This movie is called “The Man from Earth”, and I cannot recommend it enough. Go out, rent it, find  it, watch it! Although there is so much more to say, at this point, just go watch it!

Watch this movie!

http://www.manfromearth.com/

“Economy” – is the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money.

While this might sounds quite straight forwards, as mother culture has us believe, there are so many ambiguous words in there, I had to do some more looking. What is a state? In terms of? Production? Consumption? I think you are catching my drift. I went to a dictionary spree to find out what all this means. So, after some time, here is the definition of economy, less poignant, from what I found:

Economy – is the condition of a territory considered as an organised political unit at a particular point in time, described in the limited language of the making, manufacturing, or creating of  and the using up of beneficial possessions and performed duties, as well as the stock or amount of coins and banknotes as a form of payment

Of course, there are still words that I wanted explained: what is money? well, apart from the physical coins and notes, it is wealth, and wealth is a large amount of money, property, or possessions, or the state (remember, that is only a temporary condition) of being rich. Wealth can also be a large amount of something desirable.

Now, why would I go through all this? The words we use, when we use them, we use with all their connotations, however, we are seldom aware of them. We have come to believe that we can make our own words, and give them the meaning we want! Well, while we all make the real meaning of words internally, the dictionary is akin to a guide showing us what the rest of the world thinks something means!

We have forgotten that economy is but one description (and at that, apparently quite a bad one) of certain aspects of our reality, yet we have made it everything. Wealth, growth, money, supply and demand, all these things are talked about as if they were true and the only things that are important! Might that be because we think of success more of the gaining of wealth, fame or social status, rather than the mere achievement of a goal? Have we forgotten that we invented all these concepts, and if we choose to , can change them?

While my definition of economy still is very similar to the official one, I like the fact that it includes words like “limitations and time limits”, as this takes a statement that is permanent to be in fact a description of one aspect of something at one point in time. Nothing is permanent, everything changes!

Language constructs more than describes reality, the very words we use are the building blocks of that construct. That means that the words we use, and their connotations, hold one key to understanding what is going on in the human race. Sadly, leafing through the dictionary, all I find are reminders of the importance of money, fame, social status,…maybe once we started marvelling at ourselves, building museums to celebrate what other humans did, maybe we became a bit wrapped up in ourselves, or not?

P.s: Oh yes, “collapse”  is the sudden and complete failure, and at the same time, it can mean the failure as a result of sickness. Which  one is it for our economy?? Could it be that it had been sick for a while now, and all we did was ignore the warning signs?

Myst over the lake

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: “The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.”

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

“If nothing exists,” inquired Dokuon, “where did this anger come from?”

Seeing pictures of food on television makes me hungry – and I am not alone in that department. Just invite a couple of friends over to watch “Supersize Me” and notice how many of them will want a Hamburger or Big Mac after, or even during the movie. Advertiser are well aware of this and thus spare nothing to make all the food on TV look scrumptious. This also holds true for smoking: watch a movie where the main hero smokes, and you’d be surprised as to how much more people smoke.

So, the old dictum of “monkey see, monkey do” quite neatly explains what is happening there. Yet, if seeing pictures of things on the box makes me want to consume them, then how on earth would having the temptation right in front of me help me quit?? Why would having a box of cigarettes at home help someone to quit?

The answer lies in new research, published in the Journal of Consumer Research. There researchers showed that the actual physical presence of a temptation actually increases moderation in consumption, whereas just looking at pictures, increases temptation. Of course, the journal is mainly concerned with the implications of this for consumption and sales, but if you look at the underlying pattern, we can see something very familiar:

When I was a kid, Christmas was awesome. The snow, the smell of cinnamon, the tree,….i loved it. And it was not only that day, even better were all the days leading up to it. Anticipation seemed the best part. Sure Christmas Day was nice, but there were at least 24 days of knowing that this one day would come…

Do the things we see and subsequently fantasize about bring us more enjoyment than what we have? Is the grass really always greener on the other side?

Well, I don’t know the answer to that, all that I know is that when people ask me to quit smoking, i tell them to buy cigarettes and keep them in the house or on them. That way, they could smoke if they wanted to, but they really don’t want to because they can. Ahhh, and I also tell them to buy Gummybears DVDs and watch them instead of Fight Club or other movies…that way there is no other side that is greener!!

In his study, James Coyne found that emotional states have no bearing on survival rates among head and neck cancer patients. Or, to be more precise, no statistical correlation has been found between mind-set and health. Once again, math triumphs over human experience to show us that our bodies and our minds are really not connected…or are they?!

Let’s take a closer look at this study then, shall we? First off, I personally have a problem with quantifying my emotional state into numbers ranging from 1 to 4. In order to apply statistics to a whole population of course, it is necessary to do so. But keep in mind that already verbalizing emotions is tough, as they are a visceral experience and thus no amount of words can really convey a feeling. Here is a little test for you: Get a couple of your friends together, each one with a piece of paper, and have them write down their associations to two words: Sex, Education. Compare the results and notice how words have very different meanings for different people. As such, how can a whole sentence (“I feel sad”) mean different things for the different participants. Right, that is the first thing.

Let’s look a little further. At the bottom of the study it says that while 84% of cancer patients believe their mind set influences their illness, only 26% of oncologists agree. Some time ago, I read a study about how mind sets influence our behaviours. Specifically, two school teachers were each sent to teach a group of kids. One teacher was told that the class consisted of very gifted children eager to learn, the other that this was a group of challenged learners. At the end of the lesson, and although both groups of kids were on the same academic level, the teacher who thought he/she was teaching gifted children got more work done in a better atmosphere than the other teacher.

What does that mean? Doctors are people of authority to us, and as such we tend to accept what they say as “law”. So, if the doctor does not believe that my mind can help me, how then can I? Another study showed that when doctors thought they were giving real medication when they passing out placebos, the placebos worked a lot better, simply because the doctor fully believed in it.

So, wouldn’t it be interesting to see what happened if we made doctors believe that the mind set is important in determining the outcome of an illness? What would happen then?

This study for me, while valuable and very true in it own field, is largely a testament to the fact that we still approach medicine with a very mechanistic mind set. Even though we are humans, for doctors i always think we are nothing more than a very complicated car they don’t really know that much about. They fiddle and tweak things, and hope for the best, really!

I believe that when it comes to studying emotions and the mind set of individuals, it is important to note that it is just that: a study of individuals. How can we presume that the mind set of one individual is the same as that of any other. If we all had the same mind set, neurology, and outlook on life, how would we ever progress, how would individual like Albert Einstein come up with their ideas, and how would spontaneous regression in cancer happen (of course, we don’t know how, but I am sure it must be something we can make a pill for!!).

Science is important, yet it limits itself too much. That goes for medicine, psychology, and most of the other fields dealing with humans. We aim for a purely rational approach to irrational matters, so no wonder we don’t understand it. Maybe we should make allowances for the fact that in some cases, the scientific approach is not useful, and limits us severely.

And finally, just think about the hypnotic message this study sends. Do I really want Cancer patients around the world to think:”There, i thought I could do it, but obviously I am screwed”? Can Mr Coyne really stand behind that and say that the mind set has never influenced the course of the illness??
What do you think?