China Jon's Syncretic Journal

My World
A “Mood Piece”
by ... chinajon
for ... you know who you are, my inspirator, my motivator, my far away or long ago, where ever or when ever you are... thank you.
There were dust motes dancing in the unkempt attic when I closed the door softly behind me.
Slumbering feelings were awakened by the warm musty aromas from the dusty brown boxes.
Memories of laughter and games of hide-and-seek seemed both strange and endearing.
Where the floor was bare, the boards creaked and groaned as I slowly explored what was once so familiar. I am a person who is usually in control of both himself, and his surroundings, but it seemed that I had lost the script or the rule sheet, because, put simply, I did not know how I should feel. What I did feel was a bit like a dream where I was walking down a dark, rainy alleyway... naked.

I was struggling with emotions where my memories of the beauty of a field of Spring flowers seen through that rain streaked window behind the old upright piano and the feel under my palm of a creased and soiled corduroy jacket, with patches on the elbows, kept pace with my thudding heart.

Time seemed suspended or perhaps compounded by the forty year old ice skates which were piled on top of a stack of twenty year old Life magazines and a box of replacement tubes for our old RCA Victor radio. Over on the piano, next to a photo of my famous great great grandfather was my mother’s old Bible. I walked slowly to it and when I picked it up, it fell open to Corinthians, my mother’s favorite passage, I suppose. There were traces, fragments really, of red roses which had been pressed by my mother into the pages. Grace, Hope and Beauty, growing old together. The flowers had come from the garden which bordered the house in the back yard. I remembered, as a carefree child, kneeling down to explore their beauty and feeling their sting and seeing a tiny drop of red that appeared on my finger, and the twinkle in my mother’s eye as she whispered sweet comforts to me. She had never been too busy to answer my cries with a soft smile and a warm hug. Suddenly, I found it a little hard to breathe.

I told myself that it must be the dust. Yes, that was it: dancing dust motes have a smell that makes my nose twitch, and my breath catch... but attic grime couldn’t erase the smile that was on my face, though it discolored the tears that were slowly dripping from my chin.

Putting down the Bible, I stepped forward, nearly tripping over the old wrinkled pair of Authentic Roy Rogers Authorized Cowboy Boots. Oh my God! How I loved to run around in those old friends, as the whole neighborhood played Cowboys and Indians. I was ALWAYS a cowboy, because nobody else had real cowboy boots, although several of my friends had the silver, pearl handled, Gene Autry cap-shooters modeled after Mr. Autry’s famous Colt 45 Peacemakers. You can still see the real ones in a museum someplace in Oklahoma. My time aboard those boots could easily be calculated by a glance at their run down heels. It was a mystery what they were doing up here. Their redemption was a far cry from a simple cleaning. Not even a prayer! My mother’s sense of family history! I wiped off my face and looked around.

Here was my old cherry writing desk. As a young student I had marveled at its design. When you open the desktop two wooden supports automatically slid out to support the lid as it transforms into the writing desk. Amazing little drawers were arrayed in neat curving rows. When the desk had become mine, I had immediately filled them with all my secret, private, special possessions. Now I saw them again: just dusty, childish junk that had lost whatever sparkle it had once had. No one had bothered to clean out the old nick-nacks in forty years. Oh my soul, here was the evidence clearly displayed: what a sentimental family we are... we were.

I knelt down, closed my eyes, and listened to the wind playing through the rafters. A soft wind that played on, while my world had gone away.

If you talk about life on Earth, it leads to a discussion of religion, creation and life-creating chemical stews. All of that is ... boring. The truth on Earth is what it is and taking sides will not answer the deeper questions. We don't know what life is in the first place.

One of the steps in science is to simplify the problem so that you can manipulate one variable. In this way you get an understanding of complex problems. Life is surely a complex problem. But taking it down to the simplest form of life is not the same as breaking a Physics problem into workable parts. For example, to point out the the earliest fossils occur in sedimentary rock is only partially valid as an argument regard life's origination - on Earth - as being in water. This is because there are not any other fossil records to examine. This does not mean that life did not exist elsewhere, only that that environment was not one which produced fossils. The absence of a proof does not constitute 'negative proof' or disproof. So we can only agree that there are ancient fossils on Earth that are sedimentary in nature.

In fact we find life in places that are most inhospitable. For example, tube worms that never experience light, deep under the sea around hot water vents. Or, algae that live in sulfurous thermal springs which are hot enough to cook eggs in. Or, the bacteria that inhabit about every place on Earth that is imaginable. Are these life forms related? Are algae, tube worms, and bacteria somehow related?
This little guy lives at a depth of over 2000 meters in hot water vents at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius. (176 F!)


















This bacteria is found in harsh environments:
The World's Toughest Bacterium
Date of Publication: July 5, 2000
By Sarah E. DeWeerdt

Deinococcus radiodurans is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as "the world's toughest bacterium." And for good reason: The microbe can survive drought conditions, lack of nutrients, and, most important, a thousand times more radiation than a person can. The bacterium, whose name means 'strange berry that withstands radiation,' is the most radiation-resistant organism known.
The red, spherical bacterium was discovered nearly fifty years ago in a can of ground meat that spoiled despite having been sterilized by radiation.



The clue I see is that a life form is a processor and converter of energy. And, a life form needs a suitable supply of the energy, and a safe place to process the energy as it sees fit.

Chart of Life

The diversity of life forms we have found on Earth probably did not all begin in the same place at the same time. And, perhaps we are looking at it the wrong way around. Perhaps it is the energy that is using the life form to process the environment as it sees fit.


Compare these three simple life forms. Do you think they all were 'children' of the same parent?
That is, there was only one 'first' life form?
Bacteria
Archaea
Eukarya

Maybe life is a form of energy, and not a bundle of chemicals that came together in a stew. Maybe life began in a place and time beyond our means of perception. Perhaps it is life itself that finds what ever it needs where ever it is, and goes where ever it wants.

;-D Enjoy your life, what ever it is!

Fight Spam! Click Here!


Do you use a Mac PC? I found a little trick that makes my web experience a little nicer. It works with both Firefox and Safari. Maybe others.

Problem: Even though I have 'Ad blocker' software and 'Block Pop-Up windows' turned on, some sites still make 'Pop-Under' widows which are full of ads. These are discovered when you close your top browser window. (I am not talking about porno sites either!)

So, after surfing the net for a while I (step one) send my top window to the Dock. Un-surprise! There are umpteen ads waiting for my attention.
(step 2) I hold down the 'Option key' and click the 'Close Button' on the top unwanted window. All the windows close instantly! Yaaay!
(step 3) Click on the window in the dock to re-open it.

And now I feel a little less grumpy that I can't stop the pop-unders in the first place. (Even though I can block the content of a pop under, the blank window remains. )

This trick will not work for the Finder. If you have a Finder window in the Dock, it will close along with any open Finder windows you close as a group.

I remember a time, long long ago, when many people believed that time was 'the end of an age.' There was a pop song, with the words, 'It is the coming of the age of Aquarius.'

Of course it was just a pop culture moon swing. But they were more right than they knew. We have arrived at the end of an age.

This is more than the end of the American Empire. We can all see America - at the top of the heap - and we can see it faltering. Then we say, 'ah ha! The American Empire is about to fall!' Just as Chicken Little shouted, 'the sky is falling!'

In my opinion, it is not the American Empire on the verge of collapse, it is just the end of this age, and because of America's place in this age, we can only see the cracks that are occurring in its foundation, but not the fact that these cracks extend downward into every nation on Earth.

We, as humanity, are in the process of creating a new world. Without a plan, without a leader, in some cases without hope but with faith, we are stepping forward into a new age.

And my friends, it will be a better age than the one we leave behind. The main factor in the old paradigm was our separateness, our individuality, our limited belonging-to-ness. The strength of our foundation was the family, our faith, our education (limited to what our society thought was 'good for us and itself,') our friends (limited to whom we were physically near), the city, our religious and political beliefs, and the culture of the nation that nourished us, via a huge dose of tradition.

But we have eyes to see the world, both from space, and from the viewpoint of millions of others in the world. We have ears to hear and the methods to translate other languages into our own, almost seamlessly. We can talk directly to each other, to people - and groups - who less than 20 years ago - were separated from us by both time and space.

Our actions are creating a love-hate relationship throughout our world.

The bottom line?

Traditions will be broken, and in breaking will break the hearts of millions. Traditionalists will fight the changes, will try to push back the tide. American traditionalists will feel just as much pain as Islamic or Jewish, or indeed, Chinese Communist traditionalists. The old ways are just that. Old ways include wonderful, peaceful, heartwarming traditions. There is no reason to throw them away. They are good.

But the old traditions also channel power, foment distrust, engender competition, corrupt the powerful, and waste limited resources. These traditions will be ended. It will not be an easy birth. But the egg has begun to crack, and the new age will be born.

Rule number 1? Don't be afraid. Step into the light. (I can't run the Opera editing scripts, so look at the link directly) http://www.outdoor-photos.com/store/photo/1584419.jpg


;-D Confusion is that moment between the first and the second step. After than, our direction is clear, and our confidence, assured. This is true whether we are stepping through life alone, or dancing with our partner.

Have you ever been 'In Love?'

Science has dissected 'love' into three (verifiable) fractions:
1) Lust (the craving for sexual gratification), driven by androgens and estrogens;
2) Attraction (or romantic or passionate love, characterized by euphoria when things are going well, terrible mood swings when they’re not, focused attention, obsessive thinking, and intense craving for the individual), driven by high dopamine and norepinephrine levels and low serotonin;
and
3) Attachment (the sense of calm, peace, and stability one feels with a long-term partner) driven by the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin.

I can't verify it, by I think love is a force of nature that is responsible for miracles. What goes on in my brain is often misleading, especially to me! I don't think it is any of their business!

But, if the scientists do figure out the chemical nature of love, I still don't believe that they will know what it is. It is the same as saying that a diamond is just carbon.

;-D

Source: http://www.mcmanweb.com/love_lust.htm

I play the guitar in a casual, friendly way, so that I and my friends can sing together.
But Andy is so great! I hope to learn to play some of his techniques! Someday!

Listen to Andy McKee!

Someday does come true!

For the first 500 or so of my DVD collection, I had really neat disk cases that had an index on the lid, and a little sliding button on the front. When you slid the button to the index number and opened the lid, the proper disk was lifted out for use. This was all referenced via Excel in my computer, so I could find any movie easily.

Then... I failed to keep up...

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Somebody was rather rude to some friends of mine. I am so happy about this! Huh?!?! That isn't how things are supposed to work. When someone is rude to your friends, you are supposed to get angry or something, right?

Well what actually happened was one of those little flashes of insight that I really enjoy.

Interested? Heh heh heh, you will have to turn the page, or what ever happens when you click 'Read More!' hahahaha!

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So I read this little quote:

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me: Anything can happen, child. Anything can be...`

by Shel Silverstein, in "Where The Sidewalk Ends"

And I thought about it... ==>

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A very nice person just added me as their friend and I want to let everybody know about her great blog. ==>

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