On Bi-location

Have you ever been in a room with someone who was on the phone or IM chat who, for all that they were completely oblivious to the goings on around them, may as well have not actually been there?

How about the person walking down the street glued to their mobile who seem to have no consciousness that they are in fact walking down a street as evidenced by their plowing through or into fellow pedestrians?

These people annoy me. A lot.

But let's bring it inward, shall we? How many times have you been on the phone or computer, and either missed something that was said to you in the room or missed what was said to you on the phone/computer because something happened in the room?

I suppose I'm extra harsh on such people since I place a great deal of importance upon mindfulness both of one's surroundings and of one's self. We can't all be Jedi, I know, but I'd love for people to not bang into other people on the street because they're on the phone.

Then something occurred to me yesterday. Mobile phones, internet chat... it's essentially technologically-facilitated bi-location. It gives the user the ability, virtually at least, to be in a place other than where they are at the moment in order to communicate with someone else. Try to explain this to someone from a pre-communications tech society, and they'll probably end up thinking about it in this way or some way like it.

If records are to be believed, there have only ever been a small handful of people who ever achieved actual bi-location. They are Saints, Yogis, Shamans, and other holy men/women and magical-type folk. These abilities allegedly came from years of intensive training and discipline and was only used in very rare circumstances.

And if the above definition stands, we do this often multiple times a day. And the number of us that are highly attained Saints and Yogis are vastly outnumbered by those who are not.

No wonder we're having trouble coping! Humans aren't naturally wired to be accustomed to being in two places at once. So what happens? One of the two location gets shunted to the back. If this is the virtual other location, we miss that phone number being dictated to us because someone we knew just waved as they walked by. If it's our physical location, we turn into the Juggernaut on the high street taking out oncoming foot traffic as we go.

So we're not being inconsiderate. We're just being really crap shamans.

So either we become better shamans, or we quit playing with shamans' tools.

The choice is yours.

On Technological Evolution

Today, we can send masses of information wirelessly to the other side of the world. We have a permanent residence orbiting the Earth in space. We have explored the deepest depths of the ocean and the surface of Mars. We have access to pretty much any piece of knowledge we seek by searching for it online. We have harnessed the power of the wind and the sun to produce electricity. We have created black holes in labs and have measured objects in atoms.

Yet we still use fistfuls of paper to clean ourselves with when we use the toilet.

Weird, huh?

On this most auspicious day...

Me? I believe in the inherent oneness of all things. I believe that each and every one of us were created by God (a force/being without anything even remotely resembling traits or features in any way familiar to humans and which is beyond anything we can even possibly comprehend) so that God could live the infinite variances of life on this plane and on countless others vicariously through us. I believe that each person has within them a portion of that God within them, which some call the soul, Atman, Higher Self, Holy Guardian Angel, which makes us part of and at once entirely that God ourselves.

I believe that all spiritual paths and religions are equally valid paths to higher consciousness if they speak to the individual.

And why are we here? I believe this universe is a playground and a classroom in which our sole job is to poke around, explore, eat, drink, smoke, and shag whatever the mood so strikes us to (just so long as we don't get in the way of the rest of us who, remember, are also God) so that we learn what we can and have a good time while doing it.

And when we die? Well, we can come back for another game if we want, as many times as we want. We can keep at it for countless lifetimes, experiencing the vast richness of life and its many permutations Or not, if it's not your cup of tea. That's cool too.

But that's weird, right? Sounds like the ravings of a crazy, happy clappy New Ager or something, right? Normal people don't believe those kinds of things, do they?

We all know that we were all created by a single God, in the likeness of Him, in order to live as masters over life on Earth and all its resources. To uphold our half of this bargain, we follow His very specific rules of how we are to live our lives. These rules were laid out for us by a group of Bronze Age desert nomads but are, thankfully, still applicable to modern life all over the world.

Furthermore, this all-powerful being manifested into physical form his son (a 1st century Galilean carpenter's son) for the express purpose of having us condemn and execute him for radical reformist views. Later, he would rise from the dead, inspire his followers to spread his teachings to all of humanity, and then be taken up, in physical form, into heaven. This, he claimed, ushered in a new philosophy that supplanted the old one, but given that we liked the old laws just fine thank you very much, these are kept right alongside his updated teachings.

Before leaving, he promised to return one day so that he and God could gather up all the people who have ever lived. These people would then be judged by how closely they adhered to the rules both he and God had set out. Those who were deemed loyal adherents will be ushered into an eternity of happiness and pleasure. Billions of others will be condemned to an eternity of torment and agony in a purpose built realm of suffering made by God for those specimens of his creation who did not follow the rules as laid out by the Bronze Age nomads or the 1st century Galilean.

Oh, also we human beings are inherently sinful and impure inside, with our obsession with dirty things like sex and other things that feel good and are fun. But there's hope. Wholehearted belief in said God and his son will magically cleanse us of these sins, ensuring eternal paradise for us at the end of our single, 70-100 year lifespan.

Makes much more sense, doesn't it?

This post is brought to you by the letter... History

I got into an interesting debate with a friend the other day about the usefulness of History in the education of the average 'Joe'. For a bit I found myself at a loss when trying to articulate the valuable life lessons that History gives a person not planning on studying it intensely. I think I did alright, but I only now figured out what I was trying to say.

History teaches three valuable things: Where we came from, why things are the way they are now, and (most importantly in many cases) that things have not always been so and, probably, will not always be so.

So, I'm confused...

I was thinking in the shower today. I do that, you see. I know I should instead busy myself with, y'know, showering, but I can't help myself.

Anyway, shopping days. I'm pretty sure we all have a designated shopping day or market day; the day we run around and stock up on the things we need. Mine is Saturdays, primarily because I work during the week and the covered market(where I prefer to go for produce/fish/etc.) is closed on Sundays. If for some reason my Saturday is tied up, it means I'm stuck getting everything at Sainsbury's. This means I end up paying more for stuff of lesser quality and don't have the ability to really nose through and select everything for myself. It means we eat for another week, yes, but it's not half as satisfying.

The weekend is also when I end up putzing through shops picking up things that it has occurred to me during the week that I need. Again, should I find myself otherwise engaged at that time, this gets put off usually until the following weekend.

This got me thinking... the vast majority of us work. Of that vast majority, a vast majority have your standard M-F 9-5 day job. Most shops are close around 5ish or 6ish (I recognize that this is slowly changing, especially with grocery stores, but generally this is still the norm). This means that, during the week, those who work have little chance of going to said shops and picking something up. The only people this schedule of opening times works for are those who do not work.

I find this funny. A society as consumer-driven as we are is set up so that 80% of the time they are open for business is when the majority of the consumers aren't able to drop in and consume. Seems a rather poor strategy, doesn't it?

Furthermore, these people have to cram their consuming into the weekends, meaning they're stuck spending time shopping as opposed to perhaps doing something more leisurely with their only two full days of freedom from work.

I wonder if that's the idea? Kind of a materialistic bulimia; deprive deprive deprive so that, when the opportunity finally does present itself... WHOOOSH! We dive into the stuff-lust with reckless abandon. Who knows?

Now, far be it from me to propose a solution to this. There are many ways of looking at this situation. For example, later opening hours would mean that workers would be stuck working them (although, if things were switched around, it means they'd have their days to themselves). I can't quite tell if this is a product of faults in work schedules, shop schedules, or some combination thereof.

I dunno. I did think of this in the shower, keep in mind.

Be very careful, America

So by now you've all probably seen this article or one like it in which a gunman opened fire at the entrance to the Pentagon last week. This is another event in what is becoming a rather disturbing trend of anti-government cause-heads going on the offensive. I'm not going to lay the blame solely on the Palin/Beck/Tea Party crowd, since past events like Oklahoma City shows that this sort of sentiment is anything but new. However it is rather unsettling that the tone of these individuals is becoming progressively more aggressive and, dare I say, militant. So although their not the sole culprits, they're certainly not helping matters much.

The way I see it, there are two possible ways that that powers that be could respond to this trend.

1. Conclude that all of these crazies need a heapin' helpin' of legislation to set 'em straight. Beef up security measures even more. Increase surveillance of 'suspected subversives' (whoever they are and whatever that means, details details). Perhaps even throw in some weapons control laws in for good measure.

Bad idea.

All this will succeed in doing is feeding the flames. These people are already convinced that the gummint is hell-bent on trampling their rights and restricting their freedoms. Trying to smother the problem with laws will only confirm their fears and, in all likelihood, provoke further nutballs to try the same thing in the name of defending the Constitution.

2. To use the old British war-time saying, 'Keep calm and carry on.' In other words, don't do a thing. Accept that this was an isolated incident that in no way represents the norm. Conclude that the better demonstration of strength and resilience in the face of adversity is to brush it off and keep going as is, refusing to strengthen or legitimize the place of these people by giving them unnecessary attention.

The trouble is, American doesn't do 'Keep calm and carry on' terribly well. If something happens, people have this need for someone to do something about it. We have to prove to ourselves and others that nobody can get away with crossing us without a serious reckoning. Satisfying in the short term? Maybe. Useful and productive in the long term? Not so much.

I suppose this is another manifestation of the U.S. as the angsty teenager of the world. Compared to nations in Europe and Asia, who've been at this game for at least a few thousand years, 230-some odd year old America is just starting to develop acne and grow hair in surprising places. We're still at the phase where everything is a massive universe-altering drama and we have to thump our chests and prove something about ourselves at every step of the way. Hopefully in a few more centuries, providing something very interesting doesn't happen in the meantime, we might slowly start to improve in playing the long game.

In the meantime, let's just hope that Obama and Co. take the high road and don't turn this into a bigger situation than it actually is.

And here we go...

For the longest time I've made it quite well-known to people that I'm not the blogging type. I could never motivate myself to sit down and write about my life and thoughts for the supposed benefit or enrichment of a reading public who, perhaps rightly so, don't really care all that much about what's going on in my life.

But then I got to thinking of the number of occasions I've found myself conversing (read: ranting) to/with a friend (or my wife, bless her patience) on some topic or another. To spare these regular receivers of such attentions, or perhaps to spread their suffering to even larger crowds, I have concluded that, if I'm going to engage in in-depth rants and musings, why not write 'em down? Who knows? Someone may actually find them interesting. Yeah, we'll see about that last part, but a guy can dream, can't he?

So with that, welcome to my virtual forum/tea house/philosophical salon/ashram/debate hall. All our welcome and none shall be censored (only laughed at and perhaps eloquently horse-whipped if they get particularly asshat-ish).

As the great sage and philosopher V once said, or at least he should have, 'A revolution without tea is a revolution not worth having.'

Let's see what happens.