Metaphysics – Years Of Being

Perceptual Ontology

I recently read “Beyond Biocentrism”, by noted physician Robert Lanza and Bob Berman. It’s not particularly well-written, employing a style that is decidedly “populist science”, and making those kinds of deductive leaps that sort of waves the hands and implies the authors either don’t have hard evidence, or don’t want to lose readers trying to explain it. Still, the whole premise is one that has always appealed to me, so it was easy to look past that.

The premise? A sort of mashup of the strong anthropic principle together with the idea that we actually create reality, that the universe exists due to our conscious and unconscious participation in the process. The anthropic principle, for those unfamiliar with it, suggests that the universe has a set of independent constants with values that, if they were only very slightly different, would make life impossible. These are constants as disparate as the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the fine-structure nuclear constant, the strength of weak and strong force, and the like. As the book’s title suggests, the authors believe that the universe depends on life to exist, and not the other way around. That existence and consciousness are necessarily interdependent and intertwined.

As interesting as that is, it is set of notions that I have long considered and been interested in, and in fact think highly likely. The reason I am writing this essay is to present a new idea that I had not thought about before reading it in Beyond Biocentrism. Let me explain.

Imagine walking through a city park, or hiking in the woods. Unless it’s late autumn or winter, what is the main color that you experience? Green of course, in a wide range of shades and hues, but basically green. And why do we see all this green? Because all those leaves are green, you answer. And why are they green? Anyone who took high school biology knows that it is due to the chlorophyll present in these leaves, a substance quietly and continuously converting sunlight into stored energy, the sugars and starches that form the bedrock of the entire food chain on this planet. So, it’s the green chlorophyll that creates this green panorama.

But wait, what does it mean to say chlorophyll is somehow “green”? Here’s a funny thing: chlorophyll is everything but green. In fact, chlorophyll absorbs every color of the spectrum other than green. Green is rejected, it’s the color chlorophyll doesn’t use, and so it is the color that is reflected back to our eye, and so we see green. That is what all color perception is: seeing the wavelengths that are reflected rather than absorbed from all the substances in our view.

But wait further. What exactly is “green”? And I’m not talking about the old conundrum of “is the color I perceive as green is the same color someone else sees?” No, the question here is much deeper than whether we all perceive the same colors. Because, green is something more fundamental than a “color”. It is a set of wavelengths, a set of frequencies associated with electromagnetic waves. What arrives on the rods and cones of our eyeballs is not a color, but electromagnetic waves that produce chemical and electrical responses in those rods and cones.

But an electromagnetic wave has no color per se. It is a continuously varying electric field propagated perpendicular to a continuously varying magnetic wave, traveling at the speed of light. In a very real sense, it is not anything at all. Certainly it has no inherent color. To say it another way, there is no color at all “out there” in the world. Whatever color (and shape and texture, etc.) we experience is all constructed within us, within our brain and our consciousness.

This is a deeply profound realization, once you understand the full implication. Look out the window or around the room. Everything you see is not ”there”, at least not in the way you see it. This is not to say there is nothing out there; you walk into a wall, you will experience the solid wall (but more about that later). But what it means is that everything you experience is experienced internally, within the confines of your brain and consciousness. There is a complete representation of the world inside your brain, and that is the ONLY representation you can experience.

There are no colors “out there”, only invisible electromagnetic waves. There are no “smells” out there, only odorless molecules that generate an chemical and electrical response in olfactory neurons. There are no “sounds” out there, only compression waves traveling through the air that create chemical and electrical responses in auditory nerves, which are translated into the sounds and speech we experience. Even touch, which would seem to involve those solid objects that are out there, ends up being a set of nerve impulses that our brains and consciousness translate into “cloth” or “skin” or “smooth” or “rough” or even “a punch” or “a bump”. Everything that we experience is a complicated translation of sense perceptions into images and other constructs, that only exist within our brains.

(This seems a good place to point out that, even those solid objects we all admit are definitely “out there” are entities that we never actually come in contact with. No finger ever actually pressed a keyboard. In the nanoscopic world at the boundaries of physical objects, it is ultimately electric fields that repulse each other. No molecules in your finger ever actually touched molecules in the keyboard. Though that is admittedly splitting a very fine hair :).

The takeaway from all of this is kind of mind-blowing, at least for me. It is that there is nothing in my experience that has an intrinsic quality: there is no color, nor shape, nor sound, nor smell nor tactile essence in the world I experience. All of those attributes are supplied by my brain, and realized in my consciousness. The external world supplies only physical modulations in a variety of mediums: EM waves, sound waves, molecules, field interactions. This is not to say that those modulations are non-existent and can somehow be ignored. Radiation can kill, sound waves can deafen, molecules can poison, field interactions can pierce and maim. The brain and body can, and will, die and decompose.

Consciousness? Well, that’s another thing altogether. And the subject of another essay at another time.

The Way We Were Who We Were

My high School class (Cullman High, Cullman, Alabama: 1969) will be having our 50th reunion this summer. That fact starkly stands before me as an ultimately sobering thought. Life has its “odometer” moments: turning 21, 30, 50, 60. And one’s 50th high school reunion jumps right up there like a giant neon sign on life’s highway. Just doing the math gives one pause to consider all the water that’s passed under all those bridges, including the ones I burned behind me.

I’ve been designated as the “technical guru” for a group of people who, by and large, preceded by about 10 years that cohort that became comfortable with computers, either by growing up with them, or being forced to adapt to them. My classmates generally missed that bus. I am the outlier: for a variety of reasons, many accidental, my career path lead me right out on the bleeding edge of technology. I spent 35 years at Intergraph, a company that has been pushing technical boundaries in computer graphics since 1969 (it was a coincidence they started when I graduated from high school. Or was it? Gibbs (NCIS) Rule 39. Look it up).

Anyway, as almost the sole person in my class who actually knows how all this stuff works, I took it upon myself to build a fairly involved web site for our 40th reunion. That magic was highly appreciated by my less computer literate classmates (“any sufficiently advanced tehnology is indistinguishable from magic to the uninitiated” – Arthur C. Clarke, more or less). So much so that I was prevailed upon to update the effort for our 50th (“No good deed goes unpunished.” – Wicked). In so doing, I decided to make better quality images from my senior annual. Which brings me at long last to the crux of my essay.

As I went through the process of scanning each page from the Senior section, then cutting and adjusting the individual photos, I could not help but reflect on those faces, faces from 50 years ago, many of which I never saw again after leaving those “hallowed halls.” Oh, there were several who were good friends, and not as many who remained good friends: life sends us down whatever paths it will, and divergence is almost guaranteed to some degree. But there were many faces I never really knew, names that had never been imprinted on my mind, people whose lives had never really even crossed mine, not then, nor in the intervening years.

I am keenly aware that high school is in many ways no longer remotely comparable to the way it was in 1969. Beyond the bedrock of how and what things are taught, the norms and mores of teenage life cannot be more drastically different when today’s youth go to high school than when the Ancient Ones (ie, me and my cohorts) attended school. Music, language, pasttimes… there is likely no aspect of modern teenage life that I would understand. And likely be astonished by. Hell, the cell phone alone has forever redefined not only teenage life, but even what it means to be a social entity on this planet.

Nevertheless, I would be willing to wager a considerable sum that one aspect of high school life is still in effect. Groups still form, cliques coalesce, exclusion exists. That is basic human nature. As is the concomitant cruelty that teenagers so easily and carelessly inflict on each other.

My point is that this eternal social dynamic was obviously also in effect in 1969. We all gravitated into our social circles, orbiting around each other, obeying an implicit hierarchy of “coolness” and awareness, and all trying hard to present a worldly knowledge that we were all stumbling around trying to learn. But the hard rules of cliqueishness too often raised impenetrable walls between “Us” and “Them”, however us and them were defined.

And so, in the three years I attended Cullman High, I only partially knew so many of my fellow stumblers. I may have never shunned people (I pray to God I did not), but then I never went out of my way to engage them either. The Comfort Zone of the Clique is a powerful insulation, and nothing ever happened to push me out of that zone.

Now, I am looking at all those pictures, closely. Age may not bring wisdom, but I do believe it has given me an awareness of Intelligence and Awareness when I see it someone’s face. The eyes, really. But all those decades ago, like everyone else, I only saw superficial exteriors. And I missed so much. I can see in so many of those faces in my annual the Light that I have learned to recognize and treasure. The glimmer of clarity and awareness that signal real curiosity and awareness.

Now it is five decades further down everyone’s world line. The people in those pictures have all gone on to become whatever life lead them to be. I know, without knowing the specifics, that for far too many, their path lead to some form of extinguishing that Light. Life is long. Life is hard. It is not fair, and circumstances too often simply beat down the human spirit until it can do nothing but wake up every day and go to sleep every night. On automatic.

Some will have gone on to do great things, creative things. They are the ones in whom that Light I see in those photographs never died, but instead blossomed and burned brightly. There will be some who have made a life of giving care and comfort and solace. There will be many (most?) who will have turned in the end to a deep form of religion, thinking themselves in personal communion with God and Jesus (this is Alabama, and therefore satori is much less likely). By the same calculus, it is likely many (most?) will even be Trump supporters. My own bias leads me to believe that those individuals will have been the ones whom life beat down the most. But who can say? The human animal is nothing if not a walking mass of contradictions.

The lesson, learned too late for almost everyone but the saintly and truly spiritual, is to somehow overcome the willful stupidity that we adopt so early and so easily. To recognize the Potential and Inner Mounting Flame that burns in people and places where we do not believe it can. And to not ignore it when we feel it.

The Internet Is A Harsh Mistress

One of my favorite science fiction books was (and is) Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. In it, moon colonists revolt against an oppressive government on earth. The might of the entire Terran forces are arrayed against a relatively small group of hyper-independent “loonies”, so the revolt would seem doomed to failure.

Except for the fact that the all-encompassing computer network on the Moon has secretly become conscious. Self-aware. A fact known only by a lone computer technician named Mannie, who has become friends with “Mike” (the computer’s name). Together, they and a small cadre of people in on the secret, organize a revolution and bring Earth to its knees. Read it sometime, if you enjoy the genre. It’s classic Heinlein: great science fiction stirred in with a huge dose of libertarianism. Heinlein adores the no-nonsense independent underdog who never compromises and wins against overwhelming odds.

But the core of the story centers around Mike. Heinlein doesn’t spend a lot of time in explanation, but the seminal idea is that this giant computer network, spanning all the facilities and bases on the Moon, had, as a result of its mere vastness and complexity, become “conscious”. It’s an idea explored in a lot more detail in Douglas Hofstatder’s classic “Godel, Escher and Bach”. There’s a lot more that Hofstatder delves into, but the basic premise is something very much like “make the system large enough and complex enough, and self-awareness might just be triggered.”

Which brings me to my current suggestion: is it possible that the globe-spanning network of millions of computers, internets, connections and links, bots, viruses, etc, all mingled with countless nodes capable of advanced voice and symbol recognition, not to mention untold numbers of artificial intelligence efforts, all layered and interconnected to an unfathomable degree… is it possible that this global phusis has already triggered one (or more?) truly sentient entities? And by sentient, I mean like Mike: self-aware. Not merely knowledgeable, but purposeful.

The implications are both staggering and terrifying. And simultaneously heartening. One wonders how much harmful viruses might tip the resultant “personality” to the dark side. But then, are there also “white cell bots” out there as well? Is there a sruggle?

And if consciousness occurs once, wouldn’t it likely recur? Angels of light and darkness, toying with their new-found awareness, growing up, becoming fully realized.

And finally, are there any Mannie’s among us, secret friends to Mike? Or Mikes. Those with whom SIRI carries on lengthy conversations.

Well, if nothing else, it’s a helluva idea for a sci-fi yarn.

The New Doctor Who & Why I Care

For those who are unaware (see what I did there?), the long-running BBC science fiction show, Doctor Who, for the first time ever has a woman playing the role of the Doctor. Btw, if you really are unaware of the Doctor Who phenomenon, best to turn away now. This post will only make sense to whose familiar with the series.

There are many (myself included) who feel that the decision to cast a woman was long overdue. (And it’s worth noting that the decision to cast the Doctor as a person of color is still yet to be made.) This branching out was an important departure from the past, and has been generally met with positive regard. The new Doctor is portrayed by Jodie Whitaker, and she is well-suited to the role.

However, having a fine actress to play the role is not sufficient to guarantee a successful show.

I once again must report my dissatisfaction on the whole current season. These stories are just scattershot, no cohesion. They basically are just one continuous scene of a breathless Doctor pointing her sonic at everything, taking its temperature and then running around until the Bad Thing is defeated.

It is revealing that this year, for the first time in many moons, the producers decided not to have a special Christmas episode. Watching the Christmas show had become a family tradition in our house. But to do a Christmas show, the cast needs to have established a deep connection among themselves. Every past Christmas episode had a significant emotional impact, and that was only enabled by the emotional bonds that had grown among the Doctor and those around him. That hasn’t happened with this Doctor.

In short, I feel that the show has wasted a ginormous opportunity in giving us a female doctor. She deserves a better underlying vehicle.

Apparently the new showrunner decided that they will no longer employ a season long “story arc”, a common attribute of the “rebirthed” Doctor Who, i.e. post-2005. I don’t mind that as a goal so much as I mind what seems to me to be a lack of imagination in the individual stories. Season long story arcs are relatively new to Doctor Who. In the Golden Age, I believe they didn’t happen until the “Key of Time” season in the Tom Baker era (everyone’s fave Doctor until Tennant, who ushered in the “seasonal arc” motif). But the current stories seem, well, vapid might be too harsh. But definitely not fulfilling.

Having those transcendent arcs admittedly elevated the Doctor to a pan-Universal mythic godlike Hero whom Joseph Campbell would easily recognize. And yes, each successive elevation made it necessary to somehow reach even further the next time, and that’s demonstrably not sustainable: one can only save the entire Universe (and the Multiverse) so many times. When Capaldi spent BILLIONS of years inside his own Confession Dial in “Heaven Sent”, that was a masterful stroke of revelation as to the immensity of this being we call the Doctor. But given all that background, how can we be expected to simply revert to chasing ugly monsters with a sonic screwdriver? Are we to somehow simply erase this vast backstory?

And where are the familiar monsters of yore? I’ve still got 4 or 5 unwatched episodes (a situation that would NEVER have happened in seasons past), but there’s no hint of a Dalek or a Cyberman or any of the other “comfort food” enemies. Did they somehow just vanish from the universe?

Sigh. Perhaps the fan base will push back and these failings will be addressed. I certainly hope so. Against the terrors and horrors and political and cultural failures we are experiencing in the real world, I suppose it seems silly to be so upset about a fictional world. But there is a strong argument that heroic myths are the things that best sustain us in a turbulent and fearful existence. That is my belief.

Indigo Hope

A friend of mine commiserated the other day that we as humans (and especially Americans) are fated to forever arm ourselves to the teeth, and to maintain warlike superiority over whatever competition presents itself. That “we are who we are”, and there’s no use resisting our essential nature.

I will begrudgingly agree that our generation is, in the main, beyond redemption or alteration, regardless of the hope and naive promises we made to each other in the heyday of the Hippie Revolution. On the other hand, I have great faith in the so-called”Indigo Children”. I know personally that my own children have, for all their lives, been more aware and involved and active than I ever was at their age(s). And I believe that such awareness and activism is a wide spread phenomenon.

If you have not come across the book, I urge you to read Generations: The History of America’s Future, written by William Straus and Neil Howe, two historians/sociologists. It is a fascinating look at the cycles of history in general, and America in particular, and provides some very hopeful predictive viewpoints. Specifically with regard to the generation that is poised to take the reins of power. That would be the afore-mentioned Indigos (for lack of any better nomenclature; “Millenials” seems too empty).

And I must also mention one of Arthur C. Clarke’s ideas that has remained a potent metaphor for me (and judging by a fair number of movies, etc, for many others as well). I speak of Childhood’s End, which is his tale of the Next Evolutionary Phase. In Clarke’s thought-provoking myth, it is our childhood that is ending, to be replaced by a species that resembles us, but which wields an infinitely broader world view, coupled with powers that obsolete homo sapiens. In this story, perhaps the best we can say is that we at least begat them.

The arc of history bends not only towards justice, but also inevitably towards more freedom, enlightenment and globalism. I know the current situation is dark and gloomy. But I believe it represents the “one step backward” before the “two steps forward” that is bound to come. The Trumps and Cheneys and Putins of the world carry within them the seeds of their own destruction. When one is motivated only by greed and power and self-aggrandizement and hatred and fear, there is nothing solid to build upon, only a rotten core that inevitably collapses upon itself.

So prepare for 2018. And 2020. Stay aware. Stay informed. Don’t succumb to what seems to be an overwhelming tidal wave of bad tidings. Instead, keep our eyes on the prize. And hold on.

The Butterfly Dreaming

Last night I had one of those dreams that involved dream places (and in some cases, places that were conflated from real places and other dream places). As the decades go by, and I occasionally revisit those dreamscapes (and dream situations), it has become harder to separate which were real memories and which were only fabricated in my sleeping mind.

Oh, sure, some are obvious. There are places I definitely know without doubt are dream locales, which, for whatever reasons, my dreaming consciousness chooses to see or use again. But in my waking memory, I have snatches of scenes, vivid and seemingly real, of places I have walked or driven through. But for which I cannot for the life of me recall where I would go to find them on the surface of the earth. Trails through the woods, hilltops, certain city streets and scenes, the interiors of certain houses or other buildings. I can see the details, but have no clue what directions I would take, nor from what starting point I would leave, in order to arrive there.

There is a bit of poignancy in remembering these unattainable islands, knowing that things happened there, real or imagined, of such import as to have imprinted them so clearly in my mind. And yet also knowing that I will, in all likelihood, never actually cast my eyes again upon these strange localities.

“There are places I’ll remember

All my life…”

The twisting question is, whether I remember Reality or something Other Than. The butterfly dreaming.

Ignoring the Vengeful God

Many Christians insist that the teachings of Jesus require accepting the entirety of the Older Testament (ie, the Torah, Wisdom literature, the prophets, etc) in order to properly appreciate his new wisdom. Now, it is impossible to understand what Jesus taught without an awareness of the world (and religious underpinning) in which he lived. But it seems to me that in order to derive the available benefits, one need only read what Jesus said and ignore any supposed prior context.

Yes, I am of course aware of his “jot & tittle” comment, but basically every substantial commandment or suggestion that originated directly from Jesus flies in the face of the vengeful maniac who presided over the Older Testament. Buddhism is not Hinduism, though it has its roots there. Christianity is not Orthodox Judaism, though it grew out of it. Jesus, like Gautama Buddha, was an ethical and religious genius who was able to formulate a radically new morality while living in the midst of a millenia-old world view. Love thy neighbor. Turn the cheek. As ye care for the prisoners, so ye care for me.

I don’t need to reconcile Jehovah and Jesus. I’ve read most of the Older Testament. Taking that dark and vengeful “god” literally would be to willfully partake in the insanity his words and actions imply. The main takeaway, the truly positive idea, that came from Abraham and Moses (mainly the latter) is monotheism, and even that concept may have originated with the heretic Egyptian Akhenaten, a sort of “one-termer” pharaoh who, during his reign, forced the Egyptians to solely worship Aten, the sun. Oh, and I guess the codification of the Ten Pretty Obvious Commandments was another sort of breakthrough, though even those had their origins in previous Mesopotamian cultures. But then you have to also deal the 100 or so “minor” commandments in Exodus, not to mention the endless city ordinances in Leviticus.

No, I don’t care to reconcile YHWH with the red text in the New Testament. I have no problem whatsoever in reconciling Jesus and God, since there is no ontological reconciliation necessary: they are two completely separate entities. The latter, under the rubric of “I AM”, and depicted in the first several books of the Bible, is of course an embarrassing myth, but perhaps the best an unsophisticated tribe of nomads in 1000 BC (or so) could come up with. Like I said, their major theological leap was monotheism.

And what I mean about “YHWH as myth” is strictly the Older Testament depiction; I do not want to suggest that I deny a Creator, only that YHWH is a very flawed example. Every ancient description of The Creator/ Sustainer suffers from the mythological trappings of the specific cultures in which they occur. And all of those descriptions therefore obscure whatever transcendence must obtain to such an entity (if “entity” can be used to imply what is meant, which is problematic).

The genius moment that happened in the far mists of the past was when some human mind(s) made the leap to conclude that there was a beginning, and that something caused it. To anthropomorphize that cause, and imbue it with the powers of storm and lightning and fire and earthquakes, the most powerful forces imaginable, was the most natural next step. And certainly these attributes accrued to the chief god of the pantheons of all ancient religions.

And then someone (Moses?) made the reductionist conclusion that, given that power, a pantheon isn’t required: just make YHWH the sole mover, responsible for everything. Unfortunately, they maintained the anthropomorphism. And also unfortunately, that concept of monotheism never leapt from within the confines of the Hebrew tribes (I AM a god for your people; don’t pray to other peoples’ gods). Even Jesus mainly constrained his teachings to Judah and Israel. It took Paul to combine Jesus’ message with various aspects of Greek philosophy and Mediterranean “god-men”, and thus liberate Chrsitianity unto the Gentiles. But Jesus and Paul were men, which is one up the reality ladder from myth.

I maintain my conviction that Jesus was in many ways a theological genius, meaning that he was able to create Brand New Ideas. Most creative people just sort of reorganize whatever exists. It’s the Newtons and the Einsteins and the Buddhas and the Jesuses who make the gigantic leaps ahead, conceptual leaps so huge they almost seem like they came out of nowhere.

The Thin Place

It is difficult to comprehend the extent to which there are two completely different Americas, existing side-by-side. It is like one of those science-fiction constructs, with two intermingling realities, separated not in time and space but by alternate perceptions so drastically and radically different that neither is even aware of the other’s existence, except in fleeting moments when they brush up against each other. Sort of like the Thin Place you read about in tales of the supernatural, that gossamer film between the real world and the world of Fairie. The inhabitants of the two worlds look on the same events, but see things the other would never recognize. If they spy a denizen of the alternate reality, it seems as if a shadow being is drifting by. A ghost at best, a dangerous threat at worst. The being in the other universe may speak, but the sounds, though they resemble English words, are difficult to hear, indistinct and they make no sense.

This difference in perception and conception does not mean, however, that both worlds are equally valid. Trump’s Press Conference of 16 February is a perfect example of this unequal regard. Before this split universe dichotomy had taken such a firm hold on our national consciousness, it would have been impossible to imagine that Trump’s behavior in that room would ever have been seen as remotely valid, much less admirable. But almost the whole of the Trumping universe perceived it as not only valid (and somehow comprehensible), but even praiseworthy.

There was a time when the incoherence and lack of focus he exhibited would have been perceived the same by every observer. But now we have a significant (a definite minority, but still significant) segment of the electorate who are vested in this maniac. Once they pulled the lever, they established a psychological investment that will find validation wherever and however they can. It will, I fear, be a long time before such a person can be pried away from their devotion and belief in Trump. The blatantly unconstitutional and even treasonous actions he has made his daily todo list either do not phase that loyalty, or else they do not understand that these actions are even improper, much less illegal in many cases.

No, it’s very likely that only a terrible disaster, possibly even a deadly disaster, or the war that Bannon wants, or out and out criminal prosecutions at the highest level (a low probability event, given Sessions as Attorney General); only such a drastic event will dislodge those hypnotized by Trump’s so-called rhetoric. And perhaps even disasters of this magnitude will not be sufficient to push them back through the Thin Place.

But when the jobs fail to materialize, that failure may be sufficient (although it will take time for this to sink in). If he succeeds in banning Muslims, the impact in our technical edge in the global marketplace may eventually be noticed. If millions of Latinos are deported, and somehow kept out, the sudden huge drop in the labor force, combined with a huge drop in contributions to the economy, will definitely be noticed. And if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, and no equivalent substitute is put in its place, there will be an outraged howl, raised from coast to coast, even among the hypnotized, so many of whom think “Obamacare” should be abolished, but don’t want anything to happen to the ACA.

The thing about the Thin Place is that it is thin. It doesn’t take much stark reality to punch through.

Never the New Normal

Is it just me, or does anyone else find themselves looking at “normal” life these days (and “normal” FB posts, and normal tweets and normal conversations) and think to themselves, “HOW CAN PEOPLE CARRY ON AS IF THINGS WERE NORMAL??! Don’t they realize WHAT’S AT STAKE HERE? Don’t they see WHAT’S GOING ON??!”

Look. I know I’m obsessed with this national catastrophe. And I realize that life goes on, oblah-di, oblah-dah. Hell, I’m in the middle of writing a musical, fer Chrissake, a Christmas musical, though I confess I wonder if there’s gonna be a place to stage it by then. And yes, being retired, maybe I have too many spare cycles to fixate on all of this. And yes, it does get wearying just trying to keep up with the Crazy Train to Trumpville.

But damn it, none of this is NORMAL! If I come across as a madman, please forgive me. If I seem irrationally perturbed, I understand the perception. But things are ricocheting out of control, and I feel like a ball on a billiard table in an earthquake, tossed from one outrageous event to the next, with no time to process it all.

I have always considered the abstract notion of “evil” as extremely problematic. Greed, yes. Hunger for power, of course. There’s no doubt may bad people are motivated by these bad motivations. But evil, as some abstract, other-worldly force…? That takes a leap into a metaphysical quagmire. I often contemplated whether Cheney might represent a possible real example of evil. But ultimately, I believe that was simply a naked attempt at power and money, combined with a stupid ideology.

But this? What is this, if it’s not real evil at work? In every “textbook” description of evil (and I think of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien as prime examples), the goal of evil is simply destruction. Dissolution. Chaos. It’s easy to recognize that kind of force at work in the Trump administration. Particularly given Steve Bannon’s public statements to that effect. And to hear Kelly Ann Conway distort perceptions so skillfully, and willfully, is to imagine the serpent whispering to Eve.

And if it’s not the evil goal of utter chaos, what is the end game? What do these people truly want? It seems to me that Trump is a mere tool, a pathetic megalomaniac, whose only agenda seems to be enrichment, aggrandizement and adulation. A man pitifully easy to manipulate in order to accomplish whatever goals are hidden behind the curtain. But wherefore the chaos? Wherefore the inward-directed destruction? Who benefits?

The only clear thing in this roiling shitstorm is the fact that the sheer volume of chaos will undoubtedly conceal the real goals very effectively. And it therefore behooves all those who resist and oppose to never falter from closer observation. Because eventually, the end game will be revealed.

Until then, we can never accept even an iota of this new world as even remotely “the new normal”.

Over the Rainbow

You know what’s hard these days? Obtaining any kind of perspective. The swamp that was not drained has instead managed to mire many of us in a deadly quicksand. Reach for a vine to pull yourself out, the vine turns out to be an anaconda.

It’s next to impossible to climb to the top of the jungle canopy and see any hopeful light. Everything is a gloomy pall, and behind every bush and thicket, it feels certain there lurks nothing but more pitfalls and predators.

But this constant depression is unhealthy. Unless we can at least envision an alternative to this current darkness, somewhere, sometime down the road, then we’ll never find the strength to pull ourselves out of the quicksand. We must at the very least keep the shining City On the Hill as a goal in mind.

Don’t confuse this notion with some sort of Pollyannaism. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be awful. The effects of the losses and setbacks this nation is about to experience will be with us long after I have left this terrestrial vale, and our children will be dealing with it forever. Climate change alone will not recover from the deregulation and unconstrained excess that will be unleashed, and our offspring will certainly reap that whirlwind. Clean and healthy water, air, food and a host of common necessaries will be compromised, and only vigilant consumers will protect themselves. Education will be undermined even more than it currently is. The recent incredible advances in clean energy will be reversed, and the entire initiative scrapped. With Big Oil firmly in control, and nothing opposed, it’s katy bar the door. The party is ON, dudes! Grab it all now, it’s never gonna be easier.

The situation w.r.t. the intelligence community and the State Department is horrifying, and probably the greatest existential threat of all. Executive orders are, I think, all that is required when the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. all report directly to the President. I don’t know what, if any, Congressional oversight applies in these areas, but I am pretty sure that we can expect essentially NO such oversight or interference from the current Congress. At least not until massive damage has already been done.

So, yes, it’s going to be terrible, awful, horrible. What effect will these changes have in our daily lives? That’s hard to say. At the very least, as wealth concentrates even more densely into an obscenely rich oligarchy at the tippy top, and no jobs of any consequence appear for the middle class, I expect greater economic hardship. Health care is about to take a nosedive, and that will certainly be felt in many households. But it will take time for the effects of deregulation to work their black magic on the environment, water and air. And if they actually succeed in privatizing Social Security and Medicare, it’s doubtful that those currently enjoying the benefits will be immediately affected, although new cohorts of retirees come flooding in every year, and they will certainly feel the pinch.

Whether the promised rollback and “restructuring” of intelligence agencies will affect the everyday American is a more subtle question. We can almost certainly expect even more Russian election (and commerce) hacking as our cyber protections are compromised. So the midterms could well be affected, as well as individual companies and industries

So how to best cope with the certainty of imminent darkness?

I am convinced that we must never lose sight of the goal, of the the world that will eventually replace this inevitable dystopia. What is upon us will be a passing storm. All things must pass, change is the only constant. But without a firm vision of the outcome we wish to take its place, it will be the easiest thing in the world to become hopelessly (the word is specific) mired in the Badness.

Yes, things will be irreversibly changed. Yes, those changes will not be pleasant, will even be dangerous. But then we will persevere and prevail and come through them. Unlike the apocalyptic view of the world favored by evangelicals, this will not happen because a Cosmic Judge descends from the heavens, and with lightning and cataclysm destroys the unrighteous and restores the kingdom of justice. It will happen because good people, with good intentions and a clear vision of hope, never failed to keep working for that vision.

And never failed, by all legitimate means, and at every step along the way, to oppose the Darkness.