Love And Nonsense: An Early Humanist Milestone

Today's post is a bit of material I wrote early this fall, and posted in my local SSA's facebook private discussion group. That group is one of the safest and most familiar places I've ever had the luck to find myself in. When I founded SCSU's Secular Student Alliance chapter in 2009, I never thought it would become such a huge part of my life. So now when I have something important to share, these wonderful people, my little friend-family, are the first ones I go to: whether it be in tears or a huge grin. Here I recount an early milestone in my journey to a secular humanist worldview, doing my best to show what that younger version of myself felt.


In some key respects I remain the same, but I was altogether a very different person in high school. I spent most of my time awake, with roughly 4 hours of sleep each night. I always did extra credit work, and much like Belle, my best and truest friend was the librarian, because she knew what I liked to do with my spare time: read. 

Why did the anglophile cross the street? Because it was Abbey Road.

By the time I graduated, I'd become somewhat familiar with or read nearly every book in our library addressing British culture and history. The token anglophile, lurking in the classics and political sections, nary a non-British themed t-shirt in my wardrobe. One of the first books I fell in love with at that stage in life was a collection of poems by T.H. White titled "A Joy Proposed". I borrowed the book over and over, never wanting to return it. 


I attended one final service project with my Methodist church in my sophomore year, but made it my last truly Christian church participation. Even on that trip, I feared that these people who I loved (and who loved me) would find out I didn't quite believe in all the supernatural bits, though I cherished volunteering and singing with them.

So when I came across this collection of poems by T.H. White, my mind was as open and sponge-like as could be. Not a label of Christian, or of anything really (other than anglophile) stuck to me. I was enamoured with science (biology especially), politics, world history, transcendentalism and many other things, but so undecided, so green.

My favorite poem from that collection was actually a pair of poems. Reading them, and then reciting them in my head later, marked a milestone in my eye-opening journey of doubt. For that newly non-Christian, brainy 16-year old, I'm sure you'll see why. They're also quite lovely:

God is love, the parson whined. 

Yes, and is he also blind?

God is love, the bishops tell.

Yes, I know, But love is hell.

What a beautiful demonstration of how man's attempts to define god are so easily shown to be nonsensical. God is love, he is omnipotent, but he's also blind. God is immaterial, unknowable, yet he wore sandals and wrote a haphazard collection of books. And I'll agree with the parson and bishop here, love is wonderful. Yet at the same time, as White points out, love can make us feel like we're stumbling blindly through the fires of hell.

Surely some attempts to define god are beautiful or awe-inspiring, as anyone who has been in a temple or church and befriended the congregants will tell you. Yet when these attempts are looked at clearly, they all share a common non-sense. Nonsense is sometimes beautiful, yes, and sometimes joyous (think Monty Python), but I have found in the years since discovering these poems that non-sense is simply not at the heart of what I choose to base my life and values on.

Nonsense has crept into my life before, and I expect it will again and again. But the very core of me has grown to treat the appearance of nonsense not as something to worship or revere, but as a valuable human learning experience. As a chance to refine and question, and to arrive at a truer (if not always better) state than before. These are my values. To become more alive and able to create positive change by becoming more accurately aware of reality. In all its awful terribleness, in all its outstanding beauty.

[Untitled] Original watercolour by T.H. White.
Image Credit here, via the family of author and evolutionary anthropologist  Elaine Morgan.

Bunday Bunny Sunday: Belated Reunion

A belated Sunday greeting to you! This is the first Bunday post since April of this year in which the series namesake (Forrest the bunny) has been present for the writing process. While he is the namesake, he's not the entirety of the concept (it's more an encouragement of regular blogging habits), and we managed one Bunday post last month without his direct input.

Forrest acting in his capacity as Chief Editor of Eurymylus.

But now we find ourselves roommates again, finally, after three long months apart. The recent story is complicated and painful to tell, involving sudden loss, grief, and too much time spent uprooted and tense. This week I moved into a house in South St. Paul, where two other humans (and two dogs!) also reside. Forrest makes a wonderfully well-rounded mammal group of us. You see, I'm rather incomplete without him. Aside from two semesters spent in a dorm room several years ago, I have (in living memory) never lived for more than three months without a non-human animal sharing my living space.

And since October of 2008, he has been my companion (and I, his) in that role. Mammal Roommate. But we play other, more important roles too. Beloved Family Member is a good term for how I see him, and I guess he might see me as something like Stealthy Poop Thief and Bringer of Foodstuffs. In the same way that our family members each have their own projections of themselves walking around in our heads and hearts, Forrest has occupied a space inside me ever since that day four years ago when I brought him home. And he  continued to occupy that same space during our recent stint apart. I lived temporarily in an apartment that did not allow for additional pets, while he stayed with my old roommate and dear friend Bea.

Love and carrots from Auntie Bea. We'd be in a sorry state without her.

The role he played, the bun-shaped space if you will, takes too long to describe in full. My close friends and other family members know well what it is, but only because of the passage of time and tears. All I can say is that he is central. Our companionship provided me with a stability and comfort unlike any I received from humans during my most difficult and lonely hours. This companionship also provided me with the strength and curiosity to make a decision. To say, I am not just a biologist, and I am not just an animal lover. I am someone who needs to be both, simultaneously. Though it is a rock-solid substrate from which to carve a niche, a career in Animal Care is sought only because Forrest showed me how to start in a way that dogs, cats, horses, and goats could not. He is the furry, hoppy, grumpy little bridge spanning the space between my personal and professional lives. Without him, I'd have faltered lost and confused long ago, and would still be trying to figure out what exactly I want to do with my time.

What Forrest wants to do with his time: Kung Fu.

So when deciding in the summer of 2011, how to shape the concept of my blog (spurred on to do so by Ben Sweatervest), Forrest was an easy choice. And not just because he happens to be in the room whenever I write. Or because he's ridiculously photogenic and has wide appeal. But instead because I learned more about myself from caring for him than I did from anyone else (human or non-), for a long time. Because the connection with him is the sort that only comes from earning the trust of millenia of prey instinct. So while I certainly don't blog about him even most of the time, I do want the things I blog about to be a tribute to what he gave me.

Bunny snuggles.

Also, he might kill me in my sleep if he wasn't on the front page.

Time Travel: Sue & The Great Week for Science Videos

Get it? "Hop" in my TARDIS?
Image credit here.

Ah, March. A decidedly brown and soggy time of year here in Minnesota. But it's November now! Do you remember what you were doing in March of 2012? Feverishly studying, awaiting spring? Working long hours, or sleeping in to avoid the weather? I don't remember the entire month in detail, but this very blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder since Thursday March 22nd. That was a good week for (pop) science videos. Hop in my TARDIS briefly, and we'll visit that week, as well as a time long before The Humans.

If you're like me, you probably consume some amount of pop science videos, pictures, and other such memes fairly regularly online. I'd guess that by now you, Dear Companion, are familiar with the two wildly popular series featured here. My love for the series, the timing of their release, and my pure joy at the topics covered (humans, space, and dinosaurs!) prompted this link-y little post.

Reid Gower's "The Sagan Series" videos, which feature stunning nature and science documentary footage laid over audio of astronomer Carl Sagan (notably his book, The Pale Blue Dot) has a new installment (Hey look, it's March 19th!) titled "The Humans". View and enjoy here.

"These days, there seems to be nowhere left to explore. Victims of their very success, the explorers now, pretty much, stay home. Maybe it's a little early, maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds, promising untold opportunities, beckon. Just now, there are a great many matters that are pressing in on us, that compete for the money it takes to send people to other worlds. Should we solve those problems first, or are they a reason for going? our planet, and our solar system are surrounded by a new world ocean: the depths of space. It is no more impassable than the last."

John Boswell's "Symphony of Science" video series is more musical, featuring audio and video sampled from popular science and nature documentaries which is auto-tuned to original melodies and charming topical arrangements. If you're new to the game, I'd recommend starting at the beginning with "A Glorious Dawn" which, like several other SOS videos, features Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" prominently. The new installment released on March 20th is titled "The World of The Dinosaurs". View and enjoy here.

The large T-rex you see at around 2:49 (and several other places) is named Sue. Her fossilized remains were discovered in 1990 in South Dakota by paleontologist and professional badass Sue Hendrickson. I had the pure delight of finally visiting Sue at her permanent home at the Field Museum in Chicago earlier this month (Now it's November again! Do try to keep up...). To be in the presence of her huge, commanding, and beautiful fossilized remains is to be silenced and overwhelmed.

Obliging to be photographed with us, poor dear must be so stiff from posing.

In fact, her head is so massive that it overwhelms the reinforced mount system holding up her skeleton. A cast was made of the original skull, and then duplicated with lighter material that also evened out distortions from crushing and breaking. The skull cast articulates with her mounted skeleton, while the original skull has its own display on the second floor of the museum. Both are a must-see (and included in the price of general admission). Exhibit displays pointed out that Sue's sex is unknown, and that her name will remain Sue regardless of what future research may say about her sex. It's rather nice to know that her name is a legacy that won't be altered after the fact by gender norms and roles, but rather remains a tribute to the scientist who discovered her. Apparently Sue's discovery was somewhat of an accident, as the team was packed up and ready to leave the site for good, and had only been delayed by a flat tire. In the time it took to fix it, Sue occupied herself by visiting some nearby cliffs, when BAM! Or, not really BAM, but...suddenly, a wild T-rex appears! It uses fossilization, and it's super effective!

"Hey lady! On a walk, are we? Mind if I stroll right outta this mountain with you?"
Image credit here.

As a zoology student, dinosaurs have always been an easy way to grab my attention and keep me entertained. As a humanist, Carl's particular talent for beautiful and reflective prose on the long view of humanity has kept me reading and watching since high school, viewing each new subject I study from a humbler vantage point in space and time. Here's to the art of bringing these seemingly disparate joys to life for a new generation through social media.


(Time travel will be used sparingly in my future posts, as I hope to phase out the habit of leaving important things in the drafts folder for months at a time.)

Bunday Bunny Sunday: We're back!

Welcome to the second installment of Bunday Bunny Sunday: the weekly series I'll use from now on to give updates on my rabbit companion's activities, and perhaps other bunny-things.

And welcome back to those of you who followed Eurymylus last spring and summer, and have rejoined us after the long hiatus. I always intended for Eurymylus to be more than just an opinion blog, instead hoping that it could also be a place to document and explore my companionship with Forrest the bunny and some of the things I've learned from him. Well, here's what we were up to this summer.

Spring semester at SCSU ended, and we spent some time in my hometown of Rochester...

Relaxing...

Visiting old friends...

And just generally lookin' cute.

At the start of June, we took up residence at a horse ranch where I worked all day with children and other animals.

but a smaller space for him.

Wide open spaces for me...

During time off, Forrest stayed with his aunties, and I attended a few spectacular secular and humanist conferences...

Waiting for mom...

to return from CFI Leadership con!

Hangin' with me at the library....

Before I disappeared to SSA con!

the highlight of which was the American Atheists Regional Conference in St. Paul, MN...

(more after the jump!)

First Year In Captivity: Happy Birthday Jasiri

A bit of happy news for my fellow zoo enthusiasts! Today is the 1st birthday of Jasiri, a male giraffe calf born at Indianapolis Zoo on April 2nd 2011:

Jasiri, the newest addition to our giraffe exhibit in the Plains Biome, turned one year old on April 2. He weighed 162 when he was born in 2011 and although he’s growing up fast — he now weighs around 700 pounds — he’s easy to find in the group because he’s still much smaller than the adult giraffes... Jasiri, which is Swahili for “courageous,” earned his name during his first day on exhibit when, instead of walking around the pool to get to his mom on the other side, he ran straight across the water — something the other giraffes never do!

Only 1 year old and already 700 pounds! When he's an adult, his hoofprint will be roughly the size of a dinner plate. Jasiri lives in a large giraffe exhibit connected to other exhibits in the Plains Biome, where numerous species that naturally occur on the plains of Africa are featured, including Elephants, Lions, White Rhino, Cheetahs, Grant's Zebra, Addra Gazelle, Greater Kudu, Wildebeest, Marabou Stork, Ostrich, Wild Dogs, Baboons, East African Crowned Crane, Guinea Fowl, Yellow Hornbill, and Bat-Eared Foxes. Here's to many happy years in the well-kept Plains Biome!

EDIT: Indianapolis Zoo retweeted my post here!

Bunday Bunny Sunday: Skeptical TV Otter

Greetings and happy Bunday! While I do have several posts still in my "Drafts" folder for Eurymylus, I feel as though some sort of update is due: the beginning of a new weekly series, named after my furry companion. My last post touched on the topics of zoos and circuses as handled by the popular Madagascar franchise, of which Nickelodeon TV show "Penguins of Madagascar" is a part. Tonight I want to touch on a much different theme in POM: skepticism and the rare female character.

The episode "Haunted Habitat" begins with Marlene the otter's terrified screams waking up the penguins in the middle of the night. They race to her rescue. Leader Skipper's machismo isn't well received, and Marlene objects to being called a "helpless victim", insisting that she just heard a scary sound, not a ghost. But Skipper's paranoia soon has everyone thinking that the sewer near Marlene's habitat is haunted. King Julien the lemur attempts to command "any and all spooky spirits to get the heck out" with a "tremendous amount of dancing skill". It's clear that the audience is supposed to see Julien's superstition as hokey and laughable. A good start.
The penguins camp out as Marlene goes back to sleep and discover that her own snoring was the spooky sound. "Mystery solved - you spooked yourself!"
But she objects and says something is still rattling her. They investigate the sewer near her habitat and discover that her snoring noises are frightening a loud alligator named Roger, whose frightened moans are in turn scaring Marlene. Ghosts: debunked. Friends: made.

Now why, you might ask, would I take the time to write anything about a kid's show? Firstly, episodes are very short (11 minutes) which makes them one of the only things I can watch. Secondly, I'm sure you'll be able to think of several children's shows or movies in which the token skeptic character is not only "proven wrong" but portrayed as a haughty killjoy. This was a happy exception to that rule. Fear and superstition were ultimately not rewarded, and the female character didn't let herself become the passive object of a display of machismo. In fact, Skipper recanted at the end of the episode, admitting that Marlene was a superior adventurer/investigator in the sewer. The traditional anti-skeptic theme was turned on its head, and that's progress worth mentioning, especially for a wildly popular show aimed at impressionable youths.

If you're interested in the topic of science and skeptic portrayals in pop culture and entertainment, I'd recommend Carolyn Porco's great talk "Science In Hollywood" from the 2009 Atheist Alliance International conference:

Squeee! More Madagascar This Summer!

If you're like me, and you also love to move it move it, then feast your eyes and ears on this:


The Madagascar movies have been making me laugh for years now, and the Nickelodeon spinoff Penguins of Madagascar has been nothing short of pee-your-pants funny and adorable.

This third installment, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted has the zoo group traveling around Europe, using a circus as disguise while running from silly humans. One of the many things I've enjoyed about Madagascar material is the way in which humans and keepers become the foreign, inscrutable outsiders, and animals have to find a way to deal. The audience is at least encouraged to see things from what writers think is the animals' point of view. Zoo life isn't necessarily glorified, but it isn't a cliche' either. The state of animal welfare in zoos varies vastly all over the world, from cutting edge to downright sickening, but has come a long way heading in the right direction. Madagascar shows at least an acceptable arrangement for an average American zoo, while definitely not the best. 


But this time around, we see our favorite characters immersed in an environment that usually has me cringing at any mention of it. Circuses have earned a terrible reputation for mistreatment of animals. The underlying ethical problems with circuses reach beyond mere conditions though. The concept of animals as mere commodity that is maintained for the purpose of entertainment is hugely problematic, and should be relegated to the dustbin of shameful human history. And while many small zoos still operate with conditions similar to circuses, great orgs like the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) offer accreditation standards that keep things on the up and up, reshaping zoos and zoo culture to reflect conservation and education values, and animal welfare. Part of my desire to enter a zoo career is the hope and aspiration of making zoos in general a better place for animals and more focused on conservation.

So on June 8th, I will be chuckling in the theater at one of my favorite animated series. But I'm curious to see how the topic of circuses will be tackled. It is a kid's movie, so it's doubtful that things will get very deep, but I hope kids don't leave the theater with a positive view of circuses. I'll be writing my own review once I've seen it. Until then, I highly recommend the antics of Skipper, Kowalski, Private, and Rico:

The Penguins of Madagascar: "Cat's Cradle"
Get More: The Penguins of Madagascar Episodes,The Penguins of Madagascar,The Penguins of Madagascar Games