The Value of Considering Big Questions

A reader sent me the following message:

The following is why Big ?'s is so valuable to me.

"We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal today but will be forgotten by this time tomorrow—the immediate where's and when's and how's that face us daily at home and at work—but at the same time we tend to lose track of the questions about things that matter always, life-and-death questions about meaning, purpose, and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to risk losing track of who we really are in our own depths and where we are really going.:

Frederick Buechner, b. 1926

The Tree of Life

 Adding to the positive reception we had for last night's poetic approach to our topic, the group wanted to tackle the Tree of Life as a theme for our next meeting.  As a first entry, here is something that has been submitted.

COME TO THE TREE OF LIFE

by Nancy Miller

COME, COME TO THE TREE OF LIFE, 

COME WITH YOUR JOYS AND COME WITH YOUR STRIFE.

COME IF YOU’RE SHORT, ROUND, SQUARE OR TALL,

THIS TREE CAN GIVE KNOWLEDGE AND COMFORT TO ALL.

THIS TREE HAS ROOTS AS DEEP AS ITS HEIGHT,

IT’S NURTURED BY TRUTH, COMPASSION AND LIGHT.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE HAS EFFECTS ON OUR TREE,

SO GOOD STEWARDS OF EARTH WE HELP EACH OTHER TO BE.

COME LITTLE CHILDREN AND PLAY IN IT’S SHADE,

AND LEARN OF THE WONDERS SPIRIT HAS MADE.

AND LISTEN TO STORIES THAT MAY MAKE YOU THINK,

THAT DECISIONS AND CHOICES, THEY ALL HAVE A LINK.

COME IF YOU’RE SEARCHING FOR MEANING OR TRUTH,

COME IF YOUR NAME IS WAMBE, OKALEEN OR RUTH.

COME HOLD HANDS AND FEEL RELIEF FROM YOUR STRAIN,

AND TIL YOU COME AGAIN, KEEP PEACE AND LOVE AFLAME.

Send any submissions to me directly, or add them to the comments below.

The Tree of Life, No. I        Desmond

The leaves arrayed around her shoulders and on her sides,

The stem started at the nape of her back and spread upwards,

Spreading left and right, with the trunk below and branches above,

Suggesting a phylogeny of relationships that may be true, or not.

I wondered why such a lovely, young woman would tattoo her back in this way,

And permanently adorn her body with this statement that seemed to be beyond her years,

Honoring the past and connecting with the future in ways known and not known,

Suggesting connections that may be real, and many that only may only be imagined.

We all feel a need to be a part of something big, starting before us, and lasting long after.

We see our fore bearers in ourselves, in our siblings and our off-spring, all around us.

Life moves unceasingly onwards, carrying all of us with it, winnowing and selecting,

Using life’s challenges to promote the fit and discard the rest, heartlessly.

Just as branches are shed as the tree grows, so does the tree of life grow through the strong,

Discarding the weak branches and shaded, the formerly beneficial but now not so much,

To support the greater good, the larger purpose, the overall plan, larger than leaves or needles,

To live again, longer and more productive, surviving against all odds.

DANCE WITH THE TREES by Nancy Miller ACROSS THE MILLENNIUMS, NATURE HAS EVOLVED VARIETIES ABUNDANT, SEPARATE FROM NOTHING ARE HER NATURAL CONTINUOUS ACHIEVEMENT. AND YES, IT WOULD ALL GO ON TO EXPAND AND CHANGE AND SWIRL, EVEN IF IT WERE UNOBSERVED IN ITS ABILITY TO CONTINUOUSLY UNFURL.

BUT OUT OF RANDOM CHANCE AND LIFE’S DELIBERATENESS TO BE,

A TINY SEED EMERGED WITH BREATHTAKING AND GLORIOUS CAPACITY. AND EVERY STEP IN EVOLUTION SO IMPORTANT, INTERWOVEN, LIKE THE ROOTS BENEATH A TREE,

ROOTS THAT ARE UNSEEN BUT CRITICAL TO PRODUCE YOU, A BLESSED FIVE SENSED ENTITY.

BECAUSE NO TWO SEEDS ARE EVER QUITE THE SAME, UNIQUENESS ABOUNDS AS FROM DIFFERENT LIFE’S JOURNEYS WE SEEK AND CLAIM.

AND IN TIME REFLECTIONS CHANGE IN THE MIRRORED PANE,

JUST AS FROM ROOTS THE SAPLING GREW, WE TOO ARE NURTURED BY THE SOIL, THE SUN, THE RAIN

SEE THE TREES, SO MAGNIFICENT, SO BEAUTIFUL, SO GRAND. THEY HOLD THE SOIL, GIVE OXYGEN AND FRUITS AND FROM THE SUN THEY KEEP YOU FANNED. YOU BREATHE THEIR OXYGEN, BUILD WITH THEIR WOOD AND TAKE THEIR FRUIT WITH YOUR HAND. BORN OF THE SAME STUFF, YOU AND THE TREES DANCE THE DANCE OF LIFE ACROSS TIME AND LANDS.

The Tree of Life

Trees are much like people, though way more patient.

People are, in some ways, like trees

From a seed…

    …we both start, carrying much of our life’s framework provided by our parents.

To a seedling…

    …struggling to survive, depending on resources provided to us.

To a sapling...

    ...getting our roots and feet on the ground.  Being shaped by our surroundings. Starting to learn how to fit in our world.

To a tree…

    … young.  Growing, competing, learning.

    …middle aged.  Raising young, teaching, building girth (at least some of us)

    .…elderly.  Sharing wisdom and experience.

    …declining.  Reflecting, giving back.

We both draw nourishment from the earth, eventually returning to the earth

But trees do not get hung up by politics, social views and other human created social constructs.

We should be more, live more like trees.

-       Joel Swanton

Twenty-three

by Vickie Swanton

When you are born, are you the person you should be? If a boy claims she knows she is a girl, who are we to dispute? Do we know better than she? How can we be so different? Are you a princess? An antagonist? A firefighter? What of an antagonistic firefighter princess? How many layers make up your being? Do I see your reflection in my mirror? Do you question life’s meaning? Do your actions show a passion and steadfastness? Would you protect your loved ones with all you have? All you are? Are we similar? The 23rd chromosome determines so much, and yet so little. If life’s meaning is procreation, then it is everything. If instead, the importance lies with happiness and love, then it is next to nothing. We are the same.

The Tree of Life

by Gayle Simmons

With branches reaching high as roots reach deep,

The tree of life shows us a mirror.

Above balances below, now balances before.

There is a connection.

Through its roots the tree of life carries tales:

The most hopeful acts, the darkest deeds before

That encourage and nurture, that discourage and harm.

The tree of life brings all into the light to help us live in the now.

The Interconnectedness of All

 Thank you all for your efforts to prepare a poem or statement for our meeting Friday night, May 28.  As promised, I present your poetic works here.  The topic was the interconnectedness of all existence, based on the UU 7th Principle.  Here is what you shared:  (I will update this as the documents are shared with me)

Tony

What is the connection between you and me

Between sky and earth, or the bird and bee

I believe it is there, but does that make it so

Is belief enough, or do I have to know

Nancy

(waiting for your creation to be sent to me)

Gayle

(also waiting for you to send me your creations)

If others come up with something they would like to share, I would be happy to add your contributions here.

Can we trust our perceptions?

 A classic problem with ancient (Greek) philosophy was the untrustabilty of direct experiences of the world around us.  There were many, many ways in which our perceptions seem to fool us into thinking what we see is real, when it is not.  Classically, the optical illusion of a stick in a glass of water comes to mind.  The refraction of the water makes the stick appear to have a bend at the point it enters the water, when it clearly does not if it is pulled out.  Another is that drinking wine makes the floor tip left and right, making walking difficult.  Heat waves make the distance look like it is wet, when it is not.  That sort of thing.

Empiricists believe that the world can be known from direct experience.  "Just look around", they say, "and see the world as it really is!"   Can we look at a sunset and understand what we are seeing without understanding about light's interaction with atmospheric particles and low angle refraction?  Can we see a human birth and understand all the biologic and physiological phenomena at work, all at once?  Experience gives us access to certain sorts of phenomenon, but at a sort of macro level, at least historically.  Science helps us to see progressively small things, aiding this perspective, but still, it all ends up as people seeing things they can understand and observe directly.

Rationalists say that they can know things just by thinking about them.  Certain logical and mathematical concepts are true because they must be true if the world conforms to the logical necessities of math and logic.  We don't need experience to know that 2+2=4.  Or that cause and effect are real.  Physicists seem to spend a lot of their energy in working out that certain cosmological phenomena must be this way or that, based on what we know of the fundamental principles of matter and energy.  Observation is so frustratingly difficult in these galactic spaces that logical evaluation is a much better course of action.  

Where has direct experience of the world around you failed you?  Can you say you can really trust your senses?  Is logic a better basis of understanding in some cases?  Come prepared to discuss these and other examples of your interaction with the world around you, and how you have been fooled from time to time.

Atheism in Modern Times

 I threw this topic up as a placeholder as it was suggested as a topic at the last meeting.  I have been busy enough with all the good weather of the past 2 weeks that I have not been able to do any research on this topic yet, and I don't have that time now, unfortunately.  I will be opening the Cafe on Zoom tonight at 7 pm and will be glad to curate a discussion of this topic,m or any others we come up with.  If anyone has time to look up links and commentary today, please add them in the comments section below and we can all share in them tonight.

Death With Dignity

 Before I get to this week's serious topic, I'd like you all to click on this link for a quick reminder of why Socrates is considered the greatest philosopher of all time.  Once you have a chance to read this comic, please come back for a real discussion.

Death with Dignity

Washington state has a Death With Dignity law, signed into law in 2008.  The state provides a website that deals with the law's provisions and parameters, and links to reports that detail how people have used the law to receive legal prescriptions that end life.  The reports show demographic data including ages of those who have used the drugs, types of diseases they may have had, and many more bits of data that provide insights into the motivations that informed the decisions to use the drugs.  Take a few minutes to explore the linked site above, and get familiar with the data provided there.

The decision to chose a time of death that an individual may make is not really a philosophical question in a Socratic sense, at least at first glance.  If, as a common example, a person has a cancer that causes chronic pain, and the best medical advice is that the disease will take the life of the person within a certain time period (the law requires such a diagnosis, with less than 6 months to live), a patient might want to end his/her suffering as soon as possible.  This was the intent of the law in the first place.  Gather friends and family, say goodbye, and take a pill.  The suffereing stops in the patient, and the greiving can start with everyone left behind.  The uncertainty is ended.  Importantly, the dignity of the patient is preserved, as they stay in control of their lives until the end.

Here is a link to a discussion of Physician-Assisted Death, comparing the philosophies used to pass laws into action for the State of Oregon, and Holland.  Oregon used a perspective that emphasised the autonomy of the individual at the core of their legislation, whereas Holland used easing pain and sufferning as the basis of their law.  Washington's law follows the example used by Oregon.  I prepared a summary chart that compares and contrasts the various issued raised in the paper.  It came out very small, so I hope you can read it.

We can discuss the various aspects raised int he paper during our meeting Friday night.  If you get a chance to look at the original paper, there is a Life Quality Questionairre on Pages 75-79.  16 simple questions that can help you assess your life.  For you writers out there, there is an essay section on the last page.

This looks like a good topic.  See you Friday!

What is happiness?

 As a follow-up to our discussion on humor I thought we might try and discuss happiness.  I've dipped into this pool of thought before with mixed results, but every time is different, isn't it?

Rather than spending a lot of time writing about happiness, research on happiness, types and degrees of happy, and so forth, I recommend that you go onto YouTube and search on happiness and watch a few of the presentations there.  People study human happiness in a variety of ways.  Subjects take tests and surveys, researchers think up tricky tests that challenge a common sense sort of happiness ideal, and the results are not necessarily what you would expect.  

As with beauty being in the eye of the beholder, happiness seems to have a similar sort of personally identified kind of relationship we each create for ourselves.  There is an axiom that we all create our own happiness, and some of the research presented in the talks seems to bear this out.

If you decide to log in and participate on Friday, March 26, that would make me happy.

Addenda:

I looked up Happiness on Ted Talks (not the plus one, by the way), and found a pod cast that included a talk given by Barry Schwartz where he talks about the relationship between having lots of choices in life and happiness.  He concludes that having a little bit of choice increases happiness, but having a lot of choices decreases it.  He uses the salad dressing shelves at the grocery store as an example.  He reports that there are 175 different salad dressings there, and the process of selecting just one to take home with you can cause paralysis.   Selecting just one leads to regret that the one you bought was not actually the one you wanted.  You end up disappointed rather than happier, due to the many choices.  To listen takes 12 minutes, and it is worth your time.

Here is another link.  I posted on the topic of Happiness Sauce in October, 2012.  Click on this link to find a coherent and helpful discussion, at least in my opinion.