Author: White Whale

Loving presence, please help me be more loving and alive than I was yesterday.

So much of both Jewish and Christian doctrine rests on the idea that God is an angry father who is about to strike down anyone showing the slightest sign of disobedience.

The essence of Goodness, however, is raising up.  You are not trying to demand obedience from anyone, but rather to raise them up to your own level, which would include raising them within their own individuality.

And I believe God is good.  I also believe we are almost uniformly blind.

There are many mysteries.  The brain clearly affects behavior and perception, but perception and behavior seem clearly to be severable from the brain.  Perhaps one day how all this works will be obvious.  I continue to hope humanity, and the scientific world in particular, end this phase of global madness, and begin to focus on what really matters, rather than running about like headless chickens, devoid even of the possibility of accidental wisdom.

The nature of living perception is evolution.

I like this image of perception as a living thing, like a plant. Or a constantly changing thing, like a flame.

Perception is sometimes clear, sometimes myopic, sometimes hard, sometimes soft.

The more INTERESTING question is not ” is this person right or wrong”, but “are they awake”?

You can be right factually, in the present moment, but be referring backwards to a time long ago. How fresh are your perceptions? How long since you last doubted everything? How long since you last flirted with stupidity in pursuit of wisdom?

We are having a local brou-ha-ha–with an emphasis on ha ha–around here, about nothing, and I would like to propose the term Political Valmorification, for what amounts to the political theater of pretending to change something, while changing nothing, all while every ounce of political rhetoric on all sides–but mostly from the Left, which specializes in it–comes from a place marinated in long simmering anger, latent hostilities, and all sorts of misplaced emotions entirely inappropriate to the occasion.

If you have not seen this word, well, lemma clue you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzO78K4l4kI

I have a lot more to learn about dopamine, but the videos I watched seemed to be saying that it is a neurotransmitter in our brains which says “do more of this”.  Presumably, it is typically connected in some direct or indirect way with feeding the belly or having children.

Religious ritual happens to be one of my particular interests, and one I studied at reasonable length in college and graduate school.  Here is a definition of ritual you have likely not seen: Ritual is an act of intrinsic worthlessness from an evolutionary perspective, but which nonetheless elicits a strong dopamine response.

Take the Eucharist.  I doubt any long term readers I may have will be surprised by what I am about to say: the whole thing is bullshit.  God is neither in the host figuratively, nor literally.  God is away on business.

But any honest Catholic who goes to Mass every Sunday FEELS something in this ceremony.  They feel better, in most cases, I would think.  They in any event feel they have fulfilled an obligation, met a duty.  They have DONE SOMETHING.

But they have not done something in the sense of digging ten post holes in the backyard, doing 8 hours of accounting, made 25 prospecting calls, or seen three legal clients.  The world is not changed in any way.  There is no relic left of their having been there.  There is no hole left in the air, or in the incense.

Many commentators–myself included–have noted the religious flavor of Leftist rhetoric and idealism.  They work in this world, but never connect themselves with it concretely, emotionally.  They connect, rather, with SYMBOLS of this world.  Their God is Social Justice. Their God is the Earth.  Their God is emancipation from limiting categories, which is a prison made all the worse by their refusal to think in any other way THAN rigid categories.

And just as God does not act visibly in this world–have you ever actually seen God?–their Social Justice never actually has to land anywhere.  It is implied as the result of any work done by people calling themselves Social Justice Warriors, or Antifa, or whatever nonsense they choose to put on with their make-up that particular morning.

Here is my point: such “work” is inherently ritualistic.  Winning an election is a ritual activity.  Passing a law that has no chance of solving an actually existing problem is ritualistic.  Shouting down unbelievers is ritualistic, and serves to protect the Faith.

I remember Tony Robbins–remember him?–many years ago saying, in one of his highly derivative but still somewhat useful books: show me how someone gets their sense of importance, and I’ll tell you who they are.

Can I say: show me how someone gets their dopamine hits, and I’ll tell you who they are.  Was actual work done?  Is the world changed in any way, and is it changed in the way it was supposed to change?  Is this person living on the same planet as me, or are they wrapped in fog and mysteries only they can see or explain?

If you think about it, amorphous concepts like Social Justice exist at roughly the same level of tangibility as the Holy Spirit.

But this is the point, don’t you see?  If they spoke and thought clearly, it would be possible to falsify their Gods, and most of them–being atheists to begin with–have nothing else.

As things stand, they have a faith, a ritual activity, and a Church.  That’s all you need for a full blown religion.

I was reading through the list of Urban Renewal ideas put out by the Trump campaign: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/Plan_For_Urban_Renewal.pdf

Now, a lot of this is campaign rhetoric, and needs to be read as such.  I get that.  Consider the end of Point 5, though:

We will also encourage small-business creation by allowing social
welfare workers to convert poverty assistance into repayable but
forgive-able micro-loans.

This got me to thinking.  I have likely from time to time mentioned my fondness for the Kiva.org .  approach to poverty.  My personal view is that they should win the Nobel Prize.  There is zero doubt in my mind that in their decade or two of existence they have done more concrete good in developing nations, than all the foreign aid offered by the West to developing nations from the end of World War 2 until the advent of Kiva.

Leaving that as a controversial point I might retract if I studied more, let it suffice to say it is a good cause.

Here is the thing: Kiva exists in the United States, too.  You can look up people needing small loans to start or expand businesses here.

Here is my idea: why not focus on Kiva as a resource, build access to it exponentially through effort and funding at all levels of government, and why not set up some kind of matching program, where the local, State, or Federal governments match private funds?  It’s win/win.  


Such an idea would create self sustaining business enclaves everywhere, reward hard work, demonstrate the value of hard work and initiative, be self sustaining as a remedy–with most loans being repaid–, and operate after a time independently of any government aid at all.  Such aid can come and go, like matching grants anywhere else.

Politically, this would be great for Republicans, particularly.  The Democrats, in election after election, spend all their time telling blacks and other minorities that they should only elect Democrats because Republicans are horrible.  This is the substance of their outreach.  They don’t have ideas which work.  Obviously.  They have been saying the same shit every 2 or 4 or 6 years, at all levels of government, since 1970 or before.  That is 48 years, if we use 1970 as a benchmark.  And what has changed?  Seriously.  Look at Detroit, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington D.C.  If I want to make a list of the most dangerous cities in America, all I need to do is make a list of the cities where  Democrats have been running things the longest.  Can we not agree that is suspicious at the least, and CERTAINLY not the effect of good policy, oriented sincerely around the common good, executed vigorously over the long term? Of course not.  To claim otherwise is to be an idiot, or gravy recipient.

But this policy SHOULD be embraced by Democrats, because it is a good idea. It really is.  It is likely not a panacea, but certainly a solid palliative, and honest Democrats need to admit that a little good is a little good.  And if the little good might turn into a great good–and that is certainly the case here–then they should support it.

But it seems emotionally obvious to me that they will uniformly oppose this idea, not because it is a bad idea, but because they DON’T WANT BLACKS TO SUCCEED.  As long as they can blame Republicans, and get the electorate to buy it, they want blacks as miserable as possible. 

So this idea creates a fantastic opportunity for Republicans to point to, to showcase, to highlight, to throw Klieg lights, on the horrific cynicism and hypocrisy of Democrats.  They can ask, openly: what do you have against the success of black entrepreneurs?  What do you have against poverty remediation programs which work, versus those you keep enacting, which make things worse, if they do anything at all?

If Democrats work with Republicans, great.  The goal is to fix the problem, not win elections.  And if they don’t, they they show themselves to be money-grubbing, unprincipled assholes, which in fact is what most of them are.  To be sure, many Republicans are money-grubbing assholes too, but they are in general not raiding the public treasury to do it, and they are not claiming to be anyone’s savior, other than those who just want to be left alone. 

I was talking with a friend the other day about how fragile peace is.  We were talking specifically about the Milgram Experiment.  There is apparently a NetFlix or something about a similar experiment called “Push”.  Here it is, I believe: http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/the-push-netflix-review-ending-derren-brown-twist-1201933412/

In any event, we got to talking about how quickly everything could go to shit.  And then later, I got to thinking about why this would be.

We have imbeciles like Elon Musk and Michio Kaku dreaming of going to Mars.  Why?  Why can’t we make our civilization defining mission that of getting EVERYONE emotionally healthy at a deep level?


For the life of me, I don’t get futurists who fail to see the urgent necessity for all of us learning to know our own hearts, our own souls.  I don’t understand the stubborn failure of mainstream scientists to integrate, or try to integrate, mainstream ideas like Remote Viewing–which was funded by the CIA because it WORKED–into larger, better, more fun, more intrinsically hopeful paradigms.

Socialists think that society will work when we are all taught how to behave.  I believe society will work when we all learn who we are, how magical we are, and slowly release all the demons tormenting us.  We build a better world by building better individuals, and we build better individuals by creating and distributing the tools and resources for those individuals to do work which is intrinsically valuable, and inseparable from the pursuit of deep, meaningful happiness, and social connection and union.

None of this is the least bit complicated. 

What I think is the problem is that our culture not only allows, but in some respects encourages, people to hide from their emotions by retreating into the safe fortresses of seeming rationality and relentless work.  If you can produce new data, new ideas, in science, you are considered productive.  If you can become calmer, more insightful, more “spiritual”–however you define that–that is not so valued.

Sure, we make rich the people who can give us the “3 simple tricks to. . .”, and who write books about why it isn’t your fault, and how to love yourself, despite being a relentlessly self absorbed, self pitying loser (I could, by the way, in some respects be made to fit that category: I see that).

Everybody loves the Dalai Lama.  He says “be nice to people”, and everyone oohs and aahs.  But as I have pointed out often, in so doing he omits half of his own religion, the other half being “pursue wisdom”. And frankly, I think he gets it backwards: honest, useful compassion flows from wisdom.  I don’t think wisdom flows from compassion.  Compassion has no form, and it is far too easy to conflate it with believing nothing is worth fighting for, as so many manifestly do in our own era. This teaching is tailor made for what I call Sybaritic Leftism, and Sybaritic Leftism, in turn, flows naturally and inevitably into cruelty and radical intolerance.  You have to start with the form, then fill with the feeling.  If you start with the feeling, you flow downhill rapidly.

To return to the topic, there is no way to be optimistic about the future when we cannot set as a civilizational purpose the attainment of universal mental health, based on solid personal boundaries, continuity with history and culture, the eradication of traumatic residue, the empowerment of individuals to achieve and retain strong personal senses of agency, and the generalized capacity for deep relaxation, and spontaneous joy.

So I contacted, finally, after many decades, and after five or more years of hard work, my inner child.  It is a very serious 7-8 year old.

Traditional wisdom–which is to say, what we have been hearing from California-based psychologists for about 20-30 years–holds that all this child needs is love.

But: ask yourself: is love all ANY child needs?  Is it?  Do they not crave, and ask for, and even demand, if it is not forthcoming, structure?  Purpose?  A destiny to follow?  Do they not want to belong, are they not born to belong, to something bigger than themselves?  First the family, then the larger family, then the civilization as a whole?

Do we not all need a reason to suffer, to transform?  Do we not need a purpose to our work larger than filling our own bellies, and inseminating or being inseminated, so as to create progeny?

What my inner child needs, more than anything, is permission to grow up.  Both of my parents more or less tortured out of me all ability for authentic self actualization, for agency, for growth.  This is the deepest need I have, not love.

How can anyone give or receive authentic love when they don’t exist?  So often, what is called love is nothing more than primitive needs being met.  It is one partner playing the parent, and the other being the child.  Both say “I love you”, but one is reverting to childhood, and the other, likely, giving the other person what they did not get in childhood.

What I want is freedom, freedom from this dynamic, freedom to allow everything to begin to flow again.  I do not need or want anyone’s love right now.  Not until I have my own to give. 

I would go so far as to say that I don’t feel anyone can be authentically loving until they are already full. Love is always a process of giving, not taking.  It can be a circular, healthy, joyful process, because people who have enough can always create more.  But it is never a process of one fountain filling another, lower fountain, by emptying itself.  Not among adults, at any rate. 

It is right and proper for parents to give love to their children without expectation of reciprocity.  On balance, their very generosity will be rewarded with filial loyalty and love, if they are honest.  But even there, you cannot give and expect to receive.  You must first be full.  Far too many parents, in our own world, use their children to meet their own emotional needs.  They constrict them, bind them, in the name of “protecting” them.  They take from them, without giving. 

This, in any event, is my own story.  It does seem to be common enough, though.

I’ve been describing ADHD for some time as “growing up American.” Could we not postulate it as a learned addiction to distraction? That it is a symptom of dopamine dystegulation caused by what amounts to dysfunctional culture, as characterized by endless and pointless novelty?

Remember: addiction to novelty causes decreased capacity for abstract reasoning, decreased social connnection, and muted impulse control. This is, in my understanding, orthodox neuroscience as it exists at present.

As it happens, I am undertaking a course on Applied Neuroscience, and will soon enough be dealing with neurotransmitters, but it occurs to me dopamine–as I understand it, and this understanding may evolve–could be called the contentment chemical.  It is what tells you that what you are doing is the right thing to do.

As the logic of this comes to me, it tells me that I should be seeking a duller, more “boring” life, so that what counts as novelty, what counts as exciting, is made smaller, less intense, less compulsive.

On this rendering, a credible case could be made that the credo “You only live once” actually works to make people more unhappy on balance.  You can’t be doing cool things continually, and the constant quest for novelty and excitement makes ordinary life seem unpleasant and unwelcome.

There is a yang, of course, to every yin.  I am not pooh-poohing people who want to go out and live lives of danger.  What I would say I most definitely am pointing out to be life deadening, is endless hours seeking excitement in media–on the internet, in movies, in fake life.

I watched “The Big Sleep” over the weekend, and enjoyed the dialogue thoroughly, as have several generations before me.  I missed much of it, and really need to rewatch it, but the wit and savage insight were a lot of fun.

But this movie was not my life, really.  It might have created new ideas for me, perhaps taught me something about the world, but I certainly do not want to lie on my deathbed remembering scenes from movies.

It is worth pointing out that the NRA does not “own” Congress.  There are no bribes being paid.

The way it works is that it represents the interests of single issue–or few issue–voters.  They have a lot of power because THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY WHO VALUE THE SECOND AMENDMENT. 

The NRA did not create this constituency, and it would have little or no power if it did not speak to the values and interests of many millions of Americans.  The NRA is us, in important respects.  It is the voice of tens of millions of people who think marching in a parade in some city carrying stupid signs would be ridiculous.

They, of course they have lobbyists.  What the lobbyists do is tell politicians what will happen to their endorsements if they pursue one policy versus another.  If you want to be elected in many counties and States, you need the NRA behind you, which is to say, you need to ACTUALLY represent the interests and concerns of the people sending you to office. The NRA just keeps you honest.

For my part, I am going to wait and see how many Republicans are cowards, how many Democrats are fools, and depending on my perceptions, I might bump my contributions up from quarterly to monthly, which is to say triple the dues I’ve been paying.  I’m on a ten year plan to Lifetime Membership, but I can certainly do it faster.

How fucking stupid do you have to be to think that 1) we should listen to kids; and 2) to THESE KIDS, this generation, the Tide Pod people, in particular?  9 out of 10 of these kids, guaranteed, can’t say anything intelligent about the Bill of Rights or why it exists.  Probably a quarter of them don’t even know what it is, or THAT it exists.  This is the future?  If I ever decide it is, I’m moving to some other country, and moving to a cabin far from the world.

But I retain hope.  One can hope that these rumors I hear that Jeff Sessions is more or less doing his job COULD be true.