It's a tree or a loaf of bread or a star...

Thinking through reincarnation. A carnation is a flower but it's also a type of milk...dairy! I've been left with a bit of a thing for dairy after spending so long steeped in it. If you aren't imagining my good self soaking in dairy product then...you are now :-P.

So you remember all that stuff I wrote about the question? Well I'm feeling a little different about the whole subject. It's probably because my system has been invaded by a virus! Yep the rhino has breached my personal perimeter, there is no way to write that that doesn't make it sound in some way sexual. Maybe it's all in my head. Trying to write to Kanye was a bad idea I just get distracted and want to bust a move. I'll be right back...

It's damn near impossible to hear that beat and not want to get to your feet! You can allocate the credit/blame for Kanye popping up in the post to @Swap120. His fish Kanye West passed into the great beyond today. God speed mini fishy Kanye. That brings me on nicely to my thoughts on what happens when you kick the bucket according to Hinduism and Buddhism, reincarnation. So the short version is do good and you come back in a better position and vice versa. Assume that it's true and follow my train of thought.

I'm in quite a privileged position, I've got it easy. So I must have done a lot of good in my previous life/lives to earn this. Good for me. Assuming that a bacterial consciousness can move on to become a human consciousness somewhat confuses me. Bacteria are single celled organisms so if we assume each discrete organism has a separate consciousness. But humans and other animals are made up of many, many cells. A single cell has a mean weight of 1 nanogram so if you weigh 100kg then it you have around 100 trillion cells. If the rules are the same then each cell has a consciousness so if you weigh 100 kg then you are lugging around 100 trillion separate consciousnesses...confusing.

This bit I find ever so interesting. Mutualism and  symbiosis. If we look at the human cell it contains a bunch of interesting stuff. Cytoplasm, ribosomes, dna, rna, mitochondria etc here's a lovely article in case you are a massive nerd like me :D It's the mitochondria that interest me in particular. They are the power plant of the cell, it's where all the wonderful ATP is produced that keeps us chugging along. This is a link to wikipedia as it is by far the most comprehensive ting I've found on mitochondria. As you probably know the DNA that carrys the information to make up the human body is stored in the nucleus of the cell. Mitochondria have their own DNA, it's in a loop. Loopy DNA is associated with bacteria! So every cell of the body has mitochondria which is kinda like having a cell within a cell.

So cells, souls, conciousness. How does it add up? Well each cell has it's conciousness and then there is the bit between the ears. The bit that remembers a lot and insists on recalling it all at the most inopportune moments. I'll not name names but I did see a little ting about being unable to sleep a couple of days ago. Because the old noodle won't cycle down. I can definitely relate. The night of the 14th of Feb was a sleepless night for me. Drag your minds out the romantic gutter twas nothing of the sort but a harsh embrace from the heavens. It was of course a full moon. On the day of a full moon and those leading up to it I find sleep to be fleeting. I am a grade A lunatic, get it? My mind races and as of late I have become accepting, I think.

During this time of racey mind madness I glimpsed something. The idea of illusion has long been batted about. This life is all smoke and mirrors. It's not really real. Life? What's all that then? Well boil it down and it comes to chemistry. Things seeking to be stable result in reactions etc. These reactions form into increasingly complex bullshit that results in walking talking abominations. Welcome to the human race a bunch of chemical soup that got a little out of hand.

Mental projection and regression the root of all suffering. Pain is in the here and now but suffering? Mental suffering is reliving the past or anticipating the future. Now the past is done and dusted and the future is yet to be. So if you are suffering the past of the future then you are suffering something entirely fictional. Now fiction in the sense that it doesn't exist. Rather mad...no?

So onwards to this creature/character that is you, me and everyone else. This thing exists in the now. The now is all there is so if anything exists at all it has to be in the now. So now is all there is but because of the "powers" of the mind we think there was a yesterday and assume there will be a tomorrow. We all know what happens when we assume right boys and girls? You make and ASS out of U & ME. Ass. I don't want to be serious it's ever so tedious! But this is about the fundamentals

Now I'm lost I don't know what's next. So I've gotten to the truth that now is all there is so what? Meaning...is what I want. Meaning, meaning, MEANING. Now here's the dirty little secret. Tim Minchin told me it. Yep the Aussie joke pedlar with a penchant for piano dropped this truth bomb on me on the Youtube! There is none. It's something of a cosmic joke ba dum bum tsss! If you consider the ultimate end of it all based on our current understanding it'll all even out into something of a uniform jumble. That is to say the concentration of energy will be the same everywhere.

Now what meaning could there be when the end of it all is that? So no meaning. So what's the point? I don't know. Not what you or I wanted to hear as why do anything if it's all ultimately pointless? Well there is a bit of a funny twist that's been added. And that would be joy. To laugh, joke, smile and smirk. All those expressions of happiness that we take for granted. We spend a lot of time not being that way too. Too much time. If there is not point then you may as well enjoy it. Pretty much the same conclusion I came to before. But this time I got there from a mad moon based rant.

Lunacy ;-)

The weak in use...get it?

That is an actual phrase right? "The week in news" or have I made it up and convinced myself it's a real thing?! Problem when you keep your own company for a while, you tend to convince yourself of all kinds of things. Maybe it's just me...

The week has been a little uneventful. Well there was a gathering of legends round my house. Refreshing as it's always fun to meet up with the legends. I know a lot of legends Arthurian and the such. Was given a decent shove to take the initiative and make things happen. But I'm also a little ill and it's not man flu as I've had my jab. Devoid of motivation I've been doing busy work and setting things in motion.

Additionally my tshirt arrived! All the way from France, yep I have a french t shirt. It's pretty cool to look at...I am ever so tired my eyes are shut whilst I type this I wonder if it will look anything like English. Nailed it! Funny thing is as soon as I opened my eyes I made a mistake! Question for the hoard: can you tell that your car has a full tank of fuel? Whenever I fill up I can feel the difference in the car. Twas a moot point at the legend gathering as the yays tallied equal to the nays.

The tshirt! Now for the history of my t shirts yep I shall be going over something so banal. For a long time I owned numerous black tshirts, shirts etc. The colour of knowledge or so I've heard. Then inspired by the comic book heroes I hold in such high regard I sprung for primary colours red and blue. I now have the same colours but adorned with some rather butt kicking artwork. TARDIS, Pikachu, Edwards Scissorhands, Postman Pat/Breaking bad, Zebras, Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and many wrestling legends. Interesting thing about the imagery + text is that people naturally have to stop and stare to ascertain what they are seeing. I tend to forget there is something stareworthy on my chest. This pretty much happens every time I go into public. So if you are staring at my chest trying to understand the awesomeness there upon then I'd advise you not to look at my face. As what you'll see is a confused look of "Why is everyone staring at my bosom?!"

Birch blossom!

On one of my excursions to visit my elderly dog, Tim. I say elderly but he's about as spry as he ever was. Also he lives in a shed inside a shed next to the garage. I'm not sure why we put a shed inside a shed. I approached the shed to awaken the beast, he spends most of the day snoozing. I spot an odd shot of colour out the corner of my eye. When I turn and stare I am greeted with a sign of spring, birch blossom! Looks like part of our hedge is made up of birch. Strange I know as you don't tend to use trees in hedges that's usually the territory of shrubberies. The rest of the hedge is hawthorn, I could hear you all screaming "WHAT SHRUBBERIES MAKE UP THE REST OF YOUR HEDGEROW!" So the indication that spring is here is somewhat misleading as it also snowed on several days this week. Not the settling kind of snow, oh no, it's the kind of snow that'll ruin a walk etc.

This cold malarky has made me drowsy. Rather annoying as being awake is such a possibility. Not getting much done in my wakefulness so perhaps sleep will be a better use of my time. Or I could sit here recounting what I did yesterday. I was invited to attend an alumni event to be part of a panel of graduates. We were supposed to recount our journeys from graduation. Mine was a lot of manual labour, a couple of accounting placements, cima exams, being incapacitated and then my dairy adventures. I was reminded gloriously of the bubble we all live in. The bubble formed by our particular experiences. From those experiences we for m conclusions on what we believe to be the truth. The problem is that all we experience isn't all that there is. I'm being vague because I don't want to be harsh. Perhaps my biggest shortfall is that I give too much consideration to not hurting folks feelings.

Note to self be more ruthless. Now that I've said that can one be ruthful? Thinking through the general "rules" and I am rather bored with that way of living. But what other options are there? Well there is foraging and...freelance. I don't have the skills for foraging neither the skills for freelance. But the life of a freelancer is ever so appealing. You would be free! But you wouldn't have a lance. I know a fair few freelancers and none of them have lances. Bit of a let down really. Where would one go to get a lance these days? In all my years I don't think I've ever met a Lance or seen a lance.

Oh my book finishing streak is continuing. V for Vendetta from start to finish in a few days! I know it'd have taken me a few years in the olden days. I'm a fantastically slow reader, not really. I start books then forget about them and get distracted by other books. Rather enjoyed it and I read the entire thing in the voice of V from the film. Portrayed excellently by Hugo Weaving, I'd encourage you to read it as it is rather awesome. Fills in some gaps that were missing from the film and adds a little more drama to the character of V. Plus the bit where Natalie Portman is in the rain is done much better in the book. Already onto my next book promises to transform my perspective on people and it's by Dale Carnegie.

Does anyone else find that during a full moon they can't sleep? Yesterday was such a day for me so today you'd think I'd be hanging. I am rather full of beans. Perhaps it's the coffee or maybe my lunacy has extended into today, get it?

Me myself and I...

This week wasn't the usual. For one my dog, Tim, lost his vitality. His back leg swelled up to a ridiculous size and he stopped eating. Now this is a fellow who once got into the garage and ate around 10 kg of Bakers dog food and would've eaten more had he not been caught in the act!

Turned out that it was because he couldn't stand up and bend down because he couldn't put any weight on his bad leg. So with the help of out trusty washing machine part we manage to get it to a height he's comfortable eating from!

Now this part is not to be confused with the drum.
The drum looks like this:

Kinda like a cheese grater on steroids. This other thing is what the drum sits inside. Anyone have any idea of what its called?

If you're wondering why I've got a collection of washing machine bits it's because the old washing machine broke and I systematically dismantled it. We use the hollow shell for burning hedge clippings etc.

Now the next morning he won't eat regardless of what I try. Normally when I go to see him in the morning he's full of life and bouncing because that's what tiggers do best! But today he limps out and just looks at me. He's an old man now but I wasn't expecting such a dramatic shift in the space of a few days.

Dad's about so he'll take to the vet asap. I man up and head off to work. On the drive I pretty much resign myself to the possibility of Tim's death. And strangely it doesn't bother me. He's old and struggling it makes sense for him to go now. He pops up in my mind from time to time as I'm at work but I'm feeling the same way as earlier. On the drive back I remember him as a puppy and all the little foibles that let me know that it's him for sure. Now I can't stand the thought of him dying.

Funny thing about Tim is that I spent the most time with him out of our family so he always responded to me the most out of everyone. In a way I raised him and because he was really strong I was pretty much the only one that could walk him properly. And now this crazy, always upbeat creature is going to die!

When I get home my dad and bro talk me through the details of the visit to the vet in clinical detail. Dad's a GP and my bro is a medical student, standard I know for a Sri Lankan family. Turns out that he should be fine within a week with antibiotics and anti inflammatories. The next day his appetite is back and his joy for life is back too. Now this highlights something of a shortcoming in myself. This is that I have managed to suffer something that does not exist. That is to say I suffered my dogs death and he didn't even die!

Madness right? But I do this with sooo much stuff it's unreal. You know the what ifs etc. Considering the possibility is fine, so you can prep an adequate response/countermeasure. But why go through all the negative emotion and suffering? Long way to go for sure.

The team leader in all but name of team local went on holiday this week. Leaving myself and James to hold down the fort in his absence. He deserves a holiday as he does beaver away like his life depends on it every day! I tend to have fluctuations in my productivity depending on blood sugar, stimulant levels, sleep etc. He's a bit like a force of nature when it comes to work, unrelenting. His eyelashes, which he had tinted the previous weekend, have gone black making it look like he's wearing mascara. #nightmare

Ooh and on the way to work we spotted Eleanor! She was heading to her new job as a B2B sales something...my memory is failing me! A sure sign that it's a little late in the day for writing detailed shtuff...00:40 time for bed?

Nope gonna plough ahead! My folks and my bro are heading off to Sri Lanka for four weeks. No biggie right? Indeed it's not but it's the first time I won't be going along with them. I was always the go to back up dude when dad wasn't quite on the money with something. Also I was the one who lugged our uber heavy bags everywhere. Not to mention all the family I'll be missing out on.

Now when I say all the family they are mostly based on Sri Lanka. And there are hoards of em. Where else round the world do I have family? Well India, Austrailia, Denmark, America, France, Germany, UAE and there are others kicking about that I won't have heard of in remote bits of the globe for sure.

Dropped them off at the airport drove back home. Driving there n back I saw signs for the warner bros studio tour and thought to myself I must go one of these days. On my return home I check FB and strangely enough a relatively new old work friend is there today! Does the term make sense "new old work friend" ? I've only met her relatively recently at work, December 2012, and we no longer work together.

Anyway get back and go into shoonya, it's hard to explain but I'll give it a go. Actually I won't because it'll go on for wayyy too long and ain't nobody got time for that! Off to the shops to get some supplies and back home in time to realise I've missed half the final of the voice.

For dinner I decided to have a whole roast chicken. Something I wouldn't think twice about in my younger days. Today I barely managed to get past the halfway point! When did I become so normal, with regards to my ability to eat large quantities of food? I've actually changed! Urgh I don't want to be old and sensible.

Here is where I went to bed...but this next bit happened before I went to bed Saturday night.

Delve into some pics and this throws up some relatively new old emotions I haven't properly dealt with. And I am feeling down town Lester Brown and it's only getting worse. Then boom, kapow, crash and all those other classic Batman sound effects that made the show so kick ass! Are they really sound effects? Cos they used to flash on screen like this:

Anyway it was super big moon that I  saw from my state of regression. And it's super bigness snapped me right out of my down-ness. Ah moon meister is there anything you can't do?

Peculiar dreams about people from my recent past. Nothing particularly peculiar but very detailed storylines.

Guess what I did on Sunday? Andrenaline maxing ironing of course! I actually did it over a few hours and ironed all sorts of shtuff.. Also dug out a pair of trousers that I didn't even know I had! Was gonna finish on a cliché but I've resisted the urge.

Ooh Man of Steel! The day after the BBQ in Birchwood, I headed of to the Odeon in Lincoln to see Man of Steel. Now the ads look great and I am an uberley massive Superman fan since I was like 5 so I am well hyped for the film :D Also had my first KFC in many years, thoroughly underwhelmed. Get to the screen and sit through the inevitable trailers. And the film kicks off. In short it has it's moments but as a whole it's a little disjointed and I don't really care about the characters. There is a twist at the end which made me cry. Some of may say I cry rather frequently but this is a real heart wrencher.

This quote "You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." Gandhi said "you must be the change you wish to see in the world." I always look for the nuggets of truth/messages that writers are trying to convey. This is such a powerful message. If that's all you take away from the film then it was worth it.

***SPOILER***The early years stuff is good, Clark has to show restraint and hates it every step of the way. Even when he saves the lives of a school bus full of kids his dad gives him a bit of a bollocking. His wandering and childish outburst at a douchebag trucker are good. Him on fire on an oilrig and smashing Zod are awesome. Reminds me of Ichigo's ultimate facepalm on Aizen. Then there are bits on Krypton which kinda conflict with what I'd always held to be the truth in that universe. But I've not read enough of the comics to comment.***SPOILER***

***SPOILER***I was hoping for Brainiac, that badass SOB would represent a real threat. Did like the nods to luthercorp in the film suggesting the crazy rich guy is still kicking it. There is a massive 10 minute fight at the end which culminates in Zod letting loose on civilians. Now he's military and this is a terrorist tactic that his "honour" wouldn't allow him to use. At least that's my thinking but there he is using his heat vision towards unarmed humans. Superman has him in a in a headlock and has to kill him or watch as people die. He breaks Zod's neck. That's the point I noticed there were tears streaming down my face. ***SPOILER***

Here's the stupid thing about my now that I've written it down it seems like it was a good film! It's just that it didn't blow me away like I was hoping it would. What was the last film to blow me away? 300?