deepdaze

2007-02-12T20:42:00.000Z

I subscribe to a buddhist thoughts feed,

today's meditation describes The Noble Eightfold Path:

Right Views, Right Thoughts,
Right Speech, Right Conduct,
Right Livelihood, Right Effort,
Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration

Alright?

How do I know I'm Right?
Do I have to do all this at the same time?
Is it fun?
Sounds a little sinister to me!

Yesterday's didn't impress me much but the quote from the day before that made me think...

"I have argued that every human being is born with an innate drive to experience altered states of consciousness periodically -- in particular to learn how to get away from ordinary ego-centered consciousness. I have also explained my intuition that this drive is a most important factor in our evolution, both as individuals and as a species. Nonordinary experiences are vital to us because they are expressions of our unconscious minds, and the integration of conscious and unconscious experience is the key to life, health, and spiritual development, and fullest use of our nervous systems."

It's by Andrew Weil, M.D., and sounds like just the excuse I never needed.
The quote (on a buddhist site) also confused me because I understood that buddhism itself pushes a blander existence. Reminds me of New Labour and their Middle Way.

No, just checked and the New Labour version is called Third Way.
And Buddhists aren't Fascists. Right.

I try to narrow my extremes when I can and be honest when I can't.

2007-02-11T11:28:00.000Z

Frisky Frogs

Another frog has found his princess.

Lucky he didn't settle for the stone.

2007-02-05T23:17:00.000Z

2007-02-05T21:08:00.000Z

Having found bliss I have been less tempted to wander onto my blog.
This bliss has been tempered by fear of loss but both drive me into her arms. (alms?)
Anyway, she's still checking this blog so I'll try to make it worth her while I am besotted.
...
I have developed a new addiction, quotes.
Does anyone else do this?
I practically smack my lips over those profound statements that manage to live longer than those who utter them. Of course, some are better than others. I'd have a quote feed on this blog if I could work out how to guide which quotes are displayed.
So, just now I looked up truth at quotes4all.net.
Read all 19.
I challenge you not to be hooked.

2007-01-14T23:10:00.000Z

My girlfriend and I went walking in Redruth on New Years Day to the Great Flat Lode.

We saw this...

and this nearby...

and on the way home we saw this...

Sunset behind the Great Flat Lode

2007-01-14T19:41:00.000Z

So, yeah.
Done Christmas, New Year and the post New Year downer (I stagger around wondering where my "wait till after Christmas" crutch went).
This seems a good time to tell you about my New Scientist habit.
It started when I was about 16. I read it for fun. I value the perspective New Scientist gives me.
weird stuff
Often I spot storylines that I know from New Scientist eventually surfacing in mainstream media.
Anyway, the current issue of New Scientist (No.2586) has an article (p.26) entitled "How to leak a secret and not get caught" featuring Wikileaks. Wikileaks is a website aiming to encourage openness by making it harder to keep things secret. Wikileaks is seeking funding while planning to launch in February.
Wikileaks gives me hope for the future. Openness increases understanding.

2006-12-24T18:29:00.000Z

Do you ever wish that your life was simple?
That if you could trust someone somewhere, they could make everything you did feel natural and good?
I do. I look around and I understand the theory of evolution.
It says that our culture and values are products of the same type of loose associations that created such variety that we can see on Earth.
So why do we suffer? Why do we feel uneasiness?
Why do so many fear for their well-being when the world is becoming more connected?
Sometimes it would be so nice just to step off.
Into some place where you could get something to eat, a roof over your head and as much work as you wanted to do.
That somehow they'd know what you were good at?
See what you're made for.
Know how you're good?
I want to help but I want to feel good.
Why do I have to fail?

2006-12-21T00:05:00.000Z

Chaos

15.23 16th December 2006

13.25 16th December 2006

2006-12-20T16:26:00.000Z

A death switch is a way of releasing information after your death.
At the moment there's nothing I can say that would make me wish I was dead before it was said.
So I don't use this service.
In the meantime I hope someone finds a way to blurt all this information out at the same time.
If there's anything that actually matters it should be said now. Consequences take care of themselves.

2006-12-19T20:11:00.000Z

Been getting some interesting but anonymous comments...
This one recommended slapstick among other things!

I scoffed and shortly after that I found myself with baked bean juice on my sleeve.
Perhaps I do have room for slapstick, but this experience wasn't painful.
Eatting my words does turn out to be painful.
My throat is horribly sore with white patches. My neck is stiff and moving my mouth is unpleasant. I won't be talking much tonight.

I fell in love recently and while we shared our good fortune we also shared one of the colds going around this time of year. We've both been suffering for a couple of days now.
I think mine's worse.
I went to the local surgery to get a prescription for antibiotics. While I was there I mentioned that I'd been in the habit of sticking my pen down my throat.
The nurse was not a model of non-judgemental acceptance.
A sneer curled up and hooked her nose down towards her mouth.
I had tried to make it clear that I'd been 11 years old and bored in French lessons. After the second bout of tonsilitis I realised I could use it to get out of school.

During the third bout I realised that I didn't want tonsilitis. My feelings regarding tonsilitis haven't changed and I haven't sat in French lessons for a long time.
She wasn't impressed with my smoking habits either.
Occasionally should be a very sensible answer if you ask me.
Can anyone save us from people who can't imagine the daft stuff you do when you're bored.
I hope I never forget.

Anyway, I'm toughing it out for the time being. I'd prefer to get better without them because the more we use antibiotics, the more we risk bacteria becoming immune.
(Do use a full course of antibiotics if you start them! Stopping halfway is worse!)

I don't think you want to see a picture of my throat.
Not before you cook that steak and stilton.

2006-12-12T21:03:00.000Z

My worst fear is that we will all become the same.
Could we become homogenised? A human dough where fear of each other has rendered individuality obsolete. The next step, a species closer to enlightenment will find a way to include our existence despite our difference.
Unless we perish first. An evolutionary dead end.
With limited resources we must evolve the capacity to share or we will face eternal struggle.
Forever fighting for what is not ours.

2006-12-08T02:04:00.000Z

12.32 5th December 2006

11.29 11th December 2006

2006-12-08T02:01:00.000Z

11.01 26th November 2006

2006-12-07T22:08:00.000Z

The anti-trident nuclear missile petition seems to be going up by about 187 signatures a day.
The deadline is 17th February 2007 when it'll be 19000 signatures according to the average sign-up rate between 25th November and now (currently 5249 signatures).
19000 signatures, I hope there's more.

Ben Young from Ken Yersel is collating a map of arguments about nuclear weapons. Its at http://nuclearpeace.wordpress.com/

2006-11-30T01:38:00.000Z

2006-11-29T23:03:00.000Z

I don't understand how people can talk with confidence about things we can't agree on. I mean it might make perfect sense to you but that just means I should keep writing anyway.

I don't argue to win. I want to understand why you hold a different opinion. I don't want to make your life difficult, I want to make our lives easier. Unfortunately differences of opinion tend to be life or death issues to those at the fringes of society. If your choice doesn't hurt someone then I don't argue. I want to argue because a bad idea will end this world.

Is it melodramatic? You see this destruction around us and think its the way things should be?
I don't want to settle for this. Not until I know why.

2006-11-28T23:05:00.000Z

Meandering through the net I slipped into The Endless Ocean of Gravy.
I'm going to read it some more. In the meantime I'll be trying to put a Brights banner on my site like Green Fish has.

I should find out how/if it differs from Humanism...

...ok I did a bit:

It seems the Brights are vaguer and cooler Secular Humanists. They have recognised the power of strong marketing. Straight off the Brights knew that "New Secular Humanists" wasn't catchy as New Labour or even New Conservatives. Unfortunately the next layer of the onion is a bit soggy. A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview. Perhaps the next schism will be accessible without skilled interpretation. It does give me hope to see organisations like this.
Some secular humanists are decidedly sniffy.

I say teach the controversy. It could be worse.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Richard Dawkins doubts existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster in this Wired article.

2006-11-27T21:17:00.000Z

Anyone want the Complete Idiot's Guide to Past Life Regression?
I hope someone somewhere is being funny.
The title of this book is so scary it's almost a good thing.
There aren't many reviewers just yet but there must be some complete idiots who are into past life regression!

I like this wiki definition Anti-Romantic

It ends ...bill h is one of these

Poor Bill

2006-11-27T20:34:00.000Z

Gosh.
Was surfing the net and got to thanatos.net.
I should warn you that it's quite dark.
The more you browse the uglier it gets and I had to go all the way to the shop's $2 bargains to see what happened!
I've studied anatomy but this site troubles me.
I wonder what it means to the people who use it.

2006-11-25T20:57:00.000Z

According to the site 2812 people have signed the anti-nuclear petition so far.
This is one of the easiest ways to make a difference so please sign up!

2006-11-25T19:50:00.000Z

Strike a blow for Peace?

I don't understand why Blair, Brown and the Conservative party are in favour of maintaining a nuclear arsenal.
How do these these weapons to protect Britain?
What circumstances would be required to launch one?
Do they cost too much?
These questions should be debated widely before not when calamity strikes.
Calamity might even be avoided!

According to this bbc news page trident missiles carry a warhead equivalent to 8 Hiroshima's.
Surely once is enough. How can the deaths of so many innocent people be justified?
The best we can do is ensure that it never happens again.

This is an "e-petition" run by the Prime Minister's office.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/trident/

It says...

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to champion the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by not replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system."

The petition is going to be running until the 17th February 2007. I hope you choose to sign it!

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

The Big Trident Debate

2006-11-25T19:40:00.000Z

Taken today 16.44 25th November 2006

That's the moon over the largest mushroom.

Same mushrooms different view.

2006-11-24T20:25:00.000Z

Mushrooms dance

2006-11-24T20:12:00.000Z

2006-11-24T20:06:00.000Z

Gorse

2006-11-23T17:36:00.000Z

It's been wet and windy today. I walked the dog between rainstorms.
The sun even shone through the gusts. As I walked I noticed more mushrooms.
There are a lot around here. Small clumps pepper the cliffs. The moisture in the ground forces fungi to push through the grass. Mushroom caps expand and throw spores into the wind. I wonder how far their spores may have travelled to land here.
The edge moves slowly. The mushrooms are not disturbed beyond buffetting from the wind.

Land retained for the coastal path here is mostly wind scoured grass and lichen infested stone. The fresh granite cliffs are echoed by crumbling cornish hedges. The stone, pink serpentine to grey granite has older faces that are stubbled with lichen. The lichen itself is no one colour. The green lichen is the same matt turquoise seen on a fair day as breezes feather the flat water. The yellow lichen speckles the cliffs like gorse flowers on the bushes above. The lichen does not smell of coconuts like clumps of gorse flowers. Do not lean too close to the flowers when you enjoy their scent. The fine spines of the gorse easily get under your skin, they take time to find and withdraw.

The bracken has now died and remains golden, wilted around the evergreen gorse.
In patches the gorse is not green.
Scalped by fire and blackened with soot, gorse skeletons dance starkly in bronzed bracken. The bracken had grown since the scorching of the gorse. In Summer the verdant fronds stood swaying nearer to the brittle figures. The charred sticks were overwhelmed until Autumn. Vigorous bracken became spry. Both now dead, they make an elegant couple.
The mushrooms stand aloof.
The wind howls in from the sea.

2006-11-20T19:33:00.000Z

I've got to write. It's the best displacement activity I can muster.
Debt looms and sends me hiding my head. Boxing my ears so I can't hear my fear.
But I know one of these days I'll have to work.
I've worked before and I have a profession. It just doesn't pay yet.
In the mean time I've been abusing my credit and my options are running out.

Stress sets my thumbs prickling. I feel the pulsing tendrils reaching out across my shoulders and pushing through my arms. I toy with the sensation. Savouring it. I don't think I enjoy it.
It's gone on too long.

Luck ebbs and flows. I've been lucky on the whole. When the luck is ebbing away I feel the hours of procrastination drawing to a close. I hope I can change but this entry took an hour to write.

2006-11-11T12:52:00.000Z

16.22 10th November 2006

2006-11-09T21:43:00.000Z

At the moment we are eddy currents in the flow of energy.
In a universe, the most examined area can only exist in the most dynamic area. Each examination reflects subtlety of cause and effect not yet seen beyond humanity's gaze. We simple beings may never recognise the work of more complex powers, until we can agree I prefer to believe that we are the most complex beings around.
We are the aim of chaos.

Energy spreads. First perhaps from an enormous explosion.
Our scientists don't know who/what lit the fuse of the Big Bang but they do say there was a lot of energy.
This first explosion might have been perfectly symmetrical. The energy it represented would have been flung out. I was going to say either to remain or recoil but I don't know if that makes sense. Can energy stop? Is that possible? I keep finding myself thinking in terms of moving mass. What is pure energy?

So anyway, even if it recoils, our notional universe will still be symmetrical and someday return to its original state. This idea puts us on the periphery of a fractal(Mandelbrot?). Our experience so far gives no evidence of organisms/structures displaying close to the complexity shown on Earth. This suggests an unsymmetrical origin (so fractals not relevant?). We may never become aware enough of our distant environment to discern what level of symmetry or disorder there is. In this case we must consider ourselves alone and responsible for our future.

Looks like I need to read...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausdorff_dimension
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebesgue_covering_dimension
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_space
...mostly because I barely know what they are.

Go on, what do you reckon?

2006-11-07T23:10:00.000Z

20.47 29th July 2006

2006-11-07T21:14:00.000Z

I understand that I should remain calm. My fear is irrelevant.
Fear can't make me any more effective, no matter how affected it leaves me.

It is a habit.

For instance, these lines are deleted regularly. I fear your response. I try for perfection and my voice becomes stifled. Could be worse, execution is considered a high accolade for a writer.

So, calm.
And, type.
Produce.

I have been unproductive. I have not felt the urge to scrawl my existence across my world.
Until recently.
I think the arrival of my son prompted my change of spirit. My mind is slowly following suit.
I didn't owe anyone anything until he came and now I owe him an explanation.

Perhaps I shouldn't tell him. It hasn't made me any happier, I look around and ignorance often does seem blissful. You can go a long way without asking why.

2006-11-07T09:12:00.000Z

18.23 20th October 2006

2006-11-06T22:46:00.000Z

So, if I'm to account for my beliefs, I'd better start by deciding what they are...

Our resources are not infinite.

Precious few of us are privileged enough to leave this planet.
We have nowhere else to go once we wreck it.

2006-11-06T22:43:00.000Z

2006-11-06T22:41:00.000Z

2006-11-05T22:08:00.000Z

08.55 15th October 2006

2006-10-28T01:44:00.000Z

Hmmm...not too slick just yet.
;-(

x

2006-10-28T01:43:00.000Z

2006-10-27T23:07:00.000Z

Gosh, so, this is it. I've been looking around and it seems you guys will read anything.

So anyway, you may find this narrative a little ragged because I am.
But I shall apologise no more.
I want to be good. I really do.
So I shall.

Those among you who question will perhaps have already been disturbed by the fact that this isn't actually my first attempt. To be frank, and I shall be, it's not. But I was still very taken with the notion of insulting you. You deserve it.

The only people who don't deserve to be insulted are the ones who don't care if they're insulted. So I know you love it.
nb. My logic not yours.

So anyway I have promised myself that I will do as much as I can. As hard as I can.
But that was only a few weeks ago when I discovered that I'd run out of money.

It wasn't exactly a surprise, it just wasn't a big priority. I find it hard to care about things.
Stuff.
Food and warmth haven't been much of a problem so far. Water and stronger drinks still readily available. Current tally a half bottle of wine over past hour. (Obviously more by way of scene setting than apology.)

Just, a little tricky seeing my son recently. My car cost me fifty pounds and my wife won't let me put him in it. Can't say I blame her really, in fact I was glad in a way. I just see him at her parents house where she lives now. Twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays mostly.

I arrive at 9 in the morning and leave about 8ish, after he's gone to bed.
I love my son. I feel a bit narcissistic but it seems churlish to argue.
If I want to have faith in anything, I it will be caring for him.
My narcissism ebbs and flows.

However if I was really narcissistic I would tell you everything I do or think. I think.
But I am telling you as much as I would tell a friend.
A friend I never have to meet.
Who doesn't care who I am.
Who might give me money without wanting to get it back.
Toss me a coin when you want to read more.
Because things are bleak enough to get me to try this.

Incidentally, I checked your previous comments and you're a tough crowd!
Not sure whether to actually check out all that spam.
Or take a stand.
Come on spammers, say something relevant to my blog...I can seeeeeee yoooooooo.

2005-09-14T03:37:00.000Z

I had to leave it this long before my next post just to prove my lack of commitment. Not that I have anything to prove...

My space bar is a bit sticky. It got splashed with beer while I was trying to lever the top off the bottle with a screwdriver. The f key is worse, I can eel it fighting as my finger descends. Sometimes it wins. See I'm already suffffffffering fffffffor my artttttttttt..........

2005-09-01T05:26:00.000Z

So, I haven't read many blogs but I imagine this is how they start. How'd you do...a bit of foot shuffling... and then straight in. Well, hi. (rustle) I suppose I should explain myself. The fact that you've bothered to look at all must only be considered a good thing. Hopefully it's not because I've begun pressing people to read what may be my diary.

Of course I'm deeply suspicious of this untamed land I find myself in. This young internet is an extension of the wild west, where rules are still being formed and whose inhabitants still live in California. (poetic licence applied for)
Maybe my wonder betrays my age (28) but the worldwideweb seems something worth being excited about. I wonder what changes I might witness in another ten years. These lines cost me no more than a few minutes typing and you read them at little cost although you might be the other side of the globe.

My sentences seem disordered. They echo my thoughts and help me read my mind. I have decided not to avoid sounding pompous on the way. If my sentiments are worth anything I must distill it from my self-conscious meandering, and hence so must you. It is the only way I can write currently, so rather than waste my thoughts and lose what insights I may occasionally have, I would prefer you to think me naive. Oh, and self-centered.

Does my blog need editing?
(or, does my blog look big in this?)