Sunday, February 08, 2004

I have a trancendental moment this morning, sinking into the hot, hot water of my bathtub, which I think was hotter than anything I've ever stepped into, including the South City Y swimming pool after an a whole day of arthritis therapy classes, and as I started to have my normal reaction of hyperventilating, I stopped myself, uncociously almost, and took a deep, deep breath and then another and just sunk into the tub, relaxed, looking around the universe, completely aware for a few moments of breath being part of the breath of the univserse and feeling my own peace flowing back into it, creating a more harmonious entropy, just as the universe helped absorb that initial shock at the water. It really made we wonder about the whole idea of communion, as we've tried to translate it in so many different ways with different uniforms over the years, and how, while there will be blips on the path, if everyone where aware of the wholeness of the universe, no one could be in disharmony - the same way, as Bill and I were discussing, the very idea, on a much baser level, of a Republican therapist seems strange. You gotta at least kinda believe in being a gestalt good guy if you're psychologizing. I was also thinking again about right sized communities. According to Chipanzee Politics, primatologists find that incest does not take place in smaller primate groups - it's as if they just naturally know. I just wonder, as homo homo sapiens evolved, what the first codified laws were. At what point did society get so large than it required more structure? At what point did it require a code of laws? I think there is such a wealth of understanding of evolution of species to be garnered from studying social behaviors of animals, even done to the cellular level, and especially with primates. I also think so called fundamentalists are missing the boat on how brilliant a creator designs a world open source, putting the code out there and seeing what comes about, maybe sending in an avatar every now and again to make sure we're somewhat in touch with libidos, I guess like a good open source project owner would. After reading last week's NYT article about the designs for the WTC memorial, how  wonderful and enduring and healing taking all the victims home would be. The memorial could exist on two levels, one very simple - tracing the would be flight paths of the planes themselves, all four, and asking people to plant some hardy species along those paths. It would be an amazing phenomenon to drive along the highways, or go through towns, and create a sense of connectivity and community through those trees, through lighting a path. The next level would be trees along the paths each of the dead individuals would have taken to get to each of their destinations. And maybe, maybe years down the road, as people heal enough as a country to maybe begin loving other nations and nationalities, we plant the path home for each of the young Arab men who died for some cause that so angered their communities that those pockets of hatred came for a blood debt. That's the other element of Chimpanzee Politics - how, in our huge, modern societies, those power games that get played out in the group get played out on a global scale. I wonder if the General Public License can apply to patented or patentable ideas. 10:33:46 AM