Just a very small comment I will leave here after enjoying reading your text. I discovered the combination of tastes described by you totally by chance. Usually I drink lemony water in the morning and then I drink black coffee without sugar. and I remember the exact moment some years ago when I guess I still had taste of lemon in my mouth when I took a sip of the coffee. I exclaimed with excitement. Great moment and great combo <3
It's a human trait, perhaps genetically, perhaps vestigial, linked with survival. We have a desperate, often visceral need to other something including people in order to stay part of a specific tribe. Animals sometimes do it as well. The problem arises when humans complicate and corrupt with what they call ethics. They usually give their ethics a religious name. But once proselytism, named or not, was believed to be necessary for survival - wars to protect, a response to a high death during birth, genetic homogeneity, or, ironically, in response to an unforeseen change in climate that might have wiped out a tribe - humanity did what they always do. They came up with reasons to justify their greed, power grabs, anything they wanted to do or obtain for reasons other than survival using their ethics. Slavery, the killing off and relocation of indigenous peoples, genocides, holocausts, murders in the name of defense of their ethics, no longer founded in survival became the norm. Gazans are being murdered because they have to kill them all off to get to Hamas so that Israelis will never have to worry about their survival again. Just like Africans were never accorded agency as humans but were instead othered as animals that could be slaughtered like any animal could be as food. What country has not justified their heinous actions as defending themselves against heathens or non-believers or savages incapable of becoming worshippers of a specific religion - therefore, removable. Humanity as a species in it's current physical embodiment should no be conflated with an equal, species wide development of intellectual capabilities. This fact may have been and sometimes still is used as an othering tactic, but typically to engender innate fear, insecurity, and in recent times resentment towards anyone that could be perceived as better than to enforce proselytism and power grabs and wars and genocides. It's why education has been historically denied to women, and to entire populations. Not in the name of survival but in the name of religious dictates that maintain a specific power structure. Humanity in general is averse to self outcasting, especially when that could mean death. So they follow the mandates of those who don't or won't or can't conceptualize something as intellectually wrong. It's the Achilles heel of progressives, and liberals, and I believe all of humanity that sees the horrors yet lets them continue unabated. They will be dead soon enough, why should they care about someone else in another tribe, or someone in another country they have already othered? As for immediate gratification addictions that's exactly what has been taught, typically as part of a sovereign tool, to distract people that have already been assigned a role in life based on their tribe's or their country's needs. It's what social media and the attention economy that has taken over the world needs to function. All people seem to care about - except those who are actually more ethically and well developed intellectually - is the rush they get from being heard or seen. We are actually living in The Planet of The Apes, although with very sophisticated technological tools to shape reality or at least the reality that people are allowed to see. Humanity seems to damage itself according to the same lunar and solar cycles you mention. I keep coming back to Camus because he saw it so clearly, and was still able to write about it. Machiavelli did so as well, but we like to think we've advanced and passed out of that blunter, cruder politic but we definitely have not. Camus already had publicly given up, or at least made you believe that he had, and said let me just enjoy this habit, this custom, this quotidian ritual and not concern myself with the brutalities of it all, this life that demands and is only constant in it's ambiguity and random cruelty. Sun Tau in 5th century BC recognized this, inspiring leaders of entire countries for over a thousand years to exploit and weaponize these constants of humanity. Today's leaders and their acolytes are just blunter, crueler, and better able to do so using technology that most people have been prevented from accessing. And to top it all off some ethical systems believe this is meant to happen. It is the end of days. Those who believe, intellectually, that somehow things can be corrected or fixed by shaming someone by declaring that history will recall or remember something a certain way are just denying the power of hagiography. Sometimes that's just legend and myth making. Now, it's just outright deceit, manipulated to control or embolden humanity's darker motives and actions. None of this is new. When Charles Perry talks about recipes written centuries ago he always hastens to add that most things were copied from someone who made something up to flatter a person in power, not to document an actual practice. What lesser valued human being had access to the tools or agency to document the lives of ordinary people? Such is hagiography, and any hopes that anyone will be shamed into anything. Most of humanity today is already caught in the gears, unable to escape. Time to turn our plowshares into swords. Or drones at this point.
I've been thinking about the lack of long-term vision in everything we do nowadays. It is sad and infuriating at the same time that most people cannot see beyond their own life-span, however long it is.
Thanks for the lemon & coffee tip. I had never tried it, but now I will. It sounds promising.
Just a very small comment I will leave here after enjoying reading your text. I discovered the combination of tastes described by you totally by chance. Usually I drink lemony water in the morning and then I drink black coffee without sugar. and I remember the exact moment some years ago when I guess I still had taste of lemon in my mouth when I took a sip of the coffee. I exclaimed with excitement. Great moment and great combo <3
I have now adopted a slice of lemon in my black coffee, Naomi--what an unusual and fantastic combination. Of course my husband thinks I'm nuts...😊
Thank you as always for your thoughtful commentary on our fragile world; I look forward to your perspective every week.
Such fun to read this news. Thanks for posting!
It's a human trait, perhaps genetically, perhaps vestigial, linked with survival. We have a desperate, often visceral need to other something including people in order to stay part of a specific tribe. Animals sometimes do it as well. The problem arises when humans complicate and corrupt with what they call ethics. They usually give their ethics a religious name. But once proselytism, named or not, was believed to be necessary for survival - wars to protect, a response to a high death during birth, genetic homogeneity, or, ironically, in response to an unforeseen change in climate that might have wiped out a tribe - humanity did what they always do. They came up with reasons to justify their greed, power grabs, anything they wanted to do or obtain for reasons other than survival using their ethics. Slavery, the killing off and relocation of indigenous peoples, genocides, holocausts, murders in the name of defense of their ethics, no longer founded in survival became the norm. Gazans are being murdered because they have to kill them all off to get to Hamas so that Israelis will never have to worry about their survival again. Just like Africans were never accorded agency as humans but were instead othered as animals that could be slaughtered like any animal could be as food. What country has not justified their heinous actions as defending themselves against heathens or non-believers or savages incapable of becoming worshippers of a specific religion - therefore, removable. Humanity as a species in it's current physical embodiment should no be conflated with an equal, species wide development of intellectual capabilities. This fact may have been and sometimes still is used as an othering tactic, but typically to engender innate fear, insecurity, and in recent times resentment towards anyone that could be perceived as better than to enforce proselytism and power grabs and wars and genocides. It's why education has been historically denied to women, and to entire populations. Not in the name of survival but in the name of religious dictates that maintain a specific power structure. Humanity in general is averse to self outcasting, especially when that could mean death. So they follow the mandates of those who don't or won't or can't conceptualize something as intellectually wrong. It's the Achilles heel of progressives, and liberals, and I believe all of humanity that sees the horrors yet lets them continue unabated. They will be dead soon enough, why should they care about someone else in another tribe, or someone in another country they have already othered? As for immediate gratification addictions that's exactly what has been taught, typically as part of a sovereign tool, to distract people that have already been assigned a role in life based on their tribe's or their country's needs. It's what social media and the attention economy that has taken over the world needs to function. All people seem to care about - except those who are actually more ethically and well developed intellectually - is the rush they get from being heard or seen. We are actually living in The Planet of The Apes, although with very sophisticated technological tools to shape reality or at least the reality that people are allowed to see. Humanity seems to damage itself according to the same lunar and solar cycles you mention. I keep coming back to Camus because he saw it so clearly, and was still able to write about it. Machiavelli did so as well, but we like to think we've advanced and passed out of that blunter, cruder politic but we definitely have not. Camus already had publicly given up, or at least made you believe that he had, and said let me just enjoy this habit, this custom, this quotidian ritual and not concern myself with the brutalities of it all, this life that demands and is only constant in it's ambiguity and random cruelty. Sun Tau in 5th century BC recognized this, inspiring leaders of entire countries for over a thousand years to exploit and weaponize these constants of humanity. Today's leaders and their acolytes are just blunter, crueler, and better able to do so using technology that most people have been prevented from accessing. And to top it all off some ethical systems believe this is meant to happen. It is the end of days. Those who believe, intellectually, that somehow things can be corrected or fixed by shaming someone by declaring that history will recall or remember something a certain way are just denying the power of hagiography. Sometimes that's just legend and myth making. Now, it's just outright deceit, manipulated to control or embolden humanity's darker motives and actions. None of this is new. When Charles Perry talks about recipes written centuries ago he always hastens to add that most things were copied from someone who made something up to flatter a person in power, not to document an actual practice. What lesser valued human being had access to the tools or agency to document the lives of ordinary people? Such is hagiography, and any hopes that anyone will be shamed into anything. Most of humanity today is already caught in the gears, unable to escape. Time to turn our plowshares into swords. Or drones at this point.
Thanks Ken. Yes, grim
Tiresome and tragic. The stupid, it hurts.
I've been thinking about the lack of long-term vision in everything we do nowadays. It is sad and infuriating at the same time that most people cannot see beyond their own life-span, however long it is.
Thanks for the lemon & coffee tip. I had never tried it, but now I will. It sounds promising.