Letting Go

I'm not sure if this is a Buddhist tradition, or an Indian tradition, but regardless, it's beautiful. Little candles that create fragile balloons which float off into the sky (probably landing and starting brush fires).

We are little candles that float in this world, for a time. This world is a little candle that floats in space, for a time. We're all just points of light, floating.

Illusion is Reality

His meritorious achievements are vast;
His wisdom is deep and sublime.
His light, with awe-inspiring glory,
Shakes the universe of a thousand million worlds.
I resolve to become a Buddha,
Equal in attainment to you, O holy king of the Dharma,
To save living beings from birth-and-death,
And to lead them all to emancipation.

Tower Truthers

Click for big, as always. Know the truth.

Learn to let go that which you fear to lose.

Ever Smaller

Check out 80's guy with his rad collection of electronics. Believe me cuz I was there, and all that stuff was rad, back in the day. Yo! But all of that and far more (the Internet) can now be found on a pretty little thin slab of black glass.

Like everyone here has, except that dude. The world in our palms, like some Star Trekkian perversion.

F that S says Queen Nadia, beatbox of the desert. Gonna kick it old school. Cut this rug!

DL's down wit it.

Big Ben Kids

Look! I went to London and saw Big Ben and took a picture of this crazy guy ranting on the corner. Though in sooth I agreed with all his signs and had a pleasant talk with him -  he was absolutely correct in most of his opinions, I found, and incredibly committed to them. He wasn't really ranting either. Another difference between America and England - English nutters are well versed, polite, and correct. I generalize based on a single experience, of course. I must confess I grudgingly admire anyone who would stand on the street with a sign, telling the world their opinion. It takes energy! Far easier to sit on the couch and mutter under one's breath. And so we all agree to make fun of guys like this, when in fact, he's a hero, and all the hate stems from shame.

Ain't it the truth?

Not a water based prank

A real photo, apparently, from Tibet, of a monk aflame. If it's come to people lighting themselves on fire in protest, safe to say society has become overly authoritarian, and needs to relax, quite a bit.

Some serious stuff to light one's self on fire, right? Damn.

Yesterday's Nerds (Spergin' in Silence)

Think back into smoky mists of time (and they were damn smoky - candles and flames everywhere for light and warmth), to an age before the MTV and the hippety-hoppy music, before the talkies and the radio, the silent movie and peep show. Further back, past dozens and dozens of your Great-Grandmothers, to an age of silence. Think of it!

Finally home, to a cold hunk of meat, water, and a book by candlelight. Relaxing, right? But every night (if you're lucky - this guy looks rich), and can you imagine your boredom? No TV, no Net! No iPod to rock the jams. In fact, no noises at all, save the wind through your rickety roof or the rats in your walls. So damn quiet! Check out that table in detail - it's neat.

What would a nerd of this day do? If lucky, a monk or scribe of some sort. Treasurer types perhaps. Otherwise, nerds or not, they probably worked in the fields or some other grueling physical labor that crushed their snarky spirit as well as their bodies. Like most everyone else. Thus perhaps the appeal of the Monastery.

Buddha was a nerd, clearly. Also, did you know he left his wife and kid in the dead of night? Not cool, Siddhartha. He also starved/slept on nails/lived in woods under a tree alone for seven years, which is pretty good penitence I suppose. Very quiet.


Point being, however, for all we have gained - and it's a lot (greater equality, health, longevity, safety, etc) - we have lost an equal amount. Imagine living in a world of silence save for natural sounds, or the sounds you make yourself or with others. Discussion would become a major form of entertainment. Self made music or listening to friends play would be mind blowing.

You had to make your own fun, damnit! And now that we don't, I fear that part of the brain, that part of humanity, fades away to nothing. And we'll all be nerds then, if not already.

Everything's Connected

Saturn's auroras in time lapse sequence, taken by one of the most important science tools ever invented - ever! - the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Fact! Every planet with a magnetic field (Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) has auroras. Saturn has particularly spectacular auroras, as witnessed above, and below:

Look at them! They're things - you can see their thickness in this pic. That's because auroras are actually things - particles from the sun, sent flying on the solar wind, wrapping down the magnetic field of the planet towards both poles (due to the shape of spherical magnetic fields - everything is geometry, someone once said).  Cool, right?

It gets cooler. Scientists recently discovered - and believe me, despite all the wingnuts and Heebie Jeebies, we are in a Golden Age of scientific discovery, because of our advancing technology - that the coolest moon in the Solar System - Enceladus - is electrically connected to Saturn. They form a circuit. Lookee here:

On the left is a spot just below Saturn's Northern aurora, with a stream connecting to a big spot in an aurora like phenomena on Enceladus. These two spots spin around, the proof that they are connected. Check it:

This is Saturn's Northern aurora from above - in the upper left, you see a white box with a red dot in it. The red dot is the electrical field of Enceladus, as you can see it move in this time lapse image.There is a corresponding movement in the bright circle above Enceladus.

Enceladus is electrically charged in part because of all the water it expels. It expels a lot!  Enceladus contributes several of Saturn's rings, as it spews water into space which then freezes hard as rock then orbits around Saturn in a ring for some millions of years in beauteous wonder.

We are learning more and more about the Universe we exist in and are part of every day. It's amazing - to think! It was the mid 1990's when the first Exoplanet was confirmed, and now we are over 400 and about to sharply spike way higher - conventional wisdom now holds that just about every star has planetary bodies of some kind orbiting it. Meaning there are hundreds of billions (trillions?) of planets in our Galaxy. And of course there are hundreds of billions of galaxies. And so on.

The point? We live in a miracle. As a PS, here's humble ol' Earth, our home:

Aurora Australis, y'all.

Replicated Fractal

Click for really big. The artist is pretty darn cool - check out Vlad, here. Here, you see the fractal nature of trees, and life in general. Life makes a copy of itself, buds it off, which does the same, and so on. Replicating fractals. Every so often, something happens to change the fractal pattern - a mutation - and a different fractal then replicates, until it too undergoes some change, for some reason (could be radiation, starvation, different atmosphere, etc), and this process is, in part, evolution. Life is a fractal chemical process consuming energy in order to replicate itself, generating waste products which in turn contribute to some other process. This of course is the real meaning of life, but, meh. Rather unfulfilling, right?

This fractal replication happens at all scales, from the micro to the macro. You could, in a sense, say it is our reality: Layers of replicated fractals. But that too, doesn't truly speak to our real reality: Layers of illusion generated by our minds.

Escape from your self

As always, click for big. It's glorious - all the colors of Trek nerds you could imagine. Look at the Boy Borg in the upper right.

When we dress up in costumes, we leave our normal world behind. This is a literal, physical feeling, one you can sense even when dressing up for a dinner at the Chez Fancy or going to one of them there Broadway shows. Different costumes for different events, as you fit the new mold of who you are supposed to be, then, and there. Going to a sporting event, for instance, requires a different costume than one for the opera, and it will make you feel like a different person. Perhaps.

If you agree so far, than, ask yourself this: What does this say about us? That we - the individuals we think of as "us", or, "I" - are actually largely constructed from the clothes we wear, and the circumstances we normally find ourselves. How could you argue for a permanent "you" if "you" can change simply by wearing a different costume? 


I would argue we, knowingly or not, use this dynamic as a social and personal release valve. Halloween, for another example, allows you to confront the darker side of life, in a fun and socially accepted way. You delve into it, knowing you'll be right out. You get to take a break from your own life, escape from your self, and perhaps see the world with new eyes.


It's like a battery recharge, and the more often you can break out of the mundane, the more fresh you'll be. This is the point of many of our costumed rituals.


So, live long and prosper, Star Trek (and all affiliated) nerds. Enjoy the liberation which is the release of self. 


This is the near ultimate aim of Buddhism, by the way: Letting go of the ego, understanding what it really is in the process: An illusion. A costume. A mask.

Also, too: I was on this same not London Bridge back in the banner year of 2004:

Scales of Perspective (Let's Go!)

Here we go - let's bring it home. Here we have the proton and neutron, the building blocks of the nucleus, which, combined with electrons, make up all atoms. Inside the proton and neutron are quarks, which come in colors. What makes up a quark, you might ask? So far, according to standard theory, nothing. According to String Theory, strings. Now, at this scale of perspective, quarks aren't really "things", but like electrons, they exist, believe it or not, more like "probability waves". Here's another picture that might illustrate that better:

 See? They're kinda there, kinda here, kinda moving all around all the time. Anyways, quarks make up protons and neutrons, protons and neutrons make up the core of an atom:

 Again, with the fuzziness - the gray clouds outside the nucleus are the "probability waves" of the electrons, which, like quarks, are kinda here, kinda there. But the nucleus is our first "real" thing that we can understand at our macro level. But consider! Every atom that makes up every bit of matter you see is 99% empty space. It is only the Electromagnetic field generated by the electrons that gives it the impression of solidity - fields, not "things". Atoms make up everything we know, so let's skip way up to the next level of this thesis (Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form), the stellar realm:

 Its our new friend, the Oort Cloud - but, like the atom itself, each star is just a tiny bit ensconced in a far larger cloud - a shell - of particles that are here and there. In this case, frozen ice and rock, but you see where I'm going with this, yes? Next up, a picture I just posted!

 So, again, like the stellar neighborhood, and like the atom itself, our galaxies exist as tiny specks amongst a far larger sphere of Dark Matter. And just as a reminder at the scale of perspective we are currently talking about, here's a yearbook photo:

Every little box here is a picture of a galaxy, and this is just a tiny sample. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies out there (maybe many, many more), each containing hundreds of billions of stars. Some perspective, eh? But we're not stopping there:

 The Multiverse - just a theory at this point, but everyone seems to be heading towards acceptance of it quite quickly. Note, that our entire Universe might just be a small part of a larger sphere which in turn is contained within a still larger sphere which itself is contained within an even bigger sphere of existence.... and where it ends, who knows? Maybe it goes on forever. 

Have I blown your mind yet? I just blew my own - in fact, I've been living in a constant state of awed wonder since coming to appreciate these levels of perspective. This is where we live! This is our existence - we are part and parcel of this grand construction.

And in this scheme, does the guy who cut you off at the light really matter? Does anything really matter? No - objectively, how could it? We're all just dust in the wind.


Or, different answer. Better answer: All that matters is what you want to matter. In fine Existential tradition, we - humans - bring meaning to these scales of perspective. We choose how we want to perceive it, how we interpret it, how it makes us feel. You may not be able to change the multiverse we all live in, but you can change how you think about it, how you feel about it.


And that's all the freedom we can ever have: How we choose to deal with these infinities.

Yeah?  So choose wisely. And this is the task I've chosen for myself, and am sharing with you if you're willing to follow: The exploration of perspective. Hope you enjoy the ride.

Simulated Suffering

Sorry for the long absence! I've been exploring the concept of "simulated suffering", whereby you intentionally choose an action which causes you some suffering, in the hopes of learning/growing from the experience. We do this all the time of course, but there are degrees. And it's the degrees - and the intention - which matters.

Consider running, or jogging. I'd put that squarely into a "simulated suffering" category. You are willingly making yourself uncomfortable, in order to advance physically and mentally. That's the concept!

So, I see many people justify tattoos from this perspective - the pain of getting a tattoo makes you remember it, makes you learn the lesson you're trying to teach yourself. I have no evidence one way or the other whether this works. It might!

But I would like to describe two basic techniques (in addition to the technique already mentioned - exercise): Meditation and fasting.

1. Meditation. You might not think of this as suffering, but to your normal mind, it very much is. Meditation is suffering because the time spent meditating could be time spent by the mind obsessing about whatever is to be obsessed with that day. You are forcing yourself to not think, not talk, not move. These could all be considered degradations done to you by another, but because you are choosing (choice is key here), this becomes a simulated suffering. Again, the idea is by taking time each day to "suffer" - here, meditate - you come to appreciate the normal world far more. Like with...

2. Fasting. Ever gone 24 hours without eating? If you're healthy enough, I'd recommend you try it, at least once, to see what it's about. It's painful, and can be filled with real suffering. But, once done, that mountain climbed, you'll come to appreciate everything in a way you did not even realize before. You'll come to cherish that small snack you have before bed, or the breakfast that is made for you, or the nice lunch near the park...


And that's the goal: We are living a miracle, the greatest gift that could ever be given. We are alive. Yet! The vast majority of us utterly take this for granted, and instead focus on whatever pathetic delusions we've created for ourselves to whine and moan about. It's obscene - but I do it too! We all do.

So, the work is: Take yourself out of your normal perspective, intentionally put yourself in a different perspective, and see what you learn. Do this often enough and it becomes habit. Once it becomes habit, it is you. 

I challenge you to think of ways in which you might implement this thought in your own life. What "simulated sacrifice" can you come up with?

The best example of this of course is the "You don't know what you have till it's gone" School of Living, wherein when you are sick, you can think of nothing else but how wonderful it is to be healthy. But when healthy, you rarely give it a moment's thought, right?

We must realize this miracle as an everyday experience. This is one way to get there: Make yourself suffer - within bounds, constructively, for a purpose; but suffering all the same. Because as far as I can tell that's the only way any of us learn.

Steps on the Path

The Sun. We're gonna have to work on a new name at some point, since how stupid will it seem to refer to our star as "The Sun" when we're orbiting around Sirius? We should start a naming competition! Anyways, here's our Big Brother. Many will refer to the Sun as our Mother or Father, but technically, the relationship is Big Brother/Sister who then has supported our poor asses since childbirth, since you, me, The Earth (need another new name!), The Moon (and another!), and all the other planets, all the asteroids, comets, etc, in the Solar System were created from the same ginormous cloud of dust and gas that the Sun was created from (the cast off remains of some other, far bigger star that exploded). We're all brothers and sisters in the Solar System. Represent!

The Sun (any star) is a dynamic place. By definition. This pic shows the powerful magnetic waves around the Sun, and you can see how chaotic they are. The chaos is caused by the extreme conditions within the sun coupled with its fluid nature. Magnetic effects, in part, cause Sunspots, which are like pimples on the clean skin of the star. Here's one forming:

 Looks like a ripple in a pond, which in a sense, I suppose, it is. Here's a developed sunspot at close range:

 Click for big. I suspect you might be shocked to see the surface of the sun looks like living tissue under a microscope. I was! The Sunspot is darker because it is cooler than the surrounding areas, but that's just a relative matter to you and me: Still hot! And active. Here's an even closer view of a sunspot:

As with many things, seeming order on the surface become chaotic when looked at closely (my definition of order/chaos by the way: Just a matter of perspective). You can see the turmoil at this range - again, all caused by the twisting, snapping, crazy magnetic fields that whip all across the star.


And again, like with many (every?) things, the closer you look at something, the less concrete it becomes. On a day to day basis, we think of permanent, static "things", and we base our worldview on this false view. Only when change happens unexpectedly to us do we remember the truth - but we'll suppress it. Deny it. Think of your self - are you permanent? Or temporary?


Answer: You're temporary. Like everything. In fact, it might be far more realistic to get rid of the concept of "things" - objects, and instead, think of "processes unfolding over time." Because that's a closer approximation of the truth - a set of temporary conditions that allows for certain situations to arise, situations that will disappear when the underlying conditions change. For example, take a star, any star. Our star, for example:

The business part of a star is the thermonuclear core - where fusion takes place. This is the center of creation, and the very process that defines a star. Here's what the Proton-Proton fusion process which occurs in our star looks like:

And so, I draw closer to my conclusion: As with phase changes, fusion is the result of matter being compressed to such a degree that there's literally no where for these protons to go without hitting another proton, or something else. When this starts happening, that's fusion - as simple as that: Elementary particles smashing into each other with enough energy that they fuse. This fusion process releases energy as well, and part of that is what we know as "Sunlight". 


And now that were at the core, and you see that for our Star, it is this Proton-Proton collision process which powers everything, perhaps you glimpse how nothing is a "thing", a permanent object, but rather everything's a temporary process. For this process above is massively powerful - if left un-contained, it would result in a huge explosion. However, gravity wants to compress anything with mass, and stars have lots and lots of mass (mostly hydrogen, some helium). So, gravity is pushing in with everything it's got, and nuclear fusion is pushing out, and there is a harmony reached, a balance. We call this balance a "star". That's all it is. And when the balance falters, the star goes BOOM. And then it's something else.


Do you see? How the most important object in our lives (our Star) is just an ongoing dialectic between fusion and gravity? And if this MOST important thing is simply a basic process, what do you think this world is then? Or you? Or everything?


Permanent and forever? Or just another temporary process?

EXTREME (TO THE MAX!!!)!!!

Another wonderful photoshop by an anonymous artist from the internet. Images like this are often the result of many iterations by several people, each adding an element until there is a collective agreement perfection has been reached. It's a wonderful example of a dialectic in action, as each person is feeding and thusly building on ideas from another.

It's how we all operate, every day, every moment. Even within ourselves - a constant dialectic of action, reaction, and synthesis which turns into a new action. Which is really just another way of saying "cause and effect" - everything is connected in a chain of causality, where each effect becomes a new cause creating a new effect, which in turn is a new cause, and so on. Forever.

Everything is in a causal relationship with everything else. Everywhere, and for all of time.

The dialectic can thusly be viewed as simply the ebb and flow within a closed system of energy.

Resulting in everything, including this EXTREME photoshop.

Tiny Octopus

Look at this cute guy! But don't be deceived: Octopi are wicked smart, and if we don't keep a close eye on 'em, it's likely they'll eventually form some alliance with the dolphins, whales, and monkeys to overthrow us. BE PREPARED!


Seriously, though: Wicked smart. I saw a special on octopii and it showed how one octopus in a tank, watching another octopus in a separate tank navigate a puzzle to get a treat - time and time and time again the octopus who was watching would instantly solve the puzzle, proving they ability to learn by watching: a powerful ability.

Also, look how translucent this guy is. The chameleon powers of some octopus are simply amazing, but when I look at this little guy, I can see right through him, which reminds me of a fundamental truth: We (all life) is empty. Empty spaces in atoms, in molecules, in organs, in skin. We are 70% water! If you were told anything else was 70% water, you'd instantly conclude it would be a very liquid, but perhaps viscous substance. I bet you don't think that about yourself though.

Perspective, as always. It's the key to wisdom, I think.

We are all the sum of everyone's issues

Born into a losing ticket in the parent lottery, from afar, it's easy to see how having horrible parents/childhood will create an adult with little chance for success or happiness. Rather, sadness, addiction, crime, violence, etc. And once an adult, this sad soul will proceed to fuck up whatever poor child happens to cross their path. And so it goes.

For all of human history, and no doubt before - our parent's issues getting imprinted onto their kids, who in turn imprint their issues onto the next generation. A cycle as old as consciousness. The cycle of suffering.

It is possible, however, to break it. You just have to start anew. To quote Yoda: "You must unlearn what you have learned". Unfortunately, that's pretty much everything.

And who has the time and/or the energy for that?!

Dione and Titan

In the foreground, Dione; in the background, mighty Titan. Both moons of Saturn, who has many moons. Titan is a wonder - a thick atmosphere obscures the surface, a surface which holds liquid flowing in rivers, streams, flowing into lakes, swelling in to the wind lapped oceans. This liquid is methane, but still, it represents the second of two planets with liquid flowing on the surface. The other being, Earth, of course.

You know, if we could (somehow) redirect all the military spending on Earth towards space travel, we would already have colonized the inner solar system. It is within our grasp right now, but our desire to fear our brothers and sisters causes us instead to gird our collective loins in nuclear girdles and robotic drawers. We easily - if we all chose - could be one people, exploring the solar system, instead of a collection of petty tribes bickering over a lemon tree.

As the Buddha might have said: Paradise is already here; we just have to realize it. 

Death Star Contractors

"Right Livelihood" - The Buddhist tenant that you are indeed responsible for the results of your efforts. For instance, say you are an Accounts Receivable person working on the Death Star. You, personally, are not killing or torturing anyone, but of course, you are supporting an enterprise which is - you are, in this view, just as morally culpable for any actions taken on your behalf.

By this logic, of course, every American is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere else the American Empire is working these days - their works are our works, and each of us bears their weight.

So! What are the fruits of your labor, and can you be proud of them? Do you stand behind everything associated with your efforts?

Another example of "If everyone lived this way, the world would be paradise"

Also:

 

Zombie Redshirt will have his Revenge

How much more blood must be spilled for Dilithium Crystals?


It occurred to me, as things are wont, that the old school monsters are all variations off the same thing: A dead person coming back from the dead.

You've got your zombies, of course, but vampires too - essentially, just smart, sexy zombies. Same thing with Mummies, Frankenstein... wolfman? Did he die first?

Anyways, as always, fear = loss; loss of home, loss of health, loss of wealth, loss of life. Fear is always about loss. The totems to our fears - our monsters, our horror stories, our shadows in the dark - will always be some variation on loss.

Of course, as a Redshirt, once you realize you never had anything to lose in the first place, then, well! Things clear up quite a bit: Why be afraid?

It's a powerful question.

All signs point to the Singularity

Here's some examples of how matter bends spacetime - think of it like a bowling ball laying on a sheet, bending it down based on its weight (except in reality it's not a flat plane, but rather a sphere). Stars by themselves are large objects that massively bend spacetime, but compared to their remnants - neutron stars and black holes - they're tiny.

I'm focusing on Black Holes here, and specifically the Singularity which lies at the heart of every black hole (it is the object, in fact; everything else is a by-product of the Singularity). But Neutron Stars are extremely interesting in that they still reside in our "normal" world of physics we understand, yet they are right on the line to becoming a black hole, and are very strange. Did you know the surface of a neutron star is solid, and a neutron star could in fact be considered a single, solid particle?

Anyways, the Singularity - the point at the center of the black hole. It's called a Singularity simply because there's no other good words to describe it - we literally have no idea what happens in a Singularity, whether the rules of physics apply or not, etc. As our current understanding works, the Singularity is defined as infinite gravity in zero space; which is impossible, and thus the big task in physics today is to understand the Singularity.

Here's two diagrams showing the composition of black holes:

Again, these are not real structures per se, but rather the results of the Singularity in action. Black Holes are black because anything that reaches the event horizon never comes out, including light. No light means we can't see it - even using x-rays, gamma rays, etc. However, the areas just outside the event horizon can be seen, and in fact, at the north and south pole of every black hole will be large jets of gas shooting out, detailed here:

To wit: We know we don't know anything about the Singularity, and all we do know comes from its interaction with the surrounding Universe. We also know that there is a Singularity with every black hole (by definition), and we know that our Universe could be filled to the brim with black holes. There are different categories of black holes: stellar (made from an exploding star), and supermassive (likely the result of many mergers between stellar black holes). As an example of how fundamental black holes are to our existence - every galaxy (including ours) has a supermassive black hole at its center, such that, to me, it seems a supermassive black hole is a requirement for galaxy formation.

So, to bring it all home: We don't know anything about Singularities, and this lack of knowledge makes it likely our current models of physics are not correct, or at least missing something big (couple that with the matter distribution chart below - would you trust a theory that said "I don't know anything about 96% of the Universe"?) . We do know that Singularities are numerous, however, and important to the way our Universe works.

And finally, as I've shown with models of the Big Bang, scientists refer to the moment before the conception of Universe as a Singularity as well, since we don't/can't know anything about it. If correct, our Universe, and everything in it, came from a Singularity - the same type of object that exists right now throughout our Universe in Black Holes.

And now my theory - MY theory, so feel free to correct: The Big Bang was the result of a Singularity in another Universe exploding, and this explosion created a new Universe - ours. This process happens all the time, and eventually, once a black hole(S) get big enough, will happen in our Universe as well. This is the foundation of the Multi-Verse - a higher order dimension that contains Universes like so many soap bubbles. Think of the scale of that for a while.

Once again, we come from nothing, which is also everything. Form is emptiness, emptiness form.