Great Wisdom in less than 100 words...

I was just about to log-off when I noticed the Thought of the Day, located to the left of this post. It pretty much sums up what I was talking about yesterday, so I thought I'd bring it to the front for everyone's viewing pleasure. 

Note the economy: I think I took about 1300 words to say the same thing.

Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

PZ Myers

Take that, Charlton...

Walking away from that last post, I started thinking about the whole notion of values. If I stand behind what I said -- that it should be the job of the individual to create a working value system, based on their own intuition and experience -- then I should, if asked, be able to come up with a list of the dos and don'ts that feel right to me.

So I've done just that.


The Ten Commandments, a la Yours Truly, are...

1. Thou shalt take care with the people around you, doing always what is best for them, and never taking advantage, and being never governed by emotions in your dealings with them.

2. Thou shalt take regular naps, and not concern yourself with too much busy-ness, but take time to enjoy the sweet fruits of life.

3. Thou shalt eat well and exercise, but not obsess too much with either, and not deny yourself indulgences upon occasion.

4. Thou shalt not be too ambitious, or seek approval from others, but submit to life’s randomness and do only those things which bring you joy.

5. Thou shalt not submit to envy, but be mindful of attachments to material things, remembering always that value comes from within.

6. Thou shalt spend as much time in nature as possible, and take good care of her, and learn from her whenever possible.

7. Thou shalt remain open to change at all times, never remaining fixed in either action or idea.

8. Thou shalt not assume understanding, remembering always the limits of your own subjectivity.

9. Thou shalt not act where action is unnecessary, but take time to observe, and make every effort to learn from your observations.

10. Thou shalt not take anything too seriously, and be mindful always of the fleeting nature of existence.

How's that for guidance? I guess I'm taking it for granted that people won't kill each other or sleep with one another's wives or any of the other diabolical temptations that wait to pounce around every corner...call me naive, call me idealistic, but my faith in humanity isn't entirely gone just yet.

And of course, you don't have to follow a word of them if you don't want to. That's the beauty of this whole DIY value thing -- opportunities for creativity abound!

So what would Charlton make of them, I wonder? Or more importantly, what do you make of them? Any additions you'd like thrown into the mix? There's no reason we can't crank the number up to 20 if it means ushering in a New World Order of peace and prosperity. Stranger things have happened..."

Like our old friend Lao Tzu says:

"A tree too big to embrace grows from a slender shoot." (Tao Te Ching)

Looking For God In All The Wrong Places

WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS MAN

I grew up in a religious environment. My father was a theologian, my mother was a devout Anglican; all my friends when we lived overseas came from missionary families. I can remember sitting in the front pew while my father addressed the congregation: he was good, better than most I’ve heard, and funny in a way you don’t expect to find in a man of the cloth. With him up there somehow God became attainable.

And I did attain Him, for a little while anyway. Up until my teenage years I was sure He existed, that He was looking out for me, that meaning could come from His elusive yet ubiquitous presence.

But as I grew, and my capacity for critical thought grew with me, the idea of giving myself over to someone or something that I’d never actually experienced began to unsettle me. My faith, if you could call it that, rested on the backs of others – it was their interpretation of the Word, their understanding of its text, their system of value and judgment I had been calling my own.

It didn’t seem right. If this God figure is really going to take control of how I live my life, I thought, shouldn’t I be convinced beyond doubt that He actually exists?

So I stopped going to church. I stopped spending time with my Christian friends. And to their credit, my parents didn’t try to force the issue; they figured I’d return to the fold eventually, and a little soul-searching in the meantime could only help my conviction down the road.

That was well over a decade ago and I still haven’t gone back. In fact, I’m further now than ever from the Christian God I grew up with. So why is that? How can someone who was born in the church, whose parents – themselves intelligent and critical thinkers – to this day hold onto their conviction, and who would be willing to accept the presence of an Almighty if only there were sufficient evidence…how can someone like that not be a believer?

It comes down to a lack of faith. That may seem obvious, but it’s not faith in God that I’m talking about here. It’s faith in man.

“What a piece of work is man,” writes Shakespeare in Hamlet, “how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties….” I disagree -- at least with that last part. That man is a dynamic and astoundingly intelligent creature is, I think, indisputable. That his faculties are infinite, however, is clearly false, and it’s this very limitation that rests at the heart of my agnosticism.

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

If God is, as the Christian dogma purports him to be, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent – three characteristics that are so far beyond the scope of human capability as to be almost laughably incomprehensible – then understanding Him requires a leap of imagination at best. More likely, it means a complete and utter fabrication.

Now, I’m all for creative thinking, but when it comes to making decisions that will govern my life (and subsequently my notion of an “afterlife”) I’d prefer to have them based on something a little more concrete.

Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islamism...all of these argue that they not only have a firm and complete understanding of their respective divinities, but that they know what He/They want, right down to what we do or do not have for breakfast. Sure, they’ve got an explanation for it – the Bible is the “word of God,” Bhagavad Gita literally means “song of God,” which is to say what’s in them is meant to be interpreted as God’s direct and explicit instructions – but for those explanations to work we have to believe in the deity in the first place (not to mention that they’ve been passed down without any tampering on man’s part, which history has shown is highly unlikely). How stable can we call evidence that requires a prior conviction to hold ground?

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying God doesn’t exist. But if He does exist, and He really is God with all that entails, then I would argue that He is beyond our comprehension. Our faculties, our very limited faculties, fail to bring us the understanding our heart’s desire.

GOD NOT CALLED GOD IS GOD

If you’ve followed me this far and you haven’t yet disregarded what I’ve been saying as complete and utter nonsense, then you might be wondering: Where do we go from here?

Many of our common values stem from a religious source – thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery – but if we do away with the source, doesn’t that mean we have to do away with the values also?

Not necessarily. Deciding that the bible (or the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita) isn’t the verbatim “word of God” doesn’t mean some of the teachings found there aren’t worthwhile. When we hear “thou shalt not kill” we intrinsically sense the rightness of it, not because we know it comes from a higher power, but because we move about in the world and co-exist with others and can observe how killing runs counter to our nature, which is to live. With the case of adultery, anyone who’s witnessed it has noted the hurt and destruction it leaves in its wake. It doesn’t take a belief in God to want to avoid those things.

Which is to say, religious texts can be a valuable tool in helping a person create a system of morals and values. And we need those systems – without them there would be chaos. But the work should ultimately be done by the individual, based on their understanding of the world around them, rather than a dictum handed down from some unseen entity.

And the same goes for this “God” figure everyone keeps talking about. If we do away with the religious aspect of divinity and instead look at a more individualized, spiritual approach – accepting that “God” cannot be properly understood in logical, linguistic terms – religious texts become sources of insight rather than dogma, places where we can observe the work other people have done in their pursuit of understanding.

In all the reading I’ve done, from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, the text that has come closest to this is the Tao Te Ching, written in the sixth century BCE by a person named Lao Tzu. I’m no Taoist, but I appreciate the manner in which Lao Tzu goes about his cosmology. There is no attempt to provide a systematic or logical definition of God or the universe. Rather, it’s simply a catalogue of observations and advice, intended to help guide the reader to his own personal wisdom. It begins:

Tao called Tao is not Tao.

Names can name no lasting name.

In other words, God, or the entity or stuff from which we came, cannot be comprehended by us in the usual fashion. The moment we apply language to it, we restrict it, we make it exclusive, and in so doing we miss the point of it. If it truly is what some might call God, then we cannot understand it intellectually.

But we can think around it, and think towards it, and perhaps eventually come to settle in a way of being that isn’t so exclusive or condemnatory. Deep down, I think the religiosity of my parents is after that same ideal, but by adhering to a doctrine that itself claims to be omniscient (how else could you know that yours is the one true God?) it limits itself, and relies too heavily on that creative leaping to cover the gaps.

And perhaps that’s what I’ll tell them, next time we sit down around the dinner table. I’ll say I’m not willing to force the understanding. I’ll say I’m looking for another way of knowing. It's not quite returning to the fold, but at least it's genuine. Hopefully that will be enough for them. For now, it’s all I’ve got.

I am, after all, just a man. And what a piece of work…

Needles in the Haystack, or, Taking a Stab at Better Health

BLOODLETTING OR MIRACULOUS CURE?

When a friend who owes me money suggests he pay it back through a series of acupuncture sessions, I'm skeptical.

For one, I could use the money – I’ve had my eye on a shiny new iPod and that cash would pretty well seal the deal.

But beyond that, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole stick-a-bunch-of-needles-in-me-to-feel-better thing. Sure, people were practicing acupuncture as far back as the Stone Age – using, you guessed it, stone needles – but then the same can be said about bloodletting. You won’t see me lining up to have my vital fluids drained, I don’t care how sick I get.

All the same, I decide to give it a go, in part because I like my friend and I feel a certain responsibility to help him out, and in part because I believe everything (with the exception of bloodletting, perhaps) should be tried at least once, even if the trying may involve significant amounts of discomfort and/or pain.

So I call him back to book an appointment.

“What exactly do you need help with?” he asks, and it occurs to me that I'm not actually sick, and I haven't been for some time. No doubt there are years’ worth of toxins built up in my system from all the smoking and drinking I’ve done, but if they’re there, I'm not feeling them. At least I don't think I am.

“I’m tired,” I say. It's the best I can come up with.

And I am tired – or maybe “unenthused” is a better way to put it. I'm pretty sure it has more to do with academic fatigue and a sour case of the winter blues than anything medical, but hey, if he can fix that…

“We can fix that,” he says. His voice has all the confidence you’d hope to find in a medical professional – a good start. “I’ll see you Tuesday,” he says, and hangs up.

See you Tuesday.

RIDING THE QI

The theory behind acupuncture is relatively simple. Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believe that the human body contains and is controlled by a “life force” known as Qi (pronounced “chee”), and that physical or emotional illnesses arise when an individual’s Qi is out of balance or has been blocked.

Using a combination of acupuncture points – there are over 500 on the body to choose from – an acupuncturist will attempt to redirect the flow of Qi throughout the body, returning it to a state of balance and, presumably, health.

It isn’t too far fetched, when you consider that western medicine essentially preaches the same thing. They may not have the word Qi in their lexicon, but the cells a doctor tries to alter with those elaborate pharmaceutical cocktails are, at their basest, made up of energy.

Just look at antidepressants, which are among the most commonly prescribed medications out there. When something like Prozac is administered to a patient, its job is to balance out the chemicals in the brain that affect neural activity – in the case of Prozac, serotonin levels in the synapse are increased by blocking its uptake in brain cells.

Now what’s a synapse? “The region where nerve impulses are transmitted and received.” What are nerve impulses? Electrical currents. What’s electricity? You guessed it: energy.

But all that’s just academic. Like most people, when faced with an illness it’s the practical results I’m interested in, not the theory behind them. And despite the bad rap pharmaceutical companies get, at least some of their products seem to work. Who hasn’t felt the warm rush of relief as the two extra-strength Tylenol they took after lunch begin to work their magic? Or the soothing balm of Vick’s VapoRub in the midst of coughing fit? When I’m down, I want something that’s guaranteed to bring me back up again. Fast.

So the question is: Does acupuncture fit the bill?

THEN I WAKE UP

Tuesday.

My friend greets me at the door of his home-clinic with a cup of tea and the kind of smile designed to make first-time visitors feel at ease. As he leads me into a large room – bare except for a table in the centre, a CD player on the sill and a few house plants scattered around – he asks how I’ve been feeling lately. Have I been sleeping well? What kind of things I’ve been eating? When’s the last time I had sex? At first, his professionalism is disarming; I’m used to idle chatter, banter between friends, not these probing questions, this digging around in my personal affairs. And what does sex have to do with it, anyway?

And then it sinks in: my friend is not my friend, but my doctor. And, as of this moment, I’m his patient.

We decide that my recent lethargy is the logical place to start. I explain that I’ve had trouble concentrating, that I feel half-awake much of the time, that my favoured afternoon nap has gone from being a luxury to a necessity. After taking my pulse and inspecting my tongue – two things which in TCM are meant to “display” the body’s status – he has me take off my shirt and lie back on the bed.

“Try to focus on your breathing,” he says. “Take big breaths.”

So I do. I take in as much air as I can and try to think about anything, anything other than the flurry needles that are about to sink into my delicate pink flesh.

When the first one goes in I flinch, but to be honest it’s more a reaction to the thought of it than any kind of pain. In truth, I can’t feel much of anything, and by the time he’s worked his way down to my feet I start to wonder if he might be missing his target.

When he’s finished, there are about 20 needles in all scattered around my body – two in my forehead, two in my elbows, a swathe in my stomach and feet. My arm feels heavy, but other than that I’m fine – relaxed even, despite myself. The good doctor turns on some instrumental music and dims the lights, reminding me one last time to stay focused on my breathing. Then he leaves the room.

Then I wake up.

“How do you feel?” he asks. He’s standing at my feet with that same easy smile on his face. The lights have been turned up again but it takes me a moment to place myself.

“I’m sorry?” I say. “How long has it been?”

“Just over half an hour,” he says.

I was asleep. The whole time.

“That’s normal,” he explains. “Qi flows more freely when you’re in between waking and sleep, so it’s not uncommon for people to drift off in the middle of a treatment. Actually, it’s ideal.”

I sit up and put my shirt back on. I feel light, dreamy. My friend brings me a cup of tea and I sip it quietly, trying to recollect something, anything from the last half hour. But nothing’s there. All I have is this sense of overwhelming calm, a desire to go for a walk. We make plans for another treatment the following week and I step out into the grey afternoon. “I look forward to it,” I tell him.

And I mean it.

IT'S ALL ABOUT BALANCE

It’s difficult to say where reality ends and perception begins. Doctors have been using the placebo effect to their advantage for almost as long as pharmaceuticals themselves, maybe even longer. There are countless cases where a patient has “recovered” from a seemingly hopeless affliction only to find out down the road that those little capsules they were taking contained nothing more than sugar, and yet the recovery was real, and for that matter, so was the affliction.

I’ve had five acupuncture treatments since that first one. My energy levels are higher, my concentration is more acute, even my digestion seems to be running more smoothly. There’s a chance this has just as much to do with the power of suggestion as with the countless needles that have punctured my flesh, but I don’t think so. The results are too clear to be mistaken. I feel too good.

So does that make me a convert? Am I ready to shun western medicine altogether in the name of a more natural, holistic approach?

Yes and no. I’m still going to get headaches from time to time, and when I do I won’t hesitate to pop a few Tylenol to relieve the pain. It’s convenient, immediate. It’s worked for me in the past. But I’m beginning to realize that it’s only one side of the medical coin -- there are alternatives, and those alternatives can be just as effective.

Will I still go to see my regular family doctor? Absolutely. But I’ll also go to see my acupuncturist (even after he’s done paying me back). After all, he does have 5000 years of Chinese wisdom backing him up.

Oh yeah, and he’s my friend.

Introduction

A few notes about myself to get this thing started:

1. I'm 26. Canadian. Male.

2. I have, up until this point, been a relentless and unapologetic hedonist.

3. I'm agnostic, which is to say a lost but not altogether forgotten sheep.

4. I want the Good Life, but have no firm notion of what it might entail.

What follows is my pursuit, in a variety of forms and directions, of that elusive ideal. What constitutes a good, wholesome life? How does a person navigate the slough of health and welfare information without becoming lost, confused, jaded? Where does spirituality fit in, when society is leaning further and further toward the secular, and those who do "practice" come by it more as a hobby or a trend than an all-encompassing way of life? More than anything: where does a person get his or her values (which affect everything from what we eat to how we relate to one another) if not in a bible or a Bagavadghita? 

Those are the questions; or some of them, anyway. Where this will take me -- what it will make me do and not do, try and try to avoid -- remains to be seen, but I'll be chronicling the adventure as I go along for your benefit or (and this is perhaps more likely) amusement. Stick around...