Day by Day

I have a problem with associating the cosmic perspective with religion that I referred to last week. The word “religion” has certain connotations that I don’t associate with the cosmic perspective. Religion to me is about addressing human concerns with the uncertainty of life. Religion removes that uncertainty for many by providing answers to questions beyond the understanding of mere mortals-questions such as where we come from, and where we go after death. While this may give certainty for many, it doesn’t for me. I see far too many glib assumptions that do not stand up to scrutiny.

Religions make a fundamental error in that they make the astounding assumption that it’s all about humans. God supposedly created a universe so that humans could live out their lives, and providing they conformed to certain rules, then they could live forever. I don’t think so.

Humans may well be the most advanced life form on planet Earth, although some may well argue with that, given our proclivity for killing each other in our many stupid wars. There is nothing to say that we are the most advanced life form in the universe. Nor does it matter. As Einstein observed, we are not apart from the universe-we are a part of it, along with all the other life forms we share both on Earth and elsewhere. That, to me, is an ongoing source of wonder.

I think we would do well to set aside a few minutes each day to contemplate the wonder of just…being. Then all those earthly concerns of ours pale into comparison. Beginning and ending each day contemplating the great adventure we call “Life” places all other in its proper perspective. We are alive. We think about the millions of years of evolution that has brought us to this point in time. And we think about the millions of years that will pass after we move on from this life and return to the universe in a different form. We have always been a part of the universe. We always will be. That is my certainty.

And in appreciating the wonder of sharing this privilege with all other forms of life comes a certain kinship, a kinship that we can share this privilege best by getting along with each other as we enjoy and share this wondrous journey, and appreciate the miracle of every instant we are alive.

To me, that is not the cosmic religion or even the cosmic perspective, it is the cosmic awareness, and once we attain that awareness, then we have attained Maslow’s self actualisation. Until then, we are existing, not living, and that’s the life altering difference.

Next week I’ll be attending a reunion of people who all grew up in the little bush town where I also grew up. I often think of it, and wonder how my life would have been better, or worse, if I had grown up elsewhere. I had the opportunity to visit the little village, Ladock, in Cornwall that my paternal great grandparents left to come to Australia. I wondered what forced them to leave the security of their little village to take their young family on a sailing ship to the other side of the world. I wondered if they regretted it. Probably not, people of that generation didn’t allow themselves the luxury of regrets. They just got on with living. Maybe our pampered generation could learn something from them.

I have read that the tin mines running out of ore caused a lot of tin miners from Cornwall to migrate to South Australia. There’s even a Truro there which is also the biggest city in Cornwall. As far as I am aware my great grandfather was a farmer, not a tin miner, although he did finally settle on a farm in Bingera, New South Wales, which also had tin mines. My grandfather worked on wool carrying wagons and eventually settled on a dairy farm in the little town where I grew up. There he raised his family of ten. Two of that family moved away. The rest all raised their families in the town where they were born. Now, there are no males left there to carry on our family name. A street named for my grandfather is now the only reminder of my family’s association with that town’s history.

I keep in touch with some of my childhood friends. There’s an easy familiarity that only comes with those who have known each other all their lives. And as we get older, we come to value those friendships even more. We’ve shared the great adventure that took each of us our various ways. And next week we’ll relive those early days of a time when life was so much simpler. For us, anyway. It wasn’t for our parents who had lived through wars and a depression. Only now do we appreciate how terrible those times must have been, and why our parents cautioned us against “leaving a good job” when we cavalierly left to explore the big wide world outside. My generation has been indeed fortunate to enjoy a security unknown to our parents and their parents.

And so, we’ll get together and ruefully laugh about youthful follies, and catch up with whatever others have been doing. And be grateful for the good lives we’ve had in a world where such a privilege has been denied to so many of our fellows through no fault of theirs.

And life will go on.

I have been struck by the number of Jewish people who have been trail blazers in psychology. Many of them, including Freud, were forced to leave Germany during the Nazi rule. Einstein also was forced to leave Germany for this reason. How ironic that the Nazis drove so many “inferior” Jews from their “glorious” Third Reich. Jews who went on to enrich the world with their knowledge while “the Third Reich that would last a thousand years” crumbled to ashes.

I suppose it isn’t surprising that people who have suffered such discrimination throughout history would be attracted to a science that tries to understand just what makes we humans behave as we do. Well, not only humans, as many experiments on behaviour are conducted by observing the behaviour of animals. Pavlov’s salivating dogs are a fine example.

So, it is interesting to observe the conduct of our politicians especially during an election campaign. And to also observe the behaviour of voters. Minorities are fair game all over the world, just as the Jews were throughout history. I’m thinking about the politics of what to do about asylum seeking boat people. It is too easy for us living in a tranquil country to dismiss the millions fleeing from so many strife torn countries as “queue jumpers” or whatever derogatory label comes to mind. I do wonder how many Freuds or Einsteins are among them. But our politicians don’t want us to think too deeply about this. There’s too many easy votes to be had in xenophobia.

And yet it is no doubt true that many of these people aren’t asylum seekers in the true sense of the word. They are people seeking a better life for themselves and their children. And who can blame them for wanting to escape the hellholes where they were born? Especially if our governments have seen fit to invade those countries to “save” the very people who are not welcome in our countries.

Yet, who can blame those living in this country for their reluctance to welcome all comers with open arms? It is undeniable that some cultures just don’t fit with ours. I’m thinking of the more extreme practices such as female mutilation, child brides, and the like. Sorry, but tolerance only goes so far. Yet, so many want to bring such cultures with them, and be free to practise them.

No doubt the psychologists have their theories about how to cope with all this. Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re like our politicians, and just say they have all the simple answers to extremely complex problems. And we’ll be happy to believe them, and go back to fretting about our football team’s latest loss, or whatever first world problem occupies us. And so it goes.

Tomorrow we elect a new Federal Government, and it is very likely that my party will lose. And I won’t take too kindly to that at all. I’ve written my letters to the editor, and annoyed hell out of my long suffering Facebook friends. I’ll get over it. I’ve been there before. It hurts for a while, but then you move on. If you believe in democracy, then you know you must. But it isn’t made any easier by the knowledge that the battle between Left and Right is an unequal contest. One glance at a Murdoch paper is enough to confirm that simple truth.

It just so happens that I stumbled upon an old favourite here. It’s Adam Curtis’ TV series, “The Century of the Self”. I had looked at it a few years ago, but this time around I’m able to identify some of the psychologists, such as Fritz Perls, whom I wrote about last week. I could also identify with the times and what motivated the flower people….or is that demotivated? Not that I was able to participate in such activities in a camp on the Snowy Scheme. But the thoughts of the time that the world is run to suit the rich and powerful remains true today. And their impact on the information flow also remains true.

So, I am fast coming to the conclusion that the simple life in a bush town wasn’t such a bad place to grow up in at all. True, we didn’t have access to a lot of information that city folk had ready access to. But I think it is also true that we didn’t have access to a lot of misinformation as well. Many of the people in the “Century of the Self” video appeared very confused by it all, and I don’t think many came out of it very well. Although, I did have to smile at the nunnery that allowed psychologists to influence the student nuns, with the result that over 300 asked to be released from their vows, and the remaining few developed lesbian relationships. The nunnery was forced to close down.

When you think about it, Life is a very complex business. We are hit with information from so many directions, much of it designed to influence us to behave for someone else’s benefit. There is no doubt that there is a definite agenda to influence us to buy certain products, and to vote to benefit the interests of the wealthy. As is shown in the video, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays was the founder of Public Relations in the U.S.. It was called “Propaganda” by the Nazis so that is why the name was changed.

So, it is no surprise that Bernays’ thoughts are evident in the political campaign. I think the Right are better at propaganda than the Left because they have the support of the wealthy. Supposed “think tanks” are funded by big tobacco, big mining and big business for just that purpose.

So, how to best handle the unpalatable truth that the rich and powerful will have won again? We can either rail against it, or accept it. And then work towards influencing the next election in our own small way. And go back to reading philosophy.

I’ve commented before on how much greater access we have to information these days as compared to even twenty years ago. And I must confess to not handling this too well. My Nexus 7 Kindle app is full of stuff I know I’ll never get to read. And I still add more that I just can’t resist. With the result that my library is full of half finished and barely started books. An organised reader I am not. Still, I tell myself that this is just an understandable reaction to so many years of being starved of information in my younger days. Who knows, one day I just might convince myself that this is true. And anyway, someone has to ensure that Amazon doesn’t go broke, don’t they.

Anyway, I have managed to stick with “The Psychology Book”, and am finding it most rewarding, especially the odd times they agree with the Snowy world view. So far I have found Freud and Jung to be most interesting, along with a Fritz Perls who I had never heard of before. Nor was I familiar with his Gestalt Prayer. It goes as follows:

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped.

(Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969)

Seems to make sense to me, although I don’t see it as being all that profound. It seems to be just another way of saying “Live, and let live”. I must be missing something, which isn’t all that surprising. However, I do find his conclusion that “Truth can only be tolerated if you discover it yourself” to line up with my thoughts.

This life is about discovering and modifying our truths as we go along. And the more information we absorb, the better equipped we are to arrive at our truth, and not content ourselves with living someone else’s truth. And that’s no easy path to tread, but as my reading shows, so many who leave their mark on this Earth choose that as the only path to tread, lonely though it may be. As dear old Friedrich Nietzsche said all those years ago:

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."