Retribution

ret·ri·bu·tion

noun

• 1 : recompense, reward
• 2 : the dispensing or receiving of reward or punishment especially in the hereafter
• 3 : something given or exacted in recompense; especially: punishment

Now Maria, why did you bring this topic to the LBC?  Oh, wait, it has as the first definition as a positive note, recompense or reward, not the way I usually think of it.  I usually think of it more like the 3rd entry and sometimes like the 2nd.  So, let's see what my fevered brain can reward me with ...

I used to think of the afterlife as somewhat a reward for a good life or punishment for a bad one.  I was young and life progresses in stages; as I experienced more I was much less inclined to view the "hereafter" this way.

Instead, I progressed to a belief in karma, kind of a more immediate and comprehensive understanding of moral cause and effect.  It made sense to me that the good and bad you did was directly connected with a result.  It still does, in a way!  However, I don't think of it in terms of karma as most people use it.  I think our beliefs themselves are the causative agent.

Life has these ladders of development for everyone.  I am not preaching or telling you that I am right.  What I am saying is that understandings and philosophies grow with life experience and our choices.  Personally, I find retribution to be emotionally tempting at times, but overall a poor choice of focus.  It doesn't bring back loss and the desire for it is only evidence of an internal struggle that someone is losing with reality.

I don't castigate anyone for wanting it unless it leads to something destructive aimed at another.  It might come in the form of terrorism or war.  It might come in the form of spousal abuse.  It might come in the form of cheating or theft for personal gain.  It might come in the form of excessive litigation.

Whatever its form, I'm sure that we can do better.  Have the ladders of life experience led anyone else out there to a similar conclusion like mine?

Mobile Telephony

I'm writing this on the close cousin of my iPhone, my iPad.  There are advantages, but ... my friend Ramana was right to make this a topic for the Loose Blogger Consortium.  And, here's my take ...

My son has an iPhone.  My daughter has an iPhone.  Almost all the people I know have a mobile telephone.  So, we can always be in touch.  Too much in touch.

The electronic leash was apparent at my granddaughter's soccer match last Saturday, for her dad was on the sidelines with a conspicuous phone given him by the company he works for.  He is now totally in charge of all the plumbing of a major hospital wing construction here in the Bay Area.  It is the reward for responsibility and competence, the electronic leash!

It makes no sense in this day and age to not confer it upon him.  He must immediately respond if something springs a leak, for literally millions of dollars are at stake.  He has moved into the rarified atmosphere that used to be occupied only by doctors with their pagers in earlier times.  He has become the attached stopper, the one who handles the emergencies no one else is outfitted for.  He is like the President, always followed with the ultimate red emergency phone, the phone used only in the time that the world was trying to find an exit!

So, one would think he would be the easiest person in the world to reach by good old dad and mom, right?  I mean, in the old days you had to rely upon someone actually being home to reach them, but if they were, you knew they would answer the phone.  It was one of the rules of life: if the phone rings, you answer.

Ah, the irony!  If the phone is always on you, if you are tied to it, there is only one possible escape from it. You don't answer!  So, continuous availability yields NO availability.

Come on, kid!  Answer!

My Greatest Fear

What was Delirious thinking bringing this topic to us?  You know it would be a tough one.  Oh, wait, answer my own question!

Anyway, I have a lot of local fears, the fears of the body, the fears that any creature aware of danger and mortality has.  I fear falling when I lean precariously from a great height.  I fear dying painfully.  These are normal fears of the body.

They aren't my greatest fear, though.  My greatest fear is not so immediate and neither do I think it will happen.  Still, it is the driving force of my life.  So let me step back and explain it.

Like Ramana, I believe in sychronicity.  I believe it is an indicator of meaning in a life, an indicator that connected events tell a story, much as a novel does.  If it has meaning, it means that one is born to a meaning, to a purpose, to a life task.

My biggest fear is to miss the point of my life, to live it only to find on the other side that I was born to do something that I simply didn't perceive or was too lazy or too cowardly to carry out.

I really don't want that to happen.  Really!

Wonder what the other characters of the Loose Bloggers Consortium fear.  Click them on the right side of the page and go check them out!

Funny!  But Wrong

It feels good, LOL.  But it's a bit like saying that I have a list of people that gravity didn't hold down.  Some things don't miss!

Ego

I suggested this topic to the LBC sometime way back when.  I really don’t know what my ego had in mind back then, but let’s see where it goes right now and where the other members of the Loose Blogger Consortium take it.  They are listed on the right hand side of the page where you can simply click, go and be delighted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to Freud, the ego is part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, the superego and reality.

- Kendra Cherry

Ahhh, science.  We lose perspective on it’s observations in a multitude of ways and one of the most dangerous ways is in taking its descriptions as primarily real.  As Einstein said when a colleague challenge an assertion that he made with, “That can’t be, it violates the laws of nature!”, he replied that nature has no laws, only physicists have laws.

In other words, a scientist tries to make observations of reality in a disciplined and empirical manner (as much as possible) and then describes it in a way that should be reproducible.  Each description is subject to change as it is found to not be wholly consistent with new observations.  The description is not to be confused with reality itself.

So the ego is what?  It is a description, quite a useful description in many settings.  But, it is nothing more than a description and there are times when it is a limiting description.  Science at all levels is being forced to come to grips with the idea that reality isn’t something separate from our consciousness but rather a part of the tapestry of consciousness itself.

While new descriptions will be woven into that tapestry over what we perceive as time, meditation can remove all descriptions momentarily.  Then, the iceberg above simply melts into the sea of being.  The ego, which was simply a construct to begin with, is gone.

Ahhh.