What is a destiny and am I running away from it?

Tucked away behind a stack of unopened boxes of interlocking wood flooring pieces is a set of shelves covered with dozens of VCR tapes.

"Tell me more, tell me more!  Did he put up a fight?!"

The tapes, most of them prerecorded, cover topics ranging from the heyday of 1990s Univ. of TN football to the Avengers TV series to pop films.

None of them discuss the measurement of the billiard ball interaction of states of energy (at least, not in that terminology - of course, they discuss it in all its abstract redefinitions).

The blank VCR tapes we bought are mostly remagnitised with NASCAR races, football games and films/shows recorded off the tellie.

Not having kids, we don't have a collection of what we thought at the time were cute actions by our children long since grown up.

Together, the VCR tapes and shelves exert a downward force on the floor which exerts a downward force on the joists which exert a downward force on the foundation blocks, etc.

There is, also, the centripetal/centrifugal* force of Earth's spin associated with the Moon, the planets and last but not least, our local star.

(*will I ever keep the two words distinctly defined in my head?)

What is my physical attraction to the shelves?  Literally.

I can't get to the tapes easily but I can reach some of them and almost all of the DVD discs stacked nearby.

Those magnetised bits of material and stamped discs have helped rearrange my nervous system circuitry.

Here I sit listening to the Music Choice(R) "Classical Masterpieces" channel and contemplating the universe as exemplified by the stacks of material around me.

A thought process tens of thousands of years in the making (hundreds of millions, to some degree, but only sort of billions of years in the making).

Somebody told me there's a big brouhaha being raised about the phrase, "brood library."  I'm not sure if it's a controversy taking place on the campus of an agricultural college or a chicken farm but I'm sure it's exciting to those who know the details of the event.

In any case, as much as holding the universe (by extension) in my hand (virtually through the thought process) is interesting, I pause to note the state of ice sublimation and snow melting around the house and ask what does the heating of the Earth's surface and atmosphere have to do with the flow of liquid and gases we call weather.

Science is a word that represents much but science is not the answer to every question, not abstractly.

Neither will I prove the theory of Higgs boson by thinking here abstractly for a million years.  Speaking of which:

Higgs Boson enters a church. The priest says 'get out!' and the Higgs Boson says: 'but without me, how can you have mass?'

I chew off the dead portion of my fingernails because there's a puzzle that's puzzling me.


Should I think colloquially, using contractions and droppin' my g, or is the only, best, way to think by using the most proper form of the language/subculture common to most of my central nervous circuitry?


Life moves on.  I have no need of taking advantage of others' less-motivated lifestyles to motivate myself to build an empire, big or small, because of my beliefs.  I have no children.  I have, at most, my wife and perhaps my parents to support - compared to the changing costs of living in our local economies, our combined incomes and investment holdings should suffice to keep all of us alive as long as we need/want.


At the same time, I desire to deal with the envy and jealousy - states of energy assigned to the realm of emotions - that arise when I see others doing what I believe I am also capable of but for whatever reason have chosen not to compete.


If my destiny is to report to the Committee of 7.5 ideas and potential events that benefit me in no way but makes the other committee members wealthier, then what kind of destiny is that?


If I don't have a dog in the fight, there's no reason to put myself in a position to make a sheriff's reelection prospects more appealing.


I know who I am.  The question remains, where do I want to be myself that causes the fewest unintended consequences?


My life journey is both my own and that of the people with whom I communicate most often (family and close friends) and infrequently (the rest of the population (as well as the rest of the universe)).


Some tell stories with books and some tell stories with computer programs.  I have done both and of either one of those, I'm done.


Time to move on.


Time to talk to myself somewhere else.


Where, I don't know.  I am tired of the days of being boxed up in the cattle yards and chicken coops of office buildings, laboratories, classrooms and factories, where and when I used to be most comfortable.


It's easy to prognosticate and see a certain view of life from behind a keyboard and in front of a computer display.


Time to get away from the electromechanical virtual world, which is but one of many subsets of the worlds within the universe as we see it.

The Biggest Loser

Whoever made the decision to put the turf down the way it is at the BCS championship game needs some professional landscaping help.  It's slicker than ice in an Alabama winter storm.  Or slicker than somethin'...

Can you outrun your own body?

I haven't tried to bend a spoon with my mind but I have seen a spoon's shadow bent around the curve of the inside of a paper bowl.

This morning, I arrived at a familiar crossroads - do I create my own light or follow the light of others?

Growing up in the shadow of a chemical plant, many of my friends and their parents discussed chemical compound possibilities in everyday conversation.

JETS may still be around.  I don't know.

So I guess that's why my philosophy (again, a word I use loosely) is centered on the simple phrase, "states of energy."

And why I don't trust a theory if the squirrels in the yard don't see its poignancy.

A clever brain is not the universe, only part of it.

If the truth has no impact on the states of energy that I see and call living things and their tendency toward narcissistic self-replication, then why reveal it?

If the truth has as much meaning to my species as the formula for plastic in a three-litre bottle does to the spider in the foyer, why attempt to translate it?

"Truth."  Another combination of loosely held-together characters characterising characterisations like strings of a marionette holding up a puppet's body joints that we interpret as representations of people, animals and other everyday objects.

Members of the Committee of 7.5 want me on their team because they assume it means they'll have exclusive access to the truth.

But the truth doesn't work that way, does it?

That's why I'm a member of another group that collects secrets from all groups/societies/clubs and openly shares them with whomever.  The more secrets you assemble and connect, the clearer the jigsaw puzzle of our species' habits materialises.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?  Lots of snow and slippery weather, the forecasters sing!

Never believe what you read, including these words.  We're fooling ourselves in one giant agreed-upon, closed-off fantasy.

As you know, humour is the key to unlock the door to get out.

When one bad apple spoils a whole bunch of sideline reporters, do you toss out the whole barrel or reassign the lot to cover news stories that'll go into the morgue and start all over?

Which is more important: your bottom line or your people?

After we've trained the whole species to divert their food/shelter seeking habits toward participation in the world of commercialisation, how do we, from a global standpoint, manage the resources so that unique products can "naturally" rise and fall in popularity (via adverts, word-of-mouth, etc.) without depleting resources available for the next round of unique must-have goodies?

Tariffs and bans are one form of centralised planning used by decentralised capitalist societies, not to mention communist ones, to control the processing and flow of raw resources.

My programmers ran a scenario for me last night where China's increased control of exotic materials was met by a ban of and/or tariff on the import of products made with Chinese-based exotic materials.

One result was the forced consumption of domestic production in China.

Another result was the increase in innovation in the rest of the world in creating useful products that advanced society without the need for exotic materials.

A result I hesitate to report was a degradation into famine and food wars due to increased currency exchange problems and high-sea battles/raids.

I've asked my programmers to change the parameters and run a full-length 1000-year projection for analysis over the weekend.

"Terry from Bulls Gap, you're on the air!"

"Thanks, guys. I appreciate you taking my call."

"No problem, Terry. What's your question?"

"I just have one comment.

"Where I sit, the wind is ringing the wind chimes, turning the weather vane, swaying trees and portending a big temperature change.

"Where I sat last night, on the 50-yard line, watching the capacity crowd watching the two schools pit their moneymaking machines against each other, all in the name of putting student-athletes through college on scholarships...

"Well, it got me to thinking."

"Terry, are you used to thinking? We don't want you to strain yourself just for the sake of our call-in postgame analysis radio show."

"Fellows, that's the thing. Why'n the world would I have to have a reason to think about anything after the game's over?

"You see, to me, the game's all about the whole ordeal.

"The drive to the game. Finding parking that's close and cheap. Eating a good meal. Meeting folks from different parts of the country. Seeing all the types of folks who show up. Singing the national anthem. Cheering and booing at the right time just like in church service."

"You boo in church, Terry?"

"Sure do. The preacher's sermons are often controversial and go off on tangents that are inappropriate for the subject stated in the church bulletin. We don't wait for no committee to set the preacher straight. We just boo and yell 'Get to the point' while he's preaching."

"We like your church, Terry. Do you have a point for our listeners?"

"Yes, I do. Last night's game was a doozy..."

"No arguing that one, Terry."

"...And I hear a posse of bear trappers and a gaggle of lawyers are going on the hunt for some Big Ten officials. But let's remember that it's one more game in the game of life. We'll find something new to talk about tomorrow which, according to my farmer's almanac, is going to be the first day of 2011."

"My mobile phone agrees with your calendar, Terry. Thanks for calling in. You have a safe New Year's Eve."

"You, too, guys. One more thing. You know anything about this new country singer, Gwyneth Paltrow? Her name sounds foreign to me. Ain't country-sounding enough. Are we importing our country singers now, too?"

"Terry, she's as American as you and I are."

"That so? Guess I better get out more."

"Thanks for your comments, Terry, as usual. Next caller, you're on the air. Minnie from Grinder's Switch, what's your question?"