The super hero meme

One of the big problems with our (and other) cultures, in my opinion, is the deeply ingrained "super hero" mythos / meme. We can see this exemplified in the huge popularity of super hero films (Batman, Spiderman, Superman) and in certain religious figures (Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad). Now I'm not going to delve into whether or not these latter "heroes" were all they are purported to be. My point is that the mindset of "some champion is going to come and save us all from the mess we've made for ourselves" is fundamentally an unhelpful one. When you look at Nature, what do you see? How does change come about? For example, (with the very rare exception) the mountains are not worn down by one big event (i.e. a volcano blowing its top) but by multitudinous individual drops of rain. The message here is that power comes from many acting together, rather than a single super-one acting alone. If we are ever going to dig ourselves out of the hole we're in (pick your favourite current crisis) we will need to do so together.

Probability Travel

So never mind space or even time travel, what I want is probability travel. We all know what space travel is. Surely by now almost everyone has at least heard of time travel. However almost nobody has heard or even conceived of probability travel. The basic premise is that from any point in time there are not just one but many (infinite?) possible ways the future might unfold. There is a movie that explores this called Sliding Doors. Now wouldn't it be great to be able to surf between different outcomes and see what different realities are like? For a short video describing the theory of higher order dimensions, please follow this link. As always, I welcome your comments.

We are all actors

So here is my latest idea: We are all actors. What do I mean by this? Well think about it, what defines who you are:

• Your name
• Your gender
• Your race
• Your generation (year of birth)
  
• Your home town (where you were born and raised)
  
• Your family (parents and siblings)
• Your culture
  
• Your genetics (hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, height, personality)
  

How many of these did you pick? Exactly. So this must mean that we are all just playing a role as defined by the above. Further, once you have made a few decisions in life, other things fall outside of your control:

• Your children's personality and friends
  
• Your spouse's / partner's friends and family
• Your co-workers
• Your church / club members
  

As a final thought, on most people's grave stone you will find:

• The person's name
  
• The person's date of birth
• The person's date of death

For the majority of people, none of these are self determined. Something to think about.

My theory on how life works

So there are many different analogies for life. One of my favourites is the game of Plinko as seen on The Price is Right. Let's watch a game and then I'll give my commentary.

As I see things, these are the parallels to life that can be gleaned from this simple game:

1. Life is a series of choices
2. Chance plays a large part in these decisions (more than you might think)
   
3. As life progresses, the number of possibilities decreases
   
4. You may get stuck and need some help
5. You may not always like the rules
6. The distance between success and failure may be very small
7. Who knows, maybe you get a few tries at life

Let me know what you think. Are there other things you see? Is there another analogy to life that you like better?

New Urbanism

There is a website dedicated to the idea of a new kind of urbanism. From the site:

Giving people many choices for living in more sustainable, convenient and comfortable places, while providing the solutions to global warming, climate change, and peak oil

NewUrbanism.org was started in 1998, and has since grown to become a leading and well respected informational website promoting walkable urbanism, transit oriented development, trains and sustainability.

See here for the website.

Our Society is Making us Crazy

The Story of Stuff

For the full story, please see here.

Free Will Anyone?

Two birds with one stone

Two of the main afflictions of modern society are widespread depression and environmental breakdown. A family in New York City does an experiment in simplified living and finds that both are conquered with one lifestyle change.

[W]ithout all the mod[ern] con[venience]s to distract us, we spend more time with each other, our friends and our neighbors and actually feel happier.

So what if, as a society, we worried less about a booming economy which drains the planet of its resources? If, as the positive psychologists suggest, having more stuff isn’t going to make us happier, shouldn’t we worry more about things like building a culture that emphasizes personal connection and community?

If the results of [my] experiment are anything to go by, not only is that an approach that would help cure our environmental crisis, but it would also help cure our unhappiness.

Here's the story.

Going Car-Free

For a while now we've been toying with the idea of going car-free. Since we both take public transit to work, we only use our car on the weekends. Today I read an inspiring story of a family who did it and are much better off both financially and physically. From the article:

Within two months they paid off two credit cards. No car meant no car bills. It also meant no quick trips to Taco Bell. No morning jolt of Starbucks. No impulse buys of jeans or toys at Target.

Shopping on a bike, says Erick, prompts the question: "Do we really need an extra box of Crunch 'n Munch?"

One day Jess had a strange complaint: too much money in her wallet and no place to put it. Erick figured out they were recouping more than a third of their income.

"It's as if your boss came in," he says, "and asked if you wanted a 35 percent raise."

See here for the full article.