Work.

This'll be a pretty straightforward post. Or at least, that's the intent going in.

Bit of a challenging week up ahead in that there's a lot to get done in not a whole heckuva lot of time. [score one for using "heckuva" in the post] I'm sure I'll manage as any number of my friends have pointed out, but it also is just annoying in the here and now, and I'd rather be on the other side of this week when it's all over and done with.

Looking forward to summer break. It's looking increasingly likely I'll just buy myself a PS3 anyway, regardless of whether my bank account is up or down the requisite $400. Oh well, hopefully the price will come down by this summer. [Doubt it.]

Spinoza tells us that all of the universe is in God. And that God is a timeless entity, and everything we think we are, we sort've still are, but fundamentally, we are all just modes, or modifications, temporally and spatially of God. [Should've put a disclaimer, leaving straightforward territory]

I care about this line of reasoning twofold. First, because I find it inherently interesting. And second because I have to write a paper on it due Friday.

But back to the metaphysical point at hand, I guess I'm not sure what it changes to define God as the only substance in the universe and all other things as modes therein. I think it just kind of pushes back the questions. I mean, okay, I don't tend to think of myself as merely an expression of God, a way of God's existing, but whether I call myself a mode or a substance, there are still other questions I want to know about what I am.

And, unfortunately for Spinoza, he didn't get to live in the world of 21st century physics. Sometimes substances do seem to come from nothing. Matter and anti-matter splitting apart for no good reason, and by all accounts, before they split apart, they don't exist. At least, that's how I understand it. I should do more research if I'm going to put that in the paper. At any rate, there's always the big bang. This universe hasn't just always existed.

So, we'll see where that goes.

Closing thoughts: Beds are warm in the morning. Outside is not. God is as mysterious as ever. I am not.

Taking a Page Out of Someone Else's Book

's a really good metaphor. When you think about it.

I mean, I think you can really come to know a person through the things that they read and by reading said things yourself. It's the whole walking a mile in their shoes kind of deal, to mix metaphors. Which, apparently, is surprisingly easy to do this early.

And yet, here in suburbia, it is apparently also not very early. My parents are both awake and just left. My dad to go to the airport. My mom to take him to the shuttle bus.

Yep. There's the hum of the car pulling out of the driveway.

Out on the roads, I saw more than a dozen cars. Which is impressively few cars, considering just how many people live around here, but quite a bit more than I was expecting. I think the late night crowd of bar hoppers and late night joyriders transitions seamlessly into an early morning cadre of 6am commutes, fishermen, campers, and folks headed to the airport, like dad.

Oh, and don't get me started on the highway. I think it's a law around here. The highway must always have cars on it. At all times.

But right now, here in bed, all I can here is the clacking of my own keyboard strokes and the dull, distant roar of wind somewhere outside on another unremarkable winter's night. Er- morning.

It's easy in the dark to become a little disembodied. A silent, ethereal observer to the world. It's like removing all the details. Fade to black. Darkness is good like that. And bad.

I guess the lesson of the day is simply to realize that you can only ever find pockets of serenity. The world's gotten too fast for it to last. And you don't have to look too far or long to see the chaos and change. *Cue garage door* But that being said, it's very important to seize upon, when you can, some moments of solitude, of silence, of insubstantial sensation.

Una Poema

Una Poema en el estilo pervertido de William Shakespeare.

Mementos, memorabilia,

paraphernalia, tiny trinkets,

trifles, truffles,

All serve to remind me

Of the things that I’d nearly forgotten,

But the rush of the flood waters doesn’t overrun the dam

So I forge a new time capsule,

And zip up the slips and scraps in the pit of a pouch

To see what rips first

When next we meet again.

And in the meantime

Get thee hence! And with haste;

For thou wilt only be i’the way

Whilst another here holds sway

Would that memories could burn as swift as sheets

Yet gladder still am I, who has them e’er for keeps.