Maswali

Manhattan

2006-05-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have posted here.  I had an agenda of philosophical topics I wanted to explore, but my approach has changed.  I stopped writing while I pondered how to continue.  I have now decided just to write whatever ideas I want to express at the time and not worry about whether this relates to what I have written before or attempt to incorporate it in any writing plan.

I have been in the USA the last three weeks.  It is such a contrast with East Africa, and is always thought stimulating.  People sell so hard there and push so hard because they have to.  If you don’t market aggressively you get nowhere.

People have stopped talking so much about Bush.  Some are just waiting for this Presidency to end, and other Republicans are disappointed with Iraq, various scandals (such as the phone tapping one), and the budget deficit and are bewildered.  Some are still avid supporters.  When it is a question of belief no amount of looking at facts can change someone’s view.  There is some talk of the increasing price of oil, but not as much as I would have expected.  No-one seems to think that it could become scarce enough and the demand high enough to revolutionize the world economy.  The fact China’s requirements have surpassed the USA’s and is increasing is a sign of change ahead.  Big change.  It seems funny how the Republican plan is to open up Alaska more, with no serious regard to alternative energy sources yet.  It is baffling that they should follow this policy when they also consider one of the biggest problems is insecurity in the Middle East, where they are involved and interdependent because of the thirst for oil.  It actually smells of corruption and some other commercial reason centred on self-interest as otherwise it makes no sense.

Sometimes I think I am mad because things I consider important do not seem to concern others.  That is probably the reason for this blog.   The West  (and the World) is so enmeshed in this insane consumptive and wasteful economy of ours. It keeps everything going.  Walking in the streets of Manhattan watching people in the street, I wondered what most people did as employment.  I imagined so many jobs to be pointless.  I might be wrong, but I imagined it this way.  Whole gangs of people employed on design and packaging of products, that having fulfilled its purpose of attracting the customer is soon discarded into the huge piles of trash that accumulate there. Of course informing others of a product or idea can be important, but I think there are two angles to this.  The receiver and the supplier.  The West seems supplier based, focusing on supplying information in as easy and packaged a way as possible.  “You will be happy if you have this”, “the girls will like you if you have that” supplied in “sound bites”.  An information world more based on the receiver end would focus on educating people better, so that they are more judgmental, and not so gullible.  I suppose that is a bit idealistic.

I thought of how little time most people have to socialize and chitchat.  Of course they do this at work, but people seem so pre-occupied.  They don’t have the time to chat, sit on a bench, relax.  People seem so busy and stressed, and yet they don’t seem to achieve a lot except feed the economic powerhouse.  That is being a bit cynical and judgmental.  Of course lots of people are doing wonderful things with their time, but this was my perception while walking the streets of Manhattan.

I probably think too much.  Anyway I am now in the air on my way back home, so no doubt a lot of these thoughts will seem far away soon.

Thoughts on death

2005-12-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

What of death?  One thing we can say with surety is not one of us will escape it.  What is it like when you die?  Clearly, we cannot know.  However we have seen animals and people die.

Most of the deaths of animals in the wild that I have witnessed have ended in calm submission.  Not all, so that is not to say there is no pain in death, but in most cases there is a peaceful letting go at the end.

There is acceptance and an element of tranquillity. Is this why people are executed in painful ways?  You would think that if a society decided to deprive someone of their life, they could at least do so “humanely”, but the electric chair, painful injections, and other unpleasant forms of execution still exist, even in what some regard as a “civilised” country. The passing away doesn’t look nasty enough, so they try every imaginable means to prolong death, and overwhelm this moment of peace with pain.

I don’t want to delve too deep into something I know nothing about, and can only guess at.  While I find this interesting, I consider it a diversion, as it is a matter I can only be ignorant about until the day I die. Nevertheless, how strange that there should so often be this calm at the end!  When we are undergoing what we (man and animal) fear most.  Why?

Should this not be an important question?  I am sure many religions have an answer to this question. Your soul has left you. You have begun another life.  But I prefer to focus on nature, and what I hear, see or smell.  Of course Science tells us that in many cases you lose blood, which lowers oxygen levels to the brain.  That should make you weak and dizzy.  Most of us have been in that situation, even just by lying down and quickly standing up, or when we have a fever. Initially what we normally worry about becomes irrelevant. Later we might not be fully aware of our surroundings.

What happens next?  Well, it seems that after that last bit of calm the light goes out.  You die.

I think it is odd that often there is tranquillity just before.  It suggests to me that the worst thing about dying must be not knowing what is happening, and not being prepared.  We always want a few more years, days, hours, minutes, seconds.  There are things we wanted to do.  Things left undone.  And we never planned to die.

If there is relaxation before that last moment, why the struggle before?

I think the struggle before is all about what I call “the game of life”.  It is the most serious game we ever play, and at the end of it I imagine myself thinking that it all seems so pointless and so irrelevant.  Hence my choice of the word “game”.

Of life after death

2005-12-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

We are born, we live and we die.  Is that it?  What is the point?  What happens next? Do we go to heaven?  Hell?  Do we reach Nirvana?

These questions are the very core of human culture.  We have been asking these for millennia.  Every religion is concerned with answers to these questions. Every religion has come up with answers. I am very wary of the effect our desire for answers to these questions has on any results. I think the only answer we can truthfully have to these is another question. Why am I so sceptical of answers to questions on the afterlife?

Firstly, because questions that could result in answers that we really fear historically make us invent the most amazingly imaginative answers.  Murderers fear the truth of their actions, and invent astoundingly intricate stories.  A similar thing happens to people who have suffered terrible tragedies. We naturally fear death, and fear of what happens to us after death seems to fit this pattern.  The likelihood that we will invent wonderful stories of what happens afterwards is very high.  It requires incredible bravado and strength to face a hard truth.

Secondly, because the answers available to us from many cultures consistently return to some theme of life after death.  Does that really mean we have a life after death?  Some would say so.  Does that mean that there is some truth there?  I doubt it.  I am sceptical because what happens to us is of such universal concern and not knowing induces such fear, that I strongly suspect that the consistency in the theme merely highlights the fear, not a truth in the answer.

Thirdly because some of us proselytize that we really know.  As if they’ve been there.  They are very convincing in their determination of the “truth”. Well the likelihood is they haven’t been there, and they don’t really know.

There are people who say that the answers are in a holy book, and these books are right because through one way or another God spoke to people and they wrote it down, so it is the word of “God”.  Well, leaving aside the question of god, it is clear that people wrote these books, and people are fallible, often opinionated, and often wrong.  People once believed the earth to be flat, to be at the centre of the universe.  Now we know better.

Lastly, because there is no real way we can know.  Really know.

It would seem logical that if god is really there the answer to these questions will be around us. In “his” world and not in a book.  If he is not there, the world around us is all we have got to answers these questions, so it seems logical that we start there anyway.

So, there I will begin.  In nature.  On Earth.  In the sea.  Around us.

My Decision

2005-11-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

While often fine at the time, well fed, housed, surrounded by friends and loved ones, relatively happy, I cannot help but think about the future, and feel pain and anger mostly at how such an intelligent being as ourselves can, in my view, be leading my offspring into such a pit of misery and disaster.  Of course, the future is nothing but conjecture, why be concerned with what might not happen? Why, if I am fine now, and if everything is well, am I so preoccupied with the future?

What has happened to the snippets of eastern philosophy that I have encountered over the years – that all that really matters is the moment, and the individual's state of being now.  Why not live in the now? Why not enjoy the moment?  What difference will any of these preoccupations and external issues make to me now or when I die?  Can I not then relax and enjoy my passing away.....?  If at the time I go, I do so at the time of a catastrophe and am accompanied by many others (perhaps including my own children), should it matter?  Why should that make any difference?  Can they not then also enjoy the moment of passing away....  We are going to die anyway, why should it make a difference when and how at the moment it is actually happening?

These and many other questions flash through my mind.  The only answer I can give is that whether it is through my upbringing or it is in my true nature of being, I am preoccupied with these things, and feel there is not a lot I can do to ignore them.

This being the case, do I continue thinking about them and do nothing else?  Often when I talk about them, I seem to get a sort of confused reaction from people, almost as if querying why I am so preoccupied about them.  So mostly ponder in silence.

Why can I not still adopt the words of wisdom from eastern philosophy and, while still thinking about the things that preoccupy my mind, just smile and enjoy the moment?  I feel pain at seeing our world suffer – why?  There is happiness too in the world.  In whatever frame of mind I contemplate these things I conclude that the despair I feel is a combination of two pains. There is always one I can do nothing about, and one I can indeed do something to alleviate it.

If I choose a “hinduist/buddhist” philosophical perspective I can live the moment, smile, enjoy it, cease to preoccupy myself with anything else, and thus conquer my mind – and cure the pain.  Isn’t that the idea?  “We are all on a long cyclical journey, of which this life is on a part.”

But will I?  I know I will always be wondering “what if the moment is not paramount, despite all the arguments of why it should be so”.  There will be an element of doubt, which in the end will be my undoing.  While I may live the moment, not worry about anything else, returning questions will bring back the pain.  It will be a battle I can never win – unless I had “faith”.  But then I don't believe in faith.  I believe in questioning, and in doubt as much as faith.  For true faith to be present there has to be no questioning, or the questioning has to be second place to faith.  So in this case I may cure the pain of the moment at times, but the pain of what I perceive to be the future will always return.

So, I choose a more logical, scientific perspective.  In this case I allow myself to consider the future.  (As far as my basic knowledge is, this is a “no,no” in eastern philosophy except for amusement!)

I notice the pain I feel when I think about (what I perceive to be) our (probable) future. Why be concerned about what I cannot know will happen? I don’t know, but one reason is that during my life enough things I thought would happen have occurred (and plenty have not).  So I have chosen to do so.  I then conclude this feeling; this “concern of the future” is painful because until now, while thinking these thoughts, I have done nothing about them.

While I might occasionally begin to talk about them, I usually soon cease, and I have never followed up with trying to write them down or express them better. So now I have decided to write about them!

I hope that this pain will become less chronic the moment I begin to communicate my thoughts coherently and even less so if I can follow these through with actions. Doing something is the best effective reaction to this.  While these concerns might not totally disappear, they may become less as I become active, as my energy is redirected where it seems my natural state deems is right.  Meanwhile things will happen around me of which I can do nothing about, and while I may react to these with sadness and sometimes despair, I hope I feel some comfort in my actions.

As I re-read these passages they seem to me almost a continuous train of thought, spinning from one theme to another. So, in order to make this letter coherent and have its beginning and end, I have thought of a series of questions and will deal with them one at a time, attempting to answer them.  I consider these questions fundamental to helping me filter through the myriad of related topics relevant to understanding our world today, and Man's role in it.  I hope this leads through a logical train of thought and then guides me to a conclusion – either in ideas or perhaps also in a series of actions as a result.  Perhaps others can help me, or join the search?

“Maswali” in Swahili means questions.

Introduction

2005-11-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

Walking from Gate 3 to Gate 24 at a modern western airport terminal, sitting in a bus, watching a barefoot hawker sell his mini packets of peanuts in Africa, reading the news, stimulates my mind to a myriad and changing slew of questions and answers – such as:

Who are we?

What do people believe? Why do they believe what they believe?

Why are things the way they are? (Why is oil so important in today’s world? Why do wars happen? Why is religion so important? Why do diseases like bird flu appear out of the blue? Why do we need passports and visas to travel? Why is Africa poor and America rich? Why are there billionaires and people starving? Why are we so successful that we have become the most widely distributed species of land mammal on the planet? )

Is this inevitable? Do we have an effect on these things? Is our destiny fate or are we in the game of life where our own actions can effect how the outcome materialises?