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Philosophical Musings in the early morning hours
Well, it’s happened again. I was sleeping quite comfortably snug in my warm bed, while outside it was 10 degrees and snow is falling. I was dreaming something pleasant and vaguely interesting, but already I’ve forgotten it. Anyway, it was just so wonderful to be sleeping soundly, after having a miserable fever for the past three days. And then, sometime around 5 AM, I slowly drifted up from slumber, basking in my contentment and warmth, and my brain Awoke. Thoughts started flowing so effortlessly through it, (into it, from it?) that I just lay there in my cocoon and listened to all the things my thoughts had to say.
It is a profoundly pleasant feeling when the brain first ‘awakens’, to just lay back and let this mesmerizing human consciousness do its thing, relatively unhindered by the constraints of the everyday rational robot-brain. If only I could automatically record those thoughts as they follow their course. They are so easy, articulate, insightful; so unashamed of where they come from and unafraid of where they will go. I know they’re my thoughts, but I’m also just delighted to listen to what they have to say. And I never know what they will say or where they will take me.
Of course once my body is awake enough to realize this is some pretty profound and marvelous stuff, and I drag myself from bed and come down and awaken the computer (oh crap, there’s some new e-mails, should I look at them now? What’s the weather forecast?!) and open a word processor, or in my case this blog, that precious uncensored flow of thought is already a thing of the past. Damn, that was a long sentence, too! So, a couple of things this teaches us (me) are that thinking is relatively easy when we’re not distracted. Of course, our modern world is purposefully designed to be one BIG distraction. And the reasons for that are the stuff of contemplation at another time. And; one thought leads to another and another. I just need to start somewhere.
I just realized it’s been about one year since I started writing this blog. Wow! I need to go back and check that first post out again. But I think the main reason was just to make myself write; something; anything, just to see where I would go. And what my mind was naturally interested in writing about. And as I look back, a lot of what I write about here is pretty mundane shit! A lot about entertainment; TV shows, movies, sometimes books (Oh! I’ve got a great one I just started reading. I’ll have to tell you about it later!), computers. Not that there’s anything wrong with entertainment, or computers! But man, it’s so easy to fall back on watching other people’s thoughts and stories! To marvel at the creativity of others (if we’re lucky). It’s definitely easier to consume than to create. But we are all creative beings. If you can relax for a while, if you can quiet the mind, your consciousness is full of amazing shit!! God, The Universe and Everything! I mean, how often do we stop and think about how literally awesome the human brain is? There’s nothing like it that we know of. And how weird would it be if we are the only ones who can know how awesome it is?! I hope that’s not the case. But I’m digressing.
We have these incredible brains that are capable of who really knows what, yet we spend most of our precious time on this Earth watching ‘Reality’ TV, or worrying about what we don’t have and how we can get it, or being afraid, and on and on. I know, I know, I’m just ranting now. This post has pretty much diverged from what I first intended. But I know I waste too much of my precious time on things that aren’t so important. Hell, we’re only alive until we’re not! I need to create more. Do more art. More writing.
And I had a bunch of great ideas about writing in those wee hours this morning, but now it’s already 8 o’clock! And some of those ideas came from the TV show ‘Fringe‘. How ironic! But I guess everything has its purpose; everything feeds the brain, if we can just be a little selective, for God’s sake! I think I need to stop now.
TO BE CONTINUED…
A Cool Little Application
We’re just hangin’ round home today relaxing (me) and playing in the snow (kids & Stephanie). Fiona had her last dance class till next year yesterday, and then we went to my family Christmas party, hosted this year by my nephew Brian and his wife Cary, where everyone had a totally lovely time! And what good food! Gosh, how I love the holidays!!
I don’t have much to say today, but on Friday Arthur and I did some playing around with a wonderful computer program called ‘Scratch‘. It’s an application that makes programing fairly easy and can be used to make games, animations and probably other uses as well. You can drag and drop different bits of code like puzzle pieces to create all kinds of cool things, like adding animations, sounds, music and movements. You need to see it to get a better understanding. It was created at MIT and can be used by kids and adults to learn the basics of programming. And it’s cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac) and works beautifully on Arthur’s old Mac and our Pinguy OS Linux machine. Here’s another link with much information: Scratch Reference Guide. There’s lots of info on different ways for students and teachers to make use of Scratch. We’re going to need to take some time to learn all the things we can do. Arthur thinks it’s really cool, especially the game-making possibilities. I want to make animations with it. I think we’ll both learn a lot!
And changing the subject; here are a couple more links below pertaining to the strange state of our economy, and to the equally bizarre attitudes of our elected government officials in Washington. The latter subject makes me especially pissed as hell, but I really don’t want to use language as foul as this makes me feel. So I leave it to you to, gentle readers, to watch for yourselves:
The rich benefit from society and should give back
Daily Show: 9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster
I’m off to have my dinner and perhaps watch a movie with the family, and bask in the cheery glow of our beautiful Solstice/Christmas tree. And contemplate how fortunate my family really is compared to many of our fellow human beings. Cheers!
Open Source Animation
Yesterday I ran across this short animated video that was made with Blender, an open source application for Linux, Macs and Windows. I installed Blender on my computer a long time ago and played around with it a little. It’s really cool for making 3-D objects, but I never tried animation. It’s pretty complicated to use, so I never took the time to follow any tutorials to learn what can be done with it. Well, this movie called ‘Sintel’ is a really beautiful and amazing example of what Blender is capable of. It’s only fifteen minutes long, so take a look:
and this article is where I first found the video: Sintel Open Movie Released and It’s Absolutely Beautiful!
That’s all for now...
Ideas that come to me at 5:00 am
This past Friday Stephanie had off from work and I was able to volunteer at WXXI (Rochester’s Public Broadcasting Station) to answer phones for the radio pledge drive. Many times I’ve thought it would be kinda fun to do that, but I never think of it till a fund drive has already begun. This time they e-mailed me a couple weeks ago to ask if I wanted to volunteer. It was great! I had fun, and got to hang out with some interesting folks. And it was so nice to spend time with adults! I’ve had a lovely mini-vacation the last few days with Stephanie home so I could roam around Batavia and Rochester by myself.
On a different note…
This morning about 5:20 I woke up to go to the bathroom. When I crawled back under the blankets my darn brain started rambling around. The next thing I knew I’m thinking about story ideas. (Note to myself: when you come up with ideas that excite you, write them down!! You’ve had some doozies over the months then completely forgotten them). I tried to succumb to slumber again but my mind went off somewhere else. I thought about educational things to do with the kids. Then for some reason I started thinking about religion. I don’t know why. Arthur (and Fiona) have been exposed to a little bit of many spiritual beliefs, but we haven’t gone into any particular religion in much depth. My mind went from thinking about learning more details about the world’s great religions with Arthur, to a broader concept of writing a book about religion beginning with archaeological evidence of prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies to the first recorded religions from ancient Mesopotamia and following the rise of religions through history, and how they were affected by what came before. A book to offer a distilled or simplified version of spirituality for kids/young adults.
Religion has always fascinated me; the deeply atavistic need of human beings to make sense of our world, to try to understand what is ultimately beyond our comprehension. Our need to appease powers we perceive as greater than ourselves, to harmonize with the natural universe, and to impose moral codes on our behaviour is so uniquely human. I would love to do research for such a book to learn more about the spiritual systems I’m familiar with and more about religions I don’t know much about.
I find it horribly sad that though most of the great religions teach love for one another (do unto others…etc) and the sacredness of human life, we fail so miserably to live by those moral codes. So many atrocities have been committed throughout history, and today, because of people perverting religious beliefs to justify their own agendas. I don’t know… maybe civilization would have never had a chance without religion. Or certainly without laws. Maybe human existence would have been even worse?
But then, like John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’, maybe we’d actually be a lot better off living without different religions or nations trying to impose their belief systems on others. There is intrinsically so much more that makes us similar than that which makes us different, as human beings. We all have the same basic needs and desires and dreams. And at the heart of all spiritual teachings is the concept of unity and love. Of seeing the divine in all things. Krishna, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed; the message is the same. Look within. We are all part of a Whole. Unconditional love.
Well, I got off on a tangent again! And now it’s time to go.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Links:
Dragonfly Dreaming 