Today was a volatile day. It started out mild, then Summery, then it filed with the dark clouds and storms which ushered in cooler weather. After an afternoon of thick, high cumulus skies, the Sun broke through and again, it was Summery, but with a secret whispere of Fall.

Fall

My day complimented the events. I worked through an outage at work from home for three hours, just enough time to make the drive to yoga class impossible. So I pushed in a DVD and programed a routine, coordinating the time with a departure to meet the girls in the Saturday Morning Coffee and Yoga Club.

It felt cool, but I wore shorts and a T-Shirt. The conversation was good, and my attention to the waitress friendly, yet stealth, as she is far too young for my attention. Nevertheless I do enjoy her. I had the “Healthy Breakfast” which consisted of Oatmeal and fruit, with brown sugar and Wheatberry toast. Lots of coffee of course.

I set my work email up the night before so I would no longer get after hour or weekend messages from a select few, whose correspondence upset me. The politics of work seems a necessary evil these days. I work to provide the things I need to live and the justification seems to do.

I found a new bar to have lunch. The food is excellent. I love to talk about the business and found that the cook makes a daily trip to the open air market for the tasty nourishment. I always order the “daily special,” in a wondrous tone and curiosity as to how they knew what I wanted.

Kelly works Monday through Friday. She has a perfect shape and is always filled with escapades of the night before. I flirt with her as she is much more delectable than dessert and has less calories too. To be honest they don’t serve anything sweet there. The atmosphere is working class bar, smoke filled, laborers, a rather rowdy bunch. They remind me of my days working construction.

I found time today to start a new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth” by Richard Dawkins. With Chapter 1 already past, I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Tonight is going to be a lazy night. No going out, just staying home. That in itself is a big change. And change, just as today, seems to be more evident, if only in my basic routine. The windows are open, so I can smell the rain and the Fall.

I finally used my auto-pilot, just-do-it, catalyst to start my routine this morning. It’s odd how some mornings it is what I must look forward to, then others I meet with apathy. I had a good session, nonetheless, and of course, feel the rewards now. I made some modest gains today, but I need to focus on the gain and not its scale.

My secondary reward is a hot, steeping, cup of coffee, one I really wanted first thing this morning. I need to throw something for breakfast together as well.

I’ve ordered a Breville Juicer that should be here around Tuesday. I am sort of anxious for it. I’m also trying a new green drink to substitute and supplement my diet. I’m contemplating a fast, but rarely seem to have my time coordinated with my motivation.

I stopped recording things. It was making my regime more a task than a lifestyle and choice. I figure I will just stay in tune with my body and let that be my guide. I’m coming up on a milestone of health, as October 3rd marks 20 years, since I smoked a cigarette.

“In 1 year, risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack will reduce to half that of a smoker. Between 5 and 15 years after quitting, your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker. In 10 years, your risk of lung cancer drops. Additionally, your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney and pancreas decrease. Even after a decade of not smoking. However, your risk of lung cancer remains higher than in people who have never smoked. Your risk of ulcer also decreases. In 15 years, your risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack in similar to that of people who have never smoked. The risk of death returns to nearly the level of a non-smoker.”

I’ve had a lot of “misbehaving” in my life, but fortunately I have always worked on my general heath in tandem. I don’t think its really a contradiction as it has been a balance for me.

What I Believe —
Science & the Power of Humanity

I believe in the power of science and humanity. Specifically, I believe that biodiversity is a good thing and that we have been rapacious in our treatment of the environment, although I think the environmental movement has greatly exaggerated our condition and that the environment is a lot more resilient than most environmentalists give it credit for. I don’t mind eating cows and fish, but dolphins and whales have big brains and they’re cool, so I don’t think we should kill them. I drive an SUV because I haul around bicycles, books, and dogs, but as soon as there is a bigger hybrid, I’ll buy it. And although I am a libertarian heterosexual who is about as unpink (in both meanings) as you can get, I believe people should have an equal opportunity to be unequal. As for evolution, it happened. Deal with it.

I don’t know why the God question is so interdigitated with political and economic issues, but it is. It shouldn’t be. It’s okay to be a liberal Christian or a conservative atheist. I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I don’t think there is a God, or any sort of anthropomorphic being who needs to be worshipped, who listens to prayers, who keeps a moral scoreboard that will be settled in the end, or who cares one iota about who wins the Super Bowl.

This is why what we do in this life matters so much — and why how we treat others in the here and now is more important than how they might be treated in some hereafter that may or may not exist. If we knew for certain that there is an afterlife, we wouldn’t have great debates about it, and philosophers wouldn’t have spilled all that ink over the millennia wrangling over it. Since we don’t know, it makes more sense to assume there is no God and no afterlife, and act accordingly. That is, act as if what we do matters now. That way, we’ll think about the consequences of what we are doing.

I am sick and tired of politicians, and just about everyone else, kowtowing to the religious right’s hypersensitivities and politically correct “tolerance” for diversities of belief — as long as one believes in God — any God will do, except the God who promises virgins in the next life to pilots who fly planes into buildings. Those of us who do not believe in god have had enough of this rhetoric. This is America. We are supposed to be good and do the right thing, not because it will make us rich, get us saved, or reward us in the next life, but because people have value in and of themselves, and because it will make us all better off, individually and collectively. It says so, right there in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — products of a secular eighteenth-century Enlightenment movement.

Religion and politics should be treated as separate entities. Religion is private and politics is public. If you want more religion, go to church. If you want more politics, go to the capitol. Don’t go to church to politic, and don’t go to the capitol to preach. That’s a non-overlapping magisterium I can live with.

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
~ Stephen Roberts

Came across this quote and was compelled to post. Bertrand Russell’s declaration, in his 1925 essay ‘What I Believe’ I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.

~ gone tomorrow ~

tomorrow they will not know me
they have lost who I am
now only a shell to observe
a cocoon dangling in the air
motionless until they pass
adjusting only to the current
of their movement
inside growing, changing,
transforming, waiting
until my time
to emerge anew
beautiful
and gone
forever

~ Buddha’s belly ~

I rub old Buddha’s belly
I rub it every day
And when I rub his tummy
This is what I say
Woe and pain and solitude
Will surely come my way
But let me live another day
Be that what it may
Now Buddha always looks at me
He even cracks a smile
But never has he giggled
And I’ve watched him quite a while
So as my teacher teaches me
I smile at all I pass
But try to hold my giggles in
Till they are gone at last

After eating my Chinese takeout (shrimp with mixed vegetables with white rice and brown sauce) I carefully opened my Fortune Cookie. Quite honestly I don’t believe in the ability of accurate predictions of future events, based through mystical or supernatural means, but nonetheless I cracked it open to have a look.

The small slip of paper read “You will witness a miracle this month.”

Miracles too find confrontation with my reason, unless used in a more causal sense related to the statistical likelihood of an event.

As it is rather vague and general, I suppose I will have to wait for the remainder of the month, careful to observe “my miracle” thus stopping my world for a moment to ponder the impossible.

Another year past, another year new, with expectations that outweigh regrets.

Not one to make new years resolutions often I actually have a few that this new year has brought to mind, better, healthier life, a better attitude with those that push my buttons, and more time and more effort in doing things new and doing them with people I love.

So I blasted the past.  All my blog entries are gone.  This is a new slat, but with the same writer, just a new perspective.  I can only get so frustrated with the world and then its best just to let it go, taking action where needed, but sparing my head from the wall.