B&S

And to my brothers and sisters fighting for freedom in far-off lands...May Your Future Shine Ever more Brightly Every Waking Day.

-mattergy

Boomerang'd

The other day, I used Adobe Photoshop to put a little of MY OWN artistic license to work on the cosmos.

The source: an image of the little-publicized Boomerang Nebula.

The picture you see displayed here is my version.

The work that produced the original image is carefully cited on the APOD (Astonomy Picture of the Day) website.

Anyway...it's not a Da Vinci, but it could be an example of purely random processes ADDING ART TO THE COSMOS, even in the effect of causing the viewer to see things that aren't really there (those white blurs you see randomly spotted on the background of deep space are merely a mathematical distortion of the APOD image.

Addendum 3:30 p.m. PST:
The APOD guys switched-out the image from which I started (but in that instance, I hesitate to re-publish the .jpeg I downloaded in this blog).

I think even the astronomers would admit that I've added MORE-THAN-ENOUGH alteration to THE IMAGE DISPLAYED to declare it to be SIGNIFICANTLY ORIGINAL. ;)

Addendum 1/25/2008:
Okay...so here's the THE ORIGINAL APOD IMAGE. Thanks, APOD.

NTST

Photo Courtesy www.museum.tv

The consensus for now is for now to remain as it is IS A VIRTUAL IMPOSSIBILITY in the universe we know.

As the joke in broadcasting goes: NTSC, Never Twice the Same Color.

Never Twice the Same Time is how it goes in this galaxy. But NTST is such an unattractive acronym. The kids would NEVER swallow it. ;)

Don't Feel Sorry for Me, Feel Sorry for YOURSELF

Original Image from lexcaliburs.com

There's a widespread tendency of people feeling pity for me because I became so physically disabled when I developed Multiple Sclerosis.

But the fact of the matter is that a fair number of people who become disabled in the middle of life and who are of a mind to meet their new challenges head-on...generally find a renewed sense of purpose that is generally missing among the non-disabled population.

Thus, I see my disability NOT as life-ending, but life-enhancing.

I'm learning to live with my new limitations...other people are just skating along with life as usual (as if they are never going to face a tragedy like this).

Frankly these non-disabled masses are the ones who are delusional. Even OLD AGE strikes the healthiest of us...eventually.

I, on the other hand, have been given a head-start on understanding many of the realities of aging, meaning I have more time to ADAPT than most people.

Hence it is I who am the fortunate one.

This may seem like the hopeful rationalizations of a total washout. But I tell you, it's true.

You, on the other hand, are often wrapped-up in so many meaningless endeavors that you can barely find time to be concerned about what might befall you (or people you love) in the not-so-distant-future.

There's nothing wrong with this attitude, but it does leave a lot of people scrambling to make sense of things at the last-minute when they discover that they've been living in a pervasive illusion I call NOW-ME-FIRST psychology.

The primary reason I have been able to survive all these changes is because I realized long ago that caring for others and caring for the future are not only socially-beneficial ideas, but personally-beneficial ideas, as well.

Worrying about the future does no good, because when you arrive there you must deal with the realities at-hand and it's highly improbable that you can predict what you'll need for the future.

As I've mentioned, before MS, I was in near-perfect health. I turned 37 and one day I just got so ill I could no longer do the things I had done the day before.

Okay, MS is rare...but there are any number of random diseases or injuries that could devastate YOUR life this way.

The only way to overcome ANYTHING that might befall you is to treat people with respect and to challenge yourself (discipline yourself) constantly.

Slacking-off may sound appealing...but it's YOUR future you are monkeying with.

--mattergy

The AEUniverse

Original photo of an actual Aurora Over Alaska, USA.
Credit: Joshua Strang, USAF, Wikipedia

My EVERYDAY-friend
Reminded me of a psychological concept
of which I hadn't been reminded in a long time...

The idea that men tend to process things in
Discrete Chunks

Wheras Women
see the WHOLE PICTURE

If you think about it then
Marriage is (even LOGICALLY SO)
A Soulful communion
Between the hidden and the observable
Universe(s)

through a man and woman...
It's a logical reality...

Hence Adam and Eve

It's just the universe's natural jigsaw
For attaning complete consciousness

What Happened...

In 2003-4 I was employed as a professional "presentation-preparer" for a Big-6 consulting company.

For reasons only truly known to the actors-involved at the time, I was summarily released from employment (OK THIS PARTICULAR JOB WAS PART-TIME-TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT, SO NO BLAME ON THIS COMPANY) and in the coincident economic-downturn concurrent with the U.S./Coalition removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, I was forced to take employment as a painter's-assistant (a somewhat physically-demanding [demanding enough to require 2 good hands] occupation).

At first I just thought I had a flu...because I was really nauseous and vomiting EVERY HOUR OR SO, meaning that after several days I was REALLY hurting.

So I WALKED 2 MILES IN A DOWNPOUR to a local physician's office...Dr. Lerner [Dr CITRON, I remembered, after publishing this post] I think is his name) and the very intelligent doctor concluded after a significant interview that I MIGHT HAVE a kind of VIRAL INFECTION that infects WHITE-MATTER in the brain and SPINE.

After a night of incessant vomiting, my friends had me admitted to the emergency room of a local hospital. After ruling out various "standard" infections via blood tests, the emergency doctors admitted me to the hospital-proper.

After several days in the hospital, Dr. Lerner(?) [Dr. CITRON, as recently noted] came to visit me, and based on an MRI, and subsequent spinal-tap reformed by a Dr. Khalsa, it was agreed that there was sufficient evidence that I was suffering from ADEM (a generally monophasic [single-event] auto-immune disease triggered by an as-yet undiscovered agent).

As it happened, my Mother and Step-Dad were the only family in any proximate position to help me recover after I was released from a week-long stay at the hospital, so I went to stay with them.

After a marked downhill trend in my AS-YET-UNSEEN recovery (I was still vomiting to the edge of malnutrition), they took me to THEIR LOCAL HOSPITAL.

After the usual anti-nausea medicines failed to produce any results, it was decided that I should be taken to another local hospital where a bona-fide neurologist (Dr. Mark Agius [pronounced like au jus, the dipping sauce commonly used with a kind of roast-beef sandwich]) could examine me.

After a week's additional hospitalization, new MRI's and various tests by the Neurology staff there it was determined that I was NOT a critical-care case, and was sent back home (not any form of discriminative treatment, BTW...just a needed form of triage for a hospital jammed-full of patients).

ANYWAY after all that, it was initially determined that I -might have- Multiple Sclerosis (it's REALLY hard to make that distinction so early in the disease's various visible manifestations [called presentation in physician-speak]).

Anyway, that's what happened to me before more long-term observation and tests told the neurologists that it MUST be Multiple Sclerosis, not Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM)

At this point 3-4 years later, I'm just trying to live on my own Social Security Disability day-by-day. So that's what happened to me.

Kill All Good Men

I don't know where my audience is at in their experience, but I can't believe how often I have to explain to people that having limb-impairing brain-damage means more than just "minor lifestyle readjustments".

The biggest thing is that people frequently describe my sense of impending (impending meaning sooner than tomorrow) trouble as being "unrealistic".

But the fact of the matter is that when you have one bad leg, one bad hand (my formerly dominant hand, of all cruel coincidences) and exceptional vision now confused in the brain...you must plan further ahead for things than any NON-DISABLED person thinks is necessary.

In my experience now...it seems that it is the NON-DISABLED people who have a skewed sense of reality, because in their minds every problem is solved "WITH JUST A LITTLE EFFORT".

One person I know actually conducts little self-disabling experiments to understand what I am experiencing...and for that I am thankful...although the actual realization of just how difficult life is for me has brought her to-tears on occasion, because she has acknowledged that SHE can't live the way I am FORCED TO LIVE 24/7 for more than 10 seconds without becoming so agitated that she cannot continue.

And for the most part, I genuinely empathize with returning soldiers who now have life-altering injuries because they will be thrust into the same climate of poor-understanding apathy that I encounter every day (BTW, as a guy I wear my hair neat-but-perpetually-long, partially so as not to be confused with heroic veterans, partially so my hair will not grow so quickly [cut your hair often enough at $10 a cut on a fixed-income and you won't have enough money for food...trust me]).

Anyway, the bottom line is that I see NON-DISABLED PEOPLE as being the people least able to survive any REAL change of abilities, while in turn they treat me as if -I- am the one to be pitied.

If they only knew how tough I REALLY AM.

Turk Justice, p.2

Before I started obsessing over the dwindling worldwide service-ethic I was known to fix prognostication of world-shaking-events-to-come on the rapid sinking of crude-oil prices in the global marketplace.

While the reduction of refined-fuel prices would be welcome, the rapid reduction of crude-oil prices seems to signal increased POLITICAL AGITATION in various places around the globe.

Again, my observation is by no means scientific, but it is a product of a fairly sophisticated set of observation-criteria to which I've learned to pay close attention.

It may sound rash, but I'm predicting a bloody Christmas this year...

But then again I'm not God.

It's All About Who you Know

I have had the good fortune of knowing people of very-high morals. Though I present myself as being alone in this world...I have REALLY BUSY friends...many of whom learned how to be that way from me.

I'm so grateful for the friends I have (even if they ARE busy). My life would be unlivable without them ;)

That Place

when the moment runs too long
when even hope is gone
flowers bloom in the blackest soil
I go there
to be with you

Elements of Depression

Image courtesy ringtonic.wordpress.com

I'm not a medical practitioner, but I have learned over the years (from bona-fide medical diagnoses of various family-members) that there exist certain forms of mistreatment that almost naturally lead to a diminished sense-of-self that can result in SERIOUS mental or emotional problems if left unchecked.

But when someone so self-educated as I points out this fact to people (correctly evoking the EXACT terms employed in professional psychology), invariably the response is to assault my intelligence (which itself is a well-known tool of debate used by TV-talk-show hosts who suddenly find themselves drowning in their own ill-thought assertions...a.k.a. DIVERSION)

To be more frank, I generally feel like people want to lash-out at others all the time because they are perpetually frustrated by their own inability to make a cohesive argument...of any kind.

Apparently it takes a lot of intelligence to realize that you are an idiot...if in fact you are an idiot. This is one of those inescapable conundrums that makes arguing valid points with some people practically impossible.

Anyway...trying to breach the wall of stupidity for the sake of caring can have a deleterious effect on a person's mental health...especially if the idiot-in-question is in a position-of-power and refuses to admit that they have only vague or slanted ideas of what they are talking about.

Obviously, withdrawal from such stupidity would seem to be a natural reaction...but for me it isn't. It took years of actual experience before I finally understood that many people let the troubles in their lives overtake EVERYTHING, without ever sensibly addressing the consequences of carrying so much unsifted clutter...that MOST people are on the verge of insanity...literally.

Any trained psychologist will take issue with this wholly depressing conclusion, because it's obviously NOT a healthy vision of reality...

But it is what MY experience has taught me, so what do I do?

Valenzuela

Original image courtesy www.typearts.com

Ritchie Valens didn't ALWAYS have that funky last name...the "funk" was a product of general 50's weirdness in the U.S. record industry...a Spanish sounding last name remined American Farmer's daughters of tall tales told in frontier cabins of devils in the night coming to have their way...

Anyway, Ritchie Valens (Richard Steven Valenzuela) WASN'T a threat to anybody who realized that his Latin rhythms merged with a kind of Rockabilly were PURE GOLD for the U.S. record industry.

I just love the music, kid. ;)

Good stuff.

ADDENDUM 4:30 PST
I'll remind people that CALIFORNIA actually boasts the most farmland of any state in the U.S., and CALIFORNIANS (including ones with Spanish-sounding names) run their farms and cattle-ranches with every bit of experience boasted by farmers further east.

ADDENDUM TUE
People sometimes misinterpret my persistent tense-of-voice as being unaware of mortality...this may be somewhat true...I played Ritchie Valens' Come On, Let's Go just yesterday thanks to the magic of subscription-music.

I CAN Hear a Pin Drop

One of the GOOD things I've inherited is a fairly developed sense of hearing.

I say developed NOT in any ironic sense...I mean the system that was passed down to me from my greater forebears SEEMS TO HAVE formed in a way that allows me to easily recognize sound-patterns.

Hence, my hearing is hyper-developed in sometimes annoying ways...both for myself and those around me.

For this I apologize to those who've endured ANY ASPECT this.

I'm only human, like you. ;)

What Peace is This?

[]

At it's heart
Writing is ALWAYS a speech
The variance from the usual sense
being
The Voice

Which may even be your own
Perhaps one I've never heard
But imagined

Nonetheless

In the depths of my self...a mental model
Of SOMEWHERE
You might go

And then they Argue
Upstairs Neighbors
Random Inaction
Of a usual
Sort

What peace is this?

You know the answer...

[]

How Far is Down?

When first you ponder the vast array of scientific information that mankind has imposed upon the heavens...

you're apt to disbelieve what you're seeing.

The sheer numbers are so long as to be confusing.

The invention of exponential enumeration only compounded the illusion of FATHOMABLE SIZE.

That our brains became able to encapsulate the cosmos in this way only deepens the mystery of intelligence...we see thousands of galaxies heading away from each other at incredible velocities...so agreed in their haste to abandon some common origin in the metrically-distant past.

So what is at the center of the expansion? New dimensions of Heaven or Hell? A gargantuan pan-galactic creature invisible to dumb machines? To the naked-eye? And why is the urgency to abandon togetherness so universal as to be ... literally universal?

Am I distracted from today? Yes...in every direction I might possibly cast my gaze...it is the way of things.

It's an expansion that might only halt should so many galaxies slow their ascent absolutely: a Big Crunch around a Supermassive Black Hole of incalculable influence (such a massive gravity-well could literally propel objects at such high velocity that they skipped into another -unseen- dimension of reality [I may be hallucinating from the thousand mile-per-hour velocities of the galaxies themselves...though it's just a hypothesis of mine ;)]).

This is all just to make people consider just HOW insignificant the problems of the world really are in the face of an such unfathomable reality...things like this make THIS author a little more numb to the troubles of the world.

Unavailacato

The most annoying problem in my life is the pervasive self-deception of: Having Voice-Mail = "Being There for You".

I'm probably one of the most internet-savvy, telephone-savvy people on Earth.

Yet getting actual PHYSICAL ASSISTANCE is almost impossible (validating the testimony of Jesus, found in Matthew 23:4).

When one side of your body is almost completely paralyzed and you simultaneously suffer from a form of brain-damage that makes it almost impossible to reliably cross a street without being struck by a fast-moving vehicle, the perceived "intellectual" problems fade to insignificance.

Yet like it or not...the general attitude of the public is that the most difficult problems of any disease are "intellectual." I would challenge any one of the people who share this attitude to best me in understanding the what-to-dos, who-to-contacts, order-of-operations, and organizational requirements of ANY task...even ones for which I have NO previous training.

It is NOT because I am an idiot that getting an 18-inch box to a destination is difficult...it is because I have an inherited form of brain-damage that makes the simplest PHYSICAL tasks difficult.

Conversely, when organizations SPECIALIZING in physical transport can't seem to get that job done, I wonder why it is that their telephone personnel have such pompous attitudes about fulfilling their PRIMARY company mission...getting actual things from here to there.

I guess the advancement of COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY has inadvertently fomented a kind of laziness that makes people forget WHY IT IS people need ANYTHING.

Which begs the question: "Why even pay them?"

AUTHOR'S ADDENDUM:
I feel compelled to make one notable and perhaps unexpected exception to this minor drama:
that being the employees of the U.S. Postal Service...who really do a good job, (IMHO) given their list of duties, and economic constraints.