Existence of Time

Time is relative and for our intelligence, it results in seeing nothing more then Chaos. But for most of us trapped by a society that teaches our minds to be closed and utilitarian to function correctly in this civilization, we feel time is linear and absolute. What is time to us, a series of events that happen between sunrise and sunset: hours, days, months, years, all based on the sun.

But the real experience of time is in our physical bodies. We are so self centered that time seems linear: I did this then this happened and I did this and this happened, then I saw somebody, then I went here and someone did something to me and I had to do this and etc, etc till bed. I expect that this has something to do with most of us operating on a primitive rule, the rule of animal. That every action performed is to gain pleasure or to prevent pain. There is not one single action that you perform that is not motivated by this rule. Even the most self-sacrificial, Mother Theresa of Saints is governed by this rule.

This usually has me feeling a little existential, because it means that however different all of us are, we are all the same and we can never experience the world outside of the limitations of our chemical emotions or our physiology.

I was considering a story I read about Kurt Vonnegut explaining why people like drama. (I’ll put the link at the bottom) But he draws a story line/graph and illustrates that most people have a life that is right in the middle and waivers up and down between ecstasy and misery. He draws a line that moves through time, a linear line. This seems awfully grim to me. But in this world, if you stand still like most of these football watching, joyless job going, contents, the world is grim. But even in the most mundane situation I see a life through time something like this:

Of coarse this is oversimplified and perhaps just an aerial view of three or four people.

Up and down is not the emotional highs and lows, but instead the encounter with others. Even at the time of conception you have already interfered with someone else’s life, whether you are the fetus or the mother or the father or the family, employer, etc..and then it continues. Time is made of all these things, encounters that lead to events and experiences (at least in the human concept) There is two definitive aspects, the start and end of physical existence here. Birth and death. But everything in between is unpredictable, in/un-graphable, chaos.

In considering birth and death, I can’t help be brought into ideas of religion, of reincarnation, of heaven and hell. In all mythology is some glimmer into a knowledge of a truth, some real meaning to be deciphered. After looking at a number of images captured by the Hubble and contemplating them for some time and seeing unimaginable depths, vastness, objects and materials, I have concluded with absolute certainty that there is a plethora of life beyond Earth. Existence and consciousness is unfathomable and for us to deny possibility of other life just proves our minds feeble, primitive and full of fear. There must be millions of life filled galaxies, older, wiser and more advanced then us. They visit us with nervousness. They know our fear will murder them, they know our fear will murder ourselves.

Perhaps heaven is in essence the transcendence of fear, the fear instilled into us by this civilization. And when we die our energy (everything being made of energy like 1’s and 0’s or on and off, vibrations, heat, the sun, etc) is freed from this Earth and hence transcendence. Could be to a higher consciousness. However, Hell would equate to something like staying still, purgatory, not being reincarnated, burning back into the Earth, back to the ground, not the sky (the Heavens always being a world above). Or perhaps just being dead. In this idea, it might be suggested that returning back to Earth in terms of energy, life cycle, etc. is negative, but I certainly do not think this. The point is that in all the creativity in existence of everything, it must be something a little more complex then just physics and organic chemistry.

I believe that transcendence is found in the inherent innocence that we are all born. Children are born with good moral, it is we as a society, as parents that corrupt with ideas of hatred and fear.

We are all connected and share the subconscious chatter of the Collective Unconscious. Collectively we must try to return to our instilled ability of judgment, which is inherently good, moral, natural. To help rather then to compete, to conserve and respect our resources, to nurture our strengths and collaborate. Without these changes the world will continue to become globalized with bad ideas, money, poverty and synthetic, shallow beliefs.

North Florida, the start of the real South

Florida

I am up in Macclenny, my sort of hometown or at least the place I grew up from birth until I became self aware and yearned for more. My childhood memories include things like pine forests, white fences, cows, horses, chickens and rodeos. A quaint little piece of country, quiet, religious, kind and respectful. It had its mom and pop restaurants like Day’s Deli where you could get homemade pizza and sandwiches, Lyma Greens with old fashioned Barbeque, Country Junction with its high quality, not made in China, probably made in America, western wear. There was one, maybe two fast food places, there was a butcher, a hardware store, corner stores where parents would send their children to pick them up a pack of cigarettes without any dubious hesitation.

Everything was green, the homes made uniquely and with real craft, with backyards that had pecan trees and vegetable gardens, bird baths and ponds. There were wild rabbits, foxes, turkeys and maybe a boar or a bear. We would play outside until dark (even in the heat), we would swim in the black, murky waters of the Glen St. Mary river and not think about snakes or alligators. It was innocent, it was pure, it was before Capitalism with its shiny lights, faux stucco and Hollywood placed signifiers crept into our homes through the TV.

I remember when Burger King and Wal-Mart came to town. Then I recall the local sheriff and perhaps some other city officials were done in for some sort of marijuana dealings. So the old boys were out of the way, which meant the old money was gone and the little town was prostituted to franchised business as usual, all the “Mom and Pops” were put out and now your options are the same as any truck stop or highway exit in most of America. A super Wal-Mart knocked down over 25 acres of pine forest and now threatens even the franchised businesses.

I suppose the old Macclennians were preserving this little old town, perhaps with things that were illegal, but really there was no crime against anyone. It was just a plant that causes less harm then alcohol, that mellows people out and lowers the violent tendencies of testosterone carrying hot heads. And now the innocence was sold lot by lot, cemented with identical lego land houses and everything has become the ultimate manifestation of Postmodern. The ultimate manifestation is when everything imitates what it is suppose to be. Everything is artificial. Artificial food, tastes like cheese, looks like cheese, but its components are nothing more then coloring and something like MSG and maybe some dairy cultures. We buy fruit imported from Chile that should grow in our backyards. Just another commercial institution that makes big money for some American CEOS of a Chinese company, no care for the people, but that is nothing new.

What is new, is that the farther into the South we drove (meaning the farther north into the Southern ideologies) I started to notice anti-Obama signs. I knew these Republicans would be pacing the fence about a Black president. They say things like, “Obama is trying to turn this country Socialist.” And “What he (Obama) is doing is illegal.” And “Obama isn’t even an American citizen.”, Oh and healthcare, that is a big word and complex idea for these folks. What is going on up here, everyone is crazy. Firstly,this country will never be Socialist, the people here are too greedy, competitive and ignorant to be Socialist. I mean the idea of distributing wealth to everyone, please, that is just un-American. Secondly, Obama asking school children to get involved in politics by writing a letter to their president is something almost every American elementary school child has done and now these uneducated, stubborn, know it all Republicans are pulling their children out of school so that they miss Obama’s speech. Who bloody cares? Does it mean that much to them? It is just so, I can’t even think of the word. I guess ignorance is the best word.

Yes, Macclenny, a deformed child of the modern world, somewhere between mutating into contemporary and staying religious and moral. A drunk, wife beating priest, a child technologically connected to the rest of the world yet but confined to his parent’s, parent’s, parent’s ideals. Change happens in this place when money is dropped like a bomb that transforms everything to this and no one says or does anything about it because they bow to it because they believe that it is all powerful and perhaps even bigger then their God. They let it put them out of business, destroy their farms and enslave them to the Wal-Mart employee hand guide.

I remember a winter here, it was chilly, the pine straw was heavy on the ground, the air was fresh and everything seemed like an ideal from a Steinbeck novel, but perhaps now it is the place where the ear is crawling with ants in the grass, where Kyle Mclaughlin lost his innocence and Isabella Rossellini forever sings Blue Velvet and someone like Dennis Hopper is selling family land and businesses to the devil while molesting prostitutes.