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Optimal Trajectory: your choice, or chosen for you?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Is your optimal trajectory something that you choose, or something that chooses you?

I think the answer to this question can be found in the study of narrative, quantum physics, and process philosophy – the topic areas I’m studying for my Master of Philosophy – so I’m sure after I’ve studied this further my answer will be far more articulate. But, led by intuition and whatever I’ve read, so far I’ll share my thoughts in brief:

I think the answer is BOTH. You choose this path, AND it chooses you.

I think this seeming contradiction is possibly through an expanded conception of “identity” – where “you” as your microcosmic individual consciousness are co-creating with the “you” that is the macrocosm of the universe we are a part of. (The macrocosm being the universal energies that religions personify as “God.)

So while I think your life is completely self-deterministic, I also hold it completely relational to the self-determinism of others, and the universe as a whole. That is, if I slap your face, you will experience your face being slapped. If this happened, it is probably due to something you said or did that motivated my action. Thoughts, actions, and consequences, between me and you and everyone and everything else, are intrinsically interrelated. If our sun dies, as it one day will, humanity (if they are still around) will also die.

I think that somehow, among the mysterious dimensions of this universe, every possibility exists side by side, yet the one that manifests is the one you choose to observe.

I think that if you listen to that emotions and energy you feel when you imagine a particular scenario for your life, then you’ll live the best life story for yourself that you can possibly live. I think the optimal scenario is most often one that allows you to live on forever, through the procreations you leave behind (be they in the form of ideas or children or other aspects of this reality you (hopefully positively) affect.)

In sum, I think you choose your own story, which is impacted by the stories others choose for themselves, and which will be closer to your optimal story the more you can preview the perspective of hindsight that a Universe transcending earth’s time limitations can see from.

If you “connect with the universe” by tuning your vibrations, beating in sync, and listening to the signs, then you can gain the power of hindsight before it’s due time. This means that you can write the story that will bring you (both the individual and the collective you), along the most optimal trajectory that you can (or even better than you can) imagine.

But of course, like I said in my last entry, all of this is much easier said than done.

Truth,

Homoerotic “platonic” eulogies to Love

Written by Juliet Bennett
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“I have to tell you that I’m really in a pretty bad state from yesterday’s drinking, and I could do with a break. I think the same goes for most of the rest of you as well, since you were there yesterday. So what do you think? How can we best make our drinking easy on ourselves,” says Pausanias at near the beginning of Plato’s Symposium… ‘at this, everyone agreed not to make the party a drunken one, but to drink only for pleasure.’

And from there, this group of homoerotic philosophers take turns in sharing their respective eulogies to the personified god Love.

While the eulogies appear to me as if they are largely motivated by the old philosopher’s need to justify their lust and sexual relations for young males (to them, a fair exchange of beauty for wisdom), this night of drunken philosophy shines a light on many of the forms that love can take and reminds us of the power this force has on our lives.

While Plato admits that ‘Aristodemus couldn’t quite remember every detail of everyone’s speeches, and I don’t remember everything he told me either,’ he promises to give us ‘a pretty accurate report of what he remembered of each speech, at least to the aspects which have stuck in [his] mind.’

The text is the furthest thing from one would expect considering our use of the term ‘Platonic love.’ The words Plato puts in the mouths of his friends presents an incredibly passionate, lustful, and sexual love, with philosophically universal implications. Plato relates love to the desire for happiness and hence goodness, immortality and hence procreation – namely through beautiful mediums. Plato takes love and one’s desire for immortality beyond physical procreation, to the offspring of ‘mental’ pregnancy including ‘above all virtuous deeds, educational discussions, works of art, and legislation.’ (208c-209c)

I like this idea – the idea of creativity as a source of immortality – I suppose if you’ve read my stuff on “creativism” you already know that…

One of my favourite perspectives of love comes from the comic poet Aristophanes. If you are too lazy to read this quote, then skip it and watch the clip from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (a very funny movie my friends showed me in Berlin a long while back) which will sing you through the story:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRol4ByOh6g[/youtube]

Aristophanes tells us about the origins of Love:

‘the starting-point is for you to understand human nature and what happened to it… Firstly, there used to be three human genders… a distinct type of androgynous person…

‘secondly, each person’s shape was complete: they were round, with their backs and sides forming a circle. They had four hands and the same number of legs, and two absolutely identical faces on a cylindrical neck. They had a single head for their two faces (which were on opposite dies), four ears, two sets of genitals, and every other part of their bodies was how you’d imagine it on the basis of what I’ve said…

‘[The reason] is that the original parent of the male gender was the sun, while that of the female gender was the earth and that of the combined gender was the moon, because the moon too is a combination, of the sun and the earth. The circularity of their shape and their means of locomotion was due to the fact that they took after their parents…

‘Now, their strength and power were terrifying, and they were also highly ambitious. They even had a go at the gods… So Zeus and the rest of the gods met in a council to try to decide what to do with them…

‘After thinking long and hard about it, Zeus said, “… What I’m going to do is split every single wone of them into two halves; then they’ll be weaker, and at the same time there’ll be more in it for us because there’ll be more of them. They’ll walk about upright on two legs. If in our opinion they continue to behave outrageously,” Zeus added, “and they refuse to settle down, I’ll cut them in half again, and then they’ll go hopping around on one leg.”

‘It was their essence that had been spit in two, so each half missed its other half and tried to be with it; they threw their arms around each other in embrace and longed to be grafted together.’

When we were beginning to die of starvation and apathy Zeus took pity: ‘he changed the position of their genitals round to their fronts. Up until then, their genitals too had been on the far side of hteir bodies and procreation and birth hadn’t involved intercourse with one another, but with the ground, like cicadas…

‘Love draws our nature back together; he tries to reintegrate us and heal the split in our nature. Turbot-like, each of us has been cut in half, and so we are human tallies, constantly searching for ou counterparts. Any men who are offcuts from the combined gender – the androgynous one, to use its former name – are attracted to women, and therefore most adulterers come form this group; the equivalent women are attracted to men and tend to become adulteresses. Any women who are offcuts form the female gender aren’t particularly interested in men; they incline more towards women, and therefore female homosexuals come from this group. And any men who are offcuts from the male gender go for males. While they’re boys, because they were sliced form the male gender, they enjoy sex with men and they like to be embraced by men… I know they sometimes get called immoral, but that’s wrong; their actions aren’t prompted by immorality, but by courage, manliness, and masculinity… There’s good evidence for their quality: as adults, they’re the only men who end up in government.’ 189d-193a.

Don’t know how much Tony Abbot would like that little remark.

In sum, says Aristophanes, “Love” is ‘just the name we give to the desire and pursuit of wholeness… We human beings will never attain happiness unless we find perfect love, unless we come across the love of our lives and thereby recover our original nature.’ 193c.

So far, in reading homoerotic Symposium’s thoughts on love, I most like the way that Robin Waterfield sums up parts of Socrates’ speech in her Introduction: ‘if I am in love, many things about the world, not just the immediate object of my love, seem lovable. To say “I love X” is somehow really to say “X inspires love in me”, and that love then attaches itself to object other than X as well.’

I guess this Symposium reiterates what we probably already know: there are lots and lots of different forms of love, love changes forms, it knows know boundaries, and it inspires all the good things life has to offer. So, cheer’s to Love!

Random Life Stuff

Making time

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Time is an aspect of life I have always been a little obsessed over. It ticks by, “tick tock”, and never returns. When you are bored or doing something you hate it, goes by far too slow; and when you are busy or doing something you love, it goes by far too fast. While time is a somewhat relative dimension on our lives, it also seems to be the only absolute and unchanging aspect of our earthly existence. Time goes on, and on, and on; and I suppose it will keep doing so until our solar system stops expanding. Then, who knows, maybe it rewinds and starts again…

Anyway when it comes to time, one thing I’m acutely aware of at the moment, is that there quite simply is not enough of it.

Any regular readers of this blog might have noticed a drastic reduction of entries in the last month or so. That’s because, for the first time in about 8 years, I have a 9 to 5 job. It’s not even full time – I’m working a total of 3.5 days a week – and I actually love the job I’m doing (an admin role at the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney and a communications role for my Dad’s business) but the new routine nature of my weeks is enough to make my weeks fly by in the blink of an eye.

A social life is part to blame. But hey, I’m 28, isn’t that what I’m “supposed” to be doing? And after a day of work it’s so easy to justify an after-work drink or dinner and then some television or a movie… another week well enjoyed and another week gone down the drain.

Lately I’ve observed my mind complaining that there is not enough time to work and sleep, to see this friend and skype with that friend, to reply to emails, to watch my sister’s netball game, do yoga, read the twenty or so books and pages and pages of articles waiting for me to read, and also to post entries on this blog.

What was God thinking when he created 24 hour days? How much better would it have been if they were 30 hours, even 28 hours – imagine having four more hours to read or sleep or sit in the sun or catch up with friends… I wonder if even that would be enough?

Anyway, for some reason or another, the earth takes 24 hours to rotate, giving us  a 24 hour framework with which to work, sleep, eat, and relax. Every 365 of these rotations and another year is added to our count, and another round of seasons we get to experience is crossed off the eighty-or-so rounds we get in this life.

I’ve lived through twenty-eight summers, I probably have about fifty-two to go.

That, along with a lot of other badly designed features of our planet (and especially our species), is a pretty good case against there being a God. Before I go down the path of God talk, distinguishing between different conceptions of “God” as a separate divine designer, or “God” a personification of the evolving macrocosm we are a part of, I will catch myself and return to today’s topic: making time.

I can complain all I like about there not being enough time to do the things I want to do, but it’s not going to change anything. I need to go back to those good ol’ principles of time management skills: set goals, prioritise the important ones, group & streamline the less important ones, don’t procrastinate, and learn to say no. Implementing these skills, while keeping in mind to live in the moment, enjoy the process, and follow your dreams, is probably far too many paradoxical self-help tips that my mind can deal with today.

I guess in the end the most important thing is to make sure you make time for the things that are most important to you.

We live within twenty-four, 365 days, for an average 80-years framework, so there’s no point complaining about it… we may as well embrace it. Twenty-four hours is plenty – so long as each day is lived to the full. On (western) average, these 29,200 days (80 x 365) in the one conscious is more-than-enough – so long as a whole you spend the time accomplishing whatever you feel you are on this planet to accomplish.

It’s time to make time.

Truth,

Imagining ten dimensions

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Okay, so we draw in two dimensions, live in three, and think in four (I guess seeing as most of our thought is based around time…). What would a fifth dimension look like? And a sixth? Or a tenth? Could other dimensions exist outside our own lived experiences?

This may help you imagine how such a strange idea could exist:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q_GQqUg6Ts[/youtube]

“I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286.

It’s a pretty queer place.

Picture:

The cover of a book written by a friend I made through this blog. James M. Harvey wrote “Singularia: Being At An Edge In Time – A Meditation and Thought Experiment While Crossing the Galactic Core” published by Alchemica Productions in Mullumbimby, NSW – a book based on the idea of the “Singularia” – defined as ‘A noun for which there is no plural form, but which is not grammatically uncountable. Example: information, humanity, consciousness.’ (p. vi.)

“Humanity” is one, and yet it is many. We are part of a universe, yet we contain a universe inside ourselves. Ten dimensions may exist, many universes within universes may exist, but it is all part of the same thing: it’s all a singularia.

This book reminded me that we are all together on this journey for truth and understanding of our place in the universe. Thank you James for contacting me and sharing your story. Check it out: http://www.singularia.com.au/

Truth

Are the laws of science and “God” the same thing?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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”Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist… The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science?” that you could meet, and ask questions.” [1] he [Hawkings] said. ”I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God

This is a quote from Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design, quoted by Laura Roberts in today’s Sydney Morning Herald in an article entitled “God did not create universe: Hawking.”

While some of the commentary on this newsarticle focused on the lack of newsworthiness of the story (for example, “Shock, horror, leading scientist doesn’t believe in God…really, this non-story is a glib plug for a new book, well done to the publicisit who somehow got this treated as news.”) I still enjoyed the article. And it got me thinking…

I do align God with the laws of science, BUT I’m not so sure that the story begins or ends there…

I think it’s important to recognise the limitations of our knowledge, for example, that we can never know what lies outside the boundaries of our universe. There could be an entire universe of universes we are unaware of. Not to mention the universes within our universe that our senses may not have evolved to sense. Just because we can not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. I’m thinking of the sounds that bats hear, the electrofields that the platypus beak senses, etc etc. We simply cannot know the things we do not yet have a means to sense.

So, while I know it may well be ridiculously arrogent to think I can criticise someone as smart as Hawkings, I do question his statement “you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions“.

When I think about the aligning of “God” with the laws of the universe and the idea of a “personal God” – I’m not so sure that the two concepts are incompatible.

In my mind, this aparent contradiction seems completely dependant on your language. It depends on your framing. It depends on your understanding of the universe, and of the connection between the macrocosms and microcosms that lay within it.

You can describe the awe-inspiring force of creative expansion of our universe using mathematical formula, chemistry, and universal laws; or, you can take the whole intricate system and personify it as “God”. And these two ways of describing the same thing, in my mind, are not mutually exclusive conceptions.

Just because you choose to personify the universe as “God”, and speak to it and (possibly) hear answers through your intuition and by reading the omens surrounding you… doesn’t mean that you can’t equate this peronified force “God” to the laws of the universe.

You may wonder:  How can anyone feel  comforted by a force that they are pretending to be a person? Why would anyone bother to personify it? And talk to it? How deluded! What a waste of time! …. Well I disagree.

Firstly, I don’t think anyone thinks God is actually a person. Even the most radical religious followers don’ think that – do they? I’m pretty sure that while groups may claim ownership of God, and may ascribe their own versions of historical or non-historical events to this God, I don’t believe any actually claim that God is a person. Religious believers (as far as I’m aware) would agree that the question of exactly WHAT is God, is beyond the limits of our knowledge; just as scientists (as far as I’m aware) would admit there are elements of the universe that they do not and may never come to know or understand.

Secondly, I do actually see some benefits of personifying it and talking to it. Largely due the connection that seems to appear between microcosm and macrocosm, there is a need for us to communicate with the whole that we are a part of.

Let me use an analogy:

When I twisted my ankle earlier this year, and ignored the injury for a week of waterskiing and partying, my brain decided to stop communicating with the spacial sensors located in the ligaments of my ankle. A few weeks later I twisted it again. And then again. And then again. It took a lot of time and money on physiotherapy to help reconnect my brain with my ankle, and even now every now and the communication channels are rusty and I almost go over on it.

So let’s apply this to our place within our universe, well to my limited understanding of my place within our universe…

From what I have learned in various books and lectures, every atom that exists as a vibration – electrons and protons moving at different speeds. Einstein showed us that matter IS energy (times the speed of light, squared)… what does this mean?

The line where our body appears to end and that which we sit on or touch seems to begin, is a boundary we perceive because our senses have evolved for us to see the world in this way. It’s like everything that exists is all part of the same piece of fabric, and the appearance of separateness is like a design weaved within it.

Our thoughts are not separate from this permeating fabric. From what I understand (yes it is probably due to books about The Law of Attraction and thought experiments), when we think the vibrations of our thoughts travel into the universe, and like an ankle talking to a brain, those thoughts play a role in the manifestation of the reality we experience. It seems that if you are “on the same wavelength” as someone else, so to say, if you are tuned in correctly you can pick up those vibrations and hear each other’s thoughts. Or maybe “hear” is not the right word. But you can sense them through an intuitive sense inside you – not in a sound, but in the mind.

Similarly if you “pray” to a God, or to The Universe, these thoughts connect to something that maybe similar to the “brain” of the macrocosm we are inside and generally acting within the laws of science, these thoughts attract your requests, your “prayers” are answered.

Maybe this doesn’t work for everyone, but it in an uncanny way it pretty much always works for me. Whether it’s putting in a request for a sunny winter’s day, or a rockstar carpark, and for much larger requests too. Ask and receive. Knock and the door will be opened.

Does this provide me comfort? Sure it does. It is rather like the analogy Christians give of a father’s loving embrace. When you don’t see yourself as separate from the universe, if there is no “other”, then you don’t fear it.

Does it matter whether or not you personify the macrocosm as “God”? I don’t think so really.

It helps me, but maybe that’s because I was conditioned this way since birth. Maybe it strengthens one’s relationship to the macrocosm, helps you sense vibrations at a different frequency, streamlining the communication channels amd making them more personal, or maybe it doesn’t, I’m not really sure.

I guess it’s not so different to an ankle ankleifying the brain. The ankle could say “Dear Mr Ankle that lives up top, there is a stone to the left that I need you to respond to”… or the ankle could try to communicate more abstractly with the Laws of the Body that it has experienced in the past. Maybe I’m taking my analogy too far…

Anyway, it seems that whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you personify “god” or sciencify “the universe”, in my mind we are all referring to an ecosystem of macrocosms within macrocosms and microcosms within microcosms… we are all part of the repeating patterns that (including ourselves) are all expressions of some an energy that is both nothing and everything at the same time; we are all part of something that we will never fully be able to describe or understand.

Maybe anklifying the brain if you are ankle, or personifying the universe if you are person, is a useful tool for communicating with the whole… or maybe it’s not. What do you think???

– Is the idea of a divine force compatible with spontaneous creation?

– Might “God” refer to a personification of what scientific laws attempt to describe?

– Is it possible (and useful) to communicate with this “personal God”?

Is the question on the Sydney Morning Herald poll too limited? Should there be an option that reads:

“None of the above – spontaneous creation IS a divine force itself, whether or not that divine force extends beyond it.”

That’s the one I’d vote for.

References:

Laura Roberts, Sydney Morning Herald (3 Sept 2010) quoting from Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design – an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times.

Picture:

A Sydney Morning Herald poll – to vote go to this site:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/god-did-not-create-universe-hawking-20100903-14rva.html#comments

Truth, , , ,

Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Hmmm, I wondered to myself on my last off before an almost 4-day working week (heaven forbid!)… what is my destiny? To read books on the beach? To find the Jedi inside me and jump in the water?

The night before I had watched The Men Who Stare At Goats for the second time, and loved it just as much as I did the first. I know it got terrible reviews, but I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. And, I know it’s a satire, but there’s some quality philosophy here…

LYN CASSADY (George Clooney):

Have you heard of Optimum Trajectory before? (No answer) Your life is like a river, Bob. If you’re aiming for a goal that isn’t your destiny, you will always be swimming against the current. Young Ghandi wants to be a stock-car racer? Not gonna happen. Little Anne Frank wants to be a High School teacher. Tough titty Anne. That’s not your destiny. But you will go on to move the hearts and minds of millions. Find out what your destiny is and the river will carry you. Now sometimes events in life give an individual clues as to where their Destiny lies. Like those doodles you just “happened” to draw?

He unbuttons his shirt and reveals an EYE tattooed on his chest – very similar to the one Bob had drawn. Bob looks up.

LYN CASSADY continues:

This is the Ajna chakra – the third eye – the symbol of the Jedi. When I saw you’d drawn it…well, the Universe gives me a sign like that, I don’t ignore it. You’re meant to be here with me, Bob. The Jedi inside you sensed that.

Bob stares at the EYE.

…

Classic. Jedi warriors, psychic spies and sparkling eyes techniques. If you haven’t, you gotta see it. And if you have and you didn’t like it, then I suggest you watch it again… so funny!!!!

…

I lay on the beach thinking about the journey of life. Sometimes I feel as though I’m traveling along my Optimum Trajectory. At these times I’m usually full of energy and the river does simply carry me along. Everything goes well. The traffic lights are green.

I can typically tell when I’m trailing away from it. I get stuck at every set of traffic lights, and I have a sense of unease pervading my body – a niggling feeling that appears to be connected to an ego-interrupted intuition.

I guess the trick is to notice this, and adjust your path. But that’s easier said than done… sometimes it’s hard to know which direction your destiny lies…

After five minutes of warm sunshine the day turned cold and windy… I guess it wasn’t my day to swim with or against a current. Or to stare at goats.

Taken from script found at:

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Men-Who-Stare-at-Goats,-The.html

 

 

Truth

Leftist idealist or right-wing conservative?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Have you noticed the reoccurring pattern of almost hypocritical contradictions contained in my most recent entries? There seems to be a battle going on inside my mind:a battle between my leftist idealistic side (a perspective largely shared at  the peace conference) that seems to abruptly clash with my more right-wing conservative side (a result of my experiences in India).

I care about people. I care about those who live in unsanitary conditions, those who suffer from war, from hunger, from all forms of slavery – be it economic slavery sitting in front of a sewing machine 12 hours a day, physical slavery forced and whipped to pick cocoa beans without a drop of pay, sexual slavery, or mental slavery.

I care about animals. I don’t like they are our slaves, pumping out our eggs, milk, and that they are bred and killed for my meat. Yet I am not a vegetarian.

I care about our planet. I don’t like that my car pollutes it. I don’t like that the plastic packaging of my products is toxic to it. I don’t like that humanity is chopping down its trees for my paper and digging up its insides for my electricity. Yet I still drive a car, buy too many products, use too much paper, and too much electricity.

I want every life-form to reach it’s full potential and yet I kill ants without a second thought and I am okay with abortion (believing the woman should have a choice over and above the not-yet-conscious entity forming inside her).

I believe in human rights yet I support population control – something has to be done.

I don’t think of different races as “better” or smarter than others, yet I don’t particularly want to see the whole world dominated by one or two of them.

I want to let all the asylum seekers into Australia, but I also don’t like feeling I’m a minority in my own city (the other day I swear I was the only caucasian-Australian walking down George Street in Sydney.)

I want Australia to pull troops out of the war, actually I want all the wars to end, but I don’t complain about the cheap oil and security that comes from their actions.

I am generous but I am greedy. I want everyone to have somewhere like Australia to live, but I don’t want everyone to live in Australia.

In short, I want my cake, and I want to eat it too. And I don’t quite know what to do about it.

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IS LIFE MEANINGLESS?

Written by Juliet Bennett
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“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun…. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow…

I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly – my mind was still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees… I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces… I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly… I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness… but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both… For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in the days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!

So I hated life… I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune… a chasing after the wind.

I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both. As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come form dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors – and they (too) have no comforter. And I declared that the dead, who had already died , are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields. Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.

As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep... Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. This too is a grievous evil…

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. All share a common destiny – the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not… This is the evil under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favor what you do… Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!”

The above could quite easily be my words, but they are not. Believe it or not they come from the OLD TESTAMENT of the Christian Bible!!! They come from the BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES, by paragraph: Ecclesiastes 1:2-11; Ecclesiastes 2:1-3; Ecclesiastes 2:4-11; Ecclesiastes 2: 13-26; Ecclesiastes 3:18-22; Ecclesiastes 4:1-3; Ecclesiastes 5:8-16; Ecclesiastes 9:1-3; Ecclesiastes 9:7-11; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Ecclesiastes 12:8.

In times that I feel a little down about life, times where I’m exhausted, times that I see myself using chocolate, coffee or alcohol to give me little highs, times when I feel confused, lacking motivation, or fed-up with the projects I’m working on… Ecclesiastes captures the thoughts I am thinking: WHAT IS THE POINT OF IT ALL? Maybe I am a reincarnate of this old depressed soul…

While they don’t know when or by who the book of Ecclesiastes was written, (their wild guess is King Solomon, which could very well be true but no one really knows), it is pretty clear that it was written by a man who had everything yet felt empty, a man who is bitter about life, who is has been hurt by a woman (or women), and who doesn’t want to get old and die but knows this time is approaching. I guess maybe we can or will all relate, at one stage or another, to the lack of satisfaction that comes from consumption, materialism, love, and the unavoidable death that awaits us.

Ecclesiastes is not a long book – all of ten pages long – and I think it’s a worthwhile read. If you do, then maybe you will notice what I did – a few out-of-place passages that more or less say, that this meaningless life is made meaningful by obedience to God: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

I don’t blame the editors for adding that – actually I’m more surprised the rest of the book made it in the published version at all. I suppose the publishers of the book wanted readers to confront these philosophical ideas with the conclusion to obey whatever they told them God wanted them to do. I think it’s funny the way in which it was done – with sloppily placed paragraphs that don’t interfere with what appears (to me) to be the key messages of the original writer.

Still I guess a note of something is a little more or a positive finishing point than the depressing note my summary above leaves it…

IS LIFE REALLY SO MEANINGLESS?

Peace, Truth, ,

The eye of the storm and the calm that follows.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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I knew my final peaceful week of yoga and relaxation in Pokhara was the calm before the storm, and boy I was right. The eye of the storm hit the day I arrived home with every day and night packed full-to-the-brim with hens parties, farewells, birthdays (including my own big two-eight), shopping, weekend weddings, welcome-home celebrations, and a five-day International Peace Research Association conference where I photographed, attended, networked and presented.

A coffee, sugar and chocolate addiction later, yesterday the storm let out it’s final blow. I went cold turkey. I felt depressed. I was mentally and physically exhausted. But with the help of family, friends, and a laugh (and little cry) watching Toy Story 3, I got through the day.

Today the storm has calmed, and the sun is shining. How one can go from down and depressed to up and happy overnight I don’t know. Maybe there is something to the New Moon thing? Today even news of not receiving the PhD scholarship I’d been hoping for hasn’t got me down.

While I could be worried about my future, now not having my next few years secured, I’m not. These things happen for a reason. Good thing a few days ago I accepted a part-time admin job at my university’s Centre for Peace and Conflict studies – at least I’ll have a little money coming in to survive on given my savings are almost sucked dry.

On a positive note, I received a dose of independent feedback from an editor about the second draft of my book (the one about South America) and guess what? Someone who doesn’t know me actually enjoyed reading it!!! But at 450 pages still too long. Begin Draft Number Three…

I’m getting sidetracked. I would like to apologize for the lack of entries over the duration of this storm. And now for this long rant about my own life.

The point of this entry is to prepare you for the entries to come. Now the storm is over I finally feel ready to process and publish the daunting thoughts that have come from the leftist idealism that experienced at the peace conference juxtaposed with the more right-wing conservatism resulting from my experiences in India.

I have a lot of interesting (and controversial) entries written in my head so it’s just a matter of getting them out in a way that makes sense.

A warning: while I don’t want to offend, in the name of a “pursuit for truth” I will continue my overtly honest style of writing. I write what I think. That’s what I do. And I hope that anyone reading my thoughts will be able to empathise with the lens from which they come from, and engage with me in a dialogue if you have an opposing view. Or if you agree – I really love hearing your thoughts.

No idea is static. No thought is ever permanent. While this is the danger of writing down one’s thoughts, my hope is that because on this blog so many of thoughts are being shared, and because one can see that such thoughts change quite rapidly, the process of dynamic thought is in some way being captured. The pluses and minuses of the live nature of blogs…

So please, when reading the entries that follow in the weeks (or years) to come, take them as snapshots of a thinking process – thoughts and perspectives as they develop over time. And know that they are coming from a somewhere that (at least what I perceive to be) a peace-loving, truth-loving, people-loving and planet-loving place.

Picture:

Uyuni Salt Lakes, Bolivia. Only the most beautiful most heavenly experience of my life. There was no storm, but it looks like an eye inside a storm to me.

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