While you were away:

Water fell from the sky the other day - in torrents, sheets, downpours. The instantaneous, temporary rivulets and creeks picked up dry leaves and pushed forward sand, dirt and small rocks. Tree roots were bared and trees fell down. Insects drowned.

Possibly a 24-hour rainfall record for that calendar day.

The water has moved on, into underground reservoirs, ponds, lakes and seas.

Life moves on.

At this moment, nothing profound. No word sounds bouncing around in my thoughts, no diverse events to connect together for slights, slices, or slight bits of humour. Playfulness absent from my being.

Why?

Caught in the three-dimensional maze, the labyrinth of space-time, unable to see the big picture today.

Knowing the truth within the truth based on facts outside of words and no way to create a word sculpture to reveal the truth through panes of pained glass shards. I can look into the thoughts and motivations of others but that's just looking at the people world into which I was born and raised. I can look outside the people world and see more than I can comprehend but that's just toying with large objects so big I label them infinite.

I do not play computer games like Sims, Command and Conquer, or MMORPGs. I do not hold a seat in a legislative body like the League of Nations. I am one person, sitting here looking at the universe on my doorstep. For all I really know, the universe revolves around me. For all I really know, there is no me and there is no universe.

People will die of starvation today. Tons of jellyfish will reproduce themselves. My neighbour will use a petrol-powered leaf blower to push storm-piled leaves down the street and into his neighbours' ditches so that his property shows a plain of green grass in winter and hopefully looks good enough for potential buyers. This world full of creatures is alive with interaction, good, bad or indifferent.

Thus I find myself wondering if I should remove people-coloured glasses and see this world and the neighbouring parts of the universe as if the universe was absolutely neutral about the existence of our species. Not hostile. Not benevolent. Absent of thought. Interacting because our concentrated matter happens to bump into other neighbouring concentrated matter (or non-concentrated matter/antimatter, for that matter).

Equality. Freedom. Truth.

Are you prepared to explore other planetary bodies, and while doing so recognising the fact that Earth-based creatures are not the only creatures who get to live in this universe? If you're willing to excavate the graves of other cultures, living or extinct, while calling the gravesites of your culture sacred, will you treat off-Earth planetary fossilised records as sacred or simply a place where creatures died in another time and place? If you're willing to eat a species to extinction on Earth, would you be willing to eat the last species, the last living thing, on another planet, especially if it was a matter of personal/familial survival to you? Do you think you and your culture have a better idea how to take care of your place in this universe than any other? Do you really know what life is all about; in other words, what is a living thing to you?

I am one person. I have no absolute answers. I have more questions than solutions to problems or challenges to meet head-on.

I am of our species but that does not mean I am for or against our species. Our species will generally exist in its current form for a very long time but our species is one of many forms of the local state of the universe. Not the only one. I am not here to convince you your cultural upbringing teaches that you and your culture are the prime reason for existence, and I am not here to convince you the teaching is incorrect. My observations are my own, here for my edification and entertainment, repeating those of others who have seen the same thing.

More than once I have debated my thoughts about jumping off this hamster wheel of writing a daily blog entry and more than once I have taken a few days off to contemplate my debate. I return here because I cannot see a viable way to do something other than what I'm doing right now. Is this blog writing my form of meditation? No, it's my form of self-promotion, continuing my cultural practice of practicing self-importance. Can I set aside this laptop computer and perform other parlor tricks of language playfulness on paper? Perhaps I can and perhaps I should. By shutting off this computer, I shut off my connection to Internet news headlines, I disconnect myself from the artificial world of bits and bytes and I return to the non-people centered view of the universe that trees, rocks, lichen and meteor showers give me. Today, after writing this blog entry, I will close this laptop that contains a virtual desktop and move it off my real desktop. I will step outside and enjoy the crisp, cold air. I will take walks. I will talk to my neighbours, including people, plants and other animals. I will be one with the universe again, instead of being one with the people through electronic means. I will do what I enjoy, composing handwritten notes, drawing and sketching, whittling wooden creatures from dead tree limbs, determining which living things stay in my garden or get pulled up as weeds to be planted somewhere else, and changing my thought patterns to ones tied to a quiet life free of computing devices, networks and radio communication methods.

I am not a farmer or a rancher. I am a gardener. I imitate the life of an artist named Peter Sellers who very nearly perfected the role of Chance the Gardener, a.k.a. Chauncey Gardiner. That is what this blog has always been about. That is the truth behind the truth that this blog as a living book has always tried to reveal. Now that you know the truth, I hope you can find something else entertaining to read. This storybook blog has come to a happy conclusion. I am free to be me once again.

THE END. %^)