I've got Skin in the Game (and Hair)

My skin grows drier and thiner each passing week and year.  Scaly like an alligator now, but hey, I don't mind.  And if I did, what difference would that make?

Besides, it'd be a perfect complement to my thinning, almost nonexistent, hair.  One can stand in front of me and see the back of my scalp without squinting,   though I try not to look.

But it is what it is.  I'm older than my parents were allowed to be so I'll not complain.  Wait, did this sound like a complaint?  Well, it's not.  Giving words to something gives us power over the thing.  At least, that's what I'M going with.

And besides, it's all ending so much better that the final season of GoT, yes?

Summer time 2019

It's summer starting now, pretty much everywhere in the USA.  No where is it MORE summer than on the Metolius River right this minute.  It was 80 or so, blue sky... Why even the NY Times choose to recognize BEND, OR and Camp Sherman as great places to spend some time...  They said 36 hours...  I say at least 36 YEARS.

The River flows, we hope, forever.  It bursts out of the ground 1/4 mile up stream from where I sit and write this, right now.  Lots of water, ankle and knee deep for a mile before it begins to 'develop character', deepening and broadening.

There fish like this river because the water is cold, varying only a few degrees along it's journey to Lake Billy Chinook and eventually merging in to the Dechutes, then eventually the Columbia and the Pacific Ocean.  

Lotta pines around, it's dry...High desert.  Lotta wild life and a few tourists mixing with locals.  It's a thing to experience, to be sure.  But tread lightly, please.  This entire region survives at the whim of lightening sparked, camper sparked and cigarette sparked forest fires.  And the DO come, every year...each more ferocious than the last.

The one thing that all of us can count on is that nothing can be counted on to last for every.  So enjoy every minute and acknowledge what you are insignifigant in the scope of the cosmos, but very significant in someone's heart.  That's good enough, right?  It'll have to be.

You Showed Me Love

Now I can see you
And you showed me, showed me love of the deepest kind
And I will never find a love like you
You showed me love of the deepest kind
No, no, no
Nobody, there's nobody like you

Now I see you
Now I see, hmm
You showed me love and I thank you
And I need you and I miss you

You showed me love
You showed me love
Of the deepest kind, and I will never find a love
A love like you

You showed me, you showed me love
You showed me love
You showed me love
You showed me, yeah
You showed me love
You showed me love
You showed me love of the deepest kind

I will never find a love
You showed me love
You showed me love

I will never find a love like you
Love
You showed me love
You showed me, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Of the deepest kind, the best kind of love

I'm so sorry; now I see you
Oh, God
And it's too late, it's too late
Oh, God

Hello? Can you hear me? Are you awake?

Been thinking a lot about what constitutes consciousness...what does it mean to be a living thing?  How are some living things different from other living things and on what scale does that matter?  These are private thoughts, that I'm going to write down, so I don't forget them.  Maybe it's best you don't look.

In West-World an AI creation is asked: 'Are you real?' and she answers: 'Well, if you can't tell, does it really matter?'  Good answer, right?  Our ability to receive real from not real may well play a role in the correct answer to the question of what is reality, what is consciousness.

I'll accept that there may be levels of consciousness, if we want to get all scientific about it.  An unconscious human being is still at some level conscious, as it may well be self aware in a dream-like state, an 'un-dead' state.  So, is self awareness a prerequisite?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it is.

Well, then can a plant be self aware as it turns to the warmth and light of the sun?  Perhaps...perhaps at some level, right?  I mean is the ability to grow a form of consciousness?  What about fungi and their ability to convey information to OTHER plants and trees? I think maybe that would fit in MY description of consciousness.

I guess that's really all I'm talking about...MY description of what constitutes a form of consciousness that  I can accept.  I'm the guy who truly wishes truth to be binary..off/on, 1/0, True/False.

I'm gonna have to think about this more and get back to you (me).

Testy

The cosmos is a big place.  Time is even smaller.   Why do we fuss over things of no consequence?  Even the most amazing invention ain’t shit. Why do we excuse things that set a new tone we are gonna have to live with for like forever

Well Shut My Mouth WIDE Open

Well...someone just told me (surreptitiously) that "if someone keeps not understanding, dump them. If you can’t, talk to them a lot less. Or not at all. Simple."

Huh. Well, maybe they didn't tell ME, but they wrote it as a post; I read it and it burned a whole in me.

Could I have said or am I saying things so grossly misunderstood that I'm indicating a complete misunderstanding of what I've heard (read)?  I TRY to listen.  I try to listen very carefully.   But I guess I've caught myself planning my next thought as someone is explaining theirs.  That's not really listening I guess, is it?

Or...maybe I got it wrong.  Wait..what were you saying, again?

REELIN' IN THE YEARS

Some know I've enjoyed Steely Dan for many years.  Not because I understand all they say, but because they clearly have had a talent for understanding what a popular message through tune can mean thru the generations.

Just the other day, Walter Becker, co-Founder, guitarist and vocalist for this band passed away at 67...   an age on which I have a firm  grasp.  All the music they've made will stay with me, though there will never REALLY be any more of it.  And so... this one perhaps is the most popular (in songs played) of their work.  I list it here, purely for fun and to perturb at least one whom I know not to be a fan.   I think the band won't mind.

REELIN' IN THE YEARS

Your everlasting summer 
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand

CHORUS:
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine

You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand

CHORUS

I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in Hollywood
Is etched upon my mind
After all the things we've done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand