Anyway, and either way, clearly a lot—if not more!—of what we are is not us. We know that—and I know I find that a little too fascinating. But I think in terms of numbers (not size), the human body is made up of about 10 trillion cells and we’re covered by, inside and out, about 100 trillion microbes. A 10-1 ratio, folks. We’re a veritable planet, colonized by beings we rarely acknowledge, let alone talk to. Skin eaters, food digesters, immunity linebackers etc.

So get this one. It’s not a pretty thought—and it has to be true, it’s from the Windsor Star with the uplifting title Could Germs Make You Fat? I don’t know, but…

Scientists know that hundreds of species of bacteria live in the gut and an average person carries about 5 pounds (2 kg) worth. On Wednesday, Chinese scientists reported in the journal Nature that they found 1,000 different species in human intestines.

I know it’s gross, but it’s just the way it is. Like McDonald’s is gross, too—but the way it is and the 2010 Olympics Official restaurant. Restaurant? Food for athletes? They should be called The McDiabetes and McHeart Disease Mclympic Games. Eat all you can and see how fast you can both become addicted and blow up, for a Gold Medal made of frozen corn syrup. As for the five pounds of extras in the ol’ gut, a lot of those in there keep us alive, to be sure. Others, well…

Doesn’t it kind of somehow make a polluted area in the world seem, if not any better, sadly natural, or sort of inevitable? Clearly, both planets (us and dear Mother Earth) need to change diet a little, drink a lot more clean water, and, dare I say, keep it moving. Thank god for downward facing dog.

The Taoists talk a lot about flow. No wonder.

So don’t forget how little of you is actually you, and how it is all changing, constantly, moving, traveling, colonizing, coming and going. Garl darnit, who are we? And with so many beings around, why do I feel lonely sometimes. Maybe they’re not great conversationalists. Or maybe I’m just snooty. So be a good leader. Smile at your visitors. That’s like our sun.

Good luck and lots of love to you and all of yours,

Pete xo

He established the four noble truths, the first and most famous being:

“All life is dukkha.”

By the way, there was no English in the original line with simply the word dukkha stuck on at the end. I did that myself. And the four nobel truths are 1) the nature of life (dukkha), 2) the cause of this (dukkha), 3) the cessation of dukkha and 4) the way to get to the cessation of dukkha.

I think that’s right. But if it’s not, don’t get all dukkha on me. I’m just a fella from Canada trying to make sense of the ride.

But anyway, this line is generally translated as “All life is sorrowful.” It is my hunch that this is inaccurate, and it actually means, “All life is unsatisfactory.” Why do I say this? Because, one, I feel it and, two, I’ve seen this translation elsewhere. Hey, I don’t speak Pali, I rely on translations.

But the reason I like this translation is because Buddha’s point was everything is transitory, and because it is transitory, we are never fully satisfied, nor can we be. Some even describe Buddha’s concept of emptiness along those lines of impermanence or transitory—as in all things are “empty of anything permanent,” thus, impermanence is the nature of life, but you still have to pay taxes.

But this should not get you down. Because it means there’s always change going on. Every second. For Buddha’s last words were:

“All conditioned things [that's us, pal] are subject to decay—strive on untiringly.”

Basically, get water and gather wood. Carry on. Walk on. And try smiling when you do it. That smile may be transitory but then…yes, the smile is fading…but then…boom!—you put another smile back on the old puss, and confuse the hell out of evolution! Ha ha ha ha!

One of the saddest things in this crazy world is that people have come to really believe the next moment in their life is no different than the last moment, and the one coming up is the same, too. Both the sages and the scientists tell us this is utterly untrue.

Lots of love, impermanently and unsatisfactorily, perhaps—but lots of love garl darnit,

Pete

PS If you choose to smile for an entire walk in nature, you will suddenly find yourself saying hello to trees. It’s weird but true.

A human life is truly something brief. One should pass one’s days doing what one really wants to do. It is very foolish to spend one’s days miserably in this dream-like world doing only things that one does not like to do. However, this is secret teaching that should never be spoken to young people, because if it’s taken wrongly it can cause alot of harm. I myself like to sleep. As far as my present circumstances allow it, I think I should just shut myself up in my hermitage and just sleep. See what I mean?
—Yamamoto Tsunetomo’s Hagakure, Book 2:86

“Be strong and courageous and leave the results to God. “Plant the seed of hope and caring and leave the garden to God,” Henry David Thoreau wrote. Many dismissed him as a crank or a social deviant [I know I did]. But Leo Tolstoy read Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience”; Ghandi learned about it from Tolstoy; Martin Luther King Jr., read Gandhi; and the civil rights movement made history. Don’t be afraid to be a voice in the wilderness for children and the poor. It’s the moral and sensible thing to do.”

If lineage was wisdom instead of ancestors, that would be one heck of a family tree.

There’s a story about Thoreau, when he was imprisoned in 1846 for refusing to pay a poll tax that went against his conscience. I thought it was related to the Mexican War, but I can’t remember for sure. Anyway, it was an act of conscience.

Supposedly Ralph Waldo Emerson, the so-called American Transcendentalist, came to visit him. When he saw Thoreau in the jail, he said: “What are you doing in there?”

Thoreau replied: “What are you doing out there?”

About being in prison, Thoreau wrote:

“The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.”

Ah, the lives that have already been lived. Live your life, with love,

Pete xo

I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
—J.B.S. Haldane

I sometimes disagree quite strongly with Richard Dawkins—or, at least, don’t understand Richard Dawkins, brilliant as he is. For starters, I have very little desire to be an atheist. I probably have even less desire to be a sectarian religious person. I think Richard, in contrast, believes atheism is the only sane posture going (despite evolution on some level seeming to disagree—perhaps an evolutionary cul-de-sac).

And I have written Richard Dawkins an open letter begging him to speak out more against scientists and the science who continue to create the most immoral, life-destroying products/weapons/pollutants imaginable—or at least speak out in some sort of balance with his outrage against the curse that is much of religion. (Gosh, it would have been great to have heard from him—and imagine if he said, “Hey, you’ve got a couple of good points there, for a lay-person.”)

And get this: I also think, personally, Richard Dawkins may be more of a mystic than one might expect. I know, I know. His fans are yelling at me! And maybe I’m just saying that because I’d like to be myself and yet think he’d still, you know, want to be friends. Or maybe our definitions of the word are different. Anyway, what the heck do I have to offer? A few books, films, songs, essays, open letters. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m so grateful for that, when nights are long and I have no idea about the reasons for existence, let alone bad haircuts and bell-bottoms.

And having said all this, it’s easy to admit that Richard Dawkins is way smarter than I, obviously. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true by a lot, like a keg filled and over-flowing with top-quality IQ points. Anyway, for that and other reasons, I say unequivocally that I really find this TED talk he gave just great—beautiful and wild and exhilarating. I’m pretty sure you will too. I think I might even have posted it before. My friends, what a universe we’re experiencing—including ourselves.

Here’s to lots of love on the wild ride of being. And don’t forget, smiling that also engages your eye muscles—so called laugh lines—actually produces dopamine (at least that’s what I’ve read), which lifts our spirit, evidently—and is much safer than heroin. You can fake that smile, too, and the body gets fooled and thinks you’re happy, and produces more dopamine anyway. Ah, evolution…you know, we can confuse it by smiling way too much, and directing those beautiful smiles towards strangers. Give it a shot. I dare you. And if you can’t find a smile, think of Richard Dawkins giving this wonderful talk with nothing but a pair of pants on his head. Ha ha, you smiled. You didn’t? Geezuz, tough audience.

Pete xox

“Beloved, what do you wish from Me? I contain all things which were, and are, and shall be, I am filled by all things. Take from me all which pleases you: If you desire from me all things, I will not deny. Say, Beloved, what do you wish from me? I am Love, filled with the goodness of all things: What you will, we will. Beloved, tell us plainly your will.”
—Marguerite Porete

I’d heard or read about many of the famous Christian mystics of the Middle Ages—from Meister Eckart to Mechtild of Magdeburg to Julian of Norwich, St. Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen and a few others. They’re really fascinating with their ideas of soul and God union, bridal mysticism, the annihilation of being, God beyond God and so on. Definitely bridging a gap with more Eastern ideas found in Buddhism, Sufism (I say Sufism in that, with Rumi etc., it leans heavily eastwards) and Hinduism. Is it all madness? What do I know? I’m just trying to be sane and loving in an entropy-filled world. I even made Hildegard of Bingen a sort of side character (if I remember correctly) in my first novel.

Anyway, I’d never heard of the French mystic Marguerite Porete, but 700 years ago this year, on the last day in May, she was burnt at the stake for heresy. I wanted to remember her, because that’s a sad result of speaking one’s truth, or one’s revelation. She wrote a book called the The Mirror of Simple Souls.

Marguerite was around, it seems, during a time of what was called the Brethren of the Free-Spirit movement. Sounds a bit like the 1960s, but the idea was (among other things) that the soul did not have to consider virtue, for it was by definition above such questions. That sounds a little like Nietzsche’s idea of “Beyond Good and Evil“—although his book was, among other things, a real attack on Christianity. To quote him:

“Wherever the religious neurosis has hitherto appeared on earth we find it tied to three dangerous dietary prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence…”

Okay, maybe that’s not exactly pro-Carmelite nun. Anyway, I don’t know much. A brain can only process a certain amount, according to its specifications. My brain’s probably a Dodge Omni.

But Porete wrote:

“…the annihilated soul [can] grant to nature all that it desires without remorse of conscience…”

For the Church, this was heresy, for it debased the soul and was a bit of a ’screw you’ to authority, to boot. But Porete actually wrote that this did not debase the transformed soul because it…

“…is so well ordered [that] it does not demand anything prohibited.”

The Western church at the time, from what I’ve read, believed that “God was transcendent” and “not present in creation” at all. The free thinkers found God much more immanent. And Porete would not recant a thing, alas…

The last day in May, 1310.

More about her here and Marguerite and other female mystics here.

This is certainly a mystery, this Divinity-dream, as we spin in space, breathing in linear time, circling a sun, which circles a galaxy, which circles…

Ain’t it great to be alive? Smiling. Loving. Wondering. What is gratitude, if not divine?

Pete xo

PS Did I mention that smiling that engages the eye muscles creates dopamine and opioids that give us a little jump, evidently not unlike chocolate and heroin and romantic love? Give it a try. It’s cheap and safe, and you deserve it. This might help you smile. Use headphones if you’re not alone.

Yes, for one night only, for any Vancouverites (or non-Vancouverites) who would like to see Facing Ali on the big screen, it is showing at the Pacific Cinematheque on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010, as part of a fundraiser benefiting the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Tickets are ten dollars. I am pretty sure they are available at the door. The film will be showing at approximately 7:30pm.

I’ll be there for a Q&A and just to cause trouble in general.

Lots of love,

Pete

Pacific Cinemateque
200-1131 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 2L7
(604) 688-8202

“Ain’t it a shame, you changed your name, I’ll change your features too.”

Actually, Ernie got pretty puffed up in that fifteen round loss, with some eye damage.

That has nothing to do with this Jack Benny line which I think is great. Upon receiving some sort of recognition for something, he said:

“I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis, and I don’t deserve that either.”

Not a bad way to look at life—and then really commit to be happy, generous, smile more and keep going. Smiling is a great thing, by the way. Better than great. And easy to do. If I write Big Fat Fart here, you might just smile. Maybe not. But even forcing a smile is a known Taoist Technique towards greater happiness, joy, and a really large forehead. And the famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, whom Martin Luther King said should have won the Nobel Peace Prize (during the Vietnam War), understood this when he said:

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

He’s not kidding. It’s science. I’ve been reading about smiling, and the honest to god chemical effect smiling has on the body. It’s something—with the release of dopamine and opioids and other things that make us feel better. Just by stretching your puss a little (please don’t misread that last line). It has to be a real smile—unfortunately called an Echt smile—as opposed to the Queen’s smile. But not a real, real smile. Just a real smile in that it engages the eye muscles, the laugh lines, too. Evidently it deepens the breathing, increases concentration, puts more oxygen and glucose into the blood and if you’re Japanese (who according to the article, don’t smile), it increases sales. Or so they said. Smile, for the love of god! It’s self-medicating in the positive sense. It’s our chance. For freedom. And even though it produces opiates, it’s legal. Prohibition is unlikely—unless you prohibit it yourself—but think of the violence that would cause. I haven’t stopped smiling for about three days now, no matter what, and I’m actually totally stoned right now from the big smile, barely even able to type, can’t drive and have my pants on my head. And I don’t care. I’m blissed out.

God, I love you. Just smilin’ away. What a life.

Pete xox

As an outsider, and despite knowing only a little about how the world may actual run, I am, and we are, as human beings, destined to have our own thoughts, opinions, likes and dislikes.

Was it an amazing moment when Evo Morales, the first indigenous head of state in Bolivia since the conquest, was elected President in 2006 in Bolivia? Yes, it was democracy and justice in paradigm-shifting proportions. He and the majority of people, finally represented, were able to come together, finally have say about their own lives, and throw out the Bechtel (Giant Water) Corporation who had become so tyrannical—with government support, no doubt—that the poor indigenous people were not allowed, legally, to even gather rain water. That is moral sickness in the extreme. It was reminiscent of the Machiavelli nature of multinational conglomerate Monsanto’s GMO seed drifting off one farm and landing in another’s farm, then Monsanto suing, and ruining, the second farmer for using Monsanto without permission (see Food Inc.).

So democracy in Bolivia is exciting and hopeful for so many long-disenfranchised (and partially forgotten) humans all across the globe—and for those who are less disenfranchised, too, because equality, hope, freedom, human rights and so on are stunning possibilities in this world and make life’s beauty even more obvious. And Evo Morales—hated by much of the elite in Bolivia, some of that being pure racism, some more being pure Power-based—has to be careful, I am sure, how he picks his friends. And, unsurprisingly, he aligns himself with the Latin American Left. That is understandable. We go where we’re wanted, where we’re embraced.

So on some level maybe he has no real choice. So he throws his political hat in with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Now Chavez is at least democratically elected, although I think he is unfortunately showing a lot of signs of becoming one of those dreaded so-called caudillos (traditional Latin American Political Big Men, who were and are generally backed by Western interests—Chavez, of course, is not). But let us not forget the Americans supported the botched coup against this democratically elected nationalizer of oil. Hardly heart-warming international relations. And I believe one of the newspapers he has suppressed, also supported not his removal by election, but by the coup itself. Imagine if the New York Times supported the coup of an American president. That’s treason, n’est-ce pas? But you can always tell despotic tendencies by the desire to talk on television for hours on end—and doing so.

As for Fidel Castro? Yes, Castro, of course, represents for many the standing up to imperialists and oppressors—and his health care and education policies in Cuba (and shipping doctors around the world) are laudable, at times remarkable, even more so under the relentless economic embargo Cuba has withstood for forty-odd years.

But Castro has had over fifty years to bring in a democratic election. Just one. He’d probably win, for crying out loud. But he doesn’t do it. He is a dictator, and dictators are, by definition, oppressive, and against free speech. And what do we have, as humans, without free speech? Free speech is something utterly cherishable, and obtained only through stunning solidarity and struggle, and must be vigilantly held on to and refined. Otherwise we have, well…China, I guess.

The incarceration rate in the United States is appalling and insidious, astronomically greater than any other country, per capita, in the West (if not the entire world), with well over 2 million people behind bars today. Under President Clinton, for the record, the number jumped from 1 million to 2 million. The US, allegedly, has 4% of the world’s population, and 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.

In admittedly undemocratic China, in the dreaded Laogai, forced labour camps, with the motto “reform by labour”, have imprisoned between 40 and 50 million people (who knows how many for exercising free speech?) since 1949. Consider the remarkably courageous dissident Liu Xiaobo’s case here. Take a moment to consider what some people are right now going through simply because of their commitment to speaking freely. heart-breaking.

As critical as I have been of the democratically disastrous bailout and other things, I will say I do appreciate President Obama talking to the Dalai Lama. To not talk to the Tibetan spiritual leader because of Chinese threats and grumblings (and in light of the decades long brutality in Tibet) is to really say no to the most remarkable accomplishment of all in the West, the right to free speech, and from that, the right of assembly et cetera (none of which are perfect, of course). But god, defence of free speech is a beautiful thing, and that should never be dismissed or taken lightly. And a definition of real free speech is: ‘The willingness to defend the right of others to express ideas you abhor.’

I also deeply appreciate how the Dalai Lama has always said that Tibet was no perfect place before he was forced into exile, but rather feudal and backwards. Don’t you just appreciate honesty? Massive posters of Chairman Mao still hang all over China, looking down paternally (and, wouldn’t you know it, abhorently, on occasional Western T-Shirts, too—in much smaller numbers, thank god, than Che T-Shirts).

Check out this radical monk from Tibet, Gendun Chophel, from the first half of the 20th century. From one of his astute poems:

All that is old is proclaimed as the work of gods
All that is new conjured by the devil
Wonders are thought to be bad omens
This is the tradition of the land of the Dharma.

But where was I going? God knows. Oh yeah, what inspired this writing: Castro’s right hand man during the revolution? The T-Shirt-emblazoned Che Guevara. Morales speaks of him as a symbol of Latin American freedom. Fair enough—he may well be that symbol. And if anything, Morales is that.

But is Che Guevera that man? Granted, everybody chooses their own heroes, but as historically interesting as he is—and the reasons for his appeal as a symbol are obvious—I just don’t celebrate him, and the reasons why are utterly simple: Guevara executed a lot of people and also allowed the execution of even more people without trial (untried political prisoners—and, hey, I donate to Amnesty and believe in what they fight for) which makes him, to me, not unlike like the despotic Bolsheviks as Emma Goldman described them: largely a replacement for the previous Tsarist regime of the despotic Romanovs.

This from 1923:

The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution—particularly the Socialist idea—is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship is replaced by the “dictatorship of the proletariat”—or by that of its “advance guard,” the Communist Party. Lenin takes the seat of the Romanovs, the Imperial Cabinet is rechristened Soviet of People’s Commissars, Trotsky is appointed Minister of War, and a labourer becomes the Military Governor General of Moscow. That is, in essence, the Bolshevik conception of revolution, as translated into actual practice.

And so on. Unavoidable in terms of human nature? I don’t think so. But challenging, to be sure, in the extreme. But there is a very old saying from Pindar that goes something like this: “We become like that which we hate.” So Jesus says, tough luck: “No longer love your neighbour, love your enemies.” Hey, I can still have trouble with neighbours. But what a daring concept.

This is from Rolf Potts, entitled Che: The Ronald McDonald of Revolution
SPEAKER’S CORNER, in which he writes about some of the spewed clichés of Guevara’s supporters and detractors.

Actually, a couple of more things first. The mention of Ronald McDonald is, in this moment, somehow apt with Guevara, too, and not just because his face on T-Shirts is a marketing and propaganda bonanza. But because with the health plans of America (and even Canada) more and more at the mercy of anti-health insurance companies, and childhood obesity booming and diabetes sky-rocketing, I’m no fan of McDonald’s, either—in fact, quite the contrary. Not to paint with too broad a brush, but I like respected animals and conscious health and real food and dignified labour way too much.

McLYMPICS

McDonald’s is the Official Restaurant of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Personally, I never even think of McDonald’s as a restaurant, in the food experience use of the word. But sponsor of the Olympics? Is this athlete food? And even if it is because you’re young and remarkably fit and burning 5,000 calories a day, what about once you’re past 22 and working out 8 hours a day? Does it work for anyone, or is it just one expanding Super Size Me?

McDIGENOUS

And the film Avatar, with its grand indigenous motif and call for sustainability, is also sponsored by McDonald’s. I see a clash, but maybe I’m just picky. Shouldn’t we all be a little pickier? McDigenous is more like it. Maybe McDonald’s could sponsor the upcoming Canada Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and the attempted cleansing of indigenous culture in Canada over about 150 years. Nah, McDonald’s has already contributed enough: to spiking and deadly Type II Diabetes among First Nations people in Canada.

And I agree, people do have a choice, but the food still sucks (I know, but that’s my opinion. Even as a kid, the Big Mac special sauce flavour lingered in my belches for hours—gross!). Does anyone like the smell of those fast-food restaurants? (Okay, I know some people do, and I guess I did, sort of, too, when my nose was seven-years-old and I didn’t know about the endlessly tortured animals). But I really find it distasteful now.

And that food is designed, literally—I’m serious—to be addicting, acting on our brains not unlike heroin does (see former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration Dr. David Kessler’s The End of Overeating to see how the food industry works). There’s an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ: Early on in the book, you suggest that that major food companies know what motivates shoppers.

Dr. Kessler: They know what drives demand, and they were able to design foods to be hot stimuli. The food industry says they only give consumers what they want. But what they want excessively activates the rewards circuits of the brain. They aren’t selling just any commodity. They’ve designed highly stimulating products, and consumers come back for more. Nothing sells as much as something that stimulates the rewards-circuitry of the brain. It’s all about selling product.

Anyway, back to Potts on Che Guevara—how did I get so distracted. From Bolivia to McDonald’s to Cuba:

Granted, it’s not hard to find Che Guevara aficionados in Cuba—just keep an eye out for anyone who has the option to leave the country at their leisure.

That’s funny.

During my month in Havana, I met half a dozen Europeans with Che tattoos on various body parts, no less than two Uruguayan medical students who unironically wore black berets, and a woman from Oregon who sported a homemade “Guerrillero Heroico” tank top and insisted that the blame for contemporary Cuban misery could be traced to the small-minded prejudices of red-state America.

Whenever I mentioned the more troubling aspects of Che’s biography to these folks, none of them seemed all that fazed.

Sure, Che might have promoted his ideals through force and violence, they said, but unwavering conviction and action are the only forces that can change a complacent world.

Sure, Che shrugged off torture and executions on his watch, but he was at heart an inspiring humanitarian who ultimately hoped to improve the lives of millions.

Sure, Che tried to impose a one-size-fits-all political vision on faraway cultures—but at least that vision was just, and might well have worked had it been given a chance to take hold.

This kind of rationalization sounded vaguely familiar at the time, and it wasn’t until I returned to the United States that I realized neo-conservative apologists were using the exact same language and reasoning to defend the foreign policy decisions of George W. Bush.

Anyway, what is really interesting to remember is on how many vital levels indigenous rights and Marxism are utterly incompatible, anyway. So I think Che does fit in better with McDonald’s’ imposing style than with any indigenous rights movement in Latin America or anywhere else. Why? Ideological clash.

Check this out from Michael P. Nofz in his essay Treading Upon Separate Paths: Native American Ideology and Marxist Analysis (pg 231-232):

The shared beliefs of Native American tribes must be seen as something more than products of economic organization. Ideology instead stems from the ongoing experiences which certain Indians draw from their connection with the natural environment.

In short, Native American ideologies are more land-based, while those of industrial Europe and allied societies are production-based. Among numerous Indians, nature is not just raw material to be transformed; it also imparts a continuous set of relations through which ideological insight is revealed. The forces of nature are themselves potent guides over human thought, and not the other way around, as Euro-Induatrialism asserts.

The problem of Marxist analysis is that it minimizes the influence of nature over human thought.

This is to be expected, since the Marxist emphasis on material production confines explanations of ideology to human economic transactions. At the same time, it reduces the relations between human beings and their natural environment to pragmatic materialism.

Given such a distinct difference in processes of ideology formation, the reluctance of American Indians to embrace Marxist thinking can be better understood.

They are not likely to see real prospects for human liberation in any doctrine which underscores the inevitability of progress through production and consumption, while ignoring important human relationships to land.

Marxism is thus seen as sharing ideological similarities with capitalism. Both support forms of socio-economic organization which, while seeking different relations of production, nevertheless pose similar threats to land-based ideology. Marxism and capitalism alike threaten to strip away the spiritual significance of land, further detaching human consciousness from its affective relationship with nature.

In the broad manner of thinking common to various Indian tribes, the real difference between Marxist and capitalist prescriptions lies only in their proposed systems for distributing the benefits of industrial, material progress.

Just a few little historical tidbits, food for thought. I, like this blog, am relatively scattered these days, as we all are, eventually—wild, man. Make of this stunning journey what you can. It’s late. Life is good. Sending love,

Pete

But what Kessler talks about is food and addiction and how the brain works. I knew a little about the dopamine release with anticipation of eating and drug-taking and so on, and the opiate release with eating, but its mechanisms are really driven home and explained. There is a lot of information that’s worth hearing for many aspects of a person’s life.

Like with the information, science and opinions given by Dr. Gabor Mate about addiction, it becomes clearer and clearer that we beautiful humans, assuming most basic needs are met, are simply (and complexly) on a spectrum of conditioned responses around the exciting or dulling of some emotion—in short, addicted. Heck, even the Bhagavad Gita which is thousands of years old, wrote about the curse (and glory!) of the senses.

Here’s an excerpt of an interview with Kessler in the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ: Early on in the book, you suggest that that major food companies know what motivates shoppers.

Dr. Kessler: They know what drives demand, and they were able to design foods to be hot stimuli. The food industry says they only give consumers what they want. But what they want excessively activates the rewards circuits of the brain. They aren’t selling just any commodity. They’ve designed highly stimulating products, and consumers come back for more. Nothing sells as much as something that stimulates the rewards-circuitry of the brain. It’s all about selling product.

The full interview is here.

In the meantime, smile as much as you can. It makes the body believe you’re happy, even if you’re not. Things get released in the brain until finally you’re laughing out loud, even if you’re really miserable. It’s pretty cool. Are you doing it? Come on. Or, from a deeper yogic point of view, if you refuse to smile no matter what, this question would be asked: “Who is the “I” who doesn’t want to smile?” I’m smiling right now. I’m out of control. I couldn’t be happier!

Sending lots of love, joy, and breathing to relax in the process,

Pete