On bears

I have never given them much thought really. Growing up in the land of sky blue waters, I was always rather fond of the Hamm’s bear. As a very small child I couldn’t tell the difference between Yogi Berra and Yogi Bear, and thought it weird that their was a cartoon about a Yankee catcher–how could that be funny or interesting? Polar bears were another matter entirely because I understand about the cold and about camouflage. I ran into a black bear on the shores of Lake Superior one sunny afternoon in April. I couldn’t tell who was more terrified, me or the bear, as I quickly and blindly ran in the other direction. Now I work on a campus with its own bears–tame, not wild, but they are still bears. They live in a nice habitat constructed just for them, and they have relatively stress-free lives when compared to wild bears, I mean. When I am in the north woods, I am careful to never leave food out or put garbage anywhere that might attract these four-footed omnivores. Bears are big and fast, can climb any tree, and if taunted, can open doors. Though they are large predators, I still think humans are more deadly, and for the most part, bears are not happy in the presence of people unless either food or baby bears are in question. Never underestimate a bear. A person in a sleeping bag out in the woods is a sort of live panini with a juicy filling. Unfortunately, hungry bears will eat anything, don’t have much of a flight response in the presence of people, and have begun to associate urban centers with food–garbage to be precise. I think perhaps that this is one relationship, however, that both bears and humans can do without. Maybe we should keep our cartoon bears to ourselves, and let the real thing run wild.

On bears

I have never given them much thought really. Growing up in the land of sky blue waters, I was always rather fond of the Hamm’s bear. As a very small child I couldn’t tell the difference between Yogi Berra and Yogi Bear, and thought it weird that their was a cartoon about a Yankee catcher–how could that be funny or interesting? Polar bears were another matter entirely because I understand about the cold and about camouflage. I ran into a black bear on the shores of Lake Superior one sunny afternoon in April. I couldn’t tell who was more terrified, me or the bear, as I quickly and blindly ran in the other direction. Now I work on a campus with its own bears–tame, not wild, but they are still bears. They live in a nice habitat constructed just for them, and they have relatively stress-free lives when compared to wild bears, I mean. When I am in the north woods, I am careful to never leave food out or put garbage anywhere that might attract these four-footed omnivores. Bears are big and fast, can climb any tree, and if taunted, can open doors. Though they are large predators, I still think humans are more deadly, and for the most part, bears are not happy in the presence of people unless either food or baby bears are in question. Never underestimate a bear. A person in a sleeping bag out in the woods is a sort of live panini with a juicy filling. Unfortunately, hungry bears will eat anything, don’t have much of a flight response in the presence of people, and have begun to associate urban centers with food–garbage to be precise. I think perhaps that this is one relationship, however, that both bears and humans can do without. Maybe we should keep our cartoon bears to ourselves, and let the real thing run wild.

On body and soul

What is the relationship between body and soul? About a million philosophers, random theologians, persistant poets, and iconoclastic songwriters have debated, denied, and celebrated this strange relationship. If we are more than just our mechanical, chemical, and electrical body parts, and I suspect we are, what are we really? Some weirdly watery container of consciousness, I suspect. But there in lies the problem, that we are trapped within ourselves unable or unwilling to see more than we might be for fear that there is a supernatural side to us that we can’t explain, can’t fully understand, and can’t fully control. And isn’t that what contemporary life is all about–controlling everything? Are not our electronics a feeble attempt at a simulacra of the human mind? Yet, the more we depend on our electronics, the more slave we become to our dead end materialism. We substitute materialism for spirituality, attempting to bury, once and for all, that poor little soul that only wants to laugh and dance and shout, who wants to be free. What is wrong, however, with not knowing everything there is to know, or even recognizing that there are mysteries in this life that have no solution, and perhaps we are better off that way. Isn’t it a little nutty to want to know what is going to happen in any given moment, every moment, every day? To be spontaneous, to give your soul a rest from the incessant barrage of cultural materialism, to think, to contemplate the beauty of the rose as an abstraction without being caught up in the obsession for possessing the perfect rose. The body has ways of getting your attention–food, drink, whatever–but it is the soul which will set you free. These two, body and soul, need each other and exist in a strange symbiosis of love and hate, up and down, backwards and forwards, but what is only too obvious is that as the body burns, the soul rejoices, gathers energy, memory, and love, for on this old earth, body and soul gloriously enjoin to celebrate life.

On body and soul

What is the relationship between body and soul? About a million philosophers, random theologians, persistant poets, and iconoclastic songwriters have debated, denied, and celebrated this strange relationship. If we are more than just our mechanical, chemical, and electrical body parts, and I suspect we are, what are we really? Some weirdly watery container of consciousness, I suspect. But there in lies the problem, that we are trapped within ourselves unable or unwilling to see more than we might be for fear that there is a supernatural side to us that we can’t explain, can’t fully understand, and can’t fully control. And isn’t that what contemporary life is all about–controlling everything? Are not our electronics a feeble attempt at a simulacra of the human mind? Yet, the more we depend on our electronics, the more slave we become to our dead end materialism. We substitute materialism for spirituality, attempting to bury, once and for all, that poor little soul that only wants to laugh and dance and shout, who wants to be free. What is wrong, however, with not knowing everything there is to know, or even recognizing that there are mysteries in this life that have no solution, and perhaps we are better off that way. Isn’t it a little nutty to want to know what is going to happen in any given moment, every moment, every day? To be spontaneous, to give your soul a rest from the incessant barrage of cultural materialism, to think, to contemplate the beauty of the rose as an abstraction without being caught up in the obsession for possessing the perfect rose. The body has ways of getting your attention–food, drink, whatever–but it is the soul which will set you free. These two, body and soul, need each other and exist in a strange symbiosis of love and hate, up and down, backwards and forwards, but what is only too obvious is that as the body burns, the soul rejoices, gathers energy, memory, and love, for on this old earth, body and soul gloriously enjoin to celebrate life.

On simplicity

I’ve always said that complexity always leads to failure. Simplicity, however, is not, conversely or paradoxically a simple idea. More complex plans have landed on the rocks because simplicity was eschewed because a simple plan was never considered. The options you give people, the more mistakes they can make, the more loose ends they can leave dangling, the more bad decisions they can dive into. Many people are guilty of bad planning because they never understood the simplicity of their situation in the first place. Not that life is black and white, but gray is utterly simple. People often get hung up on issues of right or wrong when they never understood the problem in the first place. Simplicity is often as simple as never offering an opinion in the first place, as simple as walking away and leaving good enough alone, as simple as letting things be. I’m not talking about Natural Law, or inalienable rights, or the pursuit of happiness, but I am loosely speaking of tolerance, but tolerance that is simple, uncodified, and transparent. Simplicity is an act of seeing clearly, of moving away the detritus, dusting away the ashes, and removing that which is blocking understanding. We often complain blindly about things we don’t know about, things we can’t understand, or things we cannot change, banging our collective heads against the wall in expression of insanity that is trying to elicit a different outcome from the same set of parameters. Simplicity avoids these kind of simulacra and conundrums and accepts the world as it is, not how we want it to be. Does that mean we will disagree at times with what we see and experience? Of course it does, but simplicity also dictates that that is irrelevant–the world will always be filled with those things with which we disagree, with which we take offense, but simplicity also dictates that we avoid dying on those hills because most of those kinds of fights are always lost. Is the world filled with injustice? Yes, and we should always voice our objections to injustice, but simplicity will often whisper in our ears that there is a vast chasm between that which is unjust and that which just is.

On simplicity

I’ve always said that complexity always leads to failure. Simplicity, however, is not, conversely or paradoxically a simple idea. More complex plans have landed on the rocks because simplicity was eschewed because a simple plan was never considered. The options you give people, the more mistakes they can make, the more loose ends they can leave dangling, the more bad decisions they can dive into. Many people are guilty of bad planning because they never understood the simplicity of their situation in the first place. Not that life is black and white, but gray is utterly simple. People often get hung up on issues of right or wrong when they never understood the problem in the first place. Simplicity is often as simple as never offering an opinion in the first place, as simple as walking away and leaving good enough alone, as simple as letting things be. I’m not talking about Natural Law, or inalienable rights, or the pursuit of happiness, but I am loosely speaking of tolerance, but tolerance that is simple, uncodified, and transparent. Simplicity is an act of seeing clearly, of moving away the detritus, dusting away the ashes, and removing that which is blocking understanding. We often complain blindly about things we don’t know about, things we can’t understand, or things we cannot change, banging our collective heads against the wall in expression of insanity that is trying to elicit a different outcome from the same set of parameters. Simplicity avoids these kind of simulacra and conundrums and accepts the world as it is, not how we want it to be. Does that mean we will disagree at times with what we see and experience? Of course it does, but simplicity also dictates that that is irrelevant–the world will always be filled with those things with which we disagree, with which we take offense, but simplicity also dictates that we avoid dying on those hills because most of those kinds of fights are always lost. Is the world filled with injustice? Yes, and we should always voice our objections to injustice, but simplicity will often whisper in our ears that there is a vast chasm between that which is unjust and that which just is.

On instinct

There was a short piece on the main editorial page of the New York Times (Sept 3, 2013) called “Empty Barn-Rafters” that discussed the recent departure of one man’s barn swallows. I have swallows as well which live on my back porch during the spring and early summer. They work tirelessly to build their nest on top of the large round thermometer which hangs just inside the overhang which shades the back porch. After they have built their nest, they proceed to raise a couple of broods of chicks. By the time the second group fledge towards the end of June, they are tired–pooped out, literally. I would know because I’m the guy who cleans up the poop.They spend the rest of summer eating and playing, swooping across the summer sky, defying the laws of physics, hanging in the air, sitting on the power lines, contemplating the world from their high perches. Yet, as the Times writer so apply described, at some point in the late summer, they just up and leave all at once–no stragglers allowed. Of course, we describe swallow behavior, their nest building, the fledging of their young, their migration habits, as instinct, mostly because we understand so little about the actual mechanisms which drive them to be swallows. Ornithologists have their theories and hypothesis about how the birds do what they do, but I prefer to simply think of them as neighbors, not the subjects of my latest study. People have neighbors, and sometimes those neighbors are not the two-legged variety. The swallows that nest on my porch don’t talk to me, but they do keep me company from about mid-March to about the end of August, but then one afternoon they just simply aren’t there–the editorialist got it exactly right. My back porch is now empty. When this happens, as it must each year, I take down the used nest, wash away the mud and eliminate all traces that the birds have been here, but not because I mind their presence, but because the empty nest reminds me that my bird neighbors are off to their winter roosts in Latin America somewhere. I like to imagine that my counterpart in Costa Rica has just noticed that his swallows have returned to winter in his backyard, happy they are back, delighted to see those sleek, dark forms sliding across the sky. I am sure that there is some absolutely logical and sensible reason which explains how the swallows know when to leave. At some point each summer, they get together, discuss a departure day, agree on a date, and then leave all together, leaving my porch and yard a very empty place. Since I travel a great deal, gone for extended periods, I cannot have my own domestic pets, so I allow my swallows a bit of space to nest and live. I know summer is over when their small, sleek forms are just gone. A quiet falls over the place, the pigeons, the grackles, the cardinals, don’t move on, but they don’t really keep me company either–they never get that close. As fall and winter set in during the next few weeks, the waiting begins. About six months from now, they will be back, and on a cool, windy, rainy day in March, a small, sleek, dark figure will flash past my window to let me know that vacation is over, and their work has just begun.

On instinct

There was a short piece on the main editorial page of the New York Times (Sept 3, 2013) called “Empty Barn-Rafters” that discussed the recent departure of one man’s barn swallows. I have swallows as well which live on my back porch during the spring and early summer. They work tirelessly to build their nest on top of the large round thermometer which hangs just inside the overhang which shades the back porch. After they have built their nest, they proceed to raise a couple of broods of chicks. By the time the second group fledge towards the end of June, they are tired–pooped out, literally. I would know because I’m the guy who cleans up the poop.They spend the rest of summer eating and playing, swooping across the summer sky, defying the laws of physics, hanging in the air, sitting on the power lines, contemplating the world from their high perches. Yet, as the Times writer so apply described, at some point in the late summer, they just up and leave all at once–no stragglers allowed. Of course, we describe swallow behavior, their nest building, the fledging of their young, their migration habits, as instinct, mostly because we understand so little about the actual mechanisms which drive them to be swallows. Ornithologists have their theories and hypothesis about how the birds do what they do, but I prefer to simply think of them as neighbors, not the subjects of my latest study. People have neighbors, and sometimes those neighbors are not the two-legged variety. The swallows that nest on my porch don’t talk to me, but they do keep me company from about mid-March to about the end of August, but then one afternoon they just simply aren’t there–the editorialist got it exactly right. My back porch is now empty. When this happens, as it must each year, I take down the used nest, wash away the mud and eliminate all traces that the birds have been here, but not because I mind their presence, but because the empty nest reminds me that my bird neighbors are off to their winter roosts in Latin America somewhere. I like to imagine that my counterpart in Costa Rica has just noticed that his swallows have returned to winter in his backyard, happy they are back, delighted to see those sleek, dark forms sliding across the sky. I am sure that there is some absolutely logical and sensible reason which explains how the swallows know when to leave. At some point each summer, they get together, discuss a departure day, agree on a date, and then leave all together, leaving my porch and yard a very empty place. Since I travel a great deal, gone for extended periods, I cannot have my own domestic pets, so I allow my swallows a bit of space to nest and live. I know summer is over when their small, sleek forms are just gone. A quiet falls over the place, the pigeons, the grackles, the cardinals, don’t move on, but they don’t really keep me company either–they never get that close. As fall and winter set in during the next few weeks, the waiting begins. About six months from now, they will be back, and on a cool, windy, rainy day in March, a small, sleek, dark figure will flash past my window to let me know that vacation is over, and their work has just begun.

On Walden Pond

How often do I ask myself, “Why do you participate so willingly in the noisy rat race of humanity?” This is a difficult question when contemplated from the shores of Walden Pond, but my first response is easy–I don’t like being alone all the time and solitude is not all that it’s cracked up to be. At first the idea of being an independent being, completely removed from the frothing mass of humanity seems appealing, far from the maddening crowd. I mean, why should we put up with all the mediatic noise that contaminates our daily routine, the “circuses and bread” thrown to us by idiotic politicians and unthinking news sources that are only interested in defending their own interests and the truth be damned. On Walden Pond I can isolate myself from all of this noise, forget about the savage capitalistic consumerism of my neighbors, shut out the news media, turn a blind eye to the “entertainment” offered on the six hundred channels of cable, and listen to the birds chirp and the wind blow across the pond and through the trees who are my only neighbors. It is easier to live on Walden Pond than it is to tolerate the nonsense that invades my day via newspapers, radio, television, and the internet, but I can’t help but think that something is missing. Granted the noise of the daily grind is infuriating if not irritating, but is perpetual silence preferable? Am I shirking a moral responsibility to participate in the goings on that bother me, irk me, infuriate me? There have been others who have removed themselves from participation in daily life–hermits, anchorites, saints, castaways, the shipwrecked, and in all of those cases there seems to be a sacrifice which is made–the company of other human beings. After re-reading Robinson Crusoe again recently, I came to the conclusion that although Crusoe lived in isolation, he did everything he could to reproduce European society around himself, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, so that he would feel less alone, and that is what I feel here–alone. Nevertheless, “aloneness” is not entirely a bad thing unless it also looks like a prison sentence that has no end. Perhaps this is why Cain and Abel were brothers, that one alone would have been a tragedy, but paradoxically, the two together was also a tragedy. So one must consider carefully the entire question of human existence in terms of this metaphor, the pair of brothers in which love turned to hate and finally to murder because they could not co-exist without the questions of greed, jealousy, and envy destroying their relationship. Yet, one alone would have also died of eternal melancholy brought on by the loneliness of one voice speaking in a vacuum with no one to hear of either his successes or failures. Is this the central metaphor of human existence? The water laps gently on the shore, the birds twitter and caw overhead, the gentle wind blows through the trees, and if I were to fall, no one would here my cries, no one would be there to help me. The central paradox of Walden Pond seems to be my inability to rid myself of my own humanity, my desire to speak with others, to interact even with those with whom I disagree. My own ideas are interesting but I cannot exist in a vacuum either. Perhaps we are all doomed by our own noise and our inability to separate ourselves from it. In the meantime, I look forward to examining this conundrum a bit further.

On Walden Pond

How often do I ask myself, “Why do you participate so willingly in the noisy rat race of humanity?” This is a difficult question when contemplated from the shores of Walden Pond, but my first response is easy–I don’t like being alone all the time and solitude is not all that it’s cracked up to be. At first the idea of being an independent being, completely removed from the frothing mass of humanity seems appealing, far from the maddening crowd. I mean, why should we put up with all the mediatic noise that contaminates our daily routine, the “circuses and bread” thrown to us by idiotic politicians and unthinking news sources that are only interested in defending their own interests and the truth be damned. On Walden Pond I can isolate myself from all of this noise, forget about the savage capitalistic consumerism of my neighbors, shut out the news media, turn a blind eye to the “entertainment” offered on the six hundred channels of cable, and listen to the birds chirp and the wind blow across the pond and through the trees who are my only neighbors. It is easier to live on Walden Pond than it is to tolerate the nonsense that invades my day via newspapers, radio, television, and the internet, but I can’t help but think that something is missing. Granted the noise of the daily grind is infuriating if not irritating, but is perpetual silence preferable? Am I shirking a moral responsibility to participate in the goings on that bother me, irk me, infuriate me? There have been others who have removed themselves from participation in daily life–hermits, anchorites, saints, castaways, the shipwrecked, and in all of those cases there seems to be a sacrifice which is made–the company of other human beings. After re-reading Robinson Crusoe again recently, I came to the conclusion that although Crusoe lived in isolation, he did everything he could to reproduce European society around himself, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, so that he would feel less alone, and that is what I feel here–alone. Nevertheless, “aloneness” is not entirely a bad thing unless it also looks like a prison sentence that has no end. Perhaps this is why Cain and Abel were brothers, that one alone would have been a tragedy, but paradoxically, the two together was also a tragedy. So one must consider carefully the entire question of human existence in terms of this metaphor, the pair of brothers in which love turned to hate and finally to murder because they could not co-exist without the questions of greed, jealousy, and envy destroying their relationship. Yet, one alone would have also died of eternal melancholy brought on by the loneliness of one voice speaking in a vacuum with no one to hear of either his successes or failures. Is this the central metaphor of human existence? The water laps gently on the shore, the birds twitter and caw overhead, the gentle wind blows through the trees, and if I were to fall, no one would here my cries, no one would be there to help me. The central paradox of Walden Pond seems to be my inability to rid myself of my own humanity, my desire to speak with others, to interact even with those with whom I disagree. My own ideas are interesting but I cannot exist in a vacuum either. Perhaps we are all doomed by our own noise and our inability to separate ourselves from it. In the meantime, I look forward to examining this conundrum a bit further.