The two Popes

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Earlier this year, In a rare public intervention, the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI  issued a stout defence of priestly celibacy – just as Pope Francis was considering lifting the restriction on married priests in some circumstances, in particular, the ordination of married men in the Amazon region, where there is a severe shortage.

Francis, who has previously suggested he is open to such exceptions, is due to announce a decision in the coming months. But a new book has a chapter by Benedict defending priestly celibacy, which warns Catholics not to listen to the “special pleading, the theatrics, the diabolical lies, the fashionable errors that would devalue it”. Later, Benedict’s co-authorship credit was removed from the cover of the book, amid a furious row over whether or not the 92-year-old was manipulated into taking a public stance.  (Vatican City, January 2029, a carried in The Week, 18 January 2020)

My take:  Friendly message to the ex- Pope:

You’ve had your day, your opportunity.  You resigned voluntarily, leaving a celibate clergy mired in sexual scandal.

For what it’s worth (from a supporter of Epicurus, whose take on life and death is so very different to yours, and, I think more humane):  Benedict, go home and stop interfering.  You are doing the Catholic Church more harm than good.  

P.S: message from an historian:  the policy of celibacy had nothing to do with Jesus, or the Bible.  The church was concerned about having to look after numerous widows and their offspring in an age of short male lifespans.  Moreover, Italian law said that the property of married priests was heritable by wives and offspring, depriving the church of land, and therefore power.  No wives or kids was the answer to an institution coining it nicely, in the Middle Ages, anyway.

Higher number of steps, lower risk of death

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The higher your daily step count, the lower your risk of death per year, according to a new analysis by the US National Cancer Institute – but the link only goes so far.

Public health officials have long encouraged walking as a way of improving general health, but many studies have focused on people in their early 60s and have sometimes ignored minority groups, such as people who aren’t white.

Between 2003 and 2006 the study looked at 4840 people who were representative of the US population over the age of 40.  Pedro Saint-Maurice at the National Cancer Institute and his colleagues asked the participants to wear an accelerometer for a week, which  is a fairly good gauge of usual activity.

The team found that the average daily step count of this group was 9124 steps. This figure is higher than many previous studies have found, probably because the study included younger people, those working in less sedentary jobs, and more men (who tend to be more physically active).

The researchers used the US National Death Index to determine which participants had died by the end of 2015. 4000 steps a day was used as the baseline (easily achieved by someone who drives to work and sits at their desk for the whole day.)

By comparison, the team found that taking 8000 steps was associated with a 51 per cent lower risk of dying per year, and taking 12,000 daily steps was associated with a 65 per cent lower risk of dying per year.

But there is a plateau: taking more than 12,000 steps a day didn’t seem to be associated with a further reduction of risk of yearly mortality. Up to 12,000 steps, a higher number of steps was associated with a lower risk of dying per year regardless of sex, race, level of education, health condition and whether a person smoked or drank alcohol.

The researchers also found that the intensity of the steps taken had little to no effect on the risk of yearly mortality (that is, speed doesn’t seem to matter).

“Many individuals wear wearables and monitor their step count,  but there is a critical gap in knowledge between the relation of steps and health outcomes,” says I-Min Lee of Harvard University. This study corroborates and expands on previous research, she says. “It provides empirical data extending these findings to other groups of people.”  (A lightly edited version of an article in New Scientist by Jason Arunn Murugesu.   Journal reference: JAMA, DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.1382)

Relevance to Epicureanism?  Fitness and good health promote a happy life and peace of mind.

BabyBoomers then and now

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To The Guardian. March 2018, from a baby boomer: 

“As a 70-year-old baby boomer I read and learnt from Phillip Inman’s article. As usual, though, there is no comparison made between the life circumstances experienced during the youthful years of baby boomers and those of today’s young people.

“Most of us grew up without central heating; icy bathrooms, phoning from the only phone in a freezing hall, doing homework next to a single-bar electric fire. Holiday accommodation – rarely, if ever, abroad – consisted of youth hostels or tents. Car ownership tended to be limited to enthusiasts with car maintenance skills. The purchase of clothing was a treat and TV was a four-channel affair without remote control. Sex was difficult to come by as getting together under parents’ roofs was out of the question. The age of majority was 21, so even the lucky 2-3% who went to university were in gender-separated halls or digs where landladies were in loco parentis. Late buses took us home from evening social events. Birthday celebrations would be held at home to the record player. I was lucky to own a bicycle, but no helmet. Deaths on the roads were horrifyingly high as seatbelts were unknown. Cancer meant automatic death.

“Do our relatively deprived youths give us any rights to a moderately comfortable old age?”. (name and address not given)

My take:  I was  born before the war, so don’t identify with boomers.  Nor do enjoy some of the behavior of the of the young (but won’t dwell on it).  But I deeply sympathize with the incredible difficulty the young people have in affording housing, the lack of security in their jobs, the emasculation of the pension system I have so happily benefitted from,  the appalling  so- called gig economy, not to mention the outrageous cost of further education (the taxpayer paid for mine! Yes, truly!.  I am so grateful for it and hope I have given back some at least of what I received).

The young have a point; the boomers are an insensitive lot, and the picture of life as described by the writer somewhat exaggerated.

Living in ancient Rome: give thanks for modern life

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Juvenal described life in an ancient Roman tenement, and in the winding, crowded, brawling, filthy streets below:

“Think now about all those other perils

Of the night; how high is it to the roof up there

From which a tile falls and smashes your brains.

How many times broken, leaky jars

Fall from windows; how hard they strike and break

The pavement.  You could be thought lazy and careless

If you go to dinner without writing a will.

There are as many deaths waiting for you

As there are open windows above your head.

Therefore you should hope and fervently pray

That they only dump their sewage on you.

Someone below is already shouting for water

And shifting his stuff;  smoke is pouring out

Of the third floor attic, but you know

Nothing of it, for if the alarm begins on the ground floor,

The last to burn will be the man who has nothing

To shelter him from the rain but the tiles,

Where the gentle doves lay their eggs”.

For all our problems and fears we should be thankful for the good things about our current world: better health and sanitation, better housing, better diet, more mobility, more life options…. one could go on.  Epicurus, were he still alive, might exclaim, “ So it is possible to improve the lives of the human race!”. and he might also add, “ By and large.”

Meditation

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There seems to be good evidence that regular sessions of mindful attention have a calming effect on the amygdala, the brain’s emotion processor, and reduce impulsive reactions to stressful or negative thoughts and experiences. Mindfulness, they say, can help mute our emotional response to physical pain, and lessen anxiety and mind-wandering (not the kind that feeds creativity but its unfocused opposite). The benefits are apparent, even for beginners, and they increase with practice.

Compassion meditation, which aims to boost empathy, has an even more immediate effect: just 7 hours over the course of two weeks has been shown to boost altruistic behaviour. It is probably no coincidence that this makes us happier, too.

Science writer Daniel Goleman and neuroscientist Richard Davidson Coleman  are most interested in capacity of meditation to cultivate enduring selflessness, equanimity, compassion and the ability to free the mind of negative emotions.

Much of the evidence for these traits comes from Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has scanned the brains of dozens of highly experienced Tibetan monks. These yogis, who have meditated for thousands – in some cases, tens of thousands – of hours, describe themselves as living in a heightened state of present-moment awareness, “as if their senses were wide open to the full rich panorama of experience”.

Davidson claims he has found a neural correlate to this mind-warp: a massive increase in the intensity of gamma waves in the brain, a signal associated with conscious perception. Are these monks living on a different plane of consciousness from the rest of us?

One of their most interesting passages in a recent book describes what this self-lightening looks like on a neural level, how meditation practice quietens the brain’s default mode network, the constant background chatter that accompanies mind-wandering and self-absorption.

If a wandering mind is an unhappy mind, as various psychological surveys argue, then a focused mind must be worth struggling for. For Goleman and Davidson, the struggle is not so much about individual relief but about reducing “greed, selfishness, us/them thinking and impending eco-calamities, and promoting more kindness, clarity, and calm”. (An edited account by Michael Bond in NewScientist, September 16, 2017)

My take:  The objective is very Epicurean.  I personally call meditation”My Peace”, and only wish I had the leisure and the time – and the peace – to do more of it.  My wife  asks this of me and she is absolutely right.

P.S Jane asked about this subject and whether the mind is blank; if not , what do you think about when meditating.  Personally I have a virtual garden, actually it is a beautiful garden in Ravello, Italy. It has a stupendous view from high cliffs over the sea.  It has statuary among the trees and flowering shrubs and is totally peaceful.  I go for virtual strolls , enjoying the sun, the light and the tasteful beauty.