Life is full of choices at times. Sometimes we feel as if we have no choice because we are forced to do something. But generally, most societies do allow some degree of choice. In the West, choice is directly tied to the concept of human rights.
Now the quality of our choices is pretty diverse. There are Easy Choices, Hard to See Choices, and Hard to Choose Choices.
The Easy Choices are those that have clear consequences. A good choice would be something that creates a positive outcome while a bad choice would create a negative outcome. Few people would intentionally make choices that have negative consequences for themselves.
The Hard to See Choices are those that have long term consequences that we are unaware of. The nuclear disaster in Japan is a great example of this. Because human beings are so predisposed to thinking short term, they are guilty of making short term choices and ignore the long term consequences. If the company officials did a long term evaluation of building nuclear plants near oceans and fault lines, perhaps they would not have proceeded as they did. Maybe they still would have, believing the long term risk is not so bad. The problem with these Hard to See choices is that we don’t know or understand the consequence of our actions because it might be a generation or two into the future that the effects will be felt.
But both the Easy and Hard to See Choices are about hindsight working. It might take a bit of deductive work, but generally we can learn from and improve our choices to make for a better outcome.
The Hard To Choose Choices are the crux of this blog post. They are the ongoing dilemma that bedevils the human condition. They represent the dilemma about choosing between the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils. Here are some examples:
Time vs Money
General Knowledge vs Specialist Knowledge
Being Happy vs Being Right
Freedom vs Security
Justice vs Peace
Risk vs Reward
Lets take the first dilemma to illustrate the difficulty of making choices. We all want money because it gives us greater control over our lives. The more money you have, the more different choices you will have available to you. Now time is something that we have no control over. We can’t control how fast time travels past us, we have some limited control over how many years we will live, and about the only thing we can control is how we spend our energy during the time we have left on this planet. Yet in the business world there is this constant dilemma between these two ‘goods’. How do we get the greatest return on our investment? This is determine in great part on the time frame. If you got a 10% return over 10 years, that is only 1% a year, but a 10% over 6 months is a 20% return.
It is these dilemmas that challenge our judgment and intelligence. It belies the absurdity of the human condition. We all want justice and want peace, yet they actually run counter to each other at times. The same thing happens with the other examples listed such as Security vs Freedom, etc. Combine these dilemmas with the Hard to See Choices and its little wonder we make as many mistakes as we do.
I have come across a series of books influenced by Carl Jung and it has me looking differently at personality and who we are.
Carl Jung adopted the notion that there are layers to our personality. Perhaps if you asked him the question ‘Who Are You?’ he would have responded that we are complicated and have layers, like an onion.
The first layer is the public persona that represents all of the material things associated with us such as our titles, our possessions, our associations, and our accomplishments. This stuff is always being accumulated or lost or moved around. Its the crassest level of who ‘you’ are.
The layer below that is the private persona that is the collection of physical, sociological, psychological, and metaphysical elements that create your time/space perspective. This layer guides your way of interacting with the world, but is also dynamically changing. Its the personality level of who ‘you’ are.
But there is also the level below known as the psyche level which is even more fluid and subtle. At this layer of who ‘you’ are we would find feelings, emotions, intuitions, reactions that you experience but generally cannot articulate. It is all very gut-level feeling. At this level it becomes possible for an intuitive connection to what we really are and realize our interconnectedness with others. At this level, we can connect to the ‘Collective Unconsciousness’ through dreams and archetypes.
I believe that at these lowest layers we eventually arrive at the revelation that other beings are more important that you.
The ‘you’ then takes on a relevancy only because it is the only tool you can directly work with. As much as everyone else is more important, you can only demonstrate this through the actions you take. The ‘YOU’ becomes a tool and instead of being a term, it now becomes an acronym. Y-O-U can now stand for:
Y – Yielding
O – Openness
U – Understanding
Being ‘Y-O-U’ is not just about owning wealth, status, personality, dreams, or a heritage. Being ‘Y-O-U’ is also about radical transformation to be more yielding, more open, and more understanding.
I have worked in health care for the past fifteen years. I have seen at least over a thousand clients and as a professional case manager, my job is to help facilitate a portion of their care.
It recently occurred to me that despite the vast array and variety of diseases, accidents, and disabilities these individuals may have what appears to be five general / macro methods that sickness and disability is visited upon us.
1) We are born with it through our genetics such as Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic Fibrosis, etc.
2) We suffer an unfortunate physical event such an Accident, Assault, or Attack. It could be a car accident, an injury suffered at birth like Cerebral Palsy, or we could be attacked and injured by a mugger.
3) We suffer a random or complex microbe event that attacks us such as Bacteria, Virus, or Spore.
4) We suffer from a confused immunity system such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, or Lupus.
5) We self inflict our own unhappiness and injury such as through a failed suicide attempt, alcoholism, smoking, etc.
So what is the point of sharing something so depressing? I am not sure, but it just seemed interesting to me, and maybe it will be interesting to somebody else out there. Maybe by seeing that there are macro families of things that make us sick and disabled, we can see new connections that may lead to ways to better cope with what we suffer with.
The next song on the Parade is by a pioneer of Electronic music called Tangerine Dream. They are from Berlin, Germany.
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member. Drummer and composer Klaus Schulze was briefly a member of an early lineup, but the most stable version of the group, during their influential mid-1970s period, was as a keyboard trio with Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann. Early in the 1980s, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann, and this lineup, too, was stable and extremely productive.
Tangerine Dream consisted of:
Edgar Froese (guitar, bass, organ, Mellotron, piano, percussive objects, gong, Moog, synthesizers, string ensemble, sequencers, electronics, computer, drum programming, drums, harmonica, vocals, accordion), Volker Hombach (saxophone, flute, viola, 1967-69), Kurt Herkenberg (bass, 1967-69), Lanse Hapshash (drums, 1967-69), Charlie Prince (vocals, 1967-69), Sven-Ike Johansson (drums, 1969), Steve Jolliffe (vocals, flutes, horns, clarinet, clavinet, synthesizers, piano, lyricon, 1969, 1977-78), Klaus Schulze (drums, percussive objects, 1969-70, 1973), Conrad Schnitzler (cello, violin, guitar, 1969-70), Christopher Franke (percussion, lotos flute, zither, synthesizer, cymbals, electronic percussion, sequencers, Mellotron, harpsichord, gong, piano, 1971-89), Steve Schroyder (organ, vocals, 1971-72), Peter Baumann (synthesizer, organ, electric piano, vibraphone, 1972-77), Michael Hoenig (keyboards, 1975), Klaus Kr?ger (drums, percussion, 1977-78), Johannes Schmoelling (keyboards, electronics, synthesizers, computer, sequencer, drum programming, 1979-85), Paul Haslinger (keyboards, guitar, Chapman Stick, drums, 1986-90), Jerome Froese (guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion, 1989-2006), Linda Spa (saxophone, horns, keyboards, 1991-present), Thorsten Quaeschning (keyboards, 2005-present)
They were formed in 1967 and had a pivotal role in the development of Krautrock.
Force Majeure (Except) is a song of many personalities. It possesses an ethereal beginning which is otherwordly, but then rises to a new level that inspires visions of Close Encounters. The multiple synths intertwine with each other as they take this epic song through various bridges and passages. Its perfect music for thinking about endless space or towering spires. A song well named with its possessed majesty and vision.
Sorry, but the sound in the YouTube video has lots of hiss in spots but its the only full length version of the song there.
What can one say about the earthquake and tsunami that has hit Japan? Very little. It is all very humbling and scary to witness the raw death-dealing power of the planetary body that is supposed to house and sustain us.
What will happen next? We will see more earthquakes because that is the way of the Earth. We can also be assured that various marketers and religious leaders will find a cynical way to exploit our fear and questions to their own benefit. There are already a slew of books talking about 2012 being some kind of a apocalyptic date. (I had to chuckle as I was browsing these kinds of books at a local store and along side the various 2012 books was one that talked about the end of the world being in 2009). :-p
For the record, here is a list of all recorded fatal earthquakes. It proves that while the Earth gives us life, it is also a ruthless betrayer. We are just guests in its home and the host is erratic and prone to fits. Earthlings beware.
