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VR Mural Experience created by Nani Sahra Walker of the Los Angeles Times (LAT) produced the pieces in partnership with Verizon Media under the Yahoo News XR Partner Program. (animated gifs of the  interactive website)

https://www.yahoo.com/immersive/blm-murals.html?site=latimes

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Friendly or Hostile Universe?

In neuroscience and psychology, the concepts of love and fear are more than just emotions. They relate to how the deepest unconscious regions of our brain operate. How the reptilian brain only craves what it lacks and is unaware of what it takes for granted. And how what we believe we lack ends up defining what we love. But by gaining insight into the realms of our unconscious mind and the reality that it emerges from, we are presented with a choice.

“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”

While this quote from Albert Einstein sounds relatable, one can wonder why a man of his profound intelligence would specifically claim this is the most important decision we make.

This documentary answers that question.

Tens of thousands of papers are published each year in the field of neuroscience alone. Our knowledge and understanding of the inner workings of our mind and of our universe is expanding at an astounding rate. If you seek rational answers to fundamental questions about consciousness, this documentary could change your life.

The human brain is by far the most sophisticated phenomenon we have thus far been able to observe in our universe. And after decades of neuroscience, we still have endless questions about this mysterious structure that holds as many neurons as there may be stars in our galaxy. Yet we don’t have to veer far into hypotheticals or resort to superstition to answer some of our deepest existential questions.

One of the most baffling observations in neurology has been that some experiments seem to reveal two distinct personalities or streams of consciousness present in our brain, one in each hemisphere. Surprisingly, only one of the two can talk. Under the right conditions, neurologists have even been able to ask questions to each hemisphere separately. Resulting in cases where a person would say he is not religious when asked in conversation. While when this person sees the question in writing, the mute hemisphere responds by writing down its own answer, in some cases disagreeing with the other hemisphere. Many more experiments that reveal similar results indicate that this is more than a random oddity or hallucination, but instead some legitimate level of split or double consciousness taking place in our brain.

Fortunately, this strange disagreement between both hemispheres only occurs when the connection between them is broken. As long as they are connected they try to cooperate and create the perception that we are a singular individual.

So where are we then in the brain? If science can pinpoint those parts of the brain that are largely responsible for language, mathematics, specific primal emotions and so forth, what does it say about the parts of the brain that make up the core of what we are? Not only have scientists, despite their best efforts, not been able to locate such a region of the brain. But all evidence even points towards this core not existing. It has become more and more clear that in this miniature universe of the brain, roughly 100 billion neurons all act by themselves and communicate with each other as if the brain is an astoundingly complex vehicle with no driver. Or a computer without a CPU.

In our quest for finding some sort of core of what we are, we could also look even deeper and zoom into the most basic building blocks of what our brain is made of. But if we peer into the individual molecules that make up our neurons, our findings become even more counter-intuitive. Not only will we not find any mysterious trace of a soul here, we will also not bump into any kind of marble-like structures that high school physics classes taught us are the tiny particles everything else is made of.

You might have heard that roughly 99.9% of all solid matter is nothing but empty space. This is true. But zooming into the .1% that consists of the stuff everything is made of only results in showing us a different kind of emptiness. The electrons, the quarks, all the fundamental particles are not solid objects. Thinking of them as somehow tiny spheres is a convenient simplification, but it does not represent the fascinating reality of this strange quantum void. The only things that exist here are waves. Waves that behave similar to vibrations of sound or ripples in water. But rather than oscillations of matter, the peaks and valleys of these quantum waves are not made of anything tangible, they are waves of probabilities. Their peaks reveal the areas where there is a high probability of detecting the energy of what we may call an electron. Their valleys indicate that the chances there are much lower. As bizarre as it may sound that the building blocks of our universe seem to behave according to chance rather than being intuitively predictable, this is not just a theory. It’s a simple fact that can be tested and observed with nothing more than a laser pointer and a comb to replicate part of the famous double-slit experiment.

The counter-intuitiveness of this discovery has been the root of popular misinterpretations and metaphysical confusion where it’s been described as particles being aware and knowing that they’re being observed or the universe being influenced by the power of our thinking. The truth is at least equally fascinating. The real principle at work is that if we can not know where a particle is, it exists only as a probability wave that tells us where the particle is more or less likely to be found. And only when we take action to measure where the particle could be, the wave will suddenly cease to exists and the particle reveals itself. The particle has no defined location until we make the measurement.

This is why we say that light, for example, is both a wave and a particle. But this quantum weirdness does not just apply to light, it applies to all the particles that everything is made of. It even applies to molecules. If we fire super-tiny rocks (visuals show C60 molecule) instead of photons, they’ll behave like waves when we’re not measuring them. We intuitively believe our universe consists of solid stuff. But in reality, all of it, from the neurons in our brain to the galaxy we are a part of, is the result of probability waves and particles that pop in and out of existence

All this weirdness led Einstein to famously say: “Do you really believe the moon is not there when you are not looking at it?”. But no matter how weird it is, quantum theory and all experimental evidence reveals that our universe is inherently probabilistic and things within it can not be predicted with 100% certainty. This doesn’t mean that science cannot make accurate estimates as to what is more or less likely. The mathematics and statistics of quantum physics reveal that the seemingly random oscillations that make up our reality are still deeply and perfectly consistent patterns. Many of our modern technologies, such as solar panels or microprocessors, would not have been possible if we had not deciphered much of the intricate and unique behavior of quantum mechanics.

But if neither any specific region of the brain, nor the neurons, nor the building blocks that our neurons consist of can account for the phenomenon of our consciousness, what do scientists think brings it about?

Over the years, there have been many theories, some of which have since been debunked with modern understandings of neuroscience, others that are considered too far-fetched and exotic to be of merit without hard evidence. But there is one general school of thought that most scientists consider to be likely. An idea that is not only logically sound and fits our observations, but that can transform how we think about life, even though its implications are thus far rarely discussed and explored. In fact, this video marks the first time all these logical conclusions are brought together to bring into focus what science can really tell us about some of our deepest existential questions.

If we look at evolution, it’s not so hard to roughly imagine how life started here on earth. 4 billion years ago, a unique series of coincidental probabilities occurred that led to the existence of very simple biological cells that could replicate. These were the first forms of life. And as they replicated, subtle differences between the old cells and the new cells would crop up, mutations would take place. We see it in the genetics of offspring with every lifeform known to us and we can trace it back in the remains and fossils not just of animals and plants, but sometimes even of bacteria of as far back as 3.5 billion years ago. Microscopic crystals and fossils provide us a glimpse of life on earth before the first plants or even algae emerged.

Over billions of years of replicating and mutating, these biological mechanisms found more and more sophisticated ways of growing and spreading. The tiniest initial differences such as offspring with a coincidental protein molecule that is sensitive to sunlight would end up with eventually more beneficial mutations over many generations. 4 billion years is a very long time. Enough for extremely sophisticated results such as the human eye to emerge from origins as simplistic as a single light-sensitive protein molecule. As a result, even our most advanced technologies are often still no match for some of the mechanisms that has taken evolution aeons to engineer.

But when we begin to contemplate early animal life, and observe its beautiful legacy all around us, wherein we constantly recognize parts of our primal selves, it’s tempting to wonder why in the process of evolution there emerged this phenomenon of consciousness that has bewildered and confounded philosophers and mystics since the dawn of humanity’s tribal structures. To approach this scientifically, we can not allow consciousness’ elusive nature to be a reason for giving up on trying to understand it. Because if consciousness is not a magical exception and is rather a direct or indirect consequence of evolution, the scientific conclusion is straight-forward: just like every other feature of the human brain and body, experience or consciousness is a tool that evolution has engineered for us through billions of years of mutations. Conscious forms of life showed a richer capacity for learning and course-correcting. So evolution favored this development and nurtured it to a point where we became sentient, self-aware and capable of interpreting our own evolutionary drives and our purpose in ways that can even go against our own survival if we so choose.

So how would science then describe the phenomenon of consciousness? Surprisingly, most scientists do theorize that consciousness is not simply inside our brain. Consciousness is generally considered to be an emergent phenomenon of the brain. Meaning consciousness happens when enough activity takes place in the brain in a way that can be compared to how music emerges from a record player. The music is not anywhere to be found inside the record player. Intuitively, we tend to say the music is on the record, but even there we really only find a circular vinyl disk with peculiar grooves, it does not produce any sound or music at all. It is only when the mechanisms of the record player are activated in a certain way that all its activity produces an emergent phenomenon that we call music. Consciousness is somewhat similar, we can’t physically locate it at one point or in one area. And if we zoom in on the grey matter of our brain, we find as much evidence for consciousness as we find tiny marbles inside a molecule, which is none at all. Yet when billions of neurons fire and communicate with each other, the combination of this enormous amount of activity creates a phenomenon that is consciousness.

But it would seem that this is far from a complete summary of what brings it about. Because there is an inevitable consequence that complicates things to an incredible degree.  The more this emergent feature evolved in ways that allow it to course-correct and significantly reprogram the brain, the more it became a feedback loop of incredible complexity. Just like when we point a webcam at the screen that is showing what it’s recording and we see a seemingly infinite pattern, the brain does something similar with the activity from its billions of firing neurons, resulting in an unimaginable depth of iterations and permutations that gives rise to what we call consciousness or experience. And this experience is not a goal, it is simply the ultimate tool that our brain has for finding its way and coming to grips with the consistent patterns of our reality. This is the true nature of what we are.

We are the unfathomably intricate interplay of what seems like infinite loops of neural processes. Our essence may have had humble beginnings, but it exponentially grew on its voyage down the rabbit hole of boundlessly mirroring itself and learning from each mirror image. Our brain waves ripple and reverberate, creating constant feedback loops of wildly varying degrees of complexity before even a single emotion, let alone a conscious thought can emerge, which in itself inevitably brings about feedback loops of higher levels of abstraction where it is no longer just about the interaction and cascade of neurochemical processes, but also of language, ideas and concepts that then allow such magnitudes of recursive thinking that we become capable of observing and dissecting the patterns of our own existence. We are incomparably more than the sum of our parts. Which is why our evolution so greatly favored this extraordinary capacity for reasoning and intuition and promoted us from biological machines to sentient architects of our own future, tasked with making the right decisions for ourselves and for our species. We are a feedback loop that is, depending on how we choose to live, to greater or lesser extent aware of its own processes

In addition to all of this, we must also factor in the brain’s remarkable ability for changing itself, called neuroplasticity. Whatever it is that we are doing at any point in time, we are training our brain to become better at performing those actions, for better or for worse. While more pronounced at early age, neuroplasticity and even neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells, continues to take place throughout our lives, shaping and reshaping the hardware of our consciousness every step of the way.

And while human beings have a remarkable capacity for rationality, enabling us to fly rockets to the moon and build incredible machinery that allows us to better understand the fabric of the universe (show LHC), we are also still very emotional creatures. As we grow up, we for a big part learn and shape our behavior through basic Pavlovian conditioning. In the famous psychological experiment by Ivan Pavlov, a basic observation was that a dog tends to salivate as soon as he recognizes learned indicators hinting that he may be rewarded with a treat. Same mechanisms are present in the reward system of the human brain. As children, we innocently want to understand the world. But if trying to understand things is not rewarding enough, our brain adopts other strategies. An unfortunate phenomenon often observed in psychology and also once famously described by Carl Sagan is that kindergartners or first-grade kids tend to be sincere science enthusiasts with a genuine sense of wonder as they question everything around them. But talk to children in the 12th grade and much of this curiosity has become extinguished.

If our natural tendency to logically question things is discouraged and we are instead rewarded for actions that we often don’t see the meaning of, the brain adapts to this and gradually gives up on independent logical inquiry. Instead, we become disproportionately dedicated to seeking approval of others. Our opinions, our identity, our way of life ends up depending on how we are judged by our social circle and by society at large. At the time of recording this documentary, fake news, post-truth and so-called ‘alternative facts’ are much discussed topics. But these are mere symptoms of a much deeper problem. One that goes beyond misinformation and imperfect social media algorithms. And while we may not be aware of it, the Pavlovian conditioning from our contemporary culture deeply defines how we look at life and by extension how we intuitively perceive consciousness.

To understand just how much culture constantly evolves while it shapes our behavior and beliefs, it can be helpful to look at how much has changed even in recent history. Only around 15 years ago it was controversial to ban smoking and cellphones were considered inappropriate for teenagers or for use on public transport. Ten years ago we could barely imagine why anyone would want to put random thoughts along with personal pictures on the Internet for everyone to see, now just about everyone including our parents and grandparents have Facebook accounts. And in only a few years, taking selfies went from a strange and narcissistic habit to a cultural norm.

Keeping this in mind may then make it less surprising when we consider that up until around 300 years back, people would brand a great deal of our most commonplace routines as selfish, decadent and morally corrupt. As trivial and innocent of an act like buying a box of our favorite cereals would fall into this category. While society gradually improves and evolves over large periods of time, our culture takes many twists and turns along the way, some of which move us closer to valuing facts over fiction, some of which do not. Nevertheless, our conditioning lays much of the groundwork for the operating system of our brain. In a constellation of brain areas that is known as the Default Mode Network, information is constantly being processed even when we are seemingly at rest. This is partially why social conditioning can have a profound impact on us even while we are unaware of it.

Our current mainstream culture is generally defined as individualism, which finds its origins in the industrial revolution not long ago. Just as in previous eras, we go as far as to sometimes rewrite history to fit our current narrative and we repurpose ancient sayings such as “Carpe Diem” to support our beliefs. The complete sentence of the old latin poem roughly translates to “do what you can today, to make tomorrow better” and it had no connection with indulging in personal desires. While our scientific progress can tell us a lot about the brain and even to significant extent about consciousness, our culture is currently not so much geared towards trying to understand what we are. It is instead more focused on celebrating the pursuit of fashionable personal interests. Ranging from material possessions to impressing our social circle and from momentary thrills to romantic adventures. The individual’s desire and its freedom to pursue it is currently our most cherished ideal. Many aspects of our society, most of all our economy, rely on our pursuit of these popularized objectives. Aside from rare exceptions like a futuristic tv series about a unified humanity working to advance the species, culture has a way of submerging us in signals that make us believe, without question, that the way we currently perceive things is simply the way it has always been and the way it’s meant to be. Not so long ago, we believed people of color were always inferior, the world was always flat and the gods always controlled the skies.

In a cultural setting such as this, the brain’s reward system becomes, in a sense, disconnected from its purpose. Throughout evolution, the ways in which our DNA has mutated and our brain has expanded have all been part of the same process: all these mechanisms simply try to overcome the obstacles in their path. Life fundamentally tries to align itself with reality, genetically and biologically, instinctively and intellectually. As children, the way we try to align ourselves with reality is by seeking approval from parents, teachers and various cultural influences. The older and the more aware we become, the more capable our brain becomes at independently recognizing patterns. A duality arises. We possess the intelligence to grasp the consequences of our actions and of our inaction. Yet our Pavlovian reward-seeking urges pull us in other directions, such as living up to the expectations of society and family. We feel fragile and dependent on the judgment of others because our reward system values their approval more than logical deduction. We feel little satisfaction or even discouragement when acting upon our own independent rational judgment.

This confusing duality is a natural consequence of a society wherein we never really grow up. We seek the approval of our guardians when we are young. And we continue to seek approval of whichever forces take over as we grow older. We become eternal validation-seekers. Neurons cluster together to create hierarchies that end up determining the things we value most. In recent years, neuroscientists are even beginning to come up with mathematical formulas that describe the exact way in which these hierarchies are formed and how they process information. Different clusters of neurons talk to each other in a beautifully organized fashion to, among other things, figure out whether or not the reward system should be activated. A process that largely depends on our conditioning and differs for each person.

Learning what someone’s reward system is primarily drawn to, often makes their behavior surprisingly easy to map and understand. We can much better comprehend the cold-heartedness of a career-fixated individual if success or social validation is what he or she craves more than anything. Or the sacrifice of someone who spends all resources to help siblings or parents if family is the core drive. The blindness of a person who primarily chases romantic adventures or the carelessness of a hedonistic thrill-seeker. We often create many additional rationales around our actions to obscure our fundamental motivation. The collection of these rationalizations is what constitutes our identity. Throughout our lives we may encounter milestones where our core value changes as a result of a paradigm shift or an identity crisis. Analyzing one’s own actions over the years through deep reflection or the practice of writing down an overview of one’s key choices in life can easily reveal what this core value is. This can be an experience that is both enlightening and sobering as it makes us see that our choices are rarely informed by the rationalizations we afterwards come up with, they are mostly the result of a childish attachment that lurks in our subconscious. And the more self-aware we become, the more we feel a dissatisfaction with our pursuit of hollow goals.

But this is not a deterministic trap that we cannot escape from. We live in a probabilistic universe where nothing is set in stone. Rather than vaguely philosophize about the nature of free will, we can deduce that the feedback loop of consciousness most definitely plays an active role in processing information and making decisions. It has a say in what our most deeply rooted core motivations are. Concepts and ideas only have power over us when we emotionally invest and hold on to them. This brings up the question: in light of all this knowledge, how do we correct our course? How do we truly find meaning in our lives and experience the kind of fulfilment that most of us seem to only catch glimpses of from time to time? It turns out that science has more answers in these regards than is commonly assumed.

It’s widely understood that logic is our most powerful ally in understanding and approaching reality. More than a cold and blunt instrument for calculation, it is the closest thing to a force that holds our universe together. Our advances in physics continue to reveal a mathematical framework underpinning anything and everything in our reality. Without these consistent patterns, nothing would exist. Without its exquisite dance of aeons of genetic iterations, we would not be able to think or feel. We often see logic as the opposite of emotion, but instead it is the engine of our emotions and it provides reliable answers when we are frustrated or confused. Logic is what creates rhythm or structure, it is fundamental in the melody of music and the colors and symmetry of flowers. It creates biological machinery so intricate and rich that they become self-aware, capable of love and selflessness and able to observe the majestic logical patterns that created them. We can trace our origins and the molecules in our body back to the stars in which they were created and see that we are all connected. Over billions of years, these molecules configured themselves into complex units that we call human beings. These units are like cells in the body of humanity, wired to evolve and move it forward. This is why we have a deep desire to find meaning, to find an existential equilibrium: evolution has fundamentally programmed us so that we want our beliefs to align with reality. Logic is, in a sense, the prime directive of our consciousness. We must value it as such if we want to break free from the clutches of hollow reward mechanisms.

Evolution has put the feedback loop of experience in control of our brain. We make the calls. And while we intuitively navigate reality with the compass of our reward system, we can change how this system operates. This is what happens in paradigm shifts or identity crises. In religious transformations or in the minds of many first-time parents. The reward system shifts its dominant focus. It’s easy to think in absurd stereotypes when we imagine a person primarily driven by logic. (visuals show robots, Spock) But for human beings, it would only be illogical to suppress emotions or disregard human needs. Instead, what is logical for humans is to act in ways that are most efficient for the benefit of ourselves and of humanity. Part of the reason why meditation and mindfulness practices have scientifically measureable health and psychological benefits is precisely because they somewhat disconnect us from attachments that constantly take up mental energy and generate dissonance. They also shift the brain’s activity from its Default Mode Network to the Task-Positive Network, allowing us to more easily be selfless, clear-headed and focused. The simple act of intently putting focus on our breathing throughout the day is enough to make this happen. It creates an awareness that is often described as 'being in the present’ or being in a state of flow, wherein rather than identifying with our thoughts, we become an observer of them and are much more inclined to follow reason over impulse. We become more capable of adjusting our beliefs and making conscious choices that rewire our reward system.

We can observe clear improvements in how, over the centuries, common subconscious core values have shifted away from things like superstition. And we can also debate that not everything has improved. We once valued selflessness and contribution far more than our own identities.

Perhaps at some point in our future, our cultures will find common ground in simply valuing logic. As a society, we’re currently still far too obsessed with our own little preferences and differences to make such a drastic leap. But as individuals, we’re fortunate to live in a time where have the freedom to reject shallow ideals if we so choose. For those who want to override decades of confusing conditioning and become consistently mindful and present, committing to logic as a core value is a powerful way to achieve just that.

A first step towards this would be to ensure one has a genuine appreciation for logic, something that much of the audience watching this video may already have. It can be profoundly inspiring to learn about how logic underpins everything in the vast and intricate complexity of our universe and it can also be empowering to realize, as you learn, that even when we don’t know them, the logical answers to our questions exist. It also helps to be aware that science and logic are not about certainties but about how we can find out what is most likely. Our universe is a probabilistic phenomenon. Even a hypothetically perfect simulation could not predict with complete certainty how events would unfold. There is a profound sense of acceptance in acknowledging that nothing is ever truly certain, but with our ability to reason, we can come up with solid approximations of what the best course of action is at each point in our lives. This first step can be achieved simply by reflection or learning about logic and science from books and documentaries or even rewatching this video.

Step 2 is to identify your current core value. Find what emotionally drives you. In this step, you pinpoint what it is that throughout your life your reward system has turned into its primary focus. It can simply be comfort, success or social validation for example.

Making the conscious leap to adopt logic as core value is step 3. This resolution is not about just implementing new habits but rather about fundamentally committing to doing the right thing at any time, depending on your knowledge and the logical connections you make. And since logical reasoning is fundamentally wired into the human brain, this is not a commitment to a belief or a concept but rather to allow yourself to trust that you will do what is logically right.

Finding the courage and truly making this click can be a euphoric or liberating experience. There is a wealth of knowledge and insight available online on how this can be achieved for those who find it difficult. Although this difficulty is often an illusion that simply takes some bravery to overcome.

What has been observed thus far among people who go through this transformation is that those who ultimately make this leap with the intention of elevating their experience will eventually lose this newfound awareness and struggle with their commitment to it. This is not due to a lack of discipline, but rather due to a fundamental misunderstanding regarding consciousness that we are deeply conditioned with. It is a fallacy that most of us never verbalize or are even aware of and that sits at the heart of our misconceptions regarding our experience.

You believe there is a 'you’ inside the brain. Even as you watch this video, you’ve most likely concluded at least subconsciously that there is still a 'you’ in the ever-changing feedback loop of consciousness. That while we are an unfathomably complex and rich phenomenon of continuous information processing and near infinite iteration and transmutation, that somehow at every instant and in every loop, a defining part of us survives. We believe this even though most cells in our body die and are replaced over and over, the electrons that buzz through our neurons to generate our ongoing experience do not exist in any solid or intuitive sense of the word and scientists find no trace of a self inside our brain. Each second, the music, the consciousness that emerges from the grey matter mechanisms behind our eyes is different, sometimes unrecognizable so, from what it was a second before. The truth is that every moment we are a new entity that existed only for that one single moment and will never manifest itself again. No experience can truly be replicated, no identity can ever reflect an ever-changing synergy and there is no self or I that can persist in the endless stream of experience. Not even for an instant.

The only place where there resides some notion of the imagined self, is in the proteins that were synthesized to store a memory of a moment that once occurred. As if the feedback loop of consciousness at that moment wrote in the machinery of our neurons “I was here”, so that the next iteration, the next loop that a new experience emerges from, might learn from it. But from fixating on faulty concepts of what we are, on stories of a phantom that we define as the self, we learn nothing of value. It is fascinating that sometimes science and ancient esoteric wisdoms seem to meet. The idea that there is no actual self is not a new one. But it is one that is logical and has gained more scientific support than other schools of thought. Life and death are concepts that do not seem to apply in the ways we think they do. Beyond outdated philosophical or religious notions, we have no reasons at all to believe the human organism is inhabited by a spirit, but rather by a near-infinity of consciousnesses over time.

And each manifestation of what we are is much more than a mere expression of our brain’s neural activity. It is a culmination of all the interaction that led to its emergence. Consciousness does not emerge from the brain like a genie from a bottle. In fact, without any influence from society, in cases where children grow up in isolation, not raised by humans but among animals, the brain does not adapt to the use of language in its early phases and becomes forever incapable of speaking or even conceptually thinking in the ways we constantly do. So much of what we tend to label as intrinsic personality can not even exist on a basic level without sufficient interaction. Consciousness emerges from the vast interplay of stardust becoming aware, aeons of genetic mutation, thousands of generations laying the groundwork of language and culture necessary to form complex thoughts and finally, our current society’s conditioning, education, social influences and parental guidance. All elements combine to generate electrochemical fireworks inside our neurons to eventually create these instances of experience. All of it is interconnected.

There are no limits or borders in what is a part of our existence. Nothing is external. Even from a basic neurological perspective, everything takes place within our consciousness. It comes as no surprise then that the most intellectually and emotionally satisfying programming that our brain is capable of running is fundamentally selfless. In the grande interplay of all things, it becomes clearest of all that our experience is a tool. The more we dismantle the hologram of our imaginary self, the more easily we accept our evolutionary drive to care for others and the more capable we are of understanding the sinister foundation of our individualist conditioning. Our history is full of examples where the mainstream narratives successfully hypnotize us into complacency and inaction as they attempt to blind or distract us from the damage we are doing. Some of the most iconic examples that come to mind, the holocaust and slavery, took place within the past few generations.

But our inner selfish monster that we create as a coping mechanism for our fears and uncertainties does not reflect what we really are. Even though its influence runs deep, since we begin the process of identifying and labeling ourselves very early on in life. As children, we don’t know any better and we often end up blaming ourselves for things that were either beyond our control or actions that we did not yet know the consequences of. We gradually and subconsciously create flawed beliefs that inhibit us. But beneath all of this remains what analytical psychology calls the inner child. This is why many forms of therapy and meditation focus on seeing our thoughts and emotions, even our mind, as separate from us. These practices have been well documented to have profound effects on us. The more mindful we are, the more easily we see our own values and beliefs as an observer, which allows us to change the ones that hold us back.

But we are continuously flooded by subtle and less subtle indicators that signal our subconsciousness and strengthen our belief that experience is what matters most. We celebrate kindness and generosity strictly within specific cultural confines, where the narrative is usually as follows: human beings might be inherently selfish, but since doing good feels good, we’re not so bad after all. Simply hearing or saying this can summon positive emotions. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see this message applied in charity campaigns or for example during Christmas. It’s been repeated to us in literal as well as subliminal ways to the point that it became an omnipresent and oddly comforting belief that unfortunately has gaping inconsistencies and horrific implications. It’s an unspoken slogan of the individualist ideology that programs obedient consumers to only care when they stand to benefit themselves.

It is perhaps the worst form of indoctrination when society makes us believe that the reason we should primarily pursue selfish interests is because we are not really capable of anything else. As we grow up, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because by valuing experience above all, we legitimately turn into a population of selfish drones. And in the finest tradition of cultural obedience, many of us then defend ourselves when we hear of claims of selfless acts. These things do not really exist, many of us say. Ignoring even the most obvious and common scenarios of parents who truly care for their children and gladly diminish the quality of their own experience for them.

This is where we awkwardly catch glimpses of the uneasy and unspoken agreement that binds us. We know that our ideology is a facade. A collection of excuses that we let ourselves and each other get away with. The 1% may benefit the most, but the greatest conspiracy of modern civilization does not come from the top. It is a collaboration that we all subconsciously agreed to and are sometimes uncomfortably aware of.

In this ecosystem, the rare exceptions of those who at some point truly value something more than experience easily end up conflicted. For a while, they may feel driven to fight for a cause or sacrifice their luxuries for a noble objective. But as soon as they somewhat ponder their actions within a greater context, the compass of their experience (or intuition) fails to come up with convincing answers as to whether they are truly doing what is right, making their endeavor unsustainable.

We fall back on excuses that are so commonly accepted, we almost fully believe we should indeed trust and value our experience above all else, and this makes us deeply vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation. Governments and corporations can dictate our behavior even without advanced strategies or conspiracies. Politicians can scare us with insultingly inaccurate claims and we will happily consume poisonous substances if presented along with imagery of laughter and joy. Our indoctrination has made us pampered and passive.

With this broken compass, we find ourselves somewhat puzzled when we reflect upon historical horrors like the holocaust: why did so few of the guards who witnessed the atrocities of concentration camps do something? How come they blindly obeyed their orders and murdered millions, either by pulling the trigger or simply assisting, making them guilty of the atrocities that were committed.

Indoctrination can make us ignorant and the sleep of reason can produce monsters. But we are not children any more. As adults, we are perfectly aware, sometimes painfully so, that actions have consequences. Therefore, when we consider an individual who willingly keeps someone in a dungeon to die of starvation, we universally consider it wrong or evil. But when we become aware of the death and suffering that’s been locked away in our own dungeon of ignorance, we ourselves become evil if we do not take action. In a world with a continuous stream of tragic events that we can easily influence, wherein we no longer need to risk our lives in order to make a difference, our inaction kills on a daily basis while we mentally recite to ourselves the mantras we’ve been taught: “There’s not much we can do. We are not responsible. They are far away. Perhaps they deserved it.” For all our progress, we sound a lot like horrific echoes of the past: “We didn’t know. We were just following orders.”.

Our culture has installed in our brains a colossal switchboard of excuses. And there are many options for every occasion. It begins when we, as children, begin to recognize the absurdity of many of the expectations placed upon us and innocently look for ways to dodge them. And it becomes less innocent as we become more aware later in life. Most of us grow older but don’t grow up. Because it isn’t in our society’s best interest to truly guide us into maturity. There is no profit to be made from it.

So we band together in how we excuse our behavior and silently agree to conceal each other’s hypocrisy. Confrontations that do take place are met with empty defenses: “What about you? What about the government? I have to think about my future. This offends me. This is my belief. This is my opinion.” But whether arguing against global warming or vaccinations, for socialism or capitalism, for social justice or against political correctness, our opinions and beliefs never dictate reality. Our identities and our rhetoric are meaningless compared to the consequences of our inaction. And our innocent strategy of excuses that once allowed us to skip our homework is no longer innocent among adults who are confronted with reality. That mechanism has run its course. The only teacher who now has authority to assign our tasks and judge our excuses is our own inner voice of reason.

When we selflessly resolve to adopt logic as a core value, it sets us free from our fragile dependence of the judgment of others. Responsibility is simply a principle of acting in line with our ever-expanding knowledge and rationality. It does not depend on intersubjectivity. It is not dictated by our culture, our social circle or politicians. Nor is it dependent on our fabricated freedom of choice. And many of the most historical acts of bravery came from those who took a stand for what is right, even in the face of adversity and cultural disparity.

Such a profoundly selfless resolution can seem scary, as it threatens all the conditioned attachments that emerge in a culture where enjoyable feelings are considered the ultimate goal. But it leads to far more fulfilment than chasing our positive emotions like a carrot on a stick, as our ideology demands. In cases of drug addiction, usually only those who feel they have little else to live for become dependent on addictive substances. We’ve been led to believe the lie that the meaning of life is in chasing the carrot of good emotions. But even with only our intuition, we feel that this endless chase doesn’t make much sense. The pay-off is never great enough. And those who choose to believe in a more selfless and logical objective ironically tend to experience much more fulfilment in their lives. It’s a principle that has inspired ancient spiritual concepts such as karma or heaven and hell: those who care most about their own indulgences end up haunted or tormented by their own self-interest.  

But in modern cognitive psychology, it is not just an esoteric idea. There is a huge range of academic research and literature on the subject, usually described in terms of the scarcity mindset and its opposite, the abundance mindset. The brain operates in a mode of scarcity when we feel that there are things we lack. This is perhaps one of our brain’s most ancient survival mechanisms and it’s been well established that, while this can sharpen our focus, it also tends to take up enormous amounts of what is called 'mental bandwidth’. It hijacks our brain. It literally makes us less intelligent, more self-centered and even drops our IQ. And every day, we are exposed to a near infinite array of societal impulses that are designed to lock us into this mental state. From a very young age onwards, we are deeply programmed with a set of requirements that must be fulfilled in order for us to experience abundance. Requirements that are often so elusive, that we become mostly entrapped in the scarcity mindset. But as soon as we see through this, which can be achieved in many ways, we are able to distinguish truth from indoctrination, to dispel our confusion and dissolve our apathy. This presents us with a choice on how we lead our lives.

If we make life about ourselves, we choose to see everything through a lens of what we can take rather than give back, an illusory lens of scarcity. We choose not to see the abundance that is everywhere and our selfishness then sustains itself by selectively finding support in the injustice around us. If this is our choice, then our core value remains selfish and every motive behind every one of our actions ends up being about our selves. But we intuitively sense that we’re not doing what is right and feel unworthy of being truly loved. And we either attempt to make peace with this or we succumb to insecurity and prefer to obfuscate this truth.

But if love is defined as unconditional giving then love is all around us. It is in the structures left behind by our ancestors and the heritage of our grandparents. It is in the care our parents have given us and the cells that make up who we are. It is in the social structures and the safety net that is forged into laws to protect us. It’s in the sun that shines and the infinite beauty that includes us. If we choose to be what we are and see our life for what it truly is, then we realize it is about much more than just us. It’s about caring and doing what is right. It’s about giving back and using our understanding to combat ignorance. It is about trusting in our ability to do so, trusting in our true selves. And letting ourselves be guided by our intuition, which knows right from wrong. No matter what challenges we face, when our heart guides us with reason on its side, our imagined problems fade away. Behind everything there is a logical reason that we can find when we choose to follow curiosity rather than fear. We don’t have to feel regret or guilt when we know our intentions are pure and we did the best we could at the time with the knowledge we had. But it begins with a choice. A choice between pretense or honesty. Between apathy or caring. Between fabricated scarcity or the abundance of reality. A choice between making life about ourselves or seeing that it is not about you. A choice that is yours to make.

(epilogue)

The world can seem like a cold and dark place when this knowledge leads us to recognize the selfish motives behind people’s actions and how they cause idealistic movements to scatter and fall apart. But with these insights, those who choose to not make life about themselves can seek out and trust each other.

This documentary illustrates how everyone has this choice. But it will require a global movement where those who truly care take action, organize and unite to bring about real change.

[priscillagrrr]

ETHICAL REDEVELOPMENT

** *THIS MAN IS BRILLIANT! This article truly expresses some of the moral principles for my undying call to be an architect/ planner/ designer/ developer/ NOT A GENTRIFIER! We can improve the living standards of everyone, worldwide, and we will! My life’s goal is to literally build a better world for all. The marginalized deserve actual physical improvements to their environments. With guidelines like these at the core of design the literal SOUL of society can start to heal and move towards the positive pole, one city at a time, one block at a time, one house at a time, one brick at a time. Let’s stop pointing fingers and wasting our precious limited time complaining, let’s use our energy to look to the future and create it in a meaningful and profound way. The “man” has worked to keep the status quo, the “people” will work to dismantle it, peacefully, creatively, ingeniously, together. I am dedicating my life to this, won’t you join me?? ***

“A just city is required to facilitate platforms that engage those who do not understand their power and feel cheated out of the right to publicly demonstrate their power. Platform building means developing opportunities for people to gather and commune. The event—what is happening—is beside the point. The point is that folks are meeting, exchanging, and learning. Create intentional hang time, which build community, though a space that encourages deep conversation, new friendships, and, ultimately, a community of people who want to be a part of transformative work in the neighborhood. A space where like‐minded folk can come and say, “What else can be done? What can I do 10 blocks away from my block? How do I share what I love to do with others?”“ 

THE 9 PRINCIPLES OF ETHICAL REDEVELOPMENT

(by artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, Jr, Chicago)

Ethical Redevelopment is about shifting the value system from conventional financial and development practices to conscientious interventions in the urban context. The following explanations of the Nine Principles have been edited for space. Review the full principles in this downloadable document.

1. Repurpose + Re-propose

Concepts: possibility, transgression

Artistry is alchemy—it allows one thing to become another. Be an alchemist in your community. In new hands, there is renewed possibility for the discarded and overlooked. This includes people as well as materials. Who is around you, and how are they valuable? How does repurposing objects live alongside the rehabilitation or reclamation of people? How can your work become a pipeline for training individuals on whom others have given up?

Repurpose with new purpose. People, property, and materials can be remixed and reimagined if you imagine a new use. This, in effect, becomes a transgressive act by replacing allegiance to profit-as-motivator and allows for other considerations to drive the creation of place. Objects and projects do not have to be monetized to be useful.

2. Engaged Participation

Concepts: neighborliness, localism, access points

Invite others to get involved. Approach participants authentically as you would a neighbor. Work with the people who believe in the place: locals embedded by proximity, those connected by a desire to contribute or commitment to a mission. Provide multiple access points or ways to participate. Participation drives the transformation of a place and of those involved. Work as a resident and citizen to spur civic engagement, drawing a relationship between citizen participation and citizen power.

The value of the relationship is in the intimacy, not in the duration. Engage for as long as it makes sense to engage. This intimacy sparks commitment to a vision, and the neighbors, staff, and visitors become participatory producers—more than “consumers”—by tapping into different access points to find themselves in the work. The work is for many, with many, and, ultimately, by many.

3. Pedagogical Moments

Concepts: knowledge transfer, social responsibility

Moments of learning and teaching unfold in all aspects of work. Consider the steps in each project that could be instructive. By tapping into the existing, possibly latent talent within a community and putting it to use for the community, exchanges for transfer of knowledge reach across identities, roles, practices, disciplines, generations, and localities. Young people need opportunities to experiment, gain experience, and imagine their future. Adults, who are looking for new chances, benefit as well. Bring everyone along for the journey. Cultivate the talent they bring and foster new talent in work that excites them. Experience is the teacher; exposure is the lab.

Whether creating programs that capitalize upon existing talent or establishing workshops, training programs, and business accelerators, the ability to recognize moments for knowledge and skill sharing is a part of one’s social responsibility, effectively deepening the network of relationships within a community, its ecosystem, and the larger social economy. Without leveraging these structures and moments for pedagogical exchange, opportunities for teaching, learning, and cultivating talent are lost.

4. The Indeterminate

Concepts: imagination, intuition, faith

Suspend knowing. Embrace uncertainty. Accept ambiguity. Allow the work to offer solutions; ask questions in response to “problems” facing a neighborhood or city. Resource inequity can be reduced with imagination. The variable of the unknown is built into Ethical Redevelopment, into the programming and the acquisition of resources. Use faith and intuition to guide methodology, a process that’s left undetermined, undefined, or slowly revealed, allowing for a fluidity, dynamism, and creativity that respond to developments in the moment and change direction as needed. Strictly profit‐based entrepreneurs work to eliminate uncertainty, opting for careful strategizing and coordination to reach defined goals. Part of the unorthodoxy of Ethical Redevelopment is that while it is vision-‐driven, the route to achieve the vision is open ended. Believe in your project but resist believing there is only one path to achieve it. You can begin without a clear understanding of your end game—your intuition is just as powerful as a well-designed strategic plan.

5. Design

Concepts: aesthetic, desirability

Everyone deserves to see and be a part of the transformation of their spaces into places. Beauty is a basic service often not extended to “forgotten parts” of the city. It is an amenity considered incongruent with certain places. Beautiful objects come from and belong in blighted spaces, just as they do in high investment areas of a city. Creative people can play a pivotal role in how this happens. Beauty has magnetism. It defines character. It promotes reverence. Design can enhance the desirability of a neglected site, corridor, or block while illustrating the reverence and care of a neighborhood and its residents. Aesthetics may speak loudly or whisper, but either way they draw people in. It provides value, respect, importance, and regard for the character of a community.

6. Place Over Time

Concepts: flexibility, nimbleness, aggregation, anchor space

A sense of place cannot be developed overnight. Actions, interventions, site-specific experiments, and investments need adequate time to be realized. Likewise, neglect, abandonment, and divestment of a place happen over time. Pockets of cities deteriorate gradually. Thus activation, density, and vibrancy require cultivation for an extended duration, not short, quick fixes. Place is more about the people who inhabit it and the activities they engage in than the space itself. To be an anchoring space in a city, people have to be willing to spend time there. Hot, hip spots come and go. Trendy locations fall short of connecting “need” with “space.” Need changes over time and, as a result, space has to change over time. Spaces have to be flexible and nimble. Place‐based work is about the aggregation of years of activity and organic development of relationships. When it works, people visit and return in response to offerings that are authentic to the spirit of the place. Intentionality resonates. Visitors can shift from users to participants. They can become invested in the sustainability of the place and contribute to the quality of the experience. Participants come to rely on anchor spaces as consistent resources of cultural and spiritual sustenance.

7. Stack, Leverage + Access

Concepts: scaling up, strategy

An investment in yourself, in your ideas and projects sends a signal to those watching your work. It is critical to have skin in the game, to have something at stake even if the investment is sweat equity. Making change requires conviction and commitment utilizing belief, brainpower, energy, time, and dogged perseverance. Projects like these require belief and motivation more than they require funding. Whether an intervention is a single project, location, or gesture, it has impact and reverberation. Early small success can enable the next project. Leverage the attention garnered by the work to amplify it. Let the work attract more believers. A good idea is as crucial as establishing relationships with funders, gaining access to multiple spheres of influence, and incorporating expertise. Turn interest and excitement into investment. Resource streams should be diverse, stacked, and bundled to meet the price tags of your projects. Over time, a project from your initial days of engagement and experimentation can mature. Something that you passionately believed in, but had little external backing for, can grow in scale and scope to become a sophisticated version that many stakeholders support and believe in. Demonstrating capacity permits access to greater resources. Proof of infrastructure is persuasive.

8. Constellations

Concepts: ecosystem, diverse entities

Charismatic leaders are ineffective without teams. Both are strengthened by the presence of the other. Complementary skills and practices advance work. Collaboration allows for some of the best work to emerge from a process. Teams benefit from careful curation and exchanges across specialty. Projects need visionaries, believers, implementers, collaborators, and evaluators. A vibrant constellation or a rich ecosystem is responsive to the pairings and groupings that suddenly emerge. Some webs of connectivity mature more slowly, gradually revealing formerly unforeseen affinities. A project taps into a particular kind of power when it refuses to be singular, when it takes up space and assembles believers from disparate corners.

9. Platforms

Concepts: the thing that makes the thing, hang time

Regardless of regional circumstance, many of our cities suffer the same challenges—neglect, population loss, and abandoned buildings that defy the limits of the neighborhood’s imagination. Often, the proffered solution is singular. But one building, individual, or program cannot reroute a neighborhood’s trajectory. A community needs a platform: a foundation that creates new social possibilities, a structure that incubates new economic or artistic prospects. A platform is a mechanism to propel work forward— it creates conditions of multiplicity, compounds ideas, expands relationships, germinates opportunities, and widens access. A stage or platform is often invisible. It operates not in service of itself but to reinforce what can be.

A just city is required to facilitate platforms that engage those who do not understand their power and feel cheated out of the right to publicly demonstrate their power. Platform building means developing opportunities for people to gather and commune. The event—what is happening—is beside the point. The point is that folks are meeting, exchanging, and learning. Create intentional hang time, which build community, though a space that encourages deep conversation, new friendships, and, ultimately, a community of people who want to be a part of transformative work in the neighborhood. A space where like‐minded folk can come and say, “What else can be done? What can I do 10 blocks away from my block? How do I share what I love to do with others?”

[priscillagrrr]

[priscillagrrr]

Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope (my favorite book)

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essay on Man, by Alexander Pope, Edited by Henry Morley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Essay on Man       Moral Essays and Satires Author: Alexander Pope Editor: Henry Morley Release Date: August 20, 2007  [eBook #2428] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAY ON MAN***

AN ESSAY ON MAN.

TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOLINGBROKE. THE DESIGN.

Having proposed to write some pieces of Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon’s expression) come home to Men’s Business and Bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his Nature and his State; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world.  It is therefore in the anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation.  The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of Morality.  If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.

This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons.  The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness.  I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published is only to be considered as a general Map of Man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, and leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow.  Consequently, these Epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament.  I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage.  To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable.  P.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to the Universe.

Of Man in the abstract.  I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things, v.17, etc.  II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the Creation, agreeable to the general Order of Things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, v.35, etc.  III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, v.77, etc.  IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the cause of Man’s error and misery.  The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of His dispensations, v.109, etc.  V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the Creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, v.131, etc.  VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, v.173, etc.  VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which cause is a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man.  The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, v.207. VIII. How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation, must be destroyed, v.233.  IX.  The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, v.250.  X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, v.281, etc., to the end.

EPISTLE I.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o’er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature’s walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man.

I.  Say first, of God above, or man below What can we reason, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, ’Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are. But of this frame, the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading soul Looked through? or can a part contain the whole?   Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?

II.  Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less; Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove’s satellites are less than Jove?   Of systems possible, if ’tis confest That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then in the scale of reasoning life, ’tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man: And all the question (wrangle e’er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong?   Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God’s one single can its end produce; Yet serves to second too some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; ’Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.   When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o’er the plains: When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt’s god: Then shall man’s pride and dulness comprehend His actions’, passions’, being’s, use and end; Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.   Then say not man’s imperfect, Heaven in fault; Say rather man’s as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measured to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.

III.  Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle, marked by Heaven: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.   Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.   Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind; His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.

IV.  Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against providence; Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here He gives too little, there too much; Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust; If man alone engross not Heaven’s high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: Snatch from His hand the balance and the rod, Re-judge His justice, be the God of God. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause.

V.  Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use?  Pride answers, “’Tis for mine: For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.”   But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? “No, (’tis replied) the first Almighty Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws; The exceptions few; some change since all began; And what created perfect?”—Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then Nature deviates; and can man do less? As much that end a constant course requires Of showers and sunshine, as of man’s desires; As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven’s design, Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline? Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar’s mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Account for moral, as for natural things: Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right is to submit.   Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, Were there all harmony, all virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife; And passions are the elements of life. The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

VI.  What would this man?  Now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more; Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears Made for his use all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force; All in exact proportion to the state; Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. Each beast, each insect, happy in its own: Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?   The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics given, To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er, To smart and agonize at every pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? If Nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

VII.  Far as Creation’s ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends: Mark how it mounts, to man’s imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass: What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole’s dim curtain, and the lynx’s beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider’s touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew? How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine! ’Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier, For ever separate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allayed; What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never passed the insuperable line! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

VIII.  See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high, progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below? Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to nothing.  On superior powers Were we to press, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void, Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed: From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike, Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.   And, if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to the amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky; Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wrecked, and world on world; Heaven’s whole foundations to their centre nod, And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? Vile worm!—Oh, madness! pride! impiety!

IX.  What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this general frame: Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing Mind of All ordains.   All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart: As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X.  Cease, then, nor order imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit.  In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Himself, as an Individual.

I. The business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself.  His Middle Nature; his Powers and Frailties, v.1 to 19. The Limits of his Capacity, v.19, etc.  II. The two Principles of Man, Self-love and Reason, both necessary, v.53, etc. Self-love the stronger, and why, v.67, etc.  Their end the same, v.81, etc.  III. The Passions, and their use, v.93 to 130.  The predominant Passion, and its force, v.132 to 160.  Its Necessity, in directing Men to different purposes, v.165, etc.  Its providential Use, in fixing our Principle, and ascertaining our Virtue, v.177.  IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the Office of Reason, v.202 to 216.  V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, v.217.  VI. That, however, the Ends of Providence and general Good are answered in our Passions and Imperfections, v.238, etc.  How usefully these are distributed to all Orders of Men, v.241.  How useful they are to Society, v.251.  And to the Individuals, v.263. In every state, and every age of life, v.273, etc.

EPISTLE II.

I.  Know, then, thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!   Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!   Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man unfold all Nature’s law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape And showed a Newton as we show an ape.   Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, Explain his own beginning, or his end? Alas, what wonder! man’s superior part Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art; But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves, by passion is undone. Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but vanity or dress, Or learning’s luxury, or idleness; Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; Expunge the whole, or lop th’ excrescent parts Of all our vices have created arts; Then see how little the remaining sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come!

II.  Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love to urge, and reason, to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole. Man, but for that, no action could attend, And but for this, were active to no end: Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroyed. Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Formed but to check, deliberate, and advise. Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; Reason’s at distance, and in prospect lie: That sees immediate good by present sense; Reason, the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng. At best more watchful this, but that more strong. The action of the stronger to suspend, Reason still use, to reason still attend. Attention, habit and experience gains; Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite; And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; But greedy that, its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flower: Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III.  Modes of self-love the passions we may call; ’Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all: But since not every good we can divide, And reason bids us for our own provide; Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, List under Reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue’s name.   In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fixed; ’tis fixed as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: The rising tempest puts in act the soul, Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.   Passions, like elements, though born to fight, Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite: These, ’tis enough to temper and employ; But what composes man, can man destroy? Suffice that Reason keep to Nature’s road, Subject, compound them, follow her and God. Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure’s smiling train, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, These mixed with art, and to due bounds confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind; The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life. Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; And when in act they cease, in prospect rise: Present to grasp, and future still to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On different senses different objects strike; Hence different passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; And hence once master passion in the breast, Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.   As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame, The mind’s disease, its ruling passion came; Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part.   Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; Reason itself but gives it edge and power; As Heaven’s blest beam turns vinegar more sour.   We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, In this weak queen some favourite still obey: Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend! Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade The choice we make, or justify it made; Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong; So, when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driven them out.   Yes, Nature’s road must ever be preferred; Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: ’Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe: A mightier power the strong direction sends, And several men impels to several ends: Like varying winds, by other passions tossed, This drives them constant to a certain coast. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; Through life ’tis followed, even at life’s expense; The merchant’s toil, the sage’s indolence, The monk’s humility, the hero’s pride, All, all alike, find reason on their side.   The eternal art, educing good from ill, Grafts on this passion our best principle: ’Tis thus the mercury of man is fixed, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed; The dross cements what else were too refined, And in one interest body acts with mind.   As fruits, ungrateful to the planter’s care, On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear; The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature’s vigour working at the root. What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; Even avarice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; Envy, to which th’ ignoble mind’s a slave, Is emulation in the learned or brave; Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame.   Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) The virtue nearest to our vice allied: Reason the bias turns to good from ill And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.   This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide?  The God within the mind.   Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other’s bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, And oft so mix, the difference is too nice Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.   Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, soften, and unite A thousand ways, is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; ’Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.   Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. But where th’ extreme of vice, was ne’er agreed: Ask where’s the north? at York, ’tis on the Tweed; In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there, At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. No creature owns it in the first degree, But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he; Even those who dwell beneath its very zone, Or never feel the rage, or never own; What happier nations shrink at with affright, The hard inhabitant contends is right.   Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in th’ extreme, but all in the degree, The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And even the best, by fits, what they despise. ’Tis but by parts we follow good or ill; For, vice or virtue, self directs it still; Each individual seeks a several goal; But Heaven’s great view is one, and that the whole. That counter-works each folly and caprice; That disappoints th’ effect of every vice; That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: That, virtue’s ends from vanity can raise, Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise; And build on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind.   Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away.   Whate’er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learned is happy nature to explore, The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given, The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sot a hero, lunatic a king; The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.   See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestowed on all, a common friend; See some fit passion every age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.   Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarves, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er.   Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays Those painted clouds that beautify our days; Each want of happiness by hope supplied, And each vacuity of sense by pride: These build as fast as knowledge can destroy; In folly’s cup still laughs the bubble, joy; One prospect lost, another still we gain; And not a vanity is given in vain; Even mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others’ wants by thine. See! and confess, one comfort still must rise, ’Tis this, though man’s a fool, yet God is wise.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Society.

I. The whole Universe one system of Society, v.7, etc. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, v.27.  The happiness of Animals mutual, v.49.  II. Reason or Instinct operate alike to the good of each Individual, v.79.  Reason or Instinct operate also to Society, in all Animals, v.109.  III. How far Society carried by Instinct, v.115.  How much farther by Reason, v.128.  IV. Of that which is called the State of Nature, v.144.  Reason instructed by Instinct in the invention of Arts, v.166, and in the Forms of Society, v.176.  V. Origin of Political Societies, v.196.  Origin of Monarchy, v.207. Patriarchal Government, v.212.  VI. Origin of true Religion and Government, from the same principle, of Love, v.231, etc.  Origin of Superstition and Tyranny, from the same principle, of Fear, v.237, etc.  The Influence of Self-love operating to the social and public Good, v.266.  Restoration of true Religion and Government on their first principle, v.285.  Mixed Government, v.288.  Various forms of each, and the true end of all, v.300, etc.

EPISTLE III.

Here, then, we rest: “The Universal Cause Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.” In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day; But most be present, if we preach or pray.   Look round our world; behold the chain of love Combining all below and all above. See plastic Nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Formed and impelled its neighbour to embrace. See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one centre still, the general good. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again: All forms that perish other forms supply (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die), Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving soul Connects each being, greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.   Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy Thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn: Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer: The hog, that ploughs not nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.   Know, Nature’s children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear. While man exclaims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pampered goose: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.   Grant that the powerful still the weak control; Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole: Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows, And helps, another creature’s wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect’s gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods; For some his interest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy The extensive blessing of his luxury. That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And, till he ends the being, makes it blest; Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favoured man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish when thy feast is o’er!   To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end: To man imparts it; but with such a view As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too; The hour concealed, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle! that Heaven assigned Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II.  Whether with reason, or with instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best; To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportioned to their end. Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide, What pope or council can they need beside? Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when pressed, Stays till we call, and then not often near; But honest instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o’er-shoot, but just to hit; While still too wide or short is human wit; Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, Which heavier reason labours at in vain, This too serves always, reason never long; One must go right, the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing powers One in their nature, which are two in ours; And reason raise o’er instinct as you can, In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.   Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand? Who made the spider parallels design, Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line? Who did the stork, Columbus-like, explore Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? Who calls the council, states the certain day, Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

III.  God in the nature of each being founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: But as He framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness: So from the first, eternal order ran, And creature linked to creature, man to man. Whate’er of life all-quickening ether keeps, Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Not man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, Each loves itself, but not itself alone, Each sex desires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace; They love themselves, a third time, in their race. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismissed to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. A longer care man’s helpless kind demands; That longer care contracts more lasting bands: Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the interest and the love; With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; Each virtue in each passion takes its turn; And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise. That graft benevolence on charities. Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintained, habitual those. The last, scarce ripened into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began: Memory and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combined, Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind.

IV.  Nor think, in Nature’s state they blindly trod; The state of nature was the reign of God: Self-love and social at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of man. Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walked with beast, joint tenant of the shade; The same his table, and the same his bed; No murder clothed him, and no murder fed. In the same temple, the resounding wood, All vocal beings hymned their equal God: The shrine with gore unstained, with gold undressed, Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest: Heaven’s attribute was universal care, And man’s prerogative to rule, but spare. Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. But just disease to luxury succeeds, And every death its own avenger breeds; The fury-passions from that blood began, And turned on man a fiercer savage, man.   See him from Nature rising slow to art! To copy instinct then was reason’s part; Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake— “Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Here too all forms of social union find, And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind: Here subterranean works and cities see; There towns aërial on the waving tree. Learn each small people’s genius, policies, The ant’s republic, and the realm of bees; How those in common all their wealth bestow, And anarchy without confusion know; And these for ever, though a monarch reign, Their separate cells and properties maintain. Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state, Laws wise as nature, and as fixed as fate. In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Yet go! and thus o’er all the creatures sway, Thus let the wiser make the rest obey; And, for those arts mere instinct could afford, Be crowned as monarchs, or as gods adored.”

V.  Great Nature spoke; observant men obeyed; Cities were built, societies were made: Here rose one little state: another near Grew by like means, and joined, through love or fear. Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend, And there the streams in purer rills descend? What war could ravish, commerce could bestow, And he returned a friend, who came a foe. Converse and love mankind might strongly draw, When love was liberty, and Nature law. Thus States were formed; the name of king unknown, ’Till common interest placed the sway in one. ’Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms, Diffusing blessings, or averting harms) The same which in a sire the sons obeyed, A prince the father of a people made.

VI.  Till then, by Nature crowned, each patriarch sate, King, priest, and parent of his growing state; On him, their second providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wondering furrow called the food, Taught to command the fire, control the flood, Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound, Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground. Till drooping, sickening, dying they began Whom they revered as God to mourn as man: Then, looking up, from sire to sire, explored One great first Father, and that first adored. Or plain tradition that this all begun, Conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son; The worker from the work distinct was known, And simple reason never sought but one: Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right; To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod, And owned a Father when he owned a God. Love all the faith, and all the allegiance then; For Nature knew no right divine in men, No ill could fear in God; and understood A sovereign being but a sovereign good. True faith, true policy, united ran, This was but love of God, and this of man.   Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, The enormous faith of many made for one; That proud exception to all Nature’s laws, To invert the world, and counter-work its cause? Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; Till superstition taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made: She, ’midst the lightning’s blaze, and thunder’s sound, When rocked the mountains, and when groaned the ground, She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To power unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise: Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes; Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride, Then sacred seemed the ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore; Then first the flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol smeared with human blood; With heaven’s own thunders shook the world below, And played the god an engine on his foe.   So drives self-love, through just and through unjust, To one man’s power, ambition, lucre, lust: The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one will when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may surprise, a stronger take? His safety must his liberty restrain: All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forced into virtue thus by self-defence, Even kings learned justice and benevolence: Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, And found the private in the public good.   ’Twas then, the studious head or generous mind, Follower of God, or friend of human-kind, Poet or patriot, rose but to restore The faith and moral Nature gave before; Re-lumed her ancient light, not kindled new; If not God’s image, yet His shadow drew: Taught power’s due use to people and to kings, Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, The less, or greater, set so justly true, That touching one must strike the other too; Till jarring interests, of themselves create The according music of a well-mixed state. Such is the world’s great harmony, that springs From order, union, full consent of things: Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade; More powerful each as needful to the rest, And, in proportion as it blesses, blest; Draw to one point, and to one centre bring Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.   For forms of government let fools contest; Whate’er is best administered is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right: In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind’s concern is charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God, that bless mankind or mend.   Man, like the generous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, Yet make at once their circle round the sun; So two consistent motions act the soul; And one regards itself, and one the whole.   Thus God and Nature linked the general frame, And bade self-love and social be the same.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE IV.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Happiness.

I. False Notions of Happiness, Philosophical and Popular, answered from v.19 to 77.  II. It is the End of all Men, and attainable by all, v.30.  God intends Happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular Happiness depends on general, and since He governs by general, not particular Laws, v.37.  As it is necessary for Order, and the peace and welfare of Society, that external goods should be unequal, Happiness is not made to consist in these, v.51. But, notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of Happiness among Mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two Passions of Hope and Fear, v.70.  III. What the Happiness of Individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good Man has here the advantage, V.77.  The error of imputing to Virtue what are only the calamities of Nature or of Fortune, v.94.  IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter His general Laws in favour of particulars, v.121.  V. That we are not judges who are good; but that, whoever they are, they must be happiest, v.133, etc.  VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of Virtue, v.165.  That even these can make no Man happy without Virtue: Instanced in Riches, v.183.  Honours, v.191.  Nobility, v.203. Greatness, v.215.  Fame, v.235.  Superior Talents, v.257, etc.  With pictures of human Infelicity in Men possessed of them all, v.267, etc.  VII. That Virtue only constitutes a Happiness, whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, v.307, etc.  That the perfection of Virtue and Happiness consists in a conformity to the Order of Providence here, and a Resignation to it here and hereafter, v.326, etc.

EPISTLE IV.

Oh, happiness, our being’s end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate’er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, O’erlooked, seen double, by the fool, and wise. Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below, Say, in what mortal soil thou deign’st to grow? Fair opening to some Court’s propitious shine, Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine? Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reaped in iron harvests of the field? Where grows?—where grows it not?  If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil: Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere, ’Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere; ’Tis never to be bought, but always free, And fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.   Ask of the learned the way?  The learned are blind; This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind; Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these; Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain; Some, swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain; Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in everything, or doubt of all.   Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness?   Take Nature’s path, and mad opinions leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right, and meaning well; And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense, and common ease.   Remember, man, “the Universal Cause Acts not by partial, but by general laws;” And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist not in the good of one, but all. There’s not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens to the kind: No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No caverned hermit, rests self-satisfied: Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend, Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend: Abstract what others feel, what others think, All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink: Each has his share; and who would more obtain, Shall find, the pleasure pays not half the pain.   Order is Heaven’s first law; and this confest, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense. Heaven to mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness: But mutual wants this happiness increase; All Nature’s difference keeps all Nature’s peace. Condition, circumstance is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king, In who obtain defence, or who defend, In him who is, or him who finds a friend: Heaven breathes through every member of the whole One common blessing, as one common soul. But fortune’s gifts if each alike possessed, And each were equal, must not all contest? If then to all men happiness was meant, God in externals could not place content.   Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy called, unhappy those; But Heaven’s just balance equal will appear, While those are placed in hope, and these in fear: Nor present good or ill, the joy or curse, But future views of better or of worse,   Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies, Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.   Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind, Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence. But health consists with temperance alone; And peace, oh, virtue! peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain; But these less taste them, as they worse obtain. Say, in pursuit of profit or delight, Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right; Of vice or virtue, whether blessed or cursed, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first? Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains, ’Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains: And grant the bad what happiness they would, One they must want, which is, to pass for good.   Oh, blind to truth, and God’s whole scheme below, Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe! Who sees and follows that great scheme the best, Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest. But fools the good alone unhappy call, For ills or accidents that chance to all. See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just! See god-like Turenne prostrate on the dust! See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! Was this their virtue, or contempt of life? Say, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne’er gave, Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave? Tell me, if virtue made the son expire, Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire? Why drew Marseilles’ good bishop purer breath, When Nature sickened, and each gale was death? Or why so long (in life if long can be) Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me?   What makes all physical or moral ill? There deviates Nature, and here wanders will. God sends not ill; if rightly understood, Or partial ill is universal good, Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall; Short, and but rare, till man improved it all. We just as wisely might of Heaven complain That righteous Abel was destroyed by Cain, As that the virtuous son is ill at ease When his lewd father gave the dire disease. Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause Prone for His favourites to reverse His laws?   Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, Forget to thunder, and recall her fires? On air or sea new motions be imprest, Oh, blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast? When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease, if you go by? Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, For Chartres’ head reserve the hanging wall?   But still this world (so fitted for the knave) Contents us not.  A better shall we have? A kingdom of the just then let it be: But first consider how those just agree. The good must merit God’s peculiar care: But who, but God, can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heaven’s own spirit fell; Another deems him instrument of hell; If Calvin feel Heaven’s blessing, or its rod. This cries there is, and that, there is no God. What shocks one part will edify the rest, Nor with one system can they all be blest. The very best will variously incline, And what rewards your virtue, punish mine. Whatever is, is right.  This world, ’tis true, Was made for Cæsar—but for Titus too: And which more blest? who chained his country, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?   “But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed.” What then?  Is the reward of virtue bread? That, vice may merit, ’tis the price of toil; The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil, The knave deserves it, when he tempts the main, Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be indolent; Nor is his claim to plenty, but content. But grant him riches, your demand is o’er? “No—shall the good want health, the good want power?” Add health, and power, and every earthly thing, “Why bounded power? why private? why no king?” Nay, why external for internal given? Why is not man a god, and earth a heaven? Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive God gives enough, while He has more to give: Immense the power, immense were the demand; Say, at what part of nature will they stand?   What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul’s calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy, Is virtue’s prize: A better would you fix? Then give humility a coach and six, Justice a conqueror’s sword, or truth a gown, Or public spirit its great cure, a crown. Weak, foolish man! will heaven reward us there With the same trash mad mortals wish for here? The boy and man an individual makes, Yet sighest thou now for apples and for cakes? Go, like the Indian, in another life Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife: As well as dream such trifles are assigned, As toys and empires, for a God-like mind. Rewards, that either would to virtue bring No joy, or be destructive of the thing: How oft by these at sixty are undone The virtues of a saint at twenty-one! To whom can riches give repute or trust, Content, or pleasure, but the good and just? Judges and senates have been bought for gold, Esteem and love were never to be sold. Oh, fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human kind, Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.   Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned, The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned, “What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?” I’ll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You’ll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.   Stuck o’er with titles and hung round with strings, That thou mayest be by kings, or wh***s of kings. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece; But by your fathers’ worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great. Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.   Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies? “Where, but among the heroes and the wise?” Heroes are much the same, the points agreed, From Macedonia’s madman to the Swede; The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find Or make, an enemy of all mankind? Not one looks backward, onward still he goes, Yet ne’er looks forward farther than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes; Men in their loose unguarded hours they take, Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat; ’Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great: Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.   What’s fame? a fancied life in others’ breath, A thing beyond us, even before our death. Just what you hear, you have, and what’s unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully’s, or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; To all beside as much an empty shade An Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit’s a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man’s the noblest work of God. Fame but from death a villain’s name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave; When what the oblivion better were resigned, Is hung on high, to poison half mankind. All fame is foreign, but of true desert; Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels, Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.   In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? ’Tis but to know how little can be known; To see all others’ faults, and feel our own; Condemned in business or in arts to drudge, Without a second or without a judge; Truths would you teach or save a sinking land, All fear, none aid you, and few understand. Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view Above life’s weakness, and its comforts too.   Bring, then, these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions; see to what they mount; How much of other each is sure to cost; How each for other oft is wholly lost; How inconsistent greater goods with these; How sometimes life is risked, and always ease; Think, and if still the things thy envy call, Say, would’st thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribands if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy: Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus’ wife; If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or ravished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell; damned to everlasting fame! If all, united, thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all. There, in the rich, the honoured, famed, and great, See the false scale of happiness complete! In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, How happy! those to ruin, these betray. Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, From dirt and seaweed as proud Venice rose; In each how guilt and greatness equal ran, And all that raised the hero, sunk the man: Now Europe’s laurels on their brows behold, But stained with blood, or ill exchanged for gold; Then see them broke with toils or sunk with ease, Or infamous for plundered provinces. Oh, wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame E’er taught to shine, or sanctified from shame; What greater bliss attends their close of life? Some greedy minion, or imperious wife. The trophied arches, storeyed halls invade And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade. Alas! not dazzled with their noontide ray, Compute the morn and evening to the day; The whole amount of that enormous fame, A tale, that blends their glory with their shame;   Know, then, this truth (enough for man to know) “Virtue alone is happiness below.” The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill; Where only merit constant pay receives, Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives; The joy unequalled, if its end it gain, And if it lose, attended with no pain; Without satiety, though e’er so blessed, And but more relished as the more distressed: The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears, Less pleasing far than virtue’s very tears: Good, from each object, from each place acquired For ever exercised, yet never tired; Never elated, while one man’s oppressed; Never dejected while another’s blessed; And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.   See the sole bliss Heaven could on all bestow! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss; the good, untaught, will find; Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God; Pursues that chain which links the immense design, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine; Sees, that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below; Learns, from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul; And knows, where faith, law, morals, all began, All end, in love of God, and love of man.   For Him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul! Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind He sees, why Nature plants in man alone Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown: (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they seek they find) Wise is her present; she connects in this His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss; At once his own bright prospect to be blest, And strongest motive to assist the rest.   Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour’s blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part: Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence: Happier as kinder, in whate’er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity.   God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake! The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race; Wide and more wide, the o’erflowings of the mind Take every creature in, of every kind; Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heaven beholds its image in his breast.   Come, then, my friend! my genius! come along; Oh, master of the poet, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, To man’s low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise; Formed by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe; Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please. Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame, Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? That urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart; From wit’s false mirror held up Nature’s light; Showed erring pride, whatever is, is right; That reason, passion, answer one great aim; That true self-love and social are the same; That virtue only makes our bliss below; And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

DEO OPT. MAX.

Father of all! in every age,   In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage,   Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood,   Who all my sense confined To know but this, that Thou art good,   And that myself am blind;

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,   To see the good from ill; And binding Nature fast in fate,   Left free the human will.

What conscience dictates to be done,   Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun,   That, more than Heaven pursue.

What blessings Thy free bounty gives,   Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives,   To enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth’s contracted span   Thy goodness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of man,   When thousand worlds are round:

Let not this weak, unknowing hand   Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land,   On each I judge Thy foe.

If I am right, Thy grace impart,   Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart   To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride,   Or impious discontent, At aught Thy wisdom has denied,   Or aught Thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another’s woe,   To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show,   That mercy show to me.

Mean though I am, not wholly so,   Since quickened by Thy breath; Oh, lead me wheresoe’er I go,   Through this day’s life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my lot:   All else beneath the sun, Thou know’st if best bestowed or not;   And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is all space,   Whose altar earth, sea, skies, One chorus let all being raise,   All Nature’s incense rise!

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[priscillagrrr]

Experience vs Memory

Everybody talks about happiness these days. I had somebody count the number of bookswith "happiness" in the title published in the last five years and they gave up after about 40, and there were many more. There is a huge wave of interest in happiness, among researchers. There is a lot of happiness coaching. Everybody would like to make people happier. But in spite of all this flood of work, there are several cognitive traps that sort of make it almost impossible to think straight about happiness. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

0:45And my talk today will be mostly about these cognitive traps. This applies to laypeople thinking about their own happiness, and it applies to scholars thinking about happiness,because it turns out we're just as messed up as anybody else is. The first of these traps is a reluctance to admit complexity. It turns out that the word "happiness" is just not a useful word anymore, because we apply it to too many different things. I think there is one particular meaning to which we might restrict it, but by and large, this is something that we'll have to give up and we'll have to adopt the more complicated view of what well-being is.The second trap is a confusion between experience and memory; basically, it's between being happy in your life, and being happy about your life or happy with your life. And those are two very different concepts, and they're both lumped in the notion of happiness. And the third is the focusing illusion, and it's the unfortunate fact that we can't think about any circumstance that affects well-being without distorting its importance. I mean, this is a real cognitive trap. There's just no way of getting it right.

1:57Now, I'd like to start with an example of somebody who had a question-and-answer sessionafter one of my lectures reported a story, and that was a story -- He said he'd been listening to a symphony, and it was absolutely glorious music and at the very end of the recording,there was a dreadful screeching sound. And then he added, really quite emotionally, it ruined the whole experience. But it hadn't. What it had ruined were the memories of the experience.He had had the experience. He had had 20 minutes of glorious music. They counted for nothing because he was left with a memory; the memory was ruined, and the memory was all that he had gotten to keep.

2:45What this is telling us, really, is that we might be thinking of ourselves and of other people in terms of two selves. There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present, is capable of re-living the past, but basically it has only the present. It's the experiencing self that the doctor approaches -- you know, when the doctor asks, "Does it hurt now when I touch you here?" And then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score, and maintains the story of our life, and it's the one that the doctor approaches in asking the question, "How have you been feeling lately?"or "How was your trip to Albania?" or something like that. Those are two very different entities, the experiencing self and the remembering self, and getting confused between them is part of the mess about the notion of happiness.

3:45Now, the remembering self is a storyteller. And that really starts with a basic response of our memories -- it starts immediately. We don't only tell stories when we set out to tell stories.Our memory tells us stories, that is, what we get to keep from our experiences is a story. And let me begin with one example. This is an old study. Those are actual patients undergoing a painful procedure. I won't go into detail. It's no longer painful these days, but it was painful when this study was run in the 1990s. They were asked to report on their pain every 60 seconds. Here are two patients, those are their recordings. And you are asked, "Who of them suffered more?" And it's a very easy question. Clearly, Patient B suffered more -- his colonoscopy was longer, and every minute of pain that Patient A had, Patient B had, and more.

4:47But now there is another question: "How much did these patients think they suffered?" And here is a surprise. The surprise is that Patient A had a much worse memory of the colonoscopy than Patient B. The stories of the colonoscopies were different, and because a very critical part of the story is how it ends. And neither of these stories is very inspiring or great -- but one of them is this distinct ... (Laughter) but one of them is distinctly worse than the other. And the one that is worse is the one where pain was at its peak at the very end; it's a bad story. How do we know that? Because we asked these people after their colonoscopy,and much later, too, "How bad was the whole thing, in total?" And it was much worse for A than for B, in memory.

5:40Now this is a direct conflict between the experiencing self and the remembering self. From the point of view of the experiencing self, clearly, B had a worse time. Now, what you could do with Patient A, and we actually ran clinical experiments, and it has been done, and it does work -- you could actually extend the colonoscopy of Patient A by just keeping the tube in without jiggling it too much. That will cause the patient to suffer, but just a little and much less than before. And if you do that for a couple of minutes, you have made the experiencing self of Patient A worse off, and you have the remembering self of Patient A a lot better off,because now you have endowed Patient A with a better story about his experience. What defines a story? And that is true of the stories that memory delivers for us, and it's also true of the stories that we make up. What defines a story are changes, significant moments and endings. Endings are very, very important and, in this case, the ending dominated.

6:55Now, the experiencing self lives its life continuously. It has moments of experience, one after the other. And you can ask: What happens to these moments? And the answer is really straightforward: They are lost forever. I mean, most of the moments of our life -- and I calculated, you know, the psychological present is said to be about three seconds long; that means that, you know, in a life there are about 600 million of them; in a month, there are about 600,000 -- most of them don't leave a trace. Most of them are completely ignored by the remembering self. And yet, somehow you get the sense that they should count, that what happens during these moments of experience is our life. It's the finite resource that we're spending while we're on this earth. And how to spend it would seem to be relevant,but that is not the story that the remembering self keeps for us.

7:53So we have the remembering self and the experiencing self, and they're really quite distinct.The biggest difference between them is in the handling of time. From the point of view of the experiencing self, if you have a vacation, and the second week is just as good as the first,then the two-week vacation is twice as good as the one-week vacation. That's not the way it works at all for the remembering self. For the remembering self, a two-week vacation is barely better than the one-week vacation because there are no new memories added. You have not changed the story. And in this way, time is actually the critical variable that distinguishes a remembering self from an experiencing self; time has very little impact on the story.

8:45Now, the remembering self does more than remember and tell stories. It is actually the one that makes decisions because, if you have a patient who has had, say, two colonoscopies with two different surgeons and is deciding which of them to choose, then the one that chooses is the one that has the memory that is less bad, and that's the surgeon that will be chosen. The experiencing self has no voice in this choice. We actually don't choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences. And even when we think about the future, we don't think of our future normally as experiences. We think of our future as anticipated memories. And basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn't need.

9:46I have that sense that when we go on vacations this is very frequently the case; that is, we go on vacations, to a very large extent, in the service of our remembering self. And this is a bit hard to justify I think. I mean, how much do we consume our memories? That is one of the explanations that is given for the dominance of the remembering self. And when I think about that, I think about a vacation we had in Antarctica a few years ago, which was clearly the best vacation I've ever had, and I think of it relatively often, relative to how much I think of other vacations. And I probably have consumed my memories of that three-week trip, I would say, for about 25 minutes in the last four years. Now, if I had ever opened the folderwith the 600 pictures in it, I would have spent another hour. Now, that is three weeks, and that is at most an hour and a half. There seems to be a discrepancy. Now, I may be a bit extreme, you know, in how little appetite I have for consuming memories, but even if you do more of this, there is a genuine question: Why do we put so much weight on memory relative to the weight that we put on experiences?

11:04So I want you to think about a thought experiment. Imagine that for your next vacation, you know that at the end of the vacation all your pictures will be destroyed, and you'll get an amnesic drug so that you won't remember anything. Now, would you choose the same vacation? (Laughter) And if you would choose a different vacation, there is a conflict between your two selves, and you need to think about how to adjudicate that conflict, and it's actually not at all obvious, because if you think in terms of time, then you get one answer, and if you think in terms of memories, you might get another answer. Why do we pick the vacations we do is a problem that confronts us with a choice between the two selves.

11:57Now, the two selves bring up two notions of happiness. There are really two concepts of happiness that we can apply, one per self. So you can ask: How happy is the experiencing self? And then you would ask: How happy are the moments in the experiencing self's life?And they're all -- happiness for moments is a fairly complicated process. What are the emotions that can be measured? And, by the way, now we are capable of getting a pretty good idea of the happiness of the experiencing self over time. If you ask for the happiness of the remembering self, it's a completely different thing. This is not about how happily a person lives. It is about how satisfied or pleased the person is when that person thinks about her life. Very different notion. Anyone who doesn't distinguish those notions is going to mess up the study of happiness, and I belong to a crowd of students of well-being, who've been messing up the study of happiness for a long time in precisely this way.

13:05The distinction between the happiness of the experiencing self and the satisfaction of the remembering self has been recognized in recent years, and there are now efforts to measure the two separately. The Gallup Organization has a world poll where more than half a million people have been asked questions about what they think of their life and about their experiences, and there have been other efforts along those lines. So in recent years, we have begun to learn about the happiness of the two selves. And the main lesson I think that we have learned is they are really different. You can know how satisfied somebody is with their life, and that really doesn't teach you much about how happily they're living their life, and vice versa. Just to give you a sense of the correlation, the correlation is about .5. What that means is if you met somebody, and you were told, "Oh his father is six feet tall," how much would you know about his height? Well, you would know something about his height, but there's a lot of uncertainty. You have that much uncertainty. If I tell you that somebody ranked their life eight on a scale of ten, you have a lot of uncertainty about how happy they are with their experiencing self. So the correlation is low.

14:25We know something about what controls satisfaction of the happiness self. We know that money is very important, goals are very important. We know that happiness is mainly being satisfied with people that we like, spending time with people that we like. There are other pleasures, but this is dominant. So if you want to maximize the happiness of the two selves,you are going to end up doing very different things. The bottom line of what I've said here is that we really should not think of happiness as a substitute for well-being. It is a completely different notion.

15:04Now, very quickly, another reason we cannot think straight about happiness is that we do not attend to the same things when we think about life, and we actually live. So, if you ask the simple question of how happy people are in California, you are not going to get to the correct answer. When you ask that question, you think people must be happier in California if, say, you live in Ohio. (Laughter) And what happens is when you think about living in California,you are thinking of the contrast between California and other places, and that contrast, say, is in climate. Well, it turns out that climate is not very important to the experiencing self and it's not even very important to the reflective self that decides how happy people are. But now, because the reflective self is in charge, you may end up -- some people may end upmoving to California. And it's sort of interesting to trace what is going to happen to people who move to California in the hope of getting happier. Well, their experiencing self is not going to get happier. We know that. But one thing will happen: They will think they are happier, because, when they think about it, they'll be reminded of how horrible the weather was in Ohio, and they will feel they made the right decision.

16:37It is very difficult to think straight about well-being, and I hope I have given you a sense of how difficult it is.

16:46Thank you.

16:48(Applause)

16:51Chris Anderson: Thank you. I've got a question for you. Thank you so much. Now, when we were on the phone a few weeks ago, you mentioned to me that there was quite an interesting result came out of that Gallup survey. Is that something you can share since you do have a few moments left now?

17:10Daniel Kahneman: Sure. I think the most interesting result that we found in the Gallup surveyis a number, which we absolutely did not expect to find. We found that with respect to the happiness of the experiencing self. When we looked at how feelings, vary with income. And it turns out that, below an income of 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans -- and that's a very large sample of Americans, like 600,000, so it's a large representative sample -- below an income of 600,000 dollars a year...

17:43CA: 60,000.

17:45DK: 60,000. (Laughter) 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat. Clearly, what is happening is money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery, and we can measure that miseryvery, very clearly. In terms of the other self, the remembering self, you get a different story.The more money you earn, the more satisfied you are. That does not hold for emotions.

18:24CA: But Danny, the whole American endeavor is about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. If people took seriously that finding, I mean, it seems to turn upside down everything we believe about, like for example, taxation policy and so forth. Is there any chance that politicians, that the country generally, would take a finding like that seriously and run public policy based on it?

18:49DK: You know I think that there is recognition of the role of happiness research in public policy. The recognition is going to be slow in the United States, no question about that, but in the U.K., it is happening, and in other countries it is happening. People are recognizing that they ought to be thinking of happiness when they think of public policy. It's going to take a while, and people are going to debate whether they want to study experience happiness, or whether they want to study life evaluation, so we need to have that debate fairly soon. How to enhance happiness goes very different ways depending on how you think, and whether you think of the remembering self or you think of the experiencing self.This is going to influence policy, I think, in years to come. In the United States, efforts are being made to measure the experience happiness of the population. This is going to be, I think, within the next decade or two, part of national statistics.

19:44CA: Well, it seems to me that this issue will -- or at least should be -- the most interesting policy discussion to track over the next few years. Thank you so much for inventing behavioral economics. Thank you, Danny Kahneman.

[priscillagrrr]

Hair is very purple right now...

[priscillagrrr]

God Is In The Neurons

This is a really good compilation of the many different ideas I’ve incorporated into the syllogism that goes on inside my mind at every moment. 

http://youtu.be/dbh5l0b2-0o

Transcript [Chapter 1] - Athene’s Theory of Everything

 The following documentary presents new developments in neuroscience and a solution to the many current unsolved problems in physics. While it keeps clear of metaphysical correlations and is solely focused on scientifically verifiable data, at also has philosophical repercussions pertaining to life, death and the origin of the universe. Due to its many layers and density in presentation, it may require multiple viewings fully comprehend its implications, even though considerable effect has been made to simplify  the complex scientific concepts that are discussed. Furthermore, i would like to thank the author for allowing me to follow report on his work, as he wanted to remain dedicated to his research and avoid becoming involved in its media coverage

Сhapter 1 God Is In The Neurons      The human brain is a network of approximately one hundred billion neurons. Different experiences create different neural connections which bring about different emotions.And depending on which neurons get stimulated, certain connections become stronger and more efficient, while others may become weaker. This is what`s called neuroplasticity. Someone who trains to be a musician will create stronger neural connections that link the two hemispheres of the brain in order to be musically creative. Rudiger Gamm who was a self-admitted “hopeless student”, used to fail at basic maths and went on to train his abilities and became a famous “human calculator”, capable of performing extremely complex mathematics.

Rationality and emotional resilience work the same way. These are neural connections that can be strengthened. Whatever you are doing any time, you are physically modifying your brain to become better at it. Since this is such a foundational mechanism of the brain, being self-aware can greatly enrich our life experience.

Part 1: Social Neuroscience Specific neurons and neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, trigger a defensive state when we feel that our thoughts have to be protected from the influence of others. If we are then confronted with differences in opinion, the chemicals that are released in the brain are the same ones that try to ensure our survival in dangerous situations. In this defensive state, the more primitive part of the brain interferes with rational thinking and the limbic system can knock out most of our working memory, physically causing “narrow-mindedness”. We see this in the politics of fear, in the strategy of poker players or simply when someone is stubborn in a discussion. No matter how valuable an idea is, the brain has trouble processing it when it is in such a state. On a neural level it reacts as if we`re being threatened, even if this threat comes from harmless opinions or facts that we may otherwise find helpful and could rationally agree with. But when we express ourselves and our views are appreciated, these “defense chemicals” decrease in the brain and dopamine neurotransmission activates the reward neurons, making us feel empowered and increasing our self-esteem. Our beliefs have a profound impact on our body chemistry, this is why placebos can be so effective.

Self-esteem or self-belief is closely linked to the neurotransmitter serotonin. When the lack of it takes on severe proportions, it often leads to depression, self-destructive behavior or even suicide. Social validation increases the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain and allows us to let go of emotional fixations and become self-aware more easily. 

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Part 2: Mirror Neurons & Consciousness Social psychology often looks at the basic human need to fit in and calls this the normative social influence”. When we grow up our moral and ethical compass is almost entirely forged by our environment, so our actions are often a result of the validation we get from society. But new developments in neuroscience are giving us a better understanding of culture and identity.

Recent neurological research has confirmed the existence of empathetic mirror neurons. When we experience an emotion or perform an action, specific neurons fire. But when we observe someone else performing this action or when we imagine it, many of the same neurons will fire again, as if we were performing the action ourselves. These empathy neurons connect us to other people, allowing us to feel what others feel. And since these neurons respond to our imagination, we can experience emotional feedback from them as if it came from someone else. This system is what allows us to self-reflect.

“The mirror neuron does not know the difference between us and others”… and is the reason why we are so dependent of social validation and why we want to fit in. We are in a constant duality between how we see ourselves and how others see us. This can result in confusion in terms of identity and self-esteem. And brain scans show that we experience these negative emotions even before we are aware of them. But when we are self-aware, we can alter misplaced emotions because we control the thoughts that cause them.  This is a neurochemical consequence of how memories become labile when retrieved and how they are restored through protein synthesis.

Self-observing profoundly changes the way our brain works.  It activates the self-regulating neo-cortical regions which give us an incredible amount of control over our feelings. Every time we do this our rationality and emotional resilience are strengthened. When we`re not being self-aware, most of our thoughts and actions are impulsive and the idea that we are randomly reacting and not making conscious choices is instinctively frustrating. The brain resolves this by creating explanations for our behavior and physically rewriting it into our memories through memory reconsolidation, making us believe that we were in control of our actions. This is also called backward rationalization, and it can leave most of our negative emotions unresolved and ready to be triggered at any time. They become a constant fuel to our confusion as our brain will keep trying to justify why we behaved irrationally.

All this complex and almost schizophrenic subconscious behavior is the result of a vastly parallel distributed system in our brain. There is no specific center of consciousness, the appearance of a unity is, in fact, each of these separate circuits being enabled and being expressed at one particular moment in time. Our experiences are constantly changing our neural connections, physically altering the parallel system that is our consciousness. Direct modifications to this can have surreal consequences that bring into question what and where consciousness really is.

If your left cerebral hemisphere were to be disconnected from the right, as is the case in spit-brain patients, you would normally still be able to talk and think from the left hemisphere while your right hemisphere would have very limited cognitive capacities. Your left brain will not miss the right part, even though this profoundly changes your perception. One consequence of this is that you can no longer describe the right half of someone`s face. But you`ll never mention it, you`ll never see it as a problem or even realize that something has changed. Since this affects more than just your perception of the real world and also applies to your mental images, it is not just a sensory problem but a functional change in your consciousness.

Part 3:  God is in neurons Each neuron has a voltage which can change when ions flow in our of the cell. Once a neuron voltage has reached a certain level, it will fire an electrical signal to other cells, which will repeat the process. When many neurons fire at the same time, we can measure these changes in the form of a wave. Brainwaves underpin almost everything going on in our minds, including memory, attention and even intelligence. As they oscillate at different frequencies, they get classified in bands, such as alpha, theta and gamma. Each are associated which different tasks. Brainwaves allow braincells to tune in to the frequency corresponding to their particular task, while ignoring irrelevant signals, similar to how a radio homes in on different waves to pick up radio stations.

The transfer of information between neurons becomes optimal when their activity is synchronized. This is the same reason why we experience cognitive dissonance, the frustration caused by simultaneously holding two contradictory ideas. Will is merely the drive to reduce dissonance between each of our active neural circuits. Evolution can be seen as the same process, where nature tries to adapt or “resonate” with its environment. By doing so, it evolved to a point where it became self-aware and began to ponder its own existence. When a person faces the paradox of wanting purpose while thinking that human existence is meaningless, cognitive dissonance occurs. Throughout history this has led many to reach for spiritual and religious guidance, challenging science, as it failed to give answers to existential questions, such as “Why or what am I?” 

Part 4: I am Athene “The mirror neuron does not know the difference between it and others”. The left cerebral hemisphere is largely responsible for creating a coherent belief system, in order to maintain a sense of continuity towards our lives. New experiences get folded into the per-existing belief system. When they don`t fit, they are simply denied. Counter-balancing this is the right cerebral hemisphere, which has the opposite tendency. Whereas the left hemisphere tries to preserve the model, the right hemisphere is constantly challenging the status quo. When the discrepant anomalies become too large, the right hemisphere forces a revision in our world view. However, when our beliefs are too strong, the right hemisphere may succeed in overriding our denial.

This can create a profound confusion when mirroring others. When the neural connections that physically define our belief system are not strongly developed or active, then our consciousness, the unity of all the separate active circuits at that moment, may consist mainly of activity relates to our mirror neurons. Just as when we experience hunger, our consciousness consists mostly of other neural interactions for consuming food. This is not the result of some core  “self” giving commands to different  cerebral areas. All the different parts of the brain become active and inactive and interact without a core. Just as pixels on a screen can express themselves as a recognizable image when in unity, the convergence of neural interaction expresses itself as consciousness.

At every moment we are in fact a different image. A different entity when mirroring, when hungry, when watching this video. Every second we become different persons as we go through different states. When we use our mirror neurons to look at ourselves, we may construct the idea of identity. But if we do this our scientific understandings, we see something completely different. The neural synergies that produce our oscillating consciousness go far beyond our own neurons. We are equally the result of cerebral hemispheres interacting electrochemically, as we are of the senses connecting our neurons to other neurons in our environment.

Nothing is external. This is not a hypothetical philosophy, it is the basic property of mirror neurons, which allow us to understand ourselves through others. Seeing this neural activity as your own, while excluding the environment, would be a misconception. Our superorganismal features are also reflected in evolution, where  our survival as primates relied on our collective abilities. Over time, the neocortical regions evolved to permit the modulation of primitive instincts and the overriding of hedonistic impulses for the benefit of the group. Our selfish genes have come to promote reciprocal social behaviors in superorganismal structures, effectively discarding the notion of “survival of the fittest”.

The brain`s neural activity resonates most coherently when there is no dissonance between these advanced new cerebral regions and the older more primitive ones. What we traditionally call “selfish tendencies” is only a narrow interpretation of what self-serving behavior entrails, wherein human characteristics are perceived through the flawed paradigm of identity… instead of through a scientific view on what we are: a momentary expression of an ever-changing unity with no center.

The psychological consequences of this as an objective belief system allow self-awareness without attachment to the imagined self, causing dramatic increases in mental clarity, social conscience, self-regulation and what`s often described as “being in the moment”.

The common cultural belief has mostly been that we a narrative, a diachronic view on our life, to establish moral values. But with our current understanding of the empathic and social nature of the brain, we now know that scientific view, with no attachment to our identity or “story”, yields a far more accurate, meaningful  and ethical paradigm than our anecdotal values. This is logical, since our traditional tendency to define ourselves as imaginary individualistic constants neurally wires and designs the brain towards dysfunctional cognitive processes, such as compulsive labeling and the psychological need to impose expectations. Practical labeling underpins all forms of interactions in our lives. But by psychologically labeling the self as internal and the environment as external, we constrain our own neurochemical processes and experience a deluded disconnection.

Growth and its evolutionary side-effects, such as happiness and fulfillment, are stimulated when we are not being labeled in our interactions. We may have many different views and disagree with one another in practical terms, but interactions that nevertheless accept us for who we are, without judgment, are neuropsychological catalysts that wire the human brain to acknowledge others and accept rationally verified belief systems without dissonance. Stimulating this type of neural activity and interaction alleviates the need for distraction or entertainment and creates cycles of constructive behavior in our environment.

Sociologists have established that phenomena such as obesity and smoking, emotions and ideas, spread and ripple through society in much the same way that electric  signals of neurons are transferred when their activity is synchronized.

We are a global network of neurochemical reactions. And the self-amplifying cycle of acceptance and acknowledgment, sustained by the daily choices in our interactions, is the chain-reaction that will ultimately define our collective ability to overcome imagined differences and look at life in the grand scheme of things. 

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Still from a #tagtool session. Art is not a crime... pass it on!

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So many dimensions

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Screencap of one of my live video sets, yesterday at Artisan's Asylum Open Studios.  

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Staggering Beauty

http://www.staggeringbeauty.com