The Spirit and Influence of Giving

Two movies yesterday - "Mon Oncle D'Amerique" and "Race to Witch Mountain." Two generations of moviemakers, multiple movie generations between the release of the movies. Messages and culture markers. Theories. Entertainment.

On this part of the planet, a dose of water falling from the sky.

Tithes and offerings. Forced offerings/sacrifices via government taxes and income redistribution.

We have one voice, one life, one moment.

I see this moment a thousand years from now, when our time is reduced to a few sentences that summarize the general mood and outcome of this century. My thoughts will be long forgotten, these words paved over by a million million blogs and whatever else comes next, including brain-to-brain synapse/thought sharing, people having mosh pit sessions of thought bashing, smashing, ripping into each other's brainwaves at raves and virtual jam sessions. Cutups for cutups.

I forget how time filters out noise. I forget how noise filters out time. I forget I can take a timeout from all this and be noise-free.

Owning the Book of the Future, I already know where these words fit into the scheme of this century, no scheming involved, just a flow of symbols temporarily taking up space in a computer storage system somewhere I don't know, one keyclick away from being deleted forever, assuming places like archive.org don't archive these words.

And then what happens?

A thousand years in the future. A simple statement. A few words. Lives upon lives leading to more lives and yet? Yeti? SETI? Our imaginations running away from us. Discovering aesthetics is not universal. Real life is being integrated into the planets we're on, not separated from them.

I want to believe I'm singular. But I've been taught to believe I want to believe I'm singular, which makes me part of the plural, which wants to believe it's plural when it's really singular, part of the whole one.

I won't live to see one thousand years from now except reading about it. By reading about it, I live it. By living it, I am it. I exist now and forever without doing anything about it. My ancestor planted one extra seed and I'm alive because of it. I write one extra word and someone reads what I didn't write because of it.

I hold up one hand and say, "This is my hand." What is a hand but a section of the environment interacting with itself?

Concepts easy to see and play with. What of emotions? What of heartbeats?

One person kills others in a marketplace, maximizing the number of deaths. Maiming. Creating orphans. Another person kills a family in a jealous rage. Is a reason necessary? A thousand years from now, no one will remember. Can we live today like we'll be seen one thousand years from now? Can we even see tomorrow?

Do you give more than you receive? Do you resolve more problems than you complain about?

These are words. They've never been more than words. They appear to represent symbols greater or less than they are but they are not.

I look for novelty. I look at myself one thousand years from now and ask if I did something different every day that I had to live and breathe. That's all I do. Because I'm a member of a group that sees itself as unique, I think about myself representing that group in what I do differently every day, assuming our group will be here to talk about itself one thousand years from now, talk being a concept that I have no idea how it will be represented at that time. In thinking about differences between now and then, I imagine ideas that could make our group's history more meaningful to folks one thousand years from now, instead of repeating the same historical petty squabbles we play up as epic battles, wars and revolutions, with heroes on one side and villains on the other.

I'm just one person. I'm not a historian. I don't plan to invent a better mousetrap. I plan to live today and the next today and the next today after that. I know all about the mislaid plans of mice and men but I live anyway. Novelty and happiness are my guide. I look for others like me but never place too much hope that I'll find someone like me every moment because I know we get caught up in ideas that take control of our unique lives and twist our emotions and thoughts into tight circles that we can't get out of very easily. I am an example of myself and an example of others to myself and others. The pebble, the pond and the waves all at once.

I don't live to make others happy. I make others happy by living a happy life. I live a happy life by seeing myself one thousand years from now, most of my actions inconsequential and nothing to get riled up about. If my actions won't matter, I can be free to do what I want. There are no rules because the rules of today don't apply one thousand years from now. Concepts easy to see and play with, don't you think?