Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Wish I had Wings

(a song by Joseph Bishara)

You know those birds that go up in the air
carrying their prey to somewhere way up there?
From dizzying heights they just let it go
Right in mid-flight over rocks down below.

I know how that feels now... I know how it feels.
Feels like flight. Your heart pounds and sings.
But when she lets go, you wish you had wings.

Wish I had wings.

You know that feeling when you jump into thin air
Right out of a plane, somewhere way up there?
And nothing comes out when you pull the ripcord
And you know it'll end as you hurtle toward...

The earth feels hard... I know how it feels.
Feels like flight. Your heart pounds and sings.
But when she's not there, you wish you had wings.

Wish I had wings.

It was a terrible accident that Roland died in.
My closest buddy, my very best friend.
At the funeral I saw his brother cry.
The family still misses him. So do I.

I know how they feel... I know how it feels.
The pain still bites and my heart still stings.
When I think of him in heaven, I wish I had wings.

Wish I had wings.


Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Body Analogy For Society


Often I have looked to the human body to evaluate my theories about the universe's construction. Nature is infinitely concentric, like a Russian wooden doll which holds when opened a smaller version of itself. The patterns of the universe can be seen repeated on smaller or greater scales: the rings around Saturn look like a miniature version of what our solar system might have looked like as the planets were condensing in their orbits or of what the little whirlpool in the bottom of your sink when you open the drain. The flow of electricity from one end of a storm to another looks like a neuron conducting a thought from one part of the brain to another or a fracture spreading across a sidewalk. Our universe is ordered, not random, despite our inability to predict it. Fractal mathematics has demonstrated an order in the nature of structure infinitely nested and repeating within itself.

One implication is surprising. One can glimpse the entire universe by studying any aspect of it. If the largest Russian doll is too big to see, no matter - just study the tiny one in your hand and know that the big one looks like the tiny one and envelops it. Like an architect looking to a scale model of a building to anticipate challenges with the completed structure, one ought not be surprised.

The infinite concentricities go beyond physical structure. Motion, expansion, contraction, decay, and relational dynamics also have their macroscopic and microscopic versions. The poets were right to draw from observations in nature to parallel an experience or emotion - the metaphor is the recognition of a non-mechanical pattern in some other aspect of the experience of life. Maybe unwittingly, the poet bears witness to a unity that binds all existence.

Why, then, should the organization of life be any different? I was taught in 7th grade biology class that the smallest unit of life is a cell and the organization of those cells also constitute life. The an organized group of living cells is a single living tissue. An organized group of living tissues is a single living organ. A group of living organs participate in a single organ system. A group of organ systems which work together form a single organism. Is a liver cell alive? yes. can a liver be alive? yes. Is a person a collection of individual living things? philosophically debatable, but yes. And yet, a person is also a single living being. The relationship of one cell in an organism to another within the same organism is a useful miniature model for how one person in a society relates to another. Like organic tissue, communities have both their individual lives and their collective life as part of the societal organism.

The model's application, like the nested Russan dolls, proves to be more accurate than one might assume. Do you know a person who consumes enough energy, or attention, or resources enough for three or four other people? If that person started to convince other people to consume in a similar way there still wouldn't be a problem so long as there were enough for that cadre and the other masses. What if that cadre started to grow to such an extent as to cause other communities in distant lands to adopt the same way of thinking and the same expectation of life? What if success was measured in terms of how much one could consume, or how many resources one could redirect to themselves? What if success then became measured not by quantity of resources brought in, but by growth of the consumption of resources? "Never mind how much you made this year, is it at least 10% greater than last year?" What if that cadre measured success by how much attention it could attract? Or what if small businesses all sought to be purchased by large corporations and the trend went away from small business? There still shouldn't be a problem, because prosperity is infinite like an ocean, right? If everyone in the world took as much water as they wanted out of the ocean, the ocean would not go down, right? Capitalism is the best economic policy humanity has come up with and because it is based on consumption, there's nothing wrong with finding ways to consume more and more, right?

To examine those questions, I like to use the body as model. If that person were a cell, or if that cadre of people were a tissue, what would medicine call it? A tissue that not only commands more resources than it ought, but also recruits the rest of the body to create more blood supply to it and ceases to function like it did before - a tissue that not only grows in size but also in demand - a cell-line that now travels to other parts of the body, not only growing in those distant sites, but crowding out the other tissues, transforming those other tissues into similar resource sinks, and hurting the functions of other tissues - what would you guess the medical community would call that? Cancer is a scary word if it is mentioned in any context having to do with you or your loved ones. However, examine the condition in an intellectual petri dish, away from anything near and dear, and malignancy seems fairly basic and straight forward - too much growth, too much demand, too much recruitment, spread to other sites, not enough turnover, no cell death.

And the question of infinite prosperity? I'm sure, compared to a cell, the entire body must be infinite like our planet must seem to an individual. I think it is becoming abundantly clear our planet is not infinite. It seems a new word has entered our vocabulary over the last 30 years. "Unsustainable".

The ramifications of "unsustainable" is threatening. Why? Because in a society of capitalism, the way to fix anything is to increase consumption. Problem with jobs? create more consumption. Problem with economy? find a way to make folks consume more. Sad? consume comfort food or go shopping, or consume this pill. Even in the national epidemic of obesity, the government or the First Lady or whatever is very careful to say, "exercise more," without saying, "consume less." They'll hand out jumpropes (consumption) and apples (consumption) all day long, but they don't dare challenge people to eat less processed foods. The problem with "unsustainable" is you can't consume your way out.

But if many people or much of the communities are already transformed to a fix-it-by-consuming-more, then what? Truthfully, if everyone started living within their means, if our obese selves ate less, if we produced our way out and reduced consumption, megacorporations would collapse, economies would crumble, disaster would ensue, layoffs, etc., right? Our society *needs* you to consume, and not just consume - consume *more*. In the wake of 9/11/2001 and the economic fall, the President encouraged us to go shopping to keep America strong economically - his logic, however lampooned, was flawless given the standard by which we measure economic prosperity - capitalism demands a consume-your-way-out mentality.

The solution? It has to cease to be just about the individual (cell, or tissue, or community). In the body, the heart needs the kidney to be sustained and vice versa. On some level, it is in the interest of each cell, each tissue, each organ, each person, each community, each country, to contribute to the well-being of other cells, tissues, organs, perople, communities, and countries.

I sit in a local coffee shop typing this. The shop is struggling. The cooler is broken and it has remained that way for a while because there's not enough right now to fix it. But I want the owner to succeed at this business. I need her to do well. I need her beautiful little coffee shop to continue to support the artists that play here every weekend and the artists who exhibit their paintings on its walls and the employees who are trying to make enough to go to school and the students who need a comfortable place to process ideas and study. I clean up after myself and the schmuck who sat here before me because I need this place to remain viable. I tell people about the shop. It'll never grow to the level of Starbucks but maybe it doesn't need to. Ain't nothing wrong with a small shop that never gets bigger than local but gets big enough.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

"Advice For Gardners And Mentors" - another poem by me

Advice For Gardners And Mentors
-------------------------

One seedling grows in full sunlight.
But another wilts from a ray.
Give the former a plot that's bright,
But the latter, offer shade.

After both root deep into the ground,
When leaves and shoots grow long.
Whether dark or light or flood or drought,
Both plants will then stand strong.

- a poem by Joseph Bishara

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

"Love Remains"

"Love Remains"
a poem by Joseph Bishara
---------------------
I contemplated Life and Art -
Considered Time and Space.
I thought I knew,
And then I grew,
When I looked at a loving face.

We are our flesh and blood indeed.
We are our joys and pains.
But mem'ries of
Our acts of love
In the end is what remains.

+Joseph Bishara