You Are Not Trivial

I used to think, you know, if I could help just one person. But tonight, I saw a flip side of this. What happens in the world if one person being their authentic self is precisely the thing needed by another person in crisis, and they won't make it through without your unique talents and abilities? Seen this way, depriving the world of your authentic presence could make the difference between another person getting along in life, or not. So I think to myself, if I don't share what I have to offer, what happens if it's not there when the next person in the world needs it? This may never happen, but if what I share is something required - however unlikely that may seem or feel to me - and I don't offer it, then I have allowed the chain to break simply by withholding who I am and what I do. It isn't about, "maybe" you can help someone. It's about what if you're the only person who CAN help someone and you aren't doing it? What if you're not there to do your part, for them? What if the authenticity inside you is the essential thing needed for someone else to survive? This kind of thing might be more common than we think. How many times has a life been saved because of a chance song or a happenstance smile on the street?

I have said that when I was in my twenties, I went out to San Francisco because I wanted to see the Castro district, some normal gay life. What I didn't say is that wlhen I saw those two men across the street simply holding hands and walking together, that gave me the hope, in the moment, that being gay could work out, and so I changed my mind about suicide and came back to Rochester. I had really gone out there because I couldn't accept that I was gay and I wanted to take myself out far from New York State so that my family wouldn't hear, and I wanted to see Castro before I did it. I was 20 years old, and I came back and finished my first college degree.

To this day, when I see two men or two women or two anything other than cis hetero couples holding hands, that simple act gives me courage and reminds me of that time in my life. A little thing, two people holding hands, but their simple authenticity has remained with me for the rest of my life. I think maybe courage is a good thing. But I think authenticity is eternal. That stays, and it ain't up to me, either. Just what I am coming to believe.

The Mystery of the Law

This one was probably the most fun I've had with a thought in a long time - occurred to me on the way home from an outdoor meeting tonight in park.

So what, exactly is the law?

I mean is it a fact? Is it a suggestion?

I think sometimes we go to the consequence of violating the law and claim that is its nature, but consider, if I drop a house on a person (as in the Wizard of Oz, for example) the fact that the house landing on the person (consequence) says pretty much nothing about who might have lived in the house, when their birthday was, if they ever served pot roast, what were the curtains before the ugly print ones?

So clearly it is not the consequence of the behavior of law that reveals its nature.

Now, scientific law is actually (usually) a verbal expression of a mathematical description of reality that describes what happens well enough to be useful in making prediction. But science ALWAYS responds to observation. Why? Because an observation outside a law's description is always either outside of its purview, or a counterexample of the mathematical description, or "proof" in a sense. Either way, reality either escapes the power of the description of such a law, or violates its foundations altogether.

So finally, what about eternal and immutable laws?

Well, if such a thing did exist then it would happen in every situation everywhere, to everyone, and under all circumstances. Thus, no one could violate it. Ever. Such a thing would violate the nature of what we supposed to begin with.

Now, in order not to get too lost in tail-chasing, it seems clear that law is not fact, else we could not be morally responsible for violating it. Also, it cannot be mere suggestion, because apparently, there is always a consequence.

I love this. Law is neither fact nor suggestion. Hmmm.

And yet it is.

Isn't this a lovely mystery?

Stay wonderful, folks.

Home

I'm loving vacation and getting away, and perhaps I am getting stuck in my ways, but already I miss my bed, my piano, and my bud, Ralph - although I'm not sure in which order. This being said, a cool thought for me is that the bed here is nice, I have a little stuffed dog willing to hang out and be cool, and there's a keyboard downstairs if I want, but this isn't home, and I'm saying that this whole thing is cool - missing what I miss - because it makes it clear that although this place is the home of dear friends, it isn't MY home. Last year, I didn't have that strong a sense of where my home was in order to miss it when I was away. So I like these feelings. They give me an appreciation for what I have and let me look forward to being back, because I love what I love. I can savor it.

It's nice to know that other places in the world are beautiful places to visit and experience, but at the end of the day, there really is no place like home. Sometimes I don't appreciate this as well as I do when I'm away from it.

Besides, I think Ralph sends little security updates to the stuffed dog here - don't know his name - and that one tells me, while I'm sleeping, that all is well back home. It's through the stuffed Jedi master animal telepathic link, which of course is far too advance for me, so I have to be told in REM state when I can give the messages my full attention. It's all very technical...