Friendship!

I'm a Natator!

Have you ever spent time just floating? Using as little effort as possible to stay on top of the water with out sinking? If you are one of the unlucky ones that plummet like a rock, that has no buoyancy don't read any further. No! I'm kidding, keep reading.

Anyone that spends a lot of time in the water be it fresh or salt eventually arrives at a place of contentment and connection with everything. Not everyone can do it but those that can enjoy a oneness with the aquatic environment that is every bit as valuable as that gained from a session of quiet meditation or a trip to temple,church or the mosque. Even those that use aids to keep them afloat experience that same feeling of oneness at times.

I'm not suggesting that only those with a connection to water are somehow blessed with an extra ability. Water folks connect through water while people that aren't comfortable in water but that love the mountains or deserts connect through the earth. For others it is the connection they get through their religious affiliations. It is those that can connect where ever they are and in whatever medium they are experiencing, here and now, in the present, that are truly blessed.

Today's topic is not really about floating on top of the water or hiking in the mountains or camping in the desert, or going to temple, church or the mosque, it is about friendship. It is about connection, it is about how we hold those people who have impacted our lives in some manner close to our hearts whether we see them or not, whether we talk to them or not, whether we are interacting with them now or whether we will interact with them in the future.

A few days ago a friend who used to live here came back to visit for a week. This person is a water-baby and has made a name for herself internationally.....but to us...she is just our friend, she fit in to island life and bonded with us. She is someone we enjoy swimming with, someone we love talking to, someone we have fun showing things to, someone we love to entertain when she comes to visit, and someone we exchange funny haiku's with over the distance that separates us.

But she is not alone, she is just one of many who have left the island for a different life and for reasons so varied i can't go into them here. But they all share one thing in common, they became our friends and we never forget them. We love having them come to visit. We are proud of our homes and get great pleasure from their enjoyment.

This morning our friend came to swim with us but it wasn't like the usual work out swim it was more like doing intervals then stopping because " OH MY GOSH did you seeeeee that huge turtle?" " i think he gets the prize for the longest tail ever," said one swimmer. "No, no, no that last one was bigger," says someone else. Or, "Hey, did i tell you about bla, bla," which moves into all sorts of conversational tangents, books, politics, religion while we are out there floating over the abyss.......saving the world....... while not thinking about the fact that we are in shark territory and they have been a bit too aggressive of late and we should be wary..... when someone takes our mind off the shark and says," What do you think of those waves?" I'm having trouble swimming, my stroke sucks in these, i'm getting airborne off the swells, how about you? Or, over here, over here look at this school of squid....are they cuttlefish?

i had to look this one up because i had this feeling i had been wrong with my answer and although they are from the same class.... cephalopod..... its a different order they belong to. But this was a minor thing because this morning we could care less about time or even reality........our friend was visiting........and we were all enjoying her excitement at just being here. It always amazes me the ease at which one falls right back into the same way of communicating, almost as if they never left.

There are forces all around us drawing some together and repelling others. Repulsion happens when something is placed between the two attracting forces, figure out what that is and how to remove that something and most friendships can be repaired. i believe that we never loose our connections even when they have been adverse because that initial joy just doesn't go away. Those people pop into our heads, throughout our lives, at the oddest moments and re-acquaint us with the things we liked about them, even over the anger.

It is the totality of intra molecular forces, those of atoms, molecules and their surfaces that continues to draw us together, especially over vast distances. We are all composed of the same stuff and maybe it is the water, maybe it is the earth, for some it may be that dedication to doing something regularly, whatever it is we all experience connection in our own special ways, cherish it. When that memory of a friend pops in, savor it, or contact them cause life is short and you may have missed out on something really wonderful.

what would you do if?

Do you ever wonder what would or could have happened if you had only done something differently? That play that keeps repeating itself in your mind, what if I had only done B instead of A maybe C would have happened instead of D.

Many claim that if it weren't for the liberalism of the 60's, society would have been more moral and stable, we would see more responsibility, lower divorce rates etc., but maybe the consequences of this alternate reality would have been less innovation as a result of a lack of creative individualism. Life today might have had fewer people resisting authority, even more pollution than we are experiencing now, more poverty, poisoned food sources, malfunctioning medicinal remedies, no Ipods, cell phones or WiFi and a host of other things i can't come up with at the moment. The imagining of that moral, stable "better" world might have left us at a place we really didn't want to live in.

For some it is easier to reside in the what might have been world rather than harmonizing with the what is. When we imagine that only a single incident like liberalism of the 60's can be enough to change our present, we indulge in what might have been. This single element did not and could not create all the change we experience today. It is not the sole determining factor.

The 60's brought in a renewed focus on love as a result of the war they were watching being waged in their names. For many of the participants the time spent trying to educate the nation was filled with failures and yet, here, today, they are being credited for the lack of morality in present society.

All of us on some level indulge in what if's. But when we indulge in what if's we leave out other options for why the world and our way of living is functioning as is. We fail to stay present, we live in the past for all of us can only work with what we have not with some fantasy alternate reality.

Consider this..........maybe, the lack of morality today is a result of self-interest rather than liberalism and the result of choices rather than mistakes.

Just look at the laws of nature some say for it explains mankind.

Natural law as described in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences had stoics being indifferent to the divine or natural source of the law: "the Stoics asserted the existence of a rational and purposeful order to the universe (a divine or eternal law), and the means by which a rational being lived in accordance with this order was the natural law, which spelled out action that accorded with virtue. Stoics emphasized the universal ideas of individual worth, moral duty, and universal brotherhood."

The Christians on the other hand had the Fall and according to Wikipedia

"some Christians believe the Fall corrupted the entire natural world, including human nature, causing people to be born into original sin, a state from which they cannot attain eternal life without the gracious intervention of God. Protestants hold that Jesus' death was a "ransom" by which man was made forever free from the sin acquired at the Fall, and other denominations believe that this act made it possible for man to be free without necessarily ensuring it. In other religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and Gnosticism no term "The Fall" is recognized and varying interpretations of the Eden narrative are presented. Natural Law still plays a role in all these."

"Prelapsarian" refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the Fall. It is sometimes used in reference to sentimental recollections of a past time when conditions stood in sharp contrast to the present." It demonstrates the what if mankind could have had if only they had followed orders.

Many philosophers, modern and ancient both, have used the term "Natural Law" to argue and dissect the human condition. Philosophers added to the catalog of man made discourse and man made "laws" concerning "Natural Law," our "rational" participation in what if scenarios encouraged the acceptance of "Natural Law".

My question concerns "Natural Law," can we consider it an invention by man? Nature has never once insisted upon or commanded us to use any "natural laws" that we must follow, but many men have insisted that according to nature this or that is so and mankind must adhere to that law.
Again we aren't following orders.

So...........just to throw this out there, can you consider that there is no such thing as a Natural Law?

Eons may pass until mankind completely penetrates to the core meanings of our existence and then there may be no meaning at all. We have become deaf to each other in the present while our belief's from the past try to conquer all. We may just be here along with every thing else living and dying as part of our earth's cycle. Why is it that modern researchers who delve deeper into the chemical makeups of everything on earth continue to find symbiotic relationships dominating? Where is this conversation?

Some of us can spend too much time in the substrate, learning the lessons, filling in the slots, and thinking about what if"s. We can't look ahead the way you do in chess, we can plan but we can't know absolutely or see the end result until after it has happened.

Consider this....maybe if we step back, take a look around and go on a longer journey in the present maybe more will reach that goal of "happiness in this life" faster. If you are indulging in what might have happened or what if ‘s, you may have forgotten a piece of knowledge that has been stored in your unconscious, something left there which had no rule for handling. Access to it was lost but it never left storage, it is still there waiting to be opened on a different level.

Choose to examine it.
Take it out of storage.
Work with it and use it to divest of the what if's.
Take action now. Don't wait for tomorrow.

swimming the currents of the intertubes

Has anyone noticed while swimming along the currents of the intertubes a trend with numbers?
Daily on Yahoo, AOL, Digg, MSNBC, and all the other similar story aggregations the one getting the most hits has a number in it.




Top 10 ways to please your lover.
Top 5 things that happened at the hearings
7 Key Genes predict brain cancer survival
14 Regrettable professional sports promotions
8 things your contractor won't tell you
6 ways to swear effectively
10 surprising sex statistics
9 Inspirational Presidential speeches
15 Rites of Passage
4 reasons why something sucks
10 things you might not know about socialized medicine

i'll bet you want to read one of those don't you?
i only put one link in...the one to socialized medicine the rest you can google and find on your own.

Here is another frequent set of articles. They start with a question.

Do you drink too much?
Can you keep a secret?
Do you really want to live forever?
What does she/he really want you to do in the bedroom?
Do you have a white roof, learn how to fight global warming?
Did you know scientist's found the worlds oldest wily?
Why did squid wash up on a California beach?
Bush's CIA: Who deserves the assassin's bullet?
Which Bruno outfits are your favorites?

i thought about putting the links in for all of these in case you wanted to follow up but it is just as easy to Google them. Are you a statistic......... do these types of stories sucker you in? Writers understand how to grab your attention and by the looks of things on line numbers and questions get the most hits.

Moving on i have also been thinking about idioms. Idioms are phrases that have meanings different than the actual words. i wanted to play with them to see what kind of a piece i could put together. Unfortunately i'm not a comedian, if only i knew how to do humor i'll bet this could be really funny and fun. But in researching idioms i've learned that they tend to be pretty serious. Teaching us lessons and all that.

i put this little piece together....tried to keep it light.......see how many idioms you can find....the answer will be at the end.

The calm before the storm, as luck would have it.....is that period of serenity before it all hits the fan...usually happens when two people or the circumstances are at an impasse. One person hangs the other out to dry but maybe the shoe is on the other foot and these circumstances have gone from positive to negative. It may be the person who has turned off the spigot was making other people experience their ill will and now they are experiencing it also. The bad karma they left behind came back to bite them.

Too many try to reinvent the wheel when they are arguing. Things are easier said than done and remember when you are in the midst of a battle if you are given lemons make lemonade. You can make something great out of something that could have gone sour cause all's well that ends well and really.......... its better to try and understand the devil you know rather than the devil you don't.

Why do some people turn on those that have supported them? Why do they repay kindness with a wrong? They get a chip on their shoulder and they can't get it off. They can't understand if you give them a taste of their own medicine because that only works one way and they don't see the bad karma biting them back. Sometimes the easiest way to resolve it is to cut to the chase. Don't waste time beating around the bush because drastic times call for drastic measures.

The saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you because you may need it someday" is one to keep close to your heart. You don't want to bite off more than you can chew when repaying those who supported you when you needed them. But remember that old adage...casting pearls before swine is all about wasting good deeds on someone who does not appreciate them. Don't put something in front of those that don't value them. We all have axe's to grind but it is better to let the water flow under the bridge.

If you are crying over spilt milk you have already lost something, you can't move on, and you can't remain upset over it. Stop going up a blind alley, set the wheels in motion and get started. Sometimes you have to go back to square one because you are stuck between a rock an a hard place.
We can all get stuck in some frame of mind that does nothing for our future. Putting your tail between your legs is unnecessary.
We all know that every cloud has a silver lining, so drop the cock and bull story, and stop being so fixed in your ways.

You know how it is....when it rains it pours because a lot of things can go wrong...i can
foam at the mouth all i want.....but you should just wake up and smell the coffee. Go out on a limb, go the extra mile, stop with the knee jerk reactions and let bygones be bygones. The ball is in your court, pick it up because then you will have the best of both worlds and its better late than never.

Remember, no matter the consequences those who are honest with themselves get farther in life.

46

Human symbiosis

While alive we humans, who may have evolved from symbiotic relationships between bacteria's, continue to learn why symbiosis is so important to our well being.

The definition of symbiosis is commonly described as the interactions between diverse biological species. We are not diverse, just different. Definitions of symbiosis include three categories of symbiotic relationships, mutualism, parisitic, or commensal. A primary aspect is to describe it as one beneficial to both parties.

However it is defined, the main premise is one of positive interaction.

The biologist Lynn Margulis, famous for her work on endosymbiosis, contends that symbiosis is a major driving force behind evolution. She considers Darwin's notion of evolution, driven by competition, as incomplete and claims that evolution is strongly based on co-operation, interaction, and mutual dependence among organisms.

If we look at humanity one of the precepts for all human cultures is to contain your desires.

Caving into desire is to act unnaturally which upsets the natural harmonic balance. Well maybe it doesn't. Maybe caving in to desires that don't involve violence is what creates change in a symbiotic universe.

Much of the ancient and modern meditations on human behavior admonish us to "return to nature" yet not to allow our "free will" to gain "free rein." To seek a "calm" state free from desires. Well maybe these meditations on human behavior are wrong. Maybe that calm state free from desires is what allows the violent in society to prevail, to run roughshod over the rest of us who are remaining calm and containing our desires.

The fact that suffering, pain and death will never end as long as humanity inhabits earth is minimized when we curb our desires. Suffering and pain can be diluted but death will always be the end result of life as we humans know it. Curbing our desires means that love, kindness and compassion take a back seat to pain and suffering.

Interactions of the human kind are dictated by habits of mind. We passively accept the manipulation of our societies by religious and political leaders. We become sheep. We subsist in a state of inertia, the continual everyday life that we accept even when there is no apparent connection between the overriding realities that are bombarding us from outside our comfort zones, and that of a better world.

Death and love, those are the strange passions of humanity that guide our every action. They bind us to each other and split us off. We know we are all fellow participants in spaceship earth and yet many of us work against each other for our own ends which aren't always beneficial to all. This working against each other has been encouraged, even though the historical record shows that interaction and cooperation exhibit more positive results.

The art of symbiosis is not manipulation. No entity is manipulated, benefits accrue either to both or to one of the participants without devastating harm to the other. If the relationship ends in death for one, the other quickly follows making this form of symbiosis the least likely to achieve successful evolutionary progress. The most ideal symbiotic relationship is mutualism when both parties benefit.

According to Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan,

"Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking."

Today, networking has taken off. The internet has changed the combination of our linkages to those all over the world. It has created a more positive environment for transferring ideas and solutions to many more people just as did the radio and television.

All of us, at one time or another, need helping hands during those big times of our lives. We connect through business, family, friends and acquaintances. Symbiotic relationships are a part of nature and our beings. Recognizing the important role it plays in changing our lives is just another step we as humans are taking to make this world a better place for all of us.

Random Phenomena

Random phenomena can either be single events or those occurrences that evolve over time in a random fashion. Our lives exhibit these random circumstances on a daily basis. More often than not some fiasco will insert itself into our well laid plans and we must change the final outcome.

How that fiasco, failure, disaster, mess or washout happened is insignificant. What we did with it and how we fiddled with it is significant.

For example, if you have told a lie, some falsehood, some made-up story, an invention or some deception to an acquaintance, friend or family member your outcome will evolve over time. Randomness comes into play.

Initially, you may believe the outcome to be positive. The result of your action, at the time, has smoothed over the rough spot and you are off the hook. But the fib now lives with you, it follows you and may grow. You must always guard against revealing details that may ensnare you in falsehood.

Subjective logic takes uncertainty and belief ownership into account. A fundamental aspect of the human condition is that nobody can ever determine with absolute certainty whether a proposition about the world is true or false. Whether what someone has told them is true or false.

belief is the belief that the specified proposition is true.
disbelief is the belief that the specified proposition is false.
uncertainty is the amount of uncommitted belief.
base rate is the a priori probability in the absence of evidence.

Back to the lie, which does contain some truth. The truth and the lie are fused into one story which is not necessarily a complete fiction.

This is where trust comes in.

Many of us have an uncanny ability to exhibit warmth of emotion even when the underlying fervor is one of suspicion. We don't want to believe our friends or family or leaders are lying to us but there is the nagging indications that they may be. We may especially feel this way if they have lied to us in the past and we have caught them. They may not be aware that we have "caught" them and so they continue to repeat the lie.

We see this happening everywhere. It happens politically, it happens with religions, it happens with social relationships. Any human interaction can be fraught with untruths.

So how does one guard against falling for the "story" or "falsehood" be it religious, political or social?

By shining a light on the falsehood. By calling it out. By creating simple questions that lead to truth.
Guantanamo isn't closed.
We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We still torture.
These issues have not gone away just because the administration changed.
There are still lies that need uncovering and even though many of us have stopped discussing these events they still live and breath in the lies that created them.