by Michael Mamas | Thursday, February 21, 2019 | World View |
Before the Internet, ‘provincial’ was so simple. Every town was a small-town. Even if you lived in a big city, your local neighborhood was your small-town, your province. You and your neighbors all had a world common to one and other.
But the world has changed. People rarely live in the same small-town, the same neighborhood, for long. At the least bit of hardship, the greener grass calls to them.
With the Internet age, we no longer even really live in our physical neighborhood. We live in the conceptual world we build for ourselves, with our links, tweets, blogs, and websites. Our province, our small-town, lives in our computer.
If the interpersonal realities of physical life become difficult, we can just pick up our laptop and leave. We can take our virtual small-town with us wherever we go. Our mentality can shrink into that virtual cloud and be reinforced every time we log on.
What a paradox. The Internet connects us to all parts and all perspectives of this earth. Yet, the tendency can be to whittle it down to a small-town, provincial-perspective collusion that is shared with our own personal small-town web of people from all over the world.
I am not saying the Internet is good or bad. It all depends upon your relationship with it. Does it reinforce a limited perspective? Does it support you by sharing your life with like-minded people? Does it deepen your understanding of your own provincial world? Does it limit your perspective, or does it provide deeper in-sight? Do the other worlds, accessible through your fingertips, call to you? Do they provide you with insight and understanding? Or do you judge them? Does the Internet undermine your personal values? Or does it support you as a unique cultural member in a diversely populated world?
Cultural and hometown integrity is in our roots. Geneticists will tell you it is even in our DNA. Yet, as we expand our understanding of others, we become members of the family of all humanity. The Internet, then, can strengthen cultural integrity or narrow it. The Internet can whitewash the world, or help us appreciate other cultures while supporting our own.
That is all up to you.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, January 21, 2019 | Personal Growth, World View |
“I have decided to stick with love…
Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The sign of a great man…
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Saturday, September 1, 2018 | Personal Growth, World View |
It’s been said of war that history is written by the victors. I would expand that to say that the present defines the past. Our present mentality is very different than the mentality of the past. Just think how differently we think now than we did in the 80’s, the 60’s, the 50’s, and so on. Just try to imagine how differently people thought 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, or 30,000 years ago! And it is not just human mentality that is so malleable. It is also the earth herself – earthquakes, climate change, consuming rain, fires, and natural disasters. Some say even the constants in the laws of physics change over time. All these changes mold our history.
To get some insight into the diverse nature of mentalities, we can even look at the same moment in time in different parts of the world. The whole field of international law is so incredibly complicated due to conflicting mentalities. As some have said, “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”
Now enters the field of archeology. Though I tip my hat to them for trying, we can hardly venture a guess as to how limited archeologists’ perspectives on ancient cultures might be. A rather classic example might be the Egyptian Sphynx. I understand that archaeologists date the Sphynx at several thousand years, while geologists point out that water erosion dates it at 10,000 years. What happened to the missing 7,000 years? It seems we have no idea.
The salient point here can be summed up in one word: “humility.” We do well to view our history not through the judgmental eyes of current perspective, but rather through the eyes of humility. We can only barely begin to understand our history. The further back in time we go, the less accessible it becomes. Paradoxically, we can benefit a great deal by trying to understand our history: who we are and how we got here.
We do well, though, to not forget the humility inherent in true understanding. We can’t judge our past, we can’t put it in a box, or frame it in a rigid manner. We hold it dearly, but lightly.
We can even generalize this further. Do we really understand the other person sitting across from us and their history? It seems that Socrates had it right: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” The unbounded nature of the field of pure no-thing-ness that dwells within us as us, as our true Self, the unknowable.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Monday, May 7, 2018 | World View |
I have become increasingly fascinated with engineering over the years. Back in college as a physics major, my classmates and I used to think physics was ‘above it all’, and in many ways it is. But engineering really brings things to the here and now. It is very impressive what engineers have accomplished. The application of the fundamentals of physics is astounding. With just basic classical Newtonian physics, so much is accomplished. And now another launch to Mars. Wow!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, March 20, 2018 | World View |
Have you ever noticed a jet stream that looked like it was going straight up? Have you wondered if it might be a rocket? Due to the curvature of the earth, a plane coming in your direction just appears to be going striaght up. If the earth was flat, the jet would look more like a point getting closer rather than a jet stream line going straight up. Just imagine you were a tiny point standing on a tennis ball and looking at another point circling the ball and coming in your direction. It would like like it is going straight up, not straight at you. Our world is smaller than we may think! Using the same sort of logic with respect to shadows, the ancient Greeks figured out not only that the world was round, but also with simple trigonometry they calculated the diameter of the earth.
By the way, today (March 20, 2018) is the equinox. The sun rises due east, goes directly over head, and sets due west.
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, October 17, 2017 | World View |
“Good manners are just the latest casualty in the ongoing collapse of Western civilization.”
Someone sent me this quote from the TV show, Two and a Half Men.
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by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, August 22, 2017 | Personal Growth, Uncategorized, World View |
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
– Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, December 21, 2016 | Personal Growth, World View |
Today is the first day of winter. The Sun rises in the southernmost location. Many have been feeling the challenging events of the past year with the difficult jyotish influences. You may want to take a look at the Sun today knowing that by the time it returns to this position, life will be better for many of us. In fact, by 2020, the world will likely look much different and much better. Hang in there!
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Tuesday, November 29, 2016 | World View |
There is a concept in ancient Chinese philosophy called “The Rectification of the Names” where it is socially no longer considered correct to use terms that most accurately convey the meaning of things. I wonder if, in some cases, we have succumbed to the problems associated with that concept. Of course, in some cases, re-naming is good and important, but in other cases…???
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
by Michael Mamas | Wednesday, November 16, 2016 | Personal Growth, Relationship, World View |
I just published a new article on Medium.com. It begins:
“I attended undergraduate school in the late sixties and early seventies when the hippie movement was at its peak. As a conscientious student, I didn’t have time for anything other than my studies. However, today I long for those peace and love ideals.
“Realistically speaking, what is peace and love anyway? Isn’t it far more than non-violence and free love? Doesn’t it include more than being respectful, compassionate, polite, and dignified toward all people, not just the ones you agree with?”…
Read more:
“What Ever Happened to ‘Peace and Love’?”
© Michael Mamas. All rights reserved.
