Though the hysteria surrounding the H1N1 flu has left the entirety of the news-watching world with the encouraging habit of frequent handwashing, it is hard to call it anything but an overreaction.
Not to dismiss the crushing impact of even one person’s death to their loved ones, but when we venture into the realm of cold numbers, H1N1 just doesn’t warrant this level of acute, global paranoia. Thus far, the worldwide toll is just short of eleven thousand. That’s equivalent to about a summer’s worth of highway deaths in the US alone, or about 18 hours’ worth of tobacco-related deaths. But that’s not news.
I won’t delve into the media’s reprehensible M.O. of manufacturing widespread panic in this article, though. The point I want to make has more to do with our place in the world. From our presumed throne at the top of the food chain, we often take it somewhat for granted that we’re a more advanced creature than any other, certainly better than anything with no brain and no face. Read More
There is a saying in Thailand that you may have seen on a T-shirt: “Same same but different.” When you ask a local how Ko Samui compares to Ko Lanta, he might scratch his chin for a moment, then shrug and say “Same same, but different.”
Back in May I wrote about Bowerbirds, a species of bird that attracts its mate by creating works of art. Their almost human-like values of beauty remind us that the superficial quality of form is the only thing that makes us different from other life. The function is pretty much the same, only the methods and styles differ. Within the narrower spectrum of different human populations, we’re even more alike.
Thailand has become a rather heavily touristed country, and I suppose that has taken the edge off the culture shock a westerner might feel stepping out of an airport taxi into the streets of Bangkok. For me it was a little bit of an adjustment, but I have to say I was surprised at how similar this side of the planet is to the side I’m used to. Read More
Today is the first of the nineteen days I have left, before the life I know is over.
I know it sounds a bit dramatic to identify this upcoming lengthy trip as a new life, but the way I see it the life I’m leaving here is not going to exist when I get back.
If you think about what defines a person’s experience in life, you’ll find it consists mostly of variables. Take the same person, but give them a different job, different routines, different social network and different outlook, and you end up with a different life. The personality at the center of it might stay more or less the same, but it too is evolving. Under different circumstances, certain parts of it will become more active, and other parts more dormant.
For example, if I’m going to be wandering foreign countries alone, my social skillset will need to be more active, and will gradually form a more prominent part of my personality. It’s adaptation, it just happens. The more unfamiliar the environment, the more one naturally adapts.
Just the same, if I find a different line of work, my math and engineering muscles will atrophy and weaken. Woe is me. Read More
Last week, convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released from prison by the Scottish government, on “compassionate grounds.” He is dying of cancer and has less than three months to live. Initial reactions were strong, but deeply divided. Here are just some of the millions of opinions that flew back and forth on Twitter, in the hours that followed:
I hope his plane falls from the sky like the 283 people 20 years ago.
~ Tony Callaghan
Lockerbie …. I hope everyone in SCOTLAND gets cancer.
~ John Wright
Lots of anger about Lockerbie bomber release. Worth noting that the case against al-Megrahi was always somewhat dubious.
~ Matthew Pallas
Why did they release that bloodthirsty killer MEGRAHI? COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS! What about compassion for the Lockerbie victims families!
~ Henry William Louis
So Megrahi is released. I am proud that we are capable of such humanity even as we still grieve for those lost at Lockerbie.
~ Clare Meikle
Oh Scotland, may I remind you that Muslims have no concept of compassion and mercy. Freeing Megrahi will be a show of weakness in their eyes.
~ Rachel Hunter
Mind is changed on Megrahi, [Scottish Justice secretary] MacAskill made good points…. Hopefully this will help build bridges with the East.
~ Thomas Scott
Totally and utterly shocking that #megrahi – mass murderer – is now FREE!! Where’s the justice??? I’m ashamed to be Scottish today!! >:-(
~ Colin Sales
“Where’s the justice” is a good question.
I contend that there is none to be found here. How do you make the deaths of 270 innocents just? What action could one possibly take at this point to create justice out of this, or this? Read More
Sweaty, muddy and bleeding a little, the three of us picked our way through the overgrown ‘trail’ that snakes between Blue Lake campground and the remote, mythical Goblin Lake. We were traversing the final leg of our return trip through a wondrous forest of moss, bogs and toadstools, but the hike had been taxing. We had survived eleven kilometers of difficult terrain, countless detours, and a few brief, horrific moments when we thought we’d lost the trail.
If you’ve never been, the Canadian Shield hosts some of the most spectacular natural scenes anywhere. I just got back from a weekend of camping in western Ontario. The Shield is the Canadian wilderness stereotype in a nutshell: towering pines, overgrown crags of rock, moose, deer, loons, and crystal clear lakes. It’s a vast ‘shield’ of granite covering over half of Canada, speckled with millions of lakes carved by ice age glaciers.
Despite the clichéd tourism slogan, It is surprisingly difficult for a city-dweller to truly “get away from it all.” From my home city, the land is cultivated for many miles in every direction, crisscrossed with farm roads and power lines. Hike a mile into the trees and you’ll still hear the drone of the highway in the distance, at the least. Campgrounds and lodges do get you closer to nature, but it’s still a far cry from experiencing a wilderness that is completely uncompromised by human activity.
Goblin Lake’s appeal, apart from its Tolkien-esque name, is that it is remote and difficult to get to. We met other hikers who had turned back because of ‘impassible’ terrain, which only made it that much sweeter when we did emerge from the forest to set our eyes on this magical, pristine lake. Read More
It seems that we are members of the only animal species that lives most of its life knowing that it’s going to die. I sometimes wonder if life would be easier if we didn’t know it. It really is the worst of all spoilers. Happy Monday, by the way.
Now, there are other animals that do seem to realize when death is approaching; venerable elephants famously leave their pack to die in seclusion, and dogs and cats often run away from home or hide when their end is near.
But I suspect they don’t quite know why they’re inclined to do these things. It seems unlikely that they do it out of a rational understanding of their life cycle; I suspect that the urge just mysteriously comes over them along with the illness and weakness, and they take heed.
In any case, they don’t seem to know what’s coming until it’s on their doorstep.
Human beings, for better or worse, inevitably gather a more complete understanding of death, and very early on. We learn the concept of death as children. A person can’t live for more than four or five years without discovering the unpleasant fact that they are ultimately, well, doomed. Every child soon encounters a situation that someone else must help them understand by breaking this sad news, whether it’s when a pet disappears, when they ask where their grandma’s grandma is, or when they watch the Mr Hooper episode of Sesame Street.
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Meet Jake. Jake is a black-and-beige beetle I found in my bathroom garbage pail about a week ago. He seems in no hurry to leave. I don’t know what he’s been up to all week, but for now he’s residing in the maze of tissues and toilet paper rolls in my little white bucket.
For some reason, I would have killed him for this a few years ago. I always figured bugs in the house had to be executed for their trespassing. This is just what people do, but I don’t know if there’s really a good reason for it. So I’ll let him hang out in there.
I suppose the usual pretense for these killings is that bugs represent filth and disease, and it’s just not safe to let them live with us. Well, in spite of my greatest fears, Jake has never once given me a disease, or crawled in my mouth while I was sleeping. To my knowledge he has not laid eggs in my brain. He has not interfered in my life in any way.
In fact, compared to any dogs, cats or people I’ve roomed with, he’s been an outstanding guest. He doesn’t make any noise, doesn’t borrow my things, doesn’t shed on the upholstery or play bad electronic music. He doesn’t eat very much, apparently satisfied with whatever scraps remain on my spent strands of dental floss. Read More
If I told you to sit in the corner of the room, and get up whenever you want, how long do you think you’d stay?
Chances are, not long. From my meditation experiments I’ve learned that it takes about ten seconds of sitting still before one feels an impulse to do or change something. Wants begin to appear, and start barking orders. Stand up. Get a glass of water. Stop wasting your time trying to meditate. Go eat some grapes. Get something done, jeez.
It’s amazing how quickly and ferociously these wants arrive on the scene. The brain is constantly generating them, and they become especially apparent when you attempt to sit still and do nothing. It becomes almost unbearable, and relief happens almost instantly when you act. Doing anything at all keeps the mind busy so it has less time to come up with suggestions and demands about what you ‘need.’
This is why it’s easier to watch television than sit and do nothing, even though watching television doesn’t really get us anywhere better. Merely distracting oneself from the incessant mental shouting of wants is probably the most common strategy of responding to them, and it does work to some degree.
Multi-billion dollar industries are built on exactly this impulse. Television, video games, smartphones, iPods. Distraction is easily one of the most profitable commodities of the 21st century. Read More
I’m fascinated with how our world changes over a relatively short time. Technology, infrastructure, culture and fashion just can’t stay put for long. Humans are so amazing because they have a habit of completely reinventing their habitat every generation or so.
Undoubtedly this is also a big reason why we are so troubled. Every generation is faced with an environment for which their parents could not prepare them because it never existed before. Old-fashioned values don’t always work so well when the world is continually being fashioned by the new. “Always eat everything on your plate” may not be such great advice when today’s average portion size is triple what it was in 1950.
I guess what is most interesting to me is that the human being — the animal itself — stays more or less the same, but its tools and toys and general way of life change so completely. I wasn’t around before 1980, but even in that short time, technology has completely revolutionized our lifestyles, with some interesting complications. For example, who in 1991 could have predicted that by age 28 I would be spending twelve hours a week and writing on a “blog”? Read More
It seems to me that person by person, humanity is just beginning to wake up to something great. Every day I see evidence of more and more people taking a step back from the well-worn grooves of tradition, and finding a way to live that makes sense for themselves.
More people are quitting the corporate race to work for on their own. Fewer parents are deciding what their children’s careers will be. More people are living unconventional lifestyles, choosing jobs, diets, parenting styles, clothes, music and creative pursuits that speak to them more deeply than the traditional prescriptions. The old-fashioned vice of conformity appears to be losing out to the human spirit.
What this means is that fewer people are being funneled into lifestyles that don’t fulfill them, religions that don’t make sense to them, and careers they dread. This leaves many more individuals who are free to listen to a deeper voice within them, the inner advisor that tells them what’s right for them if they remain still enough to hear it. Read More
I'm David, and Raptitude is a blog about getting better at being human -- things we can do to improve our lives today.
I always enjoy your posts. But what I love most about your site is the absence of ads. I find it so incredibly ironic to be reading a post about living an intentional, distraction-free life - setting devices aside, unsubscribing to everything, etc. - while constantly dodging pop-up ads. Your...