WALKING ON THIN ICE

polymiasma – foto by Smith

According to Quantum Mechanics, we cannot observe Reality without altering it.

Evidently when no one is looking, Reality is simultaneously all things and all possibilities at all times. It is only when we interface with Reality–by looking, smelling, touching, tasting, testing, thinking, poking, probing, asking, measuring, mapping–that it collapses from every possible thing to the one particular thing most matching our way of seeing.

For example, measure star light one way and light turns out to be a wave; measure it another way, and it’s a particle. Measure it both ways side by side simultaneously and light becomes two different mutually exclusive things at once.

In real life, light is probably neither wave nor particle because in real life there is no real life because it’s all illusion, the sound of one hand collapsing.

There are no right answers because there are no right questions, with no right times or right ways to ask our no right questions. We get the answers we do only because we ask the questions we do based on and biased by the culture and history we were raised in. Different questions would return different answers. We’re two-dimensional creatures asking three-dimensional questions in a nine-dimensional universe.

Our questions are but ghosts walking the Reality of illusion.

Humans see whatever they seek. Krishnamurti said when he was a Buddhist and meditated, he saw Buddha; when he became Christian, he saw Christ–you see whatever you invest your time, effort and belief system in.

Thus the mindset we interface with Reality affects our outcome. Think nasty thoughts and expect nasty results–and voila, it’s a nasty universe out there. Be good, and look for good, and you’ll experience a much less nasty notion.

On a Zen level: expect something, get nothing; expect nothing, get something.

That’s not saying that no matter what good you do or how positive you think, that Reality still won’t turn on you in a second and wipe you from this earth with neither thought nor notice.

But except for the random chance of utter destruction, our bottom line becomes enmeshed in what we expect, what we seek, how we ask, how we go about it all.

Be good, expect good–but be prepared for bad.

This is my personal philosophy; I call it Polymiasma.

polymiasma – foto by Smith

resting – foto by Smith

“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. – Umberto Eco

daddy? – foto by Smith

jukebox Sunday night – foto by Smith

You never know when or where you’ll have a random unexpected art conversation with a stranger.

My in-laws took us out to dinner to celebrate my father-in-law’s and brother-in-law’s birthdays. As we sat down in the Great Lakes Grille and Flying Burrito Cantina I noticed back in the Cantina part there was a fiberglass or ceramic four-foot tall Hispanic male statue facing the juke box, like it was looking for something to play. I excused myself with “I think I see a foto” and went back, took a couple shots.

Didn’t know it, but I made the staff curious why I was shooting their juke box and statue, but they didn’t ask me, probably because I was a guest of one of their regular customers.

Across from me on two walls were ten paintings of musicians–from left to right were Lyle Lovett, Simon & Garfunkle, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Green Day, Jimi Hendryx, an unknown (I guessed it might be a badly done Bob Seeger or a bearded Bruce Springsteen or Santana since it had an electric guitar painted into it – another of our group guessed Bob Marley), then Crosby Still Nash & Young, The Who, and Neil Young. I asked the waitress if she knew who it was supposed to be and she said “Yes. You know I didn’t get it at first either but it’s a young Eric Clapton.” And I could see it. That explained the guitar, because back then London graffiti would declare “Clapton is God” of the guitar.

The waitress started to walk away, then stopped and said, “We were curious why you were taking a picture in the back of the Cantina.” I explained I was an artist and used them to illustrate blogs. She smiled and said she was an artist too, she’d done the zebra table. When we’d come in, I’d noticed a table top painted with a playful running zebra which I thought was pretty cool. Told her I’d seen it and liked it. She went on saying when the restaurant was the place before this place, she’d painted a Garden of Eden as well, but didn’t know why.

It was a pleasant exchange, and if I hadn’t done something odd and if I hadn’t inquired about the paintings on the wall, we wouldn’t have discovered her artistic side. We gave her our blog url and she said she was going to check it out and hopefully will see a small portion of her restaurant through my eye.

What an intricate woof and warp we weave in this weirdly wide wobbly whorl.

beside oneself – foto by Smith

lap cat – foto by Smith

I was watching our calico-tinged tiger cat Mandy on the floor cleaning herself licking licking licking her fur and I told Lady “You know, I could gather up all her shed cat fur that’s blowing across the floor and glue it to my penis and then she’d lick my penis to clean it, thinking it was part of her.” Lady just looked at me, and we both looked at the cat who had stopped licking herself and stared at me with the weirdest look we’ve seen. It certainly looked like she’d understood what I’d said and found it disgusting. I told Lady I thought the cat had just given herself away, that she either understood our words or read our minds, whereupon Mandy started rolling on the floor in the cutest cat-way possible, trying unsuccessfully to make us believe she was just a cat after all – which is a very intelligent subterfuge which proves even more she’s an alien.

the Lady or the tiger? – foto by Smith

When I was 14, I was doing chores for my Aunt Norma who used to play piano for the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. She said she got paid almost nothing because he was a tightwad, but even after she left the band, she still received a birthday card every year for decades. Anyway, Aunt Norma had to go out and I was sitting inside with her little kitten and the kitten was licking my face with her rough tongue, and I started to wonder what that tongue would feel like on my penis so I put a couple drops of milk on my glans and let the kitten lick it. I don’t remember what it felt like though because just at that moment Aunt Norma walked through the door and I quickly leapt up pulling my pants back up, the kitten’s head still inside. Aunt Norma never said a word, but my face burned red.

Here kitty kitty kitty.

ménage à trois – foto by Smith