The Cynical Optimist

With an ever expanding Earthly population in an ever expanding universe, I often question the importance of individuality and whether or not it seems to be getting lost as we increase in numbers, and as the universe increases in size.  A congested freeway or a long line is both a subject of beauty and blight, for while the order in the nature of our behavior is to be appreciated, the impersonality of a vast world of strangers is, at the very minimum, a subconscious pressure upon the tribal human mind as it emerged from the environment of evolved adaptiveness.

It is with this mindset that I approach the expression that “life goes on”–that deaths reported in wars, accidents, acts of violence, or  in disease are often ignorable to the wide majority of us.  And while our families–our genes and our blood–may grieve our absence, and while our close friends may think of us now and then, the true lonesome nature of human life and the passing of the mortal being is a subject of concern.  For even when we hold high regard for the priceless value of life, we have learned to “move on” to the extent that we are aware of the possibility that our grief can be the premature death of us, and that we must protect our own health in refraining from excessive sorrow as a result of witnessing or learning (ignorance is bliss?) about the deaths of individuals who may not just share our genes and our friendship and love, but who also share a common sense of belonging to our race–the human race.

It is this beautiful tragedy, this paradox of life and death, which often pushes my agnosticism towards the supernatural paradigm, for I wish to find non material merit in our existence, and to know that our limited time, and its limited celebration and grief by our fellows during and after its existence, does indeed prevail in some form into an immortal future.

I bow to the moral atheist  but I question the origin of the Big Bang, the”God” particle, the “Higgs boson” from which the Big Bang (or the existence of the universe in any method) resulted, and I “pray” for conclusive results from the Large Hadron Collider.  And perhaps our individuality will become relevant once more–unless of course, “God(s)” is/are nonexistent, or a transcendent power(s) once existed, but has/have (ironically) died.

The ultimate question of life is not so much “how?” as it is “why?”, for it is in purpose that we find merit, not so much in the method.  Moreover, the method is dependent on the purpose, and thus the purpose of living life should be to discover the merit in the purpose of our origins, and not necessarily in the evolutionary (or divine, for the faithful) processes that led to the fulfillment of the purpose.

Unfortunately, and perhaps fortunately, the limit to unraveling the ultimate purpose of the creation of life can only be measured objectively if we wish for our philosophical observations to make sense; of course, those who take the supernatural path accept that they cannot make sense out of what is divine, and when they do, it is their holy thumos, and their sociological rationalization which leads them to believe that unexplainable phenomenons do in fact make sense even in the absence of objective observation.

Thus to ask “why?” when we face life, and to discover the purpose–if there is one–to the creation of life, we must yield either to science or to faith, as the inherent incompatibilities in these two entities create dangerous grounds for their symbiosis.  The self-righteous indignation and the devout loyalty inherent in the adopters of the latter paradigm is applaudable, but the doubt created by the ambiguity of this model offsets its superiority to the former system used for exploring the purpose of life.

So, my advice to you in my writing is to pick your poison wisely, and then to pursue the ultimate question of why?.

…at least in comparison to other great powers, economically speaking.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Foreign_Holders_of_United_States_Treasury_Securities-percent_share.gif  — The Chinese own 24% of our national debt.   That’s a little under 1 trillion of our 6 trillion dollar deficit.

But check this out: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html  — we’re not doing that bad.  Our debt is close to 100% of our GDP, yes, but we’re still ranked 22nd (at the time of this writing) in terms of deficit vs. GDP in comparison to other heavily industrialized countries.

For example.  Japan has relatively more debt than we do!  So do Italy and Germany AND Canada, who are all potential great, if not super powers.

BAC stocks are looking very attractive just about now. I’m awaiting the April earnings from other banks, but judging by Wells Fargo’s results, things may be looking up.

I want Dow Jones to hit 9000 by the end of the year. Call it wishful thinking, but we’ll find out next week if this is a possibility.

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I used to think I was the first to use the two words together as the caption/slogan/headline for my Blog, but check out what my uncle discovered:

The phrase “cynical optimist” is a literal translation of the German philosophical terminology of the famous German Philosopher Martin Heidegger (20th.) called: “Der zynische Optimist.”

That’s really cool! 🙂

An agnostic is a person who believes that the existence of a greater power, such as a god, cannot be proven or disproved; therefore an agnostic wallows in the complexity of the existence of higher beings.

Agnostics on religion (Christianity, Islam, Buddhists, etc): Religious zealots are often viewed as ignorant by agnostics’ because of their blind following of a supreme being which may or may not exist. Agnostics will often question the existence of a supreme power because a lot of modern religious beliefs have no basis in modern logic; therefore blind following of popular religions is viewed as an easy out for people who chose not to think for themselves.

Agnostics on atheism: On the other end of the spectrum, unlike atheists, an agnostic uses a more scientific approach to their belief system. An agnostic knows that just because there is no physical proof of the existence of a higher being, it does not automatically mean that one does not exist. An agnostic views an atheist on the same plane as a religious zealot; often because the belief that human beings are the pinnacle of intelligence and there are few things that we do not or have the potential to understand.

The realization of knowing that “we cannot know everything” is the backbone of the agnostic belief.

Christian Zealot: God loves you and everyone. He will save you
Agnostic: Prove it.

Athiest: There is no way that a god can exist.
Agnostic: Prove it.

I have indulged in poetry and music, namely those of my own.  Short blog entries are great.

I’m writing a book.