Where Greed Comes From

I’ve been sharing this planet with humans for three-quarters of a century, and my multitude of first-hand observations of individuals and groups of them, dating all the way back to the early 1950s, take precedence over any books on the subject of greed. And that includes the one titled, “How to Be Greedy Without Even Trying”, by Ima Takinedal.

Greed is a nasty affliction of humanity, and it begins manifesting itself from the very moment the brain develops the capacity to decide and choose. A typical scenario of early childhood greed may go something like, “I finished my ice cream cone already, and now I want yours.” The little tyke didn’t need one bit of prodding from an adult on how to want more than their share. It is, unfortunately, the result of man’s fallen status with the Creator of the cosmos.

Here’s another example of the early onset of greed. Peek around the corner at little Billy and Johnny in a room full of toys. Billy suddenly decides to pick up a particular toy and begins to have fun with it, becoming fully engaged, complete with uttering cute sound effects. While all is calm and peaceful, Johnny glances over at the now enthralled Billy and observes that he’s experiencing a fulfilling moment, and he immediately desires to be in that same blissful state for himself. The shortest, most straightforward route to achieving parity with Billy is to take possession of the thing which seems to have the power to provide instant gratification, so Johnny reaches over and tears the toy from Billy’s hands. Thus the fighting, shouting, and crying ensue, and the situation has gone from content to war-like.

Johnny required zero coaching to instantly become consumed with possessing his toys, plus little Billy’s now special one. This selfish behavior is inherent. Unless medical science eventually discovers a viable way to excise or neutralize this conflicting aspect of the human mind at birth, it will never wane from our existence.

Career Politicians are an excellent example of adult greed on steroids. Aside from always giving themselves salary increases while accomplishing less by not showing up, the hypocrites among them will expound on how they need to reduce the deficit by raising taxes. But the increase must not affect their particular non-profit institutions, which often have no contributing benefit for the working class whose taxes just got raised.

It’s a real shame that Adam and Eve chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden. The consequences were losing the benefit of never being in need or want of anything, and their penalty wound up altering their son Cain and his siblings’ behavior, along with everyone coming after them, right down to the present.

Gotta go. My wife is eating all the M&Ms… again.

One Take on the After Life

The data goes, while the shell turns to dust

A truly eternal paradise would not be a state of solid matter, comprised of atoms and elements such as those listed on the Periodic Table here in our current physical realm, as all these things are subject to decay at the molecular level over linear time, and humans are comprised of these same elements as well, primarily C ‘carbon: group 14’ and H²O¹.

An eternal realm would necessitate a particular type of super-perceived, timeless state of being where everything still appears entirely tangible and yet wholly foreign and imperishable compared to the cosmos in which we currently exist. It would be a place where the laws of physics cannot coexist, and by its very nature, would exclude expansion or movement as our universe experiences. Such a state would also mean the absence of time, which is the measurement of light’s speed, represented to us as a clock’s ticking.

So how do we get there, aside from the fact that we first depend on Jesus covering our fare? The logical answer is that the soul would have to move toward or be guided through some form of interdimensional portal, which cannot begin until one first stops breathing, and the soul is loosed from the expired body it inhabited in this world of decaying particles. I would venture that it’s apt to be the same portal used by angels and Lucifer, as in Job’s story wherein he pays God a personal visit.

A super-perceived realm opens up limitless possibilities that could never occur here on earth, not excluding such things as streets of gold or traveling at the speed of thought. If any of the so-called near death experiences are remotely accurate, it would also explain why the authors of those events record such observations, as running through a field of flowers and then looking back to find that not a single flower has been crushed. It would be because they had perceived the field of flowers they’re seeing. The flowers weren’t biological in makeup.

A realm of super-perception would genuinely be a paradisiacal place. Do you say you miss all the dogs you ever had? Well, that’s not a problem. Simply think them back, and there they’ll be, standing at your feet wagging their tails. The saying would be correct. “All dogs go to Heaven!” I know I certainly won’t have any problem living forever in a place where I can have my heart’s desires. I’ll definitely be visiting my mom to listen to the golden harp she said she wanted when she got there. If she plays it anything like she did the piano, there’s a constant crowd around her.

Time To Sleep

All God’s creatures, great and small,
Are in their roosts and in their stalls.
They do not bark, nor chirp nor peep,
Their heads are bowed, they’re fast asleep.
Secured within their nests they be,
And like these creatures, so should we.
For soon the morning sun will shine,
Then tails will wag, and legs unwind.
Now off they’ll go, each to their place,
And all day long, they’ll share God’s Grace!

The View from God’s Eyes

This universe is but a crystal sphere in His hand

Imagine you are in the realm of the Creator right now. Wait… Let’s go all the way with it and take the ultimate leap. Imagine for a moment, you are the Creator… right now… in that place… whatever or wherever that place is. You are neither a man or woman. You are an infinitely all knowing mind, in the form of a hovering, enormous, radiating and blinding white light that casts no shadow.

From your point of view, this entire universe is suspended in front of you… no bigger than a baseball. From this perspective you can’t even see our entire ‘Milky Way galaxy… let alone our tiny sun inside it with its even tinier eight orbiting planets. You are timeless and outside of time, because time is simply the physical movement of interacting light within that sphere in front of you. You’ve existed for as long as you can recall, which seems to be forever, and may very well be. The history of events on this minuscule satellite, and all of humanity’s actions, have already been zoomed in and scoured over by you from beginning to end, so many times, it is like an old dog-eared book. The entire span of earth’s life is infinitesimal, in comparison to the grand timeline’s panorama of creation.

From this vantage point… and with you being the creator of all things… this entire physical universe could just be one of many spheres that you have designed and made during your entire existence right now. All of them dangling about like fine crystals on gold strings, along a grand hallway, with more of them still on your drawing board. You made all of them because you love creating and you want the sentient souls of your living planets within them to seek you out and become your eternal children who will love you and become family where you are now. It’s what you do, so why would you ever consider ceasing from it and just placing your hands in your lap for the rest of forever? You wouldn’t. You move on to the next beautiful concept and creation that pleases you.

You are all knowledge. You are all math. You are everywhere at once… because everywhere was conceived by your infinite mind.

Now that just leaves two questions…

1. What are you going to do with all these empty universes once all the intelligent life within them is eventually with you, and you’re done with them? You know all these souls could start bunching up around you like a starship full of multiplying tribbles if you don’t stop. And—

2. What’s on your drawing board for the next project? It’ll be interesting to find out.

It Came From Outer Space

I am inclined to believe that what UFO encounterers are seeing is either the result of psychological issues or they’re very dark in origin. There is a pattern throughout man’s history, of entities (apt to be fallen angels) showing up as whatever the people of the time period envisioned in their collective minds, as well as strong sensory delusions without the need of deprivation, within their geographical location. Basically, these entities simply change the theme of their manifestations according to the era and geography that they themselves have been living through from the beginning. All the way back to being a serpent in a tree. It never stops.

Today we’re all high tech minded, Star Trek junkies looking up in the night skies for UFOs, so naturally they give us UFOs, and no doubt to the individual who left themselves wide open to it, they seem very real as well. It’s not so difficult to see. God’s word says that Lucifer is the ‘prince of the power of the air.’¹ Ages ago, they would show up as deities like Aztec Gods descending from the skies. The Nazca civilization which thrived from around 100 to 800BC, also seemed to have encountered these strange visitors from above. No doubt they would immediately perceive them to be mighty gods, and when they left, the Nazcas’ got busy carving out mile-long images on the ground, which could only be seen from an aerial view, urging the visitors to return to them. I seriously doubt that they were aliens from other star systems, simply because as I explain in the next paragraph, you can’t get here from there… and vice versa.

An excellent book to read is Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, by Hugh Ross.

You’ll soon discover, as the best astrophysicists and astronomers will tell you, that it would be impossible for even the most advanced alien civilization to get anywhere, no matter how fast they can travel. That, and if there were any real spaceships out there, they would have seen them from the constant observations by now… and they haven’t. It’s just too vast in space between suns with the rare exception of binary systems. Even at the speed of light or 186,000 miles per second., you couldn’t reach our nearest sister sun Alpha Centauri in less than 10 generations. Let alone across our galaxy in an endless sea of galaxies.

If you ask, what about the possibility of inter-dimensional travel, or slipping in and out of a portal from another realm, you’re probably getting a whole lot warmer. Fallen angels again, slipping in and out because they know how to cross from the first realm of Heaven to this created physical realm. The book of Job clearly shows Lucifer traversing this portal to chat with God². He goes there to accuse the believers every chance he gets. Do you think he can’t make you see massive metallic objects that appear in the air, which he’s been made the prince of? This is called ‘Strong Delusion,’ and it’s not a problem for Lucifer or any of the angels.

He’ll manifest what your mind wants to see, and he’s gotten real good at it from thousands of years of practice. If the ancients wanted to see flying carpets, that’s what they got. And afterwards, they wrote some wonderful stories about flying carpets that you can find at your library or on Amazon Kindle. Opening up yourself to the unseen side of this world is bit analogous to what my Dad used to say to me… “If you look for trouble long enough, you’ll usually find some.” So if you want to see those UFOs hard enough… Any old demon happening along may just grant your wish, and they wont need Lucifer’s approval first. If that happens, you should seriously consider getting right with God… right now, because demons have now personally introduced themselves to you. And that’s not a good thing.

So your next question is, “What about the UFO sighters who aren’t looking for any trouble?” Well, the one’s not looking for trouble are much fewer first of all, and the few who do see them are likely to be chosen exactly because they have intelligence and a reputation of credibility, which would then lend credence to others, and help accomplish the demons end goal of taking minds away from God and His word. You may have noticed as I have from videos I’ve seen on television, that those individuals quit seeing them shortly after that first incident gains notoriety. The demons’ mission has been accomplished. Now on to the next project.

It can take billions of years, depending on the distance of a star, for some star’s lights to reach us, and a lot of them probably burned out millions of years ago. However, you don’t even know it because the light’s still traveling here. There just isn’t any real way to pull interplanetary travel off. One pebble-sized meteor would rip a ship in half… and the distances out there are much more staggering than the human mind can fathom.

Sure, God can have life elsewhere, but there simply isn’t any way that the laws of physics of the universe would ever allow any that life to reach us, or us to them. So once again, it’s right back to being ‘God’s business.’ Aliens would be stuck in their own backyard just like we are. Actually, because God likes to create, there’s an increased possibility that there are indeed life-giving planets, but they would likely be without the sentience that man has, with no need for redemption. For example, a water world of dolphin-like creatures or the like. This would simply be miraculous creations that God did for His own pleasure, but the Bible is clear, there was only one redemption. That leaves humans as the only beings in the physical realm, capable of being aware of both their own existence and the universe with the potential for it, through the creative hand of God. Any planet with other types of life would be severely bound to it.

If we wish to use Biblical reference, then we’re in all probability, the most unique species in the universe. If such is the case, then life elsewhere would simply be God creating lesser life because of His own propensity for creating, and you’ll probably only know more about it, all bye and bye.

Footnotes

1. And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience… Ephesians 2:2

2. Job: 2:1-2 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

Well it’s About Time

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The calendar is a man-made device for reckoning time.

Through the centuries, calendars have been altered more closely to represent the seasons of the year, the phases of the moon, and the solar year. These changes must be recognized and understood in order to accurately date past events in relation to our own time and calendar.

It should be obvious, that a date (such as ‘stamped’ on a document) must be interpreted in light of the time period, the religious affiliation, and the country where it was created, before it can be compared to our modern reckoning of time and the Gregorian calendar we use today. linespacer

What is Time?

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Ecclesiastes 3 (NIV)

There is a time for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Sorry I couldn’t add anymore, but I’m all out of time. That, and it’s was way past my bed time.

God Whistles While He Works

God Whistles While He Works
maybe… probably… more than likely…

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First, let me begin this purely imagined theory by pointing out that the Bible clearly reveals that God especially enjoys music, and this is fundamental to the crux of my missive here. In fact, theoretically, even melancholy music from one of His children with a worried mind would hold interest for God, as the woeful sounds of the voice and instruments give amplification to one’s suffering in a melodic form. By singing from the heart, he or she is voicing that they’re in a troubling situation, perhaps beyond their ability to conquer alone.

While many songs are certainly joyful and pleasing to God, it’s also likely that the songs of despair touch Him as well and are apt to move Him to compassion. They tell Him that the situation is desperate enough to put to music and sing with fervor as intensely as any prayer. Indeed, music can occasionally be prayer.

Any type of music sent up sincerely and purposely to God must surely be heard, for this is the most expressive type of language we have. Often referred to as ‘The Universal Language, it was, like everything else, conceived by God, and being the author of such an expressive form of communication is what lead me to a theory regarding what may well be a personal attribute of God that can be shared with us.

I am reasonably certain at this point in my life, that God surely does not create solely in a state of never-ending silence. We know He has a voice because we hear Him speaking throughout the Old Testament, and often with a lot of authority. Here then, I present to you, the thoughts from my own speculative mind about a divine Creator who may sometimes gets a little melodic while He’s working.

I started out one morning, thinking about God’s creative propensities, His surroundings, and what He might have been doing, even before He had created the angels. I’m not sure why my mind went off on that tangent just then, but I do know it happens all the time with me, because I’ve never lost my childhood inquisitiveness that most adults do, nor have I any intention of losing it. By the way… just so you know… you’re more apt to be called a dreamer if they notice you voicing that inquisitiveness too often, rather than a visionary.

Anyway, there I was, sitting out on the porch at sunrise, gazing out across the treetops while rocking back and forth. My fingers were tapping out a rhythm on the arm of the rocker, and I began diving deep in thought. “Hmm… just what might God have actually been doing some of the time before he created the angels?” I knew He was called the Alpha and always was, but angels didn’t always exist because they were first conceived in His mind. So surely there had to have been an unknown interval before angels when God was doing other things.”

Right about then, my brain took a hard left and I said to myself, “Hold on a second, what He was doing isn’t quite what my mind is seeking here.” A list of the things He might have done or is doing is all a very intriguing subject, but really, isn’t it pretty much a given that He was forever doing an endless number of things involving things like conception, creation, or interaction with His Triune Self, but since there are no written records of what those things might have been, it’s a bit of a moot point to me. What I really want to know is some aspect of just how a perfect mind might focus and go about the task at hand. Rather like discovering what a person’s common propensities are by watching their daily routine several times from morning ’til night, and that just might be something that can very well be gleaned from the Old Testament.

Granted, my rocking chair musing was little more than a Holmesian deduction based on insufficient Biblical knowledge and a lot of the usual conjecturing, rendering it far out in left field to a lot of folks, but that’s how I relax, entertain myself, and distance my mind from depressing things… like living in this one room at the moment. Other people mow their lawns to do that, but not me. I have to be comfortably loafing. Besides, I don’t have a lawn, and to my way of thinking, pondering is no less constructive than making up jokes and one-liners for a book to be published. Well, except for the royalties the book can return if anybody buys the thing.

So I began thinking all over from scratch again, but this time with the specific angle of envisioning God out in the field, commencing His next seven-day creation project. How is He carrying Himself about? Is He moving about in that same cloud that hovered over the tabernacle tent for forty years in the wilderness? How does He start His morning, as it were? Does He tend to recline, stand, or both when He works, or does He continuously hover about?

Then a really intriguing thought suddenly entered my mind. Does God talk to Himself or make some kind of vocalization when He has an epiphany or asks Himself whether there’s a better way of doing the thing He’s creating? That was it! That’s the question! Does He talk, shout, laugh, and even sing? If so, then I’ve finally stumbled onto a unique aspect of God I can relate to on a human level.

I talk things out and sing to myself all the time when I’m alone. So if I’m made in God’s image, why wouldn’t He talk and sing to Himself as well? I find that talking to another me, gets the kinks out of the project quicker and with greater clarity. Talking to one’s self is a useful thing. Of course, having a mental condition that causes strange verbalizing is not. Still, people who make fun of you for talking to yourself need to learn the difference and try it themselves.

Now the obvious began entering my mind, and the rest of the lights came on. “Hold the phone. God made the decision to populate heaven with angels for some intelligent company and to be recognized as being their Creator.” He thought out their makeup and endowed them with the specific talents and skills of His choosing. And what do we know from the Bible, to be one of the most exceptional talents that angels possess, that would have made Him want to create them precisely the way He did? They sing! They started singing from the time they were created, and they haven’t stopped since. Their singing is said to be the most beautiful sound in existence. It’s the Heavenly Choir.

Within an hour after stepping out onto the porch that morning, my rocking chair crossed the finish line. The Creator of music must surely be making melodic sounds, either in thought or vocalized with that very same voice that spoke to Moses on the mountain. And if God is singing, then it follows that like us, when we’re busiest, we often drop back from singing the lyrics to much less distracting humming or whistling.

And there it was. A uniquely physical attribute that God undoubtedly has, that I as a music lover, could relate to and have a constant encouraging affinity with right here on this temporal plane. Whether it’s a fact or not can’t be proven while I’m still breathing the air of course, but it falls into the realm of logical probability, and I can take that rocking chair deduction and hold on to it as a comforting thought for myself for the rest of my days. Like watching a memorable sunset by the ocean. Admittedly there is no practical use for speculative thinking as this. Still, imagination has always been useful to me as it gives me nearly as much pleasure in this life as music and puppies.

Sometimes I remind myself that God loves music enough to hum or whistle, by telling folks, “Hey, I know something about God I bet you don’t.” When they ask, “Oh yeh, what would that be?” I reply, “He whistles while He works.” Then I get that look like I’m one brick short of a load and laughed at, but that’s alright because I’m pretty sure God laughs at us as well…

The Smallest Thing There Is

or The World of the Very Small

Did you ever ask yourself as a child, “What’s the smallest thing there is?” or, “How small do things get in our world?” or, “What’s the opposite of the universe?”

Well, it’s only a theory right now, as there’s currently no technological way of observing; but many quantum physicists think that at the very bottom of the physics ladder, is nothing more than vibrating bits of oscillating waves, that for now, can only be described as ‘strings’. They conjecture two types… open and closed strings.

We’re traveling down through the world of the very small. Smaller than the atom, smaller than protons and neutrons, still smaller than neutrinos and quarks, continuing downward until we finally reach the point where “No Man Has Gone Before.”

It can be daunting to try explaining string theory to most of us, but I did some research and found a less technical article on the subject, and have included it below.

The guitar string analogy is very helpful. I would say that most people have observed how a plucked guitar string appears to look like several strings as it’s vibrating.

This layman’s explanation of string theory is both enlightening and simpler to understand. Still, you may have to read it a couple of times or at least focus on the parts that make the most sense, but it will serve as a beginner’s guide. Afterward, you’ll be able to discuss and learn more about “The world of the very small.”

Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.

In a similar manner, in string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the “musical notes” or excitation modes of elementary strings.

In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in space-time; they aren’t tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/(2 p a’), where a’ is pronounced “alpha prime” and is equal to the square of the string length scale.

If string theory is to be a theory of quantum gravity, then the average size of a string should be somewhere near the length scale of quantum gravity, called the Planck length, which is about 10-33 centimeters, or about a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. Unfortunately, this means that strings are way too small to see by current or expected particle physics technology (or financing!!) and so string theorists must devise more clever methods to test the theory than just looking for little strings in particle experiments.

String theories are classified according to whether or not the strings are required to be closed loops, and whether or not the particle spectrum includes fermions. In order to include fermions in string theory, there must be a special kind of symmetry called supersymmetry, which means for every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding fermion (particle that makes up matter). So supersymmetry relates the particles that transmit forces to the particles that make up matter.

Supersymmetric partners to currently known particles have not been observed in particle experiments, but theorists believe this is because supersymmetric particles are too massive to be detected at current accelerators. Particle accelerators could be on the verge of finding evidence for high energy supersymmetry in the next decade. Evidence for supersymmetry at high energy would be compelling evidence that string theory was a good mathematical model for Nature at the smallest distance scales.

Hello Martha’s Vineyard

Greetings everyone! And for those of you who still may not recognize me… Yes, I am Mark Zuckerberg, and I’ll be your intellectual speaker this evening. First of all, I can’t tell you all what a thrill it is for me tonight, to be with all of you hard-working, down to earth, common folks… here at Martha’s Vineyard. Can we get that microphone turned up a little more please? Thank you guys. Well, I see we have the U.S. Representative for the great state of Massachusetts, Joe Kennedy and his family with us here tonight. Glad you could make it Joe! How are those kids? Alright! Can you people in the back hear me okay now? Yeh? That’s great! Wonderful… wonderful…

Well, I’m delighted to have this opportunity to address you all this evening, on the topic of peace and tolerance in this new age of ours, through digitally enhanced, thoughtful, and continuous concessionism, and how that facilitates the greatest coming together of civilized man in history, beginning right out there on Facebook… which I created. Thank you… thank you. No. Please… Hold the applause. Really… you’re much too kind.

The news for the present is far from what our generation would hope for, my faithful followers. I have hosted several conferences at my corporate headquarters this past year with the greatest philosophers and men and women in the mental and neurological disciplines of our time, and it has unfortunately been concluded that there is currently zero percent chance of achieving continual ‘peace and tolerance’ as defined by Webster, anytime, anywhere, within the confines of existing societal structures. An indication in my book that something’s gotta give.

Whether it’s peace in the real-world or the LCDs in the face, virtual world of social networking that I’ve hooked you all on, your brain’s easily pissed-off limbic system will continue to stay one step ahead of a practical lobotomy for now, and there simply isn’t enough Thorazine on the planet to knock the meanness out of every human being. In other words, I didn’t bring a magic peace potion in my pocket to send you home with tonight, so don’t post any threatening tweets to me tomorrow or I’ll ban your tukas from Facebook… unless you point a gun at me of course… in which case I’ll run like the Flash downstairs to the corporate bunker!

As for Facebook tolerance, the aforementioned experts also tell me that most of you are so buzzed on caffeine, pills, or lack of sleep from morning ’til night, that you’ve got one eye permanently trained on the ‘Unfriend’ button, with your trigger finger on the mouse, itching to click the sucker or type “WTF?!” as soon as the next opposing comment shows up. So I began asking myself, “Mark, how is the whole, ‘Why can’t we all just get along’ thing ever going to work with already perpetual offense-defense wired brains that are now on steroids?”

Folks, raise your hands out there in the audience if you truly believe you can make it through an entire year on Facebook, without either inadvertently offending or taking issue with someone by giving voice to your now ‘has to be wrong’ belief systems and refusing to surrender unconditionally to that wonderful blameless soul’s last 20 agitating comments, and so prevent the loss of yet another ‘never met before’ friend being tossed out with yesterday’s trash. I see three hands way in the back there. Well, I’m sorry to inform you three, but the timeline of human behavioral patterns says you won’t be able to do it for 365 days in a row because both you and your friend’s emotions are lurking behind the brain’s ancient amygdala, waiting to jump out and see how fast they can open or shut the door in your faces; and it only gets exacerbated in the virtual world as one habitually perceives the other as never quite up to their level of knowing and in need of being shown the real facts of the matter. Shame on you barbaric cave dwellers! Catch up with the times why don’t ya.

Now here’s an original Zuckerberg idea I came up with last month that we can all get our minds around. Tomorrow you all deposit twenty-five dollars in one of my banks, and whoever comes out walking on water after twelve months of total non-confrontation, including typing words that can be taken more than one way, to a ‘not as close as you thought’ friend, takes it all? Naturally, I’ll put a clause in the rules that states if no one wins, I get to keep the money and use it to buy up all the available stock in Apple… just because I can. I’ll come back to this idea later.

Barring catastrophe, no typical American grade school kid has learned any more as a child than I did about the brain’s terrifying emotional capacity. We lived right across the street from the school when I was growing up and I first began learning about peace and tolerance at the early age of seven. There was a bully named Jimmy Decker in second grade that would corner me at recess. Every day he would knock me down, take the lunch money out of my pants pocket, and then spit in my face. My mom told me to tell him, “Give peace a chance.” I came home the next day with a broken tooth and a busted lip, and she asked me what happened. I said, “I told Jimmy to, give peace a chance”, and he said, “Give me a chance at a piece of your sister and I’ll only take your lunch money on Tuesdays.” “Then he punched me in the mouth and took my lunch money.”

That was the year of my greatest epiphany. My mom always got weekends off from work, so early one Saturday morning I took mom’s credit card from her purse before she woke up, hopped the bus over to Radio Shack and bought a pair of walkie talkies and hid them under my bed when I got back. I slipped the credit card back in mom’s purse while she was over at the new neighbors playing bridge, and hurried upstairs to my room to work out the details of my master plan.

The following Friday, mom came screeching into the driveway from work in the middle of the day after getting a call from principal Powell, wanting to know if the reason I had been absent from school all week was because I had the same flu that was sending all the other kids home sick. She burst into my room screaming, “Why have you been skipping school all week young man?!” Confidently I said, “I no longer require the physical accouterments of continuing education mother. I duck taped a voice-activated walkie talkie with a five-year battery under the teacher’s desk, and now I can do my lessons without ever leaving the house, so the solution to the Jimmy Decker enigma and your ever-growing fiscal loss of lunch money has been handily resolved at the same time.” Pretty clever huh.

I had to ride with her in the back seat to return the walkie talkies and was grounded for the entire summer for lifting mom’s credit card, but the potential of my concept of learning things remotely stuck with me like glue on flypaper from then on. Oh, I’m sorry folks. I digressed there didn’t I… It’s a Zuckerberg thing. Where was I?

Human aspirations of living in a perpetually harmonious society have remained globally elusive because even though we know what that word ‘peace’ implies, our unharnessed, emotion-driven brains will never be capable of pulling it off, twenty-four-seven… even if we all lived to be five-hundred years old! And greed is one of the biggest culprits right up there at the top of the human frailties ladder, requiring no teaching whatsoever. It just sprouts right out of the brain as a toddler. By the way, “I ate my ice cream, and now I want yours… plus that yellow Tonka truck you’re loading playsand into with mom’s tablespoon and making all those engine noises with your mouth. I can do that better than you can. That’s not even how an engine sounds. It goes, “brrrrrr…brumm brumm, chhhtt.”

The only snowstorm chance in Hades for any semblance of tolerance on this earth while clinging to our grandparents’ ridiculous ancient values, would be to continuously concede with no drugs or alcohol while maintaining that silly, “We the People” nonsense at the same time… on every topic, everywhere, continuously, which would be ungoverned chaos with unrelenting brain fire. Anyway, that’s how it was explained to me by the experts, so I’m reasonably certain about that…

Okay everyone… This is the part of the evening I’ve been waiting for. It’s time to unveil the grand ‘Mark Zuckerberg Solution’! I present for your approval this evening, my ultimate plan that will finally achieve peace and contentment in our technologically advanced time. It’s really not that difficult to grasp, but you may want to take notes so you can ask the AIs in the back questions later.

We begin this massive planet-wide undertaking by implementing some long-overdue changes. The complete agenda is much too lengthy to be addressed here tonight but here are a few of the ones that are at or near the top of the list so you can get the general scope of it. Included in the plans early stages are the following items. A merging of all independent nations the size of Israel and smaller to streamline geographical governing areas, establishing a new global hybrid form of socialism to ensure equality (hooray!), euthanizing cranky old people, required annual mood-altering vaccinations, and hopefully down the road, mandatory ‘genetic amygdala alteration’ or ‘GAA’ during infancy to eventually replace the vaccinations; and when we finally achieve the new calmer, non-argumentative peaceful order of homo sapiens that has eluded us since the dawn… well then, peace will finally reign on Earth, Family Feud and Marriage Bootcamp will be the number one rated TV shows… and my Facebook will be smooth sailing for everyone, all the time! There just won’t be any more of that nasty, ridiculous old divisive stuff hindering us and causing harmful stress and anxiety… not to mention the constant damage to the body’s antioxidants and such.

Well, that concludes my presentation. I love you all so much, and thanks for leaving your yachts for a while and coming out this evening! Don’t forget to pick up one of our beautiful newly designed Facebook tee-shirts at the tables in the lobby on your way out. We’ve got plenty of the new spill-proof 5X size for all you sedentary Facebook and Coke junkies, and they’re a real steal at only seventy-five dollars each. You can also buy them online anytime, and the shipping is free… when you order a minimum of four shirts. Also, we’ve set up 100 AI terminals in the back to answer all your questions. Just place your hand on the recognition pad to your right and state the last four digits of your social security number when prompted. Easy as pie!

Goodnight Everyone,
Mark Zuckerberg

Vicissitudes from the Hollow

thurmondwestvirginia200X

Eleven years lived in eastern Kentucky.
Eleven long years where the sun flickers light.
Encompassed by mountains, that reach to the heavens.
Gazing up, thru a portal of stars in the night.

Where trash bags and milk jugs float down the Tug River,
and the coal smoke from chimneys add soot to the rain.
There’s no warmth in the hollows, no hope for the miner,
and the floods and the forest fires make known their claim.

Man’s not meant to live there, corn grows on the hillside,
and they gather the ears to the bins by the stills.
Then they turn it to whiskey, and give it to family,
who drink to forget all their troubles and ills.

I am blessed to have lived there, and I’ve learned a great lesson.
Never walk thru this life, with a longing for gold.
Be grateful for sunshine, be grateful for breakfast.
And remember the place, whence this story is told.