Photo Journal 11/23/2020

  Shot with Canon 80D

Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6

Mushroom shot with Canon 100mm Macro

Blue Lake Park

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Book Review: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

 

Frank Herbert is something else. While reading this book my mind is drawn and quartered a thousand times. It is pushed and pulled this way and that. I am like a child grasping for meaning, knowing it is there but just out of reach. On the edge of understanding, I sit, in awe of what might be on the other side. Comprehension, just out of reach and yet in the back of my mind, it has been there the whole time. The words are new but they make sense, like some dream that tries to incorporate elements that seem, at first, to be disconnected, only to discover later, maybe after a day or two of contemplation, that the meaning was there amidst the confusion. Then, he brings you back. Frank Herbert, the man that sent you down the rabbit hole is there holding your hand and makes everything clear. 

Dune Messiah is the second in the Dune series and it is a wonderful rollercoaster. One minute I'm trying to follow the story and figure out what is happening, what might happen, and then the next minute I'm lost in the jargon and intrigue of a world I barely know. The internal ruminations of the characters, the dialogue, and the world that Frank Herbert created is so thoroughly it's own that it is like turning on a documentary from an alien world at an alien time. As much as it is unfamiliar it is just familiar enough to cause a fury of excitement and suspense. The intrigue is palpable and enticing. It keeps you going and gives you hope. 

In this, the second story about the desert planet known as Dune, we take up the story of Paul Atreides, AKA Muad 'Dib AKA Usul, AKA the ruler of the known universe. The book starts about twelve years after the end of the first Dune book. We find that with the help of violence, religious ideology, his prescient sister Alia, his Fremen soldiers, and his monopoly over the invaluable resource known as melange, Paul has brought his form of justice and leadership to all. He is known by some as a god and by others as a devil. He is not unaware of this duality and is plagued by his own doubt about the legacy that he is creating. 

Paul tackles internal and external threats to his dynasty but with his powers of foresight, he seems to be one step ahead of his enemies. While he attempts to root out the spies in his midst he is also dealing with the matter of his succession plan. Chani, his concubine and true love, is pregnant and there are many who want to take advantage of her vulnerability and Paul's potential weakness toward her. He knows who to trust but he doesn't always know if he can trust himself and by the end, the true plot is revealed. Will Paul fall to the wiles of his enemies or will he continue his violent conquest? Read to find out! 

Read my review of the first book Dune here:

Book Review: Dune by Frank Herbert

Photo Journal 11/15/2020 Tamron 70-300 First Shots

 Shot with Canon 80D

Tamron 70-300mm F4-5.6 (No Cropping)

Sandy River Delta

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Photo Journal 11/2/2020

   Shot with Canon 80D

100mm Macro Lens

Lone Fir Cemetery

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From my phone.

Talking About Suicide

Some people think that talking about suicide will cause more suicide. I doubt it. The thing that causes more suicides is indifference, hate, and physiology. Abuse and neglect. Biological abnormalities and shitty luck cause suicides. Talking about suicide or joking about suicide doesn't cause suicide. Not any more than talking about violence causes violence. Talking about something removes the burden of trying to ignore it. Maybe talking about why we don't talk about suicide from more angles will help us see it more clearly. Here are some angles.

Maybe people don't talk about suicide because they are superstitious. They think that talking about something makes it occur. I suppose there is a kernel of truth in the idea that concepts can influence behavior but the idea that saying a word would cause the universe to focus on persecuting you is irrational. The universe doesn't have you in mind because it is not conscious and you are not that special.

Maybe people don't talk about suicide because they are afraid of their own thoughts of suicide and they are trying to suppress them.

Maybe people don't talk about suicide because they have known someone who committed suicide and they are traumatized by the experience. Now the word brings up terror and they can not engage in a nonemotional conversation about suicide. The whole concept is tainted with direct personal experience. I'm not sure but I think if someone can accept and get past having someone close commit suicide the person might be able to communicate to others how devastating it is and how if someone is thinking about committing suicide they should not dismiss the effect it might have on others. Many people care more about those around them than themselves and if they were truly alone they might kill themself but it's knowing that others care enough to cry at your loss that you feel that you might be able to handle another day.

Maybe people don't want to talk about suicide because they can empathize with those that have contemplated it and also with those that have attempted it or I suppose succeeded in it but can you sympathize with a dead person? I think you can if you know anything about them. Knowing something about a person can help you create a story around the person. One that you can identify with and allows you to place them in your worldview. This also allows you to make value judgments on the person, whether accurate or not. Maybe empathizing too much makes you think about killing yourself, which is disturbing and therefore you do not want to entertain the idea of suicide.

(Can you sympathize with random unknown people that you know nothing about? Maybe you can empathize with them as what they have done is modeled in the mind and mirror neurons mimic the perceived emotional and physiological state of the person, but I'm not sure if that is sympathy.)

Maybe people don't talk about suicide because most people have had only a small amount of suicidal thoughts and it is only a small proportion of people who have severe enough thoughts to actually do it. This might cause people to dismiss the issue as not significant. There are plenty of other things to talk about than suicide, which is mostly unpleasant to contemplate anyway. Why talk about unpleasant topics?

If we all accepted that a great deal of the population has varying levels of suicidal thoughts then maybe we could be more open about our personal thoughts about suicide and then maybe we could talk about suicide enough that it becomes less taboo and easier to talk about in general. By lessening the stigma it might become easier to ask for help.

Maybe people think if we don't talk about it it will go away.

Maybe people think that if someone they know commits suicide it might be their fault? Maybe they think that the way they treated that person could have been better or they were cruel to that person and so talking about suicide means admitting their own feelings of guilt. Maybe people secretly wish for the suicide of someone else and they feel guilty about it. Or they secretly feel comradery with the suicidal person but condemn it outwardly in order to hide their shame. 

Maybe people are afraid to talk about suicide because they are simply afraid of death in general. To these people maybe any contemplation of death is too hard to cope with and suicide adds a layer of horror. The fear of death is certainly pervasive but it is such an unknown that I would rather concentrate on life, even when life is hard to handle. 

I remember when I found out that Robin Williams committed suicide and my first thought was not one of sadness or scorn but instead I imagined a man that finally took control over his life and made a decision that was his to make. I appreciate Robin Williams very much as an entertainer and I look up to him as a role model for comedic self-expression but I didn't know him personally and my projection onto his suicide was just a reaction. It didn't involve much thought about what his suicide would do to his family and how much the world would miss out on without him around to entertain us. It was only later that I cried thinking about how sad he must have been to commit suicide and how much I loved his presence in my life. 

It is selfish to commit suicide but it is also selfish to keep someone from doing it for the sake of your own desire to enjoy their company or not feel sad. Ultimately people are responsible for their own bodies and life and it is up to them to decide what they do with it. It is also up to those around you to choose to help when you are feeling terrible. You can't always convince someone they are loved and you can't always convince yourself that others love you. Depression is a very powerful psychological state that can not always be turned around with love and drugs.

Suicide is something that I have contemplated in my life and I have had people around me that have attempted it. To live in a world where suicide exists can seem confusing and cruel but it is not a new phenomenon and it is not going away anytime soon. If someone wants to kill themself they can. It isn't that hard. Humans are squishy meat sacks full of blood that are constantly on the precipice of death. Every time you get into a car or step into the shower you risk the wrath of entropy and the chaos of uncertainty and ultimately death finds you. You already face death every day so why should suicide be so scary or so obscure? 

Maybe if we talk about it enough we'll find it's not that interesting?

 

Forgotten Decisions

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There's no reason to think that people are able to remember everything they think about. We are constantly going through internal ruminations, whether we are paying attention to them or not. I don't think that the internal monologue is something that we turn on and off at will or consciously. I'm not sure if the stream of consciousness that is verbal is always running but when it is running our focus on it fluctuates. Sometimes one can really focus on observing the random thoughts that happen inside the mind. Sometimes one can direct the stream and try to focus where it goes. Sometimes one is completely unable to grasp the internal messages. 

Have you ever felt that when you forget whether or not you locked the door it's because you're not sure if you remember locking it just now or the 50 other times you locked it before? Habitual behaviors become automatic. You don't know you're doing them. This might be the same about thoughts in that some thoughts you have so often that you forget that you had them. For example, when you drive toward your old house because you have gone that way so many times your subconscious, which directs your actions, now just goes there unless consciously directed otherwise. Before you realize it you're already there. This habituation only occurs after one has deliberately directed consciousness repeatedly. One can create these habituations consciously but once it becomes a habit one can forget their role in its creation. 

Maybe one becomes distracted from their internal monologue long enough to forget it exists. It's still somewhere softly analyzing and contemplating in the background. Maybe one is imagining how the next day will develop while watching a TV show. Their mind is only taking in stimulus but every so often their stream of consciousness breaks through and one is interrupted by an already occurring mental conversation. You pick up a few things about going to your favorite restaurant but then you get distracted again and it's such a mundane thought you disregard it. Then, the next day, when internally debating where to eat you decide to go to your favorite restaurant. The decision was actually decided by yourself long before you realize it. Or at least it was primed. Like when someone tells you the wrong lyric and when you hear the song you can't hear anything other than the wrong word that sounds correct now. 

Can one take credit for the forgotten conscious influences one inflicts on one's self? The forgotten fleeting thoughts that are like dreams. Whispy like fog. Like when the right word is on the tip of your tongue. In the back of your mind. Consciousness is like a river in that it is always changing and one day it will not be in the same place. Is it still the same river? Are you responsible for the changes?

Am I a product of only deterministic scientific happenstance? Causes and effects that are completely out of my control? If it is possible to willfully create habituation then it would provide a mechanism for free will to manifest itself in reality and not just in concept. If this mechanism is real then that would mean that it exists within the nervous system and is theoretically identifiable. If free will is a physical reality then determinism has a flaw. This would introduce some amount of unpredictability when it comes to assuming that the future is a series of determined, and predictable causes and effects. 

But what about the thoughts that cause the habituation; how can these thoughts be justified if they just erupt out of nowhere? How can free will be proven if the proposed mechanism relies on thoughts that emerge due to the prior causes that are determined by physics? If thoughts are not purely a reaction to the current environment then maybe thoughts arise as a direct result of a free will mechanism that is not verbal, or has become subconscious prior to being verbal? 

Maybe the first few years of childhood is a period where a system starts to develop that allows for self-observation and mental manipulation. As the system for self-directed behavior matures the person is consciously learning how to learn, how to speak, how to listen to themself, how the world works, how to imagine multiple outcomes, and how to choose different directions. This system of different sectors of the brain networking together to create something new allows for the development of consciousness and the potential for free will. 

As time passes the act of willful self-determination becomes almost entirely habitual and because humans do not develop the concept of consciousness until later in life the subjective perspective that includes both the verbal and nonverbal streams of consciousnesses we collectively call consciousness is almost indescribable. The brain is both emotional and intellectual and yet its functions are elusive to the observer. The system becomes habitual enough at an early enough age that the experience of directing our bodies is forgotten. It goes underground but still provides a mechanism for free will.

As language develops a child begins to incorporate verbal communication into the preexisting paradigm. Self-expression begins to become codified, constrained, and efficiently communicable. As one interacts with reality and develops a language to communicate with others one begins to see the world in a different way.  In a way that is constrained by language. When one is aware of one's own attempts to direct one's own path via the verbal route then consciousness becomes possible to communicate about but is not the sole arbiter of free action. 

In order to understand this concept of a mechanism, rooted in consciousness, that allows for free will one has to overcome the habituation process and redirect the flow of verbal consciousness, knowing that it isn't the only controlling factor. Learning to control one's emotions becomes another skill in strengthening the potential for free will. Another skill that is needed is the ability to examine past failings and plan to correct them with repetitive thoughts and actions. 

If one finds that every time they encounter a certain emotionally distressing situation they act in a way that is dysfunctional then they can make a plan to change how they think about this situation, how they act before, during, and after the situation occurs, and try to understand the underlying emotional states that the situation produces. The more one is self-aware the more they can alter the way they react to situations or attempt to avoid them altogether. This kind of self-awareness is not entirely concerned with internal states but also takes into account the environment that they exist within. The ability to engage in free will is tempered by a person's understanding of everything that can and will affect them. 

The concept of responsibility is not the same as the concept of free will. People are responsible for their actions, generally speaking, regardless of the perception that they are in control of their actions. A drunk person is responsible for the consequences of their actions just as a psychotic person is responsible for the consequences of their actions. They may not have any insight into the conscious thoughts that existed prior to or during the act but from the perspective of others, they are the ones to blame. They are the ones to set apart and deal with. Attempting to accept all actions as a matter of fate is a recipe for chaos and discounts the ability of people to control themselves, even without a well developed moral system or strengthened free will. 

In conclusion, in regard to thoughts, we are mostly unaware. When we are aware we have an opportunity to self-direct and with enough repetition, we can create new automatic or partially automatic habits. We can consciously control unconscious behaviors through this process. I postulate that before language this ability may have been more open to us and over time our subconscious takes more and more control. Our relationship to consciousness changes as we acquire language. Or maybe it is only after we acquire sophisticated language and maturity that we start to be able to review our thoughts and bring them into some kind of control. It is difficult to halt the momentum of cause and effect that propels us forward but if one can reflect on and redirect their thoughts they just might be able to make lasting change in how they think, how they act, and who they are. 

Photo Journal 10/26/2020

  Shot with Canon 80D

100mm Macro Lens

Sandy River Delta

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