I waited a while to write this morning. I went out walking twice. When I went out to see if I had any mail in my RFD box on the paved road I met a Mexican man. He was standing in the driveway of the house-trailer located on the other side of the road talking to someone on a cell phone. I didn't particular wanna engage him in conversation. I tried to wave at him in a friendly manner and move on, but he said something and it would hard to ignore him. We were the only two people around.
We were in the classic dilemma. I couldn't speak Spanish and he couldn't speak English. The only thing I actually understood him to say was that his name was Herman and that he was living in the trailer house with some other migrant laborers. We shoulda bought that land back when we had to chance.
When I got back to the house I decided to drive over to the shopping center and get some more exercise walking on the sidewalk in front of the stores. On the way there I saw Herman was walking toward town. I gave him a ride as far as I was going. We tried to talk once again, but it went nowhere.
That cold I mentioned a couple of days ago is still eating my lunch. When I thought about it that way I decided to Google up the "feed a cold, starve a fever" controversy and settle in my mind which way it went for all time. It's not feed a fever. It's feed a cold, starve a fever. So, I started eating a little more.
The most remarkable thing to me about the internet is the search engine. It took me a long time to learn to use it when I encountered a question about something. My youngest brother has been helpful in my goal to do that. Every time I would ask him about something or the other he would ask me if I had searched the internet fo the answer, and refuse to talk to me about the topic until I did.
Many is the time I"ve sat here trying to remember the words to some song I learned as a boy, and suddenly remembered to type what I remembered into Google, and Voila!, what I had forgotten was right there on the results page, usually the first link. If there is an article about the subject or topic in Wikipedia, then that's usually the first link that appears. Google and Wikipedia must have some sort of deal going on.
Wikipedia is alright with me. I know better by now (I hope) than to take anything I read on the internet as the God's own truth. So, the general information provided by Wikipedia usually satisfies my curiosity, and often enow, they have several links to more detailed information.
This is troublesome for me in a way. I used to run all over the country trying to find the sources I needed to check out the subjects that entice my curiosity. What I'm trying to understand, whatever that is, has been the focus of my entire life. I've walked away from a many a sweetheart deal to pursue the understanding I need. Helplessly walked away, I might add. Couldn't stop myself. I always wanna know the other side of the story. That is sooo non-progressive.
What I'm saying is that for what I came here for, I can get it right here at home by searching the internet. Aye, and there's the rub. I hardly ever leave the house any more, and I spend altogether too much time online chasing rainbows. I do find the pot of gold occasionally, but I'm bad about giving or throwing things away.
That habit comes from my traveling days when I used to hitchhike to nowhere for months as at a ti-me. I had to tote every material object I owned in my hands or on my back. What I didn't actual need or use was considered just so much extraneous baggage. That taught me a lot about what I needed to get by. Usually, for me, it's been the right words.
Words are the way I defend myself against the experience of God. Words are my religion. I say that as a response to becoming aware of a quote by Carl Gustav Jung, whose work I greatly admire. He said something like, "Religion is one's defense against experiencing God." So, I've looked for the defense system I use to do that. When I wrote the above, that's the first time I got any answer. Of course, I only planted the seed a month or so ago. Recently, maybe.
I think I need words for to ask questions. Learning to ask the right question has been a big deal in my life, and nothing brought that more to the forefront then my using and studying the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching. Eventually, after I'd been told to stop using the I Ching after thirty years, I realized that I had actually been asking myself the questions I posed to the Book of Changes.
That's what happened with the Jung quote. I wanted to find out what I'm acting like God is. This has nothing to do with what anybody else, either living or dead, and what they act like God is, but me. What about me? What am I acting like God is by using the defense system I've created with words to protect myself against?
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
