All aboard. People I very much appreciate:

Monday, December 31, 2018

New Year...Really?

This is the last evening of 2018 --a year I'm quite content to see the butt of. I know, I was determinedly upbeat throughout this year, but have regained my sanity. Let Roofcat attest:
Unlike his feline relatives, Roofcat does not get cute. Nor does he say much, especially not "babycattalk". Lesson: don't read everything you believe. He sure doesn't, or vice versa, nor do I (or does I?). 
This has nothing to do with my fiercest accomplishment of the year, I turned 69 years old,
a human sort of age best defined by roofcats:
Figure out what the hell you are and do it on purpose. Well, there are only two things I can think of to say about that. 69 is an invertible  number. It looks the same as its upsidedown self. I believe 88 is the next one. Then comes 96. I hope to have something more to comment on my eleventyoneth birthday (lll).

But that's just being silly. The future is not only about getting old. Except for the occasional  emergency ambulance ride, I feel young as I ever did. The future should make us happy:
We are now exploring interstellar space with Voyager 2.  Intelligence is a function of the Universe, which is very big, and we are trying to find where to clamp the jumper cables. There's a serviceable closing sentence here: Time has braced my love of the universe --and certainty of its promise in humanity and nature-- into the most definite thing I know. Not sure about Roofcat but there is no firmer truth in me.

 

Friday, December 14, 2018

The Enigma Of ぼけっと, Its Practice and Unavoidability

The meaning of the marginally translatable and fascinating Japanese word, ぼけっと -- boke tto-- delivers a refreshing freedom in both thought and its release from strict ideation. A photo:
Here is the Moon over a trellis in our garden. I stare at the moon a lot. It is not a "blur", which is the short translation of boke tto. Nor is it yet what it will be when the moon blossoms and spreads across the sky:

ぼけっと also means staring into the distance, thinking of nothing in particular. It is how we imagine.

We receive no information about the universe smaller than a photon, so it is the fundamental unit of grammar. It builds the language of dreams as well as blog-posts --a bottom-dealt extra sense. 

ぼけっと: go outside, look into the distance, think of nothing in particular. There are wonders.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Did Descartes Kick Dogs?

"Hello E(a)rnest, what's up?"
"I am upset. I heard Rene Descartes kicked his dog!"

"That was like 500 years ago, Earnest."
"Time means very little to me, Geo., except for seasons. We squirrels look at you as you look at tortoises, who live several times your span."
"So, how would you know about Descartes, Earnest?"
"Instinct."
"Wow! I know you feral people have a long, wide knowledge of humans but I never get your limits."
"Instinct has no limits, Geo."
"Eh?"

"Geo., instinct tells me Decartes' dog was named Monsieur Gratt and was kicked in an experiment to see if he was more than an automaton of instinct -- or could he think?"

"My French is a little rusty, Earnest, but 'Gratt' --short for gratter?-- could mean scratch, scrape, pick, paw or even strum a guitar."

"Yes."

"So what happened?

"Same thing that happened when the starlings thought you weren't looking. They composed a pattern which you doodled from behind this very fence."
"Earnest, this formation, this masterwork of cooperation, was composed without thought?"
"Indeed Geo., instinct, unlike mere thought, does not allow for error. Oops!"

"I'll ignore your misstep if you tell what happened with Descartes?"
"The dog was really his wife's pet and when she found out --M. Gratt was a Tattler (an inadvisable breed)-- she kicked the merde out of M. Descartes. 
"So how does it end?"
  
"Well, Geo., Descartes' dog  was last seen chasing Shrodinger's Cat down an alley and into a box --which was the start of Quantum Physics."