Church of the Churchless

Our dog teaches me about spirituality

Mooka, our Husky mix dog, has a lot of talents. One of them that struck me on our daily two-mile dog walk this afternoon reflected how I feel about religion and spirituality.

In short, prove it. 

Mooka does a lot of sniffing as we walk along. More accurately, she both sniffs as we walk, and also stops to sniff when I'd prefer to keep walking. Here she'd just sniff-inspected a small branch that had fallen from a large oak tree in-between our walk yesterday and today.

I'm fine with her doing this because I recognize that a dog's sense of smell is hugely more sensitive that what we humans are capable of. 

So we inhabit different sorts of sensory realities. I'm focused mostly on what I can see as we walk on the two-lane rural road that winds through our neighborhood. Mooka also is highly aware of those sights, but she has a smell talent that I lack.

Now, how do I know this?

I see Mooka stopping frequently to press her nose close to some blades of grass, a spot on the road, countless other stuff. I can't sense anything special about those places her nose is so interested in. What leads me to conclude that Mooka has a capability I lack, in contrast to a conclusion that she's a neurotic dog who keeps pressing her nose against random items we pass?

Many reasons. Here's one of them.

Laurel, my wife, is by far the most experienced and capable dog trainer in our family. One trick she's taught Mooka is to find an item that she hides somewhere in our house after placing a few drops of vanilla on it. When Mooka finds it, she gets a dog treat.

It may take Mooka a while to earn the treat depending on how cleverly Laurel has hidden the item. But she always finds it eventually. Thus Mooka passes the smell test, so to speak. As do dogs trained to find drugs, warn of a cancer on a person, or, as I read today, possibly detect the coronavirus. 

Thus dogs have an ability that can be demonstrated to be true, even though the scents they're able to smell are undetectable by humans. 

Which is also what genuine spirituality should be about: a demonstrable ability to do something tangible. Like, sit still while meditating. Not becoming angry when someone insults you. Helping other people. Uttering kind words when a person is upset.

Yet much of religiosity, spirituality, and mysticism is abstract with no connection to the real world. It is filled with talk of God, soul, heaven, spirit, angels, demons, supernatural powers, and such. When asked to perform the equivalent of a "smell test," religious believers come up with excuses for the absence of any evidence that what they incessantly blab on about actually exists.

Meanwhile, our dog is finding vanilla-scented items quite easily. 

I understand the allure of repeating fantasies to ourselves, because those fantasies are pleasing. I did that myself for about thirty-five years, until I realized that there was no substance to the fantasies I enjoyed playing over and over inside my head.

"I am on a path that leads to God." "A higher power is watching over me." "After death I'll enter a higher realm of reality." Like every other religious beiiever, I could talk the talk, but not walk the walk, as the saying goes. Meaning, I had beliefs about spirituality that weren't grounded in reality, because neither I nor anyone else could show that what we believed was in fact true.

Our dog can.

Mooka doesn't simply believe that she can smell scents undetectable to humans. Mooka can actually demonstrate this. And that puts the family canine way above all the religious fakes -- gurus, preachers, imams, yogis, rabbis, etc. etc. -- who talk a good game but are utterly unable to play it in reality.

I've repeated this quote from Thoreau's Walden several times before. Here it is again, courtesy of one of the first posts on my HinesSight blog, "Corn on the cob: my calling."  

A passage from the last chapter of Thoreau’s “Walden” comes to mind: “Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. ‘Tell the tailors,’ said he, ‘to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.’ His companion’s prayer is forgotten.”

I love that line, Any truth is better than make-beiieve. Our dog lives it. I aspire to it. 

Steve Hagen's "Buddhism Plain and Simple" appeals to churchless me

What a difference a second book makes. I found most of Steve Hagen's Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense very difficult to read. As I said in a critical blog post, it was that book which didn't make sense to me, not the world.

The end of the book was decidedly better, though. So that encouraged me to order a book Hagen wrote some seven years later, Buddhism Plain and Simple. As befits its title, I'm enjoying the much more straightforward style of this book.

Back in 2004, when I started this blog, it took me less than a minute to come up with the tagline that has been under "Church of the Churchless" for the past sixteen years: Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence.  

Since I believe in spiritual independence as much now as I did back then, Hagen's description of the central tenets of what the Buddha taught resonate with me. 

Here's some excerpts from the first part of the book, which is all I've read so far. I've made some comments before each indented excerpt.

For 35 years I was under the illusion that there were people who deserved the title "God in human form." Now I know better. And that's why I enjoy learning about the Buddha's teachings, since they have zero connection with any god.

The Buddha never considered himself to be something other than a human being -- only someone who was fully awake. He never claimed to be a god, or to be inspired by God, or to have access to any occult or supernatural power. He attributed his realization and understanding solely to human endeavor and human ability.

A crazy thing about the world's religions, mystical paths, and other forms of supposed spirituality is that they all have conflicting beliefs, yet those who follow these creeds all believe that their particular faith is correct. Buddhism has a different view of reality.

Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about examining the world clearly and carefully, about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It's about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agenda.

Christians think they're going to heaven. Eastern meditation practices, such as the one I used to follow, teach that there is a "journey of the soul." But that's bullshit. Nobody goes anywhere. Pleasingly, Buddhism embraces going nowhere.

Generally we think of a journey as involving movement and direction, either going out somewhere into the world or else leading inward, into the self. But in Buddhism our journey must go nowhere -- neither in nor out. Rather, ours is a journey into nearness, into immediacy. Our journey must be to awaken here and now, to awaken to here and now. To be fully alive, we must be fully present.

Religions pull in devotees, and their money, because they make people feel they're lacking something that the religion can provide. Like, salvation, life after death, heavenly bliss. Buddhism disagrees. 

The question is: how do we do it?

In order to experience the answer to this question for yourself, you must come to three realizations. First, you must realize hat life is fleeting. Next, you must understand that you are already complete, worthy, whole. Finally, you must see that you are your own refuge, your own sanctuary, your own salvation.

Most of us wrongly think that what we lack is around some corner. So we do our best to get there. Where we discover that what we supposedly lack is around another corner. Actually, says Buddhism, what we're looking for is here, now.

You are already in reality, whether you see it or not. Reality is what's here, now. Thus you're here now, too. You know all this already, from direct experience. You're not separated from Reality. It's not "out there" somewhere, but right here.

I never was a fawning devotee of the guru who I followed for over three decades, Charan Singh. But I saw plenty of people who thought the guru could do no wrong. They thought they needed to completely surrender to him. How mistaken they were, according to the Buddha.

In his final talk before his death the Buddha said, "Each of you be a light unto yourself.; betake yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth. Look not for refuge to anyone beside yourself."

You are the final authority. Not me. Not the Buddha. Not the Bible. Not the government. Not the president. Not Mom or Dad. You. No community of philosophers, scientists, priests, academicians, politicians, or generals -- no school, legislature, parliament or court -- can bear responsibility for your life, or your words, or your actions. That authority is yours and yours alone. You neither get rid of it nor escape from it.

Why are we so distrustful of our own capacity to live a fulfilling life, to be spiritually independent, to find our own way to contentment and happiness? Perhaps because thousands of years of false religious teachings have told us that we are weak fallen creatures who need to follow someone else.

Far from being a burden, this ultimate authority is actually quite wonderful. It means that you have the power to wake up. You have it now -- in your own hands. You don't have to go anywhere else. You can wake up right now, on the spot. You are fully equipped to do this now, in this moment. You already have all the power you'll ever need to realize happiness.

I have to admit that the following Buddhist precept is difficult for me to accept, because I'm so used to wanting something better than what I have now. However, it makes sense to me. Wanting never ends, though life does. So acceptance of what we have and are at every moment seems decidedly wise, since we don't know which will be our last breath.

To completely end your unease of mind, all you need to do is see that there is really nothing "out there" to get because, already, within this moment, everything is whole and complete.

I'm tired of abstractions. That's why I enjoy science and politics so much, along with Tai Chi, walking our dog, and doing chores around our house. Religious concepts like "God," "soul," and such have no meaning for me any more. I want my reality to be really real.

The buddha-dharma does not invite us to dabble in abstract notions. Rather, the task it presents us with is to attend to what we actually experience, right in this moment... So you don't have to do the long search, the frantic chase, the painful quest. You're already right where you need to be. The table is spread before you. Let's look at how to eat.

Check out my top 10 bright spots during the coronavirus period

Head on over to my HinesSight blog and learn what's been keeping my mood up during the enforced isolation of Oregon's Stay Home, Save Lives orders. 

Tonight I wrote, "My top 10 bright spots during Oregon's stay-at-home period." Number 1 is:

This afternoon I came home from a dog walk to find my wife taking part in a Zoom dance party celebrating her grand-niece's birthday. Naturally I had to grab my iPhone and upload a short video to You Tube.

Anchor yourself by attending to here-and-now physical reality

I wanted to share a great image from a guided meditation I listened to this morning via my Insight Timer app. I clicked on a Ten Minute Pause by Judson Brewer called "Anchoring in The Present Moment."

(Looks like you can listen to it for free by clicking on the above link.)

Brewer's image was of an anchor in the ocean or in a flowing stream. That anchor can be any part of our body that we choose. Traditionally it is the breath, but it can be anything -- hands, feet, whatever works for you.

The idea, which is simple, is that the current of our thoughts can carry us away to places that we really don't want to go, but sometimes are powerless to resist.

Anxiety. Fear. Worry. Tension. Anger. Sadness. And so on.

It isn't that we should consider those sorts of thoughts and emotions as things to be fought against. That produces an unproductive conflict within ourself. And why should we fight against our own self?

But an anchor can keep us from moving too far downstream, so to speak. Remembering the sensation of breathing, to feeling air entering and leaving our nostrils, can anchor us in the present moment rather than some imagined nasty place in our past or future.

Yes, this isn't exactly groundbreaking meditation news. I just found it to be a useful way of visualizing what a focus on the breath or some other physical sensation can do for us. 

I've also heard a meditation teacher speak of this as our Home Base, a place to return to when we feel pulled away by unwelcome thoughts or emotions.

Trump's new crazy idea to kill the coronavirus

Since quite a few people from countries around the world visit this blog, I decided to put this post here rather than on one of my other blogs, Salem Political Snark and HinesSight.

I'm doing this out of a cry for help. Not a prayer, because I don't believe in God. Just a request that wherever you are in the world, send some kind thoughts in the direction of the United States.

I ask for this because today it became clearer than ever -- and believe me, it was exceedingly clear before -- that our president, Donald Trump, is the dumbest, most clueless, and incompetent leader of any major country in the world.

And probably I should have left out that qualifier, "major."

So what did Trump do today that surpassed all of his preceding cringe-worthy statements? At the daily White House coronavirus briefing, our Idiot-in-Chief suggested in all seriousness that a COVID-19 infection could be treated by somehow injecting light and disinfectant inside the body.

No, Trump wasn't making a joke. Nor is this a satire from The Onion, though The Onion did just publish a piece along the same line, "Potentially Promising Covid-19 Vaccine Hits Roadblock After Testing Reveals It's Just Shotgun."

See for yourself. (At about the 1:40 mark.)

NBC News has a story about this newest Trumpian insanity: Trump suggests 'injection' of disinfectant to beat coronavirus and 'clean' the lungs.

President Donald Trump suggested the possibility of an "injection" of disinfectant into a person infected with the coronavirus as a deterrent to the virus during his daily briefing Thursday.

Trump made the remark after Bill Bryan, who leads the Department of Homeland Security's science and technology division, gave a presentation on research his team has conducted that shows that the virus doesn't live as long in warmer and more humid temperatures. Bryan said, "The virus dies quickest in sunlight," leaving Trump to wonder whether you could bring the light "inside the body."

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just a very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked because of the testing," Trump said, speaking to Bryan during the briefing. "And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you're going to test that, too."

He added: "I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

...Medical professionals, including Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist, global health policy expert and an NBC News and MSNBC contributor. were quick to challenge the president's "improper health messaging."

“This notion of injecting or ingesting any type of cleansing product into the body is irresponsible and it’s dangerous," said Gupta. "It’s a common method that people utilize when they want to kill themselves."

The president has repeatedly touted unproven treatments during the daily briefings on COVID-19, the disease associated with the coronavirus. For instance, he has touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential "game changer," but health officials have strongly cautioned against it.

What's almost as scary as Trump's astoundingly loose grip on reality is what I heard a Democratic pollster saying on MSNBC after the White House briefing. He didn't think that the 43% or so of Americans who approve of Trump would have their faith in him lessened by his notion of using disinfectant to do "almost a cleansing" of lungs infected with coronavirus.

People who embrace blind faith don't see what is really going on. This is as true for political blind faith as for religious blind faith. 

Secret of living: hear the cries of others

Recently I wrote a post about how much I disliked Steve Hagen's book, Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense. But I pressed on and managed to finish the book, continuing to dislike it until I reached the final pages.

I don't agree with everything Hagen said in his concluding chapters. However, I resonated with those chapters considerably more than the rest of the book.

If Hagen had switched things around and put what I've shared below at the beginning of his book, that would have helped me understand the otherwise mostly incomprehensible early chapters.

It turns out that Hagen was trying to convey some basic Buddhist ideas. Life is suffering. Compassion for the suffering of others, and of oneself, is all important. Nothing is permanent, including us. We lack an enduring independent self. Everything is interconnected.

I think I understand what Hagen means by just seeing: taking the world as it is, not as how we believe it to be, or as how we would like it to be. But I don't agree that concepts can be separated from what he calls bare perception. 

When I see my wife, Laurel, I don't just see a beautiful woman with blonde hair. I know that this woman is my wife, that we've been married for 30 years, that she has certain likes and dislikes, and so on. There's no way I could either simply see Laurel without everything else that connects me to her, not would I want to do this if it were somehow possible.

But other things Hagen says at the end of his book do appeal to me. See if they appeal to you...

Our task is to just see. Our direct experience -- i.e., perception itself -- is the Undefined that says with unimpeachable authority that all things appear not in being, but in becoming and in fading away.

If we try to hold to the view that a thing is merely what it is, we'll miss it totally. We'll confuse our abstraction with what's Really going on. Truth reveals itself only in the moment we stop making up a story. A story is not necessary. We only make up our story out of fear.

But what can be lost by seeing? Truth is Truth. It will not change upon being seen. What changes is simply that we no longer see incorrectly.

It's only through our faulty explanations, upon which we base so much, that we suffer pain, sorrow, loss, and lamentation. And it's only through just seeing that we may end such suffering. The end of suffering is correct seeing. 

However, just seeing -- pure perception -- doesn't mean the end of measuring, or the end of conceptualizing, or the end of discriminating consciousness. It simply means that we are no longer taken in by our objects of consciousness -- by our likes and dislikes, our preferences, our goals, our desires, and our fears.

Reality is inconceivable. But still, we can see It. We can, and do, perceive Reality. Our problem with just seeing lies in learning to get past the story being told to us by others, and to ourselves by ourselves, even now. We must learn to get past conception, past paradox and confusion.

For all our wanting of things to go a certain way, there's nothing for us to do but to simply be Here. When "good" times come, they're Here. When times are "bad," they're Here, too. As as the "good" times slip away, if we give them too much credit, they'll grow and grow and grow in our minds, until we long to get them back.

And we'll forever try to recreate those "good" times again. Thus we become spectators -- not of Reality, but of what we imagine is Real. 

We do this sort of thing endlessly, of course. What we forget is that -- as bare attention bears out -- the nature of good times, bad times, and everything else is to come and go, regardless what we do, or of what we think of them.

...We must learn to live by seeing and not by thought. We must learn to live and act from the Whole and not the part. We must learn to let the World come to us rather than thrusting ourselves upon the world.

And so, regarding that awful question, "What should I do?" coming up with an answer (as our habit demands of us) is not the point. We would only reduce Reality to concept once again. The point is simply to wake up.

Just awaken in each moment. With this you'll have right action, and so will the world.

Anything short of this, however, and you're acting out of a frozen idea -- a concept. You're carrying on in defiance of Reality, as though the world were not alive, but a corpse. Such life is exquisitely painful.

It is enough to simply act out of seeing. When we pay attention to actual perceptions instead of our concepts -- our hopes, our fears, our goals, our desires, our individual and cultural stories -- then no prescription or set of commandments is necessary. Action that grows out of seeing is naturally responsive and appropriate to the situation, whatever it may be.

This means you're not clinging to your cherished beliefs and opinions. You're ready to toss them when you notice they don't work, when you notice they're a source of pain and anxiety.

The focus always comes back to just becoming awake -- and once again, becoming awake. This is how we free ourselves, release the world, save the environment. Just this, and not another idea, another best laid plan. 

When we act based upon what arises in this moment -- rather than upon what we hope, or expect, or pretend -- we no longer need a script or set of guidelines to follow, because we have a clear view of Reality -- and of the Universe. We have the True evidence of direct experience to guide us.

Once we recognize this, we stop defying Reality.

Once you truly see the situation, you will act in the appropriate way. Action will take care of itself.

We commonly live as though at a banquet, starving -- slightly aware that something's amiss. Our feeling is that we're hungry. We look about for something to eat -- and somehow, fail to see anything. 

We don't get it.

We suffer from our thought. It tells us we must have the nugget defined. We want it defined. And it must be a jewel. A brass ring, a golden fish. It must be. 

We want life, to be sure. But we insist on having it embalmed. Generations come and go, yet we're still taken in by the tired, old, perennial issue. We long for permanence in a world of total impermanence and relativity.

Yet if we cease to create disharmony, harmony ceases to be an issue. If we cease to create meaninglessness, the desire for meaning ceases to nag at us. If we would just stop trying to hold it in our hand, nothing would be lost.

Liberation lies in just seeing, in being present, in living by experience, without reliance on belief or intent, in the true freedom that is sorrow's end.

...In that moment when we are together with the object of our desire, we may think or feel, "This is happiness." But then everything changes, and we lose our hold on that object. Suddenly we're unhappy. There's no way we can stop our circumstance from changing, however, for change is a mark of existence itself.

Then there are those things we don't want to come our way. We try to escape them or avoid them, but often we can't. We didn't want to get cancer, we didn't want our son killed in an automobile accident, we didn't want a toothache, we didn't want a nuclear waste dump built in our neighborhood, we don't want to die.

But everyone's life is full of such events, in spite of what we want. Though we try to hold them off, they come to us. We always try to push away what we don't want, but no matter what we do, undesired things and circumstances come along. They're part of the fabric of life, of existence.

If we don't see this, we'll only become frustrated and suffer still more. We'll fool ourselves into feeling that we could have made our life more pleasurable and secure if only we were more clever, or luckier, or richer, or whatever. 

We commonly try to deal with suffering by running from it, or barricading ourselves against it. But running and putting up barriers are precisely the opposite of dealing with suffering. Since dissatisfaction is built into the very fabric of existence itself, there's no way to escape.

...The person who sees Reality is the person who embraces the suffering of others and who takes on the suffering of the world. Those who can hear the cries of others have found the secret of living. They've removed all barricades. They've stopped running away. They leave themselves wide open to what others vainly try to shut out.

But in taking on our difficulties, which must include accepting the suffering of others, we no longer have such difficulties. The world is transformed, for we no longer deny Reality. 

 

Study shows hydroxychloroquine leads to more deaths -- so don't take it

Science and reason should be trusted hugely more than anecdotal reports. I've been saying that hydroxychloroquine shouldn't be taken to prevent or treat COVID-19. A recent study shows this caution is deserved.

So don't pay attention to people who claim that hydroxychloroquine is effective. Further research is needed, but so far those who advocate for its use are akin to faith-based religious believers who make assertions without evidence.

Here's the Politico story, "More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study."
------------------------------

A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.

The study was posted on an online site for researchers and has been submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, but has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

Researchers did not track side effects, but noted hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.

Earlier this month, scientists in Brazil stopped part of a hydroxychloroquine study after heart rhythm problems developed in one-quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested.

Many doctors have been leery of the drug.

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, “I think we’re all rather underwhelmed” at what’s been seen among the few patients there who’ve tried it, said Dr. Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection control and prevention.

Patients asked about it soon after Trump started promoting its use, “but now I think that people have realized we don’t know if it works or not” and needs more study, said Safdar, who had no role in the VA analysis.

The NIH and others have more rigorous tests underway.

Photos and philosophizing of our rural yard in these COVID-19 times

Working in our rural south Salem property last Friday, I realized that nature is a wonderfully soothing antidote to anxiety about the coronavirus crisis. So I took photos of our spring-blooming yard and shared them in an Adobe Spark web page, along with some commentary.

There's no reason the world has to make sense

I've been reading a book by Steve Hagen that I thought I'd like, because the title was so intriguing: Why the World Doesn't Seem to Make Sense. Unfortunately, it is the book itself that doesn't make sense. 

When I'm not liking a book, I enjoy going back to the Amazon listing and clicking on the 1 and 2 star reviews, the worst ones. I heartily agree with what I found there just now.

-- Drivel. I regret spending the money, and more importantly the time, to read this book.
-- A horrible, tedious book purporting to be an inquiry but more just a tired, pointless use of paper and ink.
-- Great topic and obviously intelligent author but very poorly written - confounding & confusing. A disappointment after his book, Buddhism, Plain & Simple, which it was. Author needs to apply same writing strategy to this book. This is the opinion of highly educated readers.
-- Very repetitious. Says the same thing over and over and over again. If the book was half as long as it is, it would still be too long.

However, I'm forcing myself to finish the book, because here and there I find ideas that resonate with me. Mostly, though, Hagen does indeed repeat himself without making any progress toward answering his key question: why the world doesn't seem to make sense.

I'll probably write another blog post about the book once I'm through with it. For now, I'll address the question Hagen should have asked himself before he embarked on writing this book: Why should the world make sense?

Hagen is a Buddhist. A Zen Buddhist, apparently. He goes to great lengths, none of them very persuasive, to argue that concepts and thinking are our main problem, and that we should simply see what is going on in the world with supposed "pure awareness" or "bare perception."

Pure awareness or bare perception doesn't exist, as I've pointed out numerous times on this blog. (Here's one example.) We're always aware of some thing, not of awareness itself. Someone may think that is possible, but in that case they are aware of a thing they call "awareness." 

Leaving that aside, my main problem with Hagen's book is the problem I have with Buddhism. Or at least, the aspect of Buddhism that believes in something called enlightenment. 

This seems to be what Hagen is after, because he repeatedly refers to Truth and the Real Thing -- which are capitalized to distinguish them from something called (lower case) truth and the real thing. The latter, if my memory serves me correctly, was part of a Coca-Cola commercial.

Or maybe Pepsi. I don't drink either one.

I also don't embrace any organized religion, philosophy, or form of spirituality, preferring to make my own way through life the best I can. But Taoism comes closest to how I've come to see the world.

Namely, simply as I see it. Though I used to believe in a transcendental mystical enlightenment, now I reject that notion and enjoy looking upon life however it appears to me. And I don't have any desire for the world to make sense, because I can't envision any reason why it would.

Make sense.

Big bang. Hundreds of billions, maybe trillions, of galaxies. Likely, countless other life forms in the universe beyond our imagining. Evolution producing us after starting with single-celled life. The human brain being the most complex entity known to us so far.

I could go on and on. We're surrounded by so much wonder and mystery. Sure, we can comprehend some of it -- such as why there is such a toilet paper shortage in the United States -- but there's no way little us can grasp the gigantic entire cosmos.

So whatever meaning we find in life comes from us. It isn't out there waiting to be found. It is here, a unique presence within each of us, our personal sense of meaning and purpose that is unlike anyone else's. 

Some days, the world makes sense to me. Other days, it doesn't. Regardless, everyday I'm able to get out of bed and do what I need to do, think what I need to think, feel what I need to feel. I don't expect that I'll reach a point when the meaning of my life is crystal clear, when all makes sense.

I'm fine with murky.

I'm fine with not knowing what the hell is going on, or why this and that is happening. Stuff goes on. Stuff happens. I enjoy trying to figure out the trajectory of my life, along with that of my state, my country, my planet, but I realize this is a journey with no destination.

Hagen does believe in a destination, along with believers in other faiths, religions, mystical paths, and such. That's OK. Each to their own.

Again, I just consider that Hagen wrote a book with a fatal flaw: the assumption that the essence of the world can be grasped by the human mind. 

Pastor's death shows that COVID-19 is larger than God

The evidence is in: the coronavirus, or COVID-19, is larger than God. Bishop Gerald Glenn, a pastor in Virginia who defied a social distancing warning, now is dead from an infection.

Despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid mass gatherings and maintain social distancing, Glenn said in a sermon on March 22, "I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus," and announced he was not afraid to die.

Hopefully this will send a message to other people that they need to trust in science, not in irrational religious leaders.

Bishop Gerald Glenn

Jesus' blood won't save you from COVID-19. Not on Easter. Not ever.

Since I don't believe in god -- the Christian god or any other god -- today being Easter meant exactly nothing to me.

I "celebrated," using that word extremely broadly, by finishing up some field mowing that I started several days ago, and wrote about yesterday on one of my other blogs in The poetry of field mowing in the coronavirus era.

My wife had an online Zoom meeting of the atheist group that she leads at noon today. I didn't take part, but I listened to some of the discussion, which included talk about how some churches are continuing to hold services here in Oregon even though those gatherings are banned by our Governor's stay at home order.

Yes, religious people are acting irrationally and irresponsibly. What a non-shock. That's the nature of religion: ignoring reality and embracing fantasy.

Recently a CNN reporter talked to a woman who was in her car after leaving a church service in Ohio. She epitomizes the danger of zealous religiosity. As you can hear her say in the video below, the woman believes that "being covered in Jesus' blood" will keep her safe from the coronavirus.

What an idiot. There was no sign of Jesus' blood on her, naturally. So the blood is all in her crazed mind. Ordinarily that wouldn't bother me, since I'm used to religious fundamentalists believing all sorts of crazy crap.

However, as the reporter pointed out to her, that erroneous belief in Jesus' blood protecting her when she goes to Walmart or wherever could lead to other people becoming infected. So not only is this woman ignorant, she's selfish -- viewing her Christian fantasy as being more important than keeping others safe.

Here's the video.

 

A physicist speaks fondly of art and the stories we tell ourselves

Art and science aren't at odds with each other. They are just different ways of understanding the world, friends rather than foes. Many artists love science. Many scientists love the arts. 

The notion that scientists are cold-blooded creatures who only care about objective reality obviously is ridiculous. But some people believe in that ridiculous notion.

So that's why I'm sharing some passages from physicist Brian Greene's new book, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe."

Here's part of what Greene says about art in his book's Instinct and Creativity chapter.

Art may have had adaptive utility directly at the level of the individual, a perspective I find particularly compelling. The arts provide an arena unbounded by the strictures of flat-footed truth and everyday physical reality, allowing the mind to jump and twist and tumble as it explores all manner of imagined novelty.

A mind that assiduously sticks to what's true is a mind that explores a wholly limited realm of possibility. But a mind that becomes accustomed to freely crossing the boundary between what's real and what's imagined -- all the while keeping clear tabs on which is which -- is a mind that becomes adept at breaking the bonds of conventional thinking. Such a mind is primed for innovation and ingenuity.

...I'm partial to the view that sharpening ingenuity, exercising creativity, broadening perspective, and building cohesion provides a template for how the arts mattered to natural selection.

With this perspective the arts join language, story, myth, and religion as the means by which the human mind thinks symbolically, reasons counterfactually, imagines freely, and works collaboratively. Over the sweep of time, it is these capacities that have given rise to our culturally, scientifically, and technologically rich world.

All the same, even if your view of art's evolutionary role veers toward creamy desserts, we can surely agree that myriad forms of art have been a steady and valued presence throughout human history. Which means that inner lives and social exchanges have embraced modes of engagement that do not place a premium on factual information conveyed through language.

...The most arresting art can induce in us rarefied states of mind and body comparable to those reduced by our most affecting real-world encounters, similarly molding and enhancing our engagement with truth.

Discussion, analysis, and interpretation can further shape these experiences, but the most potent do not rely on a linguistic intermediary. Indeed, even for language-based arts, it is the imagery and sensations that, in the most moving experiences, leave the most lasting mark.

As elegantly described by poet Jane Hirshfield, "When a writer brings into language a new image that is fully right, what is knowable of existence expands."

Nobel laureate Saul Bellow speaks too to art's singular capacity for expanding the knowable: "Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides -- the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can't receive."

And without that other reality, Bellow notes, channeling thoughts set down by Proust, existence is reduced to a "terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life."

Survival rests upon amassing information that accurately describes the world. And progress, in the conventional sense of increased control over our surroundings, requires a clear grasp of how these facts integrate into nature's workings. Such are the raw materials for fashioning practical ends.

They are the basis for what we label objective truth and often associate with scientific understanding. But however comprehensive such knowledge may be, it will always fall short of providing an exhaustive account of the human experience.

Artistic truth touches a distinct layer; it tells a higher-level story, one that in the words of Joseph Conrad "appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom" and speaks instead to "our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation... in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear... which binds together all humanity -- the dead to the living and the living to the unborn."

...Make no mistake. We are all bags of particles -- both mind and body -- and the physical facts about the particles can fully address how they interact and behave. But such facts, the particulate narrative, shed only monochrome light on the richly colored stories of how we humans navigate the complex worlds of thought, perception, and emotion. 

And when our perceptions blend thought and emotion, when we feel thoughts as well as think them, our experience steps yet further beyond the bounds of mechanistic explanation. We gain access to worlds otherwise uncharted. As Proust emphasized, this is to be celebrated.

Only through art, he noted, can we enter the secret universe of another, the only journey in which we truly "fly from star to star," a journey that cannot be navigated by "direct and conscious methods."

Although focused on the arts, Proust's perspective resonates with my own long-held take on modern physics. "The only true voyage of discovery," he once said, "would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others."

For centuries, we physicists have relied on mathematics and experiment to reshape our eyes, to reveal layers of reality untouched by generations of the past, to allow us to see familiar landscapes in shocking new ways. 

With these tools, we have found that the strangest of lands have emerged by intently examining the very realms we have long inhabited. All the same, to acquire such knowledge and to utilize the power of science more generally, we must follow the unshakable directive to look past the peculiarities of how each of our distinct collections and cells takes in the world, and home in on objective qualities of reality.

For the rest, the all-too-human truths, our nested stories rely on art. As George Bernard Shaw put it, "You use a glass mirror to see your face, you use works of art to see your soul."

Small things become big joys during the coronavirus crisis

With so many people suffering because of the coronavirus, it's natural to feel anxious, unhappy, even depressed. But I'm finding that the isolation and altered routine caused by Oregon having a Stay Home, Save Lives order has some bright spots.

Sure, I no longer can go to Tai Chi classes. Nor can I go to our athletic club. Meeting a friend at a coffee house is a no-no. I still go grocery shopping once a week, but wear a mask and gloves. The dog park we used to enjoy is closed. 

So much is different now. Along with many millions of other people, I've been cast out of the activities that were so familiar to me, I took them for granted. Now that they're gone, I realize how precious they were.

But like a handful of flowers blooming in a otherwise stark desert, other things in my daily life now stand out, because the mental backdrop that used to be filled to overflowing with busyness -- time to go here, then there, and after that, another here-and-there --  has become a largely blank canvas against which small things are showcased.

A few examples...

-- Standing in the checkout line at a store where I'd perused the completely empty shelves where toilet paper once was stacked high, I noticed a bundle of toilet paper in the cart of the woman in front of me. Ah, Seventh Generation, I said to myself. That would be in the organic/health food section of the store.

And so it was, on a bottom shelf, a place where most shoppers wouldn't think to look for toilet paper. Returning to the checkout line, the cashier said, "Ah, I see you found the secret place." "Yes," I told her, "but we must speak softly to keep the secret." Returning home with the precious toilet paper, I felt as proud as if I'd killed a saber-toothed tiger and brought it back to the cave. 

-- When I'm out and about on an essential trip to a grocery store or pharmacy, I enjoy driving to the Starbucks nearest to where we live. I can't see how many cars are in the drive-through lane until I turn into the Starbucks parking lot, which now, of course, has few cars, since coffee houses and restaurants are limited to takeout only. 

Sometimes so many cars are in line, I feel it isn't worth it to join the queue, especially if I have cold or frozen groceries in the car. But when I enter the parking lot and see only a few vehicles in the drive-through lane, a burst of happiness explodes in my brain. When I hold up the Starbucks app on my iPhone for the barista to scan the bar code that pays for my Grande Decaf Nonfat Vanilla Latte, I enjoy the brief encounter with a coffee house amployee that I used to take for granted.

-- My wife walks our Husky mix, Mooka, in the morning. I walk her in the late afternoon. This has become the most important item on my otherwise mostly empty calendar. Sometimes my wife says, "I can walk Mooka if you don't feel like it." "Oh, I sure do feel like it," I tell her. "This is a high point of my day." Even though pre-coronavirus, I have to admit that sometimes it felt like an unwelcome chore.

We live in the country, about five miles from town. There's a two mile loop on curvy roads that Mooka and I go on every day. It has some fairly steep hills, ups and downs, so the loop is a good alternative to the elliptical trainer that I used to use at our athletic club three days a week, while I watched one of the televisions. Now I watch real life, 3-D life.

Today a neighbor was herding her goats down the road to another neighbor's home, apparently to have them munch in their pasture. Mooka was transfixed by the sight. She's a curious dog. This was her first sight of goats on a road. It was a special moment for dog and human. Not a big thing, just a small thing that created considerable joy for both a canine and a Homo sapiens. 

Don't use hydroxychloroquine without a doctor's order

I do my best not to censor comments left on my blog posts, which must be approved by me before they're published. But I'm going to change that rule for comments relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

Facts, truth, and science are our best weapons against COVID-19. So I have zero tolerance for people who spread untruths about it. I apologize for not acting sooner to prevent some false comments from being published. But better late than never.

Specifically, ignore anyone who says that hydroxychloroquine should be taken without a doctor's order to either prevent or treat a coronavirus infection.

This should never be done. It can be extremely harmful, even deadly. There are clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine underway. Doctors have the authority, in the United States at least, to prescribe it for COVID-19 patients.

So do not, repeat, do not, take it on your own, and do not, repeat, do not, give it to anyone else, like a family member or friend.

I'm ashamed that the president of the United States, the hugely incompetent Donald J. Trump, has been promoting hydroxychloroquine in his rambling, incoherent, mostly fact-free White House coronavirus briefings. The fact that Trump favors the drug is a strong argument against using it, since almost always Trump is on the wrong side of the truth/lies divide.

Understand: it may turn out that hydroxychloroquine is a worthwhile drug to use in the treatment of COVID-19. However, medical experts are warning against its use outside of a well-informed decision by a doctor to use it for this purpose, or in a clinical trial.

The Atlantic has a good story on this subject, "Why Does the President Keep Pushing a Malaria Drug?" It's written by James Hamblin, a physician who teaches public health at Yale University. Excerpts:

Based on the limited evidence so far, giving hydroxychloroquine to people could very well be—as with most drugs that modulate the immune system—of some benefit in some circumstances. Some people will be made sicker by it, depending on underlying physiology, other medications they’re taking, timing, and dosing. Identifying who stands to benefit and why requires data, and several randomized controlled studies of hydroxychloroquine are under way.

But Trump has plunged ahead. On March 28, amid his constant enthusiasm, the FDA issued an emergency authorization allowing the use of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19. Even still, the agency urged that the drug should be given only to patients “for whom a clinical trial is not available, or participation is not feasible.”

Some hospitals in the U.S., including Massachusetts General Hospital, have begun incorporating hydroxychloroquine into treatment protocols, at the discretion of an infectious-disease specialist. Other institutions are more guarded. At the University of Washington, doctors are advised in official treatment policy that although the drug has been shown to inhibit replication of the virus in cultures of monkey kidney cells, “it has not been shown to be an effective antiviral” in living organisms. The University of Michigan Medical School advises its doctors that “the current body of literature and local experience does not support the routine use of any specific treatment regimen, including hydroxychloroquine, for patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection.”

...On Saturday, Trump suggested research exists that shows people with lupus don’t get the coronavirus, implying that their use of hydroxychloroquine protects them. “There’s a rumor out there that because it takes care of lupus very effectively, as I understand it, and it’s a, you know, a drug that’s used for lupus,” he said, “so there’s a study out there that says people that have lupus haven’t been catching this virus. Maybe it’s true; maybe it’s not.”

There is no such study.

In fact, it appears that people with lupus who have been taking hydroxychloroquine for that condition have been infected with the coronavirus. So says a doctor.

Given the surge in eBay sales of chloroquine phosphate, and the anecdotal reports in Arizona and Nigeria of patients poisoning themselves by self-administering chloroquine formulations, there’s concern throughout the public health community that Trump’s exhortations to try the drug could do more harm than good. Of course, Trump isn’t encouraging self-medication, telling Americans instead to “go through your medical people.”

So what do the medical people say? Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has attempted to caution against the idea of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medication. He tweeted Sunday: “Patients with lupus, arthritis, other conditions are *already* on hydroxychloroquine. And we are diagnosing them with Covid-19 LEFT AND RIGHT.”

To repeat, don't believe false rumors on the internet about hydroxychloroquine. Don't accept anecdotal reports that it is OK to self-treat yourself with this drug. Do take hydroxychloroquine if you have COVID-19 and your doctor has prescribed it.

A story in The Guardian also is worth reading. Here's an excerpt from "Trump touts hydroxychloroquine as a cure for Covid-19. Don't believe the hype."

Why is Trump touting it?

Trump was influenced by a widely publicized study in France where 40 coronavirus patients were given hydroxychloroquine, with more than half experiencing the clearing of their airways within three to six days. This apparent improvement is important as it would curtail the timeframe in which infected people could spread Covid-19 to others.

However, experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigor to be classed as evidence of a potential treatment. The French health ministry has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19, with Olivier Véran, France’s health minister, saying that it shouldn’t be used by anyone with the exception of “serious forms of hospitalization and on the collegial decision of doctors and under strict medical supervision”.

What does the evidence show?

The French study followed work by Chinese researchers which suggested that hydroxychloroquine can slow infections from Sars-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19, by blocking it from entering cells in the body. But more recent, albeit small-scale, research from China has shown that patients who were treated with the drugs fought off coronavirus no more quickly than those who didn’t get it. Indeed, one patient given hydroxychloroquine severely worsened in condition while four patients on the medicine developed signs of liver damage and experienced diarrhea.

Regardless of these findings, any drug being used for a certain purpose before full clinical trials are completed is, by definition, untested and unproven. It’s too early to say if hydroxychloroquine can have a major benefit or not.

The European Medicines Agency, an agency of the EU, has said hydroxychloroquine should not be taken by coronavirus patients except for clinical trials or emergency use programs.

As always, follow the science. Lives depend on it.

And don't bother leaving a comment on this post about hydroxychloroquine that isn't backed up by a reputable source. You'll just be wasting your time, because it won't be published. On the other hand, include a link to a good source of scientific information, and likely I'll approve your comment.

Trump acts like a cult leader in his coronavirus briefings

Because Oregon is under a shelter in place order from Governor Brown and my usual routine has been disrupted, I've been entertaining myself (broadly speaking) by watching Trump's coronavirus briefings most afternoons -- including today.

Not surprisingly, they're horrifying.

Early on in Trump's presidency I thought that his egotism, incompetence, habitual lying, and incoherent babbling was as amusing as it was disturbing. But that was when Trump's personal defects didn't directly threaten American lives, just indirectly, such as by his repeated attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare.

Now, though, there's nothing funny about the failure of Trump and his cronies to deal properly with the coronavirus crisis. Everything I and other progressives worried about since Trump was elected has come to pass. 

Most presidents do their best to rise to the occasion when our country is in a serious crisis. Trump, on the other hand, has relished sinking to the depths. In the coronavirus briefings he blatantly lies, feels sorry for himself, attacks journalists, insults health care professionals, and undercuts the medical experts who have to stand next to him while he spouts nonsense.

Many thousands of people in the United States are going to die unnecessarily because Trump bungled the crucial early months when it was known that the coronavirus was coming to this country, but Trump downplayed its seriousness and failed to get a testing program underway immediately.

A lot of things bother me about how Trump behaves in the coronavirus briefings. My overarching irritation is how he acts like a cult leader rather than the president of a constitutional democracy. 

Almost invariably, whenever someone other than Trump speaks from the podium they are forced to begin their remarks with fawning praise. "I want to start off by thanking President Trump for the bold leadership he has been showing throughout this crisis." Meanwhile, Trump stands there, doing his best imperious Mussolini impersonation. 

Benito Mussolini and Donald Trump

Like a cult leader, Trump can't stand to be criticized or questioned.

When a reporter starts to ask a probing question about some dubious Trump claim or obvious screw-up, he interrupts them, then often spews insults at them. The one thing he doesn't do is give an honest answer or admit to a mistake.

Though Trump's imperfections are obvious to anyone with an eye to see or an ear to hear, those who surround him know that if they speak up about a false statement or unwise policy, they won't be around for long. So they stand there, a fake smile painted on their faces, forced to act as if each and every utterance of Dear Leader makes perfect sense, even when gibberish is bubbling out of Trump's mouth.

Yesterday, for example, Trump was ranting about how the previous administration had left the cupboard bare of medical supplies in the federal strategic stockpile. Supposedly this explained why there is so little left to deliver to states and cities fighting the coronavirus. 

A reporter started to ask an obvious question. "But you've had three years to refill the stockpile. Why wasn't this done?" Trump interrupted him and launched into a diatribe about something or other. Which left the reporter with no choice but to sit there and listen to the crap Trump was spewing.

For if he had yelled out the truth, likely the Trump administration would have banned the reporter from future briefings. 

And you know, that's what I wish would happen. Which also is what I wish would happen at every religious cult gathering where some man (women rarely are cult leaders) is looked upon with fawning devotion by his followers as he spouts lies, falsehoods, and untruths that bear no resemblance to reality.

If a few of those followers, just one even, would stand up and say, "This is bullshit; I'm not going to listen to it anymore; I've got better things to do," that would be so refreshing, so brave, so courageous.

I keep waiting for someone to do that at Trump's coronavirus briefings. So far, no one has. They keep on listening to the garbage that comes out of Trump's mouth, unwilling or unable to stand up for the truth against a man who has no respect for it. Such is the danger of cults.

They suck good people in, then make it very difficult for those people to escape from the grip of the cult leader. The only good news is that usually cults merely destroy the psychological well-being of their members, not their physical being. With Trump, though, his malevolence is going to lead to a great many unnecessary deaths. 

Behold the evidence.

A foreigner's scary tale of being checked for COVID-19 in India

Here's a description someone emailed to me yesterday about what happened after they wanted to be checked out in India for possibly having COVID-19, the dreaded coronavirus.

Hopefully this doesn't describe a typical medical experience in India. If it does, India is in deep trouble as it fights the coronavirus (currently the country is in the midst of a three-week stay at home lockdown). 

If you aren't aware what paan is, check out the Wikipedia page about this commonly chewed substance in India.

I was in India recently. Just got back a little over a week ago. Had a great time for the most part skateboarding a bit, visiting one of my best friends, and just bumming around looking for potential investment properties and doing touristy things.

To make a long story short, I'd been coughing since almost the first week I arrived in India, attributing the cause of the cough to the fact that I was in a place with more air pollution than hell, and I was also smoking super strong clove cigarettes all day every day.

But the cough never went away totally even when I stopped smoking altogether, and as the corona hysteria grew it made me a bit nervous about myself, but more importantly for the people I was staying with.

One day I asked the hosts I was staying with to call the corona hotline India had set up, and was instructed to immediately go to one of the well known hospitals in the city. The family assured me that it's the most advanced place with the most professional doctors and all that stuff.   

Since I thought I should minimize risk and not unintentionally spread corona to randoms on the street, I walked to the main road at about 11PM and called an Ambulance, thinking they might have some sort of transportation procedures. I was wrong.

Between my own crappy attempts to give directions in Hindi plus locals on the street speaking to the dispatchers on my speaker phone, it took almost 15 minutes just to explain where I was. No big deal for me, but I imagine people die there all the time just from the incompetence of the people on the phones who ask pertinent questions such as "aap foreign hai?" (are you foreign) over and over again.

Moving on, an ambulance finally arrived and I was instructed to get in and not touch anything. The ambulance was the dirtiest thing I've seen in any kind of medical scenario in my life, and they drove like madmen, nearly making me fly off my seat about 10 times. 

After a few seconds we arrive at the hospital, and the first thing I see is a big sort of half indoor half outdoor enclosure packed full of people coughing, screaming, crying and sleeping. There is wet paan spit every few inches on the road, stray dogs are everywhere in and around this tent-like building and the noise is basically no different than the streets of India.

The whole place looks like a war zone with the exception of the workers who all seem not to give a fuck about anything at all. I told myself that I'd run away if they tried putting me in that tent place. Luckily they didn't.

After being instructed to stand near the van in 3 different places, I'm finally escorted into a packed waiting room which is also full of sickly people milling about aimlessly, causing ruckus and of course staring at me. I was wearing a mask, but still made a useless attempt to maintain distance from others.

After waiting around for a few minutes I'm escorted back outside and toward another building altogether. There I'm instructed to wait outside, which is a good thing since that, too, is the wrong building. After stopping at two more buildings and walking around the spit drenched roads,  we finally arrive at the place where I'll be made to stay overnight.

While entering the building and walking up the stairs, the first thing I notice is that the paan spit isn't reserved for outdoor areas, and even the halls of this medical building are covered in the distinct red stains seen everywhere else in India. It's not a good sign but I have no other choice really since it was announced that anyone who doesn't go to the hospital when instructed has committed a crime.

Americans are fools who follow laws. In retrospect, it may have been wiser to just come back to USA.

So finally I get to the second floor, known as the first floor in India, and take a seat on a bench. A man comes out who I assume is a doctor and asks me a lot of questions as well as takes my heart rate. I ask if he's gonna take my temperature and his response is something like "No, we don't do anything like that here" which doesn't give me any confidence at all.

I'm eventually taken to an area with rooms full of beds which I guess is the quarantine area. It's across the hall from the "infectious disease ward" but itself isn't labeled. 

Upon entering the room, the first thing I notice is that the sheets on my bed are stained, and that the attached tray has a bunch of pieces of rice on it, which means it wasn't only not disinfected, but hadn't even been wiped clean of food. Strewn about the floor are wrappers and the packages from bandages, swabs and other medical paraphernalia, and like many things in less important sectors of Indian society, things were generally disorganized and broken. 

After a few minutes the doctor comes back to tell me that I will be tested for corona in the morning and that I should sleep, so I decide to get up to use the restroom, and make my way down the hall to find what was maybe the most concerning thing about this already frightening adventure I'd been on.

The restroom I'd been instructed to use is a squat toilet that looks as though it's never been cleaned, and has no toilet paper or one of those ass sprayers that are becoming common, but instead has the old style tap and bucket, meaning that the people in the quarantine (which luckily was only me at that point) are supposed to clean their ass with water and their bare hand.

The handleless door had that appearance of something decades old with layers upon layers of filth that had been smeared and scraped in every direction a millions of times. Filth which in this case is mostly fecal matter. Thank God I only had to pee and did my best not to touch the door.

I left and searched in vain for a place to wash my hands. There was no sink, no soap. Nothing in that hall but a really dirty bottle of hand sanitizer near the door of my quarantined room.

Not only until the next morning did I find in the same hallway another restroom with a western style toilet and a sink to wash my hands. The problem with that one was that it, too, had no toilet paper, ass sprayer or even bucket and water tap, and on top of that, the toilet had no seat and the water was literally black.

Around 3 in the morning some random dudes came into the quarantine, since I guess the security guard decided to go elsewhere, and asked me "koi aya?" (has anyone come).  I attempted to tell them that I had no clue wtf they were talking about, and after a minute or so they realized that yes, I was indeed foreign and that they should stand, stare and talk about me for a while before leaving.

I went back to sleep.

Around 7 or so the doctor-ish guy returns and says he'll give me a test, but not for corona. I'm told that due to my long stay in that city and no exposure to any known cases, I'm not eligible and I'll instead be tested for bird flu, swine flu and all that other stuff.

They send me to another doctor who gives me some meds for plain pneumonia and I go back home to the room I was renting. Later after a lot of hard work, I find some phone numbers online of alumni from the medical college, and get a number to retrieve my test results, which are negative. No swine flu. Awesome. 

I decide when I get to my room that I need to leave India, but surprisingly not due to the chaos, but because I felt bad for my wife being in USA alone, and I knew that any plans I had were not gonna work at that time. Booked my tickets the next day, and good thing I did. My flight was the last Air India flight out of the city, and for reasons nobody ever told me, they confiscated my documents and I almost wasn't able to get on the flight. 

Before I left I started to feel the tribal tension and famous racism of India starting to build up. Kids in the neighborhood who once wanted to be around me every day were now looking at me weird, fat women on the street were pointing at me and saying "corona corona!" and in one market the shop owners were saying that I came to India just to spread the virus.

My hosts said that neighbors started coming to their house asking about me and saying I had to leave, never mind the fact that a local singer was suspected of attending parties about a mile from where I was staying while she unknowingly had corona and potentially spreading it to many other celebrities and politicians. No, it's the foreigners who are doing it! Even if I'd had it, it'd be from Indians since I was there from before corona.

But whatever. People are idiots.

Now I'm reading about foreigners being kicked out of their hotels and rented homes all over India, and them and their children being spit on, pelted with stones and attacked at random on the streets.  Nobody is really talking about it anywhere, as can be expected. Meanwhile mindless Americans are crying about the word "kung flu" and making bad jokes international news.

Anyway, I'm back home. Self quarantined. Feeling good. Making music. I feel lucky. Things could be a lot worse for me.

As for India, if that disease catches on, they have no way to stop it. Whatever assurances the government is giving are hollow. Police beating poor people on the street will do nothing but cause riots which are already happening anyway. It's sort of like their disastrous "demonetization" failure all over again, except about 1000 times worse. In that one, foreigners were being groped and molested at the ATM machines and banks, but not kicked out onto the streets and attacked by mobs. 

In a lot of ways I really love that place, and many of my favorite people live there, but it'll probably be my last trip to India. I saw a side that I don't want to see more of. 

Good luck to everyone there, and be well, Brian.