I was talking to someone earlier today about when “Summer Time” begins. Today is May 1st, and I am in Ireland, and according to The Irish Calendar summer consists of the months of
from 01:00 UTC on the last Sunday in March until 01:00 UTC on the last Sunday in October each year.
So:
Europe is currently observing Summer Time.
So, Summer Time began in March, began today, and is due to begin in June.
This brings up a few things I have talked about before here, all relating to symbols and our relationship with them. Of course “Summer Time” is not a real thing. As I write this I am staring out at a dark, gloomy, grey sky which has been dropping water on us almost unrelentingly for 2 days now. Not what I would call “Summer”. “Summer Time” is an idea. It is also a socially constructed and shared convention, but it is entirely arbitrary and subjective. I wrote before about Alan Watts and his comments on time, specifically day-light savings time. It also brings to mind Robert Anton Wilson talking about his address, and how he could live in many different ‘places’ at once. Why? Because the address system is also a symbol – just like time.
Wilson also brings up Eastern Philosophy and its relationship to such systems of symbols. One aspect of Buddhism is how it stresses that our world of concepts and ideas is not the real world. This is something people like Watts and Wilson expressed time and time again. Symbols, words, ideas are important, they help us navigate the world, but the trick is to never be fooled by them. They are not reality, they are labels for reality. They help us understand reality, but they are not the real thing. “The Map is not the Territory”.
So, is it summer? The rain pounding my window says otherwise.
During World War II, Project Pigeon (later Project Orcon, for “organic control”) was American behaviorist B. F. Skinner‘s attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile.
The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon trained (by operant conditioning) to recognize the target pecked at it. As long as the pecks remained in the center of the screen, the missile would fly straight, but pecks off-center would cause the screen to tilt, which would then, via a connection to the missile’s flight controls, cause the missile to change course.
Although skeptical of the idea, the National Defense Research Committee nevertheless contributed $25,000 to the research. However, Skinner’s plans to use pigeons in Pelican missiles was considered too eccentric and impractical; although he had some success with the training, he could not get his idea taken seriously. The program was canceled on October 8, 1944, because the military believed that “further prosecution of this project would seriously delay others which in the minds of the Division have more immediate promise of combat application.”
Remember that there are only three kinds of things anyone need ever do.
(1) Things we ought to do
(2) Things we’ve got to do
(3) Things we like doing
I say this because some people seem to spend so much of their time doing things for none of the three reasons, things like reading books they don’t like because other people read them. Things you ought to do are things like doing one’s school work or being nice to people. Things one has got to do are things like dressing and undressing, or household shopping.
Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
So, yesterday, I posted a picture of Alan Watts’ “The Wisdom of Insecurity” – which carries the tagline “A Message of an Age of Anxiety”. My friend Ciaran made a comment about it, that I have myself thought about before.
But how long is an ‘age’ exactly? I’d imagine anxiety has always existed (and always will) in every ‘age’ and is not just specific to the ‘age’ in which Watts wrote this. Surely the stone age was also an age of anxiety as was the ‘space age’ as is the current information/technological age… and so on. It makes it seem like it is just a passing phase.
Well, the first thing I would note is that the tag line says it is ‘A Message for AN Age of Anxiety’. Which, it is. But Ciaran does raise a larger issue, one which immediately recalled a New York Times article I read some time ago, which alerted me to the fact I was previously unaware of, that “Age of Anxiety” is a term that predates Watts’ book.
The title comes from W.H. Auden’s 1948 poem “The Age of Anxiety”. The Times notes that the poem is not particularly well known – but the title is.
From the moment it appeared, the phrase has been used to characterize the consciousness of our era, the awareness of everything perilous about the modern world: the degradation of the environment, nuclear energy, religious fundamentalism, threats to privacy and the family, drugs, pornography, violence, terrorism. Since 1990, it has appeared in the title or subtitle of at least two dozen books on subjects ranging from science to politics to parenting to sex (“Mindblowing Sex in the Real World: Hot Tips for Doing It in the Age of Anxiety”). As a sticker on the bumper of the Western world, “the age of anxiety” has been ubiquitous for more than six decades now.
The Times article then asks – is it accurate? Do we live in THE Age of Anxiety? Maybe Watts was being particular (as was his way) in using the word “An”, acknowledging that it is probably wrong to describe this as THE age of Anxiety. Surely anxiety is something that has afflicted all times?
The other issue it raises is what do we mean by anxiety. For many, including the author of the Times piece, as well as friends who have heard me mention the title, anxiety is a very real thing, not just a throw away word to represent ‘worry’. Taken as a real disorder, anxiety is the most common psychiatric complaint in America.
But just because we have statistical evidence of the diagnosis, doesn’t mean that we are any more anxious than any previous generation. As the author, Daniel Smith, notes, previous eras were certainly more tumultuous than our own. I sometimes think of when people talk about how crazy and out of control modern times are, and I can’t help think that compared to the history of man kind, we must have it relatively easy? Smith claims that the difference is self-awareness. We are aware of our anxiety, and this in turn makes us even more anxious. Indeed, he points to evidence that there certainly was anxiety in previous eras – the difference is that we talk about our anxiety.
So, I think Watts got it right – we are living in AN Age of Anxiety, not THE Age. All ages are, an age of anxiety.
Incidentally, Watts book was written in 1958 – and in his introduction he describes a world about to collapse in on itself financially, culturally and socially. And when you read it today, he could have been talking about the last few years.
Been a bit busy of recent, so writing is a bit slow, but I have a few things percolating I hope to get out when things calm down in my life. In the mean time, I came across this xkcd I had never seen before this week which is now one of my favourites ever (and triggered an amazingly coincidental incident which has got me thinking about the nature of coincidence and/or fate – a post to follow [hopefully])
You know that girl you really like? She doesn’t like you nearly as much and never will, unless your interest in her suddenly vanishes, in which case she may well start to like you. This may seem like a paradox, and it is, assuming that a paradox is a medieval weapon of torture.
