Rachel’s Musings

I had trouble getting out of bed this morning. Only having a full agenda got me out of bed rather than staying there nurturing my self-pity or anxiety, whatever it is. None of the excuses for avoiding my morning walk were convincing even to the me that didn’t want to walk. So, my morning routine kicked in still mentally struggling with wondering if I am smart enough to be back in school. I only have evidence against that doubt from one class so far. Still waiting to hear on the other exams. And even with that class, the little dragon in my head keeps whispering that this was just a fluke the real me will soon be discovered – and she’s a failure. What’s really tugging at my soul – and that’s not meant in a religious sense but rather as a short way of referring to that which at least seems to be there beyond the material of our neurons firing, maybe consciousness would be a better term but that doesn’t sound as good during an existential struggle – what is really tugging at my soul is the realization that I’ve taken too many wrong turns in my life, that I am really not where I would like to be and the fear, sometimes overwhelming, that it’s too late to get back on my path now that I have somewhat of a sense what that path might be. And I am hitting all the social no-nos. Here I am a 40-something single woman going back to school – I am not supposed to do that! I am supposed to be happily married with 2.5 kids, established in my fulfilling career, owning a beautiful home. I don’t have any of that! I am happily single, changing careers, and renting. I have a child but he’s an adult now, so even that I’ve done backwards by having him way earlier than social norm. But, again, what’s tugging at my soul is the fear that it’s too late to change course. Maybe it’s true that we don’t learn as well when we’re older and what am I doing pursuing a philosophy degree – that’s irresponsible! I can’t make money with that! And then, I am choosing to be single. How dare I! That’s too uppity even for a feminist (I might explain that in an upcoming post – why do I think choosing to be single is uppity?).

All that, or some less articulated version of it, went through my head as I was putting on my exercise clothes. I headed out the door. And then I saw the writing on the sidewalk: Jesus loves you! “Well, at least someone loves me,” went through my head, almost immediately followed by a realization. In our hypercompetitive world where a person is only good enough if she achieves by the social standards set by who knows whom, self-love is a rarity. The only way we can get unconditional love is through an imaginary being (God) or through a dead and decomposed guy (Jesus). And this acceptable form of self-love – for if God and Jesus cannot really love you because they don’t exist, this is a form of self-love – has subverted a possibly healthier way of taking care of the self practiced in ancient philosophy. Michel Foucault put the shift this way (284):

In the Greco-Roman world, the care of the self was the mode in which individual freedom – or civic liberty, up to a point – was reflected as an ethics. [...] the theme of the care of the self thoroughly permeated moral reflection. [...] in our societies on the other hand, at a time that is very difficult to pinpoint, the care of the self became somewhat suspect. Starting at a certain point, being concerned with oneself was readily denounced as a form of self-love, a form of selfishness or self-interest in contradiction with the interest to be shown in others or the self-sacrifice required.

Jesus loves you instead of know thyself. Self-sacrifice instead of self-love. And we’re not talking about the narcissistic self-love here, we are talking about a healthy amount of self-love that counteracts the doubts of inadequacy I was struggling with and suspect many others who are venturing off the beaten path are struggling with (heck, even people who are on the beaten path). Rather than loving ourselves, we’re supposed to love God or Jesus or both and then sacrifice ourselves in their name. Only that way do we get back a self-love substitute, God’s or Jesus’ love. No wonder that so many people flock to religions! Existential angst is part of our world – we no longer learn to counter-act it by becoming a virtuous person grounded in a deep love for and knowledge of ourselves.

Maybe if we listen to the ancients some more, we can relearn how to find our way to happiness. Maybe if we cultivate healthy self-love again, we’ll see less of the unhealthy kind, which leads to destruction both of the economy and the environment. Maybe if we reconnect with ourselves, our dreams and start knowing ourselves again, we might have to buy less stuff to fill the existential hole. The planet could sure use that kind of a value-shift. So could we.

October 24th is the International Day of Action for Climate Change because we need to reduce our carbon parts per million to below 350:

350 parts per million is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere.

Accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 390ppm, and that unless we are able to rapidly return to 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt.

Find an event near you to participate. (Das gibt’s auch auf Deutsch: Also auch in Deutschland an 350 Aktionen teilnehmen!)

“Deliver us from Evil” is the title of a documentary that uses the case of one Catholic priest to unravel the whole story of Catholic cover-up of the extend of child sexual abuse committed by priests. According to Patrick Wall, a theologian and former priest, the Catholic church knew that they had a problem with priests abusing children way back in the 4th century, when the first attempts were made to force priests into celibacy. Another report was published (and ignored) in the 11th century. Then in the 12th century, celibacy became official. According to Father Thomas Doyle, a very outspoken critic of the Church hierarchy, the Church’s view on sexuality goes back to the Stoics who introduced the mind-body split (soul and corporeal). Anything corporeal was bad. The Church hierarchy adopted that view. Sex was bad no matter what. It was permissible – though still bad – only if it produced children. Doyle remarks that we need to remember that this kind of anti-sex view produced by a bunch of celibate men is what influenced us all if we grew up in a European-ancestry home!

Wall stressed that about 10% of the graduates of one of the major Catholic seminaries in the US have been convicted as pedophiles (sorry, I don’t recall the name of the seminary). 10%! As Wall rightly points out, if Yale had a similar disgusting track record, it would’ve been shut down! Yet, the Catholic church manages to survive. They’ve paid more than a billion dollars in fines and reparation. There are at least 100,000 victims who have come forward – this is an estimated 20% of the real number of victims. Yet, the Catholic church goes on. How can an institution not loose all its credibility when there is such an extent – both in numbers and in time – of a problem that is systematically covered up? Doyle even blames the very essence of the Catholic hierarchy for this. A priest is considered more valuable than a child, so it is logical to cover up for the priest rather than to protect the child. And if all sex is considered bad, as Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea explains, it is difficult to distinguish child sexual abuse from adult consensual sex because it’s all bad. The Catholic hierarchy had lost their moral compass – that how Frawley-O’Dea puts it. And after that, they still have moral credibility left? That seems more mysterious than the conversion of a cracker into a piece of flesh! How much has to happen before people will stop trusting sexual advice from people who have pledged not to have sex? How much has to happen before people will stop following moral doctrines from a deeply immoral hierarchy? Only if the priests lose their supposedly god-given power will they stop abusing it.

Yesterday, two people told me that “people are talking” that there will be an earthquake soon. It scared me. Am I ready for an earthquake? Maybe I should review the meeting spots. Maybe I should… Then it started to puzzle me. We just had an earthquake drill. No, that wasn’t it, one person assured me. It’s the weather. It has been rather humid here lately and that’s what the weather was like before the 1989 earthquake. I didn’t think to ask: How often has the weather been humid between now and 1989 and no earthquake happened? As I continued to reflect, I realized the perils of folk wisdom: It scares people and it gives false hope of control. Reality is that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Earthquakes happen here, humid weather or not. And reality is that earthquakes are very difficult to predict. That’s why we have the relatively useless official forecast that a big one will hit sometime between now and the next 30 years – something like that, maybe it’s just 20 years but, still, it doesn’t help me to plan to move to non-earthquake country tomorrow, so that I miss the quake on Tuesday, and can come back a week from Tuesday after the essential services are restored. So, why do people think they can predict earthquakes by the humidity (or how the bells ring)? Well, it probably goes along with the line written on the sidewalk in chalk: “Jesus is coming!” He has been expected for the last 2000 years give or take a few decades. Any guest who is that late, shouldn’t really be welcome anymore. So it is with humid weather: If I say earthquakes come with humid weather, chances are that one day an earthquake does indeed happen when it’s humid. This goes back to the difficulty of predicting earthquakes: There is a very large random element in the prediction, so almost anything is possible.

Bottom line: If you live in an area where earthquakes are likely, you live in an area where earthquakes are likely. Unfortunately, that’s not very useful, so the best thing is to be always prepared, at least a little. Know what to do, know where to go. Have food, water, and medication supplies for at least 72 hours. And then stop worrying about it! If it gets humid, put on a t-shirt. I’ve heard rumors that they sell those even in San Francisco…

Lillian B. Rubin writes in the Fall 2009 issue of Dissent Magazine:

Only a serious conversation about the meaning of democracy in our fractious and increasingly diverse nation – a conversation that confronts the costs and realities of an uninformed and disinformed voting public, one that challenges our current election practices that have made money so vital to a candidate’s hopes; a conversation that, on a broader level, examines our focus on the private and the individual at the expense of the public, the community, and the collective good – only such a public conversation will lead us closer to that more perfect democratic union we all say we seek but which too few have been willing to enable.

I find it hard sometimes not to see conspiracies. Conspiracy theories are usually associated with mental illness but sometimes things just seem to fit together so nicely, I begin to wonder if someone (or some group) is orchestrating things. Though, the synchronicity might be entirely a coincident brought together by similar forces working toward similar aims. So, where’s the conspiracy here? Well, California’s public education is being dismantled. Instead of informing the public more, we’re informing the public less. With the end-effect that true democracy becomes ever more elusive keeping the current elites in power (and well educated through private education). How convenient. Though maybe the intend is not to undermine democracy through the defunding of public education. But that sure is the effect.