Blog number 191 16 June 2008
I just read in the book, "Human Smoke," about a mother holding her child on the edge of a pit where the Germans were having the executed Jews stand before shooting them.
She said that just before she heard the second command, she threw her child into the pit and then jumped in on top of her. She heard the shooting and felt the bodies falling on top of her and then a second shooting with more bodies, and then she heard arguing and then all was quiet. She crept out with her child and both survived the war.
I appreciate a human that can do something like that. Talk about cool under fire.
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Do you get nightmares from reading these novels, Bodhi? I once enjoyed a book called "The 5 People You Meet in Heaven." There is a section that tells about the hero's imprisonment during WW2 that really got into my dreams. I had to put the book down for a few days before I eventually completed it. ---angel
Do you get nightmares from reading these novels, Bodhi? I once enjoyed a book called "The 5 People You Meet in Heaven." There is a section that tells about the hero's imprisonment during WW2 that really got into my dreams. I had to put the book down for a few days before I eventually completed it. --
Hah! No, Angel, no nighmares. One would think, wouldn't one? I read that book, "The 5 People You Meet In Heaven." I loved it. Did you know that it is also an excellent movie?
Yes, I liked it so much I bought the DVD. The only thing is...my only criticism... the film makers left out his bout with gambling. It was the real reason why his wife died. Two children dropped a rock on the windshield of her car as she was driving to the track to bring him back home to her. She was in the hospital a long time after that and never quite recovered from the accident. Did you know that?
---angel
No, I didn't remember about the rock. Of course, I don't remember much of anything anymore. Funny thing, it seems intellectually that that would bother me- that forgeting thing, but it doesn't. Probably an indication of another anomaly I enjoy. I'm full of 'em.
Funny thing about memory...............................
Funny thing about memory indeed. Just this morning I got to thinking something's wrong with one of my memories. I remember my grandma wanting me to stay with her and my grandpa was dead. I was living with my parents. I remember that distinctly. Years later, I also remember just as distinctly, just as clearly, I was married and living 200 miles away when my grandfather died.
I have heard my wife and sister arguing about who it was that was looking through a peephole when their brother urinated through the hole. Both swore it was the other that got peed on.
The "funny" thing to me about memory is that when we remember something like I described, we actually have a "movie" of the incident running through our mind's eye. We actually "see" it again. It's not like remembering a date for a history test.
Bodhi, your grandfather's passing seems to have had a profound affect on you. Could you have been an adult living with your parents at the time and just staying with them for a while to comfort them, even though your wife was about 200 miles away? The memory of your wife and her sister sounds like something they just made up. Either that, or one of them is blind in one eye, and your mystery is solved. Along the same vein, have you ever seen the movie, "The 12 Monkeys?"
---angel
Angel,
Although I lived a great deal of my life with my grandparents, I felt no grief at either of their deaths, nor of the death of my parents, nor of my sister nor of my brother. The only death that affected me was the one of my daughter. Why this is so, I don't know.
I had a loved cousin die when I was fourteen and I had to pretend that it affected me. From that experience, for many years I thought that everyone just pretended sorrow at a death.
I have puzzled over my seeming lack of caring, I have asked people about it, trying to get a handle on it because it seems rather weird, from my observation of the behavior of others. It is a puzzle. I could find no one that could give me any insight on it.
I do know that I have prepared myself for tragedies from a very early age, knowing that they will occur. It always surprises me when people are surprised at some tragedy happening. Did they think they were immune?
The only care I have at the death of anyone is that the survivors not suffer overly from their loss. I feel this very strongly. If I could be granted one wish it would be that everyone be satisfied with their existence just as it is.
The memory I related of watching my wife and her sister argue about who got pissed on, is that both seemed very insistent it was the other.
I have also had numerous other occasions of memories that couldn't be true. I have several at the moment, as a matter of fact, and I have occasionally heard friends arguing over some remembrance. Surely you must have had experiences such as I relate here?
I must have seen the movie, "The Twelve Monkeys" but I don't remember how it went. I do know the story of the twelve monkeys upon which the movie is based, however. Was Bruce Willis in that movie?
Bodhi, you continually fascinate me. I think death itself has no meaning to you because you beat death by surviving an almost drowning at a gravel pit when you were 7. Yet, you are truly compassionate where it counts...with those who are left behind. The 2 sisters border on the freudian "Totem and Tabu." Neither one wants to admit she was driven to view her own brother while he was half-naked in the bathroom. Were they 3 years old or teenagers? And yes, Bruce Willis was in the movie, "The 12 Monkeys," as well as Brad Pitt. It's about time travel and scientists who send a prisoner back to a period where they hope he can prevent the release of a plague upon the world. It's hit or miss with Bruce winding up with different memories each time he gets sent back...much like what you are describing here with your own memory.
---angel
>>I think death itself has no meaning to you because you beat death by surviving an almost drowning at a gravel pit when you were 7. <<
I think that might have something to do with it. I know it caused me to have a preoccupation with death. I read all I could on the subject - firsthand experiences of almost dying. I hope I put all that in my blog somewhere. I can't remember, but I must have.
I just asked my wife how old her and her sister was at the peeing incident. She was 8 or 9, her sister was 4 or 5. She said she set her sister up to get peed on. She had her look through a knothole in an outhouse where her brother was peeing.
And yeah, I saw that movie, 12 monkeys. Good one.
>> It's hit or miss with Bruce winding up with different memories each time he gets sent back...much like what you are describing here with your own memory.<<
You know, I wrote and deleted three paragraphs yesterday or the day before concerning what I am about to say. I deleted it because nobody "gets" it, so why say it? Just causes trouble.
In my belief system, and my system is based upon rigorous examination and rigorous experience and rigorous logic, there is no past, no future, the only time there is, is NOW. Just like in a dream at night, time is created by Mind. So when we "remember" something, that "past" is being created at that moment - just like in a dream at night. Notice that this would explain perfectly these conundrums.
In my belief system, Bodhi, there is room for your belief system. I wish you would "undelete" those 3 paragraphs for us here so we may better discuss them.
---angel
Angel, I'll go a little further and give you a brief synopsis.
We see when light reflects off an object, energizes the rods and cones in the retina of the eye, initiating electrochemical signals up the optic nerve until nerve centers in the brain collaborate with other nerve centers and suddenly we see. At no time from the entrance of the light into the eye and the myriad electrochemical reactions do we see. We see only when the brain says we see. We see with the brain, not with the eye.
Same thing happens with hearing, feeling, smelling operate. When ANY sense operates. The sensing takes place in the brain and nowhere else.
This means, does it not, that the whole physical universe is not "out there," but is instead, inside our head. Logical? Or impossible?
Thoughts "magnetically" join together to form beliefs. Beliefs "magnetically" form together to form belief systems. Belief systems form what we see as real. They form our apparent reality. This can easily be seen in the beliefs of others, but in our own case, we cannot separate what is real from what we believe.
We never have a thought that is not absolutely true, absolutely real. Never.
But logically, we must believe some things that aren't true. Obviously. Now the question becomes, which one of our beliefs is in error? No way to tell, is there? And since our beliefs form our reality, we must have some things that we believe to be real that isn't real at all. Yes?
Again, it is easy to see this phenomena in others, with ourselves, not so much.
All of these statements can be proven to anyone who wishes to take the effort to do so. The one about having only true thoughts is easy - all we have to do is to find one thought that we don't believe and that statement is proven wrong.
The other statements are not so easy to prove and takes effort and so
Bodhi, I keep getting "The Matrix" from what you are saying. As you may recall, after a battle that ultimately blocked out the sun, the computers (who won) were using human brain wave activity as an energy source. They tried a completely non-stressful scenario, such as paradise, but they lost many of the humans who needed stress to keep their interest going. This is the movie's explanation of the battle of the angels and the garden of eden that is taken from the bible. What was needed was a guide...Morpheus (the god of dreams) to help Neo understand he was "The One" to free the minds of the humans from the control of the computers.
So is it possible your son is correct as well? In other words, could the sting ray actually be an alien from outer space who came to dwell in the water of our planet? ---angel
>>Bodhi, I keep getting "The Matrix" from what you are saying.<<
Yes. We are dreaming and there is something "causing" the dream. My own guess is that that "something" is consciousness. I firmly believe that consciousness is ALL that exists - that everything else is simply a construction of consciousness - a dream.
The matrix has the 'cause as machines instead of consciousness, but that is the only difference. It is not that unusual that the matrix and what I am saying seem similar. This that I am telling you is not my idea alone. It is fairly widespread, just not a common thought of Western education or technology. You will never see it in the Sunday edition newspapers, for instance.
Think of that children's ditty, "Row Row Row your boat, Life is but a dream." Does that seem like it is a children's song?
>>So is it possible your son is correct as well? In other words, could the sting ray actually be an alien from outer space who came to dwell in the water of our planet? ---angel <<
I don't see why it should be an alien from another planet. That it could be a sentient being, yes. In fact, I don't think there are any beings that are not sentient.
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