Why We Eat What We Eat
(In Praise of the Minimalist Diet)
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1508 Words)
Why we eat? What kind of a question is that? Why, we eat because we are hungry! Nothing drives us to food with as much alacrity as hunger pangs. Hunger is strongest in childhood when the body most needs nutrition for growth and energy; hunger is an instinctive response of an animal to bodily needs. A classic psychological experiment put infants in front of a large variety of foods (bread, fruits, ice cream, candy, meat, vegetables, cake, cheese, milk), letting them eat what they wanted. At first, the infants went for the candy, cake, and ice cream, but later they chose to eat what a nutritionist would have prescribed for their bodily needs. Infants behave naturally to boost health, just like other animals; yet, as you grow older enmeshed in culture, hunger cannot be your sole guide to eating right; you could end up fat, with diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.
Besides hunger, other reasons why we eat may also lead us to gain ungainly weight instead of good health: eating for pleasure, for a birthday or other celebration for feasting; eating because it's time to eat, or because the food is there in front of us on our plate; eating food offered to us by someone we like or love, someone like our mother, wife, friend, or a movie star, cleaning our plate and the plates of our children so the food doesn't go to waste; eating while watching television or a movie to relieve our tension from the drama; eating to relax from the stresses of work, family, or social connections. The reasons for eating are endless, but none of them is sufficient by itself to fully justify eating, except one.
The only sufficient reason that justifies eating is: to give our body the nutrients it needs for healthful living.
The other reasons why we eat are good too; but hunger, convenience, celebration and so forth should not divert us from the objective of giving our body the very best nutrients in the right amounts; having picked food which satisfies our body's needs, then we may seek pleasure, etc., in what we eat.
Hunger is good; when we go to our meals with a strong appetite, we smell and taste acutely the deliciousness of roasts, baked dishes, and fresh fruits, or vegetables. We eat well, we are satisfied; we digest better. If the food is nutritious, we don't want more, we stop eating when we had enough. Nutritious food is chockfull of proteins, good fats, vitamins, minerals, fiber, anti-oxidants, and phytochemicals, yet low in calories. Good foods satisfy us for several hours; but if we eat sugary snacks, white-flour products, white rice, potatoes, and other denatured, high-glycemic foods, hunger returns soon with a rebound, pushing us to eat more of the same junk. Thus we take on more fat, while our body starves.
True, the body's primary need is for energy, glucose released slowly in the blood stream from good foods, to operate the brain and other organs, especially our muscles; about 70% of the calories we take in are used that way, even without exercise. Adults need surprisingly small amounts of protein for tissue repair and fat for vitamin transport: daily about 70 grams of protein (unless you are building muscle exercising hard), and 35 grams of fats: that's three ounces of protein and two tablespoons of oil, from all food sources. Any more protein or fat we may eat is burned for energy, excreted, or converted to body fat. Burning protein or fat produces toxic ketones; with water as byproduct, burning complex carbohydrates for energy is healthier, provided we eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.
Having regular meals is fine too; it's a good discipline. Body and mind get ready for food at a habitual time, assisting digestion, elimination, and energy production when needed. My dad always ate at 7 am, 1 pm, and 7 pm--if he could help it. He never admitted to being hungry, considering that a weakness. His breakfast was oats and milk, lunch a cooked protein meal, usually fresh fish, and dinner, a salad; he lived to a hundred years. Start your day, then, with a rib-sticking whole-grain breakfast, and end your meals with a light dinner, early. If you eat too close to bedtime, you will convert more food to fat, because you will not use your muscles much during sleep.
Celebrating life with food in the company of family and friends is also pleasing and beneficial. A little wine helps lift our mood, as well as satisfy the palate. We should not eat in the presence of people who upset us. I never complain about the food or service in a restaurant; I just go elsewhere for a meal. It is better for our health to skip a meal than eat one in a sour, unhappy, frame of mind.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with convenience or economy in food preparation, if the nutrients, quality, and quantity are also there in our servings. Our problem is often in the quantity of food we consume.
People in rich countries eat too much, unless they are models or desperately want to look like movie stars. Studies with animals and humans show that a low-calorie diet promotes good health and extends the life span 30-80% through the activation of the SIRT-1 gene, nature's way to get animals get past food scarcities; a diet of 1200-1500 calories a day for the average adult, but containing all necessary nutrients. Ah, there's the rub! If you want the benefits of a calorie-restricted diet, you have to be very careful about what you eat. Some people follow the rule of eating a little bit of everything, including sugary and fatty foods. Well, this rule is okay as long as you are very active, eating enough to get the necessary nutrients and using the extra calories for energy. For the rest of humanity, a misstep in downing a drink, a sweet, or a piece of meat could derail a healthy regimen. It is vital that for all your meals you choose food high in nutrients but low in calories.
High-nutrient content with low calories are found mostly in low-starch, low-fat vegetables; breast of chicken or turkey, fresh fish, egg whites, non-fat dairy (cottage cheese, yogurt, milk), are fine in small amounts, but have no fiber, a very important nutrient for good digestion and hunger control. I prefer whole grain and bean products as sources of protein for good health, including tofu and other soy milk products, eggplant, dark green leafy plants, and mushrooms. Get your antioxidants and phytochemicals from tomatoes, carrots, peppers, berries, and fresh fruits. If you slip up and eat something like French fries or onion rings, marbled meat, pastry, ice cream, whole cheese, you will likely end up with two problems: you'll take in more calories than you are able to use for energy, turning those extra calories to fat; or skimp on your next meal or two, depriving your body of essential nutrients.
When planning, preparing, ordering, and eating meals, first think of needed nutrients. Still since infancy, you and I have developed certain preferences in food. We have our habits for over eating and wrong eating. We have grown up in a family with its own peculiar eating culture; we have matured in a particular ethnic cuisine, American, African, Asian, or European. Inevitably, unless we consciously intervene, we continue behaving according to personal and social habits, even though this way we damage our health.
Consciously intervene in the process of eating; exercise mindfulness (concentration) before eating and during eating; after eating allow some time for the food to leave your stomach, then seek means to exercise. Plan your meals to make them right for you and your family. Use small plates; serve small portions of protein, carbohydrates, veggie fiber, and fats; avoid buffets. Take small spoonfuls and forkfuls of food, chew well, and enjoy the flavor and aroma of each bite. Set your fork or spoon down while chewing. Count calories or portions consumed each day to stick to the longevity diet, because you want to thrive and prosper.
Remember again, to exercise before and after meals regularly. Exercise depresses hunger, while burning calories. If you have reached your calorie limit for the day, drink something with fiber such as psyllium husks, exercise, get busy with something to get your mind of food, or go to sleep. If you can keep your mind off food, sleep depresses hunger. Try prayer or meditation at bedtime. Next morning you'll have a lovely appetite for a hearty, nutritious, and delicious breakfast.
Why you eat what you eat is dictated by your background; don't take dictation which harms you, whatever its source: personal habits, family, ethnicity, or religion. It is all right to discriminate against what's destructive to your life. Be your own person, directing your actions after conscious thought to a better life with vigorous body, mind, and spirit.
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Universe of Perfection
The Universe of Perfection
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
In his “Meditations,” Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Everything is but what your opinion makes it; and that opinion lies within yourself.”
I hold certain opinions about matter and spirit, which opinions shape my life profitably. I begin by imagining a universe where everything is perfect: all matter in it has taken the form of a tightly ordered crystal, which never changes. Being a a crystal, such a universe would not be subject to the second law of thermodynamics: it would not move towards greater disorder. Energies flow inside the crystal structure in never-ending cycles sustaining the existence of vast numbers of spiritual beings, garnered from living planets everywhere. This is a universe of peace, tranquility, total security, and bliss.
The souls in such a heaven are linked together in a master mind, which sees to all their needs, immaterial as these needs are. Spirits in heaven exist in perfect harmony with each other. Yet, sometimes a soul will pine for living in a material world, with all its vibrant sensations, the risks and thrills of adventure. Then it is sent out to a planet outside the heavenly orb to experience material life once again, and procreate new bodies into which spirits may enter. The connection of the soul to heaven is never lost; after the death of the body, the soul returns to heaven to enrich it with new experiences and bring new growth to the universal mind.
I choose to think I am such a soul. I am not my body, but an imperishable spirit making its home in my body; my body is a possession like my clothes, house, car, discarded when worn out, not useful any more, replaced by a new body, or no material body upon my return to heaven. I can provide no scientific evidence for the existence of the crystal universe of heaven or even for the existence of an immortal soul in me inhabiting my material body; I find it helpful in my life to think and feel it is so. I choose to feel I am always tethered to heaven, no matter what dangers threaten my body. I am like a deep-sea diver or a space-walking astronaut with my lifeline to heaven and companions above. I am a surveyor craft landed on this planet to collect data and sensations, transmitting these to my home in the crystal universe for my fellows there to experience.
I am confronting dangers in my adventures here, yet my soul is always safe from harm; if my body is destroyed, or when it dies of old age, God will withdraw my spirit through the umbilical cord connecting me to heaven. I can experience my body aging, suffering injury, disease and damage; if I cannot prevent these ills, I am not concerned. I seek help from above and continue my life on earth as best as I can.
As I pass from moment to moment, I keep in mind that my spirit is priceless, being the immortal and important part of me; but my body, having evolved over billions of years through innumerable struggles and dangers, this body is also very valuable, deserving the best of care to survive long and well in order to serve the goals of my spirit.
Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid; my spirit is safe with God. If my body perishes, it will be a small loss compared to the safety of my spirit. Not that my spirit can be lost, but it may be barred from heaven, and go to a different place, a place of oppressive power, anger, and cruelty.
I remember in my daily efforts that my mission on earth is justice, peace, compassion, knowledge, and wisdom; I focus on my mission: to experience many sensations, adventures, learning, arts, actions, helping my own spiritual growth and that of family, friends, and community. To continue doing so, I also want to make my body as strong, healthy, and versatile as it can be for my age and constitution so I can cope with life's mountains and pitfalls.
How do these ideas of mine differ from religious teachings? They differ because I take them as conscious choices, assumptions, or definitions; no one can argue with definitions. The test of a definition is not its truth, because a definition is arbitrary, but the usefulness of a definition in solving a problem. I define spirit, God, and heaven as I choose, because my definitions help me solve the problem of my existence, and continued survival on earth-- posssibly even beyond this earth.
Should I discover that one of my notions is a detriment rather than an aid in my life, I am ready to reject it, replacing it with a more effective notion; so does a physician when a particular medicine does not heal a patient; the physician tries a different prescription which may help, not harm the patient. This approach of mine is also very different from the various religious doctrines, which sometimes do harm, but are not erased from the scriptures by the patriarchs, except rarely. In this respect, my approach to spiritual matters is more scientific rather than religious, evolving when I meet with new facts and experiences, and not becoming petrified.
The commandments to myself are not carved in stone; I prefer to change, adapting to new trials. I visualize my move before taking it, seeing the result in perfection, sensing that I am
guided by a beam of light from above. I become keenly aware of my surroundings, my body and mind acting deliberately to do what is right, what is proper, what brings forth good fruit, and what is beautiful.
Beauty is indeed immortal, such as we find in great works of art. And my spirit is immortal, but can it change as artistic expression changes? Can my soul get better or worse? Yes, it can, just as character changes. The spirit aims towards perfection, which is not possible on earth or any other material planet; yet that goal of perfection is clear to me. I see that goal in what I think, feel, and do. I clearly visualize the perfect moves I need to make in any game I play. When I achieve that perfection occasionally, then I am “in the zone,” as athletes say. I cannot fail in that state of mind, but can only do what is right and successful.
Otherwise, what happens if my spirit changes for the worse? Can it go back to heaven? I think admission back to heaven would be barred; heaven cannot allow an infected spirit to come back. That sick spirit needs to go through lives of purification, penance, and cleansing on other planets, before being re-admitted to the crystal orb of perfection. Sometimes a soul goes so far astray, it cannot hope to enter heaven any more and is sucked into a sphere of evil, known as hell, a place of grief, agony, and slavery.
My main effort in life is to avoid the whirlpool of hell, to seek the updraft of heaven, not just to prolong the use of my body or to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Yes, I want to prolong life to get the maximum mileage I can from this body, in order to learn more things, experience fascinating adventures, do good work for myself and my fellows. But when the time comes to go away from this sphere, I will leave without fear or regret, having done the best I could have done with the gift of life given to me.
I will have no regret upon dying, but joy instead, looking forward to joining my beloved parents and friends who passed on before me. I will be eager to arrive in heaven and be in the company of people who share my feelings and beliefs, congenial souls, those of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, Lao-Tse, Descartes, Bacon, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Whitman, the souls which are brothers of my own. It will be great indeed to be talking to these people, remembering together our lives on earth, discussing the ideas that intrigued us all during our lifetimes and the opinions laid down in our writings and talks.
Yet, what if I am mistaken in hoping for the immortality of my spirit? In that case, my consciousness will dissipate in earth's air upon my death as my body goes still and begins to decompose. There will be no harm done to me or to any one else because I imagined a great existence in an afterlife. In the meantime, I enjoy romancing the soul; and transcendent hope sustains me, filling me with meaning and purpose, moving me to good feelings, deeds, and accomplishments.
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
In his “Meditations,” Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Everything is but what your opinion makes it; and that opinion lies within yourself.”
I hold certain opinions about matter and spirit, which opinions shape my life profitably. I begin by imagining a universe where everything is perfect: all matter in it has taken the form of a tightly ordered crystal, which never changes. Being a a crystal, such a universe would not be subject to the second law of thermodynamics: it would not move towards greater disorder. Energies flow inside the crystal structure in never-ending cycles sustaining the existence of vast numbers of spiritual beings, garnered from living planets everywhere. This is a universe of peace, tranquility, total security, and bliss.
The souls in such a heaven are linked together in a master mind, which sees to all their needs, immaterial as these needs are. Spirits in heaven exist in perfect harmony with each other. Yet, sometimes a soul will pine for living in a material world, with all its vibrant sensations, the risks and thrills of adventure. Then it is sent out to a planet outside the heavenly orb to experience material life once again, and procreate new bodies into which spirits may enter. The connection of the soul to heaven is never lost; after the death of the body, the soul returns to heaven to enrich it with new experiences and bring new growth to the universal mind.
I choose to think I am such a soul. I am not my body, but an imperishable spirit making its home in my body; my body is a possession like my clothes, house, car, discarded when worn out, not useful any more, replaced by a new body, or no material body upon my return to heaven. I can provide no scientific evidence for the existence of the crystal universe of heaven or even for the existence of an immortal soul in me inhabiting my material body; I find it helpful in my life to think and feel it is so. I choose to feel I am always tethered to heaven, no matter what dangers threaten my body. I am like a deep-sea diver or a space-walking astronaut with my lifeline to heaven and companions above. I am a surveyor craft landed on this planet to collect data and sensations, transmitting these to my home in the crystal universe for my fellows there to experience.
I am confronting dangers in my adventures here, yet my soul is always safe from harm; if my body is destroyed, or when it dies of old age, God will withdraw my spirit through the umbilical cord connecting me to heaven. I can experience my body aging, suffering injury, disease and damage; if I cannot prevent these ills, I am not concerned. I seek help from above and continue my life on earth as best as I can.
As I pass from moment to moment, I keep in mind that my spirit is priceless, being the immortal and important part of me; but my body, having evolved over billions of years through innumerable struggles and dangers, this body is also very valuable, deserving the best of care to survive long and well in order to serve the goals of my spirit.
Even when walking through the dark valley of death I will not be afraid; my spirit is safe with God. If my body perishes, it will be a small loss compared to the safety of my spirit. Not that my spirit can be lost, but it may be barred from heaven, and go to a different place, a place of oppressive power, anger, and cruelty.
I remember in my daily efforts that my mission on earth is justice, peace, compassion, knowledge, and wisdom; I focus on my mission: to experience many sensations, adventures, learning, arts, actions, helping my own spiritual growth and that of family, friends, and community. To continue doing so, I also want to make my body as strong, healthy, and versatile as it can be for my age and constitution so I can cope with life's mountains and pitfalls.
How do these ideas of mine differ from religious teachings? They differ because I take them as conscious choices, assumptions, or definitions; no one can argue with definitions. The test of a definition is not its truth, because a definition is arbitrary, but the usefulness of a definition in solving a problem. I define spirit, God, and heaven as I choose, because my definitions help me solve the problem of my existence, and continued survival on earth-- posssibly even beyond this earth.
Should I discover that one of my notions is a detriment rather than an aid in my life, I am ready to reject it, replacing it with a more effective notion; so does a physician when a particular medicine does not heal a patient; the physician tries a different prescription which may help, not harm the patient. This approach of mine is also very different from the various religious doctrines, which sometimes do harm, but are not erased from the scriptures by the patriarchs, except rarely. In this respect, my approach to spiritual matters is more scientific rather than religious, evolving when I meet with new facts and experiences, and not becoming petrified.
The commandments to myself are not carved in stone; I prefer to change, adapting to new trials. I visualize my move before taking it, seeing the result in perfection, sensing that I am
guided by a beam of light from above. I become keenly aware of my surroundings, my body and mind acting deliberately to do what is right, what is proper, what brings forth good fruit, and what is beautiful.
Beauty is indeed immortal, such as we find in great works of art. And my spirit is immortal, but can it change as artistic expression changes? Can my soul get better or worse? Yes, it can, just as character changes. The spirit aims towards perfection, which is not possible on earth or any other material planet; yet that goal of perfection is clear to me. I see that goal in what I think, feel, and do. I clearly visualize the perfect moves I need to make in any game I play. When I achieve that perfection occasionally, then I am “in the zone,” as athletes say. I cannot fail in that state of mind, but can only do what is right and successful.
Otherwise, what happens if my spirit changes for the worse? Can it go back to heaven? I think admission back to heaven would be barred; heaven cannot allow an infected spirit to come back. That sick spirit needs to go through lives of purification, penance, and cleansing on other planets, before being re-admitted to the crystal orb of perfection. Sometimes a soul goes so far astray, it cannot hope to enter heaven any more and is sucked into a sphere of evil, known as hell, a place of grief, agony, and slavery.
My main effort in life is to avoid the whirlpool of hell, to seek the updraft of heaven, not just to prolong the use of my body or to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Yes, I want to prolong life to get the maximum mileage I can from this body, in order to learn more things, experience fascinating adventures, do good work for myself and my fellows. But when the time comes to go away from this sphere, I will leave without fear or regret, having done the best I could have done with the gift of life given to me.
I will have no regret upon dying, but joy instead, looking forward to joining my beloved parents and friends who passed on before me. I will be eager to arrive in heaven and be in the company of people who share my feelings and beliefs, congenial souls, those of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammad, Lao-Tse, Descartes, Bacon, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Whitman, the souls which are brothers of my own. It will be great indeed to be talking to these people, remembering together our lives on earth, discussing the ideas that intrigued us all during our lifetimes and the opinions laid down in our writings and talks.
Yet, what if I am mistaken in hoping for the immortality of my spirit? In that case, my consciousness will dissipate in earth's air upon my death as my body goes still and begins to decompose. There will be no harm done to me or to any one else because I imagined a great existence in an afterlife. In the meantime, I enjoy romancing the soul; and transcendent hope sustains me, filling me with meaning and purpose, moving me to good feelings, deeds, and accomplishments.
The Magic of Light Eating
The Magic of Light Eating
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
Do you remember when you were a kid and had to share a piece of pie or cake with a brother or sister? You each looked carefully to the cutting of the sweet to make sure you were not short changed. In a world which in the past was short of food, getting a fair share of it, or more, became instinctive. Whoever ate more was more likely to survive the next famine. Today, in wealthy societies, we have the opposite situation. We have a superabundance of food which has brought us an epidemic of obesity. You will live a longer, peppier, and healthier life with less food: less food means more life; light eating is magical indeed.
Biologists have known for many decades that animals have longer and healthier life spans when the calories they consume are restricted. Recently, we have found some evidence from genetics to explain how this happens. A period of light eating activates (triggers) a gene, SIRT1, which performs the magic when scientists deprive laboratory animals from eating all the food they normally eat from what is laid out for them. The procedure is called calorie restriction (CR) or calorie deprivation (CD) in biology. I call it calorie control (CC), light eating for you and me and our families.
You may ask, what about nutrition? In the experiments, biologists supply the full nutritional needs of the animals. But they found out that they can still reduce calories by 30%. Initially the animals lose weight, but after a time, weight loss stops, and the animals remain lean, vigorous, and very healthy, to a very advanced age. Mice, and all other species of animals to which the procedure is applied, maintain a normal weight when allowed to eat as much as they want, as opposed to humans who often overeat compulsively, getting fat. Once well fed, animals tend to other needs, such as reproduction.
Reproduction takes precedence over longevity when the food supply is plentiful. When food is in short supply, that’s when the SIRT1 gets to work: animals do better when they live longer to get past the scarcity to the next plenty for their offspring to eat. Then again, the SIRT1 gene is de-activated during times of plenty.
In the case of mice or rats with diabetes induced by experimenters, the disease is reversed with caloric restriction. The gene for diabetes is de-activated, after SIRT1 has been activated.
Incidentally, resveratrol, a polyphenol in red grapes and other plants, brings some of the benefits to health of SIRT1 activation. Plants produce this phytoalexin to counter infections from bacteria and fungi. Associated with the French paradox of health, resveratrol fights cancer, viruses, inflammation, and extends life, if taken in large quantities. A small company in Massachusetts, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, is working to synthesize a compound stronger by far than resveratrol to bring us these benefits without calorie restriction. This medicine is in the early stages of development and may not pan out. In the meantime, we have the option of light eating.
What can we make of this magic of light eating in our lives as humans? We don’t know that we can extend our lives with SIRT1 activation, because experiments with humans are in the initial stages. A pioneer in CR, Dr. Ray L. Walford of UCLA, applied the procedure to himself with the objective of living to 120, but he did not live much beyond a normal human life span, dying two months short of 80. We have, however, much evidence that CR promotes healthier, longer, and more vigorous lives in us humans--provided we get the nutrients we need for growth, tissue repair, and energy.
Specifically, if you maintain a normal weight with 2,000 calories a day, using light eating you cut the calories down to 1,400. You will lose weight and fat for a while. Normal weight according to the charts is probably not the healthiest. Normal is average, and the average weight in the U.S. is too high. Check your body fat percentage: that should be about 15% if you are a man or about 17% if you are a woman. If you continue to lose fat getting much below 15% or 17%, increase your calories to maintain the right body fat percentage for you.
Mind, I am not advising here a strict diet to drop 20 or 60 pounds, look and feel great for a while, then resume your customary eating, regaining the weight just as quickly. The longevity gene is activated to render its health benefits to you after you have restricted calories for a long time. The gene will quickly get de-activated with a little overeating. To benefit fully from the magic of light eating, you commit to it for the balance of your life, every day. To do this, you look at food, not as a source of pleasure so much, but as a source of healthful nutrients. It has been said: “Eat to live, don’t live to eat.” I say, “Get your nutrients first, please your palate second.” Yes, you want to enjoy thoroughly what you choose to eat for health. Thus you avoid feelings of deprivation which lead to eating fattening foods. When you enjoy delicious food leisurely, you digest it better too.
But how do you get enough nutrition from 1,400 calories a day? Ah, there’s the rub: you must eat foods high in nutrition and low in calories. Pack your 1,400 calories with good stuff only. Don’t eat refined grain flours in pasta, breads, or other products; eliminate sugary snacks, fats such as butter, shortening, nuts, avocados, white rice and potatoes, or just have an insignificant amount of such foods for taste. On the positive side, after maturity humans require very little in nutrients. Protein is very important, but 3-4 ounces of protein a day from all sources is sufficient for tissue repair. You need some good fat, unsaturated or mono-saturated with omega-3s and omega-6s, but only two or three tablespoons of fat a day. So far you have used up about 600 calories. The rest can be complex carbohydrates from vegetables and fruits, giving you fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals with antioxidants. You can also take non-caloric supplements for any other nutrients your doctor recommends.
You may object: “But I would be very hungry with 1,400 calories only.” I say to you, it’s okay. Get good and hungry for your next meal; you will enjoy it more. Your best chance of a great meal next time is to limit your present meal. Hunger will enhance your smell and taste. Choose to eat the most exquisite foods in small amounts. You can afford these foods since you will eat so little. Relish every precious morsel of delicious food, eating slowly. Lay your fork or spoon down for a minute between bites and chew well until each savory morsel flows down your throat. We are not wolves to be bolting down our food. Most people don’t pay enough attention to their food. Concentrate, meditate, with full awareness on what you are eating; try not to think about anything except your food. Certainly don’t walk television, or read while eating. Don’t talk until after you have swallowed; that’s also polite. Music can also be distracting, although you may listen to fine music to relax before the meal or afterwards. When you are no longer hungry, stop eating and begin digesting your small meal. I repeat: this is the way to prepare for the best enjoyment of your next meal, by having fully digested what you ate before, by getting quite hungry again.
When hungry we tend to eat faster; get used to slowing down instead, allowing twenty minutes to elapse until your blood sugar has moved up and hunger subsides. Have you noticed how quickly people eat in our busy society? Fast food is not only served fast to us; we tend to eat it fast also. Put a platter of food on the table with several people to share. Notice how quickly it disappears. That’s instinctive in us. We want our share before someone else takes it. Let others serve themselves and take a little of what’s left. You will not starve, I assure you.
Before you eat something, estimate the calories on your plate and get a subtotal for the day. You have a budget of 1,400 calories, which you must not exceed. Does that seem hard to do? At first estimating calories is a daunting task, yes, but you will get used to a quick estimate in each portion of food with constant practice. Initially, a food scale, recipe cups, and calorie reference book will help. I recommend The Calorie King Fat and Carbohydrate Counter. If you are having difficulty keeping track of calories, eat prepared meals until you get used to portion sizes of the right foods. Eating off an 8-inch plate with a small fork or spoon will also help.
To limit calories each day, try meal replacement for dinner with a protein-juice-psyllium drink or a commercial product; if you are dining out replace your lunch with a protein drink.
If you find you get too hungry between meals on light eating, and are tempted to gobble up something like a small candy bar (240 calories) or a doughnut (350 calories), then snack on something low in calories and high in fiber. A snack on a carrot, cucumber, celery, jicama, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, or other raw vegetable will serve you well. A protein drink with psyllium fiber or oat bran also works wonders in suppressing excessive hunger. Four or five nuts, if you can limit yourself to that many will cut down between-meal hunger too. Eventually you will get used to light meals. As my sister likes to say, your stomach gets smaller. Or, your eye gets smaller than your stomach.
People in wealthy nations have big stomachs, eating far too much, overindulging in their appetite for a huge variety of high-calorie foods, especially animal products. Most of the food goes to waste, not even turning into fertilizer like the Chinese “night soil.” Our bodies are constantly burdened with digesting too much, making us sluggish and sleepy and we constantly slosh down caffeine drinks to stay awake at work or play. You will be far more alert and energetic on light eating, without stimulants.
With light eating, you will experience the magic of weight loss without diets, pills, or liposuction. To lose and maintain the right weight, keep in mind that about three quarters of the calories we take in are burned up just to maintain body functions; exercise uses the balance of the calories that we put to good use. (Walking all day just drinking water will burn one pound of body fat.) The rest of your food is excreted or stashed into fat tissues for the next famine.
If you don’t expect a famine next winter, but want to get rid of excess fat, light eating is the answer for you--with the aid of some daily exercise. Don’t expect too much from exercise, because you need to burn about 3,500 calories to get rid of one pound of body fat. Walking uses about 300 calories an hour. Wrestling, running, or vigorous sex is more effective at 600 calories an hour--50 calories in 5 minutes. But how many of us have the time or stamina to exercise for hours every day? Of course, you can bulk up lifting weights for several hours a day; bulging muscles will burn more calories while you are exercising, or at rest, even asleep. Can you spare the time and motivation for such exertions?
Alternately, you may want to try fasting one day each week. Fasting works magic in many ways as part of a light eating habit. In addition to fat loss, fasting promotes the elimination of toxins throughout your body and gives your digestive system some rest. Don’t fast then gorge; that’s worse than not fasting at all. It’s as bad as skipping meals, especially breakfast or lunch, which some people practice. Gorging then fasting is bad too—similar to gorging then throwing up. I know many people who fast for good health with no ill effects. I usually fast on Sunday, breaking the fast with psyllium, protein power, and juice blended in spring water whenever I get hungry or thirsty. I don’t work on Sunday, taking time to meditate and relax, exercising lightly with yoga. On Monday, I take care to get back to light eating again, not overindulging in food because I fasted.
On light eating, you will find you are less hungry between meals if you eat highly nutritious foods: sprouts, mushrooms, egg whites, chicken breast, fish, and fresh low-starch vegetables, low-calorie high-fiber spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, collard greens, beet greens--are all great for light eating, delicious with some lemon juice, olive oil, a little sea salt. Steaming or quick poaching preserves the colors, flavors, and nutrients of vegetables; it’s my favorite cooking method, if I cook my vegetables at all.
Raw foods are good for you, organic and thoroughly cleaned, but skins on. Eat organic fruits and vegetables with skins, cores, and seeds, if they are very fresh. The best way to get them really fresh is off a tree or vine, ripened to perfection. For such you need a garden; otherwise, go to a farmers market, or select the best, freshest stuff you can spot at the supermarket, usually buried underneath all the stale things, as my mother taught me.
Shopping for food brings me to the matter of savings. You are going to save a ton of money at the grocery store when you are on light eating. Vegetables, grains, and legumes cost far less as a rule than meats and processed foods, especially the small quantities you will be buying. With light eating, you will discover most restaurants serve awfully bad stuff for you and you will eat at home, saving even more money. If money is not a problem for you, think of the food saved for the poor that you will not be putting in your body as ugly, unhealthy fat.
The poor may not be a concern for you, but animals and other living things may be. Light eating implies consumption of fewer animal products, which are high in calories compared to vegetables. Vegetables are living things too; some people believe plants have feelings too, hurting when we cut them down. In our current state of food production we need to cut things down in order to survive, but at least let’s do as little damage as possible with our light eating of leaves, seeds, and fruits.
You may also want to grow your own sprouts for freshness, good quality, and additional savings. I have found sprouts in stores to be of poor quality, often stale, so I grow my own. Fresh sprouts add much to the magic of light eating. They are packed with proteins, vitamins, and minerals, and are low in calories, because fat and carbohydrate content goes down with sprouting. Eat two parts grain sprouts to one part bean sprouts to get complete proteins. You can easily grow sprouts in jars from unprocessed seeds. Rinse seeds daily and drain well. Cover the jar opening with cloth or tissue, so your sprouts are able to breathe. When the seeds have sprouted, put them in your refrigerator, but rinse and drain daily to maintain freshness for up to a week.
With fresh sprouts and other living foods, your body will grow into a lean, dynamic machine very soon. You will be amazed at the energy you will be able to generate. You will love floating on your feet like walking on the moon, never huffing or puffing climbing stairs, gliding up with ease. You will enjoy your curves or angles; so will those that look at you: friends, relatives, and strangers, complimenting you and congratulating you. And what will you have to pay for all this? You will pay less money than before your light eating, enjoying fine dining, exercising only a little self discipline, and rejecting gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins.
March, 2008, Vista, California
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
Do you remember when you were a kid and had to share a piece of pie or cake with a brother or sister? You each looked carefully to the cutting of the sweet to make sure you were not short changed. In a world which in the past was short of food, getting a fair share of it, or more, became instinctive. Whoever ate more was more likely to survive the next famine. Today, in wealthy societies, we have the opposite situation. We have a superabundance of food which has brought us an epidemic of obesity. You will live a longer, peppier, and healthier life with less food: less food means more life; light eating is magical indeed.
Biologists have known for many decades that animals have longer and healthier life spans when the calories they consume are restricted. Recently, we have found some evidence from genetics to explain how this happens. A period of light eating activates (triggers) a gene, SIRT1, which performs the magic when scientists deprive laboratory animals from eating all the food they normally eat from what is laid out for them. The procedure is called calorie restriction (CR) or calorie deprivation (CD) in biology. I call it calorie control (CC), light eating for you and me and our families.
You may ask, what about nutrition? In the experiments, biologists supply the full nutritional needs of the animals. But they found out that they can still reduce calories by 30%. Initially the animals lose weight, but after a time, weight loss stops, and the animals remain lean, vigorous, and very healthy, to a very advanced age. Mice, and all other species of animals to which the procedure is applied, maintain a normal weight when allowed to eat as much as they want, as opposed to humans who often overeat compulsively, getting fat. Once well fed, animals tend to other needs, such as reproduction.
Reproduction takes precedence over longevity when the food supply is plentiful. When food is in short supply, that’s when the SIRT1 gets to work: animals do better when they live longer to get past the scarcity to the next plenty for their offspring to eat. Then again, the SIRT1 gene is de-activated during times of plenty.
In the case of mice or rats with diabetes induced by experimenters, the disease is reversed with caloric restriction. The gene for diabetes is de-activated, after SIRT1 has been activated.
Incidentally, resveratrol, a polyphenol in red grapes and other plants, brings some of the benefits to health of SIRT1 activation. Plants produce this phytoalexin to counter infections from bacteria and fungi. Associated with the French paradox of health, resveratrol fights cancer, viruses, inflammation, and extends life, if taken in large quantities. A small company in Massachusetts, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, is working to synthesize a compound stronger by far than resveratrol to bring us these benefits without calorie restriction. This medicine is in the early stages of development and may not pan out. In the meantime, we have the option of light eating.
What can we make of this magic of light eating in our lives as humans? We don’t know that we can extend our lives with SIRT1 activation, because experiments with humans are in the initial stages. A pioneer in CR, Dr. Ray L. Walford of UCLA, applied the procedure to himself with the objective of living to 120, but he did not live much beyond a normal human life span, dying two months short of 80. We have, however, much evidence that CR promotes healthier, longer, and more vigorous lives in us humans--provided we get the nutrients we need for growth, tissue repair, and energy.
Specifically, if you maintain a normal weight with 2,000 calories a day, using light eating you cut the calories down to 1,400. You will lose weight and fat for a while. Normal weight according to the charts is probably not the healthiest. Normal is average, and the average weight in the U.S. is too high. Check your body fat percentage: that should be about 15% if you are a man or about 17% if you are a woman. If you continue to lose fat getting much below 15% or 17%, increase your calories to maintain the right body fat percentage for you.
Mind, I am not advising here a strict diet to drop 20 or 60 pounds, look and feel great for a while, then resume your customary eating, regaining the weight just as quickly. The longevity gene is activated to render its health benefits to you after you have restricted calories for a long time. The gene will quickly get de-activated with a little overeating. To benefit fully from the magic of light eating, you commit to it for the balance of your life, every day. To do this, you look at food, not as a source of pleasure so much, but as a source of healthful nutrients. It has been said: “Eat to live, don’t live to eat.” I say, “Get your nutrients first, please your palate second.” Yes, you want to enjoy thoroughly what you choose to eat for health. Thus you avoid feelings of deprivation which lead to eating fattening foods. When you enjoy delicious food leisurely, you digest it better too.
But how do you get enough nutrition from 1,400 calories a day? Ah, there’s the rub: you must eat foods high in nutrition and low in calories. Pack your 1,400 calories with good stuff only. Don’t eat refined grain flours in pasta, breads, or other products; eliminate sugary snacks, fats such as butter, shortening, nuts, avocados, white rice and potatoes, or just have an insignificant amount of such foods for taste. On the positive side, after maturity humans require very little in nutrients. Protein is very important, but 3-4 ounces of protein a day from all sources is sufficient for tissue repair. You need some good fat, unsaturated or mono-saturated with omega-3s and omega-6s, but only two or three tablespoons of fat a day. So far you have used up about 600 calories. The rest can be complex carbohydrates from vegetables and fruits, giving you fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals with antioxidants. You can also take non-caloric supplements for any other nutrients your doctor recommends.
You may object: “But I would be very hungry with 1,400 calories only.” I say to you, it’s okay. Get good and hungry for your next meal; you will enjoy it more. Your best chance of a great meal next time is to limit your present meal. Hunger will enhance your smell and taste. Choose to eat the most exquisite foods in small amounts. You can afford these foods since you will eat so little. Relish every precious morsel of delicious food, eating slowly. Lay your fork or spoon down for a minute between bites and chew well until each savory morsel flows down your throat. We are not wolves to be bolting down our food. Most people don’t pay enough attention to their food. Concentrate, meditate, with full awareness on what you are eating; try not to think about anything except your food. Certainly don’t walk television, or read while eating. Don’t talk until after you have swallowed; that’s also polite. Music can also be distracting, although you may listen to fine music to relax before the meal or afterwards. When you are no longer hungry, stop eating and begin digesting your small meal. I repeat: this is the way to prepare for the best enjoyment of your next meal, by having fully digested what you ate before, by getting quite hungry again.
When hungry we tend to eat faster; get used to slowing down instead, allowing twenty minutes to elapse until your blood sugar has moved up and hunger subsides. Have you noticed how quickly people eat in our busy society? Fast food is not only served fast to us; we tend to eat it fast also. Put a platter of food on the table with several people to share. Notice how quickly it disappears. That’s instinctive in us. We want our share before someone else takes it. Let others serve themselves and take a little of what’s left. You will not starve, I assure you.
Before you eat something, estimate the calories on your plate and get a subtotal for the day. You have a budget of 1,400 calories, which you must not exceed. Does that seem hard to do? At first estimating calories is a daunting task, yes, but you will get used to a quick estimate in each portion of food with constant practice. Initially, a food scale, recipe cups, and calorie reference book will help. I recommend The Calorie King Fat and Carbohydrate Counter. If you are having difficulty keeping track of calories, eat prepared meals until you get used to portion sizes of the right foods. Eating off an 8-inch plate with a small fork or spoon will also help.
To limit calories each day, try meal replacement for dinner with a protein-juice-psyllium drink or a commercial product; if you are dining out replace your lunch with a protein drink.
If you find you get too hungry between meals on light eating, and are tempted to gobble up something like a small candy bar (240 calories) or a doughnut (350 calories), then snack on something low in calories and high in fiber. A snack on a carrot, cucumber, celery, jicama, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, or other raw vegetable will serve you well. A protein drink with psyllium fiber or oat bran also works wonders in suppressing excessive hunger. Four or five nuts, if you can limit yourself to that many will cut down between-meal hunger too. Eventually you will get used to light meals. As my sister likes to say, your stomach gets smaller. Or, your eye gets smaller than your stomach.
People in wealthy nations have big stomachs, eating far too much, overindulging in their appetite for a huge variety of high-calorie foods, especially animal products. Most of the food goes to waste, not even turning into fertilizer like the Chinese “night soil.” Our bodies are constantly burdened with digesting too much, making us sluggish and sleepy and we constantly slosh down caffeine drinks to stay awake at work or play. You will be far more alert and energetic on light eating, without stimulants.
With light eating, you will experience the magic of weight loss without diets, pills, or liposuction. To lose and maintain the right weight, keep in mind that about three quarters of the calories we take in are burned up just to maintain body functions; exercise uses the balance of the calories that we put to good use. (Walking all day just drinking water will burn one pound of body fat.) The rest of your food is excreted or stashed into fat tissues for the next famine.
If you don’t expect a famine next winter, but want to get rid of excess fat, light eating is the answer for you--with the aid of some daily exercise. Don’t expect too much from exercise, because you need to burn about 3,500 calories to get rid of one pound of body fat. Walking uses about 300 calories an hour. Wrestling, running, or vigorous sex is more effective at 600 calories an hour--50 calories in 5 minutes. But how many of us have the time or stamina to exercise for hours every day? Of course, you can bulk up lifting weights for several hours a day; bulging muscles will burn more calories while you are exercising, or at rest, even asleep. Can you spare the time and motivation for such exertions?
Alternately, you may want to try fasting one day each week. Fasting works magic in many ways as part of a light eating habit. In addition to fat loss, fasting promotes the elimination of toxins throughout your body and gives your digestive system some rest. Don’t fast then gorge; that’s worse than not fasting at all. It’s as bad as skipping meals, especially breakfast or lunch, which some people practice. Gorging then fasting is bad too—similar to gorging then throwing up. I know many people who fast for good health with no ill effects. I usually fast on Sunday, breaking the fast with psyllium, protein power, and juice blended in spring water whenever I get hungry or thirsty. I don’t work on Sunday, taking time to meditate and relax, exercising lightly with yoga. On Monday, I take care to get back to light eating again, not overindulging in food because I fasted.
On light eating, you will find you are less hungry between meals if you eat highly nutritious foods: sprouts, mushrooms, egg whites, chicken breast, fish, and fresh low-starch vegetables, low-calorie high-fiber spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, mustard greens, collard greens, beet greens--are all great for light eating, delicious with some lemon juice, olive oil, a little sea salt. Steaming or quick poaching preserves the colors, flavors, and nutrients of vegetables; it’s my favorite cooking method, if I cook my vegetables at all.
Raw foods are good for you, organic and thoroughly cleaned, but skins on. Eat organic fruits and vegetables with skins, cores, and seeds, if they are very fresh. The best way to get them really fresh is off a tree or vine, ripened to perfection. For such you need a garden; otherwise, go to a farmers market, or select the best, freshest stuff you can spot at the supermarket, usually buried underneath all the stale things, as my mother taught me.
Shopping for food brings me to the matter of savings. You are going to save a ton of money at the grocery store when you are on light eating. Vegetables, grains, and legumes cost far less as a rule than meats and processed foods, especially the small quantities you will be buying. With light eating, you will discover most restaurants serve awfully bad stuff for you and you will eat at home, saving even more money. If money is not a problem for you, think of the food saved for the poor that you will not be putting in your body as ugly, unhealthy fat.
The poor may not be a concern for you, but animals and other living things may be. Light eating implies consumption of fewer animal products, which are high in calories compared to vegetables. Vegetables are living things too; some people believe plants have feelings too, hurting when we cut them down. In our current state of food production we need to cut things down in order to survive, but at least let’s do as little damage as possible with our light eating of leaves, seeds, and fruits.
You may also want to grow your own sprouts for freshness, good quality, and additional savings. I have found sprouts in stores to be of poor quality, often stale, so I grow my own. Fresh sprouts add much to the magic of light eating. They are packed with proteins, vitamins, and minerals, and are low in calories, because fat and carbohydrate content goes down with sprouting. Eat two parts grain sprouts to one part bean sprouts to get complete proteins. You can easily grow sprouts in jars from unprocessed seeds. Rinse seeds daily and drain well. Cover the jar opening with cloth or tissue, so your sprouts are able to breathe. When the seeds have sprouted, put them in your refrigerator, but rinse and drain daily to maintain freshness for up to a week.
With fresh sprouts and other living foods, your body will grow into a lean, dynamic machine very soon. You will be amazed at the energy you will be able to generate. You will love floating on your feet like walking on the moon, never huffing or puffing climbing stairs, gliding up with ease. You will enjoy your curves or angles; so will those that look at you: friends, relatives, and strangers, complimenting you and congratulating you. And what will you have to pay for all this? You will pay less money than before your light eating, enjoying fine dining, exercising only a little self discipline, and rejecting gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins.
March, 2008, Vista, California
The Practical Dreamer
On Becoming a Practical Dreamer
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
A dreamer is a person with a fruitful imagination; a dreamer is practical when imagination is combined with action to produce useful products or services, yielding profits. America has been home to many practical dreamers: Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Walt Disney--the list is endless. Most started life in the United States as poor immigrants or humble locals, seeking to improve their condition, surpassed their dearest dreams. A dreamer enjoys indulging his fantasies without doing anything to realize them; a realist keeps trudging along in life doing what is customary, certain, or conveniently profitable, without achieving anything of great splendor. As partners but separate individuals, dreamer and realist can function productively as well as one individual possessing both qualities. If you are not such a person, find a complimentary partner. Some of the most successful teams in the corporate world are those of the imaginative engineer and the person of business. Many marriages do well also, combining the dreamer and the pragmatist. Most of us are not practical dreamers; otherwise, we would be far more successful; but we all possess a measure of imagination and practicality, which we can enlarge if we follow right thoughts, right purposes, and right behaviors.
Most of what we think is day-dreaming, escaping our limitations and humdrum existence into worlds of unrealistic fantasies, with no chance of actualization. Thoughts are birds in flight; but they can be directed towards a goal, a destination, while retaining some of their winged power. Through the exercise of the will, even in sleep after some years of practice, you can focus your thoughts on a specific subject, and with laser strength penetrate the barrier of your problem. You can view the universe of matter and mind as a complex web of problems, a never-ending series of questions, asking like a child why, why, why. Daddy, why do things fall down? It's gravity, my child. What is gravity? Gravity is a force. What is a force, daddy? Oh shut up, can't you see I'm busy paying bills? That is the end of questioning, the beginning of routine.
Practical dreaming to create new things is the opposite of routine. Direct your thoughts to what is novel, unfamiliar, even surprising, in a strange territory. Expect to discover good things, expect you will solve your problem, expect you will be able survive the wilderness of the imagination to reach civilization. That's self-confidence, the armor for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Abraham Lincoln went through some very disappointing periods leading the Union armies in the Civil War. Despite his melancholy nature, his faith in a united America never wavered. Faith is the springboard of creative work: fervently believing in something gets you going, building, achieving; doubt lays you low in lethargy.
Yeah, but how do I acquire an active faith? I consider the accomplishments I admire, choosing one I am well suited by my nature to emulate. I admire the works of Lord Bertrand Russell; I seek to think, write, and act as he did in his life, because I have similar talents to his, although I may not be as gifted as he was. I do the best I can in my chosen direction. Whom do you admire? Do you have any true affinity for the projects you are to undertake to approach your master? If not, look elsewhere for your proper occupation. But anywhere you look, you cannot be without proper direction.
Thoughts need reins; galloping this way and that they go nowhere. To get somewhere, aim towards a specific goal, a purpose, a project to complete, at a specific point in the future. The future is shaped by our thoughts and goals to be bright, dark, or gray; a right goal helps realize a bright future for ourselves and our community. But your goal cannot be placed too far into the future; if your project is very large, requiring much time to complete, divide it into sub-goals, each one with a completion date. I know that until you get accustomed to goal setting, it will stress you, and make you anxious. Bear up, persist, the stress will lift. If you cannot meet a deadline, don't despair; next time set a reasonable time line. When we are working creatively, independently, our goals are tools, not commands from authority. Imaginative ideas incubate, on occasion requiring a longer or shorter period to hatch.
Most people don't direct their imagination. Listen to a group talking socially or even for business purposes. People talk as they think, in a confused, disorganized, random way. They don't stay with a topic of discussion for long, wondering this way and that, unless they are tightly controlled by debating rules, which often some individuals will defy to rant on and on about their pet grievances. In synergistic groups for creative work, the proctor needs to maintain discipline on members to stay on focus; yet allow enough freedom for exploration into the unknown.
The unknown, the unsolved problem, and the mystery are always unpredictable and our conquest of these cannot be programmed. We can follow, however, some general approaches. Do not get boxed in preconceived or customary ideas. Dare to go outside established boundaries. Do not assume more constraints to the problem than are actually there. Allow your imagination free flight, simply recording any and all ideas that occur without criticizing them or analyzing them at the time of brainstorming. You choose and analyze ideas later, during the critical phase that follows as which ideas are practical and which are nonsense. Sometimes, the most apparently nonsensical, far fetched, ridiculous, outlandish ideas will lead to the most important breakthroughs. Because these ideas seemed unlikely to be of value, they were ignored by other thinkers.
We cannot ignore any possibilities when exploring the unknown; the solution can be hiding anywhere in the problem manifold. Walt Disney and company called this “imagineering.” Disney's business was entertainment, to amuse children and their families. From the first primitive images of Mickey Mouse to his final classic “Mary Poppins,” Disney followed the principles of “imagineering:” engineering fantasies to satisfy his ultimate goal of entertainment, with stupendous financial success.
Before Disney, Thomas Edison mastered the art of “imagineering” with a sixth-grade education. Edison tested thousands of processes and materials to come up with a working light bulb. One of the materials for his bulb filament was a mustache hair; how ridiculous can you get? Finally, a tungsten filament did the job, but it burned too quickly to ashes in spite of the vacuum. The inventor had used the best available equipment to produce vacuum in the bulb. Did he give up? No, he designed his own vacuum pump for a far better vacuum than had existed on earth before. Success and fortune followed, with the formation of the Edison Company for the production and distribution of electric lights, starting with Wall Street of New York.
Edison was a model of well-directed persistence for success. Smart persistence on a task works because it is a rare quality; most people quit early, tired or disheartened. People generally seek instant gratification, fast, fast relief, quick weight loss, free gifts, and lucky big wins. Few are those willing to dig, dig, and dig for the gold. The Mother Lode of gold, the richest in the American West was found a few feet below the surface gold miners originally extracted, after which they quit the mine. Persistence is right behavior for the practical dreamer, poking a problem from one side, then another, and another, until the dreamer finds a weakness in the shell surrounding the problem. Try this method to break a macadamia nut with an ordinary cracker; many times you will succeed. Brute force also works if you don't have a macadamia cracker. Place the nut inside a paper bag and whack it with a hammer. Sometimes, brute force is the right action to put our dreams into profitable practice.
Brute force may be useful on occasion, but as a rule the practical dreamer is gentle and deliberate. The great innovative surgeon works with precision and care in cutting out a tumor, bringing tissues together, and suturing. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt worked with many detailed sketches, studies, details, before putting paint on canvass or wall to create an artistic masterpiece. The astronomer searches the night sky patiently and systematically to locate an unknown celestial body that will bear the searcher's name. We should all try to be like the people weaving the famed oriental rugs with simple tools, never tiring of detail, as if time stands still for us, and eternity is in our every moment.
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
A dreamer is a person with a fruitful imagination; a dreamer is practical when imagination is combined with action to produce useful products or services, yielding profits. America has been home to many practical dreamers: Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Walt Disney--the list is endless. Most started life in the United States as poor immigrants or humble locals, seeking to improve their condition, surpassed their dearest dreams. A dreamer enjoys indulging his fantasies without doing anything to realize them; a realist keeps trudging along in life doing what is customary, certain, or conveniently profitable, without achieving anything of great splendor. As partners but separate individuals, dreamer and realist can function productively as well as one individual possessing both qualities. If you are not such a person, find a complimentary partner. Some of the most successful teams in the corporate world are those of the imaginative engineer and the person of business. Many marriages do well also, combining the dreamer and the pragmatist. Most of us are not practical dreamers; otherwise, we would be far more successful; but we all possess a measure of imagination and practicality, which we can enlarge if we follow right thoughts, right purposes, and right behaviors.
Most of what we think is day-dreaming, escaping our limitations and humdrum existence into worlds of unrealistic fantasies, with no chance of actualization. Thoughts are birds in flight; but they can be directed towards a goal, a destination, while retaining some of their winged power. Through the exercise of the will, even in sleep after some years of practice, you can focus your thoughts on a specific subject, and with laser strength penetrate the barrier of your problem. You can view the universe of matter and mind as a complex web of problems, a never-ending series of questions, asking like a child why, why, why. Daddy, why do things fall down? It's gravity, my child. What is gravity? Gravity is a force. What is a force, daddy? Oh shut up, can't you see I'm busy paying bills? That is the end of questioning, the beginning of routine.
Practical dreaming to create new things is the opposite of routine. Direct your thoughts to what is novel, unfamiliar, even surprising, in a strange territory. Expect to discover good things, expect you will solve your problem, expect you will be able survive the wilderness of the imagination to reach civilization. That's self-confidence, the armor for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Abraham Lincoln went through some very disappointing periods leading the Union armies in the Civil War. Despite his melancholy nature, his faith in a united America never wavered. Faith is the springboard of creative work: fervently believing in something gets you going, building, achieving; doubt lays you low in lethargy.
Yeah, but how do I acquire an active faith? I consider the accomplishments I admire, choosing one I am well suited by my nature to emulate. I admire the works of Lord Bertrand Russell; I seek to think, write, and act as he did in his life, because I have similar talents to his, although I may not be as gifted as he was. I do the best I can in my chosen direction. Whom do you admire? Do you have any true affinity for the projects you are to undertake to approach your master? If not, look elsewhere for your proper occupation. But anywhere you look, you cannot be without proper direction.
Thoughts need reins; galloping this way and that they go nowhere. To get somewhere, aim towards a specific goal, a purpose, a project to complete, at a specific point in the future. The future is shaped by our thoughts and goals to be bright, dark, or gray; a right goal helps realize a bright future for ourselves and our community. But your goal cannot be placed too far into the future; if your project is very large, requiring much time to complete, divide it into sub-goals, each one with a completion date. I know that until you get accustomed to goal setting, it will stress you, and make you anxious. Bear up, persist, the stress will lift. If you cannot meet a deadline, don't despair; next time set a reasonable time line. When we are working creatively, independently, our goals are tools, not commands from authority. Imaginative ideas incubate, on occasion requiring a longer or shorter period to hatch.
Most people don't direct their imagination. Listen to a group talking socially or even for business purposes. People talk as they think, in a confused, disorganized, random way. They don't stay with a topic of discussion for long, wondering this way and that, unless they are tightly controlled by debating rules, which often some individuals will defy to rant on and on about their pet grievances. In synergistic groups for creative work, the proctor needs to maintain discipline on members to stay on focus; yet allow enough freedom for exploration into the unknown.
The unknown, the unsolved problem, and the mystery are always unpredictable and our conquest of these cannot be programmed. We can follow, however, some general approaches. Do not get boxed in preconceived or customary ideas. Dare to go outside established boundaries. Do not assume more constraints to the problem than are actually there. Allow your imagination free flight, simply recording any and all ideas that occur without criticizing them or analyzing them at the time of brainstorming. You choose and analyze ideas later, during the critical phase that follows as which ideas are practical and which are nonsense. Sometimes, the most apparently nonsensical, far fetched, ridiculous, outlandish ideas will lead to the most important breakthroughs. Because these ideas seemed unlikely to be of value, they were ignored by other thinkers.
We cannot ignore any possibilities when exploring the unknown; the solution can be hiding anywhere in the problem manifold. Walt Disney and company called this “imagineering.” Disney's business was entertainment, to amuse children and their families. From the first primitive images of Mickey Mouse to his final classic “Mary Poppins,” Disney followed the principles of “imagineering:” engineering fantasies to satisfy his ultimate goal of entertainment, with stupendous financial success.
Before Disney, Thomas Edison mastered the art of “imagineering” with a sixth-grade education. Edison tested thousands of processes and materials to come up with a working light bulb. One of the materials for his bulb filament was a mustache hair; how ridiculous can you get? Finally, a tungsten filament did the job, but it burned too quickly to ashes in spite of the vacuum. The inventor had used the best available equipment to produce vacuum in the bulb. Did he give up? No, he designed his own vacuum pump for a far better vacuum than had existed on earth before. Success and fortune followed, with the formation of the Edison Company for the production and distribution of electric lights, starting with Wall Street of New York.
Edison was a model of well-directed persistence for success. Smart persistence on a task works because it is a rare quality; most people quit early, tired or disheartened. People generally seek instant gratification, fast, fast relief, quick weight loss, free gifts, and lucky big wins. Few are those willing to dig, dig, and dig for the gold. The Mother Lode of gold, the richest in the American West was found a few feet below the surface gold miners originally extracted, after which they quit the mine. Persistence is right behavior for the practical dreamer, poking a problem from one side, then another, and another, until the dreamer finds a weakness in the shell surrounding the problem. Try this method to break a macadamia nut with an ordinary cracker; many times you will succeed. Brute force also works if you don't have a macadamia cracker. Place the nut inside a paper bag and whack it with a hammer. Sometimes, brute force is the right action to put our dreams into profitable practice.
Brute force may be useful on occasion, but as a rule the practical dreamer is gentle and deliberate. The great innovative surgeon works with precision and care in cutting out a tumor, bringing tissues together, and suturing. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt worked with many detailed sketches, studies, details, before putting paint on canvass or wall to create an artistic masterpiece. The astronomer searches the night sky patiently and systematically to locate an unknown celestial body that will bear the searcher's name. We should all try to be like the people weaving the famed oriental rugs with simple tools, never tiring of detail, as if time stands still for us, and eternity is in our every moment.
Is Matter Energy?
Is Matter Energy?
By Basil Gala, PH.D.
As every preschooler knows, Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light, or E = mc², that from Einstein. The relationship of matter and energy has been settled by physicists to nearly everybody’s satisfaction. So why do I want to discuss it? Because the issue is not settled as far as I am concerned. I want to know why energy, which scatters in all directions at the speed of light, remains bound up in matter, outside of radio-active materials, a nuclear reactor, a bomb, or a sun. So here I go, until the physics police pick me up and put me away.
Let me start with matter. Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Democritus said matter was made up of indivisible pieces he called atoms, because if you take an apple and keep slicing it into finer and finer bits with a very sharp knife, you will eventually get to atoms. Modern scientists agree and go further. Atoms are divisible, with some difficulty, into protons and neutrons bound together in the nucleus, with waves of electrons around it. As to sizes, the nucleus is like a football in a stadium with electrons like flies in waves whirring around the stadium; what you have in an atom is mostly empty space, not the solid matter we sense.
The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are made up of quarks, say ‘kworks.’ Nobel-prize winner Murray Gell-Mann of Caltech gave us the word and pronunciation. Quarks are particles held together by the strong nuclear force, mediated by gluons, to form combinations known as hadrons. A hadron of two quarks is a meson and one of three quarks is a barion. Quarks have the properties of mass, spin and parity, which we cannot measure directly, but we have to infer from their behavior. Why? The answer stated by Frank Wilczek (another Nobel winner) is that quarks make it impossible to separate them from their hadrons setting them free as particles. As physicists apply more and more energy to pull quarks apart, the force of gluons holding them together becomes greater still; quarks are not found free in nature.
Tougher still, quarks may have a substructure: they may be made up of other things, but we have no evidence to suggest to us what parts make up quarks. I want to know if quark parts exist, or quarks are the boxes holding nuclear energy from flying away in all directions. Clearly, quarks are bundles of energy that are held together somehow by means of the weak nuclear force, which also binds leptons (including electrons) into bundles. The weak force is mediated by massive bosons designated by W±, and Zº. What do we mean by weak and strong forces? Using the electromagnetic force as a base of 1 for two massless mediating photons in a nucleus, the strong nuclear force is 20 times weaker; and the weak nuclear force 10,000 times weaker. Holding planets, solar systems and galaxies together, the gravitational force is 10 followed by 36 zeros weaker than electromagnetism. Weak indeed at the particle level, but without gravitation, mediated by the massless graviton, there would be no universe as we know it. The graviton remains elusive, not yet detected by any instrument devised to date.
What do physicists mean when they say a force is mediated by particles like the graviton or photon? Some authors give the analogy of two people on wheeled stools who are throwing a series of balls to each other. Each ball thrown and caught causes the two throwers to move apart with a somewhat greater velocity. This is not a satisfactory analogy, because it does not explain an attractive force such as gravity; and the graviton is without mass to cause a push. The photon is also without mass, but the electromagnetic force it carries also has large effects, such as in the electric motor or in the supercollider which speeds up protons at CERN.
The theory of force carriers, called bosons, such as the graviton, photon, gluon, etc. derive from the Standard Model, which accounts for all the particles appearing in the supercollider experiments. The data suggest theoretical models to explain them, and the models stimulate more experiments to test for the existence of particles which theory predicts. One such hypothesized particle is the Higgs boson, a very heavy boson, requiring energies to produce. Physicists will be looking in 2008 for this boson with the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and with the Tevatron at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. If it exists, the Higgs boson has a huge effect on the universe and its forces, which prompted Leon Lederer (Nobel Laureate) to name it the “God Particle” in his popular science book.
All these bosons also derive from quantum mechanics and field theory. Field theory is a better explanation for the action of force particles than the analogy of stools. According to field theory, gravitons create a field of force around a massive object which distorts space like a sloping well with the object in the center. Another object with mass coming close to the field rolls down the gravity well, or is attracted by the first object, as Newton would say. The result is gravitation. If the centrifugal force of the captured object exactly matches the force of gravity, the object circles around the gravity hole without falling in.
The same phenomena occur with antimatter. Each particle I have mentioned, including quarks, has a corresponding antiparticle, with the opposite properties. For example, the anti-electron, or positron, has a positive electric charge, while the electron has a negative one. When a particle and antiparticle collide, they annihilate each other and producing photons of energy. Such collisions are used at CERN and Fermilab by speeding up protons and anti-protons in opposite directions, and then smashing them together. The scattering of energy and sub-particles are recorded. Physicists study these recordings and develop new models of the subatomic world to further enlarge our knowledge of how the universe is put together.
Physicists tell us that a particle is a wave in accordance with quantum mechanics. The Z particle mediating the weak particle is also a wave, which establishes a field of attraction among the quarks, like a web of energy. When antimatter is collides with matter, the anti-Z particle and field neutralizes the field of the Z particle and vice versa. Thus energy in both matter and anti-matter is released to scatter in all directions.
I conclude that mass exists when energy packets or quanta are in a stable configuration, balancing expansive forces with centrifugal forces in an electromagnetic field. When this stability is broken, quanta become ordinary radiation moving at the speed of light.
Vista, CA January 2008
By Basil Gala, PH.D.
As every preschooler knows, Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light, or E = mc², that from Einstein. The relationship of matter and energy has been settled by physicists to nearly everybody’s satisfaction. So why do I want to discuss it? Because the issue is not settled as far as I am concerned. I want to know why energy, which scatters in all directions at the speed of light, remains bound up in matter, outside of radio-active materials, a nuclear reactor, a bomb, or a sun. So here I go, until the physics police pick me up and put me away.
Let me start with matter. Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Democritus said matter was made up of indivisible pieces he called atoms, because if you take an apple and keep slicing it into finer and finer bits with a very sharp knife, you will eventually get to atoms. Modern scientists agree and go further. Atoms are divisible, with some difficulty, into protons and neutrons bound together in the nucleus, with waves of electrons around it. As to sizes, the nucleus is like a football in a stadium with electrons like flies in waves whirring around the stadium; what you have in an atom is mostly empty space, not the solid matter we sense.
The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are made up of quarks, say ‘kworks.’ Nobel-prize winner Murray Gell-Mann of Caltech gave us the word and pronunciation. Quarks are particles held together by the strong nuclear force, mediated by gluons, to form combinations known as hadrons. A hadron of two quarks is a meson and one of three quarks is a barion. Quarks have the properties of mass, spin and parity, which we cannot measure directly, but we have to infer from their behavior. Why? The answer stated by Frank Wilczek (another Nobel winner) is that quarks make it impossible to separate them from their hadrons setting them free as particles. As physicists apply more and more energy to pull quarks apart, the force of gluons holding them together becomes greater still; quarks are not found free in nature.
Tougher still, quarks may have a substructure: they may be made up of other things, but we have no evidence to suggest to us what parts make up quarks. I want to know if quark parts exist, or quarks are the boxes holding nuclear energy from flying away in all directions. Clearly, quarks are bundles of energy that are held together somehow by means of the weak nuclear force, which also binds leptons (including electrons) into bundles. The weak force is mediated by massive bosons designated by W±, and Zº. What do we mean by weak and strong forces? Using the electromagnetic force as a base of 1 for two massless mediating photons in a nucleus, the strong nuclear force is 20 times weaker; and the weak nuclear force 10,000 times weaker. Holding planets, solar systems and galaxies together, the gravitational force is 10 followed by 36 zeros weaker than electromagnetism. Weak indeed at the particle level, but without gravitation, mediated by the massless graviton, there would be no universe as we know it. The graviton remains elusive, not yet detected by any instrument devised to date.
What do physicists mean when they say a force is mediated by particles like the graviton or photon? Some authors give the analogy of two people on wheeled stools who are throwing a series of balls to each other. Each ball thrown and caught causes the two throwers to move apart with a somewhat greater velocity. This is not a satisfactory analogy, because it does not explain an attractive force such as gravity; and the graviton is without mass to cause a push. The photon is also without mass, but the electromagnetic force it carries also has large effects, such as in the electric motor or in the supercollider which speeds up protons at CERN.
The theory of force carriers, called bosons, such as the graviton, photon, gluon, etc. derive from the Standard Model, which accounts for all the particles appearing in the supercollider experiments. The data suggest theoretical models to explain them, and the models stimulate more experiments to test for the existence of particles which theory predicts. One such hypothesized particle is the Higgs boson, a very heavy boson, requiring energies to produce. Physicists will be looking in 2008 for this boson with the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN and with the Tevatron at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. If it exists, the Higgs boson has a huge effect on the universe and its forces, which prompted Leon Lederer (Nobel Laureate) to name it the “God Particle” in his popular science book.
All these bosons also derive from quantum mechanics and field theory. Field theory is a better explanation for the action of force particles than the analogy of stools. According to field theory, gravitons create a field of force around a massive object which distorts space like a sloping well with the object in the center. Another object with mass coming close to the field rolls down the gravity well, or is attracted by the first object, as Newton would say. The result is gravitation. If the centrifugal force of the captured object exactly matches the force of gravity, the object circles around the gravity hole without falling in.
The same phenomena occur with antimatter. Each particle I have mentioned, including quarks, has a corresponding antiparticle, with the opposite properties. For example, the anti-electron, or positron, has a positive electric charge, while the electron has a negative one. When a particle and antiparticle collide, they annihilate each other and producing photons of energy. Such collisions are used at CERN and Fermilab by speeding up protons and anti-protons in opposite directions, and then smashing them together. The scattering of energy and sub-particles are recorded. Physicists study these recordings and develop new models of the subatomic world to further enlarge our knowledge of how the universe is put together.
Physicists tell us that a particle is a wave in accordance with quantum mechanics. The Z particle mediating the weak particle is also a wave, which establishes a field of attraction among the quarks, like a web of energy. When antimatter is collides with matter, the anti-Z particle and field neutralizes the field of the Z particle and vice versa. Thus energy in both matter and anti-matter is released to scatter in all directions.
I conclude that mass exists when energy packets or quanta are in a stable configuration, balancing expansive forces with centrifugal forces in an electromagnetic field. When this stability is broken, quanta become ordinary radiation moving at the speed of light.
Vista, CA January 2008
God is the Great Investor
God Is the Great Investor
(And Warrent Buffet is His Prophet)
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1511 Words)
God is Great, says the Koran, and Mohammad is His Prophet. At the beginning of each passage in the Koran, God is also declared to be compassionate and merciful. God is the creator of the world and of humans, and will be their judge on Resurrection Day. The Hebrew scriptures give similar attributes to God, who is also wrathful on occasion when His chosen people misbehave: fornicating unlawfully, worshipping idols, and neglecting to pray to Him; then God allows famine, war, pestilence, and enslavement to fall upon His people. The Christian Bible, which plagiarized the Torah in the Old Testament, speaks of all these qualities of God, who is also our Father, especially the Father of the Son, of the same substance as God, all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere present in the universe. He feels pity for people on occasion, forgiving their sins, intervening with a miracle or two to cure them of deadly disease or other ills. I say, God is a great investor, and Warren Buffet is His prophet.
Pray to God, the Great Investor, and honor His prophet, Warren Buffet.
Why is God an Investor, and Warren Buffet His prophet? The prophet we know and hear; then through the prophet we learn about God Investor Almighty. We know Warren Buffet as "the Oracle of Omaha" among investors, in 2008 the world's richest man, having surpassed Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation.
Bill Gates founded and managed Microsoft, growing it to become one of the most valuable corporations in the United States and the world. Buffet bought his company Berkshire-Hathaway, a textile company, converting it into an investment corporation. He has bought major positions (large chunks of stock) in traditional corporations, such as Coca Cola, Sees Candies, Geico Insurance, holding the stock and exerting some influence on the companies by appointing directors. He holds stocks for many years, usually not getting involved in company management. Occasionally, if one of his investments flounders, he will place a management team to run the company until it is on the right track.
Warren Buffet invests in companies he judges to be more valuable, having the potential to earn higher profits, than other investors recognize. He does not like to speculate, generally avoiding "hot" stocks in high technology. He has a following of devotees, like any bona fide prophet, who throw their chips on the same bets he has made. Nobody quite matches his performance.
Warren Buffet is God's prophet because he has a vision of supporting men and women with his money, i.e. any resources money can buy, people capable of turning a profit in their operations, enriching their community and the world. He pledges to donate 90% of his estate to charity; in the meantime, he holds on to his money, to keep growing it for the sake of charity when he is gone. Buffet has the best of both worlds, present and promised. I follow him, clutching my money tightly, enjoying money in life, until government, charity and heirs take it, after my body is certified dead; then seeking my reward in the next world.
Prophet Buffet preaches investing in sound companies, companies with effective management teams, marketable products, continued prospects for profits, valuable assets, and low ticker prices. Investors listen carefully to him, but most of them chase after the idols of greed, quick appreciation, and speculative profits. The true and faithful zealots prosper with Buffet, holding their shares of Berkshire-Hathaway close to their hearts at about $100,000 each.
Pay close attention to the words and deeds of Warren Buffet, the Prophet, if you want to be among the chosen few who can own stocks each at a six-figure price. His sermons are of traditional economics, not momentum strategies of going with the crowd; make Samuelson's Economics your bible, and pick your daily prayer from the Wall Street Journal.
With the help and guidance of the Great Investor, Warren Buffet performs an occasional miracle, saving from bankruptcy a desperate company, with proper intervention in the company's affairs; otherwise, he watches over his investments from afar and above in Omaha, Nebraska. Every few years, the prophet will shift his investment from a non-performing company to one with better prospects, but as a rule he is loyal to his chosen people. Buffet's chosen people must play by the rules and laws of the country and of business to deserve keeping his loyal support and compassion. When the people err in one of his companies, he and his God do not persecute, punish, or condemn, except by withdrawing investments.
God, the Investor, is Great; wise beyond our comprehension is He and His Prophet Warren Buffet.
Leave not the bulk of your estate to heirs, Buffet preaches; leave it to worthy causes that do good works, avoiding inheritance taxes. Invest most of your earnings and re-invest appreciated assets, trading up to avoid capital gains taxes. Life is short, but not for well-managed and well-positioned corporations, like Coca Cola or Geico Insurance; own stocks in corporations with unlimited life spans.
Like Mary Poppins, Warren Buffet is very nearly perfect, at least as an investor. His God is the ideal of perfection in investment knowhow, as He is our ideal for other attributes: wisdom, knowledge, kindness, and power.
What we sense about God is an entity like Nature, laying down laws, rules, or regularities in the phenomena we observe, regularities such as gravitation, electromagnetism, relativity, evolution, or justice. Make use of the laws of Nature or God; you are more likely to succeed, flourish, survive. Ignore the rules; you are not going to be around for long as a living person or an investor. Democritus, 600 B.C., spoke of necessity and chance ruling the world. The laws are necessary; but chance is behind the scenes, churning events. Even the most regular phenomena possess random elements. Who expected venerable Citigroup to lose billions in mortgage securities? As an investor, you face risk; the greater the apparent risk, the larger is the profit potential, because risk scares off others, afraid of it more than you are. You can take calculated risks, as Warren Buffet does, to succeed more often than timid people in investments.
God likes to play dice with the universe, to misquote Einstein on quantum mechanics.
Why so? God-Nature challenges every living thing to change, evolve, getter better; He gives us all random testing, even investors, especially with investors, because He is the ideal, Great Investor. We face the unexpected, even the bizarre, outcome in our investments at irregular intervals. The business cycle puzzles us, with a recession starting the moment our head is turned away from the economy, or a big boom in assets and profits, when we are on a long vacation. Thus God-Nature promotes and distills our spirits, separating the sheep from the goats: those who are to continue His works from those cast aside to oblivion.
Some people believe God arranges events to determine our fate; others, say Nature is a blind force, acting on its own, with no regard for us favorable or unkind. Certainly, God is a passive investor in the universe, in our own lives, and our societies, letting chips fall where they may, allowing us the freedom to succeed or fail; on rare occasions, He appears to intervene in our affairs, performing a small or large miracle that we do not expect from blind chance. Is that not how life emerged on our planet billions of years ago?
Science explains the vast majority of phenomena we observe through the actions of natural laws, without Divine Intervention. A few events we encounter are puzzling for science and reason. Such is the appearance every century or so of a gifted person, talented with skills, imagination, creativity of fantastic proportions: Democritus, Archimedes, da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Shakespeare, Gauss, van Beethoven, Einstein, and such, luminaries who guide our progress to the future. A rare combination of genes explains such phenomena for some commentators; for others, such innovators and creators are miracles of God.
By and large, God applies the Star Trek principle of non-intervention on our planet. We are free agents to determine our own fate, good, bad, or indifferent. Like Warren Buffet, God is an investor allowing us the managers of our world to make own decisions freely, and take credit or blame for our mistakes. If we manage poorly, we simply lose out on resources to carry on with our lives.
We should take this lesson to heart in considering the use of Earth's resources; they are finite, and spoilable. When the forests are gone from the face of our lands, their cool comfort does come back readily; when the ozone layer is depleted, when with excess CO2 planetary warming has run away, when the oceans, land, and air are polluted, our blue-white planet is not as hospitable and profitable for humans or other living things. Then without recrimination or wrath, God invests His resources in a different planet, with better managers of operations than Homo sapiens.
(And Warrent Buffet is His Prophet)
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1511 Words)
God is Great, says the Koran, and Mohammad is His Prophet. At the beginning of each passage in the Koran, God is also declared to be compassionate and merciful. God is the creator of the world and of humans, and will be their judge on Resurrection Day. The Hebrew scriptures give similar attributes to God, who is also wrathful on occasion when His chosen people misbehave: fornicating unlawfully, worshipping idols, and neglecting to pray to Him; then God allows famine, war, pestilence, and enslavement to fall upon His people. The Christian Bible, which plagiarized the Torah in the Old Testament, speaks of all these qualities of God, who is also our Father, especially the Father of the Son, of the same substance as God, all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere present in the universe. He feels pity for people on occasion, forgiving their sins, intervening with a miracle or two to cure them of deadly disease or other ills. I say, God is a great investor, and Warren Buffet is His prophet.
Pray to God, the Great Investor, and honor His prophet, Warren Buffet.
Why is God an Investor, and Warren Buffet His prophet? The prophet we know and hear; then through the prophet we learn about God Investor Almighty. We know Warren Buffet as "the Oracle of Omaha" among investors, in 2008 the world's richest man, having surpassed Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation.
Bill Gates founded and managed Microsoft, growing it to become one of the most valuable corporations in the United States and the world. Buffet bought his company Berkshire-Hathaway, a textile company, converting it into an investment corporation. He has bought major positions (large chunks of stock) in traditional corporations, such as Coca Cola, Sees Candies, Geico Insurance, holding the stock and exerting some influence on the companies by appointing directors. He holds stocks for many years, usually not getting involved in company management. Occasionally, if one of his investments flounders, he will place a management team to run the company until it is on the right track.
Warren Buffet invests in companies he judges to be more valuable, having the potential to earn higher profits, than other investors recognize. He does not like to speculate, generally avoiding "hot" stocks in high technology. He has a following of devotees, like any bona fide prophet, who throw their chips on the same bets he has made. Nobody quite matches his performance.
Warren Buffet is God's prophet because he has a vision of supporting men and women with his money, i.e. any resources money can buy, people capable of turning a profit in their operations, enriching their community and the world. He pledges to donate 90% of his estate to charity; in the meantime, he holds on to his money, to keep growing it for the sake of charity when he is gone. Buffet has the best of both worlds, present and promised. I follow him, clutching my money tightly, enjoying money in life, until government, charity and heirs take it, after my body is certified dead; then seeking my reward in the next world.
Prophet Buffet preaches investing in sound companies, companies with effective management teams, marketable products, continued prospects for profits, valuable assets, and low ticker prices. Investors listen carefully to him, but most of them chase after the idols of greed, quick appreciation, and speculative profits. The true and faithful zealots prosper with Buffet, holding their shares of Berkshire-Hathaway close to their hearts at about $100,000 each.
Pay close attention to the words and deeds of Warren Buffet, the Prophet, if you want to be among the chosen few who can own stocks each at a six-figure price. His sermons are of traditional economics, not momentum strategies of going with the crowd; make Samuelson's Economics your bible, and pick your daily prayer from the Wall Street Journal.
With the help and guidance of the Great Investor, Warren Buffet performs an occasional miracle, saving from bankruptcy a desperate company, with proper intervention in the company's affairs; otherwise, he watches over his investments from afar and above in Omaha, Nebraska. Every few years, the prophet will shift his investment from a non-performing company to one with better prospects, but as a rule he is loyal to his chosen people. Buffet's chosen people must play by the rules and laws of the country and of business to deserve keeping his loyal support and compassion. When the people err in one of his companies, he and his God do not persecute, punish, or condemn, except by withdrawing investments.
God, the Investor, is Great; wise beyond our comprehension is He and His Prophet Warren Buffet.
Leave not the bulk of your estate to heirs, Buffet preaches; leave it to worthy causes that do good works, avoiding inheritance taxes. Invest most of your earnings and re-invest appreciated assets, trading up to avoid capital gains taxes. Life is short, but not for well-managed and well-positioned corporations, like Coca Cola or Geico Insurance; own stocks in corporations with unlimited life spans.
Like Mary Poppins, Warren Buffet is very nearly perfect, at least as an investor. His God is the ideal of perfection in investment knowhow, as He is our ideal for other attributes: wisdom, knowledge, kindness, and power.
What we sense about God is an entity like Nature, laying down laws, rules, or regularities in the phenomena we observe, regularities such as gravitation, electromagnetism, relativity, evolution, or justice. Make use of the laws of Nature or God; you are more likely to succeed, flourish, survive. Ignore the rules; you are not going to be around for long as a living person or an investor. Democritus, 600 B.C., spoke of necessity and chance ruling the world. The laws are necessary; but chance is behind the scenes, churning events. Even the most regular phenomena possess random elements. Who expected venerable Citigroup to lose billions in mortgage securities? As an investor, you face risk; the greater the apparent risk, the larger is the profit potential, because risk scares off others, afraid of it more than you are. You can take calculated risks, as Warren Buffet does, to succeed more often than timid people in investments.
God likes to play dice with the universe, to misquote Einstein on quantum mechanics.
Why so? God-Nature challenges every living thing to change, evolve, getter better; He gives us all random testing, even investors, especially with investors, because He is the ideal, Great Investor. We face the unexpected, even the bizarre, outcome in our investments at irregular intervals. The business cycle puzzles us, with a recession starting the moment our head is turned away from the economy, or a big boom in assets and profits, when we are on a long vacation. Thus God-Nature promotes and distills our spirits, separating the sheep from the goats: those who are to continue His works from those cast aside to oblivion.
Some people believe God arranges events to determine our fate; others, say Nature is a blind force, acting on its own, with no regard for us favorable or unkind. Certainly, God is a passive investor in the universe, in our own lives, and our societies, letting chips fall where they may, allowing us the freedom to succeed or fail; on rare occasions, He appears to intervene in our affairs, performing a small or large miracle that we do not expect from blind chance. Is that not how life emerged on our planet billions of years ago?
Science explains the vast majority of phenomena we observe through the actions of natural laws, without Divine Intervention. A few events we encounter are puzzling for science and reason. Such is the appearance every century or so of a gifted person, talented with skills, imagination, creativity of fantastic proportions: Democritus, Archimedes, da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Shakespeare, Gauss, van Beethoven, Einstein, and such, luminaries who guide our progress to the future. A rare combination of genes explains such phenomena for some commentators; for others, such innovators and creators are miracles of God.
By and large, God applies the Star Trek principle of non-intervention on our planet. We are free agents to determine our own fate, good, bad, or indifferent. Like Warren Buffet, God is an investor allowing us the managers of our world to make own decisions freely, and take credit or blame for our mistakes. If we manage poorly, we simply lose out on resources to carry on with our lives.
We should take this lesson to heart in considering the use of Earth's resources; they are finite, and spoilable. When the forests are gone from the face of our lands, their cool comfort does come back readily; when the ozone layer is depleted, when with excess CO2 planetary warming has run away, when the oceans, land, and air are polluted, our blue-white planet is not as hospitable and profitable for humans or other living things. Then without recrimination or wrath, God invests His resources in a different planet, with better managers of operations than Homo sapiens.
A Career on Four Legs
A Career on Four Legs
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1116 Words)
The work we do on a regular basis should be a career as much as it is possible. That is, all work we do should tie in with our lifelong goals for the things we want to accomplish in our chosen field, vocation, avocation, or main interest. Sure, we need to have a variety of experiences if what we want to do is write or manage, but even the variety should aim for our major goal in life. Why so? Would you buy the idea that “life is too short, the art too long?” Fix your work activities then, if you can, to your planned career, and run your career on four legs: enthusiasm, service, artcraft, and profit.
Profit? Yes, profit. What shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own purse on the way to bank? Profit is what business people call the bottom line, after all expenses are deducted from all receipts. The bottom line is where you begin figuring out how to run your business or career, before you do anything else. The whole variety of living things on the planet operate the same way. Each species must see to its profit from operations in order to survive and thrive, and not become like the dodo bird.
You ignore survival values, i.e. Money, at your own peril. Even if your parents left you plenty of the green stuff or you have already earned enough of it on your own, where is the guarantee you will keep it till the end of your road or that of your offspring? Earn it and leave it to your heirs or worthy causes in your will. Payment received for your efforts certifies also that what you have produced is worth something to your fellows. Payment is sweeter by far than compliments, honors, or admiring looks. Money is the most sincere form of appreciation.
Going backwards, I now examine the second leg: artcraft. All work and
careers run on a collection of acquired skills: a craft, or, for some people of outstanding talent, an art.
Before we established colleges and universities training multitudes of young people with books, lectures, laboratories, libraries, and computers for a vast variety of professions, we had the apprentice system. Very often the son apprenticed with his father, as Jesus did with Joseph in carpentry, starting from age five or six, because very little formal schooling was available for ordinary people. The daughter trained with her mother in household tasks, cleaning, cooking, fetching water from spring or well, taking care of babies, tending the garden and caring for a few animals. At thirteen or so, boy and girl were old enough for adult responsibilities.
For those without a skilled father or mother, an uncle, aunt, or other master in some craft provided the apprenticeship. Those who sought a different craft from the family's, served a master for five years without wages, just room and board, working next to the master, picking up technique and learning. After that the apprentice served another five years as a journeyman, or the female equivalent, on small wages. Now the apprentice could do the work well enough to earn enough money still working for the master or independently, could settle down and marry. The skills and knowledge the apprentice acquired during all these years was practical, immediately useful, not theories, words from books and lectures. That was a good training system, in many ways superior to ours today, and it cost the parents little or nothing, one of its main superiorities.
If you have a chance at a close apprenticeship to a recognized master in your chosen field, grab it. If not, collect the works of an outstanding master you admire, and model your own efforts to those works for a while. I have modeled my own efforts in philosophy on the writings of British philosopher, logician, and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Lord Bertrand Russell, which I have admired since I was a teenager.
First you choose a field of endeavor for a first, second, or--like me--a third career. When you start your career, pick an artcraft that you naturally do well; perhaps you have the talent for it. Anyway, you'll run faster on a good artcraft leg. If you have fun practicing your craft, that's great, because you will need to practice it every day for many hours to become productive and competitive so your output is saleable. Everybody who hears Mozart admires his great music, but how many people appreciate that he practiced his art constantly, starting when he was an infant?
My career is applied, practical, philosophy; I sleep, eat, think, write, think, write questions and answers of applied philosophy. But first where is the profit? Why should people pay for my advice, information, or entertainment? Yes, my readers will pay for my advice if they see a payoff in it for themselves, and if they find my writings interesting. But until they pay me, I must keep practicing my writing skills and my thought processes daily for many hours on end.
People may pay well for what you do for them; you may be very good at producing large amounts of what your customers want to buy. Are these two legs of a career, profit and artcraft, sufficient? Yes, they are sufficient for making some money, even sufficient for amassing fortune and fame. Drug dealers, casinos, cigarette makers, candy companies, prostitutes and pornographers do as much.
The third leg of a career, true service to the people must run well too. A sound, ethical career, needs to see to the welfare of the customers. The product you sell to the public should do good, do no harm; it should appeal to the customer's virtues, not vices. Serve your community well with your career to assure its longevity and that of your spirit.
You will not serve very well, you will not practice your artcraft long and hard, you will not profit handsomely in your career without applying yourself with enthusiasm to your work. The Greeks meant with enthusiasm the entrance of the god inside of you, or at least of the muse. This fourth leg of a career I left for last to discuss because it keeps the other three in motion.
It is a deep and abiding interest in what you do, a love for your work as
strong as that for your spouse or children. It is a love which fills you with energy, with confidence, and with inspiration—your spirit is on the wing, creating, producing things of value. Passion drives you to furious achievement. What great things were ever done without passion?
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1116 Words)
The work we do on a regular basis should be a career as much as it is possible. That is, all work we do should tie in with our lifelong goals for the things we want to accomplish in our chosen field, vocation, avocation, or main interest. Sure, we need to have a variety of experiences if what we want to do is write or manage, but even the variety should aim for our major goal in life. Why so? Would you buy the idea that “life is too short, the art too long?” Fix your work activities then, if you can, to your planned career, and run your career on four legs: enthusiasm, service, artcraft, and profit.
Profit? Yes, profit. What shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own purse on the way to bank? Profit is what business people call the bottom line, after all expenses are deducted from all receipts. The bottom line is where you begin figuring out how to run your business or career, before you do anything else. The whole variety of living things on the planet operate the same way. Each species must see to its profit from operations in order to survive and thrive, and not become like the dodo bird.
You ignore survival values, i.e. Money, at your own peril. Even if your parents left you plenty of the green stuff or you have already earned enough of it on your own, where is the guarantee you will keep it till the end of your road or that of your offspring? Earn it and leave it to your heirs or worthy causes in your will. Payment received for your efforts certifies also that what you have produced is worth something to your fellows. Payment is sweeter by far than compliments, honors, or admiring looks. Money is the most sincere form of appreciation.
Going backwards, I now examine the second leg: artcraft. All work and
careers run on a collection of acquired skills: a craft, or, for some people of outstanding talent, an art.
Before we established colleges and universities training multitudes of young people with books, lectures, laboratories, libraries, and computers for a vast variety of professions, we had the apprentice system. Very often the son apprenticed with his father, as Jesus did with Joseph in carpentry, starting from age five or six, because very little formal schooling was available for ordinary people. The daughter trained with her mother in household tasks, cleaning, cooking, fetching water from spring or well, taking care of babies, tending the garden and caring for a few animals. At thirteen or so, boy and girl were old enough for adult responsibilities.
For those without a skilled father or mother, an uncle, aunt, or other master in some craft provided the apprenticeship. Those who sought a different craft from the family's, served a master for five years without wages, just room and board, working next to the master, picking up technique and learning. After that the apprentice served another five years as a journeyman, or the female equivalent, on small wages. Now the apprentice could do the work well enough to earn enough money still working for the master or independently, could settle down and marry. The skills and knowledge the apprentice acquired during all these years was practical, immediately useful, not theories, words from books and lectures. That was a good training system, in many ways superior to ours today, and it cost the parents little or nothing, one of its main superiorities.
If you have a chance at a close apprenticeship to a recognized master in your chosen field, grab it. If not, collect the works of an outstanding master you admire, and model your own efforts to those works for a while. I have modeled my own efforts in philosophy on the writings of British philosopher, logician, and Nobel Prize winner for literature, Lord Bertrand Russell, which I have admired since I was a teenager.
First you choose a field of endeavor for a first, second, or--like me--a third career. When you start your career, pick an artcraft that you naturally do well; perhaps you have the talent for it. Anyway, you'll run faster on a good artcraft leg. If you have fun practicing your craft, that's great, because you will need to practice it every day for many hours to become productive and competitive so your output is saleable. Everybody who hears Mozart admires his great music, but how many people appreciate that he practiced his art constantly, starting when he was an infant?
My career is applied, practical, philosophy; I sleep, eat, think, write, think, write questions and answers of applied philosophy. But first where is the profit? Why should people pay for my advice, information, or entertainment? Yes, my readers will pay for my advice if they see a payoff in it for themselves, and if they find my writings interesting. But until they pay me, I must keep practicing my writing skills and my thought processes daily for many hours on end.
People may pay well for what you do for them; you may be very good at producing large amounts of what your customers want to buy. Are these two legs of a career, profit and artcraft, sufficient? Yes, they are sufficient for making some money, even sufficient for amassing fortune and fame. Drug dealers, casinos, cigarette makers, candy companies, prostitutes and pornographers do as much.
The third leg of a career, true service to the people must run well too. A sound, ethical career, needs to see to the welfare of the customers. The product you sell to the public should do good, do no harm; it should appeal to the customer's virtues, not vices. Serve your community well with your career to assure its longevity and that of your spirit.
You will not serve very well, you will not practice your artcraft long and hard, you will not profit handsomely in your career without applying yourself with enthusiasm to your work. The Greeks meant with enthusiasm the entrance of the god inside of you, or at least of the muse. This fourth leg of a career I left for last to discuss because it keeps the other three in motion.
It is a deep and abiding interest in what you do, a love for your work as
strong as that for your spouse or children. It is a love which fills you with energy, with confidence, and with inspiration—your spirit is on the wing, creating, producing things of value. Passion drives you to furious achievement. What great things were ever done without passion?
The Will is Not Free
The Will is not Free
(You Have to Earn It)
By
Basil E. Gala, Ph.D.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on,” wrote Omar Khayyam; but the blind poet William Ernest Henley spoke these words: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” Which view of life is correct, fate or free choice? Habits and addictions seem to bind up people all around us, inevitably controlling their acts, keeping them prisoners, unable to escape their innate character or upbringing. Such is the case of Jim, a man I knew some years back.
Jim was a talented handyman who worked for my brother and me on our buildings a few years back. He could do original construction or repairs from the foundation to the roof, including plumbing and electrical. In his forties he looked boyish and gentle as he bustled about, feverishly knocking things together. He earned a good income, but lived in a garage and drove an ancient pick-up truck, which he was constantly fixing. One day he blew his brains out with a shotgun in his garage home. We found out he had been hooked on the drug commonly known as “speed,” using nearly all his earnings to feed his addiction. Jim killed himself to escape the prison of his habit. Was that an act of a free will or an inevitable result of his heredity and background? Such cases lead many people to believe we are not free to act with reason, but our behavior is the inevitable product of our heredity, our genes, and the environment in which we matured. I agree. Our will is not free, but must be earned; it is a mental faculty programmed by human genes, but requiring exercise and development—a complex function of the intellect powered by emotions, because reason alone does not lead us to freedom of action.
High intelligence, even genius, does not guarantee freedom from bad habits. Orson Welles was surely a very bright person, but his addiction to food and wine turned his body into a mountain of fat as he aged. He was a strong man, but died prematurely at 71 years of age. For further evidence that intellect does not necessarily lead to personal success, consider prison statistics. Statistics show that a significant percentage of convicted criminals are very clever and talented. But they became victims to behavioral addictions that led them to social maladjustment. Here is another real story to this point.
Andy is 79, with a heart condition, but still working at a job that stresses his system, climbing ladders to roofs. He loves the casinos in our county’s reservations. A good family man with three children and numerous grandchildren, intelligent, and a master at his trade, he continues to frequent the casinos, but often declares: “I’ve quit gambling; I’m not going to the casinos anymore.” His long-suffering wife sighs and says nothing. She knows he means well, intends to quit his vice, but is unable to change his behavior.
It is clear that intention is necessary but not sufficient for the achievement of willful results. Knowing what to do intellectually is not enough. Animals appear to have little or no intellect and to display little free will. The will developed in humans along with our intellect as we emerged from an animal condition. We learned to reason first as to what is best to do for our own welfare and the objects of our love--and then do the right thing to achieve this end. . You fight for your country, sometimes sacrificing a limb or life itself, out of a sense of duty for your people. If you need surgery to prolong your life, you submit to it, though it may be painful. You say no to a tempting pleasure, if you know it is harmful; or do you?
Note that most people don’t like to say no to their passions and habits. If you want a good bet, expect people will not change their ways. Greeks say, a man will be buried before he has changed his habit. As in the movie with actor Bill Murray, for most of us every day is ground-hog day: we repeat without awareness or deliberation, in an unchanging cycle, the motions we have acquired from our genetic tendencies and early habits.
Most of us are but automata, inevitably executing the instructions inscribed in our internal programs. All humans do not possess a free will.
Almost all people who become fat remain this way in the long run in spite of diets and advice from weight control clinics. Statistics show that 95 percent of those who lose weight at a diet center regain it all back and more within two years. Among people born to a middle class family, even after a college education, few are affluent at retirement, less than five percent. Any one with experience in marketing will tell you the vast majority of workers who begin in sales fail. Growing up in any of our city slums, such as Hell’s Kitchen, the lower east side of New York City, the child of poor parents seems to lead inevitably to a dismal life of failure, prison or early death.
Did I say inevitably? Among humans not everyone is without a free will. We all know of stories of disadvantaged children who grew up to rise to big successes in different fields of endeavor. My dissertation adviser at USC, Dr. Richard Bellman, thought by many as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. Turning to fiction, in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” the wealthy publisher and developer Wynand grew up in the Hell’s Kitchen also. Also a few real cases are well documented of poor children who became wealthy, famous or both. Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin, studying by the light of the fireplace. Napoleon Hill, the world-famous writer on success strategies was an Appalachian country boy, an admitted hillbilly. How did these people shake off their unfortunate heredity and environment, rising to prominence? How about the one out of twenty dieters in the statistics who got the weight off and kept it off?
Let us not focus on the vast majority of people who go through their lives half asleep, unaware and insensitive to opportunities, but on those like the Buddha who awaken to possibilities of action the majority cannot even see. Some persons, like the man Saul on the road to persecute Christians, see the light and became St. Paul, are shaken to their core, become different, transformed, and able to change the world around them.
This light, is it the grace of God that descends upon a tormented soul on very rare occasions, a miracle of healing, a key out of the prison of vice, to a higher existence? Souls doomed to eternal suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, cancer, or depression suddenly convert to health and happiness. Doctors cannot explain why some cancer patients, like the famous fitness guru Nathan Pritikin, recover from terminal cancer against all odds; but they have a word for it: spontaneous remission. In a religious framework, this phenomenon is called remission of sins.
Alcoholics Anonymous recognizes the power of faith in healing. In their meetings, they call on a higher power to come to the aid of their members. At the cost of a small donation, Overeaters Anonymous follows the same program and they are more successful than the most expensive diet centers in the country.
I am not, however, searching here for the rare grace of God. I am analyzing the process in an act of will that changes a character, a life, and a destiny. We know from many observations of human lives that some persons will achieve extraordinary successes at whatever they undertake in spite of tremendous odds against them. Reading the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” you may get some ideas how this man acquired so much wealth and fame as a businessman, inventor, scientist, writer, statesman, and social lion, starting a life from very humble beginnings. Similarly, Napoleon Hill told his own amazing story in “Think and Grow Rich.”
Such people were successful because they exercised the will freely to achieve what they thought was right for their own lives and the lives of others. Yes, freedom of the will is debatable, but turning to a practical viewpoint, let me ask you this. When are you more likely to be effective in your life and succeed, believing that you are free to choose and act, or feeling that you are powerless, bound by fate? Kurt Fiedler, another handyman of my acquaintance, was smart and fast in his work. He could have become a licensed contractor with ease. But he was born to a blue-collar family and his father died poor at age 56. Whenever I tried to motivate Kurt to advance himself, he invariably said, “I’ll die like my father, early in life and poor.” Fatalism does not help you succeed--or avoid final failure--if like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler you believe the stars dictate for you a destiny of constant successes.
Philosophers have been arguing about human destiny and freedom of the will for thousands of years. I can see why. Whatever you decide as the truth about the will, the consequences for religion, morality and legality are considerable. If the will is not free, we should not ascribe sin or crime to any action, punishing the guilty person. If you are addicted, and not free to choose, you are sick then from alcoholism, drug--a victim of an obsessive-compulsive condition: you are not responsible for your actions. We should not blame you or punish you to correct your behavior, but give you treatment with expert psychotherapists in a clinic, hospital, or as an outpatient.
If the will is not free, to be born poor in a family lacking education, means that you cannot rise above your station and family status to become important in society. Society wastes time and money teaching you thrift, hard work, saving, and investment.
Aha, you say; but some persons are born with some special genes or combinations of genes, which drive them to greater effort; or, it was a special teacher, friend or relative who inspired these souls to excel--in spite of their unpromising heredity and environment. Napoleon Hill gave much credit for his success to his educated stepmother and to his mentor Andrew Carnegie, the steel industrialist, who was the richest man of his time. So that is still cause and effect you insist, and free will had nothing to do with the success of such persons. I may concede to you this point now. I person is under the control of genes, environment, or God—in any case one is not free. If you want to put the problem in this form, I concede the argument to you. I choose to put the problem in a different conceptual framework: I want to define the will differently from you. You may reject my definition as not useful if you choose, but you cannot argue with a definition otherwise.
What is freedom, then, what the will?
First, let’s talk about freedom. Some objects have one degree of freedom, like a train on a track, moving back and forth constrained by the rails. Other objects, like four-wheel drive cars on the open road have two degrees of freedom, moving around on a surface. An aircraft on the other hand, can fly in all three directions with maximum freedom.
Now you say, we’re not discussing mechanical freedoms. True, but mechanics is a good starting point. After all, Newton’s laws of motion gave a main impetus to determinism, the inevitability of cause and effect in Nature, and some good arguments to questioning freedom of the will in people. Now, however, quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Einstein’s relativity theories modify Newton’s laws, making determinism an obsolete notion.
Setting physics aside if you are not strong in science, let’s talk about people. Who is more free, a prisoner or a person in the streets? You will agree the person outside the prison walls has more freedom, although a true philosopher can be free in spirit while imprisoned--and more so than an ordinary person in the streets. Another case: who is freer, the master or the slave? You’ll have to say the master. And between the employer and the employee, who has more liberty? You must agree that in general the employer, because he or she gives the orders, which the employee must follow, or look for another job.
Who are more free, those living in a dictatorship or those in a democracy? We would all agree citizens of a democracy can usually travel anywhere they want to go, even outside their country, speak as they wish, write and publish what they want, with some restrictions, and are not afraid of being put in jail for their views. But are they completely free? Certainly not, because even in a democracy they are not allowed to violate the rights of others and do harm with impunity.
We have shown in numerous observations from nature and society that freedom or the lack of it does exist. But freedom is not an absolute, but a relative property of living.
Second, what can we say about the existence of the will, free or not? I define the will as that function of the mind which enables you to act contrary to your present desire, habit or instinct, if your intellect so indicates for your own good or the good of those we love. Thus you submit to painful surgery, when your doctors explain a procedure is necessary for your health. An animal is not likely to do this, even if you can communicate this necessity to it. You may also abstain from a pleasure, such as engaging in sex, eating food greatly desired, or driving fast so you may avoid hurting yourself or other human beings.
Do you really? Do you abstain from pleasures because they are harmful? Perhaps you do, if you are not addicted to them from past engagements. And even if you are addicted, you may act deliberately and avoid the pleasurable activity, because you have had sufficient practice exercising your organ of the will. If your will is strong and you can avoid harmful pleasures, are you going to do that every time you are tempted? Certainly not, sometimes you will succumb to your desires, because you are not concentrating on resistance, being tired, distracted, or too relaxed.
In a state of emotional tension you have fought temptation successfully and you know this emotion rising inside you, leading you to fight for what is right. I experience it as assertiveness, aggressiveness, or a kind of cold anger. Let us call this feeling thymos, as the Greeks would call it: a quiet anger tied to the intellect, that “enough-is-enough” emotion, guiding you to behave sanely, for the safety of your body or spirit. Like all faculties, thymos gets stronger, if you exercise it regularly, with gradually increasing intensity, and for a sufficiently long time.
Now I hypothesize the existence of an organ of free will as defined above in the human brain. We know from anatomy that the locus of the intellect is in the frontal lobe, much more highly developed in humans than in animals. Also we know the seat of the emotions is in a structure called the amygdala. When we apply electrical or chemical stimulation to different parts of the amygdala we produce the various emotions of anger, fear, love, etc. The hypothesized organ of the will mediates the dictates of the intellect in the frontal lobe with the action of thymos located in the amygdala. A similar organ is the hippocampus which transfers temporary memories in the form of reverberating electrical impulses to permanent memory, chemical in nature.
I have made a hypothesis and presented a theory. Now where is the proof that it is valid? That’s up to experimental psychobiologists. But I can show the theory works in practice. First, when I have to overcome a temptation or assert a desire over obstacles, if I clearly analyze the problem in my mind and get a clear picture of my goal—that should help, right? Second, if I can induce the emotion of thymos in myself or another subject, by means of words, images or other means, that should get things rolling my way, correct? Finally, if I observe in myself and others a strengthening of my faculty of the will as defined by repeated and regular exercise, that should reinforce my belief in the correctness of my hypothesis.
The will exists then, if you have an intellect telling you the consequences of your actions and thymos is aroused to guide you to virtuous actions--sometimes. How can you change your behavior to get you on the path to your goals?
You may have something to add at this point, as some philosophers have done. When you follow the right course, it is only because you have a desire for health, order, or justice, which is stronger than your lower instincts. Therefore, again there is no free will but a push by a different desire that determines your behavior. But I am not suggesting you replace one desire that leads to harm by one that prompts what is good. Doing so is a simple technique and works well in many situations to improve behavior. No, I am proposing that you act purely on abstract grounds, putting away desire during a period of deliberation.
Can I give examples of such abstract grounds for acting freely without any desire? I am not sure I can. Suppose you decide to do something, a good deed, because it will decrease disorder in the world and promote life. Can such a goal be free of desire? It cannot be. But suppose you put aside the satisfaction of a present desire to achieve some future benefit you visualize as probable. Even though such a benefit may be tied to a desire, the existence of a will so defined is worthwhile, because from two or more choices you pick the tougher one, enriching your life in the future.
I offer you such a freedom of the will then which exists for some people, some of the time, occasionally leading them to succeed when others fail, maybe moving them to a higher level of consciousness, above the animal ways, to truly human behavior. It is not a total kind of freedom, as René Descartes would have it in Passions of the Soul: “the will is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained.” I define a will for the world of quantum physics, where events are probable but never certain.
This relative will is enough to have. It is enough to give enormous power over time to those who possess it to alter their own characters, to influence people and events, thus creating destiny for themselves and the world around them. Because most people are like sheep compared to those with this relative will, which is a combination of some intellect and sufficient thymos. Willful people are shepherds leading others on the path of good or evil, and so the world takes shape, beautiful or ugly.
(You Have to Earn It)
By
Basil E. Gala, Ph.D.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on,” wrote Omar Khayyam; but the blind poet William Ernest Henley spoke these words: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” Which view of life is correct, fate or free choice? Habits and addictions seem to bind up people all around us, inevitably controlling their acts, keeping them prisoners, unable to escape their innate character or upbringing. Such is the case of Jim, a man I knew some years back.
Jim was a talented handyman who worked for my brother and me on our buildings a few years back. He could do original construction or repairs from the foundation to the roof, including plumbing and electrical. In his forties he looked boyish and gentle as he bustled about, feverishly knocking things together. He earned a good income, but lived in a garage and drove an ancient pick-up truck, which he was constantly fixing. One day he blew his brains out with a shotgun in his garage home. We found out he had been hooked on the drug commonly known as “speed,” using nearly all his earnings to feed his addiction. Jim killed himself to escape the prison of his habit. Was that an act of a free will or an inevitable result of his heredity and background? Such cases lead many people to believe we are not free to act with reason, but our behavior is the inevitable product of our heredity, our genes, and the environment in which we matured. I agree. Our will is not free, but must be earned; it is a mental faculty programmed by human genes, but requiring exercise and development—a complex function of the intellect powered by emotions, because reason alone does not lead us to freedom of action.
High intelligence, even genius, does not guarantee freedom from bad habits. Orson Welles was surely a very bright person, but his addiction to food and wine turned his body into a mountain of fat as he aged. He was a strong man, but died prematurely at 71 years of age. For further evidence that intellect does not necessarily lead to personal success, consider prison statistics. Statistics show that a significant percentage of convicted criminals are very clever and talented. But they became victims to behavioral addictions that led them to social maladjustment. Here is another real story to this point.
Andy is 79, with a heart condition, but still working at a job that stresses his system, climbing ladders to roofs. He loves the casinos in our county’s reservations. A good family man with three children and numerous grandchildren, intelligent, and a master at his trade, he continues to frequent the casinos, but often declares: “I’ve quit gambling; I’m not going to the casinos anymore.” His long-suffering wife sighs and says nothing. She knows he means well, intends to quit his vice, but is unable to change his behavior.
It is clear that intention is necessary but not sufficient for the achievement of willful results. Knowing what to do intellectually is not enough. Animals appear to have little or no intellect and to display little free will. The will developed in humans along with our intellect as we emerged from an animal condition. We learned to reason first as to what is best to do for our own welfare and the objects of our love--and then do the right thing to achieve this end. . You fight for your country, sometimes sacrificing a limb or life itself, out of a sense of duty for your people. If you need surgery to prolong your life, you submit to it, though it may be painful. You say no to a tempting pleasure, if you know it is harmful; or do you?
Note that most people don’t like to say no to their passions and habits. If you want a good bet, expect people will not change their ways. Greeks say, a man will be buried before he has changed his habit. As in the movie with actor Bill Murray, for most of us every day is ground-hog day: we repeat without awareness or deliberation, in an unchanging cycle, the motions we have acquired from our genetic tendencies and early habits.
Most of us are but automata, inevitably executing the instructions inscribed in our internal programs. All humans do not possess a free will.
Almost all people who become fat remain this way in the long run in spite of diets and advice from weight control clinics. Statistics show that 95 percent of those who lose weight at a diet center regain it all back and more within two years. Among people born to a middle class family, even after a college education, few are affluent at retirement, less than five percent. Any one with experience in marketing will tell you the vast majority of workers who begin in sales fail. Growing up in any of our city slums, such as Hell’s Kitchen, the lower east side of New York City, the child of poor parents seems to lead inevitably to a dismal life of failure, prison or early death.
Did I say inevitably? Among humans not everyone is without a free will. We all know of stories of disadvantaged children who grew up to rise to big successes in different fields of endeavor. My dissertation adviser at USC, Dr. Richard Bellman, thought by many as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. Turning to fiction, in Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” the wealthy publisher and developer Wynand grew up in the Hell’s Kitchen also. Also a few real cases are well documented of poor children who became wealthy, famous or both. Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin, studying by the light of the fireplace. Napoleon Hill, the world-famous writer on success strategies was an Appalachian country boy, an admitted hillbilly. How did these people shake off their unfortunate heredity and environment, rising to prominence? How about the one out of twenty dieters in the statistics who got the weight off and kept it off?
Let us not focus on the vast majority of people who go through their lives half asleep, unaware and insensitive to opportunities, but on those like the Buddha who awaken to possibilities of action the majority cannot even see. Some persons, like the man Saul on the road to persecute Christians, see the light and became St. Paul, are shaken to their core, become different, transformed, and able to change the world around them.
This light, is it the grace of God that descends upon a tormented soul on very rare occasions, a miracle of healing, a key out of the prison of vice, to a higher existence? Souls doomed to eternal suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, cancer, or depression suddenly convert to health and happiness. Doctors cannot explain why some cancer patients, like the famous fitness guru Nathan Pritikin, recover from terminal cancer against all odds; but they have a word for it: spontaneous remission. In a religious framework, this phenomenon is called remission of sins.
Alcoholics Anonymous recognizes the power of faith in healing. In their meetings, they call on a higher power to come to the aid of their members. At the cost of a small donation, Overeaters Anonymous follows the same program and they are more successful than the most expensive diet centers in the country.
I am not, however, searching here for the rare grace of God. I am analyzing the process in an act of will that changes a character, a life, and a destiny. We know from many observations of human lives that some persons will achieve extraordinary successes at whatever they undertake in spite of tremendous odds against them. Reading the “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,” you may get some ideas how this man acquired so much wealth and fame as a businessman, inventor, scientist, writer, statesman, and social lion, starting a life from very humble beginnings. Similarly, Napoleon Hill told his own amazing story in “Think and Grow Rich.”
Such people were successful because they exercised the will freely to achieve what they thought was right for their own lives and the lives of others. Yes, freedom of the will is debatable, but turning to a practical viewpoint, let me ask you this. When are you more likely to be effective in your life and succeed, believing that you are free to choose and act, or feeling that you are powerless, bound by fate? Kurt Fiedler, another handyman of my acquaintance, was smart and fast in his work. He could have become a licensed contractor with ease. But he was born to a blue-collar family and his father died poor at age 56. Whenever I tried to motivate Kurt to advance himself, he invariably said, “I’ll die like my father, early in life and poor.” Fatalism does not help you succeed--or avoid final failure--if like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler you believe the stars dictate for you a destiny of constant successes.
Philosophers have been arguing about human destiny and freedom of the will for thousands of years. I can see why. Whatever you decide as the truth about the will, the consequences for religion, morality and legality are considerable. If the will is not free, we should not ascribe sin or crime to any action, punishing the guilty person. If you are addicted, and not free to choose, you are sick then from alcoholism, drug--a victim of an obsessive-compulsive condition: you are not responsible for your actions. We should not blame you or punish you to correct your behavior, but give you treatment with expert psychotherapists in a clinic, hospital, or as an outpatient.
If the will is not free, to be born poor in a family lacking education, means that you cannot rise above your station and family status to become important in society. Society wastes time and money teaching you thrift, hard work, saving, and investment.
Aha, you say; but some persons are born with some special genes or combinations of genes, which drive them to greater effort; or, it was a special teacher, friend or relative who inspired these souls to excel--in spite of their unpromising heredity and environment. Napoleon Hill gave much credit for his success to his educated stepmother and to his mentor Andrew Carnegie, the steel industrialist, who was the richest man of his time. So that is still cause and effect you insist, and free will had nothing to do with the success of such persons. I may concede to you this point now. I person is under the control of genes, environment, or God—in any case one is not free. If you want to put the problem in this form, I concede the argument to you. I choose to put the problem in a different conceptual framework: I want to define the will differently from you. You may reject my definition as not useful if you choose, but you cannot argue with a definition otherwise.
What is freedom, then, what the will?
First, let’s talk about freedom. Some objects have one degree of freedom, like a train on a track, moving back and forth constrained by the rails. Other objects, like four-wheel drive cars on the open road have two degrees of freedom, moving around on a surface. An aircraft on the other hand, can fly in all three directions with maximum freedom.
Now you say, we’re not discussing mechanical freedoms. True, but mechanics is a good starting point. After all, Newton’s laws of motion gave a main impetus to determinism, the inevitability of cause and effect in Nature, and some good arguments to questioning freedom of the will in people. Now, however, quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Einstein’s relativity theories modify Newton’s laws, making determinism an obsolete notion.
Setting physics aside if you are not strong in science, let’s talk about people. Who is more free, a prisoner or a person in the streets? You will agree the person outside the prison walls has more freedom, although a true philosopher can be free in spirit while imprisoned--and more so than an ordinary person in the streets. Another case: who is freer, the master or the slave? You’ll have to say the master. And between the employer and the employee, who has more liberty? You must agree that in general the employer, because he or she gives the orders, which the employee must follow, or look for another job.
Who are more free, those living in a dictatorship or those in a democracy? We would all agree citizens of a democracy can usually travel anywhere they want to go, even outside their country, speak as they wish, write and publish what they want, with some restrictions, and are not afraid of being put in jail for their views. But are they completely free? Certainly not, because even in a democracy they are not allowed to violate the rights of others and do harm with impunity.
We have shown in numerous observations from nature and society that freedom or the lack of it does exist. But freedom is not an absolute, but a relative property of living.
Second, what can we say about the existence of the will, free or not? I define the will as that function of the mind which enables you to act contrary to your present desire, habit or instinct, if your intellect so indicates for your own good or the good of those we love. Thus you submit to painful surgery, when your doctors explain a procedure is necessary for your health. An animal is not likely to do this, even if you can communicate this necessity to it. You may also abstain from a pleasure, such as engaging in sex, eating food greatly desired, or driving fast so you may avoid hurting yourself or other human beings.
Do you really? Do you abstain from pleasures because they are harmful? Perhaps you do, if you are not addicted to them from past engagements. And even if you are addicted, you may act deliberately and avoid the pleasurable activity, because you have had sufficient practice exercising your organ of the will. If your will is strong and you can avoid harmful pleasures, are you going to do that every time you are tempted? Certainly not, sometimes you will succumb to your desires, because you are not concentrating on resistance, being tired, distracted, or too relaxed.
In a state of emotional tension you have fought temptation successfully and you know this emotion rising inside you, leading you to fight for what is right. I experience it as assertiveness, aggressiveness, or a kind of cold anger. Let us call this feeling thymos, as the Greeks would call it: a quiet anger tied to the intellect, that “enough-is-enough” emotion, guiding you to behave sanely, for the safety of your body or spirit. Like all faculties, thymos gets stronger, if you exercise it regularly, with gradually increasing intensity, and for a sufficiently long time.
Now I hypothesize the existence of an organ of free will as defined above in the human brain. We know from anatomy that the locus of the intellect is in the frontal lobe, much more highly developed in humans than in animals. Also we know the seat of the emotions is in a structure called the amygdala. When we apply electrical or chemical stimulation to different parts of the amygdala we produce the various emotions of anger, fear, love, etc. The hypothesized organ of the will mediates the dictates of the intellect in the frontal lobe with the action of thymos located in the amygdala. A similar organ is the hippocampus which transfers temporary memories in the form of reverberating electrical impulses to permanent memory, chemical in nature.
I have made a hypothesis and presented a theory. Now where is the proof that it is valid? That’s up to experimental psychobiologists. But I can show the theory works in practice. First, when I have to overcome a temptation or assert a desire over obstacles, if I clearly analyze the problem in my mind and get a clear picture of my goal—that should help, right? Second, if I can induce the emotion of thymos in myself or another subject, by means of words, images or other means, that should get things rolling my way, correct? Finally, if I observe in myself and others a strengthening of my faculty of the will as defined by repeated and regular exercise, that should reinforce my belief in the correctness of my hypothesis.
The will exists then, if you have an intellect telling you the consequences of your actions and thymos is aroused to guide you to virtuous actions--sometimes. How can you change your behavior to get you on the path to your goals?
You may have something to add at this point, as some philosophers have done. When you follow the right course, it is only because you have a desire for health, order, or justice, which is stronger than your lower instincts. Therefore, again there is no free will but a push by a different desire that determines your behavior. But I am not suggesting you replace one desire that leads to harm by one that prompts what is good. Doing so is a simple technique and works well in many situations to improve behavior. No, I am proposing that you act purely on abstract grounds, putting away desire during a period of deliberation.
Can I give examples of such abstract grounds for acting freely without any desire? I am not sure I can. Suppose you decide to do something, a good deed, because it will decrease disorder in the world and promote life. Can such a goal be free of desire? It cannot be. But suppose you put aside the satisfaction of a present desire to achieve some future benefit you visualize as probable. Even though such a benefit may be tied to a desire, the existence of a will so defined is worthwhile, because from two or more choices you pick the tougher one, enriching your life in the future.
I offer you such a freedom of the will then which exists for some people, some of the time, occasionally leading them to succeed when others fail, maybe moving them to a higher level of consciousness, above the animal ways, to truly human behavior. It is not a total kind of freedom, as René Descartes would have it in Passions of the Soul: “the will is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained.” I define a will for the world of quantum physics, where events are probable but never certain.
This relative will is enough to have. It is enough to give enormous power over time to those who possess it to alter their own characters, to influence people and events, thus creating destiny for themselves and the world around them. Because most people are like sheep compared to those with this relative will, which is a combination of some intellect and sufficient thymos. Willful people are shepherds leading others on the path of good or evil, and so the world takes shape, beautiful or ugly.
What is the Sense of Humor?
What is the Sense of Humor?
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
An alien visitor to America, one not understanding English very well, might well be amazed at the howling laughter in an auditorium full of Americans listening to their favorite stand-up comedian just talking on the stage. How does that ordinary looking person make so many people to reel with mirth just standing there and saying a few words? The key to the mystery: the comedian is known and loved by the audience; and what is going on is a playful game, simulated aggression, between the comedian and the audience or such aggression directed by the comic at another target for the audience to laugh at. Humor is a mock fight which releases tension and hostility, normally in a harmless way, between participants; and that is the sense of humor, because the laughter it brings out makes our lives bearable when they tend not to be so.
Unfortunately, the world is also full of vicious, hurtful, and disgusting humor; we may have witnessed cruel wit or diabolical laughter. We are all familiar with the merciless teasing that kids often inflict on their timid or handicapped classmates.
I tend to be serious, rather than playful. I am more likely to become the butt of a joke rather than its perpetrator. In high school sometimes I was kidded to the point where I would pick up not a pillow but a chair and throw it at the joker. A pillow fight is a cause for laughing; a chair fight is not. As I got older I began to see the final futility of living, and how ridiculous it is from its start, doing the double-backed beast, to its end often with a tangle of tubes and wires stuck here and there all over the body to extend the patient’s breathing and the hospital’s budgeting. I gradually began to lighten up and even crack an occasional impromptu joke, usually with myself as a target.
Is humor a harmless sport when the bad guy in a Western starts shooting near the legs of the hero’s innocent sidekick, laughing “Dance, boy; dance!” Well, yes. It’s not your sense of humor or mine, but this action is funny because the ruffian does not really hurt the sidekick; he is having fun harmlessly targeting someone he dislikes, releasing tension, and hostility. Things get serious when the hero appears on the scene and takes offense.
I am not here to teach you how to sling jokes as an amateur or professional comedian; I am not a specialist in creating humorous prose. I am looking at the sense of humor from a psychological and philosophical viewpoint. Psychologically, the building up of tension is essential for a joke to result in laughter, because laughter comes about as a release from tension.
After tension built up, the jab at the target cannot be too obvious for the audience if the joke is to work; it cannot be too difficult to perceive either, because the audience will miss the point of it and you will not get any laughter. A logical gap exists between the punch line and the understanding of its meaning, which the audience bridges, because in humor the audience participates in the game the joker sets up.
The joker always sets up a punch line, which analysts have been said results from an incongruity, when things don’t go together logically; that is so, but incongruity is not enough, because though incongruity results in something ridiculous, without tension, a target, and a mental gap for the audience to bridge, no laughter follows.
Psychologists also theorize that laughter results when feelings of superiority are aroused in the audience over the person being ridiculed; certainly, we find funny characters ridiculous in their odd behaviors, but feelings of superiority don’t result in laughter; we laugh at the mistakes, stupidities, and eccentricities the characters commit, because we know they behave thus to amuse us, being professional or amateur actors and mimics.
Another psychological theory is that laughter is due to relief we feel from pent up tension going away and strong emotions subsiding. That’s true enough, for example when we are able to avoid a serious accident, mishap, or disaster; perhaps even when we settle a bitter confrontation with someone. We heave a sigh of relief and laugh. But that’s a description of the phenomenon of humor, not an explanation of it.
Dr. Lisa Rosenberg, a psychologist specializing in laughter, explains: “The act of producing humor, of making a joke, gives us a mental break and increases our objectivity in the face of overwhelming stress.” Indeed, humor can do this. Any hurt, any unpleasantness, any horror, even terminal illness and death itself, can be worked playfully into a laughing matter, when wrapped in tension, mock aggression with a target, a logical gap to be bridged, and a release of tension, also known as resolution of the conflict.
Whatever theory you may want to believe about humor, clearly it is a communication where the higher centers of the brain, the intellect, is producing an emotional response, laughter. Such a reaction is another example of how intellect affects the emotions, because intellect and emotions are coupled in the mind, as the right and left brain are connected by the corpus callosum, and as the mind affects the body, and vice versa. (Such connections explain also the benefits from cognitive therapy in treating obsessive compulsions, depression, and anxiety. The therapist trains the patient in positive or constructive self- talk in facing problems and positive thoughts produce pleasant emotions and more adaptive behaviors.) Still, what specific mental mechanism makes us laugh with humor is a mystery.
We laugh when little Charlie Chaplin kicks a big cop on the shin like a little boy, and skips out of the place as the cop turns on him furiously with his night stick. We laugh in the classic comedy hit when Buster Keaton sinks slowly, so very slowly with his boat, standing straight shouldered on the bridge with the captain’s cap on, in a commanding posture.
High humor or low humor, it is not humor really until the audience laughs; if the audience laughs in the show, all grossness and baseness is forgiven, such as the coarse jokes in the comedies of Aristophanes.
Standard jokes such as the pratfall or the cream pie in the face make us laugh because we know nobody is getting hurt; these acts are for fun. We know that right away because the actor is a comedian. Mock aggression is clear here, the pie does not hurt except the target’s dignity; knocking down dignity and arrogance is a good place to start when making fun.
I am giving you the principles of humor here as a philosopher. Studying such principles and applying them will be helpful to you if you want to make jokes or tell witty stories; but knowledge of principles will not make you into a comedian. That takes practice and talent as in every other discipline. You may know musical notes and forms, but you are not going to be a composer because of this knowledge alone. You may sing in your shower quite well, without qualifying for the Met. You have to work at humor for a long time and produce many jokes which are duds before you hit upon one that works. But the effort is worth it when you get that laugh from your audience. Nothing equals in satisfaction that obviously successful response to entertain, unless it is your ability to make people cry with sweet sadness when you are telling a fine melancholy story.
Shedding tears over a sad story has therapeutic value: we inure ourselves to tragedy and purge our negative emotions. Similarly, the sense of humor is that it may be essential to human sanity and survival in the certain knowledge of loss, tragedy and death we must suffer and foresee coming to us, unlike other animals of lesser intelligence. So essential also is our appreciation of beauty, discussed in my essay, “What is the Sense of Beauty?” Beauty, laughter, and prayer make it possible for us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil.
Naturally, evil sometimes walks in with a stranger at our doorstep. Kids especially, but most of us, are shy of strangers. When we meet a stranger, our natural reaction is to be cautious, hostile, or curious, unless we feel safe enough to make friends with the stranger; then we smile, something which is the beginning of laughter. If we have some sense of humor, we may crack a joke to break the ice, getting familiar with the stranger.
Some people smile all the time at strangers or at no one in particular; they are idiots. Others laugh a lot at no one; they are bananas. It is normal for us to laugh when we play with friends and throw jokes back and forth to break the tension of competing in games. But, I acknowledge again that we sometimes see that aberration of humor, known as the diabolical or sadistic laughter, shown in horror movies.
Animals do not appear to act sadistically; that’s another distinctly human trait. Cats and dogs have some tendencies at humor when they fool around with each other—that is, cats with cats, and dogs with dogs, not a dog with a cat, normally. Mammals give little bites to each other without hurting: their way of telling a joke, since they have not as yet mastered how to talk very well. Cats and dogs behave that way towards their masters also, if the masters will play along.
Clearly, an effect of play acting aggression, laughter is like a reflex action of the body, in the rapid and uncontrollable way it occurs once it is triggered, with rhythmic and involuntary inspirations and expirations, but clearly the brain’s higher mental functions are involved also, so it is not a true reflex. According to gelotologists, experts in the science of laughter to you barbarians, at least 15 facial muscles are involved, known in anatomy as the zygomatic muscles. The diaphragm also receives quite a workout as muscles for rapidly breathing in and out are activated. We bear our teeth to threaten or bite our playful opponent, yet we cannot bite very hard, because we are paralyzed with pleasant convulsions. Since laughter is nearly a reflex, practically an automatic pattern of behavior, we can expect that we can elicit it by stimulating those spots in the nervous system responsible for the reflex, as one taps just below the knee to obtain the knee jerk reflex.
Physiologically, the laughter reflex greatly increases the amount of oxygen in the blood, reduces stress hormones, such as the dreadful cortisol, useful in a real fight but damaging to health. Adrenaline, a powerful hormone energizing the body and depleting all its reserves, also stays in check in playful fighting. Laughter also bolsters T-cells, those cells in our body’s immune system responsible for fighting germs and other harmful invaders.
It follows that if you want to be funny, it will help you a lot to feel playful, jocular, and humorous. You can prompt yourself to feel that way by starting with a smile, then a little laugh at something you know as funny, perhaps in your repertoire of jokes, and finally search for a target and a way to attack it harmlessly and with a punch line with a logical gap for your audience to bridge. It is no different that wanting to make love; you do it better if you feel loving. Or, if you want to enjoy food, it goes better the hungrier you become; or, if you must fight, it helps to get a little hot under the collar.
So, when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable, painful, embarrassing, shameful, distressing and depressing position, we can playfully exaggerate, make the matter unreal subjectively, and thus release the tension coming from the pain; we relax in the enjoyment of laughter. In effect, we elicit the relaxation response, also available from meditation, with the production of nitric oxide in the body, and pain killing dopamine in the brain. Laughter helps in healing by reducing stress and tension, which are in excess when we suffer serious trauma to our body or mind. Dr. Hans Selye of McGill University showed that excessive stress can maim and even kill, in “The Stress of Life.” Therefore, any reduction in undue stress is beneficial, such as we can bring about with humor causing laughter.
A baby or little boy laughs with delight when his daddy bounces him up and down, or when a favorite uncle picks him and turns him up-side-down, but he cries if someone less known and trustworthy attempts these stunts. Baby knows he is safe with dad or uncle, that this rough handling of his body is a game to be enjoyed, a joke and fun, not violence.
At a higher mental level than that of a child, humor often results from playfully stating a truth too bitter to admit; a truth too embarrassing, private, or painful for an ordinary person to deal with openly. For the comedian such a truth is fair game and a basic tool of the trade, but for the philosopher the truth underlying humorous stories is vital to apprehending reality.
We can approach an apprehension of reality, but never know it; we know, however, that exaggeration, gross distortion, and overplayed emotion leads to the release of laughter. When once Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens) was on a lecture tour abroad in his last years, newspapers reported he had died. Upon his return to the U.S., Twain declared to the waiting journalists at the docks: “Reports of my death have been highly exaggerated.” Gross exaggeration turns a bad situation into something surrealistic, and playful, thereby turning what is unpleasant and painful into something laughable.
When we encounter something laughable, our lips open wide and the mouth too, our eyes shine with delight, with tears sometimes, our face flushes red, we keel over with relaxation, and out comes a peculiar explosion of sound, “Ha, ha, ha,” or “Ho, ho, ho,” or “Hi, hi, hi,” with giggles or guffaws in as endless a variety as we come.
Laughing matters come in a great variety also; we tend to find odd behavior amusing, even laughable, in others, but not in ourselves. Why? A comedian of old, Jack Benny, made good use of his extreme thriftiness; he displayed himself as ridiculously miserly. He was funny. We find the lame, the cross-eyed, the bald, the fat, the big eared, the dwarf, the very tall (hey beanstalk, how’s the weather up there), the stuttering, the hoarse, the squeaky voiced, the very thin (hey, reed pole), the idiot, and the crazy. A crazy person who is a nut case is funny. Someone who is insane and violent to boot is scary as hell, not funny at all, like the ax killer in Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Stephen King entertains because we enjoy the suspense of terror in a novel or movie, which we know is safe. The killers in “Friday, the 13th” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are not funny, but they entertain because we know we are watching a show, and this way we exorcise the evil we see. Mel Brooks in “Young Frankenstein” exorcises the monster and makes us laugh with the crazy doctor Frankenstein and his weird hunchbacked assistant Igor. We get the maximum potential for fun in plays with idiots or nuts, because nothing for humans could be more frightening than having our brains scrambled at birth or later in life. Certainly these last two afflictions come to us all, if we live long enough.
Afflictions, which make some persons odd, strike us as funny, turning these people into suitable targets for laughter under certain circumstances, such as when we pretend to have the quirkiness ourselves or when we exaggerate it in others and make it unreal, removing it from the pain of existence. Case in point: the Jerry Lewis of old made us laugh by acting like a spastic with muscular dystrophy; we laughed because we knew he was mimicking; he was not spastic, but was making light of an affliction to reduce it to acceptance and tolerance: a kind gesture, not a vicious one. Mr. Lewis devoted many years of his life raising money for muscular dystrophy and other diseases with his telethons. Granted, maliciousness can enter this picture and it often does with people who have an aberrant sense of humor.
The top-rated “Seinfeld” series on television was never malicious, although the characters were very odd indeed. Jerry, playing Seinfeld, himself in exaggerated style, is obsessed with finding a perfect girlfriend, and gives up numerous beautiful women in his pursuit. The Elaine character with pretty, rubber-faced, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is flighty and easy in her loves, enjoying the moment without regard to her future, outside of keeping her job. Michael Richards, as Kramer, Jerry’s neighbor, is tall, busting in the door, with hair like a skyscraper, and no obvious means of support; he mooches from Jerry constantly, messes up everything he touches, and is a passionate but inconstant lover. Little, fat, bald, nearsighted, despicably cowardly and lazy, but very charming George, played by Jason Alexander, is the main character of the show and the butt of most of the funny scenes. I loved the humor in Seinfeld, because it made me laugh often, never mind any serious message.
Physiologically, humor prompts laughter, which is an explosive eruption of nervous energy similar to sexual orgasm, and almost as pleasurable. Just as sexual orgasm is better and stronger with the suitable preparation of the nervous system which builds up nervous charge, a preparation not necessary in our teenage years. As teens we laugh just as easily over nothing much, having superabundant energy. When laughter is triggered, neurons in our pleasure center are strongly stimulated, and there follows a nervous discharge and a marked reduction in tension, ending in deep relaxation.
On the negative side, can laughter become addictive? Yes, like anything else that we do to excess, looking for laughter too often can cause problems. For one thing, too much time may be spent on playful pursuits, and less on gainful work. Also, much time and expense can be wasted in comedy clubs and theaters with smoke and drinks, or watching comedic shows on TV, neglecting other more uplifting offerings. It is especially pitiful to watch depressed people desperately trying to keep titillating themselves with poor jokes on the Internet, with friends, and relatives, when they should be doing something more constructive with their time. These people have read in articles on health that laughter is good for you and they are determined to have some laughter if it kills them.
Getting out there and killing the audience, actors like to say, is not to be desired by us philosophers. Instead, with our sense of humor few keep things in manageable proportions when tragedy strikes; when life’s reverses becomes too much to bear, we can turn to comedy and get relief. Tragedy will strike us with almost complete certainty and we prepare for it with a fine humor, making light of it; otherwise, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune may cause us to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. Hamlet had no sense of humor; otherwise, he would have seen how ridiculous it was for his uncle to murder his father, the king, and marry the queen, his mother, leaving the king’s ghost to roam around causing mischief.
I don’t know about the Danish sense of humor; such things vary from culture to culture. The Jews do not display much of it in their scriptures, some of which Christians chose to call The Old Testament. After the Diaspora and many persecutions they seem to have acquired loads of humor as a survival tool, and produced many comedians of star magnitude, such as Jerry Lewis, mentioned earlier, Jack Benny, Milton Burl, Groucho Marx, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Humor can be something other than the verbal banderillas of Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David of “Seinfeld”. You can express something funny in musical sounds, or better, with certain noises; also with pictures; and movements, funny dances or pantomime. I don’t know of any funny skits with smells, perhaps you do (Coco Channel certainly does), but everybody knows about tickling, using the sense of touch. Red Skelton got lots of laughs with his silent sketches in pantomime. Certain noises are inherently funny, because they remind us of rude sounds, and rudeness in a playful way is an acceptable trigger for laughter.
Laughter therapy is accepted and commonplace today. Norman Cousins popularized it when he became very ill, beyond the power of physicians to heal him, and he followed a course of treatment watching the Marx Brothers and other comedy shows almost constantly until he became well again. Such a routine would drive me insane, but it worked for Cousins and it may work for you if you become deathly ill.
According to neurological studies, laughter involves the higher centers of the brain, such as the frontal lobe, but also our primitive limbic system, which we share with reptiles, which evolved before mammals like humans and rats. The limbic system is basic to survival in hunting and fighting. But our higher centers reduce the survival business and the fighting to a game of fun. I remember the wonderful scene at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in a concentration camp with Benigni, playing an Italian Jew. He marches with high steps and swinging arms in front of a German soldier to be shot, all for the benefit of his young son, hidden in a cabinet and watching.
The boy needed to learn how to face tragedy before being thrust into it. Laughter is our human gift for coping with an impossible and intolerable situation; that is, most of life, since we have the foreknowledge that disease, accident, old age, and death are surely going to come to us and those we love. Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Danish prince, has no sense of humor, because his story was meant to be tragic. After the dastardly uncle, the one who murdered his father the old king and married his mother, tempts Hamlet to engage in a duel for sport with Laertes, who is cahoots with the evil king, Hamlet is stung by his opponent’s poisoned sword; that is, after driving poor Ophelia crazy for loving him. Before dying, Hamlet learns from Laertes, who is scratched by the same deadly sword, that the king planned everything, and Hamlet sticks the poisoned sword into his stepfather’s body. That happens after the queen drinks by mistake from a cup of poisoned wine meant for her son. Those with no sense of humor to face life’s dirty tricks, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. I say, laugh at your misfortunes and at the injustices done to you (what do you expect?) and live. If I have discouraged you now from going further into Shakespeare’s works, remember he also wrote hilarious comedies and some lovely sonnets, if you can stomach the archaic English.
Hilarity reduces hostility in us and in our perceived enemies. We cannot hit someone when we are laughing; we are too weak from the release of tension. Our enemy is less inclined to hit us when we are smiling or laughing in a friendly way. That way we approach strangers to make friends with them. A natural human reaction is to look upon strangers, or people who are different from us with suspicion; these humans are potential hazards for us and interlopers. We are much like dogs barking at any stray canine approaching our territory. We are able to overcome these tendencies and make friends of strangers by smiling, saying a joke, and breaking the ice with small talk.
Smile then often, and if you find the opportunity, crack a joke, be playfully aggressive and release tension with laughter in yourself and others. Make life bearable all around. Laughter produces endorphins which work like morphine to subdue pain and suffering. It is better for your health to find solace and comfort in laughter rather than pain killing drugs. Today we even have yoga centers for laughter with over 5,000 clubs worldwide, directed by Dr. Madan Kataria, because it has been said that laughter is the best medicine. If you are suffering physically or mentally, even if you are feeling well and want to feel better, you could go to one of these clubs; go to comedy shops; get into whatever makes you laugh outside of the cackle house, and go there more often; meet with people who also like to fool around and enjoy jokes; take classes and workshops in making laugh tracks. Laughter is contagious; hence, TV comedy shows play laugh tracks with each effort at a joke, in the hope they will cause a contagion. Good comedy shows, like Seinfeld, are performed and recorded in front of a live audience, avoiding phony laugh tracks, which are for me a definite turn off, meaning I turn off the television.
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
An alien visitor to America, one not understanding English very well, might well be amazed at the howling laughter in an auditorium full of Americans listening to their favorite stand-up comedian just talking on the stage. How does that ordinary looking person make so many people to reel with mirth just standing there and saying a few words? The key to the mystery: the comedian is known and loved by the audience; and what is going on is a playful game, simulated aggression, between the comedian and the audience or such aggression directed by the comic at another target for the audience to laugh at. Humor is a mock fight which releases tension and hostility, normally in a harmless way, between participants; and that is the sense of humor, because the laughter it brings out makes our lives bearable when they tend not to be so.
Unfortunately, the world is also full of vicious, hurtful, and disgusting humor; we may have witnessed cruel wit or diabolical laughter. We are all familiar with the merciless teasing that kids often inflict on their timid or handicapped classmates.
I tend to be serious, rather than playful. I am more likely to become the butt of a joke rather than its perpetrator. In high school sometimes I was kidded to the point where I would pick up not a pillow but a chair and throw it at the joker. A pillow fight is a cause for laughing; a chair fight is not. As I got older I began to see the final futility of living, and how ridiculous it is from its start, doing the double-backed beast, to its end often with a tangle of tubes and wires stuck here and there all over the body to extend the patient’s breathing and the hospital’s budgeting. I gradually began to lighten up and even crack an occasional impromptu joke, usually with myself as a target.
Is humor a harmless sport when the bad guy in a Western starts shooting near the legs of the hero’s innocent sidekick, laughing “Dance, boy; dance!” Well, yes. It’s not your sense of humor or mine, but this action is funny because the ruffian does not really hurt the sidekick; he is having fun harmlessly targeting someone he dislikes, releasing tension, and hostility. Things get serious when the hero appears on the scene and takes offense.
I am not here to teach you how to sling jokes as an amateur or professional comedian; I am not a specialist in creating humorous prose. I am looking at the sense of humor from a psychological and philosophical viewpoint. Psychologically, the building up of tension is essential for a joke to result in laughter, because laughter comes about as a release from tension.
After tension built up, the jab at the target cannot be too obvious for the audience if the joke is to work; it cannot be too difficult to perceive either, because the audience will miss the point of it and you will not get any laughter. A logical gap exists between the punch line and the understanding of its meaning, which the audience bridges, because in humor the audience participates in the game the joker sets up.
The joker always sets up a punch line, which analysts have been said results from an incongruity, when things don’t go together logically; that is so, but incongruity is not enough, because though incongruity results in something ridiculous, without tension, a target, and a mental gap for the audience to bridge, no laughter follows.
Psychologists also theorize that laughter results when feelings of superiority are aroused in the audience over the person being ridiculed; certainly, we find funny characters ridiculous in their odd behaviors, but feelings of superiority don’t result in laughter; we laugh at the mistakes, stupidities, and eccentricities the characters commit, because we know they behave thus to amuse us, being professional or amateur actors and mimics.
Another psychological theory is that laughter is due to relief we feel from pent up tension going away and strong emotions subsiding. That’s true enough, for example when we are able to avoid a serious accident, mishap, or disaster; perhaps even when we settle a bitter confrontation with someone. We heave a sigh of relief and laugh. But that’s a description of the phenomenon of humor, not an explanation of it.
Dr. Lisa Rosenberg, a psychologist specializing in laughter, explains: “The act of producing humor, of making a joke, gives us a mental break and increases our objectivity in the face of overwhelming stress.” Indeed, humor can do this. Any hurt, any unpleasantness, any horror, even terminal illness and death itself, can be worked playfully into a laughing matter, when wrapped in tension, mock aggression with a target, a logical gap to be bridged, and a release of tension, also known as resolution of the conflict.
Whatever theory you may want to believe about humor, clearly it is a communication where the higher centers of the brain, the intellect, is producing an emotional response, laughter. Such a reaction is another example of how intellect affects the emotions, because intellect and emotions are coupled in the mind, as the right and left brain are connected by the corpus callosum, and as the mind affects the body, and vice versa. (Such connections explain also the benefits from cognitive therapy in treating obsessive compulsions, depression, and anxiety. The therapist trains the patient in positive or constructive self- talk in facing problems and positive thoughts produce pleasant emotions and more adaptive behaviors.) Still, what specific mental mechanism makes us laugh with humor is a mystery.
We laugh when little Charlie Chaplin kicks a big cop on the shin like a little boy, and skips out of the place as the cop turns on him furiously with his night stick. We laugh in the classic comedy hit when Buster Keaton sinks slowly, so very slowly with his boat, standing straight shouldered on the bridge with the captain’s cap on, in a commanding posture.
High humor or low humor, it is not humor really until the audience laughs; if the audience laughs in the show, all grossness and baseness is forgiven, such as the coarse jokes in the comedies of Aristophanes.
Standard jokes such as the pratfall or the cream pie in the face make us laugh because we know nobody is getting hurt; these acts are for fun. We know that right away because the actor is a comedian. Mock aggression is clear here, the pie does not hurt except the target’s dignity; knocking down dignity and arrogance is a good place to start when making fun.
I am giving you the principles of humor here as a philosopher. Studying such principles and applying them will be helpful to you if you want to make jokes or tell witty stories; but knowledge of principles will not make you into a comedian. That takes practice and talent as in every other discipline. You may know musical notes and forms, but you are not going to be a composer because of this knowledge alone. You may sing in your shower quite well, without qualifying for the Met. You have to work at humor for a long time and produce many jokes which are duds before you hit upon one that works. But the effort is worth it when you get that laugh from your audience. Nothing equals in satisfaction that obviously successful response to entertain, unless it is your ability to make people cry with sweet sadness when you are telling a fine melancholy story.
Shedding tears over a sad story has therapeutic value: we inure ourselves to tragedy and purge our negative emotions. Similarly, the sense of humor is that it may be essential to human sanity and survival in the certain knowledge of loss, tragedy and death we must suffer and foresee coming to us, unlike other animals of lesser intelligence. So essential also is our appreciation of beauty, discussed in my essay, “What is the Sense of Beauty?” Beauty, laughter, and prayer make it possible for us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil.
Naturally, evil sometimes walks in with a stranger at our doorstep. Kids especially, but most of us, are shy of strangers. When we meet a stranger, our natural reaction is to be cautious, hostile, or curious, unless we feel safe enough to make friends with the stranger; then we smile, something which is the beginning of laughter. If we have some sense of humor, we may crack a joke to break the ice, getting familiar with the stranger.
Some people smile all the time at strangers or at no one in particular; they are idiots. Others laugh a lot at no one; they are bananas. It is normal for us to laugh when we play with friends and throw jokes back and forth to break the tension of competing in games. But, I acknowledge again that we sometimes see that aberration of humor, known as the diabolical or sadistic laughter, shown in horror movies.
Animals do not appear to act sadistically; that’s another distinctly human trait. Cats and dogs have some tendencies at humor when they fool around with each other—that is, cats with cats, and dogs with dogs, not a dog with a cat, normally. Mammals give little bites to each other without hurting: their way of telling a joke, since they have not as yet mastered how to talk very well. Cats and dogs behave that way towards their masters also, if the masters will play along.
Clearly, an effect of play acting aggression, laughter is like a reflex action of the body, in the rapid and uncontrollable way it occurs once it is triggered, with rhythmic and involuntary inspirations and expirations, but clearly the brain’s higher mental functions are involved also, so it is not a true reflex. According to gelotologists, experts in the science of laughter to you barbarians, at least 15 facial muscles are involved, known in anatomy as the zygomatic muscles. The diaphragm also receives quite a workout as muscles for rapidly breathing in and out are activated. We bear our teeth to threaten or bite our playful opponent, yet we cannot bite very hard, because we are paralyzed with pleasant convulsions. Since laughter is nearly a reflex, practically an automatic pattern of behavior, we can expect that we can elicit it by stimulating those spots in the nervous system responsible for the reflex, as one taps just below the knee to obtain the knee jerk reflex.
Physiologically, the laughter reflex greatly increases the amount of oxygen in the blood, reduces stress hormones, such as the dreadful cortisol, useful in a real fight but damaging to health. Adrenaline, a powerful hormone energizing the body and depleting all its reserves, also stays in check in playful fighting. Laughter also bolsters T-cells, those cells in our body’s immune system responsible for fighting germs and other harmful invaders.
It follows that if you want to be funny, it will help you a lot to feel playful, jocular, and humorous. You can prompt yourself to feel that way by starting with a smile, then a little laugh at something you know as funny, perhaps in your repertoire of jokes, and finally search for a target and a way to attack it harmlessly and with a punch line with a logical gap for your audience to bridge. It is no different that wanting to make love; you do it better if you feel loving. Or, if you want to enjoy food, it goes better the hungrier you become; or, if you must fight, it helps to get a little hot under the collar.
So, when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable, painful, embarrassing, shameful, distressing and depressing position, we can playfully exaggerate, make the matter unreal subjectively, and thus release the tension coming from the pain; we relax in the enjoyment of laughter. In effect, we elicit the relaxation response, also available from meditation, with the production of nitric oxide in the body, and pain killing dopamine in the brain. Laughter helps in healing by reducing stress and tension, which are in excess when we suffer serious trauma to our body or mind. Dr. Hans Selye of McGill University showed that excessive stress can maim and even kill, in “The Stress of Life.” Therefore, any reduction in undue stress is beneficial, such as we can bring about with humor causing laughter.
A baby or little boy laughs with delight when his daddy bounces him up and down, or when a favorite uncle picks him and turns him up-side-down, but he cries if someone less known and trustworthy attempts these stunts. Baby knows he is safe with dad or uncle, that this rough handling of his body is a game to be enjoyed, a joke and fun, not violence.
At a higher mental level than that of a child, humor often results from playfully stating a truth too bitter to admit; a truth too embarrassing, private, or painful for an ordinary person to deal with openly. For the comedian such a truth is fair game and a basic tool of the trade, but for the philosopher the truth underlying humorous stories is vital to apprehending reality.
We can approach an apprehension of reality, but never know it; we know, however, that exaggeration, gross distortion, and overplayed emotion leads to the release of laughter. When once Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens) was on a lecture tour abroad in his last years, newspapers reported he had died. Upon his return to the U.S., Twain declared to the waiting journalists at the docks: “Reports of my death have been highly exaggerated.” Gross exaggeration turns a bad situation into something surrealistic, and playful, thereby turning what is unpleasant and painful into something laughable.
When we encounter something laughable, our lips open wide and the mouth too, our eyes shine with delight, with tears sometimes, our face flushes red, we keel over with relaxation, and out comes a peculiar explosion of sound, “Ha, ha, ha,” or “Ho, ho, ho,” or “Hi, hi, hi,” with giggles or guffaws in as endless a variety as we come.
Laughing matters come in a great variety also; we tend to find odd behavior amusing, even laughable, in others, but not in ourselves. Why? A comedian of old, Jack Benny, made good use of his extreme thriftiness; he displayed himself as ridiculously miserly. He was funny. We find the lame, the cross-eyed, the bald, the fat, the big eared, the dwarf, the very tall (hey beanstalk, how’s the weather up there), the stuttering, the hoarse, the squeaky voiced, the very thin (hey, reed pole), the idiot, and the crazy. A crazy person who is a nut case is funny. Someone who is insane and violent to boot is scary as hell, not funny at all, like the ax killer in Stephen King’s “The Shining.” Stephen King entertains because we enjoy the suspense of terror in a novel or movie, which we know is safe. The killers in “Friday, the 13th” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are not funny, but they entertain because we know we are watching a show, and this way we exorcise the evil we see. Mel Brooks in “Young Frankenstein” exorcises the monster and makes us laugh with the crazy doctor Frankenstein and his weird hunchbacked assistant Igor. We get the maximum potential for fun in plays with idiots or nuts, because nothing for humans could be more frightening than having our brains scrambled at birth or later in life. Certainly these last two afflictions come to us all, if we live long enough.
Afflictions, which make some persons odd, strike us as funny, turning these people into suitable targets for laughter under certain circumstances, such as when we pretend to have the quirkiness ourselves or when we exaggerate it in others and make it unreal, removing it from the pain of existence. Case in point: the Jerry Lewis of old made us laugh by acting like a spastic with muscular dystrophy; we laughed because we knew he was mimicking; he was not spastic, but was making light of an affliction to reduce it to acceptance and tolerance: a kind gesture, not a vicious one. Mr. Lewis devoted many years of his life raising money for muscular dystrophy and other diseases with his telethons. Granted, maliciousness can enter this picture and it often does with people who have an aberrant sense of humor.
The top-rated “Seinfeld” series on television was never malicious, although the characters were very odd indeed. Jerry, playing Seinfeld, himself in exaggerated style, is obsessed with finding a perfect girlfriend, and gives up numerous beautiful women in his pursuit. The Elaine character with pretty, rubber-faced, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is flighty and easy in her loves, enjoying the moment without regard to her future, outside of keeping her job. Michael Richards, as Kramer, Jerry’s neighbor, is tall, busting in the door, with hair like a skyscraper, and no obvious means of support; he mooches from Jerry constantly, messes up everything he touches, and is a passionate but inconstant lover. Little, fat, bald, nearsighted, despicably cowardly and lazy, but very charming George, played by Jason Alexander, is the main character of the show and the butt of most of the funny scenes. I loved the humor in Seinfeld, because it made me laugh often, never mind any serious message.
Physiologically, humor prompts laughter, which is an explosive eruption of nervous energy similar to sexual orgasm, and almost as pleasurable. Just as sexual orgasm is better and stronger with the suitable preparation of the nervous system which builds up nervous charge, a preparation not necessary in our teenage years. As teens we laugh just as easily over nothing much, having superabundant energy. When laughter is triggered, neurons in our pleasure center are strongly stimulated, and there follows a nervous discharge and a marked reduction in tension, ending in deep relaxation.
On the negative side, can laughter become addictive? Yes, like anything else that we do to excess, looking for laughter too often can cause problems. For one thing, too much time may be spent on playful pursuits, and less on gainful work. Also, much time and expense can be wasted in comedy clubs and theaters with smoke and drinks, or watching comedic shows on TV, neglecting other more uplifting offerings. It is especially pitiful to watch depressed people desperately trying to keep titillating themselves with poor jokes on the Internet, with friends, and relatives, when they should be doing something more constructive with their time. These people have read in articles on health that laughter is good for you and they are determined to have some laughter if it kills them.
Getting out there and killing the audience, actors like to say, is not to be desired by us philosophers. Instead, with our sense of humor few keep things in manageable proportions when tragedy strikes; when life’s reverses becomes too much to bear, we can turn to comedy and get relief. Tragedy will strike us with almost complete certainty and we prepare for it with a fine humor, making light of it; otherwise, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune may cause us to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. Hamlet had no sense of humor; otherwise, he would have seen how ridiculous it was for his uncle to murder his father, the king, and marry the queen, his mother, leaving the king’s ghost to roam around causing mischief.
I don’t know about the Danish sense of humor; such things vary from culture to culture. The Jews do not display much of it in their scriptures, some of which Christians chose to call The Old Testament. After the Diaspora and many persecutions they seem to have acquired loads of humor as a survival tool, and produced many comedians of star magnitude, such as Jerry Lewis, mentioned earlier, Jack Benny, Milton Burl, Groucho Marx, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Humor can be something other than the verbal banderillas of Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David of “Seinfeld”. You can express something funny in musical sounds, or better, with certain noises; also with pictures; and movements, funny dances or pantomime. I don’t know of any funny skits with smells, perhaps you do (Coco Channel certainly does), but everybody knows about tickling, using the sense of touch. Red Skelton got lots of laughs with his silent sketches in pantomime. Certain noises are inherently funny, because they remind us of rude sounds, and rudeness in a playful way is an acceptable trigger for laughter.
Laughter therapy is accepted and commonplace today. Norman Cousins popularized it when he became very ill, beyond the power of physicians to heal him, and he followed a course of treatment watching the Marx Brothers and other comedy shows almost constantly until he became well again. Such a routine would drive me insane, but it worked for Cousins and it may work for you if you become deathly ill.
According to neurological studies, laughter involves the higher centers of the brain, such as the frontal lobe, but also our primitive limbic system, which we share with reptiles, which evolved before mammals like humans and rats. The limbic system is basic to survival in hunting and fighting. But our higher centers reduce the survival business and the fighting to a game of fun. I remember the wonderful scene at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” in a concentration camp with Benigni, playing an Italian Jew. He marches with high steps and swinging arms in front of a German soldier to be shot, all for the benefit of his young son, hidden in a cabinet and watching.
The boy needed to learn how to face tragedy before being thrust into it. Laughter is our human gift for coping with an impossible and intolerable situation; that is, most of life, since we have the foreknowledge that disease, accident, old age, and death are surely going to come to us and those we love. Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Danish prince, has no sense of humor, because his story was meant to be tragic. After the dastardly uncle, the one who murdered his father the old king and married his mother, tempts Hamlet to engage in a duel for sport with Laertes, who is cahoots with the evil king, Hamlet is stung by his opponent’s poisoned sword; that is, after driving poor Ophelia crazy for loving him. Before dying, Hamlet learns from Laertes, who is scratched by the same deadly sword, that the king planned everything, and Hamlet sticks the poisoned sword into his stepfather’s body. That happens after the queen drinks by mistake from a cup of poisoned wine meant for her son. Those with no sense of humor to face life’s dirty tricks, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. I say, laugh at your misfortunes and at the injustices done to you (what do you expect?) and live. If I have discouraged you now from going further into Shakespeare’s works, remember he also wrote hilarious comedies and some lovely sonnets, if you can stomach the archaic English.
Hilarity reduces hostility in us and in our perceived enemies. We cannot hit someone when we are laughing; we are too weak from the release of tension. Our enemy is less inclined to hit us when we are smiling or laughing in a friendly way. That way we approach strangers to make friends with them. A natural human reaction is to look upon strangers, or people who are different from us with suspicion; these humans are potential hazards for us and interlopers. We are much like dogs barking at any stray canine approaching our territory. We are able to overcome these tendencies and make friends of strangers by smiling, saying a joke, and breaking the ice with small talk.
Smile then often, and if you find the opportunity, crack a joke, be playfully aggressive and release tension with laughter in yourself and others. Make life bearable all around. Laughter produces endorphins which work like morphine to subdue pain and suffering. It is better for your health to find solace and comfort in laughter rather than pain killing drugs. Today we even have yoga centers for laughter with over 5,000 clubs worldwide, directed by Dr. Madan Kataria, because it has been said that laughter is the best medicine. If you are suffering physically or mentally, even if you are feeling well and want to feel better, you could go to one of these clubs; go to comedy shops; get into whatever makes you laugh outside of the cackle house, and go there more often; meet with people who also like to fool around and enjoy jokes; take classes and workshops in making laugh tracks. Laughter is contagious; hence, TV comedy shows play laugh tracks with each effort at a joke, in the hope they will cause a contagion. Good comedy shows, like Seinfeld, are performed and recorded in front of a live audience, avoiding phony laugh tracks, which are for me a definite turn off, meaning I turn off the television.
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