It is no measure of health

'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.'

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

I was in the local coffee shop today and a friend of mine was talking about an experience he had with some Amish children.  He found it interesting that the Amish children would sit for long periods of time without talking or anything; he said they would simply sit and watch while the other children ran around acting "crazy" as he called it.  Those of us who are not Amish all know what he meant by crazy.  I remarked that they sit like that because they have attention spans.  Where they come from there is no materialism, no television, no "new thing to do every five seconds."  Those children have patience.  Someone else remarked that they are also disciplined; a.k.a. by the hand.  Yet, I have known Amish who did not spank their children and their children still had this ability to sit calmly and watch.

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I take my personal health somewhat serious.  I say somewhat because I still cheat from time to time.  I still eat things I shouldn't eat.  I still drink alcohol.  I love fermented grapes and beer equally.  So I can technically only say; somewhat.  But I am not lacking in dietary and nutritional information.  In this regard my knowledge is not in the somewhat range.  I stay well informed about the poisons and chemicals that are put into foods and then sold to us at the store.  I can grow my own food, cook my own food, and store my own food.  I stay current on dietary and nutritional information.  It is part of my personality you could say that I am almost obsessive about what I put in my body.  I also know that it is common sense when I say we should eat healthy foods that we grow ourselves; it's a no brainer.  I am only saying this about myself because I hope to show a contrast.

So anyways, I am sitting in my psychology class today and the professor is basically reading out of the text book to us.  This is exactly what happens every time I go to this class.  It is mundane and ignorant.  It is an extremely boring class which tests my principles to the fullest.  Despite all my angst and bitterness I do the best I can.  I am only attending this class for the very reason that you are reading this right now.  I want to witness firsthand the sheepling of American children.  I am doing this so that when I stand to criticize the supposed higher educational system of Missouri, of our nation, I am not just "reading it out of a book" as some like to say.  It is a firsthand account. 

The professor is talking about toddlers’ biological self defense mechanisms regarding starvation, the effects of starvation on children, and how 25% of the world's children live with starvation.  When she finished one of the students raises her hand to ask a question.  This student is always sitting up one row and over one to the right of me.  She is Samoan I believe, she is always snacking during class.  Today it was some kind of granola bar, Special K, Fiber One maybe.  Yesterday it was animal cookies.  This class is at twelve so I assume she is getting in her lunch during class. 

This student wants to know what the professor thinks such and such should do for such and such a deficiency; she wants to know because she works in the ER.  The professor says to, "eat lots of fruits,” and then mentions juice as a source of fruit.  She even made sure to mention to the class that things like Tang do not count as juice.  I cannot resist.  I raise my hand.  I cannot allow for false information to be so casually dispersed right in front of me and I not counter it.  It is simply more than I can bear.  This is an area, after all, that I can be confident that I know what I am talking about.  It is not like some philosophical debate in which there is no right answer.  She calls on me, I shyly say, "but even the juices that say they are not from concentrate and are all natural, are not."  I go on to say that, "So not even the "real" juice is good for you."  She nods her head and moves on. 

But...Why is the girl who works in the ER asking this psychology professor for nutritional advice?  She did not seem at all like she was testing her knowledge, you know, trying to trick her into looking stupid or something.  In defense of the girl, I tried to rationalize this as a reason to ask such a question.  Nothing I could think of matched the scene though, it seemed a genuine question.

Why do college kids need to be told Tang is not real juice?

When is not a good time to eat fruit?  In a healthy diet that is? 

Ah, there it is; healthy diet. 

If people knew what healthy diet meant, there would be no health care problem in America.  That is not my opinion either, that is a fact.

What did Krishnamurti say?  It is no measure of health to measure it against a sick society.  These kids measure their dietary habits in comparison with this American culture.  Even the best of them eats disgusting food throughout any given week.  Yet, it is not disgusting food to them; they have been told it is good for them.  In reality though these kids do not even come close to a genuine healthy diet.  Why doesn't the girl working in the ER who is responsible, in one way or another, for the lives and well being of others already know this herself? 

I am not making this assessment purely on the class room experience.  I have been doing this college thing for a few years now.  I also happen to venture into their cafeterias, the dining halls for their dorms, from time to time.  It is a chance to be immersed with hundreds of young kids who are all attending college.  I always have a few friends who live in the dorms, and they invite me to eat with them sometimes.  It is always a free meal for me so I rarely decline it.  And sometimes if I have not eaten for a few I call one of my buddies for a swipe in at the dining hall.  The food is absolutely gross though.  It is all highly processed with nothing nutritional whatsoever about the majority of the food they serve.  It is worse than I remember my school food being when I was a kid.  I attended several different public schools growing up and none of them served food as bad as this stuff.  Maybe it is just a bias on my part because I eat so much healthier now, but it really is gross.  Yet most of the kids do not mind it all.  They have been eating it nearly all their lives.  They will tell you they eat healthy.  Well the ones that don't gorge on the junk food will, because the kids who gorge on junk food are the unhealthy ones.

It is no measure of health to measure your personal health against the sick society around you.

And what about education?  These kids will all tell you they are educated, yet they do not even know how to live and eat healthy?  How can they be educated?  Aren't they doing the exact same thing with their definition of education?  They think they are educated according to the kid sitting next them, but that kid happens to be just as ignorant.  What kind of measure is that? 

What is scariest to me is that I see the same thing in our politicians and all of those who vote.  They say they are educated but they clearly are not.  No educated person would do such things. 

What does it mean when I say education?  For me it means the acquiring of knowledge and at the same time the unlearning of traditions.  All of which means; knowing one's Self.

American Christain Culture.

I have been arguing with people about religion now for over fifteen years. For longer than I can remember. You could say it is a hobby of mine. I argued with my brother, who has always been an atheist, for years and years about Christ. He was kind to me in this because he was always so patient with me. It is quite a gift to have a younger brother who is so wise. I went to several different churches for years debating with the priest, preachers, and what not trying to figure it all out. Unlearning Christianity takes a really long time and a lot of dedicated work, especially if it was really ingrained in one during childhood like it was for me.

I was unfortunate enough to have Baptists on both sides. It was not a good time.

Over the years I have learned to reduce the arguments into different parts so that it is easier to manage with people. It is such a vast subject it cannot ever be debated in its entirety. I typically break it down into three big categories. There is the argument of whether or not there is a god. There is the argument of whether or not Christ existed, including the truth of the story. Then there is the argument of the actual cultural impact of Christianity on us as human beings. After figuring out the truth of god/Christ and religion in general, I started devoting all my time to the culturalization affects of being raised American Christian. I was recently dubbed a Secular Monk by drunken college professors while discussing Krishnamurti and Don Ruiz. Considering my past this was a great honor, to be dubbed so.

To be clear, it does not matter if you believe in god or not. It doesn’t matter if you believe Christ was god or not. If you were raised in America, you were raised as a Christian. From my perspective the big four beliefs that Christianity imposes culturally are Monogamy, Patriarchy, the belief that humans are flawed/lacking, and our beliefs regarding sexuality in general (which is basically all of the above wrapped into one American concept; beliefs about sexuality/gender), the rules if you will.

So…if you are still wondering about things such as, does a god exist, please keep up your journey. It is a long road but worth every step. The only way to gain control of one’s own life is to undo religious dogma. The saying "seek and you shall find" is true whether one is religious or not, this concept has to do with the way the brain works, not some god. You find most things contained in the bible are true regardless of faith or whatever. Do your research into the origins, of not only Christianity, but religion in general and you will be much closer to the truth.

Anyways…like I said earlier…It does not matter if you believe in god or not. It does not matter if you believe in the story of Christ or not. Doesn't matter if you went to church, if you have read the bible, it doesn't matter if you never even said the pledge of allegiance in school. Christianity runs so deep in our American culture it doesn't even matter if you were home schooled, it still impacted your identity.

Why?

Quite simply because it happened to your parents, and to their parents, and to the parents before that. If your genetic heritage comes from Europe it has happened to so many generations in your family it is unknowable how deep it goes. Christianity has impacted our culture for over 2000 years. America was a breakaway from Europe which was completely Christian controlled. Another major reason is simple social dynamics of being human. Regardless of our individual personal belief, those around us, affect us, whether we are conscious of it or not. If you were raised somewhere where the majority of people are a certain way, you will be that way too, at least until you undo it.

It is kind of like how we end up like our parents whether we want to or not, and while we may not always be able to see it in ourselves, it is always very clear to our close loved ones. I can easily see my parents in my brothers, but not so much in myself. The same is true of this cultural indoctrination of Christianity. It is hard to see it in oneself.

Not many question much deeper than who/what is god in terms of Christian indoctrination, in terms of philosophy. I recently argued with two different people about this. They do not think they are Christian, yet they… try to maintain monogamous relationships, they believe men are the better gender (even if they will not admit this out loud, or to themselves, their actions belay their ingrained belief), they believe the world is fucked up because humans are flawed, "it's the best we can do" and they are fully indoctrined about how a man and woman should be. All of these things are equally as false of beliefs as is the belief that god made Adam and Eve. The evidence that we evolved like all other life on the planet is over whelming.

So is the evidence that we are polyamorous. If you stop and pay close attention, if you suspend your opinion and simply observe the evidence is overwhelming. Don’t do what those girls did while arguing with me and cast out the idea simply because it is foreign or because you do not want it to be true. Those girls were not happy when I called them Christian. It is a negative word to them. They don't want it to be true, so it is not! This is classic tenacity.

So is the evidence that men are no better than women. The evidence for this is overwhelming. Yet women are paid less, taken advantage of more, and gender type casted far worse than men.

There is absolutely no evidence that humans are flawed. None whatsoever.

There is absolutely no evidence of a certain way a male should be and a certain way a female should be. Human beings are so complete diverse there is absolutely no way we can all be the same. Personally, I am much more feminine internally than male and all my life people have tried to tell me how to be as a male. Eventually there comes a time when you tell them to fuck off and just simply be who you are. I like being feminine and masculine.

Sit down and think about it. All of these beliefs come directly from Christianity, yet they are imposed on children country wide without any real questioning behind it. It is simply how it is.

Yet, it isn't. The evidence is overwhelming.

Everywhere I go, I find people seeking the ideal of monogamy yet I cannot find anyone who actually adheres to it. I am sure it is possible to find a couple somewhere who has actually held to the ideal, but some anomaly is by no means the rule. I am sure there are rare people who are suited to it, just like there are rare people who can withstand enormous physical pain. They are the exception, not the rule. We have had a religious culture for over 2000 years stuffing "how we should be in our sexual relations" down our throats. Yet, I rarely see anyone actually sit down and access the situation realistically. Hell I can’t even find religious leaders who adhere to it.

If you raise women to be second to men, guess what, they will be. I don’t understand how in this modern age women are not absolutely furious about this treatment. It is proof collectively they are still believing it themselves. In this current society I personally cannot find a fully intact female. I search constantly. I cannot find a woman that was raised to defy gender role. I can’t find a woman that was raised essentially like a boy. Oh, I am sure they exist but they are as rare as rare can be. Women are not second at anything if they are raised to be equal. But unfortunately they are not, because the bible says so, or did you not know that?

There is a difference between being flawed and being ignorant or selfish. The flaw, if you call it that, can only be that a person lacks information necessary for the task at hand. This is even the case with greed; it is simply a lack of information on the greedy person’s behalf. If that person had the needed knowledge of her place in the world she would never be greedy. Is this a flaw? Or just a person in progress? If she had the knowledge and was no longer greedy, would she be flawed? Flawed implies that no matter what you do it is still imperfect. Yet humans can achieve "human" perfection. That is, to be perfectly human. I personally know too many humans who are not flawed at all. This belief is not even close to true. Believing we are all flawed no matter what we do creates a huge amount of apathy and helplessness in the world. This belief alone causes more damage than the others combined.

All of this combines into gender role. The idea of what a man should be in this culture is Christian. That a man should be this and this, it's based on Christian ideals. The exact same thing happens to women. Culturally what a man and woman should be has been determined by Christianity. It was determined before we were born. And sure, these issues may have been the case prior to Christianity, but in terms of our lives here in America; we can solely lay the source of these belief's at the feet of Christianity.

It happens to every single one of us.

You see, true education is two things simultaneously; acquiring knowledge and unlearning tradition.

American Christian culturalization is unavoidable. As children we get no say in this process. But as adults we can undo what was done. We can learn a better way. We have the means and ability to discover truth. We have the ability to teach our children the truth.

Do not take my word for it, go find out for yourself. Seek it and you shall find it.

It's A Wolf!

Profit.  So many people believe that money is neutral, that money is like a hand gun, in that it is not the gun which kills but the one who uses it.  This is not the case with money though, it is a different thing.  The very beginning of money is not beneficial to human kind as many would have you believe it is.  Often the greatest defense for money is the ease for which it allows us to trade.  You know, the “I have what you want, but you don’t have what I want,” so we invented money as an equal trade.  But this is a shallow perspective of what it is to be a human.  Using this argument is simply seeing things as they have always been.  By seeing money as something that makes our lives easier is an illusion.  To truly understand it one must see things from a fresh stance.  While using money for exchange of goods sounds really good and it does have truth to it, in reality though, that is not how money has been being used since its creation.  

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Metaphorically: you can give a person all the money in the world and yet if their social life is not in order they will not be happy.  Yet, you can fulfill a person’s social requirements and give them very little money and they will be happy.  Even if starving a bit.  What more does one need that profit is not good for human culture?  Even at the most basic level it doesn't serve any function other than to make those addicted to money, more money! It instantly becomes something one must acquire.  This acquisition in society is harmful and it is not necessary.  I think people can mentally grasp this but most have yet to experience it.  There is a great deal of ignorance in our culture regarding economics and culture.  The majority of people do not realize the meaning of this in their day to day lives.

For instance, when an adult says they must do something to make money instead of raise their children in a better way; this is saying money is more important.  When a parent goes to work instead of making sure their children are educated properly; this is saying money is more important than education.  When a person goes to work every day instead of fulfilling their dreams; they are saying money is more important than their dreams.  But why is this happening on such a mass scale?  Is it because children understand these things without ever having to voice it or think it even.  Is it because they end up doing unquestioningly what was done before them?  Why are so many participating in this without ever questioning it?  People are this way simply because they have not been taught otherwise; simply because they have not had a full social experience to enlighten their minds, to show them otherwise.

In our country we have been raised to believe that profit is all that matters.  Our economic well being is determined by our GDP, this gets translated culturally into, “we are the best because we have the best GDP” but as our metaphor clearly shows, this is not actually to our benefit at all.  Doesn't this seem strange when, as individuals, we can be completely happy without money?  It is in all the little things that one can see this reflected.  The excess materialism, the apathy for one’s neighbors, the lack of education, the complacency, and just a general lack of awareness.  Those in the box cannot see this though; they honestly believe that “this way” is how humans are.  They ethnocentrically believe because this is how our country is, that that is exactly how it is.  So many people are not able to see it any other way so they do not realize at all what is happening.  How can they?  Everyone around them is exactly the same! 

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A thought is not knowledge without an experience behind it.  I can know greed existed before America, but I cannot truly realize it until I have had the experience.  And yes, written words are powerful enough to incite experience.  I can experience a phenomenon simply by reading the story of another.  Empathy if you will.

I recently got my hands on a book titled, Telling Stories To Change The World-Global Voices on the Power of Narrative to Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims.  It is a collection of essays from people around the world working on building culture and justice in communities through story telling.  Two Zuni Indians from Arizona, whose culture was wiped out by greed, wrote an essay which made it into this book.  The following is from this essay by Edward Wemytewa and Tia Oros Peters, titled Zuni River—Shiwinan K’yawinanne:

The A:shiwi roamed and occupied 15.2 million acres from the wooded mountain range in the east, now known as the Zuni Mountains, to the flatland areas in the west, now known as the state of Arizona.  All of this is what we still know and recognize as our aboriginal homeland.  And it was a beautiful place rich with thriving gardens and fields, not just what some anthropologists would claim were little patches of onions or cilantro in dusty backyards where the people could barely scrape a meager living.  At one time, when the Spanish conquistadors first eyed the wealth of A:shiwi lands, the Zuni watershed was intact and the River flowed freely through our territories.  It fed streams and springs that nurtured more than 12,000 acres of agricultural land rich with corn, wheat, and alfalfa fields that were cultivated and sustained by the people.  Not to mention that the River supported an abundance of wildlife which nourished Zuni cultural and enabled a rich ceremonial life.

Peace was severed when the conquistadors Coronado and Onate invaded Pueblo territories, cutting into our homelands, and dismembering the Ancestors with swords, greed, and God.  Taking slaves, burning crops, all in search of gold when the real wealth was in corn, the power of the River, and in harmony found with the Natural World.  Christian missionaries and settlers closely followed the invaders, ravenous for Native spirits and desperate to seize non-existent Zuni gold.  Upon seeing the thousands of well-irrigated, thriving acres with the complex system of canals and ditches, their hunger for gold turned to a thirst for the most precious commodity in a desert ecosystem, water.  Harsh change came to the land and to the A:shiwi as the people saw the first glint of steel blades in the hot sun and heard the anguished sound of children crying.

Incursions into vulnerable tribal homelands continued.  The Zuni River was dammed and diverted by the Ramah Cattle Company empowering Mormon missionary settlements upriver in the late 1890s, impounding thousands of acres of water and altering the natural life and flow of the watershed.  Meanwhile, other Anglo settlers and ranchers began clear-cutting the forests, causing a dramatic increase in the amount of runoff in the drainage of the Zuni watershed, resulting in topsoil erosion and near total decimation of the ecosystem.  The sun no longer shimmered on the Zuni River.”

Sound familiar?  It is still happening today.  I used to think this was an American thing, but reading this caused me to more deeply realize that it is a bank thing instead.  Those same banks that were at the top of the pecking order then, are still there now.  Addicted to power and money, they are blind to the destruction they cause.   American culture seems to have followed suit.  When we broke away from Europe we did not break away economically nor religiously.

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Pecking order exists in all of Nature.  Naturally we are part of Nature; inherent in us is this phenomenon of pecking order. Because of religious dogma the human race is yet to grasp the full depth of what it means to have evolved for millions of years into what we now call Human Beings.   Interestingly though, pecking order does not go away simply by becoming aware of it.  It is not the same as realizing why one is angry and the anger immediately dissipating.  Becoming aware of it simply gives one the ability to notice it as it occurs.  Pecking order is unavoidable, but what is not unavoidable is who sits at the top.  Banks have been at the top of the pecking order for so long now no one questions it or realizes that humanity does not have to exist in this fashion.  Just like those that never question Christianity because that was simply how they were raised, the same thing is occurring with our cultural economic beliefs.  Ignorance is not bliss; bad beliefs do, in fact, cause significant harm. 

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I am also reading a book called Voices Rising—Stories From The Katrina Narrative Project.  This is a collection of short essays from people who survived the storm; short stories from those who did not evacuate New Orleans prior to the storm.  The introduction of the book explains that the essays contained within are a sampling of the entire collection: young and old, poor and rich, male and female.  What I found most interesting is the common themes within all of the essays.  There are two main ones.  First, the “cry wolf” theme and the second is the violence that ensued. 

Cry wolf?  The news and media hyped storms in New Orleans repeatedly.  From reading the stories it seems to be a part of life living in New Orleans; hurricane season.  We all know what this feels like.  The media makes everything always seem so dire.  The people in the essays talked about how many times they were told to evacuate for previous storms and nothing would happen.  A couple people so far have mentioned evacuating for previous storms and it never even rained.  Always warning, always making it seem like life or death, and yet nothing happens.  Some of the people said they didn’t even attempt to watch the news to see what was going on because they had heard it all before. 

Does this sound familiar?  Everyday this is happening to most Americans.  The media is constantly "crying wolf" but it never seems to be any real threat.  Then when the real threat is there, it will be too late, everyone is desensitized; no one sees it coming.  In New Orleans people literally drowned in their own attics because they could not break through their roofs to get out.  The water rose above their houses and they died.  So many more people died than the news actually reported.  The government really did keep a lid on the devastation.  Firsthand accounts tell of bodies literally lying in the streets.

When one reads of the violence that followed the storm, one becomes immediately aware that this time it really was a wolf.  Imagine walking down your street and there are dead people laying around, floating in the water, or being stepped over while you’re looking for food.  Imagine one of them who was your neighbor two days earlier, now just a corpse rotting in the street.  Imagine cops being shot at and imagine the cops shooting at you because they are just as afraid as you are.  Complete chaos.  Law enforcement officers from New Orleans are not even allowed to talk about what happened in the week following the storm.  In an interview one officer said only this, “I’m not interested in talking about what I saw, or about what I’ve had to do, to anyone.  Ever.”  This is very telling.

Americans tend to have this belief that no matter what, everything is going to be okay.  Ask someone who stayed in New Orleans through the storm about that.  The truth is it doesn’t matter how many times the media has cried wolf, each and every moment, full attention must be paid to the happenings of profit.  The greed which has been driving the world is coming to a head.  Great change is in the air.  This time it really is a wolf. 

It is easy to take life for granted.  Can you see this in yourself?

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson