Here's an interesting article about Al Qaeda's use of the internet in the past, and how it's failing to keep up because it's resting its propaganda campaigns on paradigms that are slowly but inevitably changing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/opinion/26kimmage.html?ex=1230091200&en=806a672fb205ce6f&ei=5087&WT.mc_id=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M050-ROS-0608-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click&mkt=OP-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M050-ROS-0608-HDR

This is the line in the article that made me laugh out loud:

"And even Al Qaeda’s biggest YouTube hits attract at most a small fraction of the millions of views that clips of Arab pop stars rack up routinely."

It's kind of comforting to know that this kind of attitude turns out to be pervasive the world over. Of course, it's a double sided coin.  A world full of people who are just worried about whatever their local equivalent of whoever won American Idol is is a world where evil people are able to do their dirty work much more easily.
  And arguably is one in which injustice is easier to perpetrate because it's harder to draw attention and concern to those injustices.  But I'll take a world where most people aren't terribly concerned with blowing shit up to promote their chosen agenda over the alternative of a world full of highly motivated true believers in any number of various ideological and/or theological -isms any day.  I'll ALSO take a world where technology lets us see how much more we share than ways we differ any day too.

A twofer today.

I occasionally watch a Ted talk (sometimes interesting speeches by people generally renowned for their intelligence or creativity) and they recently compiled their "greatest hits". 

The one at the top is one about a very interesting occurrence.  Jille Bolte Taylor,  a brain scientist, personally experienced a stroke and relates how it affected her perception and outlook on life.  In relating this, she explains how the stroke shut down the left side of her brain, essentially removing the mediator of her consciousness, removing the filters that get applied to the massive amount of input that our brains take in and removing the ability to organize the information in the context of her "self".  She describes the feeling of losing the sensation of being an entity separate from her surroundings, of being unable to tell where she ended and her environment began. 

She described this as nirvana, and makes it sound quite wonderful.

My mind, unfortunately,  always insists on taking ninety degree turns from what it is told.  I like to have perspective, and I get that by tending to move perpendicularly.

Anyway, she describes this state of mind and relates how she can see how "compassionate" the universe really is. 

First off, I think all she is really describing is the attempt of what is left of her left brain to organize and perceive amounts of data that it is not normally accustomed to getting.  I could attach logic meters to each of the pins on the back of the video card in my computer and watch the lights dance telling me that signals are being generated, but I would be unable to organize them into anything resembling the image I see on my computer monitor.  Perception is reality, and the perception that she formed in her diminished state should be considered no more or less valid or well formed than the one that any of us working out of our sense-making left brains right now are.  She wasn't "seeing" reality to any extent greater than the rest of us are, she was trying to make sense of inputs, just as any of us are.

Second....off, why do these people who have these out of body deeply mystical experiences always come back telling us how compassionate and full of peace and love the universe is?  I've waxed before at my fear that the universe is at best completely indifferent and at worst actively malicious towards everything in it.  If anything, there is more evidence that the universe hates life and consciousness than that it loves it.  Google "extinction event" and see how many times Earth has taken a big smack from an asteroid, or a megavolcano has thrown our planet's environment into disarray, killing a sizable portion of the life running around at the time.  And that's just on one planet.  Is this a "peaceful compassionate" universe at work?  Wow, I'd hate to see it pissed off at us.  Now, consider the design of life itself.  Living organisms near the bottom of the food chain (plants, plankton) soak up ambient energy and nutrients to maintain life functions.  At any level above that, it's murder to stay alive.  Disregard man and our moralizing, and see that supposedly good and glorious nature itself is chock full of organisms that rely on terminating the life functions of other organisms in order to gain the energy and nutrients to maintain their own life functions.  This does not look like the shape of a compassionate universe to me.  No, my most deeply seated fear is that the very fabric of our universe is a weaved not with compassion and peace, but with violence.  I'm guessing that when some mystic or unfortunate neuroscientist perceives that the universe of full of love and light, it's because that's what we ~wish~ it to be. 

So, that's my big question, Buddhists and philosophers.   Give me one good reason I should not believe that the universe is a fundamentally violent place.  At the end, I'm guessing I'll just have to concede that the universe is neither violent nor peaceful, that those are entirely products of our perception.  All the universe really does, is exist.  No more, no less.  Nirvana achieved.

I was feeling quite at ease today, finding it quite relaxing to lie around the house with nothing more to do than help the kids with their schoolwork.  But a phone call from her set me ill at ease, sending my stomach to churning again.  I realized later this afternoon that I had been quite calm and content in her absence, but stressed to have to talk to her.  She of course made remarks about missing me, but it was a sentiment I could not share and I realized it was because missing her has been the standard state of mind for me for so long I have just acclimated to it.  I have felt the same in her absence as I have in her presence for some time now.  Perhaps that is normal for people in a long term relationship, but the way I feel now is distinctly different from periods of separation in the past.

Anyway, all day I've wondered about people who give freely to a cause they consider larger than themselves.  Are they truly enriched by the experience?  I mean, step back a bit.  Of course, everyone holds them up as examples of virtue, because we all say we want the world to be full of people who are giving of themselves to others.  But I can't help but wonder if the unspoken undertone to this belief is that everyone wants everyone ~else~ to be generous, so they themselves can lap in the largesse of those people duped into a giving nature by a social mandate.  Or perhaps in other words, is a call for self sacrifice in others actually just self serving?  The bum on the street corner will say "god bless you" if you give them a dollar, but you can rest assured they consider the blessing to be entirely god's work to do and not theirs.  This is probably in part due to my Western capitalist mind at work, unable and unwilling to see that subsuming oneself to the greater good lifts us all.  I guess.  At any rate, there's always been a part of me that wonders, at the end of the day, if the generous person who gives yet gets nothing in return (I've been that guy for a while now, trust me) has really been enriched, or merely fleeced.  Add to this the fact that I don't believe in an afterlife or reincarnation.  I only get ONE chance to enjoy this life to the maximum extent possible.  And the older I get the more I understand that self sacrifice is really not bringing me the kinds of experiences I enjoy.  Wow, I know I know, I'm a total bastard for saying that but it's true.  I'm not going to use this cutting self knowledge for evil, as some sort of excuse to take a turn toward hedonistic abandon.  I am still a responsible guy when people are relying on me. 

Or maybe this feeling is just due to my very particular experience of giving oneself.  In other words, my perception of sacrifice is inaccurate because I've never felt it being returned to me.  Ever.

It's not entirely accurate to say that I'm thinking about divorce.  I'm thinking about not being married any more.  To be honest, it doesn't strike me as being particularly appealing.  But I should start with more exposition I suppose.  My wife and I have been married thirteen years now.  They've been on the balance good years.  There are no major...things, dramatic episodes I can point to, which stand out as being unhappy times.  I cannot complain that she is a selfish or unkind person.  We clicked years ago, and continued to click for many years, through moves and job changes (numerous) and kids (three to be exact).

But since moving to Phoenix three years ago, she has...not exactly changed, but I feel as if I am less and less important to her all of the time.  It's a rare occasion indeed when she plans anything with me.  I can plan things, if her schedule allows, and the stars align (which they rarely do anymore).  This place, where we have become essentially people who live together, doesn't bother her.  I have told her that I don't like this in the past, she doesn't seem bothered by my unhappiness. 
Here's an example.  Our anniversary was May 20th.  She had made it clear to me that any planning was to be my business.  I considered this fair, as she actually planned a very nice trip for us last year.  I made it clear to her that I could not plan anything without knowing her volunteer schedule with the church she attends.  She never gave me a firm date around which to plan anything.  Our anniversary came and went.  We made plans to visit the Grand Canyon, with just each other, without committing to a date.  She has consistently talked as if we'll do it "next month" for two months now, and no dates have appeared.  That pretty much sums up the state of our relationship.  We are people who live under the same roof, and share parenting duties.  I have known for some time that her intention is to fill her life up with duties and obligations and responsibilities that work directly against us being alone together as a couple. 

This despite the fact that I have told her several times that what I wanted most from marriage was simply to have somebody with which to enjoy doing things.  But I see now that what she wants is a busy life, one where there may be time to cram in a date with your husband on Saturday evening if she can get a sitter oh wait, the church called and they need her to help out sorry bye.  She got exactly the marriage she wanted, and I have worked hard to give it to her.  Now, too late, I've found out that I was working against my own happiness all that time. 

A few nights ago after leaving the gym (an activity I had hoped we would enjoy together but which she has abandoned), I drove to a deserted stretch of road below the mountains.  A gust front from a distant line of storms blew through as I stood there watching the moon shine down on the desert and listening to the wind murmur across the field of grass next to the road.  It was the most peaceful place I have experienced in some time.  It wasn't really until then that I realized that things like enjoying a full moon, hiking in the mountains, relaxing, enjoying nature, would not be something I would ever share with her.  It has become plain to me that any deep pleasure and fulfillment I find in life, I will have to seek alone.  Maybe that's just the destiny of every man and woman, and I have only now realized it.

So now I see the destination.  I can wait, and wait, and continue to wait, for someone who wants me less and less with each passing year.  How many years could I feign happiness?  I don't know.  I've feigned it for some time already.  Funnily enough, I don't feel the need to seek out someone else to take her place.  It's as if there's no place there to fill.  It's a saddening thought, and it fills me with loneliness, but that's just the way I feel.  So for a while now I've consigned myself to living emotionally alone, but functionally together. 

As I said, I have tried to communicate this to her on several occasions, but my attempts have never borne fruit beyond the light emotional pat on the head and a couple of attempts at deeper companionship which quickly disappear under the weight of her other responsibilities.  And now, this time, I'm feeling different.  My stomach has been perpetually tied in knots for days now.  Since I realized I'm going to have to tell her. It's really not fair to let her live a lie, thinking that I am the same happy appliance in the corner I have behaved as for years, content for whatever scraps of her attention I receive.  No, I am going to have to tell her that our relationship is on a trajectory that throws me out of it like a meteor looping around the sun before disappearing back into deep dark space.

But I won't tell her anything tonight. She is off to a two day religious retreat on the other side of the valley, which I took a day off from work to allow her to have.  This is something I do not begrudge her, but stands as another telling instance of what I am to her.  In the past I would have thought my sacrifices were an act of love, but now I know that they are simply things given, without expectation that they will earn me any greater standing or importance with her.

Would I be willing to "save" our marriage?  I suppose so.  But I have lived in a bubble removed from her life for so long now that I view her in much the same light as I view my coworkers at the office.  Someone I meet when I go somewhere where I have a job to do.  I know, and yes I am a bastard for feeling this way.  We have kids for god's sake, can't I just carry on with a smile for them, at least until they are gone?  If I must, I suppose I can.  To be honest, I have no fucking clue what I will do next.

The IEEE addressed the technological singularity recently, so there's been some chatter about it on the corners of the internet I frequent the past few days. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

I've thought for a while now that it'll probably happen someday, but that rather than creating something "post-human", we're more likely to create something "trans-human", some sort of merging of man and machine.  I've also pondered that if humanity is to spread beyond the confines of earth it will be as some decidedly different type of organism than we are now.  If we're going to travel through space, what better way than to adapt ourselves to the conditions there, instead of the other way around necessitating taking all that air/water/food/etc. with us.

I was reading some musings about all this this morning but tired of it and shut down my browser to continue work and the next song that came up in my media player was Imagine : "And the world will live as one.",  since then I've heard Oh You Pretty Things : "Gotta make way for the homo superior", and right after that, Spirit in the Sky : "Going up to the spirit in the sky."

I tend to discount the cosmic relevance of coincidences, and this probably says more about my tastes in music than anything else, but it's still kind of spooky.