On Friendship, Time and Inequality

Me: I have one friend (casual Internet acquaintance), at Oxford right now, in bio physics doctorate

TehranMD: I should be satisfied with medical abstracts it seems, for my thesis paper

Me: I was thinking (a long shot), to write him regarding finding an article or two

TehranMD: oh no! He is already busy

Me: like I said, it would be long shot

TehranMD: don't worry I shall find articles etc. But how come you have many friends in high places!

Me: noooo... I have only a few, by chance, in Yahoo, like you
He was in Yahoo books and literature chat room one day, while a senior at Yale, 2 yrs ago, at Yale, but now, finished Yale, and doctorate at Oxford

TehranMD: great! lucky guy

Me: his mind is amazing. I mean, a giant next to me

TehranMD: I bet

TehranMD: you could have introduced him to me!

Me: much depends upon genetic, neurological makeup

TehranMD: am really interested in genetics

Me: well, he possibly sees me as a potential pest

Me: no, not genetics, biophysics
well, perhaps that is genetics
perhaps that involves genetics

TehranMD: no its different a bit

Me: someone like him, I don't want to pester him too often, since, his time must be valuable

TehranMD: Interesting you are

Me: well, it is only common sense, to perceive the boundaries of any relationship. I mean, if he blocks me, then, that is the end of everything, as far as contact with him...

TehranMD: haha, why should he?

Me: well, if I pester his ass, and say, Oh, here is my friend in Tehran, etc

TehranMD: haha, interesting
he would be delighted to know a lovely woman like me! but if not......well his loss!

Me: well, I am sure he would, if he took the time. But, he would be suspicious... thinking "why is this fellow setting me up? What is the angle?

TehranMD: haha. I see ok

Me: well, it is true

TehranMD: I am not curious at all. forget it

Me: besides I hardly think he thirsts and yearns for intellectual companionship. I mean, he is adrift in an educational sea an ocean. So, he needs you and me like a hole in the head

TehranMD: eh and am not an intellectual companion?

Me: (an old American saying)
"oh, I need that like I need a HOLE in the head" I suspect it may have Yiddish origins

TehranMD: he must be one or those arrogant creatures then

Me: NOOOOO. Not arrogant at all. He is very sensitive. But, from my perspective, I must need him more than he needs me, since he is at Yale and Oxford, gifted, etc

TehranMD: haha. you have strange outlook toward education. Come on! those schools are nothing. you could be there and see those people are just like you and me etc. not more gifted even

Me: well, if Salman Rushdie, or Lionel Trilling, or Stephen Hawking were my buddy. I mean, I would need them more than they need me

TehranMD: you idolize people. I don't like that

Me: Well, come on! In reality, I have written to scholars on television, who were must less caliber... and they never even answered I wrote several times to one Yale theologian and I wrote to Annie Proulx, and only got to talk to her son at her website.... and all he did was scold me

TehranMD: wow. haha

Me: I mean, in real life, our idols are not there for us in person.... only in print and media

TehranMD: Annie Proulx is a human like you and me etc

Me: it is the shear mathematics of time

TehranMD: I have no idol I respect their ideas . but don't look at them like my gods prophets etc

Me: there is only so much time and energy and, each relationship requires investment of time and energy

TehranMD: true

Me: stop and think, Allah was there for Mohammed, in an in your face personal sort of way, through Angel Gabreel..... and Jehovah was there for Moses, in an in your face way,... but, for the common blokes in the street, like you and me, Allah has no time, Salman Rushdie has no time, George Bush has no time

TehranMD: haha

Me: lets face it, we are screwed! ha ha

TehranMD: I dont agree

Me: that is why we must befriend each other

TehranMD: I mean my time is as precious as theirs

Me: you an I need each other, because, we cant get Stephen Hawking, and Annie Proulx

Me: I know, but it is the shear mathematics of time and energy
Wallace Stevens pal-ed around with Robert Frost and Carl Sandberg. I mean, they were poets for gosh sakes, in the same century But, they never came to visit me
In fact, stop and think of this interesting study..... a study of famous friendships
measure how many close friends each writer had, and see who had the most pen pals, for example

TehranMD: haha. I don't care about famous friendships

Me: but, it is something which is accessible to study because of archives, correspondence every biography is filled with such stats
I was just reading D.H. Lawrence... and his bio tells of his buddies correspondence
I mean, Tolstoy and Gandhi exchanged letters

TehranMD: so what?

Me: well, science involves measure so, relationships can be measured
in a sense... we might see some threshold, seriously

TehranMD: what you mean?

Me: Well, is there some median number of pen pals for the famous
Do literary people maintain more, on average, than mathematicians, or historians
Who has the Guinness Book of Records for number of intimate intellectual friends

TehranMD: oh I prefer literary people

Me: I learned one valuable lesson in my own life, but I learned it only late in life

TehranMD: what was it?

Me: When I was in 6th grade, there was this tall, awkward girl named Gale Howard I did not realize she had a crush on me One day, some other girl called my home, anonymously..... and said gale would like it if I called Gale up I reacted with moral outrage,.... that such a call was inappropriate. That was my gut response, at that time, at that age of 11 But, as years went by, I began to realize that, I passed up an opportunity to make someone happy I realized that, in my own life, I am mostly, lonely and rejected and THEREFORE when someone approaches me with need and longing, for help, companionship, whatever then, I should grant them their wish because, you see, in any sort of relationship, of any nature whatever, between any two people, there shall always be some sort of imbalance one will like the other more than the other likes the one

TehranMD: not necessarily

Me: one will be more powerful, one will be more clever, one will be more gifted in something oh, on the contrary, TOTALLY necessary in fact, the inequality is unavoidable no two snow flakes are identical yet, they are all snow, and indistinguishable to the naked eye

TehranMD: of course not identical

Me: but, therein lies the heart of the matter

TehranMD: but they could be equally valuable and beautiful

Me: our error in judgment lies in our mistaken notion of qualia
it is ok to speak of red fruit, red flower, red wagon... but, when we speak of redness, in a Platonic, eidetic sense then, we make errors in judgment. We see justice and equality where there cannot possibly be justice and equality

TehranMD: sure

Me: and we develop notions about freedom, and justice, and egalitarianism, which look fine on paper, in constitutions but, in practice, do not quite work out

Me: I was amazed when I read that Chairman Mao said, "the results of the French revolution have yet to be seen" I thought "how can this be???"
BUT, I asked a young woman, French accountant, from Paris and she said "oh, but of course, he is right and she explained from her perspective that, the revolution set out for a form of liberty equality fraternity by abolishing the nobility BUT, the inequality merely shifted from nobility, to a different kind of class distinction
The very notion of inequality offends our sense of self yet, inequality is in the very nature of all organisms, and is the driving force in survival, ecology
as George Orwell said in animal farm "all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others

TehranMD: but you know........you think the time of that guy in Yale is more precious that Jakarta girl in a sense it is ..since he is using his time more properly

Me: but, I just told you my lesson with Gale Howard
the Jakarta woman, who is trying to get off heroin, NEEDS me
the Oxford fellow does not

Me: I never called Gale Howard
I missed that opportunity to give happiness
to give of myself

TehranMD: I think that anonymous girl was gale

Me: no, the voice was different
it was really some friend of Gale's
I dont think Gale knew of the call

TehranMD: am not sure though

Me: anyway, in high school, across the street from me...
was a foster girl.... who was sweet, but, plain,.... and had suffered in life, being foster child
my mother told me shat she spoke to the girl once, and the girl said "oh, he does not even notice me

TehranMD: wow. and was it true?

Me: yes, I could have taken her to prom dance
I missed opportunity to give happiness selflessly
I chose a girl who did not need me, but whom I needed

TehranMD: now you think you better put your time for those who need you?

Me: exactly

TehranMD: what about your needs and desires?

Me: I need my wife more that she needs me, because, she handled all the money, and at times, I was a burden to her
my first wife needed me, more than I needed her, because, I was her total support, and she had serious psychiatric issues, which prevented her from ever trying to be independent
but, sometimes, we can fulfill our needs by fulfilling others

TehranMD: that's why you got divorced?

Me: Noooo, it is very long story
it is something that evolved,.... no one planned anything
but, she and I once planned a joint suicide
because, I could no longer support the two of us.....
the times of prosperity came and went
jobs were no longer easy, rents were no longer low
We planned a death by freezing, because, it is totally painless, numbing, one simply goes to sleep
Once she almost died of freezing in a blizzard
that is how she knew that death by freezing would be painless
But, you see, over years, I was an enabler to her, and she slowly drained me, used me....
I would stll be in that marriage today, if prosperity had been different

TehranMD: but what you think about you and your current wife? you don't your current wife to do to you what you did to your first wife?
I dont mean to insult etc
I just want to know ...........why should the relationship be based on financial needs ..or even needs

Me: well, how free are any of us, at any given moment?
My first wife was not free to do for herself until AFTER we separated
I have no way now to support myself
My current wife has no one to help her when she is in wheel chairs, except me
perhaps first wife is BETTER off, because, she had to change things

I know that my ex-wife remarried
because, she called my father several years ago, to inquire if I had a legal divorce
which would mean she is free to marry

TehranMD: you had?

Me: yes, I got a legal divorce; it took several years, because first wife disappeared

TehranMD: wow

Me: she would not contact her brother sister, friends , or anyone
so, you go to judge, and judge says "publish notice in a newspaper"

TehranMD: you got upset?

Me: well, I had my life with second wife by then
I called places every six months, but no one knew her location
She often spoke of her desire to be homeless person
even when she was with me. and she did become homeless for a long while

TehranMD: wow
like that I like to become a world wanderer
haha
but not with such homeless status

Me: sometimes, life makes our decisions for us
in last years of my marriage to first wife
I went to psychiatrist medical doctor for one year
he told me "get divorce, leave family business, get computer job as network administrator, remarry"
I said "oh no, I can never divorce, never leave family business..."
but, 5 years later, without my planning it... all those things came to pass
so I found email of that doctor and wrote him to say, that everything had happened as he suggested

TehranMD: interesting no?

Me: I think the Sufi teaching stories of Nasrudin, are helpful
one man says "I believe in causality"
So, Nasrudin points to criminal being led to execution
and asks, "what is the cause of that.... the man who sold him the knife murder weapon,.... the people who did not STOP him, the witnesses, the jury and judge
so, it is like Buddhist notion of dependent co-arising
and not Aristotelian linear causality

Me: the truth lies more on the side of the holistic concept...
and not its opposite (which term escapes my mind, and I must google)
reductionism
reductionism and holism are opposites
holism = the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.) cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave.

TehranMD: reductionism means to see one tiny aspect of action

Me: no, to the mind of the holist, reductionism is one tiny aspect
to the reductionist, that one tiny aspect IS the whole

TehranMD: I know I got it

Me: for reductionist: chemistry is reducible to physics, biology is reducible to chemistry and physics, psychology and sociology are reducible to biology, etc.
so reductionist tells me that my cat does not love me, but only wants food
and desire for food appears as the illusion of love



Me: well, a reductionist looks at my first marriage, and divorce and says "oh, A implies B, B implies C...
cut and dry
religious moralism tends to be reductionist
e.g. love of money is the root of all evil, and that sort of thing
and communism is an example of reductionism, I feel

TehranMD: you feel?

Me: Feel is idiomatic for believe. I mean, the notion that interest is bad, is usury, ipso fact,.... that private ownership is bad, that entrepreneurship is always synonymous with enslavement
I am holist
I mean, for me, Calvin and Luther (Protestant Reformation), and Mohammed and Qur'an.... and many examples, are reductionism at its worst
while, for me, Camus, Sartre, Russell, Humanism, are holistic
I see Hobbes Leviathan as more reductionist, but Locke is more holistic
Sufis are holistic

TehranMD: but Sufis also see one aspect of life

Me: Reductionist fundamentalism can give birth to Sufi and (oh what is that Persian of th century, bab)
well, it is one step towards holism
much more holistic than Wahabi for example
Bahai! I remembered the term.
Bahai and Sufi are more holistic, along with Thoreau and the Unitarians
in other words, no Hitler, no Nazis, means, no Shindler's List, and perhaps, no independent state of Israel...
not that such are goods in themselves... but that they are interconnected
there is an interconnectedness

TehranMD: Bahai we had one girl who talked to me a bit about their religion it was silly




Me: well, you can find a fool in any denomination, creed, discipline
but, the more something gravitates towards ecumenism, eclectic, syncretism, less dogmatic
the closer it comes to holism
and the further it retreats from reductionism

TehranMD: sure. one can see the whole image ..then understands better

Me: if Gödel had not proved mathematical indefiniteness for all axiomatic systems
then math would be more reductionist than holistic
if physicists in their cyclotrons, came to the fundamental particles, then, physics would be more reductionist than holistic
BUT, there seems no end to sub particles
and no end to mathematical endeavors in axiomatic systems
Hilbert the mathematician was reductionist
while Godel was holistic
The United States of America, in a reductionist spirit, seeks a world which is all democracies
just as Islam, as reductionists, seeks a world umma under sharia
both sides are doomed to failure
reductionists are doomed to failure precisely because reality is analog, rather than digital

TehranMD: haha yes phasic logic

Me: let us say that I am the product of my culture, language, epoch, and experiences (readings)
and let us say I arrive at some understanding of the truth
For someone else to see that same truth, they must become me...
they must originate in my culture, speak my language, live my experiences

TehranMD: not necessarily

Me: but this is what st Sufi martyr Hallaj said, as he was led to execution
"if I had had YOUR experiences, I could do no other than execute me"

TehranMD: I am god?

Me: and "if you had had MY experiences you could do no other than exclaim I am one with Allah"


Me: but, that is more holistic than the orthodox Sunnis who executed Hallaj

TehranMD: well but as you see,,,you and me perhaps don't not see the same truth but will not execute him etc

Me: the Qur'an is at one extreme, stating in one verse that "Allah is unlike anything else"


And yet, in same breath, makes the error to say "Allah is GREAT"

ANY comparison, or the 100 divine names, such as merciful , assumes some analogy, resemblance, likeness
but, the notion is that God would be somehow soiled, if there were any embodiment or resemblance
now this goes hand in hand with notion that no one person, such as Hallaj, or the Baha Ulla, could have personal experience of infinite

Me: that only one chosen messenger, has message from angel, not from God, that only one chosen individual, Abraham or Moses, has personal experience on mountain
but all others must read a book

TehranMD: but we understand diversity etc
perhaps anything else is not great haha
I dont like such discriminations!
Imagine a simple peasant was telling God ..I will polish your shoes give you food etc take care of you ..and Moses said oh you are saying nonsense..but got angry with Moses

Me: but, dont you see, Hindus are exactly such children

TehranMD: haha

Me: in one sect, of Vallabh, their entire religious activity is to play house with god as baby, They awaken god, feed, bathe, dress god, sing god to sleep

TehranMD: how cute

Me: much as those Muslim 7 yr olds in Karthoum, Sudan, named a teddy bear Mohammed
Children by nature think in terms of dolls, of idols
The spectrum of extremes is so obvious, when one stands back
figuratively speaking, reductionists always seek to proclaim "the seal of the prophets"
and holists always seek to become god themselves

TehranMD: sorry to inrrupt you but I must lie down a bit I feel so tired

Me: ok.... yes, go rest

TehranMD: wow

Me: dream of polishing God's shoes

TehranMD: ok you try to be God and I will be myself !

Me: they are so dirty from walking about in reality

TehranMD: haha

Me: but, you must worship me
and clean my shoes

TehranMD: nope

TehranMD: you will secure me

Me: secure?

TehranMD: take care of me
thanks for sharing time!

Me: sure well, only with words. Words are all I have

TehranMD: words are precious gifts