Death and Wisdom part 2.

I received an objection by a member of a philosophical forum that I contribute towards, regarding the subject of Death and Wisdom and my claim that only Age can bring true wisdom

Her objection is quoted below.

I think it's very self-misleading to suppose wisdomness just because of your age. This makes people very narrow minded and closed to alternative views on things in general, but stubbornness can be overcome by a willingness to listen to other peoples ideas even though they might be right.

Hopefully my response provides increased clarification.

Of course everybody is born with a degree of wisdomness and keeps improving upon it as they grow up. Most people do not realize that we all experience seven distinct stages of wisdom as we age.

1. Infancy 0 - 4years
2. Childhood 4 - 11 years
3. Puberty 11 - 14 years
4. Teenhood 14 - 21 years
5. Stewardship 21 - 42 years
6. Mastership 42 - 63 years
7. Sagehood. 63 - 84 years.

None of those time periods are set in stone of course, but they give a reasonably close approximation of graduated development. In normal circumstances every graduation leads to increasing states of self and social awareness. What is vitally important and the criteria I use by which to value wisdom, is that each stage of growth is closely linked to our perceptions of the relativity of the Space/Time consortium.

For example: An infant lives in a naive state of relativity. For them everything exists in the moment. After weaning, from about four years onwards, we begin to increasingly artificialize the here and now as we start to factor past and future states of expectation into our consciousness. This sense of separation from the here and now cycles outwards and peaks at menopause before it begins to shrink back again. Ideally, in sagehood, a state of sagacious perception of the relativity of space and time becomes part of the consciousness. (IE, all distances are very far if you are old and tired and times passes quickly if you are having fun)

At extreme age, Past; Present and Future begin to accelerate the fuse towards a singularity, which is experienced during the Death Moment, when the here and now is starkly present and fully loaded with everything that ever happened and everything that ever will. If the psyche has freed itself of guilt, this timeless moment is the ultimate state of wisdom (enlightenment if you will) and is the fruit of human evolution.

Race Relations

Tiger Woods. World Ambassador for Race

Yesterday I made a short reference to Tiger as regards to race. I would like to fill that in more comprehensively with some personal observations.

I was born and raised in South Africa during the Apartheid reign. I left the country in 1976 in protest against the racial discrimination policy, which sees blacks as inferior to whites. I sought refuge in Israel only to find race the major issue there, where Jews see themselves as superior to Arabs, will not let them vote in the Knesset - and thereby, because of our Western support in arms and dollars, poisoning race relations throughout the Middle East and all of Islam. In Japan I found discrimination against Koreans. In Europe I saw it among the Germans against the Turks, among the French against the Algerians and in England against the Pakistanis. I came up against it against an anti-white attitude in America as well - in the Rosebud Indian reservation among the Sioux when I travelled through South Dakota, in Arizona among the Hopis when I visited the Grand Canyon, in California among the Paiute and Shoshone while i was in the Sierras and again in Watts in South Central Los Angeles among the Latinos and blacks where I worked as a volunteer teacher.

From my experience I believe that race relations, next to environmental pollution, is the most volatile issue on the planet today and is not being properly addressed.

Tiger Woods is a phenomenon all on his own. He is arguably the most recognized individual on the planet. One can only marvel that the grace and dignity he displays under so much media attention, while remaining essentially a private family man. Supreme master of perhaps the most difficult of all hand/eye/mind coordination game we have, he has stilled forever whatever last residues of racial bias we have in the sports world regarding those abilities.

Genetically he is a mix of African, European and Asian and is therefore directly connected via our ancestors to the three great Houses of Man. Every race can see themselves in him. He has remained aloof from racial controversy. Much of the credit for who he is goes obviously to his parents and the way they raised him.

Earl Woods was a black army officer. In the army he will have learned that there is no humiliation in saluting an officer, black or white, calling him Sir and be ready to do his bidding. I think that military discipline played a large part in his raising of Tiger. The army would have taught Earl that there is reason for establishing a hierarchy of command in the world - in which each man must find his place - and that he can rise up through that hierarchy via his attitude to serve and his ability to command. Tiger has done both, and sits, at a young age, right on top of our pile and brings credit to all aces, for we are all a part of him. Through him and the example he sets, we can come to an agreement that no race is inherently superior to another and try harder to put an end to the race discrimination that continues to plague the human family

Ryder Cup. Why we keep loosing

American and European Team Psychology.

Every time America looses the Ryder Cup, the loss is followed by endless puzzled discussions by top sports analysts as to why a star-studded golfing team, packed with the top players in the world, including Tiger Woods, keeps loosing by such a wide margin to a European team of lesser stature.

There are two strategic reasons for the losses and several tactical ones, which when added together provide the variables that make it so difficult for the analysts to come up with a clear-cut answer.

It might be of general interests for Americans, both golfers and non-golfers alike, to share in this analysis as to why these losses against Europe are almost inevitable - as it might help to give us all some added perspective on the existential gap that exists between the American psyche and our cousins across the pond.


The first and most obvious strategic reason for the losses is the simple fact that European players, on both the European and American circuits, are always consciously representing their own country as well as themselves. The Euro-Union aside, the ancient history of European conflict is ever-present in European sporting competitions. Americans golfers on the other hand only play on our own country's more lucrative professional golfing circuit and consequently only represent themselves 99% of the time. They are simply not accustomed to carrying the extra burden of their country men's expectations around the course with them.

The second strategic reason is a little more subtle and may cause some controversial argument among us. But ever since America bragged that it won both World Wars for Europe, that more recent piece of history has served to make Europeans temporarily drop their own national differences and unite themselves against America in any competition. This factor goes beyond sports into international politics and business competition as well. As far as WWI and WWII are concerned the attitude in Europe is that they fought themselves to a stand still and lost millions of soldiers, before America entered the fray for clean-up operations. Though there is no real rancour about our boast, as all of them are grateful for the final victory, the underlying will of the sons and grandsons of European soldiers to prove to us how wrong we are, is very much part of the European psyche and is a significant factor in their sense of unity when they pit themselves against us.

So the net problem in trying to over-come our strategic handicaps in order to win the next Ryder Cup is in how to solve the problem of individual brilliance striking out against team unity.
The obvious answer is to make sure we pick American players who have plenty of over-seas experience, carrying America around on the shoulders when they play. And maybe get our president to publically give more credit to Europe about the wars and their contribution towards world stability than we currently do.

Now the tactical errors.
As four out of the five matches in Ryder Cup competition are regulated to pairs competing against each other, I think it is a mistake of pairing the best two of our players , and the next best two and so down the line, in order to ensure strong anchor teams. The basic psychology we should avoid here is that if you put two equal players together they tend to rely on each other. On the other hand if you put the strongest with the weakest, the strongest tries to stays strong and the weaker guy tries his best to prove he is just as good. Thus, from a tactical viewpoint, as captain, I would pit my own pairs against each other, with the expected result (seeing as how both of our men are stronger than either of the two European players) the opposition will naturally tend to come in third and fourth.

A team needs a recognized leader on the field. In this last Ryder Cup, Tiger, as the most experienced Ryder Cup player, was naturall picked to lead. Not to detract from his sense of social empathy, Tiger is the penultimate individual. His will to win comes from being a black man in a what is arguably the most elite of rich white men's games, and showing the world what being a champion is all about. Personally, I think that until he eclipses Jack Nicklaus's world records, he will remain focused as an individual. So we need to be more circumspect when we try to find the player who might be the most effective team leader, and not simply choose the strongest player. Inspired leadership in the field is what team work is all about, especially when the chips are down. Finding the right one is never easy.

On the general World front, I believe American citizens needs to gain a more holistic view on how the World views us. More of us should to try and travel abroad than we do at present - and try to gain a beter perpsective on our role as super-power by getting to see ourselves as others see us and not as we think they do.

The Basic Elements of Mass Psychology

All of us to some extent are students of life. We all begin in childhood, especially when we witness our parents or family in general argue with each other over all kinds of matters. An extremist by nature, I have found that the best way to get to the bottom of anything is to do just that - dig down as deep as I can and try to uncover the foundations upon which any argument rests. I did this professionally for thirty years as a documentary film and television producer.

I started with ethology, which is the study of animal behavior and worked my way up from there, working with Stone Age Bushmen in the Kalahari studying the actual effects of animism on a hunter/gatherer life style; then worked my way up each subsequent level of our evolving consciousness - through shaman-based Bronze Age agricultural tribalism, Iron Age industrial craftsmanship and rigid scriptural dogma; Middle Eastern Sufism, Hindu yoga and Buddhist Zen. In that long process of both self and collective discovery I ended up with a lot of basic conclusions about our current Steel Age of scientific determinism and religious argument that one does not find in standard text books. The fruit of all that work is published in my book "Psyche-Genetics" which I hope you may end up reading one day.

Anyway, here is a bit of base knowledge about ourselves that you might have already figured out for yourself.

Three fundamental Archetypes of Human Consciousness.

On top of the pile are the most blessed among us;
The most physically attractive.
The most industrially accomplished
The most courageous
The most loving
The most artistically accomplished
The most visionary
The most creatively inventive.

In the middle of the pile are the bulk of us, who can only marvel at the best, be thankful that they exist as living examples of what we all can be like and try our own level best to be like them.

At the bottom of the pile are the misfits, all struggling with some form of natural distortion - some applying super-human efforts to rise above their handicaps, and in that process rising above mere mortal level. Others are trying their best to hold their own, or sinking into apathy. Some, too many alas, turn rogue.

Death and Wisdom

I have been hotly challenged on several philosophical forums by young whippersnappers regarding my claim that only age and experience brings on wisdom.

The immature challengers have fallen into the pseudo-intellectual trap of thinking that natural or book-learned smarts, in mechanics or the arts, embellished by a modicum of practical experience, equates with the holistic view of life and the ability to penetrate its enigmas that I am referring to when I talk about the wisdom that comes with sagehood.

I have been at pains to inform them that all they know only forms the fount from which wisdom is distilled; that only when the promise of death becomes a constant factor in the psyche, does the summation of all their life experiences bring on the enlightenment of true wisdom.

They have cried in response the age does not guarantee wisdom, which is true.

Naturally, there are degrees of wisdom attained by the elderly, but no natural smarts or any amount of book learning or practical experience can even begin to equate with the inner realizations that death brings to the table of even the most uneducated psyche.

Mercifully, for those elderly who have led ineffectual lives and have not learned to come to terms with themselves, senility sets in with age and screens them from dealing with the frightful aspect of the grim-reaper.

The blinders of religious Faiths, who's artificial Scriptures promise an after-life, have served to save many from confronting the finality of death head on. Though Faith may comfort the heart of the devout when one is in the cold Shadow, it does not keep enlightening the enquiring mind, and so religious dogma severely narrows the macroscopic view that the Cosmos really offers.

For those old-timers who manage to keep one eye open and embrace Death as a learned companion, the enlightening boon of sagehood arrives to keep the surprise of new discoveries eternally alive.

True sages are Seers with clear hindsight. Summation of the past places them squarely in the present, which in turns gives them endless visions of future possibilities.

Only when Time and Space are fused as a singularity, is wisdom evident.

Proposal for Political Reform

There are two basic political ideologies in our country that made sense when they were formulated two and a half centuries ago, but which make no common sense today. They are in effect the leading cause for the acrimonious political confrontations and congressional dead-locks that we have experienced since WWI, WWII, The Cold War, the debacle in Vietnam and the current insanity of poking our noses into an ancient Middle-Eastern family feud that goes back to Abraham's time.

They are:
1. One man, one vote.
2. Representational Government.


ONE MAN - ONE VOTE

As it stands now my son, who is 18 can cancel out my vote at the ballot box if he so chooses.
I am a senior citizen. I am well educated. I have mastered several crafts and business occupations. I have lived and worked around the world. For the past 25 years I have faithfully executed my duties as a husband, father and grandfather, while improving our family estate. I am also the director of a non-profit foundation that is working to further the health of the general community. With death around the corner, I have no more self-centered personal ambitions to fulfill, other than to try an make sure that the future is better than the present.

Since there are many more inexperienced voters than there are elders, and who consequently have the majority say in government, what does the future portend? As far as I can see, the political disarray of the moment can only continue unless some form of change takes place and which puts much of the decision-making, especially in foreign relations, in the hands of more experienced voters.

One more point on this before I make my proposal for mass change on Prop 1.
Every man and women over 18 has an undisputed human right to one vote. Why not every new-born? They are immediately and directly affected by political decisions and their parents should be given the regency to execute their rights at the ballot box until they become of age.

I therefore propose a multiple vote system. (MVS)

Vote 1. Registered at birth and administered by parents until 18.
Vote 2. After graduating high school or completing a trade apprenticeship.
Vote 3. Advanced degree from a recognized educational facility
Vote 4. At Age 42, after 21 years of full time occupation mastering a trade or profession.
vote 5. Sustained marriage and parenthood till the youngest child is at least 14.
Vote 6. At least 1 year international experience serving abroad.
Vote 7. Ten years volunteer community service.


REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

Congress

It no longer takes a man a week or more to ride to Washington to represent a congressional district. We have an instantaneous mass communication system. Every local or national issue can be thoroughly investigated and aired. With our votes only an electronic click away every single one of us can fully represent ourselves and our views.

I propose that the House of Congress be turned into a political museum


Political Parties

Without a Congress the party system becomes passe.


Senate

The needs of each State should continue to be represented by two Senators from each.

Personal qualifications for election to the Senate

1. Minimum age 65. (The word senator, denotes senior)
2. Gender equality: Same amount of male and female senators
3. Holder of 7 votes.


Presidency

Purely ceremonial


I believe that these common sense political changes will get our nation functioning at full efficiency and get rid of all the pork barrelling and special interest influences.
A Senate of internationally experienced elders will ensure that our world leadership role gets our planet mangement responsibilities up to full steam.

Fathering

It is my experience that men in general are not ready for fathering until their forty second year (male menopause.) Prior to that time our psyches are almsot exclusively involved in self-improvement. I '"fathered" my first child at 21. I was so busy and ambitious at that time that I felt no intrinsic need to become deeply involved with his upbringing - so basically all I did was procreate an unplanned child. That marriage ended in an inevitable divorce. It was only in my mid-forties that I felt an emotional need to remarry and father children and pass on all the knowledge and crafts that I had learned and teach them how not to make the same mistakes I did. It might be interesting to note that traditionally among the amaZulu in Natal, until recent times, a man did not get the marriage headring until his 42nd year. Prior to that he was initiated at puberty and trained to be a bachelor lion-fighter - protector of the herds and also serve his time as a warrior against rival tribes. Only after having served his prescribed time and proved his worth as a man, did he received a portion of the tribal herds and retire from the battle field with enough wealth to buy young wives and rear children and finally have the right to his say at tribal council. It would seem to me that focused modern young businessmen and craftsmen remain biologically inclined to follow that ancient path of male development - and that young women who feel the urge to mother and discover the true depth of their own femininity, should look for a reliable marriage partner among matured men and not those still trying to discover their own potentials.

The above refers to men in general and ambitious men in particular. There are always exceptions. Men are also able to evoke powerful nurturing instincts at any age. The problem of young fathers is that they cannot raise and teach their young from direct personal experience. They have to rely solely on custom.