[personal flogging session - not meant for consumption by general audience]
I am worthless. I have no motivation. There is nothing I want - unused material possessions swallowing me up as it is.
Why live? Why carry on a big dream if the world is fully of petty squabbles and selfish hoarding?
I have only one body. I am only one person. I want only because my social side sympathises with the wants of others.
Death is inevitable. My family will all die in time, leaving dreams and plans in the hands of others who will also die in time.
What is love if I can't share it with others, ignoring local social/subcultural mores?
If we are one species, why do others spend so much time and energy declaring we are not?
I am conquered by my fears in today's battle with self. I have lost. I am captive to the cruelty and shortsightedness inherent in our drive to get ahead at others' costs.
I don't want to see anyone else anymore or hear the un/spoken trails of negative thoughts permeating our planet. I am burdened with too much personal negativity to hold up much longer.
Some days a couple of beers or glasses of wine or swigs of whiskey smooth over the rough seas pounding against the portholes of my thoughts.
I'm too tired to lift a glass of good cheer today.
Rest. Peace. Quiet.
Watch two chickadees looking for "natural" meals in the tree limbs instead of handouts.
Not as many granddaddy longlegs on the window screens this year.
Is there a low-cost place where I can fade away, unaware of the pains and progress of the species to which I was born and raised?
I am a nobody. Unable to rescue my wife on my own. Lost and alone.
I don't want to be a helpless dependent. I want to die with my boots on, walking the woods the last action I remember before a myocardial infarction takes me off of my feet.
I am an old man in thoughts, if not in body. Worn out by seeing storylines play out like life is a set of easy scripts to be written by those who have loose connections with the whole species.
Novelty for novelty's sake has lost its novelty.
My fine-feathered friends come to the window expecting a meal from me. Have I disappointed them, too?
When we run out of exotic metals and other easy-to-manufacture chemicals, who's going to find the Amish, Amazonian nomads and Asian/African desert tribes had it right all along?
Will the majority of our species' members willingly live low-tech lives to send the select into space to preserve a portion of our planet's ecosystems in perpetuity elsewhere?
I can only be an example of myself to myself, choosing a mixture of high-tech and low-tech to live daily. Should I be more aware of the rare earth elements in my life that are unnecessary for my simple existence, needed more for packaging and sending others to new satellite/planetary bases?
I am a book reader. A thinker. Useless in today's fast-paced, high-tech society. A relic of days gone by. Where can I go out to pasture and slip away unseen into the hills from whence I came?
My time (and others like mine) has come and gone. The youngest generation must find the strength and determination to save our species and planet from our selfish desires. Will they avoid the traps we set to set high-volume consumption examples of ourselves?
If I was born Amish, I wouldn't be here. Perhaps it's just as well, able to represent more than one alternate lifestyle. Maybe I can become Amish or something like it before my time is up and leave the sub/urban life to those who don't know better, who aren't aware they're repeating historical civilisation rises/falls, making no more progress than an 18th century farming family makes without all the fuss, worry and stress of reaching for the stars.
I am only one person. If I won't be one to make sure there is low overhead in how I consume in order to live, then who will?
Today, I don't have the energy to paint a humorous picture that resolves all the conflicts in the world. I feel humourless, deflated, empty. Ready to roll up in to a ball and wander away from all this (except, as always, from myself).
Just because I know how the world works and how others twist and turn and manipulate to maintain a constantly-interesting image to the mix of subcultures doesn't mean I want to change how it works or rework it to my advantage.
We are seven billion people, not one. It's up to you to see how it works, too. If you want to believe in hatred and pettiness, there are plenty of people to feed that belief. I no longer want to believe those or feed them, even jokingly.
I want technology turned toward positive solutions so we can use this small window of opportunity to get our species and surrounding ecosystems firmly established on other bodies bouncing around the galaxy. Island hopping, if you will.
It'll take thousands of years to get us safely far away from this solar system and into other safe zones. Several waves of settlers will pass away in the process.
Today is the moment to make the decision in y/our life to contribute to that line of reasoning.
I'm just one person, eating a bowl of oatmeal and drinking a cup of tea for breakfast before using a high-power network for expressing my thoughts here.
Maybe it's time to rethink my life.
No "maybe." It is the moment.
I gave up facebook and linkedin to preserve my quasi-independent mindset. Time to give up online blogging/browsing, also.
Like watching the chickadees that roam this part of the countryside, there's too much out there that this electronic world doesn't provide, and at a lower cost to the environment (thus leaving more environmental stuff for those who will explore the planets in my/our name).
I'm closing this blog.
Thanks for stopping by. We'll stay in touch using the other methods, of course.
2010-07-30
2010-07-29
What if...
Marie Osmond appeared as body-double to Hope Brady or vice versa in Nutrisystem/DOOL fantasy sequence tie-in?
Chip Ganassi was remembered long after Penske is gone?
Haier-type factories flew American flags in Chinese factories?
Symbiont-receptive quadriplegics became known as the best remote robot operators (i.e., cyborgs) in the solar system?
"Samourais" (2002) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) were found to be something else entirely?
Chip Ganassi was remembered long after Penske is gone?
Haier-type factories flew American flags in Chinese factories?
Symbiont-receptive quadriplegics became known as the best remote robot operators (i.e., cyborgs) in the solar system?
"Samourais" (2002) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) were found to be something else entirely?
Older Nephew At Work
Good to see my older nephew's company getting profiled (in a good way):
Small Huntsville company developing 'eyes' and 'brains' that can help soldiers
And to think, I still remember playing hide-and-seek and Frisbee tossing with him and his sister. That three-year old fascinated with ceiling fans sure grew up fast!
Small Huntsville company developing 'eyes' and 'brains' that can help soldiers
And to think, I still remember playing hide-and-seek and Frisbee tossing with him and his sister. That three-year old fascinated with ceiling fans sure grew up fast!
2010-07-28
Nuhjygfivoed
Oddly enough, finding recruits is easy. Never go after the elite. Go after the hungry.
My associates build and I gather.
Entrepreneurs with abundant resources revise plans for established defenses inaccessible by conventional forces.
Wouldn't you like to be the first to rule a brand-new sphere, able to collect docking fees and issue mining permits in the name of your own political entity, knowing you controlled the currency values of political entities on the neighbouring sphere?
The art of doing business with all the power at your (and thus, your colleagues'/associates') disposal.
The ultimate end-around maneuver.
Your ubiquity superfluous and omnipresent, duplicate copies upon duplicate copies spread out, over and in the competition's domain, virtually indestructible?
How can the competition eliminate you if you're part of them? Would they know they handed you the key to unlock their guarded secrets by NOT sharing them with you?
I'm a tired, middle-aged man who has figured out too many simple games we play and want something more than mass hypnosis and tomfoolery. I want to rule a small body circling around our planet for the fun of setting up an ecosystem of living beings adapted to low gravity and lack of a lot of symbionts (not forgetting other harsh conditions).
This is a blog. Words. Inside and outside of real life.
I'm not interested in snapping my fingers and causing massive earthquakes through the "magic" of science or toppling empires through mass media messaging.
I wonder. I imagine. I ask questions. I am unimportant.
I just figured out that I got your attention with this blog (how quickly I forget; never was my whole reason for being here, merely an easy place to store/backup my notes). Guess I better stay the course, huh?
Our species, our family, is all that counts and all I'm concerned about. That's what most of us only ever really know about and I want us to keep it that way, as secure as we can be in this day and age, as technologically backwards as it is.
One of you will see a new type of government centered on the Moon. With it comes its relationship with the rest of our solar system governments. I envy you, whoever you will be then. In the meantime, learn to lead, to coach, to mentor, to manage effectively, and remember you are family. Just like the rest of us.
We'll be keeping tabs on you. Don't worry, we'll nurture you along and ease you into your position of responsible power sharing when you/we see you're ready. It's what we do, what we've always done. Taking care of family, like a distant benefactor/relative rarely letting you know we're around.
Time for me to slip back into anonymity, the aimless wandering wonderer, humbly staying out of people's way, ending intolerance wherever feasible.
Hard to be an irresponsible practical joker and solemn, serious leader at the same time. Or is it? Hardly! Hardily! Half-Heartedly!
2010-07-27
Ode to the Unemployed
How well were we trained to recite rote lines in school,
How much do we seek unblemished records,
The times when we thought for ourselves were few,
And now we wait for an opportunity to keep our worthiness alive.
If I could invent a new life for myself -
Gutsy, inspirational, a 24-hour self-starter -
I'd give back to those who gave to me a definition of self
Found in work procedures, company policies and paychecks.
My vision's too far off to feed the masses now,
My dream of a solar system economic/political base not ready for primetime;
Where are the intermediate steps that profit us,
When will the dreamers step forward to keep the dream alive?
I am no poet...
An amateur thinker,
Knowing that legal routes and black market bargains
Drive our drive to break the gravitational pull of a shrinking planet.
I envision a future close by
Made of this moment and others like it,
We'll figure out symbiotic relationships start with us
And carry bacterial buddies to new homes.
Robots will be the next pioneers,
Risking no conscious lives sacrificing faulty electromechanics,
Blazing a trail for the first wave of settlers
Who'll redefine our species in new ecosystems.
How much do we seek unblemished records,
The times when we thought for ourselves were few,
And now we wait for an opportunity to keep our worthiness alive.
If I could invent a new life for myself -
Gutsy, inspirational, a 24-hour self-starter -
I'd give back to those who gave to me a definition of self
Found in work procedures, company policies and paychecks.
My vision's too far off to feed the masses now,
My dream of a solar system economic/political base not ready for primetime;
Where are the intermediate steps that profit us,
When will the dreamers step forward to keep the dream alive?
I am no poet...
An amateur thinker,
Knowing that legal routes and black market bargains
Drive our drive to break the gravitational pull of a shrinking planet.
I envision a future close by
Made of this moment and others like it,
We'll figure out symbiotic relationships start with us
And carry bacterial buddies to new homes.
Robots will be the next pioneers,
Risking no conscious lives sacrificing faulty electromechanics,
Blazing a trail for the first wave of settlers
Who'll redefine our species in new ecosystems.
2010-07-26
Your Fortune In Orbit
While happily wealthy people participate in a training camp for instant astronauthood, their financial advisors are finalising special accounts managed from a set of satellites launched overhead, outside the jurisdiction of international taxes/laws.
A restaurateur has signed on to serve food in weightless conditions.
A Brazilian self-styled cowboy entrepreneur will put the first privately-owned temporary space accommodations in place.
Bigelow has bigger plans to make budget travel more exciting.
A set of tunnels from previous war preparations prepares itself for its grand entrance.
Iranian documents disclose the location of locations, testifying before testy prying eyes, the indication that the right rites rule.
In computer news, nothing new today. The breakthrough you're looking for occurs in the sequence built into these letters. Capital! No, not this time. Listen for the lion's roar and the changing mane at the start of "The Last Notch" in celluloid. Count the hairs and count backward from there.
Vyghulesdrtmcx.
3k%/za9HG1''
There's money to be found in the tree branches, when one has a connection with how the new system generates income through leaves. Roots were given to you at birth - leave them to search for their natural anchor points.
All we ask is that you tone down the obviousness a quarter-turn - the people are educating themselves these days and smell conspiracy faster than a shark smells blood squeezed from a stone turnip turned green.
I am boring myself here - stay ten steps ahead AND ten steps behind. Look back at this moment from all directions and then move. Rolling boxcars are just as useful statistically as when they weren't good for ocean transport.
Didn't I say we are not alone? Then act like you listened and behave accordingly. You have all the future moments of your selves to think about.
Do you have a better picture this time? The last time you took off like you were driving into a foggy hillside.
A tea kettle or a samovar? Both. The ceremony's where the rising steam lets off a note on the air you're just starting to be able to read.
Can you smell Morse code? Can you see in 3D, all your senses alive to a moment years from when you'll have to look back and only understand in retrospect what you're going to relay to someone later in your species' life?
This moment's all you've got but it's the moment of moments that fan out in all directions. How many you track is how far the moment goes.
Do you have a clear picture of all that floated on the air the day your great-great-grandmother shared the family secret? If not, you're starting all over again, generations lost in putting together incomplete guesses. Someone else was paying attention and stored that day for another side of the family you know nothing about.
See why you'd better learn to listen to what's not being said? Eliminate the silence and all is noise. Eliminate the noise and all is all.
That's all for now.
A restaurateur has signed on to serve food in weightless conditions.
A Brazilian self-styled cowboy entrepreneur will put the first privately-owned temporary space accommodations in place.
Bigelow has bigger plans to make budget travel more exciting.
A set of tunnels from previous war preparations prepares itself for its grand entrance.
Iranian documents disclose the location of locations, testifying before testy prying eyes, the indication that the right rites rule.
In computer news, nothing new today. The breakthrough you're looking for occurs in the sequence built into these letters. Capital! No, not this time. Listen for the lion's roar and the changing mane at the start of "The Last Notch" in celluloid. Count the hairs and count backward from there.
Vyghulesdrtmcx.
3k%/za9HG1''
There's money to be found in the tree branches, when one has a connection with how the new system generates income through leaves. Roots were given to you at birth - leave them to search for their natural anchor points.
All we ask is that you tone down the obviousness a quarter-turn - the people are educating themselves these days and smell conspiracy faster than a shark smells blood squeezed from a stone turnip turned green.
I am boring myself here - stay ten steps ahead AND ten steps behind. Look back at this moment from all directions and then move. Rolling boxcars are just as useful statistically as when they weren't good for ocean transport.
Didn't I say we are not alone? Then act like you listened and behave accordingly. You have all the future moments of your selves to think about.
Do you have a better picture this time? The last time you took off like you were driving into a foggy hillside.
A tea kettle or a samovar? Both. The ceremony's where the rising steam lets off a note on the air you're just starting to be able to read.
Can you smell Morse code? Can you see in 3D, all your senses alive to a moment years from when you'll have to look back and only understand in retrospect what you're going to relay to someone later in your species' life?
This moment's all you've got but it's the moment of moments that fan out in all directions. How many you track is how far the moment goes.
Do you have a clear picture of all that floated on the air the day your great-great-grandmother shared the family secret? If not, you're starting all over again, generations lost in putting together incomplete guesses. Someone else was paying attention and stored that day for another side of the family you know nothing about.
See why you'd better learn to listen to what's not being said? Eliminate the silence and all is noise. Eliminate the noise and all is all.
That's all for now.
2010-07-25
Made In Alabama
A weekend of canning pickles, cooking peach pies, freezing beans, blueberries and blackberries - finishing with a good ol' summer thunderstorm.
Katydids and tree frogs set to the rumble from the south.
Most weather can be found just about anywhere but we call it ours where we work, live and play.
Ripened figs dropping into the water hole behind the house. Hickory nuts on the roof, courtesy of neighbourly squirrels.
Imagine an immobile body fully aware of its condition, using up a life's savings to add quantity rather than quality of life. What becomes of the surviving spouse with nothing left?
Do any of us want to be a burden on our loved ones?
I'm losing my hearing and don't want to waste health insurance money to insert an electronic gizmo in my ear canal. Why burden our overtaxed system so I can hear a pin drop? I'll keep going to car races without adequate ear protection, I'm sure.
My wife'll have to keep speaking up loudly to me for now.
I have no literary agent trying to get me the next writing gig for the largest paying readership possible. Thus, these storylines ramble from truth to fiction and from friction to troops.
Despite my wishing otherwise, these words are open messages to various subcultures for particular purposes, mainly to keep our species sailing on an even keel. Some deals are obvious and some intentionally unintentioned.
Faces and names get mentioned here for a reason. If you don't see what you expected, then imagine your importance is too great for a flash on the screen right now. If you see what you expected, then your part in the big production is ready for showtime.
No more strange advertisements in the classifieds. You don't know what a relief it is to use the whole Internet as a relatively free broadcast medium (at least until untraceable brain/body implants are prevalent).
The Arduino board will be a useful training device for novices operating an IP-less alternative to the Internet in preparation for the next great thing.
How loud should a country's leaders' global political rhetoric sound during national election season? Leave room for rhetoric - it adds spice to news headlines. We're grownups and can tell the difference between drumming up voter support and actual threats.
Pardon me if I repeat myself - I need the practice.
Katydids and tree frogs set to the rumble from the south.
Most weather can be found just about anywhere but we call it ours where we work, live and play.
Ripened figs dropping into the water hole behind the house. Hickory nuts on the roof, courtesy of neighbourly squirrels.
Imagine an immobile body fully aware of its condition, using up a life's savings to add quantity rather than quality of life. What becomes of the surviving spouse with nothing left?
Do any of us want to be a burden on our loved ones?
I'm losing my hearing and don't want to waste health insurance money to insert an electronic gizmo in my ear canal. Why burden our overtaxed system so I can hear a pin drop? I'll keep going to car races without adequate ear protection, I'm sure.
My wife'll have to keep speaking up loudly to me for now.
I have no literary agent trying to get me the next writing gig for the largest paying readership possible. Thus, these storylines ramble from truth to fiction and from friction to troops.
Despite my wishing otherwise, these words are open messages to various subcultures for particular purposes, mainly to keep our species sailing on an even keel. Some deals are obvious and some intentionally unintentioned.
Faces and names get mentioned here for a reason. If you don't see what you expected, then imagine your importance is too great for a flash on the screen right now. If you see what you expected, then your part in the big production is ready for showtime.
No more strange advertisements in the classifieds. You don't know what a relief it is to use the whole Internet as a relatively free broadcast medium (at least until untraceable brain/body implants are prevalent).
The Arduino board will be a useful training device for novices operating an IP-less alternative to the Internet in preparation for the next great thing.
How loud should a country's leaders' global political rhetoric sound during national election season? Leave room for rhetoric - it adds spice to news headlines. We're grownups and can tell the difference between drumming up voter support and actual threats.
Pardon me if I repeat myself - I need the practice.
Mobile Phone Social Network Forms Own Virtual Theatre Chain
Breaking news!
An international group of 11-year old mobile phone owners* put together an enormous deal today. According to a major cinema trade magazine, the group, known as "Show Us The Movie," has bartered the rights to receiving first-run movies on their mobile phones.
How is this possible, you ask?
The power of one!
The group, SUTheM, threatened to start a social network campaign to boycott both first-run films at theatres and second-run films at online/kiosk movie rental locations, putting the fear of stockbrokers and automated stock trading systems into the hearts of movie moguls around the world.
Our anonymous source tells us that young people are using demographic data to determine where they have the most leverage due to their disposable income purchasing power. Then, in order to get what they want (because they know their parents are too dumb to know how to use modern technology properly), they put this power to use immediately.
We're seeing a total shakeup of the whole cinema industry. Already, popcorn seed company stock prices have plummeted.
If 11-year olds can bring down motion picture empires, what's next?
If adult musicians can jam together online, will eight-year olds become the next great film directors, coordinating online filmmaking by capturing their globally-distributed actors' parts through the magic of green screen video techniques, no longer requiring expensive "on location" shoots?
Is the world as we know it coming to an end?
Tune in for new breaking news as it happens!
* does anyone have an 11-year old mobile phone that still works?
The Unknown Fin
I call him Fin because I don't know his real name. I thought about making up a complete name for him, as if he had told me his name, for narrative's sake, but I won't. It might disparage his family's wishes.
Fin met me on the street after my shift at the cafeteria.
"And you speak no Finnish whatsoever?"
"Not that I know of. But I do put a dash through my seven and 'z' and slash my zero."
"Let's continue walking. What do you know of the unspoken socialisation that our species carries on?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't know if you know?"
"I don't know if I don't know."
"Good answer."
"Look, all my life, it's been people like you coming up to me, asking questions and then leaving me with this vague understanding that I might or might not be part of something that does or does not exist. It's getting annoying."
"Are we that obvious?"
"Who is 'we'?"
"That you already know."
"I do?"
"Yes. Think back. You have in you the history of our species. What is it that you already know?"
"History is a fairy tale written for the duped by the dupers."
"Well, I wouldn't have put it that way but you're right."
"And your point is..."
"Hmm..."
"I don't have all day. I've got to get ready for a frat function tonight and it's very important that I get there early."
"Frat?"
"Fraternity. You know, brotherhood, bonding, parties, social functions, charity work, that sense of belonging we all long for and are willing to pay for the privilege."
"Hmm..."
"We're almost to the apartment house. If there's something to say, let me know now or I'll have to catch you another time."
"Time... you bring up an excellent idea. If I could show you here and now, in front of everything you see as existing in this moment, that space and time do not exist, would you give me more than a few minutes of your time?"
I stopped walking and turned around, taking in the whole scene, including the building entranceway, the students walking about, the bushes, the grass, vehicles passing by, the cliffs over the river, the sound of a distant train whistle and the smell of sweet perfume.
"Okay. You've got me attention."
This is the part where I say, "And this is the part where I say, 'And this is the part where I say, "This is the part where I can only say that my life has never been the same."'"
Fin didn't wave his arm around, wiggle his nose, blink his eyes or make any motion I would attribute to the sudden change. I didn't enter a dream state or melt into the body of a creature unknown to modern science.
Instead...
Instead...
Instead, I laughed uncontrollably. My thoughts were suddenly surging with absurd ideas.
Even so, I stood there as if Fin and I were having a normal conversation.
I was not one person and I was one person. I was nobody and everybody. I was here in time and looking at all the moments that living things have and will exist.
Despite the few short paragraphs above, I have no idea how to describe what happened. It was as if the universe as we know it was both infinitesimally small and large at the same time.
I saw myself as a five-year old listening to ignorant adults, knowing then more than I know now, that the world in which we practice living does not exist.
I saw myself as an eighty-five year old watching the whole species come to the same conclusion and moving on to an existence I never thought possible to see in my lifetime, three lifetimes compressed into mine because of the exponential growth of group consciousness brought on by artificial technological means.
I blinked my eyes and all of those images disappeared.
"Hmm..." Suddenly I was talking like Fin.
"And your frat?"
"What?"
"Your social function."
"Oh...that..."
"Yes, that. Do you still plan to attend?"
"I don't see why not."
"Then the decision you make will affect all moments radiating out from this one."
"I know."
"Hmm..."
"Precisely. I still like to have fun."
"We have anticipated this decision of yours. Fun, as you call it, will alter the course of events we had planned."
"I know."
"And your reason?"
"Time does not exist."
"But your body. It still ages."
"I know. As you know, it doesn't matter whether it is me or someone else who uses this knowledge of the way things really are."
"We disagree."
"There you go with 'we' again. I already know there is no 'we.' No 'them' or 'they.'"
"And you will go off for your fun because..."
"Exactly because of that reason."
"If only you spoke Finnish, you would have a philosophical understanding that counters your American individualist mentality."
"The way things really are makes no room for individualism."
"You say that and yet..."
"I go to the frat function, anyway."
"If you attend the party tonight, you will put four years between now and the next moment."
I was too young to understand Fin's concern about time. Despite our full cognisance of mortality, we carry within us a belief of immortality that our knowledge will exist in some form after we're gone. Little do we know how much is lost over and over from one generation and one civilisation to the next.
It doesn't matter. So much of what we'll accomplish is bound by physical constraints to be lost.
That's why I thought the E-Brain was important, to break those bonds, until an associate of Fin's showed up a week or so ago.
I really am just this guy, flesh and bones and pickled liver. These are words. Nothing special about them. It's what's outside these words and away from all our cares and concerns about living and surviving and thriving that I and others like me, writers and wonderers, are bothered by strangers to see what's really going on.
Time does not exist. The scale at which we measure the movements of the universe, ruled primarily by our heartbeats and breathing rate, is immaterial.
But most of us are not supposed to see what's really going on.
At least not yet...
Otherwise...
Ah, the elliptical pause... what if all of us knew we could control the universe that we think exists but doesn't?
'There can be only one,' right?
Wrong. That's where I come in. I've got one of the keys to open an imaginary door for seven billion people all at once. But I know better than to do so.
Besides, these are words and always will be. Again, it's the space between words, without sound, where we'll find the answer that I've only got a small part to tell you about.
You will find the answer when you put aside all talk of talk. Erase any topics of conversation. Do not think about life or death. No job titles, life privileges or games of war will give you the answer.
It takes our whole species, about seven billion people currently, plus the rest of our ecosystem partners, to get you to the next step.
I don't know why but I'm pretty scared. The tiny insight I have, the little piece of information given to me, reveals what the absence of power can do if we get our act together and see what everyone is doing in the moment.
And that's just a wee step in the right direction to reveal the reveal!
Until next time...
Fin met me on the street after my shift at the cafeteria.
"And you speak no Finnish whatsoever?"
"Not that I know of. But I do put a dash through my seven and 'z' and slash my zero."
"Let's continue walking. What do you know of the unspoken socialisation that our species carries on?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't know if you know?"
"I don't know if I don't know."
"Good answer."
"Look, all my life, it's been people like you coming up to me, asking questions and then leaving me with this vague understanding that I might or might not be part of something that does or does not exist. It's getting annoying."
"Are we that obvious?"
"Who is 'we'?"
"That you already know."
"I do?"
"Yes. Think back. You have in you the history of our species. What is it that you already know?"
"History is a fairy tale written for the duped by the dupers."
"Well, I wouldn't have put it that way but you're right."
"And your point is..."
"Hmm..."
"I don't have all day. I've got to get ready for a frat function tonight and it's very important that I get there early."
"Frat?"
"Fraternity. You know, brotherhood, bonding, parties, social functions, charity work, that sense of belonging we all long for and are willing to pay for the privilege."
"Hmm..."
"We're almost to the apartment house. If there's something to say, let me know now or I'll have to catch you another time."
"Time... you bring up an excellent idea. If I could show you here and now, in front of everything you see as existing in this moment, that space and time do not exist, would you give me more than a few minutes of your time?"
I stopped walking and turned around, taking in the whole scene, including the building entranceway, the students walking about, the bushes, the grass, vehicles passing by, the cliffs over the river, the sound of a distant train whistle and the smell of sweet perfume.
"Okay. You've got me attention."
This is the part where I say, "And this is the part where I say, 'And this is the part where I say, "This is the part where I can only say that my life has never been the same."'"
Fin didn't wave his arm around, wiggle his nose, blink his eyes or make any motion I would attribute to the sudden change. I didn't enter a dream state or melt into the body of a creature unknown to modern science.
Instead...
Instead...
Instead, I laughed uncontrollably. My thoughts were suddenly surging with absurd ideas.
Even so, I stood there as if Fin and I were having a normal conversation.
I was not one person and I was one person. I was nobody and everybody. I was here in time and looking at all the moments that living things have and will exist.
Despite the few short paragraphs above, I have no idea how to describe what happened. It was as if the universe as we know it was both infinitesimally small and large at the same time.
I saw myself as a five-year old listening to ignorant adults, knowing then more than I know now, that the world in which we practice living does not exist.
I saw myself as an eighty-five year old watching the whole species come to the same conclusion and moving on to an existence I never thought possible to see in my lifetime, three lifetimes compressed into mine because of the exponential growth of group consciousness brought on by artificial technological means.
I blinked my eyes and all of those images disappeared.
"Hmm..." Suddenly I was talking like Fin.
"And your frat?"
"What?"
"Your social function."
"Oh...that..."
"Yes, that. Do you still plan to attend?"
"I don't see why not."
"Then the decision you make will affect all moments radiating out from this one."
"I know."
"Hmm..."
"Precisely. I still like to have fun."
"We have anticipated this decision of yours. Fun, as you call it, will alter the course of events we had planned."
"I know."
"And your reason?"
"Time does not exist."
"But your body. It still ages."
"I know. As you know, it doesn't matter whether it is me or someone else who uses this knowledge of the way things really are."
"We disagree."
"There you go with 'we' again. I already know there is no 'we.' No 'them' or 'they.'"
"And you will go off for your fun because..."
"Exactly because of that reason."
"If only you spoke Finnish, you would have a philosophical understanding that counters your American individualist mentality."
"The way things really are makes no room for individualism."
"You say that and yet..."
"I go to the frat function, anyway."
"If you attend the party tonight, you will put four years between now and the next moment."
I was too young to understand Fin's concern about time. Despite our full cognisance of mortality, we carry within us a belief of immortality that our knowledge will exist in some form after we're gone. Little do we know how much is lost over and over from one generation and one civilisation to the next.
It doesn't matter. So much of what we'll accomplish is bound by physical constraints to be lost.
That's why I thought the E-Brain was important, to break those bonds, until an associate of Fin's showed up a week or so ago.
I really am just this guy, flesh and bones and pickled liver. These are words. Nothing special about them. It's what's outside these words and away from all our cares and concerns about living and surviving and thriving that I and others like me, writers and wonderers, are bothered by strangers to see what's really going on.
Time does not exist. The scale at which we measure the movements of the universe, ruled primarily by our heartbeats and breathing rate, is immaterial.
But most of us are not supposed to see what's really going on.
At least not yet...
Otherwise...
Ah, the elliptical pause... what if all of us knew we could control the universe that we think exists but doesn't?
'There can be only one,' right?
Wrong. That's where I come in. I've got one of the keys to open an imaginary door for seven billion people all at once. But I know better than to do so.
Besides, these are words and always will be. Again, it's the space between words, without sound, where we'll find the answer that I've only got a small part to tell you about.
You will find the answer when you put aside all talk of talk. Erase any topics of conversation. Do not think about life or death. No job titles, life privileges or games of war will give you the answer.
It takes our whole species, about seven billion people currently, plus the rest of our ecosystem partners, to get you to the next step.
I don't know why but I'm pretty scared. The tiny insight I have, the little piece of information given to me, reveals what the absence of power can do if we get our act together and see what everyone is doing in the moment.
And that's just a wee step in the right direction to reveal the reveal!
Until next time...
Feeding The Fishes
There are two kinds of people: family.
That's right, in both cases, we are family.
So, when a member of my family is killed or kidnapped, I've got to look at the other kind of people in my family and ask them why.
Just like the other day when I had a couple of colleagues consult for a few business associates of mine (and please stop calling my associates "Chinese Triad" - we're all members of the same family business, are we not?). Business is business. Sometimes, you take care of business and the matter's settled.
So who is calling themselves the Taliban/Taleban/Autobahn this time?
Business is business. If you want to play the kidnap/murder game, then here are the stakes at issue:
More murder and mayhem. I hate to use the word blitzkrieg because you may not understand European war tactics but we've got an arsenal of carpet bombs you might understand more clearly. Yes, they fly magically and appear to wipe out family members who want to toy around with the big boys.
I have many Muslim friends who understand business. The business of warmaking is not a religious one, in our daily family interactions.
The same here.
I respect my Muslim friends and their family rituals. They, too, respect their family members, treating women with the respect and honour they deserve as family.
So, my Taliban family members, if you want to give up the one you hold, then we will let you remain family in a peaceful sort of way.
Otherwise, business is business. One highly-trained member of our naval family is worth what? A few dozen of yours?
Either you learn to share the bounty of your harvest like a good fee/tax/bribe paying member of the family, or a Cuban prison looks like luxury accommodations in comparison to what our sharp shark-toothed friends have in store.
Remember, very few of us are chronicled in the history books. The rest are dust. This little incident will fade and be forgotten. If you aren't around to bless your family with family of your own because you decided to take a sailor under your wing after killing another one, who's going to remember your selfish, shortsighted actions when you and your family are dead and gone?
I believe in freedom of expression.
You have the ability to correct this error of yours. Or not.
And if not, I promise there will be no one left in your family to tell your dead-man's tale.
This isn't about religion. It's simply a matter of a resolving a dispute between family members.
Maybe you already made up your mind.
That's okay. So have I.
That's right, in both cases, we are family.
So, when a member of my family is killed or kidnapped, I've got to look at the other kind of people in my family and ask them why.
Just like the other day when I had a couple of colleagues consult for a few business associates of mine (and please stop calling my associates "Chinese Triad" - we're all members of the same family business, are we not?). Business is business. Sometimes, you take care of business and the matter's settled.
So who is calling themselves the Taliban/Taleban/Autobahn this time?
Business is business. If you want to play the kidnap/murder game, then here are the stakes at issue:
More murder and mayhem. I hate to use the word blitzkrieg because you may not understand European war tactics but we've got an arsenal of carpet bombs you might understand more clearly. Yes, they fly magically and appear to wipe out family members who want to toy around with the big boys.
I have many Muslim friends who understand business. The business of warmaking is not a religious one, in our daily family interactions.
The same here.
I respect my Muslim friends and their family rituals. They, too, respect their family members, treating women with the respect and honour they deserve as family.
So, my Taliban family members, if you want to give up the one you hold, then we will let you remain family in a peaceful sort of way.
Otherwise, business is business. One highly-trained member of our naval family is worth what? A few dozen of yours?
Either you learn to share the bounty of your harvest like a good fee/tax/bribe paying member of the family, or a Cuban prison looks like luxury accommodations in comparison to what our sharp shark-toothed friends have in store.
Remember, very few of us are chronicled in the history books. The rest are dust. This little incident will fade and be forgotten. If you aren't around to bless your family with family of your own because you decided to take a sailor under your wing after killing another one, who's going to remember your selfish, shortsighted actions when you and your family are dead and gone?
I believe in freedom of expression.
You have the ability to correct this error of yours. Or not.
And if not, I promise there will be no one left in your family to tell your dead-man's tale.
This isn't about religion. It's simply a matter of a resolving a dispute between family members.
Maybe you already made up your mind.
That's okay. So have I.
A Quiet Day With The Dictator
"Sir, they are crossing our border."
"I will launch the nuclear weapons!"
"But, sir, our aim is not very exact."
"Only because all your trajectory math is very confusing for me to figure out on my portable abacus. Point them horizontally."
"Sir, the missiles might land in our territory."
"Do as I say!"
"Yes, sir. And sir..."
"What is it, imbecile?"
"You have an emissary from the most-hated enemy."
"Send him in. I will listen to what the pig-dogs have to say and then I will kill him."
"Sir, here he is. The Right Honourable Assistant Associate Staff Administrator For The Negotiation Of Forcefully Invading Peacekeepers."
"Your Almighty Highness, I am humbled that you allowed me in your presence."
"You are a pig-dog. Be glad that I do not have you drawn and quartered in front of me for my mild amusement."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"What is it that you wish? My court would like to hear you beg, if you don't mind."
"Please, please, please, Anointed One. Let us have our life for one brief moment more."
"Much better. Now, get up off your stinking knees and look me in the eye like a real man."
"As you command."
"Indeed. Proceed."
"Grand and Glorious Greatness, the combined forces of the Southern Kingdom and the Imperialists Across The Sea have amassed forces along your borders and blockaded your sea ports."
"So I have been told. They will be rubble in just a few minutes. What else is your problem?"
"The Master of His Own Destiny, these warring kingdom peaceful fighting forces are here to provide humanitarian aid to your people."
"My people need no aid. I, their god, provide them all they want. As ants to the queen, so my people depend on me to decide how they shall live and die. Lately, I have been bored and wished to see many of them struggle with basic nourishment. It is a scientific experiment that the rest of the weak, narrow-minded leaders around the world are too puny to carry out."
"The rest of the world does not see it that way."
"And that is why I am launching a few of my short-range missiles to prove that they are useless to stop the power of the One Who Knows What's Right For His People!!! Ahahaha! Watch me press the red button!!!! Victory is mine, at last!!!"
"Sir, the missiles are headed in the wrong direction. They are landing in the Middle Kingdom."
"The ineptitude of my servants. Who turned my abacus around backwards. Off with your head!"
"Sir?"
"You are right. First, off with the head of that pig-dog and then cut your own head off as evidence that I am a merciful leader who punishes those who commit cold-blooded murder of innocent messengers."
"As you command, sir."
"'Humanitarian mission'! Who do they think they are? They blame me for their worthless seamanship, sinking their own vessel through shoddy ship procedures and now they think they can just walk across my borders to feed those I intentionally starve? If I want tens of millions to die, they will die for the glory of serving the only true living god left on this planet."
"Sir!"
"What are you still doing here?"
"Sir, I am about to cut off my head but I wanted to let you know there is a missile headed straight toward us."
"Is it ours or theirs?"
"I do not know, Sir."
"Then I shall kill you myself!"
"But, Sir, the missile."
"You are worthless chattel. Do you not know that gods do not die? I will press this button and use the antimissile system we built with plans stolen from those Western pig-dogs and disprove their claim that openness and honesty is the one true way. Watch them wallow in fear at my invulnerability!!!!"
"I will launch the nuclear weapons!"
"But, sir, our aim is not very exact."
"Only because all your trajectory math is very confusing for me to figure out on my portable abacus. Point them horizontally."
"Sir, the missiles might land in our territory."
"Do as I say!"
"Yes, sir. And sir..."
"What is it, imbecile?"
"You have an emissary from the most-hated enemy."
"Send him in. I will listen to what the pig-dogs have to say and then I will kill him."
"Sir, here he is. The Right Honourable Assistant Associate Staff Administrator For The Negotiation Of Forcefully Invading Peacekeepers."
"Your Almighty Highness, I am humbled that you allowed me in your presence."
"You are a pig-dog. Be glad that I do not have you drawn and quartered in front of me for my mild amusement."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"What is it that you wish? My court would like to hear you beg, if you don't mind."
"Please, please, please, Anointed One. Let us have our life for one brief moment more."
"Much better. Now, get up off your stinking knees and look me in the eye like a real man."
"As you command."
"Indeed. Proceed."
"Grand and Glorious Greatness, the combined forces of the Southern Kingdom and the Imperialists Across The Sea have amassed forces along your borders and blockaded your sea ports."
"So I have been told. They will be rubble in just a few minutes. What else is your problem?"
"The Master of His Own Destiny, these warring kingdom peaceful fighting forces are here to provide humanitarian aid to your people."
"My people need no aid. I, their god, provide them all they want. As ants to the queen, so my people depend on me to decide how they shall live and die. Lately, I have been bored and wished to see many of them struggle with basic nourishment. It is a scientific experiment that the rest of the weak, narrow-minded leaders around the world are too puny to carry out."
"The rest of the world does not see it that way."
"And that is why I am launching a few of my short-range missiles to prove that they are useless to stop the power of the One Who Knows What's Right For His People!!! Ahahaha! Watch me press the red button!!!! Victory is mine, at last!!!"
"Sir, the missiles are headed in the wrong direction. They are landing in the Middle Kingdom."
"The ineptitude of my servants. Who turned my abacus around backwards. Off with your head!"
"Sir?"
"You are right. First, off with the head of that pig-dog and then cut your own head off as evidence that I am a merciful leader who punishes those who commit cold-blooded murder of innocent messengers."
"As you command, sir."
"'Humanitarian mission'! Who do they think they are? They blame me for their worthless seamanship, sinking their own vessel through shoddy ship procedures and now they think they can just walk across my borders to feed those I intentionally starve? If I want tens of millions to die, they will die for the glory of serving the only true living god left on this planet."
"Sir!"
"What are you still doing here?"
"Sir, I am about to cut off my head but I wanted to let you know there is a missile headed straight toward us."
"Is it ours or theirs?"
"I do not know, Sir."
"Then I shall kill you myself!"
"But, Sir, the missile."
"You are worthless chattel. Do you not know that gods do not die? I will press this button and use the antimissile system we built with plans stolen from those Western pig-dogs and disprove their claim that openness and honesty is the one true way. Watch them wallow in fear at my invulnerability!!!!"
- Tune in next week when we reconstruct our Leader from DNA not tainted by nuclear radiation...
- Observe our investigators piecing together why the stolen missile shield system plans were designed so as not to take out their own missiles...
- Notice how our people are unhappy that the so-called liberators are taking away our people's honourable death by starving - to die according to their god's desire is the greatest gift one can give to one's family.
2010-07-24
Are You The Lucky One?
But how, you ask, can I explain the unexplainable?
By having you explain it to yourself, of course.
For the very first time, here are the instructions that you should follow, just like I told you before:
If you were indoctrinated into a there-is-a-real-enemy-who-must-be-stopped-at-all-costs, then I can't help you.
You see, it's just us. Really. I'm not telling you the truth.
There are people who build up paranoid delusions that there's more to it than what there is not.
There is only us in this moment. There's no turning back the clock, no going forward into the future. Time does not exist, except through illusion.
Now you're ready to proceed to step 13.
THE THIRTEENTH STEP!!!
Have I repeated myself too much?
Do you know the gods like to have fun?
Do you know what a god is?
If there is only us, what is a god?
Are you a member of the listener/whisperer tribe? Can you hear what is there and what is not there?
Every now and then, step back and see that as real as your pain feels, no matter how helpless the situation, millions of people feel your type of pain right now, and billions have felt it who no longer exist. Billions more will feel it in moments that haven't yet existed.
Does that help you see that you can make the pain disappear by dispersing it into the people around you through humour?
Can you tell yourself and believe, "I am not real, I do not exist, this is all a temporary illusion"?
Or do you want to experience every moment to the fullest, happy or sad, healthy or hurting?
Let's get back to the states of energy that exist through our mutual belief in the power of states of energy but, as you will soon see, don't really exist, either.
All of us who can read this as members of our species will say we have lived and we will die. Forget that for a few moments, will you? Or if you don't want to forget that, go on with what you were doing and proceed to step 14.
But also keep in mind that all seven billion of us have to exist here together. There's no alternative universe that pops up out of nowhere to which you can magically appear in a world that meets your idea of perfection.
This isn't about wishful thinking and projecting a future five lifetimes from now when you can join your family members in harmonious takeover of the world.
We really only have this moment. Seriously. This is it.
There are no good ol' days - there are only todays and more todays and the today after this one and the one after that.
So forget about trying to live in history, but at the same time, learn from it.
You can live in subcultures today that make it feel like you're the only one and your subculture is the BIG "IT." If you so choose, please do. But don't try to take down other subcultures that feel the same way.
Tearing down the lives of others who are happy what they're doing without physically/directly undermining your life in any way (other than the fact their existence doesn't fit into your worldview) is not the same as living in your subculture the way you like, including any form of compromise in which you incorporate others' pleasing subcultural habits into your own.
I cannot change the past. I cannot undo whatever it is your/our ancestors did that is supposed to be the way things are but don't work in the current moment.
I can only seek understanding about their actions in relation to their times. I don't live in their times and they don't live in mine.
There are those willing to play games with your lives if you let them. After all, this world is full of people willing to let others tell them the way you're supposed to live.
I'm a prime example, using this approved electronic device to convey a message through a socially-acceptable manner in a communication method called a language taught to me as the official means of socialising. And I've played right along with this, never once saying, "Hey, I'm going to wave my body about and make nonsense noises until everyone else is doing the same thing my way." [Look at Esperanto. Are you using it? Have you heard of it? Point made.]
Therefore, get with the program. We're seven billion people about to have a major "conscious" shift into seeing that we're all on this planet together for the same purpose - to move our species forward off this planet and into the rest of the universe.
We've got testosterone and oestrogen to deal with, our being a rather hormonal species (after all, like so many others, procreation is our major means of saving the species). But with an adult approach to product marketing/advertisement - that is, lowering the appeal to our hormonal urges - we'll put consumption on the right track while leaving plenty of room for freedom of expression and all that.
And then we'll see more about why seeing our universe as states of energy was as quaint as phrenology. We can talk more about that later.
Along the way, we'll monitor the species for megalomaniacs bent on homogenisation, conformity and "choppin' off the 'eads of them's what got us here in the first place" types. In other words, the normal flow, the ebb and tide, of social change. Lots of time to have a good laugh at stereotypes we all can relate to at one point or another in the moments that we live.
The youngest generation already gets it. The rest of us oldtimers might, too, given enough moments to see that the past doesn't exist and never did, even though we can study shallow snapshots of time we think is the past that gives us clues about how to live in the ever-changing moment that is now.
Speaking of which, now it's time to go back to step one and skip this blog entry. Or was that step two? Doesn't matter, the steps no longer exist. Or do they? Yes, they do. They're examples of how to live in this new moment.
By having you explain it to yourself, of course.
For the very first time, here are the instructions that you should follow, just like I told you before:
- Don't follow these instructions.
- Don't read this blog entry, especially the phrase, "But how."
- Sit quietly or not.
- Open yourself up to all the emotional states of the people around you and all the states of energy passing through you and them.
- Don't follow these instructions.
- Doubt everything I'm telling you.
- Laugh.
- Laugh belly-achingly loud.
- Start again at step 5.
- Skip to step 1.
- Proceed to step 12.
If you were indoctrinated into a there-is-a-real-enemy-who-must-be-stopped-at-all-costs, then I can't help you.
You see, it's just us. Really. I'm not telling you the truth.
There are people who build up paranoid delusions that there's more to it than what there is not.
There is only us in this moment. There's no turning back the clock, no going forward into the future. Time does not exist, except through illusion.
Now you're ready to proceed to step 13.
THE THIRTEENTH STEP!!!
Have I repeated myself too much?
Do you know the gods like to have fun?
Do you know what a god is?
If there is only us, what is a god?
Are you a member of the listener/whisperer tribe? Can you hear what is there and what is not there?
Every now and then, step back and see that as real as your pain feels, no matter how helpless the situation, millions of people feel your type of pain right now, and billions have felt it who no longer exist. Billions more will feel it in moments that haven't yet existed.
Does that help you see that you can make the pain disappear by dispersing it into the people around you through humour?
Can you tell yourself and believe, "I am not real, I do not exist, this is all a temporary illusion"?
Or do you want to experience every moment to the fullest, happy or sad, healthy or hurting?
Let's get back to the states of energy that exist through our mutual belief in the power of states of energy but, as you will soon see, don't really exist, either.
All of us who can read this as members of our species will say we have lived and we will die. Forget that for a few moments, will you? Or if you don't want to forget that, go on with what you were doing and proceed to step 14.
But also keep in mind that all seven billion of us have to exist here together. There's no alternative universe that pops up out of nowhere to which you can magically appear in a world that meets your idea of perfection.
This isn't about wishful thinking and projecting a future five lifetimes from now when you can join your family members in harmonious takeover of the world.
We really only have this moment. Seriously. This is it.
There are no good ol' days - there are only todays and more todays and the today after this one and the one after that.
So forget about trying to live in history, but at the same time, learn from it.
You can live in subcultures today that make it feel like you're the only one and your subculture is the BIG "IT." If you so choose, please do. But don't try to take down other subcultures that feel the same way.
Tearing down the lives of others who are happy what they're doing without physically/directly undermining your life in any way (other than the fact their existence doesn't fit into your worldview) is not the same as living in your subculture the way you like, including any form of compromise in which you incorporate others' pleasing subcultural habits into your own.
I cannot change the past. I cannot undo whatever it is your/our ancestors did that is supposed to be the way things are but don't work in the current moment.
I can only seek understanding about their actions in relation to their times. I don't live in their times and they don't live in mine.
There are those willing to play games with your lives if you let them. After all, this world is full of people willing to let others tell them the way you're supposed to live.
I'm a prime example, using this approved electronic device to convey a message through a socially-acceptable manner in a communication method called a language taught to me as the official means of socialising. And I've played right along with this, never once saying, "Hey, I'm going to wave my body about and make nonsense noises until everyone else is doing the same thing my way." [Look at Esperanto. Are you using it? Have you heard of it? Point made.]
Therefore, get with the program. We're seven billion people about to have a major "conscious" shift into seeing that we're all on this planet together for the same purpose - to move our species forward off this planet and into the rest of the universe.
We've got testosterone and oestrogen to deal with, our being a rather hormonal species (after all, like so many others, procreation is our major means of saving the species). But with an adult approach to product marketing/advertisement - that is, lowering the appeal to our hormonal urges - we'll put consumption on the right track while leaving plenty of room for freedom of expression and all that.
And then we'll see more about why seeing our universe as states of energy was as quaint as phrenology. We can talk more about that later.
Along the way, we'll monitor the species for megalomaniacs bent on homogenisation, conformity and "choppin' off the 'eads of them's what got us here in the first place" types. In other words, the normal flow, the ebb and tide, of social change. Lots of time to have a good laugh at stereotypes we all can relate to at one point or another in the moments that we live.
The youngest generation already gets it. The rest of us oldtimers might, too, given enough moments to see that the past doesn't exist and never did, even though we can study shallow snapshots of time we think is the past that gives us clues about how to live in the ever-changing moment that is now.
Speaking of which, now it's time to go back to step one and skip this blog entry. Or was that step two? Doesn't matter, the steps no longer exist. Or do they? Yes, they do. They're examples of how to live in this new moment.
Coloured Lenses
Why should such a beauty as Tamara (pronounced Tuh-maur'-uh (as in "tomorrow")) wear coloured contact lenses?
Dear Tamara, your natural beauty shines without need of plastic coating.
Let us celebrate our lives as we are, not with accessories designed to hide what our parents gave us.
I was bothered by those lenses and exchanged flaring nostrils with Tamara as a sign we both were perturbed at what we didn't know was a case of a simple false barrier between us.
Brown is as beautiful as blue, no matter whether your name is Matt, Katelyn, Chris or Tamara. Or carry toothpaste in your purse because you ate on the way to work and wanted to brush your teeth before your shift started.
Dear Tamara, your natural beauty shines without need of plastic coating.
Let us celebrate our lives as we are, not with accessories designed to hide what our parents gave us.
I was bothered by those lenses and exchanged flaring nostrils with Tamara as a sign we both were perturbed at what we didn't know was a case of a simple false barrier between us.
Brown is as beautiful as blue, no matter whether your name is Matt, Katelyn, Chris or Tamara. Or carry toothpaste in your purse because you ate on the way to work and wanted to brush your teeth before your shift started.
Gemstone Quarry
One of the old guard, a time in a man's life when he can remember when men were men and women were women.
Was there such a time?
In carving out a place to live, just you and your family against the elements, aren't the duties, the chores, the basic will to live as clear as a cold spring hidden under a cliff?
That's what he believed.
That's what he saw when he looked at the grandkids playing in the apple orchard.
What happened?
Do the times change or just our memories of them?
He kicked a boot against the iron railing, took a sip of his RC Cola and tossed a handful of peanuts against the back of his mouth, mixing the fizz with the salty nuts and remembering many summers like this, time just a couple of hands on a watch.
Where was his wife?
Parkinson's disease. Long, long years of therapy followed by home health visits and then the LPN who stayed with them in the end.
Fifty-four years of marriage.
A freezer full of frozen foodstuff handpicked from the best of what the farm produced. Rows of canned beans and tomatoes in the cellar.
Not a single child or grandchild interested in taking over the farm...
He dropped the bottle onto the soft grass next to the back porch. He'd pick it up in the cool of the evening and store it with all the RC Cola bottles he'd saved over the years, a tiny nest egg for emergencies that only the nosiest of grandkids knew was tucked in the back of the barn.
If only he had his wife's secret ingredients for the banana pudding she used to make, he'd give it to his daughter as a special gift for Christmas.
"You boys don't go climbing up into the higher branches! You'll tear 'em up and break your neck when you fall!"
He looked out over the fields and wondered what was going to happen to them. He didn't have many good years left in front of him and plowing was getting to be a chore. His neighbour, a hippy professor, offered to do the plowing for him but he wasn't so sure the prof didn't expect to be able to plow a few hippy weed rows for himself in the process.
From moonshine to hippy weed, every generation had its diversions. He kept his kids off both but he didn't know his grandkids well enough to know who was and who wasn't. Gotta trust your kids to watch their kids. Can't do it all when they're scattered to the wind and you're working a farm.
"I reckon you kids better come inside and eat some supper. It's getting too hot."
As the grandkids raced back to the house, he held the backdoor open for each one as he knocked the rest of the dirt clods off his boots. No reason to let the flies in or carry mud into the house - less work later on after all the grandkids had gone home and left him to clean up the farmhouse in the quiet, humid evening with just the tinny buzz of a baseball game coming from the kitchen radio.
While he sliced up watermelon for the kids, he remembered an old box of recipes he'd found stuffed up into the top of the hallway closet. Maybe that's where Ethel had put her list of banana pudding mixings.
Was there such a time?
In carving out a place to live, just you and your family against the elements, aren't the duties, the chores, the basic will to live as clear as a cold spring hidden under a cliff?
That's what he believed.
That's what he saw when he looked at the grandkids playing in the apple orchard.
What happened?
Do the times change or just our memories of them?
He kicked a boot against the iron railing, took a sip of his RC Cola and tossed a handful of peanuts against the back of his mouth, mixing the fizz with the salty nuts and remembering many summers like this, time just a couple of hands on a watch.
Where was his wife?
Parkinson's disease. Long, long years of therapy followed by home health visits and then the LPN who stayed with them in the end.
Fifty-four years of marriage.
A freezer full of frozen foodstuff handpicked from the best of what the farm produced. Rows of canned beans and tomatoes in the cellar.
Not a single child or grandchild interested in taking over the farm...
He dropped the bottle onto the soft grass next to the back porch. He'd pick it up in the cool of the evening and store it with all the RC Cola bottles he'd saved over the years, a tiny nest egg for emergencies that only the nosiest of grandkids knew was tucked in the back of the barn.
If only he had his wife's secret ingredients for the banana pudding she used to make, he'd give it to his daughter as a special gift for Christmas.
"You boys don't go climbing up into the higher branches! You'll tear 'em up and break your neck when you fall!"
He looked out over the fields and wondered what was going to happen to them. He didn't have many good years left in front of him and plowing was getting to be a chore. His neighbour, a hippy professor, offered to do the plowing for him but he wasn't so sure the prof didn't expect to be able to plow a few hippy weed rows for himself in the process.
From moonshine to hippy weed, every generation had its diversions. He kept his kids off both but he didn't know his grandkids well enough to know who was and who wasn't. Gotta trust your kids to watch their kids. Can't do it all when they're scattered to the wind and you're working a farm.
"I reckon you kids better come inside and eat some supper. It's getting too hot."
As the grandkids raced back to the house, he held the backdoor open for each one as he knocked the rest of the dirt clods off his boots. No reason to let the flies in or carry mud into the house - less work later on after all the grandkids had gone home and left him to clean up the farmhouse in the quiet, humid evening with just the tinny buzz of a baseball game coming from the kitchen radio.
While he sliced up watermelon for the kids, he remembered an old box of recipes he'd found stuffed up into the top of the hallway closet. Maybe that's where Ethel had put her list of banana pudding mixings.
2010-07-23
Fusho Fumetsu
Rational behaviour therapy versus Confucius barring "shall," "must," "certainly" and "I."
Buddha enlightenment versus giving oneself over to Jesus by confessing one's sins.
I mentally write things/events on a piece of paper, wad up the paper, tear it into bits, rearrange and see if it still makes sense.
"Bride Trafficking Unveiled" on currenttv. Movies: "The Freshman" (1990) and "Chariots of Fire" (1981).
Rainy and Paradee at Thai Garden. Major "Q" Boothroyd and Emma Peel.
Achronia and anatta again.
Billionaires jerking my chain to tell me they want to get richer, to save the economy, of course. Where does materialism end and philanthropy begin? I honestly do not know. If I only gave a tenth of my leisure time to help others...
The progress of time as seen in scientific discovery and peer review.
We live in a moment. A lighted match or falling leaf.
How do you get people to pay for jewelery repair - assist customers, have an estate sale of unused/unwanted items in their homes so they can get the jewelery you hold that they hold so dear?
The more ideas you share, the better chance one idea will spark the right idea in someone's need in the moment. When we figure out idea generation is more important than idea possession, the weights chaining us to sluggish progress toward true enlightenment fall away.
Too bad LeBron didn't say, "I'll take the same salary at Miami but give 25% to improve education for underprivileged children in Cleveland." Now that's true love of your fans.
When race becomes the base issue du jour, all of us get baited and hooked on the chain gang, cannibals ready to chew our legs off to get a step ahead.
People seeking freedom travel liferisking journeys worth writing about. Most individual journeys go untold. My mother in-law paid for workers to harvest the tobacco crops on her farm, the workers' names, faces, and backgrounds unknown. Only the workers and their families can tell about life in those fields. Have they? Will they? Some were born of local, multigenerational families and some of recent migrant families.
All have had stories to tell. Our families have migrated at one time or another, no matter what we claim as vocational aptitudes or ancestral land.
Billionaires or not, we are family. Who wants to listen when we whine? Let's offer family-centered ideas first, whatever we are.
On The Mainland
Feb. 25, '79
Dear Ones,
Patricia and Pam went to Central High Friday night to see the play "Funny Girl". They came home all excited because Rick was in the play. They remarked how tall and good looking he was.
I'm sending a picture so you can see what we look like. It has been so long since we have seen you all.
Edd is working with Powell Construction near Johnson City. He hopes Raytheon will call him back soon.
Teresa is working for welfare office in Kingsport but will move to Blountville the first of March. Sharon isn't working. She is still at home. I'm not working at present.
Come to see us when you can.
Love,
Mary Ruth & gang
Dear Ones,
Patricia and Pam went to Central High Friday night to see the play "Funny Girl". They came home all excited because Rick was in the play. They remarked how tall and good looking he was.
I'm sending a picture so you can see what we look like. It has been so long since we have seen you all.
Edd is working with Powell Construction near Johnson City. He hopes Raytheon will call him back soon.
Teresa is working for welfare office in Kingsport but will move to Blountville the first of March. Sharon isn't working. She is still at home. I'm not working at present.
Come to see us when you can.
Love,
Mary Ruth & gang
Predated Letter - 6 7 79.23.
July 5, 1979
Dear Family,
Thank you very much for the letter I received quite a time ago. Almost half of the summer holidays are over and I haven't yet paid any of those short visits to my friends and relatives that I usually do every summer.
But I went to London for a week. It was a package tour including the flights and accommodation. I didn't take part in the many tours and excursions arranged by the travel agency as I thought I would be able to see the sights on my own. It's sixteen years since I last was in London and England and now I thought I could afford a trip. I think it was a success, I got as much as I had expected.
Many of the places I had seen before but it was interesting to see them again after so many years. Westminster Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul's Cathedral were of course the 'musts'. I went to a marvellous concert (the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall) and to the theatre. And then I just looked around me a lot. I bought a go-as-you-please ticket which enabled me to travel on all London transport buses and underground trains and I really made use of the ticket. So I saw quite a bit of suburbs too.
London really is a big place and Tampere now looks like a tiny village. In two respects, I think, the city had changed. One was that sixteen years ago there were no tower blocks and office skyscrapers but now there were. And the other was that today there are far more coloured people in London than there used to be.
I timed my trip to take place in the Midsummer week. You see, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve are very big festivals here in Finland (and in the other Nordic countries as well) and I still haven't got any lady friend so I escaped the whole thing.
The Saturday was an ordinary weekday in London with nothing special in it. On the Sunday I went to church in Kensington and there the theme of the day was John the Baptist anyway.
On the return flight one of the stewardesses happened to be a former pupil of mine and I got special service. Yes, we flew on scheduled flights.
So far there have been no greater difficulties in seeing Marko. Tomorrow he'll come to me for four days and nights and we'll be going to Paimio, near the south coast where one of my sisters will spend her holiday with her family. One of the two daughters is nearly the same age as Marko, so they'll certainly have a good time. And my brother in-law has a brand new motor launch so I hope the weather will be so good that we can make a trip to the islands in the sea.
The weather was very good for holidaymakers in June, though it was too dry for farmers. The water in lakes was pretty warm so I could go to the beach here many times before I went to London. But now it has been pretty cool and rainy for one week already so the beaches are empty now.
Next week Risto and I will go to my friends' summer cottage on the sea as we did last summer too. I hope the weather will be fine.
Sure the long summer holiday is the best thing in a teacher's life and I think I can enjoy it more this year than the last four summers. I've been going to dances and seeing around me a bit.
I hear a lot has happened to you during this last year, both good and bad, and I hope you will be able to make the best of your holidays.
Love to everybody,
Mikko
Dear Family,
Thank you very much for the letter I received quite a time ago. Almost half of the summer holidays are over and I haven't yet paid any of those short visits to my friends and relatives that I usually do every summer.
But I went to London for a week. It was a package tour including the flights and accommodation. I didn't take part in the many tours and excursions arranged by the travel agency as I thought I would be able to see the sights on my own. It's sixteen years since I last was in London and England and now I thought I could afford a trip. I think it was a success, I got as much as I had expected.
Many of the places I had seen before but it was interesting to see them again after so many years. Westminster Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul's Cathedral were of course the 'musts'. I went to a marvellous concert (the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall) and to the theatre. And then I just looked around me a lot. I bought a go-as-you-please ticket which enabled me to travel on all London transport buses and underground trains and I really made use of the ticket. So I saw quite a bit of suburbs too.
London really is a big place and Tampere now looks like a tiny village. In two respects, I think, the city had changed. One was that sixteen years ago there were no tower blocks and office skyscrapers but now there were. And the other was that today there are far more coloured people in London than there used to be.
I timed my trip to take place in the Midsummer week. You see, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve are very big festivals here in Finland (and in the other Nordic countries as well) and I still haven't got any lady friend so I escaped the whole thing.
The Saturday was an ordinary weekday in London with nothing special in it. On the Sunday I went to church in Kensington and there the theme of the day was John the Baptist anyway.
On the return flight one of the stewardesses happened to be a former pupil of mine and I got special service. Yes, we flew on scheduled flights.
So far there have been no greater difficulties in seeing Marko. Tomorrow he'll come to me for four days and nights and we'll be going to Paimio, near the south coast where one of my sisters will spend her holiday with her family. One of the two daughters is nearly the same age as Marko, so they'll certainly have a good time. And my brother in-law has a brand new motor launch so I hope the weather will be so good that we can make a trip to the islands in the sea.
The weather was very good for holidaymakers in June, though it was too dry for farmers. The water in lakes was pretty warm so I could go to the beach here many times before I went to London. But now it has been pretty cool and rainy for one week already so the beaches are empty now.
Next week Risto and I will go to my friends' summer cottage on the sea as we did last summer too. I hope the weather will be fine.
Sure the long summer holiday is the best thing in a teacher's life and I think I can enjoy it more this year than the last four summers. I've been going to dances and seeing around me a bit.
I hear a lot has happened to you during this last year, both good and bad, and I hope you will be able to make the best of your holidays.
Love to everybody,
Mikko
Working Retail
How do you know if a story is true?
I used to work as a student kitchen worker at Morrill Hall cafeteria on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
I had many friends, some that worked there and many who wouldn't.
Occasionally, university professors would eat at the cafeteria.
Or we assumed they were professors.
A few times, just as my shift was ending, an older gentleman would come in and buy a cookie and glass of milk.
He didn't stand out. He wasn't one of the eccentric retired professors who haunted cafeterias with their stories of past school administrations and genius students who went crazy and were never heard from again.
He was just an ordinary looking man of his age, wearing a tweed jacket, button-down shirt, nondescript pants (probably darkly stained cotton or polyester) and penny loafer shoes.
I had forgotten about the man until I recently saw the movie, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," with some friends (for one of my friends' birthday).
Amazing how an old-fashioned good-vs-evil movie will trigger memories of forgotten days.
Anyway, as I was wiping down a table, the old man spoke in a foreign language.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'Do you speak suomi?'"
"Sorry?"
"Finnish. Do you speak Finnish, I mean?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, do you have a minute to hear something interesting?"
"In Finnish?"
"No. I will translate for you."
I thought about the summer that Mikko had spent with my family and shared old children's tales. Was this man going to tell me, a grownup college student, a kid's story?
"Okay. But I've got to finish these tables."
"Then I will come back another time, perhaps?"
"Maybe that would be better."
"Are you still performing on stage?"
"What?"
"Are you taking any drama classes?"
"No. Why?"
"That's too bad. We have more to discuss than I first thought."
I kept cleaning the table as the man stood up and walked away.
I saw him a few months later. After hearing his stories, my life took a shortcut through a world totally absent of fraternities, sororities and hand-built computers.
My life hasn't been the same since.
I'm not crazy. This is not a fairy tale. Why am I saying that?
Because the man proved to me we are not alone.
My stories about the Book of the Future and other familiar tricks of the fortunetelling trade are just practice, sleight-of-hand devices the man taught me to use, putting into play the information an old woman gave me in the trinkets she shared.
The E-Brain was just a ruse.
The truth is, as I've said, deeper than states of energy, far beyond our limited imagination and Neanderthal techno playtoys.
I don't want to be here talking about the next phase of our existence but the heat wave outside forces me inside and away from large heat-generating appliances like TVs and microwave ovens.
The fact is I want to be the greatest leader who ever existed but instead I was picked to wonder, to ask questions, to show possibilities that are impossible today so we might point our 7B-strong efforts toward making them possible.
There is no "they" or "them." There is only us, in many forms, forms we cannot see because we cannot see.
The LHC and the wrestling ring are one.
Let me explain...
I used to work as a student kitchen worker at Morrill Hall cafeteria on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
I had many friends, some that worked there and many who wouldn't.
Occasionally, university professors would eat at the cafeteria.
Or we assumed they were professors.
A few times, just as my shift was ending, an older gentleman would come in and buy a cookie and glass of milk.
He didn't stand out. He wasn't one of the eccentric retired professors who haunted cafeterias with their stories of past school administrations and genius students who went crazy and were never heard from again.
He was just an ordinary looking man of his age, wearing a tweed jacket, button-down shirt, nondescript pants (probably darkly stained cotton or polyester) and penny loafer shoes.
I had forgotten about the man until I recently saw the movie, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," with some friends (for one of my friends' birthday).
Amazing how an old-fashioned good-vs-evil movie will trigger memories of forgotten days.
Anyway, as I was wiping down a table, the old man spoke in a foreign language.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'Do you speak suomi?'"
"Sorry?"
"Finnish. Do you speak Finnish, I mean?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, do you have a minute to hear something interesting?"
"In Finnish?"
"No. I will translate for you."
I thought about the summer that Mikko had spent with my family and shared old children's tales. Was this man going to tell me, a grownup college student, a kid's story?
"Okay. But I've got to finish these tables."
"Then I will come back another time, perhaps?"
"Maybe that would be better."
"Are you still performing on stage?"
"What?"
"Are you taking any drama classes?"
"No. Why?"
"That's too bad. We have more to discuss than I first thought."
I kept cleaning the table as the man stood up and walked away.
I saw him a few months later. After hearing his stories, my life took a shortcut through a world totally absent of fraternities, sororities and hand-built computers.
My life hasn't been the same since.
I'm not crazy. This is not a fairy tale. Why am I saying that?
Because the man proved to me we are not alone.
My stories about the Book of the Future and other familiar tricks of the fortunetelling trade are just practice, sleight-of-hand devices the man taught me to use, putting into play the information an old woman gave me in the trinkets she shared.
The E-Brain was just a ruse.
The truth is, as I've said, deeper than states of energy, far beyond our limited imagination and Neanderthal techno playtoys.
I don't want to be here talking about the next phase of our existence but the heat wave outside forces me inside and away from large heat-generating appliances like TVs and microwave ovens.
The fact is I want to be the greatest leader who ever existed but instead I was picked to wonder, to ask questions, to show possibilities that are impossible today so we might point our 7B-strong efforts toward making them possible.
There is no "they" or "them." There is only us, in many forms, forms we cannot see because we cannot see.
The LHC and the wrestling ring are one.
Let me explain...
College Meal Plan
Sunday, October 3, 1982, 3:45 p.m.
Mom & Dad,
I spent yesterday afternoon doing homework with John and playing with my computer. I only work with the computer on weekends because I don't have time to spend working on it during school days.
Friday night, there was a mixer at Delta Tau Delta. Well, what really happened was we dressed up like gangsters and commandos and "kidnapped" the girls (pledges & sisters) of Alpha Xi Delta at the Panhellenic building. I had to get a ride with some of the girls because I got left behind (so did about eight other pledges). Anyway, I looked good. I looked like Peter Sellers in "Revenge of the Pink Panther," like a big, fat godfather (should that be capitalized?).
I spent the whole evening with Helen. We together met over 60 people. We had a good time. We got bored at the party, and since I wasn't an official pledge (but will be tonight) we went over to the Pi Kappa Phi house. (Jim pledged that one at Georgia Tech, and speaking of him, he's a sound technician for "Sing, Tennessee." He plans to go to UT starting winter quarter.). There was a wine & cheese party. We met several people there, including (get this!) Katrina. She's a little sister there. All I'll say is she's a perfect stereotype of a little sister.
We left there and went back to Delta Tau Delta. The party was dying down so we left. I walked her back to the dorm. I went back to the house and helped clean up. I went back to the apartment around 1:30 a.m.
Yesterday, after playing with the computer, I ate supper with Jennifer. She called me (a modern world, huh?). When I got back, Karen left a message saying she'd be in around eight o'clock. I cleaned the apartment some more (I'd been cleaning intermittently all day). We mainly spent the night in my room because one of my apartment suite roommates was also entertaining a woman. We had wine & cheese, watched TV, and listened to the radio.
She's worried about losing me. She thinks you all don't approve of her 'cause she's stealing me to get your money. I told her it seemed unlikely you all would worry about her getting your money through me since I'm supporting myself. Besides, we don't have a 100-acre farm.
Anyway, we had a good long talk and seem somewhat better for it. She left at 12:45 p.m. today. We had steak and vegetables for lunch (cooked by you-know-who - me. ;)).
I suppose I should go now. I need to eat supper and be ready to go to pledge initiation at 5:30 p.m. Oh yeah, Dad, I saw your picture at the frat ("D- H-, Class of '54").
I'm going to the World's Fair later with Helen to see the fireworks and hear the music that goes with it. My roommate, Sean, says I have two girlfriends, Helen and Karen. Oh well, I enjoy Helen's company.
The chapter of Delta Tau Delta here is totally opposite of the one at Ga. Tech. The president here has a 3.7 GPA (has had a 4.0 for past 3 quarters). He's also a chemical engineering major. We're going down to the Ga. Tech game so the pledges can get a hardcore view of a fraternity.
Love,
Rick
P.S. I now have $400+ to last 10 weeks. I'm doing well financially.
Mom & Dad,
I spent yesterday afternoon doing homework with John and playing with my computer. I only work with the computer on weekends because I don't have time to spend working on it during school days.
Friday night, there was a mixer at Delta Tau Delta. Well, what really happened was we dressed up like gangsters and commandos and "kidnapped" the girls (pledges & sisters) of Alpha Xi Delta at the Panhellenic building. I had to get a ride with some of the girls because I got left behind (so did about eight other pledges). Anyway, I looked good. I looked like Peter Sellers in "Revenge of the Pink Panther," like a big, fat godfather (should that be capitalized?).
I spent the whole evening with Helen. We together met over 60 people. We had a good time. We got bored at the party, and since I wasn't an official pledge (but will be tonight) we went over to the Pi Kappa Phi house. (Jim pledged that one at Georgia Tech, and speaking of him, he's a sound technician for "Sing, Tennessee." He plans to go to UT starting winter quarter.). There was a wine & cheese party. We met several people there, including (get this!) Katrina. She's a little sister there. All I'll say is she's a perfect stereotype of a little sister.
We left there and went back to Delta Tau Delta. The party was dying down so we left. I walked her back to the dorm. I went back to the house and helped clean up. I went back to the apartment around 1:30 a.m.
Yesterday, after playing with the computer, I ate supper with Jennifer. She called me (a modern world, huh?). When I got back, Karen left a message saying she'd be in around eight o'clock. I cleaned the apartment some more (I'd been cleaning intermittently all day). We mainly spent the night in my room because one of my apartment suite roommates was also entertaining a woman. We had wine & cheese, watched TV, and listened to the radio.
She's worried about losing me. She thinks you all don't approve of her 'cause she's stealing me to get your money. I told her it seemed unlikely you all would worry about her getting your money through me since I'm supporting myself. Besides, we don't have a 100-acre farm.
Anyway, we had a good long talk and seem somewhat better for it. She left at 12:45 p.m. today. We had steak and vegetables for lunch (cooked by you-know-who - me. ;)).
I suppose I should go now. I need to eat supper and be ready to go to pledge initiation at 5:30 p.m. Oh yeah, Dad, I saw your picture at the frat ("D- H-, Class of '54").
I'm going to the World's Fair later with Helen to see the fireworks and hear the music that goes with it. My roommate, Sean, says I have two girlfriends, Helen and Karen. Oh well, I enjoy Helen's company.
The chapter of Delta Tau Delta here is totally opposite of the one at Ga. Tech. The president here has a 3.7 GPA (has had a 4.0 for past 3 quarters). He's also a chemical engineering major. We're going down to the Ga. Tech game so the pledges can get a hardcore view of a fraternity.
Love,
Rick
P.S. I now have $400+ to last 10 weeks. I'm doing well financially.
Laser Beam
While conversing jovially with Angelique at Beauregard's, I noticed in front of me, at a nearby table, the look of anger.
Or so I believed.
The young man glared at me.
Why?
J'ne sais pas.
I do not read minds. I read lips. I assess facial expressions, body language.
He reminded me of the bar fights of my youth, most I avoided and a few in which I found myself throwing drunk punches and receiving badly thrown fists in return.
One look.
A dare.
A chip on one's shoulders another wants to knock off for fun.
At my age and physical condition, one contact between a five-finger sandwich and my jaw would knock me back and out of action quickly.
After all, I don't live in Texas. I don't carry a six-shooter by my side.
Otherwise, one angry look and that face'd be wearing a couple of slugholes.
"What happened to him?"
"You mean Slugboy? He grimaced at the wrong oldtimer."
"Them youths don't have no respect no more, do they?"
"And they pay dearly for it, too!"
Time to climb on Saddleback Sue and ride on outta here. Gitty up, girl. You still got a few good steps left in you and the patientest mule I've ever known.
Thanks to Donny and his beautiful sales staff for setting me up with my wedding ring all shiny and new. And to the worrisome lady at Ayers Farm Produce shop at the corner of Governor's and the Parkway - we're still thinking about your family and praying y'all will accept that what happens is what happens - we know you'll find a way to make the best of it. Life ain't easy but we cope.
Or so I believed.
The young man glared at me.
Why?
J'ne sais pas.
I do not read minds. I read lips. I assess facial expressions, body language.
He reminded me of the bar fights of my youth, most I avoided and a few in which I found myself throwing drunk punches and receiving badly thrown fists in return.
One look.
A dare.
A chip on one's shoulders another wants to knock off for fun.
At my age and physical condition, one contact between a five-finger sandwich and my jaw would knock me back and out of action quickly.
After all, I don't live in Texas. I don't carry a six-shooter by my side.
Otherwise, one angry look and that face'd be wearing a couple of slugholes.
"What happened to him?"
"You mean Slugboy? He grimaced at the wrong oldtimer."
"Them youths don't have no respect no more, do they?"
"And they pay dearly for it, too!"
Time to climb on Saddleback Sue and ride on outta here. Gitty up, girl. You still got a few good steps left in you and the patientest mule I've ever known.
Thanks to Donny and his beautiful sales staff for setting me up with my wedding ring all shiny and new. And to the worrisome lady at Ayers Farm Produce shop at the corner of Governor's and the Parkway - we're still thinking about your family and praying y'all will accept that what happens is what happens - we know you'll find a way to make the best of it. Life ain't easy but we cope.
Dated Letter - 28 7 80.23.
from:
Mikko Suominen
Parkanonk 25 A 4
33720 TAMPERE 72
Finland
July 26, 1980
Dear Friends,
I must admit it's too long a time since I last wrote to you. And now most of the summer holidays are already over. Just now we're enjoying the second spell of hot weather and sun. I'm writing this letter in my backyard where I've got a tiny bit of lawn, a hedge, a couple of nice young birch trees and a few (very few) flowers. The summer weather has been pretty good so far. We had a very long hot weather period the weeks before Midsummer Day.
Last winter went pretty well at school and what I had of free time I spent it with my girlfriend Liisa, who lives a couple of miles from here, a good walking distance. She is a widow with all her three children working and away from home.
We don't have any marriage plans yet and I can't say anything about the future. We have been having a very good time together. Liisa has had some trouble with her working life. The small printing house where she worked and was a shareholder of went bankrupt in March and she hasn't been able yet to arrange her life.
Risto has one year of school left. He has done some good work (but I'd like to say he could have done a little better, at least with his English and Swedish). He got his driver's licence in the spring and comes to see me very often.
Marko will start school on the 18th of August. He is seven. He can read a little already. I see him regularly though there are still more difficulties in arranging the meetings. Three weeks ago Marko and I went to the sea and the small islands off Turku. We had a wonderful time with my sister's family. We spent three nights in their motor-boat. We even had a sauna bath there. We heated up a big pile of stones on the shore, then put a tent over the stones, threw some water on the stones and had a wonderful sauna bath and then plunged into the sea. And repeated it many times of course. And there were no other people on that small rocky island where we stayed the nights. Even the water was reasonably warm for a dip, some 17 degrees centigrade, I suppose.
A few days ago I received some sad news from America. Mr. Richald Dols, whose family I visited in Minnesota before I came to see you, had died suddenly of a heart attack. He had retired for pension a year ago and sold his old house and went to live in Cumberland, Wisconsin, some 150 miles from his old place. And could enjoy his new home only for seven months. Mrs. Dols is now going to sell the Cumberland home and settle down in the old surroundings again.
I myself have enjoyed very good health for a long time and feel very grateful for it.
The controversial Moscow Olympic Games seem to be everywhere here. The Finnish mass media are full of them. It's not a new phenomenon here. They should have a limit for their enthusiasm even in other times I think. I follow them to some degree, especially the field and track events, but too much is too much. Today for example we have 9 hours of the Olympics on the radio and 5-1/2 hours on TV. (Both TV and radio are run here by state owned companies.)
My best wishes to you all.
With love
Mikko
Mikko Suominen
Parkanonk 25 A 4
33720 TAMPERE 72
Finland
July 26, 1980
Dear Friends,
I must admit it's too long a time since I last wrote to you. And now most of the summer holidays are already over. Just now we're enjoying the second spell of hot weather and sun. I'm writing this letter in my backyard where I've got a tiny bit of lawn, a hedge, a couple of nice young birch trees and a few (very few) flowers. The summer weather has been pretty good so far. We had a very long hot weather period the weeks before Midsummer Day.
Last winter went pretty well at school and what I had of free time I spent it with my girlfriend Liisa, who lives a couple of miles from here, a good walking distance. She is a widow with all her three children working and away from home.
We don't have any marriage plans yet and I can't say anything about the future. We have been having a very good time together. Liisa has had some trouble with her working life. The small printing house where she worked and was a shareholder of went bankrupt in March and she hasn't been able yet to arrange her life.
Risto has one year of school left. He has done some good work (but I'd like to say he could have done a little better, at least with his English and Swedish). He got his driver's licence in the spring and comes to see me very often.
Marko will start school on the 18th of August. He is seven. He can read a little already. I see him regularly though there are still more difficulties in arranging the meetings. Three weeks ago Marko and I went to the sea and the small islands off Turku. We had a wonderful time with my sister's family. We spent three nights in their motor-boat. We even had a sauna bath there. We heated up a big pile of stones on the shore, then put a tent over the stones, threw some water on the stones and had a wonderful sauna bath and then plunged into the sea. And repeated it many times of course. And there were no other people on that small rocky island where we stayed the nights. Even the water was reasonably warm for a dip, some 17 degrees centigrade, I suppose.
A few days ago I received some sad news from America. Mr. Richald Dols, whose family I visited in Minnesota before I came to see you, had died suddenly of a heart attack. He had retired for pension a year ago and sold his old house and went to live in Cumberland, Wisconsin, some 150 miles from his old place. And could enjoy his new home only for seven months. Mrs. Dols is now going to sell the Cumberland home and settle down in the old surroundings again.
I myself have enjoyed very good health for a long time and feel very grateful for it.
The controversial Moscow Olympic Games seem to be everywhere here. The Finnish mass media are full of them. It's not a new phenomenon here. They should have a limit for their enthusiasm even in other times I think. I follow them to some degree, especially the field and track events, but too much is too much. Today for example we have 9 hours of the Olympics on the radio and 5-1/2 hours on TV. (Both TV and radio are run here by state owned companies.)
My best wishes to you all.
With love
Mikko
Maybe I'm Wrong But...
Selfless meditation leads me away from the undercurrents and riptides of the day. Thus, although I had once fully connected with and, in this fictional blog, controlled a world of people, places, things and ideas, I am off to more selfishly selfless pursuits.
To manage a group of programmers, planet manipulators, and information seekers/gatherers (that people ignorantly call spies in a derogatory sense, unaware that the world is run only by the curious; not, as some would like you to believe, run by spyless (no, I didn't say spineless) leaders), I have had to split into a variety of characters, including ones I didn't like that were too close to my own personality (and ouch! those images hurt!).
To live and walk in the regular world and carry a bunch of heroes and ne'er-do-wells in my thoughts is incongruous (inconceivable!) for me to maintain any level of suburban, mainstream sanity with which I can converse on typical topical topics that most of us understand.
Because I cannot escape the suburban world with ease, I am stuck in it the rest of my life, finding no other comfortable means upon which to live. I do not desire a highly [expensive] materialistic life based on busting my butt to succeed in some commercially-legal manner. I would move into a van down by the river if I wasn't married to the wonderful woman who lives with and puts up with my semi-ordinary habits.
I have beat myself with a virtual stick for too long, trying to fit in with others and their lives they personally enjoy. I'm glad you enjoy your lives, as quiet or loud, as easy or tough as they can be, but they're not for me.
I'm just a lazy ol' fool who likes to write, who habitually writes daily, who looks for new ideas to explore out of curiosity. I'm not interested in maintaining storylines about secret/open organisations pulling the strings that make our puppet world dance.
In point of fact, my investigation has shown that we use voluntary group coercion to build the illusion that we're controlled by others. Otherwise, we're social beings tuned to re/act, based on our environment.
If you want to believe you're part of the "in" crowd or not, then that's what you'll be. Plain and simple.
Everyone is special. Everyone has talents that often go unused until a crisis arises in someone else's life. You may save someone else's life, or you may appear as your normal self to a person looking for an example of someone to look up/down to.
As much as it was fun to tap into the technique of listening to what people are not saying and then molding a solar system sized model of what's really going on, I'm not a storyteller who feeds off that kind of storyline forever. It's too easy to get caught up in the grand delusional god complex and make-believe the storyline is real. Besides, there's no profit in it for me. More detrimental to my health than anything else.
I'm just a guy. These are just words. Seven billion people have to decide on a constant, daily basis how they're going to coordinate and compromise to keep a world healthy and safe for generations to come.
I'm moving on to the next story, more pedestrian, less worldly. Or so it will appear... hahaha... ommmmm...
To manage a group of programmers, planet manipulators, and information seekers/gatherers (that people ignorantly call spies in a derogatory sense, unaware that the world is run only by the curious; not, as some would like you to believe, run by spyless (no, I didn't say spineless) leaders), I have had to split into a variety of characters, including ones I didn't like that were too close to my own personality (and ouch! those images hurt!).
To live and walk in the regular world and carry a bunch of heroes and ne'er-do-wells in my thoughts is incongruous (inconceivable!) for me to maintain any level of suburban, mainstream sanity with which I can converse on typical topical topics that most of us understand.
Because I cannot escape the suburban world with ease, I am stuck in it the rest of my life, finding no other comfortable means upon which to live. I do not desire a highly [expensive] materialistic life based on busting my butt to succeed in some commercially-legal manner. I would move into a van down by the river if I wasn't married to the wonderful woman who lives with and puts up with my semi-ordinary habits.
I have beat myself with a virtual stick for too long, trying to fit in with others and their lives they personally enjoy. I'm glad you enjoy your lives, as quiet or loud, as easy or tough as they can be, but they're not for me.
I'm just a lazy ol' fool who likes to write, who habitually writes daily, who looks for new ideas to explore out of curiosity. I'm not interested in maintaining storylines about secret/open organisations pulling the strings that make our puppet world dance.
In point of fact, my investigation has shown that we use voluntary group coercion to build the illusion that we're controlled by others. Otherwise, we're social beings tuned to re/act, based on our environment.
If you want to believe you're part of the "in" crowd or not, then that's what you'll be. Plain and simple.
Everyone is special. Everyone has talents that often go unused until a crisis arises in someone else's life. You may save someone else's life, or you may appear as your normal self to a person looking for an example of someone to look up/down to.
As much as it was fun to tap into the technique of listening to what people are not saying and then molding a solar system sized model of what's really going on, I'm not a storyteller who feeds off that kind of storyline forever. It's too easy to get caught up in the grand delusional god complex and make-believe the storyline is real. Besides, there's no profit in it for me. More detrimental to my health than anything else.
I'm just a guy. These are just words. Seven billion people have to decide on a constant, daily basis how they're going to coordinate and compromise to keep a world healthy and safe for generations to come.
I'm moving on to the next story, more pedestrian, less worldly. Or so it will appear... hahaha... ommmmm...
2010-07-22
2010-07-21
Obsidian Oblivion
How can one dream of a solar system sized system when one's thought process results are obliterated by mildly disruptive depression?
Alone in a busy society...but not lost.
Barely able to smile...
Wishing for nothing and getting one's wish fulfilled.
While others preach prosperity and mining and drilling and environmental rearrangement, one wonders why worm food is not a sufficient goal.
When one is born not to lead but to wonder, where does one wander in one's wondering?
Let the others have their castles and palaces and rocketship destinations.
This one's feet of clay have eroded, the body overgrown with kudzu and covered with mosquito bites, a permanent stereotype profile of a dying breed.
Wasn't one talking about books and futures and electronic brains? Let the youngest generation figure all that out. This one has gone to seed, ready for a strong breeze to disperse one's harvest to feed hungry wanderers far afield.
Re-tired of competing with one's own repetitious thought set for leftover rare grains of originality. Tired of making fun of others' hard work to get a cheap laugh.
Starving for undeserved attention.
Lonely but not desperate.
No viable means of self-sufficient support. Pioneer spirit too strong to lean on network any longer.
No stranger to this depression - time to think about packing up and running scared from one's inadequate reflection.
The others can decide how to carve up resources for guns, butter, plows, diamond tiaras, tire rims and gourmet food.
Decked Out
In need/want of conversation, one turns to one's thoughts. When thoughts won't do, a hobby or book. When neither will do, one's own words. If none suffice, then what?
The flavours of silent contemplation are plentiful... when one has cultivated the luxury of patience and insight to train one's tastes for subtleties.
Helping An Unemployed Friend
A friend has invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in training to start a blade sharpening service. His website is pretty basic but says most of what he does (minus pricing):
http://www.sharpenitnow.com
If you live in the north Alabama area and have dull, nicked or nonstraight blades on your cutting device, give Rich's place - Hosner Sharpening Service - a try. He'd appreciate it.
http://www.sharpenitnow.com
If you live in the north Alabama area and have dull, nicked or nonstraight blades on your cutting device, give Rich's place - Hosner Sharpening Service - a try. He'd appreciate it.
Personality Interference
I apologise to anyone reading this blog for its major storyline. I have let my personality, with opinions that are often cynical (due to part of me still feeling like an unwanted, unloved, undesired social outcast [the small child punished out of proportion to the misbehaviour]), overshadow the story here.
My goal is to project every moment into the future/present/past to see the possibilities and predict positive/negative consequences, always expecting the positive but prepared for the negative.
Sometimes, I let my personal desires and feelings come first. In a blog telling the story of our species, I respect the rights of all of us to shine forth in this space, regardless (or irregardless, if you prefer) of my opinions, no matter whether they're positive or negative.
My Boy Scout and Navy officer training revealed to me a long time ago that a true leader listens to others and carries out plans that include the best of what the group has to offer, issuing advice for rechannelling opinions that do not serve the interests of the whole group but may help individuals or subgroups immensely. I forgive myself for deviating from that training and commend myself for getting back on track.
As I/you can see, selflessness is not the easiest trait of mine to display. Time to slow myself down, calm the small child in me, take myself out of the story again, and talk about you.
My goal is to project every moment into the future/present/past to see the possibilities and predict positive/negative consequences, always expecting the positive but prepared for the negative.
Sometimes, I let my personal desires and feelings come first. In a blog telling the story of our species, I respect the rights of all of us to shine forth in this space, regardless (or irregardless, if you prefer) of my opinions, no matter whether they're positive or negative.
My Boy Scout and Navy officer training revealed to me a long time ago that a true leader listens to others and carries out plans that include the best of what the group has to offer, issuing advice for rechannelling opinions that do not serve the interests of the whole group but may help individuals or subgroups immensely. I forgive myself for deviating from that training and commend myself for getting back on track.
As I/you can see, selflessness is not the easiest trait of mine to display. Time to slow myself down, calm the small child in me, take myself out of the story again, and talk about you.
2010-07-20
In Youth News
Today, the Children's Committee to Abolish Political Bias proclaimed 2011 the Year of Interplanetary Citizenship.
Not to be outmarketed by their competitors, major retailers and rival consumer product manufacturers joined in the proclamation.
Adult groups, like research foundations and thinktanks, banded together to devise a Solar System Constitution as well as other legally-binding documents to provide validity to those who have already declared their preference for interplanetary rather than antiquated national citizenship.
Countries with active or planned space ports announced that space port property officially belonged to the Interplanetary Consortium and was subject only to the laws, rules and regulations of the Consortium.
Several independently wealthy citizens of countries around the world released a joint statement that their land holdings were now officially consular property of the Interplanetary Consortium and thus had diplomatic immunity on Earth. They listed strategic locations where those seeking political asylum could live safely, secured from taxation or persecution by any country on the planet.
The UN Security Council went into emergency, closed-door sessions.
Analysts estimated that upwards of 40 percent of the world's wealth and 25 percent of the global population had been committed to an organisation which had not existed the day before.
In homes everywhere, parents quizzed their children where and when they had first heard of the Interplanetary Consortium or international citizenship.
Many children pointed back at their parents' love of utopian romance and scifi stories, slowly explaining to the clueless adults about the spread of instant-on technology and the power of one virtual mind that the younger generation had become, including many of the world's least-known youngest richest people who did not want their wealth in the hands of risky investors, unlike their poor, unemployed parents who had been taken for a ride and fleeced by Wall Street, with more debt piled on them by Washington.
Security firms came forward with their balance sheets showing ownership of vast sums of debt from many prominent countries that had been converted to ownership of those countries' military units, quietly being reorganised (based on corporate rather government bureaucratic procedures) and fully operational to protect the interests of the Interplanetary Consortium by the start of 2011.
Scientists on Anarctica sent a text message that the whole continent was, by default of belonging to no country, automatically part of the Interplanetary Consortium.
The WTO announced trade negotiations would begin immediately. Myanmar and North Korea recognised the IC's official status as a galactic political entity.
Not to be outmarketed by their competitors, major retailers and rival consumer product manufacturers joined in the proclamation.
Adult groups, like research foundations and thinktanks, banded together to devise a Solar System Constitution as well as other legally-binding documents to provide validity to those who have already declared their preference for interplanetary rather than antiquated national citizenship.
Countries with active or planned space ports announced that space port property officially belonged to the Interplanetary Consortium and was subject only to the laws, rules and regulations of the Consortium.
Several independently wealthy citizens of countries around the world released a joint statement that their land holdings were now officially consular property of the Interplanetary Consortium and thus had diplomatic immunity on Earth. They listed strategic locations where those seeking political asylum could live safely, secured from taxation or persecution by any country on the planet.
The UN Security Council went into emergency, closed-door sessions.
Analysts estimated that upwards of 40 percent of the world's wealth and 25 percent of the global population had been committed to an organisation which had not existed the day before.
In homes everywhere, parents quizzed their children where and when they had first heard of the Interplanetary Consortium or international citizenship.
Many children pointed back at their parents' love of utopian romance and scifi stories, slowly explaining to the clueless adults about the spread of instant-on technology and the power of one virtual mind that the younger generation had become, including many of the world's least-known youngest richest people who did not want their wealth in the hands of risky investors, unlike their poor, unemployed parents who had been taken for a ride and fleeced by Wall Street, with more debt piled on them by Washington.
Security firms came forward with their balance sheets showing ownership of vast sums of debt from many prominent countries that had been converted to ownership of those countries' military units, quietly being reorganised (based on corporate rather government bureaucratic procedures) and fully operational to protect the interests of the Interplanetary Consortium by the start of 2011.
Scientists on Anarctica sent a text message that the whole continent was, by default of belonging to no country, automatically part of the Interplanetary Consortium.
The WTO announced trade negotiations would begin immediately. Myanmar and North Korea recognised the IC's official status as a galactic political entity.
When The Money's Gone
In this nonfiction-within-a-fiction, the main character struggles to distinguish self from nonself, past truth from future truth and multiple storylines from the only one storyline.
Bird talk leads to tree insect talk blocking out road traffic hiding the silent speech of the planet, not a single word spoken.
Where to store one's visibly invisible body while gathering secret information publicly?
In a political system protecting free speech, is a nondisclosure agreement legal? No. All belongs to all, Apple.
Free enterprise prevails. You'll see.
Oil drilling companies, in this fictional world, would, like all other environmentally compliant firms, maintain live update websites broadcasting their ongoing work so citizens could see at a glance who is skirting the law and threatening the population at large.
Union Carbide might regain its goodwill by sponsoring a conference to set standardised industrial process update software guidelines to drive ingenuity sold to China/India in revolutionising the transparent green movement.
Imagine websites protected by law that let workers air their grievances and concerns about safety violations. Or international laws that protected global citizens' desire to create and maintain 'wikileaks' type websites for the benefit of the whole species.
When the species counts protection of itself within its ecosystem(s) over artificial barriers of commerce and tribal war, your children's freedom to promote the best aspects of your subcultures is preserved indefinitely.
Hard work, but notice that many species migrate over thousands of miles, some generations not living to see the whole journey. Such is our species' path ahead.
The Scissorser's Apparatus
To my parents do I owe my life. To them and the subcultures around them do I owe the extensions of my personality.
Every person alive and dead made me who I continue to be.
My life is only one person, full of physical abilities I rarely test.
I depend on the sanitation crew to collect my garbage and compress it with the garbage of others to take up less space in a growing landfill.
From Disney to the NRA and DAR to the Rainbow Coalition and SIGGraph, "I" is you.
Every subculture is my family. Listen carefully and hear we are one. Treat everyone like family, free to share opinions and accept criticism in equal measure. What we do or say to one, we do to each other.
Thus ends today's lesson to self!
2010-07-19
Mellow Cello Jazz Jello
She turned to her daughter. "That box, there."
The daughter reached over her mother's wheelchair and pulled a box of corn muffin mix off the store shelf. "This one, Ma?"
"That's right."
"What else do you need?"
'What else?' she thought, the constant back pain throbbing dully. "Are you sure you want to cook for me?"
"Mama, you raised all of us yourself. It's time we took care of you for a while."
"But I'm an old woman. You have things to do." She shrunk into her sweater to feel warmer as they passed down the freezer aisle.
"Mama, there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doin'."
The mother looked at the new types of frozen food she'd never seen before. 'If only I could afford a freezer of my own.'
"Mama, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just some old memories running their course through my mind. You never knew my oldest brother. He was a strong man. He could lift anything and outrun anyone. He's been gone a long time and yet I can still see him in my mind like he's right here in front of us... like he's just going to appear around the corner like he used to..."
"Mama."
"Uh-huh?"
"He died seventy years ago."
"Is that so? How old does that make me?"
"Don't you know, Mama?"
"Can't say as I do."
"Do you know who's president?"
"I sure do. The nicest looking young man. You think he'd be interested in you?"
"Mama, I'm married."
"Does marriage mean anything anymore? It sure doesn't seem like it."
"Mama, what else can I fix you for supper?"
"Don't fix me supper. You just send me home with the ingredients and I'll make my own meal."
"Mama, you can't cook. Besides, you're living with me now."
"I am? How long has that been going on?"
"Mama, you've been with us almost ten years."
"Ten years? Ten years? Why, just last week you came over and visited me at my house."
"No, Mama. That was my sister. She came and visited us for the weekend."
"Ten years... ten years? Well, at least I have my health!"
"Yes, Mama. Mama, why don't you tell me more about your oldest brother?"
"Oh, your uncle. He was smart. They say he knew his alphabet when he was two. Of course, I wasn't alive then but everybody said it. He could repair cars. He could sew clothes. He knew how to cook but he never let on unless he was the only one well enough to cook. Did you know he could shoot a rabbit across the yard with one eye closed and the other one blindfolded?"
"No, Mama. You never told me that one."
"And he loved to sing and dance. Of course, dancing wasn't allowed at home, your grandparents were sure about that. They broke many a switch across our backsides teaching us about what not to do like dancing, chewing tobacco, drinking and swearing. Not that we did much of that.
"No, we were pretty good children but even good children make mistakes once in a while."
"Yes, Mama."
"Not you. I never had any trouble with you."
"No, Mama."
"Your uncle was a sight for sore eyes. He'd dance around us little babies to stop our crying. Later, when word of war got out, he told us that although we were his most precious treasures, he had to volunteer to fight against hatred."
"Do you remember the war, Mama?"
"Of course I do. We sewed extra clothes, made meal packages and rationed just like everybody else. That was before your uncle died."
"What did he die of, Mama?"
"Why don't you get us some fresh apples? We never had apples this time of year growing up. Tomatoes and melons, but no apples."
"Yes, Mama. But what about my uncle?"
"Your uncle? Oh, he was a mess sometimes. Did I tell you he volunteered for the army of some other country?"
"No, Mama."
"He got some idea in his head that our army wouldn't send him to war so he snuck out one night and disappeared."
"You mean he joined our army and quit?"
"That's right. They accused him of being a deserter. But of course, we knew better. Your uncle was too smart for his own good."
"Mama, you want some ice cream?"
"Fresh, homemade ice cream...mmm-mm. Don't forget a box of rock salt."
The daughter grabbed a carton of ice cream out of the freezer.
"How brave was your brother, Mama?"
"How brave? Why, haven't I shown you the newspaper clippings of his bravery?"
"No, Mama."
"Your uncle fought in two big battles, receiving medals for high honourable deeds. They say he saved several dozen lives."
"That's amazing, Mama."
"It sure is. Of course, that was before he was to be sent back home."
"Before?"
"Yes. When our army got word of his actions with the other army, they got very angry. Angrier at him, I think, than at the enemy!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes, it was. They locked up your uncle in the jail of that foreign country and that's where he died. Died while waiting to be sent home."
"He died?"
"Yes."
"Did they tell you what he died of?"
"They sure did. He died in the worst way possible, from enemy attack. You know if he wasn't in that jail he would have fought the enemy himself and driven them back."
"Yes, Mama."
"I reckon I'll see your uncle again one day. You think he'll be wearing his uniform?"
"Which one?"
"Which one? Oh, I see what you mean. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter, does it?"
"No, Mama."
"You can take me back to my house now. I love you - you're my favourite - but I'm tired of wandering this store with you while you do your shopping."
"I love you, too, Mama. Let me finish paying for my groceries and I'll take you home."
"You ever think about having children of your own?"
"Yes, Mama. I did. They're all grown up and moved out. In fact, you've got a great-grandchild waiting for you at home."
"I do? When did that happen?"
"She's been with us for a few years now, after her mother passed away."
"Her mother? You mean your daughter?"
"That's right, Mama. Let's get to the car and I can tell you more about it."
"How is it that I've missed all these family changes?"
The mother reached out her robotic replacement arm and gripped the synthetic skin of the artificial life-sized daughter who had taken the mother shopping and now helped the mother into the autoguide transportation system.
Normally, the artificial lifeform (usually resembling close family or friends; in this case, the daughter) was "naturally" aged to simulate a companion growing older. For clients who had severely deteriorated memory sets or were unable to form new memories, the same lifeform (the daughter) stayed with the client and was repaired or swapped out and updated overnight.
The daughter belted the mother into the passenger seat, put the food in the rear section of the vehicle and stepped into the "driver" seat, plugging herself into the charging system for the ride back to "home."
The real daughter was at home playing with her grandchild, sharing new memories as long as she could.
Having chosen to let her body and mind gradually fade with time, the daughter knew from her genetic heritage and mother's condition that soon she could form no new memories of her own and someone in the family would buy her an artificial companion to resemble one of them.
Even though her living will specified no artificial longterm respiratory or pulmonary care, she looked forward to receiving the kind, gentle, constant attention an artificial companion could provide, freeing the active family members to focus on the younger generation and visit with her when the companion "felt" she was in a receptive mood.
If her husband was still alive, he would have insisted on staying with her as long as he was healthy enough to take care of her so, as heartbreaking as it was to lose him at his age in the new war, she accepted her loss of him, deciding not to let the army recreate him as a companion for her while she still had new memories to form.
Sure, some of her friends' companions were almost better than the original spouses, free of mood swings and always available to meet her friends' needs, but there was something about the unpredictability of her husband's moods, mildly varying as they were, that made her smile and enjoy sharing those memories with her granddaughter.
At least, she assumed it was her real granddaughter. These days, one could never tell, the next generation of companions better able to duplicate people's intricate behaviour patterns and learn new ones to provide small, slightly perceptible changes as needed.
The daughter reached over her mother's wheelchair and pulled a box of corn muffin mix off the store shelf. "This one, Ma?"
"That's right."
"What else do you need?"
'What else?' she thought, the constant back pain throbbing dully. "Are you sure you want to cook for me?"
"Mama, you raised all of us yourself. It's time we took care of you for a while."
"But I'm an old woman. You have things to do." She shrunk into her sweater to feel warmer as they passed down the freezer aisle.
"Mama, there's nothing in the world I'd rather be doin'."
The mother looked at the new types of frozen food she'd never seen before. 'If only I could afford a freezer of my own.'
"Mama, are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just some old memories running their course through my mind. You never knew my oldest brother. He was a strong man. He could lift anything and outrun anyone. He's been gone a long time and yet I can still see him in my mind like he's right here in front of us... like he's just going to appear around the corner like he used to..."
"Mama."
"Uh-huh?"
"He died seventy years ago."
"Is that so? How old does that make me?"
"Don't you know, Mama?"
"Can't say as I do."
"Do you know who's president?"
"I sure do. The nicest looking young man. You think he'd be interested in you?"
"Mama, I'm married."
"Does marriage mean anything anymore? It sure doesn't seem like it."
"Mama, what else can I fix you for supper?"
"Don't fix me supper. You just send me home with the ingredients and I'll make my own meal."
"Mama, you can't cook. Besides, you're living with me now."
"I am? How long has that been going on?"
"Mama, you've been with us almost ten years."
"Ten years? Ten years? Why, just last week you came over and visited me at my house."
"No, Mama. That was my sister. She came and visited us for the weekend."
"Ten years... ten years? Well, at least I have my health!"
"Yes, Mama. Mama, why don't you tell me more about your oldest brother?"
"Oh, your uncle. He was smart. They say he knew his alphabet when he was two. Of course, I wasn't alive then but everybody said it. He could repair cars. He could sew clothes. He knew how to cook but he never let on unless he was the only one well enough to cook. Did you know he could shoot a rabbit across the yard with one eye closed and the other one blindfolded?"
"No, Mama. You never told me that one."
"And he loved to sing and dance. Of course, dancing wasn't allowed at home, your grandparents were sure about that. They broke many a switch across our backsides teaching us about what not to do like dancing, chewing tobacco, drinking and swearing. Not that we did much of that.
"No, we were pretty good children but even good children make mistakes once in a while."
"Yes, Mama."
"Not you. I never had any trouble with you."
"No, Mama."
"Your uncle was a sight for sore eyes. He'd dance around us little babies to stop our crying. Later, when word of war got out, he told us that although we were his most precious treasures, he had to volunteer to fight against hatred."
"Do you remember the war, Mama?"
"Of course I do. We sewed extra clothes, made meal packages and rationed just like everybody else. That was before your uncle died."
"What did he die of, Mama?"
"Why don't you get us some fresh apples? We never had apples this time of year growing up. Tomatoes and melons, but no apples."
"Yes, Mama. But what about my uncle?"
"Your uncle? Oh, he was a mess sometimes. Did I tell you he volunteered for the army of some other country?"
"No, Mama."
"He got some idea in his head that our army wouldn't send him to war so he snuck out one night and disappeared."
"You mean he joined our army and quit?"
"That's right. They accused him of being a deserter. But of course, we knew better. Your uncle was too smart for his own good."
"Mama, you want some ice cream?"
"Fresh, homemade ice cream...mmm-mm. Don't forget a box of rock salt."
The daughter grabbed a carton of ice cream out of the freezer.
"How brave was your brother, Mama?"
"How brave? Why, haven't I shown you the newspaper clippings of his bravery?"
"No, Mama."
"Your uncle fought in two big battles, receiving medals for high honourable deeds. They say he saved several dozen lives."
"That's amazing, Mama."
"It sure is. Of course, that was before he was to be sent back home."
"Before?"
"Yes. When our army got word of his actions with the other army, they got very angry. Angrier at him, I think, than at the enemy!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes, it was. They locked up your uncle in the jail of that foreign country and that's where he died. Died while waiting to be sent home."
"He died?"
"Yes."
"Did they tell you what he died of?"
"They sure did. He died in the worst way possible, from enemy attack. You know if he wasn't in that jail he would have fought the enemy himself and driven them back."
"Yes, Mama."
"I reckon I'll see your uncle again one day. You think he'll be wearing his uniform?"
"Which one?"
"Which one? Oh, I see what you mean. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter, does it?"
"No, Mama."
"You can take me back to my house now. I love you - you're my favourite - but I'm tired of wandering this store with you while you do your shopping."
"I love you, too, Mama. Let me finish paying for my groceries and I'll take you home."
"You ever think about having children of your own?"
"Yes, Mama. I did. They're all grown up and moved out. In fact, you've got a great-grandchild waiting for you at home."
"I do? When did that happen?"
"She's been with us for a few years now, after her mother passed away."
"Her mother? You mean your daughter?"
"That's right, Mama. Let's get to the car and I can tell you more about it."
"How is it that I've missed all these family changes?"
The mother reached out her robotic replacement arm and gripped the synthetic skin of the artificial life-sized daughter who had taken the mother shopping and now helped the mother into the autoguide transportation system.
Normally, the artificial lifeform (usually resembling close family or friends; in this case, the daughter) was "naturally" aged to simulate a companion growing older. For clients who had severely deteriorated memory sets or were unable to form new memories, the same lifeform (the daughter) stayed with the client and was repaired or swapped out and updated overnight.
The daughter belted the mother into the passenger seat, put the food in the rear section of the vehicle and stepped into the "driver" seat, plugging herself into the charging system for the ride back to "home."
The real daughter was at home playing with her grandchild, sharing new memories as long as she could.
Having chosen to let her body and mind gradually fade with time, the daughter knew from her genetic heritage and mother's condition that soon she could form no new memories of her own and someone in the family would buy her an artificial companion to resemble one of them.
Even though her living will specified no artificial longterm respiratory or pulmonary care, she looked forward to receiving the kind, gentle, constant attention an artificial companion could provide, freeing the active family members to focus on the younger generation and visit with her when the companion "felt" she was in a receptive mood.
If her husband was still alive, he would have insisted on staying with her as long as he was healthy enough to take care of her so, as heartbreaking as it was to lose him at his age in the new war, she accepted her loss of him, deciding not to let the army recreate him as a companion for her while she still had new memories to form.
Sure, some of her friends' companions were almost better than the original spouses, free of mood swings and always available to meet her friends' needs, but there was something about the unpredictability of her husband's moods, mildly varying as they were, that made her smile and enjoy sharing those memories with her granddaughter.
At least, she assumed it was her real granddaughter. These days, one could never tell, the next generation of companions better able to duplicate people's intricate behaviour patterns and learn new ones to provide small, slightly perceptible changes as needed.
Quick note
LJ, MJ was the skybound hoops hero of my time - the ultimate humble team player. Can you walk in his team's championship trophies' shadows? Oh, guess you are. Show us your teammates' rings and we'll believe you're more than a lone wolf superstar hungry for personal attention.
Pillow Fight
How do you tighten security and provide more freedom?
By not announcing what you're not doing to see what those who react will create in absence of something to respond to.
Remember, think ten steps forward AND ten steps backward.
Then you'll understand that today's narrative was written to address events 50 years from now, which trigger messages designed for the next century's small steps in the overall process starting after that.
Small minds build monuments in their own names. Networks support you, not the other way around.
Ready to put this narrative of our lives on a new track. Let's talk about the fun part of the future.
The World's [-]est
More books in the queue (from the Booklegger used book store):
1. Education of a Wandering Man, a memoir by Louis L'Amour
2. Sean: an intimate memoir of Sean O'Casey, by Eileen O'Casey
3. A Writer's Legacy, by Mario Vargas Llosa
4. Rickenbacker: an autobiography, by Edward V. Rickenbacker
Some networks operate autonomously. Some require high maintenance and manual input.
Today, while searching the network for autonomous nodes to activate, I encountered a young salesperson at HHGregg, whose future as a coordinating center point of a strategic subnetwork was already in play, although he will know this years from now in hindsight.
Andrew at Chick Fil-A is in the neighbouring subnetwork, soon tied to Gigaparts and Best Buy.
An ancient tribe, adept at permanent whispering meditation, handed me the names of the sheriff/police department employees who deserve extradepartmental regard for diligence in their duties. They passed the BIST protocol test today.
My Guatemalan friends have cut out the middlemen and improved public educational standards via Nothing But Noodles distro list nodes. They say Venezuelan petrol is watered down? Chavez better fix that, then.
Thanks to a product placement agent for nonprofit income advice - maybe later. Time to browse Amazon's shelves!
2010-07-18
Status Quota
Natural sleepiness washes over me like marshmallows stufffed in terry cloth.
I flipped open the Book of the Future. I haven't shown the E-Brain what I saw.
If we can train people to more closely read body language, can we train ourselves to taste bad/toxic chemicals leaching from manufactured containers and artificially-flavoured foods?
"Modern" science requires new ways to live naturally.
We have no biologically isolated control subcultures against which we can compare systemic changes. The air we breathe is not free from industrial processes.
Political decisions are not made in a vacuum.
The Solar System Space Consortium awards Interplanetary Citizenship to all space travelers (i.e., astro/taiko/cosmonauts), no Earth country of origin required. Got your ticket booked yet?
Perjorative Permian Percentiles
Thanks to Leela Dahl of raw power bar; Tia, Moby, and Brandon of Monaco; Rod Harris and family; my sister in-law for dinner; my wife for freezing local corn and beans (with a little help from me).
In this moment, choices: read; sit with cats and watch TV; nap; blog; take a walk; roll the garbage receptacle to the street curb; think; lift weights; study prototyping kit; plan the impossible with a ridiculous schedule.
Stern Advice
A new friend asked me to comment on the recent PR-generated news about a professional athlete. My friend is half my age, still feeling his youthful athletic self in a body no longer involved in team sports.
I remember what is was like to be 24. I married at that age and found local amateur leagues in which to stretch out my dreams of staying young, virile and single - football, volleyball, bowling. I also played horseshoes, darts, basketball and badminton with family and friends.
Our athletic years peak and wane. Every generation lays claim to having the greatest athletes who ever starred in their professional sport.
My generation has few, if any, active professional athletes at their peak.
Thus, in private conversation I'll comment about today's sport news concerning specific "gifted" athletes, and let the younger generation(s) decide who's the best ever representing their age group(s) [influenced as they are by popular news stories and demographically-targeted PR campaigns].
Sometimes, old age and wisdom meet each other cordially, leading to greater insight into one's perception of selflessness.
When Words Are Too Much
[Self reflection - not intended for general consumption]
Losing one's mind or, rather, having one's thought set radically altered from its "natural" progression, and then, while pretending to be the same person as before, when one knows there is no such thing as the same, only the contemporary feeling/expression of sameness...
...strong memories of getting beaten with a leather belt until one learned to pass out to turn off the unfathomable pain...
...getting drunk in a foreign land to shut off the contradictory voices/opinions in one's thoughts...
...unable to quench one's thirsting desire for what one has established as unobtainable...
...when one has more than one needs and less than one wants...
...knowing the truth is deeper than any clever, cynical, sarcastic, satirical humourous insight provides, and yet still not serious...
...lost and found...
...vulnerable and invincible...
...stuck on a boundaryless, not boundless, island...
...a misfit and well-behaved...
...a childless child surrounded by the eclectic normalities of Family Land...
...cold, lifeless, with no desire to desire to devise desire of any type...
...sensing the wordless future where none of these expressions matter or make any sense...
...at the same time, every bit of this matters more than one can express!
Serving as an example of one's self to oneself of what one can be and what not to be any longer.
Changing and staying the same at the same time, when the "same time" doesn't exist.
Freeing one's species from the constrictions of thoughts of the past while actively redrawing restrictions that act like guideposts, all in the name of narrative.
What's the matter with antimatter when just a little more matter mattered? When one sees how one is manipulated willingly and returns the action kindly in kind (also known as socialising - a basic case of physics case studies).
2010-07-17
Captain, will I live to see Montana?
A slew of thanks for you swabbies: Jesse, Scott and Stephanie at Publix (with a special mention to their hardworking managers); the full- and part-time farmers at the Madison County Farmers Market (great fresh veggies and baked goods); greeters/cashiers (like Katelyn/Katelyn), cooks, and servers at Blue Plate Cafe (good luck, Erin, in your upcoming nursing career); Isoms orchard crew; Big Cove Farmers Market (fantastic fresh grain-fed beef); Billy, Joey, Karen and Megan at Walmart (as well as the mysterious nonshopping mystery shopper (wink-wink)).
2010-07-16
The Old Wooden Cupboard
A young person asked me the purpose of the story about the couple who went skinny dipping. I looked back at the blog entry and see I didn't make myself plainly understood.
The point of posting the story was to illustrate the effect of a court decision that ruled profanity banning on public airwaves unconstitutional, thus blurring the line between adult and family-friendly fare.
The subculture matrix in one country is complex, influenced by subcultures of other countries/cultures.
Wishing subcultures away doesn't work. Just like wishing the corner cupboard would dust itself doesn't work.
I truly believe all seven billion of us, even those dynamically opposed to one another, will get us to the next great phase in our species' history.
As I've said before, feel free to feel comfortable living within your subculture.
My goal is to find those who create intolerable conditions and do what I can to rectify the situation. The end does not justify the means so my associates and I carefully consider the consequences before we act. We'll often need your help.
We may need some of you to step out of your comfort zone once in a while, think outside the box, that sort of thing.
This blog serves as a public place to warn the intolerant ones of our pending action. If they mend their ways before we show up, all the better. If not...well, as I've also said, states of energy are states of energy.
One set of states serves our purposes as well as another - the team can reconfigure states of energy on the fly as needed - one need not resemble a person or persons to get the task completed effectively.
In the big scheme, our species plays a small but significantly crucial part.
We can't [yet] move planets but we can move people and our network of interdependent species to other planetary bodies.
Stay focused on the big picture and the daily concerns of ours fade in comparison.
Are you preparing your offspring to expect their children's children's children to implement the major part of the plan you barely started in your lifetime and won't live to see completed?
No matter what we're doing, the children are our only real responsibility, protecting and nurturing them, that is. Fully understanding what that means will transform your life and make you want to wipe out intolerance, too.
Whilst Away Whittling
Because we socialise, we live for stimuli.
Bumblebees and honey bees are dying by the whole hive. Much speculation hovers around the causes, including weak immune systems, mites and mobile phone tower radiation. Three bumblebee species are recently extinct in the UK.
Recent unrest in Madagascar was raised as news at a technology conference, of all places (TED?).
Spain celebrates its World Cup victory and golf continues its competition with bike racing in France for viewers of sports telly.
Bombers don't stop their random attacks.
Did any of the above paragraphs interest you? Are you engaging conversation with friends and family about these topical subjects?
Seven billion specialists have limited time to devote to the rest of their species' specialties, let alone their own.
Generalists like me still have favourite interests that tend to draw our attention quicker than others.
Time is money - how and where you dedicate your spare time that you purposefully set aside (like profit-sharing) makes a world of difference.
If enough people are devoted to your favourite charity, rotate your interest to a new part of society you know little about. The insight you provide with your fresh set of eyes will enrich all our lives!
Break-in Technology
A colleague of mine, after watching Jennifer Love Hewitt and then later Tracy Morgan on Jay Leno (after seeing snippets of the ESPY awards), told me about a "sneak preview" she got when she accidentally found herself inside the highly-guarded development lab of a major retailer.
Allegedly, the retailer is working on in-store product displays (for inexpensive items) and packaging (for expensive products) that can instantly post consumer reviews. The reviews are restricted to ones tied to a special code hidden inside the product packaging, and not just ones pulled from social media sites.
The colleague was unable to get a sample, but from her observations under disguise as a night janitor, she expertly opins that an RFID tag tied to a type of e-ink display is in the works.
I posted a request on the MORTIE network for confirmation and found another night janitor colleague who says a competitor to the major retailer is relying on the ubiquitous ownership of 3G phones, and asking its suppliers to simply post a link (to a consumer review section of the retailer's website) on its product packaging with an instruction to type in the barcode number to go straight to the product review.
Many colleagues responded that most retailers and merchandise manufacturers were using the simple product label, "find us on [name your favourite social media sites]", for viral adverts.
The crowdsourced seal of approval, eh? No more newspaper/magazine editors/owners as gatekeepers for the ol' "fail the newspaper test"?
Ya know, matter of factly, kinda hard for me to use this Kindle 2 as a dropcloth for projects at the dinner table. The formats for the Times, they are a'changing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
