HinesSight

Not lost in translation

This morning I gave a 45 minute talk to the 500 or so National Satsang Weekend attendees at the Science of the Soul Center here in Petaluma, California. No, I’m not a member of a cult, no matter what my wife says (jokingly, I should emphasize, just as I fondly call her “infidel” with a smile on my face). Aside from my talks, Laurel chooses not to attend meetings of my spiritual group, for reasons I can completely sympathize with.

I look upon spirituality as a science that investigates whatever may lie beyond the physical reality with which we are familiar now. So I resonate to the “science” aspect of the Science of the Soul. But other members take much more of a religious approach, believing that the mere fact of being accepted as an initiate by the Master who heads the organization makes you a Special Soul, marked for salvation while people like my wife are doomed to a lesser quality afterlife.

Today I couldn’t resist making some remarks about this annoying attitude. I said that scientists the world over are united in their search for the truth about materiality. A physicist doesn’t care if a colleague comes from another country, another culture, another religion, another whatever. All that matters is their common commitment to unraveling the laws of physical nature through the scientific method. So science unites people.

Strangely, most religions and spiritual paths divide people, even though they claim to be devoted to the one God, or the one metaphysical reality. Thus, I observed, it is strange that a materialistic enterprise, science, is a unifying force on our planet, while a supposedly non-materialistic enterprise, religion, is a divisive force.

My main theme was the One. This is the best term for God, I argued, because it most clearly reflects an almost universal tenet of mystical philosophies: beneath all the manyness without and within us lies the ineffable, formless ground of being. Call it God. Call it the One. Trace anything in creation back to its source. There is the One.

Since the One is everywhere and everything, though also separate from everywhere and everything (statements like this are what make mysticism mystical), we too are the One. But this won’t be evident to us until we get rid of all the manyness that obscures our oneness. Meditation is the scientific practice that, theoretically, brings this about. (I say “theoretically” because the practice is darn difficult to practice, for me as for most other people).

Yet meditation needs to be supported by a person’s whole approach to life. If this is divisive, as when someone thinks they are part of a special group that has a special claim to special spiritual knowledge, that attitude isn’t going to lead this person closer to unity. I think I got this point across pretty well, though it wasn’t my main emphasis. Mostly I talked about Plotinus’s teachings concerning the One and how we are able to return to this ultimate reality.

This was the first time I’ve had a talk translated. Because many older members of the Science of the Soul group were born in India and don’t speak English well, 45 minute talks given in English get a 15 minute translation into Hindi (or maybe Punjabi, I don’t know which). The translator jotted down five or so pages of handwritten notes while I was talking, came out on stage and sat down next to me after I was done, and proceeded to summarize what I said.

It was sort of fun to listen to the cadences of a language I can’t understand, other than a few words. There were lots of “paramatmas,” which I’m pretty sure means God, or close to it. Heaven knows how some of my slang-infested English got translated, and whether “Stoic” means much to many of the traditional Indians—who also dress traditionally.

Laurel and I love the colorful attire of the Indian women, all the saris in every color of the rainbow. And the Indian food served at lunch and dinner brought smiles to our stomachs. All in all, a pleasant multi-cultural weekend, different sorts of people coming together in pursuit of the One.

Recipe for a fun time

Here’s a recipe for a fun time. (1) Fly to Oakland on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend starts. (2) Rent a car at the airport and get on the freeway in the middle of the afternoon, just as every single person who works in the East Bay decides to take off work a few hours early and get a head start on the holiday. (3) For maximum enjoyment, head to Petaluma, as this way you will get to fully experience, in excruciating slow vehicle motion, what happens when three lanes of holiday traffic on 580W merge into one lane just before blending in even slower motion with the bumper to bumper traffic on 101.

As you can probably surmise, these are not abstract vacation tips from Brian and Laurel. We can personally vouch for the fun factor in the trip described above, the “fun” being approximately equal to what you would experience if you had a root canal without Novocain.

The bright side to our travel, though, is that a few hours on a jam-packed California freeway does a lot to renew your faith in Oregon. We may have a lot of problems in our state, but at least we don’t have to crawl along at five miles an hour for miles and miles and miles past butt-ugly industrial wastelands in the hot sun (in Portland you may get to crawl along past fir trees in cold rain, of course, but that’s ever so much better.)

Eventually we did make it to Petaluma, where I’m going to give a talk to a Science of the Soul get-together on Sunday. Laurel and I found a nice middle Eastern restaurant downtown, then took a walk around Petaluma’s version of Salem’s Minto-Brown park—a large wetland/bird sanctuary. Here’s a shot of Laurel beside the Petaluma river, which really is an ocean slough, but got designated a river so federal dredging money could flow.

You can see by how Laurel is dressed that she figured Memorial Day weekend in California would be warm. And it is. However, when you add in a 100 mph wind (or so it feels to us), the Petaluma weather isn’t quite so pleasant. When we ask people here if it is windy like this all the time, they say, “Wind? Oh, yes, it can be windy here at times, I guess.” I guess? We saw a bunch of trees permanently bent over in one direction, but we’ll wait a few days before awarding Petaluma a Wind Tunnel City designation.

Anyway, tomorrow is supposed to be in the 80s. So just as we Oregonians say it’s a nice day if the rain is warm, maybe a nice day in Petaluma features warm wind.

Aren’t the dinosaurs dead?

Since we own a 45 mpg (in real life) 2004 Toyota Prius, we’ve been taking a smug, holier-than-thou attitude toward rising gas prices and the anguished cries of those who get 15 mpg in their way-over-sized SUV.

Every time I drive back home from the store with my four bags of groceries neatly stowed away in the back compartment of the Prius, and pull alongside someone in an Expedition with their own four bags of groceries rattling around in the cavernous interior, I look over with a smile that hopefully communicates, “Now, don’t you feel silly in all that unnecessary metal?” Of course, they probably are looking (down) at me thinking, “I sure am glad I’m not driving around in that weenie-looking deathtrap.”

OK, I’d be happy to say “each to their own” and leave it at that if the SUV owner wasn’t wastefully burning up nonrenewable fossil fuel that my grandchildren (not to mention me) are going to need. I wonder how many people, which includes our esteemed president, really understand that nature isn’t making any more oil. The dinosaurs are dead (although I just learned that almost all of the oil we use comes from plants and animals that lived before the dinosaurs).

Given the amazing scientific illiteracy of Americans, I bet that just about as many people in this country believe that the global oil supply is limitless as believe that the Earth was created in just a few days several thousand years ago. Which means, a lot of people. Here’s a sample of how the oil-isn’t-millions-of-years-old Bible freaks think.

Maybe this is why both Bush and Kerry are side-stepping the most obvious and biggest reason for long-term increases in the price of gasoline: the supply is steadily declining, and the demand is steadily rising. Duh… You’d think a Harvard MBA would understand something about supply and demand—and that no free market magic is going to make more oil appear, since it takes many millions of years for nature to conjure it up.

So, as we read in the paper today, Bush is all concerned that people will drive less to buy stuff, so he wants to relax environmental standards for refineries. And Kerry is all worried about making gas prices into a campaign issue, so he’s calling for a drawdown of the national strategic reserve (which you’d think should be used only in an emergency, which $2 a gallon isn’t.)

I can see why 4 or 5 percent of voters favor Nader, as destructive as this may be come November, if Bush squeaks through again because of the Nader vote. When it comes to sustainability and the environment, there isn’t as much difference between the parties as there should be. However, Laurel reminded me today that Kerry is also calling for higher mileage standards and increased development of alternative energy sources.

So the Greenies should suck it up and vote for Kerry, absolutely. I just wish he didn’t own that big SUV he was reluctant to admit sat in his garage. A Kerry campaign caravan of Prius’s would go a long way toward solidifying his Green base.

An author’s scariest moment

An author’s scariest moment is when the first advance copies of a book arrive from the printer. Also, this is an author’s most wonderful moment. But scariness precedes the wonderfulness. “Are the pages printed all screwy? Is the cover color wrong? What major typo did we miss?”

Yesterday Laurel yelled from the front door at me: “A box just came. It looks like books.” Oh, God, I thought. This is it. My writing life is over. And it is just beginning. Both. Neither. I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t want to go up and open the box. I dearly wanted to go up and open the box. Dearly finally won out over didn’t.

Here’s what I found. Actually, I found 20 copies, but 4 seemed enough to demonstrate the physical reality of what I’ve spent several years working on.

369 pages. I’ve read and re-read them so many times I almost know them by heart. But holding a real book in my hand makes all the words seem brand new. I’m 125 pages into “Return to the One.” Blessedly, I haven’t found anything really amiss so far.

My only scare came when I got to the First is Formless chapter, where I couldn’t resist quoting a poem my ten-year-old self wrote. It used to begin, “Look up to the heavens. What do you see? Tiny pinpoints of light. But is that all? Look past the stars, into the blackness of the void.” Hey, it’s pretty good for a kid.

But in the book it begins: “Look up the heavens.” A chill ran down my spine when I first read that. My poem had been changed!!! Stop the presses!!! Then I calmed down. I’m sure this change was in the galleys my editor sent back to me. I just didn’t catch the altered wording.

Then, driving into town yesterday, I began thinking about looking. “Look up the tree.” “Look up the river.” “Look up the road.” OK, that sounds fine. So why did “Look up the heavens” sound wrong to me? Because I was used to the way I had written it. Just like I’m used to so many other things in life that, when they change, I go, “Hey! What gives?! This isn’t the way things should be!”

I’ve got a chapter called “Philosophy as a Way of Life.” The theme is that a philosophy that isn’t consonant with our life isn’t real. It is just ideas, wordplay. Here I am, writing about how formlessness is the highest reality, and I get all freaked out when the form of the first line of my 45-year-old poem changes. How philosophical is that?

Well, if I really knew everything that I write about, I probably wouldn’t have a drive to write. I’d simply go around with a smile on my face, not saying a word. Until then, writing and reading is necessary.

Keep $17 open on your VISA/MasterCard credit line when July 1 approaches. I’m told that is when “Return to the One” should be available for on-line ordering. The book has to be held back for a while to give pre-publication reviewers a chance to look at it.

“What the #$*! Do We Know?!”

Great question. Great movie. Short answer: not much. Made in Portland, and starring the wonderfully expressive actress Marlee Matlin (an Oscar winner for “Children of a Lesser God”), “What the #$*! Do We Know?!” mixes together a fictional storyline with non-fictional expositions of quantum physics, neuroscience, and other findings from the cutting edge of science.

Having written a book about the relation of the new physics and old mystics (“God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder,” which I’ve revised and am working to get back-in-print), this was a movie that I couldn’t miss. Unfortunately, lots of other people will. I only found two reviews through the Movie Review Query Engine, and the Salem Cinema seats were mostly empty last Friday night. That’s too bad. This film isn’t perfect—what movie is?—but it has much more entertainment and thought-provocation value than most flicks.

I got to see and hear some scientists whose books I’ve enjoyed: Amit Goswami from the University of Oregon, and Fred Alan Wolf. I agreed with most of what they and others talked about, but the “quantum physics says we create our own reality” theme is a stretch that goes over the edge of even cutting-edge science. Goswami himself says in his first book, “The Self-Aware Universe,” that a universal rather than individual consciousness has to bring reality into manifestation.

If this weren’t the case, the laws of nature wouldn’t bear much resemblance to the utterly dependable laws we are familiar with. In his book Goswami likens the situation to people coming to a four-way intersection and choosing what color the light should turn: red or green. Chaos would result, cars crashing into each other. Obviously, this isn’t the way the universe works. Regularity and order prevail on the macro level where we live and breathe. Only on the subatomic level is quantum unpredictability and uncertainty clearly evident.

In my book I quote Roger Penrose as saying that early on people hoped to find evidence for human free will in the randomness of quantum events. But, says Penrose, randomness is a pretty shaky foundation for free will, which should permit us to do just what we want to do, not take a chance on a roulette wheel of possibilities.

That quibble aside, my main problem with the movie, Laurel and I thoroughly enjoyed the examination of another theme: how our thoughts and emotions form a prism through which we see the world only darkly. Often not how it is, but how we have been conditioned to see it. Breaking that conditioning is what psychotherapy and meditation are all about. Science too, since regular paradigm shifts are necessary to boost scientific understanding out of well-worn ruts and into new paths.

It was Fred Alan Wolf, I believe, who said in the movie that our planet’s religions are out of sync with a modern scientific world view, and that one day they will seem as out-moded as so many other discredited perspectives—such as that the Sun revolves around the Earth. I couldn’t agree more. Mystery, Wolf said, should be embraced, rather than feebly explained away through the superstitions offered up by traditional Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the like (Buddhism seems more in tune with reality to me, but not by much).

Consider: physicists believe that only 4% of the physical universe is made of ordinary matter, with some 21% being composed of dark (unseen) matter and 75% of dark energy (I think I have these percentages right). So how can anyone consider that we know much about the cosmos when we don’t even know what 96% of it is made of, much less how the universe came to be and what the meaning of all this is? Mysteries surround us. Mysteries are us. I’d much rather embrace the reality of mystery than the illusion of religious “answers.”

Serena, our Tai Chi Zen dog

Last weekend we saw more evidence of the marvelous powers of Serena, who, in addition to being astoundingly beautiful and amazingly intelligent, has canine Tai Chi and Zen down to a “T” (bone, she could only wish, if she wasn’t the animal companion of strict vegetarians).

Just as an outdoor fire is called Kentucky TV (as we were told by real live Kentuckians), so is Serena’s view out of a living room window of our Camp Sherman cabin Dog TV. For it faces a wood platform by the fire pit, under which live a flourishing family of chipmunks. Laurel leaves almonds by the holes that lead under the platform, luring the increasingly chubby chipmunks outside to fill their cheeks.

Serena watches intently. Periodically she comes up to us and turns her head toward the door, a non-verbal plea: “Let me out. Chipmunks are calling.” When we finally succumb and open the front door, she usually doesn’t rush pell-mell to the platform. Wise Dog knows better. Instead, she goes into her Tai Chi mode.

This is one of her four Tai Chi postures, the right-rear-leg-moves-as-slowly-as-growing-grass pose. She also has variations for her other three legs. Exceedingly graceful, eyes focused intently on the chipmunk who is standing beside its hole, gnawing away on an almond, she takes minutes to move just a few feet. We stand at the kitchen window, once more awed by Our Baby.

There finally comes a moment at which Serena seems to know that she has reached the Motionless Point, the place some five feet from the chipmunk hole on the perimeter of her hoped-for prey’s Dart Zone. She moves even deeper into her canine Zen No-Mind. Absolutely at rest. One focus: chipmunk.

Something breaks the spell. Dog. Chipmunk. Hard to determine. A five-foot leap takes longer than a five-inch dart. No matter. Chop wood, carry water, stalk chipmunk. One thing at a time. Now, become one with the hole. Stillness. Zen stalking. Wait for the within to reveal itself.

How everyone can write for a living, guaranteed

From an essay in “Writers and their Craft” by novelist Frederick Busch: “I write for a living. I write, that is to say, for my life—for my life’s sake. Which is to say: when I write, I consider my life to be at stake; the values that help me to measure it, and the moments, memories, and emotions of it that I cherish—the people, therefore, whose presence in it makes me want to keep experiencing my life—all are at risk when I work. It feels that way to me. I believe the feeling to be true, and I write from that belief.”

Nicely said. A blogger’s creed.

Power to the weblog, right on!

OK, I’m showing my age in the title of this posting. But I don’t care. I’m excited that my $80 a year HinesSight weblog has stimulated some change in the $300,000,000 (eventually, perhaps) Sustainable Fairview development. This is the power of the weblog: truth. Not absolute unarguable Platonic truth—I don’t make a claim to that—but truth-as-I-see-it truth, which is what we deal with in the Blogosphere.

Today I got a group email from the management of Sustainable Fairview Associates and read the minutes of some recent member/investor meetings that I no longer go to (see “Sustainability” category to the right for some postings that describe my excellent reasons to stay home). Imagine the thrill that went up my spine when I noted a mention of me in the minutes of an Advisory Committee meeting. And my name was spelled right!

One of the project staff had noted that Internet searches of “Sustainable Fairview” or “Sustainable Fairview Associates” come up with my not-so-positive weblog postings ranked at or near the top of the search results. Well, I deserve it. I’ve put a lot of effort into pointing out the deficiencies in the planning and implementation of what was supposed to be a world class 275 acre mixed-use sustainable development here in Salem.

The minutes also noted that another top-ranked result is a sample Sustainable Fairview web site that the internationally recognized architect Christopher Alexander put up when he, briefly, was enthusiastic about working with the project (before his enthusiasm was crushed by the same forces that crushed my own). So, aside from a few local newspaper archived articles, just about all the information available on the Internet comes from people who aren’t happy with the direction Sustainable Fairview is taking.

A few years too late, now this negative publicity is getting management to finally think seriously about putting up their own web site. The irony in all this is wonderful, since I suggested a web site back in mid-2002 as part of a missive to my fellow Sustainable Fairview Associates’ members: "Communities Need Communication.” (I’ve uploaded this file in part to aid some future urban planning grad student whose thesis is on the history of this fascinatingly disappointing sustainable development effort).

I dug this out today and reread it. I was impressed with all the great ideas in this memo, and I’m not saying that just because I wrote it. Sure, that’s part of the reason, but I’d say “right on!” to whoever expresses the seemingly unarguable sentiment that a community without communication isn’t really a community. Unfortunately, nothing much was done along the lines I suggested, which in my not very humble opinion goes a long ways toward explaining why the project is stumbling along right now, rather than leaping ahead.

Last year I made another offer to the SFA management to work with a web site designer on a Sustainable Fairview site. All I wanted was a broadband satellite connection installed at my home. So for a few thousand dollars SFA now would have a beautiful informative web site if they had listened to me. Do I sound bitter and disappointed? Hopefully I do, because that is how I feel.

Read “Communities Need Communication” and you hear the voice of a new SFA member who was willing to work like crazy, whether paid or a volunteer, for a sustainable development he and his wife deeply believed in. Now, my voice is that of a disillusioned investor who just wants to get his money out of the project as soon as possible.

Multiply me by the many people like me who have similarly lost faith in Sustainable Fairview, and you know why I feel so bad—not so much for me, but for the Green creativity and energy that have gone down the tubes at a time the Earth needs that so much.

My inner child and Camp Sherman

Bicycling around Camp Sherman today, it hit me: my inner child wants to return to the days when people bought gas at the town store from pumps with a shell/Shell on top, and when going to the post office meant you’d catch up on the town gossip and get a chance to sit a spell on the bench outside.

This was the sort of town I grew up in, Three Rivers, California. Just a few hundred people back in the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. A tourist/ranching town with, yes, three forks of the Kaweah River. My mother and I lived within earshot of the Middle Fork, so I listened to the roar of the rapids every summer night when I went to sleep with the window open—just like Laurel and I do now when we come to Camp Sherman, with the Metolius River rustling along just a few hundred feet away.

Anyone who grows up in a small town never leaves that place. Well, I’m sure the same is true for those who grow up in big cities. But there is something about a small town like Camp Sherman or Three Rivers that grabs you in a way that New York or Chicago can’t. Intimacy. Familiarity. Human scale. Naturalness.

My grandmother always enjoyed talking art with the garbageman when she visited Three Rivers. He was an artist, as she was, and collected the town garbage to make extra money. He’d pull up in his truck, my grandmother would go out on the porch, and they’d chat about this and that. No rush. No supervisor waiting to dock his pay if he was late. Small town time. Different from big city time.

For the locals, everybody knows your name when you go into the Camp Sherman store. We’re just quasi-local, but we feel at home there too. One day, I hope, we’ll just have to say “the usual” when we stop in for our end-of-biking lattes. The post office serves as the Camp Sherman library. People, us included, bring in books and magazines and leave them on shelves and a table in the lobby. No check-out system. Just trust. Take what you want. Bring it back when you want.

My mother was the postmistress for one of the smallest post offices in the United States, the walk-in closet sized Kaweah post office up the North Fork. The Camp Sherman post office is giant by comparison. When I was ten I used to ride my bike to see her at work. Today, at fifty-five, I rode my bike to another little country post office. My mother wasn’t there. Also, she was.

How to pack heavy for a weekend trip

You paid good money for a full-sized SUV or, as in our case, a station wagon. You need to make use of it! Fill it up! Learn to pack heavy for a weekend trip! Hey, gasoline is over $2 a gallon. If your rig is almost empty you’re going to burn almost as much expensive irreplaceable fossil fuel as if it were full. So why not load it up with as much stuff as possible?

(click to enlarge)

This is our packing philosophy, as evidenced by this photo I took just before we left for Camp Sherman yesterday afternoon. You can’t see all the crap in the back seat (or what would be a back seat if it was possible for anyone to sit there), but believe me, it is fully stacked side to side and top to bottom.

We have perfected the art of packing heavy, so I’d like to share some tips about how you too can make optimum use of your vehicle, even if you’re just driving two hours to a central Oregon cabin to (ha-ha) “get away from it all.” “All” not including, of course, everything listed below—the bare necessities of life for the Hines’.

I realize that likely you will need to modify these tips to suit your own peculiar lifestyle, “peculiar” being my term for any lifestyle that does not precisely match our own. Feel free to do so. We have found what works for us in filling our 1999 Volvo XC station wagon up to the headliner. You will have to be as diligent as we have been in refining your own Pack Heavy formula. Here’s ours:

(1) Get a large dog. Serena is 78 pounds. By itself, her auto lair takes up half of the rear storage area. Plus, she also needs a large container of dog food and a bag of chew sticks for her nightly dessert.

(2) Take bicycles, even if you aren’t sure you will use them. This makes you look Oregon-outdoorsy as you’re driving along or parked, which is especially important if you’re going to central Oregon. There, cars of locals are required to simultaneously sport a kayak, skis/snowboard, and mountain bikes, so you’ll look like a Willamette Valley weenie if you’ve got nothing on top when you pull up to the Bend Starbucks. Be sure to use a bike rack that requires the front wheel to be removed, as two wheels take up a lot of space inside the car. Bring bike helmets and strap-on bags for maximum space utilization.

(3) Adhere to a picky healthy, organic, vegetarian, supplement-rich diet. Since you’ll never be able to find the food you like to eat where you’re going, you’ll have to take it with you in a very large storage box that takes up a good share of the rear seat. Empty everything in your refrigerator at home and put it all in a huge cooler that fills up the other half of the dog area.

(4) Stay wired. Take both of your laptops, one in a computer backpack and the other in a computer case, plus the requisite trackballs, power cords, and other accessories you might need. If you’re married you need to bring two computers, because each of you has your own email addresses, messages, files, URL favorites and what-not that you can’t live without. As is occurring at this very moment, this allows one of you to bid on dichoric glass earrings on Ebay while the other writes a weblog posting (hopefully she’ll let me have a few minutes on the phone tonight to get this online; it all depends on the status of the global dichroic earring trading market, which is far beyond my ability to comprehend).

(5) Be prepared for any climatic condition. Sure, it’s May and the forecast is for 60 degree partly cloudy weather. But who trusts the weatherperson? This is central Oregon. It could get cold. It could get hot. Unlikely, but you had better cover all the bases. This means heavy jackets, and shorts. Long-sleeved shirts, and t-shirts. Hiking shoes, and sandals. Much better to take more than you need even though you (the male you, at least) will end up wearing the same jeans and shirt the whole weekend.

(6) Take every unread magazine in the house and a bunch of unread books. Plus a couple of five-day rental DVDs from Hollywood Video you can play on your new computer. All this will fill up a good-sized container. It’s crucial that you avoid any risk of ending up sitting in a televisonless cabin in the woods with nothing to do except, god forbid, talking to your spouse, or, even more god forbid, quietly musing on the contents of your own mind.

(7) Don’t rely on natural means of exercising when you travel. If you simply walk and enjoy the great outdoors you’ll miss a great opportunity to fill up those last crevices in your nearly-crammed car. It’s good that you have the bikes which you might not use, but it’s even better to take more things that you may or may not use. Large ball for Pilates exercises, plus foot pump. Staff and bokken (wooden sword) for martial arts training. Toss in an inflatable kayak if you have room for it. You can dream of using all this stuff while you take your naps on the couch.

Well, I hope this has helped anyone who suffers from too-much-room-left-in-the-car syndrome. Of course, if you have two kids or more, plus a large dog, you should be writing this rather than me. I’ve geared this to the childless couples like us who need to learn how to fill a two-ton car to capacity in order to haul 375 pounds of man, woman, and beast to a central Oregon “getaway.”

Choking on communion

Looking back, I believe it was a sign from God that I almost choked on the wafer that was put in my mouth at my Catholic first communion. When you’re eight or nine years old this is embarrassing stuff, gagging after the priest put the wafer on my tongue. It stuck to the roof of my mouth when I tried to swallow it and wouldn’t go down. I remember hoping to God (still on my knees, of course) that I wouldn’t spit out the wafer and have it end up on the floor, an inglorious way to treat the body of Christ.

Reading a story in yesterday’s Oregonian about Bishop Vlazny’s (he’s the leader of Roman Catholics in Western Oregon) declaration that any Catholic who is publicly at odds with church teaching shouldn’t get Holy Communion, I was incensed enough to wish that I had indeed coughed out that wafer. (Fortunately, I flamed out on Catholicism before I was “confirmed,” so I saved myself the step of rejecting dogma unworthy of being believed in).

Bishop Vlazny’s letter in which he explains his position is worth reading for the insight it gives into the mindset of those who believe that faith in a religious institution is synonymous with faith in God. This belief is used to control members of the institution and stifle independent thinking. It has no metaphysical foundation, and indeed is completely opposed to genuine spirituality.

I thought Jesus taught that no one should worship false idols, or put other gods before the true God. So how is it that Vlazny can say:

“The reception of Holy Communion is a sign that a person not only seeks union with God but also desires to live in communion with the church. Such communion is clearly violated when one publicly opposes serious church teaching. Reception of Holy Communion by such public dissenters betrays a blatant disregard for the serious meaning and purpose of the reception of the Eucharist.”

Clever. Vlazny links the body and blood of Christ to the body of the tenets of the Catholic Church, so anyone who wants to be united with Jesus and God has to accept every serious teaching of the church also. Though Christ said nothing about abortion, or gay marriage, or stem-cell research, a Catholic who publicly rejects the church’s position on these political issues is a failed Catholic and shouldn’t ask for communion.

If I was a Catholic, I’d say, “Fine. I don’t want communion. I want God.” Taking a step away from superstition (who really believes bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus?) and idolatry (putting politics ahead of spirituality) is taking a step toward God. A hundred or a thousand years from now I’m sure that people are going to say about modern Christianity, “I can’t believe that is how they worshipped God in the old days.”

I think science and spirituality are going to move closer and closer together, so the study of whatever lies beyond physicality will simply be the study of non-material reality, not something called “religion.” I have this fantasy of highly advanced extra-terrestrials signaling Earth that they want to exchange knowledge of the cosmos. When their ship lands, and consciousness-communication links are set up, a United Nations envoy says, “We are happy to greet you. Our scientists and our religious leaders are eager to share ideas with you.”

The extra-terrestrials pause and turn to their Super Galactic Dictionary. They are puzzled. “We understand your term for ‘scientist,’ as we too seek the truth about reality. But we do not know what is meant by ‘religious leader.’ Do you mean ‘story-teller’? If so, we have these too. They entertain us with subjective fantasy when we wish to take a break from objective truth.”

Bishop Vlazny is a story-teller, a master of ancient and modern fables. He should be laughed at rather than taken seriously. There is a lot to like about Christianity, but only insofar as it leads to the reality of God, not the falseness of politics.

There is no boat in this photo

I snapped this picture of Spring Lake about half an hour ago during my evening dog walk with Serena. There is no boat in this photo. Yesterday there would have been: a shiny aluminum rowboat upside down at the far end, barely visible, but irritatingly present. Boats left at our communal (common property) lake here in Spring Lake Estates are supposed to be locked to a cable near the picnic area. That rowboat wasn’t.

Every time I walked around the lake it bothered me to see it beached in a place it shouldn’t have been. In my eyes it was a large chunk of aluminum litter. I didn’t know who it belonged to. I made up a note explaining the neighborhood boat rules (which was within my purview, as I’m the secretary for the neighborhood association board of directors). I duct taped the note to the boat. I also added a mention of the need to move the boat in the board meeting minutes I recently sent out.

So that’s why there is no boat in this photo. But the more interesting question is, “Why is there still a boat in my memory?” I mean, “Why couldn’t I walk around the lake today and just see the lake as it is now, rather than a lake that used to have an aluminum rowboat at one end of it?” Will I ever be able to simply see what is really there, rather than what I want to either add to or subtract from what is really there?

The lake was beautiful this evening. The photo hardly does it justice. The lake was also beautiful yesterday, even with the boat beached where boats shouldn’t be beached. Those words “shouldn’t be” were at the root of my several-month-long mild irritation, the length of time the boat that shouldn’t have been there was there. Every time I saw it, along with what my eyes perceived I also was aware of that feeling, “This shouldn’t be.” But it was. “Shouldn’t be” and “was” warred with each other, Ideal vs. Real.

It’s difficult to decide who I really want to come out on top. I think, Real. But there’s such a strong urge toward Ideal in me, I don’t know if I want to let it go. The ideal situation (there I go again…) I suppose would be to see both Ideal and Real, not letting either one obscure the other. Could I walk around the lake, see the boat that shouldn’t be there, make a mental note to deal with the problem, and then simply calmly see what is really there? No irritation. No frustration. No inner voice saying, “That boat is an eyesore.”

Today I saw on CNN part of the now-famous Iraq decapitation video. Like most everyone else, I couldn’t just see what was shown. In my head I also saw images of what the video stimulated. Me being held hostage instead of the man who was actually killed. Or someone I loved. Fantasies of what should be done to the men who did the killing. Imaginations of what wasn’t shown on TV.

What if I could have just seen what was shown? Would I have been more human than I am now? Less human? The same? Is it good, bad, or indifferent to simply see what is really there, and not also feel that something shouldn’t be there that is there, or that something should be there that isn’t there? Does embracing an Ideal keep us from knowing reality as it is, the Real? Or does it bring us closer to the Real?

I’ve got lots of questions. No answers. That’s real.

[for my own arcane weblog reasons, I need to upload a smaller version of the photo also]

Writer’s revenge: reject the rejection slip

James Alexander Thom has a great piece in the Spring 2004 Author’s Guild Bulletin: “Rejection Flip.” I sometimes wonder whether forking out $90 a year to belong to the Author’s Guild makes sense, but articles like this one are priceless.

Plus, I get a certain satisfaction in turning to the last page of each issue of the Bulletin and reading the names of some fellow members who serve on the Guild Council: Judy Blume, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Crichton, Erica Jong, Scott Turow. Writing fame and fortune have evaded me so far, but hope springs eternal that someday I can at least stand on the fringes of such well-known company.

Anyway, Thom begins by saying, “One thing that will bring a smile to a writer’s face is hearing another writer talk about his rejection slips. The smile is usually rueful or wistful; sometimes it’s a smirk. When we talk about our rejection slips, we are family.” He goes on to relate his early history with rejection slips, then tells about his inspiration to reject the rejections:

“I became a connoisseur of rejection slips. Some were classy, and reflected well on the publishers. Others were poorly typed out, on cheap paper. Some came with typographical errors or bad grammar.

“Some of those I would send back, with a note saying they weren’t up to my standard: ‘Thank you for sending me this rejection slip. Unfortunately, I must return it. It begins to lag in the second paragraph, and the conclusion seems somehow contrived….’ Or, ‘After careful reading of your rejection of my story, I must recommend that you revise it, or seek the help of a professional editor. You seem to have trouble with punctuation and dangling participles. Sincerely…
P.S. If you resubmit this rejection slip, please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.

“Well, why not? I had as much right to dislike their rejection slips as they had to dislike my manuscripts. I worked a year on a book; it merited a thoughtful turndown. A professional rejection slip should be a little masterpiece.”

I love this. I (almost) look forward to getting my next rejection slip.

Vote for Rupert, Smile at Rumsfeld

Now that almost 24 hours has passed since last night’s “Survivor” debacle, the depression that hit me when Amber won is finally starting to fade. I should count my blessings, of course, because if Rob had won I’d still be in bed with the covers pulled over my head, trying to block out the harsh sunlight of reality.

But since Rob proposed to Amber right there on live TV before the votes were counted, he ended up getting the million dollars anyway. Or at least as much of it as Amber will let him have, which likely is most of it. Given her rather submissive attitude—how many times have I heard her say “I love Rob because he makes me feel so safe”?—I suspect good old Boston Rob will be in control of the purse strings in their relationship.

I was greatly pleased to see that the grievous wrong that was committed on Sunday night can be partially rectified Thursday. Jeff Probst announced that CBS is going to fork out another million dollars to the non-Amber survivor who gets the most votes in an online poll. So, even if you have never watched “Survivor,” take my advice about who should win the second $1,000,000: Rupert.

Click on this polling link right now and cast your vote. Rupert is honest, a hard worker, a tie-dyed shirt wearer, and a devoted husband/father. Plus, he’s got a great howl/yell that even bests Howard Dean’s, which he featured on the live show last night.

Also, as down as I was this morning, it was a joy to find a link to this “Rumsfeld Fighting School of Martial Arts” page in the course of perusing what was happening in the world of Oregon weblogs. It takes a while to load completely if you have a slow Internet connection, but it definitely is worth the wait. I was able to smile through my Survivor sadness as I studied this wonderful compendium of Rumsfeld martial art moves. However, I didn’t notice a photo of his “double thumbs up” gesture that was much in evidence at the recent Armed Services Committee hearings; hopefully that will be added to Rumsfeld’s deadly repertoire (could be an eye gouge, I would think).

Getting anxious about the “Survivor” finale

With all there is to worry about in the world today—Iraq, global warming, gas prices, getting Windows to work reliably—now I’ve got to spend an anxious 24 hours worrying about who is going to win “Survivor.” OK, I realize that many people don’t even watch “Survivor,” much less agonize over the outcome, but this is a pretty big deal for Laurel and me.

Thursday night is sacred to us. We sit down together in front of the TV after the week’s episode has taped (or, rather, PVR’d) and hugely enjoy immersing ourselves in the reality soap opera that is Survivor All-Stars. For the uninitiated, this current Survivor series brought together 16 winners and notable contestants from previous series, the best of the best, the crème de la crème. Now it is down to Rob, Amber, Jenna, and Rupert—listed in descending order of my desire to see win.

If Rob wins Sunday night in the final two-hour episdode, I will spend next week in a deep depression. This will be a sign that something is seriously wrong with the world, a much more eventful sign than the Iraqi prisoner abuse, increasing desertification, ravaging of the rain forest, or Bush’s ability to remain tied with Kerry in the polls after all of his lies and screw ups. I can handle these little things, but Rob winning over Rupert would rock to the core my faith in cosmic justice.

For several weeks now Rob has connived and lied his way along, stabbing people in the back whom he had made alliances with and vowed to support. Now, this happens all the time in “Survivor,” but Rob’s mildly annoying Boston accent and his more seriously annoying romantic relationship with Amber would make him the most unappealing Survivor winner in history for us. Richard Hatch, the first winner, had a certain brazen “Who gives a f---k?” attitude that was honest and endearing. Rob has a similar modus operandi, but it rubs the wrong way.

We love “Survivor” because the dynamics between the contestants mirror so well what goes on in everyday life, on whatever level you choose. Looking nationally, Rob represents George Bush to me: cocky, manipulative, overly confident, shallow. Yet also finely attuned to people, athletic, charismatic, a leader. Rupert is much like Howard Dean (remember him?): straightforward, loud, honest, a hard worker, rough around the edges. I like Rupert a lot more than Rob, but, as so often happens, Rob is the sort of guy who seems to end up on top more often than not.

Last week he won a challenge that earned him a new car. And when Rob chose Amber (big surprise) to go with him on a movie “date” in the car, she ended up getting a new car too. I wanted to puke. Later in the episode, when Rob won the immunity challenge also, I wanted to double-puke. And at the end of the show, when Rob voted off good-natured Tom, who had a firm trust that Rob would stand by his alliance with him, I wanted to triple-puke. Not a good Thursday for me.

I can only hope that tomorrow night is easier on my stomach. But I’ll have my barf bag ready in case Jeff Probst somehow ends up saying, “And the winner of Survivor All-Stars is…Boston Rob!” It’s a quadruple-puke just thinking about it.

WildBlue satellite internet, my backup to Lucy Liu

My conversation with a Qwest DSL supervisor yesterday went just about as horribly as I expected. When I asked why the 70 or so homes in our quasi-rural neighborhood just five miles from the Salem city limits, and two miles from the nearest existing DSL “crossbox,” couldn’t get DSL, he evaded the question. “We’d have to go through too many gyrations,” he said irritatingly. “So this is something we’re just not going to do.”

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Public Utility representative. Your dedication to bringing much-needed utilities to the public is underwhelming. To work out my frustration I dashed off a complaining email to the Oregon PUC, pointing out what I’m quite sure is the truth: Qwest is refusing to bring DSL to Spring Lake Estates not because it is technically infeasible, but because Qwest wouldn’t make enough money. The supervisor so much as admitted this when he told me, “Your area doesn’t meet our criteria.” Meaning, $$$ rather than $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Unfortunately, I was told by the PUC that DSL is an interstate commerce deal and that I needed to voice my concerns to the federal FCC. Yeah, right. Somehow I can’t visualize Michael Powell making a mega-corporation toe the line on customer service (he’s too busy keeping breast-flashing off the airwaves to worry about little things like broadband internet access).

So my Lucy Liu/samurai sword fantasy (see previous post) was strengthened after talking with the unresponsive Qwest supervisor. But I have to be realistic, since Lucy and her band of Yakuza may not be available, even if they read my weblog and want to help out. Another problem is that Lucy and company aren’t as real as I would like them to be, being the product of Quentin Tarantino’s marvelous imagination.

So I’ve been spending some time (slowly) surfing the Internet, looking for alternatives to Qwest’s DSL. Starband and DirecWay satellite internet services are possibilities (a neighbor uses Starband and seems to like it). But they’re spendy. And I don’t get good intuitive feelings from either of these firm’s web sites.

I might be getting my hopes up prematurely, but an up and coming satellite internet provider, WildBlue Communications, looks more promising. Those of you out there (I recall WildBlue says there are 30 million of us) who lack access to DSL or cable broadband might want to get on WildBlue’s “priority wait list.” If their satellite gets launched in a few months as they expect, and the service is as good and fairly priced as they promise, this could be the broadband answer for me.

Unless Lucy Liu comes through. Lucy, are you reading me? I need you. I’m not getting any respect from Qwest.

Kill Bill, Volume 1 (and Volume 3: The Qwest)

I’ve got a new plan for finally getting DSL in our neighborhood. I came up with it after making use of a two-for-one Hollywood Video coupon, which enabled me to watch “Kill Bill: Volume 1” along with “The Secret Lives of Dentists” the past few days. It took me that long to finish “Kill Bill,” because I had to watch it in snatches when Laurel wasn’t within eyeshot or earshot of the television.

For some reason that, after fourteen years of marriage I still haven’t fully understood, Laurel believes that almost every movie should be (1) realistic, and (2) uplifting. She also believes that no movie should show (3) blood spurting from decapitated bodies, or (4) limbs being sliced off people. Thus, these four criteria put “Kill Bill” near the bottom of her films-to-see list—maybe even in some cavern under the bottom.

I, on the other hand, can hugely enjoy movies that revel in everything that Laurel finds objectionable. Which is why I liked “Kill Bill” a lot. It is violent in a cartoonish sort of way, and wonderfully unrealistic (I loved how Uma Thurman, a,k.a. the Bride, flew first class on airplanes with her samurai sword neatly tucked next to her seat—I guess security was on a coffee break when she boarded ).

However, I disagreed with Laurel’s view that this movie about a single-minded quest for revenge wasn’t uplifting. I was inspired by the Bride’s determination to right the horrible wrongs that were inflicted upon her (and the rest of her wedding party). Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I liked it when the Bride turned to the young daughter of a woman she had just killed and said: “I know you’re sad your mother is dead. But believe me, she had it coming. When you grow up, if you feel that a wrong has been done here today, you can come find me.” (not a direct quote…the DVD has been returned)

In another scene the beautiful-but-tough-as-nails Yakuza boss, Lucy Liu, struts into a Tokyo nightspot with a posse of her black-suited, Zorro-masked henchmen (and one henchwoman) . Everyone has a samurai sword slung over his or her back. Not surprisingly, they get treated extremely obsequiously by the staff and get seated in a prime spot above the dance floor. Nothing like being accompanied by a few dozen tough guys with samurai swords if you want a good table.

After talking with a Qwest technician this afternoon about our (rather dim) chances for getting DSL service any time soon in our Spring Lake Estates neighborhood, I couldn’t help fantasizing about a “Kill Bill, Volume 3: The Qwest.” This would be a short subject film, really, just a few minutes long with a simple plot.

A good-sized collection of people who live just five miles from a large town’s city limits (we would call it “Salem” for a touch of realism), and just 2.3 miles from an existing DSL junction box, desperately want high-speed Internet service. They are too far from town for cable, and satellite access costs too much. For several years they have waited patiently for an unfeeling, distant, mega-corporation (we would call it “Qwest” for another touch of realism) to bring them the phone service they feel they deserve.

But Qwest keeps coming up with one excuse after another, and one day (make it May 5) an aggrieved neighbor learns that everyone in Falls City, among other remote places, has DSL available to them, while these folks just five miles from Salem do not. This pisses them off. Not angrily, but Uma Thurman style coldly-calculatingly. Conveniently, a Yakuza mob boss, played again by Lucy Liu, lives in their peaceful rural environs—for reasons this short subject won’t have time to explain.

Lucy listens to the plaint of her DSL-hungry neighbors and agrees to help them out. All she needs to know, she says, is the office address of the area’s DSL supervisor. She whispers some instructions to her henchmen. They leave with their samurai swords. A week later everyone is downloading movies over the Internet. They invite the DSL supervisor over for tea (this is a movie Laurel would watch—no one gets hurt). Not surprisingly, he feels like he can’t refuse.

The Secret Lives of Dentists

We finished watching “The Secret Lives of Dentists” on DVD last night, a Sundance sort of movie. Another way of saying “Sundance sort of movie” is “grittily realistic, well acted, and a film that made us immediately watch The Daily Show so we could get smiles back on our faces.” Nonetheless, we enjoyed “The Secret Lives of Dentists,” which centers around Campbell Scott’s increasingly strong suspicion that his wife, Hope Davis, is having an affair with someone she met at an operatic production.

And that just about sums up the plot line. Denis Leary, a trumpet-playing patient, serves as Scott’s alter ego, popping up all the time in mixed fantasy/reality scenes where Leary suggests stronger action to Scott than the normally mild-mannered dentist is prone to: “Tell her that you want to kill her.” When Scott blurts this out, Davis and their three daughters start to see a different side of dear old daddy.

You get to view quite a few scenes of close-up dental work (both Scott and Davis are dentists) and lots of scenes of people throwing up from the flu. In the annals of filmdom, I believe “The Secret Lives of Dentists” features the longest and most realistic depiction of a family fighting influenza, which strikes first Scott, then a child, then Davis, then a child, and then the last child (if I remember correctly.)

Through all this upchucking and “Daddy! Daddy! I need a glass of water!” Scott carries out his fatherly/husbandly duties admirably, though both Laurel and I expected that he would snap at any moment and massacre his entire family just to stop all the complaining. When Scott would show signs of stress I was uncomfortably reminded of my own shameful baby-shaking when my daughter, Celeste, was about 18 months old and wouldn’t stop crying no matter what I did during a three-hour stretch when her mother was out shopping. (See item #4 in my "30 Reasons for a Father Not to Have a Daughter” piece).
Download 30 Reasons Not to Have a Daughter.pdf (25.8K)

As the movie was about over Laurel said, “Well, this sure makes me happy that I never had children.” I couldn’t argue with her. However, any parent knows that all the sleepless nights spent taking care of little ones become worth it when your child grows up, enters his or her teenage years, and keeps you awake all night when he or she takes the car without permission and doesn’t come home (oops, bad example…it becomes worth it at some later point, as I recall).

My favorite bit of dialogue in the movie came right at the start when Scott is examining his new patient, Leary. Scott says that he can see lots of problems in Leary’s mouth caused by poor previous dental work. “That’s what every dentist says,” Leary replies. “No dentist ever has anything good to say about what previous dentists have done. A year from now I’m going to be in some other chair listening to someone else tell me what a crappy job you did on my teeth.” This is exactly what Laurel and I have experienced.

Running so fast to become motionless

In my soon-to-be-published book about the Greek philosopher Plotinus, I quote Marsilio Ficino, a fifteenth-century devotee of Plato—who wrote about the folly of men who seek to find rest through motion:

“Because of their ceaseless longing for what is to come, they do not enjoy what is present. Although movement has to be stilled for there to be rest; yet those men are forever beginning new and different movements, in order that they may one day come to rest.”

All too true. The older I get, the more I realize how much time I’ve wasted in circuitous efforts to be happy. I can’t believe how much anxious effort I’ve expended in trying to become peaceful Take investing, for example. Today I sent off a quarterly asset management check to Steven Evanson, a great guy who enables us to invest in DFA index funds. (Dimensional Fund Advisors is a financial geek’s dream, run by a bunch of highly sophisticated folks who meld academic research about what works in investing with practical index-based money management).

I’ve become a whole-hearted believer in index investing. It’s the way to go if you want to (1) keep up with the markets, both nationally and internationally, and (2) be able to sleep peacefully at nights while doing so. For a long time I was an active investor, meaning I activated my anxiety circuits on an almost daily basis. “Should I buy this fund? Should I sell this fund? Should I change my asset allocation mix? Should I subscribe to this financial newsletter?” And so on.

Money is supposed to help make us happy. If making money makes us more anxious than happy, then something is wrong. When the means is at cross-purposes to the end you’re seeking, this is a sign to look for another means. Which, for me, led to index investing, the humble Way to Financial Enlightenment. You don’t try to be better than the next guy, just equal. If the markets as a whole rise, our investments rise. If they fall, we fall. Indexing means peacefully flowing with the grand river of Economy, not desperately trying to find a special short cut down some side channels that you think no one else can follow except you.

We hardly ever do anything different with our investments now. We let them ride. We don’t worry about them (well, hardly ever). Enduring a lot of anxiety to make some money that will enable us to eventually buy some things that we hope will make us happy is just too circuitous a road to well-being. I’m too old to take lengthy loops. I want to have fun getting to the place where I expect to have fun.

Which is why I, once again, stayed home tonight instead of going to a meeting of Sustainable Fairview Associates. I sent my fellow members a couple of emails that described my brilliant assessment of where the Sustainable Fairview property development project has gone wrong, and what needs to be done to get it back on track. Per usual, my unexcelled perceptions, recommendations, and observations probably will be given the attention they usually get from management—a quick glance before being chucked into the Gadfly Discard Bin.

So I decided that the most direct commitment to sustainability would be working on our sprinkler system, which we use to sustain our garden, which sustains our spirits. As I was pulling up the sprinkler heads, unscrewing the nozzles, extracting the hard-water/iron encrusted filter pieces, and cleaning them off with a toothbrush before reassembling the sprinkler, I thought: “This is so real. So satisfying. So literally down-to-earth. I’m so glad I’m here outside in the sunshine getting my hands dirty right now with nature, rather than sitting in a meeting talking about how to make a natural development happen sometime in the future.”

It isn’t always possible to make our philosophy of life identical with our life. But it is something to shoot for. Otherwise, we always are expecting to meet up with what we believe will fulfill us around the next corner. I’m finding that the more corners I’ve turned, the less I believe that what I don’t have now will be found then. Running isn’t going to make me motionless, I’m increasingly sure of that.

A fresh techno-fantasy

I’m writing this on my new best friend: a too-wonderful-for-words emachines M6809 laptop. “Emey” (pronounced ee-mey), as he wants to be called, is going to change my life in two ways, one shallowly technological, the other deeply philosophical. At least, that’s the spin I’m putting on Emey’s purchase with my wife, Laurel, who could buy a heck of a lot of $10 fused glass earrings on Ebay for Emey’s $1,390 Best Buy cost ($1,640 - $250 in rebates).

On the technological side, I don’t think there is a better price/performance deal on any laptop, though Emey’s sibling, the M6805, is a great computer also. I headed into Best Buy focused on the M6805, but a persuasive sales guy talked me into spending an extra $140 for DVD recording capability and an 80 GB hard drive rather than a 60 GB. On both machines you get a 15.4 inch widescreen display, a mobile AMD Athlon 64 bit processor, a 6 in 1 digital media reader (which, sadly, should have been 7 in 1, as it doesn’t read the proprietary card for the Olympus camera that I use).

Plus, you get some cool-looking blue lights that illuminate the power button and various indicator icons. Plus, plus, the computer doesn’t start up with all the AOL/RealPlayer/Microsoft crap on the desktop that my Dell laptop irritated me with. When I turned on Emey for the first time I saw icons for the Recycle Bin and Adobe Reader, and that was all. Bliss. Lots of software came with the computer, but it was appropriately squirreled away.

Finally, Best Buy has a nice $25 service for we slow-dial-up challenged Internet users. I left Emey with them for an hour and they used their broadband connection to download all the post-Service Pack 1 Windows and security updates that would have taken me forever to obtain on my own. All in all, I found that purchasing a computer at Best Buy was a smooth, satisfying experience, and I’m not just saying that because the sales guy threw in the $10 “Reward Zone” card for free (a good customer relations move on a $1,400 purchase).

But it’s the philosophical life-changing benefits that Emey is going to help me gain that make me the most excited. For I’m going to make this computer a tangible reflection of the Spring Consciousness Cleaning that I am convinced is the key to making sense of this crazy cosmos that we all live in. I’ve got way too many unnecessary thoughts, emotions, memories, imaginations, and what-not stored away in my neurons. The more I simplify my cranium, the better I feel. As a favorite saying goes, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” If it can be discarded, it isn’t real, it isn’t permanent, it isn’t to be counted on for support, either in this life or in the afterlife.

My Dell Inspiron 8200 has suffered from the same disease of complexification. It has crashed/died and been reinstalled/resurrected too many times to be a reliable friend anymore. I have put so many programs, so many documents, so many downloads into Dellie. I haven’t taken hardly any out. It’s time to start fresh. Rather than trying to bring order to a messed-up hard drive, I’m going to begin with a clean Emey slate. Well, as clean as Windows XP and the software that came with the M6809 permit.

Then I’m going to bring into Emey only what I really need. What is truly important. What I can’t do without.

I think I’m going to be surprised by how spare this will be, compared to what I have in my Dell computer now. The same applies to my own internal hard drive, those 100 billion or so neurons inside my head that know way too much about what isn’t important, and know way too little about what is: the simple truth of what lies at the heart of reality, which logically must be the same for both the little bit of the cosmos that is me (and you) and the whole of which I am a part (assuming that the essence of ultimate reality is one, not many).

We’re off on an adventure, Emey and me. It feels good to be heading off with my new best (non-human) friend. I’ve got 69.1 GB free on Emey. I hope this inspires me to get my own consciousness equally clear.