Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Idea #637
I recently read that one of my online friends had her home broken into by thieves who took, among other things, her jewelry box. It appears that cash and jewelry remain a top draw for home invasion thieves.
Instead of keeping precious jewelry in the obvious jewelry box on the dresser, my idea would be to create a box that looks like a bedroom waste basket. Make it small enough that you can pick it up off the floor when you want access. Create a fake top that looks like used tissues and tags cut from new clothes, maybe some crumpled paper.
Thieves would not be inclined to look for valuable things in a trash bin, but if they do catch on to my idea, there is the possibility we could get them to start taking out the trash when they break into our homes.
Embrace Mystery
Where did the world come up with the accepted visual image of Jesus Christ’s appearance? I bet you can picture him in your mind.
I have been thinking about optical illusions. How do we differentiate between reality and illusion of information coming to our brain through our eyes? I saw a fascinating graphic that illustrates a spinning ball dropping across an image, top to bottom. To the right of the falling ball there was a solid dot. If you focus on the spinning ball, it appears to fall in a straight line. If you focus on the solid dot, the spinning ball appears to fall in a dramatic curve. So which is true? Is it falling straight or curving? I expect most would say straight, because that is the appearance when looking directly at it. Going by that conclusion establishes significant doubt to the accuracy of peripheral vision for details of an event. It would be logical to allow room for doubt about the absolute accuracy of our perceptions of the world we see.
It makes sense to me to be a bit less confident about perceptions beyond just the visual, as well. There are medical myths that become so common that people take them as fact, even after modern science is able to reveal the inaccuracies of the myth. Do you think getting wet and chilled can cause a cold? Does reading in low light cause bad eyesight? Should we be drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day?
I think the best thing to be sure of is that there are mysteries that we don’t exactly understand.
The more I come to know,
the more aware I grow,
of how little about the world I know.
Glimpse Depression
Depression stalks like a predator and looms large on the brink of moving in for the kill, but it never does. That is what is so insidious and debilitating. It feels like a constant unseen threat. It is like the incredible effectiveness of a torture method that relies on perceived threat, while never crossing the line to following through. It is so intolerable that when individuals can no longer endure the constant feeling that depression is going to move in for that kill, they take care of it themselves. There should be no question why someone commits suicide in that light. Being stalked is worse abuse than experiencing the ultimate confrontation. The confrontation is actually freedom from the burden of stress of anticipated confrontation.
Just like it is too bad that broccoli doesn’t taste like chocolate, it is too bad that the ongoing anticipation that any second will reveal the news of winning the grand prize of our dreams doesn’t loom large on the fringe of our essence day after day after day after sunny damn day. They would need to devise a drug to give us to help us normalize from that constant state of OH MY GOD I’m about to win it all!
I am continually fascinated by the tenacity of depression to cling to the fringes of those of us who experience it. I am never surprised when a person who knows depression reports its incidence. We have periods of respite and feel right with our world. Others are able to enjoy our success. When I see a report of one who is under the oppression, it saddens me for their suffering, but never surprises me that it has occurred. We get to treat it, but we don’t always get to eradicate it.
I have potions and exercises to dispatch it, yet still, in the middle of an otherwise successful amount of healthy activity, I have seen it peek in, as if lifting a facade to reveal the dismal void – a striking contrast; a hilariously out of context glimpse of its threat – that almost make me laugh at the ridiculousness, but for the lethal threat it offers and then find myself back at the task at hand, engaged in the otherwise healthy world all around me. I am duly warned of what waits on my fringes if I ever choose to disregard the conscious decisions I make to walk a path alternate to that possibility.
Maybe I should look at being grateful for the glimpses and for awareness of what they really are. Mostly, I consider them unwelcome interruptions and jarring for their shock value. A lot of, “What is that doing here right now, in this otherwise pleasant moment?”
I think I will begin framing them differently in the future.
Welcome to this place
The time has come. Or, I have arrived at the time that is now. Regardless, I intend for this to be a last attempt at editing the first post and get on with writing what will be my blog. I really wanted to put that word, blog, in quotes, but am going to let it be and give in to the fact that that is simply what this is.
For readers who have arrived here at my invitation, thank you for stopping by. The primary, near-term value that I would like to offer up for you all is my attempt to capture the planning and preparation and eventually the actual accounts of my trek to the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal. The trip is going to be from April 2 through April 22, 2009.
If you have happened here of your own accord, you are no less welcome. I will occasionally tinker with the details of formatting this blog as I learn the ins and outs of what WordPress offers and journey beyond the realm of blog-newbie. Ultimately, the content will become a collection of whatever it is I find myself compelled to write about, mixed with some ramblings composed somewhere in my past. A combination of my perspective on anything and everything as well as narration of experiences of mine and a few others.
I expect it all to be relative to something, and hopefully, more often than not for someone who is reading, something relative.
Relative Something 