It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Ignoramuses on the rampage - by Nick van der Leek

Take a cursory look at the headlines right now. Here's a snapshot. Oil prices back at industry crunch level - $80. Lots of talk of recovery, stock markets 'in the black'. Our local JSE jumped up on January 4 'following US sentiment'. The world's tallest building was unveiled in Dubai, over 8oo metres high, but some talk about naming it after a rich Sheik that is helping to pay for a national bailout of Dubai. In the Northern Hemisphere, right now, there's a big freeze going on. Huge amounts of snow and icy weather spanning the Eastern USA, Europe [including southern England and Germany] and large swathes of Asia - from China to Korea. This also follows a few short weeks after some or other conference in Copenhagen - what was it again?

You can look at all the bulletins and either see irony, or, if you're looking carefully enough, you'll notice massive schizophrenia. Perhaps we are all so enamoured by technology and the media that we struggle to think for ourselves. Here's an example. This is an article commenting on South African president Jacob Zuma, who has just married his fifth wife, and is engaged to a sixth [he has 18 children]:

The issue of polygamy is tricky. Quite frankly, I don't really know where I stand...And as my father always used to say, it's a brave man who gets involved in other people's marriages.

The writer of this tripe is Stephen Grootes, who calls himself an Eyewitness Reporter. Really Stephen? And the publisher of this tripe describe their publishing mission as follows:

Here's another promise: we won't ever waste your time. We don't let algorithms decide what is important and what is not. Our journalists and editors are humans, and some of the best and most experienced ones around at that. They've spent decades refining the craft and we think they're pretty good at it.

I spent a little time thinking about polygamy in the South African context, and I did a little research. South Africa has the world's largest AIDS population by a fucking massive margin. In 2007 it was estimated that 5.7 million people are living with [and will die of AIDS]. 950 people die of AIDS every day in South Africa, a horrifying 350 000 a year. Yet when the useless Health Minister died, a woman who denied that HIV causes AIDS, her political pals rushed to honor her, and flags were flown at half mast.
The Prez is entitled to follow African traditions of course, all things being normal. But they aren't. Far from it. Like I said, South Africa's got the world's largest AIDS population at 5.7 million. They're not a few hundred thousand ahead in this race either. They're not a million ahead. They're 3.1 million ahead of the next country, Nigeria. Nigeria has a population of 150 million, 3 times as many people as South Africa. On the heels of Nigeria is India, a country with a population of over a billion, in other words, twenty times more people than South Africa.

So we have a pretty huge problem on our hands. 5.7 million people with AIDS is 11% of the population. That's a lot. On television you'll occasionally see advertisements encouraging people to stick to one partner at a time. Funny thing that, advertisements telling us one thing, and gus like Grootes saying: Quite frankly, I don't really know where I stand.
Grootes of course, isn't the only poepol out there. He's a white poepol, but you'd be horrified to see the black tweeters rushing to malign a radio presenter who made some nasty remarks about the now dead minister of health. South Africans don't have a clue where they stand. And you have sports stars like Ryk Neethling and Roland Schoeman proudly - but stupidly - supporting a country that doesn't really support them. Ryk received endorsements through modelling, not for his swimming. Roland will probably rue the millions lost as we go deeper into a permanent recession.

My question to South Africans is what the fuck are you so proud of? INVICTUS about sums up what I once loved about this country - Mandela and his dream for all South Africans. And the Springboks, not just the rugby team, but the excellence we've seen from a lot of world class athletes in spite of very little money and support, and in the face of constant distractions, politicking and racial opportunism in what should be a farce free environment. INVICTUS also shows how much politicians since Mandela have fucked up his original and genial vision for this country.

By the way, life expectancy in South Africa ranks 209 in the world, out of 224 countries [and Swaziland, bordering this country, is last, with Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe sitting in those bottom rungs]. We have a death rate of 17 per 1000, which is the 12th highest in the world. We have some of the world's worst crime statistics [50 murders a day] and one of the worst records of violence against women and children. South Africa is also one of the world's top 5 carbon dioxide emitters per capita, with SASOL's Secunda plant smoke plumes visible from space.

South Africans are in major denial - but perhaps they have to be given they're living through a holocaust. In a few years people will look back and consider the entropy of these people and gag. With all the information we had we still elected a President with 6 wives...it says more about our collective stupidity than the President.

Another victim of his own vanity, his own greedy pursuit of...well...all that he wants...is Tiger Woods. He is more iconic of our time than the 9/11 attacks. This idea that we can lie to the world and our wife, and lead a second life entirely dedicated to satisfying an appetite. It's not Tiger's behaviour that's the problem, it is the schizophrenic acting involved, serving two masters - pretending to be one sort of person [in exchange for money and endorsements] while being another person in the shadows.

Whither the Weather

The Met Office has issued an Emergency Flash Warning for parts of southern England, the highest grade of warning, and one that doesn't appear very often. It covers the period between 8pm today and 11am on Wednesday for Dorset, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, west Berkshire and Wiltshire. 30 to 40cm of snow is possible here, which is between 12 and 16 inches.


I have heard it said before that in the decades ahead the most cited crisis will not be about energy or water or food prices or unemployment or nuclear fallout. It will be about the vast impact of Climate Change on global communities. We will try to treat the symptoms of this, flooding, droughts, storms, starvation, homelessness, pestilence etc but the source will be with us for a long time yet. And right now we still have no plans in place to turn the corner on our emissions. Which means the climate will take at least 30 years to stabilise after we make a decision we have not yet made.

The Source

Lately I have been reading an excellent book - THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, by Richard Dawkins. It is staggering to realise the large population of people who dispute the FACT of evolution in favor of the FICTION that is religion. This, I believe, is the heart of our darkness. We think we have the luxury of a choice, to believe in fairy tales and an idea that maketh man higher than all the other critters [because the Bible tells me so]. This idea of disconnection manifests in actual disconnection. From reality.

People may think they can live disconnected from reality, and many do. But nature isn't lenient, and will punish the weak - including the weak-minded. That punishment has begun. The flick AVATAR demonstrates to what extent we have realised our own culpability in our man-made malaise. We wish we could be another species. Or we wish for more.

Quite frankly, I don't really know where I stand. People like this are the core of the huge problem we've created. It's a failure to think at a time when what we ought to be doing is one simple thing: face facts.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Tiger, Bicycle Crashes and Contraction - by Nick van der Leek

I try to avoid salacious tabloid fodder on this site, so the coverage of Tiger Woods might raise a few eyebrows. Actually it's not voyeuristic fascination, or baying for blood. Tiger epitomises the same hubris we saw in the late Michael Jackson. It's a lot more than just a very talented performer caught with his trousers between his ankles. The meat of the story lies in the confluence of two things: great wealth and moral decay. Privilege appears to have clouded Tiger's sense of decency, but what's particularly evident is the deception, the dishonesty involved.

It will be interesting to see at what point his corporate sponsors cut and run. To the extent that they have stayed with him thus far demonstrates also the level of standards corporates have. I predict they will cut Tiger loose, because with a pornstar and a tally approaching double figures, Tiger has become the butt of talk show jokes. It is deserved when one looks at the sort of women he has associated with. The billionaire golfer consorting with a series of waitresses. Tacky.

In the moment he crashed his vehicle the Tiger brand house of cards began to teeter, and is now in the process of collapse. He has tried to hold it all together by paying his wife $5 million to stay married to him, an indictment in itself. What may save him is an appearance on Oprah, some tears, some honesty.

Bicycle crash

Fortunes can change in a second. I witnessed this personally yesterday morning, at around 5:20 cycling down Club Road with a bunch numbering in the 20's [the Illovo Group]. We'd gone through a few windy roads and on a section of smooth, straight tar, freewheeling down, a rider 10 metres ahead of me, for no obvious reason, suddenly fell off his bike and hit the tar road face first.
When I passed by it was obvious that it was a very bad injury. He was lying on his stomach, arms at his sides, face mashed into the road and pulpy blood, tomato sauce red, spilling out just above his eye socket.

I asked the other riders what happened, one said, 'I was just remarking how strong he and another rider were and then he fell.' His foot had slipped out of his pedal unexpectedly.
To my horror I recognised the rider as a fellow I'd raced against in the Free State. When I checked my bike sensor I saw we'd been riding at about 48km/h when the accident happened. Usually we go down this stretch at over 60km/h.

Five excruciating minutes later, the ambulance arrived. By then Bertus was making gurgly sounds, his body heaving, but not obviously compos mentis. One rider, was in tears. He made a few ineffectual attempts to move his limbs, but Jeremy made sure he remained in the position he was in and didn't move. He could have a broken neck, his skull might be held together by his helmet. The paramedic arrived and calmly provided oxygen. I noticed a line of blood drip out of his mouth. He was unable to open his eyes when the medic asked him to, and as I say, not able to say anything, but making small movements. Fortunately that awful gurgling of blood had stopped. I had suggested if it stops it would mean he had stopped breathing and we'd have to perform CPR.

Once the ambulance left all of us cycled back, spooked, shocked, scared. It wasn't inconceivable that he might be dead within the hour.
But the prognosis isn't too bad after all:

Jeremy Maccelari:
Alan did his X-ray diagnosis. He's fine, but rather damaged. He was on a ventilator for the night and in an induced coma. They will bring him around today. He has a broken jaw, nose and eye socket, a vertebra and bleeding on the brain. They are stabilising him and will operate on the face on Thursday. The prognosis is good...

The point of the above is to illustrate how suddenly and unexpectedly things can change dramatically. As we enter a new decade, 2010, the changes we face will be rigorous and multiplicitous.

Contraction

While the markets are talking recovery [expansion] yesterday's markets demonstrated that the economy is pedalling hot air. For every stock that went up two fell on the NYSE. FedEx, the bellwether of the global economy, rose, but two others, McDonald's and 3M, fell. Entire countries are emerging with serious debt or banking burdens. Greece. Dubai. Venezuela. Ireland. In addition we find ourselves in a curious set of quandaries. Markets fire up when the dollar weakens, but a weak dollar presents a mortal threat to the global financial system. But the dollar is too important to China to fail, so we're propping it up. But how is the US$meaningfully different from the Zim$? Both countries are printing money like crazy; how long can the USA keep up the ruse? How long can corporates pretend that their earnings are up, when the drivers of the economy, consumers, have taken a big hit.

The pillar of world finance, is credit. Are big companies able to make loans these days? Are banks in a position to provide them? More pertinently, do consumers have an appetite to buy cars and houses [both of which require loan financing]. In my opinion the contraction of property markets is one of the most severe punishments inflicted upon the banking sector. That source of revenue has been depleted, and covered over by bailouts, but once that bailout money is gone, and the bonuses have been paid, there's not going to be a second bailout.

In the same way bailout money is seen as an infinite gold nougat centred resource, so the interior of planet earth is considered filled with oil nougat. Infinite. It isn't. Some sobering surprises remain in store along the climate change front. The last decade has been the warmest on record, and changes are gathering momentum. Some new evidence shows that the transition to an ice age, related to melted polar ice shutting down the North Atlantic Drift Current, can take as short a time as two years, to mere months.

The lesson is this: massive change can happen quickly. The question is, can we adapt as quickly?

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Change your own reality - by Nick van der Leek

This week I'm going to offer some practical advice. If you're feeling overwhelmed emotionally, and need to manage your stress, what you need to do is recognise the parent/child construct in your own situation. The parent part of you - your inner you - needs to step forward. And the parent has got to say: "TIMEOUT".

It should be mentioned here that intuition is not a feeling. It's a creative thinking style. It's very visual, but it's thinking, not feeling. Intuition is valuable and insightful. What we're aiming to address here is that treadmill of feeling that traps you in a paradigm where you find you can't do anything, you cannot complete tasks, discipline, and willpower and particularly follow-through, are sadly lacking. As alluded to above, the first step is to recognise that this self-defeating process is underway, and to call a timeout on yourself.

That may not be enough but it is the first step. The next step brings about a psysiological response, which is what you're yearning for.

You want to feel differently, and if possible, just have a break from the episode you're in. Well, here's the answer.

What you do after taking the mental decision to have a timeout, is that you find a space where you can close your eyes. Close your eyes and move your eyes behind your closed lids from left to right, whilst looking in the direction of your jaw. Make approximately 24 swings [that's 24 in one direction, 48 pendulums in total]. And count them. You'll notice that very quickly your 'feeling-state' dissipates. Why? You have tricked your self into an REM state. Your brain then disconnects the feeling-aspect and allows you into a calm state of processing only. Try it. It works.

A third suggestion is that you project your thoughts, negativities, scenarios onto a best friend. Imagine that they have your thoughts, responses, ideas, actions. You will quickly see that these impressions are inappropriate, in fact not good enough if you value or respect yourself. It is easy to this when you project it onto another person.

What should then happen is that you begin to reject your self-imposed asylum, your ineffective feeling-thought paradigm. You then transition to performance, actions. This is how you change your own reality.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Somebody save me

Smallville is an interesting series. It's the longest running superhero series on television of all time. Smallville is slated to run a landmark 9 series in all. That's more than Batman (1966-1969), Lois and Clark (1992-1996), The Adventures of Superman (1951-1958), or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003).

Find out more about Smallville here.

You may think this in insignificant, but 9 series is essentially a decade's worth of television. Smallville started in October 16, 2001 and began its ninth season on September 25, 2009. So why is it so popular?
From MSNBC:

Some view new Superman as Christ figure
Both are heroes sent to earth by fathers to serve mankind

First there were the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Now, for many Christian moviegoers comes another gospel.

As the hype machine shifts into high gear for the upcoming release of “Superman Returns,” some are reading deeply into the film whose hero returns from a deathlike absence to play savior to the world.

“It is so on the nose that anyone who has not caught on that Superman is a Christ figure, you think, ‘Who else could it be referring to?”’ said Steve Skelton, who wrote a book examining parallels between Superman and Christ.

As one of society’s most enduring pop-culture icons, Superman has often been observed as more than just a man in tights.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who introduced Superman in 1938 in a comic book, were Jews who were inspired by the Old Testament story of Moses and the supernatural golem character from Jewish folklore.

The Christian allusions are recent innovations that compromise the integrity of the Superman myth, she said.

I find it fascinating that the annexing of Jewish lore [which resulted in Christianity] is mirrored here once again - where a story created by Jews gets hijacked by Christians - very effectively one might add, and the lore then gets reinforced, superimposed, strengthened, as it evolves. This is why the bible seems inexplicably perfect. Well, it's first draft was far from perfect, but it was refined over time by many writers [and now filmmakers]. So the story evolves, but the worldwide audience remain opposed to the generic idea of evolution. We prefer to place our bets on iconography. See, it's more personal, and thus it seems more relevant. And when something feels relevant we may impute some reality to it. Am I talking about Superman? No, another icon - Christianity.

“Superman Returns” director Bryan Singer said the notion of Superman as a messianic figure is simply another case of contemporary storytelling borrowing from ancient motifs.

Singer, who is Jewish, said his neighbors’ Christianity played a powerful role in the community where he grew up.

“These allegories are part of how you’re raised. They find their way into your work,” he said. “They become ingrained in your storytelling, in the same way that the origin story of Superman is very much the story of Moses.”

Where Jews see Moses, and Christians see Jesus, do atheists see Superman? It's simply a case of cultural outlets that describe your world view in a language, and with cultural associations familiar to you. It's all true, from a particular cultural reference point, the values work and resonate, but is it factually true. [And even if it isn't, does it matter?] But what is the motive for using Christian allegory? Perhaps an altruistic motive aimed at evangelising audiences? Bettering them? Sorry, no.

“The way in which the Christian population can get behind a movie that they can agree with is a huge push financially,” said Skelton.

The motive for using Christian motifs is twofold:
- one, they are fucking effective
- two, they pay off financially [see above reason to find out why]

At the same time, Superman is fixed firmly enough in popular secular culture.

Which is exactly why the bible was so successful. A mishmash of tried and tested lores and myths, with some popular, modern touches. For example 'updating' the vitally important Sabbath from Saturday to the more pagan oriented Sunday. And Christmas, celebrated as a pagan festival but with a nod to Jesus. And of course the very male chauvinstic ten commandments [thy shall not covet thy neighbor's wife - meaning my wife, well what about coveting husbands] which is consistent with the entire chauvinism in the Bible where God is a father and son capable of giving birth - essentially - to himself. Jesus' not marrying is another popular adaptation, which is echoed - for the most part - by Clark in Smallville who is never in a fulfilling relationship [again, very Bruce Wayne], but Superman also remains single for much of his adventures in spite of his feelings for Mary Magdalene, er...I mean Lois Lane.

Even the repetition of consonants is worth noting. Jesus Christ essentially repeats the 'Ja' sound twice. To say 'Christ' is simply a slightly softer form of 'Ja'. So you have Jha-esus Cha-rist and Clark Kent, Lana Lang and Lois Lane, and Mary Magdelene and Simon of Cyrene, Pontius Pilate or Satan in lieu of the bald Lex Luthor. Jesus is from Nazareth, Clark is from Krypton. Jesus was born in a barn, in Smallville Clark lives on a farm. Jesus was born under a star, Superman was born out of a star.

And Smallville taps into this mythos that is core to the human condition. The idea that through some mystical superpower we can be saved from our ordinary troubles by something from out of this world. Really? In fact the theme music [from Remy Zero] is probably a central reason, one of a handful, supporting the success of the series:

I feel the wings have broken in your hands,
I feel the words unspoken inside…
And they pull you under,
And I will give you anything you want, oh
You are all I wanted,
All my dreams are fallin’ down,
Crawlin’ round and round and round

Somebody save me!
Let your warm hands break right through it,
Somebody save me,
I don’t care how you do it, just
Stay (with Me), stay
C’mon, I’ve been waiting for you,

You're not going to like hearing this, but the lyrics and the mythos of the story correspond in one vital sense. The narcissism involved in waiting for someone to save you, no matter how or why, whether it's deserved or not. While the Superman mythos is generally preserved in Smallville, Clark Kent nevertheless indulges in numerous fictional departures from the absolute honesty of his character. Of course one could argue that he doesn't deviate a lot. Over 9 series, Clark lies, murders, and goes rogue as a playboy. This is explained via the influence of Black Kryptonite, but whatever the excuse, it reflects the demands society makes on us to...well...lie. Even to ourselves.

Unlike Batman, the Superman mythos is meant to be pure, represented by vibrant colors. These symbolise solid virtues of honesty. In Smallville, Clark is troubled and secretive, a Batman trait.

Nevertheless, the original mythos has served Smallville well enough to last 9 series, and brand new characters like Chloe Sullivan - created for the series - have proved more enduring [and more endearing] than die-hard fans of the original are probably willing to admit. But what does all of this mean? Our fascination with the character who is secretly all-powerful speaks to our inner religious yearnings, for salvation, for escape from pain, suffering and death. And of course it confirms our suspicions that appearances aside, we are far greater than we appear. In some ways this is true, but in many, this is not so.

Probably one of the most fascinating, if divisive insights to be gained from the series, is the extent to which we're bewitched by stories. So long as a few fundamental parameters are observed, we're willing to believe almost anything. And I think one can make the case that what we believe and ideas we entertain, are essentially the same thing. That is why you can fill in an entire spectrum of fiction, starting from fairy tales, which are very powerful, viral creations, all the way through to classics, and then to the epics, which have a quasi-religious significance.

Take Superman. He's not from our world. He comes from the sky. His parents are not his parents. He protects the innocent and the weak. He's a saviour that cannot die. There are a bunch of films that share this mythos, from The Matrix [here the saviour is NEO], to Star Wars [which has an overt religious message] to the Lord of the Rings. Going further into antiquity, there are myths, and lores, idols, various legends and faiths [from Arthur to Robin Hood to Zeus]. There are literally thousands of individual faith systems for various tribes, from the Egyptians monotheism, to the more animistic and ritualistic faiths. By the way, animism is based on the idea that not only humans can have souls but animals too. Animism may further attribute souls to abstract concepts such as words, true names or metaphors in mythology. Even Hindusim - which survives today - maintains an ancient tradition that blood sacrifice earns fortune. Hence the current slaying of some 200 000 animals [pigs, chickens, ducks and what not] in the name of faith? Yes, faith and greed, and faith for greed and faith in greed.

My point in that if we have invented all these stories to amuse, inspire and entertain ourselves, why should the bible be any different? And of course it isn't. Well it is in the sense that it has this great amount of significance ascribed to it, organisations run in its name, but the same is true for Scientology, or the Harry Potter fanclub. Many are immune to seeing the same viral campaign at work in Smallville, as in the bible. A formula has been developed which summarises the 22 hero traits.

1. His mother is a royal virgin
2. His father is a king, and
3. Often a near relative of his mother, but
4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. He is reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth a attempt is made, often by his father, to kill him, but
7. He is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country.
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
13. Becomes king.
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and city.
18. He meets with a mysterious death,
19. Often at the top of a hill,
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. He has one or more holy sepulchers.

Jesus has some 19 of these traits, some like Oedipus have all of them, but Robin Hood, Luke Skywalker, Superman, John Connor and Jeanne d'Arc all have high numbers. If you want to write a bestseller, one that everyone will intuitively accept, endorse and support, this is it. It's endured through millenia and we have become programmed to respond to this tapestry of suggestion and metaphor.

So the question emerges, is Superman for real?

As to the truth of his powers, the fundamental question was posed by a TV reporter at Superman's first public appearance in S1: "Your guess is good as anybody's. True or false? Miracle or fraud? The answer is up to you. Man or myth". The same questions are asked about Jesus Christ.

Our susceptibility to these stories means that we're reluctant to deal with hard truths. Climate change is a boring and controversial topic. Actually, it's not as controversial as we'd like to believe. Right now there are 1000 year floods in England and Ireland, all time record temperatures in Australia [causing uncontrolled fire hazards] and icebergs running amok around New Zealand. There are other places experiencing change. California. South Africa.

Good storytellers are aware of our susceptibility, which is why Bryan Singer pressed the Superman-as-Christ theme in Superman Returns. In visuals Singer represented Superman hovering above the Earth, listening to people's thoughts and prayers.

You think it isn't intentional?

Time magazine wrote, “Earlier versions of Superman stressed the hero's humanity…The Singer version emphasizes his divinity…He is Earth's savior: Jesus Christ Superman.” However, certainly Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie stressed the parallels to Christ. Do you see your version as different or similar in that regard?

SINGER: It celebrates that notion. These stories are told in so many different ways. From Sunday School to pop culture…

But if you’re going to have lines like Marlon Brando saying, “I send them you—my only son.” And they’re being spoken with absolute seriousness, then when you carry it forward and you have him return after five years, face an immeasurable conflict and then… I mean, if you’re going to tell that story, you’ve got to tell it all the way. You’ve got scourging at the pillar, the spear of destiny, death, resurrection—it’s all there.

THE PIETA…

SKELTON: At the first of the movie, after Superman crashes back to Earth, he collapses into his mother’s arms. The scene recalls the Renaissance images of the dead Jesus in Mary’s arms.

SINGER: Yes. The night of shooting that scene, Eva, Brandon and myself knew it was a mother cradling her son, but certainly an aspect [was of Mary and Jesus]. There were certain key frames that were very special, important to me artistically, and that was one that was very much inspired by that image.

THE VILLAIN…

SKELTON: Just as Superman is a Christ figure, do you see Lex Luthor as a Lucifer figure?

SINGER: Yes. Because he doesn’t care. He just cares about land. And he muses about billions of people being drowned. But he’s very much the opposite of Superman…

SKELTON: Last question: in Entertainment Weekly recently, when asked if Superman was relevant, you said “Look around. Aren’t we crying out for him?” How are we crying out for this kind of a savior figure?

SINGER: I think people right now, more than ever have become, we’ve become a individual, selfish culture, at times…I think he represents that kind of character that can walk among us, but has a selfless side…And when there is so much bad happening, it’s very, very important to be able to look at a character, even if he is in tights [laughs] and say, Hey maybe I can be a good guy like that.

SKELTON: He’s the light in the darkness. He’s the light to show the way.

SINGER: “They can be a great people, Kal-El. They only lack the light to show the way.” He is that light. And that’s something he’s maintained for seventy years. He’s always been the good guy.

Now you might think Christianity is dead, or dying. A movie like this breathes life into the Christianity franchise, and vice versa. Because it's a formula that works. As long as we, as the human race, fail to grow up, we'll be looking outside of ourselves, ultimately, for rescue. And that propels us along a path where we will almost certainly have to be rescued. From ourselves. The good news is, when things are really really bad, there will always be stories to tell like this that fill us with hope. Of course, the implication is that we deserve to be saved fundamentally in spite of our narcissism. I think in the fullness of time this view will prove to be fundamentally flawed, defective. It may even spell the end of our species. Then again, whatever we may dream up, perhaps that is a reality worth avoiding, in fact, a reality worth raging against.

Whatever is the case, what is abundantly clear at the present moment, is that we are in increasingly dire need of saving. And if we do not save ourselves, what then?

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

What about a Content Management System for your brain? - by Nick van der Leek

These days we think a lot. And there's a lot to think about. We get bombarded with loaded messages throughout the day. These are in the things we read, in what we hear, in the chatter off the airwaves, and the internet. So we're exposed to a lot of content.

If you consider music as one medium, never in the history of human beings have we heard so many different songs in such a short space of time. Think of the iPod, that it can hold 1000 songs, and you can hear these on your way to work, whilst training in the gym, and if you're a lounge-bound teenager, all day [with no one to tell you to turn down the racket]. The point is, we're experiencing a peak not only in terms of music, but media in general. Let's call this aberration in our fortunes, Peak Media.

Peak Media informs Peak News, Peak Entertainment, Peak Celebrities, Peak TV, Peak Radio, Peak Advertising, Peak Publishing, Peak Blogging, Peak Everything Else.
What do we do with all this information? How to rig a bookshelf of the brain?

One guru suggested that when you buy magazines, you should rip out only the pages you find of use to you, file these, and throw the rest away. I'm going to offer a higher level of functioning strategy. How to content manage your thoughts.

First of all, imagine a cloud, and the cloud is called DECISIONS. Our decisions give rise to our self-confidence, and you can determine the quality of that confidence by harking back to the quality and motivations, the type of decisions you're making. Good decisions inform a healthy self confidence which builds towards the esteem we have for ourselves, and the way others see us [or esteem us].

But it all starts at a thought level. Before we make decisions we have thoughts. Either these thoughts are original thoughts, based on who we are, our gut, our inner creativity, soul-based in other words, or they are secondary thoughts that come from others expectations of us, and thoughts borne out of what we read, what we hear, the influences - in other words - of others. And these are secondary influences, even if they've come to feel primary. Even if we come to associate that clamour with who we are.

Gut thinking is based on love, self responsibility, knowing what we want, whether we can do it, and then doing it. Secondary thoughts are not our own. They're borne out of expectations, fear and doubt. Advertising tries to sell itself as gut thoughts, well, the most effective advertising. It tries to sell an image we believe in or want for ourselves. But it reasons that we should have these or must have these, whether or not we can have them. Sometimes we want these things - like a new toothbrush - because we're told to want them. In essence, secondary thinking is rooted in fear, doubt, or even anger. Expectations drive us in our decisions, we feel obligated to respond. It is the thoughts of others, things that we've read that give rise to our decisions.

Secondary thoughts over the long term lead to moodiness, frustration and irritability as we sense a disconnect, a lack of cohesion between our true selves and who we're becoming. In playing it safe we develop more and more regrets. Our stress levels rise, and our emotional reservoirs struggle to keep up. Eventually they deplete and depression sets in.

Gut instinct is based on love. For ourselves, affiliation for others, but goes beyond these. It is a positive step towards being responsible and realistic, but also true to our selves. Intuitively we know what we want. Intuitively we know how to respond. But at times we fail to implement these responses because of the manipulations of those around us.

To be truly effective, as a person, or a company, or even as a product, you have to be true to what you are. What you are and what you say you are also have to be the same thing.
The content of your thoughts is less important than knowing where these thoughts are coming from. The wellspring, in other words. If the wellspring is based on secondary thoughts, you can expect to remain ineffectual and frustrated. if the wellspring is based on the inner you, and you can begin to set boundaries between your thoughts and the expectations of others, the power of your decisions, and your self confidence can only increase.

The world faces its present difficulties today because we ignore our instincts on a massive scale. these instincts apply to self evident realities from energy to the environment to how we conduct ourselves ethically at work and at home. At its core, is the level of honesty. We love ourselves and each other, when we can do the work of being honest.

The world has chosen to base itself on expectations. The stock markets are based on a currency of expectation. Money is based on expectation, rather than true value. Much of our behaviour is based on conventional expectations, about what is a good job, what is an appearance that looks appropriate, what relationship suits our image. It's a faux landscape based on shoulds, musts and oughts. This is why brands have such tremendous power. Because we've come to believe that we should use this fragrance, we must consume a particular drink, we ought to socialise in a particular manner and say things in a particular way. And because so many people are caught up in this expectation vortex, it becomes self-reinforcing. That doesn't mean it is right, or real, simply that this is the structure of a game we have invented.

It is not a game anyone can win. Like computer games, you may take vicarious enjoyment in advancing to various levels, but in terms of reality, all you're learning to do is to delay real life. Delay playing yourself in the amphitheatre of reality. Is it any wonder that our troubles have piled up to the extent that they have? Because almost everyone is invested in playing games, anything except being honest about who we are and being connected to what the world is.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Above picture courtesy Casey van der Leek Snr.
In ‘Independence Day’ the world was something worth defending. In ‘Day After Tomorrow,’ the message was, ‘We’ll go down if we don’t stop what we’re doing,’ and in ‘2012,’ ‘We’re going down no matter what.’

I posted the above as a status update on Facebook and the consensus was an acceptance that we're going down. I guess this is because all of believe someone else is in control. That may be true, but ultimately, we do have a say over our own lives.

We can manage our own health, our own homes and maintain a holistic [balanced] approach to the world. And, of course, we can stand guard to what goes into our hearts. The temptation will be to vent, to be bitter and angry. Will this serve our communities, our families, or endanger them?

As far as I'm concerned, the most sensible approach we ought to have to modern times is the pursuit of health. Healthy eating, healthy living, healthy habits. When you care about yourself, you can begin to care about others, and the state of your own country, and the world. I don't believe we're in a place where we really care about ourselves beyond shallow vanities and consumerist impulses. Real caring is deeper, and more difficult. The discipline to lose weight, to not indulge every desire. The ability eventually, to look beyond ourselves, to look at others, and to listen to them, and to look to a world that cannot speak, but in its skies and from what can be read in the leaves and grasses we ought to know a deeper truth about our world.

We have four options.
To panic, to lash out: One soldier who attended the memorial said the mood at Fort Hood was turning from sadness to anger as soldiers learned more about Hasan's background.

To pretend it's business as usual: A total of 946,400 passenger cars were sold in China in October, up sharply from 538,500 units sold a year earlier.

To be endlessly distracted, to postpone reality indefinitely: Welcome to the ADD Generation

Or to fess up and face up, and mitigate our accumulating troubles.

The fourth option requires courage and discipline and the support of partners, families, communities. It's starting, slowly. You can be part of the solution by starting, today, to care about your health, and those around you, and then looking into the sky and into the neighborhoods and caring about what you see, or don't see. Enough to take action.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Mr. Coker: [to Bill] Most plants thrive on animal waste, but I'm afraid this mutation possesses an appetite for the animal itself. - from The Day of the Triffids

I'm going to see a therapist tomorrow. It's something new for me, but I think it's justified. Lately I've been finding the disconnect between my personal reality with 'The Other Reality' really large. I'm not sure what the solution is. It may be to dance. Or to go mad.

I think there is a lack of urgency in terms of our awareness. I believe many are aware of what is happening in the world, but we're in a denial/postponement phase. I also think we're too absorbed and distracted to be able to find a rational perspective. How does a drug addict move out of his experience and say: this isn't me, this isn't how I want to live?

The reality is that we're addicted in every area of our lives. Greed/consumption is an addiction, and the world's bankers are completely caught up in it. Why not? Never in the history of human beings has there been so much wealth that's been so easy to create [and destroy] but also, so easy to loot.
Here's more on this:
Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus

“What good does the City do?” Turner said in the debate at the 299-year-old St. Paul’s. “Trading firms have to understand that if their activities grow to an economically useless, or indeed in some cases positively harmful scale, lack of comprehension will turn to fury.”

If you think the ramblings on this blog are irrelevant, try reading the above article, which has a bunch of the UK's leading bankers, gathering in churches, trying to explain what they are doing and why they should be allowed to do it. That's unprecedented.

Our entire economic system is being re-evaluated, and I believe the time isn't far away when it will be dismantled or changed fundamentally. In other words, how we live and conduct ourselves is about to change. Fundamentally.

Over the past few days I had an interesting experience with a marketing agency. At some point in our discussions I had to say to them 'please don't sell bullshit to me, let's keep it real'. Of course the response was 'we're not doing that'. Then you go back and list the stuff they got wrong, the professional errors. Even when you can't convince someone intellectually, it's hard to change their self-interested perspective by showing them hard evidence.

It worries me that I may suffer from the same affliction. Is it narcissism? Is it hyperindividualism and intense self-interest.

I care about honesty and I care about our mutual interest. Maybe we justify what we do, by saying that, but not really living it. Maybe that's why these bankers go to church and say Christianity justifies my getting a $10 million bonus. Does it really, or is it just a half-sensible argument?

At the root of our problems is this. We're very good at lying to each other and ourselves.
Let the solution start with you and me.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Narcissism

I'll be deciding later today whether to throw in the towel. I already know what I must do, but, like Frodo, I'm reluctant to do it. What I must do is move out of a double-storey cottage where only one of me is staying. I'm loathe to do this because...well...because I'm lazy. Because I like living here. I like all this space. I like the area [other than the constant beep beep beep of mini bus taxis].
I realise that as soon as I leave I am acknowledging something quite humbling: that my standards of living are dropping, or contracting.

It is sheer lunacy, after having lost my job in September, to expect to be able to pay the sort of rent I'd anticipated my girlfriend [now ex] would be sharing. Now there's not one salary coming in, there's just so much freelance money here and the odd photo gig there.

If it's so clear that this chapter in my life is over, why am I not facing the music?
Because I think I'm more important than something as simple as reality. This is exactly the same problem going on in the rest of the world. We know we have to change our habits, how we live, what we consume. We know we must, but we don't want to do it until we're forced to. It probably will come down to that.

For some fascinating background on this topic, I suggest you read this:

I'd like to know what folks imagine we are recovering to. To a renewed orgy of credit-card spending? To yet another round of suburban expansion, with the boys in the yellow hard-hats driving stakes out in the sagebrush for another new thousand-unit pop-up "community?" For a next generation of super-cars built to look like medieval war wagons? That's the "hope" that our officials seem to pretend to offer. It's completely inconsistent with any reality-based trend-lines, by the way.
Read the rest here.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Knowing whether God is part of the equation or not is crucial to our future prospects.

I read an article recently about 32 new planets being discovered beyond our solar system, bring the total to 400. Most of these planets are huge, like 5 times the size of Saturn huge. The smallest are still 5 times the size of our planet. For reference, that means if you weigh 100kg on Earth, on these other giants it will feel like 500kg. So, none of these are alternatives.

When you watch the documentary EARTH, when you read about what astronauts say about being in space [and seeing a moon sized Earth, being able to hide it behind your thumb] and when you venture out of the city and go and have a look at nature up close...it is easy to be awed. It is an incredibly special planet, some scientists call it 'the lucky planet'. And there are a host of reasons why. The tilt of the axis [caused by a big meteor hit some eons back], our large moon [acting as shield] and the large oceans all contrive to create conditions that stimulate not just life, but an utterly dazzling array of competing life forms.

It is easy, in a way, to imagine in an infinite universe, that another Earth might exist. But for practical purposes, it is also easy and reasonable to assume that there isn't. We've certainly looked and found nothing to jump up and down about. Perhaps, a million light years away, there is another planet, but at those sort of distances, it wouldn't matter.
The point I am trying to get to is that when you realise how special the Earth is, even magical, this ball of life, perfect, fragile, beautiful, it is tempting to imagine there is a rhyme and a reason behind it. It's tempting to believe that God waved his wand and POP! Earth.


It's also a reassuring thought. Because if God isn't behind the creation of Earth, then Earth's fate hangs in the balance, quite literally. It is swooping around a pretty dangerous place - that's what space is. And ultimately faces a very uncertain future. It also implies that the abundance of life that we see and enjoy now may be a temporary aberration. Survival in the universe may be a very rare event.

When we say God created everything, as I say, it's reassuring. It means there is a plan, and there's insurance. After all, if we fuck up the planet, God is our safety net. he can always just do additional wand waving and weave creatures back into existence. If you believe that. It's also, ultimately, God's responsibility. Unless, of course, it is ours. And let's be absolutely clear here. If God doesn't exist, we are nowhere near even beginning to face up to our responsibilities. We are a ways away from even beginning to manage ourselves, let along pursuing sustainable living habits. The abundant dogma of our time, whether heathen or Christians remains simply - greed. Consume. And there is a path for that sort of belief system. We're on that path.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms. -Albert Einstein, Obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955

At my high school reunion I encountered a chap who I last saw, oh, 20 years earlier. I'd seen him making some pretty churchy comments on Facebook, so I called him on them. I said, "You know when we were at school, I don't remember you being a Christian. I mean, I was a Christian. I don't know if you remember that. You know, a dedicated oke. But I'm not a Christian anymore, so I'm interested to hear your story."
"No, when I was at school, I was. I just wasn't sure when I was at school."
"Oh? What happened?"
"Some paradigm shifting stuff happened."
"Like what?"
He then quickly and somewhat clumsily changed the subject.


I've done a fair bit of writing in my time. Curiously, two of my manuscripts have been met with a fair bit of praise from, of all people, Christians. THE HALF FULL MOON and HEAVEN IS IN YOUR HEART has been described as having strong christian overtones. Really? I certainly didn't mean to implicate christian doctrine. I simply tried to write a spiritual and affirming story.
The Devil Smokes Dunhill is almost the antithesis of this. It questions God, it has an entirely satirical approach to life. And yes, the same person wrote all of these stories.

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.- Albert Einstein, responding to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein who had sent Einstein a cablegram bluntly demanding "Do you believe in God?" Quoted from Victor J. Stenger, Has Science Found God? 2001, chapter 3.)

My point is that perspective has a way of defining you and your life, and also your prospects. I see nothing wrong with someone who believes in certain things, being part of a community who believes, reinforces those things. Such a community will take care of its own. Because villages in South Africa, and towns, once upon a time started around churches. People's faith helped to build this country. Of course we can tell the other story, that the church also maintained divisions in this country long past the sell by date of those ideas. And here's where my concern comes in. What if we're wrong? If God isn't out there, and we're the ultimate decision makers on the destiny of Earth, what are we doing? Some people say that the world is stubborn, and will be effective in getting rid of us, rather than the other way round. I find this to be probably true, in spite of the beliefs most people say they have.

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. - Albert Einstein

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

The Tower of Babel story is more common than you think, by Nick van der Leek

I've been doing some research for a magazine article and I came across some information on a fairly peculiar topic. Yes - THE TOWER OF BABEL. The story is essentially about human ego, about collective arrogance. It's about people organising themselves into a collective to build something magnificent, something iconic. Something to demonstrate man's godliness to himself.

Of course, in every permutation, every one, these efforts end in disaster. What starts off as a grand project ends in calamity and destruction, or to use a more effective and contemporary word: collapse.

You might not think so, but there are many permutations to the Tower of Babel story than what happened in Babylonia perhaps as early as 610c. For reference, here's the story in terms of an African perspective.

WIKIPEDIA: According to Dr Livingstone, the Africans whom he met living near Lake Ngami in 1849 had such a tradition, but with the builders' heads getting "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding" (Missionary Travels, chap. 26).

In his 1918 book, Folklore in the Old Testament, Scottish social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer documented similarities between Old Testament stories, such as the Flood, and indigenous legends around the world.

• He identified Livingston's account with a tale found in Lozi mythology, wherein the wicked men build a tower of masts to pursue the Creator-God, Nyambe, who has fled to Heaven on a spider-web, but the men perish when the masts collapse.
  
• He further relates similar tales of the Ashanti that substitute a pile of porridge pestles for the masts.
  
• Frazer moreover cites such legends found among the Kongo people, as well as
  
• in Tanzania, where the men stack poles or trees in a failed attempt to reach the moon [13].
• He further cited the Karbi and Kuki people of Assam as having a similar story.
  
• The traditions of the Karen people of Myanmar, which Frazer considered to show clear 'Abrahamic' influence, also relate that their ancestors migrated there following the abandonment of a great pagoda in the land of the Karenni 30 generations from Adam, when the languages were confused and the Karen separated from the Karenni. He notes yet another version current in the Admiralty Islands where mankind's languages are confused following a failed attempt to build houses reaching to heaven. Some of these stories were later revealed to have derived recently from Christian missionary teaching.

Now I'm not interested in your religious take on this. Whether you feel God intervened and prevented man from reaching the heavens, or whether you regard such a project as doomed to fail with or without god, that's not the point. The point is to demonstrate how commonplace the Tower of Babel meme, that is to say, the repeated folly of building castles in the air actually is.

The modern day example of Babel in 2009 is called Wall Street. There are many more besides, including the entire US AUTOMAKER industry, in fact automakers in general. All that is based on a ponzi scheme of phantom energy. Entire industries are Babel industries. Like junk food empires [the world's biggest brands are junk food brands - McDonald's and Coca Cola. They are very valuable companies to the equally counterfeit health care industry, which is really disease care].
Banks, like Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers are Babels. All of these industries got caught up in fantasies of infinite growth, of fictional money, of pixel-cash and leveraged wealth [as opposed to real wealth]. Do they do anything that is worth anything? That makes sense? That is ultimately life sustaining, life enhancing? No, all of these industries are geared towards just one thing: MAKING MONEY. And lately how they have being doing this is by borrowing from the future.

Is it cool by the pool? Well, when you have so many Babels abounding, it is hard to dispute that the very fabric of society has become Babel-ised. And let's face it, we worship the idea of Babel, of plastic barbies and tattoos [are we playing pirates and prostitues?] of building celebrities up, and the wealthy, propping pop stars like Michael Jackson [a child molester] on their ivory thrones when they couldn't be less deserving. Obama wins the Nobel prize - for what? For presiding over at least 2 wars? For being president for 200 days and...what?

Surreal. But not real. And when all these surrealities untangle, unwind, unbundle, unravel, foreclose, fall down, fragment and finally collapse, well, it's going to feel pretty damn surreal. This is the great surreal before the giant FOR REAL.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

Be careful what you wish for... by Nick van der Leek

Our wishes turn into television soaps and movies. Advertisers key into what ordinary people aspire to...and most of the time it's easy. We want to be rich, and desirable, and with someone who is sexy, and desirable. Men want woman who resemble pornstars. Woman want men who are ponzi schemers, who are wealthy and powerful, no matter how or why. Do you really think a ponzi schemer and a pornstar is a marriage made in heaven?

I watched a Steven Soderbergh movie yesterday, The Informant!, with Matt Damon.

MANOHLA DARGIS: Mr. Soderbergh has trained his focus and expertly wielded digital camera on the other side of the buy-and-sell equation, the men in suits who fly in corporate planes, nursing drinks while they chortle about the breasts of their female employees. These are masters of our universe, the big little men who control and distort world markets.

Once again, fiction can sometimes be a great sounding board for fact. Soderbergh tries to show the irony of greed. It's a dark comedy, but let's face it, there's very little irony in the tragic comedy of financial collapse.

What I mean is we won't have the time or the headspace to wryly poke fun at ourselves. There will be a period of self deprecation, and then humor will be pretty black and white. Someone falling on a banana skin will be funny [Laurel and Hardy stuff], but sophisticated dramas will weigh too much on an already darkened and dampened psyche.

Do you think it is any coincidence that we are seeing so many superhero movies right now. Ironman, HULK, Fantastic Four, Dark Knight [Batman], Superman, Spiderman, Watchmen [which tanked for being too realistic] and many many more. On television it's the same, SMALLVILLE, Heroes etc. The reason is because people are increasingly sickened by the sheer amount of dull, gray, garden-variety crime and corruption that fills up local papers around the world. I mean, here is a sample:

Son organises hit on mother
25-strong gang robs mall shops
More shocking claims about Ngcuka
Britain's Serious Fraud Office wants BAE to be prosecuted for corruption
How can 80 ambulances worth R48m disappear without a trace?

Now, I'm not sure about you but I'd rather not read any of those stories. I am not interested in the endless ping pong between accuser and accused. The endless court cases where more and more people are involved, more and more money secreted away, and the plot thickens more and more and congeals into one unholy mess. The lawyers come in and more and more money exchanges hands. The Informant! is a lot like that.
[Read my review of The Informant!]

I'm not interested in evidence. I'd rather it was just stopped, people were jailed and the keys thrown away.
You peel away one layer, and the lies and deception form another layer. And the news is rife these days with record breaking ponzi schemers. Everybody is corrupt. The system is corrupt. The system is based on greed, and too many people out there, are too greedy.

My point is that we don't want to know the muddy truth; we don't want to get involved in the schemes, we just want the schemes and schemers done away with.

We want to see clear boundaries between innocent and guilty, right and wrong. This is why the superhero is coming back with a vengeance. This is why Dan Brown's books on religion are also so popular. We also want to de-mystify religion, because some of the boundaries there are too clear. Homosexuality. Sex before marriage. Have those rules served us, or divided us? What's missing in the world aren't rules - but the discipline to carry our mores and codes through. Discipline is out the window. So we need superheroes, toned, strong, incorrigible, to inspire us.

In the real world, we are far away from real life heroes. Super cops, politicians that are really going to muck in and do the job. We thought we had some sort of saviour in Obama. The era of Mandela is over. The old man won't be around for many months longer. But I believe in the crisis that's coming, two kinds of men will emerge. Madmen, who will do what their mad constituents ask them to do, some will oppress their constituents and hold onto power at all costs [like Mugabe].

And heroes. There will be heroes too, there must be. Many may be in the community and might get no publicity. They may emerge from the ruins of this civilisation as people with inner resilience, true leadership, real strength emerge. But foremost out of these qualities must be this one: discipline. Not only physical and mental discipline, not only the ability to know how to steer and balance one's thoughts and desires, and appetites, but knowing how to be true to one's conscience. Spiritual discipline is a dedication to a truth that is in balance with everything, rather than in competition with it. In essence, it is simply knowing what reality is, and being part of it. And we are far from the signposts to that road right now.

Postscript: Some of the signs that fundamental changes are upon us

- Consensus amongst economic experts, 'recovery is a hoax'
- Gold hits all-time record high
The dollar slipped sharply in Asian trade after UK newspaper the Independent said Gulf Arab states were in secret discussions to end the use of dollars in oil trading.
Rich Dad, Bankrupt Dad

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN + AUDIO]

Vulcan Council President: Why did you come before this council today? Was it to satisfy your emotional need to rebel?

More's the pity that the science fiction in Star Trek is so far from present day reality. It is fascinating to see how easily, in the Star Trek scenario at any rate, officers are swapped and exchanged simply based on their usefulness or training. There are no hearings or debates - if someone is found to be emotionally compromised, or less skilled than another, they are replaced without discussion, without paperwork.

You might think that this could be unfair. On the contrary, it is based on everyone knowing that they serve the greater good. Something sorely lacking on this planet. Here, the service is to The Great Me.

As for logic, here on earth, it's an irritant rather than an integral part of a truly altruistic pursuit of advancing our knowledge and thereby, our common prospects, our common destiny.

Spock: [after Kirk offers surrender terms to Nero] Captain, what are you doing?
Kirk: Showing them compassion. It may be the only way to earn peace with Romulus. It's logic, Spock, I thought you'd like that.
Spock: No, not really. Not this time.

Logic, as we know, is corrupted, and in very few instances, improved upon, even strengthened by emotions.
We live in a world, however, where emotions and impulse reign supreme, and logic powers our computers, our tools. As such, logic becomes enslaved to emotions. Think of a college student searching for porn. And we know that for the majority of the period that the internet has existed, it has served baser instincts as a primary function. There is a price to pay for this.


Because the logical question that should be asked by each of us, at any time of time, during any season, is simply this: What is the best use of my time right now? It's a logical question that deserves a logical answer. But how many of us are capable of giving one?
There is a place for logic, particularly when our lives are clouded by consumer driven passions, by manifest addictions.
But if logic is a cure to our mental malaise, what lies beyond that?

The test itself is a cheat sound bite Star Trek 2009 sound bites

Burly Cadet #1: Hey farmboy. Maybe you can't count. But there are four of us and one of you.
Kirk: So get some more guys and then it'll be an even fight.

The answer is that you have to believe that every scenario has an upside.

Kirk: "I don't believe in no win scenarios."

The trick is to believe in a winning scenario without losing touch with reality, without having the cord of logic that anchors us to reason, severed, by unfounded optimism. If you can do that you can be the captain of your own enterprise.

It's cool by the Pool - right? [COLUMN]

I've had an interesting last couple of weeks. One of the themes of the last few days in particular has been the title of this column running through my mind in a sort of donkey-pacing inner monologue: It's cool by the pool - right?

People are interesting. I suppose we live in a culture where we are all free in terms of our hyperindividualistic traits, and consumer mindset, to want whatever we want. Of course, it is another matter altogether, owning up to those things, and those activities in public. And this is how deception begins, and deceitfulness, I would argue, is absolutely part and parcel of the ubiquitous human con game. It is harmful and less harmful, but it is always harmful, and it always boils down to one simple thing - lying to oneself can never be healthy either to ourselves, or, in the scheme of things, to those we care about or ought to care about. And one way we do this is through religion.

In South Africa there is so much of this hyperindividualism going on at the corporate level it isn't funny. The biggest companies, like Vodacom, Telkom, SABC and others present themselves to their consumers as heroic and respectable, when they really ought to advertise themselves as the most obese, bloated and disgusting capitalist pigs out there. Because that is what they are. Just because they advertise themselves with cool blue designs and call themselves 'the leading ' this, doesn't make the disgrace in the manner that they do business any less disgraceful.
The problem also lies with the passive consumer. If these companies are pigs, the consumers that use them, are witless sheep.

The financial crisis of 2009 was caused by a collective 'living beyond our means', a collective lack of honesty about what we really own, what we need and what it's all for. But the financial crisis portends something far graver, far worse, and that is the climate crisis. It may be a dull murmur in the background, but we are approaching some grand tipping point events in Nature. Right now, one of these is the softening, the melting, of the entire Greenland Icecap. Make no mistake, once that is gone, and the feedback mechanism is in place, it's gone. Then you have systems marching in a specific direction until there is a rebalancing. That means a lot of systems, speaking in terms of Earth systems now, will be bankrupted. That is, destroyed. There aren't any bailouts for them.

When I say the financial crisis portends something worse, I am actually being exceedingly generous. In fact, it is the greed of all of us, of our species, that is behind the incredible changes that had slowly breathed their way into our climate. There is something like a 30 year time lag for inputs in the environment to be manfiested in the climate. This also means once you curb those effects, you have to wait 30 years - let's say a generation - for those effects to filter through. So right now we are feeling the levels of pollution and consumption we farted into the world in the early 80's. I don't think any person will argue that the amounts of poisonous farting has gone up to noxious amounts in the nineties, and the last decade has been the most nauseating of all in terms of consumption. If you have children in the world today, I wonder whether you can really expect the next 30 years for them to be better than the last 30?

In a world where paedophiles are coming out of the woodwork, it is no coincidence that the world we leave our children is one that is in far worse shape, and has far worse prospects than the one we inherited. The world we inherited, was a world not entirely handed over by the Baby Boomers. It's probably fair to say that that narcissistic and naive generation are still at the helm, and will be wrestled away from the controls of a crashing Spaceship earth by force - imminently. Think of Rumsfeld, Blair and Bush as your typical Boomer folk. Obama needs to step clearly away and make a new generation, and some indications are that he might.

But companies like Goldman Sachs are like giant octopi, with their tentacles in every cookie jar.
Yet who are the people who make these octopi work? Regular people.


I am one of those people who is capable of honesty and sincerity, and who believes, honesty - in the workplace, in our habits, in family and community life - is a form of altruism. I'm often caught out by other people who are less than honest. Let's be straight: there are some lying scoundrels out there, who justify their actions based on their perceptions of their own popularity, but have a dark and devious side when they experience something contrary to their agenda. Then, they resort to treachery and lies to win their points, anything to maintain their place in the pigsty.

I have a friend who works fairly high up in banking. He believes, for example, that markets are efficient, that markets will automatically solve the financial crisis, energy issues etc. Of course, his salary - which isn't modest - is based on him believing that banking is a 'normal, natural, perfectly 'fair' allocation' mechanism. This guy I'm referring to isn't stupid, and his heart is in the right place. But if he is mistaken about our prospects, if he believes the financial crisis simply happened because of a few innocent mistakes, a few exceptionally greedy ponzi schemers and a few overly avaricious derivatives traders, well then we are clearly in trouble. If the participants in these systems don't recognise their own complicity, if the gatekeepers to the bailouts can't see their own dirty hands and dirty hearts behind more and more dirty money, then the only way for these activities to change fundamentally - which they must - is for the system to crash.

One of the words that ought to stand out in the above paragraph is that word 'believes'. This friend of mine is a Christian, and if you believe in God, that means, by definition, that you think everything is ultimately, okay, that there is order in the universe, that everthing is ultimately God's plan. It also means, God will sort out global warming, punish those who must be punished and the weird psychology culminates, of course, in laying the blame for our mistakes at God's door. In short, God is responsible. If you want to fuck up the prospects for everyone, blame God. Make it God's job to sort out the mess you leave behind.

It would be good to imagine we are smarter than that. I think when it comes to how smart you are, and how greedy you are, for the vast majority, greed wins by a couple of miles. But reality is a great leveller. What to me is tragic, is that our delusions and appetites are ruining things on a planet wide scale. Why must other creatures suffer? The elephants in Botswana, whales migrating on 4000 mile journeys [feeding offspring 600 litres of milk per day] and Polar Bears - all depend on arriving at their destinations and finding water, or krill, or solid ice on which to hunt - as the case may be. Can you imagine arriving at the huge physical cost these efforts involve, only to find those habitats and havens, those resources, have begun to shift away or deteriorate or disappear entirely?

In the same way, we expect those around us to be honest, we expect systems around us to work, to have integrity. We think, implicitly, that people, that a community has the interests of others at heart. But as the numbers rollover, we start to come into increasing competition with each other for less and less. Not so much because there is not enough, but because some pigs - just a few - are sitting on resources that belong to everyone. Did I say 'sitting' or 'shitting' on resources? It's far from cool by the pool. But you already knew that, didn't you?

Postscript: The research I conducted for this post included the discovery of this blog: World Climate Report. The entire contents of this blog is dedicated to confusing and muddying the issue, and attempting to say climate change is overblown. I wonder who is bankrolling the 4-5 staff members of this blog?

This blog provides a more accurate view of issues faced by the Polar Bear today.