"I Am Both Large and Small", "How Vulnerable We Humans Are", "How Powerful is the Mind?"
August 14, 1999
"I Am Both Large and Small"
"I Am Both Large and Small"
I. Is that a small word or is that a big word? It is the screen through which I perceive everything. Are there two I's then? Which I is the more real? Is the 'Screen I' only the framework upon which the 'Perciever I' rests? Is 'Screen I' the BIG 'I' then, and 'Perciever I' the little 'I'?Is 'Perciever I' sitting in the watchtower, observing it all? But the watchtower, and all the tools of observation are the 'Screen I'? I can't separate the two. I am both large and small.
~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ Going from the philosophical meanderings to cozy notes of family life, Laura has revived an old interest. She's rediscovered the oriental game of GO, and has learned there are interactive games online. She downloaded the special program and played her first game last night. Another player, near her skill level, offered her a 13x13 game. She accepted, but suggested a 9x9 game. This morning, Laura proudly told me she WON!
a game in processI looked a bit at various tutorials, refamiliarizing myself with the basics. I'm generally not good at such strategy games, but I can enjoy playing anyway. Below is the best way of insuring safe territory.
These areas are said to be 'alive'.
two 'eyes' make the territory impossible to capture.Laura and I passed some time this morning playing GO. I was slightly befuddled as my stones kept being captured. My pile of Laura's stones was tiny compared to what she'd taken of mine. The final score was, to my embarrassment, 37 to -13. I got a negative score. Julia, who also hasn't had much experience with strategy games, had fared even worse with Laura, and so I suggested we play each other.
This time, the growing pile of captures was in front of me. It grew higher and higher. Laura advised on how to score. Now you know Julia is an extremely intelligent woman. I can't follow her abstractions half the time. But, as she said herself, she's a specialist. Our score: 67 to -39! I almost felt bad. Almost. Yes, I do have the 'killer' instinct. Shayna, who's seen me going at the monsters in Heroes of Might and Magic II and III, and Might and Magic VII, yelling, "Die! Die! Die!" doesn't even want to come against bloodthirsty me.
I can't sleep. I thrash about miserably. My tongue and roof of mouth feel raw. I'm terribly thirsty. My head even feels faintly off. All possible symptoms of MSG ingestion. I think back to what I ate yesterday. I ate several food items with the questionable 'natural flavoring'(possibly containing MSG) - the ice cream, the broth soaked chicken, the animal crackers . . . Each, by itself, might not have been enough to cause a reaction, but the acculmative effect has been dreadful. Also, the effects can show up as much as 72 hours later, so it would be acculmative from that point on. I ate quite a few of those animal cookies the past couple of days. Also, I just remembered to list the dinner of 8-13, the popcorn shrimp might have had MSG. Sadly, it seems I must be more careful to avoid feeling like this.
August 15, 1999
"That's Why They're 'Curiously Strong'"
I'll try to get a couple more hours sleep, if it's possible.
later this day . . .
Such a day it's been! Laura and I returned from a grocery shopping trip with hopes of napping, then frolicking. When we woke up, the bedroom was steamy hot. Nothing was coming out of the air ducts. It at first looked like the air conditioning unit had froze up, but some part of it looks shredded. That's likely to be expensive.
Our afternoon of bliss ruined, the four of us left the house to escape the heat. Julia passed around a tin of peppermint Altoids, as we often do on a trip. I usually eat quite a few. At only ten calories for three of them, I've not even thought to list them in Weighty Matters. On a whim, I read the ingredients: sugar, gum arabic, oil of peppermint, gelatin, and glucose syrup. I'd been eating a lot of them, possibly by the dozens, believing they, containing peppermint, were good for my stomach. I believed them to be entirely innocent.
Wrong!
I've been combing through all the foods I'd eaten, wondering which of the 'maybe bads' was at fault for my symptoms. Little did I know Gelatin is on the list of guaranteed MSG laden ingredients! Case solved!
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Foods always contain MSG when these words are on the label:
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That's why they're 'curiously strong'!8:45am - mug of water - ah-h-h-h!It's going to be expensive to fix the AC, all right - over $175 on a part which must be special ordered from San Diego, plus nearly fifty for the labor costs. The part may or may not arrive this morning. It's been hellacious here. At noon, I could no longer do any work. I thought I'd be all right if I parked in front of the large fan. So I parked. Laura and Shayna were going to the fitness club and cool off in the pool. No, I'd just stay there, I thought. As the air coming from the fan grew warmer and warmer, I grew fainter. Laura told me, "Get your suit on!" I looked at her, vaguely. She then pulled me up from the sofa, had me strip, and gently shoved me into the spray of the shower.
August 17, 1999
"Was It Really That Bad?"
The contrast between the cool water and my hot body shocked me. Finally, I felt a little better, and be-suited, to the pool we went. After picking Julia up from work, we spent some more time away from home at a restaurant. But then we had to return back home. I soaked in the tub for as long as I could. I would have slept there, too, if the tub wasn't so small. Yes, there's a huge tub next door, but I don't think Glen and Mother would have appreciated me camping out there. It was a long hot night.
If the AC problem wasn't bad enough, our largest fan gave out, as well. These items are not old, either. The AC unit is only two years old. It was installed when the addition was built back in March of 1997. The fan was possibly five years old. But the constant use demanded by the extreme heat is hard on such items.
It's hard on us, too. What's that white stuff I'm supposed to remember whenever complaining about the heat? I'm kind of dizzy, can't think so clearly. Was it really that bad?
Those memories are fading, fading, fading.
~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ I am perched in front of a fan which has a long stem for its base, thus it somewhat resembles a tree. (I'm explaining this, in case the poem metaphor below makes no sense.)
NO, the part did not arrive. At noon, we again fled the inhabitable house. Laura, Shayna and I went to Bookman's. I had too much sun in the pool yesterday, and wasn't up for that another day. I grabbed an interesting book about the National Geographic's first 100 years, found a comfy chair and planted myself. Later, we had a snack at Borders before returning to pick Julia up from work.
mechanical breeze,
constant as nature is unkind,
I'll not leave these trees of steel,
their wide revolving limbs.
JAL,8-17-99 In the evening, we each, clothes and all, showered until we were soaked, to endure the still hot house. It didn't cool off much at night. It was still ninety (33C) when we woke up. Earlier, while on the road, I looked at the dusty tan earth, scrub bushes scattered about, and wondered how much of an exodus there would be if suddenly air conditioning no longer existed. I envisioned Casa Grande and Phoenix sudden ghost towns. A few would remain in Tucson. At higher elevation, it's not quite so beastly there. But mostly, the Sonoran desert would lose its populations and the coyotes and javalina would rule once again.
The house has been rendered liveable. The new blower wheel was installed by 11:00am, but by 3:00pm, the house was only slightly cooler. So we had the repairman come back to make sure the unit was working right. He tested the output, and all was as it should be, but when the house and its furnishings had absorbed so much heat, it would take many hours for it all to disappate.
August 19, 1999
"How Vulnerable We Humans Are"
Now, we're cool again. I can't help but think how vulnerable we humans are, without our devices. While reading the National Geographic's book on 100 YEARS OF ADVENTURE AND DISCOVERY, one passage really showed just how vulnerable the whole planet is. Consider this:
When we look at photographs taken of the earth by the astronauts and see our lovely, cloud-traced, blue sphere floating serenely through the star-studded, black velvet canopy of space, the image our planet projects is one of deceptive tranquillity. Within those clouds lurk violent, thunderous forces unleashing havoc upon an earth whose fragile crust is constantly grinding and trembling and threatening to explode beneath our feet. As Kendrick Frazier, a former editor of Science News magazine, pointed out in his book The Violent Face of Nature, at any given time 1,800 thunderstorms are churning across the expanse of our planet; 100 lightening bolts strike its surface each second; in late summer, of the fifty or so hurricanes and typhoons that are spawned each year, one - and maybe more - is moving toward a populated coastline. Half a billion people live on floodplains that supply food for a third of the world's population. Rampaging waters somewhere are inundating people's homes and croplands.
More than fourteen thousand earth tremors, strong enough to jiggle seismograph needles, shake our planet each week. Twice a day an earthquake will somewhere damage buildings; from fifteen to twenty times a year an earthquake will occur with enough force to result in widespread death and destruction, "And all the while," Frazier adds, "there are 516 active volcanoes waiting to spring loose their violence. An eruption begins somewhere every 15 days,"
(from chapter four, Natural Disasters: "Lord, that's enough now. Please stop it.",
page 106)
Oh, yes, Nature is not always gentle. I am in awe of all its myriad forces. To fully respect Nature, one needs to understand its power. It is only with this understanding that we humans have a chance for survival. For instance, let one fool go out in the desert with out adequate water - they do, hikers on mountain trails, people hoping to cross the border between Mexico and the United States, even the unsuspecting traveller whose car breaks down in a remote area. I read about one or two every couple of months.
Their dehydrated dead carcass will be found some time later. These people did not respect nor understand the ways of the desert. They paid big. All over the world, there's too many reports of people who didn't take the time to learn about their own unique environment.
Take care, everyone. Don't let yourself become one of these 'statistics'.
With that, I feel suddenly very thirsty.
"How Powerful is the Mind?"
How powerful is the mind over our reactions to things such as heat and cold? This is a snippet from an thought provoking e-mail list I'm on.Go Forward...
It all reminds me of when I was miserably cold in one of my art classes as a student. One of my fellow classmates said the secret to keeping warm was to 'think warm thoughts'. His wisdom didn't much impress me. I was too deep in pity over my discomfort. Granted, attitude has a definite effect. Getting used to something has another effect. I am amused at the Englishman who complains of beastly heat when it is only 85F (30C). When I first moved to Arizona from Illinois, it was April. The temperature would usually reach to the mid nineties (35C). After I said it was hot, my friends laughed, and said, Just wait, you'll SEE what hot is!"There is a popular Chinese saying in Buddhism, that "Xin1 Jing4 Zi4 Ran2 Liang2." It means that when the Mind is still and calm, there is coolness. This truth applies in the sense that the impatient, the greedy (those with unstill minds)... find it hard to experience coolness in the heart. Sometimes, these folks find a walk in the sun disgustingly hot, while those who have their minds still find it bearable. This truth works vice versa- when the Mind is still and calm, pleasant coolness is experienced instead when there is freezing cold. In this way, the Mind protects the body naturally. It's an attitude thing."June and August arrived, and I did. Yes, having air conditioning has softened me somewhat. When we only had evaporative cooling, I was better able to endure heat. Yet, by nearly anybody's standards, our house with neither AC nor Evap, was not liveable. The outside temperature was 105F (42C), and it was much cooler outside. There's no way to know how hot it was inside, as the thermometer on the temperature adjustment device only reads to 90. Possibly a well studied Buddhist wouldn't have gotten heat sick, as I did. If there's some truth to this concept, I would do well to learn it.
Yesterday afternoon, as I was sewing, I pondered these concepts, and took a break to visit with the muse.
How is it with the mind
a man can lift a grain of sand?
Ah, it is the MIND
which must first inform muscle
before the ACT can take place.
Thus, in the mind, all begins.
Sexist word usage, you might say, but it came out that way because the SOUND of the word 'man' better fits with the other words. Obviously, I'm not referring to only the MEN of our species.
