FRIDAY, OCT 9, 2020: NOTE TO FILE
Doing Face-time
A modest proposal
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: SPEAK TO POSTERITY, FROM THE WIRES, FIND AND FACE THE WHAT-IS
Abstract: This proposal has more to do with social (Calhounian) than biophysical (Malthusian) concerns, but all is interconnected, interrelated, and entangled such that boundaries (e.g. social/biophysical) are as penciled in. We are such stuff as our dysfunctions are made on and we will not pass through the coming bottleneck without loosing at least some of our pathologies, both individual and collective. Our coming transition could be the death of us as a species or select for our evolving into a memetic species that comes to understand and learns to live properly with the planet. The near future, the coming millennium, century, or perhaps decade will tell the tale. The next decade could be the most critical in humanity's sojourn on Earth, the best possible, the most privileged time to be alive.
Coos Bay (A-P) — Go forth under the open sky (or under a covered area if raining or too cold/windy) and place three to eight chairs or mats six feet apart in a circle up to 18 feet in diameter. Bring a lamp, as a candle in the dark (even if at high noon) and some sticks to pass or point (fingers could work) to the lamp. Post a sign for passers-by to read. The sign defines the rules of the game:
Face-time is like the Friendship Bench community intervention project for citizens with concerns, but without the bench. There are no formal leaders as all must seek to iterate towards a better condition, though individuals of merit, e.g. elders, especially grandmothers, should be present if possible. A foundational conjecture is that we moderns may be far too anthropocentric and self-centered than is good for us or the planetary life-support system. We empire-builders may need to stand down and listen to Mother.
Our collective experiment with screen-time, beginning with movies (1895), then television (1939), and diversifying to PC (1974) and smartphone (1995) screens, is having consequences (US teens average 9 hours a day and the average American adult now spends 3.25 hours a day just on their smartphone). At present trends, half of all humans will soon, at times, be mentally ill by current standards.
Correlation or causation? No one knows and per trends we are ever less likely to know. For half a million years virtually all of our ancestors lived in groups of 20-50 (5-85 range) others and spent most of their woke hours having face-time with loved ones. They could trust the others with their lives and did. The rate of mental illness, by today’s standards (e.g. major depressive disorder) was about 0.05%.
Most humans today live in cities at levels of population density, as measured by social complexity dyad numbers, that are on average 26 thousand to 40 billion times more complex (four to ten orders of magnitude more than ancestral norm), where on average the number of others that each trusts with their life (or money) is less than one (20-50 = dyads of 190-1,225, old norm, or today's norm of cities of 10,000 to 10,000,000, there being 47 cities with population greater than 10 million).
Modernity... how's that been working for us? Well, WHO figures one third of us are, or for some period of our lives will be, clinically mentally ill. But our human predicament is actually much worse. We have normalized cognitive pathologies. Virtually all of our ancestors would consider all of us barking mad as for them ideological certitudes were not the norm. Uncle Ug may have told some tall tales, but no one believed in his beliefs. He could claim that an angelic being told him great truths, but all know, having grown up with him, that he makes up stories, so why would anyone believe him? For the pathology of true belief to take hold, to spread virally, for there to be Eric Hoffer type true believers, it takes complex society. That's my story, but don't believe anything I or anyone else claims.
Living in stress is not viable. As a Calhounian would predict, major depressive disorder has been on the increase generation after generation within industrial society (last 8-12 generations). A quarter of Americans are debilitated by it at times, and the times they are increasing. In fifty years (or less) the rate will be 50 percent at present trends.
Add ideological pathologies and figure 90+ percent of we humans of NIMH are mentally or cognitively dysfunctional. Overdensity living is cause enough, stressor enough, but add increasing scarcity and conflict to the pot. One in nine Americans are on antidepressant drugs and far more self-medicate (on various legal, e.g. alcohol, and illegal drugs with or without physician assistance). Usage is increasing as is the rate of mental disorders (as are other non-drug addictive behaviors not to mention suicides). There are a number of diseases of lifestyle (acne, Alzheimer's, arthritis, atherosclerosis, asthma, cancer [e.g. lung, breast, colorectal], carpal-tunnel syndrome, chronic liver disease/cirrhosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, malnutrition, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, chronic kidney failure, osteoporosis, PCOD, diverticulitis, gallstones, rickets, dental caries, stroke, depression, OCD, suicide, chronic stress, addiction/anxiety/bipolar/personality/eating disorders, substance abuse, obesity, ideology, and vascular dementia). Actually they are diseases of civilization, of living like rats/mice in a Skinner box serving the economy in high density populations, being part of the monetary culture as Anthropocene enthusiasts, and of our resultant stress response, which includes the storytelling media (mainstream and social), the error, ignorance, and illusion all of us swim in.
Do the opposite of what Dr. Timothy Leary suggested: tune out, turn off, and drop in. 'Groove to the music of [Nature's] great song'. In 1967, Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 of the hip in Golden Gate Park and promulgated the phrase 'tune in, turn on, drop out'. How's that been working for us?
Try a Reality Be-In. We are all humans of NIMH. That is what Leary should have said in 1967, but maybe 3 in 30,000 would have listened then (or now). But to understand something is to be delivered from the things we can change. Scarcity will not be one, but facing our human predicament gives us a life-driven purpose that will be our deliverance if there be one. Trade 'screen-time for face-time'. Death to the fascist screens that prey upon the blood of the people [to paraphrase SLA rhetoric from '70s].
Instead, listen to Nature who has all the answers. It's not easy, even if you try. But endeavor to think well, then speak such truth as unpleasing words can express..., but nobody likes that story. "True words are not pleasing, pleasing words are not true” –Laozi. Go ahead, try to spread true words (best guess claims) on social media.
To have your certitudes called into question, avoid echo chambers. Invite 1-7 other people to sit six feet apart and pass a candle around or take turns pointing to it. The holder of the candle or one pointing to it speaks and others speak to them. Silence means pass on the light. Someone will say something you don't Like. You'll have to deal with it, at some point other than by merely reacting. You can leave the group at any time and join any group you see having an empty chair. As the days go by, you may iterate towards normal.
The topic is always the same. After listening to the small still voice of the nature of things apart from any group, what lessons do you think you have heard? What concerns do you have? If you have nothing to say, say nothing, but listen to others who listen to Nature and 'go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature’s teachings' [William Cullen Bryant].
View screen-time for what it is, a distraction, a potentially additive enabler of a purpose-driven life. Doing screen-time may be productive, but like counting, making, or spending money, it can be a distraction. It has a short-term pay-off in terms of self interest, may be necessary to live in a monetary culture, but doing so is not the life-driven purpose our ancestors knew, i.e. is profoundly abnormal.
We humans of NIMH need to renormalize; iterate towards making life within complex societies (having populations greater than 150) work. We need to learn to be normal. Start with groups of 3-8 and learn to make face-time work again. Move between multiple groups, but only within your limits (perhaps 2-7 face-time groups per week). To allow for time to listen to Nature and for face-time, consider living within limits. Moderate your addictions. For every hour of face-time, allow no more than an hour of screen-time. Life will not end, but perhaps life as you now know it will transition towards a new norm.
Doing face-time online, screen to screen, may be the height of maladaptive hypocrisy, but as a practical matter, doing so might work better than no face-time as a transitional expedient. The entire face-time meme is an artificial construct to perhaps help us to iterate towards a new norm for us, which is the biological norm for our species. So, when at all possible do face-time in real time, but for some, and for all at times, a Zoom enabled face-time gathering may work. The goal would be to renormalize, which would involve living in a social matrix of real humans spending a fair amount of time doing face-time with loved ones one could trust with one's life. The topics would be things that matter to the living.
A Groups.io place to create and join Zoom based face-time gatherings.
