Daily Archives: August 27, 2008

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Politics

Crabby but Eco-Friendly

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72  bar falls  20.76 0mph  ESE dew-point 64  sunrise 6:29  sunset 7:58  Lughnasa

Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon

A Sierra club blogger caught these comments after her light hearted, energetic account of her second day at the Democratic convention:

What I would like to know is the substance of what is being said and promised to America. The rest is nonsense and not worth our time.

I would also like more substance. This is time consuming, I don’t appreciate my time being wasted on insignicant information.

I agree with Bruce. Less fluff, more substance.

I posted the following:

Geez. Lighten up. Color is part of the information. This kind of crabby feedback is part of the problem we have in general. Who wants to listen to folks who sound like tight-lipped great-grand parents?

The environmental movement has a large dose of self-righteousness that often brooks no dissent.  It is not unlike the New Left of the sixties.  The tone and flavor of “I’m right and you’re not” creates a sense of condescension that impeded the capacity to get our message to the people who need to hear it.  Are we wrong about some things?  History assures us we are?  Which things?  Well, it is not history yet.  This reality should make us more humble.

I watched a good film the other night called U-571.  The plot is irrelevant here, but the Captain said to his Ex O, “To be a captain you have to make decisions with imperfect information and no time for consideration.”  This is the human condition on all the great issues of the day.  We get further with each other if we admit our information is imperfect.  What we look for is the trend, the decision that if not made will hurt us more than inaction.  Climate change sure seems to be one of those decisions.  Could we have some of the science wrong?  Absolutely. Is the trend clear enough to make decisions now imperative?  Seems so to me.

But there may be some who read the data differently.  They might disagree about urgency, agency.   They might disagree, as noted physicist Freeman Dyson does, with the assumptions that go into the climate models.  Those of us, though, who see the need for action must make our case in a way others can at least agree with us that acting is more important than the possibility of being wrong in some of the details.  That’s our task.

Asia, Faith and Spirituality, Writing

Right Regrets

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62  bar rises 29.84  0mpn NEE dew-point 61  sunrise 6:29  sunset 29.84  Lughnasa

Waning Crescent of the Corn Moon

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.” – Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller.  Once married to Marilyn Monroe.  A right regret?  Who knows.

His point seems apt.  Until scientists convince us we do not have free will (another time), all we have in life are the choices we make.  Since the world and its manifold dynamics function chaotically (thought not without a kind of order), making choices that reflect our true values and our authentic Selves are the best we can do.  Results have so much to do with accidents of birth, i.e. man, woman, white, black, Latino, Asian, African, poor parents, middle class parents, rich parents, country of origin:  USA, Namibia, Brazil, Bangladesh, France, Georgia, era: middle ages, reformation, 19th century, 23rd century, not to mention genetic endowments and psychological environment, the crucial forks in the road for each individual life.

This reality gives Taoism a special resonance for me.  Conforming ourselves to the movement of heaven means recognizing all these various factors as they come to a point in an individual life, our life.  Attunement rather than atonement.  We scan the heavens, using the I Ching, the Tao Te Ching, our minds and discern where to adapt and where to use the times as leverage for our choices.  Even a perfectly attuned Taoist, a sage, may have no result in their life if the times and the heavens have no room for their ambitions.

leaves.jpg

Thus, we can only choose.  Our choices, not the results, define our regrets.  If we choose paths consistent with our values and our authentic Selves, then we will have only the right regrets.   Why?  Because we will have not betrayed who we are and we  will not have betrayed those values we clasp to our hearts.  The results come from the movement of the heavens as  our choices either align with them or bump into their hard reality.

It may be that I have added one step too many.  If we align ourselves with the Tao, the movement of heaven, then our values may be of no importance.  If a value serves to set one in conflict with the movement of heaven, then, if I understand the Tao, it can force one out of alignment with the Tao.  This can violates conforming ourselve to the movement of heaven.

This is what I mean when I say life does not need meaning, it is meaning; life does not need purpose, it is purpose.