Sunday musings – May 28, 2017
I am at the Denver airport and soon will board the flight to Pittsburgh. Each time I repeat the experience of looking forward to a trip and getting to my destination by car, bus, train or plane I am still more than a little awed by the experience. I have no idea of how many times I have traveled over a long distance from point A to point B and then back to point A again. Certainly, it has been in the hundreds since my 18th year. In the first 18 years of my life, I can recall moving from Chicago to Oklahoma, back to Chicago and then back to Oklahoma. After that the longest trip I can recall was to visit Uncle Raymond and his family in Oklahoma City – possibly 200 miles round trip. There were a number of short trips “to town” or visits to Uncle Harold and Aunt Pleasie on their nearby ranch. There were also the weekday trips to and from the regional school during the school year.
No matter how often I travel I am in awe of the fact that I can be in place X and then in place Y. Whether the distance is relatively short or I am traveling a long distance by plane, the magic seems the same. Obviously, I know that if one puts one foot in front of the other, is on a horse which does the same or is in a mechanical conveyance powered by an engine scientific laws determine that one will, over time, move from point X to point Y. Yet the fact that I can in a relatively short time do this seems both disconcerting and magical. Just this morning I sat in the living room of family members in Longmont, Colorado and soon I will have traveled all the way to Wheeling, West Virginia. Part of my mind is convinced that I “should” still be able to reach out and touch my beloved relatives in real time. Amazingly I can see and hear them with only an undiscernible separation or break in consciousness.
I ask myself that if all this is possible what else is possible?
Moderns scientists are making great strides in insuring that our experience of virtual reality is very close to an in-person experiences. Future generations will be writing philosophical treatises about the nature of virtual reality and the relatively redundancy of real time in-person experiences.
Already many of us have such vivid dreams that awake experiences already seem a bit redundant.
By this point the reader will be wondering the point of this Sunday musing. I often use this time on Sundays to allow the random experiences and thoughts of the previous week to explore a possible common meeting ground. The reader might be saying that this week I have really wandered off to never-never land. Yet, I believe that if we are to go forward in this life journey we must do more than teach basic academic skills to our children. We must give them permission to enjoy and appreciate that new possibilities in all areas of life begin with allowing our thoughts to entertain the seemingly improbable and the impossible. What now seems to be way beyond common sense and what we cannot yet imagine is potentially possible. The very thought that one could send the sound waves of one’s particular speech patterns through space and eventually bounce off of satellites seemed ridiculous not that many years ago. Also, not long ago, the idea that one could harness energy in smaller and smaller lithium batteries and turn the energy into electrical energy seemed like science fiction or the thought process of a mad person. In art, music, medicine, science, social constructs or moral philosophy we must encourage our children to meld potential reality with what we now think we know.
Flying reminds me that the impossible is possible; that grounding is at once very solid and necessary and, at the same time, very fluid.
Sunday musing is a time to both reflect on the week and to allow for new doors to be open –doors which may not bear close examination just yet. It is the “just yet” which I will continue to embrace.
Written May 28, 2017
I am at the Denver airport and soon will board the flight to Pittsburgh. Each time I repeat the experience of looking forward to a trip and getting to my destination by car, bus, train or plane I am still more than a little awed by the experience. I have no idea of how many times I have traveled over a long distance from point A to point B and then back to point A again. Certainly, it has been in the hundreds since my 18th year. In the first 18 years of my life, I can recall moving from Chicago to Oklahoma, back to Chicago and then back to Oklahoma. After that the longest trip I can recall was to visit Uncle Raymond and his family in Oklahoma City – possibly 200 miles round trip. There were a number of short trips “to town” or visits to Uncle Harold and Aunt Pleasie on their nearby ranch. There were also the weekday trips to and from the regional school during the school year.
No matter how often I travel I am in awe of the fact that I can be in place X and then in place Y. Whether the distance is relatively short or I am traveling a long distance by plane, the magic seems the same. Obviously, I know that if one puts one foot in front of the other, is on a horse which does the same or is in a mechanical conveyance powered by an engine scientific laws determine that one will, over time, move from point X to point Y. Yet the fact that I can in a relatively short time do this seems both disconcerting and magical. Just this morning I sat in the living room of family members in Longmont, Colorado and soon I will have traveled all the way to Wheeling, West Virginia. Part of my mind is convinced that I “should” still be able to reach out and touch my beloved relatives in real time. Amazingly I can see and hear them with only an undiscernible separation or break in consciousness.
I ask myself that if all this is possible what else is possible?
Moderns scientists are making great strides in insuring that our experience of virtual reality is very close to an in-person experiences. Future generations will be writing philosophical treatises about the nature of virtual reality and the relatively redundancy of real time in-person experiences.
Already many of us have such vivid dreams that awake experiences already seem a bit redundant.
By this point the reader will be wondering the point of this Sunday musing. I often use this time on Sundays to allow the random experiences and thoughts of the previous week to explore a possible common meeting ground. The reader might be saying that this week I have really wandered off to never-never land. Yet, I believe that if we are to go forward in this life journey we must do more than teach basic academic skills to our children. We must give them permission to enjoy and appreciate that new possibilities in all areas of life begin with allowing our thoughts to entertain the seemingly improbable and the impossible. What now seems to be way beyond common sense and what we cannot yet imagine is potentially possible. The very thought that one could send the sound waves of one’s particular speech patterns through space and eventually bounce off of satellites seemed ridiculous not that many years ago. Also, not long ago, the idea that one could harness energy in smaller and smaller lithium batteries and turn the energy into electrical energy seemed like science fiction or the thought process of a mad person. In art, music, medicine, science, social constructs or moral philosophy we must encourage our children to meld potential reality with what we now think we know.
Flying reminds me that the impossible is possible; that grounding is at once very solid and necessary and, at the same time, very fluid.
Sunday musing is a time to both reflect on the week and to allow for new doors to be open –doors which may not bear close examination just yet. It is the “just yet” which I will continue to embrace.
Written May 28, 2017
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