Myanmar, Monks and Tao

This article in the NYT today made me think about the different ways that the TAO is lived out by different groups. The monks in Myanmar go out each day with empty bowls and the people put in food. The people view this as a chance to do a good deed, to collect good karma. As the protests have gone on, the monks have turned their bowls upside down, not accepting food and, as the article says, effectively excommunicating people. The symbolism of the upside down bowl is so powerful, and it is very real to the people in Myanmar. The Tao Te Ching says:
Therefore the Sage says:
I do nothing
And people transform themselves.
I enjoy serenity
And people govern themselves.
I cultivate emptiness
And people become prosperous.
I have no desires
And people simplify themselves. (57)

NY Times on Pamuk

The link above is to a nice piece in the NYTimes Review of Books today. The author is Pico Iyer, a really good writer so it is a nice read. I was intrigued to learn that Pamuk lives in spot overlooking a bridge which kind of "links" east and west. I have a better sense of Pamuk and his writing now!

bird song and learning

I saw Lexi's blog post about listening to birds, and it reminded me of this article.
I read about this parrot last week when Libby sent me an article about the parrot passing away, and it made me so sad. Apparently I wasn't the only one affected. There has been lots of coverage. We are fascinated ny things that seem to "speak our language!" I am fascinated by the misconceptions about nerve cells that have been corrected because of our study of birds. Turns out: a brain that is elastic like a bird's is a fabulous brain to have.

What's a "long tail"?

I was encouraging my fellow Core travelers to keep blogging, and now to try to connect to each others' blogs. I saw my friend Gardner had a great post that describes beautifully what can happen in our wonderful, webby world. So--I link that post here and hope that you will read and enjoy as I did, and that it might inspire you to "Only Connect..."

Another article for Darwinians

If you click the title you should be able to get to this article about humans and their instincts. I have read about other studies like this before and this one seems to affirm what others have: that we are still operating with old models because change happens so slowly through natural selection. This particular study shows that we recognize change much better in people and natural scenes than we do in scenes which are "inanimate." So I still react with more fear to lions and tigers despite the fact that I am much more likely to be killed by a speeding bus!

This article in the New York Times talks about a book written by a psychologist at UVa. His theory is that "morality" is genetically driven, that it is part of how we have evolved as humans. I wonder about how this works for individuals versus for the community. Darwin says:

IT must not be forgotten that although a high standard of morality gives but a slight advantage to each individual man and his children over the other men of the same tribe, ... There can be no doubt that a tribe including many members who...were always ready to give aid to each other and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over other tribes; and this would be natural selection." (246)

Yet we think of morality as an individual thing, good for our souls. The article says that perhaps that is what religion does for humans--causes them to behave in ways that are actually better for the common good than for individual gain.

starting Darwin

Tomorrow we start Darwin, and I am trying to think of ways to get into that text. It is an interesting one, I think, because there is so much misunderstanding of what Darwin actually said and how he made his discoveries. I relate to him most as a person who LOOKED, really looked at things around him. One of my all-time favorite essays is by Annie Dillard and it is called "Seeing" published in a book called "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." In it she describes drawing a horse and really seeing it for the first time. I am a lousy artist, but I do draw sometimes because it causes me to slow down and really see. Most naturalists keep notebooks where they draw and take notes. Darwin's notebooks are quite famous; I would love to see them some day.
And in the way that connections have of happening--I looked up "Seeing" to see if it is in full text on the internet. Instead I stumbled across something almost as wonderful: an essay by Eudora Welty about Dillard's book. It mentions Darwin AND it is by Welty--whose book "One Writer's Beginnings" was the first book I ever read to try to figure out how to be a writer. Happy connections for me : )

Socrates and the Socratic Method

Here is an interesting article by a professor about how to use the Socratic Method in teaching. I wonder what you in Core think about it? We have talked a lot about Socrates being arrogant. He is not a very likable character, but is he a good teacher?
It seems to me that Socrates was criticizing teaching and teachers, at least as they were in his day. He says:

...I think it is a fine thing to be able to teach people as Gorgias of Leontini does...Each of these men can go to any city and persuade the young, who can keep company with any one of their own fellow citizens they want without paying, to leave the companey of these men, to join with [the teachers], pay them a fee, and to be grateful to them besides.

Socrates says he is NOT a teacher, and yet now we use his methods!

Real Eyes

I was reading Ben's blog and I connected to his connection : )
Now, I don't much like big white fake bunnies because they scare me, but there were other parts of this video and song that I found haunting. Seeing the elephant fall down was wrenching as the words ask "Do you realize that everyone you know will die?"
Ouch. It doesn't get more blunt than that. And that made me think of a story in a book I have been reading called "The Elephant's Rope and the Untethered Spirit. the author tells about being in India and seeing a huge elephant tied by a thin rope to a tiny bush. She asked the elephant's master why the elephant didn't just walk away. The master said that when the elephants are young they use a heavy chain on a large tree to train them. They try to escape for a while, but eventually give up. After a while, the masters only need to tie something around the leg of the elephant, and the elephants assume they can't break the tether, whatever it is. The author uses the story to illustrate her point that we can be our own worst enemy, victims of our own assumptions.
I think that this is what Socrates is trying to tell us. Even though it makes him unpopular and even costs him his life, he keeps pulling and questioning to see if what binds him is a rope or a chain.
So Ben's video title was interesting to me to and made me think of having "real eyes" to see the truth.

connection I made in class today

Honestly, I hadn't thought about the connection to Joseph Campbell's work until we were talking in class today! SO I went to wikipedia to see if they had a good summary of him and his work there that I could share with you. Of course, they did : )
You might be interested in his concept that I touched on today: monomyth
What most surprised me was that Campbell was inspired to his studies partly by reading the James Joyce novel, Finnegan's Wake. I never knew this! I am a huge fan of Irish literature, but have still never read this important novel. Now I think I have to move it up on my list of "must reads." The Irish really know how to do mythologies up right : )
But thinking about White Castle, I am not sure that there is a hero, nor that this is a hero's myth. It is more that Pamuk tells a story questioning "difference" and seeming to say that there is only sameness. It is a story about telling stories. This part, on p155 haunts me:

...by writing those kinds of tales, by searching for the strange within ourselves, we, too, would become someone else, and God forbid, our readers would too.

And then the narrator/translator says "But I wanted to!" To tell stories? To become someone else? This book is a story about storytellers, and, as one, I would just like to say that it freaks me out.

connecting to Sacks

I saw in the NYTimes on Saturday that Oliver Sacks has taken a job at Columbia. (Click on
the title to see the link.) What interested me most was that this position allows Sacks to broaden his work. He will be teaching a writing class as well as medical classes. This is interesting to me because my colleagues from the psychology department had a reaction to Sacks' writing that surprised me: they felt he was not representing brain science well with his writing. They seemed suspicious of his writing because it wasn't how researchers think about neuroscience. I think one of them was even skeptical of the value of reading his work because it wasn't "correct."
I was really bothered by this attitude because, as a creative writer, I believe that stories teach us truths that scientific writing can't. I understand the importance of research writing where peers read, analyze and build new knowledge, but I also believe that scientists NEED to find ways to communicate to the general public. And I also believe that scientists writing in a self-reflective way, trying to make sense of what they are seeing for themselves is crucial for the scientists and for our society. So I remain a fan of Dr. Sacks' writing, and I look forward to seeing how this new position brings new opportunities and connections for him that he can then share with us!