The Invisible World

The Doubtful has been in dry dock so I went crewing on a couple of other ships. Let's face it, sitting around planet side is not a strength I have nor really wish to cultivate.

It is always interesting to see how other systems handle the same things your own do but in bizarrely different ways - and of course that sometimes they don't. My ideas of critical functions and basic comforts that are just so obvious as to not be worth a mention are simply not shared by others. Whoa! I was away just long enough for it to all be an entertaining curiosity and working holiday rather than a horribly jarring experience.

So here I am, back in the same patched chair that has a little bit of stuffing coming out of the broken seam at the back, and thinking about something a wise man told me this week...

The freedom to reinterpret the world, to abandon a story of desperation for one of possibility and hope, is basic to the worldview of magic. It’s a freedom that today’s progressive community might find it useful to embrace as well.
...
It’s not just that change has to be thinkable before it’s possible, though this is true and important; it’s also that imagination can change the world by itself.

... and realising that so many things that have meaning are actually almost entirely held within ourselves. On a personal level, in our communities, our nations or ships. All of it can be reinterpreted according to our will, or the will of our enemies, or the will of the readers of the future to name just three obvious ones. In a world-view where 'reality' is this fluid, what can we hold on to? And let's not pretend that feeble humans do not feel safer holding onto things!

I've noticed that we hold onto habits and the familiar. Broken chairs, unsubstanitated opinions even our expectations and hopes sometimes are just placeholders for the meaning we really yearn for and that maybe we could finally discover if we accepted this secret. We are free to reinterpret the world.
Crazy. Could it work?

Morning Planetside

Do you ever dream of birds, of warm currents that lift and caress? Do you dream of eternal sunsets and wondrous, unknowable patterns? Do you aspire to lift and see more? I'm held here by the miracle of gravity, part of this web.

That's the urge of sap rising, of rich complex earth smells.

Smother

There's plenty of space out here in, um, space. But no matter how far away you are from the cities or worlds of the Culture, somehow, your mother can find you, and in just seconds say exactly the thing that will just most piss you off.

That's the super-power of blood relations. They accumulate a lifetime of misunderstandings, judgements and irritations that can be channelled directly into your reptilian brain, bypassing all higher-control functions.

Gotta love 'em.

"What's that?! Sorry, you're dropping out - there's a lot of solar flares in this quadrant..."

Stuff Dead People Like

Do you think that would make for a good blog? It could be pretty involved, or maybe just really really short.

Do you think opinions would differ on whether being dead was basically pretty good, or ultimately suckful? By persons who are deceased obviously - not by us living types.

If all life and matter is really energy vibrating at different speeds and levels, then surely blogging - or interacting with the cybersphere (or WTF we're calling this space these days) would be the first place we could make "contact with those who have crossed over" in a way that does not require any human third party. Actually, it should be "receive contact" as we'll need them to set up some kind of Ghost account. Gmail of a new kind.

Pros:
* Either no longer conscious of human depravity and suffering or all-knowing
* Can understand all languages, see through all politicians and finally be certain of something
* Re-incarnated as cool person/animal
* No need for money, haircuts or bowel bacteria
* one-way ticket

Cons:
* Sensual /worldly pleasures a thing of the past
* Can't take advantage of perspective/situation to improve plight of loved ones
* No afterlife of any kind and so souls/consciousness disappear right on the moment of death, making this blog concept N/A
* Whatever the next realm/stage is, it is too awesome to be bothered remembering to try and tell us about it - everyone just scoots on over/up and gets on with it
* one-way ticket


Probably a bit of a shit idea, but I do wonder...

Detoxification

Re-initiating the sugar/fructose detoxification process after dismal failure two weeks-ish ago. I've spent the intervening period clearing out the various storage facilities and carefully re-stocking, along with practising the "It's not being deprived it is being healthy" mantra which doesn't yet feel or sound sincere.

Aiming to stick to it for a month and trusting that it comes with the benefits as advertised on the packet.

Day 2: Basically holding my breath.