Sunday ramblings...
Jul. 25th, 2004 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWell, Mom left early this morning - we got up at the crack of dawn to see her off, which in NYC is 5:30 am. She was up at 4am. The car service to the airport picked her up at 6am and with any luck, she should be home now. Fingers crossed. At any rate - it's all ungodly early for a Sunday, but it will at least make it easier for me to get up at 7 am on Monday for my first day at the consulting gig. chanting:(PLEASE MAKE THIS WORK, PLEASE DON'T JINX)
Have decided to wear blue linen pants suit, with short sleeved silk shirt underneath for first day, since weather report is low 70s with rain. Lots of rain and mild weather this summer.
In fact, dare I say it? I think we have the Pacific NorthWest's weather while they have ours. I've been reading
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redredshoes and lordshiva and both appear to be literally sweating buckets in hot sticky Seattle and Portland respectfully. (Places that are usually in the low 70s and low 80s, rain a lot, and get in the high 60's at night - wait that's our weather.) While here in NYC we don't need much air conditioning, it's breezy and it does nothing but rain most of the time. (Summer here is usually in the 80's and 90's, hot and sticky, with little rain.) Some weather demon out there probably thought it would be nifty to transpose the climates. Have a bit of fun. Not that I'm complaining, I like the mild weather, could use more sun though, gray clouds get depressing after a bit, but my heart goes out to my friends in the North West who don't have air conditioning to cope with it.
Been reading my friends list, even though don't have time to respond to it. Very interesting posts this week on lies, existentialism, duality and materialism by people such asann1962, an_old_one and arethusa2. oursin meanwhile is writing some interesting things about the history of feminisim and female sexuality in her live journal. Nice distracting reading material.
On the lies bit - I've learned over the past 37 years that distinguishing truth from lies isn't as easy as it looks or necessarily possible. So much of our knowledge is based on interpretation, perception, and memory and all three can be easily manipulated and warped to the extent that the truth in of itself becomes a rather intangible concept.
I was watching an epsiode of the short-lived Adam Busch series , The Jury one night. Not a great television show, but one character made a very interesting speech. She was an older character who struggled with her memory. Throughout the episode, she kept referring to her notes to determine and remember which witness was which and what they said. One of the juriers questioned her ability to determine a verdict because she had to refer to these notes, but she defended herself to the judge saying - she could remember enough to know what happened and just struggled as everyone does at a certain age with short term memory loss - such as names and dates. At any rate, the episode is dealing with a three year old child who has claimed that her babysitter molested her. The question is can we trust the child's memory of these events or interpretation, especially since the adults closest to her, have told her over and over again this is what had have happened? (In truth it was her brother, two years older who hurt her, not the babysitter - all the babysitter did was help her wipe her bottom. But the brother told her the babysitter did it). 65% of the juriers believe that the little girl is telling the truth. Why would she lie, they state. She's innocent. And the old woman speaks up and discusses memory. She asks a woman across from her - do you remember everything that happened to you as a child exactly as it occurred? Memory tricks us. We blend things. As we grow older, we may remember vividly something that happened twenty years ago, but not something that happened seconds before. And blended into our memories are things people have said, dreams, nightmares, photographs, how are these clearly distinguished from what is real or really happened? And even if they are, how do we know our interpretation of what happened is the true version? The other woman nods her head and mentions a tale about how her dog saved her as child from an alligator. They had taken a picture. Her father told her the story. She believed it and in her memory she had vivid pictures of it happening. Years later she found out that it wasn't true. That something else had happened, her parents had merely told her the tale to calm her.
So if memory can lie? What else can? Our senses. Do you wear glasses? I do. When I wear them, sometimes the floor seems closer to me than it is. Or what about those side mirrors on your car - the ones that state objects seen in the glass may be closer than they appear? What if you have no depth perception? Or are blind and have to rely entirely on sound? Hearing - I have an auditory aphasia, or dyslexia, I cannot clearly distinquish certain sounds and will often confuse them. So when I hear a lyric from say Flashdance that states: Take your Passion - I hear "Take your pants off". Smell can also lie to you. I can smell spoilt meat immediately, my mother can't always. And we cover smells with perfumes and colognes.
What else lies? Well, can you trust your interpretation of events? And what makes your interpretation the correct version?
When I did litigation - the challenge was to present the best interpretation to the jury. Both sides got a chance. In most cases, the truth was negligible. Two people witness a car crash, who is at fault may depend on which angle you saw it from. And in some cases, you may not be operating with all the information. The car crash that seemed to be deliberate - "she just plowed into me", may be because the woman driving had a brain aneurysym and lost control, so she didn't deliberately plow into anyone. Random event. And if the car bursts into flames and she's killed, you may never know what caused her to plow into your car. Truth is not always something you can access.
Take science - does it tell us the truth? Every scientific discovery at some point or other has been turned over or changed or proven wrong by another discovery. Philosophy? Which one is the true one? All have valid points after all. It's inexact.
History - ah, history, depends like memory on the teller.
We will never know exactly what happened, since events get embellished over time. Changed depending on perspective, who is recording it, and what they wish to focus on. An African American will record the history of the US very differently than a Native American or a Puritan or an Irish/Italian/English immigrant. Each telling is truthful from their perspective yet may very well conflict with one another.
Even our cameras lie or interpret things differently. They say cameras never lie. Of course this isn't true. How we appear on film depends on lighting, makeup, costuming, background and how good the photographer is. You can brush out blemishs. Did you know that Brad Pitt and Elizabeth Hurly have horrible complexions, lots of acne? They do. But you'll never see it on the magazine covers or camera. Why? People are paid a lot of money to make sure we don't see it. Now I've seen James Marsters in person, and yes he looks a lot like he did on screen, slightly shorter, completely different accent, and his hair is dark, but hey there's a resemblance.
Everything lies. We lie to ourselves in a thousand ways. Our bodies lie to us. Crave things they don't need. Tell us we are hurting when we aren't. Have you ever heard of false labor pains? Truth is a slippery concept. Like a needle in an ever-growing haystack.
What I've learned is there is a difference between unconscious lying and deliberate lying. The type of lying that we do to inflict harm or control or manipulate someone else. The thief who lies about stealing something. The person who frames his neighbor for a crime. But since truth is such a slippery thing to begin with, it becomes much harder to unconver blatant harmful lies such as these. I try to tell the truth in my life as I see it, which is what I'm feeling, what my perception, memory, and senses inform me. I'm willing to admit they aren't exact or that I could be very wrong in my interpretation, but at least it's the truth as far as I know. I have no control over the variables that warp it and twist it. I only have control over what I believe it to be. And then there are white lies - the lies we tell to protect others, such as "no, I don't think you're fat or yes, you're boyfriend is wonderful and I love your house" or the lie of omission, "not telling someone that such and such bugs us or oh, god, that laugh is annoying" - tactful lies. There's been a few movies here and there where a character can't lie and chaos erupts demonstrating my point. One is the horrid Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar. I know there have been others. The trick is in distinguishing the needful lies or white lies, from the destructive ones. This is further muddied by our interpretation of what the truth actually is, without embellishments or twists of memory or false perception.
Makes life very gray and complicated. But certainly interesting.
Regarding duality and materialism? I honestly don't think I'm one or the other. I've found it increasingly difficult to lable myself lately. Not sure why. I don't mind organizing and labling things. Heck my new consulting assignment requires some of that. But when it comes to people, I become hesistant. We are so complex and ever changing. What we thought one day, may change the next depending on what happens in our personal lives. While it's comforting to define ourselves or place lables, I'm not sure it's possible really, as people have an irritating tendency to slip free of them when you least expect it. We want to know everything about someone else, yet we have barely touched the surface, I think, in knowing ourselves. I'm not sure we ever will, or rather I ever will, but the journey is certainly interesting even if I never come to the destination. Beginning to realize that destinations and definitions are sort of confining and not necessarily that important, going there and exploring the definitions and applying them is actually more liberating somehow. It's a weird discovery and probably makes no sense and I may even change my mind about all this tomorrow. But there it is.
Have decided to wear blue linen pants suit, with short sleeved silk shirt underneath for first day, since weather report is low 70s with rain. Lots of rain and mild weather this summer.
In fact, dare I say it? I think we have the Pacific NorthWest's weather while they have ours. I've been reading
redredshoes and lordshiva and both appear to be literally sweating buckets in hot sticky Seattle and Portland respectfully. (Places that are usually in the low 70s and low 80s, rain a lot, and get in the high 60's at night - wait that's our weather.) While here in NYC we don't need much air conditioning, it's breezy and it does nothing but rain most of the time. (Summer here is usually in the 80's and 90's, hot and sticky, with little rain.) Some weather demon out there probably thought it would be nifty to transpose the climates. Have a bit of fun. Not that I'm complaining, I like the mild weather, could use more sun though, gray clouds get depressing after a bit, but my heart goes out to my friends in the North West who don't have air conditioning to cope with it.Been reading my friends list, even though don't have time to respond to it. Very interesting posts this week on lies, existentialism, duality and materialism by people such as
ann1962, an_old_one and arethusa2. oursin meanwhile is writing some interesting things about the history of feminisim and female sexuality in her live journal. Nice distracting reading material.On the lies bit - I've learned over the past 37 years that distinguishing truth from lies isn't as easy as it looks or necessarily possible. So much of our knowledge is based on interpretation, perception, and memory and all three can be easily manipulated and warped to the extent that the truth in of itself becomes a rather intangible concept.
I was watching an epsiode of the short-lived Adam Busch series , The Jury one night. Not a great television show, but one character made a very interesting speech. She was an older character who struggled with her memory. Throughout the episode, she kept referring to her notes to determine and remember which witness was which and what they said. One of the juriers questioned her ability to determine a verdict because she had to refer to these notes, but she defended herself to the judge saying - she could remember enough to know what happened and just struggled as everyone does at a certain age with short term memory loss - such as names and dates. At any rate, the episode is dealing with a three year old child who has claimed that her babysitter molested her. The question is can we trust the child's memory of these events or interpretation, especially since the adults closest to her, have told her over and over again this is what had have happened? (In truth it was her brother, two years older who hurt her, not the babysitter - all the babysitter did was help her wipe her bottom. But the brother told her the babysitter did it). 65% of the juriers believe that the little girl is telling the truth. Why would she lie, they state. She's innocent. And the old woman speaks up and discusses memory. She asks a woman across from her - do you remember everything that happened to you as a child exactly as it occurred? Memory tricks us. We blend things. As we grow older, we may remember vividly something that happened twenty years ago, but not something that happened seconds before. And blended into our memories are things people have said, dreams, nightmares, photographs, how are these clearly distinguished from what is real or really happened? And even if they are, how do we know our interpretation of what happened is the true version? The other woman nods her head and mentions a tale about how her dog saved her as child from an alligator. They had taken a picture. Her father told her the story. She believed it and in her memory she had vivid pictures of it happening. Years later she found out that it wasn't true. That something else had happened, her parents had merely told her the tale to calm her.
So if memory can lie? What else can? Our senses. Do you wear glasses? I do. When I wear them, sometimes the floor seems closer to me than it is. Or what about those side mirrors on your car - the ones that state objects seen in the glass may be closer than they appear? What if you have no depth perception? Or are blind and have to rely entirely on sound? Hearing - I have an auditory aphasia, or dyslexia, I cannot clearly distinquish certain sounds and will often confuse them. So when I hear a lyric from say Flashdance that states: Take your Passion - I hear "Take your pants off". Smell can also lie to you. I can smell spoilt meat immediately, my mother can't always. And we cover smells with perfumes and colognes.
What else lies? Well, can you trust your interpretation of events? And what makes your interpretation the correct version?
When I did litigation - the challenge was to present the best interpretation to the jury. Both sides got a chance. In most cases, the truth was negligible. Two people witness a car crash, who is at fault may depend on which angle you saw it from. And in some cases, you may not be operating with all the information. The car crash that seemed to be deliberate - "she just plowed into me", may be because the woman driving had a brain aneurysym and lost control, so she didn't deliberately plow into anyone. Random event. And if the car bursts into flames and she's killed, you may never know what caused her to plow into your car. Truth is not always something you can access.
Take science - does it tell us the truth? Every scientific discovery at some point or other has been turned over or changed or proven wrong by another discovery. Philosophy? Which one is the true one? All have valid points after all. It's inexact.
History - ah, history, depends like memory on the teller.
We will never know exactly what happened, since events get embellished over time. Changed depending on perspective, who is recording it, and what they wish to focus on. An African American will record the history of the US very differently than a Native American or a Puritan or an Irish/Italian/English immigrant. Each telling is truthful from their perspective yet may very well conflict with one another.
Even our cameras lie or interpret things differently. They say cameras never lie. Of course this isn't true. How we appear on film depends on lighting, makeup, costuming, background and how good the photographer is. You can brush out blemishs. Did you know that Brad Pitt and Elizabeth Hurly have horrible complexions, lots of acne? They do. But you'll never see it on the magazine covers or camera. Why? People are paid a lot of money to make sure we don't see it. Now I've seen James Marsters in person, and yes he looks a lot like he did on screen, slightly shorter, completely different accent, and his hair is dark, but hey there's a resemblance.
Everything lies. We lie to ourselves in a thousand ways. Our bodies lie to us. Crave things they don't need. Tell us we are hurting when we aren't. Have you ever heard of false labor pains? Truth is a slippery concept. Like a needle in an ever-growing haystack.
What I've learned is there is a difference between unconscious lying and deliberate lying. The type of lying that we do to inflict harm or control or manipulate someone else. The thief who lies about stealing something. The person who frames his neighbor for a crime. But since truth is such a slippery thing to begin with, it becomes much harder to unconver blatant harmful lies such as these. I try to tell the truth in my life as I see it, which is what I'm feeling, what my perception, memory, and senses inform me. I'm willing to admit they aren't exact or that I could be very wrong in my interpretation, but at least it's the truth as far as I know. I have no control over the variables that warp it and twist it. I only have control over what I believe it to be. And then there are white lies - the lies we tell to protect others, such as "no, I don't think you're fat or yes, you're boyfriend is wonderful and I love your house" or the lie of omission, "not telling someone that such and such bugs us or oh, god, that laugh is annoying" - tactful lies. There's been a few movies here and there where a character can't lie and chaos erupts demonstrating my point. One is the horrid Jim Carrey comedy Liar Liar. I know there have been others. The trick is in distinguishing the needful lies or white lies, from the destructive ones. This is further muddied by our interpretation of what the truth actually is, without embellishments or twists of memory or false perception.
Makes life very gray and complicated. But certainly interesting.
Regarding duality and materialism? I honestly don't think I'm one or the other. I've found it increasingly difficult to lable myself lately. Not sure why. I don't mind organizing and labling things. Heck my new consulting assignment requires some of that. But when it comes to people, I become hesistant. We are so complex and ever changing. What we thought one day, may change the next depending on what happens in our personal lives. While it's comforting to define ourselves or place lables, I'm not sure it's possible really, as people have an irritating tendency to slip free of them when you least expect it. We want to know everything about someone else, yet we have barely touched the surface, I think, in knowing ourselves. I'm not sure we ever will, or rather I ever will, but the journey is certainly interesting even if I never come to the destination. Beginning to realize that destinations and definitions are sort of confining and not necessarily that important, going there and exploring the definitions and applying them is actually more liberating somehow. It's a weird discovery and probably makes no sense and I may even change my mind about all this tomorrow. But there it is.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-25 02:57 pm (UTC)The older I get the more I share this opinion -- OK, someone is "conservative" or "liberal." But what are they? What do they believe? Why? Do all "liberals" share beliefs like a checklist that you can just run down and be assured they'll all share? Not usually....anyhow, yeah, labels. Ucch.
No matter what label it is, I find it just falls off
after a little while. There's people I know who are liberal in some ways and conservative in others, depending on whose looking at them. In NYC, I'm considered fairly moderate. In Kansas, I'm a liberal.
Yet in each case I found the labels limiting.
Wonder what it is about us that we feel so compelled to constantly create lables or categories for ourselves and others? If I answer this five questions this way - I'll be (fill in the blank).