Friday, January 26, 2007
FINALLY: How/Why evil people are shielded from karma
This post was originally intended to be about how the karma of evil people affects those around them. I started with their souls (or lack thereof), but before I could segue into their karma it hit me: Although it seems clear that evil types aren't tied into the tapestry of karma in the normal way, the mechanism of it had always eluded me, leaving me with the unsatisfying partial explanation that, since souls, which are made of karmic energy (aka the energy of thought and emotion), are our link to overall karma, SOMEHOW evil people's lack of normal souls prevented them from being "linked"; then, tonight, when I was writing about what sort of "soul-ish" things the evil might have, that line of thought crashed headlong into the understanding that all the energies involved are natural forces, and so should act in similar ways to other natural forces, and... an answer appeared on the screen, with me barely aware of having typed it. I was so stunned to FINALLY see a way for these energies to get the result they do that I got up and walked away from the computer to let my whirling brain settle down. I stumbled to the door of my husband's study and attempted to tell him what I'd come up with; not very coherently, I'm afraid, but he grasped the concept that I was trying to describe an aspect of karma in a way that paralleled the behavior of known forces of nature, and instantly came up with a DIFFERENT explanation that was so much simpler that, using Occam's Razor as my guiding principle as always, I immediately accepted it over mine.
So here's what I've done; I've left the post as originally written untouched, and then after it I've added what HE said and my analysis thereof, so you can see the actual path of the spiritual progress I made tonight. Here it is:
A couple of nights ago, I had a dream with a familiar theme; I was back in school (it's usually high school, but this time it was college), I was nearly done with whatever # of quarters/semesters I inexplicably needed to be there for in order to "re-graduate" (specifically, within a couple of weeks of "the end," which is a common timeframe), and I needed to get to a class, but there was a problem... mostly it's that I can't find my schedule, and need to go to the front office (high school) or the registrar (college) to get a copy, but in this instance it was that I needed to find my campus map to locate the building the class would be in... a class called "The Truth About the Soul."
If the symbolism got any heavier it'd flatten me, lol.
Not coincidentally, I've been giving a great deal of thought to what kind of warped, stunted souls evil people might have, if any, and, if our intuitive perception of them as soulLESS is correct, would the energies they emit form a pseudo-soul, in other words a cohesive "field" that would give some sort of direct, although limited, connection to the engine of karma, or do the - energies of their ugly thoughts and feelings just form a poison cloud around them, ready to envelope anyone who stays near long enough... or both? There's no way to know for sure. The only certain thing is that, while karma does a good job of sending negative energy in return for negative energy in normal people (even in the unfortunate cases of those who radiate - energy from sickness, pain, fear or grief), the ABnormal, those whose brains are "broken" in ways that make them evil, don't seem to suffer as much as they should, or at all; granted, because of their "brokenness" they can't feel the joys of love and friendship and such even when those things are foolishly offered to them, and that in itself is a big punishment even if they don't feel any dismay because of it, perhaps even a big enough punishment to even out the scales, but that'd still leave open the question of why they're not drawing huge amounts of - energy in response to what they're putting out, or perhaps it's that the energy can't quite get to them because their own cloud of - energy acts like the - pole of a magnet and repels it... hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Since karma is a natural force, it can reasonably be assumed to function in ways analogous to any of the other natural forces, including magnetism; what if, just as light can be a wave or a particle depending on what hoops you make it jump through, the karmic energy of our thoughts and feelings might attract like energy (+ for +, - for -) when "controlled" by a normal soul, and REPEL like energy, as a magnet does, when "controlled" by a warped or pseudo-soul, strongly or weakly depending on the degree of evil... and since they're generating little or no + energy it wouldn't make much difference if some or all of the + that came in response to it was also reflected... that literally just came to me as I was writing this... give me a moment to ponder it... wow...
Ok, that was the original, unfinished post. What my husband gleaned from that final point was "energies not organized in the expected harmonious way," so his comment was; "It's like noise." And suddenly, it was so simple and clear; brain scans show that abnormal brains produce abnormal patterns of energy, so why wouldn't the energies of thought and feeling emerge from such brains in abnormal forms as well, which would be the karmic equivalent of "noise"... static, in other words. In the same way that we can pick out little or nothing from a staticky radio or TV broadcast (depending on the degree of static), the engine of karma might not be able to make anything out of the distorted energies an evil person produces, leaving it unable to match + with + and - with - in any effective way... and THAT would explain why evil people all too often don't get the - karma they so richly deserve.
I still think that the "pseudo-souls" and/or "clouds of - energy" produced by evil people are interactive with karma rather than being inert (since none of the other energies that are part of karma are inert), and I'll be giving a great deal more thought to that, with the magnetism and particle/wave ideas being angles from which I'll approach the problem, but I think my husband's "noise" idea is going to be just about unbeatable as the "how and why" of evil people's "disconnection" from the wheel of karma.
I've made more spiritual progress already this year than I did all last year; 2007 is really shaping up nicely.
So here's what I've done; I've left the post as originally written untouched, and then after it I've added what HE said and my analysis thereof, so you can see the actual path of the spiritual progress I made tonight. Here it is:
A couple of nights ago, I had a dream with a familiar theme; I was back in school (it's usually high school, but this time it was college), I was nearly done with whatever # of quarters/semesters I inexplicably needed to be there for in order to "re-graduate" (specifically, within a couple of weeks of "the end," which is a common timeframe), and I needed to get to a class, but there was a problem... mostly it's that I can't find my schedule, and need to go to the front office (high school) or the registrar (college) to get a copy, but in this instance it was that I needed to find my campus map to locate the building the class would be in... a class called "The Truth About the Soul."
If the symbolism got any heavier it'd flatten me, lol.
Not coincidentally, I've been giving a great deal of thought to what kind of warped, stunted souls evil people might have, if any, and, if our intuitive perception of them as soulLESS is correct, would the energies they emit form a pseudo-soul, in other words a cohesive "field" that would give some sort of direct, although limited, connection to the engine of karma, or do the - energies of their ugly thoughts and feelings just form a poison cloud around them, ready to envelope anyone who stays near long enough... or both? There's no way to know for sure. The only certain thing is that, while karma does a good job of sending negative energy in return for negative energy in normal people (even in the unfortunate cases of those who radiate - energy from sickness, pain, fear or grief), the ABnormal, those whose brains are "broken" in ways that make them evil, don't seem to suffer as much as they should, or at all; granted, because of their "brokenness" they can't feel the joys of love and friendship and such even when those things are foolishly offered to them, and that in itself is a big punishment even if they don't feel any dismay because of it, perhaps even a big enough punishment to even out the scales, but that'd still leave open the question of why they're not drawing huge amounts of - energy in response to what they're putting out, or perhaps it's that the energy can't quite get to them because their own cloud of - energy acts like the - pole of a magnet and repels it... hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Since karma is a natural force, it can reasonably be assumed to function in ways analogous to any of the other natural forces, including magnetism; what if, just as light can be a wave or a particle depending on what hoops you make it jump through, the karmic energy of our thoughts and feelings might attract like energy (+ for +, - for -) when "controlled" by a normal soul, and REPEL like energy, as a magnet does, when "controlled" by a warped or pseudo-soul, strongly or weakly depending on the degree of evil... and since they're generating little or no + energy it wouldn't make much difference if some or all of the + that came in response to it was also reflected... that literally just came to me as I was writing this... give me a moment to ponder it... wow...
Ok, that was the original, unfinished post. What my husband gleaned from that final point was "energies not organized in the expected harmonious way," so his comment was; "It's like noise." And suddenly, it was so simple and clear; brain scans show that abnormal brains produce abnormal patterns of energy, so why wouldn't the energies of thought and feeling emerge from such brains in abnormal forms as well, which would be the karmic equivalent of "noise"... static, in other words. In the same way that we can pick out little or nothing from a staticky radio or TV broadcast (depending on the degree of static), the engine of karma might not be able to make anything out of the distorted energies an evil person produces, leaving it unable to match + with + and - with - in any effective way... and THAT would explain why evil people all too often don't get the - karma they so richly deserve.
I still think that the "pseudo-souls" and/or "clouds of - energy" produced by evil people are interactive with karma rather than being inert (since none of the other energies that are part of karma are inert), and I'll be giving a great deal more thought to that, with the magnetism and particle/wave ideas being angles from which I'll approach the problem, but I think my husband's "noise" idea is going to be just about unbeatable as the "how and why" of evil people's "disconnection" from the wheel of karma.
I've made more spiritual progress already this year than I did all last year; 2007 is really shaping up nicely.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Purse-onal eBay story
I know, bad pun-sorry. It occurred to me that I hadn't chronicled my adventures on eBay for a while, so I'll fill you in on what SHOULD have been a short and simple search; my attempt to find a purse.
Why had I been reduced to looking on eBay for something that every department store has hundreds of? My mother is to blame for that; thanks to her training, my purse contains every item I could possibly need when away from the house... including folding scissors (for dangling threads), a mini tape measure (so I can determine the sizes of furnishings that might fit in my mostly-unfurnished home), and a little calculator (to figure out tips at restaurants). Because of the sheer volume of stuff I carry, I can't use a small purse, but, because I'm not using my purse as a gym bag, lunch box, briefcase or receptacle for kids' stuff (other than the occasional thing for my husband, lol), a tote-type purse doesn't suit my needs either; this wouldn't be a problem if they made purses in the full range of sizes, but for the most part they DON'T... it's like how in the Army everything comes in 2 sizes, too big and too small.
Furthermore, because I don't want to be digging for an hour to locate whatever I need, looking like an idiot and wrecking my nails, I can't use a purse that's just a "sack," I need pockets and dividers; although lots of purses used to be designed that way, virtually none are these days, presumably because it's cheaper to not include those features... but even super-pricey purses don't have them for the most part, so go figure.
Fashion is working against me as well; shoulder bags seem to be far less popular than they used to be, although why anyone would want to have to clutch a purse handle all day is beyond me, and since I like to have my hands free, and wouldn't dare have a heavy purse exerting strain on my wrists with my borderline carpal tunnel issues, I'm excluded from the majority of bags in this way too.
And; although purses used to just discretely carry women's necessities, and were kept until they fell apart, nowadays they're trendy items meant to be eye-catching and cool for a few months and then tossed, which means that basic purses have gotten harder to find... which wouldn't be so bad, since *I* don't care if a PURSE is the current style or one from 3 (or 30) years ago, except trendy ones are usually small and without pockets, not to mention "too young" for me (hearts, fringes etc). On the other end of the spectrum, stashed in the back of most stores' purse displays are bags presumably meant for VERY conservative types; dead-plain rectangular blocks with nothing but a little clasp to decorate them, if that... I'd have to be on the verge of carrying my junk in a paper bag before I'd buy one.
AND; those pitifully few purses that're within the realm of usable for me almost always have exterior cell phone pockets, which are not only useless to me (I'll NEVER get a cell phone) but seriously ugly as well... which, combined with the other issues, eliminates 99.999% of all purses sold in the United States, such that it literally takes me YEARS to find a workable one (it's a good thing I treat my stuff so gently, and that the last time I found a purse I got 2 of them-I'm currently using that 2nd purse and have been for ages).
After endless frustration with trying to find a purse in my city, it finally occurred to me to look for one on eBay; with about 120K purses available there at any given time, you'd think it'd be a snap to find what I wanted... but it wasn't:
It turns out that an insane # of people are selling USED purses; I can see doing that if it's a designer bag that's worth something, but other than that who on Earth wants to buy a used purse, however cheap? Anyone so poor that they can't afford a new one can go to a thrift store and get a used one without having to pay shipping, and without any guesswork as to HOW used the purse is, so...? I eventually discovered that eBay DOES have an option to look at only new purses, but bags that're used but allegedly "like new" show up in that search because their sellers marked them that way to increase their chances of selling them (some of them MIGHT still be like new, but I wouldn't count on it-eBay sellers are notoriously blind to flaws and signs of wear), and purses whose sellers didn't bother to "officially" label them as new because they included "new" in their titles or descriptions do NOT show up; like everything else on eBay, it's somewhat of a free-for-all.
Since I had no intention of risking a used purse, I had to depend on people who had bought purses on sale intending to re-sell them for a profit or gotten them as unwanted gifts; apparently, the sort of purse I need doesn't attract the attention of potential re-sellers or gift-buyers, because even with purse auctions numbering in the 6 figures it took a couple of MONTHS of diligent searching to find anything. I wish that was a hyperbole, but it's not; all the problems I've always had with purse-finding went double on eBay.
It's not just the scarcity of acceptable purses that bothered me, of course; it was also the stupidity of the sellers (you knew THAT was coming, right?), which made my daily searches take 10X as long as they should have. Their unwillingness to properly indicate whether their purses were new or used was just the tip of the iceberg; purses can be expensive, and you'd think that this would lead to people who want to sell them striving to give accurate representations of them to encourage buyers and reduce - feedback... but if you thought that, you'd have to be unfamiliar with eBay, sigh.
The worst problem was with the photos; some sellers didn't have ANY on their pages, which is just ridiculous... there was even an auction for an alleged Chanel purse whose opening bid was $500 that didn't have one. When they DID have a photo, it was often either postage-stamp sized or they'd tried to shoot a dark purse against a light background without knowing how to correct for it and ended up with a detail-free dark rectangle or an overexposed one with very little detail... what kind of a moron puts a photo on an auction page that doesn't show what the item looks like? And then, an astounding # of sellers hadn't chosen the option (which shouldn't even BE an option, it should be a requirement) to have a thumbnail photo appear in search listings; the lion's share of my search time was spent bringing up pages for auctions that I could've dismissed at a glance if there'd been a pic to check out... especially in the astonishingly numerous instances where a seller called a purse with handles big enough for a reasonably slender arm to be pushed through them a "shoulder bag" (many of which auctions had photos of women wearing the bags jammed into their armpits, as if this proved that they WERE shoulder bags rather than proving that they weren't).
And finally, there was the legendary inability of eBay sellers to give complete descriptions: A purse is a 3-dimensional object, so for the body of the purse there needs to be THREE measurements, NOT 2 (and certainly not ZERO)... it was disheartening each time I got hopeful about a purse only to hear back from the seller that the belatedly-supplied 3rd dimension was 2", which meant that it was too small. (How does ANYONE manage to use one of those flat purses? Don't they carry hairbrushes or sunglasses anymore?) The other necessary, and often neglected, measurement was the length of the strap, or alternatively the length of the "drop" from shoulder to purse; since I don't want to go around with my arm held out at an angle because a purse is under it, I need to be sure that the strap is long enough to place the body of the purse at about hip level... which few straps are long enough to do, naturally. And then, there's the all-important description of the pockets/sections of the purse, if any, which possibly isn't crucial to anybody but ME these days but is part of the features and should still be included; as I discovered with the purse I eventually got, even when asked the seller can't manage to... yes, I DID finally get a purse, and it came today!!
Out of desperation, I bid on a purse that, based on what the seller told me, seemed kinda iffy, but had a super-low opening bid so I went for it; she made it sound like it was a "sack" but with 3 pockets around the inner wall that she said were deep, so I thought that in a pinch I could stuff them with the little doodads and put the big ones in the main compartment, plus there was a zippered back pouch for my keys... but what it actually is is a 3-sectioned purse with a zippered pocket on the middle section, and a pocket in FRONT as well as on the back, which is the ideal design. Even better; for a really cool new with tags genuine leather purse, I paid less than $7 including shipping... and that's not a typo.
SUCCESS!! :-)
Why had I been reduced to looking on eBay for something that every department store has hundreds of? My mother is to blame for that; thanks to her training, my purse contains every item I could possibly need when away from the house... including folding scissors (for dangling threads), a mini tape measure (so I can determine the sizes of furnishings that might fit in my mostly-unfurnished home), and a little calculator (to figure out tips at restaurants). Because of the sheer volume of stuff I carry, I can't use a small purse, but, because I'm not using my purse as a gym bag, lunch box, briefcase or receptacle for kids' stuff (other than the occasional thing for my husband, lol), a tote-type purse doesn't suit my needs either; this wouldn't be a problem if they made purses in the full range of sizes, but for the most part they DON'T... it's like how in the Army everything comes in 2 sizes, too big and too small.
Furthermore, because I don't want to be digging for an hour to locate whatever I need, looking like an idiot and wrecking my nails, I can't use a purse that's just a "sack," I need pockets and dividers; although lots of purses used to be designed that way, virtually none are these days, presumably because it's cheaper to not include those features... but even super-pricey purses don't have them for the most part, so go figure.
Fashion is working against me as well; shoulder bags seem to be far less popular than they used to be, although why anyone would want to have to clutch a purse handle all day is beyond me, and since I like to have my hands free, and wouldn't dare have a heavy purse exerting strain on my wrists with my borderline carpal tunnel issues, I'm excluded from the majority of bags in this way too.
And; although purses used to just discretely carry women's necessities, and were kept until they fell apart, nowadays they're trendy items meant to be eye-catching and cool for a few months and then tossed, which means that basic purses have gotten harder to find... which wouldn't be so bad, since *I* don't care if a PURSE is the current style or one from 3 (or 30) years ago, except trendy ones are usually small and without pockets, not to mention "too young" for me (hearts, fringes etc). On the other end of the spectrum, stashed in the back of most stores' purse displays are bags presumably meant for VERY conservative types; dead-plain rectangular blocks with nothing but a little clasp to decorate them, if that... I'd have to be on the verge of carrying my junk in a paper bag before I'd buy one.
AND; those pitifully few purses that're within the realm of usable for me almost always have exterior cell phone pockets, which are not only useless to me (I'll NEVER get a cell phone) but seriously ugly as well... which, combined with the other issues, eliminates 99.999% of all purses sold in the United States, such that it literally takes me YEARS to find a workable one (it's a good thing I treat my stuff so gently, and that the last time I found a purse I got 2 of them-I'm currently using that 2nd purse and have been for ages).
After endless frustration with trying to find a purse in my city, it finally occurred to me to look for one on eBay; with about 120K purses available there at any given time, you'd think it'd be a snap to find what I wanted... but it wasn't:
It turns out that an insane # of people are selling USED purses; I can see doing that if it's a designer bag that's worth something, but other than that who on Earth wants to buy a used purse, however cheap? Anyone so poor that they can't afford a new one can go to a thrift store and get a used one without having to pay shipping, and without any guesswork as to HOW used the purse is, so...? I eventually discovered that eBay DOES have an option to look at only new purses, but bags that're used but allegedly "like new" show up in that search because their sellers marked them that way to increase their chances of selling them (some of them MIGHT still be like new, but I wouldn't count on it-eBay sellers are notoriously blind to flaws and signs of wear), and purses whose sellers didn't bother to "officially" label them as new because they included "new" in their titles or descriptions do NOT show up; like everything else on eBay, it's somewhat of a free-for-all.
Since I had no intention of risking a used purse, I had to depend on people who had bought purses on sale intending to re-sell them for a profit or gotten them as unwanted gifts; apparently, the sort of purse I need doesn't attract the attention of potential re-sellers or gift-buyers, because even with purse auctions numbering in the 6 figures it took a couple of MONTHS of diligent searching to find anything. I wish that was a hyperbole, but it's not; all the problems I've always had with purse-finding went double on eBay.
It's not just the scarcity of acceptable purses that bothered me, of course; it was also the stupidity of the sellers (you knew THAT was coming, right?), which made my daily searches take 10X as long as they should have. Their unwillingness to properly indicate whether their purses were new or used was just the tip of the iceberg; purses can be expensive, and you'd think that this would lead to people who want to sell them striving to give accurate representations of them to encourage buyers and reduce - feedback... but if you thought that, you'd have to be unfamiliar with eBay, sigh.
The worst problem was with the photos; some sellers didn't have ANY on their pages, which is just ridiculous... there was even an auction for an alleged Chanel purse whose opening bid was $500 that didn't have one. When they DID have a photo, it was often either postage-stamp sized or they'd tried to shoot a dark purse against a light background without knowing how to correct for it and ended up with a detail-free dark rectangle or an overexposed one with very little detail... what kind of a moron puts a photo on an auction page that doesn't show what the item looks like? And then, an astounding # of sellers hadn't chosen the option (which shouldn't even BE an option, it should be a requirement) to have a thumbnail photo appear in search listings; the lion's share of my search time was spent bringing up pages for auctions that I could've dismissed at a glance if there'd been a pic to check out... especially in the astonishingly numerous instances where a seller called a purse with handles big enough for a reasonably slender arm to be pushed through them a "shoulder bag" (many of which auctions had photos of women wearing the bags jammed into their armpits, as if this proved that they WERE shoulder bags rather than proving that they weren't).
And finally, there was the legendary inability of eBay sellers to give complete descriptions: A purse is a 3-dimensional object, so for the body of the purse there needs to be THREE measurements, NOT 2 (and certainly not ZERO)... it was disheartening each time I got hopeful about a purse only to hear back from the seller that the belatedly-supplied 3rd dimension was 2", which meant that it was too small. (How does ANYONE manage to use one of those flat purses? Don't they carry hairbrushes or sunglasses anymore?) The other necessary, and often neglected, measurement was the length of the strap, or alternatively the length of the "drop" from shoulder to purse; since I don't want to go around with my arm held out at an angle because a purse is under it, I need to be sure that the strap is long enough to place the body of the purse at about hip level... which few straps are long enough to do, naturally. And then, there's the all-important description of the pockets/sections of the purse, if any, which possibly isn't crucial to anybody but ME these days but is part of the features and should still be included; as I discovered with the purse I eventually got, even when asked the seller can't manage to... yes, I DID finally get a purse, and it came today!!
Out of desperation, I bid on a purse that, based on what the seller told me, seemed kinda iffy, but had a super-low opening bid so I went for it; she made it sound like it was a "sack" but with 3 pockets around the inner wall that she said were deep, so I thought that in a pinch I could stuff them with the little doodads and put the big ones in the main compartment, plus there was a zippered back pouch for my keys... but what it actually is is a 3-sectioned purse with a zippered pocket on the middle section, and a pocket in FRONT as well as on the back, which is the ideal design. Even better; for a really cool new with tags genuine leather purse, I paid less than $7 including shipping... and that's not a typo.
SUCCESS!! :-)
