the subjectivity of time

to a creature than can only imagine one dimension, a line would look like a dot. to one that sees two dimensions, a cube looks like a square. we can see three dimensions. what is the fourth that we are blinded to? time.

to one that can see four dimensions everything must seem so clear - everything is already existing in space/time.. yet for us humans, things are revealed to us in a linear fashion - events seem to be directly related to cause and effect. we cannot but comprehend otherwise - that we are marching along a unidirectional constant timeline.

perhaps the flow of time seems to speed up or slow down depending on what is going on in our lives because we are catching glimpses of this fourth dimension - how time is not really how we perceive it. yet it still ticks on, inching forwards, in our reassuring yet limited world view..

schrodinger's cat

as much as i believe in choices and free will, i also believe in fate. can one change one's own fate?

yesterday sitting in the movie theater my girlfriend and i noticed an abandoned computer bag that no one seemed to claim. sadly, our immediate thought was, perhaps it's a bomb? management was notified, but they didn't seem to want to do anything about it. being apathetic, fatalistic new yorkers we stayed in our seats as the theater filled up. i thought to myself - if that is a bomb, changing seats may or may not make a difference - if we leave, who knows - something else equally bad could happen which if we stayed wouldn't happen. like schrodinger's cat - until you open the box, is the cat alive or dead? neither, it is both.

i had the choice to change seats or leave the theater, but i didn't. why did i choose not to? every decision we make, i believe is the cumulative product of the myriad of experiences we have had in the past. but if every choice is due to everything that has occured in the past where does that leave free will? did i actually have a choice? or are we going through life following a predestined path leading us to our fate? i have wrestled with this question and still have no answer. perhaps, based on the way our lives are, there is a tendency towards a certain destiny that isn't completely set in stone. i would like to think that in weighing our decisions there is enough uncertainty that we do choose and thus we can change our path, our life, our fate.

o.k.

the quintessential american expression 'ok' is used and understood across the globe.

an english professor at columbia, allen walker read, traced the origins of this word back to the 1830's when jokes with language were popular. 'o.k.' started as a joke - an abbreviation for 'oll korrect' - which is ofcourse 'oll rong'. it was then picked up by the campaign of martin van buren, the 8th president - he was from kinderhook, ny - and nicknamed 'old kinderhook'. his political advisors seized the new catchphrase and 'it's o.k.' was thus popularized.

the term 'ok' captures the american free spirit - lightness, sans souci, it's all good, no worries. i don't think i've ever been this 'ok' in my life..

lunar effect

anyone notice the recent full moon? it was one of those low hanging, impossibly huge yellow moons - "cosimo's moon". it's common urban myth that every full moon emergency rooms fill up with crazy patients, there are more violent crimes, suicides, dog bites, and births of babies...

if the full moon can so affect the tides, why not human behavior? lune, loony, lunatic, lunacy... these words had to be generated from some observation, no? i was surprised to learn, people have actually studied this. and in a meta-analysis of 37 studies on the moon's effects on human behavior, they found that the moon accounted for no more than 3/100 of 1 percent of the monthly variation..

hmm.. maybe my own selective memory clouds my judgement. or maybe i just prefer to believe the more romantic explanation (cyrano shouting at the moon, pretending to be crazy) that nature moves us in ways we do not yet fully understand..

porn

what is pornography? something to titillate - to cause emotional or sexual arousal. often at the expense or exploitation of others.

so how is this different from today's media? the sensationalist, manipulative crap that is fed to us day in and day out. for the ratings, or to produce fear. i say that it's all newsporn. it is frightening how it is run by the rich, who have a vested interest in controlling this country. and we buy it, we eat it up because we crave the excitement. unfortunatley, as bill moyers stated, "once you decide to titillate instead of illuminate... you create a climate of expectation that requires a higher and higher level of intensity."

is all porn bad? in the decadence and extravagance of the western world (until it all comes spiralling down and crashes) we have more than enough food to eat. as a veritable foodie there is nothing (almost) that i love and appreciate more. foodporn. how sensuous to taste the briny wetness of a perfect oyster as it slides down your throat, the bite of caviar as the taste explodes in your mouth, the warm liquid center of a molten flourless chocolate cake. porn, porn, porn. and i love it.

stages of development

piaget identifies 4 stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, formal operations.
freud's psychosexual development consists of 5: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

i would like to offer another - 3 stages of starting over and finding happiness:
anger and forgiveness
self-examination and introspection
laughter and forgetting

anger and forgiveness: when life hands you a bad situation or when a relationship ends, there is inevitably some anger - with the situation, and with yourself. does it ever go away? can you ever completely forgive? anger may be constructive to a point, and forgiveness a challenge but it's a necessary step to keep moving on.

self-examination and introspection: this is a lifelong process of constantly reevaluating and lightening the load. steve jobs said it well, 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.'

laughter and forgetting: what's the point if you can't laugh at life, with life, or yourself? we are blessed with a short term memory - it's easy to forget how vulnerable we are and how crushed our hearts have been. this forgetting is necessary to open up our hearts and take that plunge again..

and it is worth it. no matter how many times we cycle through these stages, this is our journey and we can attain happiness.

excess baggage

for anyone who's experienced life - we all drag around some excess baggage. how does one deal with this? with yourself? in relationships? with friends or lovers?

a little luggage is ok - we've got tools now to learn from mistakes made in the past. it keeps us on the road, in the right direction. but at what point do we exceed the weight limit that the load keeps dragging behind, keeping us from getting anywhere?

the trick i guess is to lighten the load as much as we can - through self examination, and letting go of some of the old stuff that we really don't need anymore. it's ok to throw stuff in the garbage or give it away to the salvation army. just keep the essential tools for survival, and continue on our fascinating journey..

virgin blogger alert

never thought i was particularly articulate, and generally an utter failure with journals, but will give it a shot. the question remains - how intimate does one get with these blogs? if the point is for others to read them do i want to open my heart and completely spill my guts? and if not - if we are writing just to be clever and cute, then what's the point? we put up a front which we think people will see and tend to hide the raw honesty which may not be so pretty.. can we be truly honest? to ourselves let alone a shoutout to the interminable worldwide web?