Future perfect

Reality is quite literally what we make it, which sadly these days doesn't seem to be much. Based on the weight of evidence against people having a good time I'd venture the reality we all share in media orchestrated synchrony probably compare well with Mankind's darkest yet.

Not that it is mind you, not by a long shot, but since mood is a consequence of attitude, and nothing but a choice, then your guess is as good as mine how bad it really is. That or headline news, if you care for an opinion with colloquial value for what it's worth, evidence abound that the world as we know it is worse for the wear. 

As you will see it is not a point of view that I share, or one that I care to suffer gladly. Though the state of affairs may seem to advise to the contrary I see a future of wonder ahead, a future I share with like minded kin of conscious awareness with the same dare'n do attitude I have. Where positive mood is a token belief, and working together for the greater good is a shared intention. Where reward is nothing more than a dividend of deed, and success  nothing less than the tired satisfaction of a day we done well. 

Much like the day as it was I suppose, blessed with adventure and fun, shared in the company of friends, embracing each moment, elated by what we may find.

Which animal is synonymous with sin?

Ever heard of the Sloth?

These arboreal, tree hugging mammals got their name from their mottled and pest ridden fur, and their excruciatingly slow movement that suggest they are dirty and lazy by nature, but if we take a closer look we see much more than the unfortunate name of sloth would suggest.

For starters, the Sloth is believed to have existed for about 60 million years, almost 24 times longer than Homo Sapiens, given the current understanding of our own evolution. Just like the human race they are considered to be somewhat of an oddity in the animal kingdom, and in a manner of speaking the Sloth seem to share many habits with ourselves.

Sloths prefer to set up a permanent home, and may live their entire life in one tree. These solitary animals prefer to spend their life hanging from from branch to branch in search of green leaves and buds that form the staple of their diet. Just like humans, the Sloth find themselves at the top of their very own and unique branch of the food chain. Protected by their lofty position in tree tops as well as the camouflage of leafy shade, they keep hidden from the rest of the world by a combination of circumstance and lack of movement.

Besides humans, they are probably the only known species that crap on their own porch, a risky practice that come with a high fatality rate. Once a week they climb down to the same piece of ground below their tree, make a hole in the ground, take a dump, and then carefully cover the excrement after they are finished. It is during these times of ablution that the Sloth become easy prey, risking life and limb to perform the ritual burial of . Just like we find in the human race, it is an example of instinctive behaviour that persist even though it seems to be a negative evolutionary trait.

But then, as we often find in nature, similar does not mean same. Contrary to the human race, these ancient and peaceful beasts exhibit various complex symbiotic systems that are inextricably part of their existence. From their furry coats, right down to their diet of leaves and their curious excretion habits. The fur of a sloth host two species of symbiotic cyanobacteria, which provide additional camouflage. And because of the cyanobacteria, sloth fur is a small ecosystem of its own, hosting many species of non-parasitic insects.

The diet of leaves provide the Sloth with very little energy or nutrition as they do not digest easily. Sloths therefore have very large, specialized, slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the tough leaves. As much as two-thirds of a well-fed sloth's body-weight consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take a month or more to complete. Sloths deal with this by a range of economy measures: they have very low metabolic rates (less than half of that expected for a mammal of their size), and maintain low body temperatures when active (30 °C (86 °F) to 34 °C (93 °F)), and still lower temperatures when resting.

With all these fascinating facts about the Sloth I cannot help but wonder if perhaps we are wrong about the nature of sloth, and since it is only recent that we have invented a tool to observe the working brain we may well find that like the Sloth, the sin that shares in its name is nothing at all what we think.

The ice age cometh!

It is a testament to the sheer tenacity of our existence that we find our collective consciousness will be spared the gloom and guilt that industry and electronics, genetic and biochemical engineering, quantum physics, and the increasing gorge on non-renewable energy leave in our wake. I still remember a time not long ago that we were doomed to suffer in calamity by nothing less than a plan of our own design, a time where sloth and gluttony was the only reason that the human race was running out of time on earth.

Our saving grase is that it seems our waste and ruin only "hasten" our headlong rush into the gloom of yet another ice age, one we should have seen coming a long time ago. Were it not for some genius that figured out we may not be the only blame for global warming and the ice caps melting, and that the catastrophic climate changes we face is nothing more than a natural cycle that began way before the appearance of man, we would probably be all but suicidal now. A species driven mad by the damning knowledge that they have only them self to blame for wiping countless of species from the planet in their search for something they refuse to see.

It is too early to know with certainty if the bright spark that originally came up with the idea that gave us hope of absolution did us any favor, but history has shown that life will carry on regardless of our self, and that's a chilling thought.

In celebration of our global consciousness

It all started when F made the song Celebrate!, by Kool and the Gang his theme song for November 2010.

I then asked: & why is that

To which F replied: Democrats will be out of office by then

And I replied: hahaha lol, im from europe.. i dont care about the situation your corrupted government is in

To which F replied: At least you know the key word,"corrupted," nice.

Then, from the sideline C said: If the gov't is corrupted now, what was it under the previous Regime...straight evil?

And T, defending F said: hey I - you dufus - ever heard that if the "US sneezes the whole world catches a cold"?  Well, it's true. And by the way, your government, whichever one it is, is just as corrupt as ours. You're an arrogant,snobby jerk, and you should care more about your brothers across the ocean anyway. We're all in this together.

Then M, defending I said: Why exactly should he give a shit about your government? And how was he even being rude or arrogant? He was just stating his opinion. He didn't say anything negative.

It seems as if this “new” consciousness still has a long way to grow before it will be of any real use to the world, and it illustrates quite nicely how easy it is to trigger conflict.

More tips for dads

I take my hat off to any guy that decide to have a baby in this day and age. With all the challenges that we face on the social, political, financial, health and environmental fronts, you must have real guts to take on that kind of responsibility. And to bring a child into the world today you must have a lot of confidence, not only in yourself but in the whole of mankind.

But I find it amusing that there are still new parents today that are caught up in the angst of proper child raising techniques when, on the one hand more and more research is showing that all a child needs is good food, clean water, love and shelter, while on the other hand everyone is warning of a meltdown of just about everything that we have worked for. Polar ice caps included.

While parents are wondering if they are providing their children with the right values and norms to survive and thrive in a society that is changing so fast that they, the parents themselves are having difficulty to adapt, the odds are about even that there will any habitable world left for them to grow up in all! The only way that we can ensure that our children are left with a planet where they will be able to have their own children is by doing something now. We are the only hope they have.

There is very little sense in losing sleep over bad parenting when there isn’t a world left to give them. And infants born to this day and age are much better equipped to survive the society that is their legacy than we are led to believe. With the help of modern science and technology we are finding more and more evidence that our bodies and minds are uniquely designed to adapt to just about any environment we throw at it. But they are human, just like us. They need air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink.

The only thing our children really depend on us is a world to live in and love. The chances that we will understand their world is slim to none, and the odds of us being able to provide them with any useful advice almost zero. If I had any children and I was the betting kind, I’d take my chances on the 50/50 odds we have of saving our environment.

The arrogance of the human race

It just struck me again how arrogant the human race can sometimes be...

For many decades we have had the technology to search for intelligent entities beyond our planet. In trying to make contact we have been using the mathematical equation that describes a common occurrence in all forms of life, the Fibonacci series.

In stark contrast to this we are discovering more and more evidence of some kind of consciousness beyond life. Not that this is news by the way...

Mentalists and spiritualists and mediums have been telling us that they communicate with conscious entities all the time. And the same goes for the prophets, witches and shaman that communicate with the spirit, nature and the spirits in nature, and have so since the dawn of time.

Recent experiments even confirm that creativity itself may be like some kind of entity that people can communicate with, and that the expression we give to creativity is nothing other than our understanding of this connection.

The bottom line to all of this is that, for a very long time we have known that somehow consciousness exists beyond what we call life. And yet, when we try to communicate to entities beyond our planet we use 'life' as the basis of our communication effort.

I find it strange, and rather arrogant. Don't you?