The Baseball Epiphany

So I've been thinking about this whole seeing life through the lens of our own experience
that the key word in this equation must be
interpreting
our brains are constantly reading and combining and storing patterns of sensory perception
for all of our lives we are cramming more information into our thick heads

And I started to wonder
I have had relationships in my life that have brought about all kinds of understandings
about life
about love
about humanity and
sacrifice
and
selfish motivations
and
gracious motivations too
and even about myself a little
I paged through the bits and pieces I could remember
and tried to understand
one big mistake
one particular mistake
one that I couldn't see though it was as plain as could be
by everyone I knew
everyone who I trusted and ignored when
they were telling me something I should have thought about
more

I used to call them blind spots
After the crash I started saying
the one that gets ya is the one you don't see coming
I suppose that one I've
it is an experience that has transformed my perceptions of life
and it has informed me
on so many levels
how we layer
experience and thought process
experience and thought process
and we stir it up some times
when unexpected things happen
or when there is a lull
possibly

And I thought about that one in particular
I don't remember much about the people
a plus with memory loss from a TBI

And then something came to me

I see life through the storehouse of neuro synapsis
filed in a memory bank
that at its best
is a vacant massive area
interrupted by tilted paintings on the walls
and echoes of foot steps
and ghosts that have left this earth
that I still think about from time to time
and love
So everything, every element of life
affects how I see life.

This is true for people
for animals
for dolphins
and for gray elephants

Why?

Imagine for just a minte
throwing a baseball through the air
imagine that it spins around me in a complete circle
so I can catch it again
and every time the ball comes round
I add something to it
something that juts out

Imagine that there are great oceans on the empty surface areas of the ball
and add toothpicks
or nails
whatever
Imagine you could stick blades of grace in the baseball and do that too
Now send it off
its trajectory will orbit you and you will be able to catch the ball again
and change something
water melts into the environment
evaporates and though it is still there
we don't see it as water any more
its like a blind spot
Its everywhere
all around us
H2O and this atmosphere that is like the outside layer
of every little bit and pieces that comes loose from cold or heat
and after a long time
enough water would evaporate until mountains peaks
appeared above sea level

And here we are
human beings trying to understand
or make peace with why we are here
and what we are doing while we are here
and I guess most importantly
how we are living while we are here
because that is really important

and we all pretty much experience
some combination of layers
or sensory experience
that mirrors back to us
a meaning
a meaning that we can live with

So now I'm on that base ball
and I'm living on a mountain top
and some people are living in the valleys
and down along the sea
the weather alone
would create certain variations
in the way we see things
interpret life
and even relate to one another
I mean it makes sense

And I see the sun come up
and the sun go down
every day it comes up
and every day it disappears from the horizon
some times maybe its hot and
some times maybe its cold
maybe I'm friendly because the weather is nice most of the time
and I don't need to rush to get out of the weather.
maybe I live far from people and like the peace and quiet
and some of us live where there are more people
and that all affects us too
communities and villages pop up
all around the planet
and here's a thing
all animals do this too
we all adapt to the weather
our bodies have adapted to the weather
and we all survive because of where we have lived
and what kind of antibodies have built up in our system
and what kind of environment we may choose to live in
dry arid
moist seaside
rocky mountain high

I used to think
birds of a feather flock together
meant random birds just went where the weather was good for them
or where they could find food
and because they were all the same in appearance
they hung out together

It wasn't until recently
in the last several years
that I realized that birds may flock together
yes that's true
but this is because they are related
these families stay together
And other animals and insects behave the same way
we meet up
we gather together
we humans tend to change the landscape
more so now that we have big machinery that
can really move things around

Now think of it
we are back on the ball
spinning around
all living here
sort of kind of knowing what to do
sort of kind of don't know what is going on
or why we are here
but the ball is still spinning
whether we ever understand why

but the ball is still spinning
whether we ever understand why or not

Now instead of just natural erosion processes
gradual over long periods of time
one drop of rain at a time
one bit of dust being blow from here to somewhere
Now instead of going with the flow
we have been disrupting the hell out of it
all over this planet
cutting down trees

Say the baseball has imaginary pins in it
some areas sparsely pinned
while others densely so

and in large areas on that ball
we cut those pins off of the surface
not just down a little bit
but we take trees down
to put up crops
to landscape
to make way for cities and highways
and all of the stuff we dig us and use
decomposes and it too is a part of the dust
now imagine
just for a minute
that when you throw the ball
now it has a little wobble to it
in fact it must have always had a wobble
it just wasn't as noticeable before
and now how much light may change
because instead of just spinning in a vertical axis
that had variables but none so noticeable
and would cause us to shift in our seats and say
hey
what's goin' on
and more land is exposed
and more water evaporates
and more things are decomposing
and more is getting stirred up in the dust
and more dust is in the air
and its all getting stirred up
and here we are

So I got to wondering
for a long time
What is gravity and why does the Earth wobble?
I always dug physics
and how more and more we are finding
how intricately we are all so
interconnected with
every thing

So I'm looking at the sunset
I'm sitting on my baseball
and it is moving around the sun and Moon
and some stars too
and I wonder if I am seeing the same thing everyday
all year along
Would I wonder about this more
if I lived in places where the seasons really changed?
How would that affect the lens
the focus and the depth of the grind of my lens
of experience

And I decide something is holding all of this in place
there is a regularity about it
for thousands of years we have been keeping track of all of this
where planets are
where stars are
and where we fit in

So I'm looking out now from my little baseball
spinning around the sun and I think
the sun is the most important thing to me
to nature
to animals
and fish and birds and plants
so the Earth
in particular my little patch
has to be the center of the universe
and without being able to say universe
or know what could be holding this all together
we assign it a name
because its there
we can't see it
but its everywhere
its energy
it gives us life
and I say but
wait a minute
we travel all over the world
and everybody seems to have their own special patch
and their own understanding about the vast
great big wide opens

and I got to thinking
about how the speed of rotation of a planet or star or moon
some how must help to hold everything in space
that we can see by something that cannot be seen

You know in physics there are frequencies
and velocities
frequencies are these waves of energy
velocities are how fast they are moving
a dolphin for example,
in my life time was thought of a silent
and then we discovered no
they are not silent
they are just communicating with each other
at a really freakin' high frequency
so we couldn't hear them
they were still making sound
and communicating with one another and to some extent
by cause and effect alone
they would be communicating with all of it
everywhere
all of the time

Think of that baseball spinning
for just a little bit longer
there it is
not so round as it was before
and the waves that ball creates while its spinning
are completely invisible to us
but that doesn't mean they aren't there

In my lifetime
it was believed that elephants were mute
it wasn't until recently that scientists
figured out that elephants communicate on a really low frequency
so where a dolphin would make a high screech
because the waves would be moving faster
still always a part of the wave but like dust in the air
always being stirred up and connected by virture of its moving

And every planet and star and moon
it all spins in the areas and they seem like they are
suspended in the darkness
and that the only thing that makes them real to us
is the places where things have light

So what if we are never alone
what if we are all a part of this life
and this living
and we are all affecting life and each other
and the planet all of the time
this applies to planets too
every thing is being gently held in place
by the consistent long wave lengths
that this baseball we are spinning around on
generates
we are all
always moving
all of the time
we may not feel like it
unless we get dizzy
but all of life
what we know
what we don't know
what we see and what we don't see
and what we believe
its all influenced by the sensory perceptions
that our life's experiences imprint into our brains
and that our brains
some how try to figure out and make sense of
why we are here
what we are doing here
and what difference does it make

After the accident
one night
I was looking out at the stars
and what used to make me feel so alone
the stars way out there
suddenly wasn't so far away
because I realized we were all connected
to this swirling moving changing
consistency

I see the sun and I believe it gives life
and I have rituals to prove why this thinking is true
and I believe that if a volcano or a hurricane
or a tornado or flood occurs its got to be because
we weren't good enough
I mean you've got to wonder
what made people look at something that had died
a dog or a bird or a tree or a family member
what happened
it was there just a second ago
now where did it go?

So we figured out all of the possible answers
about where they all go when they disappear like that
they go somewhere

And so because the sun is important to me
I think it is the center of the universe
and because I am so important to me
I think naturally
that everything I think is right
because its right to me

It doesn't even dawn on me that people think any way
other than the way I think
In fact
I'm pretty sure this has shocked me more than once
while it is a comfort
in the truest sense of the word
that I am not the center of the universe
still my perceptions
are filtered by the lens of my experience

But the truth is we are always putting out waves of our own
and they have a certain energy
and we are bouncing and drifting through and around
in this dust of energy

So what we do while we are here
that too affects all of us and everything

Maybe I was screwed over
maybe I was rejected
so I might think
I will never understand people
or there must be something wrong with me
because I've been rejected
and so every time you feel that is happening
it makes a pattern in your ever moving
brain
and it affects the way you see life
so you may be susceptible to someone
if they claim their undying love for you
and determine yourself not to see
certain dynamics in the way you approach life
or the type of people you choose to be around
and people may be able to take advantage of you more
so you could have a blind spot when it comes to
being able to tell the difference between
what people say and
what people do

Maybe I had a great upbringing
and for some reason I've always enjoyed
nature and peace and solitude
I might even have a keen
appreciation
and love of nature and have a hard time
understanding people who
trash it
and never seem to notice that beautiful sunset
and the geese gathering in the fall

or one more
I might have been treated like total shit
and wound up not being able to trust anybody
and that too will affect me and the world I live in

So lets throw all of these people together
there are those who get along
those that don't
those that appreciate nature
those that don't
and those that have been treated like shit
so they don't give a shit
and everybody is spinning around together
on that little baseball

and I got to thinking
when people were making calendars
of the sun and where it was in the sky
the Earth and then the Sun became the center of the universe
and now we have come to find out
that there is no edge

so all of the little bits and pieces of dust
and granules of whatever
its all out there
floating around within these waves
of different frequencies and velocities
and energy makes way for energy
and it all keeps on moving all of the time
and the planets are like that too
and I figured out that
in this world
we can't change anybody
we can barely change ourselves

but the one thing that seems to make a difference
is when we take responsibility for our own shit
our own energy
the energy we send out while we are here
and I think
we are in this form so briefly
instead of destroying what is so precious
our planet
our environment and
each other
how about just taking that next step
to consider that
maybe there is more than one way of looking at something
maybe there isn't one absolute right
maybe what we need to focus in on is respecting each other more
and taking responsibility for our own thoughts and actions and motivations a little bit more
because I'll tell ya what is kick ass about this life thing
having an awakening when you mind can be thinking
in one way one minute
and suddenly
it just all opened up to something
completely different
that is so cool about life
yeah
I dig that the most