2010-08-07
Atlanta, I hear you calling...
Hail pounding on the metal skin, our bodies bouncing like ragdolls, we checked our thoughts for signs of comfort - prayers, assurance that pilots and planes are safer than texting drivers - wondering, wondering, wondering... then, out into the sun, over water vapour mushrooms blooming in unstable air masses (a cold front? all is relative) and landing in the mess that is ATL in sweltering summer storms. Enuf sed!
2010-08-06
Taxes? What taxes?
Here in the balmy state of Alabama, parents head to stores, determined to save a few percent off total cost to buy their children school supplies without paying sales tax.
"Get the package that you want!"
My frugal wife and I shopped and shopped and shopped for days, spending more in hours than we'd ever hope to recover in savings trying to determine which low-end budget computer system we wanted for Web surfing, email and rare home video production (including photo and music storage). I'd detail our decision process but won't. Instead, I'll summarise: Looked at Intel i3 system - too slow (due to emulated 4-core?); Intel i5 system out of our budget range; AMD Phenom II not worth the extra cost; AMD Athlon II x4 630 and 635 about the same. Settled on HP Pavilion P6520F at Staples for $529.88 plus HP S2331 LCD monitor for $199.99, staying below the $750 limit with room to spare! Purchased clothes at Burke's Outlet and called our tax-free shopping spree a complete success.2010-07-30
Nobody Doesn't Hire Thinkers
[personal flogging session - not meant for consumption by general audience]
I am worthless. I have no motivation. There is nothing I want - unused material possessions swallowing me up as it is.
Why live? Why carry on a big dream if the world is fully of petty squabbles and selfish hoarding?
I have only one body. I am only one person. I want only because my social side sympathises with the wants of others.
Death is inevitable. My family will all die in time, leaving dreams and plans in the hands of others who will also die in time.
What is love if I can't share it with others, ignoring local social/subcultural mores?
If we are one species, why do others spend so much time and energy declaring we are not?
I am conquered by my fears in today's battle with self. I have lost. I am captive to the cruelty and shortsightedness inherent in our drive to get ahead at others' costs.
I don't want to see anyone else anymore or hear the un/spoken trails of negative thoughts permeating our planet. I am burdened with too much personal negativity to hold up much longer.
Some days a couple of beers or glasses of wine or swigs of whiskey smooth over the rough seas pounding against the portholes of my thoughts.
I'm too tired to lift a glass of good cheer today.
Rest. Peace. Quiet.
Watch two chickadees looking for "natural" meals in the tree limbs instead of handouts.
Not as many granddaddy longlegs on the window screens this year.
Is there a low-cost place where I can fade away, unaware of the pains and progress of the species to which I was born and raised?
I am a nobody. Unable to rescue my wife on my own. Lost and alone.
I don't want to be a helpless dependent. I want to die with my boots on, walking the woods the last action I remember before a myocardial infarction takes me off of my feet.
I am an old man in thoughts, if not in body. Worn out by seeing storylines play out like life is a set of easy scripts to be written by those who have loose connections with the whole species.
Novelty for novelty's sake has lost its novelty.
My fine-feathered friends come to the window expecting a meal from me. Have I disappointed them, too?
When we run out of exotic metals and other easy-to-manufacture chemicals, who's going to find the Amish, Amazonian nomads and Asian/African desert tribes had it right all along?
Will the majority of our species' members willingly live low-tech lives to send the select into space to preserve a portion of our planet's ecosystems in perpetuity elsewhere?
I can only be an example of myself to myself, choosing a mixture of high-tech and low-tech to live daily. Should I be more aware of the rare earth elements in my life that are unnecessary for my simple existence, needed more for packaging and sending others to new satellite/planetary bases?
I am a book reader. A thinker. Useless in today's fast-paced, high-tech society. A relic of days gone by. Where can I go out to pasture and slip away unseen into the hills from whence I came?
My time (and others like mine) has come and gone. The youngest generation must find the strength and determination to save our species and planet from our selfish desires. Will they avoid the traps we set to set high-volume consumption examples of ourselves?
If I was born Amish, I wouldn't be here. Perhaps it's just as well, able to represent more than one alternate lifestyle. Maybe I can become Amish or something like it before my time is up and leave the sub/urban life to those who don't know better, who aren't aware they're repeating historical civilisation rises/falls, making no more progress than an 18th century farming family makes without all the fuss, worry and stress of reaching for the stars.
I am only one person. If I won't be one to make sure there is low overhead in how I consume in order to live, then who will?
Today, I don't have the energy to paint a humorous picture that resolves all the conflicts in the world. I feel humourless, deflated, empty. Ready to roll up in to a ball and wander away from all this (except, as always, from myself).
Just because I know how the world works and how others twist and turn and manipulate to maintain a constantly-interesting image to the mix of subcultures doesn't mean I want to change how it works or rework it to my advantage.
We are seven billion people, not one. It's up to you to see how it works, too. If you want to believe in hatred and pettiness, there are plenty of people to feed that belief. I no longer want to believe those or feed them, even jokingly.
I want technology turned toward positive solutions so we can use this small window of opportunity to get our species and surrounding ecosystems firmly established on other bodies bouncing around the galaxy. Island hopping, if you will.
It'll take thousands of years to get us safely far away from this solar system and into other safe zones. Several waves of settlers will pass away in the process.
Today is the moment to make the decision in y/our life to contribute to that line of reasoning.
I'm just one person, eating a bowl of oatmeal and drinking a cup of tea for breakfast before using a high-power network for expressing my thoughts here.
Maybe it's time to rethink my life.
No "maybe." It is the moment.
I gave up facebook and linkedin to preserve my quasi-independent mindset. Time to give up online blogging/browsing, also.
Like watching the chickadees that roam this part of the countryside, there's too much out there that this electronic world doesn't provide, and at a lower cost to the environment (thus leaving more environmental stuff for those who will explore the planets in my/our name).
I'm closing this blog.
Thanks for stopping by. We'll stay in touch using the other methods, of course.
I am worthless. I have no motivation. There is nothing I want - unused material possessions swallowing me up as it is.
Why live? Why carry on a big dream if the world is fully of petty squabbles and selfish hoarding?
I have only one body. I am only one person. I want only because my social side sympathises with the wants of others.
Death is inevitable. My family will all die in time, leaving dreams and plans in the hands of others who will also die in time.
What is love if I can't share it with others, ignoring local social/subcultural mores?
If we are one species, why do others spend so much time and energy declaring we are not?
I am conquered by my fears in today's battle with self. I have lost. I am captive to the cruelty and shortsightedness inherent in our drive to get ahead at others' costs.
I don't want to see anyone else anymore or hear the un/spoken trails of negative thoughts permeating our planet. I am burdened with too much personal negativity to hold up much longer.
Some days a couple of beers or glasses of wine or swigs of whiskey smooth over the rough seas pounding against the portholes of my thoughts.
I'm too tired to lift a glass of good cheer today.
Rest. Peace. Quiet.
Watch two chickadees looking for "natural" meals in the tree limbs instead of handouts.
Not as many granddaddy longlegs on the window screens this year.
Is there a low-cost place where I can fade away, unaware of the pains and progress of the species to which I was born and raised?
I am a nobody. Unable to rescue my wife on my own. Lost and alone.
I don't want to be a helpless dependent. I want to die with my boots on, walking the woods the last action I remember before a myocardial infarction takes me off of my feet.
I am an old man in thoughts, if not in body. Worn out by seeing storylines play out like life is a set of easy scripts to be written by those who have loose connections with the whole species.
Novelty for novelty's sake has lost its novelty.
My fine-feathered friends come to the window expecting a meal from me. Have I disappointed them, too?
When we run out of exotic metals and other easy-to-manufacture chemicals, who's going to find the Amish, Amazonian nomads and Asian/African desert tribes had it right all along?
Will the majority of our species' members willingly live low-tech lives to send the select into space to preserve a portion of our planet's ecosystems in perpetuity elsewhere?
I can only be an example of myself to myself, choosing a mixture of high-tech and low-tech to live daily. Should I be more aware of the rare earth elements in my life that are unnecessary for my simple existence, needed more for packaging and sending others to new satellite/planetary bases?
I am a book reader. A thinker. Useless in today's fast-paced, high-tech society. A relic of days gone by. Where can I go out to pasture and slip away unseen into the hills from whence I came?
My time (and others like mine) has come and gone. The youngest generation must find the strength and determination to save our species and planet from our selfish desires. Will they avoid the traps we set to set high-volume consumption examples of ourselves?
If I was born Amish, I wouldn't be here. Perhaps it's just as well, able to represent more than one alternate lifestyle. Maybe I can become Amish or something like it before my time is up and leave the sub/urban life to those who don't know better, who aren't aware they're repeating historical civilisation rises/falls, making no more progress than an 18th century farming family makes without all the fuss, worry and stress of reaching for the stars.
I am only one person. If I won't be one to make sure there is low overhead in how I consume in order to live, then who will?
Today, I don't have the energy to paint a humorous picture that resolves all the conflicts in the world. I feel humourless, deflated, empty. Ready to roll up in to a ball and wander away from all this (except, as always, from myself).
Just because I know how the world works and how others twist and turn and manipulate to maintain a constantly-interesting image to the mix of subcultures doesn't mean I want to change how it works or rework it to my advantage.
We are seven billion people, not one. It's up to you to see how it works, too. If you want to believe in hatred and pettiness, there are plenty of people to feed that belief. I no longer want to believe those or feed them, even jokingly.
I want technology turned toward positive solutions so we can use this small window of opportunity to get our species and surrounding ecosystems firmly established on other bodies bouncing around the galaxy. Island hopping, if you will.
It'll take thousands of years to get us safely far away from this solar system and into other safe zones. Several waves of settlers will pass away in the process.
Today is the moment to make the decision in y/our life to contribute to that line of reasoning.
I'm just one person, eating a bowl of oatmeal and drinking a cup of tea for breakfast before using a high-power network for expressing my thoughts here.
Maybe it's time to rethink my life.
No "maybe." It is the moment.
I gave up facebook and linkedin to preserve my quasi-independent mindset. Time to give up online blogging/browsing, also.
Like watching the chickadees that roam this part of the countryside, there's too much out there that this electronic world doesn't provide, and at a lower cost to the environment (thus leaving more environmental stuff for those who will explore the planets in my/our name).
I'm closing this blog.
Thanks for stopping by. We'll stay in touch using the other methods, of course.
2010-07-29
What if...
Marie Osmond appeared as body-double to Hope Brady or vice versa in Nutrisystem/DOOL fantasy sequence tie-in?
Chip Ganassi was remembered long after Penske is gone?
Haier-type factories flew American flags in Chinese factories?
Symbiont-receptive quadriplegics became known as the best remote robot operators (i.e., cyborgs) in the solar system?
"Samourais" (2002) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) were found to be something else entirely?
Chip Ganassi was remembered long after Penske is gone?
Haier-type factories flew American flags in Chinese factories?
Symbiont-receptive quadriplegics became known as the best remote robot operators (i.e., cyborgs) in the solar system?
"Samourais" (2002) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) were found to be something else entirely?
Older Nephew At Work
Good to see my older nephew's company getting profiled (in a good way):
Small Huntsville company developing 'eyes' and 'brains' that can help soldiers
And to think, I still remember playing hide-and-seek and Frisbee tossing with him and his sister. That three-year old fascinated with ceiling fans sure grew up fast!
Small Huntsville company developing 'eyes' and 'brains' that can help soldiers
And to think, I still remember playing hide-and-seek and Frisbee tossing with him and his sister. That three-year old fascinated with ceiling fans sure grew up fast!
2010-07-28
Nuhjygfivoed
Oddly enough, finding recruits is easy. Never go after the elite. Go after the hungry.
My associates build and I gather.
Entrepreneurs with abundant resources revise plans for established defenses inaccessible by conventional forces.
Wouldn't you like to be the first to rule a brand-new sphere, able to collect docking fees and issue mining permits in the name of your own political entity, knowing you controlled the currency values of political entities on the neighbouring sphere?
The art of doing business with all the power at your (and thus, your colleagues'/associates') disposal.
The ultimate end-around maneuver.
Your ubiquity superfluous and omnipresent, duplicate copies upon duplicate copies spread out, over and in the competition's domain, virtually indestructible?
How can the competition eliminate you if you're part of them? Would they know they handed you the key to unlock their guarded secrets by NOT sharing them with you?
I'm a tired, middle-aged man who has figured out too many simple games we play and want something more than mass hypnosis and tomfoolery. I want to rule a small body circling around our planet for the fun of setting up an ecosystem of living beings adapted to low gravity and lack of a lot of symbionts (not forgetting other harsh conditions).
This is a blog. Words. Inside and outside of real life.
I'm not interested in snapping my fingers and causing massive earthquakes through the "magic" of science or toppling empires through mass media messaging.
I wonder. I imagine. I ask questions. I am unimportant.
I just figured out that I got your attention with this blog (how quickly I forget; never was my whole reason for being here, merely an easy place to store/backup my notes). Guess I better stay the course, huh?
Our species, our family, is all that counts and all I'm concerned about. That's what most of us only ever really know about and I want us to keep it that way, as secure as we can be in this day and age, as technologically backwards as it is.
One of you will see a new type of government centered on the Moon. With it comes its relationship with the rest of our solar system governments. I envy you, whoever you will be then. In the meantime, learn to lead, to coach, to mentor, to manage effectively, and remember you are family. Just like the rest of us.
We'll be keeping tabs on you. Don't worry, we'll nurture you along and ease you into your position of responsible power sharing when you/we see you're ready. It's what we do, what we've always done. Taking care of family, like a distant benefactor/relative rarely letting you know we're around.
Time for me to slip back into anonymity, the aimless wandering wonderer, humbly staying out of people's way, ending intolerance wherever feasible.
Hard to be an irresponsible practical joker and solemn, serious leader at the same time. Or is it? Hardly! Hardily! Half-Heartedly!
2010-07-27
Ode to the Unemployed
How well were we trained to recite rote lines in school,
How much do we seek unblemished records,
The times when we thought for ourselves were few,
And now we wait for an opportunity to keep our worthiness alive.
If I could invent a new life for myself -
Gutsy, inspirational, a 24-hour self-starter -
I'd give back to those who gave to me a definition of self
Found in work procedures, company policies and paychecks.
My vision's too far off to feed the masses now,
My dream of a solar system economic/political base not ready for primetime;
Where are the intermediate steps that profit us,
When will the dreamers step forward to keep the dream alive?
I am no poet...
An amateur thinker,
Knowing that legal routes and black market bargains
Drive our drive to break the gravitational pull of a shrinking planet.
I envision a future close by
Made of this moment and others like it,
We'll figure out symbiotic relationships start with us
And carry bacterial buddies to new homes.
Robots will be the next pioneers,
Risking no conscious lives sacrificing faulty electromechanics,
Blazing a trail for the first wave of settlers
Who'll redefine our species in new ecosystems.
How much do we seek unblemished records,
The times when we thought for ourselves were few,
And now we wait for an opportunity to keep our worthiness alive.
If I could invent a new life for myself -
Gutsy, inspirational, a 24-hour self-starter -
I'd give back to those who gave to me a definition of self
Found in work procedures, company policies and paychecks.
My vision's too far off to feed the masses now,
My dream of a solar system economic/political base not ready for primetime;
Where are the intermediate steps that profit us,
When will the dreamers step forward to keep the dream alive?
I am no poet...
An amateur thinker,
Knowing that legal routes and black market bargains
Drive our drive to break the gravitational pull of a shrinking planet.
I envision a future close by
Made of this moment and others like it,
We'll figure out symbiotic relationships start with us
And carry bacterial buddies to new homes.
Robots will be the next pioneers,
Risking no conscious lives sacrificing faulty electromechanics,
Blazing a trail for the first wave of settlers
Who'll redefine our species in new ecosystems.
2010-07-26
Your Fortune In Orbit
While happily wealthy people participate in a training camp for instant astronauthood, their financial advisors are finalising special accounts managed from a set of satellites launched overhead, outside the jurisdiction of international taxes/laws.
A restaurateur has signed on to serve food in weightless conditions.
A Brazilian self-styled cowboy entrepreneur will put the first privately-owned temporary space accommodations in place.
Bigelow has bigger plans to make budget travel more exciting.
A set of tunnels from previous war preparations prepares itself for its grand entrance.
Iranian documents disclose the location of locations, testifying before testy prying eyes, the indication that the right rites rule.
In computer news, nothing new today. The breakthrough you're looking for occurs in the sequence built into these letters. Capital! No, not this time. Listen for the lion's roar and the changing mane at the start of "The Last Notch" in celluloid. Count the hairs and count backward from there.
Vyghulesdrtmcx.
3k%/za9HG1''
There's money to be found in the tree branches, when one has a connection with how the new system generates income through leaves. Roots were given to you at birth - leave them to search for their natural anchor points.
All we ask is that you tone down the obviousness a quarter-turn - the people are educating themselves these days and smell conspiracy faster than a shark smells blood squeezed from a stone turnip turned green.
I am boring myself here - stay ten steps ahead AND ten steps behind. Look back at this moment from all directions and then move. Rolling boxcars are just as useful statistically as when they weren't good for ocean transport.
Didn't I say we are not alone? Then act like you listened and behave accordingly. You have all the future moments of your selves to think about.
Do you have a better picture this time? The last time you took off like you were driving into a foggy hillside.
A tea kettle or a samovar? Both. The ceremony's where the rising steam lets off a note on the air you're just starting to be able to read.
Can you smell Morse code? Can you see in 3D, all your senses alive to a moment years from when you'll have to look back and only understand in retrospect what you're going to relay to someone later in your species' life?
This moment's all you've got but it's the moment of moments that fan out in all directions. How many you track is how far the moment goes.
Do you have a clear picture of all that floated on the air the day your great-great-grandmother shared the family secret? If not, you're starting all over again, generations lost in putting together incomplete guesses. Someone else was paying attention and stored that day for another side of the family you know nothing about.
See why you'd better learn to listen to what's not being said? Eliminate the silence and all is noise. Eliminate the noise and all is all.
That's all for now.
A restaurateur has signed on to serve food in weightless conditions.
A Brazilian self-styled cowboy entrepreneur will put the first privately-owned temporary space accommodations in place.
Bigelow has bigger plans to make budget travel more exciting.
A set of tunnels from previous war preparations prepares itself for its grand entrance.
Iranian documents disclose the location of locations, testifying before testy prying eyes, the indication that the right rites rule.
In computer news, nothing new today. The breakthrough you're looking for occurs in the sequence built into these letters. Capital! No, not this time. Listen for the lion's roar and the changing mane at the start of "The Last Notch" in celluloid. Count the hairs and count backward from there.
Vyghulesdrtmcx.
3k%/za9HG1''
There's money to be found in the tree branches, when one has a connection with how the new system generates income through leaves. Roots were given to you at birth - leave them to search for their natural anchor points.
All we ask is that you tone down the obviousness a quarter-turn - the people are educating themselves these days and smell conspiracy faster than a shark smells blood squeezed from a stone turnip turned green.
I am boring myself here - stay ten steps ahead AND ten steps behind. Look back at this moment from all directions and then move. Rolling boxcars are just as useful statistically as when they weren't good for ocean transport.
Didn't I say we are not alone? Then act like you listened and behave accordingly. You have all the future moments of your selves to think about.
Do you have a better picture this time? The last time you took off like you were driving into a foggy hillside.
A tea kettle or a samovar? Both. The ceremony's where the rising steam lets off a note on the air you're just starting to be able to read.
Can you smell Morse code? Can you see in 3D, all your senses alive to a moment years from when you'll have to look back and only understand in retrospect what you're going to relay to someone later in your species' life?
This moment's all you've got but it's the moment of moments that fan out in all directions. How many you track is how far the moment goes.
Do you have a clear picture of all that floated on the air the day your great-great-grandmother shared the family secret? If not, you're starting all over again, generations lost in putting together incomplete guesses. Someone else was paying attention and stored that day for another side of the family you know nothing about.
See why you'd better learn to listen to what's not being said? Eliminate the silence and all is noise. Eliminate the noise and all is all.
That's all for now.
2010-07-25
Made In Alabama
A weekend of canning pickles, cooking peach pies, freezing beans, blueberries and blackberries - finishing with a good ol' summer thunderstorm.
Katydids and tree frogs set to the rumble from the south.
Most weather can be found just about anywhere but we call it ours where we work, live and play.
Ripened figs dropping into the water hole behind the house. Hickory nuts on the roof, courtesy of neighbourly squirrels.
Imagine an immobile body fully aware of its condition, using up a life's savings to add quantity rather than quality of life. What becomes of the surviving spouse with nothing left?
Do any of us want to be a burden on our loved ones?
I'm losing my hearing and don't want to waste health insurance money to insert an electronic gizmo in my ear canal. Why burden our overtaxed system so I can hear a pin drop? I'll keep going to car races without adequate ear protection, I'm sure.
My wife'll have to keep speaking up loudly to me for now.
I have no literary agent trying to get me the next writing gig for the largest paying readership possible. Thus, these storylines ramble from truth to fiction and from friction to troops.
Despite my wishing otherwise, these words are open messages to various subcultures for particular purposes, mainly to keep our species sailing on an even keel. Some deals are obvious and some intentionally unintentioned.
Faces and names get mentioned here for a reason. If you don't see what you expected, then imagine your importance is too great for a flash on the screen right now. If you see what you expected, then your part in the big production is ready for showtime.
No more strange advertisements in the classifieds. You don't know what a relief it is to use the whole Internet as a relatively free broadcast medium (at least until untraceable brain/body implants are prevalent).
The Arduino board will be a useful training device for novices operating an IP-less alternative to the Internet in preparation for the next great thing.
How loud should a country's leaders' global political rhetoric sound during national election season? Leave room for rhetoric - it adds spice to news headlines. We're grownups and can tell the difference between drumming up voter support and actual threats.
Pardon me if I repeat myself - I need the practice.
Katydids and tree frogs set to the rumble from the south.
Most weather can be found just about anywhere but we call it ours where we work, live and play.
Ripened figs dropping into the water hole behind the house. Hickory nuts on the roof, courtesy of neighbourly squirrels.
Imagine an immobile body fully aware of its condition, using up a life's savings to add quantity rather than quality of life. What becomes of the surviving spouse with nothing left?
Do any of us want to be a burden on our loved ones?
I'm losing my hearing and don't want to waste health insurance money to insert an electronic gizmo in my ear canal. Why burden our overtaxed system so I can hear a pin drop? I'll keep going to car races without adequate ear protection, I'm sure.
My wife'll have to keep speaking up loudly to me for now.
I have no literary agent trying to get me the next writing gig for the largest paying readership possible. Thus, these storylines ramble from truth to fiction and from friction to troops.
Despite my wishing otherwise, these words are open messages to various subcultures for particular purposes, mainly to keep our species sailing on an even keel. Some deals are obvious and some intentionally unintentioned.
Faces and names get mentioned here for a reason. If you don't see what you expected, then imagine your importance is too great for a flash on the screen right now. If you see what you expected, then your part in the big production is ready for showtime.
No more strange advertisements in the classifieds. You don't know what a relief it is to use the whole Internet as a relatively free broadcast medium (at least until untraceable brain/body implants are prevalent).
The Arduino board will be a useful training device for novices operating an IP-less alternative to the Internet in preparation for the next great thing.
How loud should a country's leaders' global political rhetoric sound during national election season? Leave room for rhetoric - it adds spice to news headlines. We're grownups and can tell the difference between drumming up voter support and actual threats.
Pardon me if I repeat myself - I need the practice.
Mobile Phone Social Network Forms Own Virtual Theatre Chain
Breaking news!
An international group of 11-year old mobile phone owners* put together an enormous deal today. According to a major cinema trade magazine, the group, known as "Show Us The Movie," has bartered the rights to receiving first-run movies on their mobile phones.
How is this possible, you ask?
The power of one!
The group, SUTheM, threatened to start a social network campaign to boycott both first-run films at theatres and second-run films at online/kiosk movie rental locations, putting the fear of stockbrokers and automated stock trading systems into the hearts of movie moguls around the world.
Our anonymous source tells us that young people are using demographic data to determine where they have the most leverage due to their disposable income purchasing power. Then, in order to get what they want (because they know their parents are too dumb to know how to use modern technology properly), they put this power to use immediately.
We're seeing a total shakeup of the whole cinema industry. Already, popcorn seed company stock prices have plummeted.
If 11-year olds can bring down motion picture empires, what's next?
If adult musicians can jam together online, will eight-year olds become the next great film directors, coordinating online filmmaking by capturing their globally-distributed actors' parts through the magic of green screen video techniques, no longer requiring expensive "on location" shoots?
Is the world as we know it coming to an end?
Tune in for new breaking news as it happens!
* does anyone have an 11-year old mobile phone that still works?
The Unknown Fin
I call him Fin because I don't know his real name. I thought about making up a complete name for him, as if he had told me his name, for narrative's sake, but I won't. It might disparage his family's wishes.
Fin met me on the street after my shift at the cafeteria.
"And you speak no Finnish whatsoever?"
"Not that I know of. But I do put a dash through my seven and 'z' and slash my zero."
"Let's continue walking. What do you know of the unspoken socialisation that our species carries on?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't know if you know?"
"I don't know if I don't know."
"Good answer."
"Look, all my life, it's been people like you coming up to me, asking questions and then leaving me with this vague understanding that I might or might not be part of something that does or does not exist. It's getting annoying."
"Are we that obvious?"
"Who is 'we'?"
"That you already know."
"I do?"
"Yes. Think back. You have in you the history of our species. What is it that you already know?"
"History is a fairy tale written for the duped by the dupers."
"Well, I wouldn't have put it that way but you're right."
"And your point is..."
"Hmm..."
"I don't have all day. I've got to get ready for a frat function tonight and it's very important that I get there early."
"Frat?"
"Fraternity. You know, brotherhood, bonding, parties, social functions, charity work, that sense of belonging we all long for and are willing to pay for the privilege."
"Hmm..."
"We're almost to the apartment house. If there's something to say, let me know now or I'll have to catch you another time."
"Time... you bring up an excellent idea. If I could show you here and now, in front of everything you see as existing in this moment, that space and time do not exist, would you give me more than a few minutes of your time?"
I stopped walking and turned around, taking in the whole scene, including the building entranceway, the students walking about, the bushes, the grass, vehicles passing by, the cliffs over the river, the sound of a distant train whistle and the smell of sweet perfume.
"Okay. You've got me attention."
This is the part where I say, "And this is the part where I say, 'And this is the part where I say, "This is the part where I can only say that my life has never been the same."'"
Fin didn't wave his arm around, wiggle his nose, blink his eyes or make any motion I would attribute to the sudden change. I didn't enter a dream state or melt into the body of a creature unknown to modern science.
Instead...
Instead...
Instead, I laughed uncontrollably. My thoughts were suddenly surging with absurd ideas.
Even so, I stood there as if Fin and I were having a normal conversation.
I was not one person and I was one person. I was nobody and everybody. I was here in time and looking at all the moments that living things have and will exist.
Despite the few short paragraphs above, I have no idea how to describe what happened. It was as if the universe as we know it was both infinitesimally small and large at the same time.
I saw myself as a five-year old listening to ignorant adults, knowing then more than I know now, that the world in which we practice living does not exist.
I saw myself as an eighty-five year old watching the whole species come to the same conclusion and moving on to an existence I never thought possible to see in my lifetime, three lifetimes compressed into mine because of the exponential growth of group consciousness brought on by artificial technological means.
I blinked my eyes and all of those images disappeared.
"Hmm..." Suddenly I was talking like Fin.
"And your frat?"
"What?"
"Your social function."
"Oh...that..."
"Yes, that. Do you still plan to attend?"
"I don't see why not."
"Then the decision you make will affect all moments radiating out from this one."
"I know."
"Hmm..."
"Precisely. I still like to have fun."
"We have anticipated this decision of yours. Fun, as you call it, will alter the course of events we had planned."
"I know."
"And your reason?"
"Time does not exist."
"But your body. It still ages."
"I know. As you know, it doesn't matter whether it is me or someone else who uses this knowledge of the way things really are."
"We disagree."
"There you go with 'we' again. I already know there is no 'we.' No 'them' or 'they.'"
"And you will go off for your fun because..."
"Exactly because of that reason."
"If only you spoke Finnish, you would have a philosophical understanding that counters your American individualist mentality."
"The way things really are makes no room for individualism."
"You say that and yet..."
"I go to the frat function, anyway."
"If you attend the party tonight, you will put four years between now and the next moment."
I was too young to understand Fin's concern about time. Despite our full cognisance of mortality, we carry within us a belief of immortality that our knowledge will exist in some form after we're gone. Little do we know how much is lost over and over from one generation and one civilisation to the next.
It doesn't matter. So much of what we'll accomplish is bound by physical constraints to be lost.
That's why I thought the E-Brain was important, to break those bonds, until an associate of Fin's showed up a week or so ago.
I really am just this guy, flesh and bones and pickled liver. These are words. Nothing special about them. It's what's outside these words and away from all our cares and concerns about living and surviving and thriving that I and others like me, writers and wonderers, are bothered by strangers to see what's really going on.
Time does not exist. The scale at which we measure the movements of the universe, ruled primarily by our heartbeats and breathing rate, is immaterial.
But most of us are not supposed to see what's really going on.
At least not yet...
Otherwise...
Ah, the elliptical pause... what if all of us knew we could control the universe that we think exists but doesn't?
'There can be only one,' right?
Wrong. That's where I come in. I've got one of the keys to open an imaginary door for seven billion people all at once. But I know better than to do so.
Besides, these are words and always will be. Again, it's the space between words, without sound, where we'll find the answer that I've only got a small part to tell you about.
You will find the answer when you put aside all talk of talk. Erase any topics of conversation. Do not think about life or death. No job titles, life privileges or games of war will give you the answer.
It takes our whole species, about seven billion people currently, plus the rest of our ecosystem partners, to get you to the next step.
I don't know why but I'm pretty scared. The tiny insight I have, the little piece of information given to me, reveals what the absence of power can do if we get our act together and see what everyone is doing in the moment.
And that's just a wee step in the right direction to reveal the reveal!
Until next time...
Fin met me on the street after my shift at the cafeteria.
"And you speak no Finnish whatsoever?"
"Not that I know of. But I do put a dash through my seven and 'z' and slash my zero."
"Let's continue walking. What do you know of the unspoken socialisation that our species carries on?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't know if you know?"
"I don't know if I don't know."
"Good answer."
"Look, all my life, it's been people like you coming up to me, asking questions and then leaving me with this vague understanding that I might or might not be part of something that does or does not exist. It's getting annoying."
"Are we that obvious?"
"Who is 'we'?"
"That you already know."
"I do?"
"Yes. Think back. You have in you the history of our species. What is it that you already know?"
"History is a fairy tale written for the duped by the dupers."
"Well, I wouldn't have put it that way but you're right."
"And your point is..."
"Hmm..."
"I don't have all day. I've got to get ready for a frat function tonight and it's very important that I get there early."
"Frat?"
"Fraternity. You know, brotherhood, bonding, parties, social functions, charity work, that sense of belonging we all long for and are willing to pay for the privilege."
"Hmm..."
"We're almost to the apartment house. If there's something to say, let me know now or I'll have to catch you another time."
"Time... you bring up an excellent idea. If I could show you here and now, in front of everything you see as existing in this moment, that space and time do not exist, would you give me more than a few minutes of your time?"
I stopped walking and turned around, taking in the whole scene, including the building entranceway, the students walking about, the bushes, the grass, vehicles passing by, the cliffs over the river, the sound of a distant train whistle and the smell of sweet perfume.
"Okay. You've got me attention."
This is the part where I say, "And this is the part where I say, 'And this is the part where I say, "This is the part where I can only say that my life has never been the same."'"
Fin didn't wave his arm around, wiggle his nose, blink his eyes or make any motion I would attribute to the sudden change. I didn't enter a dream state or melt into the body of a creature unknown to modern science.
Instead...
Instead...
Instead, I laughed uncontrollably. My thoughts were suddenly surging with absurd ideas.
Even so, I stood there as if Fin and I were having a normal conversation.
I was not one person and I was one person. I was nobody and everybody. I was here in time and looking at all the moments that living things have and will exist.
Despite the few short paragraphs above, I have no idea how to describe what happened. It was as if the universe as we know it was both infinitesimally small and large at the same time.
I saw myself as a five-year old listening to ignorant adults, knowing then more than I know now, that the world in which we practice living does not exist.
I saw myself as an eighty-five year old watching the whole species come to the same conclusion and moving on to an existence I never thought possible to see in my lifetime, three lifetimes compressed into mine because of the exponential growth of group consciousness brought on by artificial technological means.
I blinked my eyes and all of those images disappeared.
"Hmm..." Suddenly I was talking like Fin.
"And your frat?"
"What?"
"Your social function."
"Oh...that..."
"Yes, that. Do you still plan to attend?"
"I don't see why not."
"Then the decision you make will affect all moments radiating out from this one."
"I know."
"Hmm..."
"Precisely. I still like to have fun."
"We have anticipated this decision of yours. Fun, as you call it, will alter the course of events we had planned."
"I know."
"And your reason?"
"Time does not exist."
"But your body. It still ages."
"I know. As you know, it doesn't matter whether it is me or someone else who uses this knowledge of the way things really are."
"We disagree."
"There you go with 'we' again. I already know there is no 'we.' No 'them' or 'they.'"
"And you will go off for your fun because..."
"Exactly because of that reason."
"If only you spoke Finnish, you would have a philosophical understanding that counters your American individualist mentality."
"The way things really are makes no room for individualism."
"You say that and yet..."
"I go to the frat function, anyway."
"If you attend the party tonight, you will put four years between now and the next moment."
I was too young to understand Fin's concern about time. Despite our full cognisance of mortality, we carry within us a belief of immortality that our knowledge will exist in some form after we're gone. Little do we know how much is lost over and over from one generation and one civilisation to the next.
It doesn't matter. So much of what we'll accomplish is bound by physical constraints to be lost.
That's why I thought the E-Brain was important, to break those bonds, until an associate of Fin's showed up a week or so ago.
I really am just this guy, flesh and bones and pickled liver. These are words. Nothing special about them. It's what's outside these words and away from all our cares and concerns about living and surviving and thriving that I and others like me, writers and wonderers, are bothered by strangers to see what's really going on.
Time does not exist. The scale at which we measure the movements of the universe, ruled primarily by our heartbeats and breathing rate, is immaterial.
But most of us are not supposed to see what's really going on.
At least not yet...
Otherwise...
Ah, the elliptical pause... what if all of us knew we could control the universe that we think exists but doesn't?
'There can be only one,' right?
Wrong. That's where I come in. I've got one of the keys to open an imaginary door for seven billion people all at once. But I know better than to do so.
Besides, these are words and always will be. Again, it's the space between words, without sound, where we'll find the answer that I've only got a small part to tell you about.
You will find the answer when you put aside all talk of talk. Erase any topics of conversation. Do not think about life or death. No job titles, life privileges or games of war will give you the answer.
It takes our whole species, about seven billion people currently, plus the rest of our ecosystem partners, to get you to the next step.
I don't know why but I'm pretty scared. The tiny insight I have, the little piece of information given to me, reveals what the absence of power can do if we get our act together and see what everyone is doing in the moment.
And that's just a wee step in the right direction to reveal the reveal!
Until next time...
Feeding The Fishes
There are two kinds of people: family.
That's right, in both cases, we are family.
So, when a member of my family is killed or kidnapped, I've got to look at the other kind of people in my family and ask them why.
Just like the other day when I had a couple of colleagues consult for a few business associates of mine (and please stop calling my associates "Chinese Triad" - we're all members of the same family business, are we not?). Business is business. Sometimes, you take care of business and the matter's settled.
So who is calling themselves the Taliban/Taleban/Autobahn this time?
Business is business. If you want to play the kidnap/murder game, then here are the stakes at issue:
More murder and mayhem. I hate to use the word blitzkrieg because you may not understand European war tactics but we've got an arsenal of carpet bombs you might understand more clearly. Yes, they fly magically and appear to wipe out family members who want to toy around with the big boys.
I have many Muslim friends who understand business. The business of warmaking is not a religious one, in our daily family interactions.
The same here.
I respect my Muslim friends and their family rituals. They, too, respect their family members, treating women with the respect and honour they deserve as family.
So, my Taliban family members, if you want to give up the one you hold, then we will let you remain family in a peaceful sort of way.
Otherwise, business is business. One highly-trained member of our naval family is worth what? A few dozen of yours?
Either you learn to share the bounty of your harvest like a good fee/tax/bribe paying member of the family, or a Cuban prison looks like luxury accommodations in comparison to what our sharp shark-toothed friends have in store.
Remember, very few of us are chronicled in the history books. The rest are dust. This little incident will fade and be forgotten. If you aren't around to bless your family with family of your own because you decided to take a sailor under your wing after killing another one, who's going to remember your selfish, shortsighted actions when you and your family are dead and gone?
I believe in freedom of expression.
You have the ability to correct this error of yours. Or not.
And if not, I promise there will be no one left in your family to tell your dead-man's tale.
This isn't about religion. It's simply a matter of a resolving a dispute between family members.
Maybe you already made up your mind.
That's okay. So have I.
That's right, in both cases, we are family.
So, when a member of my family is killed or kidnapped, I've got to look at the other kind of people in my family and ask them why.
Just like the other day when I had a couple of colleagues consult for a few business associates of mine (and please stop calling my associates "Chinese Triad" - we're all members of the same family business, are we not?). Business is business. Sometimes, you take care of business and the matter's settled.
So who is calling themselves the Taliban/Taleban/Autobahn this time?
Business is business. If you want to play the kidnap/murder game, then here are the stakes at issue:
More murder and mayhem. I hate to use the word blitzkrieg because you may not understand European war tactics but we've got an arsenal of carpet bombs you might understand more clearly. Yes, they fly magically and appear to wipe out family members who want to toy around with the big boys.
I have many Muslim friends who understand business. The business of warmaking is not a religious one, in our daily family interactions.
The same here.
I respect my Muslim friends and their family rituals. They, too, respect their family members, treating women with the respect and honour they deserve as family.
So, my Taliban family members, if you want to give up the one you hold, then we will let you remain family in a peaceful sort of way.
Otherwise, business is business. One highly-trained member of our naval family is worth what? A few dozen of yours?
Either you learn to share the bounty of your harvest like a good fee/tax/bribe paying member of the family, or a Cuban prison looks like luxury accommodations in comparison to what our sharp shark-toothed friends have in store.
Remember, very few of us are chronicled in the history books. The rest are dust. This little incident will fade and be forgotten. If you aren't around to bless your family with family of your own because you decided to take a sailor under your wing after killing another one, who's going to remember your selfish, shortsighted actions when you and your family are dead and gone?
I believe in freedom of expression.
You have the ability to correct this error of yours. Or not.
And if not, I promise there will be no one left in your family to tell your dead-man's tale.
This isn't about religion. It's simply a matter of a resolving a dispute between family members.
Maybe you already made up your mind.
That's okay. So have I.
A Quiet Day With The Dictator
"Sir, they are crossing our border."
"I will launch the nuclear weapons!"
"But, sir, our aim is not very exact."
"Only because all your trajectory math is very confusing for me to figure out on my portable abacus. Point them horizontally."
"Sir, the missiles might land in our territory."
"Do as I say!"
"Yes, sir. And sir..."
"What is it, imbecile?"
"You have an emissary from the most-hated enemy."
"Send him in. I will listen to what the pig-dogs have to say and then I will kill him."
"Sir, here he is. The Right Honourable Assistant Associate Staff Administrator For The Negotiation Of Forcefully Invading Peacekeepers."
"Your Almighty Highness, I am humbled that you allowed me in your presence."
"You are a pig-dog. Be glad that I do not have you drawn and quartered in front of me for my mild amusement."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"What is it that you wish? My court would like to hear you beg, if you don't mind."
"Please, please, please, Anointed One. Let us have our life for one brief moment more."
"Much better. Now, get up off your stinking knees and look me in the eye like a real man."
"As you command."
"Indeed. Proceed."
"Grand and Glorious Greatness, the combined forces of the Southern Kingdom and the Imperialists Across The Sea have amassed forces along your borders and blockaded your sea ports."
"So I have been told. They will be rubble in just a few minutes. What else is your problem?"
"The Master of His Own Destiny, these warring kingdom peaceful fighting forces are here to provide humanitarian aid to your people."
"My people need no aid. I, their god, provide them all they want. As ants to the queen, so my people depend on me to decide how they shall live and die. Lately, I have been bored and wished to see many of them struggle with basic nourishment. It is a scientific experiment that the rest of the weak, narrow-minded leaders around the world are too puny to carry out."
"The rest of the world does not see it that way."
"And that is why I am launching a few of my short-range missiles to prove that they are useless to stop the power of the One Who Knows What's Right For His People!!! Ahahaha! Watch me press the red button!!!! Victory is mine, at last!!!"
"Sir, the missiles are headed in the wrong direction. They are landing in the Middle Kingdom."
"The ineptitude of my servants. Who turned my abacus around backwards. Off with your head!"
"Sir?"
"You are right. First, off with the head of that pig-dog and then cut your own head off as evidence that I am a merciful leader who punishes those who commit cold-blooded murder of innocent messengers."
"As you command, sir."
"'Humanitarian mission'! Who do they think they are? They blame me for their worthless seamanship, sinking their own vessel through shoddy ship procedures and now they think they can just walk across my borders to feed those I intentionally starve? If I want tens of millions to die, they will die for the glory of serving the only true living god left on this planet."
"Sir!"
"What are you still doing here?"
"Sir, I am about to cut off my head but I wanted to let you know there is a missile headed straight toward us."
"Is it ours or theirs?"
"I do not know, Sir."
"Then I shall kill you myself!"
"But, Sir, the missile."
"You are worthless chattel. Do you not know that gods do not die? I will press this button and use the antimissile system we built with plans stolen from those Western pig-dogs and disprove their claim that openness and honesty is the one true way. Watch them wallow in fear at my invulnerability!!!!"
"I will launch the nuclear weapons!"
"But, sir, our aim is not very exact."
"Only because all your trajectory math is very confusing for me to figure out on my portable abacus. Point them horizontally."
"Sir, the missiles might land in our territory."
"Do as I say!"
"Yes, sir. And sir..."
"What is it, imbecile?"
"You have an emissary from the most-hated enemy."
"Send him in. I will listen to what the pig-dogs have to say and then I will kill him."
"Sir, here he is. The Right Honourable Assistant Associate Staff Administrator For The Negotiation Of Forcefully Invading Peacekeepers."
"Your Almighty Highness, I am humbled that you allowed me in your presence."
"You are a pig-dog. Be glad that I do not have you drawn and quartered in front of me for my mild amusement."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"What is it that you wish? My court would like to hear you beg, if you don't mind."
"Please, please, please, Anointed One. Let us have our life for one brief moment more."
"Much better. Now, get up off your stinking knees and look me in the eye like a real man."
"As you command."
"Indeed. Proceed."
"Grand and Glorious Greatness, the combined forces of the Southern Kingdom and the Imperialists Across The Sea have amassed forces along your borders and blockaded your sea ports."
"So I have been told. They will be rubble in just a few minutes. What else is your problem?"
"The Master of His Own Destiny, these warring kingdom peaceful fighting forces are here to provide humanitarian aid to your people."
"My people need no aid. I, their god, provide them all they want. As ants to the queen, so my people depend on me to decide how they shall live and die. Lately, I have been bored and wished to see many of them struggle with basic nourishment. It is a scientific experiment that the rest of the weak, narrow-minded leaders around the world are too puny to carry out."
"The rest of the world does not see it that way."
"And that is why I am launching a few of my short-range missiles to prove that they are useless to stop the power of the One Who Knows What's Right For His People!!! Ahahaha! Watch me press the red button!!!! Victory is mine, at last!!!"
"Sir, the missiles are headed in the wrong direction. They are landing in the Middle Kingdom."
"The ineptitude of my servants. Who turned my abacus around backwards. Off with your head!"
"Sir?"
"You are right. First, off with the head of that pig-dog and then cut your own head off as evidence that I am a merciful leader who punishes those who commit cold-blooded murder of innocent messengers."
"As you command, sir."
"'Humanitarian mission'! Who do they think they are? They blame me for their worthless seamanship, sinking their own vessel through shoddy ship procedures and now they think they can just walk across my borders to feed those I intentionally starve? If I want tens of millions to die, they will die for the glory of serving the only true living god left on this planet."
"Sir!"
"What are you still doing here?"
"Sir, I am about to cut off my head but I wanted to let you know there is a missile headed straight toward us."
"Is it ours or theirs?"
"I do not know, Sir."
"Then I shall kill you myself!"
"But, Sir, the missile."
"You are worthless chattel. Do you not know that gods do not die? I will press this button and use the antimissile system we built with plans stolen from those Western pig-dogs and disprove their claim that openness and honesty is the one true way. Watch them wallow in fear at my invulnerability!!!!"
- Tune in next week when we reconstruct our Leader from DNA not tainted by nuclear radiation...
- Observe our investigators piecing together why the stolen missile shield system plans were designed so as not to take out their own missiles...
- Notice how our people are unhappy that the so-called liberators are taking away our people's honourable death by starving - to die according to their god's desire is the greatest gift one can give to one's family.
2010-07-24
Are You The Lucky One?
But how, you ask, can I explain the unexplainable?
By having you explain it to yourself, of course.
For the very first time, here are the instructions that you should follow, just like I told you before:
If you were indoctrinated into a there-is-a-real-enemy-who-must-be-stopped-at-all-costs, then I can't help you.
You see, it's just us. Really. I'm not telling you the truth.
There are people who build up paranoid delusions that there's more to it than what there is not.
There is only us in this moment. There's no turning back the clock, no going forward into the future. Time does not exist, except through illusion.
Now you're ready to proceed to step 13.
THE THIRTEENTH STEP!!!
Have I repeated myself too much?
Do you know the gods like to have fun?
Do you know what a god is?
If there is only us, what is a god?
Are you a member of the listener/whisperer tribe? Can you hear what is there and what is not there?
Every now and then, step back and see that as real as your pain feels, no matter how helpless the situation, millions of people feel your type of pain right now, and billions have felt it who no longer exist. Billions more will feel it in moments that haven't yet existed.
Does that help you see that you can make the pain disappear by dispersing it into the people around you through humour?
Can you tell yourself and believe, "I am not real, I do not exist, this is all a temporary illusion"?
Or do you want to experience every moment to the fullest, happy or sad, healthy or hurting?
Let's get back to the states of energy that exist through our mutual belief in the power of states of energy but, as you will soon see, don't really exist, either.
All of us who can read this as members of our species will say we have lived and we will die. Forget that for a few moments, will you? Or if you don't want to forget that, go on with what you were doing and proceed to step 14.
But also keep in mind that all seven billion of us have to exist here together. There's no alternative universe that pops up out of nowhere to which you can magically appear in a world that meets your idea of perfection.
This isn't about wishful thinking and projecting a future five lifetimes from now when you can join your family members in harmonious takeover of the world.
We really only have this moment. Seriously. This is it.
There are no good ol' days - there are only todays and more todays and the today after this one and the one after that.
So forget about trying to live in history, but at the same time, learn from it.
You can live in subcultures today that make it feel like you're the only one and your subculture is the BIG "IT." If you so choose, please do. But don't try to take down other subcultures that feel the same way.
Tearing down the lives of others who are happy what they're doing without physically/directly undermining your life in any way (other than the fact their existence doesn't fit into your worldview) is not the same as living in your subculture the way you like, including any form of compromise in which you incorporate others' pleasing subcultural habits into your own.
I cannot change the past. I cannot undo whatever it is your/our ancestors did that is supposed to be the way things are but don't work in the current moment.
I can only seek understanding about their actions in relation to their times. I don't live in their times and they don't live in mine.
There are those willing to play games with your lives if you let them. After all, this world is full of people willing to let others tell them the way you're supposed to live.
I'm a prime example, using this approved electronic device to convey a message through a socially-acceptable manner in a communication method called a language taught to me as the official means of socialising. And I've played right along with this, never once saying, "Hey, I'm going to wave my body about and make nonsense noises until everyone else is doing the same thing my way." [Look at Esperanto. Are you using it? Have you heard of it? Point made.]
Therefore, get with the program. We're seven billion people about to have a major "conscious" shift into seeing that we're all on this planet together for the same purpose - to move our species forward off this planet and into the rest of the universe.
We've got testosterone and oestrogen to deal with, our being a rather hormonal species (after all, like so many others, procreation is our major means of saving the species). But with an adult approach to product marketing/advertisement - that is, lowering the appeal to our hormonal urges - we'll put consumption on the right track while leaving plenty of room for freedom of expression and all that.
And then we'll see more about why seeing our universe as states of energy was as quaint as phrenology. We can talk more about that later.
Along the way, we'll monitor the species for megalomaniacs bent on homogenisation, conformity and "choppin' off the 'eads of them's what got us here in the first place" types. In other words, the normal flow, the ebb and tide, of social change. Lots of time to have a good laugh at stereotypes we all can relate to at one point or another in the moments that we live.
The youngest generation already gets it. The rest of us oldtimers might, too, given enough moments to see that the past doesn't exist and never did, even though we can study shallow snapshots of time we think is the past that gives us clues about how to live in the ever-changing moment that is now.
Speaking of which, now it's time to go back to step one and skip this blog entry. Or was that step two? Doesn't matter, the steps no longer exist. Or do they? Yes, they do. They're examples of how to live in this new moment.
By having you explain it to yourself, of course.
For the very first time, here are the instructions that you should follow, just like I told you before:
- Don't follow these instructions.
- Don't read this blog entry, especially the phrase, "But how."
- Sit quietly or not.
- Open yourself up to all the emotional states of the people around you and all the states of energy passing through you and them.
- Don't follow these instructions.
- Doubt everything I'm telling you.
- Laugh.
- Laugh belly-achingly loud.
- Start again at step 5.
- Skip to step 1.
- Proceed to step 12.
If you were indoctrinated into a there-is-a-real-enemy-who-must-be-stopped-at-all-costs, then I can't help you.
You see, it's just us. Really. I'm not telling you the truth.
There are people who build up paranoid delusions that there's more to it than what there is not.
There is only us in this moment. There's no turning back the clock, no going forward into the future. Time does not exist, except through illusion.
Now you're ready to proceed to step 13.
THE THIRTEENTH STEP!!!
Have I repeated myself too much?
Do you know the gods like to have fun?
Do you know what a god is?
If there is only us, what is a god?
Are you a member of the listener/whisperer tribe? Can you hear what is there and what is not there?
Every now and then, step back and see that as real as your pain feels, no matter how helpless the situation, millions of people feel your type of pain right now, and billions have felt it who no longer exist. Billions more will feel it in moments that haven't yet existed.
Does that help you see that you can make the pain disappear by dispersing it into the people around you through humour?
Can you tell yourself and believe, "I am not real, I do not exist, this is all a temporary illusion"?
Or do you want to experience every moment to the fullest, happy or sad, healthy or hurting?
Let's get back to the states of energy that exist through our mutual belief in the power of states of energy but, as you will soon see, don't really exist, either.
All of us who can read this as members of our species will say we have lived and we will die. Forget that for a few moments, will you? Or if you don't want to forget that, go on with what you were doing and proceed to step 14.
But also keep in mind that all seven billion of us have to exist here together. There's no alternative universe that pops up out of nowhere to which you can magically appear in a world that meets your idea of perfection.
This isn't about wishful thinking and projecting a future five lifetimes from now when you can join your family members in harmonious takeover of the world.
We really only have this moment. Seriously. This is it.
There are no good ol' days - there are only todays and more todays and the today after this one and the one after that.
So forget about trying to live in history, but at the same time, learn from it.
You can live in subcultures today that make it feel like you're the only one and your subculture is the BIG "IT." If you so choose, please do. But don't try to take down other subcultures that feel the same way.
Tearing down the lives of others who are happy what they're doing without physically/directly undermining your life in any way (other than the fact their existence doesn't fit into your worldview) is not the same as living in your subculture the way you like, including any form of compromise in which you incorporate others' pleasing subcultural habits into your own.
I cannot change the past. I cannot undo whatever it is your/our ancestors did that is supposed to be the way things are but don't work in the current moment.
I can only seek understanding about their actions in relation to their times. I don't live in their times and they don't live in mine.
There are those willing to play games with your lives if you let them. After all, this world is full of people willing to let others tell them the way you're supposed to live.
I'm a prime example, using this approved electronic device to convey a message through a socially-acceptable manner in a communication method called a language taught to me as the official means of socialising. And I've played right along with this, never once saying, "Hey, I'm going to wave my body about and make nonsense noises until everyone else is doing the same thing my way." [Look at Esperanto. Are you using it? Have you heard of it? Point made.]
Therefore, get with the program. We're seven billion people about to have a major "conscious" shift into seeing that we're all on this planet together for the same purpose - to move our species forward off this planet and into the rest of the universe.
We've got testosterone and oestrogen to deal with, our being a rather hormonal species (after all, like so many others, procreation is our major means of saving the species). But with an adult approach to product marketing/advertisement - that is, lowering the appeal to our hormonal urges - we'll put consumption on the right track while leaving plenty of room for freedom of expression and all that.
And then we'll see more about why seeing our universe as states of energy was as quaint as phrenology. We can talk more about that later.
Along the way, we'll monitor the species for megalomaniacs bent on homogenisation, conformity and "choppin' off the 'eads of them's what got us here in the first place" types. In other words, the normal flow, the ebb and tide, of social change. Lots of time to have a good laugh at stereotypes we all can relate to at one point or another in the moments that we live.
The youngest generation already gets it. The rest of us oldtimers might, too, given enough moments to see that the past doesn't exist and never did, even though we can study shallow snapshots of time we think is the past that gives us clues about how to live in the ever-changing moment that is now.
Speaking of which, now it's time to go back to step one and skip this blog entry. Or was that step two? Doesn't matter, the steps no longer exist. Or do they? Yes, they do. They're examples of how to live in this new moment.
Coloured Lenses
Why should such a beauty as Tamara (pronounced Tuh-maur'-uh (as in "tomorrow")) wear coloured contact lenses?
Dear Tamara, your natural beauty shines without need of plastic coating.
Let us celebrate our lives as we are, not with accessories designed to hide what our parents gave us.
I was bothered by those lenses and exchanged flaring nostrils with Tamara as a sign we both were perturbed at what we didn't know was a case of a simple false barrier between us.
Brown is as beautiful as blue, no matter whether your name is Matt, Katelyn, Chris or Tamara. Or carry toothpaste in your purse because you ate on the way to work and wanted to brush your teeth before your shift started.
Dear Tamara, your natural beauty shines without need of plastic coating.
Let us celebrate our lives as we are, not with accessories designed to hide what our parents gave us.
I was bothered by those lenses and exchanged flaring nostrils with Tamara as a sign we both were perturbed at what we didn't know was a case of a simple false barrier between us.
Brown is as beautiful as blue, no matter whether your name is Matt, Katelyn, Chris or Tamara. Or carry toothpaste in your purse because you ate on the way to work and wanted to brush your teeth before your shift started.
Gemstone Quarry
One of the old guard, a time in a man's life when he can remember when men were men and women were women.
Was there such a time?
In carving out a place to live, just you and your family against the elements, aren't the duties, the chores, the basic will to live as clear as a cold spring hidden under a cliff?
That's what he believed.
That's what he saw when he looked at the grandkids playing in the apple orchard.
What happened?
Do the times change or just our memories of them?
He kicked a boot against the iron railing, took a sip of his RC Cola and tossed a handful of peanuts against the back of his mouth, mixing the fizz with the salty nuts and remembering many summers like this, time just a couple of hands on a watch.
Where was his wife?
Parkinson's disease. Long, long years of therapy followed by home health visits and then the LPN who stayed with them in the end.
Fifty-four years of marriage.
A freezer full of frozen foodstuff handpicked from the best of what the farm produced. Rows of canned beans and tomatoes in the cellar.
Not a single child or grandchild interested in taking over the farm...
He dropped the bottle onto the soft grass next to the back porch. He'd pick it up in the cool of the evening and store it with all the RC Cola bottles he'd saved over the years, a tiny nest egg for emergencies that only the nosiest of grandkids knew was tucked in the back of the barn.
If only he had his wife's secret ingredients for the banana pudding she used to make, he'd give it to his daughter as a special gift for Christmas.
"You boys don't go climbing up into the higher branches! You'll tear 'em up and break your neck when you fall!"
He looked out over the fields and wondered what was going to happen to them. He didn't have many good years left in front of him and plowing was getting to be a chore. His neighbour, a hippy professor, offered to do the plowing for him but he wasn't so sure the prof didn't expect to be able to plow a few hippy weed rows for himself in the process.
From moonshine to hippy weed, every generation had its diversions. He kept his kids off both but he didn't know his grandkids well enough to know who was and who wasn't. Gotta trust your kids to watch their kids. Can't do it all when they're scattered to the wind and you're working a farm.
"I reckon you kids better come inside and eat some supper. It's getting too hot."
As the grandkids raced back to the house, he held the backdoor open for each one as he knocked the rest of the dirt clods off his boots. No reason to let the flies in or carry mud into the house - less work later on after all the grandkids had gone home and left him to clean up the farmhouse in the quiet, humid evening with just the tinny buzz of a baseball game coming from the kitchen radio.
While he sliced up watermelon for the kids, he remembered an old box of recipes he'd found stuffed up into the top of the hallway closet. Maybe that's where Ethel had put her list of banana pudding mixings.
Was there such a time?
In carving out a place to live, just you and your family against the elements, aren't the duties, the chores, the basic will to live as clear as a cold spring hidden under a cliff?
That's what he believed.
That's what he saw when he looked at the grandkids playing in the apple orchard.
What happened?
Do the times change or just our memories of them?
He kicked a boot against the iron railing, took a sip of his RC Cola and tossed a handful of peanuts against the back of his mouth, mixing the fizz with the salty nuts and remembering many summers like this, time just a couple of hands on a watch.
Where was his wife?
Parkinson's disease. Long, long years of therapy followed by home health visits and then the LPN who stayed with them in the end.
Fifty-four years of marriage.
A freezer full of frozen foodstuff handpicked from the best of what the farm produced. Rows of canned beans and tomatoes in the cellar.
Not a single child or grandchild interested in taking over the farm...
He dropped the bottle onto the soft grass next to the back porch. He'd pick it up in the cool of the evening and store it with all the RC Cola bottles he'd saved over the years, a tiny nest egg for emergencies that only the nosiest of grandkids knew was tucked in the back of the barn.
If only he had his wife's secret ingredients for the banana pudding she used to make, he'd give it to his daughter as a special gift for Christmas.
"You boys don't go climbing up into the higher branches! You'll tear 'em up and break your neck when you fall!"
He looked out over the fields and wondered what was going to happen to them. He didn't have many good years left in front of him and plowing was getting to be a chore. His neighbour, a hippy professor, offered to do the plowing for him but he wasn't so sure the prof didn't expect to be able to plow a few hippy weed rows for himself in the process.
From moonshine to hippy weed, every generation had its diversions. He kept his kids off both but he didn't know his grandkids well enough to know who was and who wasn't. Gotta trust your kids to watch their kids. Can't do it all when they're scattered to the wind and you're working a farm.
"I reckon you kids better come inside and eat some supper. It's getting too hot."
As the grandkids raced back to the house, he held the backdoor open for each one as he knocked the rest of the dirt clods off his boots. No reason to let the flies in or carry mud into the house - less work later on after all the grandkids had gone home and left him to clean up the farmhouse in the quiet, humid evening with just the tinny buzz of a baseball game coming from the kitchen radio.
While he sliced up watermelon for the kids, he remembered an old box of recipes he'd found stuffed up into the top of the hallway closet. Maybe that's where Ethel had put her list of banana pudding mixings.
2010-07-23
Fusho Fumetsu
Rational behaviour therapy versus Confucius barring "shall," "must," "certainly" and "I."
Buddha enlightenment versus giving oneself over to Jesus by confessing one's sins.
I mentally write things/events on a piece of paper, wad up the paper, tear it into bits, rearrange and see if it still makes sense.
"Bride Trafficking Unveiled" on currenttv. Movies: "The Freshman" (1990) and "Chariots of Fire" (1981).
Rainy and Paradee at Thai Garden. Major "Q" Boothroyd and Emma Peel.
Achronia and anatta again.
Billionaires jerking my chain to tell me they want to get richer, to save the economy, of course. Where does materialism end and philanthropy begin? I honestly do not know. If I only gave a tenth of my leisure time to help others...
The progress of time as seen in scientific discovery and peer review.
We live in a moment. A lighted match or falling leaf.
How do you get people to pay for jewelery repair - assist customers, have an estate sale of unused/unwanted items in their homes so they can get the jewelery you hold that they hold so dear?
The more ideas you share, the better chance one idea will spark the right idea in someone's need in the moment. When we figure out idea generation is more important than idea possession, the weights chaining us to sluggish progress toward true enlightenment fall away.
Too bad LeBron didn't say, "I'll take the same salary at Miami but give 25% to improve education for underprivileged children in Cleveland." Now that's true love of your fans.
When race becomes the base issue du jour, all of us get baited and hooked on the chain gang, cannibals ready to chew our legs off to get a step ahead.
People seeking freedom travel liferisking journeys worth writing about. Most individual journeys go untold. My mother in-law paid for workers to harvest the tobacco crops on her farm, the workers' names, faces, and backgrounds unknown. Only the workers and their families can tell about life in those fields. Have they? Will they? Some were born of local, multigenerational families and some of recent migrant families.
All have had stories to tell. Our families have migrated at one time or another, no matter what we claim as vocational aptitudes or ancestral land.
Billionaires or not, we are family. Who wants to listen when we whine? Let's offer family-centered ideas first, whatever we are.
On The Mainland
Feb. 25, '79
Dear Ones,
Patricia and Pam went to Central High Friday night to see the play "Funny Girl". They came home all excited because Rick was in the play. They remarked how tall and good looking he was.
I'm sending a picture so you can see what we look like. It has been so long since we have seen you all.
Edd is working with Powell Construction near Johnson City. He hopes Raytheon will call him back soon.
Teresa is working for welfare office in Kingsport but will move to Blountville the first of March. Sharon isn't working. She is still at home. I'm not working at present.
Come to see us when you can.
Love,
Mary Ruth & gang
Dear Ones,
Patricia and Pam went to Central High Friday night to see the play "Funny Girl". They came home all excited because Rick was in the play. They remarked how tall and good looking he was.
I'm sending a picture so you can see what we look like. It has been so long since we have seen you all.
Edd is working with Powell Construction near Johnson City. He hopes Raytheon will call him back soon.
Teresa is working for welfare office in Kingsport but will move to Blountville the first of March. Sharon isn't working. She is still at home. I'm not working at present.
Come to see us when you can.
Love,
Mary Ruth & gang
Predated Letter - 6 7 79.23.
July 5, 1979
Dear Family,
Thank you very much for the letter I received quite a time ago. Almost half of the summer holidays are over and I haven't yet paid any of those short visits to my friends and relatives that I usually do every summer.
But I went to London for a week. It was a package tour including the flights and accommodation. I didn't take part in the many tours and excursions arranged by the travel agency as I thought I would be able to see the sights on my own. It's sixteen years since I last was in London and England and now I thought I could afford a trip. I think it was a success, I got as much as I had expected.
Many of the places I had seen before but it was interesting to see them again after so many years. Westminster Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul's Cathedral were of course the 'musts'. I went to a marvellous concert (the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall) and to the theatre. And then I just looked around me a lot. I bought a go-as-you-please ticket which enabled me to travel on all London transport buses and underground trains and I really made use of the ticket. So I saw quite a bit of suburbs too.
London really is a big place and Tampere now looks like a tiny village. In two respects, I think, the city had changed. One was that sixteen years ago there were no tower blocks and office skyscrapers but now there were. And the other was that today there are far more coloured people in London than there used to be.
I timed my trip to take place in the Midsummer week. You see, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve are very big festivals here in Finland (and in the other Nordic countries as well) and I still haven't got any lady friend so I escaped the whole thing.
The Saturday was an ordinary weekday in London with nothing special in it. On the Sunday I went to church in Kensington and there the theme of the day was John the Baptist anyway.
On the return flight one of the stewardesses happened to be a former pupil of mine and I got special service. Yes, we flew on scheduled flights.
So far there have been no greater difficulties in seeing Marko. Tomorrow he'll come to me for four days and nights and we'll be going to Paimio, near the south coast where one of my sisters will spend her holiday with her family. One of the two daughters is nearly the same age as Marko, so they'll certainly have a good time. And my brother in-law has a brand new motor launch so I hope the weather will be so good that we can make a trip to the islands in the sea.
The weather was very good for holidaymakers in June, though it was too dry for farmers. The water in lakes was pretty warm so I could go to the beach here many times before I went to London. But now it has been pretty cool and rainy for one week already so the beaches are empty now.
Next week Risto and I will go to my friends' summer cottage on the sea as we did last summer too. I hope the weather will be fine.
Sure the long summer holiday is the best thing in a teacher's life and I think I can enjoy it more this year than the last four summers. I've been going to dances and seeing around me a bit.
I hear a lot has happened to you during this last year, both good and bad, and I hope you will be able to make the best of your holidays.
Love to everybody,
Mikko
Dear Family,
Thank you very much for the letter I received quite a time ago. Almost half of the summer holidays are over and I haven't yet paid any of those short visits to my friends and relatives that I usually do every summer.
But I went to London for a week. It was a package tour including the flights and accommodation. I didn't take part in the many tours and excursions arranged by the travel agency as I thought I would be able to see the sights on my own. It's sixteen years since I last was in London and England and now I thought I could afford a trip. I think it was a success, I got as much as I had expected.
Many of the places I had seen before but it was interesting to see them again after so many years. Westminster Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul's Cathedral were of course the 'musts'. I went to a marvellous concert (the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall) and to the theatre. And then I just looked around me a lot. I bought a go-as-you-please ticket which enabled me to travel on all London transport buses and underground trains and I really made use of the ticket. So I saw quite a bit of suburbs too.
London really is a big place and Tampere now looks like a tiny village. In two respects, I think, the city had changed. One was that sixteen years ago there were no tower blocks and office skyscrapers but now there were. And the other was that today there are far more coloured people in London than there used to be.
I timed my trip to take place in the Midsummer week. You see, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve are very big festivals here in Finland (and in the other Nordic countries as well) and I still haven't got any lady friend so I escaped the whole thing.
The Saturday was an ordinary weekday in London with nothing special in it. On the Sunday I went to church in Kensington and there the theme of the day was John the Baptist anyway.
On the return flight one of the stewardesses happened to be a former pupil of mine and I got special service. Yes, we flew on scheduled flights.
So far there have been no greater difficulties in seeing Marko. Tomorrow he'll come to me for four days and nights and we'll be going to Paimio, near the south coast where one of my sisters will spend her holiday with her family. One of the two daughters is nearly the same age as Marko, so they'll certainly have a good time. And my brother in-law has a brand new motor launch so I hope the weather will be so good that we can make a trip to the islands in the sea.
The weather was very good for holidaymakers in June, though it was too dry for farmers. The water in lakes was pretty warm so I could go to the beach here many times before I went to London. But now it has been pretty cool and rainy for one week already so the beaches are empty now.
Next week Risto and I will go to my friends' summer cottage on the sea as we did last summer too. I hope the weather will be fine.
Sure the long summer holiday is the best thing in a teacher's life and I think I can enjoy it more this year than the last four summers. I've been going to dances and seeing around me a bit.
I hear a lot has happened to you during this last year, both good and bad, and I hope you will be able to make the best of your holidays.
Love to everybody,
Mikko
Working Retail
How do you know if a story is true?
I used to work as a student kitchen worker at Morrill Hall cafeteria on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
I had many friends, some that worked there and many who wouldn't.
Occasionally, university professors would eat at the cafeteria.
Or we assumed they were professors.
A few times, just as my shift was ending, an older gentleman would come in and buy a cookie and glass of milk.
He didn't stand out. He wasn't one of the eccentric retired professors who haunted cafeterias with their stories of past school administrations and genius students who went crazy and were never heard from again.
He was just an ordinary looking man of his age, wearing a tweed jacket, button-down shirt, nondescript pants (probably darkly stained cotton or polyester) and penny loafer shoes.
I had forgotten about the man until I recently saw the movie, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," with some friends (for one of my friends' birthday).
Amazing how an old-fashioned good-vs-evil movie will trigger memories of forgotten days.
Anyway, as I was wiping down a table, the old man spoke in a foreign language.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'Do you speak suomi?'"
"Sorry?"
"Finnish. Do you speak Finnish, I mean?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, do you have a minute to hear something interesting?"
"In Finnish?"
"No. I will translate for you."
I thought about the summer that Mikko had spent with my family and shared old children's tales. Was this man going to tell me, a grownup college student, a kid's story?
"Okay. But I've got to finish these tables."
"Then I will come back another time, perhaps?"
"Maybe that would be better."
"Are you still performing on stage?"
"What?"
"Are you taking any drama classes?"
"No. Why?"
"That's too bad. We have more to discuss than I first thought."
I kept cleaning the table as the man stood up and walked away.
I saw him a few months later. After hearing his stories, my life took a shortcut through a world totally absent of fraternities, sororities and hand-built computers.
My life hasn't been the same since.
I'm not crazy. This is not a fairy tale. Why am I saying that?
Because the man proved to me we are not alone.
My stories about the Book of the Future and other familiar tricks of the fortunetelling trade are just practice, sleight-of-hand devices the man taught me to use, putting into play the information an old woman gave me in the trinkets she shared.
The E-Brain was just a ruse.
The truth is, as I've said, deeper than states of energy, far beyond our limited imagination and Neanderthal techno playtoys.
I don't want to be here talking about the next phase of our existence but the heat wave outside forces me inside and away from large heat-generating appliances like TVs and microwave ovens.
The fact is I want to be the greatest leader who ever existed but instead I was picked to wonder, to ask questions, to show possibilities that are impossible today so we might point our 7B-strong efforts toward making them possible.
There is no "they" or "them." There is only us, in many forms, forms we cannot see because we cannot see.
The LHC and the wrestling ring are one.
Let me explain...
I used to work as a student kitchen worker at Morrill Hall cafeteria on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
I had many friends, some that worked there and many who wouldn't.
Occasionally, university professors would eat at the cafeteria.
Or we assumed they were professors.
A few times, just as my shift was ending, an older gentleman would come in and buy a cookie and glass of milk.
He didn't stand out. He wasn't one of the eccentric retired professors who haunted cafeterias with their stories of past school administrations and genius students who went crazy and were never heard from again.
He was just an ordinary looking man of his age, wearing a tweed jacket, button-down shirt, nondescript pants (probably darkly stained cotton or polyester) and penny loafer shoes.
I had forgotten about the man until I recently saw the movie, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," with some friends (for one of my friends' birthday).
Amazing how an old-fashioned good-vs-evil movie will trigger memories of forgotten days.
Anyway, as I was wiping down a table, the old man spoke in a foreign language.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'Do you speak suomi?'"
"Sorry?"
"Finnish. Do you speak Finnish, I mean?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, do you have a minute to hear something interesting?"
"In Finnish?"
"No. I will translate for you."
I thought about the summer that Mikko had spent with my family and shared old children's tales. Was this man going to tell me, a grownup college student, a kid's story?
"Okay. But I've got to finish these tables."
"Then I will come back another time, perhaps?"
"Maybe that would be better."
"Are you still performing on stage?"
"What?"
"Are you taking any drama classes?"
"No. Why?"
"That's too bad. We have more to discuss than I first thought."
I kept cleaning the table as the man stood up and walked away.
I saw him a few months later. After hearing his stories, my life took a shortcut through a world totally absent of fraternities, sororities and hand-built computers.
My life hasn't been the same since.
I'm not crazy. This is not a fairy tale. Why am I saying that?
Because the man proved to me we are not alone.
My stories about the Book of the Future and other familiar tricks of the fortunetelling trade are just practice, sleight-of-hand devices the man taught me to use, putting into play the information an old woman gave me in the trinkets she shared.
The E-Brain was just a ruse.
The truth is, as I've said, deeper than states of energy, far beyond our limited imagination and Neanderthal techno playtoys.
I don't want to be here talking about the next phase of our existence but the heat wave outside forces me inside and away from large heat-generating appliances like TVs and microwave ovens.
The fact is I want to be the greatest leader who ever existed but instead I was picked to wonder, to ask questions, to show possibilities that are impossible today so we might point our 7B-strong efforts toward making them possible.
There is no "they" or "them." There is only us, in many forms, forms we cannot see because we cannot see.
The LHC and the wrestling ring are one.
Let me explain...
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