Category: Mind

Political Kirajutsu: The Cleverness That Kills

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Jujutsu is a Japanese martial art that originated as the “gentle art” of manipulating an opponent’s force against them rather than confronting it with one’s own force. In the world of politics, many in high office have become experts in the opposite form of this art – what I call “kirajutsu” or “killer art”. Another description of this ability is that politicians fall prey to the cleverness of their own argument. By trying to manipulate their opponents, they end up manipulating and deceiving themselves and the country. Politics is no longer the art of the possible, but the art of benefitting oneself.

Like any good lawyer, politicians learn to argue both sides of an issue, using whatever small rationalization is necessary to buttress their argument and score points. It’s an excellent skill that provides insight into how someone else, say an opponent, views the same set of facts. That gives insight into the weakness of that opponent. But in developing such a skill, politicians forget the moral aspects of their arguments. Instead of living and speaking with both the head and heart, they shelve the heart. The useful skill then becomes a dangerous tool-it becomes kirajutsu. Thus, one year a politician can justify waiting to nominate a supreme court justice because there “are only 88 days to election” and we must “let the people decide.” Four years later, and with a straight face, he argues vehemently that we must nominate a Supreme Court justice even if it’s “only 40 days to election” because it’s “constitutional.” It is the finest of kirajutsu moves.

Like most intellectual martial arts, kirajutsu and the cleverness of the combatants become an intellectual game of superiority. What such blatant arrogance produces, however, is cynicism and reduction in trust from those observing these hijinks.  Citizens are not stupid and see through the politician’s cleverness, and in the long term the toxicity of their game erodes our belief in democracy. Unfortunately for us, both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, practice kirajutsu because for them it’s about power, not about doing the right thing for the country. Their selfish desire to benefit themselves or their affiliates becomes an inexorable force. When such a game is only about power, the country loses in the long term.

The most severe effects are on trust and truth. Our trust toward leaders to tell the truth decays, assuming they ever told the truth. Kirajutsu makes truth a relative value, based on circumstances. While politicians fool themselves that they are concerned with pragmatic truth, their conscience, in a futile attempt, tells them otherwise. That there is a different truth, one that is durable, not a function of circumstances and changing desires. But their kirajutsu cleverness swamps their small inner voice. The touchstone to a truthful life evaporates amidst the weaknesses and temptations of their human nature.

How do we get out of this democracy-destroying political kirajutsu? How do politicians recover their ability and courage to do what is right? The only way out is for everyone to recognize the truth. We must recognize that we are all one and what hurts others hurts us. We must remember the importance of morality, of eternal truths, of the ones we learned in kindergarden. Additionally, we must recognize we are one nation which can only survive together, not apart. And that kirajutsu, while fun and temporarily satisfying, is tearing us apart.

Why Males Should Embrace The Feminine Principle

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“The feminine principle is an archetypal energetic expression alive in both men and women and in every aspect of creation. It represents the very energy of creation itself, the creative force from which all things are born.”

                                                                              M. Montealegre

Maleness and femaleness are like two substances that blend, but with neither element ever disappearing in one individual. These feminine and masculine “principles” are of corresponding value in both men and women, but distributed differently in each person (some individuals are more male, others more female). While the feminine principle (not necessarily identical to femininity) is strong, rather than being cherished and encouraged, it has generated fear and been the object of persecution for as long as human history. The male need for power suppresses, ignores, and distorts our feminine side. Emotionally, psychologically, and culturally, we have all been living under a paternal social order.  Over the years, we have associated specific characteristics with maleness and femaleness to the point of exclusivity. We associate maleness with authority, and femaleness with meekness. What is unrecognized is that similar to the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy, maleness exists in the female and femaleness in the male. We are blends of both.

And yet, the faulty thinking persists. We perceive the energy of the mother, as it embodies the qualities of love, compassion, intuition, receptiveness, openness and vulnerability as feminine. As if it cannot exist in a male. In Jungian psychology, they see the self as the ‘being’ aspect of personality and as the feminine principle, while the ego represents ‘doing’, the masculine principle. From this perspective, a “normal” psyche is one in which neither ego nor self dominates but shows mutual interdependence, interplay, and synergy from the interaction.

Since the Age of Reason (1685-1815), logic and the intellect, characteristics associated with the male principle, have held sway as the essence of human values. This contradicted the emotional and intuitive aspects of beingness, the female principle. To our own detriment, favoring one excluded the other. But full human capabilities include both. Fortunately, this recognition is changing, although slowly. Nowadays, more and more people realize that intellectual logic by itself cannot be the sole basis for our reality. We recognize that integration of reason and the intellect with intuition and heart is no longer an option but a necessity if humanity is to survive. There is, then, a rising energy, an ascendency, in the feminine principle. Similar to a small flame in a hailstorm, it has not disappeared and deserves protection, encouragement, and room to grow.

The feminine principle is not original to our age, but is ascendant in a way that is modern and hopeful. We are beginning to recognize the privileged and unique position of femaleness in our mythologies, histories and evolution. Just a few examples: In the Book of Genesis, Eve showed the courage to make the choice to obtain the knowledge of good and evil over obedience. It’s a remarkable act symbolizing the darker side of the feminine. Choosing the forbidden fruit resulted in both male and female being exiled from Eden, but it was the female who opened our eyes to knowledge and wisdom. In evolution, sexual selection is a misunderstood and misrepresented concept more than any other idea in evolutionary biology. Overwhelming evidence supports the notion that females “choose” mates, while males “compete” to be the chosen. The feminine once again holds the power of choice. In most mammals, the Y chromosome determines the sex. Without this chromosome, femaleness is the default. During development, women control raising of the young and teach us most of what we need to know before we enter school. This continues in public schools, where women make up to 80% of the teachers.

There are benefits to this recognition and reintegration of the feminine principle. Opening up to it can take many forms and expressions. On the positive end, it results in freeing our emotions, allowing us to be vulnerable, opening our hearts with compassion for others, guiding us toward service for the greater community. We become more receptive, intuitive and creative. It frees us from our inhibitions, and from the mental constructs of who we are. Allowing the principle to flow freely opens up a connection to the source of life, to the ever-flowing stream in the universe, to God, Buddha-nature, or being. 

In Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine, Elizabeth Eiler has written, “This is the age of the ascendant Feminine Principle. In such times as these, women are able to look at themselves with new concepts of value and brilliance. However you inhabit and express being Woman, embrace yourself in that way today!” This rallying cry holds for men as it does for women. Likewise, Albert Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Recognizing that our bodies blend feminine and masculine aspects and being receptive to this principle is the answer to many of the problems and imbalances we produce. Acknowledging and freeing the inner feminine gives way to the love in us. And it returns us to the sacred and original mind once obscured by ego, in a manner that brings unity and reconciliation to all.

Living Up to the Greatest Commandment

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Jews and Christians are under ethical, religious, and spiritual obligations to follow Biblical precepts. The Ten Commandments, known also as “the ten words” or as the Decalogue in Christianity, are principles to guide our behavior. The commandments, detailed in Exodus 20:1-17 from the King James Version, describe a relationship with God, e.g., “Thou shalt have no other gods before me; do not make unto thee any graven image; do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” The remaining commandments describe specific actions that characterize exemplary behavior, e.g., “Thou shalt remember the sabbath; keep it holy; honor thy father and mother; do not murder, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness against thy neighbor, or covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, slaves, etc.”

In Christian theology, Jesus freed his followers from the obligation to follow the hundreds of commandments in Jewish religious law. He did not, however, remove the duty to keep the Ten Commandments. In Matthew 22:35–40, Mark 12:28–34, and Luke 10:27, Jesus acknowledges their validity. He then asks his disciples to go further, demanding a righteousness exceeding that in the Old Testament. When asked, “which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus considered these as similar precepts, for if we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, loving our neighbor is the natural consequence. For the Christian faithful, it is the core of their lifestyle and values. But why is it so difficult to live this reality? One cynical reason is that no sanction is associated with their lack of execution. Thus, individuals can call themselves Christian, not follow the commandments, and have no fear of their misbehavior. Even if they believe that punishment can only occur following earthly life, it is easy to ignore. The association is so far removed that it will not weigh very much on their conscience. My intuition is that these are not the “virtuous” people God is hoping to shape.

So, can people call themselves Christian if they cannot live up to these commandments? Yes, but it matters whether they try as opposed to having an uninterested and lackadaisical mindset about it. God gave many hints He wants his followers to make the effort. The most perfect expression of this expectation is Matthew 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”  If we assume that those who see themselves as Christian do struggle, then what prevents them from complying? Let’s for now ignore the first part and focus on the latter part of the commandment.

First, God would not command “love your neighbor as yourself” if it were beyond the capacity of humans. Second, God is the source of Life. When the faithful love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, they grow to recognize that everyone is part of His creation. My intuition is that most of the faithful know and exercise this understanding intentionally as well as unconsciously. They show it in the tithes they give, the charity work they do for their churches, and the individual volunteering seen across the world. But when they do not identify with others, it means there will be moments their actions dissociate from this ideal. What gets in the way? I argue it is the nature of human individuality in relation to unity.

This argument resembles that proposed by Martin Buber, an Austrian-born philosopher, who considered the distinction between I–Thou and I–It relation. In his analysis, Buber attempted to understand how human individuality fits into the universality of God. His reasoning followed that “I either understand myself as God or God as myself.” Neither of those, however, appeared to be correct or satisfactory. And thus, the need for a third alternative. Jesus, who became Christ, is a perfect and symbolic representation of this third relationship. Or what Buber characterized as “I am in God and God is in me” relationship. I keep my individuality as I recognize I am also part of the whole. Jesus as a human being is the embodiment of such an interactivity. Christ is the actuality that such consciousness is a possibility available to everyone.

As long as we see the world from an individual perspective, self-centered actions will prevail. When we perceive ourselves as embedded in the “I am in God and God is in me” relationship, then others become as important. And actions follow that perspective. This relationship thrives when fostered, learned, prayed for, and exercised. When that awareness becomes a natural response, then living up to the greatest commandment develops into a real and effortless life.

What can be done to make this awareness a natural response? Make the following exercises a part of an everyday routine. This will promote learning to “love your neighbor as yourself” and set up an “I am in God and God is in me” relationship:

For more thoughts on this issue, check this blog for future essays.

Flexibility In Thinking Is Crucial For Survival

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Considering the billions of life forms present on planet Earth, there are several reasons why eusocial species, notably humans, have progressed to be a dominant force. Big brained, eminently social, collaborative in nature, able to communicate complex thoughts—these are just some explanations undergirding our achievement. From a cognitive science perspective, one significant outcome of these various factors, and a big reason for our success, is cognitive flexibility.  At its most essential, this refers to the ability to control the how, when, where, and why of thought. The human brain allows control, either automatically or deliberately, of what we think, how we think about it, when we think it, and why we are thinking of it. In an ever-changing world where circumstances vary dynamically from moment to moment, a thought-generating process that can adapt and respond equally fast is a decided advantage.

This type of mental flexibility incorporates the rapid analysis of circumstances, assessing of multiple channels of information, determining alternative solutions, eliminating those that do not work, recognizing errors, etc. More than anything, cognitive flexibility requires the “ability to resist the impulse to persevere and keep thinking in a previously active but no longer appropriate way.” Most times this requires the ability to assess the larger context in which such actions are pertinent.  Hundreds of years of neuroscience research have shown that our frontal lobes are the cortical regions critically necessary for this amazing flexibility.

What brought clarity to the role frontal lobes play in higher cognitive functions was the famous case of Phineas Gage. On September 13, 1848, the 25-year-old Gage was preparing a railroad bed using an iron tamping rod to pack explosive powder into a hole. He hit the powder to pack it in but the powder detonated, sending the long rod hurtling upward. The rod peneestrated Gage’s left cheek, tore through his brain, and exited his skull. Amazingly, Gage not only survived the horrific accident but could speak. He walked to a nearby cart, following the disaster so they could take him to a doctor. The injury destroyed an extensive part of Gage’s left frontal lobe. Or what we now consider the central executive region. In doing so, the injury changed Gage’s personality completely.

The chief functions performed by the frontal lobe include intellectual skills responsible for the planning, initiation, sequencing, monitoring, and overall cognitive control of complex goal-directed behavior. Friends of Gage did not recognize him following the accident, for he could no longer perform these skills. Professor of neuroscience Patricia Goldman-Rakic (1937-2003) advocated for the role of a special part of the frontal lobes called the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the building blocks necessary for abstract understanding. Abstraction is the unique human ability to uncouple thinking from environmental stimuli – the basis for symbolic deliberation. She showed that impairments in a subdivision of the PFC, the dorsolateral part or DLPFC, contributes to thought disorders, such as those observed in schizophrenia. 

Goldman-Rakic’s work, along with others, further showed that the frontal lobes are an important site for inhibitory control. It appears that executive control operates, at one level, in a top-down manner, with the PFC having a leading, controlling role over many lower-level structures. This control over other brain regions is exercised through response inhibition which involves circuits that use chemicals such as gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Another remarkable discovery by Goldman-Rakic and others was that the brain matures in an organized way, starting in the back and moving to the front. And these maturational changes do not stop with puberty. It means that the frontal lobes, home to key executive functions like planning, working memory, and impulse control, are among the last areas to mature in the brain. Full maturity of these circuits extends well into the late 20s or 30s.  Thus, for the first two to three decades of development, the human mind is in a state of reduced efficiency. During this time, cognitive control is susceptible to impulsiveness (or lack of inhibition) and reduced flexibility. The personality has a high likelihood of developing antisocial tendencies, delinquency, spoiled mind syndrome and other early criminal conduct. What all this suggests is the undeniable importance of flexibility in thinking, as orchestrated by frontal lobe circuits, and how critical it is for our survival.

The Relevancy of Being

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I wish to be relevant.
I do not want my ashes
In the dustbin of history.
It is a terrifying thought.


To be invisible,
To be irrelevant,
Unable to add
To the human enterprise.


In the midst of a pandemic,
This consuming hunger
And accompanying fear
Is exposed.


As I shelter at home
And avoid the world,
I feel less able to add
To the human existence.


The existential crisis grows.
My insignificance is clear.
I have no ground to stand on
And I disappear.


Then, out of the ashes
Something new is reborn.
With a new relevancy
The relevancy of being.


Nothing to do,
Nothing to be,
No more,
No less.

Attuned to the Rhythms of Earth

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I see myself as an intelligent and curious person. But I plead ignorance in knowing Earth as a planet, complex ecosystem, and celestial home. Scientists estimate the Earth to be 4.54 billion years old, so there is a lot to know.  To begin, our first human ancestors appeared only five to seven million years ago, a mere blink of an eye. Thus, for at least four billion years (that’s FOUR one-thousand million years), there were no humans roaming the planet. It was not, however, a tranquil time.

Geologic time scale divides Earth’s lengthy history into four eons, the broadest category of geological time. The first division is called the Hadean eon, when the Earth and moon formed. Hadean comes from the word Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, and the underworld itself. It alludes to the hellish conditions prevailing on Earth at the time. The planet was brand new and still boiling owing to its recent accumulation of matter. There was an abundance of short-lived radioactive elements in the atmosphere, and frequent collisions with asteroids, meteorites, and other elements of the early Solar System. The hellish Hadean eon lasted 600 million years. 

From around 4 to about 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth cooled and calmed itself enough for continents to form and for the earliest known life to emerge. These life forms were microbes found in hydrothermal vents. This constituted the second eon, the Archean. The word “Archean” comes from the ancient Greek word Αρχή (Arkhē), meaning “beginning or origin.” During this time, tiny organisms known as cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, developed photosynthesis: using sunshine, water and carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. 

For the following 2.5 billion years of the Proterozoic eon, the third major geological time epoch, oxygen generated by cyanobacteria accumulated to comprise 21% of the atmosphere. The name Proterozoic is a mixture of the Greek words: protero- meaning “former, earlier”, and – zoe meaning “life”. The accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere changed the Earth’s atmosphere from a weakly reducing atmosphere to an oxidizing atmosphere. This produced the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), causing many existing species on Earth to die out. As oxygen built up, anaerobic bacteria died leading to the Earth’s first mass extinction. Today, all plants incorporate cyanobacteria (or chloroplasts) to do their photosynthesis for them. The ability to breathe oxygen allowed organisms to become much more active, and much larger. They grew from simple multicellular organisms to a multiplicity of more intricate structures as plants and animals, from sponges and worms to fish and humans. The Proterozoic eon lasted two billion years, starting 2.5 billion years to 541 million years ago.

The first three eons (Hadean, Archean, and Proterozoic) are knowns as the Precambrian age, representing over 80 percent of the overall geologic record. Then, in the following 541 million years, an explosion in the diversification of multicellular animal and plant life forms took place. Scientists describe this explosion of life as the Cambrian period. It starts with the presence of hard animal shells in the fossil record and lasts to the present. This is the Phanerozoic eon during which all major animal species started appearing in the fossil record.

At the tail end of this flourishing Cambrian period, we appeared, or at least our human ancestors. These were apelike creatures in Africa who walked on two legs. They appeared 5-7 million years ago, while only 1.8 million years ago do we begin to see the appearance of the genus Homo, our direct ancestors. It is easy, therefore, to forget and overlook the fact that humans are a recent addition to the animal diversity on this planet. This is even more surprising given the negative, calamitous, and disruptive forces we have unleashed that have affected the planet. In fact, scientists argue that we have crossed a threshold and our presence has created a new geologic force as powerful as the forces that shaped continents and propelled the evolution of species. The ongoing debate is whether we can claim to be in a new “Anthropocene” time (or “age of humanity”) or “Sapiezoic” eon (“age of wisdom”—a name suggested by David Grinspoon).

The pro-argument is that there is something unique that distinguishes humans from other world-changing organisms, and hence worthy of a new eon. This is our unique sociability. Communicating, planning and working in large social groups have allowed us to leverage knowledge and energies to change the world. We have discovered how to transmit this knowledge from generation to generation, accumulate it, and extract novel ideas to further the environmental changes. But beyond this power of the aggregate, humans, unlike other animals and non-organic processes, have a unique sense of self-awareness. That is, we are aware of what we are doing. This is new.

Saying that current human self-awareness is mature enough to serve the good of the planet would be premature. Our awareness is still dim and unfocused, but we are making progress. It is not farfetched to imagine human civilization becoming integrated into the cyclic functioning of planet Earth and becoming sustainable. This is the foundation for the environmental movement. It implies, however, a different mode of interaction with the planet than is being exhibited by our current “intelligent” behavior.

Amidst the turbulence, violence, and futility of a world we appear unable to control, there is a rising hopefulness. Humans are not separate from nature, and what many people have sensed is an awakening and a developing awareness that may in fact be nature itself becoming self-aware. Like the melody of a Mozart concerto that is so basic, so simple, so beautiful, this wakefulness floats over the unstable foundation of the world we experience. You can sense it if you listen attentively. The feeling becomes clearer and penetrating when the mind is quiet. It is then that one can sense a stillness pervading nature that voices strength, resilience, optimism, and contentment. This quiet but dynamic energy brings an understanding that it is always there when needed. “I am here,” it whispers in a firm and loving way. It is time for us to synchronize with that energy. To become attuned to such whispers.

Faulty Thinking and the Trump Administration

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We are in an extraordinary historical juncture. There is a current world-wide pandemic causing 150,000 deaths in in the U.S. alone in the last six months. How to act during this scary and turbulent period is self-evident for some but not so obvious to others. How, I ask, can anyone not promote wearing masks and social distancing when these are the strongest defenses we have against the deadly virus? Why does a rational individual, conscious of what a poor decision is, make it anyhow? How can we interpret this degree of ignorance? Or to say it another way: How can we understand faulty thinking?

Consider the efforts of President Trump and the Governor of South Dakota recently. The President refuses to wear a mask in public, and does not promote wearing one, because it makes him appear weak, unmanly, and not in control. He seems to care more about his self-perception rather than the health of the society at large. The evidence is incontrovertible that his selfishness and paucity of empathy explains his faulty judgment. But what explains the actions of the Governor?  A Republican, Gov. Kristi Noem is following the lead of the President. While inviting thousands of people to attend the Mt Rushmore celebrations for the 4th of July, she won’t make masks mandatory, nor will she promote social distancing.

As a thoughtful cognitive scientist, I am dismayed and yet fascinated by such wrong-headed and dangerous rationale. Mass gatherings with no social distancing and optional masks inevitably will increase the number of infections and undoubtedly the deaths of some of the attendees. The logic of these leaders may result from a paucity in considering all alternatives, erroneous judgment, or absence of compassion in the face of objective evidence to the contrary.

Psychologists describe a specific cognitive tendency that occurs in individuals called confirmation bias that may explain features of their attitude. Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, cherry-pick and recall material that confirms or supports one’s personal opinions or values. Confirmation bias distorts evidence-based decision-making.

Anti-maskers and anti-social distancing folks argue that their essential rights are being abridged during the pandemic: the freedom to associate and to do as they want. In their minds, such basic rights “trump” medical considerations. For me, it’s tantamount to declaring that having a gratifying time is more important than protecting life against a destructive virus. It is hard logic to understand. Since confirmation bias tunes people toward confirming their preexisting convictions, it may explain why it is mainly Republicans that react skeptically to health directives.

Psychologists note that explanations for confirmation bias include wishful thinking and the lessened readiness to process information. Another explanation is that people may consider the cost of being incorrect, rather than responding in an evenhanded, objective manner. These are attributes of President Trump’s and Gov. Noem’s responses.

Confirmation bias leads to “attitude polarization” (when a conflict becomes more severe, even when the parties receive the same evidence), and other such erroneous reasoning. It suggests that faulty thinking promotes more faulty thinking.

In the essay Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds published in the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert points out the limitations of reason. She shows why sensible folks are often foolish. Kolbert bases her conclusions on the work of cognitive scientists, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. Their argument is an unexpected and fascinating explanation for stupidity. They state that reason is an evolved character, like bipedalism or three-color vision; We developed this trait because of our skill at cooperating; And to work out the dilemmas posed by living in collaborative groups. That is, being stupid is sometimes advantageous. The problem is that often we apply this behavior in the wrong situation.

Mercier and Sperber suggest that a mouse with confirmation bias “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would quickly become supper. The human equivalent of this confirmation bias, leading individuals to dismiss evidence of recent or underappreciated threats, is a quality that should have disappeared through evolution. But because it has survived, they explain, it must have some adaptive function. They relate this to our “hyper sociability.” We developed reason, they say, to prevent us from getting screwed by the diverse members of our group.

Sociability is the key to how the human mind functions or malfunctions. We depend on others more than we realize. For most things we need not understand the world to live in it because someone else has understood it and we entrust them to have done it right. Think of how we use devices like our computers, smartphones, etc. without substantial awareness of how they work. We trust those who built these gadgets. Thus, partial, flawed, or “stupid” thinking is irrelevant in such circumstances.  It may actually be empowering. But we carry that attitude into other areas of life where it is not a smart thing to do. Politics being one.

As Kolbert says, “If we all now dismiss as unconvincing any information that contradicts our opinion, you get, well, the Trump Administration.”

The Deafening Silence

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In this moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have, for the most part, voluntarily detached from the sources of our connection to life. These relationships provide the glue that makes us social beings and involve family, friends, and those in the larger community. Circumstances have mandated social isolation for a few weeks. But if such a period is prolonged, the downsides begin to appear.  Three months into the pandemic, the deafening silence of social isolation is creating a rising tide of loneliness. Like a slow-motion wave, it is gaining speed and momentum.

Loneliness, according to many psychologists, is not necessarily about being alone. Rather, it is about feeling alone and isolated. Because loneliness is a state of mind, it has straightforward solutions. The question is when and where to apply them. The easiest way to decrease and even end loneliness is to focus on activities that distract. They distract us from the missing social bonds that we ache to experience. Such distractions are effective temporary measures. Inevitably, their therapeutic effect wears off and the loneliness returns. But this gives a glimpse into what can be a more permanent solution. That is, loneliness depends on memories to feed the feeling. We recall the friends and family we miss, the conversations we had that are now nonexistent. And we pine for what those memories conjure up.

The more enduring solution, therefore, is similar to the temporary one but involves returning to a more permanent state of mind. A state where memories are no longer the salient thing. This argument does not suggest eliminating memories; It suggests eliminating their saliency and importance. Notice too that the implication is that this is a more natural state of being. How is this possible? The best way is to make focusing on the present moment a way of life. Practicing this leads to making current experiences more salient compared to past events.

I know this because this practice has an extensive history in the psychological and metaphysical literatures. And we can gauge the practice’s efficacy and effectiveness by studying such literature. For me, the experience is also personal. Reducing the saliency of memories, reduces the loneliness created by longing for the past.  To make this a reality, we must persist in the practice. Like other changes in behavior, we need to train the mind until it becomes an automatic response.

What happens when the practice is successful? Most of the time, dwelling on the present means a rising curiosity regarding the world, nature, our bodies. It further means a lessening interest in our inner and deprecating self-talk. This outward curiosity of a child recalls a more natural state that we once experienced. It is a state of mind that wants to know the ‘why’- ness of things. We become absorbed and interested in the smallest and most irrelevant of things. It produces a rise in creative thinking for we recognize that nothing is irrelevant; Everything seems fitting and beautiful. The deafening silence of loneliness becomes the resonant joy of life. It does not mean that loneliness won’t occur and take you by surprise. Instead of dwelling on it, however, the curious, present-focused mind knows what to do and can nip the rising feeling in the bud.

Image by soumen82hazra from Pixabay

Injecting Rationality Into Our Discourse

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The covid-19 pandemic has brought to light many deficiencies in our democracy, institutions, leaders, and ourselves. The exposure of such fissures in what make up the fundamental pillars of our lives has been crushing and humbling. It has left our minds aimless and searching for answers.  One of the foundational cornerstones exposed as more virtual than actual is our dependence on science and medicine. With no means to combat the coronavirus, no vaccine to inoculate us from its destructive actions, no medicines to withstand the multiple assaults on our body, we have lost confidence. Compounding that is a U.S. leader who rejects or confuses faith in science with faith in magical thinking. To lessen the risk, he advocates using drugs with no efficacy and considered highly dangerous.  His lodestar is not science but misplaced hope in superstition and instinct. But gut feelings untested by rational thinking are worse than ineffective, they can be deadly.

What this lack of trust in education and in the scientific method teaches our children undermines the very basis of contemporary living. How are we to fight these changes to our body politic, the environment, and psychological well-being? There are many answers, but for now I concentrate on what academia can do. As part of that community, I would like to know where the wisdom experts are when we need them the most? Where are the clinicians, investigators, educators, schoolteachers who can make the case for why we need to look to science? Where are the cognitive scientists, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers to steer us through these bleak and uncertain times? The world needs them now more than ever.

My call is for them to leave their ivory towers, commune with common folk, and share their insights. It is time to banish the fiction that science cannot mingle with politics. Science, intellectual thinking, and analytic reasoning must undergird policy. Policy should be receptive to alternative ways of discerning, including faith-based approaches. But science has won the right to take a principal role and help us assimilate what we learn. We must encourage citizen-scientists to present the argument to the public, not just to colleagues and not just in specialized periodicals. Further, we cannot support leaders who disdainfully minimize the hard-won fight over illiteracy and magical thinking without a response to reconfirm what we know. We are better off because we pay attention to, assess, and then conclude rather than acting only from instinct.

This response to the anxiety and ambiguity of the moment can only take place one way. When academics shed their cloak of protection from reality and immerse in the free exchange of information using all channels of communication. There is a striking ignorance of what science is and the benefits it provides. We encounter such ignorance in schools, and more so in the dark corners of the internet. It is time to flash the light of awareness and intelligence into this darkness. Everyone trained in science must step up before it’s too late. It is an invitation to arms. The world needs saving and a massive influx of rationality into our discourse would go a long way towards doing that.

The Root of the Root of the Problem

Posted on by japineda

We are momentarily paralyzed deciding how to respond to this moment. Our hearts ache to support the righteousness of the protests and Black Lives Matter.  We march alongside the protestors and utter words of support. Yet, we are at a loss as to how to make that support real, substantive, caring, and long-lasting. From lay folks and language experts to professional academics, there is a sense of disconnection and free-floating uncertainty as to what to say, how to explain, and how to respond.

Part of the problem is that we recognize the enormity of what needs to change. That those changes must occur at different levels, from personal to social, from kindergarden to corporate. And this enormity is paralyzing for we recognize that such changes take time, yet we need an immediate response. One solution out of this dilemma is to start with fundamental causes. That is, we must get to the root of the root of the problem. We need to understand what the fundamental motivating force is behind the problem. In this case, knowing the root of systemic racism may help us consider more long-term solutions.

Most of us live creatively and function well in the world. E.E. Cummings expressed this beautifully in the poem I Carry Your Heart with Me. In it he conveys that when we carry the heart of the other, of the world, or of God within our own heart, it becomes “the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart.”  But who has not experienced the opposite, the worrying, anxiety, overwhelmed feelings, and seeing no way out of dire circumstances? When the effects of these normal human experiences persist because of events, like the ones we are facing, and they alter our mood, rational deliberation, and behavior, it disrupts the normal flow and joy of living.  It disrupts the wonder of life. When this judgment persists and turns unmanageable, it becomes the basis for disorders such autoimmune and emotional disorders, heart problems, addictive behaviors, and suicidal ideation. If the deliberation gets out of control, then psychopathology is the inevitable consequence.

While the pressures of life, such as a medical pandemic and protests against systemic racism, can exacerbate such difficulties, the root of the problem is our anxious, fearful, and uncontrollable mind. Once we understand this root problem, one centered on ego-based thinking, then we must be open to escaping the conundrum and stepping into joyful, creative living.  The solutions are easy to understand and available to everyone. Yet, these answers can be the hardest thing for anyone to do, for they call for a genuine change in perception and awareness. These changes start by holding the heart of the other within our own, even if the other is a sadistic policeman who should protect and not hurt us. Gaining knowledge and understanding the problem this way provides insight into our common humanity. It also provides the motivation for the required changes.