tibetan buddhism, modern science and borges

So I'm reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and it keeps talking about impermanence, how everything is always in flux, nothing is constant, there is no essential. So far, I am in agreement with this, even down to our cells that are constantly dying and being born. My issue is that they also believe in the reincarnation of the soul. But this would mean that we have an essential soul that remains throughout our various incarnations, which would seem to contradict the idea that nothing is lasting. Unless he is talking merely about material things not lasting, but what is immaterial other than the soul? Why would the soul be the only exception? It seems like a way out of dealing with the fact that nothing is lasting, truly. It is sort of a cop out to say that nothing is lasting, besides our essential selves, because we do no actually care of anything other than ourselves is lasting. We just want to be permanent.
So I have thought of a way of reconciling with this idea of change and lasting forever, and as a way to connect Tibetan Buddhism with the idea of modern science that we die and that is it. It has to do with biology and the cycle of life. When we die, our bodies decay, and become part of the dirt. The worms eat the dirt, and while most of it is shat out and becomes the dirt once again, some of it stays with the worm once it gets eaten by a bird, and so on through the process of eating it ascends in the life cycle, and a piece of you is once again part of life. Maybe this is a materialistic way of viewing the concept though, a way to make it tangible to me, a Western thinker. So the higher up you get in the food chain, the more of the smaller animals you have, and the wider variety of different past animals. Through this we remain part of this material world, spread out through many animals, all at different stages.
This connects to Borges' idea that All is One, in that we are all made up of each other and remain within each other and are all made up of the same essential substances and are simply different manifestations of what is the same thing. This is also evident to me in ideas- that whenever I digest a new concept, I find that I am able to apply it to everything I have learned before, implying that everything is somehow part of one single idea.
Such as the concept of infinity that I was unable to grasp. I cannot imagine how there is a single number that is never ending, I figured it was only a matter of perspective, that we were too close to be able to see the end of it. Then when I learned about impermanence, I began to think that the only way for a number to be infinite is if it is constantly changing, unstable so that it cannot be determined, rather than a single constant tangible number.

i think its very curious the timing of environmental awareness
in america, it came at a time when our supply of oil was low, and people whose high-paying jobs depend on the availability of oil began to get worried because at the rate that america was consuming oil, we would run out, and their businesses would fail.
so they created a movement that was brilliantly marketed, and served their purposes.
it served their purposes because with people being conservationist, it made companies' limited oil supplies last longer- and they can stay in business longer- we played right into their hands.
they made it seem as a reactionary thing, a liberal thing, a hip young thing- branded as new and innovative and conscientious
so that if you participated it in, you are educated and aware- something that people strive to be- as we are aspirational.
it actually created a new market whereas in theory it should have slowed down business because people would not be consuming as much, but now we have many many new companies touting their environmentally-friendly wares.
companies like whole foods, much like jewish mothers and religion, use guilt to attract and keep their consumers, and it is, after all, a business. like their reusable salad bowls, where you get 15 cents off if you use it, is marketed as something that they are doing because they are concerned about the environment, but actually it is just logical that you get 15 cents off because the bowl weighs more.
the entire movement plays at our guilt- our guilt for being on this planet and that we have to pay back for our space here- we can't get anything that is undeserved- but this is a purely human notion, a social construction that has persisted through time, dating back to the church's money collection.
so has paying back guilt always been monetary-based? is guilt a notion created by business to keep themselves relevant? what would our society be like with no guilt?
we also use guilt to keep ourselves in line, which follows the excuse idea, that we need to create excuses to do anything that is not in line with social constructions to assuage our guilt. but there is in fact no inherent reason for us to feel guilty- it is a way to control ourselves. so who is doing the controlling? is it just a notion that has been passed down through time and is adapted into current trends so that they persist?

oh dear it's been so long

and i wanted to make this a quasi-daily thing.
okay, so three topic:
our use of excuses serving as a reason to break free from socially constructed norms- drinking- our desires and how they conflict with society- freud-we have to justify our actions, even to ourselves,

how everything is a business- banks, the government-they create reasons for themselves to exist and expand and we have to keep adapting

ways in which our society is becoming less collective- dates back to the creation of paper money rather than bartering- standardizes and isolates- so does technology and the increased personalization of our lives- tivo, ipod, since we can indulge our desires so easily, we do not have to compromise- which eliminates working with other people and creating relationships- we are self-sufficient and do not have to rely on other people for favors, so the need (excuse) for building relationships disappears

the ways in which people use religion- security, obviously, not only in life but in death- so that it is not unknown- create a story for us to believe in.

instincts are social constructions- like in art, saying I don't know, I just felt like it- but it is a result of external influences. what about animals' instincts?

A Pathetic Generation

So I started wondering about the next revolution, what it would be like, and what we have to revolt against. As the government has increasingly less power, and it becomes evident that they are controlled by big guns with money, who can buy them out so that the law suits their will, not that this is anything new, but I have become more aware of it, and I don't know if that's because of external (it is more evident to everyone) or internal (I'm learning more about it) factors.
Anyway, since the era of big government is over, the people seem to think that they have more freedom. They can dress the way they want, they can travel to (almost) wherever they want, and associate with whomever they want. But in fact, we are no more free than we have ever been because rather than being controlled by an entity like the government, that we could join forces and rebel against, we have vastly increased our self-control. This has come about through isolating the individual (so that we think selfishly- game theory) and through standardizations of what it is to be normal (psychotherapy and so-called experts). We now express our perceived freedom through our consumer choices, and feel the need to consume to fill our empty selves that have less community ties. This freedom through consumption has pacified the public so that they do not feel the need to revolt against any entity, and the availability and choice of consumer goods has increased our ability to ignore the real world. What Orwell got wrong is that it's not the government that will control us, it's the CEOs of companies like Clear Channel and Viacom that have the most (money, and therefore) power. There is increased distance to where our products actually come from (sweatshops) and to the effects our behavior is having on the world (pollution of third world contries so that they have no clean drinking water) so it becomes easier to ignore. The companies give us a limited option of goods to choose from, and because of these options we think we are free. Our society is largely free from class distinctions and the way a certain type of person has to act (the poor have the freedom to move up in society and we would accept it- but even though they have this freedom, we do nothing to encourage it). We have outlets for rebellion, like being emo or hippie, but it's controlled in self-expression- we think we can be whomever we want to be and that's enough.
So, what do we have to do to rile up this apathetic generation that looks the other way and is contented with listening to angry music rather than actually getting angry?

relational society

what i have observed that people really want is to relate to each other. so we build all these increasingly complex channels to do so, such as cell phones, emails and such, (creating a wider network) and mediums such as fashion, trendy books that we all adhere to so as to have common ground. we want to relate to each other to build relationships. the widening network allows us to be pickier about the relationships we build, but maybe it sets our expectations too high about what's out there and we become frustrated.
people critsize globalization for creating a homogenous society. saying its a negative thing. but if our goal is to relate to one another, and we do this by having things in common, why wouldnt we want a homogenous society? arent we on our way to achieving what we want?
we are becoming more homogenous: we are interbreeding and looking more like one another. doesnt darwin encourage diversity? is this what drives us to be individuals? where did individualism emerge from?

more ideas to develop

- our reproductive desires are manipulated by "the man"- population control is necessary which leads to: availability of contraception, emphasis on the self- futuristic novels all have aspect of population control

- communist sentiment- how communist leaders are villified by capitalists

body art

I've been thinking a lot about tattoos recently, as the end of a "chapter" of my life approaches, and it got me thinking about the kinds of things that people choose to print onto their body.
The first question that people always ask is, "what does it mean," and immediately try to interpret how the personal meaning relates to the image. I have come to the conclusion that a personal meaning could not be translated into a single image, and if you found one that does, there would be no need to print it on your body so that everyone can see it. If you are aware of the meaning that the tattoo has, it does not have to be related to the image.
So, the image needs only to have aesthetic value because it is after all, a body adornment, something that you do for other people. It is a way to make your bosy more unique as well as more visually pleasing. It is interesting that "abstract" tattoos are not more popular, as they became mainstream after the modern art movement, so I would think that people would have moved away from such straightforward visual representations. Actually, rather than being realistic they tend to be a shorthand for what they represent; merely a symbol. Symbols are laden with symbolism (obviously) but the meanings are varied from person to person. Except for the clearly socially contructed meaning of the symbol, personal experience is always altering the meaning.
A symbol is not even an effective way to get your message across, so why even both trying to get a message acros when art is so subjective nowadays? Get art for art's sake. The pattern and decoration movement should be the inspiration for tattoos because now that it is no longer radical, the reason for getting body art is purely aesthetic.