Truth is Love is the Remedy All Seek

Truthfulness is the greatest gift one can give. It frequently involves tremendous self-sacrifice to give one’s truth rather than some manipulative variation of it. But, what greater gift could you give? Even if it isn’t an absolute truth, at least the goal is truth. One can go forth from there on loving ground.

The constant fruit of love is to grow ever surer in truth. While chaos and violence reign, love’s truth moves every soul. Truth is simple. Only deception is complex. And maintaining falsehood’s intricate “Tower of Babel” requires ever greater resources, sucking life from the soul. The simplicity of truth is like a highway for love. Love flows freely in the domain of truth, unhindered by the maze-like secretive passages of guile.

Scooter, the Old Seasoned Warrior

The two male cats battled like a spinning ball of electrified fur.  The whirling fury of tooth and claw tore across the ground, scattering pine-needles and dust. But a brief second passed, and suddenly the two feline adversaries froze in a still-life battle pose. Beaner lay on his back, bewildered and looking up at Scooter; and Scooter stood over him in a majestic stance of Lordly command, his right paw calmly fixed in the center of Beaner’s pink belly.

I moved quickly from one window to another in an effort to reach the door and end the match. The two must have surprised each other in the yard, evoking primitive territorial instincts that had erupted into a physical contest as to leadership.  “Have to be more vigilant,” I breathed to myself.

By this time I was outside the house and the warring cyclone had resumed.  I shouted for peace.  My angry voice forced the old Master of the forest, Scooter, to high-tale it for the wooded fringe. Meanwhile, Beaner, the new-comer, unsure what had happened, attempted to regain his cool. He succeeded remarkably well, and soon strode about aloof, perhaps assuming himself to be the new territorial master.

For several months thereafter, Beaner and Scooter staged these rituals of dominance on a number of occasions. In time they grew less frequent and less dramatic, and Scooter, for whom we’d always had the deepest affection and respect, began to give our place a wide birth. Whether Beaner proved a quick study and truly learned to gain the upper paw on Scooter, or whether it became simply too much bother for Scooter to show up for his regular food and cleaning, we never knew. One night he was present, eating on top the wood box where my wife would feed him and lay out bedding upon which he, it seemed, gratefully slept. Next day, he was gone, and didn’t return.

It’s doubtful that he still lives. He lead a rough life as a wild, domestic-breed cat. But his legend persists and his regal dignity remains an unflagging example of the qualities admirable in the cat: calm strength, self-sufficiency, economy, and grace. I still see clearly in my mind his penetrating, lion’s eyes of yellow, his shaggy, steel-gray fur, and his tall and self-assured gait, as he would walk from the woods towards the house, and patiently await our attentions.

Imagination Training for Students of Physics

Maybe every first year physics student should spend the entire year reading and discussing science fiction novels with classmates and professors, along with the chronicles of so-called perpetual motion machine inventors, and the mystical experiments of those who relied on Sacred Geometry to improve agriculture, health, and well-being (one example might be the Ansazi in Chaco Canyon). I was a physics student (at Purdue, then IU) for a couple of years, and having been absorbed with SciFi for years prior to that, and believing that with the Tesla coil I built there might be a way for me to teleport myself to another planet or dimension, I found a wild imagination to be invigorating and motivating. On second thought, it was my fecund imagination that ultimately caused me to seek fulfillment outside the field of physics, in Philosophy, and then to leave all that behind for adventures in self-discovery still under way! I’m not sure whether it strengthens or weakens my point, but that’s all another story.

Students of physics might approach a first year of intensive studies in the imaginary and the “extra-scientific” from the point of view that “We’re going to debunk all that stuff.” Or, they might approach it with an open mind and let the imagination enjoy itself. In either event, having a good imagination and being able to accept what initially seems preposterous is essential to real advancement in any endeavor, especially in the fields of science.

Every great advancement in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.
- John Dewey

Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity.- Charles Baudelaire

I have never looked for dream in reality or reality in dream. I have allowed my imagination free play, and I have not been led astray by it. – Gustave Moreau

We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination. – David Lynch

We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination. – Daniel J. Boorstin

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge… - Robert Fulghum

We say God and the imagination are one… -Wallace Stevens

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. – Albert Einstein

Why Do We Like to Mow the Lawn?

I was mowing the grass yesterday. I asked myself, why do we men enjoy mowing so much? The answer came: because it is a mindless and asocial activity involving the exercise of power, which I found quite humorous. Alas, this power fixation can be a real conundrum for the world. But, fortunately, for the most part, when it is wrapped up in mowing, it is harmless.

While I was out there in the cool, spring afternoon, I relished the aroma of cut grass. I found a patch of strawberry blossoms and left them alone. Maybe they’ll produce strawberries later?