Never been one to let the carrier drop

So, tonight, for the first time that I’m aware of, I meditated. As in, actually spinlocked my mind so it was silent for several minutes. It was a really cool experience, and I look forward to doing it again.. the silence represented a kind of mental freedom that I haven’t really had. It’s not exactly like my mind stopped, just the part of my mind that uses language. I shall keep practicing, and perhaps I will get better at it.

I also just ordered new wheels for my skates, because the old ones were looking a little ratty, and new bearings, because the old ones were somewhere between scored and hopeless. I didn’t go for the $200 ceramic ones, because let’s face it, i’m not that good, but I did go for OPEC-9s – which, considering that my old ones were -2s, should make for a extremely interesting rolling experience. I’ll let you all know if I survive it. Originally I had the skate shop score these bearings to slow them down, because I couldn’t handle them – but now I’m a lot more comfortable on them, and I think it should be a lot of fun to have some faster skates.

I also bought a pair of blades at a thrift store the other day with the intention of refurbishing them and turning them into outdoor skates, so I don’t have to trash the bearings on my indoor skates with water, sand, etc..

So, I keep talking about backing up parts of the internet to space – at one point, I just wanted to get a big fusion-fired laser, and blast the contents of Google’s cache towards the nearest star. But, at this point, I’m thinking we should be thinking about putting a spacecraft in a orbit such that it will still be up there tens of thousands of years from now, and backing up the wikipedia to it.

The tricky part is figuring out how to build a spacecraft that will still *work* after tens of thousands of years.. but the clock of the long now people probably have some good ideas on the subject. Anyway, it’s a interesting problem.

So, I’ve been watching skating movies (as well as youtube videos on playing derby, etc) – so far we’ve got Roll Bounce, Whip It, The cutting edge, Blades of glory.. wondering what I’m missing. I’m sure there’s some classic older movies that show some fancy footwork.. comment if you know of any good ones.

I continue to fight my fear of lifting my feet while skating backwards.. leaving the ground no longer bothers me, and reversing no longer bothers me. I also wish I was good enough to practice outside.. but at the moment, becoming one with the ground is something I’m entirely too good at.

I also need to measure my wheels, because I need new wheels and I’m thinking I might as well get new bearings at the same time. My front wheels look like they’re wanting to skate on a banked track, with me skating level. As I practice going up on just my front wheels for tricks, I’m thinking I’m going to want more wheel surface to go up on.

Well, my music recording computer finally died. It’s a old G4 powerbook that’s been going steadily downhill for several years.

I have a replacement for it, but it’s intel and I don’t have any of the software I need for it yet. However, tonight I’m going to stop by Guitar Center and buy a copy of Digital Performer.

So, as many of you know, I’ve been spending increasing amounts of time at the fountain valley skating center – in fact, I’ve gotten a monthly pass to the place. You have to plan to hit more than two sessions a week for the monthly pass to make sense.. the really insane thing is, now that I have it, I basically spend every night there that they’re open. 😉

Some of the skaters there are downright amazing – and for some reason – probably because they chase me – I feel the need to chase them. This has been leading to me very quickly developing my skating skills.. I can now do things that I could only have dreamed of in my Skate City days.

Part of my rapid growth is that I’m over my fear of falling. I *expect* to fall occasionally. I’m just hoping that it doesn’t happen while I’m chasing a roller derby queen at speeds that might make a cop raise his eyebrows on a residential street…  (You think I’m kidding. Actually, I have no idea how fast we’re going. But we lap the rink several times a minute.. faster than they ever would have let us go at Skate City USA, by a factor of three or more)

No one screams worship goats.. (I don’t really miss it) and no one plays tag (now *that* I do miss). People do go for full-contact skating.. I’m getting used to having people slam into my back – actually it feels kind of good – but no one has picked me up yet. Yes, they pick each other up. While on skates. Without, thus far, doing face plants. These people are either crazy, insanely good, or both.

I did some facebook research, and I came up with a conclusion. In general, people who roller skate or blade, love it. Everywhere around the U.S. there are Facebook pages devoted to various rinks, and people generally seem to be having a good time everywhere. It doesn’t seem to be limited to any age group – the FVSC adult night has guys who must be in their seventies – the only requirement seems to be a willingness to roll to the beat. 😉 So, I’m not, at all, alone. And, come on, can’t you all hear it.. ‘We’re going to turn this into a all skate, slowly and carefully in the regular skating direction’. Yah. Slowly and carefully. I’ll keep that in mind while I’m getting up to the average cruising speed of the FVSC adult night. I guess ‘slowly’ is relative. But we’re very careful – honest, officer..

I’m kind of determined to go further, to be able to freestyle. I can already do a lot of basic freestyle moves, but I want to be able to do the insane, roll-bounce-esque ones. So, I’m going to try to get back on a morning schedule, because the rink has morning sessions that are much, much emptier.. a good place to try things that are likely to involve a lot of falling down. 😉

Anyway, I need to go put my MP3 player on the charger so it will be ready for the 10 AM session. And I already know it will feel sooo good. Yes, my legs hurt. Every day. Reminds me of when I was learning how to bowl. But.. although I do enjoy bowling, I don’t think it ever got me anywhere near this high. I’m.. happy. A lot of the time. I don’t get so many hours in at work, but .. skating costs $55 a month for a pass. That’s it.

I feel like I’m too judgemental.. about political subjects, about religion, about a whole host of things that seem almost like they’re set up to absorb infinite amounts of emotional energy without any real progress being made.

I don’t really think that I’m wrong about these things, exactly, but I also don’t really think that it matters that much if I’m right or wrong. I’m kind of tired of the concepts of right and wrong – and good and evil – any way – they seem like they’re oversimplifying everything by trying to squish rainbows down into single bit binary values.

I want to be better. I get the sense that I’m sick – that perhaps it’s a sickness that much of my kind shares, in fact –  and I want to be well.

One of my counterarguments to the athiests [not that I deny your right and indeed responsibility to believe whatever you think is right, but just that I like to play with ideas] is that it seems really insane to think that we’re the largest and most powerful organized systems out there. It seems like we’d already be dead from nuclear war or something if this were true.

But, perhaps I just suffer from a want for there to be something beyond me, because the idea that a bunch of people like me are running the universe is a little scary.

So, this is sort of a continuation of yesterday’s post. The question I’m going to address in this post is probably one of the oldest ones in religion.

If I have internally a sense of what I feel to be right and wrong with respect to God – and it disagrees with what the world’s majority religion says is right or wrong – should I think

a: I’m wrong

b: They’re wrong

c: Something is jamming my communications, hence I can’t hear them and/or they can’t hear me

d: Absolute right and wrong have no place in religious discussion [unless one wants a holy war or three], there is only relative right and wrong for each individual

Now, if you believe the Christians, this actually matters. It’s apparently not enough to just set the ‘I accepted Jesus’ flag high once and ignore it.. there are apparently some other things you have to do in order to qualify for not being tormented forever, although they’re a little unspecific as to what. But.. it seems *extremely* counterintuitive that the Christians could be right. Let me explain.

If I was created – as opposed to evolved, or always existing, or any of the other amusing possibilities for how I got to be here in this place and time – my creator presumably designed me to be, more or less, what I am. Which means that if I have a sense of instinct that says a religion is wrong, it probably is – that’s probably built in, as a sort of informational immune system, to keep me away from the occasional person who might otherwise use religion to control or abuse me.

The alternative is to think.. if you’re taking the Christian view of things.. that my creator created me with a set of beliefs and instincts that would lead me to being tormented eternally. Set me up to lose. If you take *That* view, then God is evil and we are all fucked. Oh, dear, there go my judgy jackels again.

No, this is a little worrisome. If I take the majority rule view of religion, ignoring my own inner voice, I’m killing myself in favor of something that, to be honest, doesn’t look that great. If I stick with my own instincts, ignoring the religious texts that feel wrong, it seems like it’s possible I will find the right answers, or at least stay away from the wrong ones. But it’s a scary leap to take, because I am basically ignoring what you’ve all said to me.

Another option is to look at alternate religions. After all, one doesn’t necessarily choose the best religion by democracy, any more than one chooses the best operating system or programming language that way. So, we have several stripes of Buhddism to investigate, including the SGI folks, the Zen folks, and the idea that one should just try and do whatever mental process Siddartha did to begin with.

[Honestly, chanting to a piece of paper that describes the shape of a loving universe seems considerably less whack than bowing down before a torture implement.. but  I digress]

Friends have suggested various Buhddist temples.. perhaps it’s time I got off my duff and actually showed up at one?

Anyway, back to the original problem, which is.. actually, probably one that’s more overarching than just religion. In general, if my gut and the data the world is presenting me disagree, should I go with my gut, or should I go with what the world is presenting me? I don’t have to tell you that this world has a lot of people with really questionable motives running around in it, or that the economic and social systems seem to be built up in such a way as to make it both a hazerdous place and a place where a lot of competition goes on.

Um, is my perception. Again, lately I’ve been toying with the idea that the world isn’t really what I think it is at all. The problem is that I know a lot of the things I’m afraid of (the IRS, the franchise tax board, eviction, etc) are real, and not just in my head. Um.. do I know that? I think I know that? I have this vision of me sending a letter to the FTB – “You don’t exist. Go away.”. [Bonus points for anyone who gets the operating system reference]

It’s a interesting.. not to mention somewhat upsetting.. possibility to consider that I am my own tormenter, that I always have been. I guess that’s sort of a Buhddist thing, though, isn’t it? If so, the question I have to ask, being a somewhat pragmatic Sheer is, great, how do I stop?

Anyway, once more back to the original topic, which is – the data the world is presenting me and my gut instinct disagree on something. Do I go with the data the world is presenting me, or my gut?

I’m really pretty sure my brain was supposed to have the ability to scale back its operating frequency a little bit. I haven’t figured out how to do this just yet, but I’m thinking that’s what the Buhddists mean by meditating. Really, this thinking needs to stop. Just for a while, I want to hang out and *not think*. Enjoy the silence, as it were. You listening, oh forces who have undertaken to hack my neural nets for reasons I can only but guess? Can we get a ‘neutral’ setting? I’ve had a few moments of silence recently, but I think I’d like.. I don’t know, a few weeks of it?

I used to have semi-nightmares every night. Problems that needed solved, things that weren’t working, people who were angry with me.

I don’t seem to any more. So, I can’t control my dreams, but at least they’re not awful any more.