Happy President's Day


Is that an appropriate greeting for today? I'm not sure. I want to say "Have a good 'un" to all my American friends and all ye unknowns who may be reading this, but is it appropriate to wish a "happy" under today's circumstances in the name of the president? As I said, I'm not sure.



Have a "happy" anyways, in the name of someone else if you like. How about in the name of my personal favorites ... PEACE, or TOLERANCE. Yeah. Go for it!! And throw in a pinch of LOVE in Jimi's name, too for those words.

I think I'll take this opportunity, though, to start expanding a bit more on this 'is' theory which I keep mentioning. It'll eventually lead to the Binary Agreement Theory (BAT), which I've also alluded to rather mysteriously in the past.

Today, I think just a bit of a definition and explanation will be in order. You see, it all really stems from the 'eternal dichotomy' discussion a few days ago. That was the one where I put myself (and by proxy, each and every one of you as well) right at the centre dot of the infinity loop. Yesterday, I argued simplistically that 'time' isn't something that actually exists; it's merely a reference for sequencing or a concept with which to indicate duration. It's a place-holder between past and future. All that's left, therefore 'is'. The present. Now. The moment. So 'is' is all there really is to work with.

I've discussed this on and off over the past several years with family and friends. Before Christmas last year I sent a flurry of e-mails to various people which must have frightened the be-jeepers out of them because they really were very non-sensical in the context of English grammar and sentence construction. I forgot to tell them I wasn't writing in English. They were written in a format I'm trying to develop as part of 'is'-ism, mostly designed to remove ambiguity and misinterpretation from a communication. I'm not trying to replace English, mind you. That was a concern of a number of people. Heaven forbid! Rather, I'm trying to eliminate the "it was taken out of context" syndrome in very specific situations. Even more critically, I hope we can de-sensitize the actual words themselves. More and more, it seems we're becoming a world that hates words, rather than what the words might stand for, and so we're censoring ourselves to death or to hatred. In other words, (curious how often we say that phrase in English, isn't it?) you won't need to say 'in other words' because it'll be clear. That's the goal. The plan to get there starts now.

'is' is not an English word in 'is'-ism. It's a three-part symbol, pronounced "dot-straightline-squiggle", or "dot-straightline-some/other/kind/of/line", or "dot-straightline-NOTstraightline" (I'll be using the third format most often, for reasons that we'll explore later also). In other words {smile!} the letter 'i' (when it doesn't use this fancy font) is really made up of a dot positioned above a straight line, which in turn is positioned beside a curvy line (the letter 's'). That dot? That's really, really the critical part. It's the seed of everything. It's the "I am a dot" dot that was in my very first blog entry. Check it out again by clicking on that link, and see if it makes any more sense now. It's also the dot at the centre of infinity. It's where everything starts, where everything 'is', and everything finds equilibrium, and a whole lot more. If you think about it, a line (straight or NOTstraight) is just a bunch of dots standing in a really tight row, but you can always branch away from a line at any point (dot) based on a choice (should I go this way or that way?). Well, so is a NOTstraight line. The straight line and the 'gay' line represent you and me. We're different. But we're really the same. We're made up of the dots of our own lives. Sometimes our lines will cross over, sometimes they'll parallel each other, sometimes they'll never touch at all.

Although I'm creating 'is' as a symbol for 'is'-ism, instead of a word as it is in English, I still think it's rather neat that in Spanish, for instance, if you reverse the two parts of the symbol (look at it from the other side of the mirror), (si) you get a word that means 'yes' (which will end up always being the default choice in the theory). Remember I said everybody is essentially good, and default choices are always 'right'? Well, the default (good) choices will always answer 'yes' when asked. That's a point that I'll return to later. It's also kinda cool to note that in French, the word 'si' means 'if', which is the question you always ask when you're looking for a 'yes/no' binary answer (i.e. 'if' the answer 'is' 'yes', then......). I'm sure that's all just pure coincidence of language, though. It couldn't be serendipity, could it?

I like playing with symbols. Letters, words, languages, sounds, facial gestures, secret handshakes, Nike swooshes, zen symbols, universal traffic signs.....they're all just symbols that people acknowledge will 'mean' a certain thing in an agreed upon context. All I'm going to try and do is make that context one of TOLERANCE and make a case for it to be universal. Doesn't sound like too big a job, what with the Internet, and Webrings, and bloggers and all.
It just needs a capable leader (like a president, perhaps) who isn't in it for the power.

That will be a major theme of the theory. For a democracy to work (and I'm going to argue that it must), the power has to remain with the individual in exactly equal shares. The leaders and policy-makers will only be charged with the awesome responsibility of representation. There is a huge difference between power and responsibility. We need leaders for PEACE today. WE certainly won't ever all agree on what that means, but I think we may be able to agree on what it doesn't mean.

Perhaps, President's Day is a good day for all of us, American or otherwise, to reflect on that. I hope so, anyway.
I don't want us leaving PEACE all battered and bruised and thrown behind some shed somewhere for the next generation to have to find it and repair it.

So everyone, wherever you are, and whoever you are, have a happy whatever day. Find a reason, and spread it around, especially to those who are having a bit more trouble finding it than you.


PEACE to you all.
And TOLERANCE too.
Talk to someone else
about PEACE today.
Just someONE.
That's all.

....and be cool about it!

Posted by Evydense on Sunday, February 19, 2006 at 9:30 p.m. | Permalink