“Crows are the hominins of the bird kingdom,” “Like our own ancestors, they evolved proportionally massive brains by increasing both their body size and brain size at the same time, with the brain size increase happening even more rapidly.” Dr. Jeroen Smaers
Crows have also witnessed our evolution.
All life transforms its habitat. Living things actually pass ‘segments’ of their habitat through their digestive systems. Digest them. Consume the useful components and discard the rest. And, finally, excrete whatever their metabolism had turned the useful components into. Urea and carbon dioxide, to name but a couple. For us, mammals. Other living creatures contribute something else to their environments.
40 years ago, the car manual was about how to adjust the carburetor. Nowadays it starts with a stark warning. “Don’t drink the cooling liquid!” Then it teaches us how to use the infotainment system and how to adjust the electric seats…
In those times, most of us – regardless of what country we lived in, had nothing fancier than a washing machine. And a TV set capable of receiving no more than 12 channels. But we had a lot of time to spend with our friends and relatives. Nowadays, our houses are choke full of appliances designed to make our lives easier… So we break our backs working to pay for this paraphernalia! And we get so tired in the process that when we finally get back home, late at night, we’re so exhausted that we cannot do anything else but watch one of the 200+ channels our cable feeds into the huge TV which dwarfs everything else in the living room.
Meaning that we wrap up most of our days watching yet another mind numbing news-bulletin… which informs us about how bad tomorrow will be… unless we follow whatever advice that channel is determined to ‘sell’ to us!
A good place to start understanding what Covid had done to us is the cemetery.
A man had died. A good man had died. Of old age. Covid had nothing to do with it.
But his beloved wife, and one of his daughters, could not attend his funeral service. They had tested positive while he was in hospital.
On the other hand… On my way home, I stopped by to see an old friend. He lives alone and has a rather frail health. No relatives and, due to his relativelly old age, only a couple of able-bodied friends. It’s a good thing that we have phones. If I’ll ever be quarantined simultaneously with his other friend, he’ll depend exclusivelly on delivery services….
Do you really think they’ll make it? Does it really matter? What I think about it? You know what the alternatives are… Even they know it. Some of them, anyway… Those who agree with Darwin. Either… or… I know, I know… After all, this is the umpteenth time we’ve had this conversation… If they make it, we’re here to welcome them. If they don’t, we’ve lost our time watching them… They’ve wasted our time, actually. They’re the ones calling the shots… we’re here only to observe… Yeah, except for they don’t see the whole picture! They don’t know about us, for starters. And they don’t know what we’re here for…
Nobody asked me, yet, ‘why do you still keep this clock on the wall? It’s arms never move, the pendulum is frozen…’
Those who really know me have learned that I hate ‘ticking’. And that I’m rather accurate at telling time without any instruments. My son’s friends – the only ‘other’ people who come into our house, haven’t noticed. Or cared enough to ask…
Yet the story is interesting enough.
The ‘object’ was manufactured in the USSR. More than 50 years ago. I’ve no idea whether my parents bought it or it was gifted to them. Point is that I remember it ticking, and striking every half hour, during my entire childhood. Until I took my fate into my own hands! Into my left hand, actually. I sneaked it into the clock and bent the three rods inside away from the hammers. The clock continued to strike but the sound was muted. Still audible but way less annoying.
My parents said nothing. Maybe they didn’t like it either… The ticking remained, though. But the difference from the previous situation was so huge that it didn’t bother me anymore.
After a few years I moved out so I ‘forgot’ about it.
A decade or so later, my father and I decided to build a house. My mother had died, I was the only child… It was obvious for both of us that, sooner or later, we’ll have to ‘camp’ back together. He was already on the wrong side of 60…
When he moved in, the clock followed suit. I hanged it on the wall. Attempted to make it work. Something had happened to it while in transit. Left it be, for a while. At some point, my father asked me to take it to a repair shop. Brought it back. The guy had not only fixed the mechanism, he had also bent back the ‘chiming’ rods. Couldn’t sleep that night! Told my father the racket must stop. He agreed. He hadn’t slept either. After bending, again, those damn rods, we sat down to watch TV. The couch is right below the clock. After five minutes, we looked at each other. I stood up and stopped the pendulum.
‘But why don’t you just throw it away?’
It’s not that simple. It reminds me of my childhood. I don’t hate the object, only the sounds it makes. I’d have to hang something else in it’s place. There’s a hole in the wall and a ‘shadow’ on the ‘white wash’. And, above all, its stillness is an excellent reminder.
That even a broken watch is able to tell the exact time!
If it still has its arms. If you happen to look at it at the right moment! And only two times each day…
Romanians have a proverb. ‘Each of us makes his own bed’. Like all other popular sayings, this one is only partially true. In many cases – in most, actually, our individual ‘leeway’ is limited by those who are higher than us. In many cases, again, those decision makers have climbed there with our full ‘blessing’. In a sense, the above mentioned proverb is true on more than one ‘levels…’
According to Alan Hayek – the guy who claims the copyright for the relevant entry into the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the wager doesn’t make any sense unless you consider that God is, however remotely, possible.
Now, that I grabbed your attention, let me point it to the subject du jour.
The face mask!
To wear or not to wear one…
Strangely enough, many of those who believe in God are adamantly refusing to wear a mask. They don’t actually see God yet they find the world as THE argument for His existence. And, at the same time, they refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of the Covid 19 pandemic. Which had already killed, or hastened the death of, more than 1.2 million people worldwide.
OK, almost no mask – specially the ones worn by us, civilians, is 100% fool-proof. But wearing one is far better than none at all… OK, most of us would weather the infection with relative ease. But some would die! Then why spread it around?
For that, if you didn’t already know, is more than half of what the masks do! They make it harder for those of us who already have it – but don’t know it yet, to spread it around.
Help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by protecting yourself and others. Keep in mind that you may have the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.
You still consider it to be a muzzle?
Why? Only because it is mandated by the government? And you don’t trust your own government? While living in a democratic country?
But since when do you rely on your government to tell you which is the sensible thing to do?
Being married doesn’t come with such a huge array of ‘perks’. Specially when you know how to cook a meal. Wash your underwear. Use the vacuum cleaner. Own a dishwasher…
The main ‘attraction’, for me, being the presence of the person I married. The daily interaction with her. Sex included!
No, we don’t have it every day! It would be nice but we’re not sexual athletes… Which brings me to the point I was trying to make.
We’re currently isolating because of Covid. She had lunch with some of her coworkers, one of them had it – a-symptomatically at that moment, and now all of them are quarantined. Rather mild symptoms for all of them, a week into the whole thing.
‘Isolating’ means that we no longer share a bed. That we no longer eat together. That when we need to talk to each other we wear masks and stand as far apart as the geography of the room allows it. And, of course, no sex!
Which, for both of us, is a real loss! Specially for me… I’m almost 60 now. I don’t expect to remain ‘fully functional’ for very long. Five more years? That would be some 250 weeks… Loosing two of them for nothing isn’t my idea of a ‘fair deal’!
Hope I made you laugh. Or at least smile. Even if this isn’t a laughing matter!
Then why are we sharing this kind of memes with so much gusto?
I can’t figure out, with any degree of certitude, what drives those who make them in the first place. Some might find it funny, others might just be employed by those who make a living by selling advertising space…
But why do we, ‘innocent civilians’, share them?
Because they – those which we share, reinforce our stereotypes? Sharing them makes us feel like ‘contributors’? We cherish the likes we get?
Do we realize how divisive these memes are? How they reinforce our tendency to divide people into ‘members of our group’ – the ‘right’ ones, and ‘the rest’?
How they reinforce our tendency to poke fun at ‘the rest’? To consider them, if not outright ‘expendable’, at least ‘unworthy of consideration’?
– And why would this be of any interest? – All current civilizations are off-springs of an Weltanschauung built on ‘monotheism’, aren’t they? – Really?!? How about India? China? The Buddhist countries? – Have you noticed the scare quotes? In my book, Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism are all forms of monotheism. Atheism also qualifies as such. – ?!? – I’ll make that point a little later.
Then, if monotheists insist there’s only one God, which one of them is the ‘real McCoy’?
When humans had first became conscious, as in aware of their own frailty, they needed a way to assuage their new acquired scares: ‘What would happen if the Sun will not come up tomorrow morning? If spring will never come back? If Mother Deer will not allow me to hunt another of her children?’ So they started to raise prayers towards the Sun God. And towards other various agents held responsible for various aspects of human existence. Nowadays known as ‘totemic figures’. Please note that each totemic figure was simultaneously responsible for one aspect of the human existence and the ‘founding father’ of a certain group of people.
After the advent of agriculture had transformed everything – including human social arrangements, things dully changed. Agriculture gave birth to private property. Individuals needed to know which was their land and who owned the harvest. Otherwise, why bother? Private property needs to be protected. Which demands a certain social structure. A hierarchy of social roles.
Around the Mediterranean Sea – due to geographic conditions, the ‘top brass’ were never that far removed from the ‘bottom’ as to make them ‘impervious’ to the social reality. Hence the hierarchy of Gods. Belonging to successive generations. Very similar to the succession of the dynasties which ruled the ‘land under the sky’. At the opposite end of the Euro-Asian continent, were the emperor was further removed from the vulgus, things took a different path. Since no communication was any longer possible – between the ordinary people and the rulers/gods, gods and rulers were melted into one. Confucianism mandated that people cherish their ‘elders’. Meanwhile Buddhism made away altogether with gods. And rulers. The most interesting situation had evolved in India. Due to the high density of population – coupled with the diversity of languages/subcultures, the local leaders continued to be in touch with the general population while the highers up were equally insulated as their Chinese equivalents. Hence the survival of the plethora of Indian gods coupled with the advent of karma. The concept of individual responsibility for ones own fate.
The individuals’ responsibility for their own fates… This being the common place between all ‘monotheistic’ religions. The way I see it, anyway. All three ‘sisters’ relying on the Holy Book, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism… Atheism…
So, then again, how many Gods are out there?
Or, more likely, how many images of the same God – a.k.a. ‘reality’, have we, humans, carved out? Out of the before mentioned reality? How many faces of the single reality available have we been able to identify? According to the prevalent local circumstances?
And how much more time do we need? To understand that we live under the same umbrella? According to the same set of broad rules? Which makes us all members of the same family? Children of the same God?
My father uttering this, again, convinced me to share with you the interim conclusion of my informal study. “The consequences of our limited conscience”
Consciousness is a ‘phase of matter‘ which has an intrinsic characteristic. One which closely resembles inertia. The prevalent tendency of consciousness is to preserve itself, even if this means putting the individual hosting it in mortal danger.
Doesn’t make much sense?
How many of you still smoke? Or did smoke? Had an occasional ‘one drink too many?’ Carry around a couple of ‘extra pounds’? Used drugs? All these knowing too well that ‘it’s bad for you’?
I challenge you to remember the arguments you used to quell your worries. More precisely, the arguments used by your conscience to quell its worries… ‘I’ll give them up ‘sometimes’.’ ‘One cannot hurt me.’ Much… ‘My grandad lived for almost a century and smoked to his last day.’
See what I mean? Our consciousness is more concerned about keeping itself ‘together’ rather than preserving the well being of the host it inhabits. On which it depends. For its dear life… It actually prefers to lie to itself rather than face the reality. Until the shit hits the fan…
And sometimes no amount of ‘wake-up calls’ can do the trick. I know a few people with cirrhosis of the liver who continue to drink – ‘I’m already dead, why bother?’ and a few people who cough their lungs out in the morning and go on smoking.
Same thing in politics. After an individual had made up his mind…. it is very hard for him to change his opinion. It would mean to accept that last time he had been wrong. That he had been duped. So he keeps looking for the flimsiest reason to continue on the old path …
Or, if the guy/party he had chosen doesn’t have any chance… he prefers to stay at home, rather than to vote for a looser. Which would mean he had knowingly placed himself on the loosing side. Unacceptable.
I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I want to convey.
It is rational to consider that one cigarette won’t kill you. But it’s unreasonable to smoke. Period. It is rational to consider that one glass won’t kill you. If you don’t drink and drive, of course…. But it’s unreasonable to drink yourself to death! It’s rational to stay at home if ‘your team’ has no chance to accede to power. But your staying home doesn’t spell the whole truth. By staying home you transmit the message that you don’t care. That you are satisfied with what’s going on around you. Or too ‘tired’ to care…
Which practically gives carte blanche to whomever gets elected! ‘If so many of them do not care about their own well being, why should I? Let me take care of my own people and to hell with the rest’.
See what I mean? Not everything our consciousness feels good about is actually good for us. We really need to get our heads out of our asses if we want to look forward.
nicichiarasa 