Today I walked to a meeting of the Big Bend High School Writer's Guild. It was pretty fun, I got to read a story I'd written recently and there were a few other people there who also read some pretty nifty stuff. I went with Buddha, so when there were lulls and nothing was happening we could play chess, and when people were reading I didn't feel like I didn't know anybody. Win win situation. However, I stayed a little too long talking to people afterwards, so Buddha got bored and by the time we left I owed him one. So I decided we would walk somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I like walking, but it's not something I might normally do so spontaneously, and it seemed like Buddha's sort of thing.
So we walked. To Lake Ella. It was a very, very, long walk, we got a bit disoriented more than once, and by the time we got there it was almost dark and we were a bit exhausted. There's really something to be said for long, urban walks, though. There was a definite feeling of satisfaction as we made it to Black Dog, to the extent that everything at the lake seemed different, somehow more peaceful and powerful as if it was ready to surrender. Or maybe that's just projection. Maybe I just felt ready to surrender, for some reason, to something. Of course, at a little man-made lake there's not much to surrender to, so I settled for Go and an Odwalla.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Obligatory First Post
I could introduce myself, I suppose, but I'm not sure what function that would serve. Chances are, if you're reading this, your knowledge of me is preexistent, and therefore a normal sort of introduction is next to useless. However, a deeply set convention in the world of Blogs, and journals in general, demands that I present myself somehow, and therefore I shall attempt to demonstrate, if not my general identity, my identity in this blog.
Now, this identity is consistently changing. I am not a static being. I lack the time to remain eternally uniform. I can safely say, though, that I am a philosopher and I am a writer, and I suppose that a good deal of philosophy and writing may appear here, so long as I have some sort of audience. Other than that, it could go in any direction.
For now, though, let me start with a comparision that's been growing in my mind, unrelated to myself, one between Religion and Nuclear power.
It seems a fair comparision. Both are powerful sources of energy, Nuclear power literally, Religion socially and spiritually. Both are dangerous if mishandled, and a malfunction or perversion of either can cause horrendous trouble and the fundamental corruption of just about anything good. Naturally, as a result of this, there are a lot of people who are afraid of both, especially because when misused, Nuclear energy, like religion, can create a blast so devastating as to seal the doom, or minds, of countless millions.
HOWEVER. As a response to those who would denounce these two, primarily religion or faith in general, on the basis of what its perversions can bring about, I have but one coherent retort that I feel the confidence to post here. It is something people often do not remember, and the parallel to faith holds strong in my view: The sun is a nuclear reactor, and in the end all of our elements and all of our energy is fused in this or similar stars. Despite the fact that the world in which we live is certainly no star, and the mindsets we live in are certainly not made up wholly of faith, without these dangerous sources of physical and spiritual energy we might have no light, no heat, and no wonderment to send us ever-further as a species.
Now, from this it may sound as if I am religious, though I wouldn't say this is true. I do not buy into any organized religion so much as a collage of my own beliefs, but I think they are fundamentally the same. The applications of specific religious beliefs, like the applications of nuclear power, can disquiet me, the only problem I have is people attacking faith directly. It is, after all, faith that directed people to gaze into the stars in the first place, primivie archaic religion that forced us to ask why repeatedly until from the answers we derived science. Now we attempt to strangle its poor grandmother, faith, with science's very toolbox!
This subject came up, I'll admit, wandering around the streets of Pensacola, musing at all of the many shades of green. That might sound like a metaphor. It isn't. There truly are more shades of green in that town than is tolerable. Every single coloration of moss is present, as well as buildings of even the most garish-lime colors. The traffic lights are no exception, each somehow shining a separate green light into the void. Normally, I would enjoy this particular light, but I am walking and so green lights to me mean stop. It is odd how the technically unassisted boy is the one who must read the traffic lights backwards, while the motorist sees green and may take it at face value.
It really is different walking in Pensacola. I would know. I drove there, after all, a good three hours, and I got familiar with the concept of driving. I tailed a truck with the large word "Anthony" on the back. It was the front of a semi, but it carried nothing but this arcane name, which gave me a wonderful way to address my newfound comrade as I followed him and used his speed as an excuse to comfortable cruise above the limit. Driving was enjoyable, and I think I understood the premise of it from that drive, but it was incomparable to walking. Colors don't accost you from a car, you see. You see everything through the windows, so it's like little screens. If you're walking, and the cars are either everywhere or nowhere depending on traffic lights, then it's different. The colors are everywhere, and strange, and you have to deal with.
You can also see the sky. It's very big at Pensacola, by the ocean. It makes me look around more often, residue from my ancestors the tiny primates' days of trying to avoid being devoured by some foreign bird or reptile. Something about that sky, to get back to the central point, awakens the mystic in people. In Pensacola, that mystical drive becomes Christian. I don't agree with Christianity in particular, but I can't see I disagree with the climate of spirituality as a whole. It feels good in my lungs, even though it would feel bad in a debate if an impassioned evangelical would dare to attempt to save my soul. Can't he see the green has it covered, that it's already whispering to me in every way it knows how? Of course he cannot. He sees only his own message, only his own spin on the divine. I don't blame him. I only see my own fear sometimes as well, but I must say I wish his particular brand of nuclear thought and mine could resonate.
Coherency fails here. There is more to say, there's always more to say, of skies and greens and nukes and faiths, but presently that would swallow me, and I'm not one for being swallowed at this hour.
After all, there's science to do, a lab in particular, and I'm horribly unprepared to turn it in, much less face another night devoid of sleep.
If you made it through this post, my appreciation for your feat truly is great. If you understood all of it, my concern for your sanity rivals said appreciation, for I'm not sure I do myself.
--8
Now, this identity is consistently changing. I am not a static being. I lack the time to remain eternally uniform. I can safely say, though, that I am a philosopher and I am a writer, and I suppose that a good deal of philosophy and writing may appear here, so long as I have some sort of audience. Other than that, it could go in any direction.
For now, though, let me start with a comparision that's been growing in my mind, unrelated to myself, one between Religion and Nuclear power.
It seems a fair comparision. Both are powerful sources of energy, Nuclear power literally, Religion socially and spiritually. Both are dangerous if mishandled, and a malfunction or perversion of either can cause horrendous trouble and the fundamental corruption of just about anything good. Naturally, as a result of this, there are a lot of people who are afraid of both, especially because when misused, Nuclear energy, like religion, can create a blast so devastating as to seal the doom, or minds, of countless millions.
HOWEVER. As a response to those who would denounce these two, primarily religion or faith in general, on the basis of what its perversions can bring about, I have but one coherent retort that I feel the confidence to post here. It is something people often do not remember, and the parallel to faith holds strong in my view: The sun is a nuclear reactor, and in the end all of our elements and all of our energy is fused in this or similar stars. Despite the fact that the world in which we live is certainly no star, and the mindsets we live in are certainly not made up wholly of faith, without these dangerous sources of physical and spiritual energy we might have no light, no heat, and no wonderment to send us ever-further as a species.
Now, from this it may sound as if I am religious, though I wouldn't say this is true. I do not buy into any organized religion so much as a collage of my own beliefs, but I think they are fundamentally the same. The applications of specific religious beliefs, like the applications of nuclear power, can disquiet me, the only problem I have is people attacking faith directly. It is, after all, faith that directed people to gaze into the stars in the first place, primivie archaic religion that forced us to ask why repeatedly until from the answers we derived science. Now we attempt to strangle its poor grandmother, faith, with science's very toolbox!
This subject came up, I'll admit, wandering around the streets of Pensacola, musing at all of the many shades of green. That might sound like a metaphor. It isn't. There truly are more shades of green in that town than is tolerable. Every single coloration of moss is present, as well as buildings of even the most garish-lime colors. The traffic lights are no exception, each somehow shining a separate green light into the void. Normally, I would enjoy this particular light, but I am walking and so green lights to me mean stop. It is odd how the technically unassisted boy is the one who must read the traffic lights backwards, while the motorist sees green and may take it at face value.
It really is different walking in Pensacola. I would know. I drove there, after all, a good three hours, and I got familiar with the concept of driving. I tailed a truck with the large word "Anthony" on the back. It was the front of a semi, but it carried nothing but this arcane name, which gave me a wonderful way to address my newfound comrade as I followed him and used his speed as an excuse to comfortable cruise above the limit. Driving was enjoyable, and I think I understood the premise of it from that drive, but it was incomparable to walking. Colors don't accost you from a car, you see. You see everything through the windows, so it's like little screens. If you're walking, and the cars are either everywhere or nowhere depending on traffic lights, then it's different. The colors are everywhere, and strange, and you have to deal with.
You can also see the sky. It's very big at Pensacola, by the ocean. It makes me look around more often, residue from my ancestors the tiny primates' days of trying to avoid being devoured by some foreign bird or reptile. Something about that sky, to get back to the central point, awakens the mystic in people. In Pensacola, that mystical drive becomes Christian. I don't agree with Christianity in particular, but I can't see I disagree with the climate of spirituality as a whole. It feels good in my lungs, even though it would feel bad in a debate if an impassioned evangelical would dare to attempt to save my soul. Can't he see the green has it covered, that it's already whispering to me in every way it knows how? Of course he cannot. He sees only his own message, only his own spin on the divine. I don't blame him. I only see my own fear sometimes as well, but I must say I wish his particular brand of nuclear thought and mine could resonate.
Coherency fails here. There is more to say, there's always more to say, of skies and greens and nukes and faiths, but presently that would swallow me, and I'm not one for being swallowed at this hour.
After all, there's science to do, a lab in particular, and I'm horribly unprepared to turn it in, much less face another night devoid of sleep.
If you made it through this post, my appreciation for your feat truly is great. If you understood all of it, my concern for your sanity rivals said appreciation, for I'm not sure I do myself.
--8
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