Scenarios of our children living in a Postmodern World

Scenarios of our children living in a Postmodern World

"Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damaged... "

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Education is the most important tool of our children in a 

postmodern world. Author poses with students in

a symposium-workshop, University of Santo Tomas

 

Key players to our children's future: Institutions and the Family

 The youth: full of energy and dreams, UST

1. Our children live in a Renaissance in the new age: post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, devolution of corporations, green technologies, cyberspace communication, and space exploration. Our children comprise a new breed of more dedicated leaders. They hold the key to change. They play the role of the little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novel The Little Prince, who saved the pilot whose plane crashed in the Sahara desert.

2. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc., among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world. 

This includes linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new concept of Man and culture. 

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide. Arab Spring - Part 1 and 2 - is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. The young are angry at the inability of government and capitalism to narrow down economic inequity. Occupy Wall Stree! is the battle cry in the US. Greece, Italy, Spain, once world powers in their own time are undergoing a similar revolution.

4. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services.  In the long run they are less wasteful than we are today. They learn to face a hidden desire to escape when things get rough, an instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.  

5. Our children face the consequences of  loss of privacy and secrecy from personal to institutional transparency. “You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with comfortable anonymity.” But they adjust and find comfort and peace in their own way. 

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They are involved, concerned with issues, local and world wide.  Development Communication rises above conventional entertainment and reactionary media.  They favor transparency to attain social justice an d more freedom. They learn from Wikileak which unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing.  Citizens claim their right to access to hidden financial transactions.

7. Our children inherit our aging infrastructure.  Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and makes life miserable.

We have created artificial ecosystems in deserted towns, inside the 38th Parallel between the two Koreas, land mines areas, deserted high rise buildings, and now in radiation-affected areas of Chernobyl and Fukoshima. 

8. Our children are being deprived of natural beauty and bounty with the unabated  shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures into settlements, and destruction of natural habitats and ecosystems.  “Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations become more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic,  physiological, psychological, pathologic. Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide, with South Korea, China, US, Japan, India leading the list. 

10. Our children’s learning process through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity, thus affecting their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.  More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity  whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated.  Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine).  This is falsehood!

12. Our children find a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time. We are making fossils,  biographies, dirges and laments, with little sense of guilt.

13. Our children are overburdened by education.  They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence. E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities.  Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. This is a revival of the academy of Plato’s dream. 

14. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may  require, and for personal reasons, and when given the choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding. “Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country.  He is therefore, rootless, baseless, transient. Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and biologically most of ll.

15. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth. A universal faith, irrespective of denomination, is shaping up fast.

16. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered.  They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all. They learn to become good housekeepers of  Mother Earth. Our children know the meaning of biodiversity and its four attributes -  richness in kind,   population, interrelationship, and balance. Biodiversity  per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature. 

17. Our children face acculturation and inter-racial marriages.  Melange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian,  etc. – a homogenization process that reduces - if not pollutes - natural gene pools, as a consequence. Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous.  Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species. 

                                   Living close to Nature

18.   Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality. Anxiety and depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

19. Our children live in an era with race discrimination a thing of the past. Many favor living alone as a new norm. More and more join the nones - spirituality outside organized religions, 

20. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse  – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty).  Finally, postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test. This is true. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  And this is the philosophy that we wish our children to uphold. ~

The Case of the Empty Chicken Eggs

                            The Case of the Empty Chicken Eggs

Dr Abe V Rotor 

There are times we ask ourselves, “Who is fooling who?”

Soon as I was big enough to climb the baqui (brooding nest) hanging under the house and trees.  I found out that if I leave as decoy one or two eggs in the basket, the more eggs you gather in the afternoon. Then a new idea came. With a needle, I punctured the egg and sucked the content dry. It tasted good and I made some to substitute the natural eggs for decoy.

Dad, a balikbayan after finishing BS in Commercial Science at De Paul University in Chicago, called us on the table one evening. "First thing tomorrow morning we will find that hen that lays empty eggs.”

It was a family tradition that every Sunday we had tinola - chicken cooked with papaya and pepper (sili) leaves. Dad would point at a cull (the unproductive and least promising member of the flock) and I would set the trap, a baqui with a trap door and some corn for bait. My brother Eugene would slash the neck of the helpless fowl while my sister Veny and I would be holding it. The blood is mixed with glutinous rice (diket), which is cooked ahead of the vegetables.

That evening I could not sleep. What if dad’s choice is one of our pet chicken?  We even call our chickens by name. The empty eggs were the  cause of it all, so I thought.

In the morning after the mass I told dad my secret. He laughed and laughed. I didn't know why. I laughed, too. I was relieved with a tinge of victorious feeling. Thus the case of the empty eggs was laid to rest. It was my first “successful” experiment.

In the years to come I realized you just can’t fool anybody. And by the way, there are times we ask ourselves, “Who is fooling who?”

Brewing into wine, child into man

                                     Brewing into wine, child into man  

Dr Abe V Rotor

Wonder what he hears in a jar 
of wine in deep slumber,
ageing into its fullest prime.

   Jared, 4, listens to the sparkling of newly brewed wine; 
cellar of basi in jars undergoing ageing.

He can hear deeper and keener,

things we take for granted;

innocence hones what has dulled

us, and had long wanted.

Wonder what he hears in a jar 
of wine in deep slumber,
ageing into its fullest prime,
the pride of the brewer.   

What matters to a young hand 
more than his presence,
but the brewing in him into man
of the finest essence.  ~

  

Lichens: Indicator of Good Air Quality

            Lichens: Indicator of Good Air Quality

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Living with Nature - School on Blog

Squamous lichen, an intermediate of crustose and foliose types. 

La Mesa Eco Park, QC

Lichens*

You are a landscape artist, you paint
      and mold life at its barest,
On weathered rocks and ancient trunks,
      or some forgotten crests,
And cliffs that would through seasons howl
      or sleep or cry like the eagle,
Or the chameleon that mimics sunrise
      and sunset in colors divine.
Bless you, pioneer of protolife,
      pathfinder of the moss and vine:
You who guide the lost in the darkness
      of the forest with compass,
Where towards the declining North side
      calmly lays your biomass;
Where rise the trees, roost the eagle
      and fireflies, the seasons endless.
Here you lie in peace under boughs
      once bare and lifeless. - avr
                   Sunshine on Raindrops by AV Rotor,  Megabooks 2000

* Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. About Lichens - USDA Forest Service

Nature Laboratory and Workshop: LIVING WITH NATURE

Nature Laboratory and Workshop

LIVING WITH NATURE

Dr Abe V Rotor

"Science is nature’s diary,

and the laboratory is where we turn its pages."

LESSON: Make a list of activities and observations relevant to LIVING WITH NATURE and share them in your school and community.

A convenient work area for art workshop, demonstration and lecture on biology, ecology and scientific researches. San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

The Omnipresence of Nature

 Nature is everywhere, open and discreet, 

visible or perceived in the mind, heart and spirit,

beyond the senses in a paradigm "in diversity,

there is peace, harmony and unity."   -avr

 

Community tree planting; heritage tree

 

Ilang-ilang (Cananga odorata); landscaping art.

 

Herbal, garden, orchard and ornamental plants.

 
Rosary bead: Decor and home remedy 

 Table fruit wine from local fruits in season

 

Cleaning kitchen wares with Isis (Ficus fiskei), 

"sandpaper leaf"

 

Cleaning bottles with palmera plant (​Dypsis lutescens​)

 

  

Backyard raising of native ducks, chicken, pigs.

Multi-purpose garden pond

 

Ceramic art and jar painting

 

Canvas painting; driftwood art

 

Biology specimens: Insect nests (mud dauber, paper wasp)

 

Rhino beetle - scourge of coconut and palm trees.

  

Antlion and ants - distant relatives under Class Hexapoda ~

Quo vadis, Homo? Where are we humans going?

                                                          Quo vadis, Homo?

Where are we humans going?

Dr Abe V Rotor

Auguste Rodin's The Thinker

Quo vadis, Homo sapiens? Where is man gong?

A young man who was in love asked the computer, “What is love?”

Whereupon, came a prompt answer – in a number of definitions, technical and literary.

“How does it feel to be in love?” the young man continued. This time the computer did not respond. He entered his query once more, but still there was no response. After several attempts, the computer finally gave up, and printed: I cannot feel.

Spending more time with the computer deprives millions, mostly children, of participating in health promoting games and resistance-building exposure in nature. Our children are no longer children of nature; they are captives of education and media, of malls and cafes.

They like to think that the mind is like the computer, that the more information it acquires the better it is to the person.

This is not so. Not when it pertains to health, not with the ability to arrive at correct decisions, not when and where survival is needed. And not when it comes to matters of love.

And here are our children spending most of their waking hours with an “intelligent” thing in the shape of a box, a thing that has no feeling at all!

Even when the computer can tell us of all kinds of ailments in the world, it cannot comfort us. It cannot cure us. It will only worsen our allergies, our asthma.

It cannot reciprocate our friendship, our love, our compassion. Because a robot is a robot is a robot.

Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases.

The success of human beings and all living things today depends on fitness acquired through Evolution and Adaptation. Evolution refers to the “Survival of the Fittest,” through eons of time; while Adaptation is the ability of organisms to adjust to dynamic changes of the environment.

The Four Attributes of Man

• Homo sapiens “Man the Wise”

• Homo faber "Man the Maker” or “Working Man"

• Homo ludens “Playing Man” or "Sportsman"

• Homo spiritus “Praying Man” or "Reverent"

(Deus faber “God the Creator”) Should Man also play the role of God?

Homo sapiens, the Patient

(From The Men Who Play God by Dr Arturo B Rotor)

“Of all God’s creatures, there is no species more guilt-ridden, confused and self-destructive than man. Fear, remorse and frustration underlie his basic behavior probably as a result of his forbears having been driven out of the Garden of Eden…”

A corner of Eden, in acrylic by Abe V Rotor

“Man kills not for food, he eats when he is not hungry, he mates in and out of season. His suicidal tendencies are unique. While the lemmings drown themselves as a result of reduced food supplies, man will willingly cultivate cancer of his lungs by smoking poisonous plants, convert his liver into a hobnailed atrophic mass of dead tissues with alcohol, or remove himself from the control of his mind with narcotics…

“An important feature of his personality is that the more developed the creature and the more successful, the more likely is he to suffer of neurosis.” The genes bearing these characteristics have not been identified, but seems to be transmitted paternally and maternally.

“While among all other species, infection heads mortality and morbidity lists, among Homo sapiens, neurosis is the underlying cause of ninety percent of all illnesses.”

"As a matter of fact, in the big cities and centers of population, the archetype of the successful executive in the hypertensive, the ulcer-patient, the tranquilizer-dependent. We believe that for an in-depth study of tension or anxiety, in all its typical and atypical manifestations, man is a better subject to study than any other organism.”

Landscapes of Living Memories in Paintings and Verses

Landscapes of Living Memories

in Paintings and Verses

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”-Aristotle

 Dr Abe V Rotor

Children fishing upstream by the author.

Capture the moment of recall of sweet memories

of childhood many years ago;

 in words of rhythm and rhyme and meter,

in divine colors of the rainbow.

  

Nature adventure, details of a mural AVR

What makes adventure beautiful is danger,

bringing out man's finest hour;

Homo ludens, sages say is also prayer;

 beyond reason a hidden power.

 

Life goes on in a dead tree, details of a mural by AVR

Life in many ways defined and defied;

ultimate challenge of study;

its beginning and end a great mystery,

and dream of immortality.

 

Convergence, details of a painting AVR

Convergence among creatures,

key to balanced biodiversity;  

foundation of ecology,

and one humanity.

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” — John Keats

Floral Convergence, AVR

Spring bursts with a variety of flowers: 

in prism like the rainbow;

summer forgets them amidst pleasures,

as they fade out of view.

“Colors are the smiles of nature.” — Leigh Hunt

 

 

Love and care in the wild, details of a painting AVR

Universal is love and care, inseparable duo;

even in the wild, key to evolution, too;

Survival of the fittest in times of war and peace,

inviolable and sacred to all species. 

 

  

Rainforest in details, AVR

I can see the trees, but not the forest;

unless I get lost to know

the world my ancestors once lived

long, long time ago.

 

 

Rivulets and Streams, mural details AVR

Whisper in summer, sing in spring,

roar in monsoon, and back to slumber,

joyfully season after season, 

through generations. ad infinitum. ~

“To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” — Jane Austen ~