Back to near normal

As a slum landlord, (not by intent, but by time, the houses got old.) I have deal with two long term renters moving out, and leaving twenty years of damage on two houses. That has involved me taking a bit of time to do renovations on those rentals. That has taken me away from contemplation of my issues.

It is apparent to me that I have some unknown force driving me to overeat. Something is causing a desire to eat. It is mental issue, but I cannot define it better. When I was young and single, I had a desire for sex, and it is that kind of desire, that hardly goes away. After a meal the desire is back shortly. It is sightly different than actual hunger, and hunger is less of a driving force. It this a eating disorder, a mental defect or something similar?

As I look at 12 step process assumption that overeating is a moral/social issue, I call bullshit. It is a physical/psychological/genetic problem. There is no god, just nature. No purpose, beyond the natural imperative of flourishing, unless we paint one on. We humans have near reached the maximum population of this world, local overpopulation is common occurrences. We have not had a mass die off for some time. A few wars, 1919 flu, 1850 Irish potato famine, and the like do not even show on the world population curve.

Evolution continues. It just remains to be seen which portion of the population, which traits nature selects after the next mass die off.



I guess what I am thinking is " is overeating, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and the like going to be the next plague." 

Here is a video worth watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg

Beliefs

We are obligated to act as our opinions and beliefs dictate.  We can believe in reducing out carbon footprint, spend much extra money on solar and wind energy, and not actually reduce our carbon footprint, only think we do. We can create an industry like the Alberta oil sands, buy undervalued natural gas to produce overvalued synthetic crude, and hush anyone who has actually worked out the energy balance equation on those plants. Oh well, they create work.

We see vegetarians destroying there health for a "kill no animals" philosophy. It is our beliefs, values and opinions that drive us, even when our beliefs, values and opinions are sometime just wrong. Some of the time our actions are just wrong... consider ISIL, and then some of the time our actions just do not matter... consider most religions.

Our big world problem is still local / regional overpopulation and religious wars.

But what do I know?

Human Animals

Are we social animals or a group of individuals who realized that we could do better in groups? Group sizes have grown to country size. Every now and then, a country size group decides to split and expel part of that group from the area. Civil war, but the split is usually ideological, even religion is an ideology, even if the religious have different name for it. Ideology is just plain stupid to kill over, for it is not real, but a concept. If you do not follow my concepts, I will kill you thinking. Control freaks of the highest order.

In reality, there is the world we live in, nature, and then there is the human animal. We are animal first, with our triune brains. We are big groups of individuals, each with our own ideas. There are those among us that try to sell us on belief systems, become a follower and stop having to think for yourself type schemes. We can be part of these and not even realize it. We can be born into one of these groups, grow and flourish in them, die, and the whole time not even realize this basic fact. That is the sad part of religions. In principal it sound great, but now we have a number of such schemes at odds with each other. We have religious wars mixed with Civil war in Syria and it is a mess. It is time to give up religion. Period. What else is there to do? Learn to live well and rationally, without religions. And stop killing each other.

We have reached a state of local overpopulation, and have been doing this for the last 100 years, resulting in migrations from political/religious oppression. In historical times it was more often food/water/economy type migration forces. In general, our world has become overpopulated in larger portions, and now much of the US and Canada are overpopulated, that is more people than the country can support. We have vast tracks of land where few can make a living in. Those that do live like the human animals that they are, not the economic adapted peoples of the world, but basic hunter/gather, but they also want the benefits of modern urban populations, yet are unable to generate the revenue required to buy those services from there undertakings, expect for resource extraction. OH well, this is Canada, and we in the South support the north, and natives, and welfare, and the health industry, and the processed food industry, but not the farmers.

But then what do I know?     

   

Yah But

A bit of exchange between myself and laurainman got me thinking.
http://thelivingphilosopher.com/2015/09/15/its-that-most-horrible-time-of-the-year/

The difference "what people could be" and "what humans are" explains a lot of failure of philosophy. Communism for example. Give to the state in accordance with your ability, and take from the state in accordance with your need, but greed takes over and there is nothing left. This is similar to some of our native Indians today in Canada, but I digress.

People could be much more compassionate, but with the present greed culture, compassion is not a characteristic of the self sustaining person. The compassionate are overrun, and used, until they are poor or wise up. Just try being a landlord, and here the whining about the rent, the hardships, and they live in a bigger, nicer place than I would afford myself. My needs are simple. Compassion is a nice characteristic, but just not practical in so many places.

I had an old buddy that owned a sawmill. He always need labor on the green chain, cleaners, stackers, etc. Low skill, outside work, live in the dry camp, room and board. Anyone begging he told they could have a job if they wanted, all they need to do was show up for the company buss at the weekly shift change. He said he never had one show up in twenty years of offering. Compassion yes but they need to make an effort first.

Compassionate is a virtue that is easy to over do. My mother and sister would do anything for anyone, as long as they were not family. Oh well. Mother died alone and my sister and I exchange perhaps 4 short emails a year. The Buddhist push compassion, and I thing it is a great virtue where no one has much anyway, but it can get out of hand. I need to be able to survive for perhaps 25-30 years on savings after retirement, so compassion only goes so far when I see waste and lack of effort. Compassion for those who need it is a different issue.

Now consider the Religious Wars of the middle east. Religions in general are irrational, but some more so. Would I reach out to anyone who is possible dangerous? Not likely. Children and family's who are willing to give up their religion are worthy of help, anyone else is for other to help. It must be something that I am comfortable with. If not, it has nothing to do with me. We must realize that religion is the cause of the war, all religions.

The other issue is control of people and dictatorship of ideas. If they do not agree with my ideas, they can believe what ever foolishness they wish. I will not have a dog in that race. What people could be is an idea, but when we consider what they actually are, it is a different story. We live in a community that has become a group of individuals, not a society in the old sense, where everybody knew everybody. Transportation and communications have changed all that. We have not yet worked out how to live in this new reality. We see the results of local overpopulation, either economic, food supply, water, energy or political/religious where a group of people are pushed out to fend for themselves, elsewhere. Some chose to leave on their own, aka refugees. It is still overpopulation, and we, here are already overpopulated.

It is my prediction that I may live to see the next major die off humans, in evolutionary terms. (say the next 25 years). The population if no die off occurs will need to address the rate of growth soon, else difficulties will be more common. In twenty five years, the population will double. Can you live with double the population? Can the middle east or Germany? Africa? China is not a problem, they addresses the issue with one child policy. India?

How does compassion fit in with a major die off? Well we all go down or will we save ourselves? We can see this coming, for those who do not act, how much compassion should I show?

But what do I know?

Stoic Buddhist?

No god, so now it is up to us to live right and get on with building community, spreading wisdom and the like. No god places the responsibility for living rightly, by virtue in stoic terms squarely on us humans. We need to live within what nature throws at us, and be content with what we have. Now what if we could merge Stoic thought and Theravada Buddhism?

Last day we say the second noble truth exposed as Stoic, more or less. The fourth noble truth is indistinguishable from live by virtue, for the eight fold path employs virtue, but without naming it.

The Buddhists place right knowledge first in the eight point path to the good life, while the Stoics name the path living in accordance with virtues and nature. If we do one, we do the other. Wisdom or prudence provide the knowledge and intent; we require the courage, temperance, and justice to do the remaining six: speak, action, livelihood, and to look after our mental self through effort, mindfulness and concentration. The emphasis on what is being taught or described is just different, but combined, these similar, if not identical philosophies, provide a more detailed path to a better life. It is what is considered to be more important that differs, by the ancients, and by the modern teachers. Mediation, to the Stoics was not a field of concentration, but it is for the Buddhists, while ethics was big for the Stoics, it was reduced to prescription through the precepts and other concepts in the Buddhist tradition. There are a group to concepts that are held in common. Impermanence v. constant change, and that all stressing issues are the result of wrong though, delusions of what life should be, v. opinions in our own mind that we have power over.

So what am I saying? After one strips away the language of the system, a sage would be enlightened or enlightened would be a sage. The sage must cut wood and haul water as well.  Nothing about that changes. There is this old story of "what does a monk do before enlightenment? He cuts wood and hauls water. And after enlightenment? He cuts wood and hauls water.The Theravada Buddhist will spend more time meditating, while the Stoic will spend the time in analysis and consideration, and both will act with confidence that they are doing right for the right reasons. The Theravada are not as much into mediation as the Zens. They rely more on the prescriptions found in the writings, rather than developing everything from first principals. In the end, after achievements are totaled, I doubt that the result would be distinguishable in many cases. Both would spend there lives tranquil, without hurry, and make about the same decisions. Both would sit likely at sunrise and watch the show, content with what the day might bring.

But what do I know?

Others view on this very subject:
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.ca/2013/02/buddhism-epicureanism-and-stoicism.html
  Karma was a prevailing concept accepted by Buddhists. In a small community, it has some truth to it.   Buddha was silent on 19 questions asked of him. Karma and God were two of the questions.

What is "I" is the discussion that leads to the illusion statement. In Stoic terms, "I" is the facility of reason, the part that holds opinions, makes judgements, and does all those things "I" has  power over. So is "I" real or an illusion?

http://philosophy.tamu.edu/~sdaniel/Notes/96class23.html
  

What is Stocism

There has been much written on subject of stoicism, and much misses the main point. It is not suppression of emotion. It is about understanding the source of the mainly negative emotions, and the causes. The positive emotions are good. Once we understand the cause of negative emotion, it is our choice to get anger or use the negative emotion or see the cause, eliminate the cause, and move on. Some things are up to us, our opinions, our beliefs, our values, our judgements. Live by nature, and to do that we must understand our nature. The product is understanding of our behaviors and thence to have a choice.

It is a form of consequentialism.


There is no reason to get mad at inanimate objects, it is not there fault. They have no intent, no purpose other that which we paint on them. They are a collection of atoms, nothing more. Perhaps the do what we expect by habituation, perhaps not. It is not there fault, they have no intent. It is all in our mind, our intentions, our expectations, our delusions of how life should be, our attachment to a mortal or a thing, or the opposite, our aversions. It is all in our heads.  It has nothing to do with the object, it is all us and our mind. In Buddhism, this is the second noble truth.

Now people are just like inanimate objects, but they do form intent, but usually we do not enter into the consideration. We are just moving objects without significance to most others. That is the way we treat many people in the cities where we know few of the surrounding people.

Nature has no intent. It just provides an environment for this opportunistic species, of which we are part, to flourish. There is no plan. Man has created an intent or purpose to develop, a outlet for our natural desires. Directing our desires is man made. Controlling ourselves is good; controlling others leads to resentment, rebellion, resistance, over through, and similar distress.

We need a common goal, often taken to be development of a cosmos, or a flourishing society.  Anything that leads to, aids in, supports, sustains, such development is taken as purpose, and is in the right direction.

But what do I know.  

Clarity

Clarity is the state of resolution when we come to understand. It is the process of realizing we have arrived at our destination, without knowing what our destination was or is. If we do not know where we are going any path will lead there; All we need do is stay on our current path and we will arrive.

It is that moment that we have, late at night, when the brain fog and distraction of the day have gone, when we know what must be done next, why, how, and the like. 

I have been examining "wheels of life" to see what areas I could work on, and to reevaluate where I would like to be when I die. and I am more or less there. Marcus Aurelius reminds us that life is a choice. As George Eastman said "My work is done." Now I have time to do an encore, if I desire, or not. I could just keep this place ticking over, and live out the remainder of my life. It is a time of great clarity, and a time of indecision. It does not matter, nature does not care what I do, or do not do.

Coming out as a non-theist has been interesting. Family has all but cut off any incoming contact; it is only me reaching out to them that occurs now. Oh well. Or is it just my bad attitude about some of this other shit that I do not want to know about? Or is it just the dull conversation that I usually go quiet and shut down, or is it just my attitude about sugar, starch, and sugar binges? Oh well.

It is clear to me that I need to get involved in something bigger than myself, that is engaging, has meaning, and a chance of achievement if fate permits. But what? That is the question. It should have a social component, perhaps something education for the youth. Perhaps a bit more archery coaching. I do not know.