Ever Thus

Burning the sea,

Roiling the ground

Burning down the night, upside down

Rise, rise and deliver us

Ever thus

To deadbeats
Lebowski

Naïve Narrative or Excusable Trope?

Heard this on NPR last night:

Author Yann Martel On 'That Deeply Unreasonable Phenomenon' Of Faith

On this quote from the book and how it reflects his own thoughts about faith: "[Tomás] realized that this matter of faith was either radically to be taken seriously or radically not to be taken seriously."

Most people are not radical either way. They just sort of sit in this middle on this fence most of their lives. And I think important matters like religion — you have to decide one way or the other ... because it makes a big difference. Either there's nothing — we're just the result of chemical good luck, you know, this soup on Earth that yielded life somehow mysteriously. And that's fine, and you just deal with that — that life is a lucky, short-lived thing. Or it does somehow mean something. And if it does, then what does it mean? ...

I'm not at all a defender of organized religion or any kind of evangelism, but I'm just saying either life means something or it doesn't. Because life is about making choices, so either you throw yourself at it and believe there is something — then what is there? — or you don't and say there's nothing and so we just have to make life good right now.

Coupleuh things here: 1. Coupleuh is a word. 2. How is chemical good luck, soup on Earth that yielded life, nothing? 3. Notice the “or,” implying that chemical good luck that yields life is nothing. This forced dichotomy that Yann has backed himself into here just isn’t/doesn’t have to be the case. Why can’t it be that making life good right now IS the SOMETHING? Deep down in places we don’t talk about at parties, this trope runs thick like concrete from a mixer, that atheists and their ilk are amoral, immediate gratification monsters BECAUSE they don’t see/get/understand/accept the “life means something” religion in disguise idea.

Can life be finite and mean something? Your life, yes you, has a starting point and an ending point and because of this fact it means nothing? Nah, it means something and though Sartre and the existentialist are out of fashion right now, it is up to you to determine what it means. And you will. Good bad or ugly.

On the importance of stories

I believe that we are nothing without the stories that we read and that we tell ourselves. I think in a large part, our identity as human beings is the result of narration, of constructing things that have a beginning, a middle and an end, that have development. I've always been struck how religions, unlike science, religion is profoundly narrative. All religions convey stories and I think that speaks to who we are as a species. Our understanding comes through stories, [is] exemplified through stories, [is] understood through stories.

And our human brains crave metaphor. The metaphors are, unlike our individual lives, and like musical melodies, infinite. My narrative doesn’t involve deities and supernatural agents and isn’t it just as valuable as religious narratives. Human history is still a blink in geologic time and you don’t have to be Bob Dylan to know that the times they are uh changin’. 

I give you a song with a new narrative, a different view point of a religious narrative, namely Kingdom Come. 

http://www.markerelli.com/songs/lyrics/Little_Vigils_-oparen-2010-cparen-/1172

Kingdom Come

The wasp she lays an egg
'Neath a caterpillar's skin
It hatches and the larva grows
Feasting from within
It kills the host then off it goes
To sting another one
Seems to me there's too much misery to believe in Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
Seems to me there's too much misery to believe in Kingdom Come

I've a secret guaranteed
To make the theologians squirm
All it takes is time to make a man
From the lowliest of worms
We are not the pinnacle
Nobody's chosen ones
Can the minds of men be trusted with such things as Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
Can the minds of men be trusted with such things as Kingdom Come

Once I had a daughter
She died before her time
I sponged her fevered brow
And cursed her bilious decline
I feel her like a phantom limb
Pins and needles numb
Friend I cannot comprehend what makes you cling to Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
Friend I cannot comprehend what makes you cling to Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
Kingdom Come
Seems to me there's too much misery
Can the minds of men be trusted
I cannot comprehend what makes you cling to Kingdom Come

I've known communion in conviction
And the loneliness of doubt
Does the master mark the sparrow's fall
Or just let it all play out
If only for your sake my love
I wish I could succumb
Bridge the void and join for eternity in your Kingdom Come

Quest For Fire

80,000 years ago, man's survival in a vast uncharted land depended on the possession of fire. / For those early humans, fire was an object of great mystery, since no one had mastered its creation. Fire had to be stolen from nature, it had to be kept alive - sheltered from wind and rain, guarded from rival tribes. / Fire was a symbol of power and a means of survival. The tribe who possessed fire, possessed life.

I was finally able to watch Quest for Fire on Netflix…the movie was made in 1981. I was 11. My dad often talked about this movie and I thought about it over the years and came across it the other night and…what a great movie.

I was particularly struck by the scene where a more advance early human shows another man how to create fire. With no dialogue to use the only way to convey the power of what this early man is witnessing is through facial expressions and grunts but with just these, the scene is magic. 

This reminded me of what I read in E.O. Wilson’s book, “The Social Conquest of Earth” about the importance of fire and meat in the evolutionary history of man. Wilson pointed out that our brains are incredible nutrient-sucks; brains require more nutrients than all the other organs and evolutionarily speaking, meat is one of the important nutrients feeding the brain. Wilson pointed out that lighting caused rolling fires over dry grass lands which rolled up animals in the fire, which early humans would then eat.  

In the movie one tribe learns to transport fire (smoldering embers in a tree-trunk like carrier) that can then be used to build larger fires in another location. But, another tribe has learned to CREATE fire.

The great thing about the scene is how the individual mind and the collective mind both explode; the fire would cook the meat that would explode the brain. 

Sublime.

I can’t find that specific scene on youtube but here is the trailer: