I was reminded of this, once again today.

We are tiny specks.

Oh it is true.   We are just little teensy weensy pieces of the pie.  Heck.  Less than that.   Not even a piece of the pit in the cherry in the pie.

You see…..  the average number of friends for a person to have on Facebook is 338.  The median number is 200.  Which means half of all Facebook users have more than 200 friends, and half have less than 200.

Now.  Let’s say you know all 338 people like crazy.  You know them inside and out, upside and down. (Of course we know it isn’t true. I am a great example.  There are some of my “Facebook Friends” that I haven’t actually seen in a few decades.  How well can you know them?)

But back to it.   Let us suppose you DO know all 338.  Bosom Buddy-ish.

Okay.  There are more than 7 billion people on the planet.  Which means you DON’T know around 6,999,999,662 people.  That’s a lot of people you don’t know.  Me too…. come to think of it.

Take it one further.  Our Solar System is just ONE member of a vast Milky Way galaxy…. which has billions of stars.  More than Hollywood.   And then consider this….. how many galaxies are in the whole big unending Universe?  The most current estimates guess that there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the Universe, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars.  Are you feeling woozy yet?  I AM feeling woozy… I’ll tell you that right now.  And I have a LOT of Facebook Friends.

So there we are.

Specks. Of dust. In the bigger scheme of things.

But not so fast.  WHAT…. really, what is the bigger scheme? Of “things”…

Well.  I think WHAT we do with our life energy means a LOT.  That is the big picture right there.  Because when you start adding 1 + 1 + 1, and on, you finally get to 7 billion.  And if each of those “1”s is doing good, in their own little “Speckdom”…. then you have a whole lotta GOOD going on in the world.

As Dr Seuss so aptly put it…..“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”

“Hey Speck!   Yeah.  You there.   Be that one person.  And be it well.”

I am big fan of sports.  I have been… since as long as I can remember.  It is probably caused by some genetic combination of brains cells.  But it doesn’t run in the family.

At any rate….

I am.  What I am.  And what I am… needs no excuses.  (Okay… singing tangent there for a moment… thank you Gloria Gaynor.

Okay, back at it.  Sports fan.  And… I am a big fan of the college basketball scene.  When it gets to tournament time, I truly love to watch.  Men’s and Women’s.  IF you are NOT a sport’s fan… stick with me.  I’m not going there tonight.

This year,  I can’t really see anyone beating the Kentucky Men’s Team… or the University of Connecticut on the Women’s side of things.

The Men’s final four is Kentucky, Wisconsin, Duke and Michigan State.  (I meant it stick with me.)

The Women’s final four is not yet determined.

But let’s break down the Men’s.
KY State Bird = Northern Cardinal
WI State Bird = American Robin
NC State Bird = Northern Cardinal
MI State Bird = American Robin

What do you think about THAT coincidence?  Now THAT is something you won’t get from ESPN statistics, I’ll tell you.

And where do those birds sit?  Trees…
KY State Tree = Tulip Tree
WI State Tree = Sugar Maple
NC State Tree = Longleaf Pine
MI State Tree = Eastern White Pine

And under the tree?  Wildlife Mammals…
KY State Mammal = Gray Squirrel
WI State Mammal = White Tailed Deer
NC State Mammal = Gray Squirrel
MI State Mammal = White Tailed Deer

So based on that criteria alone.. you can see that Kentucky is unbeatable this year… although Duke comes close.

However… everyone knows that the Tulip Tree beats the Longleaf Pine every time.

So there you have it.  My secret to picking the brackets… of which I picked 3 of the 4 final teams.  The exception was Michigan State.  I didn’t see that one coming… with the combination of White Pine and White Tailed Deer.  Normally those two would have cancelled each other out.

I draw all of this out on a huge chalkboard… which includes many other factors, such as state drink, rock and plant, to name a few.  It can be pretty intense when I am formulating and organizing this information.  Crazy go nuts.

The NFL Draft picks are way worse.

But you know. That’s how I roll.

Again.. Ms. Gaynor …. if you will break into song here…

I am what I am
And what I am needs no excuses
I deal my own deck
Sometimes the aces sometimes the deuces
It’s one life and there’s no return and no deposit
One life so it’s time to open up your closet
Life’s not worth a dam till you can shout out
I am what I am
I am what I am

“It takes nothing to join the crowd.  It takes everything to stand alone.”  — Hans F. Hansen

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” – Nietzsche

I have an awful lot of theories.  About most things in life.  I am not sure there is any right or wrong to many of them.  Who can be so sure, really?  But I make postulations on a regular basis.  I AM sure of that.

One of such is this:  It is my thought that we can pray however we want to pray. That is, IF we choose to pray.  We also have the option and freedom, not to pray.  If we do pray …. I believe your way is the very best way for you, and my way is the very best way for me.

So.  As I am watching the NCAA Tournament this evening, specifically Duke vs. Gonzaga, I see a “mother” of one of the Duke players in the stands.  Her boy is on the free throw line.  Holy smokes, he really needs to make this one!  So there she is in the stands, both hands raised up over her head, palms open to the heavens above, and praying to God that her boy makes the shot… like her life depended on it.

And I said out loud… “Lady, I am pretty sure God has better things to do this afternoon than watch the Duke Blue Devils play the Gonzaga Zags.  Like …. maybe…. worrying about all the death and destruction humans are inflicting on each other in so many places on the planet.”

Hold on Kronenberger!  You hypocrite.  Who are you to say?  It is your belief, Polly old girl, that people can pray however they like.  The same holds true for the Blue Devil Mother in the basketball arena.  So… I took it back… right then and there.

I thought more about it too.  Maybe God is funny.  Maybe God is a huge basketball fan.  He might be sitting there in his Lay-Z-Boy chair… the green leather one…. way up there in heaven… munching on a bag cheese doodles… sipping a cold beer.. and watching the game with his Blue Devils t-shirt on.  Who’s to say?

And that is the beautiful choice we have in life.  Or the one we SHOULD have in life.  Our free will.  Our freedom to choose how we want to think, and pray, and speak.  Our freedom to be whoever we want to be… just like everybody else… and completely different from every one else.  We are humans.  Equals.  Free will….. if we are lucky.

It makes me wonder about our big round planet …. when those things are jerked away from others.  Those laws which people put in place, which say we can discriminate against others, because we think they aren’t praying right.  They aren’t like us… so we don’t have to treat them with the same respect as the people who ARE like us.  Yep.  It sure does make me wonder… and not in a good way.  But I am in the constant predicament of attempting to learn things.

So back to the beginning.  My first assertion.  We all have the right to BE and to PRAY and to LIVE… as our hearts guide us.  Yet….  If some one thinks their way is the absolute way… and others be damned… well they are way smarter than I’ll ever hope to be. It is simply amazing… that they have it all figured out.  They might even run a whole entire state… like Indiana.  Maybe…. they should be up there in heaven, in the green leather recliner, calling all the shots.  That way, I suppose… God  could actually GO to a ballgame every now and again.

Learning never exhausts the mind.  —  Leonardo da Vinci

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.  —  Pablo Picasso

Art.

Tonight I went to a community event.  It was called Good Folk. Bad Art.  The Preble County Art Association hosted the event at The Gathering Place.

There are so many good things that could be said about this evening.

It was a “competition / auction” sort of deal, where “local people in the community” who are NOT artists… create a piece of art.  Then people come to the event and vote on the best piece of art… or the person they love the most who made the art.  While all the voting goes on…. the individual pieces are auctioned off……. so everyone bids on the art.  And as a result, money is raised to support the arts in our community.

So… how great is all of that? Pretty great.

Each little part of this night was all put together right too.  The food, the venue, the music (Worley Boys), the auctioneer (Kramer), all the participants and artists, the guests… every bit of it.  And it was all orchestrated by the PCAA Executive Director, Vicky Fanberg … who by the way, is great too.

If it sounds like a commercial for the PCAA…. well… so be it.  They deserve it.  This is yet another gem in our community.

It’s not all warm milk and kittens here in Preble County, though.  As with any community, no matter where you live, there are things that could always be improved upon.  There are things that need to be changed.

But in our community, there are a lot of things which ARE going right.  Very right.  And this is just one of them.  Mostly because of the people…. those Good Folk… with their Bad Art.

Next time you are brushing your teeth… consider this…..

Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet (2 meters) away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

Speaking of toilets and toothbrushes… this next one has nothing to do with either…..

The numbers ‘172’ can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.  And…. On the new hundred dollar bill the time on the clock tower of Independence Hall is 4:10.

What does THAT mean?  I am voting for some sort of Conspiracy Theory.

Since we are full of information tonight… so are libraries…. like….

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

I’ve been in that Library on a number of occasions.  Funny.  I always had this sinking feeling.

Okay.  Time out.  All this writing is making me hungry.  Which brings me to this…

On average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonalds BigMac bun.

You can count on it.

And… speaking of numbers…..

The largest number of children born to one woman is recorded at 69. From 1725-1765, a Russian peasant woman gave birth to 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets.

Her uterus must have been the size of Siberia.  Since we are on the subject of human beginnings…..

Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

I am beginning to believe that certain people have not come much further than that… unfortunately.

And on to how else we might evolve… me the Geek….

The word “nerd” was first coined by Dr. Seuss in “If I Ran the Zoo.”

Oh… if only I could run the Zoo.

Today was a bit of a long dang day… it seemed like. It didn’t contain any more minutes than any other day.  But it sure seemed like some parts of it were creeping along at the speed of snail.

Ahhhhhh. Time Travel.  The ins and outs.  We all time travel.  All the time.

Throughout the day… our minds fly backwards, remembering things of the past.  It may just be…. that it happened an hour ago…. or a decade ago.  But we revisit those places quite often.  At least I do.

An the same goes for forward motion too.  We wonder about the future.  “I wonder how this meeting is going to go.”  “I wonder when my package from Big Bob’s Barn of Bonzai Trees will get here.” …. and such.

But there I go again.  Getting off topic.

This day was long. (That’s what I started writing about.)

I try to learn lessons every day.   Today, I was reminded of a lesson I learned some time ago.  And that is…
in my life, I want to spend time with people who are full of good energy.  I do not want to spend time with people who ooze negative energy… those who condemn… those who are cynical, critical, and dismissive.

I much more prefer the ones with the big old white gleaming aura … the one you can almost see when they walk through the door.  The ones who seem like they are good energy magical wonders. The entertain the possibilities of the unknown.

Fortunately… I know a few people like this.  I like them.  And I am thankful for them.  Together… we try… to help the pig learn to fly.

Do you ever happen upon an emotion or a connection, somewhere you didn’t imagine that you ever would?  There are connections all around us, I think.  Unknown connections too.

You see.  We have bird feeders.  In fact, we fill them with seed, to feed said birds.  But we get bonus guests as a result.  Sometimes they are mystery guests… like on a game show.  But on other occasions, we have the opportunity to see our random callers.

Some times, they take the form of a squirrel, raccoon (mystery-guest with a  mask), or even a possum.  But many times, right up here near the house… they are the “cuter-than-ever” chipmunks.  Oh my goodness.  They are so adorable.  But, right now, they are pretty skinny.  I guess the winter sleep was long and hard.

However…. back in the fall… they looked like Dom Deluise, or John Candy… or something.  A little on the plumpish side.

Anyway, today I looked out and there was a little chippy.  A word about our feeders.  The poles are seated in rock, and at the base of each pole is an area of small river rock.

So.  Chippy.  The little guy was out there foraging for food.  And that tiny fella’ would pick up one of those little river rocks and heave it out of his way.  Then he’d pick up another and toss it over his shoulder.  It was like watching Fred Flintstone move boulders.  I laughed out loud.

And there you have it.  That, is just one very small example of the blessings that nature brings us.  Those amazing connections.  Being in nature is nice.  This, coming from a “comfort-seeking-home-body”….

But it is true.  Being out in nature feels good sometimes.  I think the reason is that it is so very full of these blessings of nature itself.  It reminds us that we are just a very small part of the bigger equation.  We are useful and viable pieces of the universe.  But we share it with a lot of others.  Others which are… sometimes “like” us… and sometimes very “different.”

Which brings me to our lovely and beautiful dogs.  When you look in the eyes of any living being, there is a sign of something much, much deeper there.  Unless… of course… it is the likes of a Stepford Wife.

Again, digression.

My point is this.  When I look into the eyes of our dogs, there seems to be some kind of understanding and connection.  It is one that only exists between them and you.  They know it.  You know it.  Another gift of our natural world.  This reminder that we are all connected.  On so many levels.

It is like 3-dimensional-connect-the-dots, on speed.

Again, I shall propose.  There are so many connections in this world, and beyond, which our very limited brains do not understand.  We get ourselves all clogged-up and bogged-down, with details, and noise, and digital clutter.  But what we might just need to do is breath in…. exhale… look around and take notice of WHAT we are a part of.

What I know tonight that I am thankful to be a part of this world, this universe.  To be a small piece of this very large clock-works.  And I am especially glad to be sharing it with nature, and all of those kingdom’s creatures.  Like chipmunks.

I am especially glad… to be sharing it with you.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.  — John Muir

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.  —  Nikola Tesla

Convoluted dreams.

Last night, I had a dream that Lea Ann Golden, Jane Beall, and Tina Marker showed up at my house for breakfast.

My sister Julie was over visiting when they showed up.  Mary and I and Julie started to make breakfast.

Lea Ann, Jane and Tina wanted scramble eggs, bacon, fried bologna, English muffins, and French toast.  We were low on eggs and I knew it.

I took a place at the table, and then I began to put things out with the trio.  Lea Ann and I were smoking cigarettes, but I told her that Mary didn’t like me to smoke in the house. We continued despite this acknowledgement.

Julie and I began to make all the fixings in the kitchen, with the exception of the eggs. Mary was “off camera” in charge of rustling up the eggs.  I called out… “Don’t forget to fix the eggs.”  She replied “I took something for it.”  I think she thought I was asking about her headache.

The house was nothing like ours at all, but in the dream, it was ours.  It was like a cross between my childhood home… mixed in with some of the Munsters, and the Brady Bunch.  It was a mess…. including the kitchen.  I was mortified.

Eventually, we had everything on the table for the trio, except for the eggs.  I hollered to Mary again.  She came in the kitchen and said.. “Oh.  I’ll see what I can do.”  Panic overwhelmed me.

You see, now, everything else was getting cold.  I was getting upset.  Lea Ann Golden, Jane Beall, and Tina Marker sat at the wooden table and stared at the presentation before them… but they wanted to wait for the eggs.  I noticed there was no syrup on the table for the French toast.  I retrieved syrup.

Finally, I went to the other kitchen, and did not see Mary. I found a couple of dozen of store-bought eggs, and scrambled them up for the breakfast guests.

After eating, we all laid down, in different areas of the living room and dining room and fell asleep.  Except for Tina.  She left.

When I awoke, I lit up a cigarette.  The next thing I know, Stephanie Breslin was walking through the front door.  She said she had a surprise.  The entire softball team was coming over to visit.  This dream was going from bad to worse…. and I knew it.  Most of the people in the dream are individuals I have not seen in a very long time…. or folks that I don’t run into on a regular basis.  But there they were.
As they all began to shuffle in, I felt the need to…. well…. pee.

And that is when I woke up from the dream.  Apparently, my real life sensors were telling me the same thing… because I really had to pee.  Or, perhaps…. I just couldn’t bear to have more people in that dream… coming into a dirty house… with a shortage of chicken eggs on hand.

This morning, in real life… I had a message from Lea Ann.  Telling me about some great Hush Puppies in this area.  Not the shoes.  The food.

When reality and the outer states combine… I’ll tell you.  It is like Deja Vu, I’ll tell you.  Just like Deja Vu I’ll tell you.

Seriously, this was one of those dreams, which was so vivid, and real.  Like I was touching and seeing all of it.  So very actual.  And it couldn’t be further from my true plausibility in existence.  I mean, I haven’t seen, or heard from Jane Beall since 1982.  How is this?

I can only say… we are multi-dimensional humans.  Don’t underestimate us.  Don’t underestimate yourself, or me.  T RULY…..We are each contributing necessary parts offering completion to the wholeness of the universe.

And, it is our very existence which guarantees our equality.  In theory, we should not have any fears because of this freedom.  But not everyone understands that we are all equals.  And therein lies the problem.

Therein we can find the inherent presence of the unknown. Like being in a dream…. low on eggs… when the house is a mess.    Oh Lord.  Just tar and feather me.  And then wake me up.

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.  —  Plutarch

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.  — Albert Einstein

The only absolute certainty is uncertainty itself.

I am almost completely certain of this.

Okay… Seriously.
This assertion began a long time ago.  Back with Socrates, actually.  It was the Delphic Oracle who recognized Socrates as the wisest man in Greece.

Yet, our boy Socrates replied that he possessed no wisdom whatsoever.  Sockry said… “I know nothing.”

But.  Paradoxically, the Oracle interpreted his complete acceptance of ignorance as evidence of great wisdom. (Leave it to an Oracle!)   As a result.. Socrates ended up being sentenced to death by poisoning.  You see… those prominent Greek-folks-of-old didn’t like being ranked among the self-proclaimed ignorant.  Poison.

Jump 2,000 years forward……  after Socrates’.  This was a point in history where the West became incredibly concerned with certainty.

Calculus was developed; Newton’s discoveries of gravity and the laws of motion came about.  Lots of things like this.  It was hard not to be convinced that reality could be laid out and explained through scientific exploration.

Newton was followed by a whole of other scientists, making scientifically science-like discoveries.

And with every new discovery….  people started to think the certainty that the universe could be completely understood through equations and deductions. These discoveries of electric, and magnetism and such… could be explained in physical realms.

But then hey… a little later… some new kids hit the block.  A  new batch of scientists that included Curie, Rutherford, Planck, Einstein and Bohr proved that the universe was not that simple to figure out.  These discoveries were a little more

Then 1926, when a young German physicist proved that it was impossible to know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time.  Werner Heisenberg.

He formulated the Uncertainty Principle…. and of course…. quantum mechanics. The implication of this discovery…. was that unpredictability ruled at the fundamental level of subatomic particles.  Einstein didn’t like it so much… and died trying to disprove it.

But years of experimental consistency confirmed his worst fears.  For lack of a better way of putting it…. God does play dice.  In 1932 Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

And now…. we have recent discoveries by Leonard Susskind and Ed Witten which support the idea that we live in a holographic universe.   In other words….objective reality does not exist.

This one is a DOOZY… but it comes down to this.  All aspects of reality are merely interpretations.  Yes, these “personal understandings” are relative to the observer.   And as such… it makes it impossible to reach any kind of universal certainty.

If you are still reading after all of this… YOU deserve a Nobel Prize.

So there you have it.  2,500 years later…. we know that Socrates was right all along.  The only absolute certainty is uncertainty itself.

I am almost completely certain about all of this.  Certainly.

“All we know is still infinitely less than all that remains unknown.”  — William Harvey

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.  — Albert Einstein

Sometimes we think we can’t.
But perhaps, in fact, we can.

Maybe not in this exact moment, whatever the “it” might be.
There will be other moments though.

But right here and now, the very best we can do is simply to…. BE.

And in life, the greatest accomplishment we can achieve, comes in being our true authentic selves.

Not someone else’s version of us.
But whoever we truly are.

You.  Me.  We.

And from one of my favorite poems of all time.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh   
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
   And that has made all the difference.”  —  Robert Frost