Seeing
This post concerns vision. Seeing what is really going on. You could call it getting the big picture or the art of seeing. Why we need to care for going on now. Most people don’t get timelines.
Seeing is an operation – one of the many steps on the way to knowing the energies that comprise the true self and the world.
I have been accused by republicans of being a democrat and liberal, accused by democrats of being a republicans and conservative. They both do it to humiliate me and other people. If you have been called a RINO, liberal or democrat join the club. By the way, accusing people you don’t know is silly behavior. Clearly, I am neither a republican nor a democrat. Nor am I a liberal or conservative. These are terms from the 17th to the 20th century from England and are very out of date now. However, they are used a great deal now. When you belong to a political party. You buy into their terminology and ideology.
Over time terminology and ideology change. I seriously doubt Abe Lincoln would approve of the Republican party after the 1870’s. I don’t relate well currently to either political party’s terminology and ideology. Never have! Does that make me a rebel? No, It means I am see the world different. Being dyslexic with a touch of ADHD (type 3) means I see a different world than many people.
When you observe trends
So, what do I believe? I know our planet is in trouble. I don’t believe the planet is in trouble. We have considerable evidence that we are mucking our planet up right now. SO I KNOW IT.
I come from a science and math background. I don’t really buy into beliefs. Religion concerns the use of belief. My focus concerns evidence, facts, data and observing what is happening daily. I watch, I observe and I gather data. Using science and math I analyze the data. This is a way of seeing. Above the original northern hemisphere hockey stick graph of Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999, smoothed curve shown in blue with its uncertainty range in light blue, overlaid with green dots showing the 30-year global average of the PAGES 2k Consortium 2013 reconstruction. The red curve shows measured global mean temperature, according to HadCRUT4 data from 1850 to 2013. This graph causes anxiety, extreme anger in other people who don’t like facts.
History and change
On political parties, I joined the young republicans in high school in 1968. By 1971, I had run a foul of the republican party. That was because of the Kent State massacre and protests. There was also the Vietnam War. It took a few more years for me to cut the connections with both parties. From my history studies, I found the terms conservative and liberal to be junk from the past. Terms from the past cloud our future. Our past behavior as humans does not have a very good score. We need to change and create a better score!
I bounced a long from 1976 to 2016 with bad presidents and average presidents. We did not have an exceptional president till Obama was elected. However, he suffered six years of bounce back. By 2010, we had conservative bounce back for the next 10 years. Per Ruth Ben-Ghiat, after a good president who does good social changes, the following often happens. When there have been periods of substantial social progress, it could be gender equity, it could be secularization, it could be racial equity, that creates a climate of extreme anxiety, extreme anger in other people who don’t like this progress.
Here is the bounce back pattern since the 1960’s
Kennedy/LBJ -> bounce back Nixon/Ford -> Carter sort of a do nothing leader -> really bounce back Reagan/Bush ->
Clinton sort of middle of road -> bounce back Bush -> Obama sort of liberal -> really bounce back Trump ->
Biden really middle of the road but sane
See the pattern
This nice graph illustrates bounce back social patterns. Notice this actually has two different sine waves.
In statistics we call this a bounce back pattern. We had Kennedy and LBJ from 1961 to 1969. They were liberal and sort of liberal. We then had from 1969 to 1992 sort of conservative feeling in our country sort of going back to robber barons times on the 1870’s-1920’s. Note – this illustrates periods of substantial social progress (the double highs) and periods of double lows backwards progress by conservative types who want the good old days that never really existed.
So what are they?
You can call them anti progressives, conservatives and no nothings. I have a conservative hateful cousin and he equates progressives with communist and heaven forbid socialists. So, I will not use the term “progressive” in this discourse nor “liberal” and “conservative” anymore. They really have become words with little meaning now, as that Mr Piggy and friends confuses the terms now. Those who follow these leader are minions may not “see” well due to skewed logic or ideology clouding their vision. Many have the concerns about social bounce back now per Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
My Training on seeing and trends
I am by training logical and fact based. I seek to understand and document nature. When I see there are other ways we can do tasks. I wonder why we chose these previous paths or stay on a path that leads to doom. There is the train track theory on this behavior. If the train is moving forward why get off the tracks. Thus, the logic flaw in this thinking pattern via sports and most people’s training – forward motion is always good on that train track. Thus they never think outside the box.
Stuck in the box!
My hateful cousin use to say ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics’? An early reference to the expression, which may explain Mark Twain’s assertion can be found in a speech made by Leonard H. Courtney, (1832-1918), later Lord Courtney. It has been attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill. Obviously, these gentlemen never took modern statistics courses. I have taken them. Most people get math errors just calculating the average and mean of a series of numbers. Well there is a great deal more than that to statistics the time line for developing statistics goes back to the 1820’s. Therefore 200+ years of development! Now we can now make cool graphs and analyze data to get insights like these graphs below.
These graphs show the effects of humans on our climate. These graphs do cause anxiety,and extreme anger in other people who don’t like facts. (This is restated to make a point – what are they not seeing?) Thus they would rather believe lies of mountebanks hucksters than real super star scientists.
What clouds Seeing
Not seeing what is going on has many emotional and mental causes. Evidently, past trauma, ideology, anxiety, anger and beliefs cause us not to see. What helps us see – education, learning, memories and observation. When I was 10 years old we had March snow storms about every year then. Now at age 73, I have NOT seen a March snow storm since 1993. That would be 31 years ago.
This is what I mean by seeing!
By seeing, I wipe away my past trauma, ideology, anxiety, anger and believes. I now see facts and evidence. From Greek – Sophia (wisdom) and gnósis (knowledge). This creates a good path forward into hope. So today I looked up what seeds I can start early for a great garden this year. I already have my bell peppers growing. Time to move them to bigger pots before they go outside!
Dedication
To Mann, Bradley & Hughes and as always Dr Odium.