Like us fore, ever

Know time connects the past to the future . . .

A moment visually captured, later the photograph grows old, like every other thing —entropy— but even as it grows old it may also have meaning for some people who see it, a meaning which stirs the memory of that moment, it brings back the feeling . . . of a moment in history.

Is a photograph better than just, say pre-camera, where the memory was stored in the mind? . . . or the memory held 一repressed or played like a video in the mind? . . . Then again the photographic image is a specific moment in time, or in the case of a film, a period of time, whereas the memory is a biological machine integrating all of the senses into one sensual moment —the body—the eyes, ears, mouth, touch and nose — a tool for the mind to sense the Universe. and the photograph using the visual sense can trigger a comprehensive sensual feeling. Where the photograph objectives the moment, the mind subjectives it.

The photograph always looks the same, but the feeling may change. Maybe we change our opinion about the recorded moment—a happy image of an old love affair gone bad—an image which once invoked happiness later bring sadness anger, or self reproach —do we rip it up and throw it out in haste?

The same image that when first seen brought happiness, later seen brings sadness, or anger, perhaps some psychological rationalizations, and insecurity, perhaps even resolve—“Lord just help get over this one, I’ll get over the next one myself.”

This young man, holding two phones, was texting himself.

Sometimes its what was not in the image, or, some thing which makes an unplanned appearance in a moment which caught the feeling of the photographer but was missed by the lens. Who is seeing, the photographer or the lens?

For some the photograph may be better than the reality—McLuhan joked about two women who pass each other on the sidewalk, one pushing a new born in a carriage. The other says “What a beautiful baby!” to which the mother replies, “Oh but you should see the photographs.”

With TV and video people do not have to know how to read.. McLuhan used to argue that print (circa Gutenberg , movable type and western world) created a world in which visual became the most used, actually over used, sense, creating a “biological imbalance” having a major influence in the networks of human relations, i.e. the social structure of human relationships of society.

Print influenced people to use the visual much more and the other much senses less altering the society as a whole. Print popularized reading and writing, and brought correct sentences, logical sentence structure, common word meanings, and popularized causal relationships expressed logically—understanding some “thing” is to know what caused it, to “know”why it happened.

Perhaps some are capable, like Mork, to see images in their hand, and lead us through this madness.

Alameda Creek

Will we, human beings, always be “like this?”

Everyday people get up in the morning, they may take a walk or bike ride along Alameda Creek or may go to work, or may even rob a bank , save a life or join an army.

If you feel like you agree to the feeling of the words, even if we do not agree on what “like this” means specifically, then we share something . . . a desire for change.

Many say we all want the same things, but more likely what some want is more of the same things than others get. —its not the things that is important but the “ more.”

You may have your own unique definition of what “like this” means . . . Think of those times when someone says “Why do people do this or that . . . its human nature; he’s a bad person; she does not have integrity‚—so many reasons make logical sense.

Why do people believe lies? Why are people so gullible? Why do people make war? Why do people fall in love with someone they cannot live with? Why does she not like me?

Are people naturally good, such as Mencius believed and a great society needs to develop that seed of human nature? Are people naturally bad such as Hobbes, Thomas Aquinas or Han Fei Tzu argue, and society needs an strict authoritative individual or legal structure to control the bad behaviour—the human nature behavior—of individuals with strongly enforced laws?

Are we all sometimes good and sometimes bad, are there the good people and the bad people, are each of us some good and some bad? Hw do we know?

Is this just the way human beings are? “Human nature?” we cannot escape it, by definition anyway, it is a prison in which we are bounded, yet we do not know, or cannot agree on what it is.

What is our “Natural Self”? So many behaviors in the past of 300+ years, which were sufficient to enable human beings to survive come to be embedded in culture and as time goes on for some they become outdated, and need to be changed while for others they are something to defend as necessary to enable people to continue to survive.

Change happens,, but if there is a natural self, a human nature, by definition is unchangeable. The world changes while people remain the same? People who want to maintain the status quo usually believe human nature as unchangeable, the problems we have in society will always be with us.and we need to structure society to minimize the problems of bad individual behavior .

China has always been an authoritarian political structure. Confucian philosophy is about what is the “correct” behavior of the ruler. Dan, Duke Wen of Zhou ( 周文公旦) is perhaps the most recognized example of admirable behavior

“Will China become less authoritarian in the future”—that’s like saying “Will the United States become less racist in the future?” Its unchartered territory, things we never have been able to fix or change before. Great leaders will look forward to a better world; authoritarian demagogues will convince people that a past which was not so great was actually great and better than anything the future has to offer.

EndPapers

People are waiting, patiently,

Looking for leaders to bring them home.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go, no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone . . .

. . . If I knew the way I would take you home.
Ripple Grateful Dead

But its not “If you go” —we all do go,—that is what it means to be born and have a life.

There are as many paths in life as there are people.

Imagine working here, spending 8 hours a day in this little box??? Where do you poop and pee? Then again imagine being a wood pecker, whenever you are eating you are banging your head against a tree trunk.