Author: White Whale

I’m listening to the excellent “Born to Run” (Christopher Macdougal, if memory serves), about running, and in particular about the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico.  A case is made there that there is an intrinsic connection between a cheerful, generous disposition and athletic excellence.

Logically, nervous system efficiency is tied to relaxation, which is tied to non-violence.  You do not force yourself to do anything you don’t WANT to do. Elite athletes WANT to perform well, they enjoy the process, so they are efficient.

Logically, too, if we consider that the brain alone uses 20% of our daily calories, a relaxed, cheerful disposition ought to use less calories than a tense, constricted one.  This is likely the secret of people like the marathon monks of Mount Hiei, who eat much less than one would think they would need.

What is one to make of the fact that sadomasochistic literature is flying off the shelves at Target?  By this, of course I mean the three “Fifty Shades of Gray” books, but also I look even in the young adult section, and they are filled with vampires, werewolves, fallen angels and darkness.

Loneliness and trauma, is what I see.  Loneliness: the first task of a society is to figure out what to do with its pain.  If you cannot share pain–and a common solution is sharing it be inflicting it–then you lose the capacity to interact with others on a deep level.  S and M is just one way of replacing this function in an unhealthy way.

Trauma: I think we need to understand prolonging failure to connect with other people on a deep, spiritual level not just as a symptom of trauma, but constitutive of it.  In itself, it can build a self perpetuating of pain, withdrawal, pain, and withdrawal.  This is the great merit and critical social weakness of computers and video games, and media in general: it dulls aches of this sort, without providing any real solution.

As is obvious to anyone who knows me well, I have so many ideas on so many topics, it is quite literally impossible to chase them all down all the time.  I have to prioritize, and even then I do not get as much done as I would like.  In theory, I have been working on a book on our financial system, but my treatise is as far as I have gotten.  In recent months, I have been trying to work down to the core of what has been my mental illness.  I feel it may be a widely shared mental illness, but want to see.  I am making progress.

That all is by way of prologue to setting an idea out in the public space that occurred to me some time ago.  That of creating groups of ten people, who in effect as as small tribes, as extended social groups.  The concept is similar to a support group, but you vow to support one another, and you do much more than support groups do.  You learn as a group.  You cope as a group.

This group would be the fundamental unit of what I have been calling the Church of Goodness.  Since my creed is very non-specific–my only core principles are rejection of self pity, perseverance, and perceptual movement/breathing–then endless specific, local iterations are possible.

This group I propose to call a Bohannon, after Heinlein’s term.  Bohannon’s, of course, can congregate in  what would look more like a church, to sing, drink, run, dance, sing some more, discuss abstract philosophy, paint, sun themselves by the pool: whatever appears suited to the task of pursuing qualitative joy.

Edit: that term I remember from long ago as being used in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land to describe an organic, real, “Family”, which needed not be a physical family at all.  I may be misremembering–as the term is not popping up on Google–and don’t have time to look it up right now.

As far as that goes, if I invented a word, no harm in that.  I just wanted to borrow the word Heinlein used.

Anything hard worth doing is worth doing easy.

Some will get that, and some will not.

I am likely aping some philosopher in saying this–I would have no clue, since I’ve long thought any thought worth thinking can be thought without prior training, and thus read very little philosophy–but it seems to me the essence of what I call the qualitative is judgement.

If there are five stones on a table, there is no judgement needed to count them.  If you have a measuring stick, there is no need for judgement to determine their width, height and depth.

But some things in life, like how you feel about something or someone, or how beautiful a sunrise or sunset is, or even how much salt or pepper to put on your food, are sentimental, in the sense that they rely upon mutable, unfixed, unmeasurable judgements.  In judgement, you can be relatively right or wrong, as measured by the progress of your feelings.  If you feel something makes you happy, and that feeling continues to grow, then you were likely “right”.

No scientific process can bring this process into the measurable.  Complexes of feelings are composed of hormones, neurotransmitters, nervous excitation or relaxation and the like.  All of these things can be measured.  But the feeling is the essence of being human, and even TRYING to bring this into the measurable is in my view fundamentally misanthropic.  It is short sighted, reductive (by definition), and unnecessary.

Why can we not admit, in principle, that some things are best “known” through poetry and song?  It is a species of savage narcissism and profound discomfort with the facts of life that refuses this very REASONable request.

Yet, we see it every day.  Wherever the sun is shining on the Earth, it countenances stupidity.

What I think trauma does is create a boundary beyond which spontaneous emotion will not transmit.  As I visualize it, it is like a circle surrounded by fog.  You can hear the noises and feel the presence of others out there, but you cannot make direct contact.  There is a marker on the line where the circle is, which says “Beyond this and you die”.

It is well attested that emotional dissociation is a symptom/outcome of trauma.  Effectively, dissociation creates two “you’s”: there is the hidden, timeless, fog enmeshed secret place, and the social you that has to go on and appear normal.  You get the outward appearance of emotional movement, but there remains some part of you that knows that if you cross that line into the fog, all the pain you have hidden will come back at you like a pack of ravenous animals.

The task is to acknowledge, then disempower the emotional images, to disconnect from them.  But you must go outside this circle.

I think some people choose to forget about the self that lives in the fog.  I think they choose to conflate their self image with what is practical socially.  This doesn’t work, of course.  This is where cruelty comes in.  They know they need to face pain, but they have so disconnected themselves that the part asking for reintegration through emotional processing comes to be seen first as outside them, then as the enemy.

They punish this enemy in the outside world, where they see it as existing.  This is the root of sadism.  I truly believe this is very close to the reality of the thing.

Rosebud never disappears.

If I could grant my children one thing, it would be the qualitative capacity to enjoy work.  If granted a second wish, it would be actually finding work they loved.  If granted a third, love.

Love, though, depends upon a capacity to work, doesn’t it? Imagine two people with no passions but that for each other.  Does that love not fade?  Work you can rely on–and I am not thinking compulsive workaholism, but rather the capacity to love in motion, the capacity to extend, to grow, to connect, to discover, to BE in relation to some cherished task.

The most lucky get paid for this; most of us just do it after we meet all the other demands on us.  Still, there is pleasure even in thankless, difficult work, IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO IT WELL.

We have so many freedoms we never even see, much less take advantage of.

Posted this on my favorite website in the whole world.  This is in part an experiment.  Still, I thought it reasonably cogent, so I decided to post here as well.

As things exist today, banks are the only entities in the Unites States legally allowed to create money.  There are three means of money creation: the Discount Window of the Federal Reserve; the Open Market Operations capacity of the Federal Reserve; and the use of banks of fractional reserve banking. (Note: physical money is only a small percentage of the total in circulation, so the details don’t matter, but the net is that the paper money is first created electronically, and that is therefore its principle form; you will note as well that your dollar says “Federal Reserve Note”.)

The Federal Reserve is a private corporation with no government oversight which is owned and controlled by invitation-only banks.  The details of who has been allowed to buy the non-transferable stocks which comprise the ownership of this corporation are secret, but member banks certainly include Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and the Bank of America.

Anyone able to create money possesses, intrinsically, the ability to make claims on our collected wealth without contributing anything of economic value.  Bill Gates had to make the PC viable.  Warren Buffett had to invest in successful corporations, who used his money to further their own success, with all the hiring of employees, investment in communities, and other benefits that flow from any business success.

Banks do not do this. 

Discount Window: the way it works now is the Fed can simply gift anyone it wants as much money as it wants for as long as it wants for as little interest as it feels like charging, which is seemingly zero.  In 2008, it created some $12 trillion.  Much of this was paid back, but let us posit that some small number, let us say $500 billion, was not.  That is money that was gifted to banks around the world, which at some point–slowly or quickly, now or ten years from now–will cause a decrease in the value of our money.  It will damage the economic well being of ordinary citizens.

Open Market Operations: the Fed can buy securities in any quantity from anyone, which can include buying foreign currencies.  Again: this power has been given to a handful of bankers whose activities are completely secret.  This is ludicrous.  Bank robbers might get $10,000 in a successful robbery.  The Fed can grant its members hundreds of BILLIONS.

Fractional Reserve banking: this is what was covered at that site.  Banks are allowed by law to loan out up to 90% of their deposits.  Since this causes money to circulate that would otherwise have been in a vault, it is inflationary.  It is also money that was created in the process of making the loan.  They write a check for a house, but in theory still owe you your deposit back.  This ability, too, is intrinsically predatory.

If we consider that the dollar has lost 95% of its value since the founding of the Fed–and that it steadily INCREASED in value after Jackson broke Biddle until the founding of the Fed–then it becomes obvious that that lost value has gone to those who created the money that caused the inflation.

Logically, then, there should be twenty times more wealth out there.  Houses should cost a quarter what they do.  Work weeks should be 20 hours.  There should be no unemployment.  healthcare should be within easy reach of all citizens.

There is no more important issue for the left and the right to coalesce around.  BOTH Obama and Romney are taking HUGE donations from Fed member banks, and thus NEITHER should be looked to to make the slightest difference.

There is no more important political task, therefore, than creating a generalized awareness as to how our system actually works, and working to change it.

It occurred to me that Obamacare is not about the implementation of a policy, but rather of a principle.  Logical people would ask: how can we provide the best quality healthcare to the most people at the lowest cost, while maximizing freedom of choice? This is a good question.  It is not the question that was asked.

The question that was asked was “how can we ensure that all Americans get the same level of healthcare.”  As I have said before, you can be equal both in poverty and wealth, and since socialism doesn’t work, the default outcome is poverty.

But the word validation keeps popping in my head.  I feel–and this is just an intuition–that the importance of Obamacare is not that it will work.  Nobody serious expects it to work.  What is important is that those who passed and supported it get to say “I am the sort of person who works for equality”.  This is the sine qua non of the Socialist non-ethos, the Socialist mire.  Equality–which amounts practically to conformity/uniformity–is the only value of those incapable of qualitative expression.

I’ve dealt with these topics multiple places, and so will leave it there, but wanted to make that point.

This is from last year.  Debt has increased since then, obviously. 

I will add as well that this accounting does not reflect money which SHOULD be set aside to fund our national pension system, aka Social Security and Medicare, both of which have depended virtually since their inception on others peoples money, and both of which in my understanding are ALREADY spending more than they can take from the paychecks of working stiffs like me.  To pay for the Baby Boomers we should be collecting TRILLIONS more than we are.  It is something on the order of $3 Trillion a year.   Given that even before these numbers are added in we are ALREADY running a huge deficit, there is very simply NO WAY to keep all the promises that have been made.  No tax increase will cover this, and as we approach 100% taxation on the American people, obviously, we will wreck the economy.

 So, here is the good news.  The real story is much worse than this:

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000

Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:

* Annual family income: $21,700

* Money the family spent: $38,200

* New debt on the credit card: $16,500

* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

* Total budget cuts: $385

Got It ?????