Turil
I am for youArchive for October, 2010
Where do we begin?
We must begin all our thoughts~conversations somewhere.
We must have at least a reasonably firm ground upon which to balance our ideas.
We must start with something.
And not just any old something, but the something. The ultimate something. The something that is not just something, but also is everything!
It’s the one thing that we also must agree on before anything else can be said or thought of, because everything, quite literally, depends upon it. (Even the concept of nothing depends upon the concept of everything, since no thing is precisely the “negation of thing”, for which at least some thing has to exist in at least some sense, so that it can be negated).
All of us who are blessed with the ability to think about new ideas and communicate them with other thinking individuals agree that something does indeed exist (or we couldn’t experience these somethings called ideas, and we certainly couldn’t share those idea-somethings with these other thinking-individual-somethings!). We also seem to agree that that ultimate something appears to have parts that are different (such as the ideas and other thinkers).
So when we begin to think, and communicate, we start out by giving a word/name/symbol to represent that largest something, and then we can go about naming the parts, and looking at their relationships within the whole. Some people (some of the parts!) have come up with the term God for the whole thing. (While some consider God to be one of the larger parts, but not necessarily the whole thing.) Others have different words for the whole grand something, such as the Universe, the Multiverse, 宇宙, Вселенный, Θεός, Dios, and so on.
Once a group of people agree on the name for the whole, they can more solidly get into thinking and talking more in detail about all the smaller parts. They can then spend the rest of their lives talking about and thinking about all the seemingly infinite parts, of all shapes and sizes, and how they relate to each other!
Of course, if people can’t even agree on a word to use for the whole of everything, then it’s going to be extremely difficult to have any kind of useful conversation, which is a big part of why we have wars… And it’s why when someone uses the word “God”, my first reaction is to ask what they mean by the term. Is it the whole of existence? Or just one of the parts, and if so, which part? The answer usually ends up being some fuzzy idea relating to some kind of highest level of nature/forces/laws, and, upon closer inquiry, often involves positive, creative forces more so than destructive, negative forces, though not always.
Ultimately, none of us parts will likely ever know the whole story of everything, but the more we combine our knowledge of things – the parts – and how they relate to other things, the more we will at least get closer to understanding the whole.
So, are you ready to begin? And if so, what would you like to call it all?
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industrial water versus natural water
I challenge you to spend some time today coming up with one way to improve the quality of water in your life.
I’m guessing that the majority of you reading this get what you might call “industrial water”, that is, water that has been intentionally modified in some way through some factory process. And they have convinced most people that this is necessary, to the point where if they don’t give us their manufactured water, there is a mass panic, or at least a mass of people hording bottled water from stores, and having soda and beer bottlers come in to “rescue” us from our plight. (And I say this from experience, as the greater Boston area had a “water main break” last spring, and millions of people were ordered not to drink the tap water.)
But this is insane, of course. Water is a natural resource that is abundant in the world. And don’t you agree that it’s up to us to free ourselves from the dependency on industry to “make” our water for us?
How about a rain water catchment system? How about finding a spring nearby your house? How about learning how best to filter water cheaply through rocks or ceramics? Or maybe learning to test water for industrial chemicals?
Perhaps the simplest thing you can do to improve the quality of water in your life is to start drinking your water out of glass containers, or non-corrosive metal, rather than plastic, so that you’re sure to keep the water you already have from getting any more toxic from plastic leaching into it. Also, it’s pretty simple to collect rainwater in a large bowl or pot, and filter it a little (for debris, mostly) through a clean cloth, to drink. And, of course, getting your water from fresh, organic fruits and vegetables is both ideal and very, very simple!
It’s up to you what you want to do to improve the element that makes up the largest percentage of your own body, so that you can indeed have the best chance of being your best self!
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power dynamics and equality
Life is all about inequality, as change (a primary element of life) can’t happen if everything is balanced (equal). But sometimes the changes in life, caused by highly unequal forces of power, are simply too stressful for reality to withstand without breaking, so opposing forces naturally come in to counteract the imbalance.
If you are exerting too much power, even if you don’t realize it, sooner or later something will show up that either takes your power away, or neutralizes it. Which is why it’s useful to pay attention to your own power, and how you are using it, so you don’t get shocked by sudden surges of power knocking you off your feet.
As long as you are using your resources to empower those who have less power, you will be serving reality’s need for reasonable equality, and you will be rewarded by reality. Go against that reasonable balance by trying to use your power against those who are less powerful than you, even if you believe you’re “justified”, and eventually you will feel the backlash of reality returning things to a more even keel.
In other words, rather than trying to harm those who you feel are “beneath” you and rather than trying to get more power for yourself, use your power to take care of the little guy, and your life will be longer and easier, and much more rewarding. And if you must pick on someone, pick on someone your own size, so you’re chances are around 50-50, the way reality likes them. :-)
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