Mistaken Identity - Blogs 020

020 Motion

10/6/2025

020 Motion

Shallow Dive -
We experience Motion all the time, everyday, yet this type of motion should be called relative motion. We are measuring or sensing our motion with respect to another object. Pretend you are sitting in a train car that has stopped along the tracks next to another stopped train. All you can see from the window is the other train. With no jerk or sense of movement you seem to be going backwards, or is it that the other train is going forward? It’s a real feeling of going backwards until you have another frame of reference: the tracks! Now you can tell if your train is moving or the other one is also moving or perhaps both.

Medium Dive -
We see the moon come up in the east and slowly move to the west across the evening sky. We see the sun coming up in the morning in the east and move more quickly westward. However the moon is actually in an orbit going the same direction as the spin of the earth, eastward. The moon seems to be going westward yet this is an illusion! The earth is spinning on it’s axis faster that the moon’s orbit, kind of like on a race course where the earth has the inside track and out paces the outer tracks where the moon is located. So we look up as we spin past the moon thinking it is going westward - it’s really being left in the rear view window.

Deeper Dive -
It may seem strange that all motion is relative to something. Pretend you are riding on a light ray going really fast, like really fast. So fast that if you walked slowly across the street this light ray would circle the earth and pass by you 7 3/4 times for each second you walked. Now that’s fast!
OK, you are back on this light ray and you bump into an older analog clock, you know the kind with hour and minute hands. Let’s assume it was 12:08. As you speed away from the reflection you continue to see 12:08, and the farther you go, it is still 12:08 the light from the reflection and you are traveling at the same rate. Time stands still, there is no Change. Time only exists if there is Change, and since the speed of light is an absolute (not relative) time stops or ceases to exist.

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Things to think about

Is your blood stream in motion? Then there is Change
Is your home needing repairs of some nature? Change
Does a rock Change? Yes, just slower than we care to measure.
Does the universe have motion? Change for sure
Are morals, language, viewpoints, culture, acquisition of ‘truth’ Changing? Motion again
Perhaps we need to be more tolerant of Change for it seems inevitable and omnipresent.
Solution: catch the next sunbeam and BE.

019 Chance or Not

10/5/2025

019 Chance or Not

Do you have your seatbelt fastened and ready for launch? Got your thinking cap on? Let’s drop a marble and view what happens when it chooses which way to go.

First, take a board and equally space some nails in a triangular fashion each row exactly offset from the previous row. See Picture Below

At the bottom we will have some channels that are going to collect some marbles as we drop them from the top of the triangle.

Raise the board with the nails and channels so that a marble will roll down the board, hitting nails on its descent into a channel below.

The marbles will eventually fall into a specific channel and collect vertically. See Picture Below

As each marble descends it meets a nail and goes to the left or right, independently of any other marble, and falls to the next level and once again goes left or right randomly. The result is that each marble moves to the left or right at each row and ends up at the bottom and into a specific channel.

This simulation is called the “Galton Board Simulation” and can be found on the internet in many forms.
You can see the above simulation at the following web link
Click Here
A YouTube video for your viewing:
Click Here
With enough marbles dropping, the distinct ‘Standard Distribution’ curve will appear. Every time. Stop the marble dropping, resume the next hour or days later, and the curve will appear again. Always!

This fact of large distribution is also called the “Bell Curve” because of its shape.

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• We all make choices, all the time. Is it possible that many people, making choices regarding similar topics, form the ‘standard distribution’?

• How can each marble, randomly, ‘know’ where to go to end up in the proper place in the distribution curve?

• The next time you ‘think’ you are making a decision, could it be that your ‘decision’ is actually part of a larger invisible scenario?

• To be part of something bigger than one is aware of, and at the same time independently make a choice, quickly puts you in the “monkey in the middle game”.

• Just ‘Being’ provides a safe space for dilemmas like this.

Picture of Galton Board Simulation showing many marbles (or round objects) that have fallen into the pattern shown.

018 Visibility

9/17/2025

018 Visibility

Sometimes, when conditions are just right, a mist will appear on a lake or around a mountain. it seems a bit magical. However the water vapor was already in place before making itself visible. It makes one wonder how many other things that are not visible are actually surrounding us. Let’s take a journey into the invisible world that our modern science has taught us that is actually there.

We breathe air. Air is not just a single item, it is composed of several major gases that provide life as we know it. Can you imagine if oxygen was 80% of the air and nitrogen was 20%? (Really the ratios are the other way around.) If we were capable of breathing this super rich oxygen and a spark occurred anywhere on the planet, then goodby: instant, quick, omnipresent fire, unstoppable, end of story. Fortunately our atmosphere is ‘fire dampened’ by the presence of the 80% inert nitrogen.

What about the ‘not so liked’ creatures we call ‘germs’? Really hard to see, easily overlooked and misunderstood for centuries, yet I haven’t really seen one with my ordinary vision. Super invisible, profound effects on all living beings.

Magnetism is such a unique, invisible force. I don’t see it, feel it, breathe it, yet the magnetized needle on a compass aligns itself with this invisible force. Electricity moving through a wire creates an invisible force field. Take a coil of wire, wind it into what engineers call an armature, place it into a field of magnetism, look up some electricity and you watch the spinning of the motors that do many things for you: use your hair dryer, vacuum your floor, move your electric car, pump air into your tires, endless items.

These are physical items that show up because the underlying principles have been understood and applied. Let’s take a look at the term we call light. Well, yes we can say we see it. However we are tricked into thinking that what we see represents the complete subject. The energy from the sun comes to us in various measurable identities called wavelengths. Our eyes can only ‘see’ an extremely small portion of this energy. We do sense ‘heat or hot objects’, but not by our eyes. These infrared wavelengths (heat) are just slightly slower than the light that our eyes can sense. Ultra violet, the source of hurtful burns on our skin, come from a slightly more energetic wavelength just slightly faster than the ‘violet’ our eyes can see. Imagine that the spread of energy can go from extremely long wavelengths to incredibly small ones. If you use our eyes a measuring tool, conceive that tool being about as thick as a blade of grass, hidden along the sideline of a soccer pitch. Extremely tiny, yet we call it light. Perhaps we should be more conscious that there is a lot more energy categories and spread of energy than just visible light. Microwaves, television, WiFi signals, radio, telemetry, nano particles to cosmic wonders.

There is a pattern here: we see something, sense something, take a peek under the hood of something by our senses or intellect and discover. This discovery usually opens another layer of wonder. Usually it starts in the physical and soon enters the invisible or theoretical.

So what happens if we explore human emotions, ones that we can’t see in a sense, yet are evident across the species. Look at anger’s visibility: tense muscles, higher blood pressure, pupil dilation, quickness of breathing, a narrow focus on a particular subject, incident, or person.

This is the easy part, the identification or physical manifestation of anger. The cause(s)? Wow, now we have the lifelong challenge of experiencing, managing, and realizing the contradiction to our inner core design. Anger comes down to the simple fact that we believe that something is not the way it should be or that someone is not acting in the manner that we believe they should be.

Yes, the word ‘believe’ came into existence in the last paragraph. Invisible, powerful, deceptive, intriguing, dividing, defining, limiting in scope - in one sense of the word. Effortless, light, no boundaries, let out of the box, embracing life and death as one - in another sense of the same word.

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Do you thing that human emotions can be ‘understood’? And thus managed in more productive and user friendly manners?

Is it probable that the following ‘states of being’ are part of our core design?
Do these attributes emanate from our lives?

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Gentleness, Kindness, Tolerance, Goodness, Self Control

Worth Considering?

017 Negativity Bias

7/11/2025

017 Negativity Bias

Here is a contemporary idiom that you probably have heard, in one form or another:

“A lie (bad news) can travel around the earth before truth (good news) can lace up their shoes.”

The origin of this idiom seems to be in the 1700’s. A lie was then described as ‘fast, fleet of foot, winged. Truth was labeled as slow. Of course this current version has been amended many times and seems that no one person can be attributed to this expression, not even Mark Twain or Winston Churchill!

Negativity Bias is the term that sociologists and therapists use to describe a certain tendency in us.

Humans seem to have a built-in need to speak about negative things: perhaps an evolutionary aspect of survival telling others to be aware of danger or to avoid misfortune. We could certainly call this a built-in ‘bias’ which shows up in spreading gossip and news of tragedy or another human’s character flaws, or language and related cultural viewpoints.

Really? Someone does something kind to, or for, you early in the day, and by nighttime all that is spoken about or remembered is the nasty comment from a fellow worker or the blasphemous driving of a fellow commuter.

Yet, we continue.

Does the out of state license plate, the choice of clothing being worn, the wrong political view, or the chewing of food with one’s mouth open - does this experience need repeating from a condescending viewpoint? It would seem that our views are ‘correct’ and others are ‘questionable’. We tend to seek news and share views with others that are similar to our own. This is reinforced on social systems and news sources by suggestions and advertisements that are favorable to our written or spoken opinions. Bias based footing continues to erode our personal structure.

Bias is sometimes ‘known’ and many times ‘not even thought about’. We are influenced and summarily reinforced during our lives on so many items that we only know that something is different when we bump into a diametrical opinion, AND at the same time we choose to listen for a change and not defend.

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So is there a method for reducing bias?
It’s a lot like admitting we have a negative addiction prior to making any corrections.

From a far away viewpoint of looking back at our actions how do we see our manners?

Is it even worth the effort to reduce our bias’s? If ‘good and kind manners’ are seen as light and healing’, and ‘selfish and negative bias’s as darkness and communicable disease’, can we sum up our present earthly journey? Light, grey, partially light and grey intermittently, mostly dark and sometimes quite dark, on and off alternating light ?

Does it personally matter to examine our bias since it seems no one else on our present journey is concerned for these things?

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Pretend for a moment that our words are like a dandelion in full seed. Do we know where the winds of life will spread our biased views? and into which journeyer’s heart these may fall?

016 Reasoning

7/3/2025

016 Reasoning

It’s surprising how frequently we come to conclusions. Whether it is knowingly or perhaps subliminally, we would not do well on our journey without these summarizations.

Deductive
Here’s an example: Rule - All fruits have seeds. Data or viewpoint - Tomatoes have seeds. Conclusion: tomatoes must be a fruit! (Botanically, tomatoes are a fruit, part of the nightshade family of which peppers and eggplants are also ‘fruits’.
Strong guiding rule - apply the rule - and you can draw a conclusion.

Inductive
In this case there is not a guiding rule from which to make a conclusion. However there is enough surrounding data (evidence) to make a good judgement.
Example: The teacher is not at school today. Yesterday the teacher mentioned that members of their family had the flu. Conclusion - The teacher is absent today because they are sick also.
Considering reasonably related observations (no hard and fast rule present), one may conclude that most likely the teacher is sick also.
There could be many reasons why the teacher is absent; however this teacher never misses a day of school, they are gone today and had talked about sickness in the family, so a natural conclusion is that they are sick also.

Abductive
There is no rule present, seemingly various sorts of observations present, although the observations may not seem to be related, and a tentative conclusion is made. An abductive summary is the best attempt to summarize the observation or data into a reasonable guess. There is no certainty, just the best guess possible.

NOTE: The philosophy world uses these Latin based words: Deduct (to take away), Induct (to make part of), Abduct (to draw away). A bit of humor might be needed here: we are not talking of an alien abduction!

Examples:
• A patient has a fever, sore throat, and fatigue. The doctor quite possibly might believe that the patient is suffering from the flu.
• In a courtroom the jury arrives at a verdict based on their reasoning of the evidence and witness’s testimony.
• The grass is wet this morning, it must have rained last night.

Limitations:
• The simplistic explanation is not always correct.
• There could be personal bias involved.
• Not enough evidence for a clear conclusion.

Summarizing:

Deductive Reasoning: Guiding rule, apply the rule, highly certain of the deduction.

Inductive Reasoning: Observance of related data or evidence, conclusion that is most likely.

Abductive Reasoning: Summarizing various, possibly unrelated, evidence into a ‘most likely’ conclusion. Certainty is questionable.

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• Have you ever based your decisions on something from a rule that is absolutely certain?

• What happened to you when this rule was amended or changed or found to not apply anymore?

• Does the order of “Deductive, Inductive, and then Abductive” tend to parallel our increasing maturity?

• Which reasoning method is the most common one you use?

• When you meet someone new, which method do you use to make conclusions of the new acquaintance?

015 Earth Suit

6/25/2025

015 Earth Suit

To prep for this blog it would be helpful if your journey has encountered the comedy TV series “3rd Rock From The Sun” which aired from 1996 to 2001. Quick summary: 4 extraterrestrials attempt to live as a normal family outside of Cleveland. They remember their mission to explore the human culture and life, yet are bound inside human bodies. They engage in remarkable humor at every step trying to work and live as ‘natives’.

Let’s prepare for a trip. The destination is a warm tropical beach. Yes, we have to get there somehow; equally important is what we might need to bring with us to enjoy the sun and surf. We will call these ‘prep items’ for the trip.

Another trip plan: let’s go to the moon. A few details involved in planning might be how to survive in a completely different environment. Even the simplest of items such as air to breathe and food to eat, protection from the lack of air pressure, extreme light and dark, and many 1000’s of other details quickly emerge, some of which are known and many are yet to discover. Without the basic ‘prep items’ it is a no go for sure and a no go for return to our earthly home. The modern spacesuit quickly emerges as a necessary medium for survival and inter-planetary travel.

So, with that aside let’s look at our own earth-suit and its journey. Our suit has a biological beginning and end. We begin as a helpless mammal in need of food and protection for many years, during which, if at any time left uncared for, the end of life would be certain. There is energy (life) as demonstrated by motion and sound, the thrashing of arms and the seemingly painful vocal sounds that accompany our newborns. It would appear that the infant is not even aware that it exists. Language is yet to occur. Repetitive surroundings of mother, milk, and warmth grow the child along amongst random sleep cycles. Growth continues during our life.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the brain tissue is full of neurons at birth but the interconnections are few. Pathways don’t exist, yet. The brain is an open book awaiting life’s interaction and subsequent programming with the environment. Learning a language is easy when you are young and can create new connections. The body, not the brain, is provided with an abundance of sensors surrounding the surface of the skin that continuously sends environmental input. Eyes, ears, nose, and mouth add to the various instructional sources of our ‘home’ on this planet. Pathways do develop, over time, as trillions of inputs are sent to this ‘blob’ of watery tissue. Habits, language, perceptions, beliefs, identity grow.

An analogy to this kind of growth might be useful. Let’s take a toy that needs a battery for its awakening. This toy learns about its surroundings like a self-programming vacuum clearer. The width and breadth of this toy’s learning depends on feedback from its experiences and its design potential. Is there a purpose to the toy? How does this toy interact with other similar self programming toys? One thing we do know for certain: if the battery is removed, the toy comes to a halt.

That’s it. Nothing more or less. Humans are self-programming, ever evolving from culture, language, experience, behavior and interaction with all the other inhabitants of this ‘3rd rock from the sun’.

Oh, and one more thing. A few introspective thoughts…

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Could the ‘we’ in the above toy analogy actually be the energy source for the human?

Is it ‘we’ that have been placed in an earth-suit?

When the ‘earth-suit’ no longer exists what happens to the ‘we’?

Jaques (in Act II, Scene VII, of William Shakespeare’s “As you like it” ) once commented

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.

Too simple to be true?

A podcast accompanies this blog post. Click here to listen, or click Podcast Icon at the left. This podcast discusses and introduces Inner Space and its importance on our Journey

014 Communication

6/24/2025

014 Communication

Many people around the world consume coffee each day. About 2/3 of the adult population (220 million) in the United States consume over 3 cups of coffee per day. Clearly the US leads the world in coffee consumption. However, this blog is not about consumption, health benefits, brewing preferences, gender consumption ratios, types of coffee, seasonality, workplace versus home use, economic impact, fair trade, or a host of other metrics in the rapidly expanding acceptance of coffee drinking around the world.
Now that we can put away the drinking of coffee let’s discuss how our bodies send signals to the brain about coffee and its aroma.

Sensors on the tongue are quite limited in describing the coffee world to our brain. Remember we have 5 types of sensors ( sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami) ) and only about 2,000 - 10,000 total buds on our tongues. A good article summarizing our taste buds can be found here.
Yet again, this blog is really not about the part that the tongue plays in our sensation of coffee drinking. The real ‘taste’ comes from the aroma.

There are 800-1000 chemicals in coffee, many of which appear in the vapor phase, presenting the consumer of coffee a more than pleasing experience. The ‘taste’ of coffee continues.

Inside our nasal passages, sometimes referred to as our sinuses (which means cavities) are approximately 5-6 million olfactory sensors. (Just for comparison, take this link that compares a human’s sensory capacity to 4 other animals - Bears Rule!)

The BIG POINT is that what ‘tastes great’ is not because of our tongue’s taste buds. As the molecules of a scent attach to our various millions of olfactory sensors electrical signals are generated. These signals are transmitted to various collection points in our brain. Our brain sums up these signals, compares them to previous sums of signals, and says “Great coffee”. If we had held our nose closed with our fingers (or had our nose stopped with sinus blockage) and taken the same sip we would say “Not Great Coffee”.

You’ve probably seen wine connoisseurs swirling and sniffing their wine in a large open top glass. This is done to detect a wine’s aromas. Approximately 80% of our ‘taste’ is from the accompanying aroma. What is not so well known is that one can increase our ability to determine the ingredients in an aroma by practice sniffing, waiting a bit, imagining, thinking, remembering, and doing this over and over. Great coffee experts are a lot like wine experts in this manner. The nose of wine can be a nose of food, just give it some practice.

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Is it possible that in a fast paced world we have lost our ability to sense great vegetables, breads, meats, desserts from lesser ones? Deep tastes than linger allowing the body to feedback it’s approval?
Something in this restaurant smells delicious - good sign that a successful meal awaits.
Do we sometimes not take the time to understand another’s viewpoints? We don’t swirl their thoughts around in our head long enough to separate the premise and the conclusion? the journey that our friend has undertaken.
Hopefully we listen more and speak less, allowing the aroma of our fellow journeyers to enhance our own.

013 Sheep R Us

6/22/2025

013 Sheep R Us
Let’s start out with a question:

What is the meaning of 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 and 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31?
If you have been or are enrolled in dental school you would quickly recognize this is a chart of a person who has had their wisdom teeth removed. Back right top molar is number 1 and going around the top of the mouth until number 16 and you arrive at the left top back molar. Immediately below 16 is 17 on the bottom left of one’s mouth. Counting around the bottom teeth from left to right one ends up on number 32, the back right wisdom tooth. (If you have any wisdom teeth remaining.)
32 is a number that puts us in a direct relationship with sheep. They also have 32 teeth, although not the same kinds of teeth as we have. They do not have canine or upper incisors. To allow the sheep to graze, cut, pull grasses and chew the cud they have extra molars and their upper front ‘teeth’ are not really teeth but hardened skin that allows for their eating habits.

In this blog read the following passages and wherever you see ‘sheep’ try substituting ‘people’. Also if you read ‘people’ substitute ‘sheep’. It’s a great way of introducing our human/sheep similarity. Allow some variance of substitution since not all humans (and sheep) fit generalizations.

Sheep have no sense of direction, just follow whomever.
If the first few jump over a rope, and subsequently the rope is cut down, the remaining will jump over the rope anyway.
Sheep are a prey, their eyesight allows early warning of predators, but their design is not great for escape.
Sheep run away as a group - security in numbers - something sets the flock in motion and they all blindly follow.
Sheep can become ‘cast down’. This means when their short legs cannot touch the ground in a situation where the sheep is laying on its side the sheep will bloat up and die. They must have a shepherd to right them up.
Sheep have been and are prized possessions.
Sheep have a sense of hearing that allows them to recognize only their shepherds voice. They will not follow a stranger.
Sheep cannot lick their wounds and need a shepherd for hygienic care.
Sheep do not realize that they stink. They will drink from any available water source, clean or dirty.
Sheep, by their design, do not carry burdens.
Yes, a quick note about goats: they are known for being independent, opinionated, and curious at best - destructive, vulgar, and dangerous at worst.

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There are numerous references in writings about sheep needing a shepherd. In what form does the shepherd appear today in a human’s journey?
Is there evidence in human behavior that we continue to mimic routines and rituals that have no present day meaning?
Do humans successfully carry burdens? Or is a burden-less life a goal in itself?
Do we recognize a human as a priceless being?

012 Incognito

6/7/2025

012 Incognito

This is an interesting word. From the Italian, we put together a prefix that means ‘not’ and a root word that means ‘recognized or known’. An insightful, descriptive word that is frequently encountered in our language.

Let’s suppose you are talking with a new employee who is affable, polite, and interesting. The discussion continues to reduce our suspicions of this stranger. Over many company meetings and working together on projects, a friendship develops. There was absolutely nothing to hint that the new employee was working ‘incognito’ as an industrial spy.

In the above paragraph, we didn’t see that our colleague was working incognito. We sometimes assume things about people based on stereotypes or preconceptions. At times, we don’t even realize that we have these biases. Our suspicions of others have many triggers: different language, unique or opposing attitudes and views, even the type of clothing that is over/under/differently worn. We don’t realize that these persons may be an incognito part of our journey.

Are we predisposed to suspect that some animals, plants, people, and thoughts may be harmful to us? Yes, it seems that way. If you add cautions from the culture, political directives, science ‘facts’, religious edicts, and folklore handed down from generations, there is certainly a disinclination to accept something that is different. On the one hand, this ‘auto rejection’ has built-in directional safeguards guiding one to a safe haven. However, these predisposed tenets often prevent one from ‘hearing or perceiving’ a crucial, directional shift of human consciousness on any given subject.

It seems that our world today has billions of audible, visible, and published thoughts and viewpoints on limitless topics. Consuming great quantities of indiscriminate information seems to have the same consequence as overeating: continuous need for reinforcement, lethargy, addiction to narrow views, and somewhat helpless in realizing that their consumption choices have harmed their life’s journey.

An excerpt from Mark Twain might apply here (the word Journey substituted for emphasis):

“Travel (Journey) is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. “
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

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Physics teaches us that there is a resting force that must be overcome to move an object from a static to a kinetic position. May we expect parts of our journey to be similar?

How do we expand our built-in tendencies to ‘not journey’ e.g. stay within our comfort zone?

Have you even been asked a kind of question by a child or person and given a quick, standard reply? Not listening to the ‘incognito’ aspect of the messenger?

Is Journey an antidote for: “they have ears and can’t hear, eyes and can’t see”?

011 Seven In One Out

5/31/2025

011 Seven In One Out

We glance at our face many times a day, thanks to mirrors. When you count the openings in our head, we find that we have two of many inputs: eyes, ears, and nostrils. Our mouth does a double duty: input for nutrition and hydration, and output for speech. (Yes, sometimes our nutrition does not wish to stay in place and exits the input door.) While our eyes do show emotion and our nostrils bring air in and out, our one mouth is the primary output in our head.

Redundancy, efficiency, location, depth perception, and nostrils changing duty every so many minutes are many of the items that our input duality achieves. Visible nutrition and not visible air enter the mouth. They are separated efficiently: nutrition one direction, and air rushing to the lungs for exchanging oxygen into the bloodstream in the other direction. Thrive or survive: one input type we see and the other type we don’t. However, each provides the necessary ingredients for life. Pretty good system if you ask me.

Our bodies have many sensory inputs. However, they only function as messengers to the brain, that gooey, watery, chemical habitat that seems to be the epicenter of us, the processing of outside signals into a reality that most of us seem to agree upon. It’s a good thing we can agree on most things. One exception for sure is that when I see a grey-green color, there is at least one other opinion that the color is really light blue. Oh well, maybe we don’t agree on all things.

So while we are ‘surviving,’ what part does our mouth’s output play? Output? We process this information and work out how to survive. Keeping in mind that our speech, sounds, songs, verbalized thoughts, discussions of dreams, repeating of historical events, placing communications in hand signs, on paper, woodwork, metal, magnetic material, and countless forms of directional, educational efforts are emanations of output - So?

I see a car. A thousand years ago, I saw a plate from oven-heated clay. 2 thousand years ago, I saw a separation of soil into copper and elements. 4 thousand years ago, I saw a candle burn from olive oil. Yes, I see differently today. I comprehend the accumulation of knowledge and how it has been used. Investigative, uplifting, sacrificial, loving words moving our planet’s inhabitants in one direction. Yet, at the same time, I see prejudice, hatred, war, selfishness, and division of species on every possible criterion at each of these time periods, items which follow our spoken words. It seems to me that if our speech is uplifting, we progress. If our speech is spiteful and divisive, we remain a species not much different from our ancestors.

Is speech the final frontier?

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A person once said that if one’s eye is clear, then that person’s whole being is full of light.

Is it possible to restrict our audible output?

Are we helplessly trapped into a frequently changing ‘on’ and ‘off’ mode, demonstrated by our exiting words?

Is it possible to have an internal light that guides our external pathways of life?

010 Perception

5/15/2025

010 Perception
Some people say that seeing is believing. Others add their version: you must believe before you can see. Sometimes seeing with our physical optical equipment does not do the job of ‘seeing’ as in ‘comprehending’. We might define 3 levels of seeing in this manner.

Physical: seeing: wavelengths of light enter the pupil, onto the rods and cones, converts to electro-chemical signals, speeds along a chemical trail to the thalamus and eventually the visual cortex where these signals are compared to stored pathways and we ‘see’ the object in front of us. Lots going on, even more behind the scenes.

Intellectual: comprehension is sometimes referred to as seeing the light. There are principles, understandings, revelations, comparisons, juxtapositions, logic transforms, hidden meanings suddenly quite clear. A person can associate one thing with another in many ways and when those associations occur, it’s as if some part of the brain finally gets together with another part and voila, eureka, so easy to comprehend a new view of something. Perhaps this revelation came via physical light, yet, more than likely physical vision was not required.

Intuitive: perception is having an insight that things, ideas, discussions, writings and more have multiple meanings depending upon ones background, experiences, and abilities to leave one frame of reference and enter another. Perception has a certain degree of conclusion from evidence or observation of multiple viewpoints. Many of us fall short in this regard: especially if their new perception alienates them culturally, scientifically, religiously, or simply is ‘hard to explain’ to others.

Next let’s talk about a physical example of how we can see beyond two dimensions. So, what is the lead graphic for this blog all about? You are going to be required to ‘believe before you can see’. There is more than colorful repeating patterns to this graphic. You are being introduced to a ‘single image random dot stereogram’, most often shortened to SIRDS.
With some coaching you will see a three dimensional image emerge in the seemingly jumble of color and patterns. There are SIRDS commercial books printed with many wonderful pop out pictures.

There are several methods of ‘seeing’ the SIRDS image. While focusing at some distance away from yourself, bring the photo slowly into your field of view. Don’t look at the photo, you must look ‘through’ the photo to a place beyond the image. Slowly, an image will form.
Another method is to hold the picture very near your face and slowly move the image away from your face, again, keeping your eyes looking far away from the image. The internet will help you with several methods of seeing the SIRDS. This link may help you get started viewing.

Did you see the ??? in the SIRDS image?

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Old adage: you can’t sweep the floor where you are standing.
So many times we don’t ‘get something’ or ‘can’t understand’. Usually this occurs because we hold a previous way of seeing a subject or view, and don’t wish to change or understand that it can be seen differently.
Is there a topic that causes you some confusion or misunderstanding?
Time for a new perception?

Click for larger SIRDS image!

009 Greek Theater

5/12/2025

009 Greek Theater
“Imagine with me that we are going to a play. Yes, it’s outdoors and in our local amphitheater. So many people today, another good tragedy I so enjoy.” Of course this is speaking of an ancient Greek theater that had no lighting or sound system. People would take their places and fill the many levels. One of the largest theaters allowed 14,000 people to listen intently to the performance even though they were at the top most levels. The acoustics and physics of the design were perfect for the speaking actors and the eager listeners throughout the bowl shaped auditorium. The stage was flat and quite wide. The actors wore highly decorated masks that conveyed their character they were portraying. Most actors played several parts of the play by going off stage and reentering with a different mask. They projected their voices towards the focus of the parabolic shaped seating area. The play was performed in the daytime for all to enjoy, no going home after dark! By the way, the play we saw today was tragically great.

When the actors placed on their masks they became an actor under a mask. The Greek word that describes this is ὑποκριτής, pronounced “hupo - creetays”, essentially an ‘under actor’.
This word for the Greek actor has had a long journey through cultures and time. Passing through the middle ages, France, and England, it has taken a place in our dictionary as ‘hypocrite’. (A mask on the outside, a different person underneath pretending to be someone or something that they are not).

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Most of the time we are not aware of our own hypocrisy. On the outside we broadcast a belief or image of one thing but deep inside we do not hold to that image.
We sometimes are critical of others and claim we would never engage in that kind of thinking or behavior.
Often we become disturbed when a fellow traveler mentions that our walk does not match our talk.
It’s cathartic to ask a fellow traveler how they perceive us. Hopefully in our personal reflection and thoughts of others we reduce our mixed identity.

008 Numbers

5/2/2025

008 Numbers
Numbers are all around us, describing our environment, our distances, our height, and our universe. These unique symbols have not recently arrived in our cultures. While so much of our earth was separated into clans, towns, kingdoms, states, and continents the need for communicating quantities, values, and agreed upon trades was low. As we gradually shared ideas and competed for ‘the best’ way to describe our planet, numbers came into being: so many characters and ways of communicating the same things.

Yet, one of the most subtle and powerful additions to our host of math symbols was the concept of ‘nothing’. How could one show the fact that there was ‘nothing’ in the storehouse, or that after payment for services there was ‘nothing’ owed. What about when you had 5 apples and they all were eaten? How do you show that ‘nothing’ was left.
For several hundred years in the BC timeframe many cultures in the Indian/Middle East/Mediterranean were attempting to describe ‘nothingness’. The Mayans in South America had the need for ‘nothingness’ as well.

However, the concept of ‘nothing’ was strongly tied to the beliefs and religions of the time. They questioned the idea of taking the invisible (‘the nothing’) and making it visible. Many forms of idols, totems, special rocks, chants came to symbolize the gods that were such a powerful determinant in each culture. They asked, “Is it permissible to create a symbol for “nothing” thereby making it visible? If so, what value would be this ‘nothingness’?

At this same time our counting systems of the world were emerging as well. We went from a non positional system of numbers (like using tallies, or roman numerals) to a positional one. This means that the numbers 5 and 1 in that order meant ’51’. Since we have positional numbers, the order of ’15’ is different than ’51’, each position representing certain quantities of values. (5 tens and 1 unit; or 1 ten and 5 units). But what if you had the temperature of 102 degrees? If you represented it as ’12’ if would mean 1 ten and 2 units. Hey, what is that zero doing? It is moving the 1 and the 2 apart into their new values of (1 one hundred and zero tens and 2 units). The zero became a place holder to separate the two numbers so that the actual meaning would be correct.

So in math classes today we look at the character (0) in unique ways. It still represents ‘nothing’ and is a place holder to help values be correct. And yet, we still are taught that (0 times 3 = 0). Does it really make sense to ask a student ‘what is 3 quantities of nothing'? It really stretches the imagination to ask if you take the character (0) and divide it into 5 pieces what do you get? Really? Nothing divided into 5 pieces? Why ask the question or insist that students understand this seemingly obtuse axiom. Nothing is simply nothing. Zero is a character that provides usefulness for sure, yet soon looks and begins to act like a number and we don’t question it. Zero (nothing) is truly an exceptional character having both limited visible meaning and usefulness as well as extraordinary invisible presence.

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Are there invisible items that we have placed into our vernacular to provide meaning and definition for us? We have words such as love, patience, kindness, tolerance, joy and many others.
We see the effects of these emotions and outcomes in our human experience.
And at the same time could we have reduced their extraordinary value and understanding?
Is it conceivable that we possess these placeholder words in order to assist us in pointing to their non visible source or our non visible nature?

006 Monarch Mystery

4/27/2025

006 Monarch Mystery

Imagine a Monarch butterfly as it dances along the wind and flowers (Danaus plexippus). It is an iconic and effective pollinator, recognizable from its black, orange, and white pattern. It seems to go up, down, sideways with ease. One reason that allows this sudden change of movement possible is that it weighs almost nothing. Here are some visual thoughts for you describing the mass of the Monarch.

Comprehend the mass of this marvelous creature.
1 Monarch Butterfly =
     1/2 raisin
     10 sunflower kernels
     7 large raindrops

Got it? Hardly any weight compared to our outstretched hand. Consider that on the southbound migration these beautiful creatures migrate approximately 3000 miles. Rain, wind, food, predators, insecticides all present obstacles.
Let’s start at the southernmost point of their ‘winter’ hibernation in the upper mountains of Mexico where millions of Monarchs cover the branches of trees. They have their wings folded with almost no space between butterflies. Imagine a tree that seems to have variegated color which is created by their under wing color. They wait. As the temperature increases so does their activity. These Monarchs have survived the 3000 mile journey, huddled in the trees throughout the winter and they are the ones who will begin the next generation. They move to lower altitudes, mate, and the females begin the journey northward laying their eggs on milkweed plants, their primary food. These next generation monarchs on their northward journey, however, have a completely different life span, lasting only weeks. The distance that each of these butterflies accomplishes is only a portion of the 3000 mile journey. Each next generation that hatches continues northward carrying on the migration to the north, seeking as far north as the Canadian border.

3-4 generations are required to go to the northern most part of the USA and southern Canada. Even these smaller journeys are impressive. How does each generation pass along the guidance and destination? This is only a part of the mystery.

When the temperatures begin to drop as the last generation Monarch reaches the northern parts, it does something even more incredible. As winter approaches with cooler temperatures and a lower angle of light the Monarch ceases mating, and begins the solitary, long distance journey back to the highlands of Mexico. And now the cycle continues. How can it know where to go in a single journey that it has never flown before?

There are basically 2 migratory paths of the Monarch. It seems that the Rocky Mountains of Western USA keep some Monarchs on the west side. They migrate north, and turn around like the eastern Monarchs and head south. These, however, don’t go to Mexico, they winter in the warmer portions of Southern California.

Meditate on this Mystery. Explore this incomprehensible creature. There is a wealth of information, history, tracking efforts, and descriptions of the Monarch on the web.

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Is it possible that we humans sometimes feel a pull to do something? Maybe forgive a relative or friend for something. Perhaps to begin a long journey that has been sidelined? To strive to ‘see the other side of the coin’ for once?
We seem to be good at mental promises and thoughts that sometimes go awry.
Time to begin the journey?

007 Permission

4/20/2025

007 Permission
I didn’t realize that I needed to give myself permission to change. It should have been obvious that change comes from the inside and slowly emerges into view for all of life as well including others on their journey. I used to hope for acceptance of others and blend in. I also thought that studying, praying, hoping for positive change in my habits and perceptions would make my change possible.

However, I had overlooked the simple fact that changing on the outside, seeking acceptance from the outside required external conformity. Wow, this was a shock since there were many things which I did not wish to accept or believe. I have many secrets hidden in my journey some of which I consciously perceive and certainly there are others not quite in view. So conformity does not free me by silencing my thoughts.

So, let’s start again. Here is my journey’s mantra

From this day I give myself permission to change. Permission to notice small beams of light beckoning me to rethink my views.
Permission to no longer criticize my changing
Permission to view my previous memory of behavior and thoughts as completed history with no hooks piercing my present moment
These views include the perceptible world and that of the invisible realm as well.
I choose to engage my powers in a loving and caring manner so that I do not become my own prosecutor.
I wish to proceed on this journey with small, careful steps.
I wish the evolving effect of my change to be one towards a blessing for myself and others.
I believe that deep within each human being is kindness and caring, regardless of the outside circumstances. This viewpoint includes the essence of me as well.
‘I am’, ‘they are', and the concept of ‘we’ do not exist. We are separate eyes of a large amorphous being called humanity. Using ‘I’ is only my limited perspective; Using ‘they are’ creates conformity and uniformity that does not allow individual expression; “We” is a trap of inclusivity, leaving out some body, some thing, some thought for sure.
Following the path of light and self awareness, I realize that explanations of my changes and new behavior may not be resolvable. After all, it is my journey towards awareness; how could I assume that my journey would be clearly viewed or understood?

I realize that there is an exponential aspect to internal change:
Large, easy pieces of crumbling ego and narrow minded views falling by the wayside at first.
Then followed by subtle viewpoints and patterned behaviors stepping aside.
Then, challenges along the journey to continue when seemingly trivial thoughts and behaviors come into light that impede the way.
And continuously wrestling with the tug and pull of future and past moving one from the present moment.
Forever, the fine tuning of the strings of our instrument from use
Upon these seemingly contradictory thoughts
I realize that it is necessary to journey alone, with others as companions only
To perceive and not just see
To comprehend the distinction of dead and living
To realize that our physical senses have proscribed a prison of turbulent and contradictory views
To seek the innermost awareness from which we came
To live in the ‘I am’ awareness and not the ‘I was’ or ‘I will be’

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Is there anything or impeding your journey? Or is just your own permission?
Why would anyone wish to journey to an unknown destination?
Are you listening to a whisper that encourages you forward?
Are you learning the subtle lessons our soul teaches?

005 Blind Spot

4/17/2025

005 Blind Spot
While driving an automobile we are encouraged to check our ‘blind spot’, the area to the back of the car on each side. This area is hard to see and objects can be hidden from our view.

The design of the eye is one of nature’s highest accomplishments. However, one of the difficulties in the design was how to get the information from the eye to the brain. The channel of information from the eye to the brain is the optic nerve. It attaches to the back of the retina and processes the information from the receptors. The place on the retina upon which it attaches creates a ‘blind spot’ of information sent to the brain.

So what does that mean? In each eye there is a place in our field of vision that does not contain any visual information, nothing. It’s a real estate issue of design. The back of the retina is only so large, the data needs to be sent to the brain for interpretation, the optic nerve is the vehicle for that transport. As the eye moves this attachment moves as well. Hey, this is only the beginning of the miracle of vision, the eye is way more complex.

How do I find that ‘blind spot’? A simple exercise will help demonstrate this ‘blind spot’.
Take a reasonably firm piece of white paper and make a small, black dot about 1/4”.
To the side of dot put a second mark like a ‘+’ sign’
Cover your right eye and hold the paper about 20 inches away with the dot on the left of the plus sign
Focus your left eye on the plus sign and slowly bring the paper towards your face. Keep looking at only the plus sign, but note that you can peripherally see the dot.
The dot will vanish at some point, approximately 15 degrees toward the outside of your straight forward vision. As you move the paper further from your face the dot still will remain invisible.(Do the reverse of this exercise for the other eye - each eye has a blind spot)

Fortunately, each blind spot is on the outside of our forward vision. One eye will always see in this ‘blind spot’ area so the brain can create a seamless experience for us. If each spot was on the inside of our forward vision would not see in front of us in certain situations.

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Have you ever had a friend say something that augments your viewpoint on a situation?
Can we trust only ourselves for an accurate surmise of any situation?
Does it seem that some ideas and concepts remain hidden in our journey for a long time?

004 Entropy

4/16/2025

004 Entropy
Scientists go to great lengths to measure the physical universe. An item that comes into scrutiny is the measure of the ‘order’ of a system. A measure of order can be observed using an energy ruler: how much energy does a system have?, is the energy of the system increasing or decreasing?, how fast is it changing?, and similar thoughts. Our natural, observable systems leads us to the conclusion that things seem to run down, mountains tend to crumble, rot eats the side of the house, glasses break when they hit the floor, rooms and paperwork take effort to keep in a certain order, the lack of effort into a task seldom accomplishes the desired result, fire destroys…
So what do we call this overall concept of order or disorder? Entropy!

Perhaps the simplest definition of entropy is that it measures the disorder of a system.

Examples:
a cooked meal has more order than the ingredients from which it was created: essentially less disorder, lower entropy
a chemical reaction that gives off heat energy arrives at a more disorderly condition, higher entropy
businesses that create a clear communication system between employees have higher order, lower entropy
leaving a car to rust away in a field brings disorder, higher entropy

Sometimes ‘higher order’ and ‘lower entropy’ seems a bit confusing. The entire universe is essentially in a highly disordered condition. Yet, as we live our lives each day we see the myriad of examples of order: pencils, clothing, gasoline, living organisms creating higher order products, passing on life itself. Inanimate items don’t create something of order by themselves. It takes an increasing level of order to change disorder, which then reduces the entropy of that system.

So is the universe headed to an ‘entropic’ ending? By all means of observation, the answer is yes. Systems and order degrade over time. Yet, this conclusion seems to contain a single exception to the rule: life as we know it.

Toss a coin, heads or tails. Imagine tossing the coin and after 5 successive tosses of ‘heads’ one suspects that a ‘tails’ should appear soon. Another another 10 tosses and ‘heads’ keeps occurring. Something is not correct, not natural, not right. The results around us indicate that order has been created out of disorder. How long will this continue?

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Could life be the highly improbable exception of the universe?
How long will our existence reduce entropy?
Is it possible that our very existence is a series of successive reductions in entropy?
Look around. Take in the entropy of any situation. Order (lower entropy) or Disorder (higher entropy)
What part does our will play in our personal measure of orderliness?
Do each of us add or subtract from the entropy of our global situation?

003 Encryption

4/15/2025

003 Encryption
Sending messages to someone or someplace has always been a challenge. There are obstacles along the way: lack of light to read the message, poor weather that threatens the destruction of the message (or letter), loss of the medium that contained the message (my dog ate my homework!), scribbled and possibly unreadable handwriting, not enough ink in the printer, my captors don’t want me to contact anyone, certainly if the enemy read this message there would be dire consequences for my compatriots….
When sending, transmitting, delivering, or passing the information on to the next station, there is always the anticipation of “did the message arrive as intended?” Over thousands of years humans have developed many systems for passing messages that have a message inside the message. One can only understand the intended message if one knows the method of how the original message was hidden within the ‘clutter, metaphors, extraneous words, letters, numbers, or mechanical means’ that may have created or surround the message. For this short introduction, we will call this encryption.

1h12e123l1234l1o12 123w1234o1r12l123d

This message was created by taking the first letter of the message (1)
and then counting (2) more letters and keeping the next letter
and then counting (3) more letters and keeping the next letter
and then counting (4) more letters and keeping the next letter
and then repeating the sequence.

You should end of with
hello world

To complicate this procedure, if the numbers used were replaced with random letters and symbols you would have

shfveefglgmbzljo5k k%zwo93}osrx&lV$ad

Pretty indecipherable! (shorter messages are harder to decode, not enough patterns) PLUS you might have to guess in what language is the message!

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Sometimes we overlook hidden messages in life’s journey because we are traveling too fast to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ the metaphors, analogies and guideposts that life provides. Sometimes we haven’t had the opportunity of someone helping us with this concept. Poetry is ostensibly terrible to some. Paintings contain messages or maybe they don’t.
Someone once said, “Truth is like a hidden stone in one’s path that causes us to fall. Most people get back up and never look at the viewpoint that raised its head.”

How is the growth of a tree like a human’s quest for maturity?
Do we ever enter a dark or light period of our growth?
A seed falls by the wayside. What are the obstacles the this seed will face in its attempt for maturity?
Is nature rewardingly encrypted for those who have ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’?

002 Scarification

4/12/2025

002 Scarification
Seeds are planted in the soil with the intent that the life inside the seed will find its way out of its husk. Some outer husks of some plants are so tough that simple decay under the soil will not allow the plant to germinate. There are 2 kinds of methods that aid the seed to receive access to air and water: scarification and stratification

Stratification:
If you expose some tough outer seed coats to change of temperatures or humidity over a period of time such as 6-8 weeks, then you are duplicating what nature does for so many of her plants. This seed dormancy is awaiting spring after a long winter and as the temperature rises the germination can begin.

Scarification:
However, there are some seeds that are so tough that stratification does not affect the germination. So a little help is needed. Take a metal file and scrape the outer coat to expose a small portion of the seedling, nik a portion of the coat with a knife, chip off a small portion of the coat with a pliers thus allowing oxygen and moisture to begin the germination process. In nature the guts of some animals add another method of scarification: chemical breakdown of the coat. Hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydroxide, and sulfuric acid are sometimes used by botanists to scarify seeds. Forest fires are a huge contributor to scarification.

What do you think?
Do persons on their journey to truth sometimes need spiritual scarification?
Do some of us have a tough outer shell?
In what way does a person exhibit or experience scarification or stratification?

001 The Beginning

4/4/2025

001 The Beginning
When a word moves into one language from another with almost no pronunciation or spelling changes it is called a transliteration. This happens often when a culture passes one word into another that previously had no word for a certain action or event. This certainly applies to this word: truth. αλεθεία is an ancient Greek word. It has been transliterated into English as alethia.

Truth is one of those divisive words that has absolute stature and evolutionary clothing. To say that something is true one would be assuming that it conforms with fact or reality, it is a verifiable or indisputable fact, or perhaps the actual state of a matter.

When the early cartographers began noticing the continental shape similarity of South America and Africa, they cursively deduced that at one time in the past geologic history of our planet that the two land masses were at one time hooked or joined together. Of course this was in the early 1600’s and apart from exotic theories of ‘earthquakes and floods’ what else could have possibly allowed such enormous land masses to wander about the planet? Continental Drift theory was proposed by Alfred Wegner in 1912 to solve this riddle. A loud roar of disdain was given to this theory. According to the leading scientists of his day, this theory was absolutely not true and could never be true. Period.

Today Continental Drift has become Plate Tectonics with many dimensions of proof. Today it is true, in the past, not true. Pangea existed a long time ago but only recently stood up for itself.

As you peruse these writings do what a humble person once advised me, “When you are eating a delicious home made cherry pie and you discover a pit amongst the scrumptious morsels, don’t throw the pie out!”

These pennings are not fact checked, attempted to be proved, conform to any thoughts or beliefs of any group or individual. They are simply my views that make some kind sense to me, as a result of my life experiences, contributions from individuals who have added their views to my journey, ideas and viewpoints that have grown over time, insights, studies, early morning wakefulness, myriads of trades and occupations working with the ‘down and out’ to the ‘up and out’.

The great part of this writing is the freedom to express. So join me on the query realizing that our journey is all we have, the arrival is just an illusion.

Sincerely

Virtual Saguaro

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