People that are most independent (having realized an inner strength) may walk away from the unwanted telephone call and the "survey" it brings, not having the needy quality that we see in consumerism. But consumers are most needy and vocal, and they would be attracted to a survey: like bees attracted to sweet nectar.

Those that know do not speak, and those that speak do not know! But it is probably the case that government mandates will come, like the mandates in fuel economy, and these mandates will have the goal: feed us the sweet nectar be it Darwinism, or a diminish religion in a new secular age. The most needy are our career politicians that pretend to have all our answers, if only we would lend them our votes in exchange for sweet nectar.

When the telemarketer phones, I listen just enough to hang up immediately without any offered explanation on my part. I say "hello," listen for a few seconds, and then hang up. Oh how rude and aloof I must be, to openly caricature consumers as I have done above. I must be guilty of the very things I accuse others of being. But this realization only causes be to fall into silence more, to listen less and to hang up faster. Having discovered myself in others causes me to be more silent, otherwise I would be a telemarketer too. But make no mistake I am a telemarketer of sorts, except I don’t use the telephone in my effort, and I operate on a different freq uency. There is sweet nectar to be had!

I went for a hike on March 4-th, I was marching forward up into the same hills that I knew as youth. There were cows feasting on the green grass. The grass is always green in California in the spring. Because this was a very abundant grass, the cows should hold no curiosity about me or what I was doing. But their movements contradicted the reductionist world-view we call science again. The cows were massing together, and some of them were running to rejoin the herd. It could have been me that distracted them. But I was part of the same march too. The cows wanted to march forth too, they wanted to march back into the hills to the lush pasture to be found on the ridge top. We were like one storm. The cows took the easy way up and followed the road. But I took a detour. I departed from the road, into a small ravine, and then I climb straight up the steep hill on the other side.

After some huffing and puffing, and 200 feet higher, I came to a plateau. There some 150 feet away was yet another cow that had isolated herself from the rest of the herd. She betrayed her deepest concerns. She immediately stood up on all fours after resting in the deep grass. She had recently given birth, and this was obvious from the size of her udder. She stood there and watched me with heighten anxiety. There was no cause for her fear, but this is how she presented herself. If she wanted to charge she woul d be a major challenge with her=2 0long horns. But she only stood there watching and playing statue. I walked by her calf sleeping in the grass, and it became very clear what she was telling me. But I was just the storm again, and had another 400 feet of climbing to reach the ridge that was still higher than the plateau.

We have been told that everything is explained by natural selection, and that includes the wiring of our brains where it is said that neurons compete among themselves to bring forth the favored memes. It is easy for some people to accept such an explanation. When you tell them that they are just searching for sweet nectar, they become argumentative and puzzled. Some how they accept the narrow minded explanation offered as "natural selection" and its neurological extensions. These just-so stories work for them. And "science" must be the ground all acceptable decisions, even those that relate to ethics and beauty. But it seems to me we’re just searching for nectar like the cows searching for lush grass. It seems to me that there is a precondition that is self-evident if you want to follow me into the hills and feel it for yourself. And it seems to me that if these just-so stories are acceptable explanations, then my explanation is even on more solid ground.

 
Call it the Garden of Eden if you like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efq7ro5OFSo&NR=1

Stephen