We Can't All Be Wrong (must be right, everybody does it) This chapter is an outline. I'm still working on it.
I know what I'm trying to write
but it's not yet said.
Finishing this has been
a goal of mine since 1984.
It never happened.
Never devoted the time.
Here it is anyway.
1) We Can't All Be Wrong
A Platinum Pin is a Thing to Behold Find yer pin... and keep it polished. The holder of a platinum pin has created beauty. In recent years we have taken extraordinary pictures of the universe. Extremely long exposures with very a special camera focused on a small dark distant point in the universe, has taken beautiful pictures. Ooops, beauty is a thing to behold and it's inexistable. So what are those pictures? Really, what are they? Those pictures are a possible key to persistent perspective. Huh? Pick a basket of berries on that statement and come back later to read the rest. Welcome back... Perspective is something most people constantly struggle and still fail to find. Those who find true perspective are often unable to maintain it, their perspective lacks persistence. Perhaps it can be held in place by a pin. Imagine... You're inside a hollow styrofoam ball. Your head is stationary in the center of the ball. You can turn in any direction but your head is always in the center. The inside is equal to your reach. You can touch any point on the interior surface. You're not being tortured. It's your choice to participate. You're doing it for a reason and you can choose to leave at any time. It's your hope that this activity will help you gain perspective and maintain it every minute for the rest of your life. You're excited because it will be life altering if it works. Your task inside the ball... is to cover the entire interior with pins. You start with pin one, placing it at a random location. It's your starting point. The next step is to place another pin next to it, matters not where just adjacent to pin one. The location of pin three is a bit more tricky, it must be directly in line with pins one and two, drawing a straight line. You continue sticking pins in the styrofoam drawing a straight line until you have pins around the interior connecting the line back at pin one. How many pins is this? Let's guess. The interior is about six feet in diameter times Pi, so let's say it's a line of pins 19 feet long. That's a lot of pins painstakingly stuck in a styrofoam ball in a straight line, yet you know you've just begun. The good thing is... that's the longest line of pins you'll have to stick and this line makes the rest easier because it decides the straightness of the rest. The bad thing is, there's a lot more lines of pin sticking to do. You begin on line two. You stick a pin next to a pin on line one. Repeat the process until you've got a second line parallel to line one, then line three, four, five, six, each line is a bit shorter like the the lines of latitude on the earth get shorter the closer you get to the north or south pole. How many lines and how many pins before you get to a point where the lines are only a handful of pins, and finally it takes only one pin to make a full line. Half the interior is covered. You're only half done. Turn around and start on the other half of the ball's interior. When it's done climb out of the ball and go home. Sleep a few days until you're well rested. Return to the pinball laboratory and ask 'What's the next step?'
The answer is 'Go out to the parking lot and get on the bus.'
On the bus you find about fifty people talking about pins. All you want is to never see another pin as long as you live. You swore to yourself that you're only using staples and paper clips from now on. After many hours the bus stops high in the mountains at midnight. The pin stickers get out and are directed to a field where a woman instructs them to lay down in the grass. Oh boy! No styrofoam and no pins anywhere in sight! It's a beautiful night. Oops, beauty is inexistable. Well at least there's no styrofoam and no pins.
You're told by a voice in the darkness 'Stare at the moon and the stars, don't go to sleep, only consider what you're seeing, contemplate the universe.'
Another pin sticker speaks 'Hope there's no haystacks here, I'm not searching for needles.'
The first voice 'Quiet, no talking, only contemplating.'
Staring at the moon and the stars you realize... you've never really done this before. Perhaps for a few minutes but now it's been hours. The moon has moved from high in the sky to low on the horizon. You're a long way from the nearest city lights. You can't remember ever seeing the sky so clear, no clouds, no light pollution dimming the night sky, no distractions, you notice as the moon moves lower in the sky the rest of the sky becomes brighter without the moon's light drowning out... more stars than you could ever count. You think thoughts you never thought before and all are related to the moon and the stars. You're far from home and your job, you don't even have to drive back to the city, there's nothing to worry about. In an instant you transform from extremely happy and relaxed, to a moment of absolute tranquility. For the previous instant there's not one thought, accidental or deliberate, polluting your mind. That instant is gone as suddenly as it came. Your mind explodes with dozens of simultaneous thoughts about the universe. Within those thoughts you find a comprehension you never knew possible. You never knew that some people live much of their lives in this state of mind. It's incredibly peaceful. It's reassuring. It's gone. A stray thought entered your mind, "Did I feed the dog before I left home?" You lost that moment of clarity, that moment of incredible tranquility. Still laying in the tall grass but now you have no care for the moon and the stars. All you want is the return of that fleeting moment of clarity. You still have a vague sense of it, the afterglow, the memory. A lone tear runs down your cheek and into your right ear but, no idea of how to get back to absolute tranquility and clarity of thought and the explosion of new concepts all centered on the meaning of life which you knew is contained in the moon and the stars. Time goes by, minutes or hours, you don't know.
That familiar voice in the dark tells you 'OK, everybody get up and stretch a bit. Hey Alanis, wake up that guy over there, I think his name is Pascal.' You and the rest of the pin stickers stretch and walk around a bit, conversations begin. Groups form with common interests all talking about the moon and the stars, discussing their similar impressions from contemplating the universe. Eventually the voice from the darkness asks for everyone to come close in a single group.
He begins speaking 'In recent years humanity has proven a few astounding facts of the universe. We've taken pictures which prove what science has suspected for a long time. The proof existed for decades but the pictures bring it to life in a way we can relate to in a far better way, with our own eyes instead of all the other ways this fact has been proven. I want each of you to imagine you're holding a pin with your thumb and finger. The head of the pin is sticking out beyond the tip of your thumb. Fully extend your arm and aim the head of the pin at that darkest part of the sky.' He points to a specific spot and continues 'The picture covers an area of the sky the size of your pinhead. No larger. It proves there are about five thousand galaxies hidden behind the head of each pin held at arms length. How many pins did you put in the styrofoam ball at arms length? Multiply that by five thousand. That's how many galaxies we have proven are visible from earth. Lay back down in the grass and resume contemplating the moon and the stars. Imagine you are in a distant location, not too far, maybe just a billion light years from earth. Imagine looking back at the Milky Way galaxy. You can't see it. If you were in our galaxy you couldn't see our star, the sun, unless you were relatively close. There is a limited area even within our solar system where you would be close enough to see the earth. Twenty thousand feet above your own house and you can't see it. Lay down and contemplate the moon and the stars from that distant perspective. The universe is far larger than what the camera was able to capture, it's far larger than five thousand galaxies multiplied by the number of pins inside a styrofoam ball.' You lay in the grass again but, now you imagine the moon and the stars from a great distance, knowing you are still very close to earth compared to the vastness of the universe. At the speed of light it will take a billion years for you to get home to feed the dog. Keep this perspective every minute for the rest of your life. Is a door ding in the paint on your old car something to be upset about? Seriously, from now on... maintain perspective. You may want to get the ding fixed but is it significant? Is the entire Milky Way galaxy of any real significance? The entire planet Earth? A pay raise? Spouse got you a birthday gift you didn't like? How many silly insignificant things need to be mentioned to make the point? For the rest of your life don't ever let your pin get rusty, maintain perspective... persistent perspective. Pin perspective in place. Make the perspective persistent. Lose the pin and you lose perspective. Intellect is all you have in life. It's the only thing that is real. A car with a ding in the door is an illusion, it's materialism, it has no value beyond getting you to work so you can buy food and shelter to continue expanding your mind. Five years without losing your pin and not letting it get rusty, you're entitled to a gold pin. A platinum pin in ten years if you almost never put down the gold pin. 2) We Can't All Be Wrong
Flat Earth You are wrong the instant you claim "everybody does it." What is the source of this? What is the purpose? What is the result? "Everybody does it." No they don't. Do we really need to say "DUH!" at this point? Every time someone claims "everybody does it" the claim is a blatant attempt at denying their own failure to comprehend something, and a demand that they will not try to comprehend. It's also a warning not to challenge their claims. "Everybody does it" is a demand that you shut your pie hole without allowing reality to intrude on their delusions. The world was known to be spherical by many millions of people for untold thousands of years in an unknown number of civilizations. The earth's circumference was known, calculated and documented with a great degree of accuracy a very long time before a person sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Why does our society persist in claiming the form of the earth to have been unknown before 1492? Why was I taught lies by the public school system? Why did I have to find truth on my own in fifth grade? Why was I chastised for writing a factual report on the subject? Why would a president of the United States demand that blind patriotism is required in our society? Blind patriotism is one of the most un-American concepts imaginable. It is the main tool of abusive dictators. It is the tactic of divide and conquer by building a non thinking emotionally charged army of supporters, blindly following on the premise "we can't all be wrong, everybody does it." 3) We Can't All Be Wrong Lemmings Into the Sea (by the way, lemmings never ran into the sea.
That was a hoax perpetrated by Disney.
A blatant lie in a documentary
and they got caught
yet people believe!
Lemmings?)
A lie but worth a try. When you go fishing do you use a lure? Don't fish? Ask someone who does. What is the lure used to entice people into giving up everything? Why does a person give up the only thing they have, the content of their mind, in favor of a lie? 4) We Can't All Be Wrong Rats in a Cage
Rats in a cage - Humans don't have to rely upon mysticism when they don't know the answer to a question. Doing that is a choice. It's the choice to deny reality. It's the choice to lie to yourself.
