Holding opposing ideas in parity The way of Grace vs The way of Nature Science vs Religion ...... Faith vs Reason Poetry, Research, Food, and Mindfulness
(A mini-sermon to myself, written after reading Allen Clifton, Forward Progressives, March 22, 2017. https://forwardprogressives.com/trumps-time-in-office-most-likely-end/): “Donald Trump’s ego will never let him be forcibly removed from office, or humbly resign if he senses the inevitable. He will do what he always does. . .” [lie; claim victimization; not admit error or apologise; suspect, blame, and attack others; boast] “That is who Donald Trump is.”
Learn from the Donald when things go seriously wrong— that’s the time it’s most important to be mindful, not donaldish. If you can, take some meditation, some time to notice closely what it feels like to breathe.
Turn toward your adversity by turning inward. Notice fiery sensations in your body. Notice all the things the voice in your head is tweeting, and accept that they may well be sourced by dark feelings—annoyance, anger, fear, jealousy, loss, shame, displacement, disempowerment. Hear these voices; don’t dismiss them, but don’t take them as the Last Word either, and don’t repeat what they say as truth. Notice your hurt, but do so with compassion, which always sees through lenses of love and hope to your wholeness.
Don’t rage against your luck or the world around you – it’s a waste of energy. You can’t control or change the world –you can only change yourself, so tap the energy behind rage for positive ends—go for a walk or a run; dig in the garden; commit a random act of kindness; clean out a cupboard; plan an adventure; take a warm bath.
As President, the Donald may think the world revolves around him. It doesn’t, so it probably doesn’t revolve around you either. If you have been wrong, admit it. If you have hurt others, apologise—and mean it. You are of infinite worth and have vast potential, but that begins with accepting your own vulnerable, imperfect humanity, and ends with your ability to love and serve others, not for the momentary flash of pride in bragging about it, but purely for joy.
My "Science of Happiness" class is studying gratitude this week, so I was primed to appreciate the poem emailed to me today (from the Year of Being Here subscription service -- which I highly recommend):
This poem --in combination with what I've been learning about the power of gratitude -- felt like it answered a lot of fundamental questions I've been asking about my life.
What I realized from the poem and my class is this: Like the egg and the butterfly, the wondrous, fragile beauty and vulnerability of others, entrusted to me, can be a great gift, if I see it that way. And my appreciation of this gift will bring me happiness, satisfaction, success, abundance, more rewarding relationships ... in short, a better, more meaningful life. My gratitude for this gift can also help to banish things that make for an unpleasant life -- envy, possessiveness, materialism, anxiety, and depression.
An old friend emailed me awhile back, commiserating over the end of my longstanding contract for my freelance science writing services. "Maybe it's time for you to spend a bit more 'me-time,'" he suggested, after so many years seeing to the needs of others -- work, family, volunteer stuff.
I had been thinking maybe he was right. But at the same time, when I reflected on some of the times in my life when I felt happiest--they were invariably times when I was deeply engaged with others. Sometimes the others were serving me, in my vulnerability. As often as not, I was serving them. Sometimes they were grateful for my care and kindness; sometimes they weren't. What made the difference was MY gratitude and appreciation of the moments.
Consider, for example, the days when I was a single mother, raising my wonderful son, Sam. It was very hard at times. Are kids ever grateful? Nah, not really. But--at least at many moments -- I was utterly filled with amazement for the miracle of this wondrous baby... toddler .... child ... boy .... young man...
And then there was my late husband, Koz. Our years together were precious and few. Yet I was never more happy--and never in my life more reverently appreciative for anything than I was for the gift of his love and contagious joy.
I thank Denise Levertov for her gift to me--the insight that what has -- and will--make my life most satisfying is holding fragile eggs and putting my palm out to passing butterflies.
I was really inspired today by an interview with Daniel Karslake, whom I quote below. Karslake made a documentary about five people who have made a difference in combatting poverty. The film, Every Three Seconds will be released on October 16, World Food Day. The interview with Karslake was posted in the online course I am taking, The Science of Happiness (from UCal Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center via EdX).
Beyond explaining why people in these poor countries are happy, the explanation also points to a shift in focus that could change the lives of Westerners who will never know the levels of poverty that claims 210,000 lives every week through malnutrition, starvation, and lack of medical care.
I'm not talking about the benefits that come from helping alleviate poverty, like the five people featured in the film did. Scientific studies do show that such altruism and charitable work bring significant benefits to your health and well-being.
No, I'm just thinking here about taking a lead from Karslake's personal discovery. If I could focus on what I have, rather than what I don't have, might that make me a happier person? I love the idea that after the folks in Malawi finally had food and shelter and housing, they "do whatever gives them joy."
So, for example, I look at my day today. So much I didn't get done... but there are still a few hours left, the sun is gloriously gold, I have food and shelter... and so much more. In fact, my life is stuffed with blessings. It is enough to be happy about; enough to be grateful for. Or maybe just... it is enough, full stop.
Daniel Karslake: "I was deeply changed by my first trip to Malawi. Malawi is an extremely poor country, and I went to the poorest parts of Malawi.... The experience I had there really stunned me. Before I went, I was nervous, because I thought, “I am way too empathetic, and this is going to devastate me. I’m going to come home and just have a depressed life.
"And I had the exact opposite response. I came home completely euphoric, because I realized that people who live day-to-day getting enough food and water for their family will reach a point where, after they’ve secured what they need, they’ll stop striving. And then they’ll sing and dance or they’ll worship or do whatever gives them joy. They have this experience of life that is completely different than mine, because they pay attention to what they have… not what they don’t have.
"Before I went to Malawi, I’d been totally conditioned to pay attention to only what I didn’t have. I had a car, but I wanted that car; I had 15 shirts, but I wanted that one. I’d been completely conditioned, and therefore I was hungry in a completely different way. In resource-poor countries people don’t have enough food or medical care; in the West, people are always striving for bigger, better, faster, more—there’s no definition of enough. It’s two kinds of hunger.
"I’m really jealous of the people I met in Malawi. There was a contentment, a centeredness I’d never seen before in a human being. I’m not a particularly religious person; but when I was in Malawi, I remember having this lightening bolt moment when I thought, “This is what Jesus meant when he said the poor shall inherit the earth.”
It shifted me in a big way, and I’m really grateful for that.
by Mutsuo Takahashi; English translation by Hiroaki Sato——
I found this on Bill Knott's blog posting of favorite poems
DOVE
May I have the dove, he said
You may, I replied
Oh he's so sweet, he said and held him in his arms
Listen, the way he coos, I added
I like his eyes, he said and touched them
I like his beak too, I said and touched it
But, he said and looked at me
But what, I said and looked at him
But you even more, he said
Oh no please, I said and looked down
I love you, he said and let the dove go
He's gone, I murmured
In his arms
*
Are These the best 50 Love Poems from the Past 50 Years?
The Guardian says so in its article by Alison Flood, published 2 July 2014
The article says,
"The poetry team at the Southbank Centre* has worked on the list for the last year, drawing on the expertise of its Saison Poetry Library to come up with what head of literature and spoken word James Runcie called "a truly international and stylistically diverse selection of what we see as the best 50 love poems of the past 50 years – from young poets such as the first Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire, to world greats such as Chinua Achebe and Ted Hughes".
I'm not so sure... But it will be fun to read as many as I can find. As I find them on the 'web, I'll add links so you can click through to the poems as/when I find them. The first one I looked for was, it turns out, quoted in full in the article. How could I resist looking up the poem titled Celia, Celia? I think the rhythm break in the last line spoils it, but I guess others thought that was the genius of the thing -- reflecting how the thought of Celia throws the narrator for a loop.
I already knew two of the other poems mentioned-- Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, and Love after Love by Derek Walcott -- from my Mindfulness classes, where these poems were read as small meditations. (I've collected other mindful poetry on a page in my long-form LivingEquipoise blogspot blog.) I would agree that these are very fine poems as is Shoulders by Naomi Shibab Nye, but LOVE POEMS??? I see these possibly as self-love or compassion poems, but I think of "love poems" as being about romantic/erotic love. Maybe I need to expand my view of the scope of the genre.
What would you add to this list? What would you delete?
*The Southbank Center is staging a reading of all 50 poems by actors and the poet authors. London, 20 July, Tickets available here:
http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/love-each-other-or-perish-82934
The list of the 50 greatest love poems of the last 50 years in full:
Michael Donaghy (USA) – The Present
Naomi Shibab Nye (Palestine) – Shoulders
Philippe Jaccottet (France) – Distances
Tadeusz Rozewicz (Poland) A Sketch for a Modern Love Poem
Billy Collins (USA) Night Club
Nazim Hikmet (Turkey) Things I didn't know I loved
Margaret Atwood (Canada) Variations on the Word Love
Mutsuo Takahashi (Japan) Dove
Anna Swir (Poland) Thank-you, My Fate
Lawrence Bradby (England) - If Your Faith in Me Should Fail
(this doesn't seem to be available, but one listing in the google search said: "DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Google" -- I suspect this means the poet doesn't want his work quoted on the internet.
Mary Oliver (USA) – Wild Geese
Anat Zecharaya (Israel) –A Woman of Valour (Trans Hebrew) --Same result as with the Bradby poem search
Karlis Verdins (Latvia) – Come to Me (Trans Latvian)
Doina Ioanid (Romania)The Yellow Dog (Trans Romanian)
Ana Ristovic (Serbia)– Circling Zero – (Trans Serbian)
Katharine Kilalea (South Africa)You were a bird
Ted Hughes (England) Lovesong
Kim Addonizio (USA) – You Don't Know What Love Is
Kim Hyesoon (Korea) – A Hole (Trans from Korean)
Choman Hardi (Iraqi Kurdistan) Summer Roof
Carolyn Kizer (USA) Bitch
Nina Cassian (Romania) Lady of Miracles
Ashjan Al Hendi (Saudi Arabia) In search of the Other
Don Paterson (Scotland) My Love
Edwin Morgan (Scotland) – Strawberries
Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) Love Song (for Anna)
Muriel Rukeyser (USA) Looking at Each Other
Linton Kwesi Johnson (England/Jamaica) Hurricane Blues
Tracy K Smith (USA) Duende
Warsan Shire (England/Somalia) for women who are difficult to love
Frank O'Hara (USA) – Having a Coke With You
Adrian Mitchell (England) Celia Celia
Jackie Kay (Scotland) – Her
Maya Angelou (USA) – Come. And Be My Baby
Kutti Revathi – (India) Breasts
Sujata Bhatt (India) – Love in a Bathtub
Annabelle Despard (Norway) Should You Die First
Alice Oswald (England) – Wedding
Valzhyna Mort (Belarus) Love
Nikola Madzirov (Macedonia) - When Someone Goes Away Everything That's Been Done Comes Back
Iman Mersal (Egypt) – Love
Sinead Morrissey (Ireland) Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Kei Miller (Jamaica) Epilogue
Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Pakistan) Before You Came
WS Merwin (USA) In Time
Arundathi Subramaniam (India) Prayer
Yves Bonnefoy (France) A stone
Ko Un (South Korea) Snowfall
Amjad Nasser (Jordan) A Song and Three Questions
Vikram Seth (India) All You who Sleep Tonight
In honor of what would have been my Dad's 96th birthday:
Dear Dad,
I'm writing to apologize. When you were alive I railed at you annually about this time. It was a somewhat academic rant. About your diet. I realize now that you were right all along.
Maybe because you were a scientist, you were streets ahead of most folks in pursuing a healthy lifestyle. You went swimming at least a couple times a week with your mates at the University of Michigan. Since forever. When you retired, you swam in the Gulf each morning in Florida. An eighth of a mile north or south--depending on which way the waves were heading that day. Then you'd haul yourself out of the water and jog back, catching up with Mom who was walking, maybe shelling, maybe chatting with early-morning acquaintances on the beach. After Mom died, when your arthritis made it impossible for you to get in the water unaided, you walked--with a cane or a walker in the last years.
Besides for keeping up lifelong exercise, you quit smoking long before it was the cool thing to do, before the evidence was conclusive that it was bad for human health. In fact, stretching my memory as far back as I can, I don't remember ever seeing you smoke. I'm guessing it was just something you did during the war.
And the same goes with moderating your drinking. Yeah, there were parties, in your younger days--say, when you were in your 40s-- when you and the guests got pretty smashed. I didn't like that. But as you got older, whether you admit it or not, times like that were rare or never. You would have a glass or two of wine, the occasional scotch or beer, but all pretty well described as "moderation."
But the healthy lifestyle habit I want to acknowledge you for today was your diet. You did love to eat, and, like most of us, you put on a few pounds. Your approach to weight control was to go on a diet, starting January 1st each year, and just keep at it until you were down to an appropriate weight.
That wasn't what bothered me. I admired that discipline, in fact. What got my goat was that, except for the early "Metrical" years, you went on a largely protein-based diet. You allowed yourself salad and fruit, but basically it was eggs and meat. When your birthday came around, you couldn't have cake, so Mom would make you a non-sugar Jello birthday "cake" to celebrate.
Horrible! I thought at the time. Way too high in fat and cholesterol. Not ecological as it takes lots more resources to produce a pound of beef than a pound of flour. Not enough roughage and short on vitamins, perhaps (though you did always have your one-a-day vitamins).
Oh, did we argue. You would make some arm-waving case that such a diet forced the body to convert the proteins and fat to glucose (the fuel the body uses to do work) and that somehow burned extra calories. I argued from the bottom line. Total caloric intake was what mattered.
But your killer argument was this: The diet worked for you. You felt great while you were on it, and you lost weight more quickly than you did on other diets. You could stick with it until you got down to a healthy weight. I couldn't really argue against that except to say you wouldn't see ME on such an unhealthy diet.
So guess what? I'm on your diet, Dad, and it's working.
It was one of those mysterious coincidences... At the end of 2013 I found myself 20 pounds heavier than I was last June. I was dreading what that meant in food deprivation and exercise torture. And just as I was trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do this time, I saw a post from an old pastor, Rev. Rachel.
Rachel said she and her husband were starting the "Whole30" diet at the beginning of the year--mostly in hopes of improving their sleep. I'd never heard of the Whole 30 diet, and so, of course, googled it. There was enough information on the website to get a pretty good idea what the diet consisted of -- and lots of testimonials about how it had improved everything from arthritis to skin conditions.
Startlingly, what the diet boiled down to was, yep, Dad's Diet.
Absolutely minimal carbohydrates. No sugar, grains, potatoes, or other very starchy veg. Even beans, peas, and dairy are out. What's left? Meat, eggs, fruit, veg, nuts. The starchiest bit of food I've eaten in the last 17 days would be sweet potatoes and butternut squash.
Are you ready for this, Dad? I feel great. Like you, I don't feel hungry on this diet. I would like a drop of milk in my coffee, a drop of honey in my tea. I do miss the crunch of cereal. But these are just "would be nices" -- not cravings.
I don't know if it is, as the diet's authors claim, eliminating carbs and potentially allergenic foods that has worked this magic, or if it is the no-nonsense, toughlove approach of the diet: start now, don't cheat--no nibbles, licks or tastes -- and keep it up for 30 days. Full stop. Quitting before January 30 is just not an option (even if it is my birthday).
Another rule they set is not to weigh yourself during the 30 days. I cheated on that one. It may be partly owing to excess clothing at my first weigh-in, but according to the scales, I'd lost 10 lbs. Even allowing for a 3-lb error on the clothes, I would guess that's at least 7 lbs of honest weight loss.
By way of background, the light and color we perceive as "white" is an equal mix of all the different wavelengths in the visible spectrum. White milk or white paint reflect back to your eye all the visible colors of light equally (just as black absorbs all colors in the visible spectrum).
Similarly, white noise is defined as "a random signal with a flat (constant) power spectral density... a signal that contains equal power within any frequency band with a fixed width." Equal inclusion of all pitches within a range yields the neutral, staticky sound of white noise. To my ear "white noise" sounds like a very heavy downpour or a waterfall. White noise generators are used to mask other sounds -- such as voices in thin-walled doctors' offices, for example.
So the idea of "olfactory white" would be a smell that incorporates equally all the different 'wavelengths of smell.' Of course I'm just making that up--smells don't actually fall on a uniform continuum like light and sound. A quick google tells me that the human nose can discern 10,000 different odors (and evidently our species has rather modest olfactory prowess.) So how could this be sorted out and remixed to create a "white" smell?
Experimentally, with a panel of human sniffers, as it turns out.
In research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Tali Weiss and colleagues explain how they produced "olfactory white." They began with a palette of 86 odorants that spanned the range of human smells. Each odorant contained only one type of molecule and each was diluted to equal intensity of smell. They picked substances that were as widely distinct from each other chemically and smell-wise as possible, (but nothing that would be dangerous to sniff.)
From these individual smells, they began creating mixes and presenting them to 56 volunteers. They made the mixes by putting a dot of each odorant onto an absorbant paper in the sniffing jars (so that the molecules wouldn't combine to form a new compound with a new scent).
Into the sniffing jars, the researchers put papers containing 1, 4, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, or 43 different odorants. They then asked their volunteers to compare pairs of sniffing jars containing these mixes and say how similar they were. None of the 191 pairs of compounds had ingredients in common with one another except one: a pair of identical samples of a reference compound .
The volunteers reported that mixes smelled more and more similar as additional odorants were included. Below ten ingredients and the mixes were likely to smell different. With 20 or more odorants, mixtures were likely to be perceived as the same.
"In other words, the more components there were in each of two mixtures, the more similar the smell of those two mixtures became, even though the mixtures had no components in common . . . This trend implies that if more and more non-overlapping components are added to each of two mixtures . . . eventually all mixtures should smell the same. We call this predicted ultimate point of perceptual convergence 'olfactory white.'"
The researchers went on to train volunteers to recognize a 40-odorant mix by having them smell it and describe it for three consecutive days. They thought volunteers might be confused or biased if the compound had a recognizable name, like "white," so they used the nonsense name, "Laurax" for olfactory white.
The team made four different versions of Laurax (a different combination of 40 odorants in each). On the fourth day, they gave volunteers a multiple choice sniff test, asking them to pick one of five descriptions that best fit each of 23 different mixtures. The mixes contained 1, 4,10, 20, 30, or 40 components. The choice of descriptions always included "Laurax," and "other," but three of the choices were descriptions selected by a professional perfumer as most apt for each of the 23 mixes.
As the researchers had predicted, their volunteers were increasingly likely to describe a mix as smelling like what they'd learned and remembered as "Laurax" the more components it contained. Half of mixtures with 40 components were described as "Laurax"-- well above the 20% expected for a random choice.
The researchers acknowledge that people are better able to tell apart mixes containing many components in a direct comparison, much like side-by-side comparison of different shades of white (ivory, magnolia, cream, eggshell etc.) Comparing to a remembered smell is more difficult. Yet despite different volunteers having been trained to recognize different mixes as "Laurax," and despite sniffing completely different mixes of 30 or more different ingredients at least one day after last smelling Laurax, volunteers consistently deemed new numerous-component mixes as "Laurax." Six months after participating in these experiments, some of the volunteers were retested and still beat the odds in picking out "Laurax" mixtures.
"Taken together, these experiments are consistent with the notion of a gestalt percept following combinations of ~30 equal-intensity components or more that are well distributed in physicochemical space. We call this percept “olfactory white.”
The researchers also conducted an experiment to see if Laurax was good at masking a distinctive fragrance. They did this by adding a 4-component rose-like mix to five multi-ingredient Laurax mixes to see if volunteers would choose "rose" as a description of the smell. When rose ingredients or the rose mix were alone in the sniffing jar, volunteers picked "rose" as the description 70% of the time on a multiple choice test. When the rose mix was part of a Laurax 30-component mix, volunteers chose "rose" 7% of the time and "Laurax" almost 60% of the time.
But what does a white odor actually smell like? If ever a research paper deserved to be published with a "scratch and sniff" insert, this would be it. In the absence of that, the authors describe Laurax as being of overall low intensity (so as not to overwhelm the shyest odorant in a mix). They write that the smell was consistently rated as roughly halfway between pleasant and unpleasant; and an average of 0.37 on a scale where something smelling highly edible is 0 and something smelling highly poisonous is 1. Among the most common descriptions of Laurax mixes from the volunteers were "Fragrant," "Chemical," "Perfumery," "Aromatic," "Floral," "Soapy," and "Fruity-citrus."
"Perhaps tellingly, the descriptors of white provided by the professional perfumer were quite variable. This variability can be taken to imply that white does not smell like any particular common object."
A key feature of Laurax mixtures is that the component odorants are widely different in smell. When mixes were made with chemically or olfactory similar components -- say 30 different floral odorants -- the volunteers found the mixtures "decidedly 'not Laurax'".
The researchers note that common aromas in our lives--such as wine, rose, or coffee-- include many component odorants, but don't have a uniform whiteness or similarity. This is because the components in these distinctive compound fragrances do not include a wide range of components and the components are not equally intense. (Rose, for e.g. has numerous, but closely similar components and one -- phenylethyl alcohol-- accounts for 70 % "of rose headspace.")
o__________o
For me, the practical implication of this study is that I may have been working against myself in seasoning food. As my sense of smell declines, I've been adding more different herbs to food. This year I made a mix of all the different herbs from my garden, thinking the aromas would be additive and create a strong, distinctive taste.
But Weiss et al's research suggests as the diversity and number of scents goes up, they may be creating "Laurax," cancelling out distinctive flavor rather than creating it. Maybe less would actually be more colorful.
And could this concept and science lie behind UK celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's magically appealing Three Good Things? (Hugh does mix up textures and tastes as well as compound fragrances, but the point seems to be that there is special appeal in simple three-item contrasts on a plate.)
Cooking aside, the study is fascinating and I urge the scientifically-inclined to read the original:
Perceptual convergence of multi-component mixtures in olfaction implies an olfactory white, Tali Weiss, Kobi Snitz, Adi Yablonka, Rehan M. Khan, Danyel Gafsou, Elad Schneidman, and Noam Sobela. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 December 4; 109(49): 19959–19964. Published online 2012 November 19. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1208110109 PMCID: PMC3523876
link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3523876/
Here's where Dear Husband and I went with Bell's parable about Larry (too much, too late, to join Bell's regular congregation this time, shrug): http://livingequipoise.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/do-it-yourself-holy-ground-here-and-now.html
After seven years living in Blighty, I've finally gone native and made my own mincemeat.
My grandfather emigrated to the United States from England more than a century ago, and carried the mince pie tradition with him -- so I was not totally unfamiliar with the stuff. But it's quite a big deal here at Christmas time...You can't have a coffee morning or a Carol Service without mince pies.
So if only for the sake of politeness I've eaten more mince in the past seven years than in the previous five decades of life.
Until now, when I've been called upon to bring mince pies to one of these socials, I've relied on Mrs. Tesco's "cheap and cheerful" pies (as the English would say to take the edge off plain old "cheap"). The Dear Husband, although English, detests mince pies, so what's the point of going to any extra trouble? Besides, I was always fearful of what the the "meat" in "mincemeat" might mean and thought it best to carry on in ignorance.
But then my friend Helena, from "Incredible Edible Todmorden" posted a recipe for "Beetroot and Chocolate Mincemeat." No actual meat involved! I adjusted the recipe downwards to a size I hope will cover a dozen mini-pies, which I'll be making tomorrow.
Here's my scaled-down version of Helena's recipe. I've mixed these ingredients together and am letting them cogitate overnight:
100 g. raisins
100 g currants
100 g. dried apricots
150 g brown sugar
30 g glace cherries
zest and juice from ½ lemon and ½ orange
1 peeled grated, chopped beetroot
½ peeled, finely diced cooking apple
40 g. chocolate chips
1 ½ teaspoons honey
1T mixed spice
1T brandy or other liqueur (optional)
I used a bit of Cointreau and cognac for the last ingredient, and small amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, cloves, ginger, and cardamom for my "mixed spice." Helena assures me that the chocolate effectively replaces suet that would traditionally be used in mincemeat.
She also recommends that the mince have a month to cogitate, but I'm supposed to have my mini-pies ready for the Carol Service on Friday. So we'll see tomorrow how these turn out and whether I'll have to return to Mrs. Tesco again this year.
What is the Bible? Part 15: Everybody Loves Stuart and Luscious
In my previous writing, Part 14, I gave you a parable and invited you to interpret it.
And you did. My tumblr box has been jammed with your theories and insights and...
I loved this (and the challenge in Bell's preceding "Part 15" post) ... not just because Rob quoted my response! This is a very creative way of reading, thinking about and discussing the Bible. Read Bell's posts. And /or read my latest blog about them: http://livingequipoise.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/toe-rag-parables-rob-bell-foolish-risks.html
Of course none of us can ever do enough. It was a hurting world even before Typhoon Haiyan tried to wipe parts of the Philippines off the face of the earth. Doesn't everyone at times feel helpless, bewildered, beset in the face of all the neediness of the world? Or maybe it's just us bleeding-heart liberals and others who empathize with the suffering of others and fear for the future of the planet.
So my friend Betty had a fine post on facebook today:
"I just learned a new word, and I love it; Slactivism. Slactivism is the act of doing something meaningless in the name of a good cause.
This includes things like growing a mustache for Movember, but not donating money to cancer research. Or posting the colour of the bra you are wearing on your Facebook page in support of Breast Cancer.
The Facebook thing bugs me to no end, and I will often post when these things start showing up that it would be more effective to donate to breast cancer research.
Activism is only activism if it actually helps make a difference. Okay, rant over! "
I will admit to occasional indulgence in Slacktivism. It assuages guilt just that little bit, although it shouldn't. It lets you feel like you're doing something in instances where there may not be much that can be done: "Of course I'll pray for your dying friend." It's the socially acceptable thing to do: "Sure, here's a fiver for that Remembrance Day poppy."
At least the poppy contribution goes to the Royal British Legion (though I don't actually know how efficient they are as a charity or how much good they are doing in the world.)
But "'Like' this post to show you care?" I'm not sure about that. I felt one manifestation of this ploy posted on Facebook today was a particularly vicious bit of slacktivism. It showed a Marine crouched next to a young boy who was just barely holding back his tears. The caption: "His dad died from fighting for our country--Click Like to show respect, keep scrolling to say I don't care."
Controlling hogswollop. Of course we all care. Of course clicking 'like' costs us nothing. Great. But respects paid? Sorry, I don't think so.
Is that kid even for real? So many of these tear-jerkers prove to be faked stories with photoshopped pictures. I feel like such a fool when I'm duped that way. And it's doubtful that the kid will ever know whether i click or scroll over the item.
And if lots of people like me, who could do more, end up satisfying our charitable urges with such trivial, fruitless acts, slactivism could be taking a very large toll.
On the other hand, I suppose it's possible that such very minor efforts could work like a "foot in the door." I click on an item like that today, and tomorrow give a donation to Aggie's or Help for Heroes.
Or maybe when people see that several of their friends are re-posting something like that, and when they notice that hundreds of thousands of people have "liked" it, there's a mini surge in the power of "social proof."
I learned about the "power of social proof" from "Yes! Fifty scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive" by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini. It might be familiar to people who've studied psychology or persuasion and it also might be common sense, but the idea is that people tend to follow the crowd -- to buy an item that's "flying off the shelves!" or drop litter in a place that's already filled with litter -- everybody else does it, so why not?
If "liking" something on Facebook, or growing a 'tasch for Movember (without directing donations to charity) disposes people to a good cause through the power of social proof, maybe that is not a total waste.
But yet again (I think this is on the third hand...) aren't the people who "like" and repost those facebook items already predisposed to those causes? And wouldn't it be much better to post things that point your friends toward some specific action that would do more good -- for example, linking to a specific, high-efficiency charity, or mentioning a local person who could use a hand? Or even calling out Movember beard-growers who aren't actually raising money for charity along with their stubble?
I guess where I end up on this is that people should use social media judiciously: Think about the effects of things you post. Are they going to do some good? Would something else do more good? If your post is slacktivism, I would guess that for each rare person whose heart is newly softened to a cause, there will be another who clicks and then feels they've done their bit and is lost to any genuine commitment or further effort.
And in keeping with that, I end by reTumbling Tumblr's charity call:
In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, please help those desperate for clean water and food by donating to the UN World Food Programme:
USA: Text AID to 27722 to donate $10
UK: Text AID to 70303 to donate £3
Canada: Text RELIEF to 45678 to donate $5
Donate online
I just tried the link to the UN World Food Programme and discovered their website is down. So here are some alternatives:
Save the Children
Charity:Water
Direct Relief International.
For what it's worth, these are among "Real Simple"'s top 10 charities.
Come to think of it, maybe I'll see if people in the village would be interested in donating tonight to Save the Children when we gather for a talk on local archeology.
The Beer Talking: It's You, Mommy, and You're Causing my Gout
From The Journal of Rheumatology - November 2013, 40 (11), "Umami: The Taste That Drives Purine Intake" (see authors below)
"Rheumatologists commonly recommend low purine diets to gouty subjects based on studies linking the purine contents of food to increased risk for gout. However, most rheumatologists, as well as physicians in general, do not know that one of the basic 5 human tastes is for purine-rich foods, a taste known as umami (oo-mah-mee). We present evidence of this revelation and why this may have occurred....
"... In addition to the classic tastes of sour, bitter, sweet, and salt, there is a fifth basic taste, umami. Umami is the “savory” flavor and was first identified in traditional Japanese foods such as kombu (sea kelp)...
"A major source of umami is beer. While all alcohol raises uric acid, beer contains brewer’s yeast, and carries a purine content varying from 120 to 300 mg per serving (350 ml), with slightly lower levels in nonalcoholic beer10. Local beers and high malt beers have a purine content that is 100-fold higher than that present in a serving (40 ml) of whisky10. Beer intake carries a higher risk for development of gout than that for other alcohol-containing drinks."
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In my kitchen laboratory I'm increasingly interested in punching up the basic tastes in the foods I prepare -- in part because I find that with age I'm losing my sense of smell, and hence the smell-based aromatics that "flavor" food. I'm not losing ability to savour the tastes underlined in the text above, though. So "umami" has become part of my new cooking vocabulary.
It makes sense, as the authors of this article argue, that our preferences for tastes would be driven by the same selective forces that shape most other aspects of life for humans and other animal species. In the case of umami, they say, purine-rich foods helped humans survive times of food scarcity.
But in our current age of abundance, at least in developed countries, the genes and behaviors and food preferences that once contributed to survival can now be a liability. A diet rich in purines [you remember "purine" nucleotide bases from high school biology, right? Purines pair with pyrimidines in forming our DNA and are thus the alphabet of the book of life...] can lead to excess uric acid in the blood. Excess uric acid may cause various medical problems, including kidney stones and gout.
Fortunately I'm not at risk of developing gout just yet, so I'll continue to enjoy our fabulous local "reel ale," which is rife with purines. But it's interesting to have this background, including the explanation for why I'm so fond of cheese and beer. Not sure how Marmite (made from yeast extract) fits in there--I'm not a fan. Nor do I have a clue why my stepson is a beer-lover ...but also cheese-averse.
A table in this interesting article was especially useful: it lists, side-by-side, foods that are high in umaminess and high in purines. Mostly these coincide--foods that are purine-rich are also high in umami. But the exceptions that are tantalizing in umami but not purine rich might be useful ingredients for a purine-restricted diet. This includes parmesan cheese, red sweet peppers, tomatoes, and shiitake mushrooms.
Broccoli-haters and Brussels sprouts-haters will be vindicated to hear these vegetables are medium-high in purines but not notable for umami taste.
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The Journal of Rheumatology - November 2013, 40 (11), "Umami: The Taste That Drives Purine Intake" by RICHARD J. JOHNSON, MD⇑ and
TAKAHIKO NAKAGAWA, MD, Division of Kidney Diseases and Hypertension, University of Colorado Denver with L. GABRIELA SÁNCHEZ-LOZADA, PhD, Division of Kidney Diseases and Hypertension, University of Colorado Denver; Department of Nephrology, Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia I. Ch., Mexico City, Mexico; MIGUEL A. LANASPA, PhD, YOSHIFURU TAMURA, MD, KATSUYUKI TANABE, MD, TAKUJI ISHIMOTO, MD, JEFFREY THOMAS, MD, SHINICHIRO INABA, MD, WATARU KITAGAWA, MD and CHRISTOPHER J. RIVARD, PhD
Read the original here:
http://www.jrheum.org/content/40/11/1794.full
I've been blogging on my long-format Equipoise Blogspot since April, 2012. Entries reflect my struggle to comprehend contemporary Christianity (locally and globally); mindfulness; social science-, biomedical-, psychological- and behavioral economics research; and other things that annoy me or catch my eye. I've been astonished, nay, *shocked* to learn that intelligent people who are honest enough to admit it don't "get" my long-form columns. Even my family don't have the time. I'll try to keep this shorter.... Somewhere in-between a facebook post and the long-form posts at my old blog (which is here: http://livingequipoise.blogspot.co.uk/ )
Voice of sanity from another U.S. ex-pat (in Italy). I understand the necessity for facing down our differences and addressing them straight-on with honesty, evidence, openness, reason.
But it is oh, so hard, especially when you're looking in the eyes of an otherwise beloved sister-in-law or son or those precious friends who've been through the valleys of hell with you... but whose values on these points, whose affiliations and loyalties, whose sympathies and emotions live in different realms than yours.
High Sierras in smoke from forest fires near Yosemite (from a plane that didn't land at Mammoth Aug.1, 2013); Butterfly on Echinacea, Fan Mtn. VA; South of Nanaimo, BC
