Untitled lamentations concerning oceans

I recently returned from an antipodean adventure to New Zealand, and talking with Mike last night shamed me into action. I have myriad pictures to process with PohotoShop as well as writing-up my blog for the main website.


As a start here's a picture of Ninety Mile Beach at sunset. Blinky and the brothers Deak are silhouetted in the background. This shot coupled with our regular visits to the beach along New Zealand's coastline got me thinking about the oceans again, what follows are snippets of my meandering reveries.


One:
A billion billion photons scorch a wound in a drab and salty sky,
Casting burnt umber reflections in the flat plane of other universes,
That, for me, will never endure or evolve beyond this moment.


Two:
Gravity makes you mesmerising so that jilted lovers must come,
A million each generation here each to cry a thousand tears,
To keep you deep and salty.


Three:
Blue meets blue with seemingly linear perfection,
That betrays the spherical nature of things
In ancient minds.

Blood moon

I went to Cyprus recently and took this picture of the moon with the most amazing colour. The shot was taken at around 10PM when the moon was languishing low and large towards the southern sky. Unfortunately I did not have a tripod with me so I had to rest my trusted D70 on a stack of old paperback books, hence the degradation in sharpness.


The shot was taken at f5.6 with a 1/4 shutter speed. Apart from cropping, slight desaturation the shot has not been changed in any way; the moon's hue is as recorded by my Nikon.

The Serpent That Bade Me Well

There is a kind of happiness that ignorance delivers (1) especially the ignorance encouraged by the pious or by the social engineers. I sometimes envied the religious; those who follow blindly deeply entrenched and dogmatic beliefs. It somehow seems to me that one can defer deep spiritual meditation concerning the nature and meaning of things simply by believing in the moral fortitude offered by hard work, or by the promise of an eternal paradise of the afterlife. Of all the charges levelled at atheists it is the assertion that they are devoid of a spiritual nature that is the most offensive to me.


As a committed atheist the questions that have always taunted man seem more pertinent and pressing without the safety net of a benevolent deity. When I was young, and bad things happened to me, which was thankfully a rare occurrence, my parents would console me by assuring me that "everything would be ok". For someone of tender years, belief in their words was both easy and comforting. As we grow-up, without exception, we all learn that everything is not ok; we absolve ourselves of ignorance and what a painful experience it is.


Is religion really so different? Is not the distraction of the working life designed to mollify the true spiritual problems of living? In this respect, the contention of a divine afterlife is a comparable fallacy to working for the world-go-round. There is no god and no plasma HDTV. There are only moments.


The comfort I found counting anonymous wealth was self-perpetuating; and how I worried it would all be taken away. But the comfort it engendered came at a price: I paid with my soul, and sacrificed the chance to attain true contentment.


Eventually, after and interminable age, I found it in me to change, to purge my ignorance. That was some years ago, and moments latter, I'm still here. I'm not afraid anymore.

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(1) Footnote
I am reminded of a little verse I once may have read or perhaps will some day come to read, viz:

"See the happy moron,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron,
My god, perhaps I am."


~ Extract from "The Serpent That Bade Me Well", (c) SomethingWonderful Press 2037.

Happy the man

So just how should I use my maiden blog? A rambling discourse on quantum possibilities; a general moan at the state of the world and the myopia of its leaders; or perhaps I should write of my blinding headache following last night's excesses: why do birthday celebrations always leave one feeling so old?

Let's park such thoughts for now, for surely they will be a reoccurring theme come a different time. The rather pompous and ambitious objective of something wonderful dot org is to explore what it is to be human. Being one of life's malcontents, I often languish in a pit of my own despair. In such times I try to alleviate my malaise through various techniques: music, the familiar smile of a trusted friend, or the wise and insightful words of others who seem to inject a simple truth into the business of living.

I want to thank Sara for introducing me to this poem by John Dryden. Writing in the mid to late 17th century, its interesting to note that Dryden's words regarding personal happiness and contentment are every bit as relevant today as three hundred years ago. Every generation spawns countless minds with a common pre-occupation, and happy the man indeed who knows how to live today.

I strive to make some small measure of progress towards this lofty but edifying aim.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
Who today can call his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power
For what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.