The Squamidian Report – April 26 / 14
Issue #622
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
As far back as I can remember, in fact, including as far back into my
childhood as I can remember for that matter, I've been pondering 3
questions. Questions that are actually quite inter-related. On the
surface they might sound kind of silly but the deeper you think about
them, the deeper they get. They are: 1) why am I 'me', 2) why am I
'here', and 3) why is it always 'now'? So, I'll address each one, not
with the answers, because I don't know the answers, but with the
meaning of each question.
1) Why am I 'me'? Think about it, billions of people currently live on
this planet and I am me. Why am I not someone else? What makes me,
well, me? Why is this particular awareness me and not you, or whoever
or for that matter whatever. Why am I not a bug or a blade of grass or
a dog or someone living in China or Iceland? There are billions
of people here and yet as far as I know, each one is their own 'me'.
There can be friendships and relationships yet each individual is still
an individual, separate. I am me but why am I this particular 'me'?
2) Why am I 'here'? That isn't asking “why do I exist”, although that
makes for an interesting conversation as well. It is asking “why am I
at this particular location”. Perhaps I could have been anywhere, or
perhaps not, but I am at this point in time right 'here'. I'm not on
the other side of the room or the other side of the earth or the other
side of the universe. I am 'here', right where I am. Its irrelevant
whether or not I want to be here, that seems to be beyond our control
because no matter where you think you are choosing to be or for that
matter forced to be if its not your choice, you always end up where you
are, 'here'. 'Here' seems to means the location of this particular
intersection of time and space. The 'where' that 'here' is, is almost
unimportant. Don't get me wrong, this particular 'me' is quite happy
with the current 'where' of its identifiable 'here'.
3) Why is it always 'now'? Thats a big one. From our prospective we are
riding the leading edge of the fabric of time as it moves 'forward' in
conjunction with the existence of the universe. Or at least we think we
are. But why is it 'now' and not a hundred or a thousand or a billion
years ago, or tomorrow or a hundred years from tomorrow and so on? Why
is the past behind us and the future ahead of us and yet while the past
used to exist as the present, there is really no way of proving that it
still exists or ever existed. Where is the past now? To answer with
“the past is in the past” is an illogical loop. The past perhaps no
longer exists and possibly never did. And the future does not currently
exist and in some ways can never because as soon as we get there, its
not the future, its the 'now'. Could not the 'now' be the past, present
and future all at the same time? I certainly don't know. But what
actual law says that the current 'now' is on that leading edge of time
and not buried somewhere within time?
A possible answer for 'why is it now' is that it is always now, has
always been now and will always be now because there is no time, no
past, no future. Everything that ever happened is happening now, and
everything that will ever happen is happening right now, and by that I
mean a 'now' that would not have a time frame. It couldn't. If 'now'
was big enough to be measured, time would exist and we'd be back to a
past, present and future. For everything we think of as past, present
and future to happen 'now' it would have to be without time. But
whether or not thats a possibility, who knows, it just gets more weird
the more you think about it and those possibilities are certainly more
than I'm capable of exploring, at least for now.
So you see, these questions define a very interesting scenario for any
individual 'me'. Why am I me, right here and right now. Couldn't I have
been someone in the dark ages somewhere in Europe or something on some
other planet in some far away corner of the galaxy in a future that
happened long ago? Time, if it exists, would certainly not be a
constant, its tied to gravity and to the speed of light. Distance is
relative to time. If time doesn’t exist, neither would distance. The
universe might be just a strange thought in something's imagination. So
the thing that is 'me' sits 'here' right 'now' typing this letter. Once
I was a very young kid bewildered with the old people around me. Now I
am an old person bewildered by the young people around me. Why is it
now, and not then. Why, back 'then', was it 'that' time frame's current
'now' and not some other time? Why is one minute into what we perceive
as the future a mystery that must play out but one minute into the
perceived past apparently has happened but is now a memory that will
fade as 'time' makes our invented minutes expand in a perceived forward
direction.
Don't worry, to the best of my knowledge I'm not nuts, I just tend to
think strange thoughts and ask weird questions that I have no answer
to. And like I said, these three questions are so inter-twined that
they might well be one question with three directions.
doug
****
THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
I just re-learned a valuable lesson once again. I sent out an e-mail to
all of you telling a tale about the ABC network banning their employees
from wearing any form of lapel pin or other article that shows support
for the patriotism of the USA. I took this to have been properly
verified by my original source sender and sent it out to many contacts
on my e-mail list that I figured would find it interesting. Then after
doing so, I decided to check it out on snopes.com, a reliable source I
usually go to before I forward such items. To my surprise, snopes
debunked the article with a very well described explanation of how the
ABC article originated in the first place. The friend that had sent it
to me told me that it had been verified by the person who sent it to
him and he believed it to be true. I should have known enough not to
trust that second hand verification and should have gone to snopes.com
before forwarding it to all of you! I also received an e-mail from Ewan
with the Snopes.com site in it asking me if I was sure of my source. I
of course immediately replied to him telling Ewan that I too had read
the Snopes.com explanation after forwarding the e-mail to all of you.
Please accept my apologies for sending out misinformation before
verifying it myself. I’ll do my best not to have that happen anytime in
the future!
From now on, snopes.com will be my best friend!
As you all know, Doug and I have been paying into a lottery group for
several years now and have won little but free tickets and very small
amounts of cash ($5.00 and less) and nothings changed lately! I’m just
writing to let you all know that we’re not giving up! Just when I start
thinking that it’s impossible to win any of these lotteries, someone
living in close proximity to KW wins a big amount. Just last week a
gentleman from St Agatha, just outside Waterloo, picked up a ticket at
the Shoppers Drug Mart on Highland Rd in Kitchener and when he checked
the ticket the day after the draw, he found he had won $1,000,000.00.
Not a bad return for a $3.00 investment! SO, I quickly headed down to
the lucky store and bought us a ticket on the Lotto Max the next night.
Of course, it didn’t win but the point is, it feels like these big wins
keep getting closer and closer to our group location. If it’s not a
twenty million dollar winner in Hamilton, London, Cambridge or
Brantford like several times over the past year, it is very likely to
be someone (our group) right here in KW so once again I’ll say it,
“There’s no sense in dropping out of the race at this point!” I’ve
still got that winning feeling when it comes to our lotto investment
each week so, onward and upward with our fingers crossed for another
chance at the big cash jackpot! Wish us luck!
That’s it for this week!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg.
PS: Something To Think About>
I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words!
****
Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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