NASA Image of the Day

Monday, December 21, 2020

Attention: this is a spoof ad, and not real.

 "leaked memo.".....

...officials are clamouring after a leaked advertisement in which two company ads appeared to 

accidentally have been combined by an ad executive who wrote them after attending an office Christmas party. 

"Austin: Gateway to Mars. And no, it's not boring."

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Jumpstart back to a World of Thinking by Dawn M. Nevills

 Two important, stupendous and inspiring things happened to me today: the Starship SN8 took flight, and I read a memo from work. 

Both were positive, duty-demanding, shyness-overcoming events in my life. Both demanded that I momentarily find, in a constantly demanding schedule, that I insist on making room for the world of creative thought. At long last, and with a sense of somewhat frustrated - but clandestinely excited -anticipation, I have succumbed to this urge.  And with a clear understanding of the innate and unique sense of being hemmed in that could only come from the reality of living in the age of Covid-19 and E-bola, I have begun to understand that, like Stephen Hawking, we must reawaken, and jumpstart, our capacity to think, envision, dream, and tap into creative thought potential beyond whatever box we are in: even if we have begun to believe that it is the wrong body, the wrong life, the wrong sex, the wrong colour, the wrong start in life, the wrong marriage, the wrong decisions, and the wrong impositions of the wrong sort of duty, on one's life. We must be brave enough to, like the song says, "overcome". In doing so, not only will we begin to love ourselves, just the way we are - and as I think we were intended to be - enough to both accept, and make changes, in our our own lives, but to create and engender in others, the concept of the idea of "different" so that we may develop an understanding that comes with it, and understand that "desire" is different from "continuance", and that "appetite" should not be the only thing in our lives. If I have learned anything from the immediacy and urgency of Covid-19, it is that fear must not extend to the innate creative impulse that is within man's capabilities, and which is part of the holiness of the complex, intricate, and sacred physical reality that is the human condition, bound by corporeal shell. Our prejudices are somewhat exasperatingly related to the "shell in which we find ourselves", as well, and need to be more fully understood within that context. No doubt Christ felt the same, going about, using Druidic-like knowledge from the Heavens, healing people, pointing out hypocrisies in government and infrastructure, and appearing to be a threat to those who enjoyed not only their power over, but their cruelty towards others, as an imposed part of that power, in order to KEEP it,  as well as a tacit recognition of the shortcomings in the human condition in a much-advanced, clearly light years ahead, maturity and wisdom, with respect to existing human relations. His parting comment? "Forgive them, Father: they know not what they do." Indeed, we did not...but that is not an excuse - far, far from it, for those with a sudden, epiphany-like understanding of the word "visitation", but perhaps only an indicator of the extent of the patience of a loving Creator. Small wonder, then, that there are forces who simply wish to consider one plane of existence. They, like us, will stay earthbound both corporeally and intellectually. But....we happen to be both. And I take very seriously the gentle command of Gabriel to "fear not: I bring you tidings of Great Joy - for you, and all MAN KIND." Even the recognition of our species was of Great Comfort. It still is. He saved us, simply, and with direction, before we eradicated ourselves and each other. And His directions live on. So do we: a miracle, really. 

Much has been said, of late, about the fear of, the responsibility for, and the duty to, communicate. It can be said that although our ability to do so at lightening speed has shown our propensity towards, and capability to do, just that, our responsibility to carefully craft and seriously consider exactly WHAT we communicate, has simaltaneously both dissipated and devolved into a kind of lazy, collective grunt. When we leave four spaces in a response field, you can't really say much. You can only provide a link to a more extended document. Which brings me to this.....

Our own foray into our own dexterity with language has been directly curtailed by the very concept that it is not IDEAS that we wish to share, convey, and discuss, but, rather, a "cause and effect" scenario which translates into an inability to either formulate, anticipate, or stretch out, past the boundaries and current human confines of infrastructure, ethics, and ability, into the vast universe in which we live.

 It is no small wonder, then, that our foray into technological innovation has faced the same ridiculous stumbling blocks. On the one hand, we have a whole world of technological responsibility - in these moments, for our very continued existence, as well as our simaltaneously self-stunted insistence on our own boxed selves, and yet NOTHING - including a Biblical surety that not only did God frame the universe, but actually moved bodies in the Heavens - that should implant in someone's mind that we should not be stepping lightly and with joy into another part of it, with a clear sense of responsibility, a lack of fear, and a deep sense of responsibility for our fellow human beings. The last two have become a volleyball game of "translation retardation" that groans for a reinstilled sense of the ethics many have abandoned in a free-for-all approach to technology which has come far short of what we are truly capable of developing, even from a communications standpoint, and a marked absence of God. This last is simply and logistically arrogant, and also, as it happens, just historically not true. Our own records give us proof of this, insofar as our ability to document both visitation and intervention permitted, at the time, in the days before both rock and roll and cellphones. As Van Morrison's song says...."previous, previous". They - He...maybe even THEM, if you really, really think about the idea of angels and the struggle to make human beings understand the seed of ourselves, and our own ignorance, as a result of both evolution and Darwinism not separated from the idea of The Creation - simply did not have a wireless, or a CD, or a disc saving way to get through to us...except maybe PLATES we just did not understand, at the time, and which were not the kind you eat off of.... So God sent Christ. And, finally, and somewhat ashamedly, I recognize, with a renewed sense of humility, as a "MISSIONARY." ie. "with a mission, on a mission....with purpose and a sense of responsibility." Luckily, it was not one He - Christ - considered impossible - only one which He knew might well result in his corporeal Death. And He did it, anyway. Lucky for us! "Sent from the heavens - literally, from "Heaven" - to save us from our ignorance. Close call, there. Dawkins, my dear, it's all there on the page, for you and your ego to consider anew. Read it again, with creativity borne of 2020, and Covid fresh in your mind. And stop being limited by your lack of higher Chemistry. Perhaps you and the gentle Cambridge Don of the Theology Department have something to talk about, after all. You might think, again, of his concept of The Real.....with a renewed sense of how it is we perceive it, and what it takes to believe in it.    

What we have lacked, thus far, and continue to lack, for complicated political, social, and selfish reasons is: a real sense of willingness to encourage, an absence of jealousy for the gifted among us, and a stubborn insistence upon believing in our lack of potential, for the convenience of other human beings who count on our continued timidity, in order to further their own interests, without that accompanying ideaology which says that when one person succeeds with heart, and a God-given sense of both moral certitude, continued guidance, humility, a willingness to learn, and a lack of fear, many, many others' lives are made better. Ethics must keep pace with technological advancement. 

This is always, when all is said and done, the rebuttal and intelligent argument for material success: to whom much is given, much is expected. It does not say that the be-all and end- all of material success is more of the same, to the gluttony, boredom and emptiness of those whose lives are about nothing else....but, rather, that success begets other success, and that with the first, can come the second. When there is NO success because of an absence of both ethics and impetus, we all suffer. Like it or not, this is a very real, and very realized, truth. Ignorance might be bliss, but one personal idea of bliss might be very different from another, and the imposed stagnation of any nation simply results in its collective demise, whether that demise is the forced necessity to turn into an intellectual vegetable, or your actual, bodily death. That means ALL. Believing in imposed stagnation, regardless of political perspective, is the stuff of despot's dreams, and creates the kind of automaton, Ayn Randish psychological, intellectual and artistically creative death that is far worse than any momentary - or even permanent - physical disability and the lack of ability to believe, once again, in not only your own potential - but also that of others. Every political argument in the world will result in the same conclusion. Simply put, what the world needs now, is LOVE sweet LOVE...and applied trying. Recognizing innate imperfect, the striving part is a joy, not a burden. 

Quite frankly, although an excellent and comforting piece of music by that most excellent of composers, Burt Bacharach, the PERCEIVED sentimentality and sense of trivial disdain with which we have, of late been schooled to regard such things as "God" and "Love", should not be confused or mistaken for a trite shortcoming in the human condition, or important lifestyle developments of human beings, in its absence, or an oversight about the "silliness" of it as a thought process, when we make decisions which affect others, accordingly. Indeed, the concept of "parable" and "allegory" exist as approaches because, most probably - and this is simply my own opinion, of course - there was no song invented which might appeal to all at a moment, regardless of brain power, or a lack of ability to adequately express, pass on, or share, a given perspective in a collective moment, regardless of intellecutal acuity, financial status, race, creed, colour, or nationality. Great music, not surprisingly, reaches across every imposed bridge of an absence of knowledge in expression and anxiousness, joy and sorrow, grief and joy, superceding all of these things with a shock and a truth made real by Man. 

This brings to mind the movie "Alien Mine", where the adopted human father, having been carefully tutored by the Visitor, and entrusted with the care of its child, stands and gives account of the relationship and the lineage of that child to its found elders, in what can only be suggested is a "judge both the quick (those quickened by physical life) and the dead" moment of meeting between two heretofore alien worlds. There is a duty, a privilege, and a sacred moment in which to "stand and deliver". The lineage, and the relationship, and the years, are sung with a deeply tribal love, a sense of the sacred, and a genuine sense of preservation for the sacredness of a species other than that of the human character adopted to do just that, within the very great and honourable sense of having been entrusted with another's child. It is one which was lacking in the time of Christ, and which Christians argue was the Reason He was sent to us. 

It is one we need to address, now, towards each other, with a sense of immediacy that must supercede our inability to mature enough to include it in our outlook. It is also, I would add, why evil wants you to think that the creative impetus is not God-given, and wants you to do other stuff with it. It, like Covid, wants your end. And I'm not talking simply the end of a physical existence. It could be argued that those whose lives have begun, even remotely, to understand the limitations of shell and the possibility of inclusion and time limits on a corporeal time frame in which to accomplish things, understand that what is unique about conscienceness - and consciousness - is the humility of understanding, at last, with the idea that the possibility of higher plane thought IS what MOVES that shell to action, and the symbiosis of those two things, form and thought as the fabric of the human condition, and the joy and gift of a life guided by something beyond the reality of basic needs for the continued sustenance OF our shells, is the ultimate combination of physical being and otherworldly impetus. What COVID 19 is teaching us, is that those limits should make us value it - if not again, than perhaps in a very new way, as limits are placed on what we have taken for granted, and "new norms", force us to visually - in a very real, and tangible way with the use of masks - to consider the lives of other people. This is not politically motivated: in a larger sense, it means we just have to come up with workarounds, if we want to continue with the idea of economies, livelihoods, and the intellectual challenges which make us mature, like it or not, as a species. If we succumb to stasis, then it will very well possibly be, to death. And I, for one, am not ready to just lie down and die, after so many human beings gave their lives to protect the lineage of the human condition so that I might get my time, during moments of collective stupidity and devolvement in history. Their overcoming of Man and his stasis moments will not be wasted efforts, in my life. 

"Complacency" is not a word bandied about lightly by an impatient man accusing others of laziness and the  guilt of an unrealized life, even when this actually happens.

 It is also a reminder that we cannot become so buffeted, so fatigued, and so beaten down that we cannot be uplifted, in a moment - in a shared instant of effort, realized, and the renewed sense of possibility of the human species as it responds to not only Covid, but the capacity which Love and Life both demand of us - back into a state of mind which suggests that Hope still does not need our own input, in order to be more fully realized. Indeed, to not be so jaded and resigned as to give in to the convenient, or imposed perception of self which suggests that one effort, one unshared thought or approach, or one unrealized potential cannot make a gentle, however miniscule, difference in the life of Man. Insofar as two-pronged effort goes, hopelessness might well suggest that a healing approach to that Garden in which we were placed is not worth saving - and neither are we - but we know better, if we have paid attention with any kind of humility to the sacred, the gifted, and the spiritually-tasked human beings in many faith traditions in our own history, and most especially, to the Son of God. To stop ignoring our Garden, and to understand that, in being placed here after having fallen, we need to both understand our duty to preserve that garden, and, too, to recognize that part of the challenge of redemption is maturing towards a deep understanding of the  state which caused our removal from it, and, too from those who would, it is argued, return again, one day, to not only view our remorse and our progress, but to reaffirm that we are worthy beyond our fall from Grace, and of corporeal, and spiritual, continuance. Perhaps we will be able to reach out to meet them, chastened and hopeful, literally, intellectually, and spiritually, across the vast reaches of Time, and Space and Hope and Love, as we look forward, eagerly, to journeying beyond that Garden, in order to do just that.