Saturday, January 08, 2005
Romance=insanity?
It's probably too soon to have an equal sign in a title again, but oh well. ;-)
Have you noticed that some people feel that first rush of romance and lose their MINDS? They don't even know each other's last names yet, and they're giving each other keys to their houses, the passwords to their email and voice mail accounts, and free access to everything they own. My HUSBAND doesn't have keys to my car, any of my passwords, or permission to touch any of my stuff, so when I hear how nuts some people get it just makes ME nuts.
No matter how much you think you "love" your new honey, and how well you consequently feel like you know them, they're in reality virtual strangers, and why would you let a stranger have keys to your HOUSE?!! They could copy the keys, and, after you break up (which you almost certainly will), they could rob you, sell the keys to someone else who'll then rob you (or worse), they could sneak in and hide drugs or stolen goods on your premises... why would ANYONE take that sort of risk?
And the idea of letting someone use your car, or borrow your laptop, or be alone in the house when they know where your valuables are, is nearly as bad; you wouldn't normally let someone you've known mere days have that sort of access, and just because you're hot for them shouldn't change that.
The one that freaks me out the most, though, is this business of handing out passwords as "proof of love and trust"; with the exception of those very few with hard-core morals, NO ONE should be trusted with passwords, because the temptation to use them becomes overwhelming, especially when the relationship gets rocky. Scarily, some people ALLOW their love interests to read their emails and listen to their voice messages, as further proof of... utter lunacy, as far as I'm concerned. It's insanely easy for them to find out something that, although harmless, is going to make them upset, or suspicious, or that'll come back to haunt you later, but people are inexplicably unable to internalize that normal friendships between members of the same gender contain elements that are dismaying to the opposite gender, and that that sort of thing should thus be kept private from one's romantic partner... and that the possible interactions between friends of OPPOSITE genders that might alarm a romantic partner are endless, and thus even more "dangerous." Furthermore, your friends generally assume that what they tell you is only being heard/seen by YOU, and not your partner, so it's bad form to give said partner a way to get to that stuff. And haven't we all heard horror stories of when relationships break up, and the breaker doesn't change all their passwords in time to prevent the breakee from wreaking havoc?
The relevant word here is: BOUNDARIES. I don't care how close you THINK you are to your love interest, there's no need to give up all of your privacy, not to mention SAFETY, to them... and no valid reason for them to want you to, no matter WHAT they try to tell you, so just say NO to giving out an all-access pass into your life. Oh, and keep the bathroom door closed, too; leave a little mystery, PLEASE.
Have you noticed that some people feel that first rush of romance and lose their MINDS? They don't even know each other's last names yet, and they're giving each other keys to their houses, the passwords to their email and voice mail accounts, and free access to everything they own. My HUSBAND doesn't have keys to my car, any of my passwords, or permission to touch any of my stuff, so when I hear how nuts some people get it just makes ME nuts.
No matter how much you think you "love" your new honey, and how well you consequently feel like you know them, they're in reality virtual strangers, and why would you let a stranger have keys to your HOUSE?!! They could copy the keys, and, after you break up (which you almost certainly will), they could rob you, sell the keys to someone else who'll then rob you (or worse), they could sneak in and hide drugs or stolen goods on your premises... why would ANYONE take that sort of risk?
And the idea of letting someone use your car, or borrow your laptop, or be alone in the house when they know where your valuables are, is nearly as bad; you wouldn't normally let someone you've known mere days have that sort of access, and just because you're hot for them shouldn't change that.
The one that freaks me out the most, though, is this business of handing out passwords as "proof of love and trust"; with the exception of those very few with hard-core morals, NO ONE should be trusted with passwords, because the temptation to use them becomes overwhelming, especially when the relationship gets rocky. Scarily, some people ALLOW their love interests to read their emails and listen to their voice messages, as further proof of... utter lunacy, as far as I'm concerned. It's insanely easy for them to find out something that, although harmless, is going to make them upset, or suspicious, or that'll come back to haunt you later, but people are inexplicably unable to internalize that normal friendships between members of the same gender contain elements that are dismaying to the opposite gender, and that that sort of thing should thus be kept private from one's romantic partner... and that the possible interactions between friends of OPPOSITE genders that might alarm a romantic partner are endless, and thus even more "dangerous." Furthermore, your friends generally assume that what they tell you is only being heard/seen by YOU, and not your partner, so it's bad form to give said partner a way to get to that stuff. And haven't we all heard horror stories of when relationships break up, and the breaker doesn't change all their passwords in time to prevent the breakee from wreaking havoc?
The relevant word here is: BOUNDARIES. I don't care how close you THINK you are to your love interest, there's no need to give up all of your privacy, not to mention SAFETY, to them... and no valid reason for them to want you to, no matter WHAT they try to tell you, so just say NO to giving out an all-access pass into your life. Oh, and keep the bathroom door closed, too; leave a little mystery, PLEASE.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Home archaeology
A few days ago, a friend of mine called and announced her intention to come over on Sunday so that we can do our belated Christmas gift exchange, go shopping and go to dinner; this is in general a wonderful thing, but there's a catch... we haven't had anyone over to our house in MONTHS. This wouldn't be an issue in a normal household, but my husband is the worst slob in the history of the world, and I long ago accepted that it's impossible to get him to clean anything up if no one's coming over, and that it's beyond my ability to pick up as fast as he can make messes, aside from my not being a slave and not having signed on to be his maid... so our house has, not just a mess, but layer upon layer of mess in every room and on every surface. Oscar Madison would cringe in envy, trust me.
Needless to say, I can't have anyone come over and not have a place to sit, a bare patch of carpet to walk on, or anywhere they can look without wincing in disgust, nor is there any chance of my adopting my husband's brilliant plan of trying to fast-talk people into meeting somewhere so that no one EVER comes into our home again, as if they'd never notice they weren't being invited to our house anymore, or that we could no longer sit and talk privately (he seriously thinks that's a valid option, what PLANET is he from?!!), so there's only one thing to do; we have to invest the 20 or so person-hours necessary to make the place habitable by people other than us, and I WISH that was a hyperbole.
For the first time in recorded history, my husband is willing to start this arduous process BEFORE the day before the intended visit, so our little archaeology project is well underway; layer after layer of my husband's periodicals, food containers, reeking clothes, tools, and anonymous hunks of equipment are being revealed. There's a limit to how much I can help, as he gets hysterical if I move his stuff, but I'll gather up the trash as long as it's not fungus-encrusted, and in a pinch I'll break out the hazmat gear and tongs and pick up some of his moldering laundry and toss it on the waist-high heap in the study; mostly, though, I have the unenviable task of monitoring a man with an attention span of 10 seconds, and the ultimate goal of sneaking back to his computer so he doesn't have to do anything until the last possible moment, and who, when he IS cleaning, leaves enough mess and dirt behind him that my friend would have to be here BLINDFOLDED to not see it all, and so has to be made to do everything at least twice... which means I have to catch all his lapses in time to get them corrected.
Most people have romantic fantasies about their partner; MY fantasy about my husband is that we could have a 2-part house, one of which would contain all his stuff, and the other part of which would have MY stuff and the "public rooms" that a guest expects to be able to see and use... with a big padlock on the connecting door. His area would be soundproof, so his noxious punk rock "music" wouldn't be audible, it would have a negative pressure system so that the SMELL couldn't get out, an intercom system that would blast my voice loud enough that he'd be able to hear it no matter what, electro-shock thingies on every surface so that I could zap him if necessary, or if I was just bored, and.................. sorry, got carried away there, lol.
Anyways, I hope we're not still cleaning, and screaming at each, other at 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, and worse, Sunday morning, so that just ONCE I can have a friend over and have gotten more than a few hours of sleep. Wish me luck.
Needless to say, I can't have anyone come over and not have a place to sit, a bare patch of carpet to walk on, or anywhere they can look without wincing in disgust, nor is there any chance of my adopting my husband's brilliant plan of trying to fast-talk people into meeting somewhere so that no one EVER comes into our home again, as if they'd never notice they weren't being invited to our house anymore, or that we could no longer sit and talk privately (he seriously thinks that's a valid option, what PLANET is he from?!!), so there's only one thing to do; we have to invest the 20 or so person-hours necessary to make the place habitable by people other than us, and I WISH that was a hyperbole.
For the first time in recorded history, my husband is willing to start this arduous process BEFORE the day before the intended visit, so our little archaeology project is well underway; layer after layer of my husband's periodicals, food containers, reeking clothes, tools, and anonymous hunks of equipment are being revealed. There's a limit to how much I can help, as he gets hysterical if I move his stuff, but I'll gather up the trash as long as it's not fungus-encrusted, and in a pinch I'll break out the hazmat gear and tongs and pick up some of his moldering laundry and toss it on the waist-high heap in the study; mostly, though, I have the unenviable task of monitoring a man with an attention span of 10 seconds, and the ultimate goal of sneaking back to his computer so he doesn't have to do anything until the last possible moment, and who, when he IS cleaning, leaves enough mess and dirt behind him that my friend would have to be here BLINDFOLDED to not see it all, and so has to be made to do everything at least twice... which means I have to catch all his lapses in time to get them corrected.
Most people have romantic fantasies about their partner; MY fantasy about my husband is that we could have a 2-part house, one of which would contain all his stuff, and the other part of which would have MY stuff and the "public rooms" that a guest expects to be able to see and use... with a big padlock on the connecting door. His area would be soundproof, so his noxious punk rock "music" wouldn't be audible, it would have a negative pressure system so that the SMELL couldn't get out, an intercom system that would blast my voice loud enough that he'd be able to hear it no matter what, electro-shock thingies on every surface so that I could zap him if necessary, or if I was just bored, and.................. sorry, got carried away there, lol.
Anyways, I hope we're not still cleaning, and screaming at each, other at 1AM, 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, and worse, Sunday morning, so that just ONCE I can have a friend over and have gotten more than a few hours of sleep. Wish me luck.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
The fallout of racism
A disturbing memory has been on my mind today; my parents and I were in a rental car office in NYC about 25 years, standing by the counter, when I felt something thump against my leg. I looked down, and looking up at me, smiling proudly, was an African-American toddler, who, no doubt puzzled by the hideousness of my patterned polyester pants (my mother's warped idea of my being nicely dressed in those days, sigh), had taken a few faltering steps over to me to take a closer look, and saved her stumble until she was close enough to grab me. There should have been nothing memorable about this, but I glanced up to see where her family was, and I intercepted her parents looking at me... with FEAR. They took in my parents standing beyond me, exchanged a tense, anxious look, and I could read the thought that passed between them, "Oh no, she had to walk right into a white family!!"
They had no cause for worry, however; although my father is, to my everlasting disgust and dismay, a racist, even HE wouldn't object to any action by so tiny a child, and more to the point, *I* saw nothing wrong with her curiosity. I smiled down at her, at her open, trusting little face, and said, "Hello, sweetheart, did you walk all the way over here all by yourself?" I don't think she understood, but she was happy to be getting attention, and as my mother also made some comment to the child, I saw the fear drain out of the parents, and the situation became one of the millions of times a day that a child shows the social curiosity that used to be normal before we became "civilized."
This brief incident has haunted me all my life, because it hurts me to my very soul that those people were AFRAID, just because they were black and we were white; afraid that the harmless actions of their child might provoke some sort of belligerent response, perhaps even a threatening one. Where had they come from, that white faces seemed so scary to them? I cringe to contemplate what sort of treatment they'd endured from the racist dregs of humanity in their home town to react so strongly to a situation that objectively shouldn't have been a big deal.
I wonder about that little girl, with her beautiful face, lively dark eyes, and her hair in 3 tiny cornrows; did she grow up to see white people as dangerous, or were things less grim for black people in her town by the time she got old enough to form her attitudes? She'd be in her mid 20's now, a grown woman, perhaps with children of her own; if she bumped into me at a mall, and I turned around with a polite smile to make sure she was ok, would I see the same polite smile on her face, or would she look at me with suspicion, distrust... or hatred... or FEAR? I'd be willing to accept anything but fear, anything but the thought that that pretty child with the sunny smile has been so mistreated by white people that she's become a fearful woman like her mother was. I hope she's grown up strong and confident, able to achieve whatever she wants, no matter what racism (and sexism) she might encounter. I hope that if a child of hers should ever stumble into the midst of a family of ANY color, her only thought would be that everyone was going to tell her how beautiful her baby was... because that's how it SHOULD be.
They had no cause for worry, however; although my father is, to my everlasting disgust and dismay, a racist, even HE wouldn't object to any action by so tiny a child, and more to the point, *I* saw nothing wrong with her curiosity. I smiled down at her, at her open, trusting little face, and said, "Hello, sweetheart, did you walk all the way over here all by yourself?" I don't think she understood, but she was happy to be getting attention, and as my mother also made some comment to the child, I saw the fear drain out of the parents, and the situation became one of the millions of times a day that a child shows the social curiosity that used to be normal before we became "civilized."
This brief incident has haunted me all my life, because it hurts me to my very soul that those people were AFRAID, just because they were black and we were white; afraid that the harmless actions of their child might provoke some sort of belligerent response, perhaps even a threatening one. Where had they come from, that white faces seemed so scary to them? I cringe to contemplate what sort of treatment they'd endured from the racist dregs of humanity in their home town to react so strongly to a situation that objectively shouldn't have been a big deal.
I wonder about that little girl, with her beautiful face, lively dark eyes, and her hair in 3 tiny cornrows; did she grow up to see white people as dangerous, or were things less grim for black people in her town by the time she got old enough to form her attitudes? She'd be in her mid 20's now, a grown woman, perhaps with children of her own; if she bumped into me at a mall, and I turned around with a polite smile to make sure she was ok, would I see the same polite smile on her face, or would she look at me with suspicion, distrust... or hatred... or FEAR? I'd be willing to accept anything but fear, anything but the thought that that pretty child with the sunny smile has been so mistreated by white people that she's become a fearful woman like her mother was. I hope she's grown up strong and confident, able to achieve whatever she wants, no matter what racism (and sexism) she might encounter. I hope that if a child of hers should ever stumble into the midst of a family of ANY color, her only thought would be that everyone was going to tell her how beautiful her baby was... because that's how it SHOULD be.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Blame=shame
I chose that odd title because there are some people out there who should in fact be ashamed of how they apportion blame in certain situations:
1) A man goes out of his way to find someone to cheat on his woman with; when she finds out, she directs her rage at... the other woman, NOT at her man, who under any set of circumstances would have to deserve at least HALF of the blame, and in situations where the other woman didn't know he was part of a couple, deserves 100% of the blame.
2) In some cultures, if a woman is raped, SHE is seen as soiled for life, for the "crime" of being a victim, while no judgment is passed against the rapist; in America we used to have a similar mindset, that if a woman was raped she must have "asked for it," and thus that she was somehow the instigator and thus to blame.
3) The phenomenon of "shoot the messenger," wherein a person who bears no blame in a bad situation reports on it to people who are affected, and they direct their venom at the blameless one, as if merely delivering the news made them responsible for what happened. (This one is why you should REALLY hesitate before telling someone that they're being cheated on, because the person will forgive the cheater and hate YOU.)
4) A person gets mad at someone, and takes it out on a blameless friend or family member of the one they're mad at, as if blame could magically be transferred.
5) Someone is devastated by one of the so-called "mental" illnesses, and when their behaviors and attitudes become less socially acceptable as a result, ignorant people blame the person rather than the illness.
6) A man is at his bachelor party, and a stripper shows up; although he had nothing to do with her presence, the bride-to-be will still blame HIM, because he didn't cover his eyes and run from the room the moment the stripper walked in.
7) A parent makes a stupid mistake, and, if their child is within 100 yards at the time, they'll blame the child even if (s)he was doing nothing but standing silently by, as if their mere presence was so distracting as to overcome all adult competence, and that distraction was indicative of wrongdoing; my own parents were world champions at this one.
8) You try, with the best of intentions, to mediate between people who are squabbling, and they turn on a dime and are suddenly united against YOU, as if you were to blame for the fight; they forget what they were fighting about, and all they remember from then on is that YOU did some vague undefinable thing that upset them.
9) A bunch of kids have ganged up on one kid, and an adult shows up... and blames the victim. If the victim is lucky, the adult will blame ALL of the kids... but good luck ever having the blame placed exclusively on the attackers. I've seen the same thing over and over online, with flamewars, as if it were beyond the intellectual capacity of any forum administrator to read to the beginning of the fight and see who started it, or to grasp that when it's the many against the one, it's 99% certain that it was the many who attacked, NOT the one.
10) It was an example of this final one on an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" that started me thinking about this; some neighbors come to Ray's house to complain about his parents, and he's DEFENDING the parents as best he can, when the parents show up, find out what's going on, and blame... RAY. Worse, when he goes over to the parents' house the next day, they're laying out food for a get-together they've arranged with the complaining neighbors, with whom they've settled whatever differences they had... and are still mad at RAY. Leaping over the actual wrongdoers to heap blame on someone who was an innocent bystander, or was trying to fix things, because being family (or friend or partner) somehow means that just being there is supremely blameworthy... I'm sure if my parents saw that show, they'd be wishing for a time machine so that they could go back to my childhood and dump that one on ME, lol.
No matter what or how you feel when a bad thing occurs, it is never, EVER ok to fling blame around as if you didn't know better; take a moment to see who actually DESERVES blame, if anyone, and THEN lay blame... you don't want the bad karma that comes from blaming the innocent.
1) A man goes out of his way to find someone to cheat on his woman with; when she finds out, she directs her rage at... the other woman, NOT at her man, who under any set of circumstances would have to deserve at least HALF of the blame, and in situations where the other woman didn't know he was part of a couple, deserves 100% of the blame.
2) In some cultures, if a woman is raped, SHE is seen as soiled for life, for the "crime" of being a victim, while no judgment is passed against the rapist; in America we used to have a similar mindset, that if a woman was raped she must have "asked for it," and thus that she was somehow the instigator and thus to blame.
3) The phenomenon of "shoot the messenger," wherein a person who bears no blame in a bad situation reports on it to people who are affected, and they direct their venom at the blameless one, as if merely delivering the news made them responsible for what happened. (This one is why you should REALLY hesitate before telling someone that they're being cheated on, because the person will forgive the cheater and hate YOU.)
4) A person gets mad at someone, and takes it out on a blameless friend or family member of the one they're mad at, as if blame could magically be transferred.
5) Someone is devastated by one of the so-called "mental" illnesses, and when their behaviors and attitudes become less socially acceptable as a result, ignorant people blame the person rather than the illness.
6) A man is at his bachelor party, and a stripper shows up; although he had nothing to do with her presence, the bride-to-be will still blame HIM, because he didn't cover his eyes and run from the room the moment the stripper walked in.
7) A parent makes a stupid mistake, and, if their child is within 100 yards at the time, they'll blame the child even if (s)he was doing nothing but standing silently by, as if their mere presence was so distracting as to overcome all adult competence, and that distraction was indicative of wrongdoing; my own parents were world champions at this one.
8) You try, with the best of intentions, to mediate between people who are squabbling, and they turn on a dime and are suddenly united against YOU, as if you were to blame for the fight; they forget what they were fighting about, and all they remember from then on is that YOU did some vague undefinable thing that upset them.
9) A bunch of kids have ganged up on one kid, and an adult shows up... and blames the victim. If the victim is lucky, the adult will blame ALL of the kids... but good luck ever having the blame placed exclusively on the attackers. I've seen the same thing over and over online, with flamewars, as if it were beyond the intellectual capacity of any forum administrator to read to the beginning of the fight and see who started it, or to grasp that when it's the many against the one, it's 99% certain that it was the many who attacked, NOT the one.
10) It was an example of this final one on an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" that started me thinking about this; some neighbors come to Ray's house to complain about his parents, and he's DEFENDING the parents as best he can, when the parents show up, find out what's going on, and blame... RAY. Worse, when he goes over to the parents' house the next day, they're laying out food for a get-together they've arranged with the complaining neighbors, with whom they've settled whatever differences they had... and are still mad at RAY. Leaping over the actual wrongdoers to heap blame on someone who was an innocent bystander, or was trying to fix things, because being family (or friend or partner) somehow means that just being there is supremely blameworthy... I'm sure if my parents saw that show, they'd be wishing for a time machine so that they could go back to my childhood and dump that one on ME, lol.
No matter what or how you feel when a bad thing occurs, it is never, EVER ok to fling blame around as if you didn't know better; take a moment to see who actually DESERVES blame, if anyone, and THEN lay blame... you don't want the bad karma that comes from blaming the innocent.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Back to basics
If I'm going to make fresh spiritual progress this year, it might help if I took some time to ponder the foundations of my worldview; I figure, once one has found the meaning of life (which I posted on 12-29-04), one has gotten out to the farthest reaches, and that's when it's time to head back to the beginning. So:
1) Quantum physics shows us that the universe does NOT work the way we think it does:
a) Subatomic particles are constantly doing things that are simply impossible by the laws of nature as we understand them, such as popping into and out of existence, and staying connected somehow even when they're miles apart, such that changing the spin on one changes the spin of the other. These particles also act as if they can think; they behave like particles or waves depending on whether or not they're being observed (how do they KNOW?!!). These things show that some unknown force is at work, one that can't yet be detected.
b) Experiments in which effect comes BEFORE cause demonstrate that TIME doesn't work like we think it does, and in fact may not exist at all, at least not in any way we can currently understand; I see these experiments as proof that the future already exists, to some degree and in some form, although whether that's because there's no such thing as time and EVERYTHING that will ever happen already exists, or because the future is gradually created as we approach it, there's no way to tell... I choose to believe the latter, as the former would require the existence of a deity that has already created everything that will ever be, and is "playing" it like a DVD.
2) Theoretical physicists currently believe that there are multiple universes, existing parallel in an all-encompassing space, all of which is collectively called the omniverse, and that everything in the omniverse, matter and all forms of energy, is made of the same thing; this is called superstring theory aka string theory aka M theory (no, I don't know what the M stands for-I think they're keeping that a secret, lol).
3) Studies have shown that:
a) A mother can look at her sleeping infant and think "wake up," and it usually will.
b) You can have 2 people in a room such that they can't see, hear or touch each other, and if they cause the heart rate of one to spike, the brain waves of the other will spike at exactly the same time.
They have no idea why these things happen this way; this shows, again, that some sort of unknown force is at work.
4) I have seen and interacted with ghosts, seen them act on objects, and heard them pounding on walls for attention; this has happened many times when there were other witnesses present, when no ghost stories were being told and no mind-altering substances had been consumed, so I KNOW spirits exist, and the fact that science can't perceive the energy of which they're formed means that it's an unknown energy... are you as amazed as I am at how many unknowns there are?
5) I've had a wide variety of psychic experiences, so I know that psychic abilities DO exist; once again, the inability of science to perceive the energy involved points to an unknown force at work. The many instances of precognition I've experienced also demonstrate that the future DOES already exist, to some degree and in some form, just as quantum physics shows us.
6) The psychic experiences of other people are meaningful to me also (within reason, of course); after all, I can't be the ONLY one who can do this stuff, right?
a) The apparent ability of twins to transmit things to each other telepathically; all the twins I've known, including people whose word I trust, describe incidents of this, most commonly under circumstances when one of the twins was hurt or in danger.
b) The many people who report waking up and seeing a loved one who turns out to have died at that exact time, or seeing a being of some sort who told them that the loved one was dead, again at the exact time of death; people I trust have described this one, too.
c) I recently came across references to breastfeeding women having their milk drop when their baby cries, even when the baby is MILES away, even when the baby has no set feeding schedule; it makes perfect evolutionary sense, if nothing else.
7) Then, we come to the things that generally get brushed off as "coincidences," that I myself used to brush off as coincidences, until they started coming at me so hard and fast that it would have required a stubborn intellectual blindness to deny their true meaning:
a) Synchronicity, the concept that things that happen at the same time are related; when someone you haven't thought of in 5 years pops into your head, and the phone rings and it's them, is a common example. I get such astounding ones in my life that even my non-believing husband is sometimes creeped out.
b) Karma, which is traditionally defined as "what goes around comes around" or "what comes around goes around"; once I realized that the type of energy being sent out DID control what a person got back, with relentless consistency, I had to believe it.
c) Affirmations, the process of focusing on, and repeatedly writing out, a desired goal, even an outrageous one, in order to "make it happen," WORKS.
With all of these things, unknown energy must be at work.
From these things comes my worldview, which I use the term "karma" to describe for lack of a more accurate one, as the action of karma is the central concept; karma, in this broad sense, refers to the sum total of all of these unknown energies, and how they work together to shape our reality. Using Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, I've chosen to believe that there is only ONE energy behind all these unknowns, and that energy is also called "karma"; the energy, the structure, the cause, the effect, the engine... it's all karma.
The above doesn't represent every aspect of what I believe, but it is, as promised, the basics, the foundation upon which all my analyses are based; my hope is that the focus I've exerted on this topic will bring me some new revelations.
1) Quantum physics shows us that the universe does NOT work the way we think it does:
a) Subatomic particles are constantly doing things that are simply impossible by the laws of nature as we understand them, such as popping into and out of existence, and staying connected somehow even when they're miles apart, such that changing the spin on one changes the spin of the other. These particles also act as if they can think; they behave like particles or waves depending on whether or not they're being observed (how do they KNOW?!!). These things show that some unknown force is at work, one that can't yet be detected.
b) Experiments in which effect comes BEFORE cause demonstrate that TIME doesn't work like we think it does, and in fact may not exist at all, at least not in any way we can currently understand; I see these experiments as proof that the future already exists, to some degree and in some form, although whether that's because there's no such thing as time and EVERYTHING that will ever happen already exists, or because the future is gradually created as we approach it, there's no way to tell... I choose to believe the latter, as the former would require the existence of a deity that has already created everything that will ever be, and is "playing" it like a DVD.
2) Theoretical physicists currently believe that there are multiple universes, existing parallel in an all-encompassing space, all of which is collectively called the omniverse, and that everything in the omniverse, matter and all forms of energy, is made of the same thing; this is called superstring theory aka string theory aka M theory (no, I don't know what the M stands for-I think they're keeping that a secret, lol).
3) Studies have shown that:
a) A mother can look at her sleeping infant and think "wake up," and it usually will.
b) You can have 2 people in a room such that they can't see, hear or touch each other, and if they cause the heart rate of one to spike, the brain waves of the other will spike at exactly the same time.
They have no idea why these things happen this way; this shows, again, that some sort of unknown force is at work.
4) I have seen and interacted with ghosts, seen them act on objects, and heard them pounding on walls for attention; this has happened many times when there were other witnesses present, when no ghost stories were being told and no mind-altering substances had been consumed, so I KNOW spirits exist, and the fact that science can't perceive the energy of which they're formed means that it's an unknown energy... are you as amazed as I am at how many unknowns there are?
5) I've had a wide variety of psychic experiences, so I know that psychic abilities DO exist; once again, the inability of science to perceive the energy involved points to an unknown force at work. The many instances of precognition I've experienced also demonstrate that the future DOES already exist, to some degree and in some form, just as quantum physics shows us.
6) The psychic experiences of other people are meaningful to me also (within reason, of course); after all, I can't be the ONLY one who can do this stuff, right?
a) The apparent ability of twins to transmit things to each other telepathically; all the twins I've known, including people whose word I trust, describe incidents of this, most commonly under circumstances when one of the twins was hurt or in danger.
b) The many people who report waking up and seeing a loved one who turns out to have died at that exact time, or seeing a being of some sort who told them that the loved one was dead, again at the exact time of death; people I trust have described this one, too.
c) I recently came across references to breastfeeding women having their milk drop when their baby cries, even when the baby is MILES away, even when the baby has no set feeding schedule; it makes perfect evolutionary sense, if nothing else.
7) Then, we come to the things that generally get brushed off as "coincidences," that I myself used to brush off as coincidences, until they started coming at me so hard and fast that it would have required a stubborn intellectual blindness to deny their true meaning:
a) Synchronicity, the concept that things that happen at the same time are related; when someone you haven't thought of in 5 years pops into your head, and the phone rings and it's them, is a common example. I get such astounding ones in my life that even my non-believing husband is sometimes creeped out.
b) Karma, which is traditionally defined as "what goes around comes around" or "what comes around goes around"; once I realized that the type of energy being sent out DID control what a person got back, with relentless consistency, I had to believe it.
c) Affirmations, the process of focusing on, and repeatedly writing out, a desired goal, even an outrageous one, in order to "make it happen," WORKS.
With all of these things, unknown energy must be at work.
From these things comes my worldview, which I use the term "karma" to describe for lack of a more accurate one, as the action of karma is the central concept; karma, in this broad sense, refers to the sum total of all of these unknown energies, and how they work together to shape our reality. Using Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, I've chosen to believe that there is only ONE energy behind all these unknowns, and that energy is also called "karma"; the energy, the structure, the cause, the effect, the engine... it's all karma.
The above doesn't represent every aspect of what I believe, but it is, as promised, the basics, the foundation upon which all my analyses are based; my hope is that the focus I've exerted on this topic will bring me some new revelations.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Whatever happened to ICQ?
When I first got online 5 years ago, the first thing anyone would ask you when they met you, before they even asked what your name was, was "What's your ICQ#?" I didn't know what that meant at first, but with everyone I encountered telling me I had to have it, I started hounding my husband to get it for me; as always, he dragged his feet with finding and installing it, but it was worth it when I FINALLY was able to pass out that #, and when that IM icon flashed at me for the first time, and I was actually chatting with someone LIVE... it was like magic. Never one to do anything halfway, I soon had DOZENS of people on my buddy list, ICQ was set up to load automatically when I went online, and an ever-bigger chunk of each day was spent chatting... especially once we figured out how to do group chats, which often went on for HOURS.
Any forum you joined in those days had a spot in your profile to put your ICQ# in, every club system that had a section for contact info listed your ICQ# along with your email addy, and even though most club systems had built-in chatrooms, we usually used ICQ instead. One of the great things about it was that you could send messages to people even if they were offline, and the system would save them and send them as soon as they came online, which was great when you wanted to have a big chat, because you could leave messages for everyone telling them to join you if they logged on in time... and all these years later, AIM still hasn't managed that much.
The coolest feature of all was the ability to truly chat live; you weren't just sending lines of text, the others could actually see you typing in real time, and could read along rather than having to wait for you to hit "Send." This kept the chats really hopping in a way that no other system did, or has since... even on ICQ, as they discontinued that option some time ago.
In those days, I couldn't imagine a day without spending a big chunk of time talking on ICQ with people from my various online friendship groups; although I know better now, those relationships felt very real and powerful. We ALL took them seriously, and sometimes things really WERE serious; 3 different times, I kept someone who had taken a massive dose of pills chatting with me while working with a friend to track down where they lived and contact the local emergency services to go to their homes and take them to the hospital. The potential "dark side" of ICQ was demonstrated when a friend's husband got chatting with an online friend of hers and mine, and they ended up betraying her; he dumped his wife and married the other woman. However, I introduced my heartbroken friend via ICQ to a sweet man who was in a bad marriage and needed to talk as much as she did, and they hit it right off and chatted like mad... they've been married for several years now, and he's a wonderful father to her young boys.
Then one day there was someone I wanted to talk to who only had AIM, which was a shock, and later on someone else who only had the Yahoo IM, which was still sort of surprising... and suddenly we were all getting these other IM's to be able to talk with the non-ICQ people... and there was voice chat and webcam viewing and other fancy features on these other IM's... and somehow ICQ went from being IT to being something no one asked about any more, and thus an ever-smaller part of my online chat life, until I finally stopped using it at all. I remember when I asked my husband to stop having it come up automatically when I went online; it was the end of an era.
I went through phases of heavy chat on other systems, but it was NEVER to the extent it was in the old days on ICQ; folks from those days are STILL mentioning how wild those chats were, and how cool that real-time feature was. I rarely chat on any system these days, perhaps because the novelty is long gone but the time-wastage factor is still high, and I don't know if anyone I'd ever want to chat with again even HAS ICQ anymore... and I don't know my ICQ# now, although in the old days I probably recited it in my sleep... but someone I hadn't heard from in ages sent me his new ICQ# today, so I think I'll hold onto the program a little while longer. Just in case.
Any forum you joined in those days had a spot in your profile to put your ICQ# in, every club system that had a section for contact info listed your ICQ# along with your email addy, and even though most club systems had built-in chatrooms, we usually used ICQ instead. One of the great things about it was that you could send messages to people even if they were offline, and the system would save them and send them as soon as they came online, which was great when you wanted to have a big chat, because you could leave messages for everyone telling them to join you if they logged on in time... and all these years later, AIM still hasn't managed that much.
The coolest feature of all was the ability to truly chat live; you weren't just sending lines of text, the others could actually see you typing in real time, and could read along rather than having to wait for you to hit "Send." This kept the chats really hopping in a way that no other system did, or has since... even on ICQ, as they discontinued that option some time ago.
In those days, I couldn't imagine a day without spending a big chunk of time talking on ICQ with people from my various online friendship groups; although I know better now, those relationships felt very real and powerful. We ALL took them seriously, and sometimes things really WERE serious; 3 different times, I kept someone who had taken a massive dose of pills chatting with me while working with a friend to track down where they lived and contact the local emergency services to go to their homes and take them to the hospital. The potential "dark side" of ICQ was demonstrated when a friend's husband got chatting with an online friend of hers and mine, and they ended up betraying her; he dumped his wife and married the other woman. However, I introduced my heartbroken friend via ICQ to a sweet man who was in a bad marriage and needed to talk as much as she did, and they hit it right off and chatted like mad... they've been married for several years now, and he's a wonderful father to her young boys.
Then one day there was someone I wanted to talk to who only had AIM, which was a shock, and later on someone else who only had the Yahoo IM, which was still sort of surprising... and suddenly we were all getting these other IM's to be able to talk with the non-ICQ people... and there was voice chat and webcam viewing and other fancy features on these other IM's... and somehow ICQ went from being IT to being something no one asked about any more, and thus an ever-smaller part of my online chat life, until I finally stopped using it at all. I remember when I asked my husband to stop having it come up automatically when I went online; it was the end of an era.
I went through phases of heavy chat on other systems, but it was NEVER to the extent it was in the old days on ICQ; folks from those days are STILL mentioning how wild those chats were, and how cool that real-time feature was. I rarely chat on any system these days, perhaps because the novelty is long gone but the time-wastage factor is still high, and I don't know if anyone I'd ever want to chat with again even HAS ICQ anymore... and I don't know my ICQ# now, although in the old days I probably recited it in my sleep... but someone I hadn't heard from in ages sent me his new ICQ# today, so I think I'll hold onto the program a little while longer. Just in case.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
The annual email address purge
Email addies are like rabbits; when you're not watching, they breed and multiply, and suddenly you have hundreds of them clogging up your address book. In my case, it probably doesn't help that I'm fanatical, or some might say anal, about saving every email address for everyone I correspond with, as I've learned from experience that people shed email accounts like a snake sheds its skin, and if you don't have ALL their addies you can find yourself with no way to contact someone you want to keep in touch with. Just because I have an email address, or several, for a person doesn't mean I'll always want to interact with them, of course, so to keep it from becoming excessively difficult to find the addresses I DO still want, every year I do a purge of my address book. First, I go through the entire thing and delete everyone I'm not in touch with that I don't miss not talking to; this can get tricky, as it feels "mean" to delete someone on that basis, but I push myself to figure out if I have anything in common with that person that would make it beneficial for me to keep talking to them, and even whether I still remember enough about them to be ABLE to talk to them on a friendship level, and that leads to me being able to delete a dozen or so.
Next, to find out which addies I have that are no longer valid ones, I do a mass emailing to everyone else I haven't spoken to recently (using BCC so they don't know they're one of many), wishing them a happy new year and asking how they've been. An amazing flood of bounces always results from this; I can't imagine why anyone would EVER close out an email account that they corresponded with friends from, other than that small % that comes from people changing ISP's (usually getting away from AOHell), but every year I find that a bunch of them have in fact ceased to exist. In cases where I only had one email address for someone, this means that they're gone from my life unless and until they write to me from a new account some day; this DOES happen, but not often... which is why I try so hard to have multiple addies for everyone. For most people, I can use a backup addy, and most of them work; the truly eerie thing is when ALL of the addies for someone are no longer valid... what could motivate someone to close out as many as 5-6 email accounts in a year, without ever thinking to send out messages giving a new addy? Have these people just withdrawn from online life, or maybe taken on new online identities? Whatever the reason for their disappearing act, I get an extra pang of regret deleting someone that it seemed so unlikely that I'd ever not be able to contact.
Shortly after the delivery failure notices arrive come the first replies from folks who DID get my emails, and it's always heartening to see how many people are apparently thrilled to hear from me, and want to tell me everything they've done since last we spoke... often in excessive detail, granted, but it's still nice to hear back from them. It's interesting to see that in those instances where things were tense or awkward the last time we spoke, all has always been forgiven and forgotten; it works just like in real life, where even people you had a massive feud with will treat you like a long-lost best friend if you're just apart long enough (one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned about relationships is that just because things get heated enough for you to "break up" and stop talking does NOT mean that the relationship is over forever; it's counter-intuitive, but it's true).
I've got my address book down to a manageable list, I've said my symbolic goodbyes to all those that I can no longer contact, and I'm swimming in emails from folks I haven't spoken to in too long, including some from an old friend who's been researching the sorts of things about ancient civilizations that are of interest to me... not too shabby for the first day of the new year.
Next, to find out which addies I have that are no longer valid ones, I do a mass emailing to everyone else I haven't spoken to recently (using BCC so they don't know they're one of many), wishing them a happy new year and asking how they've been. An amazing flood of bounces always results from this; I can't imagine why anyone would EVER close out an email account that they corresponded with friends from, other than that small % that comes from people changing ISP's (usually getting away from AOHell), but every year I find that a bunch of them have in fact ceased to exist. In cases where I only had one email address for someone, this means that they're gone from my life unless and until they write to me from a new account some day; this DOES happen, but not often... which is why I try so hard to have multiple addies for everyone. For most people, I can use a backup addy, and most of them work; the truly eerie thing is when ALL of the addies for someone are no longer valid... what could motivate someone to close out as many as 5-6 email accounts in a year, without ever thinking to send out messages giving a new addy? Have these people just withdrawn from online life, or maybe taken on new online identities? Whatever the reason for their disappearing act, I get an extra pang of regret deleting someone that it seemed so unlikely that I'd ever not be able to contact.
Shortly after the delivery failure notices arrive come the first replies from folks who DID get my emails, and it's always heartening to see how many people are apparently thrilled to hear from me, and want to tell me everything they've done since last we spoke... often in excessive detail, granted, but it's still nice to hear back from them. It's interesting to see that in those instances where things were tense or awkward the last time we spoke, all has always been forgiven and forgotten; it works just like in real life, where even people you had a massive feud with will treat you like a long-lost best friend if you're just apart long enough (one of the biggest lessons I've ever learned about relationships is that just because things get heated enough for you to "break up" and stop talking does NOT mean that the relationship is over forever; it's counter-intuitive, but it's true).
I've got my address book down to a manageable list, I've said my symbolic goodbyes to all those that I can no longer contact, and I'm swimming in emails from folks I haven't spoken to in too long, including some from an old friend who's been researching the sorts of things about ancient civilizations that are of interest to me... not too shabby for the first day of the new year.
