2015-07-24 Thoughts on growing old and dying

Genus Euschistus on Lobelia cardinalus, Liberty Hill, Texas
24 July 2015

I'm really enjoying photographing bugs and plants at a macro level lately, even just using my iPhone and the Olloclip. It's really interesting how much more detail I can see when I get down really close. Things I'd never have noticed before. Textures and designs and details. Even color changes that I couldn't see with the naked eye. It is interesting to think about why any particular living thing evolved in the way it did and it's also interesting to think about how every single thing I see is different from every single thing you see--because we each view things from our lens, our own perspective, our own brain.

Male Texas Brown Tarantula, Aphonopelma
hentzi, Cedar Park, Texas
7 May 2012

I'm not a huge spider fan but I understand their value in our ecosystem. And a couple of years ago, I did rescue a tarantula from a group of screaming boys and grown men who were trying to chase it off a baseball field. It was really neat to hold him. I still get a bit anxious, though, when I see a wolf spider in the carpet where it blends in quite well or a large fishing spider down at the creek. And I still sometimes worry about walking into a garden orbweaver's web in the middle of the night. I've been thinking that there is a lesson there somewhere...That it takes conscious thought and effort to outgrow years of conditioning to be frightened of something.

I never really imagined being thirty-eight years old, you know? Did you? When you played make believe as a child and imagined yourself as a grown up somewhere--did you think about being thirty-eight? Or forty? Or eighty? What will I be like in two years? Or twenty-two?

Do you ever think about what it will be like to die? Do you wonder if it will hurt or if you will be frightened? I sometimes have those thoughts in the night, when I am in bed, ready for sleep. And I don’t just wonder about myself, I wonder about my children and loved ones. Will they hurt? Will they be frightened?

That’s a terrifying thought to me sometimes. My heart quickens and my breath, as well. And then I have to concentrate on calming myself, slowing my breathing, reaching peace with the notion of death. Remembering that nothing I do will stop it from coming eventually for me and for everyone else and that all I can do is just try to make whatever time I have beautiful for myself and those around me. Whether or not there is anything else out there after we die, no one really knows. One can have all the faith in the world in any one particular belief system, but still, it may be that we'll just really never know for certain. I think about all the other people in the world who die in pain and fear and I feel broken for them and for the family members they leave behind. I realize that I believe that we as a collective have the knowledge, the creativity, the curiosity, and the power to begin to make things better for all people on a global level and then I feel anger and frustration because of all that is done by people every day to thwart our progress as a collective, as fellow citizens of a single planet.

Closeup of Pink Turkscap, Malvaviscus arboreus
Liberty Hill, Texas
24 July 2015

And then, I feel inspired.

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So, I'm thinking about gun violence

I've been doing some reading today on the issue of gun violence. Of course, with the murder of the 9 people attending church this past Wednesday night, it's on a lot of peoples' minds. As is the issue of gun control. A massacre occurs and automatically there is fear that the gun control debate will begin and of course it does. People post Facebook statuses proudly declaring their right to own guns and suddenly there is much less talk about how we can possibly stop these kinds of crimes from occurring.
"There is no way to stop it." "If you take away the rights of the good guys to own guns, only the bad guys will have them." "I'll do anything to protect my family."

And we will, right? The vast majority of us will do anything to protect our own families and we'll even do an awful lot to protect the families of those close to us.

Yesterday, on my way to pick up the boys from my parents' home, where they have been going during the days while I'm at work, I listened to the latest episode of Radiolab, Eye in the Sky. It's a really fascinating podcast, only 28 minutes, and I really highly recommend it. It starts out being about Project Angel Fire but then gets into the business venture of Dr. Ross McNutt, Persistent Surveillance Systems and how it helped the Dayton Police Department solve a crime during a trial of the company's services. A second case, involving a drug cartel in Jaurez, in which they describe the execution of a female police officer, was much harder to hear, especially given that I work in a police department.

The discussion moved to the various perspectives taken by the journalists (Manoush Zomorodi and her producer, Alex Goldmark of Note to Self) reporting on the story, as well as the perspectives of the Radiolab hosts, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. After hearing both of the cases (listen to the podcast), Alex moved to the camp of believing this is a good idea, this surveillance by a plane outfitted with cameras, to allow crimes to be solved quickly, easily, and efficiently. Manoush and Robert were in the anti-surveillance group.

And I am not really certain how I feel about this. It's so fascinating to hear of all the cities who are considering implementing this technology. I completely understand the negativity about this idea. I think in some way we've been primed to believe that the only option is for government to become so corrupt that it feeds on its own people--that there simply is no chance that a form of government exists which could take care of all its citizens. And perhaps that's right. I don't know. It seems to me, however, in some ways, that we already feed on our own people.

I also understand how family members of murder victims might feel if they knew that the technology existed that would help find a murderer and bring him or her to justice and it wasn't being used solely because of fears of giving up privacy.

I don't know what the right answer is. I just know that we have to look at the facts. We have to stop attacking one another out of fear over the differences we perceive when we each have so much in common with one another. Education matters. Reasonable gun control efforts matter.

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Thoughts on the Universe

2015-02-27Thoughts on the universe… 

So, if you don’t believe in God anymore, but you’re not sure there isn’t a god out there somewhere, or some being that is far more advanced than we, you feel maybe a little lost. Or at least I guess I have. And, you know, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing. I get that I have a lot of Christian friends who still strongly believe that Christ is Lord and one can only get to Heaven through accepting him as your personal Lord and Savior. And really, I am okay with the fact that people believe that—everyone is entitled to his or her own beliefs. I realize, too, that there may be people out there who no longer wish to be friends with me knowing that I don’t believe in God. And, while that sucks, I’m really okay with that, too. You have to do what you have to do for your own peace and understanding of this life.

Anyway—not the point of this whole thing. I was thinking that whatever you believe, it really doesn’t hurt to have some sort of belief that one has control over one’s own destiny—if there were such a thing as destiny, which there really isn’t, I don’t think.

The Universe (which probably is not really a universe, but a single –verse in a big Multiverse) doesn’t care about us. And that’s not a bad thing. Just because there’s not some big Creator out there somewhere doesn’t mean that we’re not important in the history of the universe. Just because there is no afterlife doesn’t mean that we can’t make a positive contribution to our planet and to assist with the survival of our species. It may not happen for a very long time yet, but we won’t be able to live on this planet forever.

That’s not the point of this whole thing, either.

If you realize that the Universe doesn’t care and you realize that there is no such thing as destiny, you realize you can remake the world to fit your needs. And of course, that’s not physically possible, but maybe you realize that if there is no specific “thing” you were DESTINED to be in this life, then maybe you could BE something ELSE—something that would make you happy, and not hurt anybody else. Something that would make you feel like even though the universe doesn’t care about me, I can still care about the universe.

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