co-evolution

highlights from a wide-ranging and interesting conversation, laid on the table without pretense.

* Philosophers are after the Truth [capital T], but they, like composers, are merely the articulators of a moment, making the Zeitgeist palpable/lisible/audible, orating from the mountaintop their own personal truth. The successful truths find resonance with the people of the time (or the time just after).

That is, Nietzsche wasn't so much calling for the death of God as much as proclaiming it. The messenger not the executioner.

* We live in a predominantly capitalist pseudo-democracy for a good reason: competition, survival of the fittest. Societies evolve like species. Religions, too. Myriad economic systems, myriad insignificant religions, have attempted to win over the hearts of people, but only a few have succeeded. Christianity succeeded in the West *because* it declared Jesus was the one and only son of God. While that rings false to me in the 21st century, it is perhaps the one decision that allowed me to hear about him at all.

Capitalism was just one possible system—of the 10,000 we tried—but was not so much chosen as it was proven to be effective. The reason why it won out is a big question. It's not the fairest system, it's probably not even the most efficient system, but it is dominating right now.

Maybe societies succeed or fail not because of what they give people but based on what people give them. Society creates its own needs, people fill them. Ultimately, when people have a role in society, when they are giving back, they feel a part of it.

* People created societies based on their fear of the unknown in order to stabilize food availability and weather. Thus, we needed to dominate nature to provide stability. Domination is always inherent, unavoidable.

We all need a different mix of certainty and uncertainty. I'm an uncertainty freak and so don't feel compelled to relinquish options in the name of stability. As such I neither join nor create many organizations. [Somehow, being on a bike team is the only one that makes sense.] But, still, I depend on organizations that others have created to give a modicum of stability to our chaotic lives.

Bigger organizations are more stable. More stability means less individual freedom. How do we balance these? We don't. We let the market decide. We let the powerful—the organization leaders—get away with more and more until the unfairness becomes excessive, then we stage protests and occupy shit.

We need organizations, but when there are organizations who have been organized to organized other organizations, it gets a little too meta for real life.

We seem to be living in the most stable time for the most number of people ever in history. There's a lot of evil still in the world, but we need to acknowledge how far we've come lest we pale at the sight of how far is left to go.

scott walker

Jesus Camp sparked more interesting conversation between Darick and me. Apparently, getting saved sounds a lot like my mystical Reiki experience. And you can "get saved" more than once, every time you have the experience. I wonder what kind of monkey wrench it would throw into their world view if they knew that I've had the same sensation through Reiki and through Burning Man, that it's not exclusively an evangelical experience. For sure, it's an experience that feels so pure, so true, that you think you must be right. But at the same time, it could just be biological. Meditators have figured out how to have the experience on their own; evangelicals have found it through groupthink.

Ironically, Darick returned my copy of Living Buddha, Living Christ, which I've had since high school back when I just started to see the connections between all these different religions.

Sometimes you make the connections; sometimes the connections make you.

(That's my answer to the whole "fate" vs. "free will" debate that is at the center of Lost.)

I worked on the piece yesterday for the funeral. It is so helpful to have a few days off and approach a new piece with fresh ears. I feel like I should make this part of my routine: work feverishly on something until I hit some dead ends or get too tired to continue, then take a break. I can hear the moments that don't flow right so much clearer when it's not quite so fresh in my brain.

(I'm pretty pleased with myself that I was even able to get to work. Having the right set-up is so important for both overcoming my inertia to start working and then continuing. Learning a lot of helpful things to know when moving forward.)

So after discussing last night's Lost episode with Darick with tangents relating to Jesus Camp, I told him about some interesting documentaries I found on Netflix: the Examined Life and the Botany of Desire. We looked but instead found a documentary on Scott Walker, who I'd heard about from both Radiohead and my friend Ryan. I have always seen him as parallel or tangential to people like David Bowie but also maybe Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits--the latter two Darick likes a lot. But not Scott Walker. Turns out he just doesn't get it why all these great musicians in the doc are talking about how much they were influenced by his stuff: Johnny Marr from the Smiths, David Bowie himself, and Radiohead (minus Thom). He's growing on me in spite of his velvet-butter crooning voice.

I made a list for you on Grooveshark.

hara hachi bu

Staying at Darick's. They kept the program, the menu, from Too Much Light the other night, helping me remember some of the plays that got lost in the cobwebs of my mind. One, Hara Hachi Bu, is about the Japanese concept of eating until you are only 80% full--supposedly a concept that leads to longevity. It's given me plenty of food for thought.

I don't feel hunger or fullness like I used to. I don't like being hungry, but I don't think my habits are much better or worse for longevity than Hara Hachi Bu. I wait until I'm 80% hungry and then eat until it doesn't hurt any more. Every now and then I find myself really full, but typically only on special occasions: x-mas, b-days, and other jours fériés. More typically, I find myself riding back from work and have a sudden blood sugar drop, forcing me to stop and buy some food.

The other day, coming back from the bike tour on my lovely red bike, I had such a drop in my energy and stopped at 7-11 for gatorade and a banana. And while I was standing on the corner, dazed, nursing myself back to coherence, this drunk named Frank teetered over and wanted to make conversation. I was a sitting duck. But it wasn't so bad as long as he kept rambling on about his step-father who he thought was his real father until he was 17. But when he asked me about myself, I just didn't have the energy to make words come out of my mouth. Finally, I finished my snack and went to throw it away, muttering some excuse. At this point he wanted to make sure I didn't think he was gay. "I'm not gay you know." Dude, whatever. I just want to go "home" and shower. I come back from the garbage and he proselytizes me with his deeply held theological tenets: "God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve." If I had had the energy, I would have taken this bait and run with it, but I didn't. Schade.

You can probably meet Frank yourself if you hang out near Truman College at Wilson and Racine.

Coffee yesterday turned into a party as Sarah's old roommate popped and then so did my old roommate, Brian, who knew where I was from foursquare. Every now and then it works like that: "hey, I'm here!" "cool! I'll join you." Then I went on a nearly 40-mile bike ride (according to map my ride) with my friend Anna (who just got a swanky new road bike) down to Hyde Park and then back to Wicker Park where I taught my piano lesson for the week and had dinner (ribs). Then back to Darick's to rest.

Then, they brought me back some ice cream and we watched Jesus Camp. Holy Hell. These fundamentalist evangelical kids are getting brainwashed into thinking they've been enlisted (by god) in the army of good versus the forces of evil led by satan. I think they are scared shitless by what they see on FuxNews about Muslim fundamentalist terrorist camps, which then becomes their model. The atmosphere in the camps reminded me much more of Jim Jones rather than traditional Christianity. [I've seen that documentary on Jones on MSNBC a couple times, and I really don't think Jonestown was such a terrible idea (up until the mass murder/suicide). The people they interview remember a sense of community that I have never seen nor experienced (even in the co-op). The methods may be suspect, but the results seem positive.] In Jesus Camp, the language they use can be revolting, emotionally manipulative, but the tears and joy they feel is real. How much lying can be justified by the ends? Which parts of our world views are based on unfounded beliefs that we invented or held on to because they make us feel more comfortable?

Who but children can believe that the world is so black and white? I happen to think children should be taught black and white rules first and then learn about grey. But the camp is run by adults: a small number of in denial about the heterogenous nature of the right and wrong, rebelling against the greyness by indoctrinating children and then feeding off their naïve idealism.

Crying meditation: because you're a bad person and need to repent.

Darick, who is from Missouri like a lot of the kids in the movie, actually went to such camps and remembers speaking in tongues (which sounds a lot like gibberish). And look at him; he turned out alright.

Some religions try to escape the evil in the world; some try to embrace the natural world as good and wholesome. Some aspire to ascend; some descend. Which makes Atheism a religion. Atheists are the ultimate version of descending: there is no up there, only down here. Pagans are pretty much about descending too. Buddhists and Christians, on the other side, are not so different: down here is evil, an illusion; we should overcome it. And I want it all from Burning Man to Thich Nhat Hanh. Stuck in the middle yet again.

Thich Nhat Hanh brainwashing some people.