Existential Epiphany

I've had an existential epiphany and it's all my dog's fault. Since we brought that mutt home two year ago from the shelter, I've been watching him. I've noticed that although he is cute, fun, smart for a dog, he knows nothing about his existence except the bare minimum required by life to survive.

And in that phrase lays the epiphany, the minimum to sustain life, that is all my dog has or needs. This is true for all living things. Plants and animals get no more ability or capacity then they need to survive...except humans. We have much more than we need. We are so over flowing with capacity that we have taken over and created our own world.

So the godless existential (namely me, though I waver, obviously), says we are a product of time and evolution, a species given the genetic mutation of the ability to think which we have run with ever since.

The believer says that our capacity is the artful stroke of a higher power creating us in his image, making us able to think, to understand good and evil, and able to understand Him.

Hmmm, somewhere is the middle is the truth. I'm to the point now where no religious structure or institution makes any sense to me. Religious structure provides a system for humans to exercise their need for a higher power and express their sense of spirituality. I don't discount a God or many gods, I just find the story stale, the institutions old and behind the times. Give me a new way to express my sense of wonder in the cosmos, my feelings of spirituality.

Humans have a spiritual nature, perhaps the beginnings of the next evolutionary change that, in a millions years, result in esp, bodiless heads that use telekinesis to communicate...who knows, but those feelings are there in all of us and need to be exercised.

My Grandfather's Faith

I asked my mom the other day her theory on why certain strains of Christianity laid claim to The Truth, claimed to be The Religion God had in mind for us.

She said they were afraid.

My grandfather was a successful avocado rancher and real estate broker. Then one day he got fundamental. Before he was taking us kids around the ranch in an old golf cart, building us a play area, then suddenly, he was shoving miniature crosses into our hands and talking Jesus.

What happened, I asked my mother.

"He's afraid of dying," she said.

I've come to realize that Born Again Christians also have doubt and the harder they push, the bigger their doubt. It seems in that world, doubt is the enemy of faith and so vanquished by proselytizing and bullying.

My grandfather didn't bully, but must of had a lot of doubt. Like the good salesman he once was, he gently persisted, trying to sell his grand children (in need of a father figure) a silver cross and fat book. After a while, we ignored him, as only children can, thought he was strange, maneuvered so as to avoid being cornered.

He had a stroke later, sold the ranch, and deteriorated. He lasted seven years, wearing diapers at the end.

I took a girl I met in college to the funeral. She later became my wife.

That was 11 years ago, yesterday.

Why I Feel Uncertain about the Future

I like to think of myself as contrarian centrist. I used to be a Republican because I though the economy was the important thing (still do), the GOP turned right wing Christian with the impeachment thingy, so I turned to being nothing.

I like the sentiment of the Dems, but they have no leadership and no direction.
What I'm trying to say is that politically, I'm down the middle.

But as a centrist, I just don't like Bush because he is a throwback to the early 80s and big status quo corporations and his crew are throwbacks to the late 60s types running Vietnam out of righteous idealism (accept Powell). Substitute Halliburton for the 80 style Corp, and Iraq for Vietnam and you see that attitudes are the same.

I call the Bush Admin, the "Father Knows Best" presidency. Sit down, shut up, I know what I'm doing. Well, right about now, the admin is looking unsophisticated and rube-like, either that or they are master geniuses bend on looting the public coffers and returning up to the 1950s.

Is there is a vast right-wing conspiracy, run by some sequestered, perhaps hooded, GOP mastermind (dare I say Newt Gingrich) behind the current conservative movement? No, but the GOP has learned from many good dictators in the 20th century, that the first thing you control (after the military which is not a problem in this country) is information.

Where do Americans get their information. Well, lets look at myself. I get online in the morning and cruise the major papers. Then I hit a few liberal and conservative online rags just to get a feel for what the crazies are up to. I also check out a few blogs I'm fond of. Takes about 20 minutes (don't tell my boss).

But wait, I send an hour a day in the car five days a week. In San Diego, we have NPR, sports talk radio, and conservative talk radio. That breaks down to: two sports voices, four conservative voices, one moderate news voice. See a tend?

Control the information and you can control what most people think. Blast conservative ideas 24/7/365, and you start shaping and framing opinions.

They don't want you to think for yourself, they want you to think like they do, just like Stalin, Hitler, and the others and they do that through endless conservative talk radio. In other words, it's part of a machine, a right wing conservative propaganda machine, not conspiracy, a machine.

And my wife wonders why I listen to sports radio all the time.

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Interview with Paul Krugman
Here is an interesting interview with Paul Krugman, the Princeton Econ Prof who moonlights (according to the article) as a New York Times columnist. The interview is with Buzzflash which is the left wing liberal equivalent to New Max, the right wing online rag.