Saturday, August 28, 2004
Must we make it so EASY for the evil to be evil?
(Let me preface the following rant by saying that when I say "evil," I'm NOT referring to accidents, honest mistakes, things done mindlessly while drunk or angry, etc... I'm talking about EVIL, aka deliberate ugly, hurtful behavior by people who are ugly where it counts-on the inside.)
Sometimes it feels like I've spent half my life warning people that once they see a "friend" engaging in evil behavior they need to realize that an evil person is no one's friend, and cut them loose before they become the next target... and the other half of my life saying "I told you so" to people when they got shredded by the evil types they refused to kick to the curb.
Have you ever consciously realized how LITTLE it takes for most people to shrug off bad behavior and pretend it didn't matter, as if it shouldn't be part of the info used to judge the worth of the wrongdoer? Most times, the evil one doesn't even have to make any effort; just the passage of a few weeks, or even DAYS, is enough for people to act as if the evil evaporated and somehow doesn't count any more.
An evil person doesn't have to wait around for memories to fade if they'd rather not, though; all they have to do is utter a few pleasantries, and everyone within earshot acts as if it cancels out the wrongdoing. An example that took place today perfectly illustrates this, and was, as you may have guessed, the inspiration for this rant:
We have a house in our otherwise lovely neighborhood that has drug dealers living in it. I didn't find out until a flood of cop cars showed up a couple of weeks ago, and my husband instantly knew which house they were going to (he'd apparently seen numerous suspicious things over there, and had even been offered the chance to purchase drugs from them, and hadn't bothered to tell me); 2 men were taken from the house in handcuffs. The cops showed up again yesterday, but no one was home; I don't imagine that they were there to deliver doughnuts, and that fact that they spent a long time talking to a couple of kids, and even took them along to the dealers' house, made us wonder if the latest thing from the scumbags was that they tried to deal to 10 year olds. We were just SEETHING with revulsion for these despicable creatures... until one of them came to our door and asked my husband for a cup of milk, after which my husband was suddenly saying how NICE the lowlife was, and I was reminding him that this is a DRUG DEALER, and he was shrugging and shuffling his feet and saying "Yeah, but..." about an individual who was likely trying to get grammar school kids to do drugs.... and... and... and it's lucky that he got me that DVD yesterday, because I would cheerfully have STRANGLED him otherwise.
What does it take, folks? What does it take to make one single person on this Earth grasp that a person who does evil is an EVIL PERSON, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives, and that no matter how much time has passed since their last evil act, it is NOT canceled out, and that it doesn't matter HOW nice they were to you, or continue to be to you, that does NOT mean that you should enable them to continue on their evil way by providing them with friendship and support, much less offer your butt as their next target to kick... won't anyone reject an evil person even to save themselves?!!
Repeat after me: When I recognize that someone I know has done evil, I will reject them and kick them out of my life, thus saving myself a great deal of future grief and striking a blow against the wrongdoers of the world.
If you don't absorb the above philosophy, you'll live to regret it... and karma will send you someone to say "I told you so."
Sometimes it feels like I've spent half my life warning people that once they see a "friend" engaging in evil behavior they need to realize that an evil person is no one's friend, and cut them loose before they become the next target... and the other half of my life saying "I told you so" to people when they got shredded by the evil types they refused to kick to the curb.
Have you ever consciously realized how LITTLE it takes for most people to shrug off bad behavior and pretend it didn't matter, as if it shouldn't be part of the info used to judge the worth of the wrongdoer? Most times, the evil one doesn't even have to make any effort; just the passage of a few weeks, or even DAYS, is enough for people to act as if the evil evaporated and somehow doesn't count any more.
An evil person doesn't have to wait around for memories to fade if they'd rather not, though; all they have to do is utter a few pleasantries, and everyone within earshot acts as if it cancels out the wrongdoing. An example that took place today perfectly illustrates this, and was, as you may have guessed, the inspiration for this rant:
We have a house in our otherwise lovely neighborhood that has drug dealers living in it. I didn't find out until a flood of cop cars showed up a couple of weeks ago, and my husband instantly knew which house they were going to (he'd apparently seen numerous suspicious things over there, and had even been offered the chance to purchase drugs from them, and hadn't bothered to tell me); 2 men were taken from the house in handcuffs. The cops showed up again yesterday, but no one was home; I don't imagine that they were there to deliver doughnuts, and that fact that they spent a long time talking to a couple of kids, and even took them along to the dealers' house, made us wonder if the latest thing from the scumbags was that they tried to deal to 10 year olds. We were just SEETHING with revulsion for these despicable creatures... until one of them came to our door and asked my husband for a cup of milk, after which my husband was suddenly saying how NICE the lowlife was, and I was reminding him that this is a DRUG DEALER, and he was shrugging and shuffling his feet and saying "Yeah, but..." about an individual who was likely trying to get grammar school kids to do drugs.... and... and... and it's lucky that he got me that DVD yesterday, because I would cheerfully have STRANGLED him otherwise.
What does it take, folks? What does it take to make one single person on this Earth grasp that a person who does evil is an EVIL PERSON, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives, and that no matter how much time has passed since their last evil act, it is NOT canceled out, and that it doesn't matter HOW nice they were to you, or continue to be to you, that does NOT mean that you should enable them to continue on their evil way by providing them with friendship and support, much less offer your butt as their next target to kick... won't anyone reject an evil person even to save themselves?!!
Repeat after me: When I recognize that someone I know has done evil, I will reject them and kick them out of my life, thus saving myself a great deal of future grief and striking a blow against the wrongdoers of the world.
If you don't absorb the above philosophy, you'll live to regret it... and karma will send you someone to say "I told you so."
Friday, August 27, 2004
You know it's love when...
While at Blockbuster a couple of weeks ago, my husband spotted DVD's for the first 2 seasons of Showtime's rave-reviewed series, "Queer as Folk"; since nearly everyone we know, straight as well as gay, has told us how wonderful it is, he brought home the first DVD for us to see... and we got hooked. HOOKED. We've been getting the DVD's one by one, watching a couple of episodes per night, until last night, when, as it turned out, there was only ONE episode to see, as that DVD was the last one for the first season and had only 3 episodes. I was a little bummed when I found out that we had only one to watch last night instead of 2; when we watched the episode, and they had the sweetest, most romantic scene, followed by a MAJOR cliffhanger, I was REALLY bummed to not have the next DVD. When my husband came home at dinnertime today and announced that they didn't have the next one at our Blockbuster, I was CRAZED.
My husband tried calling around to see which Blockbusters in our county might have the DVD; surreally, they have no way to check and see what they have in stock. They suggested he use their website to get the info, but it turns out that the system has been disabled-it looks like you can do a search, but you can't.
I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd been watching the series in the normal way on Showtime, and would have had to wait MONTHS for the next episode; luckily, I didn't have to wait that long. I didn't even have to wait until tomorrow. My husband went back out, and spent THREE HOURS going from one Blockbuster to another until, just before midnight, he triumphantly returned with the first DVD for season 2.
If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Next time he leaves his dirty socks on the kitchen counter, I won't march down to his study and hold them over his nose. :-)
My husband tried calling around to see which Blockbusters in our county might have the DVD; surreally, they have no way to check and see what they have in stock. They suggested he use their website to get the info, but it turns out that the system has been disabled-it looks like you can do a search, but you can't.
I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd been watching the series in the normal way on Showtime, and would have had to wait MONTHS for the next episode; luckily, I didn't have to wait that long. I didn't even have to wait until tomorrow. My husband went back out, and spent THREE HOURS going from one Blockbuster to another until, just before midnight, he triumphantly returned with the first DVD for season 2.
If that's not love, I don't know what is.
Next time he leaves his dirty socks on the kitchen counter, I won't march down to his study and hold them over his nose. :-)
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Do souls/spirits/ghosts have feelings?
I've always assumed they did, but only, as I realized today, because that's the traditional view, NOT because I've actually encountered evidence that indicates that... and that doesn't cut it when one is trying to make an honest intellectual analysis. To try to sort this out, I started with what I DID know for sure:
I've seen, heard and interacted with them, so I know they exist.
Based on those interactions, I know they have intelligence. Actually, I've never seen a ghost solving calculus problems, so I don't know for sure that spirits maintain their FULL intellect (that's an interesting point for another day), but they're not brainless blobs of energy by any means.
Since they often seek out loved ones, as I've also experienced, that means they have memory; there's no guarantee that they have FULL memory, though, and I think a case could be made that they might only remember things they felt strongly about in life.
OK, so what about feelings? Their "coming back" to contact loved ones COULD be seen as evidence of them feeling love (among other possible explanations, such as a sense of duty or an inability to accept being dead)... but love may NOT be an emotion. Science has shown that ROMANTIC love is not an emotion; I posted about that here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_01_25_omniverse_archive.html#107553561466350536
But, are OTHER kinds of love emotions? We see all these sorts of love as facets of the same emotion, but, with one facet shown to not BE an emotion, what does that say about the other facets, that they're not emotions either, or just that romantic "love" needs to be called something else because it's nothing like "real love"?
And... that's as far as I can take this line of reasoning until more studies are done on love that answer those questions one way or another, or until I have an experience with a spirit that demonstrates some other emotion.
I sure hope that my next revelation about souls is a little more encouraging...
I've seen, heard and interacted with them, so I know they exist.
Based on those interactions, I know they have intelligence. Actually, I've never seen a ghost solving calculus problems, so I don't know for sure that spirits maintain their FULL intellect (that's an interesting point for another day), but they're not brainless blobs of energy by any means.
Since they often seek out loved ones, as I've also experienced, that means they have memory; there's no guarantee that they have FULL memory, though, and I think a case could be made that they might only remember things they felt strongly about in life.
OK, so what about feelings? Their "coming back" to contact loved ones COULD be seen as evidence of them feeling love (among other possible explanations, such as a sense of duty or an inability to accept being dead)... but love may NOT be an emotion. Science has shown that ROMANTIC love is not an emotion; I posted about that here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_01_25_omniverse_archive.html#107553561466350536
But, are OTHER kinds of love emotions? We see all these sorts of love as facets of the same emotion, but, with one facet shown to not BE an emotion, what does that say about the other facets, that they're not emotions either, or just that romantic "love" needs to be called something else because it's nothing like "real love"?
And... that's as far as I can take this line of reasoning until more studies are done on love that answer those questions one way or another, or until I have an experience with a spirit that demonstrates some other emotion.
I sure hope that my next revelation about souls is a little more encouraging...
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Have we lost all standards of judgment?
Have you seen Bravo's somewhat sadistic show "Things I Hate About You"? The premise is that a couple competes to prove which of them is harder to live with... and they show no restraint as to what they show from their hidden camera footage. What freaks me out about it isn't that people do weird and gross things, since as a married woman I've become used to seeing that sort of stuff, but the way the judges react to the various "wrongdoings."
On tonight's episode, the husband was caught on tape repeatedly picking his nose and wiping his finger on his clothes, the couch, the duvet, and his WIFE... and he was NOT the one who was picked as the one that was harder to live with. The judges downplayed the husband's behavior, which to most women would merit the death penalty, and instead went on and on about how the wife was, GASP, talking alot on her cell phone and not admitting to him how much clothing she bought... like almost every other woman in America. On what PLANET is shopping and chatting a bigger deal than someone picking their nose and wiping it everywhere EXCEPT on a tissue?!!
Further footage showed the husband being aggressively nasty, but that got shrugged aside while the judges focused on how the wife, who'd lost a huge amount of weight with a stringent diet, would only eat salads, chicken and tuna. Eating a healthy and low-calorie diet, now THERE'S a big crime, especially compared to the husband cursing and being abusive. {rolls eyes}
In another episode, one of the partners refused to EVER look at a receipt, and just handed over whatever amount of $ he was asked for; his boyfriend staged a demonstration showing that in just a few transactions, he could be cheated out of over $100 and not even notice... and that's NOT a typo. The judges pooh-poohed that, and instead made an issue of how the other man's clipping of coupons made him the essence of evil (???!!!). The first man was also shown to snore so loudly that neighbors were calling and asking that the noise be stopped, but that was made out to not be a big deal... but the fact that the 2nd man was putting the knickknacks back in place after the cleaning lady had wiped the surfaces was agreed to be a sign that he was virtually a menace to society.
What really horrifies me is that this show isn't unique in the opinions it reveals on different sorts of behaviors; this tendency to downplay and make excuses for the most extreme and disgraceful behaviors, while bashing behaviors that are at worst trivial foibles, shows up all over the place. Have we as a culture lost our frigging MINDS?!! This ties right into my post of July 10th, about how we've come to have disdain for virtue and attraction to bad behavior; when they have a show where the wildly worse-behaved person is always judged as NOT the harder person to live with, what other conclusion can we come to?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
On tonight's episode, the husband was caught on tape repeatedly picking his nose and wiping his finger on his clothes, the couch, the duvet, and his WIFE... and he was NOT the one who was picked as the one that was harder to live with. The judges downplayed the husband's behavior, which to most women would merit the death penalty, and instead went on and on about how the wife was, GASP, talking alot on her cell phone and not admitting to him how much clothing she bought... like almost every other woman in America. On what PLANET is shopping and chatting a bigger deal than someone picking their nose and wiping it everywhere EXCEPT on a tissue?!!
Further footage showed the husband being aggressively nasty, but that got shrugged aside while the judges focused on how the wife, who'd lost a huge amount of weight with a stringent diet, would only eat salads, chicken and tuna. Eating a healthy and low-calorie diet, now THERE'S a big crime, especially compared to the husband cursing and being abusive. {rolls eyes}
In another episode, one of the partners refused to EVER look at a receipt, and just handed over whatever amount of $ he was asked for; his boyfriend staged a demonstration showing that in just a few transactions, he could be cheated out of over $100 and not even notice... and that's NOT a typo. The judges pooh-poohed that, and instead made an issue of how the other man's clipping of coupons made him the essence of evil (???!!!). The first man was also shown to snore so loudly that neighbors were calling and asking that the noise be stopped, but that was made out to not be a big deal... but the fact that the 2nd man was putting the knickknacks back in place after the cleaning lady had wiped the surfaces was agreed to be a sign that he was virtually a menace to society.
What really horrifies me is that this show isn't unique in the opinions it reveals on different sorts of behaviors; this tendency to downplay and make excuses for the most extreme and disgraceful behaviors, while bashing behaviors that are at worst trivial foibles, shows up all over the place. Have we as a culture lost our frigging MINDS?!! This ties right into my post of July 10th, about how we've come to have disdain for virtue and attraction to bad behavior; when they have a show where the wildly worse-behaved person is always judged as NOT the harder person to live with, what other conclusion can we come to?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
The coin of destiny
Did you ever see that episode of "Mad About You" where everyone becomes convinced that they have a quarter that's giving perfect advice on every topic? It's a goofy episode, as most of them are, but it brings up a good point; why have people in every culture, intelligent and educated people throughout human history, and through to the present day, believed that inanimate objects of various sorts were able to do "supernatural" things such as predict the future, protect from harm, CAUSE harm, etc?
Once again, we have to ask ourselves; is EVERYBODY crazy, or is there something actually going on here?
At first glance, it seems that there couldn't POSSIBLY be anything "magical" about coins, cards, amulets, chicken bones, or any of the other countless things that have been used in every culture to supposedly allow us greater knowledge of, and/or control over, what goes on in our lives. Then again, it seems equally ridiculous that particles would be able to pop in and out of existence, be in two places at once, or act as if they can "think"... but they DO, as quantum physicists have proven conclusively.
Human beings have a deep, abiding need to receive verification from some "greater force" than themselves that what they want to do is correct, that they can be safe from harm, that their enemies will suffer, and so forth; this is the driving force behind things like kids running to their parents or teachers to gain their approval for everything and people praying to whatever deity they worship for essentially the same purpose. Why would someone want to believe that mere OBJECTS have this sort of authority? Think about it; with an object of "power," you get the dual benefit of having assistance from a "higher plane" AND the ability to exercise control over the very source of said assistance... that could be hard to resist, don't you think? When the secret knowledge was coming from bones YOU cast (or whatever), it makes it look like you are an important part of the process. It makes you wonder how often authority figures within a tribe who supposedly used a method like this for the benefit of all were in fact just making up their own minds how they wanted things to be and then claiming that the cracks in the turtle shell (I'm not making that one up, lol) were saying exactly that.
The big question remains; IS there actually ANY non-zero paranormal assistive, predictive or destructive power to any object? My best guess would be what some believers in psychometry claim; that we can use objects to focus our own innate psychic abilities, and thus get greater use of them than we otherwise would. As with so many other things in life, a big part of being able to do it is BELIEVING that you can, and, sadly enough, we humans seem to find it far easier to believe in tarot cards or sheep entrails than in ourselves.
Once again, we have to ask ourselves; is EVERYBODY crazy, or is there something actually going on here?
At first glance, it seems that there couldn't POSSIBLY be anything "magical" about coins, cards, amulets, chicken bones, or any of the other countless things that have been used in every culture to supposedly allow us greater knowledge of, and/or control over, what goes on in our lives. Then again, it seems equally ridiculous that particles would be able to pop in and out of existence, be in two places at once, or act as if they can "think"... but they DO, as quantum physicists have proven conclusively.
Human beings have a deep, abiding need to receive verification from some "greater force" than themselves that what they want to do is correct, that they can be safe from harm, that their enemies will suffer, and so forth; this is the driving force behind things like kids running to their parents or teachers to gain their approval for everything and people praying to whatever deity they worship for essentially the same purpose. Why would someone want to believe that mere OBJECTS have this sort of authority? Think about it; with an object of "power," you get the dual benefit of having assistance from a "higher plane" AND the ability to exercise control over the very source of said assistance... that could be hard to resist, don't you think? When the secret knowledge was coming from bones YOU cast (or whatever), it makes it look like you are an important part of the process. It makes you wonder how often authority figures within a tribe who supposedly used a method like this for the benefit of all were in fact just making up their own minds how they wanted things to be and then claiming that the cracks in the turtle shell (I'm not making that one up, lol) were saying exactly that.
The big question remains; IS there actually ANY non-zero paranormal assistive, predictive or destructive power to any object? My best guess would be what some believers in psychometry claim; that we can use objects to focus our own innate psychic abilities, and thus get greater use of them than we otherwise would. As with so many other things in life, a big part of being able to do it is BELIEVING that you can, and, sadly enough, we humans seem to find it far easier to believe in tarot cards or sheep entrails than in ourselves.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Karma, ahhhhhhhhh
Those of you who are regulars here will recall the adventures of "the psycho bitch," a nasty piece of work who had terrorized a forum for many months, for which karma had repaid her with an onslaught of abuse from her former friends the likes of which I've never seen. Well, in response to my request yesterday for a reminder of the wonders of karma, a new chapter of this epic happened today.
The obsessive twit tried posting on the forum under yet another identity, and one of the admins pegged that ID as coming from the same service provider in the same state as the psycho; in response, the psycho sent the owner of the forum an email, expressing outrage at being "investigated," and denying being the psycho, with a slew of demented excuses for why that particular company was shown as being her provider. This would have been amusing in itself, but the part that made us all scream with laughter was that the psycho, proving that all evil is at its base STUPID, had created this email account with her REAL NAME, which showed up in the email the forum owner received!!!!!!!!
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!
As an added benefit, I got to give an "I told you so" to all the friends who were patting me on the head, metaphorically speaking, and assuring me that the psycho had been fully and permanently handled, in contradiction of MY assertion that, based on my experience with online evil, she was going to keep trying to get back into the forum "society."
And... not coincidentally, a friend with no connection to all this called me earlier in the day today, and we discussed the nature of evil, how stupid evil is, and how we can predict what an evil person would do... and yes, I used the psycho bitch as an example.
AND... While I was reading what had happened on that forum, the news came on and told about how the painting "The Scream" had been stolen; when I came back into the family room and changed the channel, there was a sitcom on, with a print of that same painting showing on a teenager's wall.
I asked for synchronicities, and I got 'em, along with the boost I needed. It's wonderful... and a little scary.
The obsessive twit tried posting on the forum under yet another identity, and one of the admins pegged that ID as coming from the same service provider in the same state as the psycho; in response, the psycho sent the owner of the forum an email, expressing outrage at being "investigated," and denying being the psycho, with a slew of demented excuses for why that particular company was shown as being her provider. This would have been amusing in itself, but the part that made us all scream with laughter was that the psycho, proving that all evil is at its base STUPID, had created this email account with her REAL NAME, which showed up in the email the forum owner received!!!!!!!!
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!
As an added benefit, I got to give an "I told you so" to all the friends who were patting me on the head, metaphorically speaking, and assuring me that the psycho had been fully and permanently handled, in contradiction of MY assertion that, based on my experience with online evil, she was going to keep trying to get back into the forum "society."
And... not coincidentally, a friend with no connection to all this called me earlier in the day today, and we discussed the nature of evil, how stupid evil is, and how we can predict what an evil person would do... and yes, I used the psycho bitch as an example.
AND... While I was reading what had happened on that forum, the news came on and told about how the painting "The Scream" had been stolen; when I came back into the family room and changed the channel, there was a sitcom on, with a print of that same painting showing on a teenager's wall.
I asked for synchronicities, and I got 'em, along with the boost I needed. It's wonderful... and a little scary.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Is the soul what we think it is?
One of the basic principles of my theory of karma is that thoughts, feelings, and souls/spirits are all made of the same energy; I haven't given much more thought to what that might tell me about the nature of the soul until today, but now I'm making up for lost time.
One of the biggest epiphanies I've ever had about how the universe works came from reading about how, in nature, for any complex system, you can look at the things it's made of, and see precursors for all of the properties of that system; an example is how, for the "roar of the crowd," you can look at each individual part of the crowd and find a little piece of the noise. Because nature won't give you something for nothing, or from nothing, it always has to be this way; therefore, thought and feeling can NOT come from matter that has no precursor of thought or feeling, and therefore matter must HAVE some inkling of thought and feeling to it... and this is the idea behind animism. I wrote about this at length here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_omniverse_archive.html#107950874313535090
I didn't take the next step of reasoning until today; the soul is also a complex system, and thus the same rule applies... and so everything must have some hint of SOUL in it, too. Since souls are made of the exact same energy as thoughts and feelings, this should have been obvious, but it was so mindboggling for me to recognize that animism was true to the extent the article I read about it said that my brain just couldn't extrapolate from it until today.
This really weirds me out, because, although quantum physics shows us that subatomic particles seem to act as if they can "think," and thus there's some science-backed reason to believe in the omnipresence of thought, SOULS are a whole different matter... or are they?
ARE THEY?!!
And this leads me to my 2nd epiphany of the day; I've said all along that the soul forms from the energy of our thoughts and feelings... but WHY do we have to believe that that collected energy becomes a whole new thing that has to be called by a different name? We "grow" a soul the way we grow hair and nails, and we don't consider hair or nails to be some new and different thing separate from our bodies, so why should it be different for the soul? Instead of saying that souls are made from thoughts and feelings, or from the same energy, wouldn't it be more proper to say that a soul IS the collected energy of our thought and feelings, and NOT some different, mystical entity? This explanation is logical, consistent, and satisfies Occam's Razor, as it's the simplest way to look at it, but... it's going to take time for me to REALLY accept this, because it's so radical.
And because part of me WANTS to believe that I have this glorious, magical thing called a soul, rather than something that's the energy equivalent of... fingernails. Hopefully, I'll have a dazzling bit of synchronicity in the next day or 2 to remind me of how amazing the overall engine of karma is...
One of the biggest epiphanies I've ever had about how the universe works came from reading about how, in nature, for any complex system, you can look at the things it's made of, and see precursors for all of the properties of that system; an example is how, for the "roar of the crowd," you can look at each individual part of the crowd and find a little piece of the noise. Because nature won't give you something for nothing, or from nothing, it always has to be this way; therefore, thought and feeling can NOT come from matter that has no precursor of thought or feeling, and therefore matter must HAVE some inkling of thought and feeling to it... and this is the idea behind animism. I wrote about this at length here:
http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2004_03_14_omniverse_archive.html#107950874313535090
I didn't take the next step of reasoning until today; the soul is also a complex system, and thus the same rule applies... and so everything must have some hint of SOUL in it, too. Since souls are made of the exact same energy as thoughts and feelings, this should have been obvious, but it was so mindboggling for me to recognize that animism was true to the extent the article I read about it said that my brain just couldn't extrapolate from it until today.
This really weirds me out, because, although quantum physics shows us that subatomic particles seem to act as if they can "think," and thus there's some science-backed reason to believe in the omnipresence of thought, SOULS are a whole different matter... or are they?
ARE THEY?!!
And this leads me to my 2nd epiphany of the day; I've said all along that the soul forms from the energy of our thoughts and feelings... but WHY do we have to believe that that collected energy becomes a whole new thing that has to be called by a different name? We "grow" a soul the way we grow hair and nails, and we don't consider hair or nails to be some new and different thing separate from our bodies, so why should it be different for the soul? Instead of saying that souls are made from thoughts and feelings, or from the same energy, wouldn't it be more proper to say that a soul IS the collected energy of our thought and feelings, and NOT some different, mystical entity? This explanation is logical, consistent, and satisfies Occam's Razor, as it's the simplest way to look at it, but... it's going to take time for me to REALLY accept this, because it's so radical.
And because part of me WANTS to believe that I have this glorious, magical thing called a soul, rather than something that's the energy equivalent of... fingernails. Hopefully, I'll have a dazzling bit of synchronicity in the next day or 2 to remind me of how amazing the overall engine of karma is...
