Monthly Archives: March 2021

Have you heard the (ugh) news?

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World news, US news, local news, human news, environment news – all are disturbing. Is it the disorganization of global humanity? Perhaps it’s that there is nothing that is improving or that so much individual suffering is about and in our conscious thought. In any case, news is depressing and leaves us at loose ends.

Add to the lack of a meaningful life in historical terms the extreme oppression brought about by the virus. Jobs, relationships and self-esteem have been crushed – even life itself has been taken from so many.

Where is our victory train? Where is satisfaction? Where are seamless good times? It was bigger news than would have been typical when the roller rink reopened in a nearby town. How starved are we to experience enjoyment that a roller rink is headline news? Mariner was so thirsty for good times he reminisced for a minute or two about his good times at roller rinks. That was more than sixty years ago!

To be more abstract about it, we are like the mouse in a very large, complex maze where progress cannot be measured until the successful completion of the maze. Similar to the mouse, we have only our faith in ourselves, our ability to remain humane and courteous, our tenacity at remaining sane even in a social vacuum, and our commitment to accomplishment – if only to survive.

When one thinks about it, that list is a tall order indeed. But it is duty, it is our charge, the rules of life’s game. It is the path to survival.

Anthropologist Joe Campbell had it right when he said our lives are like a hero’s path. Let’s hope at the end of the journey we can all be in one of those exuberant beer commercials.

Ancient Mariner

It’s a strange world

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There is a legitimate scientific theory that we live in multiple universes. Not each one separate from the other but conjoined in the same physical space. This theory exists because it is a way to solve certain conflicts in the deep channels of theoretical physics. Mariner, however, has absolute proof that we have two different times existing in the same space.

Mariner has prescriptions so he keeps a week-long pill box. The proof of multiple times from multiple universes is that he fills the box for seven days but in two days it is empty! Yes, the reader might dismiss this as folly but that is because by habit we measure time based only on the movement of the Earth as it moves through the Solar System. When we have a notion that something seems untimely, take a lesson from the Zen and conspiracy folks who understand that time has different speeds. Different speeds means different universes. Think about the many times the reader suddenly said, “Didn’t I just do this?”

Conversely, how many times does the reader feel they have been put on hold for a very long time when they call someone? Could it be the person on the other end just said “Doesn’t this phone ever stop ringing?” It is two different universes at the same moment.

We are conflicted because the two universes waffle back and forth like throwing two rocks into a pond at different locations: the resultant waves coexist in the same space.

If the reader still is dubious, consider this: A bus driver drives a bit slower because he is ahead of his route schedule but the reader is waiting stressfully because the bus hasn’t come. It is simply two different universes with different time speeds existing in the same space.

If the reader considers this theory plausible, they understand how Donald’s base believes he won the election.

Ancient Mariner

Some of this, some of that

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֎ Strolling about on the search engine, as is mariner’s wont, he came across an infrequent word that took him back to college/preacher days when he was reading about religion, philosophy and logic and as a preacher, dealing with religious understanding as part of his job. The word is ‘theodicy’. Mariner had to search for a while but he found a post written in 2016 about this very topic. The subject of theodicy had been raised when one of his nonagenarian friends used the word. Mariner was surprised that someone actually knew this word and its context in theology. A discussion ensued about the goodness of God, whether goodness was derived from human experience and other obtuse considerations.

The next day mariner wrote the post in an effort to settle the meaning of the term theodicy. Mariner provides the reference if you are curious about theodicy; be forewarned that there definitely is no room for emoji and other iconery. [Go to the Home page and search “Theodicy and Secularism” posted March 19, 2016.]

֎ On a less esoteric front, March is upon us. Living on the 40th parallel, small thoughts of gardening, shrub pruning and weed killing poke into consciousness. This past winter was unusual in that there was significant snow cover for about three to four weeks. This snow just now is disappearing as the Sun’s rays melt it away.

Having the snow cover for so long has been hard on small wildlife. Mariner’s shrubbery has exceptional damage caused by hungry rabbits, eating some smaller shrubs to the ground. Rabbits are one of those creatures nature put in place so predators would have something to eat. In a town, there are no indigenous predators.

Sometimes a fox will take residence in town; they are excellent predators. Once in a while the few Redtail hawks will capture a young rabbit and sometimes one of the few feral cats will catch one. None of these predators, however, do enough damage to control rabbit population. In his defense, mariner has become a predator, too. But he isn’t any better at killing rabbits than all the other town predators. So it will be another year of cursing the rabbit in the yard because the rabbit is between mariner and his rifle.

֎ Moving on to more serious matters, mariner wrote in a few posts about the need to have multiple nations bond together administratively in order to manage global issues. An early, embryotic move in this direction is how nations are dividing chores among themselves to deal with China. Note this paragraph from Politico:

“COUNTERING CHINA WITH … MODULAR SECTORAL ALLIANCES? The Wall Street Journal reports progress within the Biden administration on how to organize containment of China. According to the report, alliances would be sectoral and the members would differ with each issue. The core alliance members would be the G-7 countries, with others added according to need: a modular model that avoids new bureaucratic institutions and resembles calls for a T-10 group of democratic tech allies. For example, Israel on tech and artificial intelligence, or India on trade issues. Don’t expect that every country will announce their participation.”

Ancient Mariner