Tao of Lunacy

Every so often in life, we encounter something virtually inexplicable. In my case, it was when I was meandering from one site I saw mentioned in passing, to another site, to another site…until my eyes fell upon a website called fUSION Anomaly which left me (yes ME of all people!!) at a loss for words! I can’t even begin to describe this website - what it is - or the real purpose behind it.

I tried to dissect the name. Fusion - a melding together of things. Anomaly - something deviating from the normal. Thus - a melding together of things that deviate from the norm. Yes, indeed, that seems to be true. But what does that really tell us about the site? Not much. Underneath the name it says "this nexus is constantly morphing." OK, lets add that to the mix. Nexus - a connected series or group. Morphing - obvious enough, changing. So these abnormally melded together items are connected and constantly changing. Well that helps out a lot doesn’t it?!

A bit further down the page "Atomjack’s nodebased memetic flowchart on Indra’s Net." Oh boy! Let’s think about this one… Atomjack seems to be the name of a person (as his email is listed farther down.) Nodebased - based upon points where things connect…ok, maybe this is something. Memetic - of the ideas the replicate and transmit themselves in the human mind. Hmmm…getting a bit deep! Flow - running smoothly. Chart - plot (easy enough not to look that one up.) Indra’s Net - "a net with a jewel at each intersection, each jewel reflecting all the other jewels of the net." So we have a group of things that connect and reproduce themselves in the human mind, that run smoothly on this net of things that all reflect each other. Not sure I’m really getting this yet!

This site is something of a dictionary as you can click on each different term and it takes you to another page. But rather than just definitions, there are quotes, snippets of ideas to help reinforce the terminology. Clicking on one word leads to another and another and before long you’re sucked deep into the vortex of exploration and incredulation. (Whew! Those are some big words and ideas no? And they came straight outta my little pea brain, all on my own!)

All I can say is check out fUSION Anomaly. After you’ve spent a few hours there as I did, come back and tell me if you can explain it. Oh yes! There’s a lovely picture in the middle of the page surrounded by red "buttons" each of these buttons will also take you somewhere. I’ve not been brave enough to try them all yet. And finally, somehow as I was sucked from page to page, I stumbled upon fUSION anomalog the blog for this site - I think it may rival the site for it’s difference from the norm - but it’s equally as interesting.

Wow!  How time flies.  Since I’m re-organizing my blogs and moving posts to the most appropriate blog, I’m moving this entry to here.  I can’t believe this is from April 2007!  Sometimes I do enjoy looking at old posts and seeing what I wrote.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy the story.

I don’t usually blog about my life, but I’ve not been online much lately so I wanted to post a quick update. Last year I went on a mission to redo the interior of my house (almost completely by myself no less!) I got it done, with the exception of my computer/craft room. This poor small room was my last holdout for junk I didn’t want to deal with. Since the laptop, I’ve spent very little time in there and it’s been largely overtaken by my 12-1/2 year old male offspring. (Note:  Here we are 4 years later and it’s still largely taken over by my now 16 -1/2 year old male offspring.)

A couple weeks ago I felt the (OCD) need to take care of this. Last week I cleaned, threw away and moved stuff out. I’m sure the ability to fit so much in such a small space counts as some kind of well honed special talent! This week has been spent stripping grass cloth wallpaper (by the way - whoever invented it should be shot! It’s horrible nasty to get off the walls.) Then I was faced with drywall in need of serious scrubbing (oh joy!) to get off the remaining glue. The previous owners of the house had a little girl who obviously thought wallpaper was a tack board. I swear I used a gallon of spackle (no not really) to cover about a zillion thumb tack holes. Then came the really fun part.sanding and the fine white dust layer covering everything.

The ceilings and walls were painted last night. Tonight will be spent pulling carpet (with the added bonus of removing all those staples they use on the padding - never have figured out why they need so many of those annoying little buggers), painting trim and  baseboards, touchup and laying new plank flooring. Tomorrow - a quick trip (yah right is any shopping trip quick for a woman?) to the home improvement store to get a few (dozen) things I’ll need to finish up, with a side trip to Walmart for an area rug and curtains. Then home to assemble the nifty new computer desk I bought. Although I must admit - I enjoy using my drill - makes me feel empowered.

Next week, I’ll bring home a storage cabinet and chair already purchased (I sell office furniture for a living so the furniture was the easiest part of all!) and VOILA! I’m not sure my kid gives two hoots about how it all looks, though he’s been warned to keep it clean. (Side Note: 4 years later it’s not terribly clean - kids - go figure.) He’s more concerned the cable modem will be disconnected for a short while this weekend while the PC is transferred from the old desk to the new. Hmmm..wonder where he gets online OCD from? Any ideas? I’ll be back online like usual soon enough and looking forward to getting back to my normal routine.

This will be a bit different from my typical ramblings. As some of my close friends know, my ex-husband was an alcoholic (though he’s in recovery now and doing very well.) Addiction affects so many people…their friends and their families. For me personally, Al-Anon became a lifeline. I learned many lessons and started my own lifelong (often tumultuous) journey of "recovery".

While it’s not necessary to embrace every facet of such programs, there are things about them in which we can take comfort, find inspiration and serenity. For me, the quotes and sayings were extremely meaningful. It was like someone had already taken my difficulties, found the words and concepts I needed to know, and reduced them to something I could understand and hold on to. I also found acceptance and friends in the chat rooms of about.alcoholism.com. For many months I spent countless hours with people who were totally accepting and willing to discuss anything from what was for dinner to the principles of the program. They also offer online meetings for A.A., N.A., ACOA, Al-Anon, etc.

I’ve had a number of links to some wonderful sites I’ve not shared before. For a number of reasons, I kept them private. I’ve realized there are many more people, in countless situations, who might also find some measure of comfort and stability from the very same things I did. Much of what you find on these pages applies not only to those dealing with being addicted, or the affects of addiction on relationships, but can be applied to many, many other types of situations. Below is a list of some of the sites I found helpful:

• Recovery Greetings Slogans for AA and Alanon.
• alcoholism.about.com Chat Rooms Please see my thoughts above.
• Beezone Addiction Page These pages offer some alternative thoughts on addiction, but some of the essays are very good for understanding human nature.
• Serenity Tthis site has incredibly inspirational quotes, stories and amazingly beautiful pictures/artwork. Well worth taking a look!

And of course, for those of you who haven’t seen it, many of the thoughts and words that have helped me are shared on the Life Lessons page of patndoris.com.  I hope you’ll take time to visit my page and see what I’ve found inspirational.

Even if you aren’t in the midst of a crisis, or dealing with some difficult situation, these pages are good for inspiration. I dare say there’s something for most anyone in these pages if you take the time to look. This has been a post of a more serious nature, and certainly not one where I’m apt to turn loose my (often unorthodox) sense of humor or unusual method of interpreting even the most mundane ideas. If just one person finds something useful in anything here I will feel I’ve done something worthwhile.

I’ve chosen to include an image of the full version of the Serenity Prayer below. You’ll find more in this than the shortened saying with which many people are already familiar.  While it does makes reference to religion, 12-step programs prefer to simply think of our lives as being guided by a Higher Power (HP) than ourselves.

When I was young, my father used to bring home copies of all kinds of jokes. Being the resourceful young pack rat I was (tho I’ve gotten much better in recent years), I saved them for years. Once again find myself dipping into my stash (while I work on developing a "real" blog entry). I did a quick Google and it doesn’t appear this one has ever made it’s round on the internet, amazingly enough! I’ve edited just a wee bit (for grammar) but not much at all. (I originally posted this back in 2007 but thought it deserved a little bit of revival. I do not know who the author was.)

“You learn something new every day. For example, I was just reading a story of James Thurber’s as he recalls his grandmother’s belief electricity leaks out of an empty light socket if the switch has been left on. From this I gather - judging by the general context, and the fact that Thurber was a humorist - it doesn’t.

I was never taught electricity in school, nor was it often a topic of dinner table conversation between my parents. But, with reading Thurber here, and having to change a light bulb or tune in a transistor radio there, I have picked up a pretty sound working knowledge of electrical matters. it’s not very comprehensive, God knows - I still can’t fully understand why you can’t boil an egg on an electric guitar - but when I jot down a summary of what I have learned, I marvel that I’ve never been asked to write for the ELECTRICAL JOURNAL. For instance:

1. Most electricity is manufactured in power stations, where it is fed into wires which are then wound around large drums.

2. Some electricity, however, does not need to go along wires. That used in lightening, for example. and in portable radios. This kind of electricity is not generated, but is just lying about in the air, loose.

3. Electricity makes a low, humming noise. This noise may be pitched at different levels for use in doorbells, telephones and electric organs.

4. Electricity has to be grounded. That is to say, it has to be connected to the ground before it can function, except in the case of airplanes, which have separate arrangements.

5. Although electricity does not leak out of an empty light socket, said light socket is nevertheless live if you happen to shove your finger in it when the switch is on. So if it is not leaking, what else is it doing?

6. Electricity is made up of two ingredients, negative and positive. One ingredient travels along a wire covered with white plastic, and the other along a wire covered with black plastic. When these two meet together in what we call a plug, the different ingredients are mixed together to form electricity.

7. Electricity may be stored in batteries. Big batteries do not necessarily hold more electricity than small batteries. In big batteries the electricity is just shoveled in, while in small batteries (transistors) it is packed in flat.

Incurious people are content to take all this for granted. They press a switch, and the light comes on - this is all they know about the miracle in their homes. This has never been enough for me. I have to know how things work; and if I cannot find out from some technical handbook, then I combine such information as I already have with simple logic. Thus it is easy to deduce that the light switch controls a small clamp or vise which grips the wires very hard, so the electricity cannot get through. When the switch is flicked on, the vise is relaxed and the electricity travels to the light bulb where a bit of wire, called the element, is left bare. Here, for the first time, we can actually SEE the electricity. In the form of a spark. This spark is enlarged many hundreds of times by the curved bulb, which is made of magnifying glass.

Why, is our next question, do these light bulbs have a limited life? As any schoolboy knows, heat converts oxygen into moisture. When all the oxygen in the light bulb has become liquefied in this manner, it naturally quenches the electric spark.

I have not yet touched on the fuse wire. It has always amazed me an industry so enterprising in most respects - the invention of color electricity for use in traffic lights and the harnessing of negative electricity for refrigeration are two examples coming to mind - should still, 200 years after James Watt invented the electric kettle, be manufacturing fuse wire too thin. I pass on a hint for what it is worth. There is available from hardware shops a sturdy wire used mostly for making chicken runs, and this is far more durable than that stuff sold by electricians (who must, I appreciate, make a living.) By using chicken wire I now have a fuse box which - even when the spin drier burst into flames because of too much electricity having been fed into it - has for six months been as impregnable as the Bank of England.

Buy why have fuse wire at all? I completely understand that the fuse box is the junction at which the wires leading from the power station join, or fuse with, the wires belonging to the house, and that these two sets of wires have got to be connected somehow. But what is wrong with a simple knot?

In some respects, I reiterate, my knowledge is imperfect. I have not yet explored the field of neon signs - how do they make the electricity move about? And the pop-up toaster - how does it know when the toast is ready? What is the difference between electricity and electronics? Is electronics just the smart word to use now? How can an English computer speak French, as it requires a different voltage? Logic would answer these questions too, and many of a more technical nature, but the light over my desk has just gone out. A valve blown somewhere I expect.”

And shift….and move…and shift…and move. No it’s not some new aerobics routine I assure you. (The closest I get to that is exercising my fingers on the keyboard.) It’s all about the little things in life and how the smallest change can seem so unsettling (at least to me).

A couple of years ago on a girls weekend in Vegas with my best friend, I was dismayed on both legs of the trip when we were advised to be careful removing our luggage from the overhead bins as "items may have moved during take-off and landing". Moved? What?! Did they just get up and move by themselves? I don’t know about you, but moved, to me, implies they did it on their own.

On the trip back, (again both legs of it) the more familiar (and somehow comforting) warning "items may have shifted during take-off and landing" was conveyed. Now, I fully understand, and have confirmed with my handy dandy online dictionary, the meaning of moved and shifted are indeed one and the same. But, for some reason, I perceive shifted as being an action caused by something as opposed to something moving on it’s own.

I’m thinking perhaps when you fly east to west your luggage moves and when you fly west to east it shifts. Could it really be so simple? I mean, maybe no one realized this until recently! Maybe they did in depth studies with hidden cameras and caught the little buggers moving around on their own! …Or…maybe not… I’m pretty sure I could make a convoluted but compelling argument for my distinction based on the "A body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will continue in motion at a constant speed in a straight line unless acted upon by some outside force"(also known as Newton’s First Law) but I think you’d get bored with my diagrams and hyperbolas and angles and vertices. Although, if I work hard enough at it I could at least confuse you to the point where you’d agree with me yes?

I find it interesting the small connotations we/I associate with certain words. But in my defense, my traveling companion was also astonished at the change. And even more interesting is how the small changes in a common phrase seem to scream out as being wrong. I don’t know about you, but my luggage shifts it doesn’t move.

IM (with or without voice) is my primary communication with friends. I’m almost never without one messenger program running - on occasion, two or three. I’m finding the widely accepted shortcuts of the chat world spill over into my everyday life. Sometimes I’m not even sure in what time zone I’m operating!

Of course, in text, keystroke efficiency is paramount. You = u, your = ur, are = r, even the tiny word be shortens to b, and so on and so on. Spelling is almost inconsequential presuming the point is conveyed clearly. Capitalization and punctuation often take a backseat in the quest to save a few strikes on the mighty keyboard. Throw in the wonderful emoticons WLM offers and up opens a whole new world! Sentences can be constructed of witty little pictures and keyboard shortcuts. I personally find it rather amusing when 3 or 4 emoticons pop up in 1 short sentence yet I understand perfectly the other person’s meaning, even if the emoticons don’t represent actual words but merely pop up due to keystroke sequence.

Here’s where I’m starting to have a problem. I find myself taking the same liberties when typing emails, especially at work, or working on my blog. It takes single-minded concentration and tremendous focus to make my fingers type whole words. The desire to add “lol” is often overwhelming! (I wonder.just how many millions of times a day those three little letters are used?) The Chatus IMus area of my brain (I know you’ve never heard of it before, but I’m convinced it exists somewhere between Broca’s area (in the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe of the cortex) and angular gyrus (in the parietal lobe, that lies near the superior edge of the temporal lobe, and immediately posterior to the supramarginal gyrus) is starting to erase the grammatical lessons drilled into my hard drive…..oops! I mean….brain, during grade school. It’s getting serious when out of my mouth, in the middle of a conversation, pops “hold a mo I’ll brb.” Not only are my fingers trying to take shortcuts, now the wiring from brain to mouth is apparently affected as well.

I think my Techno OCD may be mutating. Perhaps it’s VLDD (Virtual Language Dysfunctional Disorder) of the IM variety. I’m quite sure it won’t be found in the latest Devereux Scales of Mental Disorders (DSMD) but I’m reasonably sure it does exist. (Alright once again you caught me - I made VLDD up too LOL!) But one day you just might see it defined as something like this: “Language disorder characterized by patient’s inability to communicate in other than Instant Messenger-like fashion. Symptoms including (but not limited to): rapid and repetitive succession of abbreviations written and/or verbal (especially the use of lol, brb, and lmao); fixation on emoticon use; patient’s referral to typing speed as cpm (characters per minute) as opposed to wpm (words per minute); innate ability of patient to understand others communicating via same IM language; often seen in conjunction with Technological OCD.”

There is a theory, people able to speak multiple “languages” have more grey matter in their brains. This leads me to the conclusion their brains are larger. Since tests have proven Einstein’s brain was 15% larger in some areas than the average person’s - perhaps the ability to effortlessly integrate this rapidly emerging form of communication indicates some higher level of brain function. Thus those of us immersed in the world of IM have higher intelligence.but I’ll leave it to you to decide if you agree with me - or not

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