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There is a school of thought that posits that Adam - of Genesis fame - was not actually the first man, but rather the first prophet in the line of prophets that spawned the Abrahamic faiths. The crux of this is that there was nothing good nor evil prior to the teachings of the creator having reached us - hence like the ravening wolf or the ferocious lion, there was nothing intrinsically wrong in anything we did since it was only natural. Once the concept was introduced that there was a purpose-driven, life-loving God, however, good and evil could be finally identified as those behaviors which departed from that purpose and interfered with that life. Hence the tale of Cain and Abel and most everything else in the Torah.
Now I am not here to argue this idea today. I am more interested in the location. Adam is said to have appeared in the garden of Eden, and of all the locales that have been proposed as the "real" Eden, I have been most convinced by the suggestion of David Rohl that it might have been Tabriz. I think it was the documentary, In Search of Eden - which can be found on You Tube that mostly convinced me. I may well be mistaken, however, so do your own research.
What intrigues me about this location is that some six thousand years later, around 1844, another man appeared in Iran claiming to be next in the Adamic line of prophets. Ignoring every gory detail about this, I will merely note that the Islamic clergy of Iran had this man executed on July 9, 1850 in what was then downtown Tabriz.
In a sense, then, what began with Adam in Eden came full circle and was brought to a close in the same location. Curious.
So, if Iran was in fact the host to the original garden of Eden, then it would follow that some of the oldest cultural elements of civilization may have sprung from that region, and one might expect that some of the most mature concepts regarding life the universe and everything have been and continue to be evolving there.
Sadly, Iran is mostly being demonized these days - not without good reason, mind you - to the citizens of the USA, so it is a knee-jerk reaction of many in the West to eschew everything associated with Iran. In fact, most of the evils that issue out of that country seem to be caused by a minority of fanatics who have a stranglehold on governance and their oppressions are evident and well documented. To some extent, the people of that country are rising up against that oppression, so there may well be an end one day to that circumstance.
All of this is a long way around to recommending that every "educated" American should be familiar with the story of Layla and Majnun - perhaps the original "Romeo and Juliette". It is a tale familiar to most every Iranian, one that inspired Eric Clapton in composing perhaps his most famous tune. Maybe one day, Hollywood will grace us with a worthy film depiction of it.
Likewise, those who would account themselves as culturally informed might wish to peruse some of the poetry of Rumi:
BeyondOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.Ideas,
language,
even the phrase "each other"
doesn't make any sense.
and Hafez:
Will Beat You UpJealousy
And most all of your sufferings
Are from believing
You know better than God.
Of course,
Such a special brand of arrogance as that
Always proves disastrous,
And will rip the seams
In your caravan tent,
Then cordially invite in many species
Of mean biting flies and
Strange thoughts-
That will
Beat you
Up.
So just some ideas on how to fill your new year, or whatever.
Oh yeah, and if any of your neighbors are Iranian refugees, consider going out of your way to talk with them. For the record, I am not Iranian, but one of my neighbors is.
--
"So make the best of the situation before I finally go insane", -Derek and the Dominos, Layla
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13, @10:29PM (6 children)
Another bullet-dodging day. Have to be thankful.
This time it's not just the corporeal, but got a letter from the DMV canceling the car license for lack of insurance. May-June of last year was so much harder than right now that sometimes I don't know how I got through it. Somewhere along the way, I missed that bill (Lord knows enough other bills kept flying by that I couldn't keep track of... one $400 I know I paid twice, but they never thanked me). You'd think that when I paid the house insurance a couple of months ago the insurance company would have mentioned it.
The insurance company had sent an email reminder last May about car insurance, at the same time g**gl* was closing their grips and locked me out of the email account. Got the DMV letter the same time as the email got running again (at the cost of a virtual soul). And the same time I'm getting together a long email for a truly heroic, brilliant life-saving doctor. And the same time the latest physical thing hit. Today is a blur; will fix it all tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @02:33AM (1 child)
So the missus is off on adventure, and curiously, when I got home from dropping her at the airport, brother coyote ran past my house, and gazed into my window while passing as if to say, "We scruffy types are best when we trot through our lives alone. Too bad we are trapped here in a semi-civilized suburb. It just makes things tougher."
Or maybe I was projecting.
Keep dodging the bullets.
--
-Joni Mitchell, Coyote
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @03:46AM
Hope she has a great trip. But warn her about roving packs of feral Peterbilts, late at night.
It was in the news a couple of days ago, that squirrels are racist. Hawks, however, are ecumenical. Outside the window before my father's big pine tree came down, used to see a hawk preparing doves; hawks are awfully messy eaters. But on the other hand, every now and then there's a Warner Bros. Cartoon bird out in the street. Not just Sylvester's kind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14, @06:15AM
Interested in anxiety and panic. Depressing thought?
Watching the effects of medication and consoling and even slapping some sense into 'em.
Here's the secret: sometimes anything will work, and sometimes nothing will.
Not even with the same customer.
Sometimes it takes an all-expenses paid month in Bali. Or a deep breath.
A consistent treatment regimen certainly doesn't work, which is why you see over-medicated people who only have transient problems. And self-medicated zombies, walking the streets. Is it wiring or software, or a combination? (To give it away: there's no firewall.) Serotonin is not magic... I've seen one expert extol the virtues of St John's Wort, while the next insists that it's quackery.
Sure he thinks he's a chicken, but fix him!?!? Not now, when eggs are $5 a dozen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18, @02:33AM (2 children)
> ...Today is a blur; will fix it all tomorrow.
Blur? Yes. Tomorrow? Hah!
Three or four calls to the insurance company and three visits to DMV, and all I learned was that 40% of people standing in line, pass the time playing with their cellphone-telephones. 20% commiserate with strangers. The rest stare around vacantly. Including the DMV agents.
Started on Monday; this is Friday. Spent two hours on one call, today, getting transferred over much of the western hemisphere. Theoretically, all that's left is one more trip to the DMV, next week. Theoretically.
It's been a tough week for the whole world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18, @03:45PM (1 child)
Of course, this is why it is more fun to drive without a license*. ...but then I drive, on average, two miles a day.**
--
* I jest - don't try this at home unless you have to - you might wind up living through a worse week.
-nostyle
--
** "Watch the police and the tax man miss me" -The Who, Going Mobile
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18, @05:57PM
Never had car insurance when living in CA during the drudge era; wasn't required, anyway. Figured if worse-came-to-it, could just chuck the key and walk away from the old car.
Had an uncle (by marriage), back when cars had running boards, back in your neck o' the woods. Story was that he didn't believe in driver's licenses; he thought it was like applying for your God-given right to walk or spit or breathe. Oh, and he spent his life... selling cars.