How can I...

How can I be happy when I know people are suffering?  That is a question I ask myself all of the time.  Well, I used to, but then since I knew the only answer that I would except was "I can't", I stopped asking.  I'm not sure how people do it.

I remember as a kid, they used to have those long shows about people starving in Africa.  They would show the kids with flies flying around them.  The people had distended bellies, which made them seem like they wouldn't be starving, until someone explained to me what a distended belly actually implies.  I wasn't sure how people could watch that show or even have knowledge of what was going on and yet go about their daily lives.

But, I eventually realized that that is the only thing one can do.  Everyone can not do everything.  For example, in the human body, not all organs can be the brain or the heart.  So by going about ones life, one helps the common good.  By focusing on the job at hand, one can produce, which in the long run will raise up civilization, which will then help everyone.  A rising tide lifts all boats!  The cells in the feet, while being constantly stepped on, get the brain to where it is going!

That was that I learned.  That is how people deal with it.  Well, that and people have the ability to shut out stuff like that.  The human mind can only hold so much and it tends to forget things.  The more painful it is, the more it is forgotten.  If it weren't so, humans would collapse into a quivering pool of jello will all of the bad stuff that they would be aware of, stuff that would be haunting them all day and all night...

But, what if you couldn't forget?  What if everything was just as fresh as the day it happened?  What if those memories ran through your mind constantly?  How could you enjoy life with the constant knowledge that others are suffering?  Can you really enjoy a steak knowing that people have nothing to eat?  Talk about the finer points of this meal vs that meal, when people are starving?  Relax in the sun on a picnic knowing that people are freezing?  I guess people do, and that is what makes us human.  That is what allows us to survive as a species.  So, I guess all species must be able to do this.

I know for me, on a personal note in this new year, it haunts me.  All of the suffering that I become aware of stays with me.  I think Wayne Dyer talks about never letting negative thoughts into ones mind, because they will be there forever, and he is correct.  Still, once the cat is out of the bag, one can image that people are suffering, even if one doesn't personally know someone is.  But, I'll say this, oneself being unhappy will not easy the pain or suffering of those who are unhappy.  So, logically, there is no reason to be unhappy for someone else's suffering - either help if you can or ignore it.  And if logic was actually able to shut off feelings, this would be a much different world - Vulcan.

After all of that, there is one thing that is wrong with all of that.  It is just shifting the focus to solve the problem, which if one can do makes all of the difference.  The actual question I should be answering is:  How can I be suffering when I know people are happy?  But that one seems to be a tougher one to live by.

The Edward

PS  I also guess religion and philosophy help people, or better stated, the reason that religion and philosophy exist.  Karma:  So and so is suffering, therefore they must deserve it.  Religion:  they are not god's people, so he is smiting them.  Or, they lived a righteous life and god is taking them home so that their suffering ends.  New Age:  People are responsible for their own lives - they must have chosen to suffer for some reason.  Zen:  There is no...   Mine:  Others are suffering, so therefore I ought to be suffering too.

All of them are just beliefs with no logical basis.  And with a belief, one can easily dismiss things.  "Does this situation fall under my beliefs?  Check.  Time to move on to fun stuff!"

Summary (I know, a summary in the PS?!  Madness!):  I guess Einstein was correct, the most important question one can ask is, do I believe the Universe to be hostile or friendly?  Belief is the most important force in ones Universe!

Happy Belated John's Son Day!

Holidays, is there nothing they can not do?  Here it happened again that I missed celebrating the most celebratory of Holidays, John's Son Day.  Why it seems like just four years ago that I was reminiscing over this Holiday and why we celebrate it every year.  Though, realistically, this John's Son Day finds me without the means to celebrate - maybe next year!

To all of those who did celebrate it, I hope it was a blast!

The Edward

Where you going there, little fellow?

I heard a story the other day on the radio, and now I know we are screwed as a species.  It was a rescue story about a pod of whales.  Some Humans had discovered a pod of whales heading for shallow water and gathered many other Humans to prevent the whales from going to a place where we knew that they would surely die.  Maybe people helped and I believe almost all of the whales were returned to the ocean, where they would be safe.  The story was told with such a positive note that I had trouble believing that none of the news staff understood the dire implications.

First off, the "rescuers" believed that the whales didn't know what they were doing.  That the Humans could look at the whales and know that they didn't intend to go into the shallow waters.  Maybe the whales had their reasons!  Maybe they were great whale explorers, swimming into uncharted waters, ready to claim a new area for their whale country.  Maybe they were planning on offing themselves because they had some disease that would kill the rest of whales if they came into contact with them.  Maybe they were suicide-whales hoping to take out some enemy creature.  The Humans involved didn't know nor care, they thought they knew better and took action then patted themselves on the back for a "good deed done" while this belief was probably the furthest thing from the Truth.

Secondly, the belief that the whales were doing something deadly or dangerous and that we had the moral obligation to prevent them, even if it stymied the whales' plans, whatever they were.  This is the one that will hurt the Humans the most.  Picture Humans in space, flying around, exploring and sending data back to the Home World - very valuable information that all Humans want and a few put themselves in potential harms way to gather.  But, the Aliens they meet will see the Humans as the Humans saw the whales.  If it is really a moral obligation to help out a species if the "greater" species knows better, any Aliens the Humans meet will simply return these lost people to their Home World, then tell all their Alien friends about how good they feel about themselves for helping the lost Humans by preventing them from possibly going somewhere dangerous.

We should proudly help the whales achieve their objective as we hope to some day be helped by a more advanced race.

The Edward

I helped someone today!

Get this, I was at the grocery store just a little bit ago. On the way in, I saw that they had a BBQ pit outside with a sign that said one should pay inside the store then come out and get ones tasty BBQ'ed treats. Who knew that this BBQ Pit would enable me to help someone - more on this later...

Anyway, so I made haste into the store! After I bought the basket full of frozen foods that were my original intent, I bought a ticket for two hot dogs.

We had been having a cool-wave this summer, which finally broke today - it is 20 degrees warmer than the rest of the summer (ie 93 outside right now, rather than the 72 we had been having). So I rushed to my car, dropped off my groceries, then was rushing back to get my hot dogs... and that is when it happened!

A smartly dressed woman pushing a baby carriage walked up to me and said, "Pardon me, but could you help me?" I was so taken aback that I stopped. I waited to hear what it was that she needed my help for! Maybe she needed directions, ie she was lost. Or maybe she needed to know the time. Or maybe some other simple thing I could say to solve her problem before I got my hot dogs and my groceries melted.

And I kept waiting. At this point, I realized that she was either going to ask me for money, in that she was a scammer, or she needed honest help of a larger magnitude than I could supply at that time. Since she knew what her problem was and she was willing to stand there for 10 or more seconds staring at a stranger waiting for an answer, she must have thought that the solution would require more than 10 seconds to solve. So, even though I didn't know the exact nature of the problem, I knew what she considered the duration to be - very long.

Either she was going to have to spend a long time trying to convince me to give her money, or it would require a lot of grunting and sweating on my part - neither of which sounded good at that time.  So, I said, "No" and walked on to get my hot dog. I couldn't believe how much I helped her! If I hadn't be going to that hotdog stand, I would have missed an opportunity.

The end.

I know, some people may be asking for the punchline - "but Edward, where in the story did you help her?  She asked you for help, and you said No!"  But that is where I helped her.  Evaluating her situation, I knew the outcome.  She would have either tried to scam me, which would have been a waste of my time and hers, or she would have spend a lot more time explaining the problem to me with me in the end not doing what it was that she wanted.  Either way, she wasn't going to get what she wanted from me, so by saying No as quickly as I could, I gave her the freedom to find someone else who would be more capable of helping.  Just because I might have been the first person she asked, I definitely wasn't the best person to ask.  By the time I had my hot dogs in hand, she was nowhere to be seen, so she must have found someone to do what she wanted.

Also, I couldn't help her.  What she was really asking was if I would do something for her, not to help her.  And since she didn't tell me in her opening remarks, she obviously thought that my initial reaction to her request, if I knew the full details, would be No.  Since she was trying to bait a trap, I felt that I never really could help her in the grand scheme of things, so I would at least help her by giving her more time to find someone else - someone on whom the trap would work better.

I was just happy that I answered the question correctly!

The Edward

Love having written

I was reading more from my latest link under DIVERSIONS, "You are not so smart" - an interesting blog. It ties in with a movie I just watched called "Dreams with Sharp Teeth", which is a documentary on the life of Harlan Ellison (he has authored a lot of books and stuff). I really liked the movie - very inspirational. Sure, he likes to sue people and seems like he can be kind of abrasive, but he seemed like a good guy to know. Maybe some day...

There was a lot of interesting insights in the movie, but one of the key insights that stuck with me was him talking about other writers. Well, people he didn't think too highly of as being writers. He said he hears this all of the time, "I like having written, but I hate writing." He said that kind of person isn't a writer, he is a hack. Harlan loves to write as well as having written. He said something about a true writer, if had his hands and feet tied behind his back, would be tapping out words on his typewriter with his forehead. I think a typewriter is a type of word processor for really slow computers.

It is that dedication to writing that seems to fit into the sentence I hear from self-help (really, self-help from others...) people: "Do what you love and the money will follow." It always seemed like a platitude. After seeing the movie, I could see that here was a person who loved what he did and seemed to be enjoying success. Maybe there was some truth to this? But what was that truth...

I was still mulling this over in my mind, trying to see how it all fit in with what I know of this World, when I stumbled upon "You are not so smart." There was a blog post about the two people inside of everyone - just like this "move" I was watching the other day. This all came together for me. You can read his blog post about it for clarification of his idea, but this is my post about how it all ties together.

One of you thinks only of the now. The other you always thinks of the past. We all try to balance this fun-loving, live-the-now you and the you that wants to have memories to reflect on. The author claims this is a challenge, which seems true. But then Harlan Ellison comes to mind and his quote. The best way to balance the two yous is to love what you do and do what you love. :)

Build memories (people who like having written) and enjoy the now (people who love to write). Resolve the conflict to a better life! If the now-you likes something that the past-you will like to reflect on in the future, you have a winner!

The Edward

Bystander Effect

I remember it like it was yesterday. A few years ago I was in Japantown with some friends. We were in a restaurant enjoying our food when a most shocking event occurred! A man burst through the kitchen amid raised voices, and he was brandishing a large knife, which I had assumed he lifted on his way through the kitchen. He trip and fell to the floor near our table. I got up and ran out of the restaurant. Shortly others came out. Why did I run? Better yet, why did it take others much longer than me to leave?

I was reading about the Bystander Effect just a few moments ago. It has happened many times throughout history - it happens every day actually. ("it" not being me reading about the Bystander Effect, but the Effect itself, just to clarify) The first time I heard about it was in High School psychology class. The story was about a woman who was raped and stabbed in New York City while 30+ watched. No one called the police. There was outrage after the event! "How could these inhuman monsters just watch this woman be brutalized for so long without any of them lifting a finger to call for help?!"

It was a shocking story, but it is repeated every time someone drives past a car on the side of a busy road. Everyone thinks that someone else will help, someone else has or will take action. Or they do not want to feel like a fool, "There probably have been twenty other people who have called it in! They will tell me that they know about it already." So no one does.

The same with the woman in the New York City that I had heard about. But I also learned a trick at that time. In situations like that, when people can see other people, no one will take action. They will look around and see that everyone else is calm, so they think that if the other people are calm, I should be calm to, or else I will look like a fool.

So, if someone is brutalizing you, calling out for help will not work - no one will help. The trick is to get someone to take action, so you have to call out someone specific in order to change the crowd. Point to someone and say "You, help me!" If you know the name of one of the people around you, let's say Bob, say "Bob, help me!" Once it is personal, people realize something is wrong and action needs to be taken. The crowd will turn. I hope you never need this advice, but if the situation occurs, it could save your life.

Back to my situation all of those paragraphs ago - I ran out, making noise on the way, so that others would know that the situation was wrong/dangerous. I hoped that by breaking the calm that the diners had, they would take action quicker than if I did any other thing. I do not know if it had that effect for sure, but at least that was my goal based on the psychology of crowds and influence.

The Edward

Dirt Phase

I heard a story the other day, the claim on the news was that there is this jellyfish that is immortal! I thought, "Wow, that must be tough to verify!" How does one verify if one is immortal? But then again, that isn't the point for today...

In reading the story online, I found out that this jelly fish goes through many stages of life, but when it gets to the end, it just cycles back. So, young, middle, old, then young again. Based on this, the scientists claim that this jellyfish is immortal. Shocking, I know! Hard to believe that they were that logically incorrect and still made the news!

What does immortal mean? Everything changes. Take you for example, today you know things that you didn't yesterday and you probably forgot things that you knew yesterday. If we expand that out for a few decades, at what point are you not you? General Semantics answers this question - something I blogged about a long time ago. You are not you. Every time you change anything, you have changed - an old you has died and a new you born with someone else's memories. Every second is a rebirth! So, am I saying every second should be your birthday? Yes, yes I am.

"But," you might be thinking "the story of the jellyfish is different! They mean that it is the same continuous life form! Sure, there are differences, but it is the same." Actually, it isn't the same. When it is young again, what did it lose? It has changed, its chemicals are different, its memories are different... Is a butterfly the same as a larva? Is a hamburger the same as a cow?

Throwing all that I believe away, we can celebrate the scientists' discovery of immortal life! If this creature goes through many phases and yet we consider it to be the same creature, just with different memories and different chemicals and some of its old chemicals have been used by other creatures, then I am proud to announce that I just discovered that humans are immortal!

That's right, you read it here first, Humans Are Immortal! They start as babies, go through young adult, adult, old age, then the newly announced dirt phase. During the dirt phase, there is some memory loss and loss of functionality, but so again, the matter that made up this "dirt phase human" goes back into the system and a new human is born!

I can not wait for the science to be able to track me back through my past "lives". Some day, I hope to recover all of my lost memories, something that the jellyfish can not do. So, I guess we humans are even more immortal than the jellyfish, or at least we will be some day. And since we are immortal, today is the same as a million years, so I can wait.

The Edward