Four New Years Resolutions for Ancient Androgynes

I have reached the age where it becomes necessary to at least consider the possibility that this new year could be one's last new year.  That consideration seems to both make this years resolutions both more and less urgent.   ONe of my resolutions this year was to sit down and write things, and this more or less neglected blog page seems a good place to keep a diary as any.

This is the year of the cyborg, so everything should be online.

So let's get to the resolutions

It seems that politically there was an upheaval this past year, that was unsuspected.  (No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition).   While I cannot share the utter despair of so many.  (You know who you are, all of you, who wrote 3 pages on your facebook page about how you couldn't wish anyone a happy new year)  I cannot see what good will come of chossing Boomer's older and more self involved than me, to MAGA, and lead us back to the promised land where factories hummed in every nook and cranny of the USA.  so....

1)  Live in 2017.  Avoid Nostalgia


It is a sad fact that I live a very comfortable life, where I need to supply my own discomforts, by endlessly contemplating my gender issues, and doing things that I mildly regret every few days like drinking too much.

2)  Avoid the Habitual


There is o question that the efficiency of my physical and mental faculties has moved off the peak.  This process can only be stopped by death.


3) Boost Memory by Doing Fewer Forgetful Things

Studying Nature, Cosmos, Evolution, and of course birds birds birds  The purpose of this study is to try to discern the purpose of these things.  To understand my world fully.  This is the topic I most want to write about in this diary.  Is there a divine spirit which is discernable, and evident in the history of the universe, the history of life, my own history.  If there is, then it shouldn't require a mountain, cave or monk's cell to apprehend it.  That divine spirit should be all around me and within me, shouldn't it?


4) Embrace the Divine


If it is always darkest just before the dawn, then a glorious sunrise must be immanent.

Cormac McCarthy: An Appreciation

“Far out on the desert to the north dustspouts rose wobbling and augered the earth and some said they'd heard of pilgrims borne aloft like dervishes in those mindless coils to be dropped broken and bleeding upon the desert again and there perhaps to watch the thing that had destroyed them lurch onward like some drunken djinn and resolve itself once more into the elements from which it sprang. Out of that whirlwind no voice spoke and the pilgrim lying in his broken bones may cry out and in his anguish he may rage, but rage at what? And if the dried and blackened shell of him is found among the sands by travelers to come yet who can discover the engine of his ruin?”

From Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness in The West

Could one write a bleaker paragraph?  Or one more beautiful?  

Christian Conundrum

So....
Bennie is a torturer.  He spends thirty years of his life, doing state sanctioned torture, (an evil state of course) and ends up causing intense suffering for 752 people, and suffering at a distance for an additional 15,323.  He is a monster and he enjoys it.    When he dies,  he goes to Hell.  For every person he tortured, he suffers exactly the same pain, and for the 15,000 others ... well he gets tortured 15,000 more times.  Then it happens again.  and then it happens again.  and you how this goes.

So...
Some Being tortures Bennie..  Is this Being a monster and does this Being enjoy it?
And why exactly do you think this is Divine Justice?

(Especially because My Uncle Louie who couldn't resist a burger on friday in the 50's is right next to him)

Some Thoughts about Buddhism

I recently spent a weekend at a Buddhist Monastery participating in a program to help develop mindfulness.  I came laden with notebook and pen, and was told to leave them at the door, and instructed to simply sit down and pay attention.  Basically that was it.  Instruction was at a minimum.  The mindfulness program instructed us to pay attention to our minds, and gave some simple techniques for doing so.  Quite frankly it was a wonderful program, and got me excited about Buddhism in a way that I never have been.  Only one moment in the program irked me, when our guide made some disparaging remarks about science, and then subsequently reading some books recommended to me, particularly   This Precious Life: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on the Path to Enlightenment by Khandro Rinpoche.   the founder of the monastery, I confronted the profound pessimism which is encapsulated in the four noble truths,  specifically Duhka.  Existence is Suffering.  Specifically the Universe as we generally know it, and as scientists study it is Samsara, an uncountable group of sentient beings, trapped in immeasurable suffering, with only one exit door,  the eightfold path of Buddhism.  In this context,  science is samsaric activity, and all such activity is futile.  More specifically such activity represents more of the same grasping attachment.  What does one make of The Dalai Lama's interest in science though.  He spoke a few years ago at the Society for Neuroscience.   His remarks seem inconsistent with outright rejection of science as a meaningful activity.
As I have been reflecting on this, I have been able to focus more clearly on what excites me about a Buddhist weekend, and what depresses me.   What excites me, is to find a community of people, living harmoniously, devoted to some big, and something benign.   I have struggled lately with the whole issue of what is meaningful activity for someone who has lots of free time, and is in constant danger of wasting that time in an orgy of self-indulgence.  (Which might only be the cherry on the sundae of a life of same)  Here are  people who mutually love each other, and reach out to others with love.  It is enough to turn you into a Buddhist.
At the same time,  Buddhism has a number of beliefs which serious buddhists say are essential, but which are not based in any experience that I have ever had, or for that matter anyone that I know.   Reincarnation is perhaps the most striking.   We are eternal beings with long histories in heavens, hells, as humans, and vermin, and the whole thing adds up to some big time duhka.  But what exactly is reincarnated, and what evidence is there for this?  I find myself lately reading a blog by a Buddhist Monk called Jayarava.  He presents what is to my mind a very cogent exposition of the history and  issues involved with supernatural concepts such as reincarnation, and rejects reincarnation, but still calls himself a buddhist.   I know that I will not in this life be rejecting the constructs of modern science, which I have been feasting on since my retirement, by way of fabulous internet resources such as the Susskind Lectures.  It is pretty clear that I am going to have to find meaning in what remains of my life,  outside the confines of monasteries, nunneries, or other ideal communities.

The Catholic View of Gender.

Though I might have been wiser to touch up my roots,  I thought to get in touch with my roots, specifically my upbringing as a Catholic, which for many years of my youth I was a paragon, until I no longer was.  I particularly thought I might look into the church's position on  Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.  This is a condition caused by a genetic condition where the "male", (XY chromosome) is insensitive to the androgens that guide physical development as a male.  Such an individual looks like a baby girl at birth, and while they have no uterus, this may not be discovered until puberty when they do not menstruate.  Hence they are raised as and believe themselves to be girls, until they get an unpleasant surprise.  Most of these individuals have the normal gender identity of a female.
So I thought,  the common refrain that marriage is between a man and a woman.  How does AIS factor in?  There is a very lucid description of the issues from an intersex person's perspective in the following blog:  Intersex Roadshow.  There was not a lot on this from the catholic perspective that I could find, but here is a reasonable discussion.   The bottom line seems to be that intersex conditions,  gender disorders,  are treated like homosexuality as being "intrinsically disordered".  My understanding is that this means that these are like physical disabilities, a product of our fallen nature.  (Blame Eve bitches!)  So,  you should practice chastity and stay out of the marriage pool where you will just muddy the waters.   This at first caught me by surprise.   Until I realized that in the Church's view,  masturbation and sex with contraception are also in the same status.  For reference, regular masturbation is true for more than 50% of older teenage boys. with girls under 50%.  Contraception during marital sex is also quite common.
The bottom line appears to be that the Catholic Church in its doctrine maintains that sexual desire serves a single purpose which is reproduction, just as food serves a single purpose which is providing nutrients.  God intended a certain model, ( man and woman, marry, have sex when they want children, raise children together)  Everything else is due to God's plan being corrupted by original sin and is to be avoided.
To be sure, I have problems with this.   I am not sure why Catholics aren't Baptists by this logic.  Alcohol serving no nutritive function, surely this appetite should be avoided?  Also, when the highest positions in the organization can only be reached by those who claim to be chaste,  how does the organization come to the conclusion that family life was God's plan.
At any rate, I see that in the Catholic view, we are ideally of two genders, linked to two types of bodies, and two I suspect social roles.  This is how God wanted it, and everything else is the perversions of nature, and culture in a sinful world.
As for AIS, I must conclude that the Catholic position is that an individual with AIS is male, (since the underlying issue is a gene that has not allowed maleness to be expressed, and presumable a "cure" for AIS would result in a male child.)  Myself?  likewise.   We in each case, just have some "flaws" that are best treated with prayers, and chastity,  and I don't mean chastity devices.

The Age of Wonder is Behind Us

I have been meaning to put a blog together that is concentrated upon some intellectual topics,  particularly mathematics, physics, psychology, and hindu/buddhist religion, and provides some resources that others will find useful, but is fun.  After all, what can be more fun than the intersection of sanskrit and algebra!
 It is one of my signature phrases in answer to a question like "I wonder who played third base for the 1987 Oakland Athletics?"  by remarking that the Age of Wonder is over.  I mean,  haven't you heard of the internet? and more to the point, "Why don't you ask Siri, and let the rest of us finish our cheese fries."   ( ok ok .... Carney Lansford, and if you think I knew the answer to that, then you should avoid the company of Carney's)
I believe the New York Daily News used to have a phone line where you could ask the operators questions about almanac type facts, and they would try to answer them.  Obviously they are out of business.. and it is just getting started I think.  Some of our beloved institutions are already Walkers...
The following is likely to come to be in the next 30 years.

1)  Universities as we know them will disappear
2)  Stores with a few exceptions will disappear
3)  I will disappear.

The last one is easy.  I am 64.   I want to save the first one for my next entry, where I will discuss some of the amazing resources that are already on the net.  Let us consider the second one.   I subscribe to Amazon Prime, and increasingly find that my best shopping experiences are done at home.  Things I used to shop for, I get online, and I am not alone.  The Shopping Meccas are hurting.   Here is my personal experience.  Everyone I know forgot to go Xmas shopping this year.

Books/Movies etc,  Since the Borders closed around here, retail availability of books in a 25 mile radius in my home (near Atlantic City, NJ) has gone from lousy to pathetic.  Meanwhile, anything I can imagine will be delivered to my home in a few days.

Electronics.  I increasingly don't see the point, unless there is a significant sale.

Health and Beauty Aids    I actually still go to the CVS.  I just don't know why.  I could get it all online from CVS!

Clothing   I like to browse clothes and try them on at the mall.  It is really the only reason I go to Malls.  I don't think that the try it out factor will save the clothing retailers.  It seems well within the ability of current technology to measure your body every couple of years precisely, and then change into clothes online.  Inexpensive accurate and convenient measurement of the customer's body seems to be the only impediment.   The part where the clothes are precisely measured and displayed is already here.

Groceries   You can buy these online as well... Call me old fashioned, (and suspicious), but I still gotta squeeze the Charmin.

And there are other consequences beyond the store's themselves.  but I think my point is made.  I wonder what the unexpected consequences will be.