Hierarchy of Emotions

There seems to be a direct relationship between intelligence and the amount of emotions a species is capable of feeling.  Humans have evolved so much that we have more emotions than any other species, with cats, dogs, dolphins and elephants not far behind.  Like species on the tree of life, emotions evolved over time, in a hierarchy of adaptation. 

If we were to evolve even more, there would be other emotions to discover on the continuum of life.  We can already see this happening in our current age because some humans can feel more emotions than others.  For example, the feeling of transcendence cannot be felt by a majority of individuals, but certain people can, especially those who meditate.

The hierarchy of emotions begins with feeling alive.  Everything that lives is capable of feeling this way.  From this primitive emotion, the major ones and their derivatives branched away.  I believe this second tier would consist of love, fear, and sadness, for all the other emotions, like anger and jealousy, derive from them.  

Further derivations in the future will show what other feelings life is capable of having- usually from a combination of two emotions on the tier above them.  For example, there is the nervous-excited feeling most of us get, yet to my knowledge there isn't a word for it because it isn't felt commonly enough.  The feeling of anxiousness doesn't quite describe it because it's more related to impatience.  Once defined, this kind of emotion will combine with another on the same tier to become another, and so forth.  The emotions are like Russian Dolls inside a universal feeling, the most primitive feeling of aliveness resting in the smallest sphere.

Pacing in Sports

Baseball is the most conservative sport.  While the world around it has sped up, it stays the same slow sport it's always been.  I find it incredible that there aren't any time limits on pitches.  In the modern era, a time limit would speed up the game dramatically, making it much more watchable for all the fast-paced millennials. 

I'm also surprised by the game's lack of two-way players.  Surely there are players in high school and college that are loaded with talent at hitting, pitching, and fielding.  Babe Ruth was one of the top pitchers and hitters in baseball during his time.  I don't know of any other player in history who did both the way he could.  The talent is there, baseball just forces players to choose. 

Basketball has seen many phenomenal two-way players.  Lebron James, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Kevin Garnett, and Michael Jordan come to mind, among many others.  Football hasn't, but I can understand why, because their games are so grueling that it would be too exhausting to play every possession on offense and defense.  Baseball is slow enough that a premier pitcher should be given the chance to be a premier hitter on his days off.  It's reasonable to expect they would have the energy, even if they do play every day for three hours.   

In basketball you can't give it 100% effort all the time; you have to pick your spots to exert maximum energy.  Football and baseball are designed so you can, at least on the professional level.  The problem is that philosophy eliminates any potential for complete greatness in a sport.  If the rules favor specialists at each position, you are less likely to see a complete player on the field.  That's why the NBA is more fun to watch than the NFL and MLB- you get to see every player's full display of talent. 

Yasuo Kusama: The Future of Art?

 For a long time, I've been trying to figure out the direction classical art is taking.  Since paintings aren't that popular anymore, a shift must have taken placed after it phased out of Pop Art during the 1960s.   

Yesterday I found the answer: Yayoi Kusama, arguably the most famous artist in Japan right now.  For decades she's been using immersion to invite the viewer into her works.  Her exhibits feature large rooms with mirrors that the viewer can put themselves in, almost as if they were stepping into a painting just by being there.  When seen from afar, the viewer looks as if they are smack dab in the center of an abstract painting.  I can only imagine how fantastic of an experience this must be for the viewer.  Her Infinity Mirrors must be unlike anything ever experienced in the world of art. 

I believe this is the future of art because it transcends the past, a past in which in the viewer was limited to looking at pieces from a distance.  Art immersion is like virtual reality in a sense, only the sets around you are real, not digitally created (although I could also see digital representations being used as a branch of this movement).  The feeling one gets when experiencing Kusama's work is also futuristic, in the way that its cosmic vastness puts the viewer in touch with the infinite. 

Atlantic

    Out there we'll be forgiven, on waters where the years wash away our sorrow, drained by hurricanes blocked from Maine, as the white whale breaches the lonely sea of pain.  To the end of the cape you took me, beyond the security of land, my USA shirt sprayed by salt, the wind ruffling my hair, the waves transforming into unicorns beyond our reach, headed for the sinking night of the east.  I lost more than I knew, gained more than I could handle, submitted to the shore what my shadow beseeched, his naked fear the beach impeached, day breaking through the dark clouds for one last release.  Where you begin my spirit ends, promising peace in an empty house, drifting into the old loveless future, soft sand of the sirens echoing through the breakers, foolish boat caught in a current swept windward, away from your arms and into the vortex, where the planet bends and swallows me whole.  Cold New England drafts spinning my ship, detached Autumn leaves tumbling through the rain, wispy violins lifted by stormy cellos, lost at sea my soul searches in the dark, for new light on the other side. 

The Real Problem with Health Care

     Health care in our country costs more now than it ever has, and it's not because of the government's inability to provide affordable care.  Two factors play a large role in our culture's obsession with the medical establishment, which in turn prevents premiums from falling: 

 

1.)  We want to live as long as possible, even if it means spending thousands of dollars on surgery that will only prolong our lives for a few weeks.  We have an overblown sense that a miracle will happen to us if we spend a lot of money trying to make it happen. 

2.)  We are gullible of the medical establishment's maxim that medications must be taken whenever necessary to relieve any symptoms of pain, even if they are psychological. 

 

    The great irony of this is how we are so obsessed with recovering from health problems, yet still manage to be one of the most obese and psychologically damaged countries on Earth.  We believe that life is so sacred that it's worth saving at any cost, yet we constantly corrupt our bodies with drugs, junk food, anxiety, and sedentary lifestyles that lead to depression.  Perhaps if we focused more on natural ways to becoming healthy instead of artificial ones, health care premiums would be more reasonable.  It isn't fair to the people who have worked hard their whole lives to maintain a healthy body that they should have to pay the same market rates as people who don't take care of themselves.  

We are inadvertently promoting unhealthy lifestyles with this lazy philosophy on what it means to achieve healthy living.  It's not done through medical intervention or government bailouts; it's done through self-discipline. 

America

Your father was Reason, your mother was Earth, 
Unashamed by Nature their laws you discovered, 
Printed on a Seal for new civilizations to emulate, 
Those created from intellect and not from warfare. 
You set the example, the highest of standards 
For humanity to conduct itself, in which new myths 
Fell from the towers your creators built high, 
Myths of technology, abundance and fantasy, 
Preaching your fairy tales glossed with fancy 
While simultaneously disavowing the pledge. 
Out of order you planted a seed of chaos, 
Unintentionally disgracing truth and justice, 
Desecrating the Earth by your delusions of sainthood. 

Milankovitch Cycles

     Few people deny that global warming is happening, the only ones left being the stubborn political pundits who ignore science.  Humans are seeing record high temperatures everywhere, and record droughts.  Some areas that were formerly temperate are becoming semi-tropical.  The question is no longer whether global warming is happening, but to what degree humans are responsible for it. 

    What makes it difficult to quantify the effect humans have on global warming are the three Milankovitch Cycles, each of which contribute to the Earth's climate naturally.  The three cycles are the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession.  They all play a role in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface.  The cycles are pretty convincing when it comes to the natural ebb and flow of ice ages and warmer periods that the Earth has experienced.  What remains to be explained is how they could play such a high role in the rate of warming we've seen in the last 100 years.  Warming trends skyrocketed in the early 1900s.  The increased rate couldn't have been so abrupt if it were caused by a natural cycle, because each Milankovitch Cycle takes many thousands of years: 

 

Eccentricity- a cycle in which the Earth orbits the sun closer than at other times, lasting about 100,000 years.  Current stage: about average, near circular orbit. 

Axial tilt- a cycle in which the Earth tilts more toward than sun than at other times, lasting about 41,000 years.  Current stage: about average, 23.5 degrees. 

Precession- a cycle in which the Earth's wobble brings the Northern Hemisphere closer to the sun than at other times (thought to be the cause of Ice Ages), lasting about 26,000 years.  Current stage: away from sun, period of cold expected. 

 

   Each cycle takes so long that there isn't any "lining of the stars" that would cause the Earth to warm as abruptly as it has in the last century.  Rather, the best explanation seems to be that the rate of warming coincides with the rise in greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by humans.  While both fossil fuel emissions and Milankovitch Cycles may be contributing to the warming trend, I'd estimate that the former far outweighs the latter, just based on climate trends in the last 500 years.  Additionally, only 2 of the 3 Milankovitch Cycles might suggest the Earth is undergoing a warming trend.  The third, precession, should have predicted a cooling period right now, at least in the north.  That simply isn't happening. 

The Pumpkin Patch

On our way to the pumpkin patch 

Through the Redwood Valley we drove, 

A place I hadn't seen in so long, 

Only in the plantation of dreams. 

It was just like I remember it, 

A string of memories bonded by place: 

The green fields, empty baseball fields, 

Popular wineries, flowery roundabouts, 

Golf courses, country houses for rent, 

Strands of poplars streaming along the slough. 

In my dreams the valley is always bigger, 

The fields seeming eternal, 

The mountains oddly more visible.

There's something exciting 

About picking out pumpkins on a farm 

Instead of at the store, 

When the leaves are changing color, 

The winds pick up and the rains release. 

Towering sunflowers and corn stalks 

Surrounded the patches in a coven of Autumn, 

Monsoons of red, yellow and green everywhere, 

Tendrils of the Earth unfurled from the ground 

Those rotund orbs of orange, whose fates 

Are to be hollowed out by Halloween, 

Carved into icons of death, softly lit 

To resemble the ghost of a damned Irishman. 

Today the wind blows stronger, 

Commencing the mass exodus destined 

By weary leaves leaving their trees 

Like elders who sacrificed their health 

For the longevity of the family. 

 

Let's go back to the valley at night, 

Where the wine flows thinner than blood, 

Where the river moves silent as a spirit, 

Where no graveyard rests under moonlight,  

Only memories exhumed from the brain,  

Corpses of thought wrapped in linen 

To feed the underworld forgotten.