Bad Dream.

There’s a sticky ‘u’ on my keyboard.  There are holes appearing in my memory again.  I am forgetting both small and large events of an upcoming or past nature.  Or, am I not paying attention?  I can’t even remember what I’ve already been pinched for forgetting, so I can’t lay any examples down.

Memories never capture the substance of the actual event.  Memories are a faded version of our perception of an event.  We see what we choose to see.  We run what we choose to see through our psychological and intellectual filters, ridding ourselves of the waste and keeping only the important bits.  These float about in our short term memory for a couple of minutes as they are learned into long term.  Faded, inaccurate, softened, idealized, sometimes rewritten memories.  Our personal history.

I don’t know if I am the sum of my knowledge.  There could be more or less to me.  There have to be some subtractive qualities within me, not everything is positive.  Impossible for everything to be positive.  Am I more than my personal history?

What if it all disappeared in an instant?  My entire personal history, wiped out without a moments notice.  It is frightening.  An internal conflict arises because an innate part of you will always remember that you should know who you are.  When you can not, an alarm button is preset to auto-fire.

Ten years or so ago, I had a nightmare.  Imagine this.  There are quick flashes of images, almost still life photographs, but the exposures are warped, so you can’t really see anything at all.  But you can feel pain, such pain as you never thought possible.  People are holding you down.  Someone is doing something to your head.  It hurts so fucking much, you scream and swear.  Voices, all these voices, everyone’s talking at the same time.  Someone is telling you that everything will be all right.  Someone else is telling you not to swear.  In and out, in and out, none of this is a constant stream of information, it’s all dream like flashes.

I woke up with a splitting headache.  It felt like someone had driven a Bic pen into my ear with a hammer.  Agony.  I didn’t know why I was feeling like that.  I didn’t know where I was.  I didn’t know the time of day, or even which day it was.  There was  nothing but blackness and pain.  I could hear a woman crying and there may have been other people around me.  I tried to open my eyes, but the brightness of light was too much to bear.  A man started asking me questions like, ‘do you know where you are?’, etc.  I could speak, but didn’t know the answers to any of his questions.  Then he said something like, “I don’t think you should worry, your son will live.”  Overwhelming little bit of information.  The blackness reclaimed me.

Turns out the woman I heard crying was my mother.  My father was also in the room.  The man asking me the questions was a doctor.  I was in the hospital.  Apparently I had been struck multiple times, over the back my head with a baseball bat.  Some fool snuck up from behind and unleashed his violence upon me.  I don’t even remember.  I didn’t feel it (until that dream and for many years since).  I don’t know who this fool was, is, or will ever be.  I don’t know what he looks like.  I don’t really care about the fool.  He has his own problems to deal with!  But he hit my off-switch.  He nearly killed me.  Apparently, a police officer waited at the hospital until it was determined that I would survive the attack, so they could determine the nature of the criminal charges against this fool.  The options were murder or aggravated assault causing bodily harm.  Lucky for me and the fool, he was charged with the lesser of the two.

The immediate end result was a dozen or so staples in the top of my head, a fractured skull, a stressed out ear drum, an almost complete loss of body control (zero equilibrium) and a huge hole in my memory.  I lost myself.  I was nothing more than pain and blackness for a few days.  I had lost all other substance.  To experience it was terrible.  But to be able to look back on it and to understand how it changed me in a profound way is wonderful.  In the weeks I spent recovering I learned many essential things.  First of all, we are ruled by our subconscious.  In the subconscious lay the links to all things.  My personal history may have been temporarily rubbed clean, but I did not lose everything.  As a matter of fact, without the conscious sense of myself interfering, these links through the subconscious became clearer and stronger.

From here, you can go anywhere, from base survival to the outer regions of the Universe to alternate dimensions and various realities.  The subconscious is a part of the sum of all things.  We are a part of the overall equation, so not only can we visualize all the other integers, we can influence the answer.  Through this, we are one with everything.  In this, we become nothing.

Am I the sum of my knowledge?  No.  I, like everyone else, am the sum of all things.

As a foot note, that dream I had was me flashing in and out of consciousness every time the doctor in the emergency room put another staple in my scalp.

Nudge nudge, wink wink.

I don’t have anything to write.  Is that all right?  I don’t want to make fun of people or put them down.  I don’t want to poke holes in things.  I don’t want to rejoice or fall asleep.  I don’t want to prove anything to anyone.  I don’t want to be bothered with the proofs of the world.  I don’t want to look outside.

 I don’t like the following phrases:

“Think outside the box.”

“At the end of the day.”

“On the same page.”

Why is there a box?  And for what reason would I be thinking inside of it?  I know it’s a metaphor.  But why not a circle?  2D.  Why not a sphere?  I like to think outside the sphere!!  No?!  The box is so cubic.  Oh, I get it.  Think outside the cubicle.  If I could think outside the cubicle, then why the fuck would I sit in it in the first place?

Everyone can pick up a pencil and a blank sheet of paper.  These are the physical tools of many trades.  Orwell wrote, ‘Big Brother is watching you.’  Einstein scribbled the definition of gravity.  Vincent van Gogh used his for a starry night, while Mozart’s was a stage for a symphony.  The tools open a portal to the mind.

I am the only thing holding me back.  I won’t change the world with anything I write, but I might change someone’s understanding of it and that, in my mind, would be enough.

I might be too far away from today, maybe tomorrow’ll be closer.  I don’t expect to understand, too high to examine the detail of bland.

Information overlord.

So much to burn into memory, to learn, know and understand.  Supercomputers, nanotechnology, quantum mechanics & electrodynamics, general & special theories of relativity, space, time and the other mathematical dimensions, the theory of strings, climate change, global warming, polar ice melt, desalinization of the oceans, particle acceleration, black-holes, super black-holes, meteor landings, wars on terror, peak oil, energy crisis, carbon emissions, greenhouse effect, extinction of species, deforestation, census the homeless, homo evolution & the Hobbit, the Big Bang, wars of civilization, the history of humanity, nations, societies, religion, philosophy, understanding the spin, the lies, the motivation, the secrets, the psychologies, the ebb & flow of traffic, the Internet, business software, supply & demand, margin vs. markup, balancing my bank account, my diet, my health, my time.

I can do it though.

Nicolelis’ Monkey

Our problem is we want machines as slaves, so we can laze around all day.  We will grow fat & sluggish.  We will become an unnecessary burden on the machines.

Nice dream.

Thick fingers and smoke that lingers, travelling long before a wink of dawn, a sediment of totality, a blink of reality, virgin clarity and foggy purity, nothing is one until its come undone, where’s all the fun?  Losing the thinking that’s finger licking deep fried bleeding heart burning, stomach churning, eyes yearning shutterflies, sexy sweaty thighs filling the skies with shiny lies.  Seek sooth from the uncouth spoiling the mysterious plight.  Don’t bring me back to where my body lays, the child of the Universe prays.

Noah Was Not Alone (The Blind Designer)

We don’t know what 94% of the Universe is composed of.  Dark matter.  Dark energy.

We’re not sure what lies at the bottom of the ocean.

We don’t fully understand the functional complexity of the human brain.  We haven’t even tapped the potential from 90% of our gray matter.

Three contemporary unknowns.  Not so advanced as we collectively think.  But, I didn’t realize how far behind some people are until I started learning about the case for intelligent design.  Deriving science from myth in an effort to prove the existence of God (intelligent designer).  Quasi-scientists who contribute to intelligent design theory should be ashamed of themselves for the abandoning the fundamental principle of science, empiricism.  I don’t feel like writing about the quasi-science of this theory, suffice it to say, intelligent design theorists are searching for flaws in Darwin’s evolutionary theory, as well as contemporary theoretical physics.  The main problem is their search ends when their hypothesis is supported, not when the chain of evidence dries up.

As shameful as this type of quasi-science can be, greater shame lies upon those who use these theories to advance their ideas of religion.  Elements of the Original Testament (Tanakh) were written several thousand years ago in ancient languages with ancient inspiration.  However, these writers were not alone in their times.

 If you believe the Christian Bible to be literal truth, then it shouldn’t be far-fetched to expect Greek mythology to be equally legitimate.  Think about it.  Could Pan have lived?  He, who was half-man-half goat.  What about gods who would impregnate mortals?  That’s crazy talk!

Ancient Egyptian religion is considered mythology today.  But back around 1350 BC, Akhenaten attempted to create the World’s first monotheistic faith, worship of the sun-disc or ‘Aten’.  He was a Pharaoh during the 18th dynasty of Egypt.  Akhenaten means ‘effective spirit of Aten.’  Akhenaten’s given name was Amenhotep, which means ‘Amun is satisified.’  He had a Great Hymn to the Aten (this is long but nice!):

Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven,
Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
When thou art risen on the eastern horizon,
Thou hast filled every land with thy beauty.
Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land;
Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made:
As thou art Re, thou reachest to the end of them;
(Thou) subduest them (for) thy beloved son.
Though thou art far away, thy rays are on earth;
Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going.

When thou settest in the western horizon,
The land is in darkness, in the manner of death.
They sleep in a room, with heads wrapped up,
Nor sees one eye the other.
All their goods which are under their heads might be stolen,
(But) they would not perceive (it).
Every lion is come forth from his den;
All creeping things, they sting.
Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness,
For he who made them rests in his horizon.

At daybreak, when thou arisest on the horizon,
When thou shinest as the Aton by day,
Thou drivest away the darkness and givest thy rays.
The Two Lands are in festivity every day,
Awake and standing upon (their) feet,
For thou hast raised them up.
Washing their bodies, taking (their) clothing,
Their arms are (raised) in praise at thy appearance.
All the world, they do their work.

All beasts are content with their pasturage;
Trees and plants are flourishing.
The birds which fly from their nests,
Their wings are (stretched out) in praise to thy ka.
All beasts spring upon (their) feet.
Whatever flies and alights,
They live when thou hast risen (for) them.
The ships are sailing north and south as well,
For every way is open at thy appearance.
The fish in the river dart before thy face;
Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea.

Creator of seed in women,
Thou who makest fluid into man,
Who maintainest the son in the womb of his mother,
Who soothest him with that which stills his weeping,
Thou nurse (even) in the womb,
Who givest breath to sustain all that he has made!
When he descends from the womb to breathe
On the day when he is born,
Thou openest his mouth completely,
Thou suppliest his necessities.
When the chick in the egg speaks within the shell,
Thou givest him breath within it to maintain him.
When thou hast made him his fulfillment within the egg, to break it,
He comes forth from the egg to speak at his completed (time);
He walks upon his legs when he comes forth from it.

How manifold it is, what thou hast made!
They are hidden from the face (of man).
O sole god, like whom there is no other!
Thou didst create the world according to thy desire,
Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts,
Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet,
And what is on high, flying with its wings.

The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt,
Thou settest every man in his place,
Thou suppliest their necessities:
Everyone has his food, and his time of life is reckoned.
Their tongues are separate in speech,
And their natures as well;
Their skins are distinguished,
As thou distinguishest the foreign peoples.
Thou makest a Nile in the underworld,
Thou bringest forth as thou desirest
To maintain the people (of Egypt)
According as thou madest them for thyself,
The lord of all of them, wearying (himself) with them,
The lord of every land, rising for them,
The Aton of the day, great of majesty.

All distant foreign countries, thou makest their life (also),
For thou hast set a Nile in heaven,
That it may descend for them and make waves upon the mountains,
Like the great green sea,
To water their fields in their towns.
How effective they are, thy plans, O lord of eternity!
The Nile in heaven, it is for the foreign peoples
And for the beasts of every desert that go upon (their) feet;
(While the true) Nile comes from the underworld for Egypt.

Thy rays suckle every meadow.
When thou risest, they live, they grow for thee.
Thou makest the seasons in order to rear all that thou hast made,
The winter to cool them,
And the heat that they may taste thee.
Thou hast made the distant sky in order to rise therein,
In order to see all that thou dost make.
Whilst thou wert alone,
Rising in thy form as the living Aton,
Appearing, shining, withdrawing or aproaching,
Thou madest millions of forms of thyself alone.
Cities, towns, fields, road, and river –
Every eye beholds thee over against them,
For thou art the Aton of the day over the earth….

Thou are in my heart,
And there is no other that knows thee
Save thy son Nefer-kheperu-Re Wa-en-Re,
For thou hast made him well-versed in thy plans and in thy strength.

The world came into being by thy hand,
According as thou hast made them.
When thou hast risen they live,
When thou settest they die.
Thou art lifetime thy own self,
For one lives (only) through thee.
Eyes are (fixed) on beauty until thou settest.
All work is laid aside when thou settest in the west.
(But) when (thou) risest (again),
[Everything is] made to flourish for the king,…
Since thou didst found the earth
And raise them up for thy son,
Who came forth from thy body: the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, … Ak-en-Aton, … and the Chief Wife of the King … Nefert-iti, living and youthful forever and ever. 

 Hmmm…nothing familiar here.

Then there’s the freakish occurrence of several cultures sharing the story of a deluge destroying their sinful ancestors.  From Hindu, Hewbrew to Hopi and most points in between, there is an example of a great flood unleashed by the gods.  If you care to learn a little more about this, start with “Deluge (mythology)” on Wikipedia.

Noah was not alone.  He has many compatriots in cultural mythology (psyche).

I am not including mention of the potential for flaws in historic translations of biblical material or the existence of Apocrypha (writings deemed unfit for inclusion in the Bible because it contradicted contemporary Christian dogma – by contemporary I mean the First Council of Nicaea, AD 325.  Yep…that’s when the ‘literal truth’ of the Bible was determined.  There have been revisions since, but not many.).  All I am saying is that every culture has, at its foundation, a basis of mythology.  The mythology sets the standards by which a people should live (or survive).  The lessons and anti-lessons of myth form the crude elements of a culture’s social conscience (or survival).

For instance, do you know why the cow is sacred to Hindus?  The answer is quite practical and has surprisingly little to do with anything of a supernatural origin.  In an area of the world which is subject to flood and famine (i.e. India), one’s cow becomes one’s means of survival.  The cow can be hitched to a plow and used for agriculture.  The cow produces milk, which can be consumed for nourishment.  If one kills their cow, they are as good as dead.  So, to save people from the temptation to self-destruct in times of famine, the cow is deemed sacred.

Understand these things for the social controls that they are and not as literal truths.  Understand that different parts of the world experience different conditions and therefore require different controls, which lead to fundamentally similar, yet contrasting mythologies.  No one is alone in or free from this process, regardless of from where or when you come.

Don’t destroy science in a search for God.  If you want to find God in science, look to these things called dark matter and dark energy, which together make up 94% of the Universe and are virtually unknown and unidentifiable to scientists.  Dark matter has mass, but is not an atom.  It is everywhere, but cannot be detected.  It can pass through matter without hindrance.  Of dark energy, even less is known.  According to theoretical physicists, it is the force through which the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.

I wrote it before and I will write it again.  God is everything we don’t yet understand.

A Thank You Note

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” (Bentham 1789)

Thank you Jeremy.

One Less

There is friction (resistance) when two things meet.  Erosion is inevitable.  Water is master.  Wind, it’s servant.  Us, it’s slave.  We are strange amongst Earth’s animals.  Intelligent enough to define survival of the fittest, but not fit enough to survive.  We are an enigma, riddled with irony.  We destroy that which gives us life.  There is one less fresh breath for each tumbling tree, billowing smokestack, or SUV.  There is someone less safe for the freedom of each CFC.  There is one less fish for each drop of pollution in the sea.  One less cure for each new pill pushed on the pharmacy.  Destrudo is our psychological self-destructive tendency.  So much attention on the ‘me’ and never enough universality.  The Earth is a platter upon which we will be served as a sun-fried, salt-soaked delicacy.

A Matter of Moments

This is not for you.  I may be the dumbest person alive, but how would I know?  Someone is the dumbest person alive.  If we don’t know who it is, then it could be anyone.  If it could be anyone, then everyone is suspect.  Someone is the smartest person alive.  If we don’t know who it is, then everyone is suspect.  It is a matter of moments.  Nothing more, for anyone.

Conception (#4)

And just like that we have our next concept.  It began as an innocuous phone conversation.  We were shooting the shit about something or other, latched on to a common topic and made some cynical jokes, which have formed the basis of our next screenplay.  A huge burden has been lifted from our shoulders.  We have a new idea & it was completely unplanned.  We hadn’t even scheduled a brainstorming session.  We were just talking about maintenance tasks, edit this, do that, then this kind of crap.  Our minds wandered, as is wont to happen & here we are.  I am very excited at the prospect of outlining a new screenplay.  We have readjusted our scheduled tasks completely and are moving right into this project.

My writing partner is getting married in September, so we have a deadline in mind.  March to August.  We can do this in six months!

Mark this night.  I will look back for a reference of when we conceived this idea.  March 10 (adds up to 4).  March 10 2007 (still adds up to 4!).

I will sing (sing a new song).

Post #40.  How long?

I was baptized Catholic and raised within that faith.  I went to church every Sunday.  I was an altar boy.  Some Sundays, I would serve at more than one mass.  I could recite the mass word for word.  I worked at the church, maintenance and stuff, good cash for a summer job.  I was close with the Priest of the parish.  He didn’t become a priest until he was in his forties.  Before then, he worked in sales and advertising.  He was quite the character.  I couldn’t get past him without receiving a charlie horse or a tough knuckle in the shoulder.  He had a great (and sometimes dirty!) sense of humour.  He taught me quite a bit when I was growing up.

When I was in high school, I found a better paying job.  The guy who started doing maintenance at the church was the same age as myself.  The church was (still is) right beside the school.  We went to school together.  I knew him, but not well.  He wasn’t well received socially.  He was weird.  I don’t know how to describe it, but he was one of those guys who, through his mere being, invited torment.  It turns out there were problems at home, someone didn’t get enough attention.

One day, just before Christmas, this guy decided he would get the attention he deserved.  He accused the Priest of molestation.  The climate was right.  Scandalous things were being revealed about priests in the press (Newfoundland, etc).  Well, without getting into all the lurid details.  The Priest was arrested, removed from the parish and brought to trial.  The Diocese REFUSED to pay any legal fees, recommending he plead guilty.  The Priest received absolutely no support from the Church.

At the end of the trial, the judge apologized to the Priest and admonished the prosecutor for bringing the case to trial.  The boy had clearly lied.

Guilty until proven innocent.  The Church would not listen to the Priest’s adamant denials and left him on his own.  He was never the same again.  Once proud, he was broken.  A shell of the man he used to be.  The Church, professing to represent an all-loving, all-forgiving, omnipotent God, does not represent these values.  No love.  No forgiveness.  Just bureaucratic men trying to protect their franchise.

I have not been to church since.  There is nothing of value to learn.

So, I put my time into learning about the world’s religions and philosophies.  I began to broadened my horizons.  I was sixteen and this unalterably changed the course of my life.

I still think about the Priest every once in a while.  He passed away about five years ago.  I didn’t go to the funeral.

Truth – Stranger than Fiction

This article was posted to SouthBendTribune.com on Feb. 20, 2007.

Brothers killed in collision with each other

Authorities say it’s a coincidence Decatur men’s automobiles hit head-on.

LOU MUMFORD
Tribune Staff Writer

PAW PAW — Two brothers from Decatur were killed Sunday when their autos collided near Paw Paw, police reported.

Investigation was continuing Monday, but officers with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Department said it appeared to be a coincidence that the autos driven by James West, 33, and Jessie West, 24, collided head-on in the 70000 block of 39th Street in Paw Paw Township.

Not only were the victims brothers, but they lived together in Decatur, police said.

Sgt. Virg Franks said interviews with family members, friends and co-workers of the West brothers left a strong impression that the two got along well and would not have intentionally committed such an act.

Based on those interviews, Franks said police also ruled out a game of “chicken,” in which motorists drive toward one another to see who veers away first.

“That would have been completely out of character,” Franks said. “There was no evidence that contributed to the crash.”

Officers reported that James West was driving north on 39th Street about 3:15 p.m. when he lost control on the snow-covered road. The auto crossed the center line and traveled into the path of Jessie West’s oncoming vehicle, police said.

Franks said it appeared from the scene the right tires on James West’s vehicle dropped off the paved portion of the road, causing his auto to skid into his brother’s lane of traffic. Snow perhaps contributed to the car traveling off the pavement, Franks said.

He said Jessie West apparently was driving home after completing his shift at a restaurant in the village of Paw Paw, Franks said. He said he was unaware where James West was headed.

James West was ejected from his auto and was lying on the road when officers arrived. Jessie West was pinned in the wreckage of his car and had to be extricated by rescue workers using hydraulic equipment, police said.

Officers said both were dead at the scene. Neither was wearing a seat belt, police said.  [Note from host of this web log: see comment below regarding the validity of the statement regarding seatbelts.]

Although authorities have yet to determine if drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash, Franks said he didn’t notice the odor of alcohol or containers of alcohol in either vehicle.

He said the accident was one of the most tragic his department has investigated.

What’s your vector Victor? Eleven Four.

Eleven and four.  Everything about this apartment adds up to either of those numbers.

Floor # = 11

Apartment # sum = 11

Buzz # sum = 11

Home Phone # sum = 4

My destiny number is 11.  There are three 4s in my birth date.

This is the time & place where things will come together.

Things

Be prepared for the right place and the right time.  Otherwise it will be the wrong place and the wrong time. 

Don’t ever be complacent in learning, regardless of age.  Motivation enhances intelligence.

If everyone had to copy the answer from someone else, who would be wrong?

I am a river in complete.  Raging rapids, placid trickles, murky deeps and visible shallows.  You will never walk on me, through me maybe, but only at your own risk.

Brainstorming

There’s a brainstorming session in the near future.  The prospect of farming some new concepts is very exciting.  The possibilities limited only to the extent of our combined imaginations.  Where will we go?  Who will we meet?  What will we do?

When we first began working together, nearly four years ago, we brainstormed a list of concepts from which we could withdraw at any time.  There were eight concepts on the original list.  We’ve written one, dropped and added some since.  We think of the list as a bank account to be drawn upon when times are lean.  Everything we’ve written since the first screenplay was conceived in subsequent brainstorming sessions.

You’re not supposed to shoot down ideas in a brainstorming session.  Writing everything down.  When there’s only two people, you can’t do that.  Takes too much time and becomes a distraction to creativity.  We follow a ‘free-flowing lateral conversation’ approach.  We talk about whatever comes to mind.  It doesn’t matter to us if our conversations don’t seem to have anything to do with a screenplay concept.  Everything is a potential concept.  Think about anything but a concept and a concept will come to you, through you.

Once we latch on to something of interest, we start asking each other a series of questions.  With the sum of our popular knowledge, we need to determine if the concept is original.  If it’s not, we throw it away.  We throw storyline ideas around the concept.  We devise potential resolutions.  If we can’t think of a dynamic conclusion, we usually turf the idea.  On rare occasions we might resuscitate an idea, if a compelling conclusion occurs to either of us at a later time.  We never work on a project unless it has a solid ending.  So many good stories are ruined with weak resolutions.

We devise a few concepts with rough story lines and resolutions and pitch them to a few people.  Different people usually react the same way to the same stories.  One of the three concepts will illicit a response which will prompt us to work on it.  If we didn’t get the response we were hoping for, we’d start over.