I'm staying with a friend at her apartment while on a business assignment away from home. She has two cats and a dog that I have come to know and look forward to petting when I get here. The guest room is familiar and inviting. She always has a few things on hand because she knows I enjoy them... like late night chocolate and seasonal berries for breakfast.
What I love about a friendship that has grown over years has been described by a poet in a line I vaguely recall as 'the unexpressible comfort'. We know how to say, Do you want some of this, are you done with your plate, what else do you need, without having to wonder whether we are overly imposing or being a 'good host.'
Both are committed to each other's happiness and comfort, and both are empathetic about life's imperfections and our own rambling paths.
We can have a light conversation or a deeper one. We can create separate apace in the apartment so she can get rest while I am on an earlier time zone. She can tell me what's important about locking the door or turning off lights so I can come and go. We can share understanding about the people and situations in our lives. We look forward to seeing each other and have a good time.
This is not rocket science, this is not fireworks or life-changing like falling in love. It is also not the same comfort I had with many friends when there were many friends around in the full press of adulthood. It is knowing who has stuck, who will accept me because they have done so, who holds a similar loyalty to me that I hold to them. It's not many people, it's not acquaintances. In addition to the friend I am visiting now, it's the few people with whom I will make plans and go visit or enthusiastically host.
It is a little bit of a surprise who my close friends are now, compared to the people with whom I spent many hours and passages assuming it would continue indefinitely. A few have stayed and we're easy.
This is what long term friendship turns out to be. A treasure that cannot be found except through the span of time.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Former Majority Attempts to Define Objectivity
As I listen to the opening statements by US Senators in the hearing to confirm Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, I am taken aback by the premises expressed most strikingly by Republicans. They continue to assert that the Constitution is totally clear and can be interpreted objectively based on the text only and no personal opinion, and most amazingly, that the justices who agree with them are all completely objective. That 106 of 110 justices in the history of the court having been white and male would have had no impact on the decisions they made.
More than overt oppressive tactics such as arrests and censorship, the subtle and probably unconscious bias of thinking one's own opinions are objective is dangerous because of the inertia of the majority mindset.
Even though our population has shifted and the majority is on its way to minority status, our ruling bodies and our common thinking and beliefs still unconsciously hold that there is objective reality which happens to correspond to what we think. And to unconsciously support an economic system that slants toward greed and war.
This observation motivates me to promote a) thinking about thinking, i.e. self-reflection without being self-confirming, or closed, and b) interaction with people in the world as equals in importance though not in talents or privileges.
I believe that intelligence is self-questioning, without being doubtful, and that it grows through contact with the many ways of living on this planet.
If we are to be ready for interaction with anyone from another galaxy, let's think ahead and practice welcoming behaviors here where we reside. And one of them would be understanding the spectrum of possible belief systems and ways to live.
Please, Senators who hold great legislative and social-political power, recognize that RIGHT is not a functional place to stand if you are to do your job in this system. Reflect on the hypocrisy and scandal that plagues people who take the righteous ownership of reality. Find a path to the humility that does not bow or scrape but does think beyond slogans and expands understanding of what it means to be human.
More than overt oppressive tactics such as arrests and censorship, the subtle and probably unconscious bias of thinking one's own opinions are objective is dangerous because of the inertia of the majority mindset.
Even though our population has shifted and the majority is on its way to minority status, our ruling bodies and our common thinking and beliefs still unconsciously hold that there is objective reality which happens to correspond to what we think. And to unconsciously support an economic system that slants toward greed and war.
This observation motivates me to promote a) thinking about thinking, i.e. self-reflection without being self-confirming, or closed, and b) interaction with people in the world as equals in importance though not in talents or privileges.
I believe that intelligence is self-questioning, without being doubtful, and that it grows through contact with the many ways of living on this planet.
If we are to be ready for interaction with anyone from another galaxy, let's think ahead and practice welcoming behaviors here where we reside. And one of them would be understanding the spectrum of possible belief systems and ways to live.
Please, Senators who hold great legislative and social-political power, recognize that RIGHT is not a functional place to stand if you are to do your job in this system. Reflect on the hypocrisy and scandal that plagues people who take the righteous ownership of reality. Find a path to the humility that does not bow or scrape but does think beyond slogans and expands understanding of what it means to be human.
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