Cogito Ergo Sum! Okay. It’s Latin.
I’m not good at remembering jokes, much less sharing them. But, here goes..
A wife asked her husband, “Did you want to go the party?”
Without thinking he replies, “I think not…”.
And Poof, he disappears…
Now. If you caught the joke then maybe the title of this blog makes sense. Maybe. Think hard about it before replying.
Recently, it seems, there have been folks thinking that we are just a figment of imagination in someone’s alternate reality, or dream. Change the reality. We disappear. Awake from the dream and we are just a fragment of thought. Here’s a headline:
Elon Musk says he firmly believes reality is a simulation created by a super intelligence.
[Source]
According to him, potentially, we are in a simulation that is created by a super intelligence. I remember a “Twilight Zone” from my childhood. It contained a story about some situation that occurs on earth, and suddenly the night sky is pulled back by a toddler in an even larger universe as he peeks in at our story, with a voice telling him to “put that down.” And if you have any ounce of imagination you could imagine an even larger universe above the toddler peeking in at his situation. Ad infinitum.
Okay. So you don’t like my example. Have you figured out the Latin phrase yet?
My science teacher from my Junior High Days, Mr Doolittle, told us to imagine the nucleus of an atom with all the electron’s and proton’s spinning around and around, much like the planets around the sun. In the palm of your hand you have a billion atoms in existence. Now, clap your hands! Pop! You just killed some universes. Do it again! Before long you will have wiped out millions and millions of potential life that is simply smaller than we can imagine! No telling the damage you may have caused on others that survive!
His thought: I wonder if there are even smaller particles that look like our universe that makes up those billions of universes in your hands… Think that one through!
I woke up thinking about our influence on others and how we can easily alternate the pathway someone is on. For the good. And the bad. Positive. Negative. Left. Right. Up. Down. Forward. Backward. The way we look, act, speak – all are influences. Yes. Even the way we think about something is an influence. And it impacts many others around us.
Back in the 60’s Hippie movement, we were either for the change, or against it. Much of their music is now played in elevators today. Marijuana is legalizing itself all around us, and some cities are setting up drug zones where you can receive medical attention as you shoot up. Long hair, psychedelic clothing and weird hairdo’s get replaced by even more permanent piercings and body ink.Don’t even get me started down the rabbit trail of this generational adjustment! We would have to back up and consider the Roaring 20’s and the Gay 90’s (1890’s, that is)…
This makes me wonder how the modern adaptation of who we are will be accepted in the next generations thought process. Will their music become “space shuttle” music and even freakier modifications of our bodies in the next generation. I imagine genetic replacements and additions. “Need a third arm? Here’s let’s grow you one.” After all, we are in the process of growing replacement organs for future surgery needs…
“Each generation has its share of generational rejection!” ~Michael Gurley
I’m sure, and almost positive of it, my grandparents (WWI, Depression, technology birth and growth) rejected some of the things my parents (WWII, Boomers, Airline travel) experimented with… Just as I know my parents struggled with the things that my generation faced (Vietnam, JFK, Nixon, exponential growth of technology)…and I face with what my kids are now accepting as okay…
Things my grandparents would probably never dream of happening are now common place. And as I have vague memories of great grandparents, it makes me wonder about their old time views…
“If they could only see us now!”
Since I believe the Bible is as real and valuable to us in our current culture revolution as it was back in the days when the events were real time, I wonder how Jesus would speak to various groups? Would he get away with using the same language?
- Woe unto you
- Hypocrites
- Vipers
Regardless of the words, he speaks valuable lessons on how to treat one another.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:35-38 NKJV)
We often struggle with how to react to all the variances of life and living. If you close your mind to how to deal with it, then you will be like that joke I mentioned. Poof. You’re gone! But if you can look past that outward expression and contemplate the heart, then you are a thinking person who can look past the fault and see the need.
Understand the Latin yet? In English, “I think, therefore I am.” [Source] Rene Descartes…circa 1644… Be a thinker and not a reactor.