January 13, 2008

HEALING CHANGE

January 13, 2008/ Doug.E.Barr

Years ago one of our ancestors, probably and most appropriately a woman, questioned the meaning of life. She asked "Why am I?", and gave birth to humanity. Her man most likely provided the answer because being a man he already knew everything there was to know about life. His answer though, was different from all the other answers he had ever given. It was certainly obvious why hungry predators were avoided and why particular plants weren't eaten; but the answer to “Why am I?” was difficult to grasp. After chasing it around his mind for awhile the man became so sure his answer was right he shared it with a friend. The friend saw things differently however, and humanity was divided.

They began arguing about the answer and before long the former friends were enemies. Eventually what began as a fight over an answer progressed into conflict over aspects of life increasingly removed from the answer. The argument never was settled so in the years between then and now this same process was repeated many times with successive answers. The consequences are Judaism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, their thousands of recognizable, variously rigorous, religious/philosophical offspring and literally billions of misinterpretations, one for each of us. Each division is cut in the face of humanity.

They are life threatening; but if we care and if it is not too late, a simple change will heal the wounds. All each of us has to do is accept the fact that in the traditional sense there is no answer to “the last why”. Granted, given our history of trying to fill that void, releasing our 'philosophies' will be most difficult. Still, if we don’t make this healing change we will continue to cut humanity into parts until we self-destruct. If we do accept that there is no answer to “the last why” we will stop trying to fill the void under it; and this unnatural activity will be replaced by our innate natural activity of reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to God. With this “ideal reaction to the void” we will change courses from our present heading toward certain self-destruction; and return to the one that leads to self-realization, where we might discover why.

Barack Obama: professing change

THE LAST WHY

The explanation of life and related writings.

02/02/24

INTRODUCTION
Like everyone, I inherited an existence. Mine collapsed circa 1970 while I was at McMaster U, Hamilton, ON, Canada, getting a BA(math) and B. Phys Ed, so I could teach. While sorting through the rubble of my life I noticed, though not as pervasive as it is today, a continuum of varied and increasing conflict permeating our existence. I wondered why.

Though wondering for myself I thought I should find the reason for conflict before a student I might teach asked me. I couldn’t deduce the reason with math; nor did I think I found it in the 5 major religions and their thousands of offspring, or in the 11 volume history of philosophy I skimmed for electives.

So besides my formal degrees, I graduated with a major degree of motivation to find before I taught, the reason for conflict. I never taught. By the time I discovered the answer to why increasing conflict pervades our existence, I’d become, with the help of my brother, a self-employed carpenter.

I tried and failed to share the answer at least three times and each time I vowed to quit trying. The last was in 1998 when a friend of a friend, a philosophy professor, wished me good luck on other projects. To help keep my last vow I started an addition to my house. I received even more help in 2000 when I began caring for my parents.

But then, when my father died in 2004 I was motivated to try sharing my analysis one more time before I died. I was still thinking of a hard copy when a friend suggested I publish on a website. I’d never heard of websites nor could I type but with more help from my Mother I bought a computer, learned to type, and with expert help, created a website.

I first thought I’d bury the reason for conflict in an essay. But having already experienced web attention deficit disorder I decided to highlight the essence of it in my website logo and add context with blog posts.

Since there is no answer to “Why am I?”, attempts to answer it, such as the myriad religions and philosophies I skimmed, and a variety of other responses I found, are tries to fill the void. Though we can mix them, some may be similar and even have identical names, because we direct them to the void within us, our tries are all opposed and so cause conflict to the extent of our belief in them.

But, conflict is not inevitable. We can diminish it and resulting death to the degree we empty the void. Now, if we choose to empty the void, our lives are not then devoid of activity, on the contrary! Because it is essential, we each possess some remnant of “reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to Nature’s God”, the natural activity that creates and tries to maintain all life.

So, even though in the 200k years since the birth of humanity we have replaced almost all our inherited natural activity with the human made unnatural, self-destructive activity of trying to fill the void, if we choose to empty the void, the remnants of our natural, self-creative activity will at least refill our lives and possibly answer “Why am I?”

I have been trying share these basic facts of life for a few years by advertising. Last year (2023) I bought 8 million page views with half the value of my home, without effect; but this time I won’t quit. The warnings about fatal climate change by hundreds of climate scientists over many more years have also been ignored.

However, I do have to reduce my advertising. If it is too late to prevent it, I’ll need a place to live where I can watch the increasing conflict within us, between us and with Nature, causing at least the death of us and maybe all of Nature, possibly even before I’d have died in peace.

If you feel moved to help me share these facts you can by using the share icon at the end of any post, notably my most recent piece of rhymed reason, “Analyzing Conflict”, or any other way of sharing. If you also click on the like icon you will see an explosion of hearts, an expression of my gratitude. 🙏 Doug E Barr.

Read: Nature’s Nutritional Ideal

Part 1. Nature’s ideal diet: It protected our predecessors from disease from conception to the birth of humanity when they realized the capacity to choose. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of individuals chose to ignore ’Her’ ideal and thus, our increasing disease.

Part 2. Nature’s ideal life: It protected our predecessors from conflict until the birth of humanity. It can still protect us but over the millennia increasing numbers of individuals chose to ignore ‘Her’ ideal and thus, our increasing conflict.

Part 3. The integration of parts 1 and 2

Part 4. Existential risks: They are the result of our ancestors increasingly choosing to ignore Nature’s nutritional ideal. They may be reduced by expanding our mental capacity beyond what was realized at the birth of humanity. It would only take an instant, but the time we have to make the necessary choice is quickly running out.

Part 5. Appendix: Mostly diet related math that may have caused the mathematically challenged to quit reading in the middle of Part 1.