I’m hoping there aren’t people that try to argue that the general principle is a case of lying to children. Comic books are universally understood to be stories. Even when a child wears his Batman costume and says “I’m batman!” The stories provide a mirror for the children with which to understand their own lives. Perhaps some like to debate the presentation though?

I think that many children are now going to understand how this treatment can give them a magic power through this ‘Superformula’.

You can’t tell from this video how it is presented to the children though. If they are directly told that the formula provides “magic power” to make them better, would that be bad? I really don’t think so, but might there be “hard-liner rationalists” that would object to the use of the “magic” adjective?

These stories of ours are not a matter of physics, not a case of chemical reactions, these stories are not a set of facts, a causal chain of events. Instead, they are fictions, narratives of human meaning, in human language, experiential, relational. These stories are what make us human. They are the things that turn life into a ride, rather than a mere condition of matter.

We are our stories, our stories are us.

Consequence of the strain of thought-exhibitionism I exhibited especially in the early years, this blog serves as some interesting indirect documentation of a journey that has taken me on roads I did not anticipate. And some weeks before the blog’s sixth anniversary I felt I
arrived, yet again, at a destination that I felt I
had, in fact, briefly visited within its first year already.

It’s an experience that has had me wondering about the difference between a shift in a person’s stance on metaphysics and a religious experience. Perhaps a religious experience is the kind of thing that most effectively reconfigures a person’s metaphysics. Or what would be called metaphysics in philosophical circles: I’m not sure people used to discuss “metaphysics”, per se, very many centuries ago? On the other hand, good old Aristotle already wrote books about such matters.

The implications of this particular metaphysical stance was somehow too scary in 2007, and somehow proved to be unstable and dangerous. However I’ve grown a little since then. Ever so slightly. Perhaps. Thus this time around, the stance has proven to be sustainable – for 8 weeks already, and 8 is a most auspicious number if you subscribe to Chinese and Asian culture.

I’m not going to dwell on that topic though. Mostly I’d like to reiterate that this blog isn’t finished — I’m too curious what I’ll be thinking when I look back after seven years. Commitments are also something I’m scared of though: as much as I want to write at least one post per month, I decided on New Years’ Eve that I’m specifically tired of over-promising and under-delivering. Of course if I promise to stop over-promising and under-delivering, I’d risk under-delivering yet again.

Discussions are very welcome, as usual. My views have managed to solidify into a solid foundation, providing a stance from which I should be able to do most of my writing and thinking. Consequently it may get shared indirectly in this fashion, rather than directly.

The narrative of a life is constructed after the fact, looking back. This gives the dedic “everything for a reason” practitioner an opportunity to find the connections of how the past has lead to the present. The most dedicated then decide that it could not have been any other way: every event in the past is considered a critical piece of the puzzle that lead to the present, such that the present could not have happened had any piece been missing.

If this narrative of the past is convincing enough, the meme is believed and the practitioner can start projecting into the future: if things happen for a reason, any undesirable event today can feel much more tolerable, for the benefits we will reap in the future.

This meme can be expressed in very offensive manners too, of course. This could damage relationships. Are there other ways in which it could be harmful?

The non-believer version of the meme is of course the following, and I have trouble thinking of any way in which this could be inherently harmful: “I will make everything count. Whatever happens to me, I will learn from it, such that it will provide me with a better future.”

Bear in mind that Jesus was a Jew. Jewish canon had a very specific idea of what a messiah would be. Jesus did not live up to those expectations, so Jewish culture does not consider him to be the messiah. Orthodox Jewish culture still waits. One small sect splintered out of Judaism though: with a very simple statement of faith, “Jesus is Lord“, they recognised and acknowledged a counter-cultural non-messiah. The group grew dramatically and came to be known as Christians.

Now imagine a Christian second coming, not recognised by Christians…

I want to make one thing very clear: this post intends no insinuations whatsoever. There is nothing it is trying to argue, it merely seeks to encourage some rethinking of subconscious or institutionalised assumptions.

Often it is hard to know whether the person employing the misquote is wilfully dishonest or just woefully misinformed. In either case, to people that recognise what has happened, it doesn’t look all that different from this:

Depending on the calendar you use, your anniversaries could even be shifting relative to our astronomical frame of reference. On a lunar calendar, you would be drifting a full 11 to 12 days on every trip around the sun. (Lunar calendars were commonly used in antiquity, but are still in use for determining traditional holidays in various parts of Asia, as well as for the Islamic calendar.)

I’m actually trying to argue that any day is really just like every other. Except, we have chosen to imbue some days with a special significance, on a yearly cycle: public holidays, birthdays, new years’…

Once a year is infrequent enough that repeated traditions don’t bore us and additional responsibilities are manageable: whether it be clinking champagne glasses on New Years’, throwing a birthday party, hunting for an anniversary gift, or filling out tax forms.

On this blog I’ve chosen to observe a 10 October tradition: I write something every 10 October. (Sometimes I’m a bit late, publishing on the 11th, but then I tweak the publishing timestamp a bit. ) Since this post ponders this observance of mine, I need to explain what inspired it: this day is the day my father died, now 18 years ago. My mother was also cremated on this day, one year ago, having died on 28 September. Consequently, two weeks ago I wrote what could become the first of my yearly 28 September posts.

The possibility of adding a second special day for this blog made me think about the whole idea, which is of course what sparked this post. Why do I do it, exactly? Why do I try to write something every year? It isn’t the kind of thing that has a “rationally good reason”, of course. It is simply something that I chose to do. That I choose to do. A decision I made in 2007 and that I’ve been sticking with every year. Who knows for how long I will continue to do so.

Through the years I have also learned of other cultures with other approaches to remembering loved ones. The first tiny cultural difference that I noticed between myself and at least one other person I know: some people give considerably more attention to birthdays than I do. This made me consider this thought: might placing more emphasis on the day someone was born, instead of the day they died, help you to focus on appreciating the life they lived, rather than on resenting the fact that they are no longer there? Not necessarily, certainly, but something I would like to keep in mind. Better to place more emphasis on remembering someone’s life, rather than resenting the fact that they are no longer there. (This theme lends itself to plenty of development in further thought.)

A second cultural difference is as huge as the first is small: some cultures go to lengths to not remember. I find that remarkable. I suspect as someone that didn’t grow up near such a culture, I’ll never fully grasp the value and purpose of such a tradition. It certainly was another catalyst for reflection on the choice to have a yearly observance. Somehow I feel it simultaneously points out both the “arbitrary” nature of this choice, and the significance and importance of this choice. Arbitrary in the objective sense (a culture might as well have been different). Significant and important in the subjective sense (such traditions become an integral part of our tribal identity).

We are human after all.

There came a day when the population on our property was expanded by two new inhabitants: a pair of ducks. It was just a single pair — at least initially. It didn’t take too long for my mother to decide they looked a little bit lonely, roaming on a decent piece of property a bunch of kilometers from Stellenbosch, so very soon they were joined by another two pairs. Six ducks roaming around the property was a good-looking number.

The six ducks weren’t three couples, actually — I think it turned out that there was only one female among them. But one is enough: pretty soon, she had laid some eggs. Tasty little eggs, some predators discovered: the eggs became fewer very quickly. Whether any of the first batch of eggs hatched, I can no longer recall, but there were more.

The female duck is spending some time in a cage to protect her from abusive males. It’s really bad being outnumbered. (I’m sparing you a view of her injuries.)

Once hatched, the cute little ducklings would follow the mother duck around, learning to swim and forage. But day by day, they would also reduce in number, surprisingly quickly. There wasn’t much that a mother duck could do to protect the ducklings from predators that came through our fences. My mother felt sad for the poor duck for losing all her ducklings, so she made a plan. In fact, she made a couple of plans, the exact sequence being another thing I can’t quite recall.

We weren’t originally sure which predator was decimating the young, we even speculated about bullfrogs eating eggs or even swallowing ducklings. It turned out the culprits were a pair of mammals of a species that I can’t name in English, we called them muishonde in Afrikaans. (I can’t verify or translate this right now: I’m offline, writing in a park ).

Having obtained a cage with a trap-door, we managed to rig it such that we could catch one of the two. Which also caused my mother to feel bad for the predator, as they were now separated. Consequently, she ensured the caught one was moved to a larger cage, and fed good meals (I remember there was some chicken!), while we set the trap to catch the second. Then we had both the predators… now what do we do with them?

Trap to catch the predators. Yes, something had killed one of our ducks, and we’re using the poor thing as bait… This photo was from our second ultimately unsuccessful attempt to catch both.

Being another pair of animals just wanting to live their lives, we didn’t want to hurt them. Just having them in the cage was already painful and cruel enough, so we had to make a decision quickly. One option we thus considered was relocating them to the other side of the mountain, releasing them into the nature reserve. My mother also wanted to first make sure it was just the pair of them, that they didn’t have a family they need to take care of. Not that that was easy to verify… so in the end, we simply released them, no relocation.

Two mongooses being released. In the background, the trap-cage with some bait still visible.

That wasn’t the only approach towards securing the mother’s success, the ducklings’ future. On our property, there was a free-standing trampoline. By hanging some shade netting all around the trampoline, she created a safe enclosure, and somehow arranged that the mother duck and her ducklings could hatch and live inside this enclosure for a few days, until they were a little bit bigger.

Whatever the exact sequence of events, the efforts paid off, the next batch of ducklings’ lives were spared! They made it to adulthood. But this isn’t a fairy tale, life isn’t neatly packaged. So now we had over a dozen ducks running around on the property, swimming in the swimming pool in the mornings, when we weren’t awake to chase them back to the little dam. And there were more eggs, more ducklings, which also had to be protected by the tramplone.

And then there were about thirty ducks…

It is the privilege of a storyteller to be able to end the telling where he wants. So at the memorial service, that was roughly where I ended the story. I don’t really know what the ducks’ final fate was, we sold the property and moved.

The narrative was primarily about my mother’s care for all living things she came across. Some more examples: she had some arachnophobia, but we would attempt catch and release when possible. And attempt to save little mice from the cat, though that ruined some of the cat’s happiness. In these years, at least our dogs simply ate dog food… our previous pair of dogs, when I was seven years old, sometimes had the luxury of cooked meals.

The cat is trying to find the mouse again. We folded the carpet over it in order to give it protection from the cat.

The reason I chose this particular story, however, goes beyond providing a sketch of my mom’s compassion. While I managed to obtain, according to my blurry recollection of the day, some laughs from the audience for the scenarios I sketched, the story is simultaneously a serious commentary on the nature of life.

The mother duck and her ducklings had it rough. However, so did the muishonde (mongooses I see, as it is now a few hours later — I’m online while I wrap this up). While we could protect the ducklings and help them become adults, the mongooses raise families of their own, and the carnivorous little critters also need to eat.

And while we could do plenty to successfully protect the ducks, the result is that their numbers explode in an unsustainable fashion, leaving us with an overpopulation problem. We could interfere in an attempt to reduce suffering, but in the end, one way or another, we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. The fact of life, for these ducks, is that it’s a struggle, it’s a war, no matter what anyone’s giving.

This aspect of the story wasn’t something that I felt the need to explicitly point out. In fact, I think the humour in the narrative drew precisely from this reality of life, we laughed somewhat uncomfortably at the futility.

Recognising this backdrop, this tapestry on which we paint our lives, can make our acts and deeds seem bitter-sweet. On the other hand, I feel it emphasizes the importance of of our acts and deeds, of the way we relate. If the tapestry seems bleak, all the more reason to paint beautiful lives all across it.

Things are not what they are; they are what we think they are

Think about that for a moment. Naturally, presenting it like that, it’s quoted out of context. Much rather watch the talk it came from (18:24 in length) to appreciate its context:

Rory’s primary thesis is that how we frame things has a huge impact on our happiness, and that often our efforts at improving “reality” has costs that could have been better spent by making some effort to tackle the psychological side of things. With regards to whether things are what they are, we could get ourselves tangled up in a semantic discussion, or we can recognise the main point of this meme: Our lives consist of a sequence of subjective experiences. Consequently our subjective realities carry all the weight with regards to determining our happiness, while objective reality is only relevant insofar as it provides the substrate for our subjective experiences.

One example he gives is how making a train between Paris and London 40 minutes faster, an engineering project costing £6 million, would be trumped by the much cheaper project of adding wifi to our slower trains. Of course this example still affects the economic realities of the journey, so another of his examples might be better: adding information on when the next (high-frequency) commuter train arrives is more beneficial psychologically than increasing train frequency. Specifically: people are happier waiting 7 minutes for a train when there’s a countdown timer informing them when it arrives, than they are waiting 4 minutes for a train while having no idea when it will arrive.

As also demonstrated by a dog-shocking experiment, happiness is much improved when we, or the dogs, have a feeling of control over our lives, even if the physical result is the same. Projects seeking to improve the status quo should thus weigh in psychological factors instead of only considering economic and technological aspects of a problem.

Turns out I just had my first visit by Jehovah’s Witnesses! It was all very exciting. They said they want to talk to me about the Bible. I asked if they could come back on another day (since this weekend is packed), likely that got them excited too? I just showed interest, while I expect most people just shoo them away? (Or might it rather be the case of preferring to be shooed away, as that takes less time and effort? *grin*)

We did have a quick conversation at the door, which ended with me taking the two pamphlets that they had in English. “I come from a Christian country, I have a Christian background” I explained, when they asked whether I’m interested in hearing about the Bible. “I’m mostly interested in discussing theological differences.” Or something along those lines. I didn’t want to bring them under any false impression as to my interest in actual conversion, this is really rather more a case of academic interest.

They had said they could come back on Tuesday, but then I couldn’t really give them a time, and by the time our conversation finished (with me babbling in my usual million-words-a-minute native-level English), they said they would give my name and address to a colleague of theirs that is good at English.

So now I have some time to prepare – both on the clean-the-flat level and preparation for the conversation. Pity about the lack of time. While I have a good set of topics of conversation in mind already, is there anything you would be interested in hearing? Would there be a difference in worldview between European Jehovah’s Witnesses and South African ones, for example? I’m thinking the audience they talk to would respond quite differently. Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to chat with a witness operating in South Africa yet.

In the Dune universe there is a sisterhood known as the Bene Gesserit. In some senses one could consider them a religious order. One of the most famous snippets of text from these novels is their litany against fear:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Various characters recite this litany in their minds when they need to calm their nerves. This part is so well known, I have wondered if anyone has adopted it and made use of it in real life?

There are certainly similar ideas in human history. The first thing to come to my mind was Psalm 23 from the Hebrew Bible:

Psalm 23
Attributed to David.

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
   for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
   through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will fear no evil,
   for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
   they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
   forever.

That’s from the NIV, the text borrowed from BibleGateway.com. The version that is most familiar to me is the Afrikaans one, which many an Afrikaans-speaking South African probably memorised in his youth. (How about you?) In fact, if memory serves, I think we were even taught this psalm in school in grade 1.

It is probably one of the most well known psalms? I would be surprised if there is a reader of this blog that has not come across it before. “Beloved by Jews and Christians alike”, says wikipedia, Jews traditionally sing it (in Hebrew) during the third Sabbath meal (Saturday afternoon). In the twentieth century it became associated with funeral liturgies in the English speaking world.

While I can remember reciting this psalm in my youth, I cannot recall whether I used it in the manner of the Litany Against Fear above. I’m wondering how many people have some memorised texts that they do use for inspiration or motivation of some sort, and I mean both sacred and secular. Have you ever drawn on some motivational text? A poem perhaps? Or for the religious, how about a common text used in prayer? (I suspect free-form/personal prayer probably carries much of this function for religious Christians?)

I’ve actually been playing with this concept lately since I have needed some motivation and support during rough days, something to inspire and drive me forward at times when my motivation sags. I will share a bit more about this… if a couple of readers first share their experiences!

Though the duration of our calendar system’s years are astronomically determined, the choice of day is very arbitrary. We could have chosen any other day — in fact there exist many other calendar systems with differing new years days (see New Year on Wikipedia).

If we wanted an astronomically significant day, we could have gone with summer or winter solstice (longest or shortest day of the year, but which hemisphere?), or for that matter the March or September equinox (when day and night are equally long, with the sun right above the equator). In fact, some calendars, such as the Iranian calendar, does just that: new year’s day on the vernal equinox (Spring equinox, i.e. March, northern hemisphere).

The point being: we’re talking pure human culture here, nothing more.

And yet the day carries much significance in our culture, there is no denying that — it forms a part of many people’s yearly rituals, a rhythm to life. We open champagne bottles with friends or family, we fire fireworks, we consider the year behind and the year ahead, we make new years’ resolutions, we have countdowns…

What did you do on the evening of the 31st?

I usually shy away from Hollywood “romantic” movies, in part due to an aversion to how such movies represent relationship ideals. Sure, we all know movies are fiction, that real life does not work in quite the the same way, but such narratives still have much power in shaping our thoughts on what we expect in life. The emphasis on love-at-first-sight, the “there is only one person in the world for me” mentality, the example narratives of how relationships supposedly progress? I find the typical Hollywood “romantic” movies somewhat harmful.

One Day was not a typical Hollywood romantic movie, something I really appreciated. This would be thanks to it being based on a good novel. Consider the reviewers’ quotes used to represent the novel’s major themes on its wikipedia page:

Writing in The Times, John O’Connell writes, “For, in spite of its comic gloss, One Day is really about loneliness and the casual savagery of fate; the tragic gap between youthful aspiration and the compromises that we end up tolerating. Not for nothing has Nicholls said that it was inspired by Thomas Hardy.” A critic in thelondonpaper observes that One Day “may be a love story, but it’s no fairytale: Nicholls doesn’t shy from the dark side of growing up, the disillusionment, regrets and random cruelty of life.”

That probably says enough, this may be a book worth reading. The movie itself received rather mixed reviews from critics (metacritic: 48, Rotten Tomatoes: 37), suggesting it does not do the book justice. Nevertheless, with my limited exposure to romantic movie genres, this remains one of the movies I really liked, grim as it may be.

Can you suggest other good movies in the genre that I really ought to see?

Today we added to its significance.

This post marks the day, let’s leave it in silence – we can talk more tomorrow.

• Does anyone use the MiniBlog in the right sidebar?
• Can you suggest a pen-name for me to use on this blog?
• If you are close to me personally, or just generally care about me (as opposed to this blog’s topics of interest), you may want to following me elsewhere instead — this site is no longer used for personal news. Please ask me so that I can point you in the right direction.

MiniBlog

I’m considering removing the MiniBlog, it wastes space and causes clutter. The MiniBlog is no longer being updated regularly in any case. The original idea behind the MiniBlog was to provide new or interesting content for people visiting thinktoomuch.net more often than new blog posts are written, i.e. a bit of a gimmick to encourage repeated visits. I have no idea if it worked, and dreams of trying to measure click-through never became reality.

Apart from its staleness, I think it’s also obsolete with regards to its original purpose: the correct solution for dealing with irregular blogs is to subscribe via RSS feed, follow on twitter or Like on Facebook, and possibly some day follow on Google+? I’m watching that one with bated breath.

So – do you use the MiniBlog?

Author’s Name

I’ve been trying to increase this blog’s “pseudonymity”. This is a hard thing to do in a socially networked world wide web – consider what you can learn from who comments, or much more explicitly: who follows on Facebook or twitter. My desire is to provide some casual isolation between three spheres of my life: my personal/private life, my working life, and this blog. My Facebook and Google+ profiles don’t contain work information for example, casual separation.

For the blog I went first-name only quite some time ago. Now I’m contemplating swapping out my name too. The question: what could I use for an alternative pen-name on this blog? I had raised this question to myself once before, but didn’t search far for an answer and simply gave up. I’m feeling more persistent today.

Followers

This blog started out very much as a personal thought stream, and I used to even point at it in my email signature. This predated South Africa hopping on the Facebook bandwagon. Since then much has changed: I now share personal things on Facebook, twitter and Google+, and this blog became focused on a particular dream (that it isn’t living out yet). While this blog certainly does take some inspiration from my life, posts here can be very tangential to their original inspiration. That, or sometimes very, very delayed: I start a post based on something
current, something relevant today, but may only finish it months or even years later. Unfortunately.

Thus if it’s me you’re interested in, me as a whole, rather than the particular genre of contemplation and over-thinking I like indulging in here, you should maybe be following me elsewhere instead. Please let me know so I can point you in the right direction, and don’t read too much into the things I post here.

There may be an additional benefit of keeping general personal interactions elsewhere: if it were possible for me to have my way, I would very much like to grow this blog’s “community” in directions that don’t overlap with my real-life friends. By keeping this blog focused on its topics of interest and general goals and dreams, I’m still hoping to nurture more conversations with new and diverse people from all over, that might feel like they are intruding if they were for example stepping into what looks to be highly personal conversations between friends-for-life…

Something like that. With sufficient doubt, as I’m all too aware of counter arguments.