A Golden Path is a Dune reference. Leto II sees "A Golden Path" to humanity's ultimate salvation. My goal is considerably less grand in scale: to become fully awake in life.
This might seem very odd. At times, I seem "odd", even to myself. For a number of years (my early teens through early thirties,) I didn't feel really awake. These times were usually uninteresting.
More interesting are the moments I woke up. Here is one such moment:
Joy and Rage
The day is nice and cool for Texas weather. Surrounded by trees and meadows, I was spending the afternoon with a group of close and trusted friends. I was there to work on myself.
I put on the helmet and safety harness as the safety expert put on safety harness. With friends in attendance, I position at the base of a twenty five foot telephone pole, hands on the climbing pegs.
As I started the climb, I knew I wasn't concerned about climbing distance, even with my fear of heights and fairly strong vertigo with looking into the sky without terrestrial reference points. I was tethered to a safety line so the climb was meaningless as long as I don't look up the pole into the clear blue sky above for too long.
Hand over hand, I left the ground. The safety harness was tight, the tether slaps against the pole as I rose. At the top, I took a moment. There were no hand holds at the very top and my immediate goal was stand at the top of this pole. I climbed and slide over the top, tucked my feet below me and pulled legs beneath. I slowly stood, with small satisfaction, and looked out from above the trees.
I heard my friends far below shouting encouragement but I dismissed it. I was tethered so the climb was without risk, just physical effort without mistakes.
Then came the moment of truth. Three to five feet from the top of the pole dangled a trapeze bar. The next goal was to jump from the top of the twenty five foot pole to trapeze bar hanging thirty feet above the ground.
I contemplated the bar while my legs shook. Fear and doubt was mounting. I knew if I was up there too long, I wouldn't be able to trust my legs. Time was running out for my jump.
I adjust my helmet, blink away a blurry vision, close my eyes and jumped.
As happens in moments of very high stress, flash tunnel vision and cognitive blackout engulfed me. The darkness and silence was timeless, a place where thoughts echo softly.
As I blinked my eyes open as my friends yelled from below, I realize I was 'm swinging from the trapeze bar, legs dangling in open air. I was profoundly and unexplainable overjoyed. My heart pounds and I feel fully awake. I swung a bit before instructed to release the bar for a slow descent on the tether.
As I descend, it happened. From feeling of overjoy at the trapeze bar changes to borderline rage as I touch ground. I could see it so clearly and my body shook in anger.
All my life, I had been waiting for someone else to bring me my life. I had been waiting for permission for everything in my life from someone else. Paradoxically, I resented anyone that told me what to do or attempted to control me. And I had let fear keep me from living and doing anything worth while. An finally, I was angry at the more than ten years of lost living.
Afterwards, I've spent many years trying to recover the missing experiences in life. But, as enjoyable, risking, educationally and painful as that was, that behavior was not really living. It was just experiencing. That was scarcely more than a reflex action which proceeded for too long unchecked. It wasn't the same as being a fully conscious, thinking human being.
Sleeping in Dulled Dreams
In a very active way, I was still "asleep" in my own life, only briefly awake on occasion. I was still bound to some phantom of permissions that will never come, by a need to break free of these imaginary restraints and trapped by the fear of consequences of freedom. As large as I had made my world of experiences, I had become trapped inside again.
I dared not utter truth least I have to explain myself. So I kept silence when I should have boldly declared "I don't like that." I withdrew instead of saying "I'm sorry you have chosen to feel that way but I'm not responsible for you your feel. You are." I moved away from conflict rather than stating "That was ugly of you and I won't accept it." I hide in the shallow life rather than declare "I want to be substantial. I need to matter."
Worse of all, though I had learn to put people in my life, I could still manage to "feel like an outsider" in the middle of this crowd, unable to understand things that seemed simple for everyone else and their a blind obedience to the slogan "this is how it is" rather than asking "why is it this way?" and "Can't we do or be better than this?"
I let this inner silence wash me into sleep again, keep me tranquilized from speaking freely. Though sometimes I speak as if I were awake again, episodes of lucidity are brief.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Blogger - Google: "We have a problem."
What?!
In reading my previous entries, I have been baffled by a
"missing word" issue. I finally saw it yesterday in action
after hours of circular work.
To IS NOT or to WAS NOT, that is the question:
First: a sentence like -
Next, we edit by double clicking on "is" in the sentence, press delete and then type "was".
What we want is:
But what we get is:
In reading my previous entries, I have been baffled by a
"missing word" issue. I finally saw it yesterday in action
after hours of circular work.
To IS NOT or to WAS NOT, that is the question:
First: a sentence like -
That is not the right thing to do or say.
Next, we edit by double clicking on "is" in the sentence, press delete and then type "was".
What we want is:
That was not the right thing to do or say.
But what we get is:
That was the right thing to do or say.
The "double click" on a word followed by a delete deletes the highlighted word AND the next word. So, replaced "is" with "was" removes "not" as well. The problem is that the double click highlights to the next word, include the space between words, then the delete removes from the start of the highlighted word to the next space past the highlighted area. That means the second word.
This problem can also be reproduced by using a select of "is" plus the space to the right of "is" (is. "is ") and pressing delete (not just double clicking.) This also happens for select-type-word-replacement, not just select-deletes.
Does this upset or bother anyone? This 180 degree edit direction change with the press of a single button? The lose of time to fix an article and to restore self esteem from the "Gads! I'm an idiot!" to "Ah ha! I'm not (that big) an idiot!)"
I'm not a terribly complex writer so I tend to use "is" and "is not" a great deal of the time. I am also out of practice with maintaining proper verb tense during the initial witting of an entry, leaving that for later editing and proof reading iterations. With this bug, a vicious editing loop is created that the unaware will not escape and the touch typist will abandon product quickly.
If I were a "hunt and peek" typist, this would be only a minor annoyance. But, I tend to touch type while looking else where. Add to this and the bug to the sometimes functioning and sometimes not functioning CTRL Z - undo feature and we quickly end up with unreadable trash.
I looked though the Blogger "help" section and, yes you guessed it, no help to be found. The "Known bugs and issues" says go to "help" and "help" says "here's how to use it".
Where is the "report a bug link?" Why isn't it a bold <h1> flashing on the "Known bugs and issues" page?
PS and where is the underline button? Freak'n html editing...
PSS and I just learned a valuable less about using < and > in posts and toggling into Edit HTML mode and back again. Ughs!
This problem can also be reproduced by using a select of "is" plus the space to the right of "is" (is. "is ") and pressing delete (not just double clicking.) This also happens for select-type-word-replacement, not just select-deletes.
Does this upset or bother anyone? This 180 degree edit direction change with the press of a single button? The lose of time to fix an article and to restore self esteem from the "Gads! I'm an idiot!" to "Ah ha! I'm not (that big) an idiot!)"
I'm not a terribly complex writer so I tend to use "is" and "is not" a great deal of the time. I am also out of practice with maintaining proper verb tense during the initial witting of an entry, leaving that for later editing and proof reading iterations. With this bug, a vicious editing loop is created that the unaware will not escape and the touch typist will abandon product quickly.
If I were a "hunt and peek" typist, this would be only a minor annoyance. But, I tend to touch type while looking else where. Add to this and the bug to the sometimes functioning and sometimes not functioning CTRL Z - undo feature and we quickly end up with unreadable trash.
I looked though the Blogger "help" section and, yes you guessed it, no help to be found. The "Known bugs and issues" says go to "help" and "help" says "here's how to use it".
Where is the "report a bug link?" Why isn't it a bold <h1> flashing on the "Known bugs and issues" page?
PSS and I just learned a valuable less about using < and > in posts and toggling into Edit HTML mode and back again. Ughs!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A Golden Path (Part 1)
I remember.
More than 12 ago outside of Bryan Texas, Tom and I came to a small "hole in the wall" diner for lunch just off highway 6. In the thin gray skies of an occasionally overcast fall day, we had passed by our lunch time destination the first time without noticing it due to car ride conversation.
The parking lot was east Texas gravel, like dirty limestone. It was rough to drive on and unpleasant to walk on. Tom had found the address for the diner in some listing of lunch time locations we hadn't been to before. As was our lunch time tradition then, we choose it mostly at random.
The outside of the diner was unremarkable and, alone, I would have never be interested in trying this place for lunch.
Inside, the decor was western. The wooden furniture was dark and worn smooth with use. The atmosphere was dimly lite even in the light of an afternoon sun. The food on the buffet was acceptable but expensive and not good enough to merit returning.
We sat next the window where we could see more clearly, carefully selecting from our plates what we might and shouldn't eat. I wondered at the nature of a left eye seeing a darkened room while the right could see the briefly appearing sun through the windows. I had gotten migraines from color and light variations in the past and wanted to be mindful of this now.
Tom and I ate, split between the dim and the bright of the lunch time table. The conversation was enjoyable and engaging for me though I have long since forgotten what technical discussion we were having. I felt a bit more alert than usual, like something was finally working properly in my head. As discussion continued, the sun shown through the clouds outside, flowed through the window and strengthened the contrasts of light and dark. I felt it again, that very rare feeling.
I stopped talking and eating for a few minutes and just "felt". With increasing intensity, my mind churned over ideas of everything, of all things. Concepts and abstractions flowed through me like a stream, then joined by other streams of ideas, cascading into new ideas. In a double vision the diner outside and the dazzling stimulus within, I felt elated and excited as concepts seemed to fit together, even if I wasn't consciously aware of their symbolic meanings or values to reality. Like a dance of gold, yellow, white and blue at the edge of my awareness, I felt a doorway in my mind straining to open. And I, like a child, eagerly awaited, certain that some wondrous gift of thoughts and knowledge would rush upon me. The dance continued and I dizzy within it. I felt fully alive and fully awake from within. Wanted to bathe in these ideas, to have them wash over me repeatedly until I understood everything.
While I had long ago become accustomed to silence in the company of friends, Tom became uncomfortable, shifting on the bench seating across the table. I wanted to stay in this moment for it felt fragile.
From my haze of possibilities, I asked Tom, "Have you ever had the feeling that if you thought the right thought, at just the right moment, everything would make sense to you?" He replied he didn't know this feeling. "I'm having that feeling right now," I spoke softly, distantly.
I wanted to stay in this place and wait for the doorway to spring open; to discover these hidden thoughts, no matter how long it took. But I staying in it only for a few moments more. Tom seemed increasingly uncomfortable as he didn't know what I was experiencing. As I had few friends at the time, I worried that I might damage another valuable friendship by being too "odd" again. Worry and fear were enough to keep the doorway from opening; golden thoughts faded like a burst bubble in shadow. In seconds, that rare clarity was lost.
I have not had the feeling of golden, shimmering thoughts since.
More than 12 ago outside of Bryan Texas, Tom and I came to a small "hole in the wall" diner for lunch just off highway 6. In the thin gray skies of an occasionally overcast fall day, we had passed by our lunch time destination the first time without noticing it due to car ride conversation.
The parking lot was east Texas gravel, like dirty limestone. It was rough to drive on and unpleasant to walk on. Tom had found the address for the diner in some listing of lunch time locations we hadn't been to before. As was our lunch time tradition then, we choose it mostly at random.
The outside of the diner was unremarkable and, alone, I would have never be interested in trying this place for lunch.
Inside, the decor was western. The wooden furniture was dark and worn smooth with use. The atmosphere was dimly lite even in the light of an afternoon sun. The food on the buffet was acceptable but expensive and not good enough to merit returning.
We sat next the window where we could see more clearly, carefully selecting from our plates what we might and shouldn't eat. I wondered at the nature of a left eye seeing a darkened room while the right could see the briefly appearing sun through the windows. I had gotten migraines from color and light variations in the past and wanted to be mindful of this now.
Tom and I ate, split between the dim and the bright of the lunch time table. The conversation was enjoyable and engaging for me though I have long since forgotten what technical discussion we were having. I felt a bit more alert than usual, like something was finally working properly in my head. As discussion continued, the sun shown through the clouds outside, flowed through the window and strengthened the contrasts of light and dark. I felt it again, that very rare feeling.
I stopped talking and eating for a few minutes and just "felt". With increasing intensity, my mind churned over ideas of everything, of all things. Concepts and abstractions flowed through me like a stream, then joined by other streams of ideas, cascading into new ideas. In a double vision the diner outside and the dazzling stimulus within, I felt elated and excited as concepts seemed to fit together, even if I wasn't consciously aware of their symbolic meanings or values to reality. Like a dance of gold, yellow, white and blue at the edge of my awareness, I felt a doorway in my mind straining to open. And I, like a child, eagerly awaited, certain that some wondrous gift of thoughts and knowledge would rush upon me. The dance continued and I dizzy within it. I felt fully alive and fully awake from within. Wanted to bathe in these ideas, to have them wash over me repeatedly until I understood everything.
While I had long ago become accustomed to silence in the company of friends, Tom became uncomfortable, shifting on the bench seating across the table. I wanted to stay in this moment for it felt fragile.
From my haze of possibilities, I asked Tom, "Have you ever had the feeling that if you thought the right thought, at just the right moment, everything would make sense to you?" He replied he didn't know this feeling. "I'm having that feeling right now," I spoke softly, distantly.
I wanted to stay in this place and wait for the doorway to spring open; to discover these hidden thoughts, no matter how long it took. But I staying in it only for a few moments more. Tom seemed increasingly uncomfortable as he didn't know what I was experiencing. As I had few friends at the time, I worried that I might damage another valuable friendship by being too "odd" again. Worry and fear were enough to keep the doorway from opening; golden thoughts faded like a burst bubble in shadow. In seconds, that rare clarity was lost.
I have not had the feeling of golden, shimmering thoughts since.
Growing Up or Just More Of The Same
Dune Genesis by Frank Herbert - http://www.dunenovels.com/news/genesis.html
I found this article written by author Frank Herbert in 1980. In this article, he discusses his writing of Dune series and themes of human promise and human failings. That these themes are as-ever-important in the first decade of the 2000s as in 1980 (1959, 1937, 1914, ...) causes me to wonder if humanity is really making an effort to grow up as a species or just are we only arranging "more of the same."
Thursday, October 11, 2007
New Experiences and Old Experiences Returned
This week I had some new experiences
- got a spinal nerve block (2 I think- one per leg?)
- was a paraplegic (see #1, duration: 6 hours)
- toe surgery without noticeable pain or events
- heart rate at 46 to 50 beats during procedure (after all the shots were taken care of) - I got bored and found a reflective surface I could see some of the procedure
- toe bone re-broken, repositioned and two screws placed to keep it there
- 6 hours later, I could feel my legs and feet again and really, REALLY didn't want to feel the left foot at all! (Old Experience Returns from the beginning of August when I broke the toe and damaged other parts of my foot)
- spent all day in the hospital where most didn't speak English - no problems though
- slept between shooting pain events (med.s taking some of the edge off but not much)
The pain invaded my sleep. Several times I kicked at the pain from my sleep only to be rudely awakened by more pain from the recently kicked foot!
- Got back to the flat, hopping around on one foot if I need to move and now pondering if a "laptop" is just a silly idea as my Dell XPS heats up "my good leg"
Monday, October 08, 2007
Two screws and some bailing wire
Last week I went the doctor. It took two months but I finally had enough of the pain, and limited mobility. These things make Mike a "grumpy-boy."
The hospital was nice, clean and orderly. It's a Japanese "chain" hospital in Sofia and I'd heard good things about it. My girlfriend had made the appointment but, as I am A) not Bulgarian, B) not employed with a Bulgarian company and C) uninsured, she had to make the appointment in her name until we were able to come in and straighten it out.
The front registration desk was uncrowded and calm. After using my passport to register as a patient, we were directed down a hallway to another registration desk. At this desk, my "girlfriend's appointment" was changed to "my appointment." After paying the foreigner's fee of 50 leva, we were off to the waiting room. My appointment was for 5:30pm and I had little faith that we'd be seeing a doctor anywhere near that time.
No sooner had I told my girlfriend this than I the nurse (also called a medical sister in Bulgaria) called me into the examine room. Good foot remove from mouth, I limp into the room. I had been driving in Sofia traffic for a few hours and my foot was aching.
The room was clean, the doctor was friendly. He listened to my silly story, examined my toe and sent me off another registration area to schedule an x-ray. Apparently, "x-ray" is a term used more in the US. In Bulgaria it was referred to as "imaging", a more technically correct term.
Paying and scheduling the the imaging (another 30 leva or so,) we sat to wait. Three minutes later, the door opened and the imaging technique showed me in. He had a good chuckle at the start of my story about how I broke my toe and seemed not to need to hear the rest of it. He took two images and got my name spelled correctly and off I went to the waiting room again.
The ache in my toe told me the toe was broken. The x-ray told the doctor it was broke, offset and rotated slightly. After a two months, he said it wasn't likely to heal on its own in this position.
He summarized my uninsured options: ignore it and hope that the bone heals enough to not bother me or have a small surgery to reset the bones and put in one or two surgical screws to hold them in place while they heal. He also included a general idea of the cost of the later option.
A few days go by and my toe is still recovering from the beating it took from the clutch the day of the doctor's visit. I look at this a blessing - it made certain the x-ray showed a well broken toe. I gave in to my desired to be "all better again". Lili and I made a second visit to the doctor's early in the morning, without an appointment, so we might get some details on the procedure and more details on the costs (my paycheck isn't consistent right now and need to identify costs to avoid surprises.)
Again, I didn't feel like we were going to see the doctor in person without an appointment but, after waiting fifteen minutes, sure enough, he arrived at the examination room. He saw me as he passed the waiting room and I explained that I waited some details. My expectation was to be told to make an appointment but, instead, we went into the examine room and had a ten minute conversation on what I needed to know about the surgery (about 1300 leva.)
Later that day, the surgery was scheduled.
I have to say I am impressed with this hospital in Sofia. My Lili visited the US, we had a brief visit to an emergency care factuality and, while not crowded and very calm, they were not in any hurry to met the patent who was in pain. Other visits to US hospitals were wildly chaotic, passive-aggressive unfriendly and required a great deal of paperwork. I guess having no insurance has its paperwork blessings. Its probably not really fair to compare the two types of experiences but they are, after all, my only experiences.
Wednesday I will go for the surgery. I may get one or two screws and, if necessary, a small plate put on my toe. The doctors will decided then to use either full or local anesthesia. I'm actually more concerned with the anesthesia than the procedure. If its local, it sounds like I'll have my nerve endings turned off from the waist down for a few hours while they open, fix and close my toe. Of what I know of anesthesia, I don't want to feel the horrid cold of silent nerve impulses.
Later this week, I may have more time to blog as I will be on my back, foot and toe in the air for a week or more.
The hospital was nice, clean and orderly. It's a Japanese "chain" hospital in Sofia and I'd heard good things about it. My girlfriend had made the appointment but, as I am A) not Bulgarian, B) not employed with a Bulgarian company and C) uninsured, she had to make the appointment in her name until we were able to come in and straighten it out.
The front registration desk was uncrowded and calm. After using my passport to register as a patient, we were directed down a hallway to another registration desk. At this desk, my "girlfriend's appointment" was changed to "my appointment." After paying the foreigner's fee of 50 leva, we were off to the waiting room. My appointment was for 5:30pm and I had little faith that we'd be seeing a doctor anywhere near that time.
No sooner had I told my girlfriend this than I the nurse (also called a medical sister in Bulgaria) called me into the examine room. Good foot remove from mouth, I limp into the room. I had been driving in Sofia traffic for a few hours and my foot was aching.
The room was clean, the doctor was friendly. He listened to my silly story, examined my toe and sent me off another registration area to schedule an x-ray. Apparently, "x-ray" is a term used more in the US. In Bulgaria it was referred to as "imaging", a more technically correct term.
Paying and scheduling the the imaging (another 30 leva or so,) we sat to wait. Three minutes later, the door opened and the imaging technique showed me in. He had a good chuckle at the start of my story about how I broke my toe and seemed not to need to hear the rest of it. He took two images and got my name spelled correctly and off I went to the waiting room again.
The ache in my toe told me the toe was broken. The x-ray told the doctor it was broke, offset and rotated slightly. After a two months, he said it wasn't likely to heal on its own in this position.
He summarized my uninsured options: ignore it and hope that the bone heals enough to not bother me or have a small surgery to reset the bones and put in one or two surgical screws to hold them in place while they heal. He also included a general idea of the cost of the later option.
A few days go by and my toe is still recovering from the beating it took from the clutch the day of the doctor's visit. I look at this a blessing - it made certain the x-ray showed a well broken toe. I gave in to my desired to be "all better again". Lili and I made a second visit to the doctor's early in the morning, without an appointment, so we might get some details on the procedure and more details on the costs (my paycheck isn't consistent right now and need to identify costs to avoid surprises.)
Again, I didn't feel like we were going to see the doctor in person without an appointment but, after waiting fifteen minutes, sure enough, he arrived at the examination room. He saw me as he passed the waiting room and I explained that I waited some details. My expectation was to be told to make an appointment but, instead, we went into the examine room and had a ten minute conversation on what I needed to know about the surgery (about 1300 leva.)
Later that day, the surgery was scheduled.
I have to say I am impressed with this hospital in Sofia. My Lili visited the US, we had a brief visit to an emergency care factuality and, while not crowded and very calm, they were not in any hurry to met the patent who was in pain. Other visits to US hospitals were wildly chaotic, passive-aggressive unfriendly and required a great deal of paperwork. I guess having no insurance has its paperwork blessings. Its probably not really fair to compare the two types of experiences but they are, after all, my only experiences.
Wednesday I will go for the surgery. I may get one or two screws and, if necessary, a small plate put on my toe. The doctors will decided then to use either full or local anesthesia. I'm actually more concerned with the anesthesia than the procedure. If its local, it sounds like I'll have my nerve endings turned off from the waist down for a few hours while they open, fix and close my toe. Of what I know of anesthesia, I don't want to feel the horrid cold of silent nerve impulses.
Later this week, I may have more time to blog as I will be on my back, foot and toe in the air for a week or more.
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