Why Do Trees, Frogs and People ExistWritten by Tom Horn
WHY DO TREES, FROGS AND PEOPLE EXIST? It’s a miracle that we are here at all. Our very best researches tell us that whole world has been going down tubes from very beginning. It’s true. As far as we can tell from examining processes that we can understand, whole of existence is sliding into formlessness. This can be demonstrated by thinking of a snooker table with all balls set up in their initial pattern. The cue ball is struck and all coloreds are scattered. If three wound up in a straight line, we would call it ‘a fluke’. If several wound up in some kind of pattern we might call it ‘a chance in a million’. If they all wound up in their original complex arrangement we would feint with disbelief. What generally happens, of course, is that all balls will wind up in a pattern-less state. So it appears that cause and effect processes, operating under known scientific laws, invariably lead to a more random grouping of their parts. If any patterns do occur, these are chance events that are quickly reabsorbed into march towards a featureless condition. Now imagine that you put some chemicals in a jar, shook them up and then waited. Eventually, when all interactions had occurred, mix would have wound down into a dead state with a temperature everywhere same. Is universe like this? Are we really on road to a dead featureless condition? This trend has been going on since world began and yet trees, frogs and people have come to exist. Recognizable patterns of living structure, together with routines of behavior, are everywhere. Is each of them simply a ‘chance in a million’? What are chances of finding say a transistor radio by side of road that, by some lucky clash of materials, had somehow made itself? The chances are pretty slim I’d say. And yet we, as human beings, are much more complex than a transistor radio. How come we exist? Enter evolutionary theory. First there was a blob of living protoplasm floating in some primeval swamp. How it got there, theory cannot demonstrate. However, Darwin’s theory has a lot to say on how blobs of
| | Two Fairy Tales Reveal the Secret of LifeWritten by Tom Horn
TWO FAIRY TALES REVEAL THE SECRET OF LIFE When we were young we became acquainted with stories of Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks. Both these little girls have encounters with wild beasts and one is eaten, whilst other gets clean away. Why were fates of little girls so different? If we knew reason, it might be useful in everyday life. When I first heard stories, I enjoyed them at face value and, like all children, did not possess ‘power’ to understand depth of meaning behind them. Then I grew up and, after much folly and suffering, began my search ‘in wilderness’ for meaning of life. One day connection between two apparently unconnected stories just came to me from out of blue. Bear with me as I recount tales. You will remember that Red Riding Hood’s head was full of kind and considerate thoughts. These had been passed on to her, like a virus, from her mother, who, in turn, had learned them from her parent. When Red Riding Hood was asked by mum to take some groceries to granny who lived in woods she jumped at idea. She was warned against talking to strangers and to keep to path. All went well until way became crooked at entrance to woods. Here she meets wolf; a beast that immediately suggests picking more berries and fruits for granny. Red Riding Hood finds idea irresistible and gathers a lot more produce. Meanwhile wolf creeps away to cottage in woods where he gobbles up granny. Then little girl arrives loaded down with groceries and fruits. The wolf is now in granny’s clothes and he promptly adds Red Riding Hood to menu. However, a hunter is nearby and he kills wolf and cuts him open, thus releasing two ladies. Now we come to Goldilocks. Here is girl who liked to roam in woods alone, eating wild strawberries when she was hungry and sleeping on dry moss when she was tired. The scene changes to cottage of three bears where mummy bear has been making porridge for her family. It is too hot to eat, so all bears go out for a while. A little later Goldilocks passes by and, because she is hungry and tired, enters cottage of three bears. You will remember how she tries all bowls of porridge, all chairs and all beds to find ones that are just right for her. She is asleep in baby bear’s bed when beasts arrive home. There is a commotion, but Goldie escapes and runs all way home. We are told that she never goes back to woods again. It’s great to hear those stories again isn’t it? What do you mean, you would rather watch ‘Prisoner in Cell Block H’ on TV? Listen, those stories reveal secret of life. The Red Riding Hood story depicts what happens when you ‘go too far’. You see, it is very powerful to exercise personal preferences or choices. Preferences are your own, but knowledge of right and wrong you receive from your parents or teachers. They pass their values on to you like a virus. You then find yourself like Eve in Garden of Eden, ‘eating of tree of knowledge of good and evil’. Having ‘gone too far’, both Adam and Eve were kicked out of garden and became powerless. Red Riding Hood’s mother, like mothers everywhere, committed an act of extreme folly when she told her daughter to keep to path and not to talk to strangers. Her daughter was then forced to abandon her own preferences in favor of a received wisdom. When this happens you have overstepped mark, you have been tripped over a threshold into a state of mind that becomes available to a living trend. This is what happened to Red Riding Hood. Living trends emerge spontaneously from increasingly complex conditions. In story, escalating complexity is symbolized when straight path turns ‘crooked’ at entrance to woods. (In story of Adam and Eve, ‘crookedness’ is symbolized by serpent.’) Also, in fairy tales, forest trees, straining towards light, depict living trends. Red Riding Hood meets wolf when path goes ‘crooked’. He tempts her to go beyond threshold of what is ‘just enough’ groceries for granny. So, having already ‘gone too far’ with her ideas of right and wrong, little girl now picks an excess of fruit. Red Riding Hood also has imperfect knowledge of motives of wolf. In general, there will always exist a state of imperfect knowledge between grown men and women – even if they are mentally compatible. This is due to existence of female fertility cycle. Because a man cannot know what it is like to be a woman, level of imperfect knowledge is high enough to make both parties available to living trends. In fact fertility cycle is often at root of those disembodied ‘forces’ called living trends. Red Riding Hood’s mum and dad were obviously living under spell of a living trend and had drawn their daughter into it. Because of connection of imperfect knowledge with fertility cycle, daughter is depicted as wearing a ‘Red Hood’. Therefore, to sum up, it is Red Riding Hood’s failure to ‘tap world lightly’, together with her received tendency to ‘eat of tree of knowledge of good and evil’, plus her ‘imperfect knowledge’ of motives of wolf, that combine to cause ‘crookedness’. The latter is sign that little girl is about to participate in a new living trend. She now enters world of living trends, ‘forest’ and gets to discover that ‘road to hell really is paved with good intentions’.
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