The Fifth Force
By Basil E. Gala, Ph.D.
Modern physics claims that four forces control everything that happens in our universe. These four forces are: first, gravitation, weak but extending to the end of space, pulling matter together; second, electromagnetism pushing objects around, strong but limited in range; third, the weak nuclear force binding electrons to the nucleus, forming the atom; fourth, the strong nuclear force, tightly bonding quarks into protons and neutrons, forming the nucleus. As a fifth force, some astrophysicists have postulated a mysterious “dark force,” or “hypercharge,” which accelerates the galaxies away from each other as the universe expands. I think that galaxies are dropping towards the origin of the universe under the force of gravity, because space is curved. (If astronomers can measure the acceleration that should be the gravitational constant, g.) The fifth force in the universe is not hypercharge; it is life, more specifically the Source of all life, the light of mystics.
What is life when we call it a force? In freezing weather, when water drops from the sky, the water turns to crystals of snow with magical designs, but lifeless. Using mostly carbon chains with other materials on earth and electromagnetism, life forms DNA crystal structures, structures stable, growing, replicating, and defying entropy. Entropy is the tendency of physical systems towards greater disorder or chaos if left alone; it is the cause of failure, decay, and death of stars and atoms, known as the second law of thermodynamics in physics.
In thermodynamics, the change in entropy has a mathematical expression, which is the heat change in an isolated system from hotter to cooler divided by the absolute temperature of the system. The units of entropy are joules/Kelvin, the same as in Boltzmann’s constant. Entropy itself can be expressed as Boltzmann’s constant times the logarithm of the number of microstates observed in the system. Thus entropy is a physical entity. On the other hand, communication theory defines entropy as a mental entity, the quantity of information in a message or system, calculated from state probabilities. We compute the entropy by adding the products of the probability of each state times the logarithm of the same probability over the space of all possible states. Taking the negative of this entropy, we get negentropy, which the force of life tends to increase, according to Irwin Schrödinger, Nobel prize-winning physicist, in his little book, “What Is Life?”
What is life really? I respond, what is gravitation really? We cannot know what is out there really. We can only observe events with our limited senses, using the best instruments devised, dreaming up models to match our data, predicting the course of events, and sometimes controlling their outcome. As a force of nature, life acts on objects in certain ways, ways we can observe; can we quantify the effects of life acting, and express the effects with mathematical equations? I think that will be very difficult, but it’s worth trying to do as best as we can with mathematical tools already invented and to be invented. As Isaac Newton devised calculus to deal with what was in his time the mysteries of motion and gravity, we may think up new mathematics to explain the enigmas of life and mind.
An unimpeded apple drops towards the earth when placed in the planet’s gravitational field. A plane flies through the atmosphere propelled by the electromagnetic field of jet engines. An embryo grows and flourishes in the field of the life force. I have placed two apparently identical plants side by side in the same ground and given them equal care; sometimes, one thrives, the other dies. One was in life’s field, the other not. I wish I could understand the life force well enough to save a plant or a child from dying prematurely.
Gravitation emanates from a massive object; how do we locate the source of life’s field of force? If we can locate the source we can place a living thing in the field and see it thrive with negentropy.
Scientists generally believe that living things are the result of the four forces of physics acting together at the microscopic and macroscopic level to produce the rare event of a living thing on a planet with a suitable environment. In laboratories for many decades now, researchers have been duplicating the conditions on earth when life first emerged about three to billion years ago; they have succeeded in making complex amino acids, the precursors of life, but have not yet come close to producing a living organism of the simplest sort that grows and duplicates.
Also for many decades, computer scientists have been designing increasingly complex programs for robots to simulate thought and other behaviors of living things, such as pattern recognition, planning, and deciding. Such computer behaviors are still mechanical, not displaying the adaptability of even simple animals. We are still a long way from getting HAL of Arthur C. Clark’s 2001 epic. Something is missing from our calculations.
When we observe even tiny organisms under the microscope, we notice they behave differently from non-living systems. They behave with purpose, which is to absorb nutrients, grow, survive, replicate, and enjoy. The behavior of organisms can be predicted to some degree; but they never fail to surprise us, doing the unpredictable in pursuing their purpose.
Physics, chemistry, and computer science explain much about living things, but not all we need to know to understand how they work; some unknown element is missing; if you like, call it the spiritual force. Biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and political science all deal with organisms involving the mysterious life force; that is why all these sciences are less able to predict events than the sciences dealing with non-biological phenomena.
Yet, let’s not become too mystical. When we observe something we cannot explain with our existing knowledge, we tend to imagine mysterious and divine forces at work. Ancient people thought lighting, thunder, droughts, and flooding were all the acts of gods. The gods, not poor hygiene, punished the ancients for their sins with plagues. Evil spirits took up residence in people, driving them insane, not chemical imbalances in the brain of the sick. A proper cure was exorcism, which Jesus used with the man called Legion.
I prefer a rational approach to problems; therefore, I imagine the existence of a life force.
The Star Wars epic of George Lucas often makes reference to “The Force,” and “The Dark Side of the Force.” I tend to think there is no dark side to the life force; objectively, it is all the same thing. Speaking of life, Walt Whitman wrote, “I and this mystery here we stand.” Indeed, life is a mystery because we don’t yet understand how it works. I like to solve mysteries, not to perpetuate them. No doubt, some things are beyond human understanding, but it is more profitable to focus on what we can figure out, rather than on what we cannot. The process of living is something we are getting to understand and control with modern science. Once we know what causes life, we can answer other big questions such as whether or not the spirit continues and has a place to inhabit after the body’s dissolution.
If life is a force, it must accelerate something, changing the energy of a system. The kinetic energy of an object with mass is in the mass times the square of the velocity divided by 2. When the kinetic energy stays level, the object is running with its momentum, but when the object accelerates, slows down, speeds up, or turns direction, we suppose that a force, such as electromagnetism, caused it to do so. Similarly, a change in the heat flow energy into or out of a system may decrease entropy; we say the life force caused this change. Alternately, the life force accelerates the flow of information into or out of a system. When we observe that information or negentropy accelerates in a system, we can conclude the system is the life’s field of force.
In plain words, when you throw a stick into a well and after a minute or so you hear a smack, you have witnessed the force of gravity at work. If what you hear is a yelp, however, and an angry digger emerges, you have seen an effect from the life force.
If we are monitoring the state of a living system, measuring the change in entropy at intervals, we may observe an acceleration of the entropy and note that the organism is dying, because the life force is being withdrawn; similarly, when negentropy is accelerating, we note that the life force is being applied to the organism, causing it to grow and multiply. In matters of the mind, forgetting implies loss of information or negentropy, while learning indicates adaptation and growth, leading to a longer life of the brain, because of the application of the life force.
Similarly, when the life force floods our mind, we experience joy, energy, and creativity; when the life force decreases in us, we become sluggish, sometimes depressed intellectually and emotionally. Religious people believe that God’s grace shines upon them when they do well; His grace is not with them when they fail. But God shines on all of us, all the time; therefore, when the divine light is not warming us, something in the way is impeding it. We don’t know what this light is, but occasionally, we experience it, and know its effect on growth and joy.
The life force is mediated by the zoticon, as electromagnetism is mediated by the photon. A photon behaves as a particle in some observations and as a wave in others. Larger particles have shorter wavelengths. It would be helpful to locate the zoticon and measure its wavelength, as it would be helpful to detect the graviton, which mediates gravity. We would understand better how the life force operates on materials, building organisms on earth and on other planets, when conditions allow life, with the presence of water, right temperatures, pressures, soils, and atmospheres.
As a particle, the zoticon sets up a field of force, which promotes the acceleration of entropy in a system, such as an organism. A living thing is suspended in the force field of the zoticon, the field collapsing when the organism’s end is near. When the organism dies, the zoticon escapes the body, going out to space at the speed of light to the origin of the universe. In religious terms, the organism’s spirit returns to the Godhead. Nothing is lost; it just changes form. When the lion kills the zebra and consumes it, energy transfers to the predator, but the zoticon of the zebra escapes, eventually returning to animate another living form.
You may be saying now, this is all very interesting, but how do I use the zoticon to do what I want? We know how to use the photon to power our cars, planes, and aircraft; to produce electricity for thousands of different appliances and tools; to send rockets to the moon. We can even strip the electrons from atoms, and hurtle the protons around the Large Hadron Collider to explore the subatomic world. But the zoticon is more like the graviton, also still undetected by physicists. The graviton builds up a field to infinity, strong close to a mass, rapidly becoming weaker away from mass as the square of the distance. We can navigate with gravitation, put objects in the gravitational field to fall, push objects up against the field to build up potential energy, but cannot change it, neutralize it, or produce it.
We cannot change, neutralize, or produce the zoticon field of force; we can only navigate through the field using our creative talents, designing, building, and disseminating worthwhile works. Hold on to your obsession of helping others; preserve the rain forests, defend endangered species, recycle everything and don’t pollute. We exist in a web of zoticons. As long as our zoticon spirit inhabits our bodies, we can contribute to the information available in the world, spreading knowledge, supporting life on the planet, and promoting the well being of all spiritual beings.
Religious people believe that spirits cannot be destroyed; they are immortal. Certainly, something in living things animates them; when your mother and father meet with death, their bodies quickly change into something very different from the living persons they were. Something vital has been withdrawn from the bodies. Immediately after a plant or animal has died, it looks drastically different from a live one. A stabilizing force has left it as if a supporting column has failed, the body crashing, falling apart. This is as obvious an observation as of old when people saw earth’s curved horizon from a height, but did not conceive that the planet was spherical. The stabilizing force is that of life.
The life force permeates nature, the same as gravity, acting in theory to infinite distances, spreading its effects far and wide in the universe. (God is immanent in the universe.) Art, beauty, and joy are all expressions of the life force. Plants pump water up to their stems, leaves and flowers, greening the earth with the energy of sunlight or geothermal sources, because of the life force. Animals bounce around charming us with their fluid motions as they forage, hunt, or run away from predators. Their bodies quickly decay when the life force has moved out of them.
Life is a spiritual force of immense but subtle power, directing the actions of plants and animals, spreading its wings from the dense jungles to the vast tundras, and into the wide deserts. Matter and energy is absorbed and converted to living tissue. With the evolution of intelligence, organisms may spread throughout the universe, incorporating everything in one unified living whole, preventing the Big Crunch. In the meantime, when a plant or animal has dies, life withdraws to a central source, from whence it beams out again to a different entity being born.
Life moves things in all directions: up, down, sideways. It fashions designs, reducing entropy, or increasing information. A highly organized system holds more information, less entropy. Life is an organizing force. Living systems build structures, reducing entropy in the world. We find these structures, these patterns of organization, in nature and in the arts of humans. The essence of all fine arts, literature, painting, sculpture, dance, music, cooking, perfumery, architecture, and drama. We are thrilled to our life’s core when we enjoy such arts or the splendors of nature. Even a painting made with a can dripping colors embodies design with order and organization, although it appears to be chaotic.
We prize new artistic expressions, innovations in design patterns, because an unexpected event, an improbable event, carries more information, according to Claude Shannon’s entropy formula. Profuse as it is now, life itself on this planet was an improbable event, and it is so in other parts of the universe. No other sphere in our solar system appears to allow for life, conditions for organisms on the surface of planets or satellites being anywhere from inhospitably cold as on Mars to hellishly hot as on Venus. Blue-white earth is a rare jewel in space, harboring our kind of life and all its wonders.
No human can create such a jewel of fine art as the earth, no matter how great the talent or the love for creation that the artist holds.
Talent and love are potent channels for the expression of the life force. Love is life’s field of force. Place living things ( plants, animals, or people) in this field of love and they thrive. We have seen the expression of the life force in the flowering of artistic geniuses like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, van Gogh, and Michelangelo. The life force creates order, yet artists often live and work in a messy environment; their private lives are often messy too with divorces, affairs, and mental instabilities. Why do we have this paradox of order within disorder with artists, creators of designs, melodies, harmonies, and symmetries? Artists crave chaos, because chaotic situations stimulate them to create order in their chosen medium of expression. Artists ignore the messes they are in, because they are possessed by love and lust in their inner world.
In all of us, love for mates, children, family, community, work, play, and the world drives the will to greater effort designing, building, growing, and thriving. Love, our mammalian heritage, is the springboard for the life force.
But what can we say about hatred and anger? Are these the expressions of a death force? What rational explanation can we provide for what people call evil? Hatred and anger powerfully drive the will to destroy rather than build, thus increasing entropy in the world, at least for a while. But sometimes the destruction of old structures is necessary to create new and improved forms. The dilapidated and unsafe building must be demolished, for a shiny new glass and steel skyscraper to go up. Forest fires are sometimes beneficial to the land, clearing old trees, controlling insects, and fertilizing the soil, so new and different growth may spring up. Thus evil serves a good end. To be objective, we refrain from postulating the existence of a death force to explain unpleasant events. The withdrawal of life energy from organisms is a sufficient explanation for death and decay; these release materials to the world like fertilizers, which feed the next growth cycle to a finer bloom. Death drives evolution; it allows for new orders of living things to emerge, organisms with superior equipment for survival. The death of the dinosaurs was necessary for the rise of mammals and humans.
When we contemplate the acts of vicious people, like the Mafiosi, pirates, serial killers, terrorists, bloody dictators, we cannot help but think they are driven by the opposite of God that is Satan. Dualism is everywhere in nature: we have matter and antimatter, protons and antiprotons, electrons and anti-electrons, night and day, summer and winter, health and illness, birth and death, creation and destruction, good and evil. There is no anti-graviton, however, and there is no anti-zoticon.
Death is the absence of the life force; evil is the absence of goodness as darkness is the absence of light. In an era of suicidal-homicidal maniacs, holding on to such beliefs is difficult, but vital. As an enlightened person, reject fear, hatred, and anger; you can do better controlling such emotions through the use of your intellect; of the emotions, the Beatles sang in the nineteen sixties, all you need is love.
Andros, Greece
April, 2009
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Economic Recession-How To Love It And Profit
The Economic Recession: How to Love It and Profit
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
In Search of Meaning
It is generally agreed in our society, among the haves as well as among those that have not, that economic growth is greatly to be desired. Business prospers; managers and owners get richer to live more lavish lifestyles, and the workers hold on to their jobs, getting by without too much hardship, able to feed their children, love their women, and have more children. Welfare beneficiaries see benefits increase, thus allowing them to feed their huge families bigger portions of pork and potatoes. Politicians believe economic growth is great, bringing in more tax revenues for their cherished programs. Even charities and the arts profit from economic growth, getting more donations to expand their good works. Except for a few sober souls, nobody wants to quit the party of spending, consuming, selling, borrowing, investing, and growing the gross national product, GNP; they keep GNP going until the inevitable bust arrives--and the hangover, such as the one we have these days. In America, we have been most diligent listening and dancing to the mantra of frantic economic growth, rapidly populating our Western frontiers and industrializing our major cities. With the Calvinist work ethic guiding us, we have built up the most productive and the most wasteful economy in the world, and with it, the most powerful armed forces. I am here to sing a different mantra, to belt out my song cursing the bitch goddess of economic growth, and to ask you to seek out a more benign deity for worship.
You may say now, surely you must be joking, Dr. Gala; what’s wrong with jobs and prosperity for all, a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, a television set in every room, a cell phone in every hand, and electric appliances everywhere to eliminate drudgery? There’s nothing wrong with this kind of prosperity, my friends, if you can keep it up; but you can’t. Our little planet can’t take it any more. Our beautiful blue- white Earth is choking in fumes from our vehicles, furnaces, and factories. The rain forests are cut down, oceans are polluted, and Earth is heating up rapidly with carbon dioxide and methane, turning into another Venus, a hellish place for all living things.
Ah, Venus, such a lovely, romantic place, it was covered with green pastures and lush forests under brilliant white skies, peopled by languid, gentle races devoted to love and dancing; then our cruel space probes revealed Venus to be somewhat hot, with surface temperatures of 850 degrees Fahrenheit, draped in poisonous clouds of methane gas, belting down acid rain. On the other side of the Earth, we had pleasantly cool Mars of the red soils, cultivated by a brilliant race of diligent people, builders of a vast canal system across the planet, bringing precious water from the poles to fertile fields and elegant towns. Gone is that Mars too, destroyed by our lander probes and other pesky tools of our technology, showing a surface of bitter cold, parched land, lifeless thin air, stirred violently by dust storms. Or, were these planets reduced to hellish holes by long-lost cultures of beings that went too far with population growth and exploding GNP, vile
technologies burning up vital resources and scattering poisons far and wide, as we are doing here on Earth?
Let’s first take up population growth. Nations want more people on their land, unless, like China, they have too many. National leaders with enough power impose birth control to decrease the population or increase it. Most tribes and nations want to grow in numbers to secure their borders against hostile neighbors. With equal technology, the more populous tribe has a decided advantage over one with fewer numbers of warriors. Organized religions are also in favor of allowing any number of births God blesses, because of the sacredness of human life, especially of their own faith.
I suppose human life is sacred, while animals and plants possess value primarily as food. Yet, our ultimate survival depends on the entire web of living things on Earth. Is there sacredness in human life, when we have so many humans on the planet causing ecological disaster? Ten million people on the planet were not a threat to Earth’s health. Ten billion humans soon to arrive on the scene are a deadly threat.
We are beginning to realize the problem of overpopulation in the better educated, and more affluent nations, which are largely democracies, free to decide issues. Most of Europe and Japan have stable or declining birth rates. Italy, which half a century ago had the highest birthrate in Europe, now has the lowest, with the exception of Russia perhaps. Is there a lesson from Italy, a Catholic country? Did the Italians succeed in birth control with the rhythm method? The Russians did it with vodka. The U.S. is growing more populous, because of immigration and the Latino minority. But most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have an exploding growth of human populations. These are the areas where people are poorest and least well educated or trained.
Similarly, in rich countries, the poorest and least educated sections of the population produce most of the births. Friends, draw your own conclusions. Desperate immigrants from the poor countries are flooding the rich nations legally or illegally. Since education and wealth are the best contraceptives especially for women, liberate the women, keep them from being pregnant, barefoot, ignorant, oppressed by their men, and help the men also get educated and wealthy. When parents are busy acquiring university degrees and investment savings, seeing to their children doing the same, they haven’t the time to reproduce much. Bertrand Russell pointed out the statistic that two Harvard men have one child. I don’t know if the two men work at it together or separately.
George, my brother-in-law, has a solution for overpopulation—tongue in cheek. Shrink the size of humans as we have done with wolves to poodles, or as far as genetic engineering allows us. A grown human the size of a finger would consume a lot fewer resources. Think how many such tiny humans could fit in a plane, how much less they would eat and pollute the Earth. Unfortunately, this solution only translates the problem of population growth to the time when our engineered species numbers in the trillions.
Biologists have established that when an animal population grows unchecked, it eventually destroys its environmental resources, and ends up in a catastrophic decline; that’s true for lemmings in the forested north and rats in the tropical cane fields. It is also true for humans. We had such a catastrophe on Easter Island in the Pacific. The population there was 60,000 at its peak; but when the trees were cut down and the soils washed into the ocean, the population crashed down to the 600 people or so that live on the island today. The great stone heads of their gods did not help the Easter Islanders to survive.
The Earth today is such an island, floating in space, being rapidly deprived of living resources, with nowhere for us to go but to our doom. Let us praise God, ask for His forgiveness, and beg for His mercy.
God is great, compassionate, and merciful. He instructed us to multiply, cover the Earth from the poles to the equator, and be masters of our world. We have done so. Now is the time to become masters of ourselves and limit our numbers voluntarily; otherwise, Nature, God’s alter ego, will do it for us painfully. We see Nature’s disciplinary action in the densely populated areas of Africa and Asia, famine and war ravaging innocent people. How many Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Pakistan disasters do we need to witness to get the message?
Let good people go to scenes of deprivation the world over; let them help the orphaned, the hungry, and the sick. I admire the work of the Peace Corps volunteers, the gifts of the great philanthropists, like Bill and Melinda Gates, George Soros, and Oprah Winfrey. I would be more admiring if these people focused on the more important problem of excessive reproduction in desperately poor countries. When parents in Africa own 100 acres to cultivate, it is enough for the family. Having ten children, they bequeath to each one 10 acres, which is barely enough for survival if the soil is fertile. When the children have ten children of their own each, now there is only enough land to starve on.
A solution for world hunger was offered by Frances Moore Lappé in “Diet for a Small Planet.” The idea was to produce complete proteins and other essential nutrients from plants, which use much less land than animals, thus allowing us to feed ten times more people with the acreage and water available for cultivation. A great solution, provided people would stop multiplying so fast.
If rich nations would donate a dollar for education and training for each dollar they give for food and medicine, we might have some progress in population control and wealth building in poverty stricken countries. Does the world need more places like Haiti and Somalia? Then, on humanitarian grounds, give poor nations more food and medicine with no strings attache. You end up with a disastrous welfare system on a planetary scale. You want some success in your efforts? Give rice to poor people in exchange for them learning practical knowledge and skills, not for parroting Christian dogmas.
Because poverty and ignorance breed more Taliban and the like, who become the tools of bin Laden and the like, fighting poverty and ignorance has to be our first priority, not warring on al-Qaeda.
Now let me turn to the second issue of excessive consumption and production, growth in the GNP of countries in the world. This leads to population growth, which in turn demands further growth in the GNP, a spiral to the precipice of disaster, unless recession intervenes, thank God. Learn to love recessions. They slow down consumption, which saves resources and delays ecological disaster in the world. Recession also slows down human reproduction. Consider what happened in the Great Depression in the United States and elsewhere. Baby making went largely out of fashion. When prosperity returned after the Second World War, we got a baby boom.
We profit from recessions. Traveling and motoring slows down, resulting in less air pollution. People economize on heating and cooling too, which also helps. People buy fewer products, so there is less trash filling our dumps and streets.
Were we to continue growing economies around the world, trash would eventually cover the Earth to the height of Mount Everest. Demanding more goods, energy, and raw materials, developed countries provide capital, technology, and management to undeveloped nations to build factories and exploit their natural resources for raw materials to export. Rich nations get richer from trade, enjoying cheaper imports from China, India, and other places, and the developing nations become less poor; and if allowed by authorities, more populous. Billions of people in these poor nations now want and buy the stuff rich nations enjoy, because in movies and television they gawk at fast cars, fine houses and furniture, splendid clothing, delicious foods, and other luxuries which wealthy people enjoy. Globalization leads to lust for material possessions around the Earth, a world-class appetite. The process does not stop, until a big economic recession arrives.
Thank God for economic recessions. Love recessions and profit. You can profit from a recession by preparing for it, because it will always follow a growth period. During a period of prosperity, save your money, don’t spend it like the rest of your community. When you see prices of assets, stocks or real estate becoming ridiculously high, sell and cash out. The boom may go on for a while longer, you can never tell when its end will come; but it will come. The seeds of economic decline are sown in growth times: higher prices of goods, higher wages, credit overextended, free spending by consumers, industry, and government. When the boom has ended, go shopping for cheap assets. The economy eventually recovers, and you will be sitting on gold.
That’s the game Bernard Baruch and Joe Kennedy, Jack Kennedy’s dad, among other shrewd operators, played in the times of the Great Depression. One quarter of the workers were jobless, soup lines stretched out for blocks in big cities, and these shrewd operators basked in monetary sunshine.
The problem with recessions, or depressions, is that politicians can’t leave them alone to do their good work. If politicians did not react to downturns in the economy, leaders would not stay in power for long. Unemployed voters are not to be laughed at. During the Great Depression, led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, politicians started a slew of social programs to help the unfortunate poor voters and other citizens lacking in foresight, government programs such as social security, unemployment benefits, welfare, and unnecessary public construction. These programs, still saddling us today, did little good to improve the economy then, but they cheered people up. U.S. citizens elected FDR for president three times. These days we have Barack Obama following in FDR’s footsteps.
What is the good work a recession does, if left alone? A recession disciplines workers to produce better and more goods for less pay, businessmen to manage more efficiently, and investors to be more wary and wise. Government officials also tighten their budgets sometimes, not often, because tax collections are down when people earn less. Altogether, people in a recession learn to be thrifty and save for their futures, keeping their families in check both in size and expense. You can profit that way too. Get your family budget ship shape and work harder. Start a new business enterprise, if you are able. You can acquire business equipment cheaply in a recession, hire better employees for lower wages, and be ready for the upturn to turn a nice profit and to grow your enterprise. The misfortune of a recession is an opportunity to earn wealth.
People amuse me when they complain about the lack of opportunities in a recession. Workers say there is no work for them. What they really mean is that there are no jobs, or better still positions, available that will pay them what they have been accustomed to receive in wages. First, work is always out there for people to do if they are willing to do it for no or little payment. Second, a job is work for wages, you perform for results under strict supervision; a position is where you have a desk to come to when you feel like it, rather than call in sick, and where you can put up your feet, light a cigarette, and drink a cup of coffee before starting to shuffle paperwork. Most people feel they deserve a position and the government had damn well give it to them, if politicians want to be elected.
I wonder sometimes how democracy ever manages national affairs in competition with authoritarian regimes. The French political historian Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the new American democracy that people would vote themselves benefits from the state treasury until the nation went bankrupt. We are coming to that, but it has taken us over two hundred years to accomplish it. In the meantime, it is a paradox how democracy survives and on occasion flourishes. The paradox is how people of average intelligence are able vote for people with a high enough intelligence to run the affairs of a nation effectively. The paradox was resolved in democratic Athens of ancient Greece with the patrician Pericles in charge for thirty years, bringing about the golden age of that city and state, a lucky event. In America, we were lucky with the founding fathers of the republic, brilliant and wise men, elected by farmers and tradesmen, and a few times
thereafter, with Lincoln, F.D.R., Reagan, and perhaps with luck, Obama.
Our nation can best be served by brilliant and able people, a true nobility of aristocrats with Plato’s philosopher king at the head, if we can trust these people to serve out their useful lives, and not foist upon us the less than savory fruits of their loins.
Let me restate the issue and my position. Economic growth, a larger Gross National Product (GNP), is sought by nearly every person. A growing GNP is good, right? Business owners, managers, and investors love it for it makes them richer. Workers want economic growth for it means more jobs, higher pay, more benefits to enjoy. Government officials and politicians think growth is great for it fills the treasury with cash for their programs. Even the arts and charities receive larger donations when everybody is making plenty of money. Yet, economic growth is a bitch goddess, not deserving our worship and adoration, because it is leading inevitably to the destruction of the planet and the end of humanity.
Still, economists stress that recessions and depressions are terrible for people and their societies, leading to widespread business failures, bankruptcies, deaths of ruined investors jumping out of upper story windows, layoffs of workers, homicides and suicides of desperate fathers, widespread poverty and civil unrest, even revolution and dictatorship. Agreed. Economic recessions should be avoided; and the best way to do that is to avoid economic growth. Each cycle of economic growth sows the seeds of the next recession by encouraging over-spending by consumers and businesses, fostering inefficiencies in production, and fueling inflation.
Monetary inflation from economic growth damages the health of commercial life; worse, inflation of the people around their waists and of childbearing leads to unhealthy people and an unhealthy society needing more jobs to feed more mouths and to employ new workers.
Thus economic growth causes population growth, recession reduces it and the threats to the planet. The best situation to achieve is no growth and no recession, once the population reaches a stable number which allows for a healthy habitat for humanity and other living things.
A no-growth policy for the GNP and the population is best for our future. The simple life, with few luxuries in food, clothing, shelter and transportation will bring us better health. I try to follow this program in my life, and I recommend this to you and your community. Rich, high-calorie, high-fat foods cause individuals to get diabetes, heart-disease, and stroke. People then go to medicines, surgery, and forced idleness from disabilities, while the GNP increases in health care production to take care of them. Easy mechanical transportation weakens our bodies and deprives us of vital sources of exercise, while giant companies keep producing more automobiles, including gas guzzling SUV's. The GNP gets another boost. We go to gyms and spas to lose fat,
instead of bicycling or walking. The sales of the gyms and spas are added to the gross domestic product. The Chinese had it right a few decades ago when their streets were like rivers of bicycles, with only a few cars moving slowly in the streams. Their younger generation now does not exercise so much bicycling and has turned to gyms with the same ardor as Americans.
Am I proposing a return to the simple life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Henry David Thoreau? Shall we go back to being noble savages, like the Last of the Mohicans, living the tribal life on the open land or in villages, recapturing our ancient communal life? Yes, to both questions with some reservations.
I don't want to give up on civilization which flourishes in larger cities, or throw away scientific and technical progress that has opened some new vistas, including space, that has enriched and and genuinely bettered our daily lives. Knowledge from scientific investigations is always good to have, and technical inventions can provide us with many good tools for a life in harmony with nature, such as solar power, an understanding of genetics from DNA, and computers--storing, processing, presenting, and communicating vast amounts of information.
I object to the extensive use of medicines and surgeries for diseases which are preventable. Take the simple case of laxatives for constipation filling shelves in our drugstores, constipation normally preventable with more fiber in our foods. How about all the heart and blood vessel surgeries, adding significantly to our GNP, that would be rendered unnecessary with more exercise, less food, and better relaxation methods, such a yoga and meditation? The best way to control our mounting health care costs is not disease treatment but disease prevention. Prevention would cause a reduction in the GNP and unemployment among medical workers, until they switched to health services.
Our doctors and hospitals are often erroneously named health workers and health centers. As a rule, they are nothing of the sort. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and hospital staff workers are not trained to disseminate health, but to treat disease, and that is what they practice; they are disease workers. As a result they earn high incomes, and contribute much to GNP, but people suffer from unnecessary treatments from diseases that could have been prevented by genuine health professionals.
Go to a certified, registered, university trained professional complaining of a pain in your side. After some blood, urine, and other tests, the surgeon proposes to cut and sew your problem; the family doctor will prescribe drugs; the psychologist will offer you therapy; the psychiatrist, analysis, the chiropractor will want to fix your pain with a spinal adjustment; the homeopathic physician with herbs and natural therapies; the minister will ask you to pray for God's healing; that last one may be your best bet.
With the exceptions of some infections and accidents damaging our tissues, medical treatments are a waste of money and other resources. Eighty percent of disease
is cured by your body's own healing mechanisms. Doctors simply oversee this process, standing by to intervene, if necessary, with more drastic invasions of your body. Medicine doesn't have a treatment for the common cold, although again our drugstore shelves are stacked with palliatives for it; but nature does. Nature fights colds, flues and many other infections with a strong immune system, which we acquire eating small amounts of nutritious foods, exercising, sunning our bodies outdoors, being cheerful, keeping good company, and getting enough rest. Such disease prevention would not add much to our vaunted GNP.
The best of all ways to improve the health of the population is to encourage births of healthy babies, with thorough prenatal care and selection of fit parents. Such selection is more feasible in totalitarian regimes, as in Nazi Germany. In democratic societies voters may agree to give more tax deductions and other aid for child bearing and rearing to the physically and mentally fit couples, rather than to the unfit--fitness determined by standardized tests without regard to race, religion, or ethnicity. We breed animals and plants for those merits useful to humans: cows for milk, race horses for speed, dogs for hunting, guarding, shepherding, or loving, corn for larger cobs. For merits in people we don't own as slaves, we can look beyond superficial characteristics-- such as skin, hair, or eye color; bodily size; shape of lips, ears, or nose—look to health, character, and intelligence. With teachings and customs, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims and a few other religious or ethnic groups encourage large families for their members, without regard to the quality of the parents.
If you learn from statistics that congenital diseases and defects are increasing with each generation, in spite of better nutrition, education, training, and medical care, you know we are having problems with our gene pool, the genes in our population.
In the long run, nothing will better our society more than continuously improving the gene pool with respect to intelligence, character, and health of our people; otherwise, no charity, no welfare, no safety net, no social security, no government health insurance, no freedom, no justice, no equality, no full employment, no compassion for the unfortunate among us, none of these benefits will do much to stop the decline in the quality of our nation. The Earth doesn't need more people; it needs better people.
We'll have better, healthier, stronger, wiser people, not only with genetics, but also, as I have stated earlier, with disciplines such as those imposed on us by deep recessions. Hard times, in moderation, produce strong people; easy times allow butter soft individuals to float up. Let us begin with you and me. If we lie down on our favorite couch or armchair many hours a day watching television or passing the time idly in some manner, our bodies and brains soon become lethargic, weak, and fragile. We get strong and energetic again, when we get up and work our muscles and brains hard enough.
Next, what is best for our children, grandchildren, students, and other charges is
raising them up, not to a life of ease and comfort, but to the strenuous life, as Theodore Roosevelt called it. You want your charges to be tough, confident, successful, independent, and free, then give them enough challenges to overcome, suitable to their level of growth. You may appear to be cruel and heartless to them; explain the reasons for your behavior. You can still be there to comfort, encourage, and give them a helping hand when they crash; cheer them on when they fly high in the face of steep difficulties and stiff competition. The steel of heart, mind, and spirit is forged in the searing heat of adversity.
As it goes for individuals, so it is for societies. Even if elected to office, good leaders don't coddle but challenge the people, applying discipline. If a community enjoys riches, luxuries, and ease, civilization may emerge with culture and fine arts, but soon, grown strong in hardship, barbarians break down the gates of the city, torch splendid buildings, steal or trample priceless treasures, put the defeated people to the sword and ravish young virgins.
Recession, deprivation, pain--bring them on. When competitive pressure eases up, we become slack in our ways. With economic growth, we build more houses and shopping centers, cutting down trees, denuding the land of its vital green cover, wasting the soils, the waters, the breath of life. We waste more, we pollute more, we despoil more of the Earth's purity.
Again in hard times, when jobs are scarce, family members are brought close together as of old, extending the reach of love to all in need, supporting each other. In poor Bali, Indonesia, extended families build compounds for children, brothers, sisters, and their children, with a communal kitchen in the center to share whatever food is available. The country is clean, unspoiled, and peaceful, no structure rising above the level of the trees. That's not such a bad life; at least it's free of loneliness.
Surely there is much grinding, horrible poverty in many parts of our world: people starving, sick without medical care, open sewers, hovels for housing, men, women, and children digging in garbage for their livelihood. We don't want that.
But there is another side to poverty. That's people living close to the land, getting their basic needs cultivating the soil in homesteads or villages, serving each other in trades as in ancient times, doing much for themselves: cutting their own nails and hair, making clothes, cooking their own food from simple ingredients, making baskets, carpets and pottery, preserving foods by drying or salting for the winter, building their own simple houses with the help of neighbors, making their own repairs, riding donkeys, horses, and carts for transportation, using simple home remedies for illness and injury.
I remember a documentary about a pigmy family in a simple hut with a leafy roof. It 's raining and the wife says to her husband, the roof is leaking. He gets out, cuts a couple of big leaves and patches the roof. They go back to sleep.
Agreed, the GNP for such societies is low, the average income in dollars is measured in a few hundred each year, but that does not mean such people do not survive, thrive, and are happy. In America, of all places, the Amish live with reasonable security and happiness, relying largely on eighteenth century technology. They gain little from economic booms, and suffer even less from recessions.
You can live well and in good health with beans and grains, wild greens, a few vegetables from a garden patch, some eggs from your own chicken coop, and milk from a nanny goat. All you need is two good acres of land and independence.
In America, back in the sixties we had a movement away from consumerism. Young people resisted the siren song of Madison Avenue for more goods, luxuries, cars, and perfumes. In Berkeley, California, students buried automobiles in the dirt. Elsewhere, youngsters built domes for housing with old car tops, inspired by Richard B. Fuller's geodesics. A counter culture of communes, anti-war sentiment, and anti-materialism arose, giving hope for the greening of America. The Beatles sang, “All You Need Is Love,” and young people turned on to flowers, romance, and high hope, dropping out of the rat race of the consumer society. What happened to the greening of America? Where did we drown our aspirations for an ecological society? When did we forget our vision of a green Earth, and learned to love the SUV?
America led the world in the green revolution back in the sixties. We are leaders on this planet for good reasons: we are a diverse people from all corners of the world, we tolerate all religions if they are tolerable, we have freedom, democracy, education, dollars, gold, natural resources, land, ingenuity, resourcefulness—we have what the rest of humanity wants. We are the hope of the world or its disappointment in what we do with our assets. Other nations took up the lead in the green revolution: Germany, Denmark, and Holland; we went on to unprecedented wasting and polluting.
In 1973, after a waging war on Israel, a country allied to America, Arab countries imposed an oil embargo on us, from which other countries suffered also. A severe economic recession followed as well as inflation. Richard M. Nixon fell from power after the antics of his minions at Watergate, and his successor in the presidency in 1976, Jimmy Carter began a program of energy independence for America, and a switch away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of electricity with subsidies for solar power. People didn't vote for him a second time, weary of stagflation, malaise, and interest rates in the stratosphere.
Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, launching a vigorous program of tax cuts, deregulation, and arming against the Soviet Union in the midst of a severe recession. Oil producing states and companies started playing a different game, providing cheap energy, and hooking us again on their black liquid—gold for them, opium for us. The economy boomed. Detroit flourished anew, providing us with muscle
cars, huge gas guzzlers, culminating in the obscenely wasteful Hummer SUV. These days the Detroit culture of waste and pollution is sinking. Should we not be cheering this event, instead of throwing lifesavers of our tax money to Detroit?
I am against burning valuable and irreplaceable fossil fuels for energy to run automobiles or plants, when the sun and earth's core provide plenty of nearly free energy for all our reasonable needs. There is something inherently unattractive in oil or coal burning engines. Think of the beauty we see in old windmills, watermills, sailing ships, and horses used in our past for transportation and processing. We sense in these old artifacts and animals something right with the world we live in. They don't force things. They move in harmony with wind, water and soil, causing no destruction, no wasting, no pollution.
In a Greek island village where I live summers, most people drive automobiles now; but one old farmer, Barba Antonis, goes up and down the hills on his donkey. He parks the animal outside his house, roped, to fuel up on grass. The hardy animal never needs repairs. It doesn't pollute, but fertilizes the ground it feeds on. The donkey doesn't go fast or far, but Barba Antonis doesn't either. We could go that way too, with a deep enough recession.
Cheer the recession on then, love it and profit from the opportunities. House prices collapse, so housing for those who are employed becomes affordable again. Unemployed professionals start new enterprises, as they have always done in recessions, some of which enterprises will become the Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, Google, of the new economic re-birth. But let us not forget to stop the growth in the economy before it begins to wreck our hard-won disciplines of thrift and efficiency, before it resumes the wrecking of our human habitat.
I have shown in what ways economic growth can be a bitch and recession a blessing for our people. I now come to the argument for growth based on the ability it gives us to be strong militarily and diplomatically, in the sense of giving other nations money to make them our friends. True, a military establishment is costly, but some nations do fine without a defense force or a small one, like Costa Rica, Sweden, and Malaysia. We can manage with a much smaller defense apparatus, if we are willing to forgo a dominant position in the world. We can then defend ourselves with worthy alliances and the promotion of an effective world government.
Moreover, safety comes not only from strength but also from cleverness. We don't need to possess massive forces which cost a lot, but advanced weapons in the hands of small but highly skilled and motivated group of citizens. Instead of placing large, expensive armies in harms way as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can strike enemies from the air or from space when the situation warrants that we punish them.
We should not keep forgetting the lessons we learned about the limits of our military power from Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan. When facing determined enemies who have no regard for human life, we would do better to keep our distance and fight them with unconventional weapons.
So much for what I am against in economic growth and for what I like in recessions. I am not against all growth, progress, and technology. I don't believe we have to have recessions to profit from self discipline and challenges. If the economy and the nation are going smoothly, that is the time to choose new challenges for ourselves from an inner need to achieve, such as our goal to land astronauts on the moon set up by the Kennedy administration. That was a glorious period in our history when our rockets went higher and higher into space, finally landing our astronauts on Earth's moon. We have not followed up that great achievement well enough. We never realized Arthur C. Clark's 2001 vision of moon colonies, although his idea of stationary satellites for communications, surveying, spying, and weapons platforms was more than fully exploited, with thousands now circling the globe, including much space junk.
We need some economic growth to support such glorious achievements as space exploration. What is the right kind and amount of economic growth that satisfies our essential needs without polluting or wasting, growth that improves our bodies, minds, and spirits--phenotypes and genotypes--growth that allows us to be as good as we can be now and what we can become as a species? There is an economic growth that may not show up in GNP, but it improves the quality of our lives, protecting our planet, for many more years our only livable home.. That is the growth I would like.
I like growth in the fine arts and sciences, not contributing much to GNP; growth that preserves our precious and precarious civilization so far advanced by a few rare individuals around the world, our cultural heritage of many forms in different lands; that protects the unique and irreplaceable resources of the Earth, including animal and plant species rapidly approaching extinction; that saves the purity of Earth's air, water and land; that recycles the valuable minerals in the soil and rocks, necessary for our continuing technical and scientific progress.
I don't admire economic growth based on cosmetic expensive surgeries, gambling casinos, liquor, cigarettes, pornography, cruise ships with no practical destination, fancy clothing, fattening foods, diet centers, nose jobs, tummy tucks, expensive drugs for otherwise manageable conditions, new cars every three years, wasting of fuel and other energy sources, water-wasting lawns, bigger houses cluttered with furniture and bric-a-brac, idiotic television, radio and theater shows, gaudy jewelry, fifteen-hundred dollar bags for women, million-dollar sports cars for rich men, and French perfumes and gowns. Why are we installing wall-to-wall carpeting on our floors, instead of tile, wood, or stone with throw rugs? Why do we put up with cheap unrepairable appliances, electronics, a thousand other items from China with ninety-day warranties, which quickly end up in our dumps or back in China for their materials?
I liked the lifestyles promoted by Mother Earth Catalog with inexpensive products and techniques for sustainable agriculture, housing, and transportation. Why did Mother Earth Catalog close down? Who bought the operation? Who bought the electric trolley cars in our cities, ripped up the rail, and built freeways? We bought the automobile and a life shaped by the automobile. Our cities spread and sprawled, eating up good green land and spewing out asphalt roads, houses, offices, factories, shopping centers, and malls. It was Capitalism in action.
We have seen the failure of Fascism and Nazism, the failure of Socialism and Communism--thank God! Now we have seen the failure of Capitalism from an orgy of greed, from a concentration of money, power, and influence in a few hands around the world. What social system shall we now trust with our lives, happiness, and aspirations?
Our Western, commercial, capitalistic, materialistic culture has serious fractures. The Muslim fanatics are shaking its structure; it may be ready to fall mostly of its own weak weight like the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
We will not find the best social system in authoritarian ways, or in communal attempts, or capitalistic greed. I too was once carried by the greed for money, which took me beyond need. I was in such a period in my life where I had achieved financial independence by means of hard work and shrewd investments. I had financial independence, income for all my reasonable needs with a simple lifestyle.
The Reagan recession of 1981 and my prior uncontrolled ambition and greed caused me to lose everything I had achieved financially. I resolved then that if ever again I acquired enough wealth for my family's needs, I would never be seduced by consumerism, the lust for more money, more power, more fame. Enough would be enough then; and so it happened. Now I seek and try to practice the simple life with my modest but safe financial resources. I would not go as far as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, but simple enough.
I want to sing in praise of simplicity, even moderate asceticism. I don't mean to flagellate my body, beat my back with chains, to punish or humiliate the body for the glory of God and the spirit; no, not that kind of asceticism, but an asceticism to toughen, strengthen, and energize the body with a lean, enterprising lifestyle, while giving it all it needs to grow strong and supple. Think of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, fasting for long days, meditating, but not reaching Nirvana, until he had received good nourishment from a kind woman.
My brother and I cultivate an orchard and vegetable garden on a small piece of land for our own use and enjoyment. We live in modest houses without mortgages or expensive furniture. We drive old cars in good repair. Our produce is not enough to live on, but it saves us some money, and it is fresh, organic, and delicious. Our entire nation would do well to follow a simple way of living, instead of mortgaging its future for
expensive cars and houses, fancy foods and clothing, trips abroad, and silly luxuries. Bank the income you save thus, and invest it in solid companies. You will profit, your family will get ahead, and your country will be solvent and prosperous, if your countrymen follow your example.
A country is no different from a family, a business, or a city in matters of finance. If citizens of a nation work hard, creatively, and efficiently the nation makes good profits trading with other nations; if officials manage the earnings well, not spending to excess, saving, and investing the surplus, the nation acquires capital and other assets, and prospers. A good example of such a nation is Switzerland. But if a nation squanders its earnings, borrows too much to spend on wars, unproductive giveaways, and other foolish ventures, then that nation inevitably becomes bankrupt, and defaults on its debts, either openly, or by inflating its currency, that is, printing more money than is sufficient for trading. We in America are becoming an example of such a nation.
As a country goes, so do inevitably most of its citizens. Instead of economic growth, instead of the fear of recession, I value freedom of action and thought; I value independence, the satisfaction of the basic needs for all our people through their own individual efforts, if they are able: simple, healthy, fresh food, a simple shelter, safety from criminals, clean streets and towns, fresh air and pure water. These things we had in our villages; we traded them for money, growth, and our so-called progress. May the giant recession to come bring them back to us.
Andros, Greece, July 2009
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
In Search of Meaning
It is generally agreed in our society, among the haves as well as among those that have not, that economic growth is greatly to be desired. Business prospers; managers and owners get richer to live more lavish lifestyles, and the workers hold on to their jobs, getting by without too much hardship, able to feed their children, love their women, and have more children. Welfare beneficiaries see benefits increase, thus allowing them to feed their huge families bigger portions of pork and potatoes. Politicians believe economic growth is great, bringing in more tax revenues for their cherished programs. Even charities and the arts profit from economic growth, getting more donations to expand their good works. Except for a few sober souls, nobody wants to quit the party of spending, consuming, selling, borrowing, investing, and growing the gross national product, GNP; they keep GNP going until the inevitable bust arrives--and the hangover, such as the one we have these days. In America, we have been most diligent listening and dancing to the mantra of frantic economic growth, rapidly populating our Western frontiers and industrializing our major cities. With the Calvinist work ethic guiding us, we have built up the most productive and the most wasteful economy in the world, and with it, the most powerful armed forces. I am here to sing a different mantra, to belt out my song cursing the bitch goddess of economic growth, and to ask you to seek out a more benign deity for worship.
You may say now, surely you must be joking, Dr. Gala; what’s wrong with jobs and prosperity for all, a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, a television set in every room, a cell phone in every hand, and electric appliances everywhere to eliminate drudgery? There’s nothing wrong with this kind of prosperity, my friends, if you can keep it up; but you can’t. Our little planet can’t take it any more. Our beautiful blue- white Earth is choking in fumes from our vehicles, furnaces, and factories. The rain forests are cut down, oceans are polluted, and Earth is heating up rapidly with carbon dioxide and methane, turning into another Venus, a hellish place for all living things.
Ah, Venus, such a lovely, romantic place, it was covered with green pastures and lush forests under brilliant white skies, peopled by languid, gentle races devoted to love and dancing; then our cruel space probes revealed Venus to be somewhat hot, with surface temperatures of 850 degrees Fahrenheit, draped in poisonous clouds of methane gas, belting down acid rain. On the other side of the Earth, we had pleasantly cool Mars of the red soils, cultivated by a brilliant race of diligent people, builders of a vast canal system across the planet, bringing precious water from the poles to fertile fields and elegant towns. Gone is that Mars too, destroyed by our lander probes and other pesky tools of our technology, showing a surface of bitter cold, parched land, lifeless thin air, stirred violently by dust storms. Or, were these planets reduced to hellish holes by long-lost cultures of beings that went too far with population growth and exploding GNP, vile
technologies burning up vital resources and scattering poisons far and wide, as we are doing here on Earth?
Let’s first take up population growth. Nations want more people on their land, unless, like China, they have too many. National leaders with enough power impose birth control to decrease the population or increase it. Most tribes and nations want to grow in numbers to secure their borders against hostile neighbors. With equal technology, the more populous tribe has a decided advantage over one with fewer numbers of warriors. Organized religions are also in favor of allowing any number of births God blesses, because of the sacredness of human life, especially of their own faith.
I suppose human life is sacred, while animals and plants possess value primarily as food. Yet, our ultimate survival depends on the entire web of living things on Earth. Is there sacredness in human life, when we have so many humans on the planet causing ecological disaster? Ten million people on the planet were not a threat to Earth’s health. Ten billion humans soon to arrive on the scene are a deadly threat.
We are beginning to realize the problem of overpopulation in the better educated, and more affluent nations, which are largely democracies, free to decide issues. Most of Europe and Japan have stable or declining birth rates. Italy, which half a century ago had the highest birthrate in Europe, now has the lowest, with the exception of Russia perhaps. Is there a lesson from Italy, a Catholic country? Did the Italians succeed in birth control with the rhythm method? The Russians did it with vodka. The U.S. is growing more populous, because of immigration and the Latino minority. But most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have an exploding growth of human populations. These are the areas where people are poorest and least well educated or trained.
Similarly, in rich countries, the poorest and least educated sections of the population produce most of the births. Friends, draw your own conclusions. Desperate immigrants from the poor countries are flooding the rich nations legally or illegally. Since education and wealth are the best contraceptives especially for women, liberate the women, keep them from being pregnant, barefoot, ignorant, oppressed by their men, and help the men also get educated and wealthy. When parents are busy acquiring university degrees and investment savings, seeing to their children doing the same, they haven’t the time to reproduce much. Bertrand Russell pointed out the statistic that two Harvard men have one child. I don’t know if the two men work at it together or separately.
George, my brother-in-law, has a solution for overpopulation—tongue in cheek. Shrink the size of humans as we have done with wolves to poodles, or as far as genetic engineering allows us. A grown human the size of a finger would consume a lot fewer resources. Think how many such tiny humans could fit in a plane, how much less they would eat and pollute the Earth. Unfortunately, this solution only translates the problem of population growth to the time when our engineered species numbers in the trillions.
Biologists have established that when an animal population grows unchecked, it eventually destroys its environmental resources, and ends up in a catastrophic decline; that’s true for lemmings in the forested north and rats in the tropical cane fields. It is also true for humans. We had such a catastrophe on Easter Island in the Pacific. The population there was 60,000 at its peak; but when the trees were cut down and the soils washed into the ocean, the population crashed down to the 600 people or so that live on the island today. The great stone heads of their gods did not help the Easter Islanders to survive.
The Earth today is such an island, floating in space, being rapidly deprived of living resources, with nowhere for us to go but to our doom. Let us praise God, ask for His forgiveness, and beg for His mercy.
God is great, compassionate, and merciful. He instructed us to multiply, cover the Earth from the poles to the equator, and be masters of our world. We have done so. Now is the time to become masters of ourselves and limit our numbers voluntarily; otherwise, Nature, God’s alter ego, will do it for us painfully. We see Nature’s disciplinary action in the densely populated areas of Africa and Asia, famine and war ravaging innocent people. How many Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Pakistan disasters do we need to witness to get the message?
Let good people go to scenes of deprivation the world over; let them help the orphaned, the hungry, and the sick. I admire the work of the Peace Corps volunteers, the gifts of the great philanthropists, like Bill and Melinda Gates, George Soros, and Oprah Winfrey. I would be more admiring if these people focused on the more important problem of excessive reproduction in desperately poor countries. When parents in Africa own 100 acres to cultivate, it is enough for the family. Having ten children, they bequeath to each one 10 acres, which is barely enough for survival if the soil is fertile. When the children have ten children of their own each, now there is only enough land to starve on.
A solution for world hunger was offered by Frances Moore Lappé in “Diet for a Small Planet.” The idea was to produce complete proteins and other essential nutrients from plants, which use much less land than animals, thus allowing us to feed ten times more people with the acreage and water available for cultivation. A great solution, provided people would stop multiplying so fast.
If rich nations would donate a dollar for education and training for each dollar they give for food and medicine, we might have some progress in population control and wealth building in poverty stricken countries. Does the world need more places like Haiti and Somalia? Then, on humanitarian grounds, give poor nations more food and medicine with no strings attache. You end up with a disastrous welfare system on a planetary scale. You want some success in your efforts? Give rice to poor people in exchange for them learning practical knowledge and skills, not for parroting Christian dogmas.
Because poverty and ignorance breed more Taliban and the like, who become the tools of bin Laden and the like, fighting poverty and ignorance has to be our first priority, not warring on al-Qaeda.
Now let me turn to the second issue of excessive consumption and production, growth in the GNP of countries in the world. This leads to population growth, which in turn demands further growth in the GNP, a spiral to the precipice of disaster, unless recession intervenes, thank God. Learn to love recessions. They slow down consumption, which saves resources and delays ecological disaster in the world. Recession also slows down human reproduction. Consider what happened in the Great Depression in the United States and elsewhere. Baby making went largely out of fashion. When prosperity returned after the Second World War, we got a baby boom.
We profit from recessions. Traveling and motoring slows down, resulting in less air pollution. People economize on heating and cooling too, which also helps. People buy fewer products, so there is less trash filling our dumps and streets.
Were we to continue growing economies around the world, trash would eventually cover the Earth to the height of Mount Everest. Demanding more goods, energy, and raw materials, developed countries provide capital, technology, and management to undeveloped nations to build factories and exploit their natural resources for raw materials to export. Rich nations get richer from trade, enjoying cheaper imports from China, India, and other places, and the developing nations become less poor; and if allowed by authorities, more populous. Billions of people in these poor nations now want and buy the stuff rich nations enjoy, because in movies and television they gawk at fast cars, fine houses and furniture, splendid clothing, delicious foods, and other luxuries which wealthy people enjoy. Globalization leads to lust for material possessions around the Earth, a world-class appetite. The process does not stop, until a big economic recession arrives.
Thank God for economic recessions. Love recessions and profit. You can profit from a recession by preparing for it, because it will always follow a growth period. During a period of prosperity, save your money, don’t spend it like the rest of your community. When you see prices of assets, stocks or real estate becoming ridiculously high, sell and cash out. The boom may go on for a while longer, you can never tell when its end will come; but it will come. The seeds of economic decline are sown in growth times: higher prices of goods, higher wages, credit overextended, free spending by consumers, industry, and government. When the boom has ended, go shopping for cheap assets. The economy eventually recovers, and you will be sitting on gold.
That’s the game Bernard Baruch and Joe Kennedy, Jack Kennedy’s dad, among other shrewd operators, played in the times of the Great Depression. One quarter of the workers were jobless, soup lines stretched out for blocks in big cities, and these shrewd operators basked in monetary sunshine.
The problem with recessions, or depressions, is that politicians can’t leave them alone to do their good work. If politicians did not react to downturns in the economy, leaders would not stay in power for long. Unemployed voters are not to be laughed at. During the Great Depression, led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, politicians started a slew of social programs to help the unfortunate poor voters and other citizens lacking in foresight, government programs such as social security, unemployment benefits, welfare, and unnecessary public construction. These programs, still saddling us today, did little good to improve the economy then, but they cheered people up. U.S. citizens elected FDR for president three times. These days we have Barack Obama following in FDR’s footsteps.
What is the good work a recession does, if left alone? A recession disciplines workers to produce better and more goods for less pay, businessmen to manage more efficiently, and investors to be more wary and wise. Government officials also tighten their budgets sometimes, not often, because tax collections are down when people earn less. Altogether, people in a recession learn to be thrifty and save for their futures, keeping their families in check both in size and expense. You can profit that way too. Get your family budget ship shape and work harder. Start a new business enterprise, if you are able. You can acquire business equipment cheaply in a recession, hire better employees for lower wages, and be ready for the upturn to turn a nice profit and to grow your enterprise. The misfortune of a recession is an opportunity to earn wealth.
People amuse me when they complain about the lack of opportunities in a recession. Workers say there is no work for them. What they really mean is that there are no jobs, or better still positions, available that will pay them what they have been accustomed to receive in wages. First, work is always out there for people to do if they are willing to do it for no or little payment. Second, a job is work for wages, you perform for results under strict supervision; a position is where you have a desk to come to when you feel like it, rather than call in sick, and where you can put up your feet, light a cigarette, and drink a cup of coffee before starting to shuffle paperwork. Most people feel they deserve a position and the government had damn well give it to them, if politicians want to be elected.
I wonder sometimes how democracy ever manages national affairs in competition with authoritarian regimes. The French political historian Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the new American democracy that people would vote themselves benefits from the state treasury until the nation went bankrupt. We are coming to that, but it has taken us over two hundred years to accomplish it. In the meantime, it is a paradox how democracy survives and on occasion flourishes. The paradox is how people of average intelligence are able vote for people with a high enough intelligence to run the affairs of a nation effectively. The paradox was resolved in democratic Athens of ancient Greece with the patrician Pericles in charge for thirty years, bringing about the golden age of that city and state, a lucky event. In America, we were lucky with the founding fathers of the republic, brilliant and wise men, elected by farmers and tradesmen, and a few times
thereafter, with Lincoln, F.D.R., Reagan, and perhaps with luck, Obama.
Our nation can best be served by brilliant and able people, a true nobility of aristocrats with Plato’s philosopher king at the head, if we can trust these people to serve out their useful lives, and not foist upon us the less than savory fruits of their loins.
Let me restate the issue and my position. Economic growth, a larger Gross National Product (GNP), is sought by nearly every person. A growing GNP is good, right? Business owners, managers, and investors love it for it makes them richer. Workers want economic growth for it means more jobs, higher pay, more benefits to enjoy. Government officials and politicians think growth is great for it fills the treasury with cash for their programs. Even the arts and charities receive larger donations when everybody is making plenty of money. Yet, economic growth is a bitch goddess, not deserving our worship and adoration, because it is leading inevitably to the destruction of the planet and the end of humanity.
Still, economists stress that recessions and depressions are terrible for people and their societies, leading to widespread business failures, bankruptcies, deaths of ruined investors jumping out of upper story windows, layoffs of workers, homicides and suicides of desperate fathers, widespread poverty and civil unrest, even revolution and dictatorship. Agreed. Economic recessions should be avoided; and the best way to do that is to avoid economic growth. Each cycle of economic growth sows the seeds of the next recession by encouraging over-spending by consumers and businesses, fostering inefficiencies in production, and fueling inflation.
Monetary inflation from economic growth damages the health of commercial life; worse, inflation of the people around their waists and of childbearing leads to unhealthy people and an unhealthy society needing more jobs to feed more mouths and to employ new workers.
Thus economic growth causes population growth, recession reduces it and the threats to the planet. The best situation to achieve is no growth and no recession, once the population reaches a stable number which allows for a healthy habitat for humanity and other living things.
A no-growth policy for the GNP and the population is best for our future. The simple life, with few luxuries in food, clothing, shelter and transportation will bring us better health. I try to follow this program in my life, and I recommend this to you and your community. Rich, high-calorie, high-fat foods cause individuals to get diabetes, heart-disease, and stroke. People then go to medicines, surgery, and forced idleness from disabilities, while the GNP increases in health care production to take care of them. Easy mechanical transportation weakens our bodies and deprives us of vital sources of exercise, while giant companies keep producing more automobiles, including gas guzzling SUV's. The GNP gets another boost. We go to gyms and spas to lose fat,
instead of bicycling or walking. The sales of the gyms and spas are added to the gross domestic product. The Chinese had it right a few decades ago when their streets were like rivers of bicycles, with only a few cars moving slowly in the streams. Their younger generation now does not exercise so much bicycling and has turned to gyms with the same ardor as Americans.
Am I proposing a return to the simple life of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Henry David Thoreau? Shall we go back to being noble savages, like the Last of the Mohicans, living the tribal life on the open land or in villages, recapturing our ancient communal life? Yes, to both questions with some reservations.
I don't want to give up on civilization which flourishes in larger cities, or throw away scientific and technical progress that has opened some new vistas, including space, that has enriched and and genuinely bettered our daily lives. Knowledge from scientific investigations is always good to have, and technical inventions can provide us with many good tools for a life in harmony with nature, such as solar power, an understanding of genetics from DNA, and computers--storing, processing, presenting, and communicating vast amounts of information.
I object to the extensive use of medicines and surgeries for diseases which are preventable. Take the simple case of laxatives for constipation filling shelves in our drugstores, constipation normally preventable with more fiber in our foods. How about all the heart and blood vessel surgeries, adding significantly to our GNP, that would be rendered unnecessary with more exercise, less food, and better relaxation methods, such a yoga and meditation? The best way to control our mounting health care costs is not disease treatment but disease prevention. Prevention would cause a reduction in the GNP and unemployment among medical workers, until they switched to health services.
Our doctors and hospitals are often erroneously named health workers and health centers. As a rule, they are nothing of the sort. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and hospital staff workers are not trained to disseminate health, but to treat disease, and that is what they practice; they are disease workers. As a result they earn high incomes, and contribute much to GNP, but people suffer from unnecessary treatments from diseases that could have been prevented by genuine health professionals.
Go to a certified, registered, university trained professional complaining of a pain in your side. After some blood, urine, and other tests, the surgeon proposes to cut and sew your problem; the family doctor will prescribe drugs; the psychologist will offer you therapy; the psychiatrist, analysis, the chiropractor will want to fix your pain with a spinal adjustment; the homeopathic physician with herbs and natural therapies; the minister will ask you to pray for God's healing; that last one may be your best bet.
With the exceptions of some infections and accidents damaging our tissues, medical treatments are a waste of money and other resources. Eighty percent of disease
is cured by your body's own healing mechanisms. Doctors simply oversee this process, standing by to intervene, if necessary, with more drastic invasions of your body. Medicine doesn't have a treatment for the common cold, although again our drugstore shelves are stacked with palliatives for it; but nature does. Nature fights colds, flues and many other infections with a strong immune system, which we acquire eating small amounts of nutritious foods, exercising, sunning our bodies outdoors, being cheerful, keeping good company, and getting enough rest. Such disease prevention would not add much to our vaunted GNP.
The best of all ways to improve the health of the population is to encourage births of healthy babies, with thorough prenatal care and selection of fit parents. Such selection is more feasible in totalitarian regimes, as in Nazi Germany. In democratic societies voters may agree to give more tax deductions and other aid for child bearing and rearing to the physically and mentally fit couples, rather than to the unfit--fitness determined by standardized tests without regard to race, religion, or ethnicity. We breed animals and plants for those merits useful to humans: cows for milk, race horses for speed, dogs for hunting, guarding, shepherding, or loving, corn for larger cobs. For merits in people we don't own as slaves, we can look beyond superficial characteristics-- such as skin, hair, or eye color; bodily size; shape of lips, ears, or nose—look to health, character, and intelligence. With teachings and customs, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims and a few other religious or ethnic groups encourage large families for their members, without regard to the quality of the parents.
If you learn from statistics that congenital diseases and defects are increasing with each generation, in spite of better nutrition, education, training, and medical care, you know we are having problems with our gene pool, the genes in our population.
In the long run, nothing will better our society more than continuously improving the gene pool with respect to intelligence, character, and health of our people; otherwise, no charity, no welfare, no safety net, no social security, no government health insurance, no freedom, no justice, no equality, no full employment, no compassion for the unfortunate among us, none of these benefits will do much to stop the decline in the quality of our nation. The Earth doesn't need more people; it needs better people.
We'll have better, healthier, stronger, wiser people, not only with genetics, but also, as I have stated earlier, with disciplines such as those imposed on us by deep recessions. Hard times, in moderation, produce strong people; easy times allow butter soft individuals to float up. Let us begin with you and me. If we lie down on our favorite couch or armchair many hours a day watching television or passing the time idly in some manner, our bodies and brains soon become lethargic, weak, and fragile. We get strong and energetic again, when we get up and work our muscles and brains hard enough.
Next, what is best for our children, grandchildren, students, and other charges is
raising them up, not to a life of ease and comfort, but to the strenuous life, as Theodore Roosevelt called it. You want your charges to be tough, confident, successful, independent, and free, then give them enough challenges to overcome, suitable to their level of growth. You may appear to be cruel and heartless to them; explain the reasons for your behavior. You can still be there to comfort, encourage, and give them a helping hand when they crash; cheer them on when they fly high in the face of steep difficulties and stiff competition. The steel of heart, mind, and spirit is forged in the searing heat of adversity.
As it goes for individuals, so it is for societies. Even if elected to office, good leaders don't coddle but challenge the people, applying discipline. If a community enjoys riches, luxuries, and ease, civilization may emerge with culture and fine arts, but soon, grown strong in hardship, barbarians break down the gates of the city, torch splendid buildings, steal or trample priceless treasures, put the defeated people to the sword and ravish young virgins.
Recession, deprivation, pain--bring them on. When competitive pressure eases up, we become slack in our ways. With economic growth, we build more houses and shopping centers, cutting down trees, denuding the land of its vital green cover, wasting the soils, the waters, the breath of life. We waste more, we pollute more, we despoil more of the Earth's purity.
Again in hard times, when jobs are scarce, family members are brought close together as of old, extending the reach of love to all in need, supporting each other. In poor Bali, Indonesia, extended families build compounds for children, brothers, sisters, and their children, with a communal kitchen in the center to share whatever food is available. The country is clean, unspoiled, and peaceful, no structure rising above the level of the trees. That's not such a bad life; at least it's free of loneliness.
Surely there is much grinding, horrible poverty in many parts of our world: people starving, sick without medical care, open sewers, hovels for housing, men, women, and children digging in garbage for their livelihood. We don't want that.
But there is another side to poverty. That's people living close to the land, getting their basic needs cultivating the soil in homesteads or villages, serving each other in trades as in ancient times, doing much for themselves: cutting their own nails and hair, making clothes, cooking their own food from simple ingredients, making baskets, carpets and pottery, preserving foods by drying or salting for the winter, building their own simple houses with the help of neighbors, making their own repairs, riding donkeys, horses, and carts for transportation, using simple home remedies for illness and injury.
I remember a documentary about a pigmy family in a simple hut with a leafy roof. It 's raining and the wife says to her husband, the roof is leaking. He gets out, cuts a couple of big leaves and patches the roof. They go back to sleep.
Agreed, the GNP for such societies is low, the average income in dollars is measured in a few hundred each year, but that does not mean such people do not survive, thrive, and are happy. In America, of all places, the Amish live with reasonable security and happiness, relying largely on eighteenth century technology. They gain little from economic booms, and suffer even less from recessions.
You can live well and in good health with beans and grains, wild greens, a few vegetables from a garden patch, some eggs from your own chicken coop, and milk from a nanny goat. All you need is two good acres of land and independence.
In America, back in the sixties we had a movement away from consumerism. Young people resisted the siren song of Madison Avenue for more goods, luxuries, cars, and perfumes. In Berkeley, California, students buried automobiles in the dirt. Elsewhere, youngsters built domes for housing with old car tops, inspired by Richard B. Fuller's geodesics. A counter culture of communes, anti-war sentiment, and anti-materialism arose, giving hope for the greening of America. The Beatles sang, “All You Need Is Love,” and young people turned on to flowers, romance, and high hope, dropping out of the rat race of the consumer society. What happened to the greening of America? Where did we drown our aspirations for an ecological society? When did we forget our vision of a green Earth, and learned to love the SUV?
America led the world in the green revolution back in the sixties. We are leaders on this planet for good reasons: we are a diverse people from all corners of the world, we tolerate all religions if they are tolerable, we have freedom, democracy, education, dollars, gold, natural resources, land, ingenuity, resourcefulness—we have what the rest of humanity wants. We are the hope of the world or its disappointment in what we do with our assets. Other nations took up the lead in the green revolution: Germany, Denmark, and Holland; we went on to unprecedented wasting and polluting.
In 1973, after a waging war on Israel, a country allied to America, Arab countries imposed an oil embargo on us, from which other countries suffered also. A severe economic recession followed as well as inflation. Richard M. Nixon fell from power after the antics of his minions at Watergate, and his successor in the presidency in 1976, Jimmy Carter began a program of energy independence for America, and a switch away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of electricity with subsidies for solar power. People didn't vote for him a second time, weary of stagflation, malaise, and interest rates in the stratosphere.
Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in 1981, launching a vigorous program of tax cuts, deregulation, and arming against the Soviet Union in the midst of a severe recession. Oil producing states and companies started playing a different game, providing cheap energy, and hooking us again on their black liquid—gold for them, opium for us. The economy boomed. Detroit flourished anew, providing us with muscle
cars, huge gas guzzlers, culminating in the obscenely wasteful Hummer SUV. These days the Detroit culture of waste and pollution is sinking. Should we not be cheering this event, instead of throwing lifesavers of our tax money to Detroit?
I am against burning valuable and irreplaceable fossil fuels for energy to run automobiles or plants, when the sun and earth's core provide plenty of nearly free energy for all our reasonable needs. There is something inherently unattractive in oil or coal burning engines. Think of the beauty we see in old windmills, watermills, sailing ships, and horses used in our past for transportation and processing. We sense in these old artifacts and animals something right with the world we live in. They don't force things. They move in harmony with wind, water and soil, causing no destruction, no wasting, no pollution.
In a Greek island village where I live summers, most people drive automobiles now; but one old farmer, Barba Antonis, goes up and down the hills on his donkey. He parks the animal outside his house, roped, to fuel up on grass. The hardy animal never needs repairs. It doesn't pollute, but fertilizes the ground it feeds on. The donkey doesn't go fast or far, but Barba Antonis doesn't either. We could go that way too, with a deep enough recession.
Cheer the recession on then, love it and profit from the opportunities. House prices collapse, so housing for those who are employed becomes affordable again. Unemployed professionals start new enterprises, as they have always done in recessions, some of which enterprises will become the Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, Google, of the new economic re-birth. But let us not forget to stop the growth in the economy before it begins to wreck our hard-won disciplines of thrift and efficiency, before it resumes the wrecking of our human habitat.
I have shown in what ways economic growth can be a bitch and recession a blessing for our people. I now come to the argument for growth based on the ability it gives us to be strong militarily and diplomatically, in the sense of giving other nations money to make them our friends. True, a military establishment is costly, but some nations do fine without a defense force or a small one, like Costa Rica, Sweden, and Malaysia. We can manage with a much smaller defense apparatus, if we are willing to forgo a dominant position in the world. We can then defend ourselves with worthy alliances and the promotion of an effective world government.
Moreover, safety comes not only from strength but also from cleverness. We don't need to possess massive forces which cost a lot, but advanced weapons in the hands of small but highly skilled and motivated group of citizens. Instead of placing large, expensive armies in harms way as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can strike enemies from the air or from space when the situation warrants that we punish them.
We should not keep forgetting the lessons we learned about the limits of our military power from Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan. When facing determined enemies who have no regard for human life, we would do better to keep our distance and fight them with unconventional weapons.
So much for what I am against in economic growth and for what I like in recessions. I am not against all growth, progress, and technology. I don't believe we have to have recessions to profit from self discipline and challenges. If the economy and the nation are going smoothly, that is the time to choose new challenges for ourselves from an inner need to achieve, such as our goal to land astronauts on the moon set up by the Kennedy administration. That was a glorious period in our history when our rockets went higher and higher into space, finally landing our astronauts on Earth's moon. We have not followed up that great achievement well enough. We never realized Arthur C. Clark's 2001 vision of moon colonies, although his idea of stationary satellites for communications, surveying, spying, and weapons platforms was more than fully exploited, with thousands now circling the globe, including much space junk.
We need some economic growth to support such glorious achievements as space exploration. What is the right kind and amount of economic growth that satisfies our essential needs without polluting or wasting, growth that improves our bodies, minds, and spirits--phenotypes and genotypes--growth that allows us to be as good as we can be now and what we can become as a species? There is an economic growth that may not show up in GNP, but it improves the quality of our lives, protecting our planet, for many more years our only livable home.. That is the growth I would like.
I like growth in the fine arts and sciences, not contributing much to GNP; growth that preserves our precious and precarious civilization so far advanced by a few rare individuals around the world, our cultural heritage of many forms in different lands; that protects the unique and irreplaceable resources of the Earth, including animal and plant species rapidly approaching extinction; that saves the purity of Earth's air, water and land; that recycles the valuable minerals in the soil and rocks, necessary for our continuing technical and scientific progress.
I don't admire economic growth based on cosmetic expensive surgeries, gambling casinos, liquor, cigarettes, pornography, cruise ships with no practical destination, fancy clothing, fattening foods, diet centers, nose jobs, tummy tucks, expensive drugs for otherwise manageable conditions, new cars every three years, wasting of fuel and other energy sources, water-wasting lawns, bigger houses cluttered with furniture and bric-a-brac, idiotic television, radio and theater shows, gaudy jewelry, fifteen-hundred dollar bags for women, million-dollar sports cars for rich men, and French perfumes and gowns. Why are we installing wall-to-wall carpeting on our floors, instead of tile, wood, or stone with throw rugs? Why do we put up with cheap unrepairable appliances, electronics, a thousand other items from China with ninety-day warranties, which quickly end up in our dumps or back in China for their materials?
I liked the lifestyles promoted by Mother Earth Catalog with inexpensive products and techniques for sustainable agriculture, housing, and transportation. Why did Mother Earth Catalog close down? Who bought the operation? Who bought the electric trolley cars in our cities, ripped up the rail, and built freeways? We bought the automobile and a life shaped by the automobile. Our cities spread and sprawled, eating up good green land and spewing out asphalt roads, houses, offices, factories, shopping centers, and malls. It was Capitalism in action.
We have seen the failure of Fascism and Nazism, the failure of Socialism and Communism--thank God! Now we have seen the failure of Capitalism from an orgy of greed, from a concentration of money, power, and influence in a few hands around the world. What social system shall we now trust with our lives, happiness, and aspirations?
Our Western, commercial, capitalistic, materialistic culture has serious fractures. The Muslim fanatics are shaking its structure; it may be ready to fall mostly of its own weak weight like the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
We will not find the best social system in authoritarian ways, or in communal attempts, or capitalistic greed. I too was once carried by the greed for money, which took me beyond need. I was in such a period in my life where I had achieved financial independence by means of hard work and shrewd investments. I had financial independence, income for all my reasonable needs with a simple lifestyle.
The Reagan recession of 1981 and my prior uncontrolled ambition and greed caused me to lose everything I had achieved financially. I resolved then that if ever again I acquired enough wealth for my family's needs, I would never be seduced by consumerism, the lust for more money, more power, more fame. Enough would be enough then; and so it happened. Now I seek and try to practice the simple life with my modest but safe financial resources. I would not go as far as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, but simple enough.
I want to sing in praise of simplicity, even moderate asceticism. I don't mean to flagellate my body, beat my back with chains, to punish or humiliate the body for the glory of God and the spirit; no, not that kind of asceticism, but an asceticism to toughen, strengthen, and energize the body with a lean, enterprising lifestyle, while giving it all it needs to grow strong and supple. Think of the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, fasting for long days, meditating, but not reaching Nirvana, until he had received good nourishment from a kind woman.
My brother and I cultivate an orchard and vegetable garden on a small piece of land for our own use and enjoyment. We live in modest houses without mortgages or expensive furniture. We drive old cars in good repair. Our produce is not enough to live on, but it saves us some money, and it is fresh, organic, and delicious. Our entire nation would do well to follow a simple way of living, instead of mortgaging its future for
expensive cars and houses, fancy foods and clothing, trips abroad, and silly luxuries. Bank the income you save thus, and invest it in solid companies. You will profit, your family will get ahead, and your country will be solvent and prosperous, if your countrymen follow your example.
A country is no different from a family, a business, or a city in matters of finance. If citizens of a nation work hard, creatively, and efficiently the nation makes good profits trading with other nations; if officials manage the earnings well, not spending to excess, saving, and investing the surplus, the nation acquires capital and other assets, and prospers. A good example of such a nation is Switzerland. But if a nation squanders its earnings, borrows too much to spend on wars, unproductive giveaways, and other foolish ventures, then that nation inevitably becomes bankrupt, and defaults on its debts, either openly, or by inflating its currency, that is, printing more money than is sufficient for trading. We in America are becoming an example of such a nation.
As a country goes, so do inevitably most of its citizens. Instead of economic growth, instead of the fear of recession, I value freedom of action and thought; I value independence, the satisfaction of the basic needs for all our people through their own individual efforts, if they are able: simple, healthy, fresh food, a simple shelter, safety from criminals, clean streets and towns, fresh air and pure water. These things we had in our villages; we traded them for money, growth, and our so-called progress. May the giant recession to come bring them back to us.
Andros, Greece, July 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Why We Eat What We Eat
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.
(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.
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
Sex and the Senior
Sex and the Senior
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1406 Words)
The television series "Sex and the City" depicts the lives of New York women in their late thirties and early forties, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, a woman of considerable sex appeal of the sophisticated type. The film of the same name and the series have met with substantial critical and box office success. It is time for script writers and film makers now to produce "Sex and the Senior." I don't mean anything like "Dirty Old Men," where the sexual proclivities of the old are held up for ridicule and laughter, but more like "Terms of Endearment," a realistic treatment of the conflicts between men and women in middle and old age, funny conflicts, also tragic. Surely romantic love and sex are primarily for the young, Tristan and Isolde pairs, who usually marry after a few years of fooling around, producing the next generation; but today gray pride allows for older people the need and the right to enjoy love and sex, if they are up to it, for simple recreation; or, as in love birds, to foster affection and cooperation for couples in their roles demanded by family and society, to whatever extent they are able to perform these roles; for example, as grandparents, or new parents, if the woman is young enough and the man still potent.
Impecunious but ambitious younger women often marry older men who are famous or wealthy; such a marriage takes care of her needs and luxuries, her children are looked after properly, the old husband is less likely to stray, leaving her to survive on welfare; also, if he dies before she does, a likely event, she will be wealthy herself to have her choice among younger men for a new husband. Thus rich old men not infrequently continue to have children. My own grandfather on my mother's side married for the third time in his seventies a widow in her forties with children. She got pregnant but the children shamed them in aborting the child. Bing Crosby raised a second family with Kathryn. "The Odd Couple" star Tony Randall married a woman in her twenties; he was in his seventies and had two children, who sadly became orphans, but wealthy ones. Billionaire Rupert Murdock of News Corporation is raising a second family, while his older sons are taking over the reins of his empire.
Today seniors are not criticized as much for wanting love and sex, even marriage and children; we're in a liberation movement. The problem for seniors is not public criticism but private inclination. Often, due to age or illness, older people simply do not care for sex. Erections for the men are not that important in an relationship, in spite of the advertising for Viagra and Cialis. Even without an erection a man can satisfy a receptive woman if he desires to do so; consider how lesbians make love to each other. He may not have the libido to care enough to do it, or his partner may not be attractive enough to excite him.
As we age we become less attractive, even with cosmetics, liposuction, diet and exercise. Some old people, full of wrinkles, are beautiful when they display a unique character etched on their bodies, like gnarled olive trees which have born fruit for hundreds of years. That is not the sort of beauty that stimulates sexual passion. A man's libido is not raised by such beauty so he can perform in bed as men are expected to perform.
For older women the problem of finding a willing sexual partner is more difficult; men die younger so fewer of them are available in their age group for sex, and even fewer who care to engage in it or are able to do it. In recent years some women go to poor African or Asian countries for sex with younger men who are willing to love them for money. For men, commercial sex has been around for a long time in poor countries or rich ones; sex workers are available to take care of your sexual needs, if you have any and if you want that kind of quick entertainment.
A more lasting partnership may emerge between an old wealthy person and a young one who needs financial support to get educated or simply to get ahead and survive. It's not exactly prostitution if they like each other and both realize it's a temporary relationship until the young person has advanced or the old person has died or lost interest in sex. When my dad was in his sixties and separated from my mother, he was approached by poor young women who wanted that kind of relationship, but he declined; he thought such activity was undignified and dangerous. He liked to point out to old friends who got involved with young women, losing their money, health, and even their lives prematurely. A few years later, while walking in Hollywood streets for exercise, women would stop him and ask him if he wanted a date. He declined again but was puzzled that such women would offer their services to an old, obviously respectable man. Now my mother started wearing a black dress and shawl when she turned fifty; even then she was very charming and vivacious, and when living alone, she got offers from older men for sex or marriage until she became too old and decrepit. She always declined these propositions, but she liked to brag about them.
Clearly my dad and mom were biased against senior sex, even for themselves, where most people turn a blind eye. Such a bias was prevalent in their time but is now fading. We have a way to go before this bias disappears, as we do with race prejudice; we'll get there eventually as people realize old people are just old, not dead to the world while their bodies are still alive.
What is not fitting or proper is for old women to dress up and behave like chicks, or old men with wigs and pork bellies to strut around like young bucks. Being honest and acting your age is proper, without limiting yourself in behavior as long as you are decent and fair to others. Your partner, as old as you are or younger, should benefit from the relationship. You should promote the life of your young partners and be prepared to let go of them when they are ready to fly on their own or to other lovers. Engage in safe sex as much as you want without shame for your age; don't let your children, relatives, or friends make you feel you are doing something wrong just because you are old.
Old or not, most of us need sex for happiness and health as long as it is safe. Sexuality goes back billions of years in our ancestors, plants first, then animals, a basic tool of evolution, mixing genes to produce new varieties of beings. Sex in plants is seen in their flowering to attract insects for pollination; in animals, displays with color and sound are often used to attract a partner for reproduction: the female becomes receptive during heat, the male courts her and mounts, ejaculates quickly--for most species coupling is all over in a minute or two. Different behavior is seen in animals that mate for life, such as penguins and other birds, when both parents are needed for the successful rearing and survival of the offspring--and in humans for similar reasons. Couples continue to court each other, kissing and fondling. Parents stay together for the sake of the children. Some couples stay together for the sake of the grandchildren, also a good reason. My parents eventually got together again for the sake of their family and lived unhappily with each other until their ends in their nineties.
Other human couples stay together because they like each other as partners in life, loving each other till the end, or remain wedded because of habit, fear of being alone, lack of adventurous spirit, many reasons. Most such arrangements usually do not involve any sexual activity. One day one partner dies, or walks away, and an old person is left alone to fend for happiness. That person may desire sex still and seek it, but cannot find it in decent contacts--a difficult challenge.
What can we advise such a person? Reach out and touch someone if you like or love them; it's worth the trouble and the risk; it's part of the challenge of staying alive--and living--as we age.
By Basil Gala, Ph.D.
(1406 Words)
The television series "Sex and the City" depicts the lives of New York women in their late thirties and early forties, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, a woman of considerable sex appeal of the sophisticated type. The film of the same name and the series have met with substantial critical and box office success. It is time for script writers and film makers now to produce "Sex and the Senior." I don't mean anything like "Dirty Old Men," where the sexual proclivities of the old are held up for ridicule and laughter, but more like "Terms of Endearment," a realistic treatment of the conflicts between men and women in middle and old age, funny conflicts, also tragic. Surely romantic love and sex are primarily for the young, Tristan and Isolde pairs, who usually marry after a few years of fooling around, producing the next generation; but today gray pride allows for older people the need and the right to enjoy love and sex, if they are up to it, for simple recreation; or, as in love birds, to foster affection and cooperation for couples in their roles demanded by family and society, to whatever extent they are able to perform these roles; for example, as grandparents, or new parents, if the woman is young enough and the man still potent.
Impecunious but ambitious younger women often marry older men who are famous or wealthy; such a marriage takes care of her needs and luxuries, her children are looked after properly, the old husband is less likely to stray, leaving her to survive on welfare; also, if he dies before she does, a likely event, she will be wealthy herself to have her choice among younger men for a new husband. Thus rich old men not infrequently continue to have children. My own grandfather on my mother's side married for the third time in his seventies a widow in her forties with children. She got pregnant but the children shamed them in aborting the child. Bing Crosby raised a second family with Kathryn. "The Odd Couple" star Tony Randall married a woman in her twenties; he was in his seventies and had two children, who sadly became orphans, but wealthy ones. Billionaire Rupert Murdock of News Corporation is raising a second family, while his older sons are taking over the reins of his empire.
Today seniors are not criticized as much for wanting love and sex, even marriage and children; we're in a liberation movement. The problem for seniors is not public criticism but private inclination. Often, due to age or illness, older people simply do not care for sex. Erections for the men are not that important in an relationship, in spite of the advertising for Viagra and Cialis. Even without an erection a man can satisfy a receptive woman if he desires to do so; consider how lesbians make love to each other. He may not have the libido to care enough to do it, or his partner may not be attractive enough to excite him.
As we age we become less attractive, even with cosmetics, liposuction, diet and exercise. Some old people, full of wrinkles, are beautiful when they display a unique character etched on their bodies, like gnarled olive trees which have born fruit for hundreds of years. That is not the sort of beauty that stimulates sexual passion. A man's libido is not raised by such beauty so he can perform in bed as men are expected to perform.
For older women the problem of finding a willing sexual partner is more difficult; men die younger so fewer of them are available in their age group for sex, and even fewer who care to engage in it or are able to do it. In recent years some women go to poor African or Asian countries for sex with younger men who are willing to love them for money. For men, commercial sex has been around for a long time in poor countries or rich ones; sex workers are available to take care of your sexual needs, if you have any and if you want that kind of quick entertainment.
A more lasting partnership may emerge between an old wealthy person and a young one who needs financial support to get educated or simply to get ahead and survive. It's not exactly prostitution if they like each other and both realize it's a temporary relationship until the young person has advanced or the old person has died or lost interest in sex. When my dad was in his sixties and separated from my mother, he was approached by poor young women who wanted that kind of relationship, but he declined; he thought such activity was undignified and dangerous. He liked to point out to old friends who got involved with young women, losing their money, health, and even their lives prematurely. A few years later, while walking in Hollywood streets for exercise, women would stop him and ask him if he wanted a date. He declined again but was puzzled that such women would offer their services to an old, obviously respectable man. Now my mother started wearing a black dress and shawl when she turned fifty; even then she was very charming and vivacious, and when living alone, she got offers from older men for sex or marriage until she became too old and decrepit. She always declined these propositions, but she liked to brag about them.
Clearly my dad and mom were biased against senior sex, even for themselves, where most people turn a blind eye. Such a bias was prevalent in their time but is now fading. We have a way to go before this bias disappears, as we do with race prejudice; we'll get there eventually as people realize old people are just old, not dead to the world while their bodies are still alive.
What is not fitting or proper is for old women to dress up and behave like chicks, or old men with wigs and pork bellies to strut around like young bucks. Being honest and acting your age is proper, without limiting yourself in behavior as long as you are decent and fair to others. Your partner, as old as you are or younger, should benefit from the relationship. You should promote the life of your young partners and be prepared to let go of them when they are ready to fly on their own or to other lovers. Engage in safe sex as much as you want without shame for your age; don't let your children, relatives, or friends make you feel you are doing something wrong just because you are old.
Old or not, most of us need sex for happiness and health as long as it is safe. Sexuality goes back billions of years in our ancestors, plants first, then animals, a basic tool of evolution, mixing genes to produce new varieties of beings. Sex in plants is seen in their flowering to attract insects for pollination; in animals, displays with color and sound are often used to attract a partner for reproduction: the female becomes receptive during heat, the male courts her and mounts, ejaculates quickly--for most species coupling is all over in a minute or two. Different behavior is seen in animals that mate for life, such as penguins and other birds, when both parents are needed for the successful rearing and survival of the offspring--and in humans for similar reasons. Couples continue to court each other, kissing and fondling. Parents stay together for the sake of the children. Some couples stay together for the sake of the grandchildren, also a good reason. My parents eventually got together again for the sake of their family and lived unhappily with each other until their ends in their nineties.
Other human couples stay together because they like each other as partners in life, loving each other till the end, or remain wedded because of habit, fear of being alone, lack of adventurous spirit, many reasons. Most such arrangements usually do not involve any sexual activity. One day one partner dies, or walks away, and an old person is left alone to fend for happiness. That person may desire sex still and seek it, but cannot find it in decent contacts--a difficult challenge.
What can we advise such a person? Reach out and touch someone if you like or love them; it's worth the trouble and the risk; it's part of the challenge of staying alive--and living--as we age.
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