Random Thoughts --- What I want to say

I want to take a few minutes to respond to some of the blogs I read and our discussion from Thursday. 

           

HAPPINESS

Brooke ---THANK YOU!!! for the TED talk video!!! I watched it and then sent it to everyone I care about.  I have been blessed with a positive attitude that has made it possible to overcome life’s storms and it was reaffirming to hear Shawn explain how happiness is not a result of achieving a goal or working harder – at least not for very long.

MY FAVORITE QUOTE FROM THE PLAY:

 “Wanting to know makes us matter….”  

As is typical of everything we have been exposed to this semester, the play was overflowing with wisdom.  This quote is speaks to my Soul because it gives me permission to continue to question.   Years ago I went on a shaman guided Vision Quest into Arches National Park.  With stars peeking out of a midnight sky and campfire embers flitting aimlessly to heaven, the shaman asked us to find one word that described ourselves.

SEEKER

That was true twenty years ago and I continue to embrace it as a description of my being.  I want the privilege of asking the questions.  Answers may or may not arrive, but the excitement I feel in asking  and seeking mirrors the elation I feel before embarking on a journey.

GOD

Katie, I really empathized with your thoughts on intelligent design, god, and how does this amazing universe work.  Humans assume that we are the higher species because we can think abstractly enough to wonder about the fascinating questions.  After all, “Wanting to know makes us matter..”    Maybe animals accept the cycle of life and have no need to ask the questions you pose.  They truly live in the moment and there is much to learn from that wisdom, as well.

On many, many, many occasions as my Southern Baptist father has tried to “save” my eternal soul, I have expressed exactly the same sentiments as you:

·         If there is a god and I am someone who strives to make the planet and the peoples’ lives I touch better for it, then shouldn’t that count for something?

·         If there is a god and the requirements to get into “heaven” are that I think this god is a wonderful being who thought it was a good idea to kill his own son and I have to drink that kool-aid – then no thanks.

·         If there is a god who told Abraham to kill his son to prove his love for the god, then I maintain that god is an asshole.

I do believe in the balance of the Universe and in the Law of Attraction from a quantum physics standpoint.  I do believe as Shawn in the TED talk does, we can capture happiness with a positive mind set. But, I cannot believe that a big, bad dude with a schizophrenic personality should determine how eternity is spent.

SEX

One of my favorite past times and one of my favorite subjects to contemplate.  I asked Rose if Sex is what “messes up” the Deterministic Universe, would that be true if it was just “sex for sex’s sake?”  Does sex for the sake of sex, i.e. pleasure without demands, add to the chaos or are the ripples it produces short lived and inconsequential?  

'Conchis tells Nicholas that the abundance and availability of sex today has robbed sex of much of its romantic impact and beauty:"
    "You young people can lend your bodies now, play with them, give them as we who grew up before Wold War I could not.  But remember that you have paid a price:  that of a world rich in mystery and delicate emotion."
(quote from Peter Wolfe's JOHN FOWLES, MAGUS AND MORALIST, pg 34-5).

But, if the point is only to play, does that hold true?

Fascinating subject --- wish I was younger and I would follow in the footsteps of my new heroine, Virginia Johnson.

OUIJA BOARD

The Ouija Board link was enlightening!  The change in attitude after THE EXORCIST was released was fascinating.  I am still scared shitless of them, though.  When I was at a slumber party in 4^th grade, we were playing “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” and I floated to the freaking ceiling, then the Ouija Board came out and I got the chills and was certain I could sense the spirits around me, and then the final straw for me was the whole “Bloody Mary” thing.  Yes, I pretended to be sick and called my mom.  That’s actually pretty ironic, since I have spent my adult life exploring spiritualism, past lives, ghosts, aliens, big foot, the mothman and all the weird conspiracy theories out there.  I’m not saying I believe in all of them but I find them captivating.  One of my best friends is a medium and I have seen things that defy rational explanation, at least as we understand science and the universe in 2013.
           Most of all, I wonder why some people are driven to find the hidden and some people  are just fine being grounded in the “real” world only.  

Also,  loved the video of the digital box.  The mind does love to be amazed!