Two....Two.....Two Blogs In One!
(Caution: This blog is rated PG for strong language content)

I've been using the word 'serendipity' a fair bit, as I mention seemingly serendipitous things that occur to me, especially as I pre-compose and/or write my blog entries. In each instance I wonder if it's serendipity, kismet, random association, selective perception, intentional pairing, or some other influence that empowers it all. The mere fact that I wonder as I wander seems to add a layer of gestalt to everything that wouldn't exist without me having that very thought. (That process of creating something new simply by association, by the way, is one of the founding tenets of my 'is' project).

By way of example, you know many things about me now, if you've been reading my blog entries in a semi-regular way. I've talked about perspective (which side of the mirror you're standing on); I've talked about being a visual person, where I tend to 'look' at my thoughts rather than just 'thinking' them; I've talked about TOLERANCE, or respecting individual differences; you know that my vast record collection is back (at the front!) of my mind and I mentioned a few days ago that I was anxious to approach it from a different perspective than just building a collection; and I've mentioned that I play word games a lot. (Actually, during hypomania, they're not games, but an altered way of communicating through a pseudo-English format....something else I've spoken of earlier).

Note: As you read the following paragraphs, think of anything inside brackets as 'silent thoughts'.

So here's the example. Take the simple word 'perspective'(brought 'to mind' by my use of the phrase "selective perception" in the opening paragraph, and it's actual use twice in the second paragraph....threshold, by the way, is another tenet of 'is'). Well, when I 'look' at the word 'perspective', I 'see' that if I remove the concept (spelling) of 'respect' from it, and (word)'play' it backwards, I get something close to an 'evil' (satanic?) message. Here's how that comes about.


P(ERSPECT)IVE. The letters in brackets are about as close as I can come to respecting an individual without knowing absolutely everything about them (only two letters are RE-versed; versed again...in a poetic sort of way!). The letters "IVE" at the end, when written backwards, spell "EVI_"; that embedded message that adult folk are so certain is buried in some Judas Priest music (my record collection), that they'll take language censorship (Bush's new wiretap law) cases to court over it.

Now, is this an absurdity, a coincidence, a brilliant new form of Trivia Pursuit from which I can make millions, or have I lost my mind altogether, and should be seeking out the rubber room on a permanent basis. Remember I said I had been writing bizarre letters prior to Christmas to family and friends? They were full of that kind of stuff. The BIG difference is that they weren't explained in English as I'm doing here (or at least trying to!). In several of them, I mentioned they should try reading them bottom up. Try the same with this blog. When you get finished, you'll have found a second blog to read, perhaps.

Now do you understand me when I say I struggle with words sometimes {grin!}? Often, it's even just the shapes of letters that I can 'read' meaning into.

Well, I ran into a lot of it yesterday, so I've decided to write two blog entries today...first this one about serendipity, and then the one I intended to write about 'creating reality'. If yesterday's 'reality' is any indication, they're related in a serendipitous sort of way!

First off, up until a few years ago, I had always simply associated the word 'serendipity' with a folk-singing group from the sixties called, aptly enough, "The Serendipity Singers." They were from the era of Peter, Paul and Mary, The Kingston Trio, sock hops and hootenanies; before the Beatles, Stones, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin started climbing their individual Stairways to Stardom.

So I looked up the definition of a few words, just to get them clear in my own mind:

Serendipity: def-n: "The faculty of making fortunate and unexpected discoveries by accident."

Kismet(I always thought it was spelled 'kizmet'....apparently not!): def-n: "fate, fortune."

Selective perception: def-n: "A discriminatory impression in the mind of something perceived by the senses."

These definitions suggest to me that serendipity is an active form of talent or ability, while the other two are more passive observations.

With those definitions in mind, remembering that my original intent was to write about 'creating reality' today, and in view of what follows, I feel compelled to write a blog about serendipity itself first.

I typed the word into my google search engine, expecting it to be a fairly 'unused' word, and I got 5.9 million hits in 0.05 seconds. Now watch carefully as I take you through the sequence of events prior to and following that search.

In yesterday's posting, I pointed out the co-incidence surrounding several references to both Einstein and Zen in separate and unrelated incidents. Then I read the comments to my blog. The first one was a one-word response "uncanny", followed by the icon for a garbage 'can' (which, of course, means 'able to') (okay, perhaps a bit of a stretch, but my point is, I actually notice those connections, and link them into the gestalt: def-n: "having properties not derived from its individual parts." In other words, the mere act of making the link creates something that wouldn't exist without the linkage). It's the same principle as attaching links to words or phrases within a blog. If you don't make the link, the link won't be made. Like a synaptic connection in the brain. They may not all be connected, but they CAN be.

The next two comments were views and thoughts expressed by two readers in response to my blog, expounding some of their thoughts of the meaning behind the letter-string "g-o-d". I put it that way, not to disrespect, but to respect differences.

Then I started researching for today's "Creating Reality" blog, and the first site I hit started with this quote from Einstein, which pretty much is bang on topic to the blog already written, published and commented upon. The site I chose was a random one....an exercise in applying serendipity, perhaps? Or, reason to start wondering about the level of sanity I'm maintaining. Lines between differences are always so infinitesimally thin.

I have it set up so that any comments which are added to my blogs are forwarded to my e-mail automatically. Yesterday, Dave also added a comment onto the previous blog I had written. That was the blog where I mentioned that I had a long list of topics to write about, and was taking a timeout as I explored my record collection and cleaned up the office a bit. One of my life-long habits has been to write down things as they catch my interest (a title of a book, a quote, a movie, a project that I might want to try), but I never organize these notes in any manner. Eventually, they're scattered all over, making the house look much messier than normal. Sooner or later, I go on a binge and round them all up unread, wrap an elastic band around them, put a cover sheet on top with the date and the words "To be sorted later", then take them down and bury them in the crawlspace, beside the records and old computers, and my Grade 8 public-speaking trophies from my past (much like the thoughts that accumulate in my brain before it explodes into another hypomanic session, I suppose. Curiously, I just had the thought that maybe they are simply physical and mental manifestations of the same characteristic within and about me?). As I've been re-surfacing my albums, I've been tripping across several boxes full of these gems, wondering what their contents hold.

But, I'm sidetracking. As I was cleaning my desk, I was using my tried and true approach, and came across some printouts I had made last year of websites which belonged to the "Creating Reality" Webring. At the time, I was ignorant of how rings worked or how to join, so they got buried with everything else. When I found them, (the day I wrote my 'timeout' blog, Feb 23, remember), they moved to the top of my list. Well, on the 24th, Dave and Gary not only commented on God, but Dave backtracked a day and left a comment on the 'time-out' blog in which I mentioned working with Roberta Bondar. I took it as a bit of a warm fuzzy, actually, pointing out that I know more than I often give myself credit for.

What's that all got to do with serendipity? As I've mentioned already, today's blog was going to be about 'Creating reality'. I was going to use it as a side door topic to ease myself back into expounding my theory of 'is', after I got 'shot down' by all three reader's comments, Dave, Daddy Jarbucks, and Gary (I use those words gently, no need for challenge!!) the first time I tried. That's when I decided to take the time-out and re-group. I pointed out that Dave has been exploring Zen both on his website and on a collective one called Digital Dewdrops. When I made the link to Roberta Bondar
in that blog, I found a diagram which I intended to use in today's "Creating reality" entry, and one which I felt would make one of my 'is' points (about binary-decision-making) clearer than I had done. But, on another link on the same site, I also found an experiment in psychology described, demonstrating the classic conditioned response experiments. The coincidence? The Kismet? The Serendipity? Dave's comment suggests 20 (not 15, nor 5) friends, and the experiment dictates 20 (not 25, nor 27) repetitions. A stretch? Yeah, probably.

Let's see. Einstein, Zen, can, 20, creating reality, backtracking in time, hmmmmmm.........

But wait! There's more! It also dices as it slices (into two/binary)!

(Here's where the parental warning kicks in, folks, so if the word 'f**k' offends you, stop reading now.)

The next site I entered with "serendipity" as my search word, was called Diacritiques (formerly/, seren'dipiti). Diacritques? C'mon!! Duality. Critiquing a bimodal diad. Binary AGREEMENT Theory. Okay, so what did I find? On the first page was a discourse on avoiding the use of asterisks in a word. If you mean to say fuck, then say fuck. (It also traces it back to the 13th century as a swear word, so it's not like it should shock us anymore).

But here's the thing. It linked to an article called "on fuck and Marmite", discussing a youth worker who was fined because a passing policeman overheard him use the word with a mate, it wasn't even said directly to the policeman. The fellow charged was on his way to the youth centre where he worked (my to-do list the other day, if you recall, has always included working with youth at risk, and I've blogged extensively about the absurdity of the language police that are running loose in North America today). More coincidence?

But the final nail in the coffin, I thought, was going to be this. It linked to a site called "Fucking Nondual Fundamentalist Buddhism", wherein, in a somewhat profane way, the author explains why he has chosen Buddhism instead of a religion (which he describes as Buddhism's harem) for his foundation.

But hold on a bit more! Not even that is what made me say in a reverent way "Holy fuck!" No, it was the following, which I have copied and pasted exactly as written:
(suggestion: replace the word BLIP with the word DOT in the following quote:)

"Let's not kid ourselves. We are a BLIP. An experiment, even on the temporal scale of this planet. (not to mention the Kosmos). The planet is not in jeapordy, WE are. Check the record, you'll see we haven't been around long, and we are definitely, certainly disposable. Evolution will come up with other fun things to do if keep shitting in our own bed. Mythic Religion is total fucking bullshit, it's time has passed, it is not developmentally appropriate for anyone over the age of ten anymore, and every day we permit it to continue its terrorizing tantrum is another shit sandwich in the mouth of Love. In the name of Love, let's stop believing our beliefs. I'm NOT talking about nihilism. I'm talking about a rich, vibrant, dynamic, direct experience of What IS. That's all there is anyway, everything else is a phantom puppet show. That's why I'm a Buddhist. A fucking nondual fundamentalist Buddhist."

Just perhaps, he's made my case for IS ('is') better than I ever could. One of my tenets is that there is now, never has been, and never will be anything 'new'. Perhaps, herein lies an alternative view expressing the same thing.

It's a strange and wiggly world, indeed.


Footnote: Of course, there's no need for two blog entries. They're both here. The two sides of the mirror. The two pieces of velcro. The water and the dye. It's up to you how you separate or combine them even further. For in the end, we each create our own reality.


Today's peace link is a somewhat disturbing look at an art exhibit called "Women in Black".

Now, seriously, read this blog over, one paragraph at a time, starting with this last paragraph and scrolling upward, and see if it makes sense. Or a different sense. Perhaps a mirror-image sense. Better yet, get a friend to read it bottom-up FIRST, and then compare notes! You might find it an interesting exercise! I'd be delighted to hear any reactions.

Posted by Evydense on Saturday, February 25, 2006 at 10:42 a.m. | Permalink