Tuesday, August 17, 2004

So

Two in a row. Wow... i guess that's pretty impressive ;-) I was actually just kinda killing time because i'm not really tired and i just beat tony hawk underground... i suppose i might try studying for the test that i have tomorrow, but we are allowed to bring in whatever notes we want, and so i am bringing a very convenient sheet with some very convenient definitions.

Man, what a blowoff class. I totally thought that this was going to be the one that was really gonna suck me in and help me figure out what i want to do with my life ... turns out that the class that helped me in that area was (dun dun dun) ACCOUNTING of all things! I can't really explain it other than to say that today during the exam, i didn't so much feel as if i were taking a test as playing some new kind of mentally challenging game that i actually understand. Mind you, that's not to say that it was easy, but it was most definitely enjoyable to a certain degree. Heck, i took my time to the extent that i went into "overtime" this time instead of finishing in my usual 1 hr or less timeframe.

::Sigh:: Project Management? Ops Management? Accounting? Marketing? Religious Studies? Who the fuck knows, huh? I mean really though, almost all of those tie in except for the one very obvious deviation. But who knows anyways? As Dennis Leary once postulated: You could be standing on a street corner in NYC when all of a sudden "yipYipYIpYIPYIP!!!" someone's pet poodle plummets straight down from the 32nd floor of their apartment STRAIGHT onto your head. You are therefore known as Bob, the Poodle Guy. "Yeah, I knew Bob, he hated fucking dogs!"

Life is a series of curve balls, and if you keep swingin at every one, you'll be too tired or struck out to hit the straight, slow pitch that comes right down the middle. (refraining from "balls" jokes and metaphors)

I beat Tony Haw... hmmm ... i think i told you that already. Lemme .. yep ... yeah there is is, line two or so... "just beat Tony Hawk Underground" ... ::sigh:: an old Robin Williams skit comes to mind. I'm starting to feel a little under the weather. Not sure why of course, just know how i feel is all. I guess the big thing is that i don't feel like i have a good enough idea of what i would do if fate came to me, skipped knocking on the door, and just said "Hey yo," (fate's cool like that) "what's it gonna be, Willis?" (fate also apparently watched Different Strokes ... or causes them! Hah hah hah ha ha he heh ... heh heh ... right)

What would you do? Everything you know and feel is challenged to the utmost degree in one moment. Everything that you are, were, and will be hangs in the balance between the two unknown paths which must forever be decided in one moment in time. One moment. You know, in Japanese Buddhism (it's perhaps unfair to leave it at Japanese, but for the most part this is where this particular belief exists) there is a Buddha... Amitaba? Something like that ... this Buddha resides in the "West", or "West World" (no friggin 'best of the west' illusions here folks, this is an 'unreal' place, as in not this plane of existence) which he has created to help human beings who are worthy attain enlightenment. How do you get there? How do you contact this wonderful Buddha? Pray, or recite his name, for 5 moments ... i think. That or 3. Short amount of time, right? Who knows... that's the problem: a moment is, or can be, defined as anything from a quadrillionth of a second to a million years. A moment is, strangely/conveniently/whateverly, undefined.

Do you know what a kulpa is? I think that's how you spell it... A kulpa, as I understand it, is a long time. A very long time. It is the amount of time which it would take you to wear down a mountain with a silk scarf. ... Assuming that A you didn't die first, B the scarf lasted that long, and C there were no save-the-mountain activists impeding your progress.

What if it's a kulpa? What if a moment is a kulpa? What if everything that is, was, and will be in your life and the world around you was challenged and changed over the span of relative eternity?

What if it was, instead, done in a 'quadrillionth of a second?'

I've often wondered about the relative constituency of the universe in terms of 'elements.' Not just physical or material elements mind you, but spacial and temporal as well. There are several theories which have come to my attention of late and intrigue me to no end. (or to a kulpa ... yay sat words)

Fuzzy Logic) There's a lot to this, but the part i find interesting is the theory of how the "fuzzy" composition of matter and reality causes the relative inexistence of any defined forms beyond electrical charges and densities of unnamed, ununderstood (there's a fun word) matter. Essentially, what i find interesting, is the idea that if you were to stop everything right now and leave it for, let's say ... heck, why not? a KULPA ... then eventually everything would become one and the same. This isn't really the interesting part... assume the constancy of a specific applied force, most easily assumed gravity. Two objects under different relative strains from a constant force, when placed in opposition of each other to the degree wherein one impedes the others progress, will eventually pass through each other. Put simply: if you put a bottle cap on a wooden table and leave it there for 'the longest time' the bottle cap will eventually pass through the other - or will at least seem that way. What actually happens is since nothing exists without forces which are not controlled by "nature" as we know it, the bottle cap and the table actually swap energy and 'matter' to the point where the 'matter' is no longer being 'inspired' by the force(s) of gravity.

... simply put: gravity, bottlecap, table, relative non-existence of matter-based reality.

String Theory) The world as we know it is more connected than we could ever understand through a series of 'strings' of spacial and temporal energies and realities than we as spacially and temporally limited beings could ever understand. Imagine each of your fingers as a person. Imagine a cat's cradle in your hand. Pull back a little and you see your other hand, also with a cat's cradle. pull out further and you see four other pairs of hands with cat's cradles. Look again and each of those hands is a finger on a pair of hands with a cat's cradle. Try to imagine this multiplication to the number of humans on this earth, then imagine the fingers as electrons instead of humans, and take that to the number of electrons on the planet. Now take all of that, and imagine it is the composition of a grain of sand or dirt. Apply the cat's cradle to everything in the universe and what you may find interesting is that when you take away everything else that makes your mental vision crowded and confused, it is all ultimately just a bunch of string which goes between and links everything in a cat's cradle you made in your hand. That's a pretty bastardized version of the basic concept, and i don't think i even explained it right, or even know it for that matter... but there you are.

Layer/Path Theory) Imagine a stack of pancakes. Imagine they're frozen, and you flip them on their side so that they are vertical. Each one of those pancakes is a moment in time. (we've already discussed 'moments') Now take a knife and cut the stack straight down the middle. For each moment in time, you have, at the very least, a binary decision. Yes/No, On/Off, etc. these are binary decisions. Example: you can have a salad or a sandwich for lunch. Easy, right? Good. Now, you choose the salad - caesar or house? Take the knife, and cut the pancake halves in half. Eat now or take home? Cut them in quarters. Drive fast or slow? Eighths. Depress gas quickly? 16ths. All the way? 32nds. Infinity. Each moment in time has an infinite amount of choices associated with it, to the point that the pancakes must be infinitely large, and in infinite number. (taking into account our definition of a moment as being infinite, or, in this case, 'instant') It is at this point that it becomes a little easier to see this all as infinite layers divided into infinite paths. But why does each "instant" have infinited choices associated with it? If you had chosen to eat there, you never would have had to decide about the gas peddle, would you? But you would have been in the same pancake, just on a different part of it ;-) Have you ever seen a slice-by-slice disection of the human brain? I think the first one was made from the donated brain of a convict ... but i digress. The point is that if you applied this analogy to this slice-by-slice you would notice that ultimately each slice was like a pancake. What's interesting to note is the shape which is created ... ultimately, no matter how you slice it (forgive the pun) the shape is always the same. What was that old qoute? Is all we see or seem just a dream within a dream ... something like that. What if choice and its repercussions exist, but will always shape us in the same manner regardless of the path we choose?

I guess the real question here is this: "Where are you going, where have you been?" - DMB

"I woke up and I drove to work on the wrong side of the road." - Ben Folds

"When we dance, angels will run and hide their wings." - Sting

"I'm just a curb-side prophet with my hand in my pocket and I'm waiting for my rocket to come." - Jason Mraz

"There is no place I can run, there is no place I can hide." - Nine Inch Nails

"Time is on my side." - Rolling Stones

"Whatever I fear the most is whatever I see before me. Whenever I let my guard down, whatever I was ignoring." - Toad

"KTBB" - Me

.Christian

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