313075's blog: "Ghosty's Cherry (sic)"

Well, it's been a strange couple of weeks. I haven't even looked at this place, and to be honest, haven't even thought about it. Life has been very up-and-down, between illness, workload and other things taking my time. I haven't even been able to do any real writing. Everything is hinged on money right now as (a) I don't have any, and (b) I need to make more of it. So, I'll not be as much of a stranger. I've said that before, I know, but as I get more involved in stuff I realize I need a spot like CT to keep things light. Everything else has been SO heavy.

I apologize to everyone for being away so much. Life has a way of doing that to you, ya know. I log on to find Xmas presents, and user comments, and invites, email and all kinds of stuff. Jeez, it's like coming home to the pile of mail stacked up on your front lawn. I will come around more often. You folks know, I have a real blog where I post the events of may daily life (or the life of my events, daily ... or however you want to view that). If you go there and post commentary, I will get an email and I will read it, and I'll even reply. I'm good like that. This place, you can count on me showing up sporadically. Over there, well, it's where I live.

Hi everyone! So, OK, I haven't been around much. Truthfully, I've had no time to be around much. My work schedule has increased significantly (which is good for the money, and bad for everything else), plus my Internet access has been sucking more than usual (I can't wait to get Verizon ordered). Between those two things, my activities have consisted of (a) work, (b) extra work on the weekends, and (c) sleep. Boring, eh? I haven't written ANYTHING in weeks. I'm going right out of my gourd. So, this is just to let everybody know I'm not dead. As soon as things clear up a little schedule-wise, I'll be back in action.

The GF and I have broken up. We don't hate each other or anything (although, right now I'd like to plant my foot up her butt for her latest mood swing) ... but we're still friends, we still hang out. We just aren't a 'couple'. Which makes me TC's most eligible batchleor. Not quite sure what to do about that - if anything. Blah, dinner's on the stove and we're sitting down to eat in a bit. I'll check you guys later tonight.

Life is busy, and it's not getting any lighter. The girlfriend comes home tomorrow, and hecticness will ensue. I've had no real chance to write much in the past few days because of it, and little chance of anything like that happening over the holiday weekend. Little time to spend here, also. Between work hours, getting ready for the GF's return and other responsibilities I just don't have the hang-out time. Which kind of sucks, as I've met some nice people here and I'd like to meet more of you, or at least get on with the ones on my friend list more. Oh well. It'll all clear up in around a week, I think.

Well, this weekend is turning out not to be very restful. I have several AC projects lined up to write, and most of them will have to be done by Monday. Likely, they'll see publication over next week. They're specific content pieces, so they won't be the thought-provoking type - more practical. Possibly a humor piece in there as well. I have a new piece of digital art to send up - as soon as I come up with a title. Usually a title comes to me pretty easily, but not this time. Anyway, as soon as I think of what to call it, I'll upload that - then, I'm settling in with a movie this evening, King Authur (Clive Owen, Keira Knightly). After which, I plan to get some good sleep, because accompanying all this writing is a TON of housework; the girlfriend comes home Tuesday, so I better have this place cleaned up pretty good. After a couple of months of batchleorhood, the joint is looking rather lived-in.

I haven't been writing a lot the past few days. Overloaded, I think. I seem to have spurts, where I'll write like a madman for a few days at a time, then slack off and do something else. I'm in slack mode at the moment. I have a half-written fictional short story, one that's been rolling about in my head for a few days. I'm relaxing from AC, despite their protests. And, with the closing of my Britannia! blog, less to do each night as far as regular stuff. I'll get back on the stick this weekend.

I recently decided enough was enough, and have put my main UO blog on hiatus for a year. Mostly the reasons were time-related. I'm doing so much writing - my personal blog, AC, my other UO site, plus I'm starting work on some fiction - I just didn't have time to keep up with this one. So, it's not getting deleted or anything; I'll start it up again in a year or so. But I hate giving up writing projects. Blah. Now I have to go take the link off the profile page. Done is done.

[ The article itself can be accessed by clicking here. ] This article was actually written several years ago, but underwent a re-writing this past week for publication with AC. It was a difficult article to write, not so much because of the subject matter itself (or because I'm scatterbrained, although that didn't help either), but because it holds a more or less central theme with my own religious beliefs. I have a friend at work who is many things - a persistant seeker of debate amongst them. A few days ago he asked me the question, 'Did God invent the mind, or did the mind invent God'? He was obviously trolling for an argument. I wasn't going to give him one. I told him that the mind doesn't 'invent' anything - it creates concepts, and acting upon those concepts is what fuels invention. Since God is incomprehensible to the human mind, it would be foolish to believe that the mind created Him - instead, we create concepts of God that the mind can envision and relate to. We frequently refer to those concepts as 'God', even though the intelligent person knows that God is unimaginable in His truest form. That shut him up for a little while. It did start a train of thought on cerebral perception and the environment, which prompted me to, among other things, re-watch the Matrix movies and re-write that article. The notion that there is so much to our existance we are unaware of, and can only conceptualize though reason, meditation and study, is far flung from what is found in most major religions. The very fact-driven, 'it's what the book says' approach to reality and existance falls short when the deepest questions are actually pondered. Descartes proclaimed the famous "I think, therefore I am", and in that statement set forth the notion of reality based on self-awareness. We can further put forth the notion that 'I am, therefore God is' based on the premise that we as entities do not exist in the universe alone, nor are we self-perpetuating or self-created. From the basis of the existance of Self, we can draw tangents to the existance of God and, indeed, the rest of the universe. In the Mahabharata, The Lord Krishna said to the warrior Arjuna, 'I am of you, and you are of me, and no man can tell the difference between us.' The statement is meant to convey not only the presense of God within the Self, but to show that God and the Self are of one and the same thing. This is more or less indicated through Descartes' famous statement, and were one to place a Biblical connotation on it, the phrase could have been made that 'I think, therefore I AM'. Food for another article, I suppose.

Reason I'm not here to offen of late is because it's raining. See, when it rains, my access does into the toilet. No, really. I can't connect anywhere. I've been asking Comcast to fix this for MONTHS. No dice. I may have to dump them. Anyway, I have yet another AC article approved, I'll post the link soon as it appears.