Remembering Science Fiction

I remember growing up on some of the most respected science fiction films of all time. Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The day the Earth Stood Still, The Time Machine, etc. I also remember Star Trek. I recall how so many issues relevant to the time were presented using science fiction as a vehicle to illustrate issues that could not be presented by other forms of literature or film genres.

It seemed to me that Science Fiction was the perfect medium for presenting contemporary issues in a format that was acceptable to society - by being culturally relevant to current times to be easily identified, and yet distant enough to be non-threatening. Classic Star Trek during the 1960’s presented a long list of relevant subjects ranging from race relations, arms proliferation, and many others. No other series could have presented those issues at that time without having some kind of severe public backlash.

The issues raised by science fiction also relate to expectations of the future of what we can expect our society, and our world to evolve to. Inextricably, most science fiction involves some major advancements in technology or in medicine that transform society into the image of that futuristic state we see on the screen. Science fiction challenges the imagination by creating plausible paintings of various scenarios that our present day society may evolve to, while in many cases bringing attention through satire of some of the most troubling political issues facing the world at the time.

One of the most memorable was "Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)" filmed in stark black and white, in just two weeks. Its place in the history of science fiction is secure, yet it is the only science fiction film, I can recall that features no alien technology, no spacecrafts, no alien monsters, but rather reflections of humans who lose their humanity by being taken over, one by one, by those oddly looking “PODS” - which some attest was really a statement on a communist takeover of a free society. I recall having difficulty looking at or eating Brussels Sprouts for years!

Who can forget "The Twilight Zone" - that brilliantly written anthology series, many episodes of which featured science fiction themes? “Presented for your consideration” by Rod Serling, who in the span of 23 minutes (not counting commercial interruption), created a compelling story so colorful and richly acted, all involving some form of IRONIC TWIST that comes out of left field. The episode of the nine-foot alien, landing at the UN and presenting the world with a book “To Serve Man”, which by the end of the episode turns out to be a cook book!

No medium has had quite the impact nor as loyal a fan base as science fiction. It deserves another look as I, quoting Serling, say about science fiction: “Presented for Your Re-Consideration”.

Some links...
- The Twilight Zone Archives
- Watch all Episodes of the Twilight Zone (Google Video)
- Get the entire DVD Collection
- The Twilight Zone Wikipedia

On Being A Good Parent

I have thought long and hard about approaching this subject. There will be some that will say that since I have never been a parent, I have no right to say anything on what it takes to be a good parent. However, my response will be that I have been someone's child and that gives me as much right to comment on what qualities I think it takes to be a good parent as anyone.

Too many times I have seen parents who think that because they have brought children into the world, that fact alone is enough to claim that they should have the respect of those children. Respect is something that needs to be earned. If you expect, as a parent, to have the respect of your children, then you have to earn it from them just as you have to earn it in life from others.

Frequently, having children becomes the thing to do as a natural course of events in life. We start as part of a family, we grow up, mature, develop relationships, and define our own family, with children becoming a part of that cycle.

Some people feel that having children is a way to leave something behind when they are no longer here, a way of propagating their genes, their essence, their existence with a mark. If having kids is your personal mark, then its also the responsibility of parents to make sure that the mark they do leave behind is a good one. Because that mark will always reflect who they have been parented by. It is the personal responsibility of parents to be parents and not transfer the responsibility onto someone else such as the school, or some other person or institution. Children should grow up well because of their parents , rather than in spite of their parents.

Children deserve to be accepted for who they are. They should not have to prove anything to anyone for existing. They should not be expected to do anything or to have to be anything other than what they are - unique human beings that are mould-able by the forces they are subjected to. The initial forces they are in contact with are the parents, and it’s the parents who have the responsibility of instilling the first concepts of personality from which all other perceptions will be affected by: Is the world a trust-able place or not? How the parents conduct themselves in the beginning of their child's life will determine this primary perception that will influence everything the child feels, thinks and does for the rest of his or her life. The responsibility is clear. It lies with the parents and no one else. To deny this is to deny your personal responsibility as a parent and to put the very emotional health of your child at risk.

I come back to this primary perception again and again and will continue to do so in the future, because it is this concept that all other perceptions will be an outgrowth of. Is the world a trust-able place or not? If in the first few days of life the child perceives that the world he inhabits is a safe place, one that is nurturing, supportive, giving and loving, then the child will feel trust. He will respond to his/her environment in kind, and his growth will reflect this. If not, his lack of growth will also reflect this. Everything he does and feels will be focused through that mistrust. He will have difficulty feeling comfortable with others or with himself. He will have problems forming intimate relationships. He will cling to one or both of the parents because his view of his world will be that it is a threatening place, and one where he needs to defend and protect himself from at all costs. If he doesn’t then the world will reject him. His feelings of his own worthiness will take the form of worthlessness. All this from that one perception of the world, all affected solely by the way his parents relate to him in the initial stage of his life.

Too often I have seen instances where the TV becomes the baby-sitter for children whose parents complain they have no time. They both work, they have two jobs. If it's not one thing it's another, but the bottom line is the parents don’t have the time to spend with their children for whatever excuse they may make, it still results in the same result: children growing up without the proper supervision. When the children begin school, parents feel relieved because now the kids are away from the home and in some magical process where they will transform into social human beings by the process of being in contact with others.

When parents have stress and pressures, too often they expect the children to understand, even though young children do not have the perceptual capability to comprehend stresses parents are experiencing. Often those stresses are so compounded that ultimately the parents may take it out on the children in the form of abuse, emotional neglect or some other harmful way that adds to accumulated mistrust the child already may have about the world he inhabits.

No one is expecting parents to be perfect. We all have problems. But if you transmit to your children that they are loved, accepted and wanted in whatever way you can, and give them the supervision, guidance and discipline when they truly need it, then their growth will reflect it.

But if things do not go well with your children, no matter what age they are, nothing you do in life will ever feel right. Joy, satisfaction, happiness will always be a glass half full and the reasons that things didn’t go right with your children will haunt you over and over again, even as you assert, “I did the best I could”.

On Growth, Change and the Art of Adaptation

One of the most challenging struggles I have faced in life is dealing with the prospect of change. Although I have a sense of who I am, an identity that is undeniably mine, the future does not feel as comfortable as I would like. Where exactly am I going? What will I be faced with and who will I become as a result of it? (part of the uncertainty mentioned in previous posts). There is only so much I can be prepared for. Events happen and although I may have some control over them, I have wondered whether it is control I really want, and whether that control is a reality or an illusion I have created to give me a sense of power over my own destiny.

Control is a tricky prospect, partly because I'm never really sure how much control is appropriate at any given time, or whether I'm really clear on exactly what l need to control in the first place. My instincts tell me to leave the future as open ended as possible because what I may feel may be necessary now, may not be what I really want or need then, and it may also not be in my best interest. The conclusion I have reached is that the best I can do is have confidence in my own ability to handle whatever issues I am presented with, or whatever forces are brought to bear on my life as it progresses to its inevitable conclusion.

The only thing I am sure of is that I need to adapt to the circumstances I am faced with as my life progresses and I want to be careful that my thinking remains flexible and permeable to change when new circumstances arise to force me to reconsider the things I have already decided on.

I'm also aware of the importance of remaining curious, and always searching for new things to be curious about, because therein lies the part of me that I brought from my childhood, where the strength of my insights will be determined, and the ability to absorb new information will be found.

This is the reason I created this blog. My sensibilities have changed over time. I am no longer self conscious of my blind spots. The reasons that perpetuated them no longer exists. I feel freer to articulate some of the thoughts and ideas that I felt were not just relevant to me, but also to other people. I now am able to use myself as an example where in previous stages of my life, it would not have been possible.

A lot of the blogs that I have looked at in preparation for creating this one, were primarily a form of focused self-expression instead of being a source for any kind of information. Others are so technically based in scholarly quotations and material that it seems to hold little relevance for the issues I was grappling with, and as a result, my hope was that my essays would help other people, by identifying some of the common experiences that we all have, and focus on the importance they hold in our lives.

I hope that by exploring some of my own questions and elucidating them the way I have will perhaps lead others to explore their own issues and their own realities that are so difficult to articulate let alone deal with.

On Personal Responsibility

I have often wondered what the personal responsibility of a writer, musician, newscaster, or even blogger is when the information they communicate is interpreted in a way they did not intend.

Free speech certainly entitles someone to say what they want (within the constraints that The Supreme Court defines), but personal responsibility doesn’t end with what the justices say is appropiate or not. What i'm referring to is a higher responsibility, a spiritual responsibility that goes beyond the laws defined by our society.

Too often people say things and think that because they are entitled by free speech, they have no responsibility for how things they put forth are interpreted. Free speech, they reason, gives them the right to express themselves as they wish, and if someone in the audience interprets it and goes out and does some calamitous or self-destructive act, only that person committing the act is responsible. How simple life would be if that were really true.

We are all responsible for how we conduct our lives. We are also responsible for how we effect other people, both positively and negatively. But it is easier to quantify our effect when it is on people we know or people who are in our immediate sphere of influence.

What about the people we don’t see? Those who, because of mass media, are so affected by what we say, that it prompts them to act in ways that we may or may not intend. What is our responsibility then? Just because they are not people who are in our immediate lives, does that mean we are less responsible for what they do if what we say so affects their behavior that it influences them to do things we may think inappropriate or bad?

I first asked this question a number of years ago when I saw the newscasts of an airplane that crashed off of Long Island. Newscasters of all channels kept playing the same scene over and over again day and night, ad nauseum. For me it was overkill. I knew all the important details, all the events related to the crash, all the investigations that were being conducted. But what about all those young kids who were watching TV, who were seeing the crash site replayed? How were they interpreting what they were seeing?

Children up to a certain age do not have the perceptual capacity to discriminate that one event continually repeated, is the same event. To them, seeing the same thing over and over again is like seeing a different event happen. Children were in fact being traumatized over and over again by one event, while thinking that each time they saw it, it was a different crash that was occurring.

Although the media industry at large claims that studies don't definitively show that violence in TV or Movies causes acts of violence in real life, because, they claim it hasn't been quantified according to the precise scientific method, they act as if they are “off the hook” until there is a study that proves undeniably that violence in the media affects behavior negatively.

What is the responsibility not only of the individual who promotes ideas that may adversely affect others, but who works for an organization that promotes ideas that have the same adverse effect? Is it the same level of responsibility as the individual writer, or is it different?

I offer no answers; I am just asking questions I think should be asked by anyone who has or may have some kind of influence on others that may or may not be in their immediate sphere of influence.

Earthly justice allows us a lot of leeway to do things that a higher justice may look upon quite differently. Each person has a responsibility to think and reason this issue on their own and find the best way to conduct themselves whether they believe in a higher justice or not.

To say that there is no higher justice is the same as saying we have no personal responsibility beyond what the courts say we have; we have no accountability in our actions beyond what the laws define and we can do pretty much what we want without any real consequences other than those defined by our laws. This is a totally irresponsible position and not worthy of an ethical society that claims civility. We must all look beyond our immediate circumstances and use ethical guidelines in conducting our behavior on each level. This is the responsibility of both a civilized society and the individual as we evolve.

On The Nature of "TRUE SECURITY"

When we talk about security, what do we mean? Usually we refer to job security, financial security, health issues and medical security etc. Security is usually defined as some kind of stability accompanied with the presence of that cherished value “Certainty”.

Generally, people do not like uncertainty. It creates anxiety, chaos and puts us in a position where we aren’t sure about what will happen. Our choices seem incomplete, our lives feel just a bit unsteady and our trust in our judgements take on a more iffy quality, because we tend to believe that if we have made sound choices then our world in general should be a more certain place to inhabit.

On the other hand, we also know that it's not possible to know all things, and it's not a credible goal to try to control everything that happens, simply because our very nature is finite. So to place the expectation that we should even attempt to eliminate uncertainty is a way of thinking that is more related to our emotional need to know that our lives have a definite purpose rather than accept that our existence is reason enough to exist.

Uncertainty is not always a threatening condition. There is also the uncertainty of the creative process. An artist, a writer or any kind of person who lays claim to some form of creativity, also knows that during the process of creating anything, there is often an interval of uncertainty as to how to begin or how to organize whatever they are attempting to create, whether it's an idea or a tangeable piece of art. They also understand that uncertainty has its own kind of energy and that it is part of the cycle that ultimately leads to the creation they are attempting to concretize. In other words, they trust it and know the importance that it has in the creative process. They also do not fear uncertainty.

When we think of goals, we usually think in terms of specifics: Goal A, Goal B, etc. But a goal is simply a direction we move towards that has boundaries we often can not anticipate because we can't see ahead all the factors that are involved. It's not that they are uncertain, as much as we recognize that we inhabit a world where so many things can affect us (events, other people, other ideas) that the very idea that we should even think of controlling the process of moving towards a goal seems so unrealistic.

A goal is really a direction; a movement towards a place or a range of things we think is where we want to go; a place we want to be, or an attribute we feel we should have. Goals should be open ended, with flexibility and the ability to be fluid and capable of being changed and rethought of. It shouldn’t be fixed and it shouldn’t be certain.

So uncertainty is a natural fact of life that should be embraced rather than feared. It should be seen as part of our finite existence and akin to knowledge that we are drawn to learn about and know as part of our personal and collective reality. Uncertainty can be our friend if we put it in its proper perspective and attribute to it a reasonable place in our lives and aspirations.

This brings us back to what security is. Since security, as part of its nature, has the need for certainty, how then should we view security? Can we also view uncertainty as our friend and part of the natural course of our finite existence?

The only real security isn’t about the things that surround us such as events, circumstances of our lives, money in the bank, or the ability to strategize and plan for all the possibilities that may or may not happen (so allowing us to be prepared for any eventuality). It lies in our ability to deal with uncertainty. It's about realizing that whatever may come our way while we are going from goal A to goal B, that we must have not only the confidence but the inner knowledge and trust in ourselves that we will be able to deal with those things we aren’t prepared for. Understanding and accepting that we don’t need to know all the details that may be thrown at us from left field because we believe inwardly that we will be able to deal with whatever happens and come out on top in a way that reflects our ability to positively control our lives without doing things at the expence of others or hurt people in the process. In short, true security is and always will be SELF CONFIDENCE.

Can We Change Our Core Personality?

Some think that it is possible, as adults, to change our personality. By personality, i mean the synthesis of attitudes, habits, the way we think and feel, our outlook on life and our attitudes towards ourself and others.

One way of looking at personality is to view it as a circle with a central point. Everything outside the point/core is the part that evolves over time from our perceptions, attitudes and experiences that we have throughout our life.

The very first perception that is formed as an infant is the one primary perception on which all others are based. It is whether the world is a trustable place or not. If an infant is treated with love, nurtured, held, and wanted by the parents (its first contact with the external world) then the infant will feel secure and come to the understanding that the world is a place he can trust. His emotional development will reflect this and the child's personality will grow and develop from this point based on that one important sense of the world, although he will later learn that the world may not be a completely safe place. On the other hand, if the infant, still in the crib, is not given the basic unconditional acceptance or the love or nurturing, touching, attention that he deserves, he will grow to learn that the world he inhabits is not a trustable place. In fact, he will feel unsteady and unsure about what his surroundings holds for him. His expectations of his external reality will be one of mistrust, suspicion, and a place where he must be guarded, because the world, according to his experiences, will be a threatening place, and he will feel uncomfortable and unsure of what he can expect from his surroundings. This one perception will be at the core of all perceptions he develops from that point on and will be the primary source of all his neurosis and difficulties in forming any relationship for the remainder of his life.

In any relationship, regardless of the kind of relationship, there is a point at which one of the persons must make themselves vulnerable to the other. He must share some secret or show something he hasn’t revealed to anyone else. This is the sacrifice that must be made if a relationship is to grow. When he does this and the other person doesn’t reject him or accepts him unconditionally, then this point becomes the real beginning of where the true inner nature of the relationship begins. It is the point at which an acquaintence becomes a friend. The trust that develops from this one sharing of vulnerability becomes the building block of strength that the friendship will now become. As time develops, the trust building will develop both ways. The other person shares a vulnerable moment with him and the bonds of the friendship will grow both ways.

If the child who basically mistrusts the world does not resolve his issue of how he see’s the world, he will grow to adulthood never being able to reach a point where he will be willing to place himself in a vulnerable position with someone else, because to him, his world is nothing but a threatening place by which he must develop defenses to protect himself from, and ward off the rest of the world which he sees as a threat. So his ability to form deeper relationships will be more difficult because he is not willing to take the step of allowing other people to see his vulnerabilities.

The crucial point here is that all perceptions of the world that follows the one the infant makes about the world being a trustable place or not becomes the filter by which all future perceptions of the world will be made from that point on, and it also becomes the most important perception that is at the center of the core of his personality.

As we develop to adulthood, we cant go back, correct this one perception and then expect that all the ones hence will in some way resolve themselves in a way that will lead to a more trustable view of the world. The interconnectedness of all our perceptions and feelings and actions are so intricately tied together, that the notion that we could go through therapy, and in some way hope that we can change, I contend is an illusion.

Personality is far too complicated and interwoven with reinforced experience, habits and other factors that i'ts not possible to deal with any one problem in isolation. Although it is true that some people make remarkable changes over their lifetime, I contend that those changes may occur on the outer edges of the circle (personality) and that in and of itself may result in a completely changed person. But I still contend that changing the basic nature of the core personality itself, is an unrealistic goal that only leads to greater sense of hopelessness that may add to the futility of the quest to changes one’s life.

In all things, we must have realistic goals. Goals that are credible and attainable. The goal of changing our core personalities is not realistic. A better goal would be to find points in our life, and experiences where we can examine, and perhaps come to different conclusions about their meaning that ultimately affect the way we see them, our world and ourselves. This hopefully can lead to insights that shed light on why its so difficult to trust others, and maybe lay the foundation for taking the risk of finally sharing some of his deepest held fears, secrets with others. This can then show us that there are people who we can trust, and maybe chip away at that core perception of the world thus far seen and protected ourselves from is a place that is less threatening than we first perceived as that infant in the crib. Over time, and with new reinforcing positive experiences via more trusting intimate relationships, we can change personality enough to understand and control the instinctive defenses from being called forth to prevent us from taking a risk to reveal our true inner self to others.

Introspective Observation

When considering any actions I have taken or those I have deferred, I usually ask myself whether I could have made better ones, and what would have given me the groundwork for making those better choices? I often wonder what conditions would be conducive for a better framework for making more productive decisions. I think it is more difficult to evaluate choices and decisions from a contemporary point of view, when actually faced with them because of being too close, emotionally and intellectually, to conditions that can be better judged from a retrospective point of view. But in actuality, most choices have to be made without knowing the ultimate consequences. We don’t have the luxury of time or an opportunity to have a more exhaustive review. We often have to make choices on instinct and accumulated experiences, and hope that what results is beneficial to our lives.

There is no such thing as a right or wrong choice, only an easy choice or a more difficult one. The notion that this is right or wrong is more based on whether a choice causes some internal pain or conflict, usually of a moral nature. Difficult choices are never easy to make. They usually require some kind of prioritizing of goals that force us to sacrifice something for something else in the process. Having to prioritize things in our lives is never an easy process if what we have to put on the lower end of the list is something that we consider perhaps as important as those at the top of the list.

So, what do we need to consider as a basic guideline for making any choice? I'm suggesting that we at the very least need to try and structure our thinking and our perceptions to be more aware of the reality that is going on around us as opposed to what we think our reality is. To do this we need to be able to take a more dispassionate view of our lives by aiming at becoming more objective rather than subjective and personal. In this way we can slowly gain over time a perspective of our reality that is more free and detached from our personal neurosis that so often affects the very choices we need to be obejective about.

I am not suggesting that being dispassionate means we need to be unemotional. Being unemotional is impossible if we have feelings. What I am inferring is that we need to understand and have a clearer sense of what feelings should be important in considering any decision and what feelings clutter our judgements and do more to obscure the real issues.

If in some way it were possible to view our lives as if we were sitting in a movie theatre audience and watching our lives on the screen, then it would be possible to see our lives more as others see it, and perhaps judge it less harshly as appropiate or inappropriate, and that in itself would help us to see a more realistic accounting of our actions that can teach us over time to make better choices. Although we all want to make better choices, especially if the ones we have made up to this point have resulted in making us unhappy. But it is unrealistic to think that the process of making choices will become any easier even if we have more knowledge. What is needed is a carefully nurtured instinctive wisdom that recognizes that what may cause “pain” should not be seen as bad or negative, because in the end, we can only look at the consequences of choices long after they have been made. If they first appeared to be painful, but in time resulted in a more enriched life, how could we possibly consider them poor choices?

On Free Will

Does free will exist?
Or is it a figment of our cultural imagination that we are taught exists because we live in a society that we are told is "free"?
I have often wondered about the nature of free will, as a thinker, and as a practical philosopher.

We are so indoctrinated from infancy to accept so many values as “truths”. Are we really that objective about our reality that we can be sure that the choices we are presented with, are really ours? Or ar these "choices" so influenced and limited by our surroundings that we can never really know that they are choices presented in a free will situation, as opposed to those presented to us in a controlled situation?

If I am presented with two choices, I really have three choices. I can choose between choice A, choice B, or neither. In other words, to resist making a choice between the ones I have been presented with, is a choice in itself, and the consequences of which can be just as real as choosing between the choices I am presented with.

The long term effects of any choice may be easier to identify if the choice made is between A or B. But the effects of not making a choice between the obvious ones given can be hidden until years later, when reflecting on the successes of ones life and failures.

From this line of thinking, I have come to the conclusion that although we may have some form of limited free will, it is far more limited than we would like to believe. We do have a choice, but our choice is contained by the perceptions of what we think are our possibilities which are really determined by how we are brought up and what we are taught we are capable of doing by our society, our family, our culture.

We can either pick from the choices we are given or resist those choices. But we are still in the limited universe of identified possibilities? Our possibilities are not “out of the box”, because we are not taught to think out of the box. Even if we can create another option than those apparent, that option still conforms to some basic principle that was molded by our cultural upbringing.

So free will is really just a choice between accepting those presented to us, or neither of them; flowing downstream with the river's current or trying to buck the current and go upstream against it which, in the end, will lead us either to stay still, depending on our ability to resist the flow, or eventually to be forced down with the current because we become so tired of resisting the currents flow.

On Self-Gratification

The truth is men masturbate way too much!

It's not that there are men walking around with hairy palms, it's just that it creates the problem that too many men can't cum without in the end choking their own chicken necks, till it spits.

The purpose of having sex, I presume, should be for greater intimacy with another being (and some men don't distinguish "another being" as human - fancy that for a brief moment), but what it now becomes is simply a way of getting rid of excess nervous energy. All thoseoooooo's and aaaaahhhhhh's feel good, but in the end if men jerk off too much then it becomes difficult for someone else to get them to climax. Hence, sex is no longer a way to gain intimacy, but a practice that illustrates the lack of intimacy.

What or who is really doing the masturbating? It's not the hand, but the brain, which knows all the right speeds, pressures, and spots to touch at just the right time in route to the final climactic jump off the precipice. All controlled solely by the brain of themasturbator as he negotiates his fantasy in his mind, and searches for the ultimate heat that will take him to a level more intense than any other he has experienced. But when this is achieved, it is difficult to find someone else who can reproduce the same intensity, because no one else can duplicate the same speed, or pressure that themasturbator can using his own hand. He has become so used to his own touch, that no one else can come close to it.

This may explain the continual frustration in the search for sexual energy - an exercise in creating more intimacy - which becomes the very thing that makes closer intimacy less possible. So men, stop playing with yourself. Find someone, or something else to jerk you off.