Summer Turns Part 3

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Continued from part 2

It is here that my family's story intersects with the much larger flashbulb moment of 9/11 and it is here that I will take the liberty to break from the narrative form for a moment and delve into realms of perception. 

As with the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated or the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger everyone has a story of where they were when they heard such news. That is why these moments are called flashbulb moments; they burn into our minds leaving a distinct memory in the same way that a very bright light will leave behind an image before our eyes. Still, although these moments are uniquely shared by the masses they remain a metaphorical Grand Central Station where all of the individual trains are arriving at once. These trains are people and the lifetime that preceded their arrival at the station dramatically effects the impression they will have of the station once they arrive there.

I believe it was the American Lung Association which ran a commercial that warned: “when you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.” Barely able to breathe is how some trains arrived at the station that day and I am sure this equated to barely able to care. I would never tell a person who could barely breathe they were remiss for their lack of compassion or concern but I did have incredible struggles with myself over the fact that I was in love and very, very happy. I refused to let this event dampen that fire in the slightest and consequently, over the next several weeks I found myself hiding my joy from others around me. I also found myself questioning whether or not I was within my rights to be so focused on my own life and happiness at a time when my country was mourning, enraged, confused and in shock. 

Eventually, I realized that there were various realms of perception at play and that my persistent happiness did not imply a lack of caring but simply a willingness to trust my strong instincts that I had invested honestly and innocently in a course of action I believed in and that this simply must be done when the moment arises despite the severity of external circumstance. In fact, I now believe that attempting to alter my perceptions to accommodate the fear and suffering which seemed to be everywhere around me would simply have added more of the same and that would not have done anyone good.

The experience taught me how to truly own a belief in my ability to exist on different levels at once and how to seek and receive council from any of my many minds. 

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Say it ain't so Joe!

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<((You don’t say))>

Yesterday’s Talk of the nation: Science Friday was about the conceptions folk’s have about food and the best possible scenarios for its distribution. People, me included, have a tendency to be dramatic. They often make big choices based on limited information that they deem important because of the source. In fact it seems that as the amount of knowable facts increase at a dazzling rate, finding a trusted source to fill in the gaps in our knowledge is as important as finding a good doctor or mechanic or, dare I say, carpenter.

The guests on Science Friday and the host Ira Flatow were discussing the distribution of food and the carbon footprint of various methods of food production. I like Mister Flatow because in his roundtable discussion’s he always tries to bring the conversation around to a reasonable conclusion based on all of the participants viewpoints. The conclusion yesterday was that buying locally produced food does not always yield the smallest carbon footprint. Now, for the why’s and wherefores I’ll refer you to the program but the thought I am pursuing here is more about how we reach our conclusions than what we conclude.

<((Give the people what they want))>

The quickening is a concept I have been hearing about for years. The quickening is manmade and involves every facet of human knowledge. Basically, the idea is that things are getting faster because we continue to find ways to do more things. (I can do more, I do more and things happen faster.) Another concept I have been hearing about for some time is the individual’s fast growing ability to get through the day without encountering a thought or idea that they do not at least partially agree with. Blogs and websites and targeted media of all types are being produced at ever greater speed. Many of them exist to turn a profit and have discerned that preaching to the already converted is a surefire method of doing so. 

There is simply more information in the world, which means there is more erroneous information and that means there is a better chance that any one of us might be infected with facts which just aren’t true and then, we too, can turn around and infect others…

<((The theory of relativity))>

Are facts and the truth the same thing or are facts something we can prove while the truth is something we have taken on good faith? It really does not matter because both the truth and the facts of the matter are informing our beliefs. I guess the truth and facts combine to produce perception and perception is relative so knowing thyself really can only happen if we admit that there are things that are unknowable. By that I mean it just is not possible to know everything. So, some of what we know we simply believe and those beliefs are only as trustworthy as the source they rode in on.

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