Language, Language!

Jon2 Comments

Ever since I was a kid in grade school, playing with simple codes, I’ve been fascinated by other languages, and the myriad ways that meaning can be wrapped in shells of sound and symbol. In high school I studied German, and in college, Russian. Along the way I also studied a little Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew, and in a month or so I learned more Esperanto than I did of German in two years (Esperanto is easy!). Since I grew up on the Mexican border, a bit of border Spanish seeped through the cracks as well.

Recently, my study of languages like PHP made me realize how much I’ve lost of my human languages, a common problem for many Americans who seldom use them. I decided to take some steps to reverse the trend. I’m pretty much willing to write off my Russian and Biblical languages, but I want to improve my German. And more than that, I want to get to the point where I’m truly decent in Spanish, Esperanto, and Catalan (the language of Barcelona and northwestern Spain — a new one for me).

I plan to cycle through periods of a few months each concentrating on Spanish and Catalan, with short periods in between to improve my Esperanto. (This weekend I practically brought my level of Esperanto back to where it was twenty years ago.) German, I’ll tend to later.

Learning languages now is a hell of a lot more fun than it was when I was in school:

  • Podcasts
  • International TV broadcasts and newspapers on the Web
  • Blogs
  • Web courses
  • Easily-ordered foreign-language books (I’m reading El Alquimista en español)
  • Movies, videos, and DVDs (I’ve already rented several Mexican and Spanish films from the Naro)
  • Wikipedias. (Did you know the German Wikipedia is the second largest, with nearly 500,000 articles? Or that the Spanish wiki has nearly 170,000, that Catalan has 46,000? Or that oft-denigrated Esperanto is resurgent with 61,000 Wikipedia articles and now a full-time TV station?)
  • Music (Check out this achingly beautiful song by Jorge Drexler, courtesy of Luis Coelho’s link.)
  • E-mail, forums, chat… it just goes on.

Why bother? Well, yeah, I want to visit Spain, especially Barcelona, but it’s more than that. The Internet makes it possible for the first time for any willing, literate person to truly transcend the limitations of living within a single culture, and become a citizen of the world. I’ve always felt I was, but I want to realize that more concretely.

I think studying the words of another culture brings home how arbitrary the words really are, and primes us for seeing what’s beyond the mere words and thoughts. At least, like everything else, it can if we let it…

Paz y amor, pau i amor, paco kaj amo, Friede und Liebe! —jon

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Ubi Caritas

Jon10 Comments

Bob Griffith of Hypersync posted a link to this YouTube video of a boy in the Netherlands singing about the love in his unconventional family. Aside from the obvious questions it raises, such as why the Christian Right is apoplectic over the idea of letting everyone have the right to marry whomever they choose, there’s something deeper here besides.

As I commented on his post, I remarked that ironically, as Europe has become less “Christian,” and church attendance has plunged, Europe may be becoming more “Christian” in other ways, not associated with religion. So where is God in “post-Christian” Europe?

For me, the answer is a universal one, found in an ancient hymn of the Church:

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

(Where there is charity and love, there is God.)

Something in the boy’s song gives me hope. Not just for equal rights for gay people, but of something far more profound. God is love. Love conquers all.

Ice Cream Truth

Jon5 Comments

Millions of voices of the world clamor for belief. You are asked to believe that 123 is a better cable channel than 234, that Sandscrape is a better toilet paper than Scratchroll, that M.T. Promisiz is a better leader than I. B. Lyin.

Then you’re asked to believe “in” pure abstractions, for instance that the area called Rolling Hillarity is a different “country” than the area called Dulland Flatlandia. And whether you are Rolling Hilarious or Dulland Flat, you need to believe that your country is the best one!

But the belief-net isn’t finished entangling you. To be “really” complete, you must have a “belief system,” too. In other words, you need to cram an elaborate mental superstructure into your head comprised of numerous associated concretized thoughts—that is “beliefs” about things you can neither see or touch. And you need to believe that it’s right, and preferably believe that all others are wrong. If that sounds like hard work, it is.

But fortunately, some have tried to make it easier for you. The most popular belief systems have come in ready-to-use packages, and luckily for you, a mere a half-dozen or so brands have satisfied fully 90% of the people of the world. Some have strong incentives if you buy this brand, you will enjoy bliss forever, and if you don’t, you’ll be in agony forever. (If that’s not incentive, what is?)

Occasionally, though, people come to the point of wondering what is true, what is real. Is it the belief system, or is it something else, maybe something the belief system is trying to describe, no matter how awkwardly. I propose a simple test:

Does it help you enjoy your ice cream more?

It’s amazing how irrelevant beliefs are when eating ice cream (or calamari, for that matter). An evangelist whose name I forget, despaired of trying to get ministers of different denominations to associate together through “ecumenical events.” He found that it worked quite well though when the occasion was getting ice cream. Belief systems don’t eat ice cream, but people do!

And for God’s sake, don’t believe a word of my beliefs here. Just see what makes your ice cream taste best. That just might be real. Taste and see (Psalm 34:8). If it does, it’s probably more real than a belief.

I’m back (and panting)!

Jon3 Comments

Firefox 2OK, sorry for the obtuse joke in my last post … it was an “off the top of my head” sort of thing. I knew no one would get it, but I thought it sounded like a koan, so I couldn’t resist. Yeah, a lame excuse for a lame post. Sorry!

It’s been very busy for me, but I’m getting my feet back on the ground. And what do I discover except that I’m nearly a month behind on reading some of my friends’ blogs!

Talk about feeling overwhelmed! I’m also studying PHP, and trying to get my head around multi-dimensional arrays. I just seem to have some sort of block there; but the good news is I feel like I’m on the verge of breaking through it.

I also breathed a huge sigh of relief last week when the official release of IE 7 was made available. I was largely responsible for making sure our sites survived the change without breaking, and up through the last beta, it looked like Microsoft was tampering with their Quirks mode rendering, a potential nightmare.

But who cares!? Firefox 2 was released today, (in conjunction with Firefox parties around the world)! If you aren’t already using Firefox, start! You’ll be glad you did. It’s a vastly superior browser; for one thing, it’s spell-checking this post as I type it! (No more illegible posts from the Frimster!) Beyond that, its flexibility with add-ons and customization is unbelievable.

I’m still going back through old posts and removing the old Textile markup. I disabled the Textile converter on my WordPress engine, so although recent posts look better, those from my first year of blogging may look pretty weird, especially the links, but this will be fixed soon.

I want to write so much, but as I mentioned, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. One thing I especially want to do is write some more detailed movie reflections, such as Dune/Children of Dune, and Peaceful Warrior. I also have a short story I wrote a few years ago, which will be ready for submission after just a bit more fleshing-out. It’s a dystopian science-fiction story with a “rage-against-the-machine” feeling. When I visited it again, it reminded me how I’ve neglected that area of my talents.

But:
I am catching up. Slowly.

Where have I been?

Jon10 Comments

Sorry for the quietness here. I’ve been extremely busy at work the last couple of weeks, and have had much less free time. But that’s a poor excuse for not posting, and it’s not the main reason.

Honestly, I’ve been fighting a deep inner sadness. It’s a strange thing to know that the world isn’t real, yet to live in it, and love it. And it’s simply painful to know how simple life is, and see the amazing nets of pain we spend weaving for ourselves and each other around the world.

Today, the first scientific estimate of the deaths in Iraq was released, and the news was shocking: that as many as 655,000 Iraqis have been killed in the violence ensuing directly and indirectly from my country’s “liberating” war. And my country’s ruler can’t fathom why inserting the “Democracy” disk doesn’t result in instant peace and harmony in Iraq.

My spirit feels like it could weep for days.

I feel tired. Tired of wars, tired of religions, tired of philosophies. I’m just tired of all the shit. All of it.

PW II

Jon6 Comments

I’m so sorry that I haven’t had much time for blogging and reading blogs this week. We’ve had a major project going on at work . . . I’ve been putting in 11-hour days for a week, and it’s not over yet. However, this weekend I did get the chance to relax a little. No time for loneliness this week.

I saw Peaceful Warrior for the third time. Iit’s been years since I loved a movie so much that I paid full admission to see it three times! And I actually began writing my long-promised review of it, but a power-surge knocked off my computer and destroy my unsaved work. (I know, I should know better.)

Part of me wondered why this superb film seems relegated to occasional arthouse screenings. Then I realized that PW‘s higher level of meaning is inaccessible to people who aren’t ready it yet. Hence, most critics and non-seekers see Peaceful Warrior as a familiar sports movie of the well-worn “dramatic comeback” type, sprinkled liberally with vague New-Agey platitudes.

The mind acts as a kind of a filter, almost as a safety valve in some ways, that keeps itself from grasping any truth before it is ready. In a teacher-disciple relationship, it kinds of goes like this:

Teacher: You are not the body. The world is an illusion. God is all there is.
Student: Yeah, cool.

Teacher: You are not the body. The world is an illusion. God is all there is.
Student: Whatever.

Teacher: You are not the body. The world is an illusion. God is all there is.
Student: Got it.

Teacher: You are not the body. The world is an illusion. God is all there is.
Student: Holy Sh*t! GOD IS ALL THERE IS!

Peaceful Warrior portrays the learning process beautifully.

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A Lesson from Loneliness

Jon8 Comments

I live alone, and I’ve generally been comforatable with that. I had roommates in my college and grad school years, and for a couple of years after I dropped out, as well. But for more than a decade, I’ve lived alone.

Suddenly, this year, I’m lonely. And it was this year that I got a glimpse behind the curtain, and saw that there’s no one else here. Before, I had largely thought of God as my invisible Companion, with me whereever I go. How could I be lonely? Since that experience, I’ve known that there is nothing to seek, nothing and no one is “with” me… I am part of This and This is noThing. That peek at non-duality changed my comfort with being alone.

But I’m here, and there is a world. The Bible and the Upanishads both teach that God created mankind for fellowship. (Heaven must be boring, eh?) So after one wish for a universe, voilá! There’s a universe. (In Sunday School, I never thought to ask what God made it of when there’s nothing but God.) So now, one part of it is feeling alone. The cure is obvious. Relate more to the world where God is hidden in every form.

The catch is to do it as a giver, not as a taker. To be God’s light shining love. To see myself in everyone. My teacher called this the zazen of being in public.