Creatures of Habit

Each morning, as dawn comes, the birds in my suburban neighborhood begin their calls back and forth, re-establishing contact with others of their species.  Each morning, once it is fully daylight, the squirrels begin their intricate descent to the deck in my backyard, where they will search for breakfast in the leaves or nearby grass.  All those animals have their morning habits, just as I do with my routine of coffee, radio, and reading.  All of our seemingly mechanical behavior is prompted by something even more regular -- the clock-like rising of the sun.  Therein lies a story of the universe, with its complex mixture of order and the unexpected.

Our contemporary U.S. culture, in which new products and discoveries are continually publicized, tends to elevate change.  We are frequently exhorted not to get stuck in a rut. When I was growing up, I often heard people say that we should not be "creatures of habit." The very use of the word "creatures" in that label (rather than saying "people") underscored that habits were something mindless -- something we humans should rise above.  (No one noticed the irony that people were habitually exhorting others not to be creatures of habit.)

The 20th-century Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, a master of tragicomedy, said through one of his characters that "Habit is a great deadener."

Despite habits so often being considered something that we should break, no society could long exist without them.  That insight was made by the late 19th-century psychologist William James, who wrote:

"Habit is... the enormous fly-wheel of society, 

its most precious conservative agent.... 

 It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life 

from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. 

It keeps the fisherman 

and the deck-hand 

at sea through the winter."

The morning routines of the birds, squirrels, and myself were all triggered by the "habitual" rising of the sun. With the rise of Newtonian science in the 17th century, scientists tended to say that bodies such as our sun obeyed "natural laws" with their mathematical regularity. Today, scientists still search for underlying regularities in the world, but much less often use the phrase "laws," which was clearly a term borrowed from human society. We even know that the apparent movement of the old sun through our sky, which once seemed absolutely mechanical in its seeming clock-like movement , is not absolute, because the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing over time. Thus it is that even the sun in our sky cannot be absolutely unchanging in its habits.  It even has unpredictable flares in the fires on its surface.  Even the sun is a complex mixture of order and the unexpected.

We live in a world of both underlying order and underlying novelty.  And, I bet even those birds and squirrels -- with all their alertness along with their regularity -- would also make adjustments in their behavior if something new and potentially significant entered the routine of their day.

~~~

Do you have a routine, intentional or not, that adds something valuable to your life?

(The Beckett quote is from Waiting for Godot, III. © 1952, trans. 1954.)

(The James quote is taken from Psychology, Briefer Course, by William James, © 1892.  p. 143.)

(Both the photo and the illustration are in the public domain because their copyrights have expired.)

Doing Without a Brain, or Just a Little One

My musings on this matter of the size or absence of brains began when I was confirming another fact with a retired biology teacher.  I had been wanting to make sure my description of the size of tiny coral animals was correct.  Although I had not requested the additional information, my adviser added:  "The coral are invertebrates, like sea anemones.  They have no brains."  It sounded like just the setup line for a joke by a late-night TV comedian (particularly if our elected officials had done something seemingly nonsensical earlier in the week).

Another brainless invertebrate,
a freshwater sponge

Nevertheless, my adviser on biology had simply been making the factual observation that corals, sea anemones, and other invertebrates such as sea sponges make do without a spinal cord or brain.  They do quite well without such "extras."  Sea anemones, being much larger than the nearly microscopic coral animals, are easier candidates for observation if you have a chance to watch a saltwater aquarium.  They have a mouth on top, surrounded by numerous paralyzing tentacles that detour passing food into the mouth.  The creatures, although continuously hungry, seem quite content in having no brain.  Although we humans might think that having brains is a "no brainer," evolution tells us brains are not really necessary for being a plant or even an animal.

Besides that TV-comedian joke about some people apparently not having a brain, another derisive brain-related joke is to call some person a "bird brain."  Here again, birds -- as well as many other small vertebrates -- seem quite capable of getting along with a quite small brain and skull compared to the human race.

On one occasion, I was pitted brain-to-brain against a creature of sparrow-sized brain, and I lost the competition.  My challenger had been a bat.  I was standing on a second-story balcony in the early evening, at the balcony's rail, looking out upon the open grounds before me.  In literally less than a second, a bat flew straight at my face.  Even though the whole incident happened in an instant, I was able afterward to clearly remember seeing the rapidly flying bat no more than two feet in front of my face -- and aimed right at me.  But then, the miraculous occurred:  The bat, securely guided by it's sonar system that I could not hear, instantaneously made a sharp left turn, thus preventing a collision.  I could never have been able to react that quickly.  But its tiny brain did.

We need not stop with the example of a bat's brain if we want examples of forms of intelligence packaged in a small size.  In his poem "A Considerable Speck," Robert Frost observes the behavior of a nearly microscopic "mite" (as he calls it) on a sheet of white paper on his desk. Watching the tiny animal's response to the movements of his writing pen. Frost drolly concludes:

"Plainly with an intelligence I dealt....

I have a mind myself and recognize

Mind when I meet with it in any guise

No one can know how glad I am to find

On any sheet the least display of mind."

~~~

Is there a non-human species you admire?  What species is that?  Why do you admire it?

(The excerpt from the Frost poem is taken from

"A Considerable Speck" in Complete Poems of Robert Frost, © 1967.)

Awarded Second Place

Aristotle, Theophrastus,
 and Strato discuss biology

It's not easy being a second-stringer.  Especially today -- when being a celebrity is so highly rated -- those who have done well but are not "tops" easily fall into the great hall of the virtually forgotten.  One such scientist was named Theophrastus, and he lived in ancient Greece from about 372 to 287 B.C.E.  He was a pupil of Aristotle, and easily falls into that great man's shadow.  Anyone with a college-level education should know the name "Aristotle."  Few are even expected to learn the name "Theophrastus."  And yet, Theophrastus was called the "father of botany" by Linnaeus, the 18th-century scientist who developed modern biology's system for classifying species.

After Aristotle died, Theophrastus led the school Aristotle had created, continuing to teach not only botany but also zoology, physiology, physics, ethics, and the history of culture.  Today, we'd need a separate professor for each of those subjects, but Theophrastus strengthened the sense of unity among those various subject areas.  The school actually reached its peak attendance during his leadership.

Although Theophrastus wrote several books as a way of deepening education, the ones that had the most lasting influence were those about botany, such as Natural History of Plants and Reasons for Vegetable Growth.  He classified almost 500 plants, not just as an abstract subject, but also relating it to human cultivation, grafting, and propagation.  Even though Theophrastus is mostly forgotten today, some current scientific terminology still shows traces of the names he used for flowers and their parts.

It seems to me that it is not only Theophrastus who falls into an easily forgotten second place.  Plants do too.  On television nature documentaries, IMAX movies, and save-the-species campaigns, it is animals, not plants, that get most of the attention.  A panda is so much more cuddly than any plant (especially more than poison ivy).  In contrast, a lion is a better model than a plant for a child's nice stuffed toy (even though the lion is a predator that kills other mammals that we adore).

Part of the reason for this discrimination against plants obviously lies in animals' being much more animated -- the very basis for our word "animal."  That difference cannot be overcome even by time-lapse photography, which can make flowers at least appear to unfold, and plants appear to grow as fast as animals actually move.

Despite the second place that plants get in our attention, we and all animals depend in some way upon them, such as the oxygen for breathing that green plants give off.  In the late 19th century, the American biologist Asa Gray paid a tribute to plants in the opening pages of a botany book he wrote for young people.  Gray was himself a second-stringer among advocates for Darwin's theory of evolution, taking second place to Thomas Huxley.  Nevertheless, Gray knew the importance of plants, writing:

"The clothing of the earth with plants and flowers --
at once so beautiful and so useful, so essential to all animal life --
is one of the very ways in which [God] takes care of his creatures."

~~~

Has any houseplant, shrub, vine, or tree played a particular role in your life?  What?

(The Gray quote is in his Botany for Young People [1872]

 as quoted in Song of a Scientist by Calvin B. DeWitt, © 2004.  p. 21.)

(The photo of the three teachers is in the public domain, being a reproduction of art whose copyright has expired.)

Filling a Life with Light

I recently checked out of the public library three small books that were old and heavily worn, even though they had probably not been used much in recent years.  Even beyond their contents, the books were fascinating, what with their now antiquated card-pockets and check-out cards.  (One of the volumes, a 1905 book even bore on its title page an impress revealing that it once had been in the Colored Carnage Library, now thankfully gone as an emblem of the U.S's officially segregated past.)  All three books, published between 1905 and 1927, were collections of poems by a man who loved God and loved Nature.

His name was Henry van Dyke (1852-1933).  Even though his poetry broke away from a heavier style (such as that of Longfellow) by using more variation in the lengths of lines, Van Dyke's poetry is of a rhymed style that is no longer popular.  And yet, there are things to commend about his work and life.  His prose narrative "The Story of the Other Wise Man" has been given some modern adaptations.

His 1907 hymn "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" has also endured, being still in some current hymnals.  I think one reason, besides its exuberant alliterations and vivid imagery, is that its content transcends many theological differences.  I would even suggest that much of its content can transcend boundaries of faith-traditions in its awe-filled spiritual experience in Nature. Such as:  "Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flowery meadow, flashing sea, / Chanting bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee."

I think my Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature identified the style of living that lay behind the potential universality of those hymn lyrics.  That reference book explains that Van Dyke engaged in a "lifelong attempt to fuse religion and practical, everyday living in a keen personal enjoyment of life."  Given his profession as a religious leader, things could have turned out otherwise.  But something guided him away from parochialism even as a minister at Brick Presbyterian Church in New York.

I find a wideness of spirit even in his early poems.  Scanning the tables of contents in those three old library books, there is one poem in all three books whose title stands out for its expressiveness:  "God of the Open Air."  In that multi-page 1904 poem, Van Dyke conveys his heartfelt religious devotion.  But I think he does so in a way that can transcend religious divisions -- particularly because he conveys his devotion to a God that is found beyond the walls of any sanctuary, synagogue, temple, or mosque:  "To thee I turn, to thee I make my prayer, / God of the open air."  In the poem's closing lines, Van Dyke echoes the famous appeal of Goethe on his deathbed for "Mehr licht!" ("More light!").  Van Dyke proclaims that upon dying:

"Let me not creep

Into some darkened room and hide

From all that makes the world so bright and dear;

But throw the windows wide

To welcome in the light."

~~~

Is there a way that Nature adds an exuberance to your life?  When and how?

(The hymn lyrics are taken from The Presbyterian Hymnal, © 1990. #464.)

(The description of Van Dyke's religious aim is from

Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, © 1991.  p. 1084.)

(Van Dyke's full poem can be read at this external link:  "God of the Open Air")

An Ill Wind and My Spirit

It was a late summer.  There were more clouds than typical for a summer day, but that felt good because it gave relief from the hot summer sun.  What felt even better was a breeze that brushed across my face, bringing the promise of a respite from the summer heat we had endured for weeks.  "Maybe we'll get a cooling rain," I thought.  My slight elation at the change in weather was, however, kept in bounds by a larger awareness.  Namely, I knew that the pleasant shift in weather I was experiencing was the result of a distant hurricane that was coming ashore farther away, bringing destruction upon other people.

The soothing breeze that brushed my face thus raises the question of how I should think and feel about those things in Nature that bring both good and bad.  That tiny breeze raises spiritual and theological questions far beyond its small size.  To my way of thinking, the most distasteful responses to a hurricane during the past few years have been by people who claimed that God steered the hurricane away from them in response to their prayers.  Those people were thinking only of themselves, and seem to have had little concern about the other people who would be hurt by a re-directed hurricane.  Nor do such comments display an awareness of a long tradition of theological thought about the matter.

A less selfish response does not require more scientific understanding of storms.  It only requires a "compassionate heart," to use a Buddhist phrase.  A wiser and more  open-hearted response to tragedy was modeled by Jesus after a tower fell, killing people.  Even without a knowledge of Newtonian physics, Jesus knew that natural disasters do not injure just bad people, and that they do not spare just good people.  Challenging his listeners to join him in that enlightened response, he asked rhetorically,  "Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them -- do you think that they were worse offenders...?  No, I tell you." (Luke 13:4-5, NRSV).  Jesus's reminder to us that "bad things can happen to good people," as we say today, echoes that same insight form the Jewish tradition's book of Job in the Bible. Job's suffering from natural forces was not a punishment.

Although in English we have separate words for "wind" and "spirit," in the Bible's original languages, the two are the same word.  We might think "wind-spirit." That equivalence can remind me when that light wind touches my face, to ask myself what my own spirit is like, especially when I know of the dangerous hurricane further away.

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There is another side of the coin to this matter of the uncertainties of the natural world -- the fact that natural forces can bring both damaging winds and needed rain.  I easily notice when bad luck befalls me.  In contrast, I easily overlook all the ways I have been helped by good things that were just as much beyond my control. The light wind that brushes my face can, therefore, widen my awareness even further.  The double meaning of wind-spirit can remind me to remember a larger spirit of unseen forces that support my life.  A native American Ojibwe song put it this way:

"Sometimes I go about pitying myself,

But all the while

I am being carried by great winds across the sky."

~~~

Is there a way you have come to think about the uncontrollable uncertainties of life?