Several Thoughts That Are Unrelated to One Another

      I have some friends who believe in reincarnation and who resolved issues from past lives while under hypnosis. Each of them seem to have been rather upper class in their previous lives, the majority were of noble or even royal birth. This causes me to wonder whether nobility and royalty were rather more common in previous eras, as it is all but statistically impossible all my friends were of such high estate in their former lives unless the overall proportion of nobility and royalty was considerably higher than it is today or than is depicted by history textbooks.

     I tested the hypothesis that I could find a blog topic for today inside my refrigerator (while standing in front of its open door and staring into it) enough times today that I can with confidence report that a blog topic does not reside there.

     It is a mixed blessing when the other people at the gym are gregarious and want to share their weekend experiences during a workout. 

     

The Persistence of Philosophy

            At my church, in Pittsburgh, Church of the Ascension, we just concluded a set of four talks on  New Atheism and Christian responses to it. The talks were held as a pub, which is part of a new outreach program based on the assumption, as I see it, that people would rather talk about deep matters while drinking beer (and possibly eating well-prepared food). While I do not partake of the beer, the logic of that assumption is clear. Our clergy may argue for more lofty explanations for the sites of these and similar talks, but I believe it's largely due to the beer and good food. I gather most of the New Atheists and virtually all historical philosophers, past and present, have shared that affection for beer and good food.

            During one of the talks, or possibly two of them, passing comments were made that philosophy and reflection, which we were discussing and using, could not be argued to be of any evolutionary advantage. Only a brief example was given, but I immediately imagined a sort of chase scene involving a hungry or threatened carnivore and a human who was highly reflective, and for us to imagine such a scene was what the speaker intended. Extrapolating only slightly, a great migration due to inclement weather, say drought, could hardly be imagined to proceed well if anyone was stopping to contemplate, and even contemplatives who manage to continue walking can be a hindrance when others are in a hurry. No, for getting what needs to be done accomplished, philosophers and writers and artists and meditative types are rarely picked first to form the team. If Darwin were completely accurate about how evolution proceeded, virtually all us with such tendencies would have been set adrift on ice floes, sent on peculiar errands while the rest of the tribe left for higher ground, or pushed to the outskirts of the herd for prey to pick off. I would argue that our ability to survive, and even, at times, produce offspring, argues for some power other than natural selection at work.  

The Problem with Letting Myself Know What I see

            This weekend I was troubled again when I ran into an old friend, not a close friend, but someone I have known socially for decades and also worked with. This person is brilliant, no question, and truly gifted in his/her profession. I run into him/her socially several times a year, on holidays and for special event. The thing is, the last several times that we have met, this person has been, well, some degree of drunk, and at a time and place when others were not. We are past a certain age. Wild parties are more than infrequent. Several events where we met were dry. Isn’t the definite smell of alcohol and any degree of immoderate behavior more troubling at such? 

            I am also troubled by my response, as least to date. I have said nothing, to anyone. My history makes me sensitive—aware of drunkenness, both the extreme fraternity sort and the quiet, continuously pickled sort. It’s easy to discount what I notice because I am sensitive—that perception problem again. The other side of "sensitivity” is being able to recognize when someone may well be on a road I have been down before, and watched my loved ones walk? But it’s so unpleasant, so difficult to say something. And, really, how does one say such a thing? Surely not at a party, and not to someone who’s already been drinking. Following through, moving from the beginning created by acknowledging my concerns to myself and in writing is to attempt a private conversation about them with this person.

            I cannot tell myself such a habit is probably harmless. And, yes, a glass of wine with dinner smells differently on a person than does a daily bottle of wine, or whatever spirits are someone’s pleasure. I have seen the end from the beginning. I could be wrong that this person’s on that road, but I could also be right. I need to act on what is troubling me in a way that is discreet but definite. As I post this, I am secretly hoping someone I know will read it, know who I am talking about (thereby affirming my perception), and offer to go with me. Probably not. Since this blog is not currently linked to my facebook, certainly not.More likely, there’s some other troubling drinker my readers know that they need talk with.    

Perception, Honesty and Simple, Hard Answers

            Maybe this blogging is working. I am now bored with examining the same small set of behaviors, and did not feel like engaging them yesterday. Three pink ribbons of cloud cross the sky outside my window, echoes of what may well have been an amazing sunset. Working for myself, I haven’t yet figured out how to start early enough to end before sunset. I’ve been thinking about honesty today, and how it’s limited by the filters on our perception. If your glasses are filthy, you will see dirt.

            I have spent a fair amount of time lately with someone convinced every authority figure this person has ever come into contact with is insane, abusive or both. Granted, quite a few people with power are both. I don’t like authority figures much either (to be honest), but when I have difficulties with someone, I have been taught to question myself, including my perception, which is not to say discount it. I just have all these people in my life who keep asking me what my part is in frustrating relationships. What especially takes my breath away is when one of my sons says the equivalent. How did they get so wise? It's such a simple phrase to write--"question my perception but don't discount it." Isn’t it astonishing that some of the most difficult tasks to accomplish can be stated so simply, like "Love your enemies.”

The Habit of Desire

            So many times a day I think I want some thing (usually, in my case, something to eat) when I probably don’t, in fact, want anything. As a child I watched hours of TV each day, and I remember wanting every shiny thing I saw—Matchbox cars, Barbie’s beach house, McDonald’s Happy Meals, Twinkies. Today I watch almost no TV, incognito subversive that I am, yet the residual longing remains--desiring some thing almost constantly. I do suspect TV impacted that, and even the layout of stores and ads in the newspaper. Despite my efforts to leave it, I belong to a culture infected with longing, with insatiable desire, a culture where the answer is always more. Sadly, my  late night snacks, nibbling throughout the day, and compulsive eating at parties and other public functions attest to the power of that culture in my life. All this yearning I reduce to something material, always to some thing. The alternative is terrifying—a longing I cannot assuage by my own efforts. But perhaps the longing is false, more a tic or habit.    

All the Pretty Little Carbs

            At least half a dozen times last week I decided to stop eating sugar and white flour and snack cracker-y foods until the first week of July. I want to lose some weight before I visit my son, and the traveling was so pleasant last year when I had been away from carbohydrates for most of a month. I had no congestion or headache on the planes or in the airports. I keep making these “vows” with myself and God because the reality is that I keep eating these foods whenever I see them. The promises and the eating are crazy-making and make me feel disgusted with myself. The process threatens to become the only--or too large--an item in my brain.

            Surely there is more to my life than this! My garden is amazing this year, if I do say so myself. All but too of the perennials and annuals I planted is blooming. I can’t remember when I’ve had such good odds (and well-deserved after all the turning of soil and adding of compost and breaking up of clumps of clay). After twenty years of avoiding the sting of rejection, I have been revising and submitting poems. I have even been exercising regularly. But saying the changes needed in my eating will follow naturally does not work, nor do artificial diets that establish a constant state of obsession. 

Size Switching

I have been noticing size 0 and size 2 selections at department stores for awhile now. I don't remember ever seeing either of those sizes on the racks at Kaufmann's or JCPenney's as a child. Kaufmann's is gone now, bought by Macy's, but I don't recall seeing those sizes at Macy's until recently. This does not seem to be a phenomenon that portends well. Did those sizes even exist in the 1970's or even the 1980's? Who are they for? I haven't noticed an increase in small women, and every statistic indicates that the latter is the case. Are ten year old girls now shopping the Misses section? Is it all a nefarious plot to sell diet plans and food and exercise equipment, but just how would such sales benefit Calvin Klein or Ann Taylor?