Iran: The Bitter Harvest

[this essay was written in support of an agreement that Barack Obama reached with Iran in August of 2015, but many of the points continue to be applicable after that issue has passed from the public consciousness]

We, in the USA,  find ourselves reaping the bitter fruits of a long period of misguided foreign policy, policy that has been as evil as it has been stupid. We have supported brutal, unpopular regimes around the world to advance short term interests, ignoring the ill will we were sowing in the people affected. We have repeatedly abused our super power status.

First, there was the anti-communist period.

Iran is only one country that has been the object of such treatment. Our CIA helped overthrow a popular government in Iran in favor of a shah, whose policies were more palatable to us.

This action totally ignored the future. Most Iranians were furious about our actions. Eventually they wrested control back to an elected government. This government, being a reaction to anger over our actions, was angry at the USA and unpleasantly conservative, more so than it might have been if we had not intervened.

We did something worse in Chile, where we conspired to destroy an 84 year old democracy, because the elected president was a communist. The resulting brutal dictatorship was known for "disappearing" large numbers of people.  This became the topic of a popular song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESSbVYHHS0o

Worse still was our intervention in Viet Nam, where we fought for years to prevent a popular election, because we feared that communists would be elected. The result was untold carnage. Fortunately those people are Buddhists and seem to have forgiven us.

With the passage of time, we have come to see that our domino theory ideas, which led us into many of these actions, did not come to fruition. Politics is much more complex than black and white dotted toys. We also did not recognize that a communist government, popularly elected through a constitutional democracy, might be a very different thing from the Soviet Union or Maoist China.

I don't really understand the history of Korea, but whatever we did there has at least contributed to the survival of the fiendish lunacy that they call a government there.

More recently there has been the period of attacking Muslim regions.

The evil folly of our intervention in Iraq is fresher in our memory. First, we took the side of Kuwait in an oil dispute, ignoring the fact that Kuwait was one of those countries where women were held as slaves, while Iraq was a country where women had relatively better status. Women's rights have never taken a sufficiently important role in our considerations of foreign policy.

Then Bush II, and Cheney, conspired to deceive the American people into participating in a second war in Iraq that benefited Cheney's company at horrendous expense, both in money and in human lives. They overthrew a stable government that kept terror under control, in favor of violent anarchy. They violated the Geneva convention, relating to war criminals, a treaty our country self-righteously imposed on others, by authorizing torture and refusing international inspection. They are war criminals, yet they walk free.

Afghanistan is a strange story. Our fear of the Soviet Union was so great that we backed and trained the mujahideen, an insurgent group that opposed Soviet influence in the region. We didn't look too closely at who we were training, because we trained the likes of Osama bin Laden.

I remember reading an interview with a mujahideen member in Time magazine back in the early eighties. The fighter was asked why he opposed the USSR. He replied that they wanted to educate women and girls, which he opposed. It immediately occurred to me that, in our blind fear of the Soviets, we had rushed to help the bad guys. We saw that later, when the Taliban arose, saw too late the folly of our actions.

Then we rushed to install Karzai in Afghanistan, one of Bush II's oil industry cronies, becoming involved on the pretext that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan, when it now appears that he was in Pakistan. While this action seemed temporarily successful, we see the Taliban coming back now -- those same women haters who we helped back in the 70's and 80's.

Ever since WWII, our military adventurism has been mostly evil and stupid, earning us much enmity all over the world.

People in the Middle East, in particular, remember military adventurism from other countries as well, notably European countries, not only in modern times, but also in ancient times,  especially during the crusades – which is still a topic frequently mentioned by terrorists, and which provokes a lot of negative emotions in the minds of Middle Easterners.

I remember being in seventh grade social studies and having Mrs. Raymond, at Cherokee Junior High School, teaching us about the Monroe Doctrine.  For those of you who don’t remember, this was a policy instituted during the early history of the USA.  We undertook to protect other Western Hemisphere countries against European military incursions. 

I asked her, “Who is going to protect them from us?”

She said “No one needs to be protected from us.”

Really, Mrs. Raymond?  Really? Why are we studying in a school called "Cherokee?"  What did we do to the native peoples?

So now we find, "Gee whiz! Iran is actually a fairly powerful, wealthy country. They're developing nuclear capability, and they hate us."

As I stood on 8/10/15 in front of the Manhattan building where Schumer has an office, protesting Schumer's stance on Obama's agreement with Iran, I heard a counter protestor shouting, “do you trust Iran?” He was talking to someone else. I didn’t say anything,

Afterwards, I thought “No, I don’t.  Do you trust the government of the USA? If you do, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.”

Still, my sense is that Iran is not part of the “axis of evil,” the way Bush II characterized it.  They have a democracy – granted not perfect, but still a democracy of sorts.  The people there do have a deep concern about morality – maybe not our sense, but still a sense.  They’re not at all like North Korea, where the people are held in slavery to a mythical king.

One question is whether Iran is less to be trusted with nuclear weapons than countries that  already have them, such as Russia, China, Pakistan, India, France, the UK, Israel, and North Korea.  I would personally rate them as more trustworthy than North Korea and Pakistan – possibly on a level with China and India, in terms of the quality of people who are in government. 

We should note that, as afraid as we were of Russia using nuclear weapons against us, it has never happened.  Please note my prior blog about Russia Russia v Ukraine a Dissenting View

What is the only country that has used nuclear weapons in war?  The USA!

What moral authority do we have to say that we should have nuclear weapons – and other weapons of mass destruction – while others cannot? My view is none – no moral authority whatsoever.  Our history is shameful -- as I've listed above.  We're just international bullies.

The real problem here is that Israel is afraid that Iran is going to attack them.  It’s not the nuclear weapons exactly – after all Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons itself, though I don’t think that’s been officially confirmed.  The problem is that Iran has committed to wiping Israel out. 

It’s a unfortunate that we’re arguing about nuclear weapons rather than the real issue.

It would be more cool if Iran were committing not to invade/bomb Israel, much more cool, but what we have is this proposed agreement.  It’s remarkable, given that we have had this ignominious history of perfidy with respect to Iran, and so many others, that they’re willing to talk to us at all.  That’s to be celebrated.  That we got any kind of concessions out of them at all is a miracle.

Can we trust them?  No.  Can they trust us?  No.  Will they abide by the agreement?  Who knows?  Will we? Who knows?

Still it’s progress. It’s a commitment not to go into nuclear weapons.  That’s cool.  It should be supported.

The alternative seems to me to be war – short-sighted, evil, misguided war – a reflection of the short-sighted, evil pattern that we’ve been exhibiting for so very long. Let's stop this pattern.  Let's stop trying to control the world.

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Addendum 8/26/15 Here is a link to the FCNL flyer on the topic of the Iran deal FCNL FLYER

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I was at a protest demonstration in front of Chuck Schumer's office and an obnoxious person came up and started making outrageous statements which I later realized were sardonic critiques of Obama's Iran Deal.  She claimed he would do well as Hitler, and wanted to wipe out Jews.

I found this offensive.  My father was a refugee from the Holocaust, because his ancestry was Jewish.  

I do not want to wipe out Jews.

I think that we have a better chance of negotiating with Iran about Iran's position on Israel if we have good relations with them.  This deal is a good step in that direction.

Also she implied that Iran is like North Korea. NO.  I don't think so, not at all.

Thoughts about how to process resentments under step 4 of the AABB

The resentment form has 3 main parts.

1. The first part is a description of the resentment.  This requires a detailed acknowledgement of what you are feeling.  (see AABB p. 65) 

 

This has 3 sub-parts.

a) the name of the resentment

b) a description of the resentment -- why you have this resentment

c) a list of what is affected.

It is very important to acknowledge your feelings and write them down.  Stuffing down feelings is part of the disease

2. The second part of the form is the prayer (AABB top of p. 67).  This is VERY important.

"God please help me show ________ [person, place, thing resented] the same tolerance, pity, and patience I would cheerfully grant a sick friend.  He/she/it is a sick person/place/thing. How can I be helpful to him/her/it? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

This is a spiritual form of recovery. This prayer is supposed to lift the resentment and help you see the person, place or thing resented as sick.  Visualize them with a band-aid on their forehead.

You cannot see your own character defects.  HP has to help you.  This is a spiritual method of recovery.You especially cannot see your character defects until the resentment is lifted. 

If this prayer does not work to lift the resentment, try the two week resentment prayer AABB (4th ed) p. 551-2

3. The third part of the resentment form is the "turnarounds." Where was a selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and afraid? (AABB p. 67) 

 

These are the "character defects," maladaptive thinking that gives rise to resentments.  Resentments are fatal.  Any thinking that gives rise to resentment is also fatal.

I am attaching:

an example of the resentment form (in the style of oabigbook.info, made up the way I think it should be made up, as applied to the story of Jim (the man who drank the whisky with the milk) in the AABB pp 35-36.  You may want to click on this image to see it larger.

 

More about "selfish" 

When I do a BB style inventory, I list the things I want under "selfish." I do not understand "selfish" to be an insult the way it is used outside program. Instead, it is just the things that I want.

It is normal to want things.  What is bad is if I want things so much that I get sick if I don't get those things.  Also, when I want things I cannot have, I am not surrendered.

Before program I did not allow myself to say or even know many of the things I wanted. I spoke indirectly, all around what I meant or felt.  The things I said were not honestly related to what was going on inside me.  I blew up a lot, because I had so much bottled up, but my blowups were mysterious and sudden, without people having the opportunity to understand what they might have done to offend me – and without me even understanding what was bothering me.

Through repetition in program, by doing this inventory process, I have learned to identify what I want and list those things calmly.  This means that I know myself better than I used to.  I am not stuffing down.  I am being honest.  Since I list things calmly and rationally, I am more likely to get what I want than if I isolate or get sullen & resentful as I used to.  I have become a better negotiator, because of the Big Book process.

Also, because I know and am comfortable with myself, I find it easier to listen to and understand other people.  Their concerns are less likely to destabilize me than before.

Understanding selfishness has helped me feel saner and more integrated with the human race.  

I had a friend in program who had been severely abused by his father.   He wanted his father to love him. He had never felt that his father loved him.  Of course, it is natural for one to want one's father to love one; but, in this case, it was something that he could not have.  He was not able to accept that he could not have it.  (see e.g. Serenity Prayer) He ended up dying from this disease.  Surrender means that we have to accept that we are not in charge and that we don't get what we want all the time.

I have a friend who has wanted to stop the genocide in Darfur.  Now, really, if there is anything that she is powerless over, it's the genocide in Darfur, but she could not accept that.  She had a sign in her front yard that said "not on my watch: stop the genocide in Darfur."  Social activists are often overweight, because they cannot get what they want.  They might be acting selflessly by the standards of the outside world, but not by the standards of program.

For me, the most basic formulation of "selfish" was "I want people, places, and things to be different so I can be more comfortable."

More about "dishonest"

The Dishonest category was something I really did not understand at first. I thought it only related to lies that I told other people or stealing.  I did not understand that it included lies I was telling myself.  These are the harder ones to see.

For me, dishonesty includes: not accepting how much can be accomplished in a day, how much can be accomplished in a lifetime, how much sleep I need, how much time for self care.  I make myself crazy over these things.

Some other categories of dishonest that I had trouble seeing were:

• I don't accept people, places, and things the way HP made them. I think I know better than HP.
• Allowing other people to esteem and value me, e.g. "people pleasing" In fact, HP is the one who should esteem and value me. If I am allowing others' opinions of me to make me miserable, I am making other people into HP
• I thought it was my responsibility to make others happy.  No, it is my responsibility to keep my side of the street clean, using the steps.  If I do that, and others are unhappy with me, then that is not my problem.  It's their problem.  Only HP can make others happy.  If I think I can make others happy, then I'm thinking I'm HP.

More about self-seeking

This category is particularly troublesome, as to what it means.  How is it different from "selfish?"

I heard 3 explanations of this

1. It is the same as selfish and is just listed as "elegant variation," a writing style thing, in the list.

2. It is "seeking yourself in others," i.e. people pleasing.  I personally put this category under "dishonest."

3. How I acted out.  That's the one I prefer.  What did I do as a result of being selfish, dishonest, and afraid? There are a lot of things that could be put in here. 

The most common for female compulsive overeaters is constantly putting out a cloud of negative emotions, which makes everyone miserable.  As with everything in program, there is a spectrum here.  We want to find a happy medium between: being constantly negative and being falsely cheerful, which is emotionally dishonest.  The truth is somewhere in between.  Black & white thinking is not good.

Another way of acting out is somatizing.  I learned more about this when I did ACA.  If I have psychosomatic symtoms, e.g. nervous stomach, blushing, rapid heartbeat, (or in my case also eczema and back spasms can also result from stress) that can often be my first warning that I need to do some stepwork.  My body is warning me. I put that under here because it's important to be aware of body warning signals.

Afraid

I'm hoping to put this in a separate blog (see e.g. AABB p. 68)

Journalling about my career change

I was at a Quaker retreat a year ago.  They asked us to draw pictures.  That seems to be a common activity at Quaker workshops.  I don’t remember what the topic was.  I do remember what I drew.

I drew a picture of me in church, fuming, because I had to listen to a preacher, whose preachings I found insipid, annoying, lacking profundity.  This was one of my motivations for becoming a Quaker — to get onto the other side of the pulpit — to become one of the ministers — and all Friends are ministers.

Below the picture of me in church, I drew a picture of me, looking at my computer screen, fuming, because I had to watch material, much of which I found annoying for some of the same reasons — but also some other reasons.  This was one of my motivations for getting into acting and performing.  I wanted to get on the other side of the screen.

There were other reasons as well.  I love performing.  I feel it comes naturally to me. 

Yet, as I try to get into the entertainment industry, I find myself continuing to dislike the very things that drew me to want to change it.

I have been studying improv comedy for two and a half years.  I love improvising.  I love getting on stage and making things up.  So far, tho, they haven’t let me into conservatory level courses at the my school. 

I was just at the theater run by my school last night, watching a show, by one of my preferred groups.  The show was raunchy.  That seems to be the norm.

I don’t like raunchy.  I am not laughing.  I respect the talent of the people on stage.  They’re bouncy, energetic, working well together.  They’re great singers.  They are nice people off stage.  I really want to be their friend.  But I didn’t like the show.

I also don’t like the widespread use of profanity in improv.  I don’t like profanity. 

I’m taking an acting course at an acting studio.  We’re working on a classic play called “All My Sons,” by Arthur Miller.  It’s a great play.  But my character has to use some profanity.  I don’t like it. 

I get e-mails offering me courses with casting directors who are casting for TV shows that I’ve never watched.  I’m not a TV watcher.  I went completely cold turkey off video in college, because it seemed like a dangerous, addictive drug to me.  I was only recently drawn back into video, because of my computer — the lure of YouTube videos, videos that are shorter, geared to my interests by an artificial intelligence algorithm. 

TV still doesn’t lure me, tho. I would rather be creating content than consuming it, so it’s hard for me to get motivated to go to casting directors who are casting for things that I know little about and probably wouldn’t enjoy.

I’m drawn to sci-fi fantasy villains.  I like the idea of scaring people.  Probably that’s because I’m a timid person.  I don’t feel badly about being a villain, because usually the villain gets killed.  It’s just a role.

I auditioned for a horror musical recently.  The director saw on my resume that I’m religious, so he wondered if I would fit into horror.  I’m drawn to scaring people, so I’m drawn to horror. I told him that I thought that horror is often very moralistic — often more so than other genres — and draws conclusions that are very basic ethically.  There was no moral conclusion to the musical improv comedy show I saw last night at all.

Still, I was most drawn to Dark Shadows as a child, because Barnabas wanted to reform.  That’s part of what I really liked about Star Wars, Darth Vader was redeemed at the end.  Redemption is a theme that I like, much more so than killing the victim.  Tho I don’t consider myself a traditional Christian, I was impressed with the Christian idea that we are trying to save people spiritually, to get them to repent and reform rather than just punishing them.

I also liked Star Trek, as a kid, partly because Captain Kirk always regretted having to kill sentient aliens.  He did not take pleasure in it.  He wanted to avoid it.

I like to watch movies based on comic books.  There’s little or no profanity there.  There are scary villains that I would like to play, but they don’t have to swear.  Also, I like watching sexy men in tights, if it’s only slightly suggestive, and not raunchy.

One of the things that drew me to Quakers was the historical testimony of plainness.  Historical Quakers felt that spending time decorating themselves was wasteful, that that time and energy should be spent helping the poor.  For me, it’s a bit different.  I don’t like the feeling that women have to spend huge amounts of time and energy decorating themselves, because they feel insecure about themselves, particularly with respect to men.  Also, I feel that society generally compensates women less than men and women are expected to spend scarce resources on their appearances.

I got into a big debate on Facebook recently about Bruce Jenner’s transition, where I was disturbed that he felt comfortable with his natural appearance  while being interviewed by Sawyer so long as that was identified as “male,” but identifying as “female” and becoming “she,” involved wearing makeup, hyper-sexualized clothing and styled hair — a male fantasy of what a woman is — not the natural appearance of a person in the process of transitioning from male to female, with mixed features and body attributes.

The person who got most upset about my post was a successful actress, who does buy into the whole makeup, clothing, hair thing.  She felt threatened, apparently, by my opinion that Jenner’s way of defining female involved all this beauty enhancement stuff. 

The first transgender people I met were Quakers.  They, like me, were not so into the commercialization of female beauty and tended to be fairly plain.  They made me curious.  I tend to be drawn to gay and transgender men.  I wanted to know more about them.

Jenner is different.  Women in his life as a straight man included the Kardashians.  Jenner buys into that view of women. I’m still curious about Jenner, as most everyone seems to be, but I don’t like the way Jenner defines female.

But this brings me back to my friend who is a successful actress, who is not into “plain” the way I am.  In some sense, she represents my fears about what I would have to become to be successful as a performer. 

I’m not going into this to become like everyone else.  I don’t want to have to do roles that include profanity.  I don’t want to have to buy into this definition of female that includes spending huge amounts of time and energy on commercial beauty products and fashion.

Still I find myself buying some pretty clothes — drawn to them.  I used to like to wear grey and black a lot .  I don’t like it so much any more.

Part of this is my realization that grey and black clothing is still dyed.  Dyes are applied in toxic processes.  The whole dying industry has been mostly moved outside the USA, because modern commercial dying cannot be accomplished in compliance with OSHA and EPA regulations.  We’ve shipped the toxicity to the third world.

Jonathan Woolman, a historical Quaker, insisted on wearing undyed cloth, because even then toxicity was a huge issue for workers.  I have a few pieces of clothing that are made of undyed cloth.  They show stains very badly.  They’re ecru in color.  They don’t feel practical because of the way they show stains.

So I’m wearing dyed cloth and feeling schizo about it.

I feel like I’m on a slippery slope.  I’m practicing a role where I have to use some profanity.  I’m wearing some dyed clothing.  I’m anxious not to alienate a successful professional actress who is happy with her makeup and hair styling. 

I don’t want to become what I hate in order to succeed.  I don’t like the influence some people have on me. 

I’m not sure where I’m going with this.  I feel like I have moral concerns that no one else shares, a Don Quixote of sorts. 

response to @wsj op ed piece on assisted suicide 5/23/15

I personally favor the option of an assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.  As I understand it, this writer does not.

The writer points out that many states have not approved assisted suicide. One concern that comes up, and the writer expresses it in this piece, is that health care providers may be put under pressure to terminate expensive patients if physician assisted suicide is allowed.

The missing link here is the physician assisted piece.

The mission of physicians is to save lives.  They take a Hippocratic Oath to this effect.  This is the single most fundamental part of the ethos of physicians.  Why should they be the ones to have responsibility for this delicate procedure?

Why not have a separate profession of people to do this job?  These people would have cross-disciplinary training, e.g.:

1. some medical so that they can evaluate the seriousness of the patient's condition and administer suicide drugs;
2. some in psychology so that they can evaluate any need for counseling, both for the patient and for those close to the patient, and administer such counseling;
3. some legal, so that they can help the patient procure necessary assistance in preparing a will and a living will; getting a health care proxy; arranging for a power of attorney for people to administer finances if the person elects not to commit suicide
4. some general practical in terms of arranging for care of the patient and any responsibilities the patient has if the patient elects to continue living, but is not able to maintain those responsibilities.  This might reassure many patients and help them feel more hopeful.

Since these people would not be doctors, and presumably financed by some other mechanism than health insurance,  they would not be under pressure from health insurance companies to terminate expensive patients.

I would like to see these assisted suicide ballot efforts changed slightly to include this different vehicle for carrying out wishes of terminal patients.

A neurological argument about why prayer and meditation help combat addiction

Why do I think a spiritual approach to addiction works?

I often speak with people who are skeptical that a spiritual approach works for addiction.  In some cases, this is because these people do not believe in a higher power.

I see no reason why you should have to believe in a higher power in order to work a 12 step program.  I believe it is necessary to pray, but that does not mean one has to believe in a higher power.  I would like to offer a sketch of a neurological argument for why a spiritual approach should work.  First, I will talk about some articles that I have read.  Then I will talk about impressions that I have in my own head — what some things have felt like to me — and connections I see between my own impressions and the articles that I have read.

I’m struggling to make this coherent.  I tend to get too complicated.  I may edit it more later.

Very shortly after I joined program in the fall of 2004 there was a short article in Science News that strongly influenced my thinking (Science News, 11/13/2004, Vol. 166, No. 20, p. 310). This article dealt with the topic of synchronized gamma activity in the brain. The article compared two studies.

The first was a study of schizophrenics. This first study showed that schizophrenics have less synchronized gamma activity than normal people.

The second study compared normal people with Buddhist monks who had been meditating several hours per day for fifteen to thirty years. These monks had much more synchronized gamma activity than normal people, and especially spreading into more areas of the brain. The article said that it wasn't known what was cause or effect here, because possibly people with more synchronized gamma activity were choosing to be Buddhist monks, but they found that normal people who tried to meditate would increase the size of the areas of their brains that had synchronized gamma activity.

Moreover, I saw another article (Scientific American Mind, November/December 2009 pp 65-67) where Buddhists were interviewed and they explained what they were doing when meditating.  One stated goal was to try to expand their mediation into more parts of their brains. 

I have seen some articles proposing that the schizophrenic impression of hallucination relates to some lack of connectivity between brain centers generating the hallucination and brain centers perceiving the hallucination, (cf P. Boksa, “On the Neurobiology of Hallucinations,” J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2009 Jul; 34(4): 260–262) 

This reminds me of my experience in natural childbirth. At the time I did that, I was doing a lot of yoga, so I was in a what I would now call “fit spiritual condition”. I got a sense of being in contact mentally with the labor process and even of having some control over it, despite labor allegedly being involuntary. That sensation of being in contact with the process had a spiritual feel to it, something like ESP.

Shortly after childbirth, I read the fiction book The Mists of Avalon, which is a retelling of the Arthurian legends from a female perspective. This book talked about women who had been in childbirth believing that they some kind of second sight, a sort of ESP. I really related to that, from my own prospective of having ESP-like feelings while in childbirth.

I also found a diagram on a government website related to addiction that posited that addiction is related to the central portion of the brain, including the amygdala. These central portions of the brain are at approximately on eye level.

Another article in Science News gave a diagram of the brain showing areas of the brain that have been linked to conscious thought. (Science News, 2/11/2012 p. 24) These areas were almost all on the outer surface of the brain, in contrast with the suspected areas relating to addiction, which were deep in the center.

Yet another article that I saw (Currents -- Science Journal: A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight --- Researchers Map the Anatomy of the Brain's Breakthrough Moments and Reveal the Payoff of Daydreaming, Robert Lee Hotz. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern Edition). New York, N.Y.:Jun 19, 2009. p. A.11 ) said that neurological researchers have seen decisions being formed in the subconscious part of the brain eight seconds before we are aware of them. The conscious brain is a delusional egomaniac. It thinks it is in control, but it is not.

My impression as an active food addict was that there was a part of my brain that wanted to stop eating and a part that didn't want to stop, and, somehow, the part of the brain that didn't want to stop was winning. A lot of other addicts have told me the same thing, and chapter three of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is dedicated to this phenomenon, the idea that the conscious brain wants to stop, and, yet, there constantly arises this insanely trivial excuse to go back and engage in the addictive behavior, and the conscious brain is powerless to stop it.

When I first got abstinent, I had a sensation of fluid flowing inside my brain.  I have sometimes had a similar sensation after a limb falls asleep.  As sensation returns, there is sometimes a feeling as if fluid were flowing into the previously numb area.  I therefore got the definite impression, early in program, that somehow prayer and meditation were causing parts of my brain that were asleep or numb to wake up, or have circulation return.

In view of the different positions in the brain of the conscious brain and the centers for impulses and desires, it makes total sense to me that one would not have conscious control over addiction — that there would be a disconnect between those regions.  In view of the ability of meditation to cause some form of neurological activity, namely the synchronized gamma activity, to move into more areas of the brain, it makes sense to me that meditation could help connect the conscious and unconscious brains.  This also makes sense to me in view of my experience with natural childbirth.

When I started program, I devised a meditation of an ocean wave at eye level washing into the back of my brain. I spoke about this in another blog https://annalisse-mayer.blogspot.com/2013/09/musings-on-making-my-higher-power-work.html. This was even before I saw the diagram of where the amygdala is, but, in fact, this meditation involved reaching with a wave image into precisely those areas that the government diagram specified as relevant to addiction.

The use of prayer seems analogous to me — a potential tool for getting one part of the brain to connect with another, precisely what seems to be missing in the addict who wants to quit and yet finds him or herself continually returning to the behavior that s/he wanted to stop.

******

Addendum 9/2/15

Also prayer releases endorphins http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-Natural-Rush which is generally what addicts are seeking -- and prayer is much healthier than other things that addicts are doing to get endorphins.

******

Addendum 8/31/21

New research about spirituality and the brain

Study uses novel technology to map the brain circuitry of spirituality

Birdman

I saw Birdman.

This movie got an Oscar.

One of my teachers in one of my acting classes recommended it highly. She said she watched it three times or something like that, on her free SAG/AFTRA account. 

I can summarize my reaction

ICK

I’ve been studying to be an actress. 

Should I conclude that professional actors voted to give this movie an Oscar because it accurately reflects what actors and crew are like? 

Backstage they are constantly yelling at one another and fighting, sometimes with fists?  They trash their dressing rooms?  They are hallucinating, gratuitously naked, sexually harassing their colleagues, using French kissing a bit like the game “musical chairs?”  They loiter in high places contemplating suicide on a regular basis?  Every moment of their professional life is marked by high drama interpersonal conflict?

Really?

Drag.

To me, this movie seems a lot like the video game “Halo,” which my kids like.  It’s just one continuous sequence of conflict, from scene to scene, from room to room — like a video game.

But it gets an Oscar, as if it were high art.  I would say instead that it’s self-deluded snobbery.

And, of course, the NY Times critic is depicted as a petty sociopath.

Really?

Give me a superhero/action film any day.  At least those are intellectually honest.  They do not have the plot of a violent video game and then masquerade as art.

@Hozier, Fantine, and Occitocin

I'm listening to Hozier. 

I was alerted to his existence by an acquaintance who told me about his song “Take Me to Church.”  She said she hated the song.  I decided to go listen to it. 

I pull up the music video. Here’s the link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSVMgRr6pw

 I immediately hate it.  The idea of promoting gay rights appeals to me, but the not idea of watching innocent people be burned alive.  Still, the voice sticks in my head.  I want to hear it again.

I am drawn to watch the video several times.  I get a bit desensitized to the horrific incident depicted there. I decide to go listen to the album preview on amazon.  I download the album.

I’m listening to it on replay for a while. The first song currently has 27 plays on my iTunes, while the later songs have 16 .  As I listen, I keep bopping around, loving the rhythms, the voices, the harmonies.

But after a while, as I sing along, I start noticing what I’m singing.  OK, this guy doesn’t like the church, but he worships women and sex.  Hmmm.  This isn’t exactly representing my my beliefs.

I look back at the video and listen to the words.  Hozier is singing about a female lover.  He’s not singing about a male lover.  Presumably, he himself is not gay, unlike the couple in the video.  The video doesn’t really go with the words.

I mean the passion and anger go with the video — and the anti-church message — but the songs on the album are clearly about a straight man.

I find an interview with Hozier on YouTube.  He explains that treatment of LGBT people is one of the reasons he feels angry toward the church, yet I don’t see anywhere that he himself is gay.

Someone sends me a link to a video with a Russian ballet dancer done to “Take me to Church.”  Here’s the link. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-tW0CkvdDI

It is sort of a stereotype that ballet dancers *are* gay — so I imagine that perhaps this dancer, taken by the music and the video, wants to add his enthusiastic contribution.  His video is a lot more appealing than the official video.  It’s done in an idyllic wooded area.  No one is burned alive.  The dancer is talented.

But the actual words of the song, as opposed to the video — and the actual words of more than one of the songs — are on this somewhat unappealing topic: I worship women and sex, but I’m not interested in marriage/commitment.

This is a pretty typical view for an immature, selfish, young man.  Perhaps his personal morality and maturity just aren’t as advanced as the music.  That wouldn’t be too surprising.

My thoughts drift a bit to a couple of other amazing songs, performed  in Les Miz.  “On My Own” and “I Dreamed a Dream.”   Here are some links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvzLZIiD5TU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzNVmZfNoa8

These are songs about women who have had their hearts broken by men. 

The case of the character, Fantine, played by Ann Hathaway in the movie, is much like that of the gay couple in Hozier’s video.  In both cases, we see pompous, self-righteous hypocrites violently brutalizing others in the name of religion, while ignoring those principles of religion that most of us hold most dear: love, forgiveness, tolerance, mercy, and compassion.  In both cases, the brutality of the attackers persuades us that their viewpoint is defective.  The primitive, savage brutality,  which might be thought to be inspired by early scripture, is in fact not what God wants us to be doing here and now.  Art helps us see a truth that naked text fails to reveal.

But there’s something here that doesn’t quite click. 

In fact, Hozier’s attitude toward women seems not so very different from that of the guy who abandoned Fantine to the savagery of vigilantes and, inherently, Cosette to the exploitive greed of the family who takes money in exchange for neglecting her.  He wants to have fun. He doesn’t want to make a commitment. He hates anyone who might be implying that there is something wrong morally with his behavior — or his idea of worshiping sex and women.

Now, we can rationalize.  There are contraceptives and abortion so women don’t have to be left with children who they cannot care for.  In much of the world — though certainly not all — the idea that women who have had premarital sex should be brutalized or killed or even shunned has been abandoned.  The idea that out of wedlock children should be stigmatized for the malfeasance of their parents is also commonly rejected in places that we consider civilized. 

Still, it is not at all uncommon for young women to have their hearts broken by exploitive, young men who are eager for sex and don’t care at all for the consequences.  Hozier and/or his handlers are clever to divert us from that thought, by directing our attention to the case of the poor gay couple in Hozier’s music video, which now has over a hundred million views.

Listening to Hozier’s lyrics over and over, it’s hard for me to believe that the subject matter of the music video was more than a self-interested afterthought.

This leads me back to one of my pet theories, which I talked about in a blog that I see has only 5 views at this point

http://annalisse-mayer.blogspot.com/2014/10/premarital-sex-and-free-love-revolution.html

I believe that our ability to bond to lovers is not infinite.  I believe that we bond most strongly to the first person we have sex with ("the first cut is the deepest"); and that the more people we have sex with, the weaker our ability to bond becomes. 

My own experience is that I could never enjoy anyone else as much as the first one.  Everyone is shaped a bit differently, moves a bit differently, makes different sounds.  No one was ever quite the same as the first one, the one I had bonded to, and therefore could not satisfy me the same way. 

I believe this has to do with the action of the hormone occitocin on the body responsive to certain types of stimulation.

I learned about occitocin during childbirth education.  I had an even stronger, but similar, experience after giving birth to my first child via natural childbirth and nursing him — resulting in even greater release of the hormone occitocin in a particular, life-changing event.

Based on my personal experience and my reading about the action of the hormone occitocin on the body, I believe that people who have casual sex with multiple partners are damaging themselves and their partners -- reducing their ability to bond and have satisfying relationships.  This damage has nothing to do with the vicious actions taken against Fantine in Les Miz.  It’s just the way our bodies are made and how they respond biologically to stimuli.

Despite the beauty of Hozier’s music and the cleverness of the diversion posed by his video, I have to conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong — even perhaps evil — about some of his lyrics.

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Addendum 4/19/15

Well, I haven't stopped listening to Hozier.  I still like the music, even tho I have this impression of him as being a self-centered user of women.  One thing that I'm noticing now is the prevalence of the word "sin." It appears that he's troubled at some level by his own behavior and also by the moral teachings he received at a younger age.  I find this a bit encouraging.