Trees of Knowledge

In response to Caryn: Full post here
Caryn noted that trees often appear in many stories and they always represent knowledge.

I wonder how much of that comes from the fact that trees have incredible life spans. When you mentioned Legend of Zelda, I instantly became more interested. The Great Deku tree in that games was one of the first living organisms created, and as such, has obtained a vast amount of knowledge. If I remember correctly, the great deku tree was based off of Jomon Sugi, a tree whose age is estimated to be between two and seven thousand years old. Additionally, there are many other tree's that have incredible ages, like the Methuselah tree in California (named after Methuselah from the bible). There is also a clonal colony of Aspens which has been  determined to be part of the same organism. OECD estimates that it's roots are upwards of 75,000 years old. With age comes knowledge, I suppose.

Also, it's pretty strange that religions like Christianity and Zoroastrianism deal out punishment for becoming knowledgeable. From the very beginning, it appears, these religions don't want anybody to know anything.

Teaching Independence - Hold My Hand

What does it mean to teach? What does it mean to learn? When I've learned something, or learned how to do something, it means that independent of other people. I suppose, by that definition, to teach means to guide someone so that they can eventually do something for themselves. To teach is to teach independence. I can imagine then, that the best scenario is that the teacher promotes independence, and the student seeks it. The worst would be that neither promotes or seeks independence. I was reflecting on this earlier this week while observing a teacher whom I would not consider good, trying to teach a student whom I would not consider good. Later I was told that the teacher was teaching well, I disagreed. The teacher was essentially leading a blindfolded child, by the hand, across a street and congratulating him for having succeeded in crossing it. The student, essentially the blindfolded child smiled because he had accomplished something even though he didn't know what he did or how he did it.

This happens often in Christianity, I think; though I don't know much about the frequency of such in other religions, I can imagine it's fairly frequent. They claim the lord has taught them something but then continue to pray for guidance in the same situation, they are convinced that god has helped them/will help them, so they rush blindly into a situation. If the situation works out favorably, they get happy and proud. They need to be lead by the hand and told how to live. After all, without god and government, who will tell us what to do?

To help people understand why children don't owe anything to their parents, I have drafted this scenario/example.


A - is the parents
You - are the child
book - is the 'gift of life'


A, because he wanted to, put a book in your house, unbeknownst to you. When you finally discover the book, you start to read it. The book is, in general, uneventful (kind of monotonous), though some parts in it made you laugh, other parts make you cry out of sadness, and some parts, yet, fill you with rage or disappointment. Person A, then, demands, not only that you keep the book which he wanted to give to you, but also that you pay him back for having given you the book in the first place. Though you enjoyed a few passages from it, or even if you enjoyed all of it, why should you have to pay him for slipping a book, that you didn't ask for, into your house?

Crawling Back to the Cave

In the allegory of the cave people are entertained by shadows on the back wall of a cave. They have to desire to see things that are real on the outside of the cave. When they are told to let loose their chains and to see the real world, they sometimes choose not to, or have a really difficult time in deciding to abandon their unjustified beliefs. It occurred to me that going into the cave is much easier than exiting it, You can spend you entire life enjoying reality and not being mindlessly entertained with fiction or things that are unknowable, some people, however, will find their way back to the cave to die. When faced with death, yearning for more life, or for some great sense of comfort and so on, many people crawl back to their cave and become content with and enjoy the storytelling of the shadows of religion.

Response: 'Abandonment' and Burden Shift

In response to Julia - Full comments here - http://juliamcla4.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-for-self-at-all-costs.html

I suppose I should agree that leaving the family is not selfless, though I think that it isn't selfish either. I promote the idea of equality for men and women. I think that men and women should have equal economic, social, civil, human rights, and so on. Meaning I think that any opportunity a man has, a woman should have to. The difference is, I am mostly concerned with the Human rights as it is the antecedent to all other rights. By definition I think that woman already have all of those rights. They have equal rights to take opportunities and responsibilities. They should be able to leave their families, if they want, but they should also be willing to take up the same responsibilities that they expect from others.

1.) That's irrelevant because a person could die at any moment anyhow. You don't need to be elderly to pass away, and when you do pass away, you leave your family with no more than you would have if became a Sannyasin. Additionally, most of these families have many generations, meaning that, it would probably fall on a variety of people even the males of the next generation.

2.) An elderly person or an ill person, who expects to die soon, should not choose to become a Sannyasin, I think. If they are ill or incredibly old they cannot successfully walk miles and miles and only survive off of bare minimum food intake. They would likely die on the side of the road somewhere. Additionally, the choice to become a Sannyasin is a choice to embark on a spiritual journey - it takes time. There is little point to embarking on a journey which could take a decade, if you only expect to live for ten months. I am uncertain if one could suggest that women are unable to 'abandon' their own 'obligations.' Women do, after all, have the same human rights as men - if they wanted to they could just as easily walk away from their 'obligations' and, in fact, some do. As Avery mentioned; It's not largely men who are ABLE to become Sannyasin, women are perfectly able to, some simply CHOOSE not to. To view this otherwise seems possibly sexist to me - when the women choose to become Sannyasini, they too are 'abandoning' their families, leaving only the man responsible. In any given family, men and women alike all have equal opportunity to become a member of the Sannyasa.

3.) We'll agree that leaving is not selfless; though it does not necessarily have to be selfish either, I think. Regarding the 'abandonment' of a loved one, he is going to die anyhow. Not letting him leave is only putting off the inevitable consequences and probably causing more suffering, given that with death, it is abrupt and you know he is dead, whereas with becoming a Sannyasin he leaves gradually and in good health. Your argument continues to state that women would pick up a heavy burden if the man left, this implies that it is already the man alone who is carrying this heavy burden, bearing the largest obligation in the family. It's also unfair for this to happen, but it seems like women have no particular objection to men taking on the entire burden. It is only when faced with having to do what men already do, actually being equal, that they begin to object and imply that men are somehow selfish in choosing not to continue carrying such a heavy burden

I also figured I should add that Women do indeed have a place in Indian society, they are fairly progressed in that sense. In some ways they are even further along than we are. Indira Gandhi was the second female head of modern government in the world and she also is the second longest serving Prime Minister (15 years). Also, Pratibha Patil is the current President of India and won the election receiving more than 2/3 of the vote (more than twice as many votes as the other candidate. She also took office at the age of 73, older than our oldest elected president.

Response: Leaving Family - Selfish, Selfless, or Something Else

Response to Julia: Go here for full comments - http://juliamcla4.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-for-self-at-all-costs.html#comment-form

I do agree with a good majority of the things that Avery has said. Avery addressed the possibility that leaving, even if it's not necessarily selfless, is not necessarily a bad thing either. I am going to talk about how leaving could actually be selfless, even taking the family into account.

For those who are reading this on just my blog - A Sannyasin is a person who has given up the material world possessions and connections with other people.

1.) There is no discernible legal difference between dying and becoming a Sannyasin. Thus, becoming a Sannyasin, legally dying, would result in all of the Sannyasin's property and wealth going to his family. This essentially eliminates of the problem of the family's dependency on him.

2.) Furthermore, leaving your family, if they are dependent on you, could be viewed as selfless. Such that, leaving a dependent family would force them to gain their own independence, which, mind you, they would have to do regardless - when he actually dies. Though, not only would they have to gain their own independence after the individual's death, they would also be left to mourn over his death, which would be an additional burden which could prevent them from becoming independent in a timely fashion.

3.) The family can also be selfish. As with we saw in the movie, the family had no actual objections other than "but who will care for us" (even though he stated that they would be supported). They didn't say they loved him and didn't want him to go; they only thought of themselves. It could very well be selfless to lead by example and, by leaving and giving up all of his possessions and wealth to them, teach them to be selfless.

4.) As I mentioned before, the individual seeking to become a Sannyasin is going to die eventually. Imagine how the family would feel if, after his death, they realized that it was only them that prevented him from becoming a Sannyasin; only they prevented him from becoming spiritually enlightened. I can imagine they they would experience heavy negative feelings (from guilt to sorrow) about this. It could then be considered selfless to prevent them from having this severe emotional distress.

Also, I would, related to family duty, recommend reading Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." All the suffering that Ethan goes through is a result of his acting on the 'familial duty' to support his mother. His choice to give up his own desires creates suffering for not just himself, but everyone he loves and many people whom he does not.
Supplementary - I would also recommend Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as an example of how feeding your family's dependence on you can, and does, turn them into the selfish, greedy kind of person that nobody likes.

On Selflessness, Selfishness, Self, and Family

I do agree with a good majority of the things that Avery has said. Avery addressed the possibility that leaving, even if it's not necessarily selfless, is not necessarily a bad thing either. I am going to talk about how leaving could actually be selfless, even taking the family into account.

For those who are reading this on just my blog - A Sannyasin is a person who has given up the material world possessions and connections with other people.

1.)  There is no discernible legal difference between dying and becoming a Sannyasin. Thus, becoming a Sannyasin, legally dying, would result in all of the Sannyasin's property and wealth going to his family. This essentially eliminates of the problem of the family's dependency on him.

2.) Furthermore, leaving your family, if they are dependent on you, could be viewed as selfless. Such that, leaving a dependent family would force them to gain their own independence, which, mind you, they would have to do regardless - when he actually dies. Though, not only would they have to gain their own independence after the individual's death, they would also be left to mourn over his death, which would be an additional burden which could prevent them from becoming independent in a timely fashion.

3.) The family can also be selfish. As with we saw in the movie, the family had no actual objections other than "but who will care for us" (even though he stated that they would be supported). They didn't say they loved him and didn't want him to go; they only thought of themselves. It could very well be selfless to lead by example and, by leaving and giving up all of his possessions and wealth to them, teach them to be selfless.

4.) As I mentioned before, the individual seeking to become a Sannyasin is going to die eventually. Imagine how the family would feel if, after his death, they realized that it was only them that prevented him from becoming a Sannyasin; only they prevented him from becoming spiritually enlightened. I can imagine they they would experience heavy negative feelings (from guilt to sorrow) about this. It could then be considered selfless to prevent them from having this severe emotional distress.

Also, I would, related to family duty, recommend reading Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." All the suffering that Ethan goes through is a result of his acting on the 'familial duty' to support his mother. His choice to give up his own desires creates suffering for not just himself, but everyone he loves and many people whom he does not.
Supplementary - I would also recommend Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as an example of how feeding your family's dependence on you can, and does, turn them into the selfish, greedy kind of person that nobody likes.