Often in this blog, you have borne with me as I assumed that individual differences were beneficial to human progress. America, in particular, is the grand “melting pot” where peoples from other lands and cultures intermingle, creating new energy, innovation, a broadening social awareness, and an expanding workforce. But I have also written about the failure of legislators to find common ground, about the absence of dialogue in debates at all levels in our society, and the illusions we create to preserve our self-image as a people and as individuals. What is the basis for this disparity in my view? Well, I think I can best explain myself by recounting what I expect is a relatable experience: watching a football game with a relative.

My father spent the better part of his adult life in the Los Angeles area, whereas mine, was in the San Francisco Bay area. Our sports’ loyalties seem to have been formed by this divergence. After my mother passed, Dad moved to northern California to be closer to his family. It was a blessing to spend time with him on a regular basis, including the ritual of watching Sunday football games together. The problem, of course, is that we viewed the game from different perspectives, especially when our team loyalties conflicted. Arguments constantly arose over which team was more brutal, what penalty was justified, or what foul was missed by the referee. The psychological term for these disagreements is cognitive bias. We were not alone in seeing the world as defined by all our previous perceptions and experiences. The human brain fills in the blanks in our limited view of the world from its reservoir of past experiences, some of which were freely chosen and some, merely conditioned by society and circumstances. What happened between my father and me on those Sunday game days is reminiscent of what we see around us every day. Politicians, for example, only see scandal in the opposing party. In the business world, corporate “culture” can determine a person’s work appraisal and promotion eligibility. When an outlier in these circumstances proposes that our diversity is our strength, that we are one nation united by a common bond, or that an individual’s contribution to an organization can’t be measured solely by some generic yardstick, those proposals can fall on deaf ears. To some extent each of us is deaf and mute, for we naturally tend to hear and speak past each other. This is the curse of our unique perspective on the reality that surrounds us.

Those football arguments with my father were a source of embarrassment for me. I loved my father and couldn’t understand how I allowed myself to be pulled into those trivial disagreements. Of course, our meetings always ended with hugs; our affection for each other could not be altered by personal team alliances. But love alone did not prevent these mini-brouhahas on game days. Eventually, I did find the remedy: I pretended to root for my Dad’s team. In other words, I tried to see things through his eyes. Suddenly, my team seemed to deserve more penalties; and my Dad’s team sometimes seemed more sportsmanlike than mine. Watching a game with my Dad became much more enjoyable without the embarrassment and stress that I had previously brought to our shared time together. A side benefit was the fact that I became more appreciative of both sides in the football game. Even a bad call by the referee did not unnerve me, for I realized he was just as limited as I was in my perception.

We are not born with intact egos, but grow into them. Once we discover ourselves as “subjects” in a world of “objects,” we become the epicenter of all our experiences with the world around us. The problem, of course, is that this personal prism through which we see everything can be our prison. The world is in fact multifaceted. Its many refracted surfaces should offer us clues to the mysteries we leave undiscovered. To embark on that journey of discovery, we actually have to move beyond our limited perspectives and engage with the “other.” But how does one move beyond personal ego? Well, in order to see and live the game of life from another perspective, one must first admit our own propensities and exclusiveness. Then one must “tune in” to other viewpoints—truly listen, not just to others, but to the reality that stands outside us. Transcending an egocentric perception can become a mind-boggling experience, where, like a gymnast, you can leap from one position to another. The world becomes a diamond of such brilliance that it dazzles differently with every turn of the mind. The ego is diminished by its luster, while life becomes a learning experience—an adventure into its unfolding mysteries. We learn to value only what we can personally conceive, rather than what we have assumed from past conditioning. Our individual perception becomes self-transcendent; and our values evolve as our own rather than as the unexamined prescriptions of our past experience.

Most often we tend to interpret our differences in terms of values. For example, Fox and MSNBC news subscribe to opposing political positions. Christians and Muslims seem unable to reconcile the difference between social justice and Sharia law. Jews and Arabs disagree on the one true God and His chosen people. But, if you look beneath the surface, we find these differing values represent justifications for limited views of reality. News outlets report the same event from totally different perspectives. Christians and Muslims can live together in harmony whenever they rid themselves of the conditioned viewpoint that defines each other as enemy combatants. And the fight between Jews and Arabs is really over land rather than principle, so their struggle has more to do with occupancy than religion. So at all levels of society, our disagreements are more about facts than values. The latter serve as faux justifications for myopic perspectives.

To conclude, self-awareness is not only the beginning of wisdom, but the necessary steppingstone to a collective awareness. Without this step forward in our individual lives, it will never be possible to extend the moral boundaries of our value systems to include every human being on this planet. Whether human perception is a curse or a blessing depends upon the ability of individuals to break the bonds of ego and to live in the collective as a true participant in our common progress.

Since Americans believe in the pursuit of happiness, the expression “Happy New Year” should seem especially appropriate. We are the “can do” people of our time. But to the “old world” colonial powers, we often appear naïve. To the rest of the world, we appear willing to solve international problems that are intransigent, even to the extent of engaging our economic and military power. When faced with failure, we abandon the field to others and reengage elsewhere. In this iterative process, we don’t lose colonies we never established or imperial prestige and power we never sought. We simply regroup, sometimes after a period of withdrawal from the world stage, and reengage elsewhere. When one travels to the imperial cities of Europe—London, Paris, Vienna, or Rome, for example—the sense of awe can be equally tinged with nostalgia for what has been lost. For, in those cities, there must be an undercurrent of sadness below the surface of pride in place and origin. We Americans have for the most part been immune to such feelings of great loss. In general, we anticipate better days ahead, without remorse for past failures. Civil war, economic traumas, civil unrest, disastrous foreign interventions seem unable to unhinge what others might term our naïve faith in our future happiness. The French, perhaps understandably, may feel ennui; and the Germans may show some regret for past excesses in nationalist fervor. But we Americans are just simply optimistic about our future.

Many magazines publish specialty issues at this time of the year around the same topic, a forecast of the New Year. The year 2014 is predicted to promise another NASA mission to Mars and several resupply missions to the international space station, including the first manned flights in rockets not made and operated by NASA, but by private companies. In fact, the future of private enterprise is touted in many financial publications: 2014 promises an expansive and profitable global economy led by the American market. There will be new breakthroughs in genetic research, possible cures for specific cancers, growing energy independence, continued reductions in Federal deficit spending, and the promise of new labor saving inventions that will further ease the mundane burdens of everyday life. Of course, there are those negative forecasters who remind us that the hourglass continues to run down on issues such as global warming, the impending time bomb of economic disparity, desalination of our oceans, and the loss of ecological diversity, arable land and drinking water sources. These latter issues seem not of immediate concern and can’t compete with the prospects for better economic news on the horizon and with projected American achievements in space, in the global market, or even in the upcoming Olympic Games. Our myopic view of the future reminds me of the words of a very astute senator of a bygone era. Although satirized by Juvenal, I believe it was Cicero who first decried the Roman Senate’s policy of assuaging the masses with panem et circenses (bread and circuses) while busying the legislative agenda with short-term, often self-serving policies, in lieu of the republic’s future interests and actual betterment. In our time, the Roman Senate’s influence is reprised not only by our government, but by our free press. Moreover, that influence often abets a basic aspect of our national character: we Americans tend to be optimistic. We believe we can solve any and all problems, even those that seem endemic to our way of life: stress can be relieved by medication; (mainly) urban violence, by incarceration; marital problems, by divorce; social alienation or personal limitations, by money, title and/or power over others. But these bromides are not the solutions that touch our daily lives and cannot be a basis for personal optimism.

It is not my intent to demean anticipated American achievements in space, economic dominance or the Olympic Games. These endeavors are promising and truly laudatory if realized. But they are not sufficient justification for a naïve and stilted vision of future prospects for Americans. In fact, they have little or no bearing on our individual success or failure in the game of life. They are merely contexts, along with everything else not directly connected with the daily choices we make in our lives. Is context important? Of course it is. But there are happy and fulfilled people living in our slums and in the war torn countries we’ve vacated (I’ve met more than a few personally). Their optimism is not based upon things outside of their control, but upon themselves. Certainly, like all of us, they hope for a better future. But they rely on their individual abilities to learn how to adapt to their circumstances, to create value and meaning in their everyday activities, to connect with and love the people in their lives, and to discover the uplifting virtue of gratitude for the experience of being alive. In the end, optimism is not something given to us by government or circumstances. It is a right we have to claim for ourselves. Otherwise, that right will be usurped by a sham.

Our lives are short, but the process of human evolution continues. Each of us is a seed—part of the new crop and the next harvest. So I remain optimistic and wish for you all a very happy new year.

Today I had to bundle up for my daily stroll, still eager to encounter what changes nature had prepared for me. The sparkle of summer has long since gone, and fall’s promise of winter haunts the cold air. Skeletal branches face the Artic draft stiff and leafless, and the mildly ruffled bay waters mirror a darkened sky. I walked alone to my favorite bayside spot, my self-proclaimed hidden cove, where I often keep lonely vigil. One day past I was greeted by a seal that suddenly broke the water’s surface and stared at me. Perhaps he was surprised to see a human so close to his natural habitat.

Two days ago, I was the one surprised to find another human near my little “cove.” He was sitting on a bench, reading a book, his bed roll and rucksack beside him. I had walked past him, not wanting to disturb his concentration. A few feet away, I stopped at the water’s edge. Looking across the bay at the dominant presence of Mt. Tamalpais, I was content to let the moment have its way with me. Then his words broke into my reverie, “What’s that you’re reading?” He had noticed the book I carried in my hand. And so we began a dialogue about many things—about books, world affairs, politics, and the state of America. His perspective was that of a homeless man, like an outsider peering through a crack in the wall. Given his point of view, the world seemed ruled by an evil force ruthlessly persistent in maintaining his estrangement from it. He blamed the Nazis for most everything. They were the evil force that explained it all. After about an hour, I was beginning to feel chilled and told him I had to leave. He rose and warmly shook my hand. It was only at that moment that I noticed his bare, sandal-clad feet. We parted on a first name basis. His name was Thomas, reminding me of his namesake in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” In the words of Poor Tom, “Who alone suffers, suffers most in the mind.” But who am I to judge: I may be one of Thomas’ Nazis.

Yesterday, I returned to where I had met Thomas. As I approached the same bench, I noticed another man stretched across its full length. He was asleep. Most of his head was covered by a furry hood; his body, by a heavy parka; and his feet, by hiking boots. What caught my attention was the contentment that seemed to infuse his face in repose. Perhaps he was dreaming. If so, his subconscious was rewarding him with a tranquility rarely found in waking states. I remember walking away unable to shake his countenance from my mind. It made me wonder what places or experiences filled my dreams. Unless awakened while dreaming, I rarely remember “what dreams may come” out of my subconscious. If not in purgatory, maybe I frolic in Elysian Fields. But how can one know what passes unawares in slumber: I may be very like this dreamer in quiet repose.

Today I walked the same path and steered myself to the same bench. There was nothing there to arrest my attention or spur my imagination. So I walked on where the paved walkway becomes a dirt path bordering the water. Ahead I saw a man standing on a rock. He appeared from my vantage point to be levitating over the water, standing so precariously on the precipice of the rocky breakwater that holds back the bay. Drawing near, I quietly made to pass him when he turned his head and smiled at me. Without aforethought I said, “You’ve chosen a good vantage point.” He responded, “Yes, I have.” I made another innocuous remark and moved on, but the look on his face stayed with me. He had the same look of peace I saw on my dreamer the day before. But he was fully present and so totally connected that he seemed integral to the scene before him. As I reached the end of the path, I wondered about the nature of my connections. The only meaningful part of my encounter with “Poor Tom” was our warm handshake. The dreamer in repose showed me there was a state of consciousness in which one can find peace and contentment. But his was not a waking state. It offered nothing I could connect with. But the man on a rock was fully aware. His smile seemed to emanate from an inner serenity. The simplicity of his response offered no insight into his thoughts.

Turning around, I was determined to engage him in conversation. I walked quickly back to his vantage point until I could see clearly that he was no longer there. I stood before that same rock and weighed the whim that floated in my mind. Then I stepped onto the rock. It swayed a bit, for its base was not level on the ground beneath it. Momentarily I glanced at the rocks six or seven feet directly below the tips of my feet. Should I lose my balance, I would either have to step back off the rock or, falling forward, be compelled to push off clear of the rocks, diving for the safety of the water. I quickly refocused my wayward thoughts. As I looked out over the bay, my body calmed and steadied on its perch above the water. The ground beneath me seemed to fall away. I floated on the swell of the bay as the rising tide found its course between moon and earth. The air that gently brushed my face pushed the clouds ever so slowly along its northwesterly direction, bringing with it the promise of winter’s rain. I soared with the slow movement of those clouds. I hovered there, caught in the midst of countervailing forces, drawn into a limitless horizon, and lost to the benchmarks of time.

Was it the flash of eternity I felt or merely the presence of silence? Whatever it was, I know that many have shared my experience. These words are but the empty echoes of that silence.

Schopenhauer once said that his life read like a novel written by a single author. I hope he found that novel written with meaning and purpose. Otherwise, it would represent the vicarious societal survival schemes that represent the normal conditioning state into which all of us are born. Schopenhauer did well if he created his own life’s narrative both in terms of his authenticity and the legacy he left behind. But today my interest looks beyond this myopic view of an author-ego’s short life story. Socrates, for example, could face his death sentence with equanimity because he believed in an immortal soul—an entity no mortal could create for himself. Plato, one of his pupils, saw the world, including everything in it, as mere reflections of ideas or perfect forms existing in the pure light of consciousness outside of the shadow existence we experience. Kant recognized an imperative that guided our moral evolution with a transcendent inevitability beyond our personal reckoning. And even the existentialist saw our existence floating like an island on a sea of nothingness. Their nearsightedness did not grant them the wisdom to understand that “nothingness” was merely “no-thingness.” For the sea that supports us in existence truly is no thing and cannot be named: “I am who am,” explained Moses’ God. What we do name are first the things we touch, see, hear, smell and taste, and second, the things we never truly understand, the world of metaphors, including the infinitely unknowable and “un-name-able.” Language cannot encompass the concept of “god.” Even our quantum physics fails to pin down the tiniest particles of matter with certainty, for only the probability of their appearance in the material world is predicted by quantum mechanics. Our physicists, you see, have raised the specter of a non-material dimension—of transcendent potentia–beyond the pale of our limited imaginings. For many centuries now we have identified this as the “god-dimension” or simply as God where reside all things possible. We invariably acknowledge an underlying ground of our being and an all pervasive consciousness at the core of our humanity, haunting our dreams, inspiring our insights, and motivating our more selfless inclinations. Quantum energy is not just a fundamental force of nature but the conscious force of everything and, possibly, the very face of God.

Many contemporary physicists and purveyors of the so-called perennial philosophy have told us our mortal lives are the ongoing reflection of a consciousness that exists outside of time and space. In this context, we are already immortal, though not in the storylines of a script written by our egos during their short lifetimes. Instead, we foreshadow in our very being what transcends all we know and everything that is. Our immortality reveals itself in the ecstatic arrest of wonder, in the flash of intuition, in the gravitational pull of selfless love, and in that moment of dazzling revelation when the clouds finally part. As William Blake once wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” Our personal lives are just the flickering manifestations of the divine. Acceptance of that fact weaves each individual’s personal story into the fabric of our species’ evolution. And that evolution is a growing awareness of who we are and wherein we find true immortality. Remember “The kingdom of God comes unawares . . . For behold, the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21).”

In the last two hundred years, the character of our evolution has been affected by acceleration in the rate of change and the very context of our lives. Will the pace of this change spiral us forward into chaos? The industrial revolution consistently doubled our supply of energy every so many years. The transistor’s capacity also doubled in even less time. Our communication networks have merged into an interconnected net allowing worldwide access to devices as small as personal iPhones or as large as super computers. But, at the same time, our technological advances have impacted our biological evolution in ways that we are just beginning to understand. There are hydrocarbons in the air we breathe; chemical toxins in the food we eat; and microwaves bombarding every cell in our body. The biosphere upon which all life depends is stressed by the onslaught of global warming, the desalination of our oceans, the pollution of our inland water ways, and the depletion of arable land. When Darwin first raised the issue of evolution, he was solely focused upon biological evolution. His thesis of natural selection–i.e., the survival of those best adapted to environmental conditions–could not predict the environment we humans have helped create by the 21st century. In fact, his theory of adapted evolution, we now know, cannot fully explain the evolution of Homo sapiens—modern probability/statistical analysis and the fossil gaps in our evolutionary record have qualified its central thesis. There is more than “survival of the fittest” involved in our evolution if we humans do indeed change the context of that evolution. In fact, we are in some measure agents of that evolution. So what can we do with this awesome power to control our species’ destiny?

First, I think we have to relook at the discontinuity in our development and evaluate its impact upon our evolution. Obviously, a full evaluation of this matter would involve volumes. So forgive me for abbreviating this history with just a few examples. (Though “brevity may be the soul of wit,” in this case it is an excuse for both the limitations of this medium and of the author.) Let’s begin with the introduction of new meaning into the lives of our ancestors. What was the impact of the discovery of fire, the heliocentric solar system, the new calculus, the atom, the genetic structure of living organisms, quantum physics, and so on? Did not these discoveries change perspective and require new adaptations to our environment? To continue, how did our feelings evolve and impact our development when affected by Gregorian chant, Beethoven, Bach, Michelangelo, Rafael, Picasso, Blake, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Joyce, and so on? And, finally, what new insight was introduced into our value system by the contributions of Jesus Christ, Guatama Buddha, Mohammed, and more recently, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Mandela? Certainly, our values affect the goals we seek and the very nature of our interface with our environment. My point is simple: our evolution as a species has a mental, emotional, and spiritual dimension that is interwoven with the physical and genetic. In fact, our development has had many discontinuous leaps forward, unexplained by random genetic mutations and natural selection, but wholly consistent with the serendipitous breakthroughs of new insight, the collective surge of new sentiments, or the unexpected expansion of our moral boundaries. These advancements of the more subtle parts of the human psyche have transformed the nature and the context of our lives—both our custodianship of and adaptation to the environment. In other words, we transform ourselves and the world in a circular causal feedback loop.

Secondly, I feel we have to reevaluate the role of this personal transformation. Whereas Descartes and Newton triggered the Age of Enlightenment, Hitler invoked our potential for depravity and brutality. For most of us, our individual lifespan will not be writ on such a large stage. Yet the people in our history books lived personal lives not dissimilar to ours. Our achievements and failures affect the lives of those around us just the same. History consistently tells us that innovation and the most significant, lasting changes come from the likes of any one of us. What makes some individuals purveyors of positive transformations and others, of negative regressions in human development? Newton allegedly intuited the force of gravity when an apple fell from a tree. Gandhi, a lawyer for the downtrodden, became overwhelmed by the injustice suffered by Indians at the hands of a colonial power. Both men passionately pursued their insights, transformed themselves, and contributed to their posterity. Neither sought personal gain or power over others. They, like all men and women so inspired, recognized that the fruit of their short lifespans cannot be seized solely for themselves, but mainly for those who followed after them. Our individual success persists only for those who succeed us. Coincidently, wise men and women through the ages have told us this simple truth. It remains for each of us to apply it to our personal lives. Human evolution depends upon our individual transformation in mind, in feeling, and in values. Otherwise, nothing worthy of our short time on this planet will be left for future generations; and our personal lives will lack both passion and purpose.