Hand and heart

We, certainly I, give very little daily thought about our hands or the metaphorical heart – not just the actual blood pump thing guarded by our ribcage. 

 

Lets first take our hands – not necessarily both – just one, the whole hand, will do for explanatory purposes. Our hands, in some respects, may be considered as the “reason” for our rise to preeminence in the animal kingdom. And, of course, our opposable thumb – no other animal has this feature.

 

A hand can beckon; a hand can rebuff; it can direct; a hand can caress; it can chastise. A hand can reward; it can greet; it can grip; an upraised hand – palm outward may be used to stop someone. A hand can “talk” to those who are deaf. And a hand can kill!

 

The fingers of the hand are not only astonishingly sensitive but very manipulative as well. Fingers can sense rough from smooth; sharp from blunt and can point; the forefinger and thumb that can delicately hold or fiercely grip are a uniquely human feature.

 

The heart – metaphorically – is often thought of as the seat of emotions. Vital though the physical heart is to life it is the emotional “heart” we mostly refer to. 

 

We all know what is meant when someone refers to another as broken hearted. Then the terms, heart felt; hand on heart; warm hearted; hard hearted; soft hearted; he or she has a heart of stone; she (or he) has a place in my heart; the derogatory term “blackard”, derived, I understand, from “black heart” meaning someone with little empathy, who is only out for their own gain, are all well known figures of speech. 

 

So, as may be seen, these two – hand and heart – hold pre-eminent positions in our collective lives as human beings.   

 

 

A good human story

I’m not sure who wrote this, when it was written, even whether it is true or not. However I think in these traumatic COVID19 pandemic times it is worth remembering that we are all human; that we all suffer; that, at the end of our life we will all die. 

But above all we need to remember that we need to be kind. 

  

…. ////….

A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside. "Your
son is here," she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words
several times before the patient's eyes opened.

Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he
dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the
oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened
fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and
encouragement.

The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside
the bed.  All through the night the young Marine sat there in the
poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words
of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine
move away and rest awhile. He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the

Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital,
the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members
exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.

Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The
dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through
the night. Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released
the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse.
While she did what she had to do, he waited.
Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy,
but the Marine interrupted her.

"Who was that man?" he asked.
The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.
"No, he wasn't," the Marine replied. "I never saw him before
in my life."
"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"
"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew
he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here. When I realized
that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how
much he needed me, I stayed."

The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.

We are not human beings going through a temporary spiritual
experience.

We are spiritual beings going through a temporary human
experience.

Old wisdom

It is nice to find passages in books that agree with ones philosophy – and the wise and often quite humorous sayings of those of yesteryear.

For instance, in a book (translated by James S. Romm) on the writings of the Roman Stoic, Seneca (c. 4BC – AD 65), there is this passage which shows great wisdom and some humour I think:-

“It is fitting for you to experience pain, and thirst, and hunger, and old age – if, that is a long delay in the human world befalls you – and illness, and loss, and death. But there is no reason to trust those who make a great din all around you: nothing of these things is bad, nothing is unbearable or harsh. Fear attaches to them only by consensus. You fear death, but your fear is only of a rumour, and what could be more foolish than a man who’s afraid of words? Our friend Demetrius often says the words of the ignorant issue from the same place as the rumbling of their guts. “What matter to me,” he says, “ whether they sound off from up top or from down below?” 

So true!!

How human are we - actually?

What does this mean? Take bacteria for instance. They “work” in a symbiotic relationship with all life forms. To understand the significance of this we’ll need to go back in time – just a tad. Like three billion years (3 billion years) to when there were no recognizable life forms on earth, only a primordial ocean “soup”. Simply put, this soup contained a huge variety of bacteria (never mind where they came from – no one really knows).

Now, return to present times and follow me – it was from out of that primordial “soup” that life (as we understand it) developed. Furthermore – just to put things in perspective – the human body consists of somewhere between 30 and 80 trillion cells (no one is quite sure – it depends on the method of measurement used – volume or weight). But the number of bacteria in the human gut exceeds this by a ratio variously estimated at about 3:1. That’s right, there are estimated to be about 3 times more gut bacteria than cells in our body. Similarly, while the human genome has about 20 000 genes the gut biome has many, many times this – variously estimated at about 150 times this number.

Never forget, too, that we rely on out gut bacteria for our nutrition. Furthermore many different chemicals such as the brain chemical serotonin and many enzymes are produced in our gut. In fact without our gut bacteria we wouldn’t survive. They help digest everything we eat by reducing it to an easily absorbed form, which is then transferred to our blood affecting not only our metabolism but also our moods. 

But the bacteria need us too – to feed them!

So now, because of the symbiotic relationship between us and them (and don't forget we are inextricably linked to all the Earth’s life forms through our bacterial ancestry) consider this scenario:-

Bacteria were here first – we (and all life forms) developed from the original primordial bacterial soup. Therefore, are we just a useful host for bacteria to live in – in our case, our gut biome (recall, there are more of them than cells in our body)? Remember also they get fed at regular intervals, interact with us via the vagus nerve – which connects the gut with the brain (in fact our gut may be considered our “second” brain as there are about 150 million neurons lining the intestines). This “communication”, travelling both ways along the vagus nerve, tells the brain “I’m hungry” or “I’m full” or “I don’t feel well” and then there is that mysterious “gut feeling” that “tells” us to do or not do something. Increasingly researchers are discovering links between our gut bacteria and our general health - physical, emotional and mental.

The food we eat affects our gut bacteria (negatively or positively) and in doing so, they affect our health and our moods (also negatively or positively).

So, how human are we - actually? 

  

Israel - Stolen goods bring no prosperity.

I am not quite sure where I first read the phrase, “Stolen goods bring no prosperity”, but it rings true. Just think of any individual, business or government that has deprived anyone of what was rightfully theirs; just think about those who have fraudulently or unjustly used or taken advantage of someone’s intellectual property; think about those who make a living by avoiding or evading government regulations.

What brought this phrase to my mind has been the ratcheting up of the Israeli/Gaza impasse which has been bubbling away since 1947. I strongly disagree with anyone who advocates violence as a solution to any problem. Violence begets violence. People who feel aggrieved should avoid conflict at all costs – no one wins a war. Oh yes! Battles may be “won”; “victors” may assume sovereignty over land and peoples; trade may follow the “gun” but at what human cost? Violence is the last resort of the morally bankrupt.

After the end of the Second World War the dispossessed Jews and those who had survived the appalling treatment meted out by the Nazis with the infamous “final solution” known to history as the Holocaust were “given” what is now Israel. This is a historic fact and I am in no position to argue the merits or demerits of this “gift” by the sympathetic Allies who had defeated Germany. What I can say with certainty however is that the Palestinians who were living in the Palestine/Israel area and who had been living there since Biblical times were now (in 1947) dispossessed of the land (and in many cases their possessions as well) to make way for the “new” nation of Israel. Many of these dispossessed Palestinians ended up in Gaza. It is my understanding that no compensation was ever paid or reparation ever made.

This injustice rankles. They were never asked; they never gave “permission” for the land to be expropriated. Injustice is never forgotten; injustice is burned into the soul – just ask the Jews! The Jews have been treated very badly by all peoples – from ancient Babylonia to modern day Christians and Muslims. They have been fighting and striving for millennia for Judea, their “home land” – what they consider their Holy Land, their God given right. Why should the Palestinians, dispossessed by the Israelis feel any differently about their “home land”; their Holy Land, part of which is now Israel?

The fact is that the ultimate source of land is beyond human ingenuity; we may surmise how land was formed aeons ago – but no one can create a single grain of sand. Land just “is” – therefore by default land belongs to no one; land, Holy or otherwise, belongs to everyone. We humans are merely the temporary caretakers.

The Israelis, if they want peace and stability, will, ultimately, have to share the land they occupy with the original inhabitants – the Palestinians. This land was in effect “stolen” from the Palestinians in 1947, and until the Israeli recognize this and accept sharing as a future reality the phrase that opens this post - “stolen goods bring no prosperity” – will haunt the Israelis and torment the Palestinians.

War and violence will never, ever, solve the problems caused by injustice.

Lost Symbols – the cause of many problems.

We all need and use symbols. Symbols refer to something that represents an unknowable. God, or Love, Goodness or Evil, or Infinity, or Wisdom, or Death, or Beauty, all commonly used words but we cannot “know” what they are. These are words that we use every day but are impossible to define, yet we all have some idea about the meaning (to us) of the concepts expressed by the words even though we can never have a full understanding of their meaning. When we are presented with something “Godlike” or experience something that cannot be known such as “Love”, or touched, such as “beauty”, we may have some ideas about what we are experiencing without being able to explain or define it. Hence there is a need for a symbol; something which expresses what we mean, or our understanding of the meaning.

Today there seems to be confusion over the meanings of the words Symbol and Idol.  A Symbol is something that represents a concept, an idea, something which is unknown, even unknowable; something which is imprecise. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. A good example of a symbol is the mathematical image: ∞, representing the concept of infinity – this useful symbol has crept into common usage. We need this symbol because we cannot “see” infinity; we cannot “touch” infinity; we know that (presumably) infinity exists but we cannot explain the concept of infinity – it just is.

On the other hand an idol is an image or other physical object accepted as representing a deity and to which religious worship is directed. This thing (even occasionally a person) is often regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion. A religious idol is often called an icon.

In this modern day and age, however, we have been so conditioned by the allure of the exactitude provided by “science”, and our apparent never satisfied desire to categorise, to analyse everything, that we no longer believe in things we cannot see. We cannot “see” God therefore God doesn’t exist. There is nothing, therefore, above and beyond human existence and human beings  are just an agglomeration of matter –  just ‘mechanisms’– that the human body is just a watertight skin bag filled with blood, flesh and bones. When we “die” that is the end, there can be nothing else because “science” says so.

This leads us to the troubling idea that if something cannot be ‘proved’, cannot be measured, cannot dissected, cannot be ‘examined’ in a scientific manner (in a laboratory or under a microscope) it cannot exist or it cannot be true. All this may be very interesting but if we destroy or diminish the importance of symbols what are we left with? We, as human beings have been reduced to believing in pure materialism. A stark “black” or “white” – it either exists or it doesn’t. This extreme materialism has devalued symbols and with this there has been a corresponding loss of values.  The wondrous nature of “Life” in all its millions of forms is diminished and reduced to the random activities of atoms and molecules.  

We cannot see “Life” yet life exists. Anyone who has been present at the moment of death when an animal or a person dies will recognise that something that was there is no longer there; something has withdrawn and death is the result. Similarly with “Love”; this most transformative of emotions is reduced, by many people to be just a pleasurable, sensory activity; we derive pleasure without a conscience. We cannot see “goodness” so it is often transmogrified into something we can see – money. If we are feeling down we may decide to apply some “retail therapy” and spend money – thus (supposedly) making us feel “good”. If someone has a great deal of money they, personally, believe they must be good and many others certainly admire and respect them. We no longer have an understanding of what it is to be human.

The wonderful – but unseen – experiences or emotions and their symbols are now so diminished in our consciousness that we demean and cheapen Life (in whatever form) to the point that we exploit all forms of Life for monetary benefit (benefiting and in effect glorifying our “goodness”). Thus there human trafficking; there is slavery (often child slavery in “sweat shops”); there is sexual exploitation – all this when money and profits are considered more important than human beings. Money and no appreciation of “Life” lead to the exploitation of animals – cruelty in farm situations (“industrial” farms with animals confined in shed or cages) and in abattoirs. This is commerce without morality; this is a desire (which, unfortunately, we all seem share) for wealth without having to work for it.

There are many symbols that we used in the past that gave comfort and a link with what is difficult to understand and possibly unknowable. For instance we understand an image of the “grim reaper” (a dark hooded figure holding a scythe) as a symbol of death. We, possibly, might use the image of a tree as a symbol of “Life”, rooted in the earth with branches reaching heavenward – spanning, birth, life and the here-after; or possibly use the image of a seed with its ability to germinate and with its unknown potential. 

The number of symbols is almost endless.

We have now lost our belief in symbols – symbols of something greater than ourselves. We are the poorer for this loss. A new “God” has arisen symbolised by the images $ or €. 

All this is not to say that slavery and exploitation did not exist in olden times – of course they did. But then people had a choice and they were aware of the consequences of their activities (either heaven or hell). Today there is apparently no choice (it is either science or nothing) and people engaged in these questionable activities seem to be unaware of the consequences – almost as if the only crime is to be caught.

We have lost our symbols and now have science without humanity.

Is it the singer or the song?

Here is a curious thought and a whimsical reflection on singing.

With singing and sentient beings - is it the singer or the song? Does a bird suddenly take thought and decide to sing or does the song ‘sing’ the bird? Does a happy little child, singing as it plays know what it sings or is it happy and the ‘song’ just arises from within?

Is the song always there and just needs an outlet? Is the ‘song’ happiness and contentment; is the ‘song’ part of the psyche of all sentient beings – birds, whales and other aquatic mammals, some forest dwelling mammals and human beings (I am sure there are other sentient beings which ‘sing’ in one form or another that I have missed – frogs and crickets maybe?). I don’t know – maybe the ‘song’ is part of the ‘collective unconscious’ that (possibly) is behind all the activities of all sentient beings.

Just a thought.

Perfect or Complete

Why is it that when I achieve a goal in life, or something I have striven for, I am often dissatisfied or have a feeling of anti-climax? Is it because I always seem to strive for perfection instead of completeness? Perfection is an impossibility, given the human condition. Completeness on the other hand is quite feasible – difficult but feasible.

What then is completeness? To be quite honest I am not sure. I know that it will be reached by my trying to be more of a human’ being’ rather than a human ‘doer’. It will mean facing my faults head on. It will mean me taking full responsibility for my actions. It will mean me trying to be more aware of the impact that the things I do and say, will have on others. It means, in other words that I have to try to be more ethical in my relationships. It means treating others the way I would like to be treated. 

We have a relationship, of some sort at least, with everyone we meet – our dentist, friends, shop attendants, our motor mechanic, family members - who ever.

This does not mean just reading a book on self improvement, though that would be a start! Any change must come from a deep desire to change for the better, and we can all get ‘better’!! I know that it is hard to accept, but it is not possible to grasp at some "self improvement" idea and apply it externally like an ointment, and expect to get ‘better’. I know some people (myself included) who will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own being (souls?). Practice yoga, go on a new diet, or mechanically intone a mystic text from some arcane publication - all because they cannot (or will not) get on with understanding themselves, and they have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own beings (souls?).

We all can do it, we can all improve. It means, as George Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, “To dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”