Category Archives: materialism

On going too fast

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We lead lives of quiet desperation as we chase from one thing to the next, blind to our own panic and our senseless running to and fro in order to make everything work. We speed, break all the traffic laws, destroy our nerves, put ourselves in danger, put others in harm’s way. There is no sense of meditation or self-reflection or self-awareness in our wild chasing between appointments and deadlines. We are totally unaware of the danger into which haste and hurry put us. The modern connectivity of our digital gadgets is driving us all to distraction. We are all over-committed, over-booked, and over-worked because we can’t say no, and we let the tail wag the dog. I actually yearn for the simpler days when phones were on kitchen walls, we were unreachable when out of the house, we could walk to work and school, and we had limited reasonable commitments. We no longer have time for even the most casual moment to relax and smell the roses, have a cup of coffee, talk with a friend, drive reasonably to the next thing–or maybe even not have a next thing? I have written about time poverty in the past and its relationship to digital media and constant on-line connectivity, but I think that American society has hit a moment of critical mass of appointments, meetings, lessons, sporting events, reunions, and events. All of which makes for a very full and interesting life, but it also leads to forgetfulness, missed appointments, frustration, speeding tickets, red lights, and disappointment. One of my resolutions for this year is to just slow down.

On going too fast

Posted on by

We lead lives of quiet desperation as we chase from one thing to the next, blind to our own panic and our senseless running to and fro in order to make everything work. We speed, break all the traffic laws, destroy our nerves, put ourselves in danger, put others in harm’s way. There is no sense of meditation or self-reflection or self-awareness in our wild chasing between appointments and deadlines. We are totally unaware of the danger into which haste and hurry put us. The modern connectivity of our digital gadgets is driving us all to distraction. We are all over-committed, over-booked, and over-worked because we can’t say no, and we let the tail wag the dog. I actually yearn for the simpler days when phones were on kitchen walls, we were unreachable when out of the house, we could walk to work and school, and we had limited reasonable commitments. We no longer have time for even the most casual moment to relax and smell the roses, have a cup of coffee, talk with a friend, drive reasonably to the next thing–or maybe even not have a next thing? I have written about time poverty in the past and its relationship to digital media and constant on-line connectivity, but I think that American society has hit a moment of critical mass of appointments, meetings, lessons, sporting events, reunions, and events. All of which makes for a very full and interesting life, but it also leads to forgetfulness, missed appointments, frustration, speeding tickets, red lights, and disappointment. One of my resolutions for this year is to just slow down.

On butter

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What can one say about butter that is not self-serving rationalization for indulging in the richest food on the planet, except for the fat around a cow’s liver? I, for one, love butter, but I think that this is a relationship that is best left alone. Overindulgence in butter is the road to perdition in many ways–cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, hypertension. Yet, I won’t put oleo on my toast because using a petroleum product would be worse. You see, butter has that taste that just sucks you in and hypnotizes your taste buds and seduces your good judgement. You ever sauté garlic in butter? Maybe throw in a few over-sized shrimp, a pinch of hot red pepper and a quarter cup of white wine? You’d know if you had. Butter is a synecdoche for all of our overindulgence and overeating, and butter stands out as a symbol of our own success which may be our very undoing. In itself, there is nothing wrong with eating some butter. I’m from a dairy state, Minnesota, where the local denizens having been consuming dairy products for over a century and a half, and the only long-lasting result is extended life-spans. We have collectively stopped smoking, and although we still drink a bit and carry around an extra pound or two, we are pretty healthy in spite of the butter we consume. What would pancakes be without butter? What would chocolate frosting be without butter? Lumpy and tasteless. Take away their butter and people would stop making toast and life would cease to have meaning. Can you really eat lobster without a nice butter sauce to dip it in? Chicken fried in butter is much better than chicken fried in mystery oil. Yet butter gets a bad reputation because of all that juicy cholesterol. I often wonder if it might be less the cholesterol we consume and more our own inactivity which hurts us. So getting off the couch and into the wide open spaces is more important than skimping on the butter for our bagel.

On body and soul

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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

Posted on by

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.