REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2025

When I first considered using the above images for a post to this blog, a torrent of thoughts cascaded through my mind. I certainly thought of the US cowboy mystique, the romanticized ideal of carefree life on the open range, a clear idea of right from wrong, a clear idea of ownership and who is “boss”, and a clear sense of security with guns strapped on.

Hmm. And then I thought: Hey, that’s not very different from what the Taliban are all about.

Jarring? Maybe not.

The human mind is actually quite predictable in its fallibility. We like things simple, even though they usually aren’t. We like to think we are in charge of at least our own creature comforts, even though our willful agency is very much limited and polluted by others. And, to promote our overall peace of mind and security, we obstinately shield ourselves with denial and/or willful ignorance.

Do you remember the big discussions a decade or so ago about “Intelligent Design”? Maybe not, if you are younger. It was a theory of creation put forth by folks uncomfortable with the idea of a “Big Bang” and with the idea that human beings were the result of a very long process of largely fortuitous evolutionary events. Somehow the idea of chance and error being involved in our creation made some people very nervous. That notion was just too messy and discomforting for them. The story of our origins needed to be simplified to make them feel more comfortable, more in charge, more special. And so the theory of Intelligent Design was created, to in their minds offer a viable competing theory of human origins, especially one more in line with tales from the Bible. All fine and dandy. But that theory left out a few things, like measurements as to the age of the Earth, like the fossil record, like tests as to how DNA actually works and doesn’t work. In other words, it left out science, its processes for eliminating error, its discovered tentative truths, and its measures of confidence in its findings.

Humans had similar discussions when Copernicus postulated that the Earth was not the center of our solar system, much less of the entire universe. We are having similar discussions today about a number of issues: whether human caused Climate Change is real, whether vaccines are safe, whether science in general is worthy of our investments, whether public education adequately prepares our youth for productive and responsible adulthood, whether our money is worth anything at all, whether our friendships can be trusted or are worth the effort necessary to maintain them, whether we’d feel more comfortable and special if we disavowed and hid the facts of history, whether we might be alone in the universe, and even whether life itself is worth living or a cruel setup for devastating disappointment.

I look again at those two images above. And what I primarily see is humans lovingly caring for their young. Those youngsters are being initiated into the discovered joys and responsibilities of life as a Utah born and bred cowboy and/or cowgirl. It is a picture of humans at their peaceful best. On the other hand, they have set up their existence on land that once belonged to Native Americans and to the American Bison. That exchange of ownership was not equitable or peaceful. And that is the messiness of history, no matter how difficult those truths are to swallow.

Debt and grudges are cruel and dysfunctional burdens on anyone. And so are the scars of abuse. Recognizing each other’s individual humanness and our actual in-total needs for health and development throughout our individual life spans would go a long way toward easing those felt burdens of guilt and shame and unjust displacement. Further, we all need to take full responsibility for the consequence of our actions and inactions, as best and as earnestly and conscientiously as we possibly can. And if we actually did that, religiously and honestly and with nothing but good intent, it would be easy to forgive each other our occasional errors and missteps. By all means, let willful ignorance and dishonestly be our only punishable sins.

Punishable? And isn’t that prescription for full responsibility seriously Pollyannaish?

True. Issues of limits and guidance relative to individual behavior go back to the beginnings of life on Earth and cross all species. And, the overwhelming evidence from nature is that species prosper when adaptive cooperation between individuals becomes the norm, even between species. Hence we have thriving ecosystems and even healthy individual humans when all cells and bodily systems cooperatively adapt to each other and cooperatively function to promote the overall health of the enveloping individual.

And how do systems within nature deal with rogue elements, individuals that do not comfortably and productively “fit in”? They are either summarily destroyed or driven into exile where the physics of nature itself takes over the roles of parenting, acculturation, and/or ruination unto oblivion. The interesting thing is that the cognitive mental processing of information, i.e. learning, seems to have evolved to help in the process of acculturating individuals to the benefits and constraints of social integration. But, within the brain itself, emotions have also evolved, mostly it seems, to help nudge individuals toward ever more constraining and isolating levels of self-preservation and self-gratification. The questions arise: which evolved first and which, if either, should be considered paramount, emotions or cognitive rationality?

Current divisions of opinion within at least US society seem more a contest between emotion and cognitive rationality than between speculative notions of which ideas would best serve both the individual and society as a whole. For large portions of our current populace, emotion has apparently become paramount and, consequently, the final arbiter of what is both true and best for at least that “tribe” of individuals. In their view, both exclusion and summary execution have become the rule for protecting their “tribe” from any and all threats to their self-created culture of emotion soothing and emotion titillating ideas.

As to the rest of us who apparently give less rein to our emotions in favor of more cognitively deliberative cerebral activity, what is our prescription for the continuance of human life on this planet? Look at the facts. That’s what. It is our belief that becoming increasingly familiar and comfortably adapted to the actual facts and inner workings of nature itself provides for discovery of the best possible routes to continued human success as a species, if not the entirety of life on this planet. And that process necessarily involves putting emotions in their place as cooperative but supportive partner to cognitive investigations and learning, and not totally in charge of our fate: learning, facts, and consequences be damned.

Be well. Be safe. Be deliberative. And, be curious.