Dog ritual, science as religion

This morning when I took my dog for a walk his friend Chauncey was out in the yard, barking to greet him. We crossed the road so that the dogs could say hi and to my surprise, after wagging tails and sniffing both ends through the gate, my dog peed on the gatepost. I was just about to reprimand him for what looked to me like bad dog etiquette, when Chauncey proceeded to do exactly the same thing. They both stood there, taking turns peeing in each other's general direction on opposite sides of the same gatepost. It must have been a ritual they developed together, away from the broader dog culture. My dog almost thinks he is a cat anyway. He adores our cat, who regularly joins us on our evening stroll. The dog tries to make friends with other cats and is at best indifferent towards other dogs, a mixture of frantic fear and aggression signaled by loud barks and fur bristling along his spine.

Taking turns peeing in one another's general direction from opposite sides of the same gatepost. I wondered sadly if this what many human interactions have become as we immerse ourselves in increasingly unnatural environments.

Somebody asked me what I thought about the movie What the Bleep Do We Know, so I watched it. My view is that science as religion is no more harmful than any other religion. Analysing the movie, we seem to have replaced God with the Quantum Universe (both out there and within ourselves), Bad or Evil with Addiction (chemical addiction and, slightly more troublingly, addiction to emotions) and Good with Self-Evolution, Awareness, Knowledge, Creation/Creativity and/or nonattachment. Genuine scientists as well as chiropractors and spiritual leaders served as the priests and prophets of this new religion. If badly spun metaphors of quantum theory and neurobiology are what gives you those tingles down the spine associated with spiritual feeling, then karma to you. I vaguely remember experiencing that when as a 17 year-old physics student I finally understood Dirac's matrices. Sadly the moment was fleeting as it took a great deal of mental effort to follow the math. My one qualm about all this is that if Jesus were nonattached, why would he have bothered? The same goes for Moses or Maimonedes, who was among other things a great physician. Show me someone who did some great thing for the benefit of humanity who was not emotionally attached to the world and the creatures on it. Oh, and what about the imagination? If all these other things are Good, then why not also Imagination?

What are the rituals of this new religion? The two ritual actions depicted in the move show the deaf protagonist (illustrating the limitations of our senses) tattooing herself with hearts using an eyeliner and then immersing herself in a hot bath. Later, she tosses away her anti-anxiety pills. Perhaps watching the movie is a ritual in itself in some circles. What the Bleep do I know?

Night hike

Yesterday evening I went hiking in the dark with my friend. It wasn't really nighttime, the sun sets so early this time of year, and it was just getting dark. We walked in a loop in Tilden Park. To our surprise, there were as many or more joggers and dog-walkers as there might have been during any other time of day. It was warm as we walked up through the meadow, and the first stars appeared - maybe Venus and Mars. Then we walked into the Eucalyptus grove and it became pitch black. Fortunately, my friend had a headlamp, and I was happy to hold hands and let him lead the way. We met no more people after this point. I mentioned the possibility of mountain lions. Several years ago, a woman was mauled by a mountain lion as she jogged along this trail in the early hours of the morning. I didn't feel scared, but my belly started aching. As we walked down by the creek, the air was colder. The smells seemed to be different at night. Suddenly we heard something large splashing across the creek ahead of us. Probably a dear. I was glad when we arrived at the meadow towards the end of the trail, and there was enough light from the sky to see the trail ahead. As we were leaving the woods a coyote cry rose up behind us, and another coyote answered in the hills over the way. I took a sip of cold water from the fountain at the trailhead, pretending it was spring water.

Some Thoughts

Pursuing men is not a worthwhile activity. I feel sorry now for ever having tried it, and although I feel tempted to do it again I am better able to control the impulse. I learned a lot in a year or two of dating. What I learned is that friendship is much more valuable to cultivate. I really needed friends, and it can be hard to turn acquaintanceships from dating into friendships. If I rely on my friends I can avoid pursuing men and all the feelings of loneliness that inevitably arise from this activity.

Notes for Practical Philosophy

Can philosophy be practical? I would argue that it always is, in the sense that philosophers believe their views to be of worldly merit. Probably even the most abstruse philosopher is not analyzing something simply to find out how it is constructed, but is writing about it at least in part in order to have an impact by changing people's thoughts and actions. Philosophers such as Plato, Confuscius, Machiavelli, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Marx or Nietzsche all had ideas not only about what is but also how it should be, which they presumably believed in. The difference between a religion and a philosophy is that the former derives its justification from authority, personal or divine inspiration, whereas the latter derives its justification from reasoned inference usually based on replicable or universal phenomenological observations. However, it would be misleading to say that Philosophy as a whole system of knowledge can be practical, because there are as many different philosophies as there are philosophers. A life lived according to Spinoza would be very different from a life lived according to Nietzsche!

As a system of knowledge, philosophy has been losing ground to science over the past few hundred years, as more and more content becomes subject to empirical research. Like philosophers, scientists these days seem to be flirting with proscriptions for life, or at least neurobiological theories of why we humans are the way we are. Scientific theories derive their validity from a particular kind of observation and inference. I somehow doubt that Darwin wanted us to live by his theory, although he probably wanted us to change our minds about some things, but try telling that to Richard Dawkins.

I would argue that philosophy is of practical value as a way of thinking about things, not only about so-called philosophical questions but everything that can be addressed with thought, including (but not limited to) how to live, and other questions that have now become the provenance of science. Philosophy as a method concerns itself with critiques of the connections between ideas, thought in other words, and without such a critique ideas can become connected or disconnected simply by spurious juxtapositions. A train of thought can lead to a conclusion that might be false or erroneous, and philsophy urges us to beg the question 'but does that really follow?'

The philosophical method is discursive, and will not necessarily lead to one right answer in questions of practical life value such as whether to change careers, relationships, or to commit suicide, any more than it results in a single decisive view on what things are or why we are here. But it can help us avoid certain kinds of errors that come from wrong thinking, whether our own or others'.

The motivation to come up with a solution generally originates in feelings. Perhaps it's like a cooking timer.

Writing Difficulties

Writing is hard. This morning, I talked on the phone with my aunt in Israel, who is a very good chronicler of family histories. She asked how I was getting along, and I told her that I had finished reading, but I was still writing my dissertation. I said it was really hard. She reflected that up until now, everything has been easy for me. I finished my undergrad studies, my first doctorate, without every experiencing any difficulty, and now I was finding something that was difficult, that had already taken a long time and was going to take even more time.

I'm not sure why this is. Maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew, the topic keeps expanding. I prune stuff and then it expands again. My first dissertation was about visual perception and eye-movements. I just clapped together the two papers I had already written (one in press, the other already published) and a talk I had given at a conference. The hardest part was making the changes requested by the external examiner. Now I think that would be easy, I have certainly learned in the intervening ten years to be less defensive. But the writing itself is hard.

Here I am, sitting in a cafe, writing this instead of continuing with the 20-odd pages I have down. Perhaps it is hard because last time all I had to do was describe the mechanics of things, and now the problem I am facing is more complex and my own view on it shaped by the integration of many different perspectives. It would take a book to write down exactly what I think about pain and how it can be treated. But I have a clear action plan, just to summarize the 9-10 books that have shaped my opinions, and worry about integrating them later.

A friend and fellow-student from the days of my previous degree just sent me a draft of her first novel. When we were both studying science, we each said we would write a novel by the time we were 30. Well, that deadline has been and gone, but if she can finish a book then so can I.

Yellow Moon

Yellow moon stretches
Yawns, rising like a balloon.
Silver trails the bay.

On Being Goal Directed (or Not)

Last night I had a conversation with a friend on being goal-directed, or not. He thinks that both of us are not, and that one needs to be, in order to accomplish things in life and make a difference to the world. Earlier in the day, I was reading in another friend's blog about life-goals and deadlines, realizing that I never seriously set myself any, except perhaps to write a novel by the time I was 30 (which I did not do, and I can't say I feel too bad about it). I was surprised that other people set goals for life events, like getting married, having children, completing a doctorate, owning a home. Those things just happened, like sickness, deaths, other losses - but instead in a positive way. I definitely seem to have a more passive approach to life than most people in this society.

I had a conversation with my best friend a long time ago, before he was my best friend, about how goals just make you unhappy, and unable to appreciate the blessings of the present moment. He pointed out that as a species we evolved to set goals that we could attain the same day, like hiking up a mountain that we can see in the distance, whereas we live lives with the expectation of long-term goals. He feels happy after riding his bike or hiking to the top of a mountain, something we have done together numerous times since that conversation. One time, there was another person up there. We said hi. The other person was surprised that once we arrived we spent so little time at the top, but for both my friend and I it was more the getting there, the momentary glimpse of the view and the feeling of having reached the top, without any lingering desire to stay.

Perhaps there is more to it than that. Some months ago we read Elaine Scarry's book On Beauty for the philosophy group. I struggled with it, because in my mind there is a conflict between reverence for beauty and for duty, as expressed in these lines by Dante Alighieri:

"Beauty and Duty in my soul keep strife
At question if the heart such course can take
And 'twixt the two ladies hold its love complete.
The fount of gentle speech yields answer meet
That Beauty may be loved for gladness sake
And Duty in the lofty ends of life."

We climb up mountains for the sake of beauty. But reading On Beauty made me realize for the first time that perhaps duty can involve having a vision of a more beautiful world, which itself requires appreciating and being inspired by beauty.

Maybe it seems contrary that I am motivated by a strong sense of duty but lack goals. I stumble upon things that demand my attention, like another person's need or how interesting pain is, and what can be done about it. Probably I would get further if I knew where I was going. If I had some vision and followed resolutely in its pursuit I might have a greater impact on the world and others. But I don't feel as though I'm flailing, just bending down to smell the wild roses and pet the stray cats.

When we look at the trail maps before starting a journey we seek out the loops.

Facing the Catastrophe

I finished reading Jon Kabat-Zinn's book on stress reduction. Now I have to face the catastrophe of actually writing my dissertation, since I'm done with my self-selected reading list. I wonder whether to go about this by returning to the beginning and summarizing the first book I read, The Worst of Evils (a history of pain relief) or start by summarizing the treatment (Kabat-Zinn's book). It's a lot less scary writing here than opening up a Word document, so I'll start, in the spirit of things, with where I am now.

Kabat-Zinn outlines in his book an 8-week stress reduction class that he taught at Massachusets General Hospital over a period of many years. The first two weeks are devoted to a meditation he developed, called the 'body scan', during which patients notice and feel the sensations in all the parts of their bodies, literally from toe to head, while lying supine on a mat. In the next two weeks, they learn to breathe while doing yoga stretches. The next weeks include sitting meditation, sometimes with a focus on an image of a mountain, or on lovingkindness, or simply breathing. He included guidelines for walking meditation. During the final two weeks of the course, patients practice on their own, first without and then with Kabat-Zinn's meditation tapes. The book is studded with vignettes of patients' miraculous recoveries from pain, or at least regaining control over their lives or learning a new sense of dignity in the face of adversity. Following the chapters describing the different techniques are Kabat-Zinn's views on stress, meditation, mindfulness - all presented in a straightforward manner easily used with a general audience. What impressed me the most was the high rate of continuation with the practice, about 90% of people who attended the course were still practicing 6 months later, 42% 3 years later and 30% 4 years later. I heard from a professional who attended the course that Kabat-Zinn has a profoundly empathic style and a talent for relating personally to each of the students in the class. He must also be very charismatic, to have achieved such a high practice rate at followup, since meditation is hard to practice regularly on one's own. Reading the book makes me want to start a class like that, I think my patients would have a lot to learn from it.

On a more philosophical note, I am not sure about some of Kabat-Zinn's views. He says that we are not our pain, we are not our thoughts - but if so what are we? A disembodied intention, a stream of awareness, a renegade shard of some greater unity? My own view is that I am part of a larger tapestry, but at the same time 'I' am a discrete part of it with ends (birth and death) bound to my body by the reality of my pain, filled with thoughts and feelings that as much as they are shared with others within the cultural milieu are also a defining part of who I am. This doesn't matter so much except that instructions such as 'being in the pain' have to be explained a lot more clearly to someone who believes that there is somewhere else to go.

So this afternoon, instead of facing the catastrophe and beginning to write, instead of resting my knee so that it will heal faster, I went on a lovely leisurely stroll with my friend, up on the Berkeley Fire Trail. This trail was described by Dorothy Wall in her book, Encounters with the Invisible, about her struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In fact, it was where she first met her husband, before the disease overcame her and when she was still able to jog. I felt sad that I couldn't run on the trail, where I have ran many times before. On the other hand, I enjoyed walking hand in hand with my friend, whereas when we run he always runs ahead.

Truth, Torture and Bicycles

I've been wondering why you were still on my mind, after I forgave you for everything last year, and I realized there was something I hadn't forgiven you for yet. You asked me to lie to you about a certain thing, then you asked me about that thing and broke off our friendship because I lied. On another occasion, you told me, you stole some woman's bike because she was shouting at you, and then you felt indignant that she wanted you to return it instead of coming to pick it up herself in her car. (It was actually somebody else's bike that she was keeping in the first place, but while that has parallels too in this story we will leave it aside for the moment). Anyway, I realized it's kind-of the same thing. I said something that upset you (like the woman with the bike, shouting at you) so you stole my truth (like you stole her bike) by asking me to lie about it, and then when you asked me that question you expected me to reclaim my truth instead of handing it back to me. You could have said, I know I asked you to lie about this, and that was confusing, but now I want to know what really happened. It's your truth anyway, I had no business taking it away from you in the first place, and now I'm just asking and you can give it freely or choose not to give it to me. Instead you rode around on my truth. I don't even know where you went with it, so I couldn't come and get it if I had wanted to. Can someone ride on somebody else's truth? Maybe that's what torturers do. They forcibly take somebody's truth, leaving that person in pain. I forgive you for torturing me.

I hope that by writing this down it will finally go away. The magical power of words.

Why do I prefer lego to baby showers?

Maybe there's something wrong with me! But I am infinitely more attracted to the idea of going to a party tomorrow night to play with legos, than I would be if it were only to talk about baby showers. I don't mind babies, especially if they like to play with lego - or dance around the room, open and close water bottles, etc. It's just the baby showers, the knitting, the wedding dresses - the girly stuff, in other words. I would rather have a game of chess, hike up a mountain, go hang gliding. One wedding I really enjoyed was my cousin's, because we had a belly-dancing lesson for the hen-night (aka bachelorette party) and then we belly-danced together on the dance floor.

Sometimes I feel as though I am some third kind of sex. Not male or female, straight or gay, but differing along another axis of variation, a third dimension. Feminist, perhaps...

I like pink accessories, though.

Modern Yoga

Finished reading A History of Modern Yoga by Elizabeth de Michelis. I love the title of her concluding chapter: "Modern Postural Yoga as a healing ritual of secular religion." Here are some selected quotes:

"... the term 'secularization' refers, in a general sense, 'to the gradual decline of [institutionalized] religion as a consequence of the growth of scientific knowledge and [to] the continued diversification of social and ethnic groups in the Occident' ([Fuller, 1989]). All of these elements would be especially prominent in conditions of 'urban living', and it is in such environments that MPY grows and thrives. Adopted and cultivated in conditions of marked privatization and relativization of religion, MPY is successful, like other Harmonial belief systems, because it provides 'experiential access to the sacred'.
Such experiential access to the sacred, epitomized by the 'secular ritual' of the MPY practice session, represents the third key to understanding the current success of MPY, along with its fitness and de-stressing applications...
Thus the MPY session becomes a ritual which affords various levels of access to the sacred, starting from a 'safe', mundane, tangible foundation of body-based practice... there is room for the practitioner to decide whether to experience her practice as 'spiritual' or as altogether secular. Except in cases of thoroughly utilitarian (fitness or recreational) performance, however, some notion of healing and personal growth is likely to provide the deepest rationale for practice."

"Health is religious. Ill health is irreligious." (BKS Iyengar)

De Michelis' book is a thorough and thought-provoking look at a discipline that repeatedly emphasizes experience over knowledge. Because of this, the book is inescapably written from an 'etic' (outsider's) perspective, but is nonetheless empathic to the 'emic' views of yoga practitioners. What I have learned is that far from being a claptrap religion cobbled together to fill the void left by science, Modern Yoga was carefully crafted by a series of Indian intellectuals in a reverse mission to the West that began in the 19th Century. More recently, BKS Iyengar initiated the Modern Postural form of yoga, with its emphasis on the practice of asana poses. It came out of an expression of his own experience of yoga and his artistic creativity, carefully setting up the structure of the yoga session that has become a framing ritual for many Americans and people around the world.

The Language of Rain

When God made the flood, he said to Noah
Gather up your children and all the animals
And build them an ark, to keep out of the storm.

Then they built a tower, and hid from the elements
Sacrificing each others' lives for the sake of progress.
Everyone spoke the economics of growth.

But God had signed the rainbow, promising
Never to destroy his creatures again.
So instead he gave them politics.

The people scattered all over the Earth
Finding solace in their homegrown words,
Learning the language of rain.

East-West Madness

Happy Halloween, or Day of the Dead!

Finished watching Zorba the Greek, to trace the quote from the title of Jon Kabat-Zinn's book Full Catastrophe Living. The line comes early on in the movie when the Englishman played by Alan Bates asks Zorba if he ever married, and Zorba says is he not a man? Is he not stupid? He had a wife, kids... the full catastrophe. Kabat-Zinn's book is about using Eastern meditation practices to help American chronic pain patients. On a smaller scale, perhaps, this is played out in the movie - at the end Zorba tells the Englishman that all he needs to enjoy life is a little madness. I was just reading in a history of Modern Yoga how one of the Hindu leaders, maybe Vivekenanda, said exactly the same thing about the West. Funny that in both cases the madness is claimed by an Eastern source, and yet Greece was the cradle of Western civilization. At the same time, in Kazantzakis' original novel, instead of an Englishman the 'boss' character is a Greek intellectual writing a book about Buddha. It's as though the roles are set out, but they're playing musical chairs.

The message of the movie is strangely clear. You try to put stuff up, it crashes down, and then you dance on the sand. You need to learn that lesson, my friend. But I'm not sure if I want to be there to teach you. I feel like I'm chomping at the bit. Why the hell are we so needy? I need a break. This is too hard.

At least it's still raining. That makes it easier to rest my knee.