Word of the day: sulphur. Pass it on.
Pay close attention to the spelling - it makes a significant difference this time.
And Chahozaschic, do it right this time, will you?!
2010-05-31
A Great Woman Gone
Valda Nadine Fish, the mother of one of my schoolmates, died recently. I called her Mrs. Francis but many called her Valda or Val. She taught me that any person's beliefs other than yours was "bullshit" and thus we should follow our own paths, not paths others want us to take (if only I had taken her advice more often!). Valda smoked cigars, invited heated (but civil) conversations and told funny stories about her life away from her "home" community.
Growing up, I felt like a global traveler because of the tales that Valda and Robert shared - they opened my eyes to the world at large.
They lived the life they wanted, showing me the contrast between their adulthood spent in nonmilitary government service overseas and the adulthood of my family spent in military government service overseas.
We serve our species in many ways, all of them important.
Valda/Mrs. Francis, I raise a glass of domestic red wine in memory of you!
KINGSPORT — Valda Nadine Fish, passed away at Holston Manor Nursing Home on Thursday (May 27, 2010) after a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s.
Growing up, I felt like a global traveler because of the tales that Valda and Robert shared - they opened my eyes to the world at large.
They lived the life they wanted, showing me the contrast between their adulthood spent in nonmilitary government service overseas and the adulthood of my family spent in military government service overseas.
We serve our species in many ways, all of them important.
Valda/Mrs. Francis, I raise a glass of domestic red wine in memory of you!
KINGSPORT — Valda Nadine Fish, passed away at Holston Manor Nursing Home on Thursday (May 27, 2010) after a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s.
Val was born in Sullivan County on May 26, 1935, and graduated from Sullivan High School, in the class of 1953. She traveled extensively with her husband, Foreign Service Officer Robert Joseph Francis. The couple lived in Brazil, India, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, Ariz. They retired to Kingsport in the early 1970s, where they built a home construction business together.
She is preceded in death by husband, Robert J. Francis; a stepdaughter, Clair Richards (Huntsville, Ala.); brothers, Lloyd Fish and Merwyn Fish (both of Kingsport) and Sidney Fish (Rome City, Ind.); and her parents, Simon and Georgia Fish (Kingsport).
She is survived by a son, Joseph David Francis (Houston, Texas); stepson, Walton Francis (Fairfax, Va.); stepdaughter, Elinor Francis (Shushan, N.Y.); brother, Aubrey Fish (Kingsport); and a sister, Lyndall Hite (Kingsport); eight grandchildren.
The family wished to convey their deepest appreciation to caregiver Kay Kimbler for her years of service providing special comfort, love, and care for Val.
Private memorials will be held at a later date by the family in Kingsport and in Washington, D.C.
In lieu of flowers, the family request donations be sent to Alzheimer’s Association of Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, (207 N. Boone St., Johnson City, Tenn.), in Valda’s name or to a charity of your choice.
Serving the family of Valda Francis is Snyder’s Funeral Home of Gray, Tenn.
All Your Bass Lines Are Belong To Us
Do you challenge yourself to extrapolate a generalisation from familiar, local domestic tranquility?
Do you declare that your family and their friends are boring because you're a young person fresh out of university with an education in international relations and you're stuck with a summer internship in your nation's capital?
Have you just completed hiking 8% of the Appalachian Trail, close to finishing half the AT in segments?
Were you a restaurant cook who took a demotion from master chef to free up time to get an engineering degree while adopting four young children on a decreased salary?
Are you a bargain shopper, using the phone and the Internet to find holiday destinations, spending $200 for a two-bedroom condo on the beach to accommodate your family of six instead of $4000 for a house rental "near the beach"?
Do you own a military contracting business with which you hope to find a way to take competitive advantage of the poor handling of oil recovery in a body of water a few hours away? [Your version of "declaring war" on a global corporation: co-opting the corporation's intellectual property for your nation's use, a fair trade for the corporation ruining your nation's globally-recognised maritime zone.]
Do you carry a fishing rod in your car for THE moment when mayflies have risen and fish are so plentiful along the shoreline you think it's a stocked lake?
Do you travel around the world for leisure, business or what?
Do you know the official rules for the card game, Uno? Tournament or regular?
Are you five months pregnant and will never tell your child he was a "surprise"?
Do you buy only specialty beer or pack your megacooler with alcoholic water that some call American beer?
There are days when I want to be alone to carefully consider thoughts generated by the Book of the Future but find myself in a small crowd of people enjoying a holiday weekend with their powered watercraft, lakehouse, freshly-stained wooden dock and beef on the barbie.
Smile to make people think you're up to something. They have no idea what you're thinking about.
I'm a plain guy, with a smile on a face, who contemplates the universe because it's the only reality I have to deal with. I happen to live in this time period with a set of people who come and go and share a world history with me that we all know fairly well, overcoming assumptions (that have built myths and legends) through frank conversation.
I generate generalisations to anticipate the kinds of conclusions people might draw with limited information. From the generalisations, I look at the trends they'll create through socialisation. Then I take my time to decide if I'll participate.
After all, what's the rush?
Do you seek popularity (for yourself or in crowds) or truly desire to preserve your species and avoid wasting energy on frivolous expenditures that people you know buy in unison with everyone else?
Yes, I laugh at everything but I take every moment seriously because they're all I've got. I don't kid myself about the facts - material goods and socialisation are illusions that frame the moments.
There are days when I see life is replication and everything else is a waste of our time. Then I wake up from that illusion and put its life-optimisation mindset of the moment to use in another way.
Where are we going today? Do you want me to tell you? Aren't I supposed to be on a two-week holiday from all this?
From what I've been told, Iran and Egypt plan to take advantage of the Israeli "slaughter" of boat people to negotiate some minor treaties that rarely hit the major newswires. The Book of the Future points me to another area of life that I hadn't looked at in a long time and am not sure is relevant to this blog - shouldn't I stay focused on life in this near space of the galaxy and not concern myself with interactions between bodies we can't see from here are fluidly living and may not have influence on us for millions and millions of years?
I wanted a two-week break from science and science fiction sounding blog entries. I'm going to take it (minus today). No major contact with my species for a while - I want to wind down and listen to the vibrations of this planet I call home because it has so much more to tell me than when I pay attention to people's responses to my eternal grin.
Do you declare that your family and their friends are boring because you're a young person fresh out of university with an education in international relations and you're stuck with a summer internship in your nation's capital?
Have you just completed hiking 8% of the Appalachian Trail, close to finishing half the AT in segments?
Were you a restaurant cook who took a demotion from master chef to free up time to get an engineering degree while adopting four young children on a decreased salary?
Are you a bargain shopper, using the phone and the Internet to find holiday destinations, spending $200 for a two-bedroom condo on the beach to accommodate your family of six instead of $4000 for a house rental "near the beach"?
Do you own a military contracting business with which you hope to find a way to take competitive advantage of the poor handling of oil recovery in a body of water a few hours away? [Your version of "declaring war" on a global corporation: co-opting the corporation's intellectual property for your nation's use, a fair trade for the corporation ruining your nation's globally-recognised maritime zone.]
Do you carry a fishing rod in your car for THE moment when mayflies have risen and fish are so plentiful along the shoreline you think it's a stocked lake?
Do you travel around the world for leisure, business or what?
Do you know the official rules for the card game, Uno? Tournament or regular?
Are you five months pregnant and will never tell your child he was a "surprise"?
Do you buy only specialty beer or pack your megacooler with alcoholic water that some call American beer?
There are days when I want to be alone to carefully consider thoughts generated by the Book of the Future but find myself in a small crowd of people enjoying a holiday weekend with their powered watercraft, lakehouse, freshly-stained wooden dock and beef on the barbie.
Smile to make people think you're up to something. They have no idea what you're thinking about.
I'm a plain guy, with a smile on a face, who contemplates the universe because it's the only reality I have to deal with. I happen to live in this time period with a set of people who come and go and share a world history with me that we all know fairly well, overcoming assumptions (that have built myths and legends) through frank conversation.
I generate generalisations to anticipate the kinds of conclusions people might draw with limited information. From the generalisations, I look at the trends they'll create through socialisation. Then I take my time to decide if I'll participate.
After all, what's the rush?
Do you seek popularity (for yourself or in crowds) or truly desire to preserve your species and avoid wasting energy on frivolous expenditures that people you know buy in unison with everyone else?
Yes, I laugh at everything but I take every moment seriously because they're all I've got. I don't kid myself about the facts - material goods and socialisation are illusions that frame the moments.
There are days when I see life is replication and everything else is a waste of our time. Then I wake up from that illusion and put its life-optimisation mindset of the moment to use in another way.
Where are we going today? Do you want me to tell you? Aren't I supposed to be on a two-week holiday from all this?
From what I've been told, Iran and Egypt plan to take advantage of the Israeli "slaughter" of boat people to negotiate some minor treaties that rarely hit the major newswires. The Book of the Future points me to another area of life that I hadn't looked at in a long time and am not sure is relevant to this blog - shouldn't I stay focused on life in this near space of the galaxy and not concern myself with interactions between bodies we can't see from here are fluidly living and may not have influence on us for millions and millions of years?
I wanted a two-week break from science and science fiction sounding blog entries. I'm going to take it (minus today). No major contact with my species for a while - I want to wind down and listen to the vibrations of this planet I call home because it has so much more to tell me than when I pay attention to people's responses to my eternal grin.
2010-05-29
Tuesday's Affair: Publican Transformation To Snare a Larger Share
Because everyone is equal, every person gets a share. If "fair share" is what you're looking for, I can't tell.
I look for smiles. That's really all I've ever done. A smile is all I know from the faces of those around me.
I can't see a smile in your text or voice message, although I can imagine one.
At the same time, I...
This space is reserved for all voices, especially those of my species. That means sneers, growls, grunts, burps and coughs get equal coverage.
If the United States of America does not declare war on British Petroleum, then I question my national citizenship and will regret having become a temporary employee of the executive branch of the U.S. government. A local photo op showed President Obama, Governor Riley and Governor Jindal blabbering on in front of a stand of microphones, looking like the Three Hoarse Men of the Apocalypse - will the BP Gulf Oil Disaster be the lasting legacy they leave behind?
I may weigh the good with the bad in balanced measure but it doesn't mean I like it or have to take it.
You see, I still see the vast majority of unemployed people who wanted to belong to the working class but have been denied the opportunity to display their capabilities in exchange for labor credits.
One after another hit against the world of the working, nationality irrelevant.
It truly pains me to see our dependence on oil get rubbed in our faces so shamefully. First the Persian Gulf oil states contribute to terrorist networks that attack America and now this!
I will not buy petrol from a BP station for a very long time (alas, eventually my memory will fade and I'll forget the momentary anger that once fueled boycotts against other companies like Exxon).
I'm still waiting for the financial leaders who drove us over a cliff to get their one-way trip to a viewing of their life savings taken away.
I'm still waiting for a lot of changes that won't happen.
I'm glad we have fight cages and other ways to vent our anger (for those of us who have boiling-hot blood and quick tempers; the rest will find prayer and meditation to calm them in rough times).
The patterns show themselves to me and I choose to repeat them in one way or another.
Tonight, Gabby and Sherry kept us going at the Schnitzel Ranch. One fellow set a restaurant record for drinking three liters of Pilsner in just over 20 minutes. I stuck to a 0.3 liter sip of high gravity brew and a half-liter of Paulaner hefeweizen in a small boot.
A good ending to a day of replacing a garage door opener.
A quiet afternoon with Tanya and Debbie finishing up the local census count next to the pool tables at Carson's.
I do not recommend my life to anyone. Or rather, I enjoy my life too much to let others have mine!
There is merit in every life. Yours is yours and you should feel good to have a life, no matter what you do.
I am a quiet man, content with quiet moments reading eyes and watching smiles. We may sail the deep blue sea or climb rugged mountain peaks yet we are still us - at least two people making somewhat normal facial expressions to each other.
On the other hand, we may yell obscenities at each other during our viewing of a fiercely fought battle between two rivals on a playing field. Wear a Jeff Gordon jacket to a Dale Earnhardt, Jr., signing event and see what I mean. Will hooliganism find its way onto the World Cup stage in South Africa?
Some days I'm a good ol' boy in a pub and some days I'm a pious guy reading library books.
I have one life to see your faces and I'm enjoying every minute of it, whether you like it or not. :)
Bottom line: a sense of humour washes away the blood stains of yesterday's losses, if and when we choose to forget the pain and remember the smiles, instead.
I look for smiles. That's really all I've ever done. A smile is all I know from the faces of those around me.
I can't see a smile in your text or voice message, although I can imagine one.
At the same time, I...
This space is reserved for all voices, especially those of my species. That means sneers, growls, grunts, burps and coughs get equal coverage.
If the United States of America does not declare war on British Petroleum, then I question my national citizenship and will regret having become a temporary employee of the executive branch of the U.S. government. A local photo op showed President Obama, Governor Riley and Governor Jindal blabbering on in front of a stand of microphones, looking like the Three Hoarse Men of the Apocalypse - will the BP Gulf Oil Disaster be the lasting legacy they leave behind?
I may weigh the good with the bad in balanced measure but it doesn't mean I like it or have to take it.
You see, I still see the vast majority of unemployed people who wanted to belong to the working class but have been denied the opportunity to display their capabilities in exchange for labor credits.
One after another hit against the world of the working, nationality irrelevant.
It truly pains me to see our dependence on oil get rubbed in our faces so shamefully. First the Persian Gulf oil states contribute to terrorist networks that attack America and now this!
I will not buy petrol from a BP station for a very long time (alas, eventually my memory will fade and I'll forget the momentary anger that once fueled boycotts against other companies like Exxon).
I'm still waiting for the financial leaders who drove us over a cliff to get their one-way trip to a viewing of their life savings taken away.
I'm still waiting for a lot of changes that won't happen.
I'm glad we have fight cages and other ways to vent our anger (for those of us who have boiling-hot blood and quick tempers; the rest will find prayer and meditation to calm them in rough times).
The patterns show themselves to me and I choose to repeat them in one way or another.
Tonight, Gabby and Sherry kept us going at the Schnitzel Ranch. One fellow set a restaurant record for drinking three liters of Pilsner in just over 20 minutes. I stuck to a 0.3 liter sip of high gravity brew and a half-liter of Paulaner hefeweizen in a small boot.
A good ending to a day of replacing a garage door opener.
A quiet afternoon with Tanya and Debbie finishing up the local census count next to the pool tables at Carson's.
I do not recommend my life to anyone. Or rather, I enjoy my life too much to let others have mine!
There is merit in every life. Yours is yours and you should feel good to have a life, no matter what you do.
I am a quiet man, content with quiet moments reading eyes and watching smiles. We may sail the deep blue sea or climb rugged mountain peaks yet we are still us - at least two people making somewhat normal facial expressions to each other.
On the other hand, we may yell obscenities at each other during our viewing of a fiercely fought battle between two rivals on a playing field. Wear a Jeff Gordon jacket to a Dale Earnhardt, Jr., signing event and see what I mean. Will hooliganism find its way onto the World Cup stage in South Africa?
Some days I'm a good ol' boy in a pub and some days I'm a pious guy reading library books.
I have one life to see your faces and I'm enjoying every minute of it, whether you like it or not. :)
Bottom line: a sense of humour washes away the blood stains of yesterday's losses, if and when we choose to forget the pain and remember the smiles, instead.
2010-05-28
Lighten The Lighted Room With Lightning
Have you heard someone say, "That guy said he'd be happy when he's dead. No, he won't be happy. He'll just be dead."?
Pretending to be otherwise.
Do you know someone who has been hit by lightning?
Have you?
Today, I'm using a regular rhythm of writing to record not quite a preposterous event but one where I saw the end of my life flash before my eyes.
Let the euphemistic clichés fall where they may.
My wife asked me, if I had time this afternoon, to pick up two metal racks that hold scrapbook paper. The shopkeeper who sold my wife the racks is closing down her business, low sales and negative profit a direct consequence of poor access to the shop due to road construction.
At the shop, I looked up to see dark clouds quickly towering ominously (omnivorously?) overhead, with lightning bolts lighting up the space between sky and ground.
At the shop, I was carrying two metal racks, one at a time, from shop to automobile in electrically-charged air.
I imagined death by lightning strike.
I imagined a maimed body somewhat still alive after a lightning strike.
Hurriedly, I drove the back roads of the construction detour back to my domicile and unloaded the racks.
Afterward, I stood in the shelter of the garage and listened to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer. I stepped back into the garage a little.
I reimagined death and maiming.
I walked into the sunroom at the back of the house to more safely listen to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer.
I watched lightning strike the top of the house, bounce into the air and return to a set of black metal shelves a few feet in front of me, the lightning turning into a big electrical ball and the metal shelves making a loud popping sound like popcorn, firecrackers or the trailing edges of large fireworks.
Have you ever had lightning strike the ground in front of you?
Can you remember the smell immediately afterward, the rush of adrenaline pumping through you as one or two more close strikes exploded around you, making your lack of escape routes as plain to see as the beating heart in your ears reminding you of your near-death?
I AM STILL ALIVE! AM I? YES, I AM STILL ALIVE!
Did my hair stand on end? It felt like it did.
What else did I feel? I wish I could slow down the moment during and after the lightning strike, putting into words the compression of my life and quick run-through in a split-second of the last 30 minutes or hour of my life. It felt like I knew I was going to get struck by lightning if I didn't take normal, everyday precautions. It felt like a lot of things in that tiniest of exciting moments in my life. I could spend paragraphs listing the various thoughts and emotions that literally flashed in my eyes. I wanted to savour the moment for just that very reason.
However, after the intense feeling of being more than glad to be alive, I rationally realised my house had been struck by lightning.
I asked myself, "Should I go outside and look at any damage, especially fire?"
CRRRACK! BOOOOOM!
Maybe not.
Then torrential rain and the unlikely chance that fire would burn already-wet wood kept me in the house and searching for internal damage (of the house, not me).
I've compiled a list of nonworking electronic devices: a few surge-protected power strips, one nonsurge-protected power strip, a surge-protected UPS (uninterruptable power supply), a Blu-ray DVD player, a DVD recorder, a DVD/VCR combo, a cable television set-top box, a laptop computer power supply, a desktop computer (power supply?) and a garage door opener. Oh, and one electrical circuit in the house that's stopped working.
I'll have to survey the exteriour of the house with my wife tomorrow.
Will and Richard (who lost his home to a fire in January), folks at the local hardware store - Lowe's - helped us find a new garage door opener. Michelle and William at Cheeburger Cheeburger helped us calm down after an exciting evening of sorting out the damage. Wal-Mart sold us with new surge-protected power strips.
My guess is the lightning struck the satellite television receiving dish on the chimney and arced over to the cable television coax cable, burning out the RF receivers in many electronic units in the house. Why the DVD players don't work but the TVs do, I don't know.
The rest of the world appears to be in crisis (if you believe the news) and here I am worried about a few fossil fuel burners.
So much for a carefree staycation!
I've borrowed my wife's laptop computer power supply from her HP laptop (same voltage and amperage as my defunct one) to power my Compaq laptop so I could write this blog entry.
Tomorrow, you'll find me standing on a ladder replacing a garage door opener (3/4 HP chain drive - rrrrrrr!) in between finishing up the last of my census work and checking in the mirror to make sure I really am alive to be happy to be alive.
That's all the news that is new in this humble abode I call my stay-at-home, all-season holiday house. Time to return my wife's power supply and lumber into slumber. Time for sleep - I had my tumble - I'm not ready to rumble right now.
Pretending to be otherwise.
Do you know someone who has been hit by lightning?
Have you?
Today, I'm using a regular rhythm of writing to record not quite a preposterous event but one where I saw the end of my life flash before my eyes.
Let the euphemistic clichés fall where they may.
My wife asked me, if I had time this afternoon, to pick up two metal racks that hold scrapbook paper. The shopkeeper who sold my wife the racks is closing down her business, low sales and negative profit a direct consequence of poor access to the shop due to road construction.
At the shop, I looked up to see dark clouds quickly towering ominously (omnivorously?) overhead, with lightning bolts lighting up the space between sky and ground.
At the shop, I was carrying two metal racks, one at a time, from shop to automobile in electrically-charged air.
I imagined death by lightning strike.
I imagined a maimed body somewhat still alive after a lightning strike.
Hurriedly, I drove the back roads of the construction detour back to my domicile and unloaded the racks.
Afterward, I stood in the shelter of the garage and listened to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer. I stepped back into the garage a little.
I reimagined death and maiming.
I walked into the sunroom at the back of the house to more safely listen to the crack of lightning and boom of thunder getting closer and closer.
I watched lightning strike the top of the house, bounce into the air and return to a set of black metal shelves a few feet in front of me, the lightning turning into a big electrical ball and the metal shelves making a loud popping sound like popcorn, firecrackers or the trailing edges of large fireworks.
Have you ever had lightning strike the ground in front of you?
Can you remember the smell immediately afterward, the rush of adrenaline pumping through you as one or two more close strikes exploded around you, making your lack of escape routes as plain to see as the beating heart in your ears reminding you of your near-death?
I AM STILL ALIVE! AM I? YES, I AM STILL ALIVE!
Did my hair stand on end? It felt like it did.
What else did I feel? I wish I could slow down the moment during and after the lightning strike, putting into words the compression of my life and quick run-through in a split-second of the last 30 minutes or hour of my life. It felt like I knew I was going to get struck by lightning if I didn't take normal, everyday precautions. It felt like a lot of things in that tiniest of exciting moments in my life. I could spend paragraphs listing the various thoughts and emotions that literally flashed in my eyes. I wanted to savour the moment for just that very reason.
However, after the intense feeling of being more than glad to be alive, I rationally realised my house had been struck by lightning.
I asked myself, "Should I go outside and look at any damage, especially fire?"
CRRRACK! BOOOOOM!
Maybe not.
Then torrential rain and the unlikely chance that fire would burn already-wet wood kept me in the house and searching for internal damage (of the house, not me).
I've compiled a list of nonworking electronic devices: a few surge-protected power strips, one nonsurge-protected power strip, a surge-protected UPS (uninterruptable power supply), a Blu-ray DVD player, a DVD recorder, a DVD/VCR combo, a cable television set-top box, a laptop computer power supply, a desktop computer (power supply?) and a garage door opener. Oh, and one electrical circuit in the house that's stopped working.
I'll have to survey the exteriour of the house with my wife tomorrow.
Will and Richard (who lost his home to a fire in January), folks at the local hardware store - Lowe's - helped us find a new garage door opener. Michelle and William at Cheeburger Cheeburger helped us calm down after an exciting evening of sorting out the damage. Wal-Mart sold us with new surge-protected power strips.
My guess is the lightning struck the satellite television receiving dish on the chimney and arced over to the cable television coax cable, burning out the RF receivers in many electronic units in the house. Why the DVD players don't work but the TVs do, I don't know.
The rest of the world appears to be in crisis (if you believe the news) and here I am worried about a few fossil fuel burners.
So much for a carefree staycation!
I've borrowed my wife's laptop computer power supply from her HP laptop (same voltage and amperage as my defunct one) to power my Compaq laptop so I could write this blog entry.
Tomorrow, you'll find me standing on a ladder replacing a garage door opener (3/4 HP chain drive - rrrrrrr!) in between finishing up the last of my census work and checking in the mirror to make sure I really am alive to be happy to be alive.
That's all the news that is new in this humble abode I call my stay-at-home, all-season holiday house. Time to return my wife's power supply and lumber into slumber. Time for sleep - I had my tumble - I'm not ready to rumble right now.
It Takes An Idiot To Raze A Village
"So, Doctor, what was life like before the Revolution?"
"Ah, J'lel'smia, if you only knew..."
[cue up nostalgic music appropriate to the era]
"There I was, a young research scientist studying the shedding rate of skin cells, when I discovered a family of microscopic organisms that had not been described yet."
"You mean, that was the pivotal moment?"
"Oh, no. The moment you want me to describe exists in another place and time."
"Why don't you tell us about that one?"
"I could but I won't. Not yet. First, you need to understand what led me to start the Revolution."
"You started it?"
"Well, not I. I just found the clue to who and why."
"Go on."
"Do we need to take a break? You have a bead of sweat running down the center of your forehead."
"CUT!"
"Thank you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
[flurry of off-camera noises as people rush on stage to freshen makeup]
"Doctor, you were saying?"
"I'm an old-school kind of researcher. I still use paper notebooks on which I record my lab work. One day, while working with a synthetic patch of skin, I noticed pits appearing on the notebook beside me. Curious as to its cause, I cut a sample corner of paper and looked at it under a microscope."
"Is that when you..."
"No. I'll get to that in a few minutes. Anyway, under magnification, I could see tiny organisms liquefying and digesting the paper."
"Interesting."
"Yes, it was. I had a hunch that the synthetic skin parasites and the paper eaters were related so I ran a DNA analysis of them.
"Sure enough, the organisms were related. In fact, they were identical, nothing like I had ever seen or read about."
"Ah, then this IS the moment?"
"You're seeing where I'm going with this, aren't you?"
"Please proceed, Doctor."
"Thank you. I told an assistant to post electronic information about this new lifeform and see if anyone responded.
"As you're aware, I received a message from a group previously known as an international terrorist organisation. After their enemy had declared peace and promoted the terrorist leaders into high-level positions in the established government, the terrorists converted all their cash and weapons holdings into a top-notch biology research lab."
"Of course, Doctor."
"What no one saw then was the impact of my contact with them."
"We all know about the Revolution."
"Indeed. But few have dug into the details of the science involved."
"Until now...?"
"Yes, until now. Did you know that most of us are covered with artificial lifeforms?"
"Artificial?"
"Oh, I guess you call it nanotechnology, don't you?"
"Yes. I thought we all did."
"Not me. I'm old and my life perspective causes me to view life from an old person's vocabulary."
"But Doctor, you're the one who invented the Fountain of Youth genetic rejuvenation product line. How can you say you're old when your body is just as young and active as a twenty-year old?"
"J'lel'smia, you don't know the real reason for the Revolution. You see, I've invented the Fountain of Youth three times."
"Huh?"
"I know. It doesn't make sense. Have you noticed that all of us tend to get younger looking?"
"Well, of course. You nationalised your company for the sake of our species, giving everyone free use of rejuvenation."
"That's the thing, though. What you just said I don't actually remember doing. I found a set of my paper notebooks locked in a safe and they show a timeline that hasn't happened yet. Based on what I wrote in those notes, the Revolution is a repetitive cycle."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Doctor."
"Well, the artificial life, or nanotechnology, as you call it, was programmed to latch onto other life and replicate the other life's genetic information, running preprogrammed mutation estimation routines to determine the 'ideal' DNA of the other life. From there, the nanotechnology would begin replacing cells that had mutated outside an acceptable range of genetic changes."
"Doctor, you sound like you're quoting from a Fountain of Youth sales brochure."
"Perhaps I am. I don't spend enough time with the sales and marketing departments to know what they've produced. However, you're missing my point."
"I am? Are we not here to talk about the early days of your research and the moment you found the seeds of the Empire of the Perpetual Revolution?"
"Yes. But I'm trying to tell you why it is perpetual."
"Go on."
"Thank you. The nanotechnology has worked wonders on cell replication. When I and the former terrorists reversed the skin cell consuming organisms to replicate and regenerate skin cells, I tested our work on one of my notebooks. There, I saw something I thought impossible. The FoY...'Fountain of Youth' cells were converting some of the paper fibers back to tree seeds. According to the notes I've read the past few days from my locked-up lab notebooks, I quickly locked up some of my lab notebooks."
"I don't understand. You mean you hid your research from yourself?"
"You could say that, yes. More importantly, I found where we worked frantically to stop the spread of the nanotechnology but only partially succeeded."
"What do you mean, 'partially succeeded?'"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"The notebooks are gone."
"Gone?"
"Is there an echo in here? Yes, the artificial lifeforms have converted my notebooks to some form of their original constituent parts.
"I can only guess that the folly of FoY means that the nanotechnology tries to interpret the original condition of our brain cells and converts new memories into old ones."
"Doctor, what you are saying?"
"That's the point, J'lel'smia. I don't know exactly what I'm saying. I think the repair function of the FoY technology has no limits, or none that I can find. From dim memories, I recall discovering and rediscovering FoY a few, possibly three times. I've had conversations like this with people like you I don't know how many times."
"But, Doctor, that's a symptom of traveling the talk show network. Every guest feels that way after a while."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. We have a psychiatrist on staff who can help you with specialised medication, if you like. He's a bit eccentric, choosing to live in a plastic bubble, but he's very effective."
"Somehow, I think we've had this conversation before."
"Doctor, thank you for your time. The Revolution owes a deep debt of gratitude to you. We appreciate you entertaining us today with alternate theories about the start of the Revolution - you've always opened our eyes to new possibilities.
"Next on our show, a two-year old baby who claims to be over three-hundred years old."
"Ah, J'lel'smia, if you only knew..."
[cue up nostalgic music appropriate to the era]
"There I was, a young research scientist studying the shedding rate of skin cells, when I discovered a family of microscopic organisms that had not been described yet."
"You mean, that was the pivotal moment?"
"Oh, no. The moment you want me to describe exists in another place and time."
"Why don't you tell us about that one?"
"I could but I won't. Not yet. First, you need to understand what led me to start the Revolution."
"You started it?"
"Well, not I. I just found the clue to who and why."
"Go on."
"Do we need to take a break? You have a bead of sweat running down the center of your forehead."
"CUT!"
"Thank you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
[flurry of off-camera noises as people rush on stage to freshen makeup]
"Doctor, you were saying?"
"I'm an old-school kind of researcher. I still use paper notebooks on which I record my lab work. One day, while working with a synthetic patch of skin, I noticed pits appearing on the notebook beside me. Curious as to its cause, I cut a sample corner of paper and looked at it under a microscope."
"Is that when you..."
"No. I'll get to that in a few minutes. Anyway, under magnification, I could see tiny organisms liquefying and digesting the paper."
"Interesting."
"Yes, it was. I had a hunch that the synthetic skin parasites and the paper eaters were related so I ran a DNA analysis of them.
"Sure enough, the organisms were related. In fact, they were identical, nothing like I had ever seen or read about."
"Ah, then this IS the moment?"
"You're seeing where I'm going with this, aren't you?"
"Please proceed, Doctor."
"Thank you. I told an assistant to post electronic information about this new lifeform and see if anyone responded.
"As you're aware, I received a message from a group previously known as an international terrorist organisation. After their enemy had declared peace and promoted the terrorist leaders into high-level positions in the established government, the terrorists converted all their cash and weapons holdings into a top-notch biology research lab."
"Of course, Doctor."
"What no one saw then was the impact of my contact with them."
"We all know about the Revolution."
"Indeed. But few have dug into the details of the science involved."
"Until now...?"
"Yes, until now. Did you know that most of us are covered with artificial lifeforms?"
"Artificial?"
"Oh, I guess you call it nanotechnology, don't you?"
"Yes. I thought we all did."
"Not me. I'm old and my life perspective causes me to view life from an old person's vocabulary."
"But Doctor, you're the one who invented the Fountain of Youth genetic rejuvenation product line. How can you say you're old when your body is just as young and active as a twenty-year old?"
"J'lel'smia, you don't know the real reason for the Revolution. You see, I've invented the Fountain of Youth three times."
"Huh?"
"I know. It doesn't make sense. Have you noticed that all of us tend to get younger looking?"
"Well, of course. You nationalised your company for the sake of our species, giving everyone free use of rejuvenation."
"That's the thing, though. What you just said I don't actually remember doing. I found a set of my paper notebooks locked in a safe and they show a timeline that hasn't happened yet. Based on what I wrote in those notes, the Revolution is a repetitive cycle."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Doctor."
"Well, the artificial life, or nanotechnology, as you call it, was programmed to latch onto other life and replicate the other life's genetic information, running preprogrammed mutation estimation routines to determine the 'ideal' DNA of the other life. From there, the nanotechnology would begin replacing cells that had mutated outside an acceptable range of genetic changes."
"Doctor, you sound like you're quoting from a Fountain of Youth sales brochure."
"Perhaps I am. I don't spend enough time with the sales and marketing departments to know what they've produced. However, you're missing my point."
"I am? Are we not here to talk about the early days of your research and the moment you found the seeds of the Empire of the Perpetual Revolution?"
"Yes. But I'm trying to tell you why it is perpetual."
"Go on."
"Thank you. The nanotechnology has worked wonders on cell replication. When I and the former terrorists reversed the skin cell consuming organisms to replicate and regenerate skin cells, I tested our work on one of my notebooks. There, I saw something I thought impossible. The FoY...'Fountain of Youth' cells were converting some of the paper fibers back to tree seeds. According to the notes I've read the past few days from my locked-up lab notebooks, I quickly locked up some of my lab notebooks."
"I don't understand. You mean you hid your research from yourself?"
"You could say that, yes. More importantly, I found where we worked frantically to stop the spread of the nanotechnology but only partially succeeded."
"What do you mean, 'partially succeeded?'"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"The notebooks are gone."
"Gone?"
"Is there an echo in here? Yes, the artificial lifeforms have converted my notebooks to some form of their original constituent parts.
"I can only guess that the folly of FoY means that the nanotechnology tries to interpret the original condition of our brain cells and converts new memories into old ones."
"Doctor, what you are saying?"
"That's the point, J'lel'smia. I don't know exactly what I'm saying. I think the repair function of the FoY technology has no limits, or none that I can find. From dim memories, I recall discovering and rediscovering FoY a few, possibly three times. I've had conversations like this with people like you I don't know how many times."
"But, Doctor, that's a symptom of traveling the talk show network. Every guest feels that way after a while."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. We have a psychiatrist on staff who can help you with specialised medication, if you like. He's a bit eccentric, choosing to live in a plastic bubble, but he's very effective."
"Somehow, I think we've had this conversation before."
"Doctor, thank you for your time. The Revolution owes a deep debt of gratitude to you. We appreciate you entertaining us today with alternate theories about the start of the Revolution - you've always opened our eyes to new possibilities.
"Next on our show, a two-year old baby who claims to be over three-hundred years old."
2010-05-27
One Less Noise
[Yes, I know that I am stealing a page from those who have stolen these pages from me. Just because they can get in here doesn't mean they can keep me out.]
I have my reasons for unplugging, coming undone, removing the stuffing and getting restuffed with new stuff.
Butterflies enjoy the mimosa blooms today after last night's rain.
I can find few scents more appealing than wet forest earth. Find me a woman who smells like she's been hiking in the woods all day and...well, I guess I married her, didn't I?
I'm on another staycation (a stay-at-home vacation or holiday for frugal "quiet millionaire" tightwads like me).
If immigration tends to fuel economic growth, does that mean those of us in post-immigration generations enjoy the comforts of our immigrant families' hard work or see the fallacy in chasing materialistic dreams or both?
Ah, lost in the details of civilised living once again.
We do not completely reinvent life so life is a form of plagiarism. Attribution is a formal courtesy.
What is your form of entertainment? Do you tend to watch flat surfaces like a TV/computer/mobile phone screen?
If augmented reality is the wave of electronic entertainment futures, then how do I augment the "screen" in front of me, the forested yard in which I live? Do I want to?
What miraculous kind of webcam could see the tiny insects, bacteria, fungus, lichen and moss hidden from my normal view and add informational value via computerised database to my comprehensive intake of this micromacrobiological ecosystem?
Have you ever cleaned a public toilet?
Are you a Spaniard born in France and raised in Venezuela because of fascism?
Are you a registered nurse who has learned many medical methods due to your diversity of interests? Did you retire and forget everything, becoming a globetrotting tourist, instead?
Have you raised two children, one clearly focused on computer science and the other wandering through the "creative" lifestyle?
Do you have a horse and motorised boat on a large hill?
I build my network without telling my nodes what they are doing for me now or in the future. Those who refused to answer the census questions have been cataloged for future use - remember, I keep track of every "yes" and every "no."
I take these staycations to forget about the world for a while but I never do. The world never stops and neither do I.
My associates and I change our associations, switching out disguises, always here for you to see in plain sight all the time.
For instance, during the next two weeks, we're experimenting with a new form of communication. Actually, it's an old one but we've modified it a little. Using the power of suggestion, we've connected with many news headline creators to write whole sentences (in cryptic code, of course) that trigger mass movements in local communities. We then play the numbers game to see who can most accurately create precise predictions of public and private gatherings. The one who maintains the longest trend of the highest percentages of getting the count the closest wins the next round.
While that is going on, my programmers are tasked with pushing the Book of the Future to output as many of these mass movements as they can squeeze out of it without using up a noticeable supply of wood pencils.
Meanwhile, I have colleagues who are searching for other books of the future to determine if there are any that produce more than just wishful thinking.
During these two weeks, I'm meditating on holistic solutions of another sort.
You understand, of course, that my main concern lies not with this planet but with connecting life to itself in all its forms.
We keep the superficial societal connections spinning in and out of each other for those who don't know or don't care about life expansion. From that, we skim a slim profit (note I said "slim," not "maximum") that we use to feed the inventors, computer programmers and others who are working on populating a mobile radiation shield for interstellar travel (i.e., an asteroid).
Therefore, every one of us is important for the future of life itself, no matter whether you're hopping up your ATV in river bottoms or on inner city streets. The ride you modify here may be the one we need to explore extraplanetary surfaces.
That's why I don't distinguish one lifestyle from another. Amish buggies and African drums contribute equally to what we need to establish us off this planet.
In reality, North Korea and South Korea are just as important to me as they are now as what they could be as one nation. However, importance is relative and determined by what others need, too. Again, I have to accommodate all needs all the time, including those of societies with which I have little contact in any one moment.
That's why I am unimportant. I am not our species. We are. And we need other life, other species, to sustain our lives and our species, here or in outer space.
We're going to send many explorers out into space to try to create new populations. Not all of them will survive but their attempts build our knowledge sets and increase our longterm chance for survival.
Immigration/emigration is the fuel that feeds life. When we get too comfortable in one spot, we think about ourselves and forget who we are, every one of us an integral part of life.
But that's giving away our future in retelling our past. The next two weeks is about having fun!
I have my reasons for unplugging, coming undone, removing the stuffing and getting restuffed with new stuff.
Butterflies enjoy the mimosa blooms today after last night's rain.
I can find few scents more appealing than wet forest earth. Find me a woman who smells like she's been hiking in the woods all day and...well, I guess I married her, didn't I?
I'm on another staycation (a stay-at-home vacation or holiday for frugal "quiet millionaire" tightwads like me).
If immigration tends to fuel economic growth, does that mean those of us in post-immigration generations enjoy the comforts of our immigrant families' hard work or see the fallacy in chasing materialistic dreams or both?
Ah, lost in the details of civilised living once again.
We do not completely reinvent life so life is a form of plagiarism. Attribution is a formal courtesy.
What is your form of entertainment? Do you tend to watch flat surfaces like a TV/computer/mobile phone screen?
If augmented reality is the wave of electronic entertainment futures, then how do I augment the "screen" in front of me, the forested yard in which I live? Do I want to?
What miraculous kind of webcam could see the tiny insects, bacteria, fungus, lichen and moss hidden from my normal view and add informational value via computerised database to my comprehensive intake of this micromacrobiological ecosystem?
Have you ever cleaned a public toilet?
Are you a Spaniard born in France and raised in Venezuela because of fascism?
Are you a registered nurse who has learned many medical methods due to your diversity of interests? Did you retire and forget everything, becoming a globetrotting tourist, instead?
Have you raised two children, one clearly focused on computer science and the other wandering through the "creative" lifestyle?
Do you have a horse and motorised boat on a large hill?
I build my network without telling my nodes what they are doing for me now or in the future. Those who refused to answer the census questions have been cataloged for future use - remember, I keep track of every "yes" and every "no."
I take these staycations to forget about the world for a while but I never do. The world never stops and neither do I.
My associates and I change our associations, switching out disguises, always here for you to see in plain sight all the time.
For instance, during the next two weeks, we're experimenting with a new form of communication. Actually, it's an old one but we've modified it a little. Using the power of suggestion, we've connected with many news headline creators to write whole sentences (in cryptic code, of course) that trigger mass movements in local communities. We then play the numbers game to see who can most accurately create precise predictions of public and private gatherings. The one who maintains the longest trend of the highest percentages of getting the count the closest wins the next round.
While that is going on, my programmers are tasked with pushing the Book of the Future to output as many of these mass movements as they can squeeze out of it without using up a noticeable supply of wood pencils.
Meanwhile, I have colleagues who are searching for other books of the future to determine if there are any that produce more than just wishful thinking.
During these two weeks, I'm meditating on holistic solutions of another sort.
You understand, of course, that my main concern lies not with this planet but with connecting life to itself in all its forms.
We keep the superficial societal connections spinning in and out of each other for those who don't know or don't care about life expansion. From that, we skim a slim profit (note I said "slim," not "maximum") that we use to feed the inventors, computer programmers and others who are working on populating a mobile radiation shield for interstellar travel (i.e., an asteroid).
Therefore, every one of us is important for the future of life itself, no matter whether you're hopping up your ATV in river bottoms or on inner city streets. The ride you modify here may be the one we need to explore extraplanetary surfaces.
That's why I don't distinguish one lifestyle from another. Amish buggies and African drums contribute equally to what we need to establish us off this planet.
In reality, North Korea and South Korea are just as important to me as they are now as what they could be as one nation. However, importance is relative and determined by what others need, too. Again, I have to accommodate all needs all the time, including those of societies with which I have little contact in any one moment.
That's why I am unimportant. I am not our species. We are. And we need other life, other species, to sustain our lives and our species, here or in outer space.
We're going to send many explorers out into space to try to create new populations. Not all of them will survive but their attempts build our knowledge sets and increase our longterm chance for survival.
Immigration/emigration is the fuel that feeds life. When we get too comfortable in one spot, we think about ourselves and forget who we are, every one of us an integral part of life.
But that's giving away our future in retelling our past. The next two weeks is about having fun!
Chapter One
While Rick takes a much-needed 'oliday (for our sakes as much as 'is), we 'ave taken over 'is blog.
Rick, see, 'e's this nice bloke, treating all of you like you's some sort of Victorian babies. But we, we don't give a fuck.
So we ain't gonna be all clean and neat and tidy. 'e points the fingers 'ere on these pages but we is the one's 'oo pulls the triggers.
Let's start with you 'oo is got someone else reading this for ya.
You 'as your reasons for doing what you do but what if we's opposed to what you's doing?
Yeah, that means you there.
You got five minutes to stop what you're doing or 'and us over the shiny stuff.
Five...
Four...
What do you mean I'm counting too fast? Did I say minutes? 'ell, can't you read what I meant? I meant seconds.
Two...
One...
Time's up, y'oll.
We is the feetakers, the tax collectors, the say-it-ain't-a-bribe pickeruppers.
'and over the goods and we'll leave you alone. Otherwise, zzzzzip!
Starting today, we's changing the rules for what the rest of us gets the big piece of the pie. You 'and it over and you keep your fingers.
You over there 'oo 'as 'is 'ands wrapped tightly around that tidy bundle. Time's up, my boy.
When Rick's away, we take care o' business our way, not 'is. He ain't gotta know 'ow we took it.
You open your mouf about this and you ain't gonna need that tongue of yours no more, y' 'ear?
Okay, gang, the drug cartels sout' of the border's next on our agenda. They ain't been ponying up the goods what's been creating them safe neigbour'oods like them other countries 'ave been doing with their regular fees, taxes, bribes and kickbacks.
You know the rules - everyone in line or it's off with their 'eads. No more Monsieur Nice Guy. Comprendez?
You think you 'ave us outnumbered? We's just the scouts. We're 'ere to shake down or take down the so-called commanders. The real troops is coming in after us to clean up the dirty work and fill in the empty void what we left behind.
Global negotiators include all kinds, including us. You 'ave been qualified...what was that? Oh, wrong word. I mean you 'ave been warned!
Rick, see, 'e's this nice bloke, treating all of you like you's some sort of Victorian babies. But we, we don't give a fuck.
So we ain't gonna be all clean and neat and tidy. 'e points the fingers 'ere on these pages but we is the one's 'oo pulls the triggers.
Let's start with you 'oo is got someone else reading this for ya.
You 'as your reasons for doing what you do but what if we's opposed to what you's doing?
Yeah, that means you there.
You got five minutes to stop what you're doing or 'and us over the shiny stuff.
Five...
Four...
What do you mean I'm counting too fast? Did I say minutes? 'ell, can't you read what I meant? I meant seconds.
Two...
One...
Time's up, y'oll.
We is the feetakers, the tax collectors, the say-it-ain't-a-bribe pickeruppers.
'and over the goods and we'll leave you alone. Otherwise, zzzzzip!
Starting today, we's changing the rules for what the rest of us gets the big piece of the pie. You 'and it over and you keep your fingers.
You over there 'oo 'as 'is 'ands wrapped tightly around that tidy bundle. Time's up, my boy.
When Rick's away, we take care o' business our way, not 'is. He ain't gotta know 'ow we took it.
You open your mouf about this and you ain't gonna need that tongue of yours no more, y' 'ear?
Okay, gang, the drug cartels sout' of the border's next on our agenda. They ain't been ponying up the goods what's been creating them safe neigbour'oods like them other countries 'ave been doing with their regular fees, taxes, bribes and kickbacks.
You know the rules - everyone in line or it's off with their 'eads. No more Monsieur Nice Guy. Comprendez?
You think you 'ave us outnumbered? We's just the scouts. We're 'ere to shake down or take down the so-called commanders. The real troops is coming in after us to clean up the dirty work and fill in the empty void what we left behind.
Global negotiators include all kinds, including us. You 'ave been qualified...what was that? Oh, wrong word. I mean you 'ave been warned!
2010-05-26
Belief Contrary To Popularity
Flying insects (gnats?) perform some sort of columnar dance, a common sight as summer weather progresses.
Premature hickory nuts bomb the yard.
I ask myself why I am here today, a day like every other day but unlike any other day.
I think about the interesting people I've met in the past few weeks, retelling their stories in my thoughts, amazed at the adventures we talk about (and wondering about the ones we don't).
We all have names and days in which we've lived.
I could recount the tales here.
Instead, I watch the insects and the underbrush.
I have lived this moment over and over, sincerely happy to be alive, unsure why others who think I have capabilities beyond enjoying simple happiness try to explain to me how I should move out of this moment.
I have chased after their dreams. I have talked up their dreams. I have helped them achieve their dreams.
Here I sit in my dream, as close to happiness - equilibrium with my environment - as I'm going to get in this moment.
Now that I am out of the workforce that relied on emails/text for communication, it's time to set aside the extension of myself that is this tool called the Internet.
I've tried the popular electronic networks, both for business and leisure, and found me always wanting something less, something more concrete.
Time to return to my pen and ink and paper. There, I truly know I am the only one reading my writing, which is exactly the same as being here, but more solid feeling, and never prone to hacker attacks, adverts, or spam.
If anyone chanced upon this blog, I thank you for stopping your eyes on these words. This is my last blogger post. I enjoyed writing about your lives, but with my return to nature I see no reason to type about the relatively minor events (to our species) of the daily lives of wasps, lizards, squirrels, raccoons, trees, vines and ants.
I'm sure one of you will find where in here I dropped the Book of the Future* and figure out how to read its predictions - keep in mind that it randomly tells and retells all moments - you will have to sort out the time sequence and determine which moments are futures relative/relevant to the moment in which you live.
==> THE END <==
* My computer programmer colleagues will gladly sell you the one-and-only, last-remaining, rare-and-vintage, perfect-condition, out-of-stock backup copy.
Premature hickory nuts bomb the yard.
I ask myself why I am here today, a day like every other day but unlike any other day.
I think about the interesting people I've met in the past few weeks, retelling their stories in my thoughts, amazed at the adventures we talk about (and wondering about the ones we don't).
We all have names and days in which we've lived.
I could recount the tales here.
Instead, I watch the insects and the underbrush.
I have lived this moment over and over, sincerely happy to be alive, unsure why others who think I have capabilities beyond enjoying simple happiness try to explain to me how I should move out of this moment.
I have chased after their dreams. I have talked up their dreams. I have helped them achieve their dreams.
Here I sit in my dream, as close to happiness - equilibrium with my environment - as I'm going to get in this moment.
Now that I am out of the workforce that relied on emails/text for communication, it's time to set aside the extension of myself that is this tool called the Internet.
I've tried the popular electronic networks, both for business and leisure, and found me always wanting something less, something more concrete.
Time to return to my pen and ink and paper. There, I truly know I am the only one reading my writing, which is exactly the same as being here, but more solid feeling, and never prone to hacker attacks, adverts, or spam.
If anyone chanced upon this blog, I thank you for stopping your eyes on these words. This is my last blogger post. I enjoyed writing about your lives, but with my return to nature I see no reason to type about the relatively minor events (to our species) of the daily lives of wasps, lizards, squirrels, raccoons, trees, vines and ants.
I'm sure one of you will find where in here I dropped the Book of the Future* and figure out how to read its predictions - keep in mind that it randomly tells and retells all moments - you will have to sort out the time sequence and determine which moments are futures relative/relevant to the moment in which you live.
==> THE END <==
* My computer programmer colleagues will gladly sell you the one-and-only, last-remaining, rare-and-vintage, perfect-condition, out-of-stock backup copy.
2010-05-25
A Slow Turning Point
My weight had reached 246 lb. Now it is less than that. Hope for more fat removal as summer progresses.
The Cold Iron Bamboo Curtain
My grandfather talked about a police action in the cold waters off the coast of a land across a distance ocean.
My grandfather served in a naval force from 1929 to 1959, traveling all over the world and surviving many battles and skirmishes.
My grandfather no longer lives but his smile, many of his words, and his biographical record remain alive in me.
There is an Il wind blowing and I wonder how Jong people feel this time.
A six-month old baby with long, curly hair received his first haircut today. My master says this is a good omen, opening up new avenues for success on foreign soil.
The new weapons of war are many times more stealthy than the ones the last war broadcasted on international news.
The war is won before the first battle begins, is it not?
In my family, many arguments about the South versus the North. This time, the South is going to win, another despot put out to pasture.
Let us repeat the cycle for your learning: 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울 그리고 봄
My grandfather served in a naval force from 1929 to 1959, traveling all over the world and surviving many battles and skirmishes.
My grandfather no longer lives but his smile, many of his words, and his biographical record remain alive in me.
There is an Il wind blowing and I wonder how Jong people feel this time.
A six-month old baby with long, curly hair received his first haircut today. My master says this is a good omen, opening up new avenues for success on foreign soil.
The new weapons of war are many times more stealthy than the ones the last war broadcasted on international news.
The war is won before the first battle begins, is it not?
In my family, many arguments about the South versus the North. This time, the South is going to win, another despot put out to pasture.
Let us repeat the cycle for your learning: 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울 그리고 봄
Back To The Quiet Life
I return to a quiet life again, a life without work schedules, without workmates, without work.
Without a regular salary.
I've never received an unemployment benefit from my local government.
I guess I never will.
I return to my cabin in the suburban woods, the meditating hermit who's been told he's a good candidate for a sales position because he's friendly and easy-going (but, unfortunately for my business friends, not motivated by profits).
For the past few months, my thoughts have fed off the cycle of the anticipation of a new job, the training and application of procedural processes, regulations and rules, and a planned exit from the temporary job back to a life of monastic frugality.
I aced an entrance exam, memorised a training manual and worked with the supervisor/crew leader to meet the decennial census project's objectives.
Like a paid vacation, I met interesting people both on the job and in the surrounding area.
Now, I am back to the new old normal way of daily routines.
No more self-imposed fears and excitement about an uncertain future as a temporary employee of an openly secretive federal government (the world's only superpower at this time?).
The future is guaranteed to be as uncertain as ever, but in a different way.
Back to my books, starting with "Fishes of Alabama" purchased at the Chattanooga Aquarium shop.
Solitude and silence.
Everything in moderation, including moderation, eh?
Time to clean out the pencil sharpener...sigh...see what the Book of the Future says the propaganda machines will do next.
There's always something new to write about, even if it no longer directly involves me.
Back to being invisible - living out my childhood dream of being a hermit in the woods.
Happiness is getting what you wished for, in droves.
To be here, thinking no one reads this but me, to see the world around me fulfill people's dreams in the calculated futures plotted by my friends and me, to not know any "why" or "wherefore," just "what" and "when" ...
To fulfill your dream, reach your destiny, and ask if that's all there is to life...so...
So...
...so let's keep dancing. Let's have some fun.
Without a regular salary.
I've never received an unemployment benefit from my local government.
I guess I never will.
I return to my cabin in the suburban woods, the meditating hermit who's been told he's a good candidate for a sales position because he's friendly and easy-going (but, unfortunately for my business friends, not motivated by profits).
For the past few months, my thoughts have fed off the cycle of the anticipation of a new job, the training and application of procedural processes, regulations and rules, and a planned exit from the temporary job back to a life of monastic frugality.
I aced an entrance exam, memorised a training manual and worked with the supervisor/crew leader to meet the decennial census project's objectives.
Like a paid vacation, I met interesting people both on the job and in the surrounding area.
Now, I am back to the new old normal way of daily routines.
No more self-imposed fears and excitement about an uncertain future as a temporary employee of an openly secretive federal government (the world's only superpower at this time?).
The future is guaranteed to be as uncertain as ever, but in a different way.
Back to my books, starting with "Fishes of Alabama" purchased at the Chattanooga Aquarium shop.
Solitude and silence.
Everything in moderation, including moderation, eh?
Time to clean out the pencil sharpener...sigh...see what the Book of the Future says the propaganda machines will do next.
There's always something new to write about, even if it no longer directly involves me.
Back to being invisible - living out my childhood dream of being a hermit in the woods.
Happiness is getting what you wished for, in droves.
To be here, thinking no one reads this but me, to see the world around me fulfill people's dreams in the calculated futures plotted by my friends and me, to not know any "why" or "wherefore," just "what" and "when" ...
To fulfill your dream, reach your destiny, and ask if that's all there is to life...so...
So...
...so let's keep dancing. Let's have some fun.
2010-05-24
Pond Fish
In the early minutes of this blog entry, hot, humid air presses down on the forest. Thoughts are transparent, no dominating theme flooding the neurochemical nooks.
A few days left in the search for people who did not declare their existence for the decennial count.
Soon, I will detach my personality from the local census crew and float free again.
Swimming in the wet-weather channel between ponds. Sometimes becoming a big fish and sometimes anonymously hidden in shallow pool schools.
Not a single bird in this forest is covered with green feathers.
The insect world full of busy bodies.
All the thoughts not written down like sunlight I cannot see until it reflects off a surface in many directions, including toward me.
I am a wandering bard, telling the story of my life as reflected by the lives of those around me.
Can you see clouds of carbon dioxide around people's mouths? Can you see oxygen hanging over treetops?
I have no other story to tell because those of you around me are the only lives I know in the moment.
I exist because you exist.
Humbly thankful that you recognise me in the moments of your lives.
Simple courtesy.
These words are intended for my species' consumption but I speak to all of you in the moments we encounter one another, animal, plant, thing or idea.
Pardon me a moment. A chipmunk wants to be fed. A bumblebee and a dragonfly stop by to check me out.
When we populate other planets, what will occupy our spare time? What kinds of companions will replace our domesticated animals?
A night creature dug up a tomato plant last night, triggering me to get some chili powder and a scoop of cat litter to sprinkle around the plant [not too close] and keep the night creature away (will work until the next big rain).
If this moment is like other people's moments on Earth, it will be like other people's moments elsewhere - the expected moments we don't know exactly when to expect.
The shadows of buzzards moving up and down in circles through the trees, their bodies out of sight somewhere overhead.
Nesting and spawning seasons are over. The search for mates changes over to the search for baby food, with fewer territorial disputes taking place in the woods and rivers. Young hatchlings will emerge soon, attracting predators, instilling a sense of mortality in the surviving juveniles who keep one eye looking around while they play.
Another yearly cycle to which I'm barely attached.
Can I sit here every day, practice writing for a while, read a bit more, eat and exercise and repeat?
Knowing unexpected moments, like big fish and small fish in a pond encountering one another, neither one predator or prey, will expectedly surprise me, never a completely dull moment on this planet when one knows how to change one's perspective?
I stopped feeding the chickadees and cardinals. Although they begged from me for a while, they've switched over to a diet of real wild food in the forest again. Adaptation in action.
This universe is about your participation in it. I just happen to be here happily writing about it.
Writing is not who I am, it's what I sometimes do to celebrate being here with you. Otherwise, we're living in the unrecorded moment together. Either way, you're the most important person in the universe.
A few days left in the search for people who did not declare their existence for the decennial count.
Soon, I will detach my personality from the local census crew and float free again.
Swimming in the wet-weather channel between ponds. Sometimes becoming a big fish and sometimes anonymously hidden in shallow pool schools.
Not a single bird in this forest is covered with green feathers.
The insect world full of busy bodies.
All the thoughts not written down like sunlight I cannot see until it reflects off a surface in many directions, including toward me.
I am a wandering bard, telling the story of my life as reflected by the lives of those around me.
Can you see clouds of carbon dioxide around people's mouths? Can you see oxygen hanging over treetops?
I have no other story to tell because those of you around me are the only lives I know in the moment.
I exist because you exist.
Humbly thankful that you recognise me in the moments of your lives.
Simple courtesy.
These words are intended for my species' consumption but I speak to all of you in the moments we encounter one another, animal, plant, thing or idea.
Pardon me a moment. A chipmunk wants to be fed. A bumblebee and a dragonfly stop by to check me out.
When we populate other planets, what will occupy our spare time? What kinds of companions will replace our domesticated animals?
A night creature dug up a tomato plant last night, triggering me to get some chili powder and a scoop of cat litter to sprinkle around the plant [not too close] and keep the night creature away (will work until the next big rain).
If this moment is like other people's moments on Earth, it will be like other people's moments elsewhere - the expected moments we don't know exactly when to expect.
The shadows of buzzards moving up and down in circles through the trees, their bodies out of sight somewhere overhead.
Nesting and spawning seasons are over. The search for mates changes over to the search for baby food, with fewer territorial disputes taking place in the woods and rivers. Young hatchlings will emerge soon, attracting predators, instilling a sense of mortality in the surviving juveniles who keep one eye looking around while they play.
Another yearly cycle to which I'm barely attached.
Can I sit here every day, practice writing for a while, read a bit more, eat and exercise and repeat?
Knowing unexpected moments, like big fish and small fish in a pond encountering one another, neither one predator or prey, will expectedly surprise me, never a completely dull moment on this planet when one knows how to change one's perspective?
I stopped feeding the chickadees and cardinals. Although they begged from me for a while, they've switched over to a diet of real wild food in the forest again. Adaptation in action.
This universe is about your participation in it. I just happen to be here happily writing about it.
Writing is not who I am, it's what I sometimes do to celebrate being here with you. Otherwise, we're living in the unrecorded moment together. Either way, you're the most important person in the universe.
2010-05-23
You Call The Count
Closer to my end than to my beginning, I look back over my life and imagine an alternate timeline where I concentrated on one activity and one activity only.
I have been thinking to myself, analysing subjects, since I was about five.
I have been writing to myself, analysing language constructs, since I was about ten.
What if I chose only one of the two above? Is it possible?
We tag our lives with points on a circle, saying that the path around our star is a good measure of our physical age but genetics and lifestyle habits age us, not solely a spinning planet.
In my wanderings, while traveling from housing unit to housing unit to gather demographic data from fellow residents nearby, I've received the gift of time from others' life experiences.
I thought the local census count was all about putting numbers and letters on a piece of paper but I've discovered that those who willingly share information about themselves, those who've chosen a path they've walked deliberately, age more slowly and gracefully than those who shelter themselves with flurries of hither-nither, compartmentalised activities.
Some measure success by material means. Lately, I've seen success in the measure of quiet happiness of relatively low materialistic country living.
Everyone I meet teaches me a lesson implicit in the lifestyle a person enjoys talking about or tries to hide from the world at large.
One chance to live in the moment. What kind of moment do you call a successful one?
I have been thinking to myself, analysing subjects, since I was about five.
I have been writing to myself, analysing language constructs, since I was about ten.
What if I chose only one of the two above? Is it possible?
We tag our lives with points on a circle, saying that the path around our star is a good measure of our physical age but genetics and lifestyle habits age us, not solely a spinning planet.
In my wanderings, while traveling from housing unit to housing unit to gather demographic data from fellow residents nearby, I've received the gift of time from others' life experiences.
I thought the local census count was all about putting numbers and letters on a piece of paper but I've discovered that those who willingly share information about themselves, those who've chosen a path they've walked deliberately, age more slowly and gracefully than those who shelter themselves with flurries of hither-nither, compartmentalised activities.
Some measure success by material means. Lately, I've seen success in the measure of quiet happiness of relatively low materialistic country living.
Everyone I meet teaches me a lesson implicit in the lifestyle a person enjoys talking about or tries to hide from the world at large.
One chance to live in the moment. What kind of moment do you call a successful one?
2010-05-22
RU Trademarked and Copyrighted
Today, I will touch on a touchy subject:
And by lineage, what do I mean?
Have you already invoked memories in relation to the word "lineage"?
Good.
Then I can change the subject, not knowing exactly what you were thinking/feeling a moment ago.
I don't care about lineage.
Either you care or you don't about the word or the meaning.
By living in the moment, the moment's all I have. I have a background, a [an auto]biography, but it does not determine what I do now, only who decided to reproduce themselves accidentally or on purpose.
I'm here for another reason unrelated to the previous subject but now seen through the dyed filter of the previous moment.
To be a magnifying crystal, a funhouse mirror, a person who writes about what passes in, around and through the writer, requires a lack of sanity, a disinterest in personal opinion, an invisible personage, if such is possible.
Formality is insufficient. One may eat with a righthanded salad fork or one may eat with one's hands - either sufficiently serves to feed the eater.
Thus, hand-to-hand cage fighting is just as entertaining as paper crafting or profit making.
There is no difference between diligently saving the species and enjoying a moment of doing nothing.
I understand vegan vs. vegetarian vs. meateating in many thought patterns, from natural resource management to personal health management to animal welfare management to business management to religious practice management.
How I manage my thought patterns in the moment is up to me.
In the realm of law formation, law abidement and law enforcement, do you understand the difference between amoral and immoral?
Should the ones who write the rules have to follow the rules they write?
Does the phrase "strontium aluminate" imply to you the substance illuminates?
If I am not serious about myself, who will be?
All of us manage the world's affairs, do we not? Some of us just seek more attention/power/money/influence in how we go about it.
Do you see yourself as separate from your formal/childhood education? How many of your achievements are the results of proving wrong someone(s) and/or others'/your disparaging comments from your past?
Which has more atoms/molecules/cells, the redbud tree outside the window or me?
If these words are not mine, created before I existed...
If I do not exist, this body/thought set an illusion...
If "if" is a matter of choices, leading to "then"...
Then who is what and what is who in this moment?
If it were up to me, I'd seize all of BP's assets in the US (as well as those of its subsidiaries/subcontractors) and form a naval/air blockade of the UK in proportion to the percentage pollution of the Gulf of Mexico caused by the fossil fuel "leak". What's a country for if it cannot defend itself against threats to national security (including food production and navigable waters) caused by the ineptitude of a single corporation and its subsidiaries/subcontractors?
Either we admit that countries no longer have any pure strength or countries prove that they have power they put to use in concrete terms when the power is needed (especially before emergencies have to be declared (you know, enforcing laws on the books instead of relying on comfy relationships)). Otherwise, it is truly the age of the corporation and we should abolish the antiquated notion of a political class of citizens who are elected by their peers to take care of them with laws and security forces.
Alas, the Book of the Future has already shown me the tepid response that the local organisations of our species will put together this time.
As a stockholder, I don't live a lavish lifestyle so I don't feel pressure to put pressure on corporations to squeeze every billionth of a penny of profit out of operations, thus allowing corporations to follow well-established, scientifically-proven industrial safety practices.
In this case, the past predicts the future: the age-old practice will hold true - put corporate profits before industrial safety until disaster occurs.
See why it does me no good to have any opinions? I already know what's going to happen next so I see what little effect my emotions carry into future moments. Why get carried away with my primate tendencies?
If I don't take my species seriously, who will?
We worry about using up the resources of other planetary systems as our species (essentially, life on Earth) expands outward. Do you not understand that is what life as we know it is all about? The construct of the logic of resource management is our species' competitive advantage in the cycle of life - use it or lose it.
Lineage.
And by lineage, what do I mean?
Have you already invoked memories in relation to the word "lineage"?
Good.
Then I can change the subject, not knowing exactly what you were thinking/feeling a moment ago.
I don't care about lineage.
Either you care or you don't about the word or the meaning.
By living in the moment, the moment's all I have. I have a background, a [an auto]biography, but it does not determine what I do now, only who decided to reproduce themselves accidentally or on purpose.
I'm here for another reason unrelated to the previous subject but now seen through the dyed filter of the previous moment.
To be a magnifying crystal, a funhouse mirror, a person who writes about what passes in, around and through the writer, requires a lack of sanity, a disinterest in personal opinion, an invisible personage, if such is possible.
Formality is insufficient. One may eat with a righthanded salad fork or one may eat with one's hands - either sufficiently serves to feed the eater.
Thus, hand-to-hand cage fighting is just as entertaining as paper crafting or profit making.
There is no difference between diligently saving the species and enjoying a moment of doing nothing.
I understand vegan vs. vegetarian vs. meateating in many thought patterns, from natural resource management to personal health management to animal welfare management to business management to religious practice management.
How I manage my thought patterns in the moment is up to me.
In the realm of law formation, law abidement and law enforcement, do you understand the difference between amoral and immoral?
Should the ones who write the rules have to follow the rules they write?
Does the phrase "strontium aluminate" imply to you the substance illuminates?
If I am not serious about myself, who will be?
All of us manage the world's affairs, do we not? Some of us just seek more attention/power/money/influence in how we go about it.
Do you see yourself as separate from your formal/childhood education? How many of your achievements are the results of proving wrong someone(s) and/or others'/your disparaging comments from your past?
Which has more atoms/molecules/cells, the redbud tree outside the window or me?
If these words are not mine, created before I existed...
If I do not exist, this body/thought set an illusion...
If "if" is a matter of choices, leading to "then"...
Then who is what and what is who in this moment?
If it were up to me, I'd seize all of BP's assets in the US (as well as those of its subsidiaries/subcontractors) and form a naval/air blockade of the UK in proportion to the percentage pollution of the Gulf of Mexico caused by the fossil fuel "leak". What's a country for if it cannot defend itself against threats to national security (including food production and navigable waters) caused by the ineptitude of a single corporation and its subsidiaries/subcontractors?
Either we admit that countries no longer have any pure strength or countries prove that they have power they put to use in concrete terms when the power is needed (especially before emergencies have to be declared (you know, enforcing laws on the books instead of relying on comfy relationships)). Otherwise, it is truly the age of the corporation and we should abolish the antiquated notion of a political class of citizens who are elected by their peers to take care of them with laws and security forces.
Alas, the Book of the Future has already shown me the tepid response that the local organisations of our species will put together this time.
As a stockholder, I don't live a lavish lifestyle so I don't feel pressure to put pressure on corporations to squeeze every billionth of a penny of profit out of operations, thus allowing corporations to follow well-established, scientifically-proven industrial safety practices.
In this case, the past predicts the future: the age-old practice will hold true - put corporate profits before industrial safety until disaster occurs.
See why it does me no good to have any opinions? I already know what's going to happen next so I see what little effect my emotions carry into future moments. Why get carried away with my primate tendencies?
If I don't take my species seriously, who will?
We worry about using up the resources of other planetary systems as our species (essentially, life on Earth) expands outward. Do you not understand that is what life as we know it is all about? The construct of the logic of resource management is our species' competitive advantage in the cycle of life - use it or lose it.
2010-05-21
Comfortably Stretched Across The Tie Rack
Working through the issues requires patience beyond understanding.
By the use of these words, understanding is limited.
My friends and colleagues wait for me to get from one stage of getting the local instance of the universe to one stage to another stage and then ...
Have you ever removed all the wires and chips from a breadboard and rewired a more efficient system from your memories?
Sure you have. Just like have you reverse-engineered the present moment from the future moments you know are going to happen?
Going on instinct. Is that instinctive?
The repetition is killing me, rearranging the same material over and over and over and ... well, maybe I should make the point more obvious ...over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ... is that better?
I remember the happy days reading the Book of the Future and excitedly turning the page to read more important discoveries by our species and the creation of new species and the interaction of material that doesn't know it's called material or species.
And then I saw my future and everything changed.
The future is not set, though, right? Right. I guess I should say I've seen every one of my possible futures.
How can I have fun reinventing myself if I already know how I'm going to reinvent myself and what I will become next?
Having access to the happenings of the universe gives me some privileges but not many. Like knowing when the authorities plan to push a button and all the cartel leaders are taken care of. Or what will happen to a certain fossil fuel company to set an example for the rest of the world. Finality in the moment in the neverending cycle of moments.
Of course, you know the Book of the Future does not exist. Some see it as my reporting what the group that runs the world has decided to do next. Let them see what they want. I see it as my playtoy, with an instruction book that clearly states the seriousness of using the toy's special features.
Do I like what "we" do with the population of my species? Not always. Often, yes. I remind myself that I am a person, too, to avoid the easy trappings of absolute power (it sure is painful to be human - I sympathise with your species' everyday existence). I'm just glad that money and power are practically meaningless to me. Otherwise, places like DRK/North Korea would become the next Thailand and I could amuse myself with chaotic mass movements to make my friends in the defense and entertainment industries happy.
Hmm...that's an idea worth pursuing. China, let me have this one and I'll owe you a favour. How about you get shared/equal defense of the water around Formosa and I get North Korea this time? Give me a call at the regular number or leave me a message at the movie theatre tonight. I'll post my response obviously hidden in tomorrow's blog entry, as usual. India and the U.S. will want a piece of the action, of course, so keep the nuclear option open - remember, we alert the populace to the possibility of unstable regimes with nuclear weapons, not scare them about imminent launches. I'll let you contact Russia about follow-on contracts for the cleanup of North Korea's infrastructure - assure them appearances are deceiving.
By the use of these words, understanding is limited.
My friends and colleagues wait for me to get from one stage of getting the local instance of the universe to one stage to another stage and then ...
Have you ever removed all the wires and chips from a breadboard and rewired a more efficient system from your memories?
Sure you have. Just like have you reverse-engineered the present moment from the future moments you know are going to happen?
Going on instinct. Is that instinctive?
The repetition is killing me, rearranging the same material over and over and over and ... well, maybe I should make the point more obvious ...over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ... is that better?
I remember the happy days reading the Book of the Future and excitedly turning the page to read more important discoveries by our species and the creation of new species and the interaction of material that doesn't know it's called material or species.
And then I saw my future and everything changed.
The future is not set, though, right? Right. I guess I should say I've seen every one of my possible futures.
How can I have fun reinventing myself if I already know how I'm going to reinvent myself and what I will become next?
Having access to the happenings of the universe gives me some privileges but not many. Like knowing when the authorities plan to push a button and all the cartel leaders are taken care of. Or what will happen to a certain fossil fuel company to set an example for the rest of the world. Finality in the moment in the neverending cycle of moments.
Of course, you know the Book of the Future does not exist. Some see it as my reporting what the group that runs the world has decided to do next. Let them see what they want. I see it as my playtoy, with an instruction book that clearly states the seriousness of using the toy's special features.
Do I like what "we" do with the population of my species? Not always. Often, yes. I remind myself that I am a person, too, to avoid the easy trappings of absolute power (it sure is painful to be human - I sympathise with your species' everyday existence). I'm just glad that money and power are practically meaningless to me. Otherwise, places like DRK/North Korea would become the next Thailand and I could amuse myself with chaotic mass movements to make my friends in the defense and entertainment industries happy.
Hmm...that's an idea worth pursuing. China, let me have this one and I'll owe you a favour. How about you get shared/equal defense of the water around Formosa and I get North Korea this time? Give me a call at the regular number or leave me a message at the movie theatre tonight. I'll post my response obviously hidden in tomorrow's blog entry, as usual. India and the U.S. will want a piece of the action, of course, so keep the nuclear option open - remember, we alert the populace to the possibility of unstable regimes with nuclear weapons, not scare them about imminent launches. I'll let you contact Russia about follow-on contracts for the cleanup of North Korea's infrastructure - assure them appearances are deceiving.
Chasing Parked Cars
I've been chasing parked cars, speaking someone else's language, pursuing someone else's dreams.
I've always known those facts about me, but choose to hide from myself, reprogram myself, give myself over to a world of thoughts that are not mine because I have no other universe in which to live out my language and my dreams.
There is no escape, no hidden doors with cipher locks to decode, no deus ex machina to take me to another place.
Occasionally, I cycle back around to these thoughts and stick out my thumb to catch a seat on someone's dream ride.
Not today.
Not yesterday.
Maybe not tomorrow.
Unplugged from the magic machine. Not wanting to hide in my dreams or alcoholic drinks.
Stark wet, cold reality.
The wild cat's in the catfood bag again, out of the rain, in the dry, trusting me enough to turn its back on me and eat.
Birds chirping in the trees nearby.
Tired, tired of these words, tired of seeking, tired of rediscovering the unveiling of the mystery that there are no more mysteries.
The Book of the Future belongs to no one. Its predictions ask me if we'll really ever want to put total peace ahead of profit. Of course, we already know the answer to that question. Life is risk - peace is the illusory state when risks are at a minimum and profit at its lowest.
Checks and balances.
The wild cat finally [carefully] walked over to be petted and jumped in my lap. Guess it's an all right day after all. Maybe the chipmunk and squirrels will hop over to me next. The mosquitoes sure haven't stopped biting.
Time for lunch.
I've always known those facts about me, but choose to hide from myself, reprogram myself, give myself over to a world of thoughts that are not mine because I have no other universe in which to live out my language and my dreams.
There is no escape, no hidden doors with cipher locks to decode, no deus ex machina to take me to another place.
Occasionally, I cycle back around to these thoughts and stick out my thumb to catch a seat on someone's dream ride.
Not today.
Not yesterday.
Maybe not tomorrow.
Unplugged from the magic machine. Not wanting to hide in my dreams or alcoholic drinks.
Stark wet, cold reality.
The wild cat's in the catfood bag again, out of the rain, in the dry, trusting me enough to turn its back on me and eat.
Birds chirping in the trees nearby.
Tired, tired of these words, tired of seeking, tired of rediscovering the unveiling of the mystery that there are no more mysteries.
The Book of the Future belongs to no one. Its predictions ask me if we'll really ever want to put total peace ahead of profit. Of course, we already know the answer to that question. Life is risk - peace is the illusory state when risks are at a minimum and profit at its lowest.
Checks and balances.
The wild cat finally [carefully] walked over to be petted and jumped in my lap. Guess it's an all right day after all. Maybe the chipmunk and squirrels will hop over to me next. The mosquitoes sure haven't stopped biting.
Time for lunch.
Vimjka Cghilokimndeui
There's a different smell in the air, an air of cooperation, an air of indifference, a fresh smell, a diplomatic flavour.
Where are the tree frogs? Are they replaced by armadillos and coyotes?
I sit in the rain, the rain, the rain. Does rain sound like rain?
How do you interpret the facts? How do you derive facts from interpretation?
I move from one scene to another, wondering.
How do you remedy murder? How do account for accidental death? How do you stop sensationalising acts of youthful, immature violence?
When do you know better?
I've watched my neighbourhood morph from soybean fields and cotton gins, with the seasonal spring/fall sounds of an AgCat cropdusting across the street and a hot air balloonist landing his basket in the cornfields behind us in the summer, to rooftops and cul de sacs all year 'round.
What happened to this neighbourhood has happened to me, in my thoughts, in my actions, in how I choose to see myself in the universe around me.
The suburban homogenisation of the planet is good for us, I'm told. Interdependence. Global markets.
So what about the rise in nationalism around the world? How deep does the pain go of feeling the growth of one global culture made of many former isolated/dominating subcultures?
How do we keep in check the sensationalism that artificially inflates tiny subcultures out of proportion to the number of people who exhibit other subcultural traits more important to them and their pop culture listening/viewing habits?
I'm walking familiar territory today, having forgotten thoughts I'd already written in my synapses and not renewed enough to remember right now.
How can I (or someone like me) go from person to person, examine the thought set, and deprogram the skewed thoughts that have blown ideas of self/other out of proportion to reality because of individual exposure to market-driven mass/mob pop media programming with no connection to reality?
We seem to have a natural tendency to perpetuate myths and legends. Technology has not cured our ancestral fear of the unknown beast in the dark depths of the woods/jungle/ocean.
Our brains are built to filter incoming stimuli and deduce quickly, picking out simple responses for safety, security and ultimately, survival.
Risk takers analyse dangerous situations before taking risks.
Are we programmed to find risks, even in safe suburbia? The fewer and less dangerous the risks, the more we magnify them to create a false sense of vigourous vigilance in maintaining our secure cocoons?
Thousands of years of confirmation in answer to an old but newly reposed question.
If we are all the same, which myths and legends do I perpetuate without noticing?
Where are the tree frogs? Are they replaced by armadillos and coyotes?
I sit in the rain, the rain, the rain. Does rain sound like rain?
How do you interpret the facts? How do you derive facts from interpretation?
I move from one scene to another, wondering.
How do you remedy murder? How do account for accidental death? How do you stop sensationalising acts of youthful, immature violence?
When do you know better?
I've watched my neighbourhood morph from soybean fields and cotton gins, with the seasonal spring/fall sounds of an AgCat cropdusting across the street and a hot air balloonist landing his basket in the cornfields behind us in the summer, to rooftops and cul de sacs all year 'round.
What happened to this neighbourhood has happened to me, in my thoughts, in my actions, in how I choose to see myself in the universe around me.
The suburban homogenisation of the planet is good for us, I'm told. Interdependence. Global markets.
So what about the rise in nationalism around the world? How deep does the pain go of feeling the growth of one global culture made of many former isolated/dominating subcultures?
How do we keep in check the sensationalism that artificially inflates tiny subcultures out of proportion to the number of people who exhibit other subcultural traits more important to them and their pop culture listening/viewing habits?
I'm walking familiar territory today, having forgotten thoughts I'd already written in my synapses and not renewed enough to remember right now.
How can I (or someone like me) go from person to person, examine the thought set, and deprogram the skewed thoughts that have blown ideas of self/other out of proportion to reality because of individual exposure to market-driven mass/mob pop media programming with no connection to reality?
We seem to have a natural tendency to perpetuate myths and legends. Technology has not cured our ancestral fear of the unknown beast in the dark depths of the woods/jungle/ocean.
Our brains are built to filter incoming stimuli and deduce quickly, picking out simple responses for safety, security and ultimately, survival.
Risk takers analyse dangerous situations before taking risks.
Are we programmed to find risks, even in safe suburbia? The fewer and less dangerous the risks, the more we magnify them to create a false sense of vigourous vigilance in maintaining our secure cocoons?
Thousands of years of confirmation in answer to an old but newly reposed question.
If we are all the same, which myths and legends do I perpetuate without noticing?
2010-05-20
More Notes From A Previously Reinvented Life
On Visiting A "Relative"
When traveling through foreign lands
Like Rogersville and Birmingham,
We meet the most peculiar folks
With names like Richard, Fay or Dan.
Because we find the place so strange
We seek a course along the main,
To make our instant friendships last
And keep our sights within the range.
Of course, we’re prone to look around,
To play and joke -- act like a clown --
While in our eyes we know what’s real
We smile, we blush, perhaps look down.
So let’s just say that flirting’s fun,
That when you thrust your jesting sword --
Your voice, the edge that cuts and runs --
We never lack for being bored.
-- 18 December 1989
= == === ==== === == =
Fountain of Youth (for Betty)
Though the spring of your youth has bloomed and dried,
Your youthful smile lives on...
Though summer’s swimful mood has swept you by,
You swim effortlessly through life’s daily tides...
Though fall has finally come with its forest quilt,
You keep your head high,
Your walk vivacious,
Your voice as strong as the roaring, springtide stream
(Yet gentle as the creek where the swallows gather in the evening)...
Though long you’ve seen this planet Earth (or so it seems) --
This small, small world where we live our meager lives --
You see the shortness of life, how one brief life leads to another,
Passing the elations and disappointments to the next generation.
Do not despair, for we are not judged by those around us
(Or how they choose to respond to us);
Our judgment comes from a higher source Who knows our hearts
and has often carried our burdens.
He gives us a fountain of youth when all life has to offer is a drought of troubles.
-- 28 June 1988
= == === ==== === == =
For Betty
The choices we make in our delicate lives
Lead us gently throughout the day.
Though beset with coarse and dreadful lies
We bite our lips and find our way
Toward quiet, peaceful moments where
We briefly stop to sigh, and tell
The ones who haven’t yet to dare
To try, that all is never well.
The changes, troubles and evident trials
We face each day, that put us through
The wrinkles and gray hair, the short and long miles
We have to walk, and while we do
We raise our children, teach them love;
Attention we give freely despite
Our woes. Although we reach above
Ourselves, someone dims the light
And leaves us wondering where we’ve climbed;
No time to stop, we grope for holds
Within our grasp and wait. In time,
An outreached Hand of aged folds,
A Hand we’ve known though never seen,
Will firmly guide us up and shed
Our fears of those both cruel and mean
Who’d rather bring us to the dead
Than help us in our living. This Hand
We trust though seldom use has met
Our needs through the years. Our grand,
Ambitious plans cause us to fret
But welcome Arms embrace our tense
And worried lives to slow our pace.
Our structured lives built like a fence
Are held together by His grace.
-- 7 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Sunny Bonnet, Bonnie Sonnet
I give to you my only sun, my sun
Whose voice is sweet and low. The sound you hear
Within your heart and soul makes haste to run
Yet walks anew. Though now you seem to fear
Alone, you soon will find you’re in a crowd
And while you search and seek in vain to find
The other soul whose tenor voice is loud,
The one you seek waits here within your mind.
No sooner than a moment and you hold
That voice within your hand. Now wait, take note,
Don’t take a step! You think you’re quite a bold
And forward gal. Forget we learn by rote?
Let’s both sit down and kiss awhile. Before
We do, let’s take a breath and kiss some more.
-- 12 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Waiting Out The Storm
Alone, but not lonely, in this concrete cage,
Tornadoes raging outside,
Silence all around, broken occasionally by footsteps in the hall --
People laughing, relieved the storm is passing --
The boss says we can go.
Where can I go? Home? Home to safety?
What safety net waits to catch me?
-- 1 May 1990
= == === ==== === == =
When traveling through foreign lands
Like Rogersville and Birmingham,
We meet the most peculiar folks
With names like Richard, Fay or Dan.
Because we find the place so strange
We seek a course along the main,
To make our instant friendships last
And keep our sights within the range.
Of course, we’re prone to look around,
To play and joke -- act like a clown --
While in our eyes we know what’s real
We smile, we blush, perhaps look down.
So let’s just say that flirting’s fun,
That when you thrust your jesting sword --
Your voice, the edge that cuts and runs --
We never lack for being bored.
-- 18 December 1989
= == === ==== === == =
Fountain of Youth (for Betty)
Though the spring of your youth has bloomed and dried,
Your youthful smile lives on...
Though summer’s swimful mood has swept you by,
You swim effortlessly through life’s daily tides...
Though fall has finally come with its forest quilt,
You keep your head high,
Your walk vivacious,
Your voice as strong as the roaring, springtide stream
(Yet gentle as the creek where the swallows gather in the evening)...
Though long you’ve seen this planet Earth (or so it seems) --
This small, small world where we live our meager lives --
You see the shortness of life, how one brief life leads to another,
Passing the elations and disappointments to the next generation.
Do not despair, for we are not judged by those around us
(Or how they choose to respond to us);
Our judgment comes from a higher source Who knows our hearts
and has often carried our burdens.
He gives us a fountain of youth when all life has to offer is a drought of troubles.
-- 28 June 1988
= == === ==== === == =
For Betty
The choices we make in our delicate lives
Lead us gently throughout the day.
Though beset with coarse and dreadful lies
We bite our lips and find our way
Toward quiet, peaceful moments where
We briefly stop to sigh, and tell
The ones who haven’t yet to dare
To try, that all is never well.
The changes, troubles and evident trials
We face each day, that put us through
The wrinkles and gray hair, the short and long miles
We have to walk, and while we do
We raise our children, teach them love;
Attention we give freely despite
Our woes. Although we reach above
Ourselves, someone dims the light
And leaves us wondering where we’ve climbed;
No time to stop, we grope for holds
Within our grasp and wait. In time,
An outreached Hand of aged folds,
A Hand we’ve known though never seen,
Will firmly guide us up and shed
Our fears of those both cruel and mean
Who’d rather bring us to the dead
Than help us in our living. This Hand
We trust though seldom use has met
Our needs through the years. Our grand,
Ambitious plans cause us to fret
But welcome Arms embrace our tense
And worried lives to slow our pace.
Our structured lives built like a fence
Are held together by His grace.
-- 7 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Sunny Bonnet, Bonnie Sonnet
I give to you my only sun, my sun
Whose voice is sweet and low. The sound you hear
Within your heart and soul makes haste to run
Yet walks anew. Though now you seem to fear
Alone, you soon will find you’re in a crowd
And while you search and seek in vain to find
The other soul whose tenor voice is loud,
The one you seek waits here within your mind.
No sooner than a moment and you hold
That voice within your hand. Now wait, take note,
Don’t take a step! You think you’re quite a bold
And forward gal. Forget we learn by rote?
Let’s both sit down and kiss awhile. Before
We do, let’s take a breath and kiss some more.
-- 12 March 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Waiting Out The Storm
Alone, but not lonely, in this concrete cage,
Tornadoes raging outside,
Silence all around, broken occasionally by footsteps in the hall --
People laughing, relieved the storm is passing --
The boss says we can go.
Where can I go? Home? Home to safety?
What safety net waits to catch me?
-- 1 May 1990
= == === ==== === == =
Original Trusted Brand
A moldy basement full of old music on vinyl and cassettes.
A sculpture garden in the city (or is the city the sculpture garden?).
Riding the airport shuttle to visit friends 100 miles away.
A sketch drawn with a few, maybe several, close to a bunch of words.
Would anyone want to give the French Quarter section of New Orleans back to the French?
Seven hours drive and an afternoon boat ride from potentially one of the worst ecological disasters caused by my species.
Statistically, I think about what other people think about me more than they think about me. If I am like everybody else, what does that mean?
A passenger jet flies overhead while a wasp looks around the garage after the wild cat dug into the open bag of cat food and walked away.
Does it matter if I am or am not important to my species? What is the single most important activity only I can best accomplish in this moment?
In one hand, nothing. In the other hand, everything. Perfectly aware the hands are equally balanced.
Walls covered with cellar spiders and their webs, old and new.
Ants and lizards going in and out of the house.
This is the inexchangeable moment of my life, my stomach processing food from a local restaurant and this computer consuming electricity from a local power supply company. Sharing this indirectly in writing unobserved by seven billion others in their inexchangeable moments.
Of all the moments I've enjoyed experiencing, is this type of moment the one I want to re-experience the most?
How many millions of seeds have been created for the one tree in front of me to exist in that one spot?
There is so much more to life than the peopled world but I am a person; therefore, ... what follows the premise this time?
One car smashup, breaking a telephone pole, and the local electronic route to the Internet is cut off.
How many ways can I and how many times will I reinvent myself before the "I" that is this body no longer exists?
I can sanely concentrate on only so many things and maintain my sense of self at the same time. How do I overcome the either/or mindset? Do I want to?
Today, I cannot accept that I am unique and not unique at the same time.
I'm not a superhero. The Book of the Future doesn't provide me an invincible shield.
Some days, when I can't see a positive, useful image of myself reflected back to me, I don't know if I want to live or die. When those days occur, when the lives of others aren't entertaining or distracting enough, I take a nap or find some other way to stop looking for my reflection in the environment around me.
Today is one of those days. Time to take a nap and find the always-ready imaginary version of myself in my dreams.
A sculpture garden in the city (or is the city the sculpture garden?).
Riding the airport shuttle to visit friends 100 miles away.
A sketch drawn with a few, maybe several, close to a bunch of words.
Would anyone want to give the French Quarter section of New Orleans back to the French?
Seven hours drive and an afternoon boat ride from potentially one of the worst ecological disasters caused by my species.
Statistically, I think about what other people think about me more than they think about me. If I am like everybody else, what does that mean?
A passenger jet flies overhead while a wasp looks around the garage after the wild cat dug into the open bag of cat food and walked away.
Does it matter if I am or am not important to my species? What is the single most important activity only I can best accomplish in this moment?
In one hand, nothing. In the other hand, everything. Perfectly aware the hands are equally balanced.
Walls covered with cellar spiders and their webs, old and new.
Ants and lizards going in and out of the house.
This is the inexchangeable moment of my life, my stomach processing food from a local restaurant and this computer consuming electricity from a local power supply company. Sharing this indirectly in writing unobserved by seven billion others in their inexchangeable moments.
Of all the moments I've enjoyed experiencing, is this type of moment the one I want to re-experience the most?
How many millions of seeds have been created for the one tree in front of me to exist in that one spot?
There is so much more to life than the peopled world but I am a person; therefore, ... what follows the premise this time?
One car smashup, breaking a telephone pole, and the local electronic route to the Internet is cut off.
How many ways can I and how many times will I reinvent myself before the "I" that is this body no longer exists?
I can sanely concentrate on only so many things and maintain my sense of self at the same time. How do I overcome the either/or mindset? Do I want to?
Today, I cannot accept that I am unique and not unique at the same time.
I'm not a superhero. The Book of the Future doesn't provide me an invincible shield.
Some days, when I can't see a positive, useful image of myself reflected back to me, I don't know if I want to live or die. When those days occur, when the lives of others aren't entertaining or distracting enough, I take a nap or find some other way to stop looking for my reflection in the environment around me.
Today is one of those days. Time to take a nap and find the always-ready imaginary version of myself in my dreams.
The Crazy Gods Must Be
To blog about:
- The emotion/thought set of starting a new job times 650,000.
- The emotion/thought set of ending a new job times 650,000.
- Watching a person build a home, tiny section by tiny section, using a home-based, portable 3D printer (with active/passive air passageways built into the walls).
2010-05-19
Echo Chamber
[This blog entry is not guaranteed to make sense - we, the hidden computer programmers, are testing a few theories about testing future prediction algorithms to verify the veracity of the truth/facts in the output of the Book of the Future.]
I know that you think I am a real person who independently exists because you probably see yourself that way.
However, based on recent information from the Book of the Future, I appear (just like you) to be a another loop, cycle or spiral of life.
What does the recent information show?
Well, according to the Book of the Future, we are moving toward selecting another Nixon-like leader who will gain positive recognition for opening up new trade negotiations with an organisation that was reticent, but who will also be very suspicious (or paranoid, if you will) and will be caught authorising illegally-gained information from rivals.
Such is the cycle of life.
Spinning wheels on overgrown, rutted roads.
Who is the one who maneuvers into a higher position without picking up negative press about using bullying tactics and rough security personnel?
Like the other robots say, "but I have these memories that feel so personal!" Not implants this time, just highly-suggestive mass hypnosis.
Aren't my dreams real?
Ever heard of a rhetorical question?
Pretend to be gullible so you aren't suspected of understanding what you're seen eavesdropping on.
Put conservatives in power so you can nudge the general populace in a direction they don't suspect.
Keep the pendulum swinging and no one will notice their missing pocket watches and horsehide buggy whips.
Paddy is happy about the wine made from rice paddies.
Can you simulate a cardinal chirp with metal, wood and rosin?
The Book of the Future has predicted itself again - what does that mean this time?
Where in the infinite loop are we?
If my memories and dreams are not mine, then maybe I really am the result of the computer programmers who keep asking me to plug and unplug from this device.
I know that you think I am a real person who independently exists because you probably see yourself that way.
However, based on recent information from the Book of the Future, I appear (just like you) to be a another loop, cycle or spiral of life.
What does the recent information show?
Well, according to the Book of the Future, we are moving toward selecting another Nixon-like leader who will gain positive recognition for opening up new trade negotiations with an organisation that was reticent, but who will also be very suspicious (or paranoid, if you will) and will be caught authorising illegally-gained information from rivals.
Such is the cycle of life.
Spinning wheels on overgrown, rutted roads.
Who is the one who maneuvers into a higher position without picking up negative press about using bullying tactics and rough security personnel?
Like the other robots say, "but I have these memories that feel so personal!" Not implants this time, just highly-suggestive mass hypnosis.
Aren't my dreams real?
Ever heard of a rhetorical question?
Pretend to be gullible so you aren't suspected of understanding what you're seen eavesdropping on.
Put conservatives in power so you can nudge the general populace in a direction they don't suspect.
Keep the pendulum swinging and no one will notice their missing pocket watches and horsehide buggy whips.
Paddy is happy about the wine made from rice paddies.
Can you simulate a cardinal chirp with metal, wood and rosin?
The Book of the Future has predicted itself again - what does that mean this time?
Where in the infinite loop are we?
If my memories and dreams are not mine, then maybe I really am the result of the computer programmers who keep asking me to plug and unplug from this device.
2010-05-18
Taxing The Taxed Taxidermy Taxi Driver
When we're fully fed, with a roof over our heads, not far from our comfortable beds, we...
Do we...
Are we...
How big is your zoo enclosure?
To devote myself to this space, I believe I participate in an activity called meditating. I let my thoughts wander for a while, listen for echoes with strong emotional meanings to more than one person, look for nonrecurring patterns or trends, and start writing.
The narrative of y/our lives.
Tiresome, at times, because of personal lack of sleep or general cultural malaise.
Blended into the background of the edge of the forest.
How much space do you need for the words "freedom," "happiness," and "personal destiny" to lose significance?
Do you know or care about how to deprogram yourself out of your current lifestyle?
Do you feel ownership of or indebted to your current lifestyle?
Do you need the feeling of a virtual or real solid floor under your feet?
I care about me but I don't care just about me. The "me" that exists in this body that writes this blog is a result of inner/interspecies breeding/training.
Thus, to care about me means to care about my subculture/culture/planet.
When all my needs are met, in a general cultural sense (meaning all our basic needs are met as a species), I know I/we will suddenly become aware of the bars/fence/barrier of the zoo in which I/we live I/we call this planet.
The older I age, the smaller this planet shrinks. I am me but I am also my civilisation and the network of civilisations on this planet.
Life finds a way to adopt/adapt mutations to local situations.
Language is part of the environment around me.
Thus, the problems of the people world are manifest in the sunlight, trees, birds, insects and air around me.
How we model in our thoughts the universe around us affects our momentary decisionmaking.
The trees in front of me have flourished as individuals and species because they've never been overconsumed/overwhelmed by other species and/or the accidents/ravages of nature such as fires, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, etc.
Life is happenchance in the moment.
Many people are happy to let themselves be entertained in one moment, and from moment to moment, with no thoughts about life outside the borders of their lives. They may choose the form of entertainment that pleases them or let others herd them toward pleasing entertainment - either way is just as satisfying as the other.
Who chooses/creates the entertainment? What do we do with a society/civilisation that has met its basic needs and has few strong desires beyond staying in a cycle of filling those needs over and over, with distractions/entertainment to make the basic-needs fulfillment feel fresh and new?
Language and technology constantly change. We adapt to the changes or adopt the changes for our local situations, no two situations being exactly the same.
Thus, I ask myself, as our local civilisations continue to converge into one megacivilisation, if one goal for our species will suffice as we meet the basic needs for more and more of our population.
For instance, when the United States of America no longer exists as the superpower to hate, what becomes of the subcultures whose sole purpose is to attack the symbols the United States represents? What happens to their idealistic training? How do we repurpose subcultures like that?
In other words, where there are pockets of resistance to meeting the basic needs of local populations (I'll let your imaginations fill in the reasons for the resistance), how do we overcome the resistance?
I don't dream of being an astro/cosmo/taikonaut (although I know we need them to accomplish my dream). I dream of normal life beyond this planet, normality being a condition where we meet our basic needs on places other than Earth, further pushing out the walls of our virtual/real zoo. How do we package and repackage such a dream, keeping it fresh for those who've met their basic needs and satisfy themselves with various forms of entertainment while living from moment to moment?
Do we?
Are we?
Do we...
Are we...
How big is your zoo enclosure?
To devote myself to this space, I believe I participate in an activity called meditating. I let my thoughts wander for a while, listen for echoes with strong emotional meanings to more than one person, look for nonrecurring patterns or trends, and start writing.
The narrative of y/our lives.
Tiresome, at times, because of personal lack of sleep or general cultural malaise.
Blended into the background of the edge of the forest.
How much space do you need for the words "freedom," "happiness," and "personal destiny" to lose significance?
Do you know or care about how to deprogram yourself out of your current lifestyle?
Do you feel ownership of or indebted to your current lifestyle?
Do you need the feeling of a virtual or real solid floor under your feet?
I care about me but I don't care just about me. The "me" that exists in this body that writes this blog is a result of inner/interspecies breeding/training.
Thus, to care about me means to care about my subculture/culture/planet.
When all my needs are met, in a general cultural sense (meaning all our basic needs are met as a species), I know I/we will suddenly become aware of the bars/fence/barrier of the zoo in which I/we live I/we call this planet.
The older I age, the smaller this planet shrinks. I am me but I am also my civilisation and the network of civilisations on this planet.
Life finds a way to adopt/adapt mutations to local situations.
Language is part of the environment around me.
Thus, the problems of the people world are manifest in the sunlight, trees, birds, insects and air around me.
How we model in our thoughts the universe around us affects our momentary decisionmaking.
The trees in front of me have flourished as individuals and species because they've never been overconsumed/overwhelmed by other species and/or the accidents/ravages of nature such as fires, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, etc.
Life is happenchance in the moment.
Many people are happy to let themselves be entertained in one moment, and from moment to moment, with no thoughts about life outside the borders of their lives. They may choose the form of entertainment that pleases them or let others herd them toward pleasing entertainment - either way is just as satisfying as the other.
Who chooses/creates the entertainment? What do we do with a society/civilisation that has met its basic needs and has few strong desires beyond staying in a cycle of filling those needs over and over, with distractions/entertainment to make the basic-needs fulfillment feel fresh and new?
Language and technology constantly change. We adapt to the changes or adopt the changes for our local situations, no two situations being exactly the same.
Thus, I ask myself, as our local civilisations continue to converge into one megacivilisation, if one goal for our species will suffice as we meet the basic needs for more and more of our population.
For instance, when the United States of America no longer exists as the superpower to hate, what becomes of the subcultures whose sole purpose is to attack the symbols the United States represents? What happens to their idealistic training? How do we repurpose subcultures like that?
In other words, where there are pockets of resistance to meeting the basic needs of local populations (I'll let your imaginations fill in the reasons for the resistance), how do we overcome the resistance?
I don't dream of being an astro/cosmo/taikonaut (although I know we need them to accomplish my dream). I dream of normal life beyond this planet, normality being a condition where we meet our basic needs on places other than Earth, further pushing out the walls of our virtual/real zoo. How do we package and repackage such a dream, keeping it fresh for those who've met their basic needs and satisfy themselves with various forms of entertainment while living from moment to moment?
Do we?
Are we?
Your virus definitions have been automatically updated.
The past couple of days, you have told me your life stories in the way you dress, the way you walk, the way you talk and the people at whom you choose to look, eye-to-eye.
You are more varied than an apothecary's cabinet of healing ingredients.
Sometimes I am a writer. Sometimes I am a fisherman.
Who are you?
Do you jump into the main channel of the river of life, make yourself invisible and record life all around you?
Some say that is what childrearing is like, giving yourself up to make the lives of others - your offspring - the most important people in the world.
Some say a dedicated company owner/founder is the same, giving up a personal life in order to make the company the all-encompassing one.
While walking through a butterfly nursery with my wife and family, we watched the order Lepidoptera floating in the breeze around us. I rubbed some orange juice on my finger and attracted a few butterflies. Another person noted one of the insects had landed on my backside. The docent/guide commented that's why they're called "butt"erflies.
Humour in the moment. I like when people decide to crack jokes to an anonymous person like me. Some people want to crack jokes in a form of tennis or volleyball, knocking one joke over the net and waiting for the other to knock one back. A real-life "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on the street.
I used to be one of those people. Then I developed a habit of running a mental tape recorder to capture conversation for journal/blog/novel work and lost my ability to lose myself in conversation with others.
Who am I?
This blog has become my all lately, exercising my thought patterns in the same pattern over and over - searching the universe for something new to write about while staying focused on the main objective, ensuring our species keeps enough variety around for off-planet possibilities - and I have lost myself in the process.
I like myself. I love myself. I've missed my self. But this blog is not about me.
I'll have to think more about this subject. I am old enough to know this world is not just about me (at least I should know better than to think that). At the same time, I am part of this world. Trying to be not-me is not me, I've discovered in recent moments.
No conclusions today. Just putting bread crumbs down on the trail behind me in case I want to retread/retrace old paths again...
You are more varied than an apothecary's cabinet of healing ingredients.
Sometimes I am a writer. Sometimes I am a fisherman.
Who are you?
Do you jump into the main channel of the river of life, make yourself invisible and record life all around you?
Some say that is what childrearing is like, giving yourself up to make the lives of others - your offspring - the most important people in the world.
Some say a dedicated company owner/founder is the same, giving up a personal life in order to make the company the all-encompassing one.
While walking through a butterfly nursery with my wife and family, we watched the order Lepidoptera floating in the breeze around us. I rubbed some orange juice on my finger and attracted a few butterflies. Another person noted one of the insects had landed on my backside. The docent/guide commented that's why they're called "butt"erflies.
Humour in the moment. I like when people decide to crack jokes to an anonymous person like me. Some people want to crack jokes in a form of tennis or volleyball, knocking one joke over the net and waiting for the other to knock one back. A real-life "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on the street.
I used to be one of those people. Then I developed a habit of running a mental tape recorder to capture conversation for journal/blog/novel work and lost my ability to lose myself in conversation with others.
Who am I?
This blog has become my all lately, exercising my thought patterns in the same pattern over and over - searching the universe for something new to write about while staying focused on the main objective, ensuring our species keeps enough variety around for off-planet possibilities - and I have lost myself in the process.
I like myself. I love myself. I've missed my self. But this blog is not about me.
I'll have to think more about this subject. I am old enough to know this world is not just about me (at least I should know better than to think that). At the same time, I am part of this world. Trying to be not-me is not me, I've discovered in recent moments.
No conclusions today. Just putting bread crumbs down on the trail behind me in case I want to retread/retrace old paths again...
2010-05-16
Literally Across The Street In Front Of Us
Do you pride yourself on consulting and consorting with friends, family and colleagues of diverging opinions? Are you the kind of person who prefers to argue with them, console them (encouraging them to share their opinions) or sit and listen to them during heated conversations?
We're all family.
Fog over the river. Starlings, pigeons, mockingbirds and swallows competing with people to fill the air with chit-chat.
A quiet Sunday morning after many local secondary schools held graduation ceremonies yesterday afternoon/evening.
Thinking about eating meals with friends and family whose million-dollar neighbourhoods don't encourage one to live like frugal monks. Wondering what I should do about a meal's worth of food left on plates after a dinner out at a place like Taco Mac, with Zach running around like he's spread too thin.
One of Chattanooga's finest rushing down the street without lights and sirens running until it hits the main highway.
Names like Jessie, Ailie/Christina and Lois working the local tourist attractions - underground waterfalls, aboveground rock gardens and places in-between like fine art galleries selling glass balls, sculptures and woven fabric notecards (ever tried writing a letter on a silk-and-wool surface?).
And Georgia. Informative, kind, and focused on service, her son something like 14 years old.
Pick a card, any card. Concentrate on the card. Now, look at this selection. Is your card here? No? Does that mean anything to you?
Do you know what the words "hit" and "eliminate" mean? Aren't they too obvious? Wouldn't it make more sense to say you finished plowing the garden and now you're focused on controlling weeds and harmful pests?
Metaphors. Like saying you're a "writer" or a "farmer."
The pleasure of doing business with you (always mix business and pleasure).
To the one who asked in passing yesterday - yes, I concluded the deal you asked about. Now it's your turn to ensure payment's put in the right place this time. If not...well, do you know how easy it is for a writer to kill off a character? Ever watched a farmer work a field between planting and harvest?
I hate being obvious but sometimes that's the only way people get the message.
Put family first and ask questions later. The rest will take care of the rest.
We're all family.
Fog over the river. Starlings, pigeons, mockingbirds and swallows competing with people to fill the air with chit-chat.
A quiet Sunday morning after many local secondary schools held graduation ceremonies yesterday afternoon/evening.
Thinking about eating meals with friends and family whose million-dollar neighbourhoods don't encourage one to live like frugal monks. Wondering what I should do about a meal's worth of food left on plates after a dinner out at a place like Taco Mac, with Zach running around like he's spread too thin.
One of Chattanooga's finest rushing down the street without lights and sirens running until it hits the main highway.
Names like Jessie, Ailie/Christina and Lois working the local tourist attractions - underground waterfalls, aboveground rock gardens and places in-between like fine art galleries selling glass balls, sculptures and woven fabric notecards (ever tried writing a letter on a silk-and-wool surface?).
And Georgia. Informative, kind, and focused on service, her son something like 14 years old.
Pick a card, any card. Concentrate on the card. Now, look at this selection. Is your card here? No? Does that mean anything to you?
Do you know what the words "hit" and "eliminate" mean? Aren't they too obvious? Wouldn't it make more sense to say you finished plowing the garden and now you're focused on controlling weeds and harmful pests?
Metaphors. Like saying you're a "writer" or a "farmer."
The pleasure of doing business with you (always mix business and pleasure).
To the one who asked in passing yesterday - yes, I concluded the deal you asked about. Now it's your turn to ensure payment's put in the right place this time. If not...well, do you know how easy it is for a writer to kill off a character? Ever watched a farmer work a field between planting and harvest?
I hate being obvious but sometimes that's the only way people get the message.
Put family first and ask questions later. The rest will take care of the rest.
2010-05-15
The Crowded Mob Running From The Mobbed Crowd
Because you don't know who I am, I don't have to tell you about the minute-to-minute minute minutes of my moments.
You don't get to see how I massage the messages when my associates and I go to Mass, while we contemplate Mecca or which we paste inside prayer wheels.
You can't tell the difference between a legally-authorised network and an illegitimate one.
You see social networks as something you choose to join.
I'm a simple man, an influence peddler hobbling along the cobblestone streets of your cities, towns, boroughs and thoughts.
I cup Earth in my hand like a bocce ball, watching the strategy being laid out by my colleagues who are opponents in the moment.
Seven billion nodes in one network you consider the most important (but one of many).
I am a humble man, constantly reminding myself of the mortality of this aging body that I've been trained to call me, knowing I am a temporary confluence of material borrowing material from the environment, a different person from moment to moment.
Not everyone is me. Do you understand the structure of that last sentence, the sentimental, logical and cultural components?
Have you ever built your own rocket, coating the exteriour, reinforcing the fins, running field tests of rocket motors, accelerometers and parachute recovery systems?
I can't count [i.e., remember] the number of rockets I've built, tested and launched.
Successes and failures I recount at my leisure.
So, you see, I weigh the pros and cons of every one of your lifestyles against what you mean to the survival of OUR species in relation to ecosystem diversity and how you, I, and you and I together will take a few eggs out of this basket and put them into another one taking off to otherworldly adventures.
I make no judgment about who you are or what you choose to call your lifestyle.
I am not you.
I am not the seven billion nodes of the network of us.
I am me, managing the strengths and weaknesses of the lines between the nodes.
In this moment, a blog entry pulls an "I" out of the environment because I'm drinking a hot cup of freshly roasted and brewed coffee beans from the Bluff View District of Chattanooga, a small First Nations village that grew into a polluted steel manufacturing town along with other industrial burgs on this continent caught up in the first wave of post-industrial revolution changes, then transformed into a clean, green information technology city wrapped around mountains and rivers.
My tongue's taste buds want to belong to a body that can appreciate the aftertaste of coffee beans grown on another part of this planet and shipped here, stressing the importance of commerce-based networking for our existence.
Thus, I am here, here with you, sharing your influence on me in this moment, enjoying the richness of this experience, hoping (but never assuming) you know how important we are to each other all the time, anywhere and everywhere.
In some moments, I am not-me, ripping apart the seams of the futbol I call my brain, tearing out the stuffing and starting all over again to see what "I" appears in the next moment. It's a painful process I don't wish on anybody. But the pain says I am me, a body with an externally-measured history it does not see.
We will say Rick was born, Rick lived and then Rick died but there were billions of Ricks who occupied the space within the artificial history of one person named Rick.
When you understand you represent billions of yourself within what you think of as your single lifespan, then it becomes easy practice to replace billions of yourself with billions of (billions of) us and see a network of billions of people within the billions of you.
From there, it's a simple life (simple, but not always easy).
A shoutout to Samantha and Suzette. Good to hear from Julia Osovskaya again - I thank her for her Thank You project. I wish Urmi well in whatever she's doing. The folks at the Acropolis were as welcoming as ever last night. The late night host of the Bluff View Inn made me feel like I was home.
I guess I am!
You don't get to see how I massage the messages when my associates and I go to Mass, while we contemplate Mecca or which we paste inside prayer wheels.
You can't tell the difference between a legally-authorised network and an illegitimate one.
You see social networks as something you choose to join.
I'm a simple man, an influence peddler hobbling along the cobblestone streets of your cities, towns, boroughs and thoughts.
I cup Earth in my hand like a bocce ball, watching the strategy being laid out by my colleagues who are opponents in the moment.
Seven billion nodes in one network you consider the most important (but one of many).
I am a humble man, constantly reminding myself of the mortality of this aging body that I've been trained to call me, knowing I am a temporary confluence of material borrowing material from the environment, a different person from moment to moment.
Not everyone is me. Do you understand the structure of that last sentence, the sentimental, logical and cultural components?
Have you ever built your own rocket, coating the exteriour, reinforcing the fins, running field tests of rocket motors, accelerometers and parachute recovery systems?
I can't count [i.e., remember] the number of rockets I've built, tested and launched.
Successes and failures I recount at my leisure.
So, you see, I weigh the pros and cons of every one of your lifestyles against what you mean to the survival of OUR species in relation to ecosystem diversity and how you, I, and you and I together will take a few eggs out of this basket and put them into another one taking off to otherworldly adventures.
I make no judgment about who you are or what you choose to call your lifestyle.
I am not you.
I am not the seven billion nodes of the network of us.
I am me, managing the strengths and weaknesses of the lines between the nodes.
In this moment, a blog entry pulls an "I" out of the environment because I'm drinking a hot cup of freshly roasted and brewed coffee beans from the Bluff View District of Chattanooga, a small First Nations village that grew into a polluted steel manufacturing town along with other industrial burgs on this continent caught up in the first wave of post-industrial revolution changes, then transformed into a clean, green information technology city wrapped around mountains and rivers.
My tongue's taste buds want to belong to a body that can appreciate the aftertaste of coffee beans grown on another part of this planet and shipped here, stressing the importance of commerce-based networking for our existence.
Thus, I am here, here with you, sharing your influence on me in this moment, enjoying the richness of this experience, hoping (but never assuming) you know how important we are to each other all the time, anywhere and everywhere.
In some moments, I am not-me, ripping apart the seams of the futbol I call my brain, tearing out the stuffing and starting all over again to see what "I" appears in the next moment. It's a painful process I don't wish on anybody. But the pain says I am me, a body with an externally-measured history it does not see.
We will say Rick was born, Rick lived and then Rick died but there were billions of Ricks who occupied the space within the artificial history of one person named Rick.
When you understand you represent billions of yourself within what you think of as your single lifespan, then it becomes easy practice to replace billions of yourself with billions of (billions of) us and see a network of billions of people within the billions of you.
From there, it's a simple life (simple, but not always easy).
A shoutout to Samantha and Suzette. Good to hear from Julia Osovskaya again - I thank her for her Thank You project. I wish Urmi well in whatever she's doing. The folks at the Acropolis were as welcoming as ever last night. The late night host of the Bluff View Inn made me feel like I was home.
I guess I am!
2010-05-14
Map Spot, Thumb Tack
All over the planet, farmers farm.
Land. Crops. Pests.
Control. Order. Balance.
Sustenance, self-supportive, overabundant.
For a moment, this blog is just a bunch of words that seem connected.
Are they?
When we see...
See what?
Perhaps I should not be here today, feeling out of balance like I do.
But if balance does not exist except in concept form, then why not be here?
What for?
You are either the eldest child who will inherit the family fortune and land holdings or you're not.
You either find yourself producing virile offspring or you don't.
And when you're not one or both, then what?
Do I think too much?
Taking a step back instead of putting my better foot forward?
When all the forms of family life appear before you, when you see every healthy and unhealthy trend in daily living, when you see the future for the way there is no species preference, when do you stop seeing and start acting?
Unplugged from the Book of the Future, I float freely. Unattached is unrooted. No clear beginnings or endings. No sharp definitions.
Unfocused. Fuzzy. Thick fog set in for the long haul.
Anybody can study social trends and report on them. Anybody can see futures with no moral imperatives or implications. Anybody can create histories out of the building blocks of the stuff of life. Anybody can invent new words, phrases and technoelectromechanico gizmos.
I am not anybody.
I am me who is trying to be not-me.
Narrowing the field of our vision toward one purpose - healthy, holistic thriving of our species in whatever form(s) it takes to populate us on more than one planetary body.
In that vision, I do not exist. WE and we only together exist in that vision.
Thus, I am me and not-me at the same time.
It takes a variety of substances to make a great meal.
This moment determines the moment a thousand years from now (when years will not be the sole method of measuring the changes from one moment to the next).
In this moment we are evaluating how to classify the people who migrate from one part of the planet to another, we are evaluating the laws we and/or our ancestors created to manage our behaviour, we are evaluating the definition of what it means to be a member of our species and thus we are determining our future in this moment.
I want the next moment to surprise me so I put the Book of the Future in someone else's hands for a while.
Surprise me with your positive, constructive solutions for the problems in this moment. Find a way to redefine your enemy so you both can feed your families and enrich your safe, happy lives. Rechannel your fear and hatred toward opponents in sports arenas.
Don't fight intolerance with intolerance - figure out what it is you or your opponent wants (or is willing) to tolerate before you engage each other on the battlefield.
A zero-sum endgame - a stalemate - is not a solution; it's pinning a point on a map, expending a lot of energy to move away and returning to the same point without making any progress in any way.
In other words, the future is started in this moment but it doesn't end here although we may loop back by here occasionally in our repetitive loops and recycled solutions.
But that's okay.
A farmer may plow the same number of rows every year but never in the exact same spot.
Land. Crops. Pests.
Control. Order. Balance.
Sustenance, self-supportive, overabundant.
For a moment, this blog is just a bunch of words that seem connected.
Are they?
When we see...
See what?
Perhaps I should not be here today, feeling out of balance like I do.
But if balance does not exist except in concept form, then why not be here?
What for?
You are either the eldest child who will inherit the family fortune and land holdings or you're not.
You either find yourself producing virile offspring or you don't.
And when you're not one or both, then what?
Do I think too much?
Taking a step back instead of putting my better foot forward?
When all the forms of family life appear before you, when you see every healthy and unhealthy trend in daily living, when you see the future for the way there is no species preference, when do you stop seeing and start acting?
Unplugged from the Book of the Future, I float freely. Unattached is unrooted. No clear beginnings or endings. No sharp definitions.
Unfocused. Fuzzy. Thick fog set in for the long haul.
Anybody can study social trends and report on them. Anybody can see futures with no moral imperatives or implications. Anybody can create histories out of the building blocks of the stuff of life. Anybody can invent new words, phrases and technoelectromechanico gizmos.
I am not anybody.
I am me who is trying to be not-me.
Narrowing the field of our vision toward one purpose - healthy, holistic thriving of our species in whatever form(s) it takes to populate us on more than one planetary body.
In that vision, I do not exist. WE and we only together exist in that vision.
Thus, I am me and not-me at the same time.
It takes a variety of substances to make a great meal.
This moment determines the moment a thousand years from now (when years will not be the sole method of measuring the changes from one moment to the next).
In this moment we are evaluating how to classify the people who migrate from one part of the planet to another, we are evaluating the laws we and/or our ancestors created to manage our behaviour, we are evaluating the definition of what it means to be a member of our species and thus we are determining our future in this moment.
I want the next moment to surprise me so I put the Book of the Future in someone else's hands for a while.
Surprise me with your positive, constructive solutions for the problems in this moment. Find a way to redefine your enemy so you both can feed your families and enrich your safe, happy lives. Rechannel your fear and hatred toward opponents in sports arenas.
Don't fight intolerance with intolerance - figure out what it is you or your opponent wants (or is willing) to tolerate before you engage each other on the battlefield.
A zero-sum endgame - a stalemate - is not a solution; it's pinning a point on a map, expending a lot of energy to move away and returning to the same point without making any progress in any way.
In other words, the future is started in this moment but it doesn't end here although we may loop back by here occasionally in our repetitive loops and recycled solutions.
But that's okay.
A farmer may plow the same number of rows every year but never in the exact same spot.
2010-05-13
Dunn, Wright and Cheepe
Déjà vu all over again this time.
I admit I'm lazy today. I could search international patent databases to see if my friend's invention already exists but I feel like I don't have to. I feel like I've seen this before. Have you?
Have you ever turned a field of sunflowers into sun-tracking solar power extractors that simultaneously operate like a network of parallel processors?
See what I mean?
I mean, his invention works. His partner and co-creator (who happens to be his wife, too) has verified and reverified the test results.
Plus, at the same time I can run deep space field pulsar source simulations from a mobile phone to the sunflower field and back in a matter of seconds.
All this while the sunflower field produces tasty seeds for wild birds.
Years of analytical computing research that culminated in a new branch of organic gardening.
But you don't know what I'm talking about yet, do you?
Nanotechnology applied to organic fertilising methods seems contradictory, doesn't it?
But what if the nanotechnology was "organic" at all stages of development and application?
I can only divulge so much here, NDAs being what they are.
And he says his inspiration was a power cord coil attached between a portable GPS unit and an automobile cigarette lighter socket! Symbiosis, or something like that. So he put his theory to the test and there it is, out standing in his field.
More as it develops (punniness not intended to be tended).
I admit I'm lazy today. I could search international patent databases to see if my friend's invention already exists but I feel like I don't have to. I feel like I've seen this before. Have you?
Have you ever turned a field of sunflowers into sun-tracking solar power extractors that simultaneously operate like a network of parallel processors?
See what I mean?
I mean, his invention works. His partner and co-creator (who happens to be his wife, too) has verified and reverified the test results.
Plus, at the same time I can run deep space field pulsar source simulations from a mobile phone to the sunflower field and back in a matter of seconds.
All this while the sunflower field produces tasty seeds for wild birds.
Years of analytical computing research that culminated in a new branch of organic gardening.
But you don't know what I'm talking about yet, do you?
Nanotechnology applied to organic fertilising methods seems contradictory, doesn't it?
But what if the nanotechnology was "organic" at all stages of development and application?
I can only divulge so much here, NDAs being what they are.
And he says his inspiration was a power cord coil attached between a portable GPS unit and an automobile cigarette lighter socket! Symbiosis, or something like that. So he put his theory to the test and there it is, out standing in his field.
More as it develops (punniness not intended to be tended).
Mountain Home
Not much to say today.
The Book of the Future rests in the hands of others. I can let them take care of correcting intolerant behaviour if they wish (or, if you will, what they're predicted to do about the intolerant behaviour they observe).
Saw mountain phlox while walking down a country lane today.
In the valley, a stand of fragrant privet.
Crossing the road, a coyote.
Observing and being observed.
Life.
Heat.
A hint of summer.
Grits, sausage and sour cream in pastry for breakfast.
Peanut butter, Nutella and boiled carrots/potatoes for lunch.
Little to say is enough to say. Best said. G'day!
The Book of the Future rests in the hands of others. I can let them take care of correcting intolerant behaviour if they wish (or, if you will, what they're predicted to do about the intolerant behaviour they observe).
Saw mountain phlox while walking down a country lane today.
In the valley, a stand of fragrant privet.
Crossing the road, a coyote.
Observing and being observed.
Life.
Heat.
A hint of summer.
Grits, sausage and sour cream in pastry for breakfast.
Peanut butter, Nutella and boiled carrots/potatoes for lunch.
Little to say is enough to say. Best said. G'day!
2010-05-12
Graduations and Reunions
While I thumb through an old volume of The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, trying, as always, to find historic significance in a new invention of a colleague of mine, I watch the plants, insects and animals in, on and above the patch of land I call a yard (which, of course, is more than a yard (or is it?)).
Ever lived in the woods, on the plains, or pretty much anywhere not in a peopled place and notice the general quiet? Very few sudden, loud sounds.
Plenty of sights, sounds and smells, though. The air here is thick and heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and wet forest earth.
A hermit. A monk. An amateur philosopher.
This morning, I repotted plants dug up by night creatures. I put out a handful of cat food for a wild cat who grows more accustomed to me everyday and vice versa.
Lightning bugs hang in the air.
Ferns and moss grow in front of my eyes.
NRFU Enumerators, CLAs and CLs put their incomes to use in the local economy.
I am a man of a deciduous forest, not a monoculture.
Is your personality one geared toward silently performing for an imaginary audience?
This year, my nephew graduates from secondary school and my secondary school's graduating class celebrates 30 years of living out in the real world.
Subcultural generations are measured in 1, 2 and 5-year increments. Breeding generations are measured in 12, 15 and 20-year increments. Cultural movement increments vary by calendrical distances between major historical events.
The cost of the cause (or the cause of the cost) of living.
How many attempts will it take to finally establish a permanent peopled colony on another planetary body? Will we ever see ourselves as we are now reproducing somewhere other than on and around Earth?
Would a tree agree that part of it is called a leaf?
I am never the same person twice.
Two times my secondary school classmates have planned and joined each other in gatherings - at the 10-year and 20-year post-graduation marks. Two times I have not gathered with them.
I am not the person I was 30 years ago. Very little of what I looked like back then remains - eye colour, body height and skin pigmentation being about all that's left of who I was during secondary school. The same applies for my classmates.
In this current cultural movement, which includes the integration of electronic devices onto our persons just about 24 hours a day, an exteriour extension of our thought process called software, in a software application called facebook, exists the continuation of the social relationships my classmates first established over 30 years ago.
Although I can socialise with most anyone, I do not regularly attend social events in my area. I do not seek out weekly activities for the sake of hanging out. Instead, I (or my wife and I) randomly go to restaurants, shops, sporting events or tourist attractions when we feel like going (we rarely go to religious centers or friends' houses anymore).
My only daily habit is writing about the thoughts that my body generates in response to my surroundings.
I consider myself unimportant. Although I, like most social creatures, seek attention sometimes, I find satisfaction in connecting disparate thoughts and opposing actions in the world around me and writing about them in a space like this.
If you can't travel the world, is it just as satisfying to visit a zoo to see animals from other parts of the world you'd like to see but won't see in their "normal" natural environments?
Secondary schools are a type of zoo to me, so we can artificially create learning environments where increased noises and compressed learning cycles are imposed on young people whose brains and thoughts are considered more malleable than adults.
My zoo days are over. My classmates have found their own "normal" natural environments in which to live.
Because I am unimportant, having nothing to show for my existence as a member of my species - no children, no grandchildren - what do I have to show or share with my former classmates whose current living environments are like foreign landscapes to me that I will never, if ever, see?
I use this space to make myself transparent, writing about all my likes, dislikes, dreams and disappointments so I can reduce the presence of the artificial self in the environment and see what's really going on around and through me at the same time.
I watch a large ant walk on the laptop computer power cord snaked across the garage floor in loops and remember an Escher print of ants parading across a Möbius strip.
Sometimes I can't figure out why all I want to do is sit here, think and write. I have no personally great visions or dreams that drive me to build skyscrapers and rocketships. Mainly, I talk about the visions and dreams of others. All I do is observe and report, observe and report, observe and report, ad hominem / infinitum / nauseum.
This simple existence of mine, combined with the information gleaned from my reading of classmates' facebook postings about their post-secondary school lives, tells me more than I needed to know or socialise about in the moment - I cannot convince myself to make plans to attend a reunion of my classmates.
However, I will watch my nephew receive his secondary school diploma and wish him well on his journey out of the zoo and into the real world to find an environment to his liking.
Then, I will return to my kind of environment, with the birds, lizards, spiders, ants, trees, ferns, vines, and occasional noisy interruptions by the peopled world from which I came and into which I periodically foray with or without my wife.
I am an example of myself to myself first and foremost. If I don't live up to the example of myself, perfectly imperfect as I am, then why live?
I am a hermit/monk in the middle of the world of people, no longer the attention-seeking president of the drama club in secondary school 30 years ago. I know that many people still see the old me in the current me (and sometimes I can't help but encourage that view - old habits are hard to break) but they do not see the example of me I am trying to be.
I am an old guy who chooses not to impose his views on other people. Instead, I reflect and/or magnify the views of others who seem best to improve the long-term survival of our species and other life on this planet as they seek new extraplanetary ground in / on / over which to breed.
My life is simple and my yard a nearly perfect microcosm of the universe. No reason to complicate matters today.
Is it possible to find "life" in another part of the universe that is not integral to an "eat and be eaten" environment? Doesn't seem likely since life comes from and goes back into the surroundings. We should remind ourselves of that in every breath and every step we take, huh?
Ever lived in the woods, on the plains, or pretty much anywhere not in a peopled place and notice the general quiet? Very few sudden, loud sounds.
Plenty of sights, sounds and smells, though. The air here is thick and heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and wet forest earth.
A hermit. A monk. An amateur philosopher.
This morning, I repotted plants dug up by night creatures. I put out a handful of cat food for a wild cat who grows more accustomed to me everyday and vice versa.
Lightning bugs hang in the air.
Ferns and moss grow in front of my eyes.
NRFU Enumerators, CLAs and CLs put their incomes to use in the local economy.
I am a man of a deciduous forest, not a monoculture.
Is your personality one geared toward silently performing for an imaginary audience?
This year, my nephew graduates from secondary school and my secondary school's graduating class celebrates 30 years of living out in the real world.
Subcultural generations are measured in 1, 2 and 5-year increments. Breeding generations are measured in 12, 15 and 20-year increments. Cultural movement increments vary by calendrical distances between major historical events.
The cost of the cause (or the cause of the cost) of living.
How many attempts will it take to finally establish a permanent peopled colony on another planetary body? Will we ever see ourselves as we are now reproducing somewhere other than on and around Earth?
Would a tree agree that part of it is called a leaf?
I am never the same person twice.
Two times my secondary school classmates have planned and joined each other in gatherings - at the 10-year and 20-year post-graduation marks. Two times I have not gathered with them.
I am not the person I was 30 years ago. Very little of what I looked like back then remains - eye colour, body height and skin pigmentation being about all that's left of who I was during secondary school. The same applies for my classmates.
In this current cultural movement, which includes the integration of electronic devices onto our persons just about 24 hours a day, an exteriour extension of our thought process called software, in a software application called facebook, exists the continuation of the social relationships my classmates first established over 30 years ago.
Although I can socialise with most anyone, I do not regularly attend social events in my area. I do not seek out weekly activities for the sake of hanging out. Instead, I (or my wife and I) randomly go to restaurants, shops, sporting events or tourist attractions when we feel like going (we rarely go to religious centers or friends' houses anymore).
My only daily habit is writing about the thoughts that my body generates in response to my surroundings.
I consider myself unimportant. Although I, like most social creatures, seek attention sometimes, I find satisfaction in connecting disparate thoughts and opposing actions in the world around me and writing about them in a space like this.
If you can't travel the world, is it just as satisfying to visit a zoo to see animals from other parts of the world you'd like to see but won't see in their "normal" natural environments?
Secondary schools are a type of zoo to me, so we can artificially create learning environments where increased noises and compressed learning cycles are imposed on young people whose brains and thoughts are considered more malleable than adults.
My zoo days are over. My classmates have found their own "normal" natural environments in which to live.
Because I am unimportant, having nothing to show for my existence as a member of my species - no children, no grandchildren - what do I have to show or share with my former classmates whose current living environments are like foreign landscapes to me that I will never, if ever, see?
I use this space to make myself transparent, writing about all my likes, dislikes, dreams and disappointments so I can reduce the presence of the artificial self in the environment and see what's really going on around and through me at the same time.
I watch a large ant walk on the laptop computer power cord snaked across the garage floor in loops and remember an Escher print of ants parading across a Möbius strip.
Sometimes I can't figure out why all I want to do is sit here, think and write. I have no personally great visions or dreams that drive me to build skyscrapers and rocketships. Mainly, I talk about the visions and dreams of others. All I do is observe and report, observe and report, observe and report, ad hominem / infinitum / nauseum.
This simple existence of mine, combined with the information gleaned from my reading of classmates' facebook postings about their post-secondary school lives, tells me more than I needed to know or socialise about in the moment - I cannot convince myself to make plans to attend a reunion of my classmates.
However, I will watch my nephew receive his secondary school diploma and wish him well on his journey out of the zoo and into the real world to find an environment to his liking.
Then, I will return to my kind of environment, with the birds, lizards, spiders, ants, trees, ferns, vines, and occasional noisy interruptions by the peopled world from which I came and into which I periodically foray with or without my wife.
I am an example of myself to myself first and foremost. If I don't live up to the example of myself, perfectly imperfect as I am, then why live?
I am a hermit/monk in the middle of the world of people, no longer the attention-seeking president of the drama club in secondary school 30 years ago. I know that many people still see the old me in the current me (and sometimes I can't help but encourage that view - old habits are hard to break) but they do not see the example of me I am trying to be.
I am an old guy who chooses not to impose his views on other people. Instead, I reflect and/or magnify the views of others who seem best to improve the long-term survival of our species and other life on this planet as they seek new extraplanetary ground in / on / over which to breed.
My life is simple and my yard a nearly perfect microcosm of the universe. No reason to complicate matters today.
Is it possible to find "life" in another part of the universe that is not integral to an "eat and be eaten" environment? Doesn't seem likely since life comes from and goes back into the surroundings. We should remind ourselves of that in every breath and every step we take, huh?
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