The Actual Apple

If you are still trying to figure out the meaning of life, stop looking: the answer is here. Love and wisdom. In other words: human relationships and a cosmic connection. Western research has shown that success, expecially monetary successs, though important, is not the most important thing in life. In Donisetti's opera, Anna Bolena, Anna sings (loudly over a full orchestra) what is most important to her: Amore e Fama--Love and Fame--well, she is half-right, and her emphasis on the lattter goal will cost the diva her head in the last act. How many other heads and hearts have been lost among those for whom competition and greed are primary? Countless? Countless.

As I've written many times before, when the concept of separation, the idea of individuality, that is the human ego, arose by natural selection, humanity (or perhaps even pre-humanity) made a large step forward. Without the conviction that one is a separate individual, culture and scientific progress would not be possible. Yes, but we must not forget that we livc in a  fallen world: man's inhumanity to man is everywhere in evidence. (I'm writing this during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.) As the Buddha taught, the root cause of mental suffering is tanha, striving, desire, greed or however you want to translate this seminal word. 

There are only two ways to avoid, at least briefly, the trap of tanha--you guessed it, love and wisdom. Love provides relief from the burdens of ego by devotion and service to others. As Augustine taught, Love, then do what you want. Easier said then done, of course, but one can put love to work whatever one's situation. (If you already know this and are putting this truth into practice--and you're under forty--you're lucky. Keep it up! If you know this and are putting it into practice and you're well over forty, you are heading for an old age where love and wisdom more than balances the burdens of years.)

The other route to transcend the limitations and problems of ego is through wisdom. Wisdom is the insight, the fact, that everything is connected. The little self is an illusion. The immensity of the cosmos is not frightening to the wise. The splendor of the vast universe induces awe, and awe always trumps ego.  Whenever the vastness makes one a bit dizzy, one regains one's balace by praciting our other primary task, service to tohers.

In this little essay, we will discuss the interconnectedness of all things. I will start with a quote from the wonderful book, The Art of Happiness, a discussion about the important things of life between the Dalai Lama and a psychiatrist:

Yet that afternoon, as I listened to the Dalai Lama, something happened. As "Our Dependence on Others," was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he (the Dalai Lama) mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in the making of my shirt. I  started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for that matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the steel for each part of the tractor. And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, the people who wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed and sewed the cloth, the cargo workers and truck drivers who delivered the shirt to the store and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occurred to me that every aspect of the shirt came about as the result of others' efforts. My previous self-reliance was a complete illusion. As this realization came over me, I was overcome  with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings.

--The Art of Happiness, Howard Gutler M.D., page 66.

If this is true for a shirt, and it is, imagine how true this is for living things, an example of the epitome of which (as far as we know) is an amazing concatenation of matter and ?, namely, you!

How long has evolution been going on? How old is the age of the Earth? The great scientist, Lord Kelvin, estimated the age of the Earth to be 300 million years maximum. He knew that the Earth and the Sun evolved at the same time, but he knew nothing of the nuclear fusion reaction that occurs in the Sun. This is the reason his estimate of Earth's age was way-off. Scientist today know that the Earth (and Sun) are over 4 billion years old. Life began over 3 billion years ago. Evolution involved single-cell organisms (viruses and bacteria) until the Cambian explosion, 541 million years ago. Plants and animals have been evolving ever since. Humans, as we would recognize them today, have been around for only 100,000 years. 

That evolution has produced so many fascinating creatures over the eons is a 'secular miracle.' Each creature is a 'miraculous' result of evolution, including us, but not only us. (To paraphrase Whitman, do not criticize the tortoise for not being something else.) Each has followed its own path to greater complexity. Humans, smart as they are, have been dumb enough to be causing the many extinctions of the present age. Once magnificant creatures like the white rhino disappear, and there  are only two left, they go, bar cloning, forever. Tragic.

But the subject here is different. The rhino and other animals didn't appear, as the bible would have it, all at once: they are the products of eons of life on earth. They didn't appear 'out of the blue'--if plants hadn't increased the oxygen in the atmosphere, animals would not have evolved. If the cosmos didn't exist, the Earth and Sun couldn't exist; if the Earth didn't exist, life couldn't exist; etc etc. The great chain of being is dependent on living links, which are/were in turn dependent on the inorganic properties of Earth and Sky. In other word, everything is interconnected!

I will end this little piece by quoting in full the best poem I know which celebrates the interdepencence of all things, a poem by the German author, Michael Ende. It is a wonderful illustration of wisdom, the knowedge of the many factors that have resulted in everything we see and are.

The Actual Apple

A writer and a  realist, well known
for literality,

searched for something found at home

to delineate from A to Z:

an apple, for instance, an organic bit,

and all that goes along with it.

He described the core, the pulp, the skin,

the stem, the leaves, the branch, the tree,

the roots, the ground the roots grew in,

and Newton's Law of Gravity--

But that wasn't the actual apple at all;

he must include spring, summer, winter, and fall,

the sun and the moon and the stars--

He filled enough paper to paper a wall,

yet the ending seemed farther than quasars:

for actually he belonged there too,

(this man of prose who hated verse,)

and Adam and Eve and I and you

and God and the whole universe--

Finally he became fully aware

that apples are just indescribably there;

neither he nor another shall ever define

something so common, something so sublime--

He lifts his apple to the light;

smiling now, he takes a bite.

Michael Ende

--translated from the German by

Thomas Dorsett

Misery Repeats Itself: August, 1968 and February, 2022.

 On August 20, 1968, I sat alone in my railroad apartment on the fourth floor of a dark walk-up located at 214 East 85th Street in New York City.  It was nighttime when I heard the news. A National Geographic map of Czechoslovakia was next to my bed on the wall. The Russians had inavaded! It made me so sad that I began to drink. I don't remember what I was drinking, but I do remember that I took too much of the stuff. I was at the point of tears.

I was young then; I am old now. Now it's a map of Ukraine. The Russians have invaded once more. What good are an old man's tears?

I will not drink too much this time; my health will not permit it. But once again, with great sadness, I think of a country full of men, women and children being viciously  attacked militarily by its northern neighbor. What can I do? Nothing, nothing, nothing. Except document my sorrow with a blog.

I hope those that read this blog in the distant future will be living in a better world. I doubt it.

It is the night of February 25, 2022. The Russians have entered Kyiv, the capital city. The Ukranians are putting up a stiff resistance, but they are up against a vast army of Russians. I just saw a young man on TV--He could hardly speak Engish, but told the CNN reporter that it was his duty to defend his country. Was he married? Yes. Did he have children? Yes. Was he afraid?  His face assumed a tense expression as he said the following, "Only stupid persons aren't afraid!' What will happen to him? I don't know, but I know what will happen to many like him. 

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori?  Is it sweet and fitting to die for one's country? No, Horace. Amarum et decorum est pro patria mori. Replace 'sweet' with 'bitter' and there you have it. Old people have known this for centuries.

Trump's support for Putin--he claims that Putin's  strategy is 'pretty smart'--that along with the pro-Russia stance of so many of his followers is especially outrageous now. I have yet to hear the liberal media use the 'T' word. They are traitors, nevertheless. 

Once again, the vanity of one man is about to cause the death and suffering of many. He has failed his country as he shells another. 

When will we ever learn? As the chorus of the high priests reply to Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute--Bald, bald, oder nie! (Soon, soon, or never!)

Life is very hard as it is. (If you don't agree, Putin or no Putin, one day you almost certainly will.) To mow down human beings, the wise and the foolish; to deliberately make the latter earth before Earth has a chance to set them on age's arc, which tends to lead one to wisdom, is despicable beyond words.

When will we ever learn?

Bald, bald, oder nie?