Wednesday, January 01, 2003

I think the entire pantheon and all religions boil down to trying to explain how humans, as other blossoms of the universal myceneum, mushrooming up in this time and space, return to the collective.   10:46:50 PM

We all have our mythologies, bed-time stories for the long night. I've been thinking about that more and more with the recent cloning news, and claims that aliens developed the human race. Parts of the story could be true. They could all be true. In this case, they will not be credible in our lifetime if they are. This isn't to say only the lies told enough become truths. In this case, the truth is not as important as culture's ability to accept truth. That process is evolutionary. The process of overcoming mythologies requires replacing a collected mythos. I look at something like The Book of Mormon and Mormonism with the same simultaneous disdain and embrace as the Bible and Christianity. Both grapple with questions that are unanswerable. I was looking at what looks like a fenced in lot in the Lafayette Square neighborhood today, imagining what it would be like for someone to walk alongside thinking he or she was safe from the fierce dog on the other side. The human's avenues of escape at that point would be either up the fence or forward or backward in time. Operating in two dimensions, the dog would undoubtedly bite the walker. What is it that allows us to make the choice to understand in three dimensions but not in four, even though we operate in a world dictated by that fourth? I need to read Sphereland again. This thinking makes my brain scrunch up right above my left eye. Tonight, driving over to Jans and Sarah's after work, I realized, maybe conciously for the first time, that what's more important than the outcome is the journey. The success of Syzygy doesn't matter nearly as much as the journey we take doing it, much like the marathons I've done with Jon have been more important for the process than the race day itself. As lovely as it is to be loved by folks, and to have the love I have of people, I think I might trade that in to go to climb into bed tonight with one person, and wake up to that one face, the center of the compass, from whence all journeys transpire. I think Paul Burmeister said it best at Chana and Bill's wedding, after Mrs. Fitton lit up upon seeing me, that I'm everybody's mascot. The trouble is that I can't take my suit off - that's just me. One of the cooks yesterday, when we were talking about abortion, said that while there are some people in the world, like me, who make people without a whole lot feel important, there are, in his view, a lot of people who never experience that. Jans seemed really excited about helping out with my bookshelves - when I asked him about it, he said he was, since he finally got to help me out with something. I was moved by both comments. At the same time, I wish compassion were the baseline, not the apex. Reading some other blogs recently, I'm thinking I may try to actually do some more editing of mine this year. My words are essentially longer Post-It notes and envelope backs more long winded.  3:57:49 AM