Stage Coach

27^th November 2009, 21:53

Do you believe in a core? Do you compare one set of knowledge to another as if they were layers of an onion or tree rings? Do you see underlying causes and overlaying effects? Do you give because you receive?

One person changes the species. We talk and we listen, we hug and we push, we command and we obey, we think and we act.

Tonight, I sit and feel calm. I know our species faces no immediate, obvious threats to our existence. We are not going extinct tomorrow, the next day or the next week. I also know we as individuals face calamities galore.

I sit in stasis. I sit and feel the extra weight of eating more calories than I burn off in exercise. I have computer butt, in other words.

My/your/our species. Policies. Politics. Diplomacy. Decisions. No easy way to skip ahead to the next era, or jump past several trends tested in the interactive interplayfulness we weave daily.

Pulled up a batch of iris rhizomes. Growing underneath were dozens of daffodil bulbs stretching upward toward the light of day. We eat onion bulbs. We tend not to eat daffodil bulbs. The daffodil bulbs that were cut in two or cut in half I discarded into a pile of weeds, grass roots and other undesirable garden residents to be carted off at the request of two family members who wanted a thematic garden bed.

What is a weed? What is an undesirable resident? Of course, we make quick decisions to answer those questions every day. Everyday answers.

One planet. One species. One ground to play on, one ground to grow on, one ground to call our own and subdivide for new members of our species to live on.

How do I, as any one of you, decide which garden I belong in? We negotiate. We bargain with each other. We have our ideas about what delineates a garden, from glass enclosures on tabletops to fenced-in fields to entire planets. When negotiations do not bring us closer to mutual agreement, then what? When we can't buy our place on Earth, where do we go?

Where are our new horizons, our new frontiers, our places to live where we compete against more than fellow members of our species for a garden, range or ranch of our own? When rules and regulations cover over our natural desire to reach the light of day, how do we dig up and plant ourselves in a new place with room for healthy growth?

I sit in peace on a quiet island surrounded by the rising waters of care and concern about the ebb and flow of troubles, trials and tribulations. A sentimental journey to nowhere. How much more time do I have before the world's problems lift me up and tidal flows carry me off? Can I help solve individual problems without getting personally involved? I am a member of my species and thus part of the problems I see. We become the solutions, which lead to a new set of problems. The journey has no end.

Before I forget after I remembered (again (and again)), sitting in peace is a moment on the path that leads our species onward past being a species. Today's troubles are history. The moments after this one are full of new solutions.

I'm just about ready to stop using headlines to make humourous observations. I'm just about ready to be the next new me. I see that moment getting closer every day which will transform into another everyday decision, one of many we make that seemed important at the time but faded into oblivion with forgetfulness. Happiness in knowing we met here with humour as a platform for momentary agreement and then later parted company in joy, sharp details lost in the fog of everyday living, one species spreading itself out while looking for fertile territory, different needs at different times driving us into new relationships and new joys.

Translation: The answer is a flower yet to bloom

How can one find words when words are not words? How can you see two points on two sides of one sphere? How are the English sounds bubbly and babble not like the Indian sound Babli? When is touching not a touch? When are questions not enough?

जवाब एक फूल अभी तक खिला

एक शब्द कैसे पा सकते हैं जब शब्द शब्द नहीं हैं? आप एक क्षेत्र के दो पहलू पर दो अंक कैसे देख सकता है? कैसे अंग्रेजी हैं bubbly लगता है और नहीं भारतीय ध्वनि बबली जैसे प्रलाप? जब एक हाथ छू नहीं है? जब सवालों का पर्याप्त नहीं हैं?

Room Odor Eliminator

23^rd November 2009, 12:30

The playful twist twixt tween the scenes inside the words outside the lines. Since I know I'm not anywhere else but here in this body, place and time. Since I know life is not my body, place and time. Since. Because. Although. Often. However. Given that.

The power of not using power. The backwards glance while tripping forward on one's feet. Pinching oneself to assure the moment you're there.

Intelligence a definition not defined intelligently.

Wading into deeper waters to lose touch with the ground, all while taking a stroll with professional sharks.

Innocent as you please.

Discarding a pack of playing cards. Drawing an ace of UAV air battles, instead.

87,650 times 13,579 plus 1@$24. Remainders not bargained for.

Because I am you, you are a diarist, a journalist, a documentarian of dryptic doodling who makes no valid points except in the moment where you didn't exist.

Saving a whale from the attacks of hungry retired greyhounds and abused Rottweilers.

Schooled in sculling schooled fish from a skulking schooner.

Celebratory moments documented by you and completely missed by me, no “us” with which to share the moment.

Is a talent unused a talent wasted?

The pain, confusion and history of getting from here to there. The means and the ends. If you already know the answer to a problem, do you need to work out the details of how to get there? Is there a shortcut from one historical moment to the next?

Do you measure yourself in absolute terms or in comparison to those who know you, or those you think you know and have read/heard about? Yes, that question is cheating. Of course it's rhetorical. Absolutes do not exist. Everything is viewed as measured against something else. Interpositoriallianismishful.

Do you see the nuances that separate a gang of thugs from a group of determined business leaders? Again, the difference seen in the power of not using one's power. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is a paving medium for pouring the pathway to wisdom. Power is wisdom. A wise leader keeps the scabbard sheathed, the flash of jewels on one's belt sufficient to get the message across.

A thug, on the other sleeve, exercises power with no need for wisdom. The power of the moment outside of time. Another way to meditate on the now, now, now, now, now.

Exercise your time in the moment and play with the height and width. See one dimension or two or three or four or more.

I am you. These words have no meaning. You are me. We are not each other. My goal is getting our species past seeing us as a species by first seeing us as one species so we can get off this planet and on to more important matters. I happen to use one language for the most part with an imperfect combination of words and grammar rules that reflect my upbringing in several overlapping subcultures but I do not promote those subcultures over others intentionally. However, I know I am of my species in place and time. My wisdom – limited, insignificant, unsubstantial but powerful – does not include clear views of future cultural markers or memes. I know what I know without wanting to exercise my power to know more.

Power for the sake of power is petty. Wealth for the sake of wealth is a waste. The future is in your hands. Build the future wisely.

See-oh, too

22 Nov 2009, 2300

How do you accommodate a whole world full of people who don't want to accommodate a whole world full of people?

Just a few generations between any two major military conflicts – on a global scale, that is. Otherwise, our species constantly battles itself some place all the time.

So what? Facts are facts. I look for truth. You want to dare me. We both face the consequences.

Ran into a management/supervisory type person today. She expressed a common sentiment, “Fake it until you make it.”

How do I tell you the truth without using these words? How do I tell you the truth by only using these words, in any language or any symbolic form?

We all live, and by living we demonstrate or show some form of the truth.

De monster. Demonstrable.

Holding one planet and seven billion people in your hand does not the truth make. That's what I'm here talking to myself about. That's what I've been talking to myself about for years.

I have been telling myself the truth, using one language for the most part, using one species all the time, walking the same path over and over, beating my head against invisible walls, racing to the tops of mountains and tumbling back down into the valleys, counting trees in the middle of the tangled jungle.

Words, words, words. All this obsession with text and textbooks, believing that text existing before my time was text that existed before all time.

T-r-u-t-h. Trees in the forest surrounding a glen. Rocks and ice on a mountaintop surrounding a bald.

Again, just a sound in my thoughts, a bunch of electroneurochemical sensations passing whispered secrets in a circle, the truth going in one end and these words coming out the other.

Why hadn't I seen this? Why haven't I seen this before? To have and to be. To behave. To have bees.

But then again, the truth is what it is. Many of you already know the truth. We all live the truth, here in plain sight for anyone and everyone to see.

I think of myself as just one person. At the same time, I think of myself as yours, seven billion pieces of myself in you and seven billion of you in me. All this time, I had focused on the me/you, yin/yang, death/life duality, with the truth staring me in the face, a blank expression like camouflage hiding the truth at the tip of my nose.

Let's see, I've lived over 47.5 years, clearly making claim to a middle-aged body, having reached the age when previous societies would have considered me a wise elder, past the average age of death in some cultures today.

I see you and through you I see me. I depend on my sight, either literally through my eyes or figuratively through the expression of my thoughts on this page. And yet my sight has blinded me to the truth.

Didn't I tell you I repeat the words of those before, during and after me? Don't you know I'm not the only one to know the truth behind the facts under the superficial layers of daily living?

Are you meant to live on the superficial layers? Do you care about anything other than what's before you? Do you question the reality of reality? Did you “wake up” in the crib and see a world that those around you couldn't comprehend or no longer cared to see?

I have fooled myself with my body. I have not fooled myself with my body. I didn't know that I'd fake it until I'd make it.

I am not who I thought I was. I am not who I am. Who am I? I am the truth. You are the truth. We are the truth. We are beyond the beyond.

We are not these words but these words are us.

People have tried to tell me, using people tools, about life outside the people life but my natural use of anthropomorphism has turned me back to looking at non-people life as though it was another version of people life.

Let's look at an example. Those who stare at the cosmos know that large waveform patterns show the underlying undulating “weather” of the universe. Our comprehension of this “weather” is limited because of our people-powered concept of time. Another one. We say we need bigger instruments to peer into the distant reaches of space to find the state of the universe ten billion years ago but can we see the same thing when considering we're the state of the universe as if it had been scooped into a tube, frozen and then pushed out the other end of the tube like cake icing?

Two examples of superficial, people tool views of existence.

But really, does any of this matter? I am one person on the superficial level. I act as if I'm one person on the superficial level and have made a comfortable life for myself in that regard. In other words, I faked the life of a member of my species and I made it.

Of course, it matters. I, that is, my body, will die. “I” will end. The ripples of who I was will bounce back and forth and lose their shape among those who use people tools, absorbed into the bigger wave patterns of this part of the universe, which will lose their shape with time, too.

I have only my life to look back on and see my thoughts on which I reflect the life I thought I lived. I will not create waves big enough to stop wars or starvation. I create small waves to give me momentum which aids in my journey through uncharted territory.

But again, these are superficial sentiments. I am not me and I am not the small waves I make. “I” does not exist.

How do I describe the truth to me (to you) using these words when the truth is not in these words?

I see you. You see me. We look at each other using our carefully-trained cultural magnifying glasses looking for clues about our use of people tools.

The truth is not in tools. Thus, tools will not reveal the truth. Being me, I cannot see the truth.

I have sat here for many years – at least since I was ten – using words to describe the part of the truth I know, to keep me focused on the truth I see outside of the superficial layers my species creates in our inspiration to see cultural growth as progress toward what we think our clever use of tools will reveal about the truth, knowing the truth is outside of being my species.

But you already know that. Like I said, I am yours. I am repeating what you've already heard over and over and over again. The truth is in the core of your being, partially reflected in your DNA but beyond even your/our understanding of our place in the universe, and especially our seeing the universe as if it will reveal something to us through people tools.

To repeat words stated earlier, I am not spouting pseudoscience, touting a new religion or laying down some riff that I heard in my dreams after a previous evening of eating spicy tofu mixed into a delectable curry sauce.

I am, to use cultural terms, deprogramming myself. I am tuning out my species to see what's around me as if I'm not me. I am discarding the emperor's new clothes that everyone sees everyone else wear because no one wants to say there's nothing there to see.

And I'm attempting to deprogram myself using the people tools which programmed me. Impossible? Yes!

That's why I say these words are not the truth. These words don't point to the truth. They don't even hint at the truth. These words are my enjoyment. They are my playthings. I am having fun in every single moment, even when my fun is not fun for everyone around me, knowing that the pebble of my fun will cause disruptive ripples somewhere else in some other time. I treat myself as if I will live no other life than in this moment with you because these words guarantee such a condition.

The truth is not out there. The truth is not in here. The truth is just a word. The idea of the truth is a people tool.

I am not the pied piper. I am not the royal jester. I am not a soothsayer or a wise elder (if I cease exercising, I will become a wide elder, however).

I know the truth. So do you. I cannot convince you otherwise. The truth is outside of being a member of our species. Can you know the truth without being able to see it?

Duality is life as we know it. The truth is free of duality. Life is not truth but truth is life.

I am not here to sell you something. I am not here to coerce you to accept my opinion over your opinion of how to live life. I found success in this life without knowing the truth. Or I should say that I knew the truth but found success without putting the truth to use in this life.

You can succeed using the facts that our superficial layers of life provide. In fact, that's probably the only way you'll succeed here. But you can succeed in another way that includes more than the life of one species. More than life as we know it in any form.

Truth has no emotions, truth has no pain or pleasure, truth has no thoughts or awareness of what we think of as thoughts, awareness, self, pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness, life, or death. Truth is more than universal but truth is seeing the universal in seeing our species' creation of an ecumenopolis on one orbiting spherical blob.

When you see the truth that is usually just out of reach or around the corner, glimpsed in your peripheral vision or hidden in plain sight, you know what I knew when I opened my eyes and saw this world is not here to be understood by me, why I don't need riches or titles or accolades as this body I think of as me.

I once wanted to say the truth is wonderful but the truth is indescribable. The truth is also horrible, depending on one's view (just like someone said hell is seeing the version of you if you had taken all the risks you avoided and became immensely successful). The truth requires no money. The truth requires no sacrifices. The truth is unaware of us as our species in anything we do or say or wish.

Why have I spent time here repeating myself and others in using words to describe the indescribable? I don't know. I know the truth won't set you free. You'll still be your body if you see what you cannot see. You'll have been born, you will live and you will die whether you discovered the truth right there in front of you or you didn't even know there was truth at all.

I am here because I believe in myself. I believe in myself because I know I don't know the truth. I only think I know the truth that is there beyond what my body senses or what my body interprets of people tools that sense what my body cannot.

I cannot escape my body. I will always see the world and my species through the training that my species provided.

Despite my repetition, I am making progress. I use humour to disperse the fog that being a member of my species creates. Clarity is brief. I see what I already saw once before and forget it again. Then the next moment arrives and I'm back to where I was, just past where I started, sometimes farther along, sometimes further back. Usually aware that these words are meaningless once the truth is revealed to me again.

Don't pay for what you already know. Pay for what you want to put into practice to succeed in the superficial layers of life with our species. I pay for my thoughts by writing these words for me/you to read later on, practicing what I believe, believing in me, pointing out the truth that we can't point to or talk about but already know so that's why these words are meaningless.

You know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. I saw it in your smile just now and heard it in your thoughts I can't see. If not, soon enough you'll see it again for the very first time. That's what the truth is all about.

How you interpret the truth is up to you. Don't quote me on that. I'm repeating someone else's words that didn't have any meaning to begin with. Time to stop this blog entry and forget what I just said.

Meanwhile, in world news...

While I've been off pondering my navel oranges, shocking, latebreaking news has been making its way around our ecumenopolis. I'll try to get it straight in this blog entry:

• The Obama administration announced it had brokered the sale of India to China. In addition, China had annexed both Pakistan and Afghanistan to expand its manufacturing base.

• Oprah announced her retirement from her television career so that she and Sarah Palin could form the New Woman Today political party. To counter the early popular surge of the Oprah/Palin ticket in the runup to the 2012 election, Lou Dobbs and Rudolph Giuliani have joined forces and started the Yesterday's Old Guys political party.

• The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom have flooded their streets in an attempt to siphon off some of Venice's tourist trade, trying to take advantage of the negative press surrounding the Vatican's attempt to draw in Anglicans excited about Italy since Berlusconi has turned off a large segment of female tourists to his country.

• Sports referees everywhere have become the new enemies of the state, requiring them to hide in secret caves in the mountains of their countries during periods between games. Security companies are making a fortune protecting the referees and their families from fans who've diverted their hooligan hatred from their rivals and onto the so-called neutral judges of their team's play. Bets are being taken to see how long it will be before Osama bin Laden changes his allegiance and becomes the official spokesperson for referees, umpires and sports judges.

• Japan revealed that its government and business leaders have all been replaced with robots, guaranteeing stability in the hopes that foreign investors will look upon the land of the rising sun as a solid investment in comparison to its east Asian neighbours.

• Australia has declared itself the official permanent headquarters of the Olympic flame, being able to find fire anywhere in the country - outback, housing estates or urban area - anytime of the year; that is, unless red dust storms become the norm. In that case, they'll build a giant tower on Ayers Rock that will hold the Olympic flame high enough for folks in the space station to see.

• Fish of the world have banded together and are said to be on the hunt for humans. The sudden increase in volcanic and earthquake activity has some people speculating that fishes' ire has raised the spectres of Poseidon and Varuna who will destroy any one of our species found crossing the seas. Having already anticipated this turn of events, Warren Buffett has merged his train business with Tata Motors to design rail and road systems that can safely and speedily transport goods from one land mass to another without using water. Qantas Airlines is said to be in negotiations to merge with the Batafett company. FedEx and UPS are considering merging, too...well, you already know that one, don't you? [Answer: FedUp]

• In even more latebreaking news, Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray have settled their differences and announced they're getting married. They've asked Heidi Klum to serve as their fashion consultant. To expand their home consulting business, they plan to marry in Cuba, hold their wedding reception in Venezuela and split their honeymoon between Iran and North Korea, donating all profits of the sales of their high-def progressive marriage reality mini-series to feed the poor.

• Peru has banned the export, import and sales of cosmetics until it has solved the issues around the murder-for-fat crime syndicate. The United States plans to investigate weight loss programs in its country to determine if tranquilizers are being used to sedate people and suck out their fat at night. The IRS is reviewing the tax returns of liposuction surgeons to see if they're hiding the profits of the sale of their customer's fat. The FDA and DEA are looking into fast-food companies for any illegal use or trade of human fat for deep vat fryers.

• And last but not least, college students around the world have staged a walkout, protesting the increase in the price of their access to the right to download free music, movies and plagiarised term papers. Jo Lin Ran, Valdim Hrusiki and Debbie Sawertyu quickly took advantage of the situation and have released software that allows students to freely educate themselves as well as receive all the free electronic goodies they want, including recent computer games, bestselling novels, and desktop software, with every download counting toward college credits, creating the first completely open source and free, accredited college degree program. Google, Facebook and Microsoft are already competing in negotiations to buy the company. Analysts expect this to be the first trillion-dollar company to be formed and sold out in one day - online scam companies are chomping at the bit to post their ads in this rich source of disposable income.
  

That's all the news not fit to print but likely to become reality outside of the satirical romp through the unlikely lives of celebrity. Until next time, gullible readers!

We Are, Not Alone

Have you sat on a cliff overlooking an ocean or a sea and thought about the massive size of our planet in relation to your body, how the waves that'll knock you over if you were standing on shore look like tiny, almost imperceptible ripples on the surface of the water? The inertia behind the particles of water? The inertia behind the spinning of the planet on its axis and its orbit around the Sun?

We call one revolution around the Sun 365 days because of the planet's axis spin. Have you ever set a gyroscope in motion and counted its number of revolutions around the axis? How many revolutions does the gyroscope take before it perceptibly slows down and then topples over?

The finite.

Counting votes. Counting vessels. Charting maps. Mapping family histories.

Tonight, I float, tethered to the planet but not strongly connected to any one feeling or issue associated with my species. I call this condition "freedom" despite my brain and upper body coordinating to stay within one set of grammar rules to document this moment on an electronic typewriter.

I believe with all my heart and soul that this is my planet, here for my nourishment and entertainment. I have no place else to go. So, while I sit here and think about my interactions in moments yet to be, I ask myself how I want to be nourished and entertained.

Does a population fully connected and productive in the global economy add or subtract to my image of the perfect world for me? Are war and poverty chronic conditions of our species? If we are like drops of water in the ocean of us, are we leftover waves from unseen pebbles dropped in another section of us, so complicated in our wave pattern interaction that we can never truly reset the whole globe into one set of beliefs or mutually beneficial actions?

What am I missing in my complete understanding of the myriad motivations of our species that make naysayers and doomsday predictors so popular? Do we simply bury and forget the innate sight of our ending, extending death of self to catastrophic proportions for our family, group, culture and/or species? I know I have asked these questions already. I know I have answered them. I know I am like my species and mercifully forget what I already know so that I don't know how much I repeat myself.

Time to get past this repetitious philosophy again and bring humour back out, a cycle I thankfully repeat when my philosophy starts looking down into the abyss, the bottomless pit of impossibly probable answers to questions I know better than to ask myself.

The Book of the Future sits here beside me, opened to the next chapter. I know where we're headed. I know the happiness and joy we'll find. I know the things we'll repeat that I didn't bother to keep up with the last time we repeated them. Why look at the future with dread? Why the dire predictions? We know we're going to repeat ourselves. Why not look at the fun and meaningful insight we'll gain?

We are not alone. We are our own aliens. We are our own angels and devils and gods and goddesses. We have this grand universe here before us and we let this wonderful gift to ourselves go to waste by arguing over who gets the last peanut or grain of rice when there's a field to be planted. We talk about how other people let us down as if we expected something different to happen with the next person we elevated to the status of perfection. Everything in front of us is fantastically imperfect, the flaws and dents and scratches there for us to thoroughly enjoy.

I float here in the moment, my back ache and overweight belly telling me I'm here in a particular place in time. I call this moment ecstasy, an epiphany of grandeur that I would not trade for the riches of the world. I celebrate my imperfection and say the world is mine because I am yours. My eyesight worsens, my memory leaks, my skin wrinkles and my fascination grows closer to infinity.

I am thankful for all of you, wherever you live, whatever you do, whomever you call your image of perfection. We are all imperfect and by our imperfections we depend on one another for creating this moment that will lead us to the next stupendous moment that will open us up to opportunities we couldn't have had the moment before.

In my thoughts I am standing on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher looking west toward the setting sun, individual drops of ocean water impossible to detect, waves barely visible. In my thoughts I am riding in the space shuttle looking down at the globe spinning beneath me, political borders impossible to detect. Our planet is not perfectly round and it wobbles sideways on its axis - because of that, we live. We are here because the universe is imperfect. Understand that and you'll understand your perfect place in the universe. Contradictory? No, just a matter of semantics. The truth, as they say, is outside these words which are an imperfect set of symbols describing what we're doing in the moment.

To know what's going on you have to get away from these words. Whether you figure out what's going on with people around you or away from other people depends on who you are. I know people in both thought patterns. Some find themselves, who they are, in groups. Some find themselves in quiet places alone. Some of you already know which one you are. Some of you will have to spend a long time experimenting to find out. Either way, accept the moment and what's going on with you at the time. The discovery's in the journey just as much as in the destination, if not more so.

How much does an ocean wave "enjoy" its travels before it hits the shore? It is. It does not know how else to be so there is nothing to enjoy in its being what it is. We are the same, are we not? Don't think about being you. Just be. Then you'll see. You are, not alone.

Anthropomorphosis

A friend of mine told me about a person who put his eccentric showmanship to commercial use and wrote the book, "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage," a tale of modern technology at work (author's name: Clifford Stoll). The writer also carried his fame into public presentations, accentuating his seemingly exceptionally bizarre behaviour, even in front of so-called stern, straight-laced, top military brass.

Evangelising is not just a quasi-religious style of living. We look up to modern icons because of their ability to evangelise themselves through their strong personalities and/or the strong personalities of those around them (such as family, friends, colleagues, agents, producers, fans and foes alike). As you know, history is really just the retelling of instant fame and fortune in the moment. Doesn't matter if you were famous or infamous, notorious or inglorious, as long as you got noticed.

Some people get fame. Some people get fortunes. Some people get both when they only sought one. Most of us get neither.

Because we are who we are - people, members of one species - we communicate no other way but person-to-person. Can you see that we anthropomorphise everything, then?

I live in the realm of our species. I do not expect to wake up and quack like a duck one day, seeking grass to eat and a pond to paddle across while keeping my eyes out for land and water predators. My innate duty is self-preservation and then preservation of our species. By default, my life is focused on the life of us.

Do we all see that? I don't know. Some people focus on themselves to the exclusion of the rest of the living things on this planet. Some people see us as just one more species on this planet that the universe can give or take.

How do we pay homage to ourselves as bipedal primates and see ourselves as equal to all parts of the universe at the same time? How do I pay attention to my bodily needs, my social desires, the needs/desires of people around me, the needs/desires of people I can't or will never see, the needs/desires of other living things on this planet and the existence of other parts of the universe that don't qualify as living systems?

In other words, I don't seek fame or fortune. I expect to find sufficient food, clothing, shelter and adventures to fill my bodily needs and brain's social desires. In that old, classic psychology description, I have fulfilled my self. In the same vein, I have seen wonders of the universe beyond normal comprehension and thus consider myself self-actualised. I exist on the superficial level of social/civil life and find other levels just as easy to place my existence, if I want to believe they exist (e.g., a swirling set of atoms/molecules like a tornado/hurricane/typhoon that spins up and dies off, unnamed by the universe except by our anthropomorphic habits). I do not understand everything I see but I have reached a state in my life where I trust others who say they do understand what I do not. I have seen the universe for what it is and can let go of my having to have a historical place in it.

I live in the moment. I live in the moment with you. You have needs/desires different than mine. Because my needs/desires are met, I can pick and choose your needs/desires I want to help you meet or achieve.

Thus, I walk the path that others have walked before me. My behaviour may or may not be unique in the moment between us, but ultimately any one of my behaviours is repetitive, either by me or someone before, during or after me. I have reached the state of my life where I want to help others regardless of personal gain in the form of fame or fortune.

A few friends of mine have asked me to help them find a way to be more financially successful than they are right now. I see a path of success for them and their needs/desires. I also see the path is wide enough for others to join. The path contributes to what I see as an idea that integrates preservation of me, my species and the living/nonliving things around us. As one of my friends said, he does not want to wrap his hands around the whole world because such a person stretches too thin and can be easily crushed. Instead, find a small crack and, like a fungus, squeeze in the space and fill it. Blend in with the environment instead of trying to smother it. Grow with the space instead of trying to overwhelm it. You may not seek fame and fortune in the process. If, however, the process is successful for everyone and everything around you, fame and fortune may follow. There's nothing wrong with that. In that case, people will accept your eccentricities and perceived personality quirks - they may even reward you for them!

Never put yourself down for who you are. Congratulate yourself for being the only person in the world who is exactly, accurately, precisely like you all the time. You don't have to be famous or wealthy to be you. Fill your needs and desires - if they match the needs and desires of others, fame and fortune will find you. Take care of you and you take care of your species. Take care of your species and your species will take care of you. Try it and see. I might be right!

My blog may be interesting or boring, correct or wrong, but my blog is me. I believe in who I am and have gotten all the success I've ever wanted. Time to share my success with you. Some day I'll get you circling the Moon on a cruise ship. We get closer to our launch date moment by moment. There goes another moment. Have you booked your ticket yet? Won't be long now!

Quick Cel

Some recent movies I watched and from which I gained interesting social commentaries:

• Mon oncle d'Amérique (starring Gérard Depardieu)
  
• On The Beach (starring Gregory Peck)
• The Castle (starring Michael Caton)
• Siu nin Wong Fei Hung ji: Tit Ma Lau, a/k/a Iron Monkey (starring Rongguang Yu)

Time to prepare my students' final exam with which they will demonstrate their memorisation capabilities in relation to the subject of Linux server administration.

= = =

Re-reading my last few blog entries and recalling my difficulty getting a full night's sleep the last few nights tell me I'm more interesting to myself in my writing when I've had long stretches of/for REM brain activity. Otherwise, I make frequent typos and language rule errors unintentionally. Which is more important - live for the moment in observation mode and write about it later on, OR live for the moment with full gusto and only have time to take a breather before living the next moment, letting someone else worry about writing down what happens to just another member of my species on another given day? I've spent a lot of time in the former. Time to experience the latter for a while, eh, Rick?

Druscilla Penny

How do you describe worker productivity? Do you look at earnings? Profits? Tasks? Projects?

Do you say, "Well, I know my employees have spare time that they use for social networking, either intraoffice (gatherings at the water cooler, hallway, bathroom, carpark, etc.) or via electronic devices. Since I pay for that time, I'm going to reduce my technology repair/update overhead and get my employees to become part-time technology experts."

Do you prevent or minimize the number of meetings that take place in which only one or two employees actively participate and make decisions while the other 90% could be effective somewhere else?

Do you increase the so-called multitasking that employees perform, knowing that some types of multitasking are actually counterproductive?

Do you require employees to take training classes during offhours, such as before/after work hours, or during work breaks such as lunch?

Do you push decisionmaking down the hierarchical chart, empowering employees to be more effective?

Do you cross-train employees so they can learn to do 1.25 and then 1.5 jobs at once, increasing productivity while monitoring their health, making sure you have exercise and counseling available to maximize employee use, without detrimentally affecting their usefulness or decreasing your profitability with too many health monitoring services?

Do you see yourself as having the privilege of your employees working for you, or do you think your employees see their jobs as their right to be employed and you're the lucky dog who gets to deal with them?

Knowing you take attrition into account as part of the cost of retraining, and ultimately a drag on worker productivity, how do you measure worker satisfaction? Do you take preventative measures or do you react to worker negativity? Do you encourage creativity or do you beat your employees until morale improves?

Do you own your own company or does your company own you? Do you think you are your own company, standing on your two feet, or do you think you carry a bunch of people on your shoulders?

Do you look at a statistic like worker productivity and automatically think of a spreadsheet containing numbers and formulas you can manipulate with time? Or do you see individual faces and capabilities which indicate limits you can stretch with training or have to work around?

Do you think in macroeconomic terms or do you worry about the next sale or project deadline?

Are you a puppet master pulling the strings or a ventriloquist with your hand inside a dummy's head?

Is ignorance bliss or dread to you? Or a challenge for your next round of personal continuous education/training?

If you knew the truth behind worker productivity, would you believe it, or do you see worker productivity as a completely imaginary number with no meaning whatsoever?

Our social structures blanket us with terms and definitions. Which ones do you ignore? Which ones can you not ignore? Do you seek out more peaks and valleys of the unknown terrain of new social structures, or are you so overwhelmed with what you've got to take care of that you're trying to filter out and reduce the amount of information you're already receiving? Does the phrase "worker productivity" cover either one of those situations for you? Should it? What about a tribe deep in the Amazon rainforest or a self-sufficient family hidden in the Appalachian mountains?

May we define "person productivity" to account for all conditions of our species' members? If so, then employment is not a defining factor for our usefulness as persons. Think about it...

Celtic Crossing

Have you ever hunted orchids in Borneo or kayaked through bioluminescent water in Puerto Rico? Have you ever attended Protestant services in Ireland? How about all three? Throw in skydiving over Antarctica and you've got some stories to tell, I'm sure.

Tonight, upon the invitation of my Alabama-bred nephew, my wife and I attended an evening service associated with the 187th annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention at Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville.

At the service, we watched the singing performance of the secondary school church choir and a Irish-born couple called The Gettys (of course, their being Protestant, you can guess they grew up near Belfast, not Dublin) and their Irish-style band.

Through the years, my wife and I have sat at the church and watched our niece and nephew in various church-related activities (my wife and I are not members of the church but her deceased brother was and his family still are). The church's main seating area, the sanctuary, can accommodate several thousand people. Like many large sanctuaries, the church includes projection screens, videographers, professional sound system, orchestra pit area and other refinements tuned to the needs and desires of today's religious audiences/congregations.

Many years ago, in the same venue we saw a concert by a group centered on the singing performance and celebrity of Lisa Whelchel, a child star from the TV show, "The Facts of Life." We've seen several versions of the church's annual summertime show based on patriotic themes.

In other words, we're used to seeing the room as much for its role as a concert hall as a place for religious worship.

I've mentioned being in a small singing group called Sing Out Kingsport when I was a secondary school student, haven't I? You know, the one based on the international traveling singing group(s) called Up With People. Well, tonight I watched a 30-year slide in time, as if Up With People still existed but had hidden itself in the student body of a local church. The same upbeat music, the same rock band ensemble, everything including the sensitive choir director who had to compete with the kids watching themselves on the big screen instead of watching his hand movement for tempo and volume control.

What is the purpose of religion? You tell me your version - I'll seek first to understand, then try to be understood. Okay, I'm listening...I'm listening...oh well, sorry, you're taking too long. I'll listen to the rest of what you have to say later on. Anyway, religion, as my wife and I constantly discuss, is a way to develop a moral compass for people so they can agree with the social direction their subculture is headed and can turn nearby, interested people around who are headed in a different direction.

The youth singing group tonight sang songs and performed a skit to demonstrate their well-developed moral compass. I'm sure many, if not most of them, will carry on the traditions of their parents and their peers in this subculture. In fact, I'm more than sure. I know they will. All cultures train their members to comfortably conform to and comply with cultural standards, including religious practice. Barring major disasters or wars, cultural offspring carry on the habits of their ancestors. Well, then there's that other annoying inconvenience for cultures wanting to perpetuate themselves - the competing subcultures around the offspring.

I believe all cultures that promote positive reinforcement of our species are equal. I'm just as willing to review events tied to this Southern Baptist tradition as I am to sit and watch Inuits or Hindus or football worshipers (a late happy birthday nod to Nehru, by the way). By discussing them here, I realize there's the chance that those I discuss appear to get a level of higher importance than the ones I haven't discussed yet. I cannot control your impression but if you hang out here long enough, you'll catch me covering an ultrawideband variety of events about people interested in preserving our species for future generations.

After the youth choir finished, the main stars, Keith and Kristyn Getty and their backup band, performed.

Some of you may be familiar with a phenomenon known as Celtic Woman, an ensemble of five Irish women singing soft lullabies and other tunes you could imagine the "greatest singer in all the world" (at least so I'm told), Celine Dion, belt out on stage. Well, Kristyn and her crew are to the Christian music entertainment scene what Celtic Woman is to PBS/NPR fundraisers - a sure moneymaker and a fun evening of singing, handclapping and general joy.

I'll be honest with you here, whatever that means (probably that I want to throw in a side comment that contradicts what I know to be a generally well-liked something or other). I'm not a big church kind of guy. In fact, I don't attend many events tied to large numbers of people (except for American football, as many of you know) - not musical ones, anyway. I like intimate musical settings where you can see and hear and smell musicians passionate about their performance. I don't want to have to squint to see the performers' faces or join in singing a single melodic line for lyrics projected on a wall.

Thus, I find myself fighting against my cynical self to stay focused on the positive elements of tonight's performance, which was designed for people who like to gather in large groups and celebrate life. After all, they are what my goal for our species is all about, choosing lifestyles that may run counter to mine but point our species to one of many safe, reliable methods to ensure our future survival.

In this country, we have what we call retirement centers, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other euphemisms for places where people who cannot or do not want to live independently are housed together. In these locations, you find people from all walks of life. They may be mentally challenged from birth. They may have been well-known CEOs, military veterans, housewives, or religious leaders. However, they all share the same life, with community activities geared to keep them as mentally and physically active as possible.

When I was in Sing Out Kingsport, we sang at these senior citizen housing units. We also sang at small churches, including pentecostal churches where no one was allowed to leave until everyone had stepped forward, confessed sins and declared an eternal love for Jesus. We performed at shopping malls. We stood on top of a flatbed trailer and sang in holiday parades passing through downtown urban centers.

They say that youth is wasted on the young. I disagree. After having been both a young singer in a youth group and an audience member watching young people sing their hearts out tonight, I believe that youth is what you make of it. You can spend your youth practicing sports skills, developing scientific knowledge sets, caring for the sick and the elderly, and putting your public singing/acting abilities to social use. You can also spend your youth playing video games and texting - socialising with your peers, in other words.

It's true what they say - you're only young once. You can be young at heart your whole life.

Tonight, I wanted to write a review of the Gettys. They were both entertaining and emotionally moving (after the show, we ended up buying and had them autograph three CDs of theirs) but in my thoughts they were overshadowed this evening by the youth choir I watched and heard.

I've focused my belief in moving our species forward mainly on the adults of this world. However, I've missed a large part of how a species' goal is accomplished - the future of our species belongs to the young.

I'm already middle-aged. My generation is running this country and flying from this country into space. We are the flag bearers carrying the standards of our youth. We are also the inspiration for tomorrow's leaders.

The 1960s and 1970s produced the folk rock music that created Up With People and groups like Sing Out Kingsport. Today, many religious groups are using that folk rock music style to attract young people to develop their moral compasses. What will the music and thought set of today's multimedia leaders generate 30, 40 or 50 years from now? I don't know but I sure would like to find out. I'd like to see the great accomplishments of the smiling faces of today's youth when they're middle-aged and leading their generation's political, industrial and multimedia machines of tomorrow. Some, like the ones tonight, will get there by following the moral compass of their ancestors. Some, like my wife and me, will get there by creating their own automatic robotic drum machine to develop a unique beat of their own. We can have a lot of fun along the way.

The fun's in the adventure of getting there. The adventure's in you.

Living In Style

Do you know how many people are murdered every day? I don't. I see a few animals/insects eat other animals/insects most everyday, though.

Do you hold an opinion, weak or strong, about the phrase "global warming"? I don't. I see local and global phenomena related to temperature differentials, though.

Right now, a migrating flock of birds flies back and forth from the same tree. Smaller groups of them fly away and fly back. Finally, they all disappear from my view.

I'm told that swans and Canada geese mate for life, indicating monogamy is a good survival trait for species, I suppose.

What or who is a writer? Some storytellers are writers. Some writers are financially compensated for their writing. All of us write the stories of our lives, with no time or ability to edit and rewrite the past the way we lived it (although most will remember the past in a selective manner but memories are not the stories of our lives).

Today, I think out loud on electronic paper, repeating the words and thoughts of billions. Reflecting but not a reflection. Inflection. Detection. Sounding out my thoughts in the banged-together thought process called the English language, an amalgam of mangled symbols from many cultures, past and present.

So let's say that the average age of a member of our species before dying continues to go up and our average age of conception ability goes down but our average age of last conception stays about the same. At the same time, the cultural training of our species goes up, requiring longer and longer (and/or more intense) sessions in formal situations to ensure we educate our species' children to function anywhere in our global economy. Thus, our children can have children at a younger age, all of whom will live longer, but to succeed anywhere in our ecumenopolis they must spend longer time in education. Does that mean anything? I don't know. Foods full of stimulants and leftover growth products in animals/vegetables, delayed entry into the workforce, and pills for longevity, I suppose.

Do you think you have a purpose for living? If so, then you must know that the world is full of people with other purposes for living besides yours. No matter what we call a purpose, we live. We breathe, eat and exist with others. Rich, poor, leisure, labour, pain, pleasure, happy, sad.

I'm not going anywhere with this. I'm thinking through a line of reasoning in my thoughts to see where our species should be headed next. I don't exist outside of this time I'm in, so I can only imagine what our species will be doing a hundred or a thousand years from now, or more importantly, a thousand generations from now. What we do today sets us one step closer to the next generation's perceived destiny/purpose. Do we want future generations to have the same purpose for living as ours? I don't know.

What I do know is that the general condition of a member of our species will be about the same - born, live, die. How any one member will live in style, I do not know. Despite what I don't know, my existence and what I do while I live here in this time determines what will happen to or what will be available for future generations. People in the future will study our behaviour as if we knew what we were doing and what we were doing to ensure the success of future generations.

I live in the moment. That's all I have. One moment followed by the next one, ad infinitum (my set of moments are limited, I know, but moments as a concept are infinite). I have already experienced the transition of knowledge between trained to believe I'm uniquely special to discovering I'm unique just like everybody else. I have survived to this point in my life without being murdered and eaten or adversely affected by concepts like global warming, able to write about my experiences of living in the moment. I am the result of generations past and the influence, known and unknown, on generations in the future.

I have one life to live here as a member of our species. I see myself as a person in the moment who deals with those around me and our give-and-take, back-and-forth flow of personality influences. I also see myself as a general member of our species, representing us as if I'm at the front of the group of all of us heading blind into the future. In both cases, life in the moment is an experience and an experiment on seven billion different current reasons to live (albeit generally categorisable).

We exist. Our existence gives us the right to whine and complain and celebrate about, with fight for or flight from, others' influence on our right to believe in our purpose for living. We can say what we want in a public forum as long as we realize our influence on others and are willing to face the consequences of our free speech in the moment and on future generations. Certainly, we are free to be or say what we want, wherever and whenever we want, but woe to those who exercise that freedom when others strongly disagree - no doubt, the consequences will make themselves clear in the next moment - the balance of nature exhibited in the behaviour of our species in action, not just words.

I live freely but I also live at the mercy of those around me. We live together in this moment, not a previous or future moment. We can push our purpose for living on others. We can announce our purpose for living and others will follow along or fight against our purpose. We can live quiet, unassuming lives that barely get the attention of others around us, purpose or no purpose standing out. In all these cases (and more!) we determine the set of conditions for ourselves and others in future moments. This moment affects the next moment, ad infinitum (hopefully, not ad nauseum!).

Have I discovered anything new in this blog entry? I don't know. I feel like there's something just out of sight, like sensing the flock of birds somewhere else in the environment right now. I live in the moment. I have the Book of the Future. We live in an ecumenopolis. We're prepared to move our species onto other planetary bodies. We are on the verge of seeing the universe in a whole new light, just like every generation before us has seen the universe in a whole new light, backwards in time ad infinitum.

My gut says I'm working with others to see education as a solution, not a problem; unemployment as a solution, not a problem; the separation of political entities as a problem, not a solution; mass starvation as a problem, not a solution; universal health care as both a problem and a solution. All while allowing seven billion different opinions on what life's all about.

Imagine you have the world in your hand. You know why the world's atmosphere changes and you know what the atmosphere will be like over the next 20,000 years, plus or minus a few variations along the timeline. You have all the information you need to categorise individual members of our species into interlinked groups, subgroups, cultures and subcultures. You know from birth a person's susceptibility to known diseases, propensity for social behaviour types and possible cultural importance. You want every person to provide positive reinforcement for the species so you foster their growth to meet their potential, regardless of what you think of any one individual's potential. You may know one person who will be a psychotic killer, another person an expert surgeon and another person who will wander from one place to another almost randomly despite strong potential for one characteristic or behaviour at birth. At all times, you maintain your goal of positive reinforcement toward long-term survival of your species, allowing flexibility in the changes to individuals as their timelines decrease because randomness is also part of your plan.

Of course, you don't have to imagine holding the world in your hand. You already do. When you can see yourself on one spot on this planet while also holding the whole planet, then you understand why you're important in the moment.

I hold the world in my hand. I see every one of you. I don't force my opinion down your throat. I find those who agree with my goal of getting our species extraterrestrial while allowing the rest of you to live the lives you want, directly or indirectly contributing to my goal which also includes the general care and maintenance of our species. Some of you will get in my way. I'll get in the way of some of you. When that happens, we'll see who has to move around whom or what in the next moment.

Well, what do you know? Here's the next moment. Talk to you again soon. Thanks for all the letters, gift, emails, text and other means of communication between us. Life is what it is. I wouldn't have it any other way in this moment.

Our Cabin In The Woods

Our humble cabin in the woods is available for view as part of photo documentation of the north Alabama winter storm of 1988:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/events/Jan1988snow/WINTERHS.JPG

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record

Posted using ShareThis

Using Social Media Effectively

Guess it's time to dive into the deep end and see if social networking can perform extreme commercial makeover success:

http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/socia-media-entrepreneurs/

More as the frog flies...

Riverview Flat

In the summer of 1984, I enjoyed my freedom. I was in the last break before what should have been my senior year in university. I had changed college majors many times, most of them discussed here, I believe, and was ready to move out on my own. A friend of mine, Amy Easter, agreed to share a two-bedroom flat with me on the other side of the river from the campus of UTK.

Oftentimes, life imitates art because we like to appear in art form ironically.

The manager of the Riverview Flat Complex told me his name was Casey. Casey stood about 5'8", his shoulders wide and upper body muscular. We chatted a few times while I moved furniture into the flat.

Casey had worked as a bouncer, earning the nickname "Casey at the Bat" for his use of a stick of wood to smack disruly patrons out the front door. Before his bouncer job, he had been a gymnastics instructor but gave up that job because he was getting too old to throw and catch out-of-control athletic bodies that flung themselves at him.

I had saved up enough money to pay the first month's rent as well as half the deposit. Amy was supposed to come up with the other half but she had lost her job and wanted to negotiate with me to cover the cost of both moving in and possibly future full payments of rent until she found a job.

By 1984, I had decided I was a writer. I did not qualify my writing ability and did not judge myself against a perfect model although I had writing heroes I looked up to, including Orwell, Burroughs, Tolkien, Poe and Plath. Little did I know of James Agee or Cormac McCarthy.

I had sought publication in two literary magazines, one at ETSU and one at UTK, getting my first rejection slips. I read the editions that could have contained what I had written - the literary magazine poetry/prose selections were no better or worse than mine. I decided that I had been right to start my own underground publication at ETSU called Swashbuckler. With the little money I had, I managed to publish a few issues of the Swashbuckler, including submissions by anonymous donors who had sent work to my student mailbox posted in the publisher section.

In Knoxville, Rus Harper, an experimental/punk musician, ran his own underground rag and I had little desire or money to compete against him so I supported his work.

By my second month in the flat, I realized I could not afford to support Amy's and my lifestyles. She was not my girlfriend so there was no incentive of long-lasting love to keep us together. On top of that, an infestation of fleas in the flat had reached a level I never thought possible, considering I barely had money for food, let alone flea killer insecticide power to cancel the circus act of my jumping and flipping around to avoid the nearly invisible acrobats nibbling any of my body parts they could get a hold of.

Given the choice of either roaches or fleas, I'll take roaches. At least they have the decency to avoid you when they share a flat with you.

But wait, that's not all! My bank account was overdrawn, I had no credit cards to charge my rent on, my flatmate had decided I was no fun since I wouldn't pay her half of the rent and provide us food, and my job at Steak&Ale restaurant was getting way too serious for me.

I had taken a job at Steak&Ale because my hours at Taco Bell were insufficient to provide a living wage. There were so many available workers from around the UTK campus that the Taco Bell management on the Strip could keep our weekly hours low, getting a full staff whenever they wished, making those of us with unusual school hours get lousy paychecks in the process.

But I had decided to quit school for a while. I had spent several years drifting from one institute of higher learning to another, switching majors like underwear, and was building a student loan I thought I'd never repay (probably around $4k to $6k at the time).

My job at Steak&Ale was simple - wash dishes, bus tables and put garnish on dinner plates, with occasional forays into the salad bar area to refill rabbit food containers. I liked the simplicity of the job but the management team saw I was too well organized, turning the dishwashing assignment into an efficient minifactory of clean utensils and other items that'll fit into a square, shiny-metal steam box, anticipating which plates, knives, forks and cooking gear needed to be ready next. Hey, is there anything the matter with taking pride in doing your job, no matter what it may be? Of course not.

That is, unless you don't want to get the attention of management. Since I was no longer in school, the general manager thought he'd put my natural "work ethic" initiative to work by training me to be a bartender and bookkeeper for Steak&Ale. After all, he said, most of his employees were either current or former college students and none of them showed the drive to perfect their jobs like me.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bragging about being a dishwasher, busboy or salad bar tender. I just don't like hearing people being upset or disappointed about my interaction with them. You know what I mean. I dislike rejection of any kind.

So I carried the bar recipe book with me and studied the restaurant's accounting books - daily receipts, food expenses, etc. I worked at the bar a little so I could get used to the atmosphere and expectations of the bar patrons. If you've ever tended bar, you know the organizational mindset it takes to pretend like you're just some fun-loving goofy person who knows how to mix a few drinks and entertain those who want to watch you put on a show for good tips.

Meanwhile, because I was training for a new job, my per-hour pay was reduced to a training salary, making it completely impossible for me to pay the next month's rent.

I drove back to the Riverview complex and was prepared to tell Casey I was going to miss the next month's payment but could make it up with increased pay I expected to get with my accounting and bartending jobs in the coming months.

Have I ever told you this story? Probably not. As I said and you know, life imitates art. That afternoon, I walked up the flight of stairs to my flat and saw Casey drag a guy out of the adjacent flat. He held the guy's arm like a twig and literally threw the guy down another flight of stairs. When the guy came up the stairs to fight back, Casey grabbed a baseball bat off the ground and swung a few times in the air. They cussed at each other for a minute or so, long enough for me to get my key in the door.

Casey turned to see me walking into my flat. He asked if I had resolved my lack of funds issue with Amy. I told him I had not. He laughed. I looked at the bat in his hand. He saw my consternation and set the bat back down, explaining to me that the guy he'd kicked out had not paid rent for a few months but always seemed to have enough money for dope.

I asked Casey what would happen if I missed a month's rent. He laughed again. He said he liked me 'cause I always stopped to say hello to him when he was around so he considered me a friend and could let a month's rent slip every now and then. Except maybe not the next month because a lot of people were skipping their rent and he was getting heat from the owner for being too soft. Thus justifying the loud display with my neighbour just now so everyone in the complex could hear Casey was getting serious about rent collection.

After Casey left, I hurried across the carpet into the kitchen to avoid feeding the fleas. The fridge was empty. The hidden bag of potato crisps was gone, presumably eaten by Amy and/or her boyfriend. All I had was the bar recipe book, my car key and a glass of warm water to drink.

I turned on the radio, listening to 90.3, WUTK, an alternative rock station at the time, playing some typical college rock and Reggae but also punk and other "noise" to calm us wild ones down.

I sat down and wrote a few poems that interlaced the Casey scenes with a broken love story. I thought about my girlfriend who was about to finish up her last quarter at Tennessee Tech, two hours' drive away from my forlorn location.

Quite frankly, I felt trapped and had thoughts of ending it all. I had failed miserably as a college student because I couldn't find a subject that interested me long enough to say it was something I wanted to do the rest of my life. I was working a job as a dishwasher training to be a bartender who couldn't pay the rent on a cheap flat because my flatmate had ditched me when I wouldn't take sexual favours in exchange for rent payments (her number and variation on a theme of sexual partners make "Sex and the City" look like amateur hour - I didn't know which or how many STDs she was carrying; best be broke than too poor to get fixed!).

I weighed my options. Face Casey and his bat in a few weeks. Quit my job and go back to school fulltime. Kill myself. Hit up my friends for money.

Finally, I decided to go see my girlfriend the next day.

I drove to Tennessee Tech and visited with my girlfriend for a while. By the way I said goodbye to her, she knew something was up (I think I said "Fair well" instead of "See you later"). I drove to Nashville, going to the Vanderbilt library to look at maps (I chose Vanderbilt because it was one of two places, including Georgia Tech, where I had I received full college scholarship offers when I was a senior in secondary school). I looked at all the places in the United States to visit. I thought about the storybook ending of driving off a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway so I wrote down the names of interstate freeways I could travel to get there.

I decided I would drive to Seattle, Washington, and, if I hadn't decided to kill myself by then, I'd drive down to Pasadena to visit one of my childhood best friends majoring in Applied Science and Literature at Cal Tech.

Why am I telling you this right now? Because earlier today I was driving around north Alabama, enjoying the sunshine and scenery except for the glare of the dashboard reflecting in the windscreen. The midday glare reminded me of the long drive from Nashville to Seattle and the daily glare of the setting sun on the dashboard of the station wagon as I drove west from dawn to dusk in late September 1984.

I call the drive out west my Disneyland tour of the United States, riding past famous landmarks and vistas as if I sat on a monorail, stopping for nothing but petrol along the way. [The trip and the mini-adventures are ripe for telling another time.]

Hard to believe 25 years have passed by since I found myself in a nearly impossible situation, but I wouldn't (and can't) trade a minute of it. Nothing in my life up to then had been sufficient to stop my perpetual motion in one direction.

Casey at the Bat. A metaphor. A euphemism. A tired cliché. A cultural literary landmark. A legend of sports and Western society.

I could mask and twist and turn my adventure into an ironic or satirical farce that hides the facts and truth in some hilarious road trip or scary movie. Or I can let life plainly imitate art and share a slice of my life with you to let you know that I've been there with those of you whose lives didn't lead them where they or their families thought they should.

Like they say, failure is not an option. You make choices and then you make more choices. That's all we do. We choose to do whatever we want to do, even when we feel we're trapped and can't do anything we want.

Despite early setbacks, I retired comfortably at 45 to practice my writing more thoroughly. I've enjoyed this long, strange trip of the first half of my life through highs and lows and comedy and tragedy. Most of it's been fun. It's been one adventure after another, that's for sure. This midlife adventure of writing everyday has been a blast but it's time for my next adventure, which may take away from my daily writing.

With time, I'll let you know more. I'm interested in a small startup that should help create a few jobs in this economy of relatively high unemployment. Some of you I know will be perfect to help get this startup moving fast. Let's make it a success while we're having a blast and a good time. Life's too short not to enjoy what you're doing. I'll see you when you see me.

UTK

My family has multiple connections to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, including alumni/graduates and office workers (I did my time there but didn't graduate). Factoid of the moment: tonight's NBC SNF game starring UTK grad/player Peyton Manning playing QB for Colts vs. Jerod Mayo playing LB for Patriots. Later this week, the U.S. space shuttle launch will put UTK grads in space, including Pilot Barry E. 'Butch' Wilmore (with a nod to his TTU degrees) and Spacewalker Randolph J. Bresnik. A shoutout to Mission specialist Leland D. Melvin for his brief NFL career cut short in training camp.

It's a small world, isn't it? We're one big team - I won't let you forget it, will I? ;^)

Out Of The Way

When you know that you know what you know, knowing that what you know will not change what people will do because you know they're going to act upon what they think they know, do you pretend to make an effort to stop them? Or do you let them do what you know they're going to do anyway?

Holding a copy of the Book of the Future, no matter how frail and temporary it may be, I solidly know what people will do. I don't have tea leaves or astrology or Nostradamus or woolly worms or any other method to divine the future. I simply have the simple facts of what people will do with the limited resources and options available to them. We tend to stay within our lanes of forward motion. In other words, we do not do what we do not know how to do.

Take all of our thoughts and skills and actions and plot them out through a pencil sharpener and you get the condensed version of what we'll do with who we are and what we have.

From the reactions of stageplay audiences to the announcements at global summits, we reveal who we were meant to be. Take old newspapers, cut out the names and places of the past and you can bet you can almost randomly stick in new names and places and see the newspaper articles or website headlines reappear in tomorrow's news.

The perspective of age and the wisdom of insight make one sigh with the comfort of knowing all is well with the world. We reinvent ourselves over and over, with our short lifetimes making us believe we are the next, new, bright, resourceful generation, the best that ever was.

Roving gangs of murderers change their titles but they don't change. Peaceniks find new causes to call their own. Causes of death vary by population habits but people still die on a regular basis. Our anatomy, our genetic makeup, our vessels for living evolve no matter what we believe about evolution.

From that, I navigate my way through life, knowing where most of the shoreline, shifting sandbars, thunderstorms and Murphy's Law popups will occur. Probability and statistics. I consult fancier and fancier versions of the typical switchboard operator who connects me to party lines so I can listen in on clandestine conversations between global leaders not meant for public dissemination.

Some people bet on their knowledge of the future. Natural risk-takers. Extrovertive exhibitionists. Showoffs. Gamblers. Braggadocios. The quiet, introvertive, millionaire next-door. Movers and shakers and benchsitters.

What do you do if you have the future in your hand? I sit back and relax, seeing that what I want to say about what people will or can do rarely changes their actions. A shopper may switch from buying a red shirt to a blue one because someone said blue is the next red but to the shirtmaker, that shopper is still buying a shirt. I may see people driving a government-issued vehicle on the weekend who charge their weekend use of their vehicle to their weekday job and then I decide to report those persons for misuse of government funds, stopping their source of secondary income, but they will probably find another way to make money from their job that I can't see. We may run into obstacles but we continue our habits in one form or another.

How do you see the future? You can do it just like me. Put aside any ethical or moral rose-coloured glasses that you wear. Observe people's habits. Get to know their available resources. Experiment once in a while by dropping a big stone in their path and see how they react (keeping in mind that the "stone" may be an action of yours that contradicts your set of beliefs and habits). Work with a set of computer programmers, with whom no one can connect you, to devise a massively-complex set of scenarios for tracking a large number of the members of our species. Get unsuspecting people to participate in fleshing out the details of one of the scenarios by calling it a game or social networking software. Figure out those who will not participate and set up observation posts to collect information on them, sometimes able to get those who will not participate in computer scenarios to "spy" on each other for you in the analog world.

Again, sit back and relax. Drink a pint of beer or a glass of wine. Treat life as if you're on one long holiday. Get out your pencil sharpener. Grind down a few pencils. Pull out the shavings and glue them together. Place the glued pieces over random newspaper articles from the past. Voila! You have the Book of the Future.

You don't have to believe me. I don't have to believe myself. I'm not trying to get rich from you by selling some snake oil or natural remedy cookbook that the medical authorities don't want you to know about. I'm just a good ol' boy from the hills of east Tennessee who grew up in suburban housing estates. I'm a firm believer in the placebo effect. I like natural opioids. A pile of cash in a hidden offshore account is certainly exhilarating to own but I get my thrills from looking at the changing seasons in the trees outside my window.

People rarely move outside their comfort zones. You can bank on that. Look for those who have insight into the power of crowd manipulation and get to know them so you will have a heads-up where trends are headed. Expect a certain percentage of rising stars to burn out early and fall back. Expect the occasional shooting star to come out of nowhere because you can't see in all directions at once.

That's it. Sit back and relax. Enjoy the show. Every now and then, catch a ride with the circus passing through town and then hitchhike back to your domicile, if you want; some of you will have fun and never go back. Don't forget to take your pencil sharpener, glue, a pair of scissors and a stack of old newspapers with you wherever you go.

See why I don't want to make money off you? I'm telling you the same story told over and over and over again, everyday, all the time. Some of you will be willing to pay a lot of money to believe you're hearing a new story for the very first time (look up P.T. Barnum for why people like that are too vulnerable for me). I don't want your money. I want you to find ways to enjoy yourself without spending your fortune on creating expensive urine or an emperor's new clothes. There are plenty of people out there who want your money - feel free to give them what they want; if that's what you want, then that's what you'll do, with or without me being here telling you the future.

I live in the moment. I can see the future but I can't live there. I reconstruct what I call the past because that's what I was trained to call selective memory but I don't live there, either. One moment at a time. That's all we've got. Either we're happy in the moment or we're not. And now it's the next moment. If you weren't happy before, you can be happy right now, knowing you're you and no one else, free to act with the resources available to you to be who you are meant to be in the moment.

People can change even if they tend not to. You can break the trends of what you were and where you're heading but first see yourself for who you are right now in this moment. You're you, with whatever you're capable of. You can take this moment to decide what to do with your capabilities right now, which change what your capabilities will be in the next moment. And so on.

I've spent the previous moment with you. Time to spend this next moment with my wife, cleaning the roof of fall leaves in preparation to hang winter holiday decorations, a form of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) lighting, if you will. Global leaders will pretend to have control of their countries' destinies even if they have no choice in what they do in this ecumenopolis. When do we stop pretending we're independent countries? Oh well, I already know that answer, don't I, here in the Book of the Future? I call it like I see it. I'm stepping out of the way to let you continue being you, who is part of me who is part of you. Huomiseen!

Prawn Shop Special

R&B. Rhythm and blues. Flies and lobsters and Episcopalians. Brass candlesticks. Isodora jewelry. In the moment in the moment. Foot pedal loops. Beats. Riffs. Traffic cones. Projection TV. Book sale. A lobsterfest of a support team. Guitar box or cigar box? Electrified strings. In, in the, in, the in, in the moment, mo...mo...moment. Microwave Dave in solo heaven, preaching with chords, not rosary beads.

Repeat.

Bake sale. Silent auction. The guru, the wunderkinder, the kind gardener, tending the frets, leading and following himself in some farout place with all of the ritual and none of the guilt. We freely bow to someone's freedom to be, the master of his universe, Europe can't have him, he's our hometown hero.

Cut and paste.

Bake sale. Silent auction, he's our hometown hero. The guru, the wunderkinder, R&B. Flies and lobsters and Isodora jewelry and none of the guilt. Foot pedal loops. Beats. Riffs. Europe can't have him, traffic cones lobsterfest of a support team. Guitar box or cigar box Episcopalians? Electrified strings in the moment. In, in, the in, in the we freely bow to someone's freedom to be in the moment, mo...mo...moment. Microwave Dave in solo heaven, not rosary beads. Book sale. The kind gardener, projection TV. Rhythm and blues tending the frets, brass candlesticks leading and following himself in some farout place with all of the ritual, the master of his universe preaching with chords in the moment.

Repeat and rewind. Peter and winder.

= = =

Blue chicory curtains. Another blues set, a variation on "White Christmas," the musical, the Alabama premiere.

Rewind 30 years. I was president of the secondary school drama club my junior and senior years. I was not the best singer or the best actor. I was funny enough to be popular enough to get elected to an honorary title of an office. Some people looked up to me. I looked out for humour. I oversaw an eclectic group of troubadours and cast and crew (a/k/a the troublemakers).

Fast-forward 30 years. I have a nephew who'll direct a comedy opera at his magnet school in 2010. In 2009, on the 14th of November, I joined my wife and friends for a musical performance at a magnet secondary school whose coordinator is a friend of ours.

Two approaches to a critical review. One, write an alternative view, riffing on the actors' performance as if their show was a satirical riff on the play within the play (first, figure out what riff is - the word sounds interesting but holds no meaning to me other than its sound). Second, hold the actors' capabilities and performances to the highest standards and judge them accordingly, throwing in side comments about such observations as the costumers admiring their work during the intermission ("will the white vests appear in the second act?").

Lee Lyric Theatre. New director. New direction. How do you get the players to feel the words of their memorized lines instead of speaking them? How do you make them absorb their characters and project their lines as if they're ad-libbing in the moment?

When I wrote for the Huntsville Times newspaper for a season or two of secondary school sports back in the mid-1990s working for John F. and Chris W., the point was made that we never say one team was trounced, smashed, beaten or in any negative form should we state that they lost. The other team won. Focus on the positive. Get a quote from the winning coach. Include key stats of the game and comments about the plays of the best players.

Think about this situation for a moment. I have covered secondary school sports, including football, baseball, and basketball. I covered college and professional hockey. I reported on the college women's national basketball championship for a weekly publication. I was a member of the Alabama sports writers association so I got to vote for the Alabama secondary school and professional player of the year. Now I sit here looking over a similar set of notes from another secondary school event.

Secondary school students spend their waking hours thinking about other secondary school students. They also find time to study school assignments and devote their thoughts to extracurricular activities.

A stageplay. A musical. Memorizing dialog. Blocking. Dancing. Singing. Entrances. Exits. Costume fittings. Auditions. Rehearsals. Face makeup.

Just like an American football or international basketball game. Drama. Teamwork.

Some of these students will continue their studies. They will take their new skills to the next level. Which one? Jacobi Hall, the Bing Crosby crooner? Thomas Najjar, the Danny Kaye character? Anna Quirk and Julia Erwin, the Haynes sisters? Chris Sebastian, the modern twist on a modern major general? Forest Bonner, the Martha Washington of Joan Rivers' take on Martha Watson? Lauren Bakke, playing little Susie? Toryn Washington, the real estate agent turned TV producer?

Flashback. I remember sitting in the green room 30 years ago. Flirting backstage while waiting for my next scene, quietly whispering sweet nothings and other carrying on. Turning my back so fellow actors who happened to be female could make quick costume changes. The hard work by the stage manager and the propmakers. The repeated rehearsals by the pit orchestra.

Where is everybody now? One of the orchestra members is the Microwave Dave of my hometown, performing gigs at blues clubs and running website info for the local newspaper, writing his own column, too. The main female leads are both teachers. One of the male leads is a television news anchor. Another male lead is a singer/songwriter in Nashville, having appeared on the TV show Star Search hosted by Ed McMahon. Most of us lead lives in which musical performance or stageplays are ancillary to what we mainly do - church choirs, community theater, occasional cruise ship gigs.

Back to the future. Tonight's performers will find themselves in similar situations. Rare is the sports figure in secondary school who plays professional ball. Just as rare is the secondary school stage star who becomes a movie icon or Broadway legend. Instead, we live for the moment, pushing past who we are to be who we are not.

Outstanding moments tonight:... Anna Quirk in a stunning dress, Gossip Girl style, in the Regency Room scene. Anna and Jacobi Hall reprising "How Deep is the Ocean." Thomas Najjar, Julia Erwin and the chorus in their tap-dancing vests for "I Love a Piano," smiles all around. Anna, Julia and Forest Bonner in their trio singing "Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun." Scooter (Justin Jordan?) and his wig dancing at the piano. Jacobi and Thomas singing "Sisters." Everybody in the scene singing/dancing "Blue Skies." Forest in just about any scene. Lauren Bakke being cute without being too cute. Christina Crutcher and Emily Bannister strutting their stuff. Jonathan Long doing his best impression of "Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl," from the Bob Newhart TV show. Jessica Jones shining in her roles. Others whose faces I can't put with names - you were still enjoyable to watch. The orchestra being clear and crisp and not too loud.

Of course, what is this production without the audience joining in singing the signature song while snow falls in the picturesque scene on stage?

Did the ensemble score a touchdown or sink a three-pointer from half court tonight? No, because this wasn't a sports competition. Even so, they won astoundingly. They competed against their worst fears and stage fright and miscues that the audience will never know about and made us smile and laugh and sing along.

= = =

I will happily fall asleep humming "Blue Skies" to myself and call this a successful day, bookended by the intricacies of Microwave Dave playing against and with his thoughts in musical form; secondary school students, production staff and professional pit orchestra cooperating to lay down another set of memorable tracks later on, a blend of other adventures in between. I put my hands together and bow in thankful peace. Today was a moment in the moment worth remembering. Thanks, y'all. G'night.

......

A prisoner of time, resolute in the belief of the doubt of one's belief, drawing with one hand on a chalkboard the image of one's self in motion while erasing the image with the other hand.

Moths on the run, hiding from birds on the move. Broken wings. Missing feathers. No philosophy for philosophy's sake. Eat while you can fly and see and peck and swallow. Live and hide and fly to keep from being eaten before reproducing.

A curtain of falling leaves tuned to the rhythm of a Glass piece.

A hand position that says halt, a hand position that says come forward. Frozen in a tub of gelatin.

Letting thoughts go on by without stopping to say hello to their flashing frenzy.

Less exposure to the universe than a cosmic ray. Planet's albedo just as dim from a distance.

Searching for one word. Not serendipity. Not kismet. Not fate. Not destiny. The momentary intersection of local phenomena that reflects the infinite, happening because it happened, over with because it's past. Moment not good enough to describe a moment good enough to remember but knowing you can't keep.

If someone wants comforting imagery, then keep my observations to myself. I only see what I think I believe I want to see that I think I just saw. We know the facts and the truth are just words. The unidentified species of the flying object that just grabbed the other smaller flying object with its hard, pointed pair of clamping objects and flew off is just an image in my thoughts of what I think is a bird eating a moth. How much do I know and how much have I been taught to say I know?

If we knew that the universe is not the universe as we think we know the universe, what would we know? We say we are a water-based, oxygen-breathing set of unique organisms because that's what we want to say we know we believe. What will we know when we believe we know we say otherwise?

I know that someone(s) or some group will want to say they were the first to know they knew the knowledge of what we didn't know before but that's still just following the knowledge of the old paradigm ["still just," a phrase used lazily to replace more thought-out, thoughtful idioms].

I am what I believe to be one person whose life was transformed by knowledge that is not mine. I was trained to believe I am part of one species able to distinguish itself from others on the same planet because of its ability to adapt to all environments on one planet. I was taught that there are planets and solar systems and galaxies and super clusters and other temporary confluences in a nearly infinite complex called the universe.

Who am I to see that I should not believe what I doubt I was taught to believe? The roots of a potted tree will twist back around on themselves while seeking life until they choke the tree to death. We say it is a tree. We say it is a potted tree. We say the potted tree has roots. Where does the tree get life? Where does the tree give life? What do we say we know we believe is life? What do we believe? What do we know? What do we believe we know?

I sought and I found. I found what I did not know I knew or would believe. What I know is not important because I can erase myself as I go along without disrupting those around me who know what they know and believe. The beauty of freedom, of a kismet-like moment, is the freedom not to be who we said we knew we believed to be a moment ago. These are "still just" words. Those are "still just" trees shedding their leaves. That is "still just" a bird eating a moth. Perhaps the kismet-like moment is "still just"? What do you think?

Back To The I

I decided to stop teaching at the local technical institute. Obviously, being a person, my reasons are personal. However, the personal reasons are not private.

Why have I decided to stop teaching even though I enjoyed sharing my life with those willing to pay me to learn? Because I did not want to compete with the thoughts and words which taught me more than I can give back, including those from my philosophy/logic teacher at Walters State Community College, Gary Acquaviva:

http://www.valueviva.com/

I write this blog believing I am the only one who reads this. Thus, I am sitting here talking with myself via a computer keyboard, every word an instant feedback to my bodily thought process, a condensed version of all the input/output of the environment surrounding me and this electronic machine.

I stopped teaching because I am a wanderer awed by the wonders of the world around me. I see without having a reason to systematically catalog and categorize a worldview except for these words that show to myself I existed outside this moment I'm in.

Teaching in a formalized classroom structure using someone else's classroom instructional material is always reconstructing the past for someone else's vision, view and hope for seeing how quickly students learn and adapt. I value my students' time in the moment too much to try to adapt my life in the moment to seeing how students adapt to material which is not mine.

My time here is limited, down to 14,783 days or so, if I take care of myself as a body. I care about my species but I am also a selfish person. I have goals that conflict with trying to outshine my previous professional professors/instructors/teachers. I do not want to compete with the images in my thoughts of the ones who taught me more than the classroom material they had to work with in the time we had to spend together in a classroom setting.

My hat's off to those who teach, who give their all to their instructional style, who see into the thoughts of their students individually and tailor their teaching to maximize the value and quality of time together with every one.

My journey takes me to farther fields to study further. My comprehension of my place on this planet and our place in the universe absorbs all the time I have. So far, my understanding of the languages of our species tells me we have a lot to learn and you have tons to teach me. We feel like we have accomplished much in our science and technology but we know so little that amazement still wakes me up in the morning to discover more.

Most importantly, I have learned I do not need to feel rushed in my attempt to grasp what's in front of me. The bombardment of stimuli will increase faster and faster. Thus, I risk missing more and more. However, our population grows and people specialise more and more everyday. Therefore, I can trust specialists to answer my questions or query for knowledge to aid my learning, building our knowledge sets in blogs and online databases for all to search, with pockets of secrets and intellectual property waiting to be revealed in some future moment I may never see.

A nod to every teacher, every aide, every instructor, every professor who agreed to work with me in the world of education so we could enjoy some time together. Formality brought us together. Informality made us friends. Insight made me full of wonder. I give thanks to you for being you so we could become us. This blog reflects who I am because of you.

I am not an island. I am a project under construction which has seen the light of day but has not completed its transformation into a fully-working product. I am the drop of rain which becomes an ocean wave that becomes a tidal pool which evaporates, becomes clouds which turn back into rain. One day I was a project manager. One day I was a retired person. One day I was a business owner. One day I was an instructor. Tomorrow I will be..? Well, I will be me just as I am me in this moment. I wander forward in wonder, always ready for who's next to be me.