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Synthesis & Synchronicity 032
[Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?]
Synthesis & Synchronicity 032
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No, this isn't going to be a collection of sexual observations or empassioned thoughts of how much I love my wife (which I do). I'm simply stating the truth, I'm typing away from my bed while bundled beneath the covers. It's cold today, as it was cold last night and most of yesterday. The weather took a left turn in the last few days, going from a blustery 70 degree T-shirt day to yesterdays snow flurries. Normally this wouldn't affect my writing, but it is right now because our condo has no heat.
The infamous basement project of doom is heavily under way, as large amounts of dirt, rock, old insulation, bricks, and othe refuse fills up one dumpster load after another. Unfortunately, unexpectedly, and of course while the other owners of the building have gone away on yet another two week trip out of town, the contractor's people decided to cut the pipes for our heating system just before the weather changed.
I know that many great writers of the 20th century have faced adversity as they wrote. Hemmingway wrote inside French cafes during the daylight hours in the winter, because he and his wife were too poor to afford to heat their cold water flat in the begining of his career, and even then he had to wear scrivener's gloves and an overcoat while working. Joyce scribbled away some of his greatest works with a single working eye that often was in pain from the disease that had cost him the first eye and had reduced his vision terribly. This gives one no solace when facing reflections of problems three quarters of a century later. It just makes one feel a bit more frustrated. Especially when it is not lack of money that is the cause, nor lack of technology.
The basement project of doom has now been ongoing for 26 months. The costs continue to escalate, the complications continue to appear, and the goal still looks so far in the distance that I can't really imagine what it will be like. I never signed on for this, I was dragged into it by circumstance, trapped by the tide of events. And I've become saddled with being the person most inconvienced by it all. I can't run away on various and asundry trips out of town, out of the state and out of the country. I don't work outside the home and I manage the household operations, so I'm here a lot more that even everyone else, and thus when the heat is off, or the water is cut off for plumbing work, or the laundry room is shut down, or the electricity is off, it's me that has to work around the problems.
I wouldn't mind if it meant I would go on from this and produce the world's next great novel, but I'm not and I doubt there's much to say about this that hasn't been said before. Unfortunately the construction project reminds me too much of the dark comedy film "The Money Pit" than anything else.
At least my eye doctor appointment on Tuesday went well and the infection that was blinding me temporarily is gone. I can stop thinking I might have a fate like Jame Joyce's, who lost one eye to a bungling doctor who performed delicate surgery badly and blinded him (no surgery for me). I did manage to scare the doctor during my exam by blacking out on him and the nurse while in the chair. I don't know if it was simply a stress reaction, one of my body's panic attack responses to dealing with all things medical (I'm somewhat phobic about doctors and dentists thanks to a near death incident when I was about 20) or a reaction to the eyedrops they were using to numb my eyes for one of the tests. Still it was not a pleasant experience.
I'm also suffering from a bit of backpain, thanks to my latest trip to the laundromat (laundry room is of course offline again) so that everyone can have clothes to wear in the coming week. And my back has gotten so bad in recent months that I can no longer carry my notebook computer to the coffeeshops or other refuges to write in (I either have to put it in a well padded rolling crate on the dry days or do my writing in longhand in a notebook and try to decipher it into the computer later).
To say the least, I'm a bit stressed right now in general. And I'm trying to get my preparations done for the first session run of the Bureau 13 campaign this Sunday (very important - like a good book's first page, the first session must act as introduction and to set the tone for all that will follow).
Take Back Your Time Day was scheduled for today. This is basically a protest to corporate America and the Politicians about the fact that Americans are now the most overworked major industrial nation in the world. They have indeed been slowly stealing away hours from the lives of employees for decades, and we have gone from the nation with the most personal leisure time since WWII to the one with the least. Why? Corporate Greed. While other nations have worked to raise the quality of life of people with modern technology, American corporations have been plowing it into increasing production. So we work harder and harder as a population and get less and less freedom in our lives.
The average American works 1,994 hours per year (if they are employed.... 6.4% of the American workforce is, of course, unemployed under the Bush Administration).
This surpasses Japan, known for its drop-dead-on-the-job workaholics, who put in 1,803 hours a year and leaves all of Europe look downright attractive as a place to go to to escape the rat race (with the UK at 1,693 hours, Italy 1,720, France 1,605, Sweden 1,710 and West Germany at a laxidasical 1,577).
For the roleplaying gamer's in the audience this means that you've lost some 300 hours of free gaming time since the late 1970s... or 60 sessions of 5 hours each annually. If you are wondering why you don't have enough time in your schedule for gaming like you use to, consider this a definite red flag alert of the cause.
End Of An Era
In case you haven't heard, the last flight of the Concorde happened today. The Supersonic Transatlatic Aircraft will fly no more, and another era of transportation history ends, and with it true Luxery flights. At least until the return of trans-atlantic Luxery Blimps or Dirigibles.
Bermuda Triangle and Other Lost Ships Dept.
A new idea has crossed the minds of scientists wondering about mysterious lost ships in places like the Bermuda Triangle. Their new theory of the cause is Sea Floor Methane Deposits that are randomly released from seismic activity to cause huge overwhelming gas bubbles that could capsize a ship in seconds. This is based on the fact that methane becomes solid under the high pressure levels at the bottom of seas and oceans (known as 'gas hydrates').
This sounds cool as a theory, but seems definitely flawed to my Fortean eye. One must prove that such deposits are common in the areas of disappearances, second one must wonder what causes enough pressure change to turn the methane from solid back into gas, and finally one must wonder why there have been no survivors from such wrecks to
report what happened. For that matter, why haven't capsized but still boyant ships not been found? Or why aren't there hundreds of upside down wrecks on the ocean floor?
And how does this explain disappearances in the more shallow areas of the world where they occur?
Sounds to me like more of a scientific excuse than solid science.... like all those weather balloons, sightings of venus and mis-identified secret aircraft that folks keep thinking are UFOs from outer space.
Witches Of Norway Well, witch anyway. Reuters reported that the Norwegian State granted for a business startup $7,400 to Lena Skarning to open Forest Witch Magic Consultiing a business producing potions and magic supplies, performing fortune telling and spellcastings. Skarning claimed in interviews that the Harry Potter books had made Norwegian society more tolerant of sorcery and magical practices. Definitely sounds like Norway is being more pagan friendly, no matter what the reason. Definitely good news, in my Pagan viewpoint.
Weather & Religion Rant : Ignore this section if you're easily offended by Strange Beliefs on the part of your host. I'm going to talk about my own religious beliefs a tiny bit, and my feelings about some of the contradictions that come out of Christianity that long ago made me go and search for a very different spiritual path. If you're Christian, you problably will feel that what I have to say is over simplifying things, or that I'm showing disrespect to your faith. I assure you that I did not come to my viewpoints without large amounts of exposure to various religious texts, beliefs and practices from around the world.
It was snowing yesterday morning when we got up, an experience that should not be happening in mid-October in our area. Just the other day we had a near 70 Degree F. temperature and were wearing T-Shirts, and today it was in the forties. Tomorrow they are saying we'll be back in the high 50 to 60 degree range. The weather has become random, unpredictable and I can feel it in my bones that its the tip of the iceberg, a warning from Our Lady of Confusion that she takes her position of a weather deity very seriously and we should not be complacent in the months to come. The humans have messed up the biosphere and she's going to make sure that we know it.
As a Neo-pagan I recognize many goddesses and a few gods in a rather mix-and-match pantheon of belief. Christians can't understand folks with my sort of belief, or think that I am bound for their conceptial hell or oblivion for my failure to believe in their one-true-god theory of the universe. The beliefs of many types of Paganism pre-date all Christian belief, and, depending on the culture, pre-dates Judiasm. It's not that I claim any 'great ancient knowledge', or unbroken linage of faith. It's just that there are plenty of beliefs that pre-date these folks on one level or another according to archaeological and anthropological evidence, which pretty much makes their creation myth fail to fit reality as I perceive it .
Additionally, if you look upon their religious texts with a modern eye, then their god must be and cannot help but be considered mad, suffering from multi-personality disorder, meglomania, bouts of homocidal and even genocidal mania and a complete lack of understanding of how people think, react and live. Or, is so completely apathetic as to be uninterested in all that goes on in the world by his creations to each other, and thus ridiculous to worship since he does nothing at all.Take it or leave it, if he exists and is involved as they say then he's responsible for it all, and thus enjoys the torment, misery, and pain that the majority of humanity suffers for no conceivable reason. He created the devil, but only the humans have been given free will, so the devil acts as his master plan orders. If not, and he lets it continue then he is powerless, apathetic, asleep, or doesn't care about the fate of individuals (and thus there is no reason for an individual to try to get his attention thru prayer etc.).
Under a pagan viewpoint there are many gods, and they conflict among themselves in philosophy. Pain, Suffering, Torment occur because the gods are not omnipotent or omniposcent, they can't be everywhere at once and cannot protect one against the actions of another deity. They are, like humans, subject to mood swings, temporary lapses of attention, failures to plan far ahead, and occasionally decide that the way to get humans to pay attention to their mistakes is to play the Gallagher Card and take a swing of a mallet at the watermellons of life (splattering us, of course).
Our Lady of Confusion (whoose name I prefer not to use too often to avoid offense) is one of many such gods, and in recent years appears to have taken some control over the sphere of weather. She's not afraid of letting us suffer a bit for the foolish actions of humanity as a whole, in the hope that we will improve our ways of interacting with the biosphere.
Be it April Fools Blizzards, Killer Hurricanes, Temperature changes of 40 degrees F in two days or rains of fish, one can pretty much see its a wakup call that we're messing with primordial forces that we just plain don't understand. If the powers that be upon the thrones of the world and their corporate sponsers keep polluting, strip mining, crop burning, playing with nuclear weaponry, playing with bio-weaponry and chemicals then we can probably expect a lot more watermellon splattering into our lives.
And with that thought.... its probably time to start cooking dinner and leave the high philosophy thoughts to others.
Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.....
Observations From The Newspapers :
I read a number of newspapers each week these days (The Phoenix, The Weekly Dig and The Metro, as well as a number of online available publications from around the world).
I wasn't doing this at various times in the past, quite frankly there is only so much frustration I can stand with the actions of our government under the current administration.
Anyway, I like to share with folks some of the more obscured bits and pieces, and to give my opinion on some of them.
Legal Notice:
Synthesis & Synchronicity is the meanderings of the mind of Joseph Teller and may not reflect the reality of your own personal universe. Contents are Copyright 2003 by Joseph Teller and anyone who wants to reproduce it in any way or fashion must request permission (although linkage to these is granted to any and all websites, mailing lists and newsgroups, their operators, posters and users if so desired). Unless, of course, otherwise noted within the text of the articles involved. Synthesis & Sychronicity is distributed by Naughty Faerie Productions.
