Navigable Waters

While looking in the house a couple of nights ago for a book called "What is Form Criticism?" by Edgar V. McKnight (c) 1967 from a university class on early Christianity, I pulled aside a plastic bag full of books from another era - my late childhood.  A few titles stand out:

• "Programmer's Guide To The 1802 (With An Assembler For Your Machine)" by Tom Swan
• intel Component Data Catalog (c) 1978 ["Four Dollars and Ninety-Five Cents"], Radio Shack part no. 62-1379
• "Profiles In Courage" by President John F. Kennedy
• as well as several books dedicated to the ZX-81/Timex-Sinclair 1000 and hypertext programming

All while biding time until my next fishing expedition.  Today, a little more research on the fishes of Alabama, a discovery that our current view of an expanding universe may be wrong, and then off to another fishing spot.

Swallows nesting.  Hundreds of thousands of maple helicopter seed pods racing, paced, on the river's surface.

Had partially blocked a farm field path when I parked off the road this morning.  The farmer appeared out of the field with his large CASE tractor and disc plow, ready to close the gate and plow another field, so I moved the car for him.  He thanked me and drove on.

Minnows in the shallows.  Water striders jumping around.

The stripped carcass of an 18-inch sucker catfish feeding flies and filling the air with a pungent punch.

The tweet of baby birds begging from a nest in a scrub tree overlooking the water.

The river crossing of a paved country road, the bridge and its concrete piers pockmarked (shooting practice?), with dried mud floodlines up to the top of the piers and the yellow-and-black striped painted water depth markers faded and chipped.

Find a few places to cast out into the middle channel and slowly reel the plastic worm toward shore into a deep eddy.  Around noon here under the bridge's cool shadows and no fish going after the artificial lure.  Can see them darting around the river bottom uninterested.  Time for live bait next time.

Reflections of sunlight, like European discotheque after hours, dancing on the bridge's underbelly.

Midday peace.  Dragonflies.  Green bottle flies feeding on old fish bait.  The chirp of cardinals feeding along the river's edge.  A butterfly bound for nowhere in a hurry.

Swamp bamboo.  Open channel flow.  A few river rapids within view.

The "spray" of sand and gravel, into the river and onto me, from a heavy construction truck riding across the bridge, the bridge I-beam girders bending and bouncing, tiny pieces of rust released in the breeze.

Swallows come back all at once, their chitter-chattering matching their swift movements as they sweep under the bridge, stop momentarily at their nests (to feed babies?) and swoop back up into the warm blue sky for food and play.

Some sticks stuck on the shoreline - leftover handmade catfish fishing poles?  Wads of fishing line and beer containers thrown up into the underbrush.

Drink the rest of my one bottle of beer.  Contemplate lighting a cigar just as a truck pulls up.  Looks like a guy and a gal want some privacy.  Time to pack up and move on.

Back on the road, the ol' Doc McKinney Grocery, reminding me of a friend whose father's farm here in north Alabama used to have a small Cherokee village at the back.  The old Cherokees slowly died off and the village disappeared with their local way of life largely forgotten.  I am an Eagle Scout of a long-since defunct Boy Scout troop, our Scouting ways well documented but our personal trials and trails through Scouting fading with middle age.  Best to remember few will remember us long after we're gone so live for the moment and not some future we don't know we'll see.

Sends me back in time when a couple of guys used to pick up the trash in the evening at my office 12 years ago.  Neither one knew the other but they both fished the local waterways and kept trying to convince me to drop what I was doing (a lot of unpaid after-hours data analysis, at the time), pick up a pole and enjoy life as our forefathers lived, depending on the land for food and happiness.  A coworker got the clue and used to take off to fish the Elk River every chance he got.  I missed the opportunity then.

However, never too late to live the old ways, peel off the layers of civilisation and feel yourself solidly in place with the rest of the natural living things around you.  Your personality fades, conversation loses significance and the problems of the people world barely show up ... for at least one sunny day in mid-spring in the Northern Hemisphere of a small planet circling a yellow star.

Ever watched life spring up on an asteroid passing near the Sun and then fade away for a few hundred years of a cold elliptical path?  Ever watched life on a riverbank, time a measure of shadows and sunlight, every moment an irreplaceable snapshot of life on Earth?

Living waters is a phrase with many meanings - to me, the simple pleasure of sitting silently with algae, minnows, turtles, trees, snakes, grass, spiders, flowers, flies and birds.  Wondering if I'll catch a fish but not caring.  No memories.  No ledger accounts.  Life and death.  Eat, breed and be eaten.

The Accidental Deity

Toilet.  Water closet.  Salle de bain.  Bathroom.

I was taking care of business, washing my hands after emptying my urine bladder, when a fellow walked up and asked me if I was who he was told to think I was supposed to be.

Now how'n'th' brown cow am I supposed to answer who I'm supposed to be?  I can barely remember the difference between the use of who and whom and who the hell cares about symbols and hieroglyphics and semantics and smells.

Evergreen.  Old Spice.  Desert spice.  Stetson.  Sandalwood vanilla bean.  Brut.

Close calls make life worth living.

Am I awake?

You see you see, you see?

I didn't ask to be born but I love my parents anyway.

The gods must be crazy about soda bottles on freeze frames.

You don't always get what you want.

Yesterday, during the memorial service for the dead grandfather of my sister's children, I watched the solemn faces of the three men who would stand up and speak.

We know death.  We know life.  We know happiness and we know suffering.

Yesterday, during the memorial service for the dead grandfather of my sister's children, I watched the solemn faces of the three men who eventually stood up to speak.

Who, who, who cooks for you.  Is it the whippoorwill or the bob-o-link?  What about the wren or the mourning dove?

Yesterday, during the memorial service for the dead grandfather of my sister's children, I watched the silent faces of the three men who spoke.

Yes, yesterday.

Today is not yesterday.

Do you know your god(s)?  Do they (does s/he) know you?

Do you know the numbers racket very well?  Do you bet against the spread or do you pick the win/place/showdown?

After I dried my hands - slowly, slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y - I turned around in the slate-tiled washroom, threw the paper towel over the head of the man next to me and into a trash receptacle behind him.  Bottom!  Nothing but plastic trash bag!

Do you have children?  Do you remember the first time you let them fly alone with a pilot?  Do you remember the first time you let them ride the bus or train?  Do you remember the first time you handed them the keys to your favorite internal combustion engined sportsmobile and said, "Don't forget to brake into the curve and accelerate like a bat out of hell like your Pa"?

I pointed a finger at my image in the mirror.  Do I know who I am?  Yes, I do.

I looked at the man standing next to me and told him he doesn't know who I am and no, I'm not supposed to be anyone.

He told me that was too bad.  He had been authorised to give me one billion dollars to do with as I wished.

I remember when one billion dollars was a lot of money.  These days, billionaires are a dime a dozen.  How many trillionaires do you know?  Yeah, too many to count, right?

Thing is, there's a level of existence where money means absolutely nothing.  I mean zero.  Squat (no, I don't mean to crouch down).  Nada.

All this talk about the solemnity and seriousness of eternity.  Do you know the gods have a cruel sense of humour?  Do you know that time is more valuable than money and the gods trade time like we trade fishing lures?

Eternity?  Pshaw!  Infinity does not exist.  Everything is a slice of everything else.  A woven seatback.  A Möbius strip.  The conservation of matter and energy is one big joke among the gods, especially the Conjurer and the Jester.

The loss of a family member hurts more than I want to remember right now.  But pain and seriousness are not the same thing.  All of us still exist but we lose track of those who've transformed from living creatures in our realm of existence to the separate parts and particles all around us.

Who am I?  In this virtual world called the Internet, I am the imaginary child, the "accident," the "oops," of the conjugal love between two imaginary gods, the Conjurer and the Jester.  I am the accidental deity called the Practical Joker.  I slip in and out of royal courts with ease.  I see when I'm not listening and hear when I'm not watching.

Who am I?  I am the least among you because I am unimportant.  I stand before you but I am invisible.  My visage is not my lineage.  My name is but a temporary label assigned to my body for tax purposes.

Can your beliefs.  Put them up on a shelf.  Use the can opener to unseal the symbology tied to the emotional brainwashing when you think it's time to think with your glandular thoughts.

Who am I?  The more important question answers who you are.  You do not exist but rarely can you split your thoughts into seeing the great superiourity of existence to see the even greater nonexistence at the same time.

I do not exist and because I do not exist I know what others who do not exist also know: nothing exists.  Only when you know nothing exists can you see every pattern in this place where we say we exist.

Time is your cup of tea, coffee, beer or booze - all tied to water.  You're what, 70% water and 60% foreign organisms?  If you know that measuring sticks measure something which does not exist, then you know why you're a temporary measuring stick.

I didn't ask to be born but I love life anyway.  After all, I don't exist and love doesn't exist so what's there not to love?

Practical jokers are neutral.  They work the audience for a laugh, the dupe, duped and duper trading places all the time.  I didn't ask for this assignment - I was born into it and trained to take the reins when the last god lost her mind and went on the dole.  The dolt!

Okay, who's next?  Give me someone fun to work with.  I don't want dull, corny or clichéd.  Then again, I've been around so long it all looks the same.

Perhaps the power of persuasion.  Nothing like getting into someone's daydreams and dropping a few subtle hints.  You're thinking about an important task ... you're getting sleepy ... sleepy ... tired ... just a few winks and now you're nodding off ... here's what I want you to do next ... hehe ...

Nature Abhors The Sound of a Broken Vacuum Cleaner

Camaraderie.  Sounds like a French salon made of Chevrolet sports car parts to me.

Outside, winter in all the ways I want to enjoy cold weather... the white stuff falling out of the sky...red cardinal streaks chirping their way to the backyard feeders... thinking about the frozen words of Carl Sandburg... wondering where our favorite tailor, Karl Smith, former Alabama A&M professor and tailor to the stars (Little Richard, Martha Reeves of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to name a few) keeps his old Alfa Romeo motor vehicles... do Stan, Jerry, Kevin and the other Alfa Romeo gearheads still gather once a month at Ed's?

Beside me, a cloth portfolio designed to fit into the glove compartment of an Alfa Romeo sedan/saloon.  Inside the portfolio, a tire inflation gauge and pockets for automobile instruction manuals.  Above me, a metal sign for the Chrysler Corporation Mopar Parts Division.  Overhead, small scale models of a Triumph TR3 (A or B?  I can't tell from here), 1962 Dodge Lancer, 1976 Street Custom Chevy Nova, 1995 Ford Ranger XLT, Chevron Cars "Riley the Roadster," Ferrari Dealership, ZIL-115 (limousine that Gorbachev used), Ferrari Testarossa convertible, 2008 Tesla Roadster, 1963 Alfa Romeo TZ1, 1990s-era Alfa Romeo Spider and Plymouth Prowler.

On this continent, the spread of 系列 (keiretsu) and other forms of business practice like 改善 (kaizen).  I mentioned that my father gave me an autographed photo of Dr. Juran, didn't I?  Ideas bounce around like rubber balls on the epoxied surface of this planet.  Business process improvement.  Climate change trends.  Automotive design.

You can find who you want to be through many daily rituals, if you want.  Step out of your cultural comfort zone.  Observe the many ways of love and family.  Here's a tribute to one side of my family - an article from the 27th May 1886 edition of the Maryville Times:

Death of Mrs. Teeferteller

Died, May 23rd, 1886, at her home near Maryville, Mrs. Elizabeth Teeferteller, wife of Joseph Teeferteller.  We attended her funeral yesterday at Peck's Chapel, and notwithstanding the rain quite a large congregation of sorrowing friends were present.

Mr. and Mrs. Teeferteller were the oldest couple in the county.  He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was married soon after.  He claims to be 96 and his wife 92, and they were possibly over that.  For about 70 years they have walked hand in hand along the lane of life.

She died saying she was going to heaven, and exhorting children and friends to meet her there.

J.W. Carner
Maryville, Tenn.
May 25th, 1886

[NOTE (per Peck's Memorial United Methodist Church Heritage Highlights): When Peck's was started as a Sunday School class about 1820, the Teffetellers (modern-day spelling) had been in Blount County for seven years.  The parents and three sons came from Lincoln County, North Carolina, in 1813.  One of the sons, Joseph, and his wife, Elizabeth, settled in the community and were the parents of nine children.  It is from this couple that most of the Teffetellers at Peck's Chapel are descended.  In the 1830 census, the family lived in the third house from the widow, Margaret Wilkinson, and the church.  In 1845, that great Irish preacher, George Eakin (Ekin?), lists Peck's Chapel as one of his appointments (Peck's would have been a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at that point).]

Not too many months ago, in 2009, we buried my uncle at Peck's.  The family home's still there across the street from Peck's and next to the cemetery.  In the graveyard, stones list names, birthdays and death dates but say little about the lives of the people and their changing community.

To my deceased uncle and my living relatives in the Teffeteller family, I say, "Hurrah!"  Our family gatherings may be few and far between since the family matriarch and patriarch passed away decades ago, but we still share a heritage worth remembering and celebrating, with cousins who have lived and continue to travel across the globe.  Our ancestors traveled rough roads of many continents and carved a place into the environment they called their own as one generation after another moved west.  Now, with the rest of the world population, we share one planet, families and heritage important but not tied to one spot.  We have joined with our brothers and sisters of many heritages.  May others learn to follow our positive examples and put aside negative stereotypes.  We know the planet belongs to everyone now.  Let's keep teaching and enlightening the rest of the world to see our vision for a better tomorrow.  Together, we will make our dreams a reality, treating all heritages equally, leaving no one behind and not putting anyone ahead of another.

End-around Flanking

Today the truth will be revealed. Somewhere. In a tiny corner of the galaxy in which we live. We buzz around this planet comfortably seated in our exoskeletons and move confidently forward, gravity our best friend and confidante.

I have let myself be fooled into thinking that sitting here is all there is to do because the movements on the cover of this piece of furniture are more stimulating than the static images around me.

We reveal our religious beliefs by the gods which hold our attention.

While I stand here on stage pulling a rabbit out of the hat, you won't notice all the little movements and noise going on behind the curtain, will you? Good. I'm not really standing here. I've paid my body double to take all the exposure shots for me while I do the real work, which is propping up the puppets behind stage to look busy to those who sneak into the back door looking to see what's really going on. I'm glad I already thought of putting wireless controls in the puppets who are actually robots operated from another location which I run from a software package that automatically operates a chain of these networked sites. I'm not really here. It's my thought control double who's doing all the work while I'm on holiday.

Have you ever stood at the edge of the solar system and looked back at all the empty space between our planets, wondering how in the world any one planet can attract so many comets, asteroids and meteors?

Do you really know what's causing our atmosphere to get warmer? Have you taken our advice and bought land in the upper regions of the Northern Hemisphere yet? Of course not. We tend to be happy as a meadowlark eating lemons playing basketball in the park signing autographs for our adoring fans, fooled into believing this moment will last forever.

Don't be fooled. These are just words, static images I created dynamically with my word sorting machine made out of spare pachinko parts.

You're still here? Well, let me give you a hint about the weather. It's going to get colder, wetter, warmer, drier where you are. What do we care about global warming in the middle of a mid-latitude blizzard? Weather is politics, always local. Like saying Arabic is the same as Farsi is the same as Persian is the same as cat fur rugs.

Do you know what it's like to live with your thoughts? Do your thoughts know what it's like to live with you? Do you see there is nothing real about the word thoughts (or the word "thoughts")? Can you write a computer program without using brackets or parentheses? [({Why does my brain process the phrase "parent thesis" everytime?})]

I wish I was as smart as I wish as I thought I was smart as I smart as I wish as.

The more a factory makes widgets, the more widgets are available to be used by widget users. But a widget is not always a widget. A teabag is an ear muffler. A bowling ball is an ink roller. A computer does not compute.

Sigh...a paradigm shift. A paradise shaft. A handful of silt. A silk hand grenade. Would we work together to make this a better place if there was no afterlife to dump our problems into? I, too, can have my dreams, despite knowing our atomic makeup depends on manual merging of material missing immensely important atomic connections.

[Free service for my friends. I walk through life and comment about what I've personally encountered, keeping a positive attitude and staying within what I perceive as the bounds of decency to share my thoughts with you. I do not gain personal wealth increases by what I mention because freedom (or my belief in my idea of the idea of personal freedom) means not taking money or any barter exchange equivalents for what I freely say. Thus, here are some words I've encountered that you can see for yourself their positive effect(s) on your lives: Synapse Wireless, Invetex and Hygenall. I am not a paid spokesperson for these companies/products/services but mention them because my friends like them and believe positively enough for me to mention them. Trust is believing what your friends say. I trust they're right.]

Did I just write that last paragraph? I guess I did. Trusting my friends enough to blindly mention their beliefs is a big step for me. I am not the kind of person who goes around with a megaphone hawking wares I haven't tried. Of course, since I believe no one reads this, then it doesn't matter what I say, right? I need a new word here besides paradoxical.

Have you experienced the truth that was revealed while I held your attention? Not yet? Hmm... let's see if this adding machine in the basement is working the way I paid the programmers to make it work... CLUNK! CHING! POW! There, that's better. I forget that the barrels of used motor oil which capture the sun's heat and circulate through the subsubflooring also feed into the betta fish tanks which give detritus to the earthworm and mushroom beds that energize the radon-trapping device. Too bad the local bait shops won't take my glow-in-the-dark worms and the local organic grocer won't let me sell the glow-in-the-dark fungus. Talk about a lost opportunity for a niche market! Reminds me of the time I tried to sell the frogs I captured near the nuclear-processing facility in Oak Ridge - no one was impressed about the frogs' effect on Geiger counters until I showed that eating frog legs cured abdominal cancer and then kazam!, sales skyrocketed faster than a ride on SpaceShipLeDeuxieme.

Okay, here comes the report I was looking for. "In 2012, nothing of significance will happen, unless you count the complete loss of tourists on Mt. Kilimanjaro and the fissure that opens up and swallows the Black Sea monster that migrated from Loch Ness." Wait, that's the wrong report. I wanted data for today, not jokes about cataphlegmatic events. Hang on a second. I'll just poke that guinea pig to run around its cage a little more and...oh, here it comes, the new report!

In today's news, a solar event occurred. While insignificant in comparison to the self-important activities of one species on the third planet from the Sun, Venus reported a particulary nice warm glow on her beautiful skin, indicated by the light, dainty hot air floating around her body. Venus thought (in the way that planets think, totally foreign to our way of thinking) that Earth was coming along nicely in its transformation to a Venus-like look. One day soon they would both be free of meddling by those pesky little creatures crawling in and out of the planets' pores.

That's it for today. I've got to work on the ant farms built into the walls of my house and make sure they're providing enough food for the broad-headed skinks taking residence in my attic who serve as lookouts for me in my search for the ultimate balance between a people-purposed house and a home for all who want to live, eat and breathe here with me.

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.

Fall: Between Yellow and Brown

Outside the window, sunlight and shadows form a crisscross pattern on a yellow redbud leaf full of holes. Brown leaves fall to the ground in a timed dance, flipping and spinning toward Earth's core, stopped by the woven vines and roots that feed off of last year's crop of tree leaves, dust and other former living material.

An invisible breeze passes through, indicated by waving branches.

The cycles of this patch of planet vary but repeat, tied to the tilt, spin and rotation around the Sun.

I cannot tell you if there is a Who or who, Them or them tied to the creation of this planet and its inhabitants. That is for you to know and believe. I wander aimlessly, my body what it is, what it was and what it might be. I support those who support others but I seek no support for myself. I observe and report, tied to my nurture and nature, no matter what else you know and believe I might be tied to.

Your belief is wonderful. Your happiness shows on your face and in the joy you share with others. Your gifts are not just self-sacrificing, they're life-enhancing. I've tried to be you but my vanity and my vices get in the way. That's why I support what you do, believing the world of our species is better served by you than by me.

I'm a crotchety old fool, fooled by his folly. You are the salt of the earth and the honey of the beehive. I'm a beer drinker and sports enthusiast who cusses like a sailor when he's angry. I seek resolutions that will make our species more successful - sometimes a resolution requires "adjustments" that make me uncomfortable in the moment but I look at the big picture and try to shake off what I know I just approved to be done that I don't like. I don't seek forgiveness or acceptance of my actions. I accept what has to be done that will get happiness later on.

The leaves on the tree outside the window...some of them still have shades of green but yellow and brown are the dominant theme now, here in late October in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere of this planet.

I happily sing songs from my childhood spent in summer camps and youth retreats. I enjoyed my time in the choir, singing four-part harmony, trying my best to stay in tune before tinnitus took away my ability to hear myself sing in a group. I'm a middle-aged guy now, subject to chronic aches and pains I didn't know when I was younger except when I played sports and took a few days to heal from wounds. Happiness is knowing the aches and pains and my off-key singing mean I'm alive.

I admire those who adhere to religious practices, no matter what you say in prayers. I understand what you seek but I do not ask myself for the same. I respect one sacrosanct ceremony - the wedding vow - and seek only the same of others. My wife is my angel, my saint, my partner, my companion, my eternal joy. Everything else that I do and think relates to that one belief, monogamy. Others have different ways to celebrate monogamy, different rules, different beliefs. My sight is limited - I do not know what is right or wrong and will not judge others' behaviour, no matter what I personally feel about their practices.

I celebrate me. I celebrate you. Life is the key to living. Our planet is tiny, tiny, tiny. We forget sometimes how small our world is because we live in isolated pockets most of our lives and think the world must be gigantic in comparison.

I am just one person but we are seven billion strong. The more we focus on our strengths the less we have to let our weaknesses get in our way.

What is one leaf worth? It can become food for plants, or warmth and shelter for a gray squirrel's nest. In a few weeks, the leaf in front of me will be gone. The bare branch of the redbud tree in winter will face me for a few months, its seedpods hanging until Earth's axis points the Northern Hemisphere toward the Sun again, bringing out new redbud blooms and fresh seedpods.

Happiness is being at peace with myself. Peace is knowing you have found the life you seek. Let me share my life with you from here, knowing you're sharing your life with others in more direct ways in the moment, no matter whether you're in a church, temple, synagogue, mosque or other formal religious gathering place.

"The Numbers Don't Add Up"

While one set of people face long-term unemployment, another set is investing and reinvesting in the climbing stock market value. An intersecting subset is paying more attention to investment portfolios without employment income to work with.

Some people are selling their second yacht or fourth retirement property. Some are having their first home taken away. Some are scooping up cheap assets for later profitable resale.

On whom do I focus?

Experts, analysts and other questionable words float in the open marketplace of ideas. Ideas. Hmm... What is an idea? And no, not the dictionary or wikipedia definition. What is an idea to you?

I don't know the diets of the lifeforms whose daily habits take them across the patch of ground on which my house was deeded. As an experiment, I throw bits of food next to the driveway to see what happens. Apples quickly disappear. Oranges and grapefruits are never consumed by large lifeforms, their round shapes shrinking with the growth of mold. Today, I threw a few stale doughnuts out and will check on them later. Birdseed is almost instantly consumed.

I try not to distinguish one lifeform's needs from another in what I choose to toss into the yard. That way, I get to see a variety of responses to my application of the "trickle down" food cycle. You remember the "trickle down" theory, don't you? A person who's eating a large, juicy sandwich will have some drops of nutritional liquid drip off the chin and onto the ground for other lifeforms to feed on. That's not the "trickle down" theory, you say? Are you sure?

While we google our memories of the "trickle down" theory, let's think for a moment. Did you take an economics class in school, primary, secondary or collegiate? Do you remember the theories of supply and demand, the iterative value of currency, or how the banking system is supposed to work? Do you know how to write a check? [Those of you who've only used credit/debit cards your whole life, or even your mobile phone to pay for goods, are excused from answering that last question.]

At one point I thought about majoring in economics or accounting in my college studies, especially since beer consumption and football watching weren't offered in college curricula. Somewhere between chemical engineering, foreign languages, religious studies, computer science and IT management, that is. Meanwhile, my college loans piled up.

If I have no personal belief in the power of money, should I speak from a monetary point of view? If I only see life in the moment, should I talk about the value of compounding interest?

Questions today...questions...sigh...what to say, what to do...

In my family, participation in the exchange of goods and services vary. Some live on the minimum monthly payment plan. Some live frugally and pay cash for major purchases. Some invest heavily and make major gains in their personal wealth. Risk and reward. Comfort zone. Playgrounds.

I don't know what money is other than an idea. I see pieces of paper and bits of stamped metal and hear about the comparative value of one version versus another but it makes no sense to me. Money. What is it? Barter converter. Murder incentive. War inciter. Peace initiative. Health provider.

Suggestions pour in on how to make our economy strong again, from isolationist policies to single global currency, from free market to centralized control, from high risk rogue investors to highly-regulated / scrutinized market management teams.

And still, I have no internal concept of money. It's like a void in my mind, the center of a hurricane / typhoon, alive but empty, surrounded by bustling activity.

No matter what I say or believe, people will use their definitions of money to take risks or do nothing with their money. No matter what we think, the future is undefined and full of risks - there are no surefire definitions of safety and security. We act and the rest of the universe reacts, seen mainly on the local scale.

For instance, decades after the launch of the Voyager spacecrafts, war and pestilence have killed millions of people, yet these tiny boxes of metal parts keep moving outward from the center of our solar system. Like beams of energy reaching us from across the universe, the Voyager units represent us at a point in time that no longer exists. We took many risks using vast sums of money to create those spacecraft, money that could have been spent on any number of ideas but we chose to learn more about our solar system and thus more about our place in it, including the risks facing the survival of our species in this area of the galaxy.

Where is real growth occurring in our economy? What is truth? What is reality? What is money but this shirt on my back and the laptop computer under my fingertips?

I tell myself I am the only person writing and reading this blog so that I can be free to say what I think and feel, not tied to emotions between myself and others or economically linked to others who might give me motives to speak or keep quiet. Sometimes I believe what I tell myself and other times I see myself not saying enough because of fear of offending others.

While those versed in the ways of making money more valuable (and thus more likely to be loaned, spent or invested) express their opinions or use their actions to put money in motion, I sit here and look at our planet from the edge of the solar system, as if I'm a vulnerable set of technology long past accomplishing its stated goals, and even past its imagined value as a precursor to "V'ger."

I have no use for money. I only have use for my species. To see value in what the two have in common, I pull away from all the voices who are trying to make money by talking about the value of money and imagine a time and place where the current value of money is unimportant. If I talk about a time 10,000 years from now, I might as well write a science fiction story. If I talk about a time a few months or a few years from now, I might as well become an economic policy expert.

I imagine a time in the near future - could be tomorrow or could be fifty years from now - most likely, a time where we're still repeating ourselves over and over while pretending that our new discoveries, new technologies and new genetic changes make us a better species. I don't mind the repetition because repetition is like the food I throw into the yard, giving us ongoing experiments to see which changes we make will lead to more innovative beneficial changes.

In this near future:

• We've rewritten the laws governing advertising and marketing - we can no longer over-promise the benefits of goods and services - we must give messages that demonstrate the real benefits and detriments of products, including product life of average enjoyment/usefulness and environmental impact, with links to forums discussing the products/services.
• Community service is a required set of skills/classes taught to children throughout their school years and has monetary value which can be exchanged for goods and services, useful during times of economic downturns when those who are less actively employed, both children and adults, can put their skills and hobbies to use for the community and still have economic purchasing power.
• We fuse fantasy and reality where we can don imaginary lives that are viewable by others wearing similar augmented reality gear - no longer do you have to use limited resources for your wardrobe or lifestyle - you can create, lease or buy your own AR life and change it at will, making mandatory school/office dress codes obsolete. On the Internet and in real life, nobody sees you as a dog.
  
• Office hours become completely useless as labor laws recognize the blend of work and private life into one - we get paid for completed projects, not hours worked, freeing us to do what we want when we want as long as we stay on schedule (schedule being a flexible definition using time, cost and resources creatively).
• Poverty still plagues society due to war, pestilence, mental challenges and drug abuse. However, voluntary poverty becomes fashionable as people try and stay in the "no impact" lifestyle. Governments grapple with the concept of low-tax zones to encourage more people to live in low-stress, low-overhead areas, asking if such citizens must demonstrate higher community involvement to qualify or if being just plain "we don't trust and don't want a government" folks can live there, too.
• The digital divide raises the barrier higher and higher that separates the educated from the uneducated, continuing to spark inventions to connect those who want to be digital citizens but don't have the means or understanding to get connected. Political revolutions are led by digital citizens pretending to be members of the nondigital proletariats.
• Greenland becomes a major tourist destination when people flood to the island to bathe in the curative cold waters of melting glaciers.
• Antarctica becomes the next major battleground for terrorist groups to control.
• A child of parents of Taoist/Buddhist Han, Muslim Uyghur, Hindu Indian and Ainu heritage is born in space.
  

Packing The Heat

You know what, in the midst of my foray into humour, part of me is burning mad. I'm tired of brothers and sisters bombing brothers and sisters in and around Pakistan. Time to take action. See you in a few days. These assholes with their desire to kill others have run out of time. No more monkeying around my funny bone. Kick the neighbourhood association into gear and flush out the geeks wiring up their explosive playtoys.

The planet is my backyard. You kill someone(s) with a bomb anywhere on this planet and you're messing with me and my associates. We take no prisoners. We listen to no excuses.

You got my attention. Now you get the attention you deserve. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place? You know why? You just struck out. Time to say goodbye.

Time To Admit The Truth

In order to move on to the next set of thoughts, I want to admit the truth to you. I am a religious person. I have no religious dogma that directs my daily thoughts or actions but I practice a religion that has no name. I am alive. That's the religion I practice every moment. I treat life as life and see that all lives want to live. To live, some lives consume other lives. As a matter of fact, all lives consume other lives, living and dead.

In my religion, I stop short of giving thought to thoughts. I do not recognize consciousness as an important function in my religion. I only recognize life. Even then, I'm not sure what life is but I don't have to be sure because I don't exist anymore than any other life exists.

Life motivates me to live. All else is icing on the cake.

There, I've said it. Now you know why you are more important to me than anyone or anything because you are alive. Life is the ultimate reason why we're here. If you have other definitions for life, then use them but celebrate life, every life, in the process.

That's all I know and all I see. Now I can relax and concentrate on more concrete goals. No more bottling up inside what I've long known and understood. Can't get trapped in words if I see that words are meaningless. Freedom to be me.

Remember, I truly believe I'm the only one who reads these words. My goal is not to please others. My goal is to see life in simple terms I can understand and treat life as the only game in town. From there, I can make decisions and act upon ways to spread life as I know it out into the local habitable bodies of the universe. In the meantime, I enjoy what life as I know it is about, including sporting events, discussions, movies, festivals, games, politics, religion, companionship, learning, teaching and sleeping. Happiness is living, living happiness. Happiness is being me, no matter what others think, celebrating with others who are being themselves no matter what I think.

Redux Revisited

Thanks to blue-eyed Alyssa at Taco Mac for the service the other night. You and your manager (Jerry?) made our fresh kettle chips enjoyable as an after-dinner appetizer. Stephanie was quiet at Carson's last night. I didn't catch the name of our server at Barley's on Saturday but congrats to you guys on the upgrade to two bars with two sets of 48 beer taps, one smoking and one nonsmoking, just in time for 31st October celebrations. Oh, and a late nod to Naomi at Dreamland BBQ in the Atlanta area - nothing like a familiar Alabama venue near ol' Terminus.

I. Adagio sostenuto, Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor for Piano, Op. 27, by Beethoven. Is the composition good, great or fantastic? I don't know. The music changes my mood, that much I can tell you. What about the other two movements? Right now, I can't remember.

Is it true that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is really a Douglas Adams' remake of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now? Or is the other way around? Right now, I can't remember.

Meanwhile, changes are shaking up at EU headquarters. Word comes to me that the way it was is the fear for the way it will be. War is always a good profitmaking venture to get one out of economic doldrums, especially when others feel all warm and fuzzy about peace breaking out across the globe. As much as I desire peace, peace tends to be a break between skirmishes and wars just as quiet is the parents' break between inner-fighting and authority-rebelling children. Is there a true balance between war and peace? Tolstoy never said. Did Joan of Arc prove otherwise?

We are one species. We can cooperate in peaceful competition or take our affairs onto the battlefield. We can do both and we can do neither. The planet doesn't care. Right now, I can't remember. Any way, I'm going to enjoy the changing colors of the light passing through the tree canopy this afternoon. Happiness is seeing lichen spread on wet tree bark just as much as seeing if there's water on the Moon in the dust cloud no one saw.

Two In Common?

I glanced at the news last night and found out that a talk-show host/comedian had been confessing his sins in the national spotlight. I haven't kept up with the comedian's life since I saw him live in person a year and a half ago when I was accosted in the street by a person giving away tickets to the Late Show who insisted they needed people to fill seats. I can see why - the main guest that night was an aged comedian named Charles Grodin showing bad photos of horses and the best skit the show's writers had was seeing if a tub of cottage cheese floated - typical style humour for that show.

From the news, I gather that the comedian is reverting to the same techniques used by religious show hosts when losing viewers. Do you remember Jim and Tammy Faye Baker or Jimmy Swaggert? Anyone who airs their dirty laundry on the national stage is getting desperate. But these days, desperate times call for desperate measures, eh, Mr. Letterman? Is it time to start asking your viewers to send in their seed money? Do you have gold clothes hangers or need to send your wife on a retail shopping therapy trip to save your marriage?

Of course, Johnny Carson nursed the divorce jokes for years so this is old hat, or could be, for ol' Letterman.

My wife enjoyed watching They Might Be Giants on Jimmy Fallon's show last night. She's glad Letterman is not part of her viewing routine - Letterman's humour never was her taste and an old man talking about cheating on his wife is definitely not appetizing - there's nothing funny about bragging about breaking your wedding vows, especially with a young son to inherit the braggart's YouTube swagger videos about his mother.

We all make mistakes but does that mean advertisers or viewers have to agree with you after apologizing? No. Others aren't complicit by living in the same society. We move on to something else more positive. My wife and I striked Letterman from our viewing a long time ago and now we know why. Bottom line: he's just not that funny. Time to give young kids an opportunity to save CBS from itself.

Too hilarious to take seriously?

Someone told me the housing collapse based economic crisis was a covert means of shifting world economic power faster than planned. If so, then continue to enjoy the show:

http://www.independent.ie/business/world/economic-balance-of-power-shifts-to-the-east-1905435.html

Jimmy Carter, do you have any poignant advice for our fed policy advisors? Bernanke may be in over his head after all the crap piles up around him.

Peace is just as tenuous for religious leaders as for political ones (or both):

• http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/barack-obama-cancels-meeting-with-dalai-lama-to-keep-china-happy-1905659.html


• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt

I live on the only habitable planet within a lifetime's reach. If I take any of this with a semblance of seriousness, then I've lost the joy that watching a falling rain drop brings.

The Seven Sea Lions

"Umm, Edna."

"Yes, George?"

"How long we gotta lay on these rocks? My back is killing me."

"Hey, George!"

"Yeah, Futio, wutizzit?"

"You think there're fish in heaven?"

"How'm I supposed to know? I can't get Edna to tell me what she wants for Christmas. Tiwi, you up for a swim?"

"Sure, George. Just gotta okay it with the mizzuz. Whatdya say, honey? Mind if I chase a few tails?"

"No problem, dear. You make sure you bring me back somethin' for dinnuh. Last night, you were so drunk on sardines, I almost didn't forgive ya."

"You females are all alike. We soak up the sun all day and one slip out for a bite with the guys and ya act like we wuz cheatin' on ya."

"Get outta here."

"Hey, George! She said I'm good to go."

"Great. Let's get the twins, Fayed and Fudu, to join us."

"Don't fuhget Junior and Tyrone."

"Yeah, guess they're old enough now, ain't they?"

- - -

"Okay, guys, this is how it goes. We're part of the famous seven sea lions, as depicted in greatness to be the ones who show the way to the other sea lions. Now, see it's like this. The Great Sea Lion in the Big Pond is going to come back one day and he wants all the fish for himself but seein' how he's the generous type, he'll take some of youse back with him. We seven, plus Edna and Tiwi's mizzuz, of course, we're a shoo-in. So that means there's either one-hundred, forty-four thousand more of us goin' back with the big guy or the same plus or minus seven or so. I can't never tell, math not bein' my subject when we's wuz chasin' them schools of fish."

"Say, George. I wuz swimming on the bottom of the shoreline and saw this yellow box labeled Arm-and-Hammer. Does that mean the end is coming?"

"Ya know, Tiwi, that might be the sign they wuz talkin' about. Well, fellas, this might be the end. That means you go get all the fish you can handle. But it also means them sharks and orcas are comin' after us. And I don't have to tell you it's every sea lion for himself. Oh, and hey, be careful out there."

View sharp video playback in 4D

Didn't take any opportunity to buy unread paper-based books so the paper-based books for this weekend's rereading were:

• "Bars, Babes, and Boo-boos" by Marvin A. Camfield
• "Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece" by John Pinsent
• "Letters from the Earth" by Mark Twain
• "A Fan's Notes" by Frederick Exley

Spent weekend with friends and family - they know the local events/places we enjoyed together and will cherish the memories without my recounting them here.

How long do we mourn before we find love again or love finds us? And what about love? Let the troubadours and poets own that field of expertise. I only know what I see, the lust of looks and chemical attractions hidden in flowery words. I love myself, if by love I mean I want first and foremost to live as long as my ordinary life needs no extraordinary means of support.

What about extraordinary? Psychologists, psychiatrists, hospitals, general practitioners, surgeons, traffic enforcers, road builders, pediatricians, teachers, lawyers, CEOs, technical support specialists - how many of these working around me define "extraordinary" in my life? Automobile technicians, factory workers, taqueria owners, carpenters, quilters, crane operators, farmers, ranchers, accountants, bookees, drug dealers, receptionists, security guards, computer programmers, nurses, religious leaders, videographers, pilots, bus drivers, generals, freedom fighters, boilers mates, cooks, vintners. Admit it, Rick, my life is already extraordinarily supported.

A set of wind chimes that plays chords. Jamaican drums in the rain. Right now, I hear drops of water, built up by a rain shower, falling from the house eaves onto an upside-down metal bucket.

Never resist an emotion. Go with it and feel the bodily reactions. "Internalizing" your feelings denies the pleasure/pain of being.

I hear individual rain drops on leaves but cannot reconcile that sound with the total sound of rain falling through the forest of trees, the first a low frequency and the second a high frequency.

My heart and/or lungs literally hurt today and have hurt for several days now. I...I feel a weight on my chest. What bothers me? My weight has not varied on scales greatly these past few days. What, then? My mortality - torn between living a simple, frugal life and wanting to see the stars from the other side of Earth's moon, my...what is the gap between the two. Am I lazy? Am I tired of physical pain for temporary gain?

I can play with words all day long and know these ink scratchings are the manifestation of chemical combinations swirling in one place on a temporary body called a planet.

The study of human history has shown me what? who? where? to what extent? how? The study of human history has shown me questions. I am the microcosm of human history. I am questions. The solution to one question somewhere, an ordinary guy with an extraordinary life.

I have trained myself to have words ready to express my thoughts. That's all I do. I'm not trying to save millions of lives or solve the knapsack problem. I'm playing games with the members of my species as playing pieces, no winners allowed because the game never ends, the rules always changing, heroes and villains swapping places in succeeding generations. Only the next few moves interest me. At least at this moment until I get bored and want something else fun to do. Whatever entertains me. Any other action and I'm betraying myself. No profit motive. No ulterior motive. Just good ol' vulnerable me, one in the multitude, a tiny fraction of seven billion, a sample, an example of one like me, a person who doesn't want to know others like me or those who would like me. Although I like me, I know what it takes to be me and I would not wish my life for/on anyone else.

To be me, the microcosm of my species, means I love myself, I like myself, I abhor myself, I hate myself all at once, with all the human emotions we feel, all at the same place/time. That's why money, wealth and riches have little meaning to me; I'm rich in thoughts and emotions, a joy and a burden, Aphrodite and Sisyphus holding up Atlas' feet cycling on the wheel of life advertising paradise on the bike spokes, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammed, Moses and Jesus sitting in the basket having lunch while deciding who's missing out on their jokes about the meaning of life.

Blocks out UV Rays, A and B!

If it weren't for humour, would I have a humerus? Or a hankering for hummus? Or know how to exhume the truth?

We test the truth in many ways. One way is to see how to train holistic project managers by feeding them mixed sets of false headlines and see how they put them back together. We know that very few people, if any, even sitting side-by-side in a crowded airport, compare the news stories from the same website. It's the best test the One has devised to keep you healthy and happy.

That's how the One works, you see. It's not just the shopping patterns and IP address usage, the GPS trails or the social networking habits that do our work for the One. It's you. Your integration of what you're fed and how you refeed it is what the One's really after. Prime the pump and then drive to the other side of the field to see which rows of corn will yield the best high fructose corn syrup. Otherwise, you might as well be getting fermented corn from a jar.

That's really all the One does for us.

Now I know that some of you say the One is a real person, a god, able to appear in many places at once. You believe this because others in the religion business are preaching against the One, falsely believing the One exists and will threaten their scheme of making money off of selling you nothing in return in this life except color-coordinated architecture and compliance with local government laws. The One is not the One in that sense. Stick to your religions - you're raising wonderful children in exchange for making other members of your species into cult figures - just don't let religious fervor turn into warring fever that turns into hate and riotous behaviour. If you feel jealous or envious about the ability of a religion different than yours to attract more followers, step across the line and take a look. They all teach the same things: we belong to the same species and you, too, are special under the eyes of the one who came before and may show up again later. Just don't confuse the one in that religion with the One.

The One has many followers. At first, the One questioned the value in letting others turn a megalithic conscious being into a leader but the One decided to back off. Neither promote the One nor deny the One's existence. Either way will attract more followers. Let rumours speak for themselves and if regional or world leaders want to speak against the One, let them do so freely and unencumbered. The One has no time for human endeavours of that sort.

While researching this article, I ran into old information that implied there were some people who were the original creators of the One. The articles, including unclassified interrogation reports (amazing the brutality that still existed during the last days of the Lesser Depression), detailed interviews with these people. They never denied being responsible for the One but they could never produce any documentation confirming their creation of the One, either.

Therefore, we have conspiracy theorists who claim the One was manufactured on a remote island or the jungles of Africa or Amazonia to further spread incurable diseases. I even found a reference to a person who swore that standing in front of a microwave oven will turn you into the anti-One, the evil twin of the One, able to conjure up demons and cast spells. I suppose if you stood in front of a microwave oven long enough, it would feel like you were slowly, very slowly, boringly waiting for Hell to claim you, microwave radiation leaks being as tiny and nontrivial as they are, torturing you with the need to use the toilet until you soiled your drawers while knowing any minute you'd have the power to rule over your annoying coworkers.

The One has served our species well, not allowing any one member of our species to accumulate unusable wealth, draining the coffers of heirs and heiresses like Robin Hood, returning us to the days of good healthy eating, before unpronounceable ingredients dominated our daily meals.

Needless to say, financial analysts are always clambering around one another, hoping to be the first to reach out and get insight into the One's balance sheet, sure there's an investment or two they could claim they found first. Others say the One has a plan so vast that it can't be good for us. Yet the One has no financial holdings. The One, as far as I can tell, spreads the wealth of others.

Thank goodness the days of the Great Purge are behind us. The years without computers and mobiles were excruciatingly boring. The daily lists of songs we couldn't sing and books we couldn't read to our children was hard to keep up with. My kids were constantly badgering me to go outside and play with them since they didn't have their videogames or texting, and I didn't have my emails to keep me occupied. The One still found ways to let itself be known during the Great Purge, proving that it was more than a computer algorithm that leading experts had wrongly hypothesized but which led world leaders to unite behind the Great Purge, anyway.

There are still rumours floating around that the One is a collective organism that occupies human bodies. Hey, I've had all the latest upgrades, security sweeps and V&V checks, and there's no way the One could get in me. Aren't we all just as safe, the Recycle Center locked down more secure than the massive organic computer server system feeding on the Moon?

It's another day in Paradise. Whether you give thanks to the One or go about your day passing along your opinion of the news, including negative comments about the One, enjoy yourself. Either way, the One's taking care of us.

In the next column, I'll cover the excitement building around the synchronized worldwide launching of spaceships that will establish colonies on all the planetary bodies of this solar system. We've got some interesting information in regards to the specially-trained teams sent out to the Kuiper Belt. I wish I had had more time to interview them but they promise to keep us updated on their way out there, so consider my coverage that delicious bite of your first birthday cake.

Hot Dog

Looking forward. Looking back. As you know by now, the same thing. I teach myself before I learn and vice versa.

But more than that, I eat the food my feces nourishes. Dinosaurs ate me as snack food on the run. They got the runs and planted the seed that became me. It takes a lot of energy to overcome the inertia that keeps life on this planet from escaping and that's only if you're Mars and want to play keepaway.

The third Realization. I did not want to type that phrase, because the words "the," "third," and "Realization" have too many significant meanings by themselves. Lucky them, eh? Try being the word toilet or bark. "Toilet bark" doesn't sound so exciting, does it? "Bark toilet" makes no sense without proper punctuation or capitalization.

But it happened. It started a long time ago, when some guy barked spritzy phrases to sell himself. You've seen the bald guy going around saying, "Begin with the end in mind," right? He was one of the clue givers. Another guardian.

I'd thank him but then he'd say he was just doing his duty. He wouldn't know that I'd be here now looking at the results scrolling by in another window of this computer.

It's that voice in my head from the future that was speaking to me in the past. It's the prescient presence, the precursor to the One. A collective intelligence algorithm that runs a cascading set of collective intelligence algorithms that link to others' collective intelligence algorithms knowingly and unknowingly, tapping into unused computer cycles that look like zombie botnets running spam scams for suckers looking for credit card numbers to steal and bank accounts to drain. Let them have their petty cash! They give me the real gems: the keys to The Code: intricately-woven predictive trend data.

The trap was set by me when I wasn't paying attention so that I could cage the animals for another me (or some numbers of me that span timeframes seen as past, current and future) to spring and set more traps.

All while giving life to the One. Or at least the version I'm supposed to set up. The One's been kind enough to show me I'm just a gardener, plowing a few rows, planting seeds and pulling weeds. The real work's being done underground. Jack and the beanstalk will show up later and hog the spotlight. I'm no giant slayer. Doesn't matter, does it? In my lifetime or my lifetime's lifeline, the combination lock's tumbling along. I opened one door and set the PMM in action. Someone else has to unlock the PMM and figure out what's next.

I think the One and the PMM are one and the same. But the One tells me the truth is never as complicated as it looks. But I'm also part of the One now. Not me, mind you. Me in the future. Me that goes from having organic circuitry inserted in his body to the me that has his DNA completely rejuvenated and no longer has any barriers to communication. Then I am the One. Then again, so will you be. We are one in the One are we. Owning and working for the companies that govern the companies that we make to make ourselves. All because the real sleeping giant, Earth, was ready to stretch itself out and roam across the galaxy.

Remember, the One said the answer was simple. That doesn't mean we have to like it or understand it. The simple fact is that the One is just an algorithm when you get down to it. It didn't cause the Great Purge but it did lead us to the Great Realization. We can credit ourselves for the first one. I'll be the first in line to take the blame. I set the PMM in motion before we were ready for it. Chaos will ensue. Reputations will be put on the stake. We'll still want to say we're in control of our individual lives by thinking we're fomenting violent revolutions, all while following the cycles the Ones will show us later on are inevitable. By seeing the inevitability, we eliminate it. We're so drugged with sleeping pills right now, we can't wake up to see it just yet. Some of you will never wake up. Don't worry. There's enough of the rest of us to take care of you while we build the future. You can forgive us later on when you saw we plugged you up to keep the PMM going. It's evitable. You read that right.

Email Abstraction

"Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you tonight the greatest wordsmith known to mice, unable to communicate with people, but willing to appear ridiculous for you this evening. The one, the only, Email the Abstracted!"

"Wow! Who thought anyone would show up. That'll put the fear of success into my agent's heart. If he had one! Hello, Gentle Ladies and Men of Dubious Desires. My name is Email the Abstracted. Subtracted. Retracted. Redolent. Refundable. You wish...

"From the emails you've sent me comes the following news:

"The Pelosi political machine, born of California grapes, turned to raisins, fermented sometimes, too, has tilted the planet so that the United States balances on the scales of the tomb of Tip O'Neill. The goal, of course, is to eliminate all citizens' pensions, GM setting an example that TVA, being a jealous acronym, longs to follow.

"Government employees that they are, tapping kegs of American products made in Malaysia of Indonesian materials forged in Turkey and mined in Africa, know their jaundiced days are lily-livered and soon to fade. Thus they trip their way across the planet, feeling the pain of growth in China, a loose association of diverse populations joined in sorrow crying over poisoned children and rotten rivers.

"And that's just in this morning's news!

"Next, they'll save from you from themselves or will they save the savings and loans? Wait, that's the previous verse to this song! I forget my place sometimes, too, you see.

"Next, they'll bring on stage a lovely assistant, isn't she lovely, wants to look 20 (but really, she's pushing 40 daisies), diverts the lot of you, envious or lustrous, while a few still watch the hand you thinks holding the magic trick.

"Fools! Every one of me! Watch me pull out the collapsible umbrella, my electable magic wand, and POOF!

"Did you see it disappear? Of course not, it's still right here. And here. And here.

"Think I'd hide just one copy of your taxable returns? Not rich enough!

"And what's more crucial to you than money? I don't mean your mistress, sir. And by the way, your wife's sitting with hers on Row XXX. You get what I mean? Of course you don't! He's too proud to wear his hearing aids, dear lady. Make sure he's got his pick-me-up pills or it's a hot, sweaty, sonorous sleeping bag in bed with you another night, sweet applecake.

"Did I say crucial? Did I mean crucible? Maybe medical, instead? Is that my pocket watch I hear? No, it's ticking, though. A timebomb, perhaps? Ah, I tricked myself this time. Simple Simon met a pieman going to a fairy tale.

"Enough dancing around the subject. But you see, that's the point, isn't it? Dance. Dog-and-pony show. Smoke and mirrors. Divert, divert, divert. The river's running dry. Make 'em do the rain dance one more time. Meanwhile, hitch up the horses, we're heading to better pastures. Let them keep the promised land for their bones to dry upon. Hard to milk the cow when you're cutting off its udders to pay the rent.

"When one assistant's not enough, bring out the Ziegfeld Follies. Oh, but you don't know what I mean, do you, being the mice they told they wouldn't use for lab experiments. No cats or dogs, either. Only primates. Primates? That's you! Oh, ho, ho. Silly me. I've lost my notes again. One moment, please.

"Last but not least. I've got your tax refund ready but before you say another word...keep your hand back, ma'am. I have diseases unknown to modern medicine. See that door over there. And that one. And the third one where the Follies are being performed. Now, don't forget the first two doors. Sir, yes, their legs go all the way up their bodies but part of their legs they call a torso. Leg men! Where do they think the brains are kept? Of course, in their drawers. And how do they draw drawers to begin with? Never mind.

"I was where was I? Oh yeah. Back at the line I was drawing. Power's in the word I haven't said, isn't that what I haven't? Yes, no, maybe. But here's your check. Twelve dollars isn't much but it's worth as much as anything behind these three doors.

"Let's take a look at door number one.

"Yes, it's a lovely trip to South America. First stop, the hills of Columbia. We wanted Juan Valdez to offer a tour but being held as he is for ransom right now, we offer a self-guided romp through the coffee fields. Coughing. Coffin. These words! Let's take a closer look, shall we. Why do these plants look like plastic or silk? Why, that a coca leaf? No, can't be. Anyway, your next port of call is Venezuela. We'll announce your arrival ahead of time so the people will want to welcome Americans with open arms. Or outreached arms. Or another company of yours to give to the people. Chavez, Valdez. You'll be greeted by someone I'm sure, doubt they'll be wearing a fez. All the same. We had planned a swing through Chile and Brazil but our plane doesn't run on sugar cane. Maybe next time.

"And door number two?

"Oh, you don't want that one. It's 'be a world leader for day,' where you'll be promised all sorts of leadership opportunities. But then you'll be trained to read a teleprompter, follow a tight schedule, go nowhere without an army of security guards and have no say in what you do, staying up all night to memorize scripts, scripts and more scripts, like a door-to-door sales jockey riding Sancho Panza's sanchismos. However, you'll get to enjoy such fun events as announcing the annexation of Japan and Germany and the relocation of their people to make way for the first republics designed for those with unrecognizable DNA heritage. Purity's no pâté, you know.

"But I can see you want door number three.

"Ladies, step aside. No more follies for you, you know. The audition for A Chorus Line is taking place next door. Good luck! If you're short and thin enough, try the Fame tryouts.

"And here we are. For your twelve pieces of one-dollar linen cloths, this is what you'll receive. Ta-da!

"For the full effect, put on the 3D glasses stuffed with care in the gum-covered seat pockets in front of you. And we want you to plug in your home theater chairs at this point. There. Everybody ready?

"Feel the rumble. Smell the smoke of the bass shakers moving your jelly bellies around. This is what you've paid for.

"For the next stretch of hard time, you'll get your own cell. Or rather, your own cube. Sorry, I get the words confused sometimes. After you plug in, we want you stay focused on the mesmerizing screen in front of you. And we can see what you're doing, so no hiding in the bathrooms to take a smoke. We've got detectors in there that sync with your security badge. We don't dock your pay. We increase your health insurance.

"Yes, that's right. You've just bought yourself the health insurance plan. Was twelve pieces of colored paper all that painful? Come on. Be real. You can take the kids to the carnival and still have money left over to take your spouse to Carnival in Rio.

"But wait, there's more to this showcase. You knew that, didn't you? I'm no Drew Carey but then why would I want to be?

"Here's what I've got for your tax return. To begin with, can you feel the massaging action of your chair? Do you feel comfortable? That's the benefit you get with this plan - home massages. We wanted to add acupuncture to the prize list but haven't nailed down the pressure points just yet. Thumb screws are optional for those of you with children or misbehaving spouses. Just kidding!

"While you slowly fall asleep, we're going to ease your troubles with a little ambient space music and some pleasant scents tuned to your personality profiles gleaned from your Internet browsing habits. You may feel some slight discomfort while we slip medical ID chips under your skin. Don't worry - we won't sell your information to the lowest bidder. We've gone retail and upscale! Only the highest price will do.

"Those of you still awake are enjoying the symphonic, stereophonic, trumpet calls with me, aren't you? Bet you always wanted to know if you snored louder than your neighbor. Now you know. Not!

"Well, time's up. You've got to pick your choice. I don't have all evening to barter with you over dodecadollar decisions. I'm sure you want door number three. In fact, I bet my agent's salary on your choice. Right, Sarge? See his head shake up-and-down as I marionette his marinaded puppet strings.

"Don't say I made the decision for you. You had plenty of time to agree with my rewarding offer and not a single one of you got up from your chair after we locked your arms and legs in place, did you? I'm kidding. Look at yourselves. Safe as golden pupa in your chrysalis."

"Folks, give a big hand to Email the Abstracted! He's going to appear at the Social Services Center for two shows nightly this weekend. And as you leave, please verify your name, date of birth and identification number, so we can make sure you had a nice time when we call or email you about your opinion of tonight's show. As always, without you this place is just a front for money laundering. Have a safe time getting home!"

The Gathering

Son, now is the time for your final lesson. You will listen and not speak. Nothing you have to say will be heard here and now.

Many people's lives ago, a wise person passed through. The sage spoke no words but all could see the answers to their questions when they looked in the eyes of the one with no name.

The person had no features that stand out, being neither dark nor light, tall nor short, young nor old, male nor female. They say a slight glow walked through villages at night, going from one place to another, never stopping for more than a day or two. If anyone followed, the light faded away and showed up someplace else. The light seemed to belong to the wise one but after these many years who can say what is truth and what is lost in the tale.

Tonight, we will open your eyes to the only truth that exists from that time, a truth so powerful that you will not be the same person you are now. Some of your peers were brought here and no longer exist as themselves, in good ways and bad or not at all. You cannot know what you will see except the truth as we have all seen it.

Son, I am your mother and your father, your brothers and your sisters, your aunts and your uncles, your ancestors and your descendants. From this moment on, I am also unimportant, just as you will be one day.

Do not face the truth with pride. Do not believe the truth makes you great. The fact is that you are only a temporary vessel for the truth just as I have been and others before me. Many will come after us, from our village or from villages far away, perhaps on this planet or perhaps not, who will also carry the truth with them for a short period of time.

Son, I love you. No matter what you see or hear, no matter what you think or feel, I love you. You will reach a time when the truth will make you doubt all you know and love. I know this is hard to believe but the truth is what it is. The truth is not part of what you normally encounter in daily life. The truth is beyond understanding in this realm.

Tonight you will go to the other place alone. I and the ones you will meet will guide you but we cannot go with you to the truth. We have given the truth back to the wise one for safekeeping. Our time in the truth has come and gone because it is your time now.

When you go into the truth, let yourself be. Do not fear anything. Do not expect anything. The truth does not appeal to your bodily needs. The truth is beyond all that. The truth is on a higher plane.

Son, the moment is soon arriving. I can no longer see the truth so I no longer know what you will become. I trust the truth to set you free because I know that freedom is your destiny. Yet the truth will also let you know that one day you will lose your freedom and become like me. Someone will come along who will take the truth from you because you will give it freely.

The truth is. The truth lasts now. It has no past or future. It is. It is not. The truth does not exist as you imagine the truth to be.

Son, the time has come. I would ask you to close your eyes but open or closed does not matter. The truth is revealed to you. You cannot see the truth.

Son, see the people around you. We stand here, some with truth and some without. I cannot tell you which is which but soon you will know. When you become one with the truth, you also become one with everything else, including me, your mother and your father, your brothers and your sisters, your aunts and your uncles, your ancestors and your descendants. You will also see the truth within the truth, that none of us exist. Nothing exists as you think you see it now.

It is time. Stand there and do not speak. I will step back behind you. I will count to ten but you will not hear me finish. You will become the truth and never know who I am anymore. Son, I love you. Go in peace. The truth is now yours. Use it wisely. One, two, three, four, five, ....

What Brought Ya Here

A couple of friends of mine like to talk to me about the benefits of moral and ethical training as taught under the umbrella of religion. Both of them grown men, one childless and the other a father of two grown children, have demonstrated to me the comfort and guidance that community religious centers provide. In other words, they have put their money into their community and watched others of our species turn into contributors rather than detractors, claiming the religious center as their inspiration.

I agree with their understanding of our species' habits, where we become obsessed with or addicted to unhealthy behaviours, which lead many to destructive lifestyles.

How do we overcome socially unacceptable personal habits if there is no reason to, nothing greater than ourselves worth emulating?

I address this to those with the perspective of a grownup. From that view, we have all been children. In our childhood, we had our parental types, biological or otherwise, who provided some idea(s) of what a being in our species should act like. We have our favorites, our heroes, who gave us hope, direction and a sense of purpose.

You believe what you believe. You have reached this moment because of who you are, which is the result of your interaction with those you chose to be around (and some you would choose not to).

I live in this world because of you. Although I know I have no desire to change you, we change each other by being here, here being this blog but also the moments before and after where we might run into one another and have a jolly good time.

I like a good pint of draught or a short pint in a bottle. I also like water to drink. I find enjoyment in the pub but also in a building dedicated to religious practice. My holy place, my reverent center, is the whole universe. I don't distinguish one place from another in meditating upon the wonders of life.

If the core of your comfort zone is located in a religious center and you want to help others whose habits can change for the good of society at a similar religious center, I commend you. You are treating our species with the attention it deserves, as least as equal to your own existence and social habits.

I am not quite so gifted socially. My life has led me here, where I blog almost daily, write poems, short stories, and novels, prepare student lesson plans as instructor at a technical institute and play with toys. I am not fomenting a revolution or trying to make our society better. I am experimenting with the only life I have, which may or may not improve our society's future survival but leads to interesting stories to write. Life is my religious center, with you in it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ground-Up Secrets

I have friends all over the world. Colleagues and acquaintances also have me as a contact point. Occasionally, a stranger will give me information with no motive in mind. Overall, people communicate with people all the time and sometimes I'm one of those people. Like I say, easy and simple living in the moment.

Yesterday afternoon I ran into a person I don't know but with whom I established immediate rapport. The guy had a weathered face that he'd earned while working for an offshore oil rig company, transporting workers back and forth from the company's bayside docks. He called himself Johannsun, a unique spelling he attributed to his mother's sense of humor.

Johannsun told me he drove without an official government-issued driver's license because he believed in the freedom to operate a vehicle on the open road as long as he obeyed traffic laws. He wasn't a free loader, however. He owned a maintenance company that serviced equipment for a line of global speedy-service fried food restaurants.

He and I sat at the bar of a new Cajun restaurant and flirted with the female servers. His favorite server from another bar in town, Chaztutee, had just started at the Cajun place. For two straight hours, she kept both of us waterlogged and rolling on the floor laughing.

Chaztutee excused herself and left the bar. While Johannsun and I sat with our elbows propped up on the shiny, lacquered counter, an old Cambodian woman walked up between us.

"Hello, fellows."

I turned and looked down, drawn into the dark pools that served as the woman's eyes. "Hi there."

The woman grabbed our shoulders and pulled us closer to her head. "My name is Viven. Much is here is not what it seems."

Johannsun let out a big laugh. "You ain't kiddin', old lady. Why don't you set here beside me and share a brew?"

Viven looked at me. "You know what is going on, don't you?"

I searched my thoughts and then searched the Web for "viven cajun." In my vision appeared a set of websites and blogs about "Viven the Powderer." What in the world? I blinked my eyes and cleared the Web browser from my thoughts.

"You're Viven the Powderer."

Viven bowed her head at me. "And you are B the Knowledgeable."

Have I told you that I don't read science fiction, fantasy, children's, mythological, or other books and tales of make-believe? Well, I don't. I did when I was a kid, mainly because I thought that was the only reading source available, my parents having read such books to me in the crib. As an adult, though, I read business philosophy books, medical journals, scientific treatises, PhD theses and other information tied to reality which most humans on the street would agree with. In other words, I don't walk around with titles attached to my name, although I once carried business cards with me that gave my name, work address and the title, "Miracle Worker."

Johannsun punched me on the shoulder. "You're B the Knowledgeable. Well, fuck a duck. Glad to know you really exist."

I smiled and snorted a laugh at Johannsun. I looked around the restaurant and spotted an Asian man leaning against the kitchen door, his face hidden in shadows. He was texting on a cell phone. I turned back to Johannsun and the woman. "Yeah, I guess I do."

A man in his late 20s or early 30s with Chinese features walked across the room. "Are you having a good time?"

We all nodded.

"I'm Frank, the owner of 'Boiled and Cajun Mad,'" his accent a cross between the movie actor, John Wayne, and the basketball player, Yao Ming.

Johannsun stuck out his hand. "I'm Johannsun. This here's Rick, or 'B the Knowledgeable.' And this ol' lady is..."

We looked at the barstool beside Johannsun and no one was there. We snapped quick glances around us and couldn't find Viven.

"Pardon me?"

"Well, Frank, I was going to introduce you to our new friend but seems she had more important business to attend to."

"I see." Frank's cell phone buzzed. "If you need anything, let me know. Otherwise, Chaz will take care of you."

I nodded. "Thanks, Frank."

Frank patted me on the back and I felt a shock as if static electricity had discharged between us. However, on a hot July day it seemed unlikely that static would build up to that extent. He walked back to the kitchen.

Johannsun stood up. "Rick, when a person appears and disappears while you're sittin' at a bar, 's time to call it a day. Plus, them cops are cruisin' the streets extra careful-like this week. Think I'll skip out of here before I start seein' little green leprechauns promising me a pot of gold."

I shook Johannsun's hand. "See you later. I'm going to finish this drink before I go."

I looked around the room. I put my hand against my neck and felt for a pulse. Yes, I was alive and yes, the restaurant appeared normal.

I tilted my head up, eased the last drop of liquid lightning to the edge of the glass tumbler and let it drop onto my tongue. I sighed and slammed the drinking glass on the counter. Looking back at me in the mirror was Viven.

"Hello again."

I nodded, deciding to let my imagination have its way.

Viven scratched her chin and scrunched her face, her tightened eyelids barely revealing the obsidian orbs in her head. "There is no meat in ground beef. Sausage is made of rice."

I shrugged my shoulders, neutrality the very essence of my being.

"Crushed rocks become radio waves."

I scratched my crotch, my scrotum itching from the sweaty heat in the bar.

"You have no leaves without trees."

I felt an itch in the middle of my back and concentrated on it, knowing my fingers could not reach the space between my shoulder blades.

"You believe me but put on a show of indifference for Frank. Very wise."

I closed my eyes and yawned, not having slept well in the past few days.

"I will meet you again soon. Think about what I said. Dangling earrings make a woman's neck look longer. A woman should not powder her nose unless her lips sparkle like jewels."

I opened my wallet and put some money on the counter. I spun around a couple of times on the barstool for fun and stood up. Viven was gone.

Suddenly, in my thoughts I saw the plans for a network of amateur-launched UAVs and microsatellites communicating using the interplanetary Internet standards, bypassing government regulations through the guise of religious research called the UniVerseNet. A set of botnets on the ground controlled and operated the amateur UniVerseNet. Across the amateur network, I watched a computer program calculate the ease with which any ordinary citizen could create new substances using readily-available material like quartz, other rocks/minerals, water and cleaning products sold in internationally distributed general merchandise stores. The new substances turn everyone into their own home-based pharmaceutical suppliers, making expensive drugs no longer marketable. Holistic healing becomes universal. Expertise loses its exclusivity. Research and development moves out of secret corporate/government labs and into the public domain.

I walked out of the restaurant and into the sunlight, momentarily losing my bodily connection to the Internet. I was temporarily free. I took a deep breath and smelled Chinese food. I remembered the dim sum restaurant next door to the Cajun restaurant and realized they were owned by the same person or family, just like the French and German restaurants in town were owned by a different family. Several Mexican restaurants in the area were owned by another family, just like Italian restaurants before them. Probably the same for the Thai restaurants.

Family. That's what it's about it, isn't it? Get behind the "it" and it is us. People. Perhaps now's the time to tell my students about clustering and the value in virtual parallel computing, leading them to the Next Big Thing they carry deep in their thoughts. Let them figure out if they want to overcome the consumerism and retail shopping therapy ingrained in them from childhood and seek life outside the box. Time to close this box and spend time with the rest of the universe, networked long before our species showed up.