of view.

 

Of Sandpiles, Immunity, Resilience and People

Allison and Joey

You may have a fresh start at any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down. ~ Mary Pickford

When I first read Joshua Cooper Ramo’s book, The Age of the Unthinkable, I wondered how it all fit together. It made my head dizzy and took another reading to make some sense of it. He tells how the Danish physicist and biologist Per Bak created a hypothesis that world crises resemble sandpiles. Adding grains of sand eventually causes an avalanche, although just when is impossible to predict.

How can we become immune to disaster? No, this isn’t a reference to the TV show Survivor. Immunity here means protecting ourselves against the  crises which confront humanity from time to time. The human immune system depends on maintaining health through good nutrition, exercise and avoidance of toxins. Social immunity means living in a society where we support rather than take advantage of each other.

Helping others find satisfaction in their lives makes for a more peaceful society. Is it any wonder anger and violence increase as more people struggle for basic survival? As it is impossible to eradicate every health threat, so it is impossible to eliminate all social threats. Resilience is how society protects itself.

Governments tend to settle on one response to threats and stick to it doggedly. This is the opposite of resilience. While such an approach might have worked once, we now live in revolutionary times when society as well as threats to our well being are rapidly evolving.  How do we become resilient in the face of changing threats? Ramo suggest five ways: constantly revamping our thinking about problems, developing a wide range of ways to see the problems and their context, staying in communication with each other, encouraging new responses and making small changes in how we deal with each other rather than awaiting a catastrophe.

Remember the sandpiles? Per Bak originally used it to understand changes in nature. We can also view human society this way. But instead of inert grains of sand, humanity consists of breathing, thinking and feeling individuals interacting with each other for better or worse.

How can we make it easier for all of us to work together rather than undermining and destroying each other? Ramo suggests two simple but not necessarily easy approaches. One is to provide everyone with basic survival rights. The other is to give people the power to control their own destinies. We know we can do this on a personal level. We can also do it on a local community level.

Unfortunately the temptation to grab power and wealth, jelously hoarding them, overcomes not a few of us. Sharing our wealth and caring for each other as we would members of our own families remain challenges. Nevertheless, becoming a world family may be the price of world peace.

Life Lab Lessons

• Learn what motivates people who bother you the most.
• Find out what bothers others about you.
• Discover values you and they have in common.
• Decide what you are willing to release for the common good.
• Don’t just think about it. Do something.