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Security & Stuff

Edward Lemay, assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire and his colleagues found that people who had heightened feelings of interpersonal security — a sense of being loved and accepted by others — placed a lower monetary value on their possessions than people who did not.


I am becoming more and more anti-stuff. I have always been anti-shopping but some of that is simply not liking the process of looking, finding, sometimes trying on and then purchasing, followed by being told I could have gotten it cheaper, larger, greener or with more power. Anti-stuff is both anti-consumerism and anti-clutter. I find the weight of ownership to be a burden. The process also requires that I labor to produce capital to expend on the objects I find objectionable. Seems like an obvious wicked circle, Dante comes to mind.


On the other hand, I don't find that being loved or accepted has much to do with my meager ways. I just don't like stuff. In fact, often upon entering into a loving, accepting relationship the event is inaugurated with a flurry of accumulation. New furniture, new clothes, new this, new that. OK some of the this and thats are fun, you know one of those things with the whatchamacallit and the thingamabob attachment. But other than that - no more stuff!


The Lemay study actually asked people to put a monetary value on their possessions. So it really isn't that being accepted and loved will make you purchase and consume less, but rather that you value the stuff at a lower price point. Hoarders, in particular, value their piles of items as much as five times more than those who are secure, loved and accepted.


However, if love and acceptance makes anyone less attached to their possessions dollar-wise or otherwise and if being less attached means accumulating fewer things - well then I am all for it! I love you, I accept you. Let's celebrate by not going to the mall.
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Art: the BuyMoreMandala made of plastic shopping bags
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Silly Bigotries

Church leaders [in the 1780s] saw theaters as competition with the kind of indoctrination they provided. Laws were passed in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island banning the performance of plays. Preachers spoke of theaters as 'the Devil's Synagogues,' places where fabricated human emotions were on display. The contempt continued into the nineteenth century, a time in which many religious leaders forbade dancing in public. Acting was considered an even viler form of expression, one step down from public drunkenness. - Finding Oz by Evan I. Schwartz

We read those words today and think how pedestrian, how silly, how deluded were those ancestors of ours. Banning theater seems so ridiculous as we think back from our place in the 21st century. Yet while plays were being banned as works of satan, there was also slavery; women couldn't vote - well you know the list.

Fast forward to the 60's and coalesce the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement and the anti-war vietnam protests. One might have thought that the baby boomer generation would have swept away all forms of prejudice as they aged through the society and took control of the means of production and the direction of zeitgeist. But no, it has been left to the children and grandchildren of the boomers to put down prejudice against homosexuals, hispanics and political independents. As the boomers die off, so too will those lingering pockets of prejudice and injustice.

But before the Gen. X and Gen. Y members get too smug, I have to wonder what lingering anthropocentric chauvinisms the Millennials will have to step up to extinguish. Will they be the ones to finally address environmental degradation? What lingering discriminations will they put to rest? And what narrow-mindedness will today's youth carry to their graves?

The good news is that we seem to be evolving in the right direction. Each generation does seem to be shedding the blind hatreds and unfounded fears of their elders. Want to accelerate the process - it might be as simple as watching what your kids do and emulating them.

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A Nearby Earthquake

A small earthquake occurred in Berkeley yesterday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The 2.0-magnitude quake happened at 10:37 a.m. and was centered near Panoramic Way, just southeast of Memorial Stadium on the University of California at Berkeley campus.

I can verify that report. The epicenter was only a mile away and I am up on the 8th floor. It was nowhere near the biggest jolt I have experienced; it wasn't even as moving as the one last month on the other side of the Bay. And nothing like a couple of big temblors in the middle of the night when I lived in L.A. in the early 80s.

I missed the Loma Prieta earthquake here in the Bay Area in 1989, I was living in L.A. at the time. I also missed the Northridge quake in L.A. in 1994, I was living in San Francisco then. Apparently the earth does not move when I am around, at least not big time moves.

Yes, over 400 earthquakes in California in the past week.
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Why I Blog

I blog because I want my internal ponderings to be out in the world not just swirling around inside my head. I hope at times I assist others on their journey, perhaps make you smile and sense relief via my rantings or become motivated to rant right back. The pictures I include are the real pleasure; I enjoy both finding them and sharing with you.

Recently (June 2011) there has been a big jump in the number of internet friends who visit this blog for the first time. Partly this comes from several online chat rooms I have joined for "professional networking" purposes. I also have begun using the net for some other leisure activities and that means many of my new friends see the promos I put up on social networks like facebook and twitter whenever a blog post goes live. 

Not all of these new friends know that I am a fairly active blogger, so I thought it might be a good idea to introduce this blog to new acquaintances and perhaps to clarify to olde friends exactly why it is that I write this blog.

I hope you enjoy what leaks out from my head, my heart and my soul into this blog, if not; please just block my announcements, I know I am not everyone's flavor of the month.

Here is some of what you might want to know about me before investing your time reading this blog:

-I am a writer and I often use the blog to test out ideas for articles, stories, even book chapters;

-I have a wide range of interests; some might say perhaps a bit too wide;

-I might be considered politically liberal but I often seem too annoy my lefty friends with what I write here; I have lots of olde and new readers from all walks of life spread around the world;

-I do have an advanced degree in psychology and I do sometimes write with big words; on the other hand I like to write on a wide range of topics, in particular my Saturday posts tend to annoy my old academic friends;

-when something interests me, I will often chase it around the internet for several hours or days and report back in a blog post;

-while my political posts are heavily United States oriented, the rest of my material is not, at least I hope it isn't;

-I often tell stories about things that happened to me yesterday or thirty years ago; these stories usually have a point to them, but I often forget to mention what it is;

-There have been over 500 600 700 posts since I began back in 2007. Should you want to know more, you can find a blogger's list (100 things about me) here.

-ADDENDUM: I got really involved with the Occupy Movement late in 2011. I am rethinking the focus of my blog for 2012. Announcement to follow. (03/12 - still thinking)


If you do drop by, I invite you to use the comments section on anything that you like, hate, don't understand, really like or completely detest. I enjoy the feedback or blowback as the case may be.

Most of all - thanks for reading. Writing is such a solitary act, it really helps to know someone is listening.
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Saturation Saturday: Yellow

The Yellow Brick Road

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Yellow Submarine

Yellow Simpsons

Yellow Hat

Yellow Umbrella

Yellowjacket

a more venomous yellow jacket
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The Beauty of Crying

Crying is a natural emotional response to certain feelings, usually sadness and hurt. But then people also cry under other circumstances and occasions, for instance, people cry in response to something of beauty. Stephen Sideroff

The place was the Los Angeles County Museum, the time was the fall of 1990. The exhibit was The Masters of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: The Annenberg Collection. Jimmy, Audrey and I entered together but soon drifted in different directions. Nearly half an hour later I noticed Audrey at the far end of a small display hall, I was at the other end, inevitably we would meet near the group at the center of the room. As we got closer the group dispersed leaving Jimmy standing alone in front of a shimmering Monet. Reaching him at the same time, we noticed his tears. We embraced him, Audrey at his waist, I around his shoulders. "There's a word beyond beauty," he said.

Some time later Jimmy and I met in front of one of the early impressionistic works and were marveling at the techniques that were simply invented by those artists. We walked together into the next room and found Audrey standing alone in front of a huge Renoir. Tears streamed down her cheeks, followed by another embrace.

Late in the day, I was standing in front of a very pointillistic work by Camille Pissarro. I was transfixed by the movement created on flat surface and the shifting of light with just a infinitesimal movement from me. I remember the scene so clearly, the picture was on a short wall section next to the opening to the next gallery. At some point I looked just slightly to the right through that opening to see Jimmy and Audrey coming towards me. I had to blink the tears from my eyes to see their smiles.

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A Pondering Quote

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. -William James

I remember this quote a bit differently. And I am not going to sully my smeared memory by googling the 'correct' version.

Our normal waking consciousness is but one type of consciousness. Whilst all about us, separated from us by the filmiest of veils lie many other forms of consciousness patiently waiting for us to awaken to them. -William James as remembered by my consciousness  

To me the meaning is clear - ordinary reality is not only just one of a myriad of ways of perceiving reality; it does in fact shape the reality we identify as ordinary or waking consciousness. Change your reality, change your perceptions of reality or change your perception of reality, change your actual reality. 

Astronomers now believe their are literally hundreds of thousands of potential earth-like planets circling stars near and far (mostly far). I would suggest that there are just as many realities circling each of us, we need only awaken to them. How to do that? How to experience those realities just out of your sight? 

Well, meditation comes to mind as a well traversed path. Drugs are clearly another (insert caveats here). But I think one preliminary step is almost a necessity, particularly if your end goal is enlightenment, nirvana, wisdom or growth. You need to honestly embrace the belief that those "filmiest of veils" exist and then examine them to see them for what they are. We construct the veils, the walls, the impediments to the multiverse of realities and, of course, only we can take them down. Step one - recognize your energetic funding of your own limited view of realities.

Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in. -Mika
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art by Thor Lange
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