Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Beyond the stars into the minds of the gods

What subject you like to become more knowledgeable about, and why?

Astronomy.

The Greeks had a very intricate and complex mythology that I think we have mistaken for religion. It is religion in a sense, but it was so much more. The story of Zeus defeating his father with the Titans, the birth of his children, especially Athena who sprang from his head and Bacchus who was born from his thigh, sound less like religion than astronomy. It sounds like the birth of the universe and the various galaxies.

By learning more about astronomy I would be able to get a better idea of how Greek mythology fits into the cosmos and where the various galaxies, planets and stars that coincide with the events in mythology would likely be and maybe change the way we view, not only the Greeks, but all ancient mythologies. To see these advanced civilizations of the ancient world as somehow less than we are now with our technology is to ignore the proof of what they were and what they still have to teach us about the cosmos and about our own world and its place in the universe. They knew so much more than we do with our atom smashers and colliders and fiberoptic connections as has been amply shown in some of the devices that have come to light that we cannot equal or master.

Astronomy for me is the first step toward understanding so much more, a leap into the vastness of the universe and revision of all we think we know.

That is all. Disperse.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Who wants to live forever?

Would you want to live forever? Does your answer change depending on whether or not everyone else gets to live forever as well?

Forever is a long time. Love is supposed to be forever, but it usually isn't. Memory is forever, but gets caught behind spun strands of aluminum or congested arteries or simply inaccessible due to lack of use. Vampires, at least in literature, are seldom forever, unless you consider 3000 years forever. Nothing lasts forever. Everything dies. Academically, I don't think there is anything that is forever, not even the universe, which will spin out to a point and then collapse back on itself creating a new Big Bang and begin the whole process all over again.

So, that being said, and forever off the table, would I like to live for a very long time? Yes.

Took a long time to get to the yes, didn't I? I'd like to be able to get around comfortably with a minimum of pain and not have to fight my weight during the whole time; however, living for a few hundred or few thousand years, regardless of who gets to live that long with me, would be interesting. I would outlast my critics, enemies and frenemies. I would be a part of history and, as a writer, I doubt agents and publishers would hesitate to publish my work, even if I had to use a new pseudonym every few decades, recreating myself from my own ashes, a living phoenix without the inevitable dying. The petty worries of a short life span, like having relationships with younger men wouldn't be an issue because everyone would be younger than I, and the upside is not being a slave to procreation, although it might be nice to experience the whole childbirth, raising of the children and letting them move on to their own lives and choices fascinating.

I remember reading about a woman who was 140 years old. She lived in an isolated Chinese village high in the mountains. She had a daughter 70 years old. Consider the possibilities? No, better not. I might change my mind and want to live my allotted 150 years and leave it at that, even without the added pressures of a fertile womb.

Living forever? Not really an option. Living for a time long enough to watch the unfolding of history and the falling away of petty worries and hangups? Definitely yes.

That is all. Disperse.