Category: Behavior

Categories
Behavior Being Experience Interwebs Tech

Long Hiatus

I have not posted to this blog in years. A combination of factors complicated my ability to gain access, but I cannot deny that the true cause is my tendency to procrastinate due to my compulsion to make things perfect. My underlying fear: that my expressive writing skills have declined from lack of practice.

It is true that my closet webserver, that formerly hosted this blog, grew so old that it could not be upgraded without a full wipe. It is true that I needed to be able to backup–and be confident that I could restore–the database and files before attempting any software upgrades. Without a backup/restoration protocol in place, potential new posts ran the risk of being lost. It is also true that the deadlines of my past job were so demanding that the last thing I wanted to do after meeting them was spend more time in front of a computer monitor attempting to draft coherent thoughts. Lastly, it is true that I have gotten out of the habit of reflecting on events in my life that would make for interesting blog posts.

Well, I want this to change. I miss journaling and I see now that the process of recording events required careful reflection. The act of reflecting often enhanced my appreciation of life. Of course, I would like this enhanced appreciation to resume.

So, I moved this blog to a dedicated cloud host where I no longer assume the burden of hardware upgrades so that I can maintain the support software (e.g. MySQL, PHP, Apache, WordPress) more easily with less risk. I’ve setup automated backup to a different cloud provider and verified my ability to perform a restoration if need be. And most significantly, I’m in between jobs right now with the intention of getting my life back in order on my terms; blogging is one of them.

Now that I am well-positioned to blog, I declare here that I will write and post at least three posts a week–no matter how mundane the subject–to get “back in the habit” of reflecting on life events by writing about them. Previous obstacles that have contributed to my procrastination are now gone. Here, I make a commitment to getting back in the practice, so I can hold myself accountable without excuses to hide behind.

Categories
Behavior Experience History Philosophy

Bruno’s Expression

I came across this gem a couple of weeks ago. The impact with which the late Professor Bronowski asserted his “personal view” on science versus dogma cannot be overstated:

There are two parts to the human dilemma: one is the belief that the end justify the means. That push-button philosophy. That deliberate deafness to suffering that has become the monster in The War Machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit. The assertion of dogma that closes the mind and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts [camera zooms into an open iron door to a human-sized oven]: obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts.

It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn then into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself [zoom out, new scene: narrator walks toward, and into, a pond outside of a complex perimeter.]: this is the crematorium and concentration camp at Auschwitz; this is where people were turned into numbers.

Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And it was not done by gas; it was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance! When people believe they have absolute knowledge with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the very brink of the known. We always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: think it possible you may be mistaken!”

I owe it as a scientist to my late friend Leo Szilard–I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died here–to stand here as a survivor and as a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act.

[Slowly leaning down toward the pond, the narrator swoops in with his right hand and scoops up muck from the bottom, slowly bringing it up…]

We have to touch people.

Bronowski, J., The Ascent of Man, Episode 11, BBC, 1973
Categories
Behavior Being Literature Mythology

Sound like anybody you know?

The figure of the tyrant-monster is known to the mythologies, folk traditions, legends, and even nightmares of the world; and his characteristics are everywhere essentially the same. He is the hoarder of the general benefit. He is the monster avid for the greedy rights of “my and mine.” The havoc wrought by him is described in mythology and fairy tale as being universal throughout his domain. This may be no more than his household, his own tortured psyche, or the lives that he blights with the touch of his friendship and assistance; or it may amount to the extent of his civilization. The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world–no matter how his affairs seem to prosper. Self-terrorized, fear-haunted, alert at every hand to meet and battle back the anticipated aggressions of his environment, which are primarily the reflections of the uncontrollable impulses of acquisition within himself, the giant of self-achieved independence is the world’s messenger of disaster, even through, in his mind, he may entertain himself with humane intentions. Wherever he sets his hand there is a cry (if not from the housetops, then–more miserably–within every heart): a cry for the redeeming hero, the carrier of the shining blade, whose blow, whose touch, whose existence will liberate the land.

-Campbell, Joseph. The hero with a thousand faces. Third edition. Joseph Campbell Foundation 2008. p.11

Categories
Behavior

Big City Crowin’

Riding horseback in the rural outskirts of Woodland, CA years ago, I noticed the crows there had developed a rather clever plan for extracting the inner contents of walnuts from hard surrounding shells. Crows would perch themselves in branches of walnut trees that lined country roads–a rather commonplace arrangement in Yolo County. As a vehicle approached, hopefully a truck or tractor, the crows would fling down a barrage of walnuts a few seconds before it passed by underneath them. Occasionally, the walnuts would land in-line with the vehicle’s tires, that crushed them on impact.  The crows then enjoyed the nutty feast left behind, for minimal exertion on their part.

Walking back to my car the other day, I noticed crows enacting another maneuver for nut extraction. As you might be able to make out in the (low-quality, phone-captured) video below, a crow can be seen lodging a nut in the crevice separating slabs of pavement in a cement street. With the nut pinned in place, the crow could pierce it with his bill and pull out the nutty goodness.

Contrary to what was once believed, primates are not the only creatures in the animal kingdom cunning enough to use tools.